Learnt a lot during this speedy, about using different brushes and colours..
Painting a little more recently.

speed painting :)..
Here is my first in a series of 'speed' painting to try and improve my digital painting.

Sorted

Ok guys,
Finally!, I have sorted the mental ray artifacts problem, It was to do with my sss shader interfering with other parms etc.. Anyway.. Here is the latest updating on the milk..
hope you enjoy.

Caustic Test:

Another cuastic test, Which is running along side a grape test. So using the same mesh.
Render time of 2 minutes.
Results are acceptable.

Milk shader test:

ok guys, starting tonight with the milk tests. then i'll flip for improvements on the glass later on.
render test was at 1 minute, not too bad. Looking very yellow due to the environment, I think i'll either change the env. slightly. not so yellow tined. or i'll work on the materiel a lot more..
Here is the first tist.. Looking mighty odd and not like 'fresh' milk just yet ;)

Caustic Update :

Caustics New Update :

Ok guys, I changed the material, which drestically changed the caustics.. this one is MR_psy_phne, so should be more accurate than the lume,

Caustic Smoothed Update:

Update with some cuastic tests with a new model, to try if the geom causes problems ,
They dont look accurate to me, like something is blocking it at the start.

Caustic update,
Adding a new pic from my cuastic tests,
they look mighty strange to me, maybe becuase of the geometry, So i'm going to try some other tests on it. let me know what you think.

update!



Ok , well here is the start of the cuastic tests,
we are looking at the Caustic photons per sample at 10
Average per light 15,000.

More photons needed.

The glass is a mental ray shader with glass LUME in there, and a photon basic shader to control the shadows etc.. Should provide an accurate result I hope.

The main problme i see so far is the bottom and center of the glass.

Added the Glass scratch bump map.
More prominent on the top and the bottom of course, becuase of the way it would wear.



Not overly visible in this image, but it's there and it will make the difference later on in the image, I promise : ).

Ok guys, updating!

Here's the start of my latest project:
It's a shader investigation, A glass of ice cold milk..

Now we all know milk can be a bitch to make, SSS is pretty much vital for realism, and the complexity of the surface makes it very very diffulcult.

I've started by deconstructing what i can find in milk images and the key qualities that it shows.

To start off the test. I'll make the milk glass that will hold our liquidy substance. I'm going for as high level of realism as possible, so i'm using layers of scratches and thumb prints, etc ...on the texture and other maps for the glass. Modeling in a couple of nicks in the glass around the top.

Hi guys,

So i began sculpting a new character, a somewhat ripped anatomically 'correct', miner. So complete with mining helmet, and dirty mining clothes, shover, I think you get the picture.

The guy is taking shape slowly, a few too many polies needing cleaning up, the muscles all need refining, the 'abs', muscles by the biceps need better entry points defined.

Overall the process has taken 6-7 hours so far. 3 of those hours spend twiddling with about 10 verts in a vain attempt to produce good topology, while so tired I could barely move my mouse. A good nights sleep is so productive!

Ok more updates later on when I start a mini project.

Hi guys,
Thanks for stopping by my new blog, Blogging about sculpting, CG in general, and life with cg overtones. So grab a cup of tea, some digestive biscuits and put your feet up.
Starting with my latest purchase, a Sony Vaio Notebook. Seeing as i'm going to have more time to myself soon, that inevitabely means more time for sculpting and general improvement of my skillset. The beauty has a 15.4" screen , which while a little small is no problem for now, while my 25 widescreen dell sits on the shelf waiting to be sold and picked up by a happy little me.

Purchasing silo aswell, and soon XSI. I'll be delving into the world of rendering, sculpting and lighting. Learning XSI's in built compositing software, and mental ray at a more advanced level. So if you want to check on my progress, bookmark this page, and check back for updates each day.

Currently work is going well, Hitting my deadlines and working along hard, it's fantastic to work every day modeling and texturing to a high, strict accuracy level, Really teaches you to be disciplined in your projects and i'm learning a lot every day.

So persuaded by my good friend Kfc into thinking this would be a good idea, I have started this blog to update people interested in my tests/sculpts/work and progress with personal projects. hope you enjoy it and stick around!.
J