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.

End of Term

 It's the final week. My final day is next Monday, but the boys will end their school year at lunchtime on Friday. 

My sister, Tracy and her youngest child have been visiting, so I've mostly put down tools and spent time with them. They're off to spend some time in the Peak District, so I will be catching up over the week.

High Bradfield on Sunday

Start of Week

Last week was not very productive. No progress made on Halo: Raptor. There was a warning from the director that we needed to create some quick-turnaround previs environments to meet the needs of mocap capture that will be happening soon. I've not received any new work requests yet. I'll soldier on with the shot002 work.

Personal project

Monorail system. Quick and fun. Happy with the results, so far. I need to finish the rail system and build a cab.

On a whim, I decided that the cab would be more sci-fi than on Chiba's actual monorail system.

Blender 5.2

The shenanigans with crashing to the desktop after installing a bunch of add-ons really threw me off my stride. I have held back on installing any more addons. I'll possibly wait until tomorrow's official release, with a final batch of bug fixes, before having another go.

Personal Project: Monorail over terrain

I need a rail transport system to give my recent terrain scene a focal point. Easy enough! I started looking at Japan's monorail systems.
                                              

Photo by Kazuya IRE (https://www.flickr.com/photos/sujitetsu/)

Poles

Cableator-generated rail system

Railings on the rail system

Time to get back to work

 

I feel like I have put one foot through the doorway into the Gaea terrain creation. Its node-based system and impressive selection of erosion systems make it a preferred choice for complex terrain. Not in every single case, but in general.

Spot art for a Facebook group I belong to:

True Sky 3 and some old models

Start of Week 

Last week's aims:
Complete Gabe's challenge - tick! I conceded and moved on to the next aim: learn Gaea. That's another tick! Also, refresh my Random Flow skills. Tick!

This week

• Re-engage with the Halo: Raptor scene 002 work. There's a conversation happening with the env team.
• Take another look at Random Flow -- there's a new major release out. I'd better get it installed and take a look.
• I desperately need to complete a small project. A fully-fledged but simple-ish scene.

Time flies

 I've failed to post anything this week. It's a minor failure because I have been getting some work done.

There's the development of the terrain for the Halo project. Slow progress, to be sure, but a few more foothills here and there should help make the service road area look more realistic. Can't show it. NDA!

Personal stuff

I find myself going out with a camera and actually taking photographs, which I then actually process and show off. "Looks like photography is back on the menu, boys!"

PHM

I walked away from this little effort because I wasn't quite getting the engine-root. Then I noticed that the official reference was, in fact, an early concept sketch, which is inconsistent with the production version anyway. All the brilliant models I've referenced go their own way. So, I'm not going to sweat the accuracy, I'll stay true to the design but have some fun with the details.

Too much detail, too soon? You have to start somewhere. Plus, BMS is a bit less important when you already have the design roadmap.

A quick play before bed

Boolean some spaces within a cube. Create some holes and doors. Spend time proving that your concrete material doesn't work here. Fall back on the brilliant Materialiq material set.

This is a test. I wanted to render into a 2-second animation, but I was heading to bed, so I thought I'd hold off until I'm out or at work, later today.

The point is made! I can create a cool modular environment with blocks you place together. to match up doorways. These could be dressed up and textured differently, resulting in an endless, varied 3D environment.

Today's Lesson

Cableator or something. 

Happy Chocolate

 I'm officially out of time for my personal project. It was fun. There's a lot more I should be doing, but I need to get back to the "job".

Tall renders are so rare

The ring structure was a rare bit of kitbashing, using a ringed space station I built in March 2023.

I keep replicating the sections. This is about 500m deep. Blender crashes if I try to delete one of the instance collections.                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

A Quick Personal Project: Medium Rig

 Taking a break from Sparrow Films/Raptor. Partly because I'll benefit from a break, but also because I can't show the work. The NDA will blank out my apparent creative output, so from now on, I need to split my time between film work and my own stuff.

Orbital Elements

I'm trying to turn my attention back to the Orbital Elements roleplaying game, the notes and drafting for which have been gathering nearly two years of dust. As part of that effort, I wanted to produce a T-shirt/Promotional image showing a small-ish space vehicle. Something like the following:
 

Here's one I did in 2024

A little sub-like, but that's okay

This has to be a quick project. Not too detailed, not too overblown. That said, it's not at the fine-detail stage, and I'm not really feeling it. Maybe I'll restart next week, maybe I'll just see what happens.

First Blockout

That really annoying issue has reappeared: parameter inputs are being rejected, so I can't make adjustments to the scene. I think it's likely an interplay between add-ons. I tested out removing True SKY 3.

HDRI lighting. More stable, it seems.