Odd Enough

Well, I keep finishing these things way too late so I skimp on some detailing, but you get the general idea. Electrical switch box.

I have always had this bizarre love for hubcaps. They remind me of futuristic jet engine exhausts. So here is one of many I am likely to post. 100% quads, all one mesh, no floating geo. There is a satisfying feeling from creating a smooth mesh without floating geo. I raise my arms in triumph.

To better illustrate what is going on here, since some of you have asked, I updated this post with the unsmoothed wire:

The smoothed mesh is a NURBS model (I think 3ds Max calls it NURMS though). Non-Uniform Recursive B-Spline. Think of bezier curves or, better yet if you’ve used them, b-splines. Take 3 points, make a 90 degree angle out of them. A b-spline takes the angle, averages the distance and turns it into a curve. Manipulating those angles will give you a smooth curve, however you desire, with less underlaying geometry.

I know I forgot the bolt sockets. Didn’t have the time to add them.

A little late again, but it’s not a strict deadline. It’s only 30 mins after midnight. Going back to the mechanical stuff here. I do love machinery.

Somewhat of a re-post. I took the same theme from Day 4 and sculpted it in Mudbox instead of ZBrush. The end result was much better, and makes me wish ZB had a tool similar to the ‘Scrape’ tool in Mudbox. Quite a shame, really. It’s really the only primary advantage that I feel Mudbox has over ZB. Anyway:

Some sort of tech panel. I’d add more detail but I am exhausted today. Nice return from the monstrosity of yesterdays… whatever the hell it is.

I’m also going to be changing my routine here starting Monday. One model a day is way too much strain on my sanity. So I will be changing it to one model a week. That way, I can still keep to the commitment, but at a more sane, pace. Or maybe I just need to model simpler stuff

Ok, so It’s a couple minutes past midnight, but who cares. Right. First attempt at a zbrush model. Meh. Here go:

This was supposed to be a crystal formation, but turned out looking like solidified poo. Or something. Need more zbrush experience before trying again.

Bahaha posted it with 1 minute to spare! I win. Model done by request. Batman ring.

Day 2 model is a bit more complex than the first, but still rather simple. Just a lot of repetition.

Some rotary thing:

I see tons of people starting those ‘one-a-day/365 days’ projects on twitter, and figured I might as well join the bandwagon to see if I am actually able to keep up with this every day. Why not, right?

So I will attempt to create 1 hard-surface doodad per day. I figure this keeps expectations low with no need to swing for the fence in quality, it’s great practice, and it helps build up an asset library. Triple whammy! So without further ado, here is my Day 1 model:

I know it’s past Christmas, but we wanted to get this thing out regardless.

Killer Kristmas 2 <- Register and download 

I don’t know if any of you remember that simple flash game Mudbrick released last year with the shooting gallery-style zombie elf kill-fest. Well this year, under the Lighthammer name, we wanted to do something similar but in a more FPS arcade-style shooter. This was done in UDK, and done in 4 weeks in our spare time. The zombie elf was modeled by me, and I know how terrible it looks, so try not to be too critical about it (I’m not a character modeler).

As for system specs… well, we didn’t really have any time to optimize this thing, and the level you play in wasn’t made for a game. I originally made it as a showcase piece. So again, for system specs: if you bought a gaming computer within the last year, you should be fine. If you have a consumer laptop… errr good luck.

Now with 100% more Linda Thompson!
(we are totally going to hell for this)