Love the details and embrace them!

I just returned from a quick vacation in Rome, Italia. It's a wonderful city and a historical place. Especially for artists it is such an inspiration. While wondering through the city, I was really amazed by all this wonderful traditional art which survived sometimes over 1000 years!
This is all before 3D modeling, Photoshop and 3D printing. This is sweat and blood from many artists over many hundred years and decades ago.
I did really asked myself with all the possibilities that we have today, why do we (or do I) sometimes get lost of track.
It's all about the process and pipeline optimization and about rebuilding things that we saw already in movies. Just happened to notice that some artists concentrate too much on the tools and forget traditional artwork?
We should all love our great work and put as much love and detail into it as we possibly could (and sometimes more)!
Remember: Maybe 1000 years later there comes someone like me (or you) and will deeply appreciate it.
Even if tight timelines chases you, design frameworks seem to drive you nuts, make a difference.
Make something notable outstanding with every piece you deliver.
I know that some of you readers might be offended because they deliver high quality and I am sure you all do.
It's more that I want to share this great moment and excitement with you, which remembered me that every stroke counts and every detail matters!

IPhone 6 and Apple Watch! really the next big thing?

this took me almost a week! But now I decided to write my thoughts on Apples big announcement 09/09/14.

The world had its eyes on Apple and everybody was waiting for the next big thing. While Apple was presenting in its own special way which we love and know from back in the days where Steve Jobs ran the show. Lot's of things have changed (from my point of view).

Where is the perfectionism and where is the quality?

First of all and the most annoying thing was the streaming experience. A company which brands themselves and is well known for their perfectionism and their major focus on usability delivered a really bad streaming experience and cut of a major portion of the community as well as possible new customers coming from other OS's.  

The Apple Event could not be viewed from a windows devices. No Internet Explorer, no Chrome, no Firefox not even the windows version of Safari could enable the excited, potential Customer to watch the event.
Ok, all cool! let's take an iOS device and tune in! Finally the IPad enabled me to tune in!

While I thought streaming videos and conferences was a topic which was already solved by a lot of companies, I could not believe that Apple could not deliver an experience that could let people focus on the main event. Browser (Safari on iOS) was crashing, streaming was choppy and servers could not handle the load. most annoying thing was the simultaneous translation to Chinese in real time. 

This can be tested! Where is the perfectionism and where is the quality?

Where is the magic where is the surprise?

While one could certainly feel emotions and excitement in the air. The news reported a week before that apple plans a payment service and will announce the new IPhone.
Apple Watch was rumored for years now. While the payment strategy is huge and can certainly be a big win for apple how could it leak days before the event. 

Apple Watch! I'm pretty sure that the Apple watch will be bought by people and will make Apple a big pile of money and wearables will be the next big thing. But where is the company which surprises and which is not so predictable?
With all the love to design where is that thing that differentiates? 

No one thought that you can control the phone without a pen or stick? But Apple revolutionized touch to a whole new level? But will that be the same with the watch and the wheel? A and please do me a favor and do not go to the market with an actual Apple TV devices (smart tv).

Tim on his way...

it is certainly a really tough and hard job to be Steve Jobs successor! And expectations are very high from all sites. shareholders, customers, techies, nerds, Apple fanboys have all high expectations. It's important to follow the known paths but be authentic and re-invent a brand that matches!

With all the long term strategies and paid services it's a fundamental base for growing profit. But in the not so far future customers and shareholder expect to be surprised and to feel that Apple feeling.
More than product it's the Apple Feeling which sold the products and still sells them today.
This should not be a trolling post at all. It's more some points that I really recognized while watching (trying) the event. A company which brands themselves with the slogan "think different" should really be thinking different. So product names change from "iSomething" to "Apple Something".
But is this enough. I am really excited about the upcoming products and just wanted to share this personal feeling and opinion and would love to here from you in the comments what you thought!

Painting Fireworks with Verve

Going along with my series to paint and experiment with Verve. I was going for fireworks...

I blogged about Verve here for those who are interested and want to catch up! It's free!... and can be downloaded here

Painting a tree

Another experiment with Verve! A tree in the middle of the road in the dessert. The have some sort of sketch topic thing in the Verve forum. This one is called the tree of live! I choosed to visualize something green and fresh in the middle of the dessert!. Which also can be a real evil because this tree is in the middle of the road =)...

I blogged about Verve here for those who are interested and want to catch up! It's free!... and can be downloaded here

ZBrush Summit and ZBrush 4R7 preview with KeyShot bridge

Over the weekend Pixologic has broadcasted it's ZBrush Summit over the wire for all the community members who were not able to attend it live. It was a well organized and very interesting event with many guests from the industry and an infectious fascination. While 3D Printing was certainly a huge topic the preview of the upcoming ZBrush 4R7 relaese was the major highlight!

Pixologic did it again...
Like a couple of years ago when organic modeling doesn't felt natural in common 3D software packages ZBrush revolutionized the way the artists handle 3D. It just feels natural to paint in 3D with ZBrush and this made it a perfect tool also for most artists in the industry.
When you look at Zbrush Central it reflects all the amazing work which relates most of the time to characters and organic modeling. Some of the folks were trying to push the boundaries of ZBrush came up with great hard surface models, but it was not easy.

Pixologic learned from that and provided hard surface modeling tools which helped a lot.
But with the release of 4R7 Pixologic invested, heart and perfect UX skills and came up with an integrated solution for hard surface and low poly modeling. From the look and the workflow in the previewed demo suddenly poly modeling feels natural, too.

See here the details and the live demo!

So an exciting release! Thise will help artisits to stay focused in one application without the back and forth of to many apps. With this release Pixologic also included the support for 64bit (which was awaited long time). And the anounced bridge to KeyShot including a version of the renderer. This alows the user to render out the ZBrush artworks with a click on a button. The bridge contains also live updates which reflects changes of the ZTool directly to KeyShot and the Transfer of materials and textures.

To sum it up: Can't wait got get my hands on the new release especially with the KeyShot renderer...

Well played Pixologic! You did it again!

Verve - Fluid Dynamics Painter

Whow! It has been now over one year since I wrote my last blog post! This sounds like a perfect chance to introduce a very entertaining piece of software called Verve by Taron!

Verve is a Fluid Dynamics Painter! So what does this mean. It is basically a special kind of painting Application which has an special mode which let's the software calculate fluids behavior. This is very inspiring and entertaining at the same time. 

What is it good for? Find out by yourself but be warnend - it is pretty addictive =)

But beside the fun of fiddling around with the dynamics this behavior builds the foundation for endless possibilities to simulate real paint and all sorts of brushes!

So check it out!

You can find the download of Verve here:

http://taron.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4

The documentation is here:

http://taron.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6

A decent set of introduction and explanatory videos are available on YouTube!

https://www.youtube.com/user/333taron/videos

And there is an active forum here with galleries, challenges, etc here:

http://taron.de/forum/index.php

Here are my first experiments:

3d sketch #3

Hey all,

Haven't posted in a while so I thought why not share my latest speed sculpt done in sculptris.

Meet Earl! - all the best for 2013

Hey everyone ... This is my New Years post!

A little late but it's still January ...

So meet Earl!

Modeled and sculpted in ZBrush using Dynamesh. Rendered in PMG Messiah 3D and tweaked in PS...


Like always comments and critics are welcome ...

All the best for 2013 ...

The Hobbit - an unexpected journey! (My 2 cents)

Once in a while I do a blog post to do some kind of film review. I mean I just post my thoughts and observations.
I recently found the time to watch The Hobbit. Full of excitement about a new film from Peter Jackson with lots of CGI and a new format called HFR (High Frame Rate - 48 frames/s) I put my 3 D classes on an was ready for the show. Interestingly the movie was recorded completely in 3D already.
So prepared with all what I need for a perfect movie night the curtain opens and the movie started.
But what I saw was really an unexpected journey!
I had the impression while I was seeing lots of details more then ever, I am was loosing cinegrafic features that I use to love. So for me more details are not equal a better show and better pictures. This is something which offends me also on super HD TV's. I can't explain it but it steels the Hollywood feeling. I love the surrounding of New Zealand. Really great locations were chosen but still something was missing.
Being a fan of the LOTR trilogy I was really missing the great lightning and the mood the pictures were transporting. To much detail make things appear to hard. Depth of field was totally different.
I have to admit that the second half of the movie was much better than the first one and maybe it was because I got used the the HFR 3D pictures by then or the effects were placed more subtile and appropriate (for my feeling).

Maybe this was just a slow start and I'm ready for a ramp up of the upcoming 2 movies...
Again this post just represent my feelings while watching the movie... I would love to here some other opinions or agreement in the comments....

3D Sketch #02

This is my first attemp to actually color something...

Comments and Crits are welcome!

3D Sketch #01

hey all this is a quick 3D sketch with the fantastic tool Sculptris ... Modeling took me like 30 min and then I spend some time in fiddling with painting and material... nothing to fancy but anyway

Maybe I find some time to do some more... 

Animation Marathon – 24 hours animation

I found a really interesting project over the weekend which really made me blog about it!

Kenny Roy started this project to raise some money for his short movie “The little painter”. This was done with a kick-starter.com project. He animated 24 hours live via live stream.

It is really entertaining to watch and a very good animation lesson, too!

You all should definitely check it out! And subscribe to his site and blog!

The best think is @kennyroy provides the 24hrs as free only resource to watch. So every one who could not participate during the marathon and is interested in animation has the chance to watch it on his website:

Kenny Roy's marathon website

Looking forward for the final result of “the little painter”… good luck!

P.S.: sad, it looks like there the kick-starter project is over and there is no way to donate afterwards.

Logo Design

I do a logo design for a none profit club every now and then … or basically yearly. Used to do some 3D rendering and decided to go 2D with vector shape this year…

Tell me what you think and as usually comments and critiques are welcome.

Meeting minutes

again … random roller pen sketch!

Nothing fancy but … comments & critics welcome!

Meeting Minutes

found some sketches which I have not published yet… Meeting minutes style… roller pen!

 

Meeting Minutes 2011-07-01

long time no meeting minutes… just a quick doodle with a roller pen

check out Bio-Triod…

 

My thoughts on Transformers 3

Yesterday, I watched Transformers 3...

If you are one of the last ones you haven't heard of it watch the trailers here: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/transformersdarkofthemoon/

First of all I love 3D and I love CGI. That's why I loved this movie!

It starts with some flashback from the time when the US first landed on the moon. And to be honest this movie fulfills a lot of clichés but that obviously is Hollywood.

Back to 3D:
There where spectacular fight scenes and one my favorites is the car chase on the highway.
I think the virtual world is brought really well into the real movie world. Textures were awesome. I loved the style of the Decepticons they had an evil bio-organic-robotic appearance.

After all I was very good entertained you get what you can expect when you watch a scifi-aliens-roboter-action movie…

And sometimes that is just awsome….

Fun Modeling

I was having fun a couple of weeks ago, modeling a head. Unfortunately I was not able to finish it yet.

I posted progress on twitter and now I thought it would be cool to have a wrap up post …

so here we go… still considered as draft…

 

And a test render… just lights no make up yet =)…

Hope I find the time to continue on this…

to be continued…

 

Please feel free to drop a line ….

Comments and critics are welcome any time….

Final version

After a lot of settings and playing around ... I finalized this image with a pretty descend result ...

Render draft - golden medal in grass

This is a render I am doing right now in Messiah 3D (currently in Version 3.0) (I am still waiting for my dare2share advantage)... 

I took focus on the grass and I am almost happy with it.... 

There are some peaks which are still leaking but ... 

You know right now I am more concerned about the goldish material which is not as I want I to be....

take a look at this rendered in Messiah ...(not as sharp and crisp also)....

This is what I did a couple of years back ago with Lightwave...
I like the sort of brushed precious metal goldish look... like an old medal...

this is what I want to have laying in the grass....

OK, this is the current stuff what I do for a local none profit club.... Comment's and critics are welcome ... here or on setuptab.com (http://setuptab.com/index.php?topic=3329.0) ...

I'll keep you posted =)...