The Good News

So life has been quite jam packed for me the past week or so...

On the same day as my rejection from the Calgary Board, I received a job working with a young boy with disabilities. Having now met with the family a few times we've got things ironed out so that I will be working with him every evening this last month of school, and than during the days in the summer.

Lady R is the best girlfriend ever, and bought me a new computer! Given its vastly superior performance over my old one (it renders in Carrara about 6-8 times faster!!!), and DAZ having a sale for the brand new Carrara 8 I broke down and picked that up relatively cheap (it was 50% off) new version of Carrara (finally!)...

So things are finally starting to pick up.

I've been too busy sorting stuff out for my new job (I have a pretty full on program to learn and set up), to sit down with the new Carrara and play much. Also most of its new features are pretty intense, and I'll need to sit down with the manual to get the hang of them. More to the point not having a physical copy of the manual I'll need to go to a print shop and get the PDF printed. However being 750 pages this is going to have to wait a little while!

I have plugged some of my "old" Dinosaurs into the new program, and no problems thus far. A few environmental factors didn't make the cross over for some reason, which is a bit annoying. In particular my water's caustic effects and tree bark shaders didn't get saved in the model files, and thus were left on the old machine. It is not the end of the world, it just means I have to manual copy them over to the new machine and tell my 3D models where to find them...

I've been toying with my "top secret" ART Evolved project while working on my job stuff. As I'm currently just trying to make the river work it is just a matter of adjusting the shaders and rendering. Given that the new machine renders the whole scene in 20 minutes this is making progress much faster (on the old machine this scene with plants and such would take over an hour!).
This was were I started on the new machine. It is a slight step back as, again, I lost all my tree bark in the cross over to the new puter.

While I liked the baseline of the water effects, the details were all wrong. The splashes were too defined, the colour of the mist and water were not working, and the whole thing seemed artificial.

Tweaking the water colour and reflection I started to sort of step in the right direction, only the colour was too bright. Now my Rex was standing in a river of Cool-Aid OH YEAH!

A key factor to water is its reflective nature. I'd only had its reflection up to 50%, so I cranked it up to 90% while darkening the colour and got something much better for the river. At the same time I made my splashes more transparent which removed the orb like nature of the water droplets, but the splashes weren't big enough and still not quite right on the colour scale.

Expanding the splashes and lightening the colours I likes the size of the splashes, but not the brightness.

Darkening down the splashes and their mist I arrived here. I like this, and think I'm done on the water front.

I also decided I didn't like the red colour scheme of the T-Rex sticking out from the environment so much. A T-Rex doesn't strike me as the sort of animal that wants to stand out. So I applied the Larry colouration to the model, and like how it subtly blends in with the background. Though I need to tweak the feather colouration as they currently disappear all together.

Next I just need to fix the riverbank (which also lost its texture map), the tree bark, and play with Carrara 8's new tree systems that should let me add dead leaves to the trees and play with some other settings to get way more realistic looking plants!

I am alive, but I can't say that for everyone else :(

It's been a little while since I last posted something on here. So before people start worrying, I am in fact still alive.

I am still unemployed. We're hitting an epic (personal) record in failed job applications. In this week alone (2 days so far) I've had 6 rejections. Though I'm slightly hopefully about Septemeber, two school boards have acknowledged receiving my applications.

My car died on the weekend. It still hasn't been repaired, which restricts my movements a bit. "Fortunately", the modern job market is one of pure online applications, in person visits and phone calls to places are forbidden!

Topping off everything my grandmother passed away yesterday. This is sad, but was not unexpected. She was 101, and had a really good run. Still just one more thing to add to the not happy pile.

To fight off depression and my slowly (but steadily) lowering self esteem, I've dove into a number of art projects.
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You get a preview of this one:
It's my feathered Tyrannosaur. Only now I'm posing her.

Not just in a random pose. She needs to match this skeleton precisely. Why is a secret for now, all I'll tell you is that it is for a big joint project on ART Evolved.

With my T-Rex matching the skeleton closely, I decided I need to make somewhere for her to live. This is my progress with a Cretaceous landscape over the course of the last week+.

First I tried a generic forest. I didn't like this on a number of levels. I'm sure had I played with the tree density it would have gotten better. However I had a different idea...

Since my Rex lined up perfectly with the skeleton everywhere BUT the legs (in particular the feet) I decided to cover this up. With what else but water!

I also wanted the mountain range I'd put in the background to be visible.

Well okay, the trees covered up the mountains. Something I still have to fix, but there is room for them.

However yet again the trees were to few. My ginko trees leaves are too bright, and look plastic now (which is annoying as they are textured with a macro photo of a ginko leaf I took in New Zealand!!!). I also found the riverbank colour to be too cartoony. The biggest problem of all was the ground was too sparse.

Okay getting closer. Most of the elements are now present, it is just a matter of tweaking them.

There needs to be splashes at her feet, and I've already constructed these. I just need to add them (which might be a pain in the neck!). I also want to add some horsetail in the water.

I'm also vowing here to start getting some Traumador posts up (it is just so hard when I'm down. Traum is the embodiment of my happiness, and at moment he is starving. Poor guy. So I'm going to force myself to "Traumitize", and get some posts up darn it!).

Leader of the Pack

Moving right along on the my revamp efforts...

This lovely lady got her Mark 5 upgrade, and some new feathers (there is a HUGE Traum event coming right after the Dinosaur Olympics... where those with feathers will be calling the shots)

As for the Dinosaur Olympics I promise to get cranking on those this week. Blame the terrible job economy for the delays though. Reworking textures is lovely brainless work after a day banging my head on the table. Writing fun and happy Traum posts is not really on the menu when I'm in a half dazed semi-depressed state all the time.

Rex is back Alright!

Just taking a quick break from pouring over a treasure trove worth of jobs with the City of Calgary... I've kind of given up on teaching this skool year. So I'm regrouping for applying for next year, and trying to peg down a summer job.

The whole process of job hunting has been sapping my will to blog... At least the writing end of it.

My art on the other hand has been benefiting. At least in easy tasks.

One fellow I'd left hanging for a little while has been the Mark 5 Tyrannosaur. I'd left him nearly complete at the end of February here.

He now has all the bells and whistles that Mark 5 construction will allow. Though T-Rex may very well be a likely test subject for Mark 6, when I finally have time to sit down and play with vertex modelling.

To wrap up this incarnation of the T-Rex model (as he'll always be updated as my techniques get better and better) he is the evolution of the current model. I doubt I'll be building another from scratch anytime soon.

Live Blogging: Okay not so live...

Due to the precious and limited nature of the time we had/have available, I opted to not post anymore on my progress from last night. The sacrifice was worth it I'd venture (especially as not many of you would have been as foolish as us and still awake into the early morning).

Here is where Mr. Rex ended up.

Key improvements include:

• New and improved leg to hip connection
• Way better toes
• Refined claws
• A total overhaul of the arms/hands
• Experimental lips (not sure how I like these yet...)

There are a few things that still need work. I have to put all the lip scales back, and maybe a few new little details.

JUST before I went to bed in the wee hours of the night I threw together a quick skeletal rig to test pose him.

I think he is starting to look pretty sweet already. Though I need to fix the foot area of the rig. Still not bad for a 10 minute stab at it.

So I present to you the Bond/Dylke hybrid 3D Tyrannosaur!

Live Blogging: Melding of Greats

Righto, I've been working on the T-Rex's head since the last post.


Peter found my photoshop comparison technique rather interesting in person. He'll probably be popping on here or his blog with his take on this shortly.


All I have to say is multiple layers and transparencies are your best friend when comparing works.

This is where I started.

This is where I'm currently at.

So I need to get the details like lip scales and teeth back onto the head.

I'm also toren as to whether go with the new age concept of Theropod lips covering up the teeth.

Live Blog: Time to get Serious

So it was a little touch and go at the beginning of the hour. We were up against the "Pants of Doom" after all.


Fortunately we Canadians had a secret weapon in our arsenal. Mukmuk the official mascot sidekick...

With him cheering on our team, how could we fail?

Okay so I get a little manic and silly when facing Curling stress, but my Mukmuk action figure needed a breakout.

Anyways he did the trick, and we won the Curling 6-3! I'll give Norway credit on a great game. They certainly had me stressed out in End 7!

Now the only big stressful sports event left on the agenda is the men's Ice Hockey game. I'm seriously worried about Canada's chances... but here's hoping.

So while I was wasting a good chunk of the afternoon on Curling, Peter was working hard.

(Okay, and in my defense I did a bit of work on upgrading the texture)

He cranked out an awesome Tyrannosaur in an hour in a half. So power on him.

So here is the design sketch I'm going to TRY and match in 3D. Peter will have the "fun" task of supervising and motivating me on this effort.

Wish us luck!

A Joint Project

After an intense month of Olympics (and work for Peter), me and Bond have finally managed to sit down to do one of dozens of potential joint projects.

Today's we've decided to have Bond supervise one of my 3D projects. He often wants me to include many tweaks and details into my models, that while in theory would be awesome, my 3Ding skills and techniques are incapable of. Through this project I'm hoping to educate him on what I can and can not do.


Our subject, the most iconic. Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Say good bye to this version, the Mark 3 edition, of the Rex. We're hoping to get him up to at least a Mark 5. We might even push the boundaries of my work to Mark 6... but one thing at a time.
So prepare for a special edition live blogging event!

We are currently an hour in. Peter is busy working off references and creating his definitive T-Rex from which I shall attempt to work off.

We'll keep you posted how this goes throughout the afternoon.

I in the meantime am unbelievably in suspense over the Gold Medal Men's Curling match. It is Canada vs. "The Pants of Doom" Norway (I'll try to find you a picture of these pants... a true example of psychological warfare!).

So far Canada is winning 5-3 midway through the 9th end (out of 10), but I just can't trust anyone wearing pants like those. This game isn't over yet folks.

Need Canada to win if I'm to calm down...