I’ve used my fair share of tree generating apps over the years. Vue, Onyx and X-Frog comes to mind as well as LightWave plugins like Tree/Leaves generator and DP_Verdure. While all of them good in their own respect, TreeSketch brings something new to the table. Controlling the growth by sketching.

I didn’t expect that much from an iPad app, more than a bit of fun. It turned out that not only does it work, it works great! It’s actually one of the most intuitive ways I’ve found so far to create trees. The use of the touch screen is really well thought out by the developer so it feels very natural to simply draw out directions of how you want the tree to grow. And you feel that you are in control when designing your trees into any shape you can dream of. Lot’s of advanced options as well to tinker with and it came with a bunch of video tutorials to get you up and running in no time. And to add to the awesomeness, it’s free!

Here’s a bunch of trees I sketched on my iPad today, and then brought into LightWave 3D for rendering. I’m just playing around to get to know all the ins and outs and get a feel for the app.

I found it really cool how you simply can rotate the viewport while drawing and the tree naturally grows along with how you direct it, and then that you can grab branches and bend, move, resize or even redirect with oversketching. Freckin’ awesome control! And my iPad Stylus pen works great with this app as well. Then there is a bunch of fine tuning settings for how the growth of branches and leaves shall be calculated. And when exporting you get a FBX file, UV mapped, quads only, and ready to be brought into a renderer for texturing and shading.

I’m impressed by this app to say the least. I’m quite productive with my iPad in many different ways, but so far it’s been limited to sketching, drawing, writing, note taking, communication, reading, some music composing and so on, I didn’t think it was ready for any 3D production. I’ve previously played around with Autodesk’s 123d sculpt, which was fun and a hint of where we might be heading in a tablet generation or two, but that one is nothing but a novelty for now. TreeSketch on the other hand brings real usage to the table right now.

One thing I found myself wishing for though, was more options to get the trees out of the app. I don’t really like that you have to go via iTunes to get the FBX back to the computer. Instead I’d love to see exporting to Dropbox or even just being able to mail it. That would make the workflow much more comfortable and faster to get the trees out of the app into a desktop environment without any cables.

Anyway, to sum it up. I’m truly enjoying this app, and I can’t wait until I’ll need to make a scene with trees and take it for a real spin. Perhaps combining it with instancing, or taking it to Vue or modo, or even making a tailor made tree to fit for a scene taking place within the tree. Or why not using it as a basemesh for ZBrush.

If you have an iPad, check out TreeSketch in the AppStore

I had roughly blocked out a sculpt, the image to the right, from a ZSphere armature to get the proportions and overall shapes for the character I was working on in place. I came to the point were I started to feel that the geometry was getting in the way in some areas. In other words some areas had too little geometry while others too much.

At this stage I usually take a few minutes, before adding details and polish, to make a quick retopo to even out the geometry and get back better control in the sparse areas without having to bump the subdivision another level (Oh, how I long for ZBrush 4 R2, where you supposedly won’t have to consider this anymore, looks like they have added Sculptris technology).

I find ZBrush’ retopology tools quite intuitive and quick to work with and I have never shared the view that they should be cumbersome. I have a workflow where I paint the new topology I want on the mesh and then just lay out the new topology on top of that. Which have worked out fine for me in the past. Today I ran into something weird though.

I’ve tried to illustrate what happens in the image below. First we have the sculpture where I have painted a few lines to help me lay down the new topology. Then we have the sculpture with the new topology on top of it, and then just a shot of the topology lines without the sculpture in the background. The second row of images is the result when creating a new adaptive skin from the topology. The holes are highlighted in red in the last two images.

Holes when creating an adaptive skin from the new topology. Click image to enlarge.

The only part of this character that displays this problem is the foot, the rest of the skin works fine as usual. After having tried to figure out what was going on I simply erased the entire new topology on the foot and created it again. But still no go, I got the same holes the second time as I got the first time. Now I was frustrated, I truly hate it when I have to spend time fighting the software. Here is a turntable video to easier see the holes in question.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m one of those who actually don’t think that ZBrush own topology tools are that bad. I usually get the work done quite fast with them. But this time I’ve to declare myself defeated.

I guess ZBrush has a problem with all the ins and outs with the long, bony, claw like toes that somehow confuses the logic of how the skin is connected on this particular part. That’s my only guess of what’s going on, and I can kind of see where the engine could see two possible choices of where to cap the polygons. It looks like polygons have been created in some cases, but between the wrong edges. The thing is that I have created topology for similar parts in the past and it have worked fine. That was in ZBrush 3.x though, and the topology tools changed in ZBrush 4, so perhaps something changed along the way that causes trouble in this case. It could also be user error, but after having spent too much time with this I am starting to doubt that.

Anyway, I made a quick and easy workaround. I used GoZ to send the skin to modo, fixed the holes, and sent it back. And voila, everything works. I still get obsessed trying to understand why and how this occurs, as then it’s easier to avoid/work around in the future, without having to bounce to modo.

If anyone have any clue or knows more of how and when these holes appear I’d love to get enlightened. I kept searching ZBrushCentral for answers but no luck there either. I found the question, I found other workarounds, but no explanations.

Perhaps I should consider getting Topogun for my topology needs? I see people raving about it all the time. I’m not that keen to add new applications to my pipeline unless absolutely necessary or unless it adds a tremendous boost to my workflow. Topogun might fit into the latter alternative, speeding up my work. And it seems to be straightforward enough to get up and running without a long learning curve.

All images are screengrabs of the ZBrush canvas with some post processing done in Photoshop.

A slighly more detailed version (click to enlarge)

Unprocessed screengrabs from ZBrush (click to enlarge)

I sculpted this guy from a bunch of ZSpheres without a determined destination. I didn’t use any references this time but let the character design come to me as I went along. That’s one thing I really love about ZBrush, the freedom to just let the juices flow. I GoZ:ed into modo a few times for geometry additions, new SubTool basemeshes and clean ups.

Cheers!

Alright. 24 hours of sculpting done. Time to move on. But hey, it did yield some interesting results. But before getting our hands dirty doing some analyzing, here is a chart of all sculpts done.

I entered this experiment with a few basic rules, the most notable ones were that I had to stop after 60 minutes and that I couldn’t use any references. The 60 minute time limit was simply so I wouldn’t find any excuses not to doodle. I can always spare 60 minutes instead of watching some crappy show on the telly or similar time wasters. And the no references part was simply to force myself to train my inner eye.

I must say that this is the best 24 hours I’ve spent in a long time. The learning experience have been fantastic! I actually find it quite amazing how much difference 24 hours of practice can make.

Taking a look at the screenshot below, one of the first sculptures and the last sculpture from this experiment. Quite a difference how far I can take a sculpt in 60 minutes now compared to when I started this journey.

One of the first and the last sixty minute doodle

Perhaps not as interesting for the casual viewer, but I love to nerd-down in my endeavors. When I analyze my time-lapses and how my techniques have progressed from the first videos to the last ones I am thrilled to see all the evolution. Especially in my anatomy understanding.

The fact that I worked without looking at any references is probably a major reason that have forced myself to better understand anatomy and proportions. I’m kind of seeing everything much clearer now and I don’t need to be winging it anymore like I used to do, but are now much more in control of where I want to go.

I also learned something interesting which I hadn’t realized before. When working with a time limit I quickly saw a pattern that when I went towards a female look I came nowhere near as far into the process as when I went with a male look until the time was up. I had never reflected on this before that I need much more time to get a female to begin to look properly than I need for a male. I actually got so interested in this phenomenon that I did some research on the subject a few days ago, and it turned out that this is very common. It’s the same in drawing. You can either draw male or female likeness faster than the other. This is definitely something I need to work on to even out.

I actually wouldn’t mind keep going with these 60 minute doodles, as I felt that I made huge progress for every new head up til, and including, the very end. There is still many, many more advancements for me to conquer on these subjects.

But I was getting tired of the time limit though, and also spending time building the base when I was not allowed to use base meshes. I actually prefer to start with a base mesh from my 3D package, but for this particular exercise I wanted to make everything from scratch, so I didn’t get any help with the proportions.

As this experiment has really helped me to step up my game to the next level, I’m eager to come up with a new concept to continue evolving my techniques in a fun and productive way. I’ll see what I can think of next.

To end this post, a link to the Vimeo channel containing all time-lapse videos
“I Am Johan’s Sculpted Doodles” at Vimeo

And the final “I am Johan’s Sculpted Doodles” video

I can highly recommend doing projects like this if you’re looking to improve your skills.
Over and out!
Cheers!

It’s not at all intended to be related to my ongoing doodle project, instead I had some fun just sketching around for a while without any goals, restrictions or boundaries and see what I got out of it.

Well, a little bit more flooding it is then. And also to not risk falling back into a long period of radio silence.

Session number 13 done! This was another hour of doodling where I had pure fun and did not really want it to end when the alarm went off. Maybe it’s time to end or revise the rules I created for myself for this project to cater for the sessions where I really get into the flow?

I still see quite some progress of my techniques and speed with every new session, so I guess it’ll do me good to keep doing these “one hours” for a few more times.

Over and out!

My doodling rules are:
60 minutes // from scratch // no references // no shirts // no shoes

“I Am Johan’s Sculpted Doodles” at Vimeo

No, I am not going to flood my own journal with these doodles.

But I had some real fun with this one, I even broke my own rule and gave it a few more minutes than I’m allowed to. I could have continued for quite some more time as I had “the flow”, but that would’ve undermined my experiment.

When I’m done with this project, maybe I should browse the different sculpts that came to life and see if I want to take one or some of them further. Time will tell.

My doodling rules are:
60 minutes // from scratch // no references // no shirts // no shoes

“I Am Johan’s Sculpted Doodles” at Vimeo

Haha, I found this guy again not that long ago, collecting dust in a forgotten folder. My god what time flies, and yikes, what my personal projects have been set aside for far too long.

I finished him years ago but never got around to render him out for my website. The entire update of my portfolio section have been dragged out for way too long, so I decided to get the ball rolling by render out a web version of him and get The Innkeeper posted. He is more or less the same as when I left him a few years ago, I just updated a few minor things to make him render properly in LightWave 10.x.

Now the second thing, I’ll let you in on a little secret. A few months ago I heard about GTD for the first time. I’m on the eternal quest to boost my productivity so I always try to check out new things to see if they can help me achieve that constant goal.

I’ve for quite some time, as I believe I’ve mentioned more than once in the past, had problems to juggle both work and personal projects at the same time, which in the end has made my personal projects suffer way too much and get the shorter end of the stick.

After reading a few articles on sites like Lifehacker about GTD I was getting curious to explore this productivity system more, so I read Dave Allen’s (@gtdguy) book. I’ve somewhat of a reserved attitude towards these “amazing” systems, but I keep an open mind and pick the pieces that suites my life and workflows. So, I studied the GTD method and setup a personal system and started using some cool software, based on the GTD ideas.

The result after a few months evaluation?

It has actually made a difference. I’m getting more things done, I am working more efficiently than ever before, and something I am especially happy with, is that all my personal projects have started moving forward again. All of them. Really cool!

I am currently altering the deal I’ve had with my website and have started to make some use of this space again. I have a very solid plan how my projects will continue going forward from now on and somewhat of a schedule as a well. Dang! Lot’s of things I’ve wanted to do for quite some time, but work etc always seemed to get in the way. Now I am actually pursuing my passion projects again.

Okay I better stop now, before I start to sound like a “religious” person about this whole GTD thing. I can recommend to dedicate some time to carefully check it out though, if you’re a productivity junkie like me.

… in 60 minutes.

The 8th session of my summer experiment.
I realized I had been sculpting primarily human heads so far during these sessions. Nothing wrong with that per se as I can use every opportunity I can get to train my inner eye to quickly find the correct human proportions.

My intention with these sessions is also to step out of my comfort zones and try out new things. So I’ll try to have that reflection kept somewhere in the back of my head from now on that variation is good.

Variation is good. Variation is good. Variation is good…..

My doodling rules are:
60 minutes // from scratch // no references // no shirts // no shoes

“I Am Johan’s Sculpted Doodles” at Vimeo

The fourth session of my summer experiment.

My doodling rules are:
60 minutes // from scratch // no references // no shirts // no shoes

I’ll post a session to my Journal from this experiment now and then, if you’re interested to see every session coming up, feel free to check out my Vimeo channel. Also check out the channel for more information and what my goals are with these sessions.

“I Am Johan’s Sculpted Doodles” at Vimeo