Starting to learn MapZone

Hi, a friend of mine showed me a program a couple of months ago which is called MapZone where you can create your own textures. This is a very good thing for me as I need to create my own for my 3D work but I never actually took time to learn it (didn't need any textures). But today I sat down and started to play around with the program and I see that it has lots of potential.
It is a procedural workflow, meaning you can go back in "time"/history and change things to get other results (the 3D application Houdini 9 also has a procedural workflow). This kind of workflow is very powerful.

Today I just learned the program and made a texture from a tutorial. Not much to show really as it is from a tutorial, but I wanted to do that anyway.
But the best thing is that MapZone is free too. That's some awesome stuff right there.
Well now, I'm gonna go back to eating my Ramen and chill while looking at some video tutorials where they create other textures from scratch.

PS. I'll give you these textures if you want to use them, they are not super high quality but if you can use them for anything that's great. I don't need any credit either as this was from a tutorial, I don't consider stuff like that genuine. Plus, I don't even know if I did everything correctly as the tutorial got a bit sketchy at the end.
I'll add a normal map too.

This is a lock appliance I'm doing for a friend (don't know if it's ready yet). He gave me specific measurements (down to the millimeter, even halves of millimeters) and I modeled it out in Maya. He had measurements up to 50-60mm and that was too big for the standard grid size, so I took everything and divided it by 2. Then I could divide the grid if I wanted and have the specific units, as well as the Channel Box would display the correct numbers.
Took one whole night to model this thing out, then I just tweaked some edges and the overall wireflow. Later on, after getting some sleep, I slapped on a silver shader and rendered out with Mental Ray.

However, it doesn't end there. I rendered out two images, one grainy and one clean, then I comped and tweaked them in Photoshop. Lastly I took wireframe shots and comped them into the shots as well.

Nexuiz Flag Concepts

I've created some concepts for the flags for the open source game Nexuiz. It's for the game mode 'Capture the Flag' of course. Whether these get chosen or not I do not know (probably not), other people have submitted their concepts and there is a quite good one.
The blue flag is a base concept by a guy with the nickname 'tZork' on the Alientrap forums (Alientrap is the team working with Nexuiz, and tZork is one of the devs). I just added some detail and other touches to it.
This is a work in progress (not so much to submit the concept, but more because I want to make a real model out of this).

So here are my concepts:

Another attempt at head

So I have started with a new head from scratch as the topology might not have been the best. This head I'm trying to get as good topology as possible with minimum amount of detail. It's still a work in progress of course.

New head

I've been experimenting with topologization and as a result I also got a new face. Well, I wanted to create a new face as the older one wasn't even near good enough. This one also isn't good enough yet but it's a work in progress. Also, I merged several views into one as that saves both upload space here and less images to click on. Instead you see everything at once.

Merged head and body

So, now I merged the head and body for the model and this is the progress so far. I've tweaked a little the upper body and have yet to take a closer look at the arms and of course the lower body. The head is probably the last thing I'm going to take care of but we'll see what I feel like doing when I do it.

Updated the head - Part 2

After posting this head on some forums and followed some crits I got I continued to shape it. There's some problem areas still, like the eyebrows, possibly gonna change the jaw shape and some other areas needs to be tweaked.

Updated the head

Here's new pictures of the work in progress head for my model. Sorry it took so long to post anything, but I've been busy with other stuff.

Started on first chars head.

I've been now working a bit on the head of the first char (named Kenshou) and this is the result. I do not have any clear idea of how he's going to look like and I have no references, so I've been experimenting with different looks.
Any comments and critiques are welcome, however I already know what needs to be done as this is far from finished. Just some work in progress, but it can't hurt to have some critiques in case there's something I don't see.

Project | Eto.101 - Not as much time

I've come to the hard decision that project Eto.101 will from now on get less time. The reason is that I need to create a new good portfolio/reel piece, and that takes more priority for now. Also, the paint effects that I have for the trees takes up tremendous of memory from my computer and makes everything act funny. Sometimes I don't even have enough memory left to save the file, so until I get more that project would have been a slow production anyway.
I will continue to work on that project when time permits so it won't be at a complete halt, just gonna go slower.

For now I will post images of as how far I've come, enjoy.

Final modeling for sequence 1- Port and Gate Area


Scene 4 vegetation

Started planning the vegetation

I've been modeling a lot and almost finished the entire environment and props, minus the vegetation for Sequence 1. I've decided that I will do the vegetation separately as it will take more planning on how I will create it. I need trees, flowers, grass and other stuff all around the place.
As of this moment I'm trying paint effects (from Visor) in Maya to see if they have anything I can use, and I'm trying out shadowing and texture quality. As I'm going to use a lot of trees I don't really want to model out every single one, only those that will need more attention for closeups and such. So far, it's looking good for the paint effects, but I think I'll model out a simple base mesh for a couple of trees then add detail to it in ZBrush, perhaps create normal maps for them.

For now enjoy these pictures:

Project | Eto.101

I'm really happy that I can dedicate more time for the Eto.101 project as it's something that's fun to do and the more it progress the more motivated I get.

I'm gonna cut to the chase and post some images along with a previz camera movement.
I actually finished the entire scene 4 before even starting with scene 1 (didn't have a plan at the start of the project). But now I'm gonna do stuff chronologically.





And here's a link to the camera previz: Click me

Ramble

So, I've been busy busy for the last couple of weeks. But that's not the reason why I haven't posted anything here. It's because I'm rather confused and out there. Anyway, I've started something called "Models of the Month" where I do one model each day for the month. However, I picked a bad month in doing those as I don't have time to model one extra independent model each day unless it's rather simple.
Too busy and too much other things going on.
HOWEVER, so as a compromise for not continuing the Models of the Month thingie I've decided to give ADP and Project Eto.101 more time and dedication.

As a side note, I've gone back to Fedora now and going with Linux. I just need to get my programs working with Linux so that I can be here 100%.

As a last thing, if you wanna take a look at some of the models I've made you'd need to go to my portfolio site as I don't have time nor actually have any of the models on this Linux distro/computer. I've actually signed up for a domain name for the portfolio site so the URL is simpler.
www.kuroto-robert.net

The actual models are in the 'Finished Projects - Single 3D Models' area. Enjoy.

PS. I also included those models on my 3D Buzz blog (www.3dbuzz.com).

Long time no update

So yeah. I've been busy like crazy with creating my portfolio site while holding my own against the ADP class AND running my company. There are some things that I need figuring out, like if I should continue to use this blog for updates what's been going on or if I should create my own now on the portfolio site. The thing is that blogger already has some awesome features which I do NOT want to create by myself.
Meaning that if I do create a blog of some sort, it will be very simple without many features. And maybe just maybe in the future I will develop that blog to include whatever I need.

But I'll see what I come up with and till such time where I have time to continue write, cause right now I'm quite busy and my fingers are rather stale making typing hard, and I hit the wrong buttons all the time.

So first thing first, breakfast! Then I'll come back with an answer or just ramble.

In the meantime, check out the portfolio site and if you have any comments, critiques and such feel free to email me or respond on the forum.
Thanks.

Link to portfolio site: http://www.origionstudios.com/portfolio/kuroto