1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200
1920x1200

■13. Scene Modeling Study - "Future City"

Date: 12/3/08

Software: Blender, then retouched in Photoshop

Features used: Polygon Square/Sphere/Cylinder, NURBS Sphere/Cylinder, Polygon Booleans, Extrude Face, Hypershade, Direction Light, Ambient Light

Ramblings: I slowly worked on this one the past couple months. I felt compelled to model futuristic-looking buildings. This is my best work yet by modeling with only shapes (still haven't pioneered into custom textures). The detail is extensive - look closely at each building.

1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200
1920x1200

■12. Blender Study - "Temple on Water"

Date: 4/8/08

Software: Blender, then retouched in Photoshop

Features used: Mesh Square/Sphere/Cylinder, Extrude, Materials, Texture Clouds, Spot Lamp, Booleans

Ramblings: Wow, with this project I learned a hell of a lot with Blender. In my first impression of Blender I said it was frustrating to do simple things like navigating the camera and scaling/rotating/moving objects. Well, I found out more keyboard shortcuts to make those simple tasks almost as easy as Maya! So I'm falling more in love with Blender now. I was in the mood to construct something with water around it, so I created this temple. It took over a week to make. I heavily used "Extrude" for the columns and floors/roofs. The cloudy sky was added in Photoshop. I feel very accomplished with this project; I learned so much about Blender. I'm particularly proud of the water lilies because it's my first organic model in Blender. I have a zoomed-in shot toward the right if you want to see them close up. I purposely kept the water lilies under low polygons (the edges are pointy) to save up on CPU usage.

1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200
1920x1200

■11. Scene Modeling Study - "Torch Eyes"

Date: 1/6/08

Software: Maya

Features used: Polygon Square/Sphere/Cylinder, NURBS Sphere/Cylinder, Polygon Booleans, Extrude Face, Hypershade, Point Light, Ambient Light

Ramblings: This is actually something I made for my Shining Force subsite. I somewhat recreated the Runefaust Castle battle in 3D for a wallpaper. It took maybe... around 3-4 hours to make. And then it took like 12 hours to render because I put in a lot of lights! You can see how many lights I include if you check out my workspace (click the thumbnail toward the right). I like how the reflection in the orbs came out. And this is my first Maya project where I dared to use custom textures. Or more specifically, a "UV texture map". Mastering UV texture maps is the key to making realistic professional-looking 3D.

1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200
1920x1200

■12. Blender Study - "Crystal Ball"

Date: 12/27/07

Software: Blender, then retouched in Photoshop

Features used: Mesh Square/Sphere/Cylinder/Torus, Extrude, Materials, Texture Noise, Texture Wood, Texture Image, Spot Lamp, Area Lamp

Ramblings: This is my first creation in Blender. I was bored at work and wanted to try it out. This Crystal Ball scene is just to test out Blender. For my first project I think I did pretty good. I love the light effect in the globe. That's just a simple light in the middle of the crystal ball. And because the crystal is transparent is what's causing the glow to show through. Click the thumbnail toward the right to view this scene in Blender's workspace.

^ WMV clip, 14.9 MB, 02:09

Reflection insert (8/1/07): It's been two years since I've been working with Maya. By looking at the progression of my work, I believe I've improved nicely with detail and lighting. I still have a ways to go. I still need to pioneer into texture maps (i.e. custom textures) and character/object animation. Once I master that I'll be all set!

In celebration and remembrance of my works of 3D art, I animated a camera through several of my 3D models below and put together a short movie. Check it out! Click the thumbnail toward the left to download. The song used is "Terra" from Final Fantasy 9.

1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200
1920x1200

■11. Object Modeling Study - "Cauldron"

Date: 7/9/07

Software: Maya

Features used: Polygon Square/Sphere/Cylinder, NURBS Sphere/Torus, CV Curve Tool, Polygon Booleans, Extrude Face, Extrude Surface, Revolve, Paint Effects, Hypershade, Point Light, Ambient Light

Ramblings: I put this one together fairly quickly. I made it as a last minute addition for the 'reflection insert' movie. I just felt like adding something evil. I forgot how to make smoke (lol, woops) for the cauldron, so I improvised with smoke generated by paint effects. Paint effects lets you 'draw' objects in a 3D scene; stuff like plants, fire, hair, clouds, etc. So yeah, I got some good practice with the Paint Effects feature.

1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200
1920x1200

■10. Scene Modeling Study - "Floating Island"

Date: 7/9/07

Software: Maya, then retouched in Photoshop

Features used: Polygon Square/Sphere/Cylinder, CV Curve Tool, Polygon Booleans, Extrude Face, Extrude Surface, Loft, Fill Hole, Glow, Paint Effects, Hypershade, Point Light, Ambient Light

Ramblings: I wanted to do something more hardcore. This is a floating island. It's levitation is powered by the crystals in the center. It took around two weeks to finish this (little by little). Maybe you can tell by now that I have a thing for columns. Columns are sexy. I didn't learn anything particular in this study since I'm pretty much still using the features I always use. I should've pioneered into texture maps. Eh, I'll jump into that eventually.

1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200
1920x1200

■9. Scene Modeling Study - "Wishing Pool"

Date: 5/28/07

Software: Maya

Features used: Polygon Square/Cylinder, CV Curve Tool, Polygon Booleans, Extrude Face, Revolve, Hypershade, Point Light, Ambient Light

Ramblings: This is another warm up. I felt like creating something magical. My interest in fantasy has me fascinated with ancient temples and such. It took around 3 or 4 hours to finish. I learned some interesting things about lighting. I found out how to enable light rays, halo, and lens flare. And how to turn a light into a light ball. I have a snapshot of my workspace here ->

^ WMV clip, 4.94 MB, 44 sec

^ normal pic         ^ raytrace pic

1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200
1920x1200

■8. Architecture Modeling Study - "Tomb"

Date: 8/14/06

Software: Maya

Features used: NURBS Sphere/Cone, Polygon Cube/Cylinder/Sphere, Polygon Booleans, CV Curve Tool, Loft, Point Light, Ambient Light, Hyershade, Revolve, Extrude Face, Fill Hole, Camera

Ramblings: I was in the mood to model something with detail and would be easy to construct. The answer to such a desire is simple - make a building with polygons! I started by sculpting the pillar. The top palm-like part was the most challenging to model since it's an organic shape. Then I copied/pasted the completed column tons of times to build up the two floors. The center dome was easy, I made it through heavy use of polygon booleans. I was so proud of the finished product that I decided to make a movie clip tour of it. Here's my first movie clip (861 KB, 13 sec). That clip made me realize I needed more. I created a coffin (er, originally I intended this to be just a simple ol' temple) and added lights and shadows. Those shadows were a bitch to render! Geez, my final movie clip took around 8 hours to render! The raytraced image took around 3-5 hours to render. I don't like the raytraced image. :P My tomb is better without the reflections.

■7. Scene Modeling Study - "Cave"

Date: 8/01/06

Software: Maya

Features used: NURBS Sphere/Cone, Polygon Sphere, Polygon Booleans, Glow, CV Curve Tool, Loft, Point Light, Hyershade

Ramblings: I consider this is a warm-up to help resurface my Maya skillz. The ground is a simple result of Loft. I used bump mapping on all the textures to make everything more bumpy. Oh hey, want to see my Maya workspace with this scene!? Yes, I know you do. Click on thumbnail toward the right. Those tiny suns are lights. Notice each bundle of crystals has a light directly above it. Notice the side lights I pointed out. That's creating three-point lighting! Sexy, eh? Lastly, I want to stress again that this is a warm-up. Don't think these simple creatures are the limit of my 3D modeling abilities!

^ WMV clip, 1.51 MB, 20 sec

■6. Object Modeling Study - "Cell Phone"

Date: 7/23/06 (11/05)

Software: Maya

Features used: ?

Ramblings: Many months ago I left this 'unfinished' and forgot about it. I really don't remember what features I used with it and such. I opened its file recently and thought "Oh hey! I remember this thang. Well it looks pretty complete to me now. I think I'll post it." I do remember that I mainly modeled this with polygons (polygons are easiest), which would explain why some of the rounded edges aren't so rounded. Wow, it's been a long while since I've made any 3D stuff. I've been in a 3D mood lately so I intend to start again.

■5. Scene Modeling Study - "Dolls"

Date: 8/10/05

Software: Maya

Features used: NURBS Sphere/Torus, Insert Isoparm, Convert NURBS to Polys, Merge Vertexes, Booleans Union, Extrude Face, Extrude Curve, Spot Light, Point Light, Hypershade

Ramblings: Check out this sexy beast! This creation was inspired by the second episode of the Vampire Princess Miyu OVA. This is the first time I've experimented with fog and light decay (light as it fades into a distance). I created the doll with the same method as with 'generic beast'. Since I'm only familiar with Maya's basics, putting the dolls in the scene I had to manually position each part of each doll. It took forever to do that, but I held in there because this piece was coming out so great and I really wanted to finish it. I know Maya has features that allow you to easily position a figure, but they're rather complicated and I have yet to fully explore them. I brought this image into Photoshop and added some more darkness to the upper corners to make it look a bit more dramatic. Overall, I'm very satisfied with this piece.

■4. Creature Modeling Study - "Generic Beast!"

Date: 8/5/05

Software: Maya

Features used: NURBS Sphere/Cylinder/Cone, Convert NURBS to Polys, Merge Vertexes, Split Polygon, Booleans Union, Mirror Geometry, Convert Polys to Subdiv

Ramblings: I downloaded some Maya modeling videos and produced this piece with the techniques I learned. With this study I learned of the benefits with starting with NURBS, then converting to polygons to add detail, then converting to subdivisions for rendering. I wish I could've added more detail to it, but Maya kept on crashing on me when I tried. I especially wanted to add more muscle detail. I suppose models like this are the most Maya can do for me with the computer I have, or some other unforeseen problem.

■3. Object Modeling Study - "Chandelier"

Date: 8/4/05

Software: Maya

Features used: CV Curve Tool, Two Point Circular Arc, Revolve, Extrude Curve, NURBS Sphere/Cylinder/Torus, Hypershade, Point Light, Ambient Light

Ramblings: (laughs egotistically) Heheh. ^_^ My Maya skills are increasing fast! What amazes me is that this great piece was put together with some pretty basic Maya features. I wonder what I'll be capable of once I get past the basics! It scares me. XD I learned a great deal in this study. I'm more fond of the curve and revolve tools, and the importance of grouping. The only thing I had trouble with was the lighting. I couldn't get the light from the candles to glow right. I ended up doing something weird to pull off what I wanted. I surrounded each candle fire with four point lights, then I put an ambient light in the middle above the base.

■2. Scene Modeling Study - "Cube Room"

Date: 8/4/05

Software: Maya

Features used: Polygon Cube, Extrude Face, Extrude Edge, Hypershade, Area Light, Directional Light

Ramblings: I love how this one came out! ^_^ It's just a bunch of cubes resized to all sorts of shapes and sizes. I learned some important things about vector modeling when I created those passageway openings.

■1. Object Modeling Study - "Mask"

Date: 8/2/05

Software: Maya

Features used: Polygon Sphere, Subdivide, Smooth, Mirror Geometry, Hypershade, Area Light, Directional Light

Ramblings: My very first artistic Maya creation! I learned a lot with this study. I'm more familiar with methods on how I can better create realistic detail.