A Foggy start

 A fog hangs in the air. The morning wears a drab cloak of biting cold. I know because I had to pop out to get food items for my eldest son's food-tech lesson. I do wish he'd remember to ask for these things sooner—not the night before he needs them!

Asking him to be better organised feels like travelling back in time to tell my younger self the same thing,  no doubt with equally disappointing results.

Start of Week (SOW)

Last week I kept the Medium Rig build going consistently. I often find the transition from Large to Medium scale troublesome because a model isn't in a great state. I need to do more "squint tests" to evaluate composition and layout before starting on the medium, then the small details.

I got almost nothing done on the Halo: Raptor terrain work.

Almost no training!

This week

I must make progress this week. I think Brannon is expecting a surface treatment, but I have a couple more stages to complete on the mesh. The cliff treatment still needs some testing and experimentation to see if I can apply outcroppings.

Medium Rig Crit 2

We're not too far off. I really want to do a good job with the materials, so the model gets much of its small detail from the surface treatment. Those Hitem3D cargo cans lead the way; they have small details at the right scale, but I won't apply that detail density to the rest of the vehicle—it would be far too cluttered.

I don't want to do too much to the aft section, just break up some of thse blank spaces, just a bit.

A final step will be to finish the detailing on the MFI rig. It should be quite uniform, but I'll add more plating, radiator panels and wiring in the inside surface.

Test shots!

I added some post-effects to see how the design looks. Not bad! It certainly looks a bit less synthetic. The lighting is extreme, and the final renders will be a bit less blown out and distorted, but it's not bad for three minutes' work on an unfinished model.

Training

Complete an existing course. Maybe a terrain/landscape-based one. 

I should do a refresher on things I will need for the terrain work, such as Nature Generator and or Geo-Scatter.

Saturdaylia

 Between sessions on the medium rig build, I took time to install and investigate some assets I purchased a while ago.

First up are the citybuilder assets from a large bundle. They were really cheap, but overall, they look very dated, and I wouldn't use them as hero assets. That said, pretty good!

Hong Kong assets

Deralict city 

Future city

Soviet City

The work on the Medium Rig went reasonably well. I even tried to build a drone using Hitem3D.

Nice, although not a good match for the Canto Bright right now.

The drone is not to scale!

The dangers...

 Early start. Awake from 4am. Up just after 5am.

Started back on the Medium Rig earlier than I usually would. I don't feel drousy, just a bit dopey -- that is more dopey than usual. This mental fuzz resulted in a perceived weird issue.

1. I created a plate object for the command module, instead of disrupting the command module itself. This creates another object to track, but it means that you don't mess up the existing object.

2. But when I render the scene, the plate changes position. This mismatch between the viewport and the final render is really worrying. I've seen it before with things like terrains and scatters.

I checked the usual causes: mostly modifiers like displacement that aren't uniform between the viewport and the final render. I could not find the cause! This is Blender 5.3! Damn it! Buggy Blender 5.3!
<narrator: It wasn't a bug; it was a user error>

I'd created a copy of the command module without thinking and turned the original model off (but only in the viewport). I'd then moved the new version slightly before creating the plate object. So now, when I rendered the results, the copy of the module that was invisible in the viewport made it look like the new plate object was moving; it wasn't. Dong!

Things I learned today: Check the basics, especially for object copies that are not uniformly enabled in the viewport.

I am setting a deadline of Sunday evening to complete the build. I must get back to terrain work for Raptor next week.

Did I mention Blender 5.3?

A day later than expected, the Blender 5.3 release candidate dropped, sporting a new splash screen. 

So far, so good. I imported my 5.3 settings and haven't encountered any real issues. I expect many addons will get updates over the next couple of weeks as changes to core technologies, such as node 

behaviour or underlying Python code, require them.

Progress

More details!

Medium Rig: Clean-up and Middle Details

 First, a World Creator 3 update release ...and an early release of World Creator 4.

The latest version of WC3 seems to work nicely

World Creator 4

<Sharp intake of breath> It's node-based! Is this the developers admitting that Gaea has won the terrain-generation war with its long-established node system? It feels like this is the case. I feel completely at home with World Creator, so it's a bit painful to see the new UI and feel like it's a massive wheel reinvention. That said, I purchased another year of support—although apparently they were giving everyone this for free.  

World Creator 4 (early access) Gaea-light?!...very early days

Medium Rig

Crit guidance from last week

The focus is on cleaning up the model, getting it better organised, then, expanding on the mid-level details.

Progress!

Cleaner, but it still needs a few more trims and details, here and there.

So far, so good. Later today, I'm moving on to the "mission module".

ArcBrush

On the subject of node-based tools, I downloaded ArcBrush, an image editor that is ...as my might have guessed, full node-based. I need to get to grips with this cool-looking tool. I am mostly interested in its apparent support for native UV painting.

Addons spree, just like old times

I bought some addons! I used to regularly buy a bunch of shiny Blender addons that either provided assets or tools. I found that too often I was buying something because it looked cool, was quite cheap, but I didn't actually need. So I stopped buying stuff. In fact, I bought two bundles that included lots of tools that I didn't even bother installing. I should go back and take a look at those.

So what did I buy?

Mechify (See it on Superhive)

This geonodes-based tool converts a base mesh into various flavours of mech-styled tech. It's very nice, but a great little tool for breaking objects up into shiny, plate-covered machines.

Astronaut from Hitem3D turned into a weird mech person with one click

There are so many parameters! So many options!

This isn't a tool I'll use often, but it wasn't expensive, and there will be plenty of places where I can turn a simple mesh into something that looks complex and cool.

I might make some notes on all those parameters, just to force me to invest the time to understand what they do.

Sci-Fi Building Generator (See it on Superhive)

This is the same kind of thing as Mechify, only it generates a particular style of science fiction structure.

Again, this is a niche thing, just a bit of fun. I will use it to support my own modelling efforts, not stop me from making my own stuff. It's really gratifying to produce really cool structures with a few seconds of effort. Like with Mechify, the secret is to master the parameters so you can create distinctive assets that don't immediately shout that you just added default-based creation to your scene.

UltraCloud (See on Superhive)

At $15, this was the only addon that wasn't really inexpensive. It's a cloud generator/shader system. It's nice to have a system where you can turn a low-poly base mesh into a highly realistic cloud. I look forward to creating interesting cloudscapes, although this doesn't magically make clouds quick to render, and you'll note in my first test render that I'm getting artefacts in the upper cloud area.

UltraCloud - First example after 30 seconds.

Start of Week, Start of November

 Start Of Week

Last week I did some good work on terrain sculpting, pushing the Halo: Raptor work slightly forward. I need to continue with the work this week.

I also continued with the personal project/Orbital Elements vehicle/Commerical Product effort with the Medium Rig (hold on, didn't it begin as a light rig?). 

This week, I will focus on completing the Medium Rig. My worry is the CG artist's adage: Completing 90% of a design leaves about 90% of the work time remaining. Polishing and tweaking takes much longer than laying the foundations.

Last week, I completely failed to do any training. I look back over the last few weeks, maybe a few months and see a big motivation and creativity leak happening for ... reasons. I think that things have improved since the half-term break, but we'll need to see how this term pans out.

I have been a lot busier with busy work; more frequent grocery shopping, more food prep, more cooking, and more house chores. It's all good, except it has cost creative time.

November Plans

Along with weekly plans, let's try monthly plans (SOM). 

Halo: Raptor. Complete the Terrain effort so that by the end of this week I have a solid base mesh to tweak and polish. The aim has been to create a complete service road model that can be chopped up and turned into the individual scene elements. That suddenly sounds like a tall order!

Orbital Elements: I'm aiming to write an hour per day. I am just not managing that. I will not beat myself up about the failure. Thank you, Aimee McNee, for that advice!

I need to develop my terrain creation skills outside of True Terrain; it doesn't look like Richard or Zach can get much done on a new version. No fix seems to be coming soon. <wipes tears away> 
To do this, I will complete a hefty course and go back to complete or repeat courses I already have.

Clean up time

Next run: tidy up all the mid-level details. Next run: Tiny details.

Orbital Elements: Medium Rig, full steam ahead!

 It's only gone and become November. Crikey!

This morning I put more care into mashing the Shamrayev Engine section into the Canto. Note the inclusion of the engine section's forward assembly, beefing out the aft section of the Canto. Suddenly the MFI ring is back in its centre-line position. 

At this point, I think it's time to declare the overall form complete and start sweating the details.

Orbital Elements: Medium Rig Crit time

 It's time to get this Medium Rig finished. It's been crawling this week, but it needs to be whizzing toward the finish line; otherwise... well, you know what happens in ADHD land: abandonment sadness.

It's been a long time since I did a proper review of an ongoing design; here goes!

Crit it!

Overall, I like the general layout. Mike Ward, a much-respected illustration tutor, told us to do a squint test for things like a piece's composition. It can work on a design's overall shape. I like the silhouette; it's probably what this boils down to. 

I don't want to break that, but I need to make sure the surface details are more consistent. The recycled Heavy Rig docking section doesn't quite match up, so I'll make sure that the forward sections and the command section to its rear have the same style and scale of panelling.

I've used the orange superstructure frame to try to tie things together, but there are elements that are not in sympathy with the overall design. The wide orange band at the front is just a paint colour, not an indicator of a structural element.  Change the colour, maybe? If so, where else might paint panels break up flow and yet compliment the yellow structure?

The read of the command section and the propulsion sections will be details areas. Not nurnies! I want these details to be really specific and functional. The propulsion system looks like a jet engine, with piping and conformal components. The Command Sections details will be more like externally mounted systems and stores. Maybe some repair drones?}

The hab module should have a few windows. They'll help establish scale. Possibly an airlock here and there.

Find a way to connect the orange bracings/structural elements with the  central frame that supports the MFI ring.

The MFI needs to look like its made of small complex things -- forward field-induction panels. Cables from the central area connect to the inductor plates. At the rear are radiators.

The shield held me back. I looked at earlier rad shields and the only one that looks right is the one on the Shamrayev.

The Shamrayev is a larger vehicle. Maybe heavier than a rig. Design rules will be a bit different.

Although this design predates the introduction of the MFI ring, I can see how one could be slipped into the propulsion vanes -- suddenly these look like oversized radiators. Maybe I need bigger radiators. It's a thought!

Fly-past days, weeks and...whoosh, here goes October

 Raptor Progress

Slow but steady. All the terrain-sculpting fun has gone into developing the service road cliffs. I'm happy with the progress! 

Cliff section sculpt

This element is really big, about 16 million polygons. Really, this is a miracle of Blender 5, which always seems to laugh off polycounts, at least until it crashes. On the subject of crashing, I've been getting a lot, but all on the older machine. This could be CPU erosion, and I need to start limiting more cores. We'll keep an eye on that. I use the secondary (4090) machine for sculpting because it has my Wacom tablet attached and all my lovely rock-sculpting brushes installed.

Quick test on instancing

Take the giant terrain element and create instances, then arrange them into a big scene that doesn't swallow all your system memory thanks to instancing!

Camera view

Yes, you can see the repeated elements, but this is a test. In anger, you could add more clutter to help hide repeating patterns.

Other stuff

This felt a bit Blender-schooly, so I didn't do any additional training. I will at the weekend. I wanted to collect some notes on the recent phone-camera addon. It's time I created something worth showing.

Other other stuff

The Medium Rig started to gather dust, so I jumped back on it yesterday.

The model is in serious need of a clean-up, but I am holding off until I complete the first pass on all the elements. Later today, I will complete the propulsion section and add a comms array, possibly on some clusters attached to the MFI ring. Some of the details need improving. I really want to do a better-than-usual job of the materials.

More sculpted terrains

 

I've been practising terrain sculpting on my secondary machine because it has a tablet/stylus and its Blender installation includes my VDM (Vector Displacement Map) brushes.

Base sculpting on a super-dense mesh

Base sculpt + VDM brush work

Ground-level view

Test Canyon with normal-based masking between two materials

Sunday Playtime

 Tomorrow, we're off to visit Clara's father, so today I dodged housework by playing with Blender. It was nice to mess around. I discovered and purchased a really interesting addon:

Camera Controller Plus (Bought on Gumroad)

Use a compatible smartphone as a camera controller. It's perfect for replicating natural handheld camera videos. It's probably pretty good for more formal camera control, but I need to investigate further.

It wasn't too hard to set up, although I get crashes when I try it on a more involved scene with a large terrain mesh and True Sky 3. 

Installation and calibration

Example video

Test scene that got too complicated

Hand-sculpted terrain