The test pieces in this video were printed in a contex 310 3d printer. Each model is just under an inch tall and comprised of at least 200 printed layers. The process involves printing a bonding solution onto a thin layer of powder about 0.09mm thick.
The test run turned out pretty great, Although these were scaled down to less that 20% of their intended modeled size to make printing quicker they still had lots of detail. The printer has a build plate just short of the size of an A4 sheet and can print models up to 11 inches tall, so you can imagine how big the models can be. I will grab some footage of it actually printing next week.
Due to holidays and such, the blog has been too quiet of recent so I thought I would share an illustration I completed this Sunday. The image depicts a mighty fist emerging from the downward spiral of a symbolic cityscape.
I deliberately made the cityscape very plain to strengthen that sense of emotionlessness. Cold cement blocks that stretch to the distant horizon.
The hand was drawn from a photograph I took of my own clentched fist. I took the photo into Illustrator and used the Pen Tool to create my vector art. The cityscape was made by extruding a matrix in Cinema 4D, I then used the Magnet Tool to pull the mesh downward from the centre, creating a very abstract shape.
I brought both elements into Photoshop and created a few gradient overlays to help merge the images. I didn’t want to overstyle the text, so I opted for a thick, dirty looking font which would hold its own over the difficult contast of the cityscape. The choice of font also echoes urban decay and rebellion.
I remember the weekend I purchased FPS Creator v1 very well. I spent many hours fiddling with the script system and trying to make a convincing urban setting. To me FPS Creator always felt very “open”, giving you the tools to experiment with your own logic scripts and behaviours.
People’s expectations were high, a steady flow of feature requests mounted as users wanted to act upon the inspiration they draw from modern releases.
Fast forward to the present and FPS Creator v1.17 is released. Don’t let the rather meagre version number fool you, this 70.6 MB update offers a huge list of updates. Bloom, particle decals and new “Dark AI” are but a few of the features that are now free to owners of FPS Creator.
FPS Creator 1.17 - Example of bloom and particle effects
Having made the jump to version 1.17 from a very old version, I think the difference is staggering. Of course it’s not just the new features and visuals that have benefited, the general stability and speed of the program seems to have been improved upon as well.
If you pushed FPS Creator aside due to previous frustrations, I urge you to reinstall, download the latest update and give it another whirl. I certainly believe you’ll be surprised at the new tricks this powerful games engine can produce, and who can argue at a £32.99 price tag ?
So I’ve recently purchased the upgrade edition of InDesign CS5. A feature I am definitely having fun with is the new Animation and Timing panels, finally it seems that Flash has fallen into the hands of the designer once more.
I loved Flash back in the days of ActionScript 2. Where button actions were simple to create and a slideshow could be generated with only a few trials and errors. When ActionScript 3 arrived I was blown away by how strict and formal the language had become, instead of writing a basic onClick() action I had to “register an event listener”. I’m not complaining though, Flash was making a natural progression to cater more for developers and those wishing to create more than a gimmicky slideshow.
Now it seems that Flash is forming a staple part of InDesign, the animation above was solely created in InDesign. Interactive elements are also easy to implement (e.g. click on the 8-bit Chris in the above animation). Many hard core InDesign fans have expressed a dislike for this move into interactive animation, InDesign has always been associated with design for print. Personally, I’m very excited at the prospect of creating an animated PDF magazine or being able to quickly produce a flashy banner advert. Cheers Adobe.
I recently purchased a rather nice macro lens from Graham for my Nikon D60, I’ve always wanted to take some extreme close ups and detailed shots of smaller objects. This lens certainly gave me the ability to fulfil my wish.
After attaching the lens I found myself looking at a blurry watch on the table, despite turning the lens clockwise and anticlockwise I couldn’t seem to get a focus. I took a step forward and suddenly… Woah! The watch was crystal clear and dominated the whole of my view finder. I realised the significance of distance between the camera and subject and how shallow the depth of field was through the view finder.
Through using a tripod and reducing the aperture size I was able to gain a more wide spread focus, I was soon getting to grips with it. Now I find myself looking around the house for anything to photograph.
Pocket watch
With the pocket watch photograph above, I was amazed at the contrast of focus which can be obtained over a few centimeters. This photograph is begging to have a column of text placed over the blurry right hand side.
More contrast in focus is seen in the below photograph, as modelled here by everyone’s favourite videogame hero, Duke Nukem.
Duke Nukem action figure
And lastly I want to demonstrate how even objects that share a relatively similar distance from the lens can also be pin pointed and brought into focus, leaving their neighbouring objects blurry:
A row of pencils
I love this lens, I find myself analysing the most mundane objects, wondering how I can bring them to life in a photograph! My next ambition is to photograph some insect life… Well, it doesn’t have to be alive does it? I wonder where I left that rolled up newspaper ?
Well it’s not exactly isometric, but close enough. I have been working on this illustration over the past few days now, I wanted to create a fictional city map depicting the locations of various important buildings.
Although the area in the final image covers only a few roads, I was still able to subdivide the map into various sections such as residential, commercial and industrial. My primary aim before selecting this perspective was to find the quickest method of creating and placing a series of prefabs, I also needed to recolour duplicate building to save time. Adopting a drawing style which relied on the Adobe Illustrator grid proved the best method.
Creating the map in 3D would have opened up many doors in terms of lightning, materials and atmosphere but I felt that they would distract away from the original concept of being a “plan” as opposed to a photographic piece. What would have been a real advantage with creating this piece in 3D would be ending up with a series of prefab buildings to use for various other projects, then again the time it would take to create these buildings in 3D would take considerably longer than their 2D, vector counterparts.
All what remains is to decorate the roads and streets with the finer details and smaller objects, then it will be onto the next project!
The graphic design world has seen many trends come and go over the years, more recently was the emergence of the Web 2.0 bug, which caused a tidal wave of glassy/shine effects, gradients and rounded edges. A look which I believe was kicked off (and used with great success) by the Apple products and their brandings. I can remember printed items for a wide range of products adopting various clean/plasticy/glassy looks, many of which worked well and many which looked forced and unnecessary.
It seems that currently we’re going through a phase of textures, hand drawn illustration and messy doodles, a fight back from the clinical efficiency of the Web 2.0 rage. Thankfully I’m very fond of this style, I would say that textures in printed products are one of my personal trends, something of a comfort I can fall on.
Although graphic design trends provide a safety net when a rush job knocks on your door, they can become problematic for a project with a healthy time frame. For example, when your client has been “inspired” by something they have seen on the Internet and wish to move their project in the direction of such trends, despite your original idea being meaningful and well thought out.
You also have to consider the skill level of each trend, for example the reason the recent Web 2.0 trend received a bad reputation was because the effects used to create the look were easily achievable using a few native filters in the Adobe Creative Suite, the downside here as that they can prove too tempting and are subsequently abused. In contrast, something illustrated, hand-drawn or scanned would take a considerable amount of time and would look much more original and specialised.
Despite the current trend of hand-drawn items being something I’m happy with, my client would much rather appreciate an idea I’ve natured from brainstorms and sketch work, something taylor made which aims to attack the client’s brief at all angles! If that idea can include items from this year’s fashionable filters list, then *Kerching*!
The point of this little blog entry? My little tip of the day, make sure you control a trend’s influence in your artwork, and not the other way around Well, that’s my work ethic anyway!
Riding upon the “success” of Super Air Thunder Racket Go Go I have begun working on my latest animation dubbed the Halo Killer. It will be a small spoof of a videogame television advert, advertising the soon to be released Space Kill Man game made using the FPS Creator. I’m using Poser and my aging Cinema 4D for the 3D elements. Photoshop and Genetica will provide the textures and touch ups. I’m trying to work as quickly as possible becasue self motivated projects like this can eat away at your free time too easily. I’ll keep you posted
I meant to post 6 months ago but like the blog, I’ve been dead. I found this great little program for drawing. Painting random shapes is a great way to get ideas. It’s free and it’s recommended by me for anyone that does character designs.
Well, that’s my work ethic anyway!
