Render Presets for LightWave 3D

I continued to find it useful and over time I’ve included additional settings that I’ve had use for. I finally decided to clean up the user interface to be more generic and add more of LightWave’s common render settings so I could release it in public. In this release presets can be setup for Global Illumination, Render Flags, Camera Antialiasing, Backdrop and Processing Effects. I might add a few more options in the future when time permits.

Read more and download the plugin here »

Today NewTek revealed the feature list of LightWave CORE publicly that will be released in Q1 2010. I’m very happy that I joined the beta program of CORE back in march/april and have had the privilege to play, have input, and see this new application develop and take shape during the course of 2009. Very cool move of NewTek to take this route when developing.

One of my most anticipated features is the integration of the Bullet Physics Library in CORE (Most recently noticed for it’s usage in the movie 2012). I am excited about many things Core though, and it’s awesome to see all these great features coming already in a v1 release.

A PDF can be downloaded from NewTek which lines out all the features publicly announced so far. If you aren’t on the CORE beta but are curious and/or interested in this upcoming application I believe it will be an interesting read to spend a few minutes with.

Considering that CORE has only been under actual development for about a year I think the LightWave development team has made a tremendous effort and awesome job building such a flexible framework that CORE is, with so much possibilities for the future.
With modeling, rendering, animation, and dynamics already implemented – I can only imagine where CORE will be when v2 is about to ship and there is one more year of development invested, now when the foundation is in place. Woohoo!

I haven’t posted here in a long time – work, work, work. But here is a few quick doodles I created earlier today while having fun with the new ZBrush version until I get some more time to write something more interesting.

Hard Surface Gun Sculpted in ZBrush.

ZSketch and then the retopologized poly mesh.

Just some odd spaceship form sculpted in ZBrush.

The ZSketch and then using Clay Tubes to fill in some shapes.

Kind of a robot entity with 70's platform like shoes.

The recently introduced ZSketch which let’s you doodle freely in 3D space together with the new hard surface brushes is definitely another step forward for ZBrush. It’s pretty cool to be able to go from nothing to have some concepts sculpted out in less than an hour.

Oh well, over and out. Til next time…

Chickenosaur - Published in Filter Magazine issue 10, Oct & Nov 2009

I created this illustration to accompany an interview with the American paleontologist Jack Horner, known for being the advisor on all Jurassic Park films, regarding his theories to use chicken DNA to re-create the dinosaurs.

I love to use modo for print work, it really shines when working with stills. Here is another image of just the modo render:

The T-Rex being born in an egg box. He would probably be pretty upset hanging out in my kitchen.

And a shot of the scene in modo…

The dinochicken scene in modo

Oh, here’s also one of the early versions, which I thought turned out kind of funny. This is the pose I would have preferred to go with myself.

Oh yeah, birth anxiety!

Anyway, I’m currently occupied with a film shot and when I’ve delivered that scene I believe I’ll have some time to update my portfolio. (I seem to keep pushing the portfolio update ahead of me…)

Til next time. Cheers!

There were a few layer to OBJ scripts available for modo but none that worked like I wanted or properly with modo 401. I needed this functionality badly right now to bring layers out as separate OBJ files and then take them into ZBrush as SubTools. I do this many, many times each day in my work so this script saves me some decent amount of time. Maybe GoZ will deprecate this script when it’s released for Windows. We’ll see, but until then it’s a nice companion for a modo <-> ZBrush workflow.

Get the modo script here »

I’ve been wanting to learn Python for some time now, and creating this script was a nice little introduction to Python for me. Many other applications I use can be scripted through Python, so definitely a good language to touch some base with in other words. Not to forget that the upcoming LightWave CORE will have a solid Python API.

Just a quick ZSketch i doodled together while exploring this new tool.

Doodling in the new ZSketch mode in ZBrush

ZBrush 3.5 is overall another impressive release from Pixologic. I love the new ZSketch mode and I hope I soon will get an opportunity to use it in production. I just wish Pixologic had updated their plugins to work with 3.5 before releasing it. I’ve come to depend on many of Pixologics plugins, so I’ll have to keep using ZBrush 3.1 in my daily work until they are updated. But til then I’ll continue having some fun with the sketch spheres in 3.5.

Late Night Doodling in ZBrush

Well, now I guess I’ll catch the late night run of Stargate SG-1 or something on the telly and see if I can get some sleep at last.

Til next time…

I just wanted to share my joy, modo 401 was released today. Woohoo! I’m downloading my update as I type and am very excited to take this new baby for a spin. Thank god that Luxology utilizes BitTorrent for a release like this, otherwise I guess the download would take forever with all the modonauts wanting to get the almost 2gb of modo godness at the same time.

To be honest, I should probably go to sleep now as it’s pretty late over here, and it’s some kind of midsummer happening tomorrow – but certain things just can’t wait, not matter what.

Anyway, I am really psyched about the 401 release. I was originally not sure if I wanted to take the plunge and upgrade as I was pretty happy with 302 and also that I use LightWave for the most part of my work. But as the 401 reveal was exhibiting more and more features that fits right into my workflow I simply couldn’t resist and placed my preorder for the update about 2 weeks ago.

Primarily it was the new hair system together with the retopology tools that really wet my appetite and more or less sold me, and then when Pixologic dropped the GoZ bomb about 2 weeks ago with the coming connection between ZBrush and modo I was walking on clouds. No way whatsoever I could pass on that workflow enhancement as that’s something I need over and over again in my daily work.

modo going 64 bit is not to shabby either. Oh well, my download is done – time to install and do some explorations before I go to sleep. I am sure some of the coming updates on this site in the end of June will contain quite a bit of modo 401 involvement. I shall return…

Cheers and good night!

Skopa Chair - Published in 'Filter' issue 8, June & July 2009

I’m wondering if I am starting to get typecasted into creating retro chairs? Haha, well, it’s okay – as I find the design, form and colors of the 60’s and 70’s spaceage retro classics very entertaining to work with.

I created this chair completely in modo. I find modo to really shine for these kind of visualization assignments on a tight schedule. The excellent workflow in modo allowed me to model, shade, texture, light, render and deliver this guy in less than a day.

The Skopa Chair - Originally I rendered this in 3K resolution for the magazine.

I’ll probably try to post more smaller assignments in my Journal if things are way to silent for a while. Well, over and out for this time!

So I thought it would be a nice idea to make a video tutorial on some useful concepts where the tools can speed up the daily workflow. So below you’ll find an EasySplit usage tutorial.

I start the tutorial by going through some basic concepts with the tool, and then I show a shorter modeling session for a few minutes – making a simple pouch and using the plugin to draw in a wrinkle in the geometry, one of  many typical cases where it can save some decent amount of time.

This video also gave me the opportunity to try out the new HD support on YouTube to ditch YouTube and start using Vimeo for my HD videos instead, so I recorded it in High Definition 720p, and the HD mode is selected by default in the player, so the video should look nice and crisp even in fullscreen. If you’re on a slower connection, you might want to uncheck the HD button in the player.

Okay, let’s see how this works out, as it was my first attempt to create a video tutorial (except a few quick ones for my own plugins). Well, I hope some of you will find this tutorial useful, and if so I could probably record a few more on different subjects – time permitting.