3Dprinted ring from i.materialise

So I got my ring back from the printers. I have to say at first I was disappointed. It's much thinner and no where near as pronounced in detail as I was hoping for. I don't think it's i.materialises fault. In fact they have been great once again informing me when and how the process was going but I think I'm just not great at judging the measurements. Stupid really it's completely attainable to get the sizes right but I must be making a mistake somewhere with my process. I'm going to do some calibration prints as I see from some of the other forum members and then give it another go.
All a learning curve and I fully expected it to be like this so get back up and carry on. ;)

Pendant update 2

Been working to improve this.  It's getting there, taking much longer than I had thought it would but then it is testing my knowledge of zbrush further.  Still struggling to get it crisp.  I think it's my workflow with dynamesh, I don't feel confident that I'm using it correctly as yet.  I have got to the point that I feel it's right to condense it all down and divide the mesh a few times and doing that I hope to go back into the details and now really punch them out.  Lunch time today was building a stand and the chain.  I just got to the point of staring at it for so long I needed something else to work on.  On the plus side I got notice that my 3D print of the ring I made turned up today.  I will get that up here as soon as I can for you to see the progress.

Pendant update

Didn't like the relief work I did on the previous version and after some much appreciated feedback I have begun the rework.  This is an update:

Shadow Box zbrush

This time starting with the shadow box feature in zbrush.
To be honest I'm not liking where this is right now but thought I would post so I can see it's progress and gather feedback.

The whole things seems noisy and the under lying bloby way in which I created it is showing through in the final mass.  Also don't like this frilly bits at the edges.  makes me think of a cheap ash tray.  I wanted it to look warn and aged which is why it has those damages bits on it but I don't think they are reading.  Overall I feeling I rushed it too much and there are layers of poor execution.  Will have to go back to it and see if I can fix it.

Photoshop doodle

I guess sticking with the nautical theme but perhaps a little more self reflective!  A doodle to pass the time and get me using a pen again. :)

3D Print Toy Making...

Well not quite but I have been trying out new rendering techniques and found this to be fun and exciting.

Ring Renders for 3D Prints

I've just sent one of these to i.materialise.  Hoping it comes back looking like my renders.  If you or anyone you know wants a personalized ring then watch this space and get in contact.  More to come.

Roll Stroke Zbrush

Further to the 3D Printing I learnt some new things when it comes to working on a curved surface.  Thanks go out to Chris Brown for his mighty knowledge of Zbrush.
I used the roll feature in the stroke menu to get a long thin alpha to project correctly on the surface of the ring and then just the normal symmetry settings to do the floral pattern   Final polish was done with the morph target of the original ring, and a quick dirty light cap mimicking studio diffuse lighting.  Super quick and dirty but fun for a Sunday night.

i.materialise 3D print

I received in the post my 3D print today. Overall it's quite impressive. You can definitely see the layers up close and this gives the object a very odd sheen that messes with your eyes a bit. I had a few rough bits but nothing in the important areas and after a very light sanding with a nail file its smooth. I might try and get some really fine sand paper on it and see how it responds.

Puffer Fish Final Zbrush

Ok, I promise this is the last update on this now.  Calling it officially done.  Right what next.

UPDATE: The rights to the puffer fish asset in this model are now owned by Tal Cohen.

Zbrush Lightcaps

So I dug into the BPR rendering in Zbrush and tried to figure out lightcaps and filters.  I also polished up a few bits.  Last thing I might do is try and get a better set of bubbles, but then I think I'm calling this done as a first attempt.

Zbrush BPR Rendering

Learning how to do some Zbrush BPR rendering and multipass compositing.  This currently doesn't look much different from the stuff I already did (apart from the addition of the plants), but I basically comp'ed it altogether in Photoshop this time after following this tutorial:

http://eat3d.com/free/zbrush_sss

I haven't done any of the sss yet because I didn't delve into the material setup enough but applied th same principals in terms of extracting maps.

Transparency In Zbrush

Wanted to figure out how transparency in Zbrush worked so I thought I would add some bubbles to the scene.  Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to the narrative but got me looking at more tools and settings within the package.  The mask is just painted over so not rendered out but the bubbles use the transparent settings.  Not really a huge amount of control.  I think I keep at it a bit longer and then look to render it out in Maya to compare the results.

Zbrush puffer fish and divers mask

Managed to figure out how to put all these separate tools together in Zbrush.  Not really a striking composition and there are plenty of errors with the strap on the mask.  Next to do some ground work and maybe another organic object then I'll come back to putting it together.  Also figured out how to download and use Matcaps, so this is one from Zbrush central.  

And then a quick grab from the view port after adding a plinth:

More Zbrush and Maya time

getting further with Zbrush and Maya with this mask for the puffer fish scene.  Still Wip obviously but thought I should post an update.

3D Print and Zbrush techniques

So trying to get more into Zbrush I looked around the house and found an ideal little project that I could 3D print.  This has just been sent off to see how it comes back.  Not going to blow the world away with this but it was more than a struggle to get back into Maya than I thought!  Jeez! Rusty but got there eventually.

Zbrush masking and morph targets...

Still going at this puffer fish for a 3d print.  Might make it a bath toy now.  I tired slicing one side off last night and didn't like the results.  Any way here it is after learning more about morph targets to selectively apply your detail and working with masks.

Speed paint and comp

Found some time to work into this one a little.  Just something to tide me over while until I get time to sit back down with that silly puffer fish to print it.  Maybe this weekend... ?  looks at wife!? :)  Not to keen on my composition with this one,  no real focal point but got carried away with trying to find a brush for the corn stubble and mud ruts.

3D printing here I come.

So I want to try a 3D print of something and needed a model to experiment with.  This is stage 1 of said model and I shall hopefully post my other stages here.  

Something from this kids book idea I had.

Should have carried on with the modelling but couldn't resist messing around with the rendering some more.  Also found the polish tools and material tools.  Right come on get on with it now.

First for the new year.

First of the new year.  A 1 hour study while Noah was sleeping of an image grabbed from the net.  I'd like to work into it some more the right hand side annoys me and the bushes don't sit with the hill at all.  Maybe tomorrow?... ow wait back to work! 

Any way start as you mean to go on. :)  Mine first then the image from Google.