City Street

I'm sloooowly moving forward with the rendering of the trike in an urban environment, but that means making an urban environment for it to be in. Ive had to learn a lot about texture mapping and baking to get the effects I want.

I've put far more detail into some of the objects in the scene than I'll ever need, especially the textures for things like the fire hydrant and mailbox. And far more actual modeling in the street lamp. And some of the object scales are off. And of course it needs more light, badly. It looks like twilight at the moment. I'll probably fix that using the compositor nodes when it's all said and done.

Still, it's been fun. Next step is to link this whole scene into the trike file to and add the motion and then render. And hopefully I'll find ways to re-use the elements so it won't feel like they were wasted effort.

The Zoo

Rub his belly for luck!

Went to the North Carolina Zoo this weekend, to celebrate Kerri's birthday. The weather was perfect, and the animals were cooperatively active. Followed by dinner at Elizabeth's.

Strata Studio Pro versus Blender

I've been using Strata 3D CX for nearly twenty years now, and I'm very familiar with it's strengths and foibles. And for what I have been doing (creating renderings of tradeshow display ideas to get clients interested) it is a marvelous tool. The interface is designed so someone coming from an Adobe background can start working relatively quickly, like holding down the spacebar to pan around the view, or option-spacebar to zoom. But as I got deeper into modeling, specifically modeling organic shapes with textures, I noticed there were things it didn't do. And some of those things are pretty crucial, like UV mapping of textures. Also the animation controls were unreliable for things like skeleton based mesh deformations. They just added a UV mapping feature, but it is lacking. Previously their advice had been to use Wings, another free program. But that's how I started using Blender.

Strata added Lua scripting, but there hasn't been a monumental surge of scripts being written for it, and little by way of documentation.

Blender, on the other hand, has very little documentation beyond things put out by third parties. The sheer number of tutorials is gratifying, though it does make want to speak in an Australian accent when I work in Blender.

There is no real polish in Blender. It's like getting a car that doesn't have body panels, and the stereo has to be installed by the owner. Setting up materials can be a challenge, and I still have no idea how some things work.

Strata rendering is both more accurate and faster than in Blender, but there's limited ways to share 3D data with a general audience. Their one tool in that regard is poorly documented and in my experience it is buggy.

I will continue using both, but I'm leaning more and more towards Blender.

Refinements

Working some more with Blender, refining the body of the trike for the rendering. Not sure about the background photo, I might have to go with something a little more urban.
The nice thing about Blender is it makes certain things very easy. Using the Solidify modifier to add thickness makes the entire process very simple.
Now if I can just figure out the Constraints for animation, I might just get somewhere.

Illustration in the age of Photoshop

I find myself sitting astradle the digital divide, with most of my illustration skills learned before computers took over the field. I've learned to impose those abilities on the digital tools, but I've always felt a disconnect from the work. I've used a Wacom tablet for years as a way to get some of that feeling back but with limited success. I've drooled over the Cintiq screen tablets, but they are so very pricey. Nothing beats the instant on, micro-resolution, instant feedback of paper and pen.

Mobility

I'm trying out the new mobile blogger software on my iPhone. So far it's doing pretty well. I really like the autocorrect feature so far, though it has a notorious reputation as an agent of chaos in the realm of communication.

Nothing gets around the basic fact that typing on an iDevice is sub-optimal. I can type fairly fast when I get in a groove for it, but on the phone, I have to take twice as long to get the words out.

Maybe that's a good thing. It makes for less 'stream-of-conscious' style writing.

I've also been trying out ways to access my mac from somewhere else, for instance using my laptop to access the computer that has quickbooks, so I can post invoices from any room in the house, etc. And now I've used Teamviewer to control my main desktop from my phone. Difficult, but possible.

At this point, I can definitely see that 'portable' interfaces can be used to supplement desktop computing, but it is a far cry from replacing them.

Leaves changing color

It feels like we just got over the super-hot days, and already I'm seeing leaves change color. North Carolina hasn't been hit too bad with drought this summer, certainly not like the mid-west. It just seems like a bit of a leap.

I'm not sure I want to be raking leaves this soon.

Confidentiality

I've been looking back through a lot of work I've been doing and I've realized a lot of it is under a seal of confidentiality. That's really kind of annoying, since some of my better work can't be made public for a certain amount of time.

But on the other hand, it encourages me to do my own projects, like the trike renderings. I've always had a tendency to go my own way with things, anyway. Now I have a handy justification.

Further with Blender

I've been using spare moments to build the skeleton of the trike model, and prepare it for animation. This is a screenshot of the left half of the rear suspension. I've just figured out how to animate the wires using Hooks, so they bend when things move.

As with a number of things in Blender, it seems simple in retrospect, but there are so many features in the program that it's easy to get lost.

If it weren't for the freely available tutorials online, I would have given up on the program long ago. Now my familiarity with it is starting to get to a usable level. I'm wondering if I should make a tutorial on the model, give back to the community. Well, let me finish the animation I'm working on first.

SketchUp Space Station

Going over recent projects, I've come across a number of pieces that I think might be worth bringing up here.

This illustration was done for Hero Games for their book "Star Hero". The station was modeled in Google SketchUp. I exported the model as a 2D image with nothing but lines, then with nothing but shading, then with nothing but shadows, and composited them in Photoshop, along with a whole bunch of special effects. The planet was pure photoshop, using some distort and liquify filters, as well as a photo of some ground texture.

Frankly I've been fascinated by the explosion of free and open source software (SketchUp is free, Blender is free and open source). I haven't tried Gimp, but since Photoshop is still pretty much the standard, I'll probably stick with that for a while.

Test animation

This is actually a little old at this point, but I thought I'd throw this up there. I've mentioned before about playing around with Blender 3D, and this is a test animation I did to see if I could get a client interested. I had redrawn the logo that you can see on the spray can, and thought they might want to see it actually 'come to life'. So far no nibbles. You can see it a little larger by looking at it on YouTube.

All your database are belonging to us

There's a very different sort of project I've been working on fairly steadily for about a year, on and off. I haven't brought it up here or really spoken about it much at all because I figured it had very little to do with design, but I've changed my mind on that score: it represents design on a number of levels: interface, printed output, and work-process.

It's a database for a client who manufactures a gazillion little plastic parts. The database started as a way for me to stay organized when laying out their catalog. Then I realized that with Filemaker I could use the database to generate PDF files of the catalog information, put it in some InDesign formatting, and be done with it. The next time the catalog came out, all I'd have to do is modify the database, re-output, and there you go. I even gave them the database so they could update it themselves, and from there it started to grow in complexity and function. Now it is used in providing quotes, costing for parts, phone orders, etc., and they are going to roll it out to a web based store.

I'm mentioning all of this for two reasons: It's my primary project right now, and it illustrates one of my favorite types of client relationships, the slow build. It starts with a simple organizational method for one small project and branched out into so much more. It allows me to become very familiar with the business of the client, so I can make better decisions and recommendations for them. It also lets me look like something of a miracle worker when I can make the computer do a lot of the figuring and complex relationship tracking that was driving them up a wall.

I've used Filemaker to help run my business for years, tracking time, materials, and invoicing. I'm very fluent and comfortable with it, but it never really occurred to me to sell that skill set, and yet it is what is keeping gas in the tank as I write this. If lessons are to be learned from it, it is don't be afraid to try new things, and play to your own strengths.

The client is very happy with the work I've done, and they keep asking for me to make the database do more things, which is a godsend in this tight economy. And lastly it meets one of my favorite definitions of good design: It all seems obvious in retrospect.

There's an App for that

I have an iPhone, and an iPad, and I like them very much. I just got back from the first business trip I've ever been on without a laptop; I used the iPad and iPhone instead. There was only one thing I couldn't do during the trip, and I might have been able to, but I didn't know how. Anyway, my point is: the new wave of iOS devices are making an impact in how I do business, surf the web, read books, watch Netflix, etc.

One of the apps I downloaded on my phone was the Fly Delta app, which lets you check in to your flight, check status, including gate changes, on the fly. You can even use the screen of your phone as the scannable boarding pass. One thing it doesn't have is maps of airports, so if you wanted to see how close Gate A4 and Gate T61 are, you're out of luck. But no problem, I can get those on the web for the most part. And of course it only works for Delta flights.

There seems to be apps for just about everything, and I'm beginning to wonder if that's a dangerous trend. The one thing I didn't do, for example, because I didn't have an app for it: that doesn't make sense. You shouldn't need apps for every little thing. Apps are small and focussed, but that focus may be too insulating. It makes the entire experience more of a 'black box' than it should be.

You probably won't see too many 'big' apps. I think Bento might be the leading edge of apps where you control how you work. It's a database app from Filemaker that allows you to define the fields of your database, and how those fields collect data, from the iOS device. I use it to track expenses and time for projects. Every other app doesn't give you that flexibility - you can't modify the workflow that they present.

I'm not a big expert on apps, I own maybe three dozen or so. But they consistently feel like very closed environments, compared to a desktop, and until more start opening up like Bento, I'm not sure how well they will ever replace laptops.

New website for Argos

I've made a new website for Argos Designs. It's very graphics heavy, but that's kind of what I make my living with, so, what else is new. I may rearrange it a little, put all the work pages together under one subhead or something like that. I'm still not sure if I want an 'About' page or a specific 'Contact' page. We'll see.

I will probably move it over from the .net address where it is now (my 'test site') to the .com site by this weekend.

Recent work

I've been trying my hand at Blender and this is a test render. It's a little dark and the model is far from finished. I'm trying also to figure out some rigging to make it an animatable model, to show the vehicle moving and banking in turns, doors opening, that sort of thing.

Texture wise there are a lot of missing details, obviously, so I need to decide when it's actually finished.

I've also uploaded an animation to YouTube, but I'm not sure why the colors look so weird.

(Edit 8-9-11) I've re-uploaded that animation, now the colors work.

Old job, new tricks

You know, while I've been working on the Argos website, I've been thinking: Gee, there's a lot of good stuff we've worked on over the years, where can I put that so people can find it.

Well the website is one obvious choice, but this blog is underused as well, and there are links back and forth. I'm thinking I should put some of the other projects that didn't quite make it to the main slideshows of the web page and put them here.

Like this one, which is a map for Northgate mall. It was a backlit display about 4 feet across with removeable text areas for updating listings. For several years I had to drive out to Northgate something like twice a year to update them. I think they're doing it all in house now, or have moved to digital displays.

I've been playing around with a Template program for CMS called Artisteer that seems like a cool investment. This is a thumbnail of my first attempt. I can tell it's going to need a lot of work - the layout is too busy, and of course it's got the word TRIAL watermarked all over it.

I think I'm going to go ahead and get the software. It's cheaper than figuring out CSS and XHTML, or hiring someone who already knows it.

One thing is for sure - it will pave the way for a lot of really crappy graphic design, the same way desktop publishing in the eighties opened up printing to people who should probably not be doing layouts.