3D-Pangel

An announcement that is long on promise and extremely short on information. From the Founders: A New Chapter for KitBash3D and Greyscalegorilla Maybe it is so early that there isn't much to tell but honestly, to say that they are joining and that nothing is changing does beg the question "then why are you joining if everything is staying the same?" Overall, kind of a "meh" announcement. Dave

Anyone else thinking about how to stay in contact with certain members of this forum after it closes? For some, this forum was the only way to reach them. I was just going to go through my message folder and send private IM's but just wondering if there is a better way (apart from broadcasting your personal information indiscriminately). Unfortunately, your InBox only goes back so far. Personally, not a fan of Discord but I would go there if that is the best solution. If not, maybe setting up another gmail account and post it here might work. Dave

Wow. The end of an era. What a gut punch! I feel like I did when Cinefex closed its doors after 40 years or 32Ten (the old ILM) finally closed its doors after 49 years. Nothing is permanent. So when exactly is the site going off-line? How much time is left to say goodbye? Dave

I have always had a deep appreciation for music as my mother was deeply involved in music her entire life having her own radio program in the 1940's singing live on the air (she later went to lead a choral society that was part of a music consortium involving the Boston Symphony Orchestra). Unfortunately, unlike the rest of my siblings that all sing and play musical instruments, I have ears of stone. So just seeing Pratik work the keyboard so flawlessly on what looks (to me at least) to be a very complex composition was mesmerizing. It also gave me a new appreciation for Daft Punk. But I agree that Polyford's animation (HappyPolygon's first post) is amazingly satisfying to watch. It had me from the opening sound design and the organic movement of the light trails. But Polyford (or Asbjorn Lote) is an extremely creative and gifted 3D artist as that "Melody Visualization" was just an experiment. He is also very prolific as evidenced by this post of what he accomplished in 30 days: I love the shadow of the drone on the smoke simulation at the 2:24 mark along with the subtle animation of the van's driver at the end just to add a bit of life. Very nice touch. So to sum up....there are some EXTREMELY gifted musicians and 3D artists out there and in this forum and I stand in public admiration (and silent envy) of you all!!!! Dave

I have not seen much recently regarding Animusic type of animations. To be fair, those animations, as impressive as they were at the time, are a bit outdated today in terms of the rendering and musical reproduction (being mostly midi - or synthesizer - based). That is why I thought I would share this site: (2635) Marvin Blend - YouTube He does have a tutorial on how to start making these animations in Blender The music and the animations are very impressive and just fun to watch and listen to. Enjoy, Dave

Realflow is part VFX tool and part engineering tool. I understand the amount of information it can store for each fluid particle can be impressive and can be used to determine the stress and strain on large scale piping systems. Now X-particles has come a long way. Remember that Insydium absorbed the code for the first fluid simulation program developed for C4D which was DPIT fluids. So, it has an "inherited" age to it that may be as long as Reaflow. Nevertheless, many people bash X-Particles as being too complex or involved to get acceptable results. Not sure about that because the training by Bob Walmsley seems very straightforward so either he is an amazing teacher (which I do think he is) or X-particles is not being judged fairly. Nevertheless, like others, I do believe fluids will get the Maxon treatment.....that perfect intersection of power and ease of use. But remember, it is fluids after all...so ease of use will need to be thought of as a "relative" term in comparison to other programs. Just my 2 cents. Dave

How about fresh mussels simmered in beer!!! Now we are talking!!! Dave

I posted in another forum that should Mr. McGavran ever decide to provide a hint that C4D was getting into fluids, he should just post a picture of a cup of coffee, tea or soup (in real life not simulated) with the tag line "look at what's brewing" and then watch everyone's head explode: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? He posted a picture of his coffee maker...no tag line. Honestly, I never know what to believe. Dave

Personally, I was never a big fan of their trees. More excited over SurfaceSpread.

This is huge for Maxon. I wonder if any of the tech buried in SurfaceSpread will make its way into C4D's scatter tools or if SurfaceSpread will stand on its own and also part of a Maxon One subscription. I ask because on some forums, there have been calls for additional features to the updated scatter tools released around R2023 (Not sure of version they were first introduced). So not only does this make the Maxon One subscription more attractive (Laubwerk's pricing was always a bit too high for me) but it may also help accelerate the growth of C4D's object scatter capabilities. If you go to the Laubwerk's page, it redirects you to the MaxonOne page. On that page, the only indication on the fate of SurfaceSpread is this extremely vague sentence: I will watch with keen interest!!!! Dave

Thank you for answering my questions and giving us some new insights on future capabilities. The ability for animated cloud shadows will be very cool. Is this possible within Redshift given the stated limitations of Redshift Dome lights? Also, will this work with Redshift 2025.2 or 2025.2.1? There is no mention of acceptable Redshift Versions on the Gumroad Redshift page. Apologies for all the questions. Dave

Very interesting. Two questions: The interface that you have posted at Core4D is slightly different than shown in the video or at the Gumroad site. For example, the fold out sections in the video and at the Gumroad site are Sky, Sun, HDRI and Ground but above is Sky, HDRI 1, HDR1 2, Custom Sky Reflection, etc. Therefore, which one reflects the current state of the plugin...or...if the differences are render engine dependent, which one reflects the version for Redshift? When will the full manual be available? The Gumroad site says it is still being developed. Seems very powerful for the price. Excellent job overall. But given all of the flexibility, a full manual is a "must have" to both understand and master the full capability of the plugin (IMHO). Thanks for sharing. Dave

To put a bittersweet pin on this whole topic: Cinefex, 32Ten Studios, and the passing of the old guard ...sniff....sniff..... Dave

Thank you but I already have all 172 issues over the last 40 years sitting very nicely on my bookshelf. So no need for an archive. What I want is the creators (Jody Duncan, Gregg Shay) to come out of retirement as their writing and photo documentation was second to none. Sorry Ian Failes, you're doing great but it's just not the same. Jody is an amazing writer. Just finished reading "The Winston Effect" by Jody Duncan about Stan Winston Studios and the writing was just superb. Fast read. Couldn't put it down. Dave

How sad. The magazines I used to read through my lifetime love of VFX and then CGI...and in chronological order: 1) Cinefantastique - I still have the original double issues on the making of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Those double issues lit the fire within me for wanting to learn more about visual effects. 2) Starlog Magazine - More into fantastic films than fantastic filmmaking but they still had some good behind the scenes articles every now and then. 3) Cinemagic Magazine - First magazine for the budding DIY VFX enthusiast. I still remember the article on how to build your own 8mm optical printer. 4) Cinefex - oh...how it hurt when that one shut down!!! I have all 140 issues over their 40 year run. I absorbed every issue as a young teen as the old photo-chemical days of VFX were too expensive for me. Best I could do was build a ball-and-socket stop motion armature and so some animation (it still is sitting on my desk). So when a Cinefex would arrive once every 3 months, it was a great day. I would just hole up somewhere and imagine what it would be like to work full time doing VFX. 5) Computer Graphics World - My first CG based magazine but talked more about what was being done with CG rather than how to do CG. It used terms I never heard of before (like ambient occlusion, roughness channel, etc) without explaining them and therefore was a tough read at the beginning. 6) Computer Arts - At last, a magazine that had tutorials and demo software!!! Now I could learn and try 3D graphics. 7) 3D World - Sorry to see it go. Read my bio to learn more about how much I got involved with this magazine but not in the way that you would expect. ....all gone or no longer in print. On-line is great....but there is just something about opening up your mailbox to find a much-loved magazine waiting for you and then eagerly flipping through the pages that you don't get from an on-line publication. True --- you can replace mailbox with a link in your in-box and holding an iPad instead of paper. But while close, it is just not the same. Dave P.S. Don't even get me started about book stores. Remember the days 20 years ago where there would be whole sections in Barnes & Noble on computer graphics? "Inside Lightwave", "Inside 3D Studio Max" books, etc. I still have a book called "3D Lighting" that is pretty much useless today (it's software was trueSpace) but the first 3 chapters on color space and the physics of light are still a tremendous reference.

Malte does have one other model available for free that is as equally impressive Venator-class Star Destroyer free 3D model rigged | CGTrader The work he puts into modelling is so good that I just have to import the UDIM's into C4D an re-texture it. But I think this one will be a more involved than the Tantive IV as I am having trouble wrapping me head around the UV maps as there are multiple different maps that comprise only portions of certain UDIMs (the guns have me confused and there are a lot of guns - each with a different UDIM even though they are all the same model - I hope). Still figuring out how to approach it. But download the model and just look at the topology!! Particularly the engines. Dave

Starting with the launch of Fab (a merge of Sketchfab and Quixel) which is to occur "sometime" in October 2024, all Megascan assets will be free for all 3D programs until the end of 2024. Read more here: "Fab" Content Marketplace Launches in October; Publishing Portal Opens Today - Unreal Engine Meanwhile, I am running out to buy 12TB of RAID 1 storage and up my download speeds to 2.5 Gb per second. Not really....but you get the point. Dave

I just wanted to call attention to the work of Malte Ullrich who modeled one my favorite sci-fi ships in Blender and then made it free to the public. This model was the Tantive IV (otherwise known as the Rebel Blockade Runner) and you can download it here at his CGTrader website: https://www.cgtrader.com/free-3d-models/space/spaceship/tantive-iv-blockade-runner-corellian-corvette The topology and detail of this model is just superb and the texturing even better. Unfortunately, it was done in Blender using UDIM texturing. While Redshift can read the UDIM tiles and convert them to individual texture tags, each texture channel was not made up of a single texture but rather a series of masks that did not translate well into Redshift. I had to go back into Blender to figure out how those masks were applied and then duplicate that in Redshift. I am not that experienced with Blender, but I am sure there must be a way to bake everything down to a single texture on export. There were 63 individual UDIMs that needed to have their materials redone with all the appropriate masking. It took some effort, but the model was worth it plus it helped me increase my muscle memory with Redshift nodes. Here are the results in C4D and Redshift Just look at all that glorious schmutz!!! Pretty confident that someone more skilled with either Blender or Redshift will tell that there is a better way this could have been done...so please share if you know it. I reached out to Malte and asked if he could make the C4D version available to all (again for free) via his CGTrader Website (link above) and he obliged. So, check out the link above for the C4D download. If he did not agree, then I would not be distributing his work nor making this post...so please be sure to thank him. To his credit, he realized that sharing a model with UDIM texture sets and tiles made that model a lot more difficult to use (gee...ya think?😆). A while back he baked everything down to normal texture sets across the 5 main areas of the model but never uploaded them to the CGTrader site. Based on my email and effort, he finally decided to do that which you can now find in the FBX version. But the textures in the FBX version will be at a lower resolution than the UDIM version I converted to C4D. So please use the C4D version!!! Enjoy, Dave

One thing that has worked is to make it cloth and set the stiffness level extremely high. Dave

I assume the top image is the rendered one and the bottom image is the AI generated one. While I have no experience dealing with clients and what they are looking for in a boot visualization, I am thinking that AI could be used for quickly generating booth concepts to help the client better define what they need. As these booths can become pretty expensive (both in floor rental space and construction), does the client want a more realistic presentation of the space from multiple perspectives prior to committing to any costs on the more expensive booths? If so, then would starting with AI but finalizing with a 3D render be an approach to take? I ask because I will agree that AI (even with stable diffusion) does only successfully bridge the uncanny valley by 95%. It takes a human eye to make the full crossing to total realism. Which does bring up an interesting question: Is there any AI program out there that can translate its generated image to actual 3D geometry and textures? If so, you now have quite the interesting workflow where you start with AI concepts, iterate quickly with the client to get agreement to a final design, but then convert it to 3D so that a true artist can add that last 5% to fully cross the uncanny valley of AI art and into true realism.

You are very brave to try and capture not only a real person, but someone who is a bit of a chameleon in that she looks different in every role she has played and in every publicity photo. She could turn her head 5 degrees to the left and how the light hits her cheek bones, forehead and mouth will create a completely different look. But amazingly, as I look at it you are about 95% there with a very good cartoon version of her. But it is always the last 5% that causes the most pain. Are you using either of these photos to model her? If you are going for a "Furiosa" look, the eyes and mouth good, but the chin needs to be a bit more pronounced and not so rounded. Also, not sure about what is going on behind the cheek bones. Dave

Honestly...I am afraid to ask. Amazing! It looks EXACTLY like the character. The mane and medallion on the horses' harness are perfectly done. Tangled is still my youngest daughter's favorite Disney movie even now at the age of 26. Question: I really had to dig to find this link: Character Design | Vectron3d Why? You have an amazing portfolio that I was surprised it was not the main link from your Core4D profile page. True top-level stuff for some really great studios like Aixsponza. Your humility is only exceeded by your talent. Dave

Thank you! The turn table was a huge bonus. I would have been happy with a still image. I fat fingered the thumbs down on the rating button because it was right next to the Thank You selection. I quickly switched it to "Thank You" but it still shows red in the counter. I am soooo sorry!!! Last thing I want is a Thumbs down on Vector's profile so if it really is there, could an Admin correct it for me? Thanks, Dave

Actually....it was more like begging. Please show us your topology!! Pleassssseeeee!!!😃

Really wish the wireframes were better presented: I can't even make out the work that went into those horns so we are missing out on all that "Vector-Magic" that went into them. Ideally, with and without SDS would be a wonderful addition that I could learn from, marvel at, and be inspired by. Dave