Updates before autumn

31 August 2010, 22:25

Salut!

It's autumn already, and I've been doing quite a few things during the summer. I learned CSS and HTML, yay! It was a piece of cake. I learned, because I already started work on my new site. I hope it will be finished by the end of the year. Coding of CSS/HTML and the design is finished already, but I am waiting for my twin brother to code the required functionality in JS and PHP, but  he is really busy with the Mozilla internship.

Other than that, I made two new images. Actually the first is quite old, since summer 2009, but only now I completed it. It's called Love routine. I hope you like it.

The second image is a bit more weird. The creative process was more elaborate. I used Sketch and Toon for the initial image, then I post-processed it in Photoshop using various shadings rendered within Cinema 4D and even Vray. Then, I used the image as a texture map on a plane in a 3D virtual scene, in which I made the dark, muddy water as a photo-realistic rendition and I also placed a neon light behind the plane which had paper-like shading properties, so light could scatter through it.  Afterwards, I got the photorealistic rendition of the paper and water back in Photoshop for more post-processing. Here's an illustration of what I am talking about:

Now, the final image is here: Failed sunset. The meaning of the image is for you to figure out.

I hope you enjoy these works. 'Till next time, all the best!

Published in: 2d, 3d, illustrations, images.

New project: church in landscape

9 February 2010, 13:29

Hallöchen!

It's been a long time since I posted anything new. But, here I am with a new set of images.

Since November 2009, I've been working on something new. The initial idea was to do a landscape image using a new technique developed by me to achieve a final image. The 3D scene is rendered in customized layers, without using the usual built-in functionality of rendering multi-pass images. As such, I do not have a layer for each shading aspect, like specularities, reflections, shadows, GI, etc. My layers are obtained by having multiple instances of the 3D scene with different light setups or different textures, thus, in the end, I only separate the lights by type and the color/texture maps. And, of course, for easing the post-processing, I use depth maps and masks for specific objects or class of objects. All the layers are then composited in Photoshop. The actual rendering, if I may say so, is done in composition, where I can control each aspect, much more accurately than in 3D, and it also contributes to getting closer to painting. Due to the endless possibilities, I made three versions of the image.

I used Vray Proxies for the first time. I was amazed by the amount of polygons I am able to render. The scene has approximately 30-40 millions of polygons.

The church is a 3D reproduction done by me after a real church which was built in 1725 by the austro-hungarian empire. The architectural style is late baroque, with simple ornaments. The real church is located across the street, where I live.

I hope you guys will enjoy the images as much as I enjoyed doing them ;).

Published in: 3d, church, evening, landscape, winter.

New 3D image: ambiental living room

8 November 2009, 13:14

This project was an exercise to do a 3D interior as fast as possible. My last projects took about 1 to 2 years to finish, so I really wanted to prove myself I can do one fast. This one took me only 3 weeks to finish at a slow pace. So, it's a real improvement. Done with C4D and Vray. It's a reproduction of a photo I found on the Internet.

  The quality is not top notch. The major culprit is the plant and, of course, other minor details, such as the books on the shelf, the curtains and others. Despite these minor flaws, I really like the overall mood which is a positive one, very intense light; it has a certain sense of freshness. Here's the image:  

I hope you guys like my new image ;).

Published in: 3d, images, interior, room.

Piano room: the making of

6 October 2009, 05:04

Hey guys!

I finished a comprehensive "Making of" page for the piano room project which details how I modelled the most complex objects, the most complex shaders I used and how I rendered and post-processed the images. Click on the following image to get to it:  

Published in: 3d, making of.

New project: the piano room

31 August 2009, 04:11

Hello readers!

Today, I'm proud to announce a new personal project I completed. During the last year I worked on a photorealistic 3D scene for further advancing my skills in architectural visualisation. With this project I learned a lot about Vray and about lighting ;). The project consisted of reproducing an entire room in 3D. I'm happy now to see it done.

Please click on the images below to see more and to read more about the project:

I hope to post more stuff during this autumn, perhaps a "making of" or tutorials along the project.

Published in: 3d.

Summer time: new book covers

18 July 2009, 04:26

Hello, fellas and playas! ;)

It's mid-summer and it's also a very long time since I posted anything here. I am rather busy to post anything. I've been working on several book covers since my last blog post and, of course, on my big project: the piano room (for the latest wips check this forum post on the VrayforC4D forums). I've been unable to complete the final renders, due to crashes and very long render times, in early march, this year. A few days ago I resumed work on the project. I hope to get it done this year.

For more details about each book cover, please click on them. Here they are:

For the Faronir novel written by Michael Auerbach, I tried a different approach, which I hope was successful. Until now, I always had to do book covers on scientifical subjects, like artificial intelligence, robotics and mathematics. I never had to deal with literature. Being the first book of this kind, a science fiction novel, I wanted this cover to stand out in my gallery. I hope you find it great. A great amount of effort and time was put into getting the book cover right.

Besides book covers, I also did the logo and the new interface for the PaintWeb project of my twin brother. Some of the frequent visitors of our site already saw the new logo, but for those who did not, here it is:

I've also done other small projects, but I won't post them since they are unsignificant.

'Til next time, I wish y'all the best and have a nice summer. I hope to be posting more stuff during the year.

Published in: 2d, 3d.

Content updates

17 September 2007, 10:13

I've decided to publish the interpretation of my last artistical work I've published. Thus, in this post I want to inform my readers that in the "Making of" page for the project "Wind of Change", you can now find the complete interpretation. You may get to know exactly what each element is meant to symbolize. As a side note: all the impressions expressed in the text are purely subjective at the given time, thus they are subject to change over time.

I also published an application interface I made for VegaWeb Solutions and a CD/DVD cover for the same project. I hope you like it.

And, finally, I have decided to publish in the Scraps page, a poster-like image I've done several years ago. I very much like the colors :).

Published in: 3d, interfaces, making of.

The wind of change image is done

1 September 2007, 01:38

After two years of working on my new 3D image, I am proud to announce that today I finally release it. The final image is ready at a resolution of 5596x4028.

In 27 august 2005 I started working on this project. It's an image constructed as a diptych. It consists of two parts/sides which are in complete opposition.

This image is dedicated to Alizée Jacotey.

Thanks to Cinemike, Radu Filip and to Tor-Erlend for continued support and suggestions. I apologize if I forgot to list someone who provided me suggestions.

Technical details

• Project size: 9,6Gb
• Files: 1 560
• Published WIP images: 300mb
• Polygons: 2 917 023 [part 1] and 729 636 [part 2]

I also released a comprehensive "Making of" page in which anyone can see how I've worked on the project. For those interested, I published more technical details.

Published in: 3d, making of.

WIP: The wind of change

26 April 2007, 09:13

Holla amigos!

Long time no chats here :). Easter is long time gone, but nothing special happens around.

In this very moment I decided to spam this blog with my very first public WIP [work in progress] image from the up-coming 3D image.

Here it is, enjoy:

Some details:

• Part 1: 3,3 millions of polygons
• Part 2: 0,7 millions of polygons
• Resolution: 2700x3500 for each part.
• Render time: unknown by design. Part 1 is split in multiple scenes.

As a reminder: the project was started in august 2005 and nearing completion this year. For more details see my WIP page.

Published in: 3d, making of.

Cinema 4D colour theme

23 March 2007, 03:03

Hello!

Incredible, but this post is in english ;).

I've decided to publish the colour theme I made for Cinema 4D R10. I didn't like the default one because the colours were too dark for my taste and the overall scheme lacked good contrast between the elements (checkboxes, buttons, little switches, etc). For this theme I've changed some buttons to fit with my colours. As you noticed, I am fond of the Windows's colours, so I want my applications to have a consistency in the interface. Most importantly, perhaps, it's that I changed the little tiny dots in the Object Manager. I've made the different states on/off/default very clear and easy to remember.

Hope you like it.

If you like the screenshot, you may click here to download the file (RAR). Just extract the files in your \%Cinema 4D installation folder%\resource\schemes\ and run C4D R10 :).  

P.S. Don't worry about the french GUI.

Published in: 3d, cinema 4d, interfaces, themes.

3D images cooking

12 February 2007, 08:40

I am letting you all know that I am working on two new 3D images. One will be aiming for photorealism and the other one is artistical. The photo realistic scene is in the works from early of 2005 and the artistical one, from late summer of the same year. Since I started working on the artistical one, no new personal 3D image has been released. I was busy working on it ;). During this year, 2007, I will finish the artistical image and resume work on the photo realistic one.

For doing the artistical image, I've learned many new things in 3D, so I hope it will be something nice ;). Few things I learned: management of big scenes [millions of polygons], simple rigging, 3D painting, poly-by-poly modelling and many other things. See the WIP page for more details.

Published in: 3d.