An Empty Room Thus Far....

A full year later, I bring you a piece of fan art from Undertale 2, the demo of which dropped on October 31st of last year. (Anda did an exceptional job of keeping quiet about it while we were trick-or-treating with John's family--no sense taking away from family time, right?~)

This is meant to be a classroom (no spoiler there, it's at the beginning of the game), but the desks, seats, chalkboard, etc. have not been modeled yet. The room does feature a ceiling, though, a really nice acoustic tiled ceiling with a grid and everything. I've spent a good long while working on the ceiling's parts, enough so that this is actually my third revision so far. The revisions aren't strictly too different, I don't think (the first one uses an unconventional measuring system built on the games' pixel art), but the way I add them into the scene has evolved gradually.

Outside backdrop is from HDRI Haven; floor texture is from Texture Haven. The combined effect of realistic floorboards with realistic exterior lighting...ooohh, yeah. I know exactly what standing in that sunlight would feel like, and how my footsteps would sound on the wood in this empty room.

The door texture is alright, I guess. I made it myself; it's based off of the doors in our church building, and takes some fine detail from a wooden dresser found in some local friends' basement. The end result is a bit chaotic, but heck, I'm super glad that I managed to get it looking this great! (Note to self: study actual wooden door construction. You may find yourself surprised.)

Fun thing about the newest release of Blender (2.81): there's a new AI-based Denoiser. It's pretty much a game-changer. I rendered this picture at 128 samples, which is not very many when the scene is indoors, and although the signs of AI influence are clear when you look too closely, I almost found the results too smooth for me. (I actually went and mixed a little bit of the denoiser-less image in to try and add a smidgen of grain back in...the sparkly bits were the brightest, so they showed first, so I didn't crank it too far back to noisy.)

In all, this scene, and the building it's part of (since I've got a decent bit of that), represent a bit of a turning point in my artistic development. Blender 2.8's scene arrangement is super powerful compared to old Blender's, and I've gotten better at making things reusable since I took classes on programming for college; couple this all with several decently good years gaining experience and past resources on which I can draw, and I'm suddenly able to make better, prettier things with much less effort.

That said, this building has been in progress since November of last year. Just because I had really productive days, doesn't mean the project is manageable in scope. I don't even know what's behind all the doors.

A Bit Of Music, A Change Of Pace

We don't just make pictures, not in this family. Since music can be considered art, why not upload it as well? I have been doing a lot of music and sound design work for computer games--specifically, the ones I'm planning out or actively building. I haven't finished any game, or much of any part thereof (and let me tell you, there are a freaking lot of parts--too many for just me, almost certainly), but I have finished this song. It's meant to play under a certain fantasy RPG scene, but I won't tell you what it is. I want to hear your thoughts about the song, and what it makes you think about or feel....

Archimedes Screw Reservoir

Was thinking, a while back, about the way a preindustrial, archaic city, in a cave, built vertically, would be irrigated. This scene was a sort of proof-of-concept for the design I had in mind--not a technical proof, an artistic proof, to get the space out of my head and into a pseudo-solid form, including the bridge. The scene kind of ballooned from there as I started to add lights, until--here it is.

Looking at it now, I see all kinds of things to fix: the water is supposed to go down when it's not in use, and the canal isn't oriented for that; the trough the screw dips into isn't quite deep enough (not that you can see that); literally everything needs reshaping--can you see a sluice being made as an octagon, or even half an octagon?

In reality, this setup should not exist. In a preindustrial society, no situation would likely occur where it would be easiest to build upwards and transport water to the top--with any low down water source, it would be cleaner and simpler to leave and find somewhere else to settle, to spread out around the water source, or to dig a well and let people walk to it. With a high up water source, just build canals and let gravity do its thing.

Nonetheless, it's fun to think about societal implications of this arrangement. Turning the screws would be hard, and to coordinate every level so that each screw got turned in sequence would be harder--so you'd come to see the lower levels as more desirable, less work to get water.

• Farmers would work on the bottom, where direct access to the water is available; rich people would be above them, just as close as it's possible to be without stealing farmers' access. The rich class may make life hard for the people above; whether the screws have water to lift is determined by their whims, whether they're willing to work their screws or not. To secure their water, the people above may become craftsmen and work to earn trust from the noblemen somehow. Literal social strata.~
• Or maybe there is no rich class, and the craftsmen separate the farmers from the beggars?
• Or perhaps the farmers are the rich class?
• If the city is rich in the barbaric way, they could have slaves to run the screws. Whoever controls the slaveowners, controls the slaves, controls the water--boom, city-sized Roman Empire.

That all said, I invented this system in a specific context where it just might be the most practical option. A group of people move into a ruined, ancient city--but for general fear of harming the ancient, historical buildings, statues, and artworks, they build new homes on the side of the city's ancient, massive wall and pump up water from the old rivers using a setup like this. Scrounged from scrap, in location and livelihood, would almost certainly be the only way a system like this would form.

Incidentally, the sluice is designed for these people, who can control small objects telekinetically. An object is telekinetically inserted into each of the boxes (quick and dirty representations of pouches), and then pulled down to open the sluice and pour out the extra, unneeded water; I don't know how you'd then close it again, when you want reservoir water to stay in for using.
(THOUGHT 9/30/2018: Just have pouches on the top edge also, and be careful that they not fall into the water when they flop down after you're done--or make those ones actual metal boxes as shown here, unlike the other ones.)

Vaulted Ceilings

Saw an image of the Portuguese Cistern in Morocco, and I started thinking about how I would make a similar ceiling in Blender. This is the result.

I didn't bother with making any materials, so it's just using the default white-foam-looking stuff, but it still looks pretty alright thanks to the background light. Funny thing about CGI--if you make a background right, you can use it to light a scene with incredible detail and minimal effort. This one is from a rather popular source of free 3D backgrounds called HDRI Haven, and it includes the sky, the tree, and the mountains.

I can't tell you the exact specs of this render, alas, because I didn't keep any notes when I rendered it a month or two ago. Said specs likely mean nothing to you all, though, so I'm none too concerned.

Fog

"Things are about to get real."

Does anyone know what game this scene is from? Probably not, but I'll tell you this: up until this part, the game is almost entirely not scary....

Scene created in Blender 2.79. Rendered in Blender Cycles, 500 samples plus denoising; render time, 7 hours 9 minutes 18.54 seconds. Touched up afterwards in Blender's compositor, as well as some (hopefully) subtle effects being added. All textures were either procedural or sourced from original photographs.

This scene is not actually complete. You can barely tell, though, because the more incomplete half is obscured by fog. Sooner or later, I'm going to have to finish the room...and finish the props (the cabinet is just a big block right now)...and balance the lights...and add the signs of life....

Second Render

Second finished version of the render (seventh version overall; last time was the sixth). This time, the materials got overhauled, implementing a degree of Fresnel reflection. Also, the light sources have essentially been expanded, reducing discernible noise by a good factor (plus you can see Olimar's face now!).

In terms of physically-based truthfulnesss, I kind of cheated; the lights you can see are smaller than the ones that are functionally there, casting light into the scene (and, in fact, reflecting in Olimar's helmet--notice the bright patch...). While this did make the image brighter, the fact that I had to cheat the brightness may mean the image needs some fundamental reworking before it's truly presentable.

Unfortunately, I also bypassed the post-post-processing (GIMP touchup), so the really interesting 

parts of the picture (the Pikmin in the foreground) are actually darker and harder to see than they were before. The shadows on their heads are softer than they were, as well. A real shame, because the Pikmin were the best/funniest part...

Tech specs are identical to last time, except that I could get a decently clean (read: noise-free) image at fewer samples (100 rather than 2000), and therefore cut the time spent on a single render down from ~10-22 hours to ~33 1/2 minutes (and that's with the time spent rendering the Pikmin and the Waterwraith on a separate layer from Olimar and the scenery!).

A third version may be in order; that water doesn't quite make realistic sense, and I did make a new-and-improved version of the Pikmin model anyway....

First Render

First blogpost I've made in a while, eh? As such, you likely don't know about my having gotten into CGI as a medium (which is to say, 3D computer art). This here is my first completed CGI project: my take on the strangest phenomenon of Pikmin 2.

It's awfully dark, I know. And grainy. But that's to be expected of a first project, from before I understood the Fresnel effect, good lighting, etc.

As for the darkness, I think I had a brighter version around here somewhere...

Posed in Blender, rendered in Cycles at 1920x1080, 2000-something samples. Slight touch-up in GIMP.

All models and textures are rips. In other words, directly from the game (with the exception of Olimar's model, which is from Super Smash Bros. Brawl). Which is not to say that they aren't modified--at the very least, subdivision was added to the characters!

Expect a newer version to crop up at some point, maybe with a little more work put into it.

My Little Ponies/Zebra/Demons/Warriors as ponies By Anda(and Some by Dan)

Me as Pony

Me as filly

Me in Gala dress

Cloud Nine
(My Friend from flying camp)

Applebuck

Aria

Aria Redone

Celestia and Luna eating lunch

Dark Pony Princesses

Shadow Ponies

Dusky Hooves

Grandma Moon

Forest Willow

River Willow

Lakeside Willow

Keeby(my kirbysona) as a Pony

Midnight Storm

Moonlight Skies

Moonlight Skies in Grand Galloping Gala dress

Moonlight Skies Gala dress

Nightmare Night

Redhorn the Warrior

Princess Ashasta

Princess Soleclipse

Princess Luneclise

Rainbow Void

Stargaze

Stargaze and Moonlight Skies

Stargaze Gala Dress

Woodwork

Zekana

Dan as Pony, Thundercrash Cloud

                                                                                     
                                                                                           DEMONS!

(in this order):Scarfire, Nightmare Death (not really a demony),
Bloodfang,and The Leader, Bloodflame


Warriors as Ponies

Bluestar Pony Form

Fireheart Pony Form

Graystripe Pony Form(By Caleb)

Sandstorm Pony Form

Drawages

Today for school, i got an assignment where i had to do math to unlock colors to color a picture, and after you finished one and clicked next, you had to do another set of math to reunlock the colors and color a new picture. Of course, the color choice was limited, so various color mismatches occurred, such as the dog's tongue.

That said, enjoy the "drawages!"

Spaceman

Fishies

Sharkbone

Roller Dino

Doggie's Yard

Bear