Women

Here are some of the woman figures I've generated, which I'm adding to a new portion of the Character Set 1 asset library.

Back to work, again

 Halo: Raptor

The director reminded me of a test I said that I'd run, using Gaea to rebuild the terrain element for the service road. It should be possible; the question will be how to do it for the quickest and best results. I must confess, I've not touched Gaea since my rush to proficiency. I'm also hoping that we see Gaea 3.0 appear in the next few weeks. I'll have this test completed by the end of the week.

More Hitem3D

The daily free credits have stopped, but I've continued to generate content using Hitem3D. I took one of my heads and placed it on one of the bodies I'd created in last week's free-credits splurge.

V3 and V2.1 What a difference! Twice the resolution now, apparently.

I also started to create an asset library for the latest high-resolution figures.

I used decimation to create three variants of each figure: at 10k+, 500k+, and 1M+ resolution.

The men! I'll add the women once I've generated a couple more.

While there's a super improvement in the overall resolution, there also seems to be better accuracy. Hands are less prone to weirdness. This could be an issue with using generative AI source images vs high-resolution photographs of real people. There's room for improvement, but we're really only a year into this particular implementation. Where will we be in 5 years? Photorealistic (or near enough) output, maybe?

Blender School: Camera Rig

Extension: Add Dolly Cam (Now pre-installed by default) 

If you want to use Blender's default camera setup for anything like a real-world camera operation, you'll have your work cut out. Almost every common camera operation requires extra functions and constraints. For example, orbiting a Blender camera around a target object can be achieved by adding an empty object and parenting the camera to it. That's fine as far as it goes, but you can go straight to a fully integrated camera rig.

Add a Camera (Dolly Camera), and this is what you win...

The Dolly includes a collection of bone-system-based widgets configured with various constraints to mimic the functions of a real-world camera rig.

Given this is a bone system, you edit it using CTRL+Tab.
Or you can select the rig and go into Pose mode.

The Main Dolly Rig sits beneath the camera; move it to move the whole rig around, much like the default camera.

The Camera Offset sits immediately behind the camera. Move this as if you were placing the camera on a mount that is located away from the rig. For example, you can place the rig on a car model; they use the Camera Offset to position the camera on the side of the car, pointing back at the rig.

The Aim widget is always located in front of the camera's optics. When you move the aim widget, the camera moves to point towards it. This is really useful when you want to move the camera relative to a target.

 Hitem3D Upgraded!

I held off following through with their offer until the v3 model arrived. I'm gone for the 70% discount deal for a year on their pro account, but I absolutely must cancel or downgrade before next year, as I can't afford the full price of £350. In fact, let me create a Google Calendar reminder! 

Generated figures, old and new. Some super results!

 Blowing the dust from terrains with True Terrain 3.5 and True Sky 3. Plus an explosion cloud from my Cloud volume collection.

Boom today!

The calm before the storm

 I've returned to my part-time job, with shifts on alternate days until the start of the new term, when it will be Monday-to-Friday. What a shock! I've put on a bit of weight because I wasn't as active over the summer as I'd planned (and I was also eating too much of the wrong sort of food). I didn't maintain my resistance training due to a back injury, although I did keep up with the walking. If this morning's efforts tell me anything, it's that I will lose the weight when I start doing *that* every day. No bad thing!

I felt the need to dive into gaming for a few days. I'm not being very productive at the moment; I thought that maybe an actual gap would help -- a period of fallow before renewing my efforts on the animation project I installed XCOM 2. Oh boy! I love this game, although it's looking a bit dated now -- ten years old and still as engrossing and satisfying a turn-based strategy game as I've ever played.

Screenshot from 1st March 2016! I'd met my Waterloo, but I brought the whole team back, at least.

HitEm3D harder!

The super 3d model generator, HitEm3D, has a new super-detailed model. It's expensive to use but is currently being offered for free, presumably because nobody would try it otherwise, since it's three times the usual cost per model at the highest setting.

It's a brass bust of moi

Previous outputs pushed through the new V3 model

Added clouds/Atmosphere 2 addon ...seems stable

Grim familiarity

 The Regis apartments. Sheffield had plenty of modernist highrise flats. Eventually considered a blight on the city's skyline, these great grey monuments to concrete must have had an impact on my psyche.

This was a quick test to see what happens when I stack the main block.

Regis Appartments

 

A quick project! Another grim architectural sketch.

It started as an exercise in modernist architecture—high-density, high-rise apartments.

At this point, the plan was to have a large garden space on that roof platform. I'm unsure whether this will be replaced with something darker. It might be that the building will get a grime treatment - turning it a bit cyberpunk, again.

Stability problems

 Oh sheeeeeee-AT

Yesterday morning's stability problems came back. Render crashes on the default scene. Restart, do a few things: render completes. Do a few more things: Blender crashes.

• I removed Metalworks (again)
• I removed Atmosphere 2

The problem continued. I then took the unprecedented step of restoring the previous Nvidia driver. So far...so...<touch wood> ...good.

It's weird that Blender is actually mentioned in the latest driver's release notes, so you wouldn't expect foul goings on. This could be something specific to my setup. I could probably test the latest driver on my other system, then see if the crashes happen without installing any additional addons.

A note about Copilot's response to the error log

The AI assistant provided a detailed breakdown of the log. It was very interesting, very specific, probably not right, though. It talks about tt.render as an addon, but it doesn't have any information about it, and I don't think it is an addon. Still, it bodes well for troubleshooting in future. I mean, it can't always be wrong! 💪😆

True Sky 3 was disabled. Strange!

This morning I created a demanding environment scene. If the system was flaky, I'd expect to see crashes. Thankfully, none yet!

Partial Eclipse of the Sun

This evening (6pm-7pm) we should be able to see a partial solar eclipse (70% reduction in light). Might be cool! Might be cloudy in that spot. I'm going up to the top of the hill to watch it unfold. 

Stable table!

Some scans and new addons

 

Some Scans

Yesterday I went for a walk into Loxley, the neighbouring suburb. I didn't find the kinds of rocks I was hoping for—what few there were had plants growing around them, making a clean scan impossible. It wasn't a complete waste—I did some practice scans of various things, including an old set of stocks outside the Wadsley Jack.

Practice scans

I'm heading into the city centre today; there are a few rocky objects that are used to block car access, but mostly this job is done with very boring blocks of concrete. I'll keep practising!

Addons: Atmosphere 2

So it looks like I was wrong about being blocked from upgrading to Atmosphere 2. I think I must have accidentally tried to apply two coupons at once. This time it worked using just the 70% upgrade coupon.

Basic Sky

New Clouds

My first reaction: impressed, but not blown away. I always liked their first Physical Starlight and Atmosphere addon, although for environments I preferred True Sky 2, then True Sky 3. PSA seemed to provide crisper results, good for product renders, but True Sky did wacky things that instantly made renders pop, albeit at the cost of that crispness.

Atmosphere 2's clouds are instantly good-looking, but even though there are a lot of parameters, I wasn't seeing True Sky 3's level of control. It's early days, of course. If anything, A2's parameters are deeper and more "mathsy".

Addon: Metalworks

Metalworks looks fab! It's a really deep metal shader system for creating complex metal surfaces. The only snag right now is that it crashes whenever I try to render the results. Not a good start!

Worse than that, it is crashing renders even when Metalworks is not being applied! Only, this might be caused by a new NVIDIA driver installation. I hadn't restarted since installing last week's update. After a system restart, the crash-on-render stopped happening. 

# Blender 5.2.0, Commit date: 2026-07-13 15:20, Hash fbe6228777e7

bpy.ops.true_vault.asset_store_init()  # Operator

bpy.ops.true_vault.asset_store_fetch_page(page=1, use_offline=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.object.delete(use_global=False, confirm=False)  # Operator

Deleted 1 object(s)  # Info

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(size=2, enter_editmode=False, align='WORLD', location=(0, 0, 0), scale=(1, 1, 1))  # Operator

bpy.context.space_data.shading.type = 'RENDERED'  # Property

bpy.ops.object.light_add(type='SUN', radius=1, align='WORLD', location=(0, 0, 0), scale=(1, 1, 1))  # Operator

bpy.ops.lightwrangler.apply_custom_data_block(light_name="Sun", light_type="SUN", customization="Default")  # Operator

bpy.ops.transform.translate(value=(-6.25838, -2.8598, 1.13404), orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL', mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value=-0.854849, orient_axis='Z', orient_type='VIEW', orient_matrix=((0.805897, 0.592056, -1.49012e-08), (-0.460156, 0.626358, 0.629232), (0.37254, -0.507096, 0.777218)), orient_matrix_type='VIEW', mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.context.space_data.context = 'DATA'  # Property

bpy.context.object.data.photographer.irradiance = 3  # Property

bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value=-0.42096, orient_axis='Z', orient_type='VIEW', orient_matrix=((0.805897, 0.592056, -1.49012e-08), (-0.460156, 0.626358, 0.629232), (0.37254, -0.507096, 0.777218)), orient_matrix_type='VIEW', mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.transform.translate(value=(0, 0, 5.05358), orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL', constraint_axis=(False, False, True), mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_plane_add(size=2, enter_editmode=False, align='WORLD', location=(0, 0, 0), scale=(1, 1, 1))  # Operator

bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(-2.01375, -2.01375, -2.01375), orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL', mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(2.5325, 2.5325, 2.5325), orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL', mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(1.63292, 1.63292, 1.63292), orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL', mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.transform.translate(value=(-0, -0, -3.85117), orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL', constraint_axis=(False, False, True), mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(1.65643, 1.65643, 1.65643), orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL', mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(0.81061, 0.81061, 0.81061), orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL', mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(1.71865, 1.71865, 1.71865), orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL', mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value=0.504055, orient_axis='Z', orient_type='VIEW', orient_matrix=((0.805897, 0.592056, -1.49012e-08), (-0.460156, 0.626358, 0.629232), (0.37254, -0.507096, 0.777218)), orient_matrix_type='VIEW', mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value=1.33445, orient_axis='Z', orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL', constraint_axis=(False, False, True), mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value=-1.75908, orient_axis='Z', orient_type='VIEW', orient_matrix=((0.805897, 0.592056, -1.49012e-08), (-0.460156, 0.626358, 0.629232), (0.37254, -0.507096, 0.777218)), orient_matrix_type='VIEW', mirror=False, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False, snap=False, snap_elements={'INCREMENT'}, use_snap_project=False, snap_target='CLOSEST', use_snap_self=True, use_snap_edit=True, use_snap_nonedit=True, use_snap_selectable=False)  # Operator

bpy.ops.tt.render(use_viewport=True)  # Operator

# backtrace

Exception Record:

ExceptionCode         : EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005)

Exception Address     : 0x00007FF66E2DA0FD

Exception Module      : blender.exe

Exception Flags       : 0x00000000

Exception Parameters  : 0x2

Parameters[0] (action)  : 0x0000000000000000 (read)

Parameters[1] (address) : 0x0000000000000050

Stack trace:

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66E2DA0C0  blender::BKE_layer_eval_view_layer_indexed

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66F45EBE0  blender::deg::`anonymous namespace'::deg_task_run_func

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66E531C80  tbb::detail::d2::function_task<blender::Task>::execute

tbb12.dll           :0x00007FF8132A8C60  tbb::detail::r1::current_context

tbb12.dll           :0x00007FF8132A8C60  tbb::detail::r1::current_context

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66E531750  tbb::detail::d0::try_call_proxy<`tbb::detail::d2::task_group_base::wait'::`1'::<lambda_1> >::on_com

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66E531000  blender::TaskPool::tbb_task_pool_work_and_wait

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66F45E760  blender::deg::`anonymous namespace'::evaluate_graph_threaded_stage

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66F45E390  blender::deg::deg_evaluate_on_refresh

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66E592890  blender::deg_flush_updates_and_refresh

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66DE937B0  blender::scene_graph_update_tagged

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66E276FF0  blender::wm_event_do_depsgraph

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66E2772E0  blender::wm_event_do_refresh_wm_and_depsgraph

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66E277380  blender::wm_event_do_notifiers

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66E272280  blender::WM_main

blender.exe         :0x00007FF66DE31030  main

blender.exe         :0x00007FF672A2C0A4  __scrt_common_main_seh

KERNEL32.DLL        :0x00007FF82EEDCCA0  BaseThreadInitThunk

ntdll.dll           :0x00007FF82FDEAD40  RtlUserThreadStart

Threads:

Thread : 00000eb0

ntdll.dll           :0x00007FF82FEA03F0  NtWaitForSingleObject

KERNELBASE.dll      :0x00007FF82D5CC070  WaitForSingleObjectEx

IlmThread.dll       :0x00007FF817224920  IlmThread_3_4::Semaphore::wait

IlmThread.dll       :0x00007FF8172233C0  IlmThread_3_4::ThreadPool::setThreadProvider

IlmThread.dll       :0x00007FF817221280  IlmThread_3_4::supportsThreads

ucrtbase.dll        :0x00007FF82CF7CBE0  wcsrchr

KERNEL32.DLL        :0x00007FF82EEDCCA0  BaseThreadInitThunk

ntdll.dll           :0x00007FF82FDEAD40  RtlUserThreadStart

...snip

Start of Week

 Here we are, burning through the summer holidays. It feels like we're only just starting, when in fact we are more than halfway through. Time to roll up the sleeves and get to work. 

Last week's progress: I get a pass! I was on holiday in Europe. This week will come with high expectations. Fully rested and raring to go? Well, maybe.

Aims

Halo: Raptor

New instructions from the new Environmental art lead. I'm to return to the opening planet scene and redo it following a different artistic vision. Marvellous! Who doesn't like throwing away two months of work? Well, this is the job; it's how it works. If you are too precious about work product, you are probably not cut out for commercial film/content production. That said, the fact that they didn't think that I "knocked it out of the park" with the last run-through is not a great sign. The new directions give me concern; they are driven by a series of Midjourney frames that, in my humble opinion, are overcooked -- like much of Midjourney's output. They are eye-poppingly attractive, but it just looks like gloss over substance: a striking image that doesn't support looking too closely at the details.

Training

Where to start? So much to cover. I feel like I need revision on everything, but I need to start somewhere. I'll draw up a priority list. It could be that I focus on environmental design because of the project, although I would like to get back to basics for some stuff. 

I have a ton of addons that I have not yet touched. I need to install them, read up on use and give them some practice.

I need to build a good camera rig. Souternshotty does a great tutorial on his setup. I will follow that again.

Physical Addons has their Atmosphere 2. It looks like a shameless copy of TrueVFX's True Sky3. I don't make such comments lightly, but given that Atmosphere 2 includes an Earth model that supports planetary atmospheres, rather than making that functionality part of their PCO: Planets addon, seems rather twisted. All said, I will be picking up a copy after the current sale -- which seems weird but its because the sale offers a small discount, but I can get a big discount as an owner of their first version, only during Superhive sales; you can't choose the bigger discount, it's the sale discount or nothing, until the end of the sale.

Sell something!

I'm looking at putting a package of scanned objects together and selling them really cheap. Rocks, mostly. I need to process the scans:

1. Make the objects watertight -- most need a bottom.
2. Extract the texture maps from the object and store them in a consistent file structure.
3. Turn them into assets and create an asset library. I may need to read up on the best way to do this so that when shared it works as expected.

Plan B will be a series of planet maps, created from an improved workflow that comes out of next week's Halo project work.

It seems like the new lead thinks my textures were not crisp enough. That was feedback on my 32k x 16k master file!! Planets are really big; when you start getting close in, you need monster-sized files. I'm already using files that are an order of magnitude larger than most of the production team because I have a workstation-class machine to work on.

I see pixelation! More resolution!!!

I see a 21k x 10k planet map. Oh, that's pretty big. Smaller filesize!!!

Rocks from France

 

On holiday I scanned some road-side rocks. They turned out nicely!

I scan using my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra running Polycam. The results are really good, considering this is just a phone, not a specialist scanner.

Normal Service Resumes

 We just got back from our summer holiday. Wonderful, then stressful and frustrating because our car broke down on the two-day trip back to Calais. Still, it was an amazing trip. We spent most of our time in the Vosges mountains in Alsace, with a travel route that included stays in Belgium and Germany. 

Civilian Radar Station on the highest peak of the Vosges mountains (Le Grande Ballon)

Driving onto a train is weird

Ypres museum diorama. Good dioramas are ace!

So, normal Blender service should resume in a day or two.