I would love to get into Hexagon and/or Carrara, and actually make these sorts of constructional bits. Having made them, then you stick them all together and export the whole shebang as an object, an .obj ... and if you sick enough of them together (in the right order ... duh) you get starships and alien cities, and so on.
Not that I'm likely to find the time to tackle learning another interface any time soon, so -- here I am playing with existing constructional bits! And a new character, too. Somebody said to me the other day, "How come most of your characters are European, when two thirds of the people you get hot and bothered over on tv are any race and color except European?! That's a good point! Wll, they're not all Europeans, but -- yes, sure, most are...
I think it's basically because Michael 4 loads up as a European -- and you notice, both the default skinmap and the high rez skinmap are European. If you want to explore other races, other faces and body forms, you have to get creative, and when you're squishing your artwork into a few spare minutes here and there, it's frankly easier to pick up a loose ball and run with it, rather than shoulder-charge the software and find yourself on the bottom of the scrum --
Yep, rugby season is about to start. It's bucketing down, and as soon as the mud is deep enough they'll shout, "Game on!" We love Rugby Union -- and the World Cup is being played downunder this year, in New Zealand. That's going to be big fun!
So I guess you can can call the character a bit of an experiment too. Here's a new face, along with some major experiments with that floor! Reflection plus refraction plus displacement map. Very nice result.
Jade, 10 May
***Posted by MK because the internet is AWOL. Intermittent crap. Be warned, guys: our connection is going to be in and out for a week or two, as of this point: Telstra (or whatever) is doing a lot of work on the landlines in this area. And as you know, if you've been looking at the "poster notes" on these journal entries in my looooong adventure through the world of CG, 3D and digital, even at the best of times we can find ourselves with dialup speeds in this area. This is why MK has been making many posts for me, since Day One -- Keegan has the fast connection, not me! (This should change in the near future, when the cables or whatever are updated, and they stop working on them. At least, s'wot Telstra promises.) Credit where it's due: this blog would not have been possible without the support of a pal with decent internet. Because ours sucks. We moved into this area about six months before I got into Studio and blogging about it, and I almost quit right there: DAYS to download something from the DAZ store, at one point. Argh. Thank gods for friends when you need 'em!
