metafold.:.currency

organic rendering (mudbox / zbrush)________6 September, 2009

exciting as charrette may be, even us dedicated students need a break (<—sarcasm has been inserted for your delight). (of course, it’s not clear to me or anyone else whether i’m being sarcastic about dedication or about breaks.) (or whether it’s grammatically permissible to have a series of sentences largely composed of parenthetical asides.) we won’t worry about that. the point of the break idea was to say that i’ve been playing with some more sculptural 3d modeling software–autodesk’s recently-acquired mudbox. of course “recently acquired by autodesk” describes about two thirds of high-end software even vaguely pertinent to my profession. but i’m not complaining! they do produce excellent products. in any case, i’ve been trying out mudbox and it’s kind of creepy how much fun it’s been. after modeling, i tried rendering it (below left) as a highly subdivided poly and (below right) as a texture-baked displacement map (see map below the two).
each of the first two images is through an ambient occlusion rendering and was much grainier at higher resolution(s). the bottom one is with standard materials and some interesting lighting; i think it was probably the most successful so far. texture-baking was new to me, though, so we’ll have to see what develops.
charrette is upon me and i cower in a corner like a small cat having escaped the raging torrents of the mississippi only to notice that i left my (cat) brother in the river and must return to rescue him should i wish to keep my (catlike) pride. yes, it’s rather like that, i think.

how to disappear completely________6 September, 2009

i had meant to get to this sooner, but i really did disappear completely for a week (radiohead told me how).  in any case, back in action now, more or less none the less for wear.  this past charrette was pretty hard, probably one of the most intense i’ve been through (though this isn’t saying that much, i suppose).  at least there was this bizarre moment one of the nights when someone put an entire box of sweettarts outside woodshop for general consumption.  when i say an entire box, i mean something along the lines of several hundred rolls.  i haven’t the faintest idea where they came from, but there are a lot of desks / floors littered with neon blue &amp; pink wrappers around the ol’ studio now.

aside from that, it’s been a bit of an exciting week for seniors hereabouts, as the decisions about who goes where have been made with regard to preceptorships.  some humans go to italy, others to new haven.  somehow this seems a bit unequal to me, but all’s well that ends at yale.  actually, having graduated some of the nations most disparagingly low-yielding political minds, i’m not sure if i should be all doe(y?)-eyed at yale.  but it is an excellent name.  just say it!  “yale!”  it’s what a texan does in distress.

i’m going home soon, so there is much carrying of tables to be done.  i hope to ease the psychological burden upon those of you who will be seeing me soon by enrapturing your eyeballs with two more renderings i completed for dawn’s studio.  one is of the automotive classroom space in the vocational high school, the other (the one with the fleet of tables in attack formation) is the cafeteria.  enjoy!

compositing ambient occlusion effects________6 September, 2009

i will keep it brief since i am down a finger temporarily (although inconvenient, losing a fingertip is a sure way to teach yourself to be mindful of the impracticalities of cutting formica with a box cutter).  i have a series of interestin’ images that i rendered today; the first two are pretty ugly, but the composite is kinda nice.  check it out:

(1) the ugliest render ever:

(2) an ambient occlusion pass:

(3) …and a the composite:

alright.  keep on being alive, all.