Wednesday, August 25, 2010

CityEngine_National Geographic Asia -"Megacities"



http://www.procedural.com/showcases/showcase/national-geographic-megacities.html


For National Geographic Asia's "Megacities - Kaohsiung(高雄)" episode Worlds Away Productions was tasked with creating a digital 3d model of the city of Kaohsiung in Taiwan for use in 6 CGI sequences.

Wow! That;s my country! ^ ^


國家地理頻道(亞洲),用CityEngine製作台灣高雄的一段影片。

ChumBuddy^ ^



Ha ha!

I like it! I like it! ^ ^

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

ZBrush 4.0 Unleashed!!



Features:

ZProjects
* Save all loaded tools, document size, light, material, timeline and render settings in one click.
* ZBrush 4 even includes sample projects to help you discover new features.

Best Preview Render
* Renders Shadows, Ambient Occlusion, Fibers, SSS and Transparency with advanced anti-aliasing.
* Multi-pass rendering with Shadow, Color, Ambient Occlusion, Mask and Depth as separate maps.
* Render for still images or animations.


Project presentation
* Timeline for more than just simple turntables and animations.
* Keyframe management: copy, move, etc.
* Audio support with color beats for manual animation synchronization.
* Fade in/out and cut keyframes for nice transitions.
* Ease in/out keyframes.
* MDD animation file format support for exporting and importing animation.
* Animation-capable layers, Tools, ZSpheres, background and more.

Concept creation
* Shadow Box for free-form creation.
* Move Elastic Brush to create stretch-free extrusions.
* Reproject improved for more finely tuned control of the results.
* Mannequin for quick scene setup.
* TransPose units to help you in proportions and sizes.


Hard Sculpting
* Clip brushes for slicing your models.
* By Radius and By Polygroups modes for the Clip brushes.
* Shadow Box to create original sculpting bases, combined with radial symmetry.
* New Strokes: Circle, Square, Curves.


Major brushes:
* MatchMaker, the perfect brush to deform your mesh to conform to other 3D models.
* Deco brushes, turn, spin - perfect for creative patterns!
* Clay Buildup will be your new Clay brush for the rough sculpting.
* Move Elastic, Move Topo, Move Parts: Stretch and deform with no constraints.


Strokes:
* Roll mode improved with the Roll distance.
* New lasso/marquee selection mode, circle by center, perfect circle, curve for masking and hiding.
* Marquee, Lasso and Circle strokes working with symmetry for hiding, masking and slicing.

Pipeline and Productivity
* GoZ with Autodesk Maya (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011), Autodesk 3DSMax (2009, 2010, 2011), Luxology modo 401 (Sp2 to sp5), Cinema 4D R11 and R11.5
* GoZ SDK for integrating GoZ in additional software packages.
* Xpose to explode all SubTools, making it easy to work on a hidden one or create stunning animated effects.
* SubTool Duplicate and Insert, List All + ABC, Merge All for more flexibility when working on complex models.
* Solo mode to quickly isolate the current SubTool.


3D Painting and Materials
* PolyPaint Layers for more freedom in 3D painting.
* SpotLight to edit textures on the fly and then use them to paint by projection.
* Gradient transparency for anti-aliased transparency in PolyPainting.
* New shaders: Fast Overlay and Fresnel Overlay for more effects in your materials.
* New Fresnel and SSS settings for more realistic materials!
* New Blinn Specular added to the default shader for a better skin specular effect.
* Large number of blending modes between materials: Add, Subtract, difference, darken, etc.


Misc
* Topology auto masking to protect closed areas which are not directly connected.
* Elasticity settings to stretch your model without stretching the topology.
* Orientation settings: rotate your alphas while sculpting.
* Tile alphas for more creativity with brushes.
* Non-Square alphas are supported, avoiding distortions.
* Contact support for SubTools: deform multiple SubTools while maintaining your defined contact points between them!
* Relax Deformation: relax your topology without altering the shape.
* Inflate Balloon Deformation for a variation of the relax deformation.
* Deformations are now in real-time when moving the sliders, giving you live feedback.
* New File menu to manage all content.


Plugins
* Decimation Master is now 64bits.
* Original size is kept when exporting with 3D Print Exporter.
* Unwrap all SubTools at once with UVMaster.
* New Multi-map exporter for fast and easy creation of many maps at once including: normal, displacement, ambient occlusion, etc.
* Various additions in SubTool Master and TransPose Master. 


ZBrush4 Videos:

http://www.pixologic01.com/zbrush/f..._med_final3.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...o/timeLine1.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...imateExpose.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...ate3Dlayers.f4v

http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...4/video/BPR.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...mannequins2.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...mannequins1.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...CircleMasks.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...dCurveMasks.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...brushRadius.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro.../movElastic.f4v

http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...oxReference.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...xResolution.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...owBoxBasics.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...owBoxAlphas.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...ngShadowBox.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...BoxAndMasks.f4v

http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...ndClipBrush.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...ClipBrushes.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...MakerBasics.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...rush4_GoZ_1.f4v

http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...ndClipBrush.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...decoBrushes.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...Topological.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...o/alphaRoll.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassro...alphaTiling.f4v



ZBrush 4 BetaTesters Forum(you can see a lot of ZB4 new features in this page)





最近都在忙著處理父親的後事,就在作天,ZBrush4終於發售了。

 這次和以往一樣推出了許多讓人眼睛為之一亮的嶄新功能,像是shadow box我就挺感興趣的。不過卻也讓我感到滿失望的就是,大家期待許久的texture/painting layer和blending mode並沒有出現,看來要在既有的zbrush軟體核心上加入上述的功能還有一段路要走。

Pixologic是有推出PolyPaint Layers for 3D painting的功能,不過離我們的期望(像Photoshop那樣的layer)還差很多。反觀,Mudbox以及3D-Coat在這部分就超前ZBrush許多,Mari當然就更不用說了!另外,在retopology部分似乎也並沒有強化,看起來Pixologic好像也不打算管這塊了,也許打算就由第三方專業的重新佈線軟體來處理就好了,這類的軟體現在也已經很多了,這麼看起來未來的製作流程除ZBrush外可能要再搭配另外的佈線軟體(雖然現在也是這樣啦~)。

不知道Sculptris的作者加入Pixologic開發團隊後,會不會替ZBrush帶來革命性的演變呢?^ ^

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

最漫長的一天

這個周末就是八八父親節,看著各個相關慶祝活動熱鬧起來,然而這卻是我再也無法體驗的日子。



凌晨快要三點,接到醫院打來的電話,要我和家人趕到醫院探視父親最後一面,趕到了醫院,我父親已經沒有生命跡象,結束了心跳,冰冷地躺在病床上,陪伴我們一家人的父親在這一刻往生了。


自前年捐肝給我父親至今,約莫兩年多左右,這一路走來我父親吃盡了苦頭,這一刻也算終於獲得了解脫。一直以來陪伴在我父親旁,也是最辛苦的母親,也終於能好好休息了。


從住進加護病房開始,看著父親身上插滿管子、沒有意識、全身水腫、到最後身體發黑全身多重器官衰竭而過世,大約一個禮拜的時間。某種涵義上覺得實在很短暫,某種涵義上又覺得實在很漫長。


出了醫院,替自己的父親辦後事,看著平常最親近的家人成為毫無呼吸心跳的遺體躺在那裏,蓋著往生被,總是有股莫名的感覺。禮儀師的照料、法師的誦經、親戚的陪伴,當遺體運走後,我們就了解到真的再也見不到父親的面容了。


出生為人就是痛苦的開始,嚐盡人世間所有的苦難與折磨。所以,當離開之時,是解脫的時刻,我為我父親感到高興,不用再受苦受難了,誠心地希望我父親永遠幸福快樂。