Victoria 4.2, and a real, genuine fantasy romp

Victoria 4.5 starring as Zenobia in a 3D fantasy romp, Escape from the Seraglio. Hey, if this old chestnut's good enough for Hollywood, it's good enough for me! So here's the story:

Evil Warlord from the desert region south of our heroine's homeland on the steppes has sent his raiders into the heartlands of the horse peoples. Zenobia is their best warrior ... she fights valiantly to save the tribe and is knocked unconscious, and picked up with the wounded.

Taken back to the Evil Warlord's palace in the sands, she wakes and realizes she has no idea who she is. She's lost her memory, and when the snake-oil salesman of a slave dealer tells her she's an expensive courtesan, who's she to argue?

The next few months make Don Juan De Marco look like he was on a go-slow industrial action. (Didn't you love Johnny Depp in that?!) You don't want to know what she got up to! Then again, maybe you do ... but not on this blog, kiddies. Use your imagination. Ahem.

Then one day, shazam! She gets accidentally smashed on the noggin with a huge bronze incense burner and her memory comes back. She wants out ... like anyone in the Evil Warlord's palace cares about that! In fact, the boss has her tentatively pencilled in for an appointment tonight, between the hours of nine-thirty and seven in the morning. Little does he know, it's his last night on this world, and Zenobia will be over the wall and astride the big white stallion, streaking off across the desert while the stars are still blazing...

Yeah, right. Reads like a  sizzling romance bestseller, right? Ouch! Anybody want to write this?! I'll paint the cover...

Jade, 1 June

***Posted by MK: my connection is currently intermittent, too slow for this.

Hunk rescues hapless secret agent ... is romance in the air?

Sorry these are only Deep Shadow Maps.
Best I could do at the time!

"Ah, at last ... after I've been waiting here for half an hour -- Agent 38C, it's you! What kept you?"

"But of courrrze it izzz me, Agent 0064. What other kind of gurrrl would be walking around in a backztreet at ziz time of ze morning, dressed like ziz? Noh, don't anzwer zat. I 'ave brought ze zecret code book. You 'ave ze pazzword furrr me?"

"Pazz -- I mean, password, what password? They didn't tell me anything about a password!"

"Zat is too bad. Wizout ze pazzword I cannot give you ze zecret codebook."

"But but -- hang on a second, Agent 38C, I can give 'em a call, I've got my phone here --!"

Well, bugger. All that waiting, and she just walked off. M is going to kill me. I mean, he is really, seriously, going to kill me. Wait a second -- "Who goes there? 38C, did you decide to come back?"

"Thirty-eight-who? I'm only 24, do I look that old? Uh ... hey, Joe, what you know? Or, like, words to that, you know, effect, dude."

"Well ... I know my boss is going to kill me when I get back to the office."

"Well, don't go back till in the morning. I know this great little pub around the corner..."

With my luck, he's going to turn out to be a double agent. Well ... to take a leaf out of 007's manual ... I'll investigate that in the morning!

Jade, 31 May

3D sets and characters: meanwhile, back at the tavern

Meanwhile, back at the tavern --! 3D characters and sets ... playing with lights and base models and character presets and hairstyles. This is the same set as the Road to Rivendell series from last month (which sounds like it ought to be starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour!) but the Michael 4 character is the same digital actor who played Achilles last week, with a new hairdo. The digital actress is actually the She-Freak, believe it or not. It's not Victoria 4.2 ... I really am just mucking about, while life has been upside down with domestic dramas.

I hope to be back tomorrow with an actually post ... lucid writings, when I can scare up fifteen spare minutes! For now, please enjoy these images, in which a story is unfolding like stills from a movie.

Jade, 29 May

Raytracing: amazing results

Raytracing takes a looooooong time. But boy, is it worth it, if you have the opportunity to do this. The "party piece" of this post is the top image. The other two are grand, but the top one is the best. And for each of the three renders today I'm presenting the Raytraced versions and the deep shadow mapped versions ... at 100% full size. I invite you to view them at 1:1 size, just as they were rendered, and compare.

The downside? Even with 8 Gigs of available ram (4G in chips, 4G in Ready Boost), and with a 1 Gig video card, it still takes at least an hour to get a render like this, when you click over to Raytracing.

But ... what a difference! There's a classical quality about these renders ... the "feel" of those Fredrick Remington bronzes. Is that fantastic, or what? I'm going to go back to some of my favorite characters and renders from the last couple of months, and Raytrace them, now that I have the video card and the ram to do it with!

Jade, 28 May

The pirate hunk ... experiments in raytracing

The pirate hunk: welcome to the Caribbean, love -- with raytracing on the top two of these images. This is something very new: I never had the ram or the video card power to get into raytracing. Since this system was upgraded there are so many experiments to run, and raytracing is one of them! The next one is adding tattoos to existing skinmaps -- all I need is the time to do it.

Please enjoy today's art ... once again, I don't have time to write very much! Not that I don't have a lot to say, because I do ... but I'm running around like the proverbial chicken with its head chopped off.

Hope to have more time tomorrow!!

Jade, 27 May

***Posted by MK: my connection is currently intermittent, too slow for this.

3D art galore ...!

2024 Edit: sorry, guys -- all I have left now from this "shoot" is the thumbnails. This next one is the only original render from this post that I can source now:

The post focused on Victoria 4.2 on this occasion, so let me fill in with renders that are true to the original spirit -- also waaaay better than a bundle of 14-year-old Deep Shadow maps would have been!

3D art in profusion today -- because I have no time to write anything! Things are not just busy, they're insane, with work on one side and domestic duties on the other. I'll be back tomorrow, and hope to have time to write, because there's quite a bit I want to talk about. But for now ... please enjoy the artwork, and ... 'scuse I, cuz I have to run!

Jade, 26 May

***Posted by MK: my connection is currently intermittent, too slow for this.

3D art pretending to be reality ... seriously nice!

Here's where 3D art comes up against its biggest challenge: depicting cold, hard reality. There's no hint of fantasy or SF here. A hunk, a car, a brownstone building ... looks like it could be warehousing. Full daylight. Nothing to hide behind, if you're the artist trying to make this gel.

So here's the hunk, in 3D ... is it me, or does he look like a cross between Aidan Quinn and Christopher Walken? It wasn't intended to work out that way -- just happened. Are you ready for this: it's the exact same digital actor who played Achilles a few days ago, and then was cavorting with the courtesan yesterday! I went back to the Mon Chevalier hair, which Achilles was wearing, but made it short and black rather than long and blond. What a difference!

Otherwise, it's still the same character in every other detail. He's wearing the Lee skin map (obviously not the face ... Lee is Asian), and the Beowulf slacks, shirt, jacket. The Beowulf costume actually looks fairly good in longshot, but when you get in close the white shirt looks like it's made of plastic bags. (Sorry, dudes ... that shirt still needs some work.) So for the closeup shots I put a texture on it, which hides a multitude of sins.

Which leaves one problem: in these lighting conditions, the Lee skin map looks plastic. Even when you remember to set the Lighting Model to MATTE, never mind skin, it still looks like plastic. Now, it comes with a default bump map, but with the value set to zero. I cranked this out to maximum, but the result was still plastic. So I actually set the bump map up as a displacement map ... and then cranked the value up to about 75%.

Makes quite a difference!

Jade, 24 May

***Posted by MK: my connection is currently intermittent, too slow for this.

Exotic flights of fantasy...

2024 Edit: sorry guys. All I have left is a bunch of thumbnails to give a clue as to what was going on in the original artwork. The images from 2010 have gone. These are all that's left ... for what it's worth, they just a bunch of Deep Shadow Map renders of M4 and V4 in fantasy costume. Nothing to get all that excited about now, but for me, it was all part of the learning process -- which is why I'm including the thumbnails here, more to jog my own memory than to entertain anyone else. I'll leave the text of the original post, but I'll gussie this up with a bunch of nice images from later on, which fit the same bill... 

Exotic art -- 3D, of course ... and a drama is unfolding here. Not quite sure what the story is. If I thought there were enough followers of this blog, and that they were motivated enough, I'd have a competition: tell me the story of what's going on here, and win something like a screensaver --! But I know how hard it is to get folks motivated, so I'll just post the images and let your imagination run with them.

Both these characters are designed by me. You might actually recognize the guy: it's the same "actor" who played Achilles in the posts yesterday and the day before -- I gave him a new hairdo and set him into a very, very different scene. The "digital actress" is making her debut here. If you've ever read a book called Harem, by Colin Falconer, you might think of the lead character, Hurem ... the courtesan who toppled the Ottoman Empire. I read the book eons ago, and stumbled over it again on dusty old shelves, last week.

The set it very exotic -- designed for another project. It uses two Persian carpet textures whacked onto various columns (from the Anardhaus set) and surfaces. Then, you add two walls and a ceiling from the Silence kit, plus the brass burner from the Lair. Then, Michael 4, wearing the Lee skinmap, the Mario's hair -- set blond -- and at least fleetingly, the Regency pants. And the face of Achilles, which you saw here yesterday! Then, add Victoria 4.2, almost wearing a pair of slacks to which I added a texture of my own before I made them transparent silk ... and the Night Lily jacket, also set to nearly transparent, like golden gauze, plus the "swank pumps" and the Celestial hair. And the face and bod of the courtesan, Hurem, as designed by me.

Two of the renders were passed into Gimp to be painted with smoke from the burner, then the whole series went into Serif to be cropped, bordered, signed.

Since the original art has vamoosed without trace, let me bulk this out with some pretty things from other posts, elsewhere...

Jade, 23 May - updated 17 February, 2024

Achilles and Patroclus ... the Legendary Argument

The dawn before the Myrmidons sail for Troy, Achilles meets Patroclus in the old temple ... and he implores Zeus for patience, because his young cousin (and they're kissin' cousins, come to that) is demanding to sail with the fleet and get into the fighting...

Patroclus asks the question for the thousandth time, and Achilles tells him no, yet again. "Kiddo, I'm done talking about it, all right? We're sailing in about two hours' time -- so don't bug me, and don't think I can't tan your backside, because I can."

"But why not?" Patroclus demands. "Look at me, I'm a man grown." (You know, he's dead right, if these images are anything to go by.) "Yes," said Achilles, "you're a man ... but you're not a Myrmidon, not yet. Stay home, grow up, and you can come fight with the big boys in the next war, all right?"

Which makes Patroclus implore Mars, the God of War to give him strength before he tries his hand at strangling his cousin -- which would definitely get Achilles PO'd, and could easily result in the death of a wannabe Myrmidon before Hector even knows there's any such person.

"Oh, put a sock in it, junior," says Achilles (only he says it in Ancient Greek, and it would be phrased in Homeresque dialog: "Forsooth, ye brattish whelp, curtail thy cursed whining 'fore thy much-regarded elder and better doth demonstrate that higher function for which stockings were actually designed!") ...

And when Patroclus stops for breath Achilles cuts him a deal, to get a little peace and quiet: "All right, you little twerp. You can sail with us, but you're not going to fight -- not in this war." 

"Awwww, why not?" Patroclus wheedles. 

"Because I bloody said so," says Achilles. And the argument is over ... at least for half an hour.

Seriously ... anyone who's read the Iliad or seen Troy (or both) knows this scene must have happened one Saturday night about 3200 years ago. Then, being kissin' cousins and all, they probably kissed and made up, roasted a goat, packed their bags, hustled on down to the docks (because they're out of there on the dawn tide) and ... did whatever it is Ancient Greek warrior kissing cousins did when they, uh, um, yeah. Give you three guesses. If you need three. 

For an extra 25 points, name the Myrmidon country of which Achilles is the king. (Hint: is it NOT called Myrmidia, mermaids do not come from there, and Myrmidons are not boy mermaids. And it's very hard to pronounce.)

Sorry if this post got away from me and spiralled into a Mel Brooks routine; it just came out that way. Join me tomorrow and I'll at least try to be serious. No promises, but I'll try!

Jade, 22 May

Achilles and Patroclus ... happy Post 250!

Apologies: some are just Deep Shadow Maps.
Could barely get a raytrace to save my life... 

Achilles ... statuesque, blond, brooding ... waits for Patroclus under that angel's wing Bryce sky ... and at last Patroclus shows up. Happy Post 250!

Join me tomorrow when I'll wrangle both characters in the same shots, and show a lot more of the gorgeous set you saw in yesterday's post...

(Nothing too lucid to read today, guys: I feel like death is imminent. Need tea. Need blankie and pillow. Need good book. Need world to go 'way and lemme expire in peace. Seriously -- it's some kind of sinus infection, the kind where you can make your teeth ache by waggling your eyebrow. The one where your throat feels like gravel, and you sound like Darth Vader. It should be gone in another day, but right now -- waaaah! Tea, blankie, pillow, book --!)

Jade, 21 May

***Posted by MK: my connection is intermittent, too slow for this.

The Romantic Hero ... in 3D, naturally!

2014 edit: only two of these 2010 images have survived across the years ... I'll bulk this post out with some other goodies, fro other posts, other times...

Good old Michael 4...

...and Genesis 8

The romantic hero ... right out of the 'Golden Age' movies -- which are probably way before your time, but since they've been immortalized on DVD, what they hey?! Put it this way: if you've never even heard of Errol Flynn and Stewart Granger, you don't know what you're missing! Movies from the Days of Yore might not be stuffed to busting with CG effects, but they had a charm and a sheer (!) romance that you just don't find today. Maybe because moviegoers have become too cynical? If the soundtrack's not making your ears bleed, and if the characters onscreen aren't shooting armor-piercing incendiaries, it just isn't a movie! Right?

Anyway ... here's a closeup on the Duchess's young beau, whom you saw a few posts ago (right here, if you're interested) , and I couldn't resist the temptation to use a couple of Ron's Birds -- the Photoshop brushes which work 100% perfectly in GIMP -- to gussie up the final renders. They do make a lovely difference ... that extra little layer of realism added in on top of the Bryce sky and the specially-set lights.

So here's Michael 4, [in the top two, surviving, original 2010 images] wearing the Mario skin map (with the 'tash), and the GQ Event hair, and the lower half of the Leon de Castiglia costume. It's still DM's The Lair set, but I switched out the textures for a really nice rock ... and one of the Deluxe Trees, all set against a Bryce sky, and to finish off, Ron's Birds. result: nice!

Jade, 19 May