@Shapeways White plastic print

I started a new model called Ruby and wanted a 3D printed version of it. The original model is here, created with Poser Pro and rendered in Eon Vue just to make a pretty image to compare the rendered image with a printed version.Ruby Poses (Small)

I wanted a colored print but the arms and legs are too fragile for sandstone and the model has too many thin walls for colored plastic. So I wanted to know what it looks like in white plastic.

Torso

For additional comparisons, I used pictures of the printed model and a rendered image of the model in color and in white. The print is a bit grainy because the small print particles that make up the model are still a bit large. Smaller particles would generate a more smooth surface in my opinion but it would also take a lot longer to print.

Face

This shot above displays how textures give shape to her hair. Even the white version has a texture setting some of the transparency, giving it some shape. This gets lost in the printed version, since 3D printing only works with shapes, not textures.

So, how about the rest? Front and back, right hand and left hand, right foot and left foot. The ruler in the front picture shows the model is slightly less than 20 cm high. The details look great, though. Even though the surface isn’t smooth, you can still see a lot of the original model in the print.

Her shoes look great though, even considering that these are the most vulnerable parts of the print. The straps are not connected to her foot and her toes are quite detailed. And I made her hands have a fistlike-shape but with some hollow area in them so that she could hold something in them. Which is exactly what I wanted. Now, I have to think about what she’s going to hold, though.

The next step is deciding how to continue with this model. I would like to paint it but that won’t be easy. Part of her face is barely reachable with a thin brush and making her look realistic would also be challenging. I’m a Software Engineer, not a Painter! So I’m probably keep her like this and make her hold two LED lights with a battery box and a switch and she would become a cute light. This will be fun!

[Update]

I added a battery container, a switch and two lights to the model and added a picture of the result below. The wires are intentionally visible and so is the battery pack and switch. It did not require a lot of components but I did get to use my soldering iron and my glue pistol to get things in the proper place. (The switch is that blue thing on the bottom-left.)

These aren’t very bright lights but I did not want any bright lights!
Front BackRight handLeft handRight footLeft foot

WIN_20151012_001556

Business is War – The image!

And here’s an update for my previous post! I expected this render to take a bit longer, especially since it started a bit later than I wanted. I had to make one more final fix, so I started rendering and watched some TV on my computer. My monitor also happens to be a TV screen so that makes it easier for me.  I started around 21:00 and now, at 22:25 the image is finished!

I did already notice a few flaws, though. But those are very minor, easily forgotten. Well, okay… Her hair is poking through her vest on her left shoulder. And her right shoe is a bit too low so it goes through the floor with its sole. And her belly piercing is slightly in front of her belly instead of sticking through her belly. One place where things must poke through other things and it just didn’t happen!

I like the fact that I took away the blouse. This way, her bikini top is better visible and you can notice that it also has a few tears. It makes her more attractive, while she’s still a bit intimidating and that’s needed, because something should balance out with her weapons! Also very pretty is her shadow, and even the hole in her pants that’s visible in her shadow so I’m glad I did make that last lighting adjustment.

Still, one other flaw I just realized. The scope on her gun isn’t supposed to be a laser-sight… Oops! 🙂

Business is War – creating CGI art.

This time, I want to show how I use Poser Pro 2012 and Vue 10 Complete to create the CGI art that I like to create. And don’t worry since I will keep it decent. The amount of time I’ve spent on this is about three hours, although most of the time is used by waiting for the rendering to finish. Time, which I could use to do other things, like playing Freecell or just to browse the Internet.

First, I have to choose a model. Since I have several pre-made models, I chose the one I like to call “Lisa Xanthe”, a redhead with a very nice shape. And since I’ve promised to keep this post decent, I’ve already given her some clothes that she will wear under the other clothes that I will add later.

Here you see the basic screen of Poser. On the left are dials that you use to set parameters for the model. On the right you see an overview of all the parts within the model. The white lines in the middle screens is actually a spotlight that’s used to add light to this scene. Without light, it would all be black.

On the dials on the left you can already see that I can adjust quite a lot of parameters on this model. Size and shape of her breasts, hips, arms and legs and whatever more. Basically, all I use for my work is a single model with a lot of different parameters. And yes, those parameters can make her appear younger, older, larger, obese and even pregnant, if you’d like.

I then decided to add clothes. I have a set of clothes called “Cuore di moda” and this makes her look a bit like a woman who likes to do business. Yet it’s also sexy enough to make her more like a gangster-girl or even gangster-boss. It’s very fashionable.

I combined it with a machine gun from a set called “Elay V4” which isn’t available on DAZ3D anymore. I will later also add a handgun to this all but for now I still have to think if she will hold the gun with one or two hands…

Her glasses are from Fawne V4 which is also a very sexy set of clothes, but I didn’t consider it the right clothes for the scene I want to create, which I’ve called “Business is War” in my mind, although the final image isn’t really clear about the ‘business’ part…

Anyways, the clothes look good, but I need this girl in true battle-mode with heavily-torn clothes! So the fun of tearing up her clothes begins! This is done with the Rag-erator for Poser.

If she wasn’t wearing that bikini top and bottom, you’d probably see some naughty parts now…

But before tearing it all up, I did change the textures on those clothes.

Next,I have to add some background-prop. I decided to use a crime lab without equipment to look a bit like a shopping center. 

I like this because of the glass windows and the doors in the background. And although I already place it in a way where you can see the back wall, this will not be the final angle at which I will render the final image.

But before I export it all to Vue, I first need to make Lisa pose in some way. I want to make it appear as if she’s firing that gun so I ended up with the following pose:

But after some considerations, I decide that I still don’t like some things within this pose so I adjusted her hair, added a laser light and made a minor alteration to her machine gun, resulting in the next image:

And that will be the complete scene that I will export to Vue. Just some minor checks to make sure nothing is poking through something it shouldn’t poke through and hoping everything is complete.

The imported pose isn’t in the right camera location but here, you can see the parts that make up Vue.

Vue provides four view-ports so you can see your model from different angles. Poser also provides such a view but I don’t like it much because you’ll also see less details so you have to move around a lot to check everything.

On the right you can see the layers and the location where I can alter the textures and materials I want to use. I will be using those options to e.g. change the glass, make the gun more shinier and to re-position certain things.

On the left, you can see buttons that I can use to add more objects to my scene. Well, I will be adding a large rock, three trees and a road somewhere behind the back door and I will add a few lights inside the room on the right and a few more close to the camera. The sun will be positioned behind the back door and will shine through the window in the back.

Considering the proper render settings is always a bit difficult. I chose ‘Ultra’ because my machine can handle this but for complex scenes the use of ‘Ultra’ will take many days to finish. I also chose an aspect ratio of 16:10 which matches my screen resolution of 1920×1200. Rendering the whole thing to screen will allow me to see it’s progress.

Once I’ve chosen my preferred settings it’s time for a quick render preview. 

I am reasonable happy with this result already but it’s far from perfect. Let’s look more closely to this preview:

The light is too hard and it reflects too much in the back door. Also, the sunlight is too dominant, obscuring everything behind the door! And I might want to alter some more materials… So to look more closely at details, I split things up over layers. And to hide the building, I move the building to the second layer! Now I can use my camera to look around Lisa to make sure she’s looking okay. Lowering the sun a bit and then I’m ready to look at the second layer.In the second layer I just examine the building, making sure the road in the back ends at the door and checking the lights.

Things are nearly finished now, although I still have to check if things are really okay. So, the first pre-render:

And I’m not happy with it. Her white shirt is too white and it just doesn’t look good. I could return to Poser and remove it but I can also do that in Vue itself. I just disable it!

Once disabled, I can render the image again, which results in the next pre-render:

Here, I’ve already lost two details in my image. The muzzle flash from her gun had already been removed for being too dominant in the image and now the shirt is gone too. Fortunately, she’s still wearing a bra so things stay decent enough to avoid the [NSFW] tag.

But there are too many shadows, so a new pre-render is required:

And I decide to make the laser light more dominant by adding a strong, red glow to it. And I will change the colors of the machine gun! So now we get the next pre-render:

Here, I’m still not happy with the lights and shadows. So I adjust them even more! There are actually a total of 8 lights in this image! Four are in the room on the right, which makes that window extremely white. There’s a sun far, far away in the background. And there are three lights around the camera, all of them emitting a special glowing gel-light. One orange, one blue and the last white/blue. The white light is the one that casts shadows, the other lights just add more color contrast.

That last image will be my final pre-render. It is now Wednesday  20:25 and I will start the real rendering step, rendering this image at a whopping 3840×2400, four times the resolution of my screen.

Why? Because I can!

Anyway, I don’t know when it will finish so I will start rendering and check once in a while to see how much has progressed. Once finished, I will post the final result.