Z4 Spotlight test

This was something I worked on last week to test out ZBrush4's new 'Spotlight' feature. More images can be seen here.

Modeled entirely in Sculptris [which is FREEEEE] and textured using Z4 Spotlight. So now there are quite a few ways to go about texturing in Zbrush - Projection Master, Polypainting, ZappLink, etc.

Cool thing about Spotlight is that it combines the best of all of those together into a single tool

• there's no longer a need to keep switching between apps
• reference images can be loaded directly into ZBrush
• free viewing of the model without the need to project from a single angle
• hue, saturation, opacity, contrast, etc. ->all can be done on the fly
• texture generation is so easy -> tiled UV layouts have no seam problems

..and so on and so on. There's just so many things about Spotlight which takes the stress out of texturing work. Check it out when you can.

Tracking Experiment

Azman, Nadia and I are working on a VFX short, so there's definitely a lot of tracking work ahead for us.

I was trying to think of a practical method of tracking everything that :

• didn't rely on auto-tracking [too many points, accuracy is suspect + too hard to make precise corrections]
• doesn't require a whole lot of measuring work for survey data [too tiring and prone to errors if measurements don't match up]
• doesn't depend too much on different perpendicular planes to define spatial dimensions [limits the locations/settings that we plan to shoot in]
• uses tracking points from whatever's already in the scene [no need for manual tracking markers, minimizing painting and post-work to cover them up]
  

After a night of experimenting, a little trigonometry, and a little help from Nadia, I think I've managed to come up with a low-tech solution that might work. Here's our first test. A bit shaky [the measurements were done very carelessly], but I think we proved the technique works.

Insight3D - Open Source Image-Based Modelling Tool

Continuing my obsession with interesting free stuff...

insight3d lets you create 3D models from photographs. You give it a series of photos of a real scene (e.g., of a building), it automatically matches them and then calculates positions in space from which each photo has been taken (plus camera’s optical parameters) along with a 3D pointcloud of the scene. You can then use insight3d’s modeling tools to create textured polygonal model.

If this works as well as it says it does [I haven't tried it out yet], it could prove really useful in collecting survey data for tracking purposes really really quick... we could totally skip the process of measuring everything in detail.

More info and download links HERE and online tutorial HERE

Kreatif 2010 Program Schedule

It's out!

Short Film - Sintel

Something worth sharing. Funded by donations, and created through FREE software [Blender]. You can read more about it here and watch the full HD version on Youtube.

Calling All Aspiring Artists and Painters

Maybank is organizing a painting competition for young contemporary artists and painters aged 18-35 years old. All you have to do is submit a 2D artwork of your artistic interpretations of 'Expressions of the Malayan Tiger'.

More info on this here.

Competition ends Oct 29th 2010. Miracle of time needed.

Kudos to Roze, a friend of mine and fellow artist, for sharing this info.

Film Fests

Two film fests to look forward to this Friday and weekend.

Films on 8. Organized by the Junior Chamber Society (JCI) Taylor's University. They look forward to have a weekly film fest every Friday nights and decided to start off with French films.

Venue: University Square, Taylor's Lakeside Campus, Sunway
Date / Time: Oct 22nd 2010, 1930 - 2200
Fee: RM5 per person or RM8 per pair.

More info on this here.

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And to those who perhaps prefer an unconventional or different approach to film-making.

The first Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film and Video Festival 2010 (KLEX 2010) starts this Friday (Oct 22nd - Oct 24th 2010) at The Annexe Gallery, KL and a night event at the HELP University College on Monday (Oct 25th 2010).

More info on this on their Facebook and their blog.