Common Sense... Why Haven't I Been Using It?!?

A new week, a new set of things to do. First and foremost has become the Traumador script. I'm leaving in just over 11 weeks now, and so I need to make sure to crank out all the photos necessary.

I've also got another week of "special operations" to conduct for work. It has been fun so far, and despite weather being a major set back on Friday, the kids are still pretty into the whole thing. Let's hope it holds out till Thursday!

Making this week somewhat different from any other this year, is at the end of it me and Lady R are going away for the weekend. As in going away to a far away destination and not coming back till next week. A proper vacation. Something we haven't taken since our outing to Sydney at the beginning of the year. I am very primed about this, as it is to my last large unexplored NZ frontier the west coast. More about this once I've been.

On the side of all this I have nearly finished modelling the Brachiosaurus. Meaning we're coming up to that exciting phase in 3D known as shading...

Shading and texturing have become an aspect of my artistic process that I haven't been changing or improving on much. It hasn't been since my first photoshop break through in early 2008 that I have changed the overall process (other than working more gradients into the colour scheme).

My lack of progress in shading has become a hindrance to my 3D making further leaps and bounds forward. Meaning it is time I address this limitation.

Sadly researching other great 3Ders' techniques, I've discovered I'm in need of an in-3D painting software. Something I can not currently afford right now. Not to give up though, there is at least one last improvement to my 2D based texture maps I can try.

I haven't gotten there yet, but with this mornings quick side project I will be able to.

I needed to find out how my program was going to distort or warp any 2D texture map applied to a 3D object. For this you need to "sector" check. My old system seen here above (based on the colourful pattern you posted above this picture) while somewhat informative was not overly precise. For my Brachiosaurus (whose long skinny neck and tail pronounce the distortion of the 2D pattern) I need to know exactly what will be happening and where.

Fortunately my recent discussions with David Baas have opened up a number of common sense solutions to these issues. Why I'd never thought of them before is beyond me... but that's why I started ART Evolved, to gather people who could help me out :P

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What my sector checking system was missing was a precise measurement method. As my cheap rip off of photoshop doesn't have easy to make grid tools, I'd never thought of spending the time to make one in the early days... I was all into easy quick solutions (ie. lazy), but as I've been learning to make great Dinos you need to invest in them!

So I spent half an hour throwing together this sector checker this morning. I can't claim the credit for the idea though, I basically ripped off David's system from his WIP Plateosaurus.

Applied to my Brachiosaurus I've now got a pretty good idea of what textures are going to do on him. The slight forward shift on the bottom part of the neck may cause some headaches, but we'll see. It might yet be conquerable.

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So next time you see him I should hopefully have started on some texturing work.