Freebie - "Deadly Edges"

I found another interesting free download. However before you can download this freebie you have to become a member of the Daz 3D site - but don't worry because it doesn't cost anything to become a member of the Daz 3D site.

The "Deadly Edges objects are "weapon" objects (which look quite deadly by the way!) and you can see what they look like by viewing the photo above.

I'm interested in models / objects like this because I like to do a lot of gothic-looking renders. Things having to do with witches, fairies, vampires and the like are the kinds of renders that I like to do.

So if you would like a copy of these objects, just click here.

*Please be advised that this freebie will only be free until December 14th, 2010!.

Freebie - Rocks!

Found another interesting "freebie" site. Now I'm sure a lot of people are thinking "who would want to download a bunch of rocks" but if you are a 3D beginner like me then you'll appreciate the 3d freebies that are available out there.

What will I use these free rocks for? Well when making renders that show outside, it would be nice to have rocks included that don't all look the same. I was thinking about creating some of my own rock objects as well.

If you would like to download these free rock objects, just click here.

Rose 05 Render

Here is a render I made using my Rose06 object!

Of course this was made with Bryce. Most of the other objects that you see here with the exception of the buildings on the sides were objects I created in Bryce. The two side buildings were free downloads that I got off of the internet.

As far as the roses go it looks as though I am getting much better at uv-mapping them.

You can find out more about my rose objects by clicking here.

Rose 04 Render

Here is my latest rendering!

This is the Rose object #4

Here I uv-mapped the rose object and it came out looking quite nice!

The 2 buildings that you see in the background were from free downloads that I got online.

The other vegation that you see were other plants that I created using Plant Studio.

Rose 03 Render

Here is a render that I made of the Rose #3 model that I created in PlantStudio.  It's just a general picture showing what the rose #3 model looks like.

This render was created using Vue6's personal limited edition!

This next render was created using Bryce (which I find a little bit easier to use than Vue because VUE seems to use up a lot of my computer's resources.  Again this is a render to show what the Rose #3 model looks like when it is uv-mapped.

The other plants that you see I also created using Plant Studio.  The mausoleum that you see was a free download.  And if you can see it in the background, the building structure was also a free download.  Everything else that you see (including the stone cross) I made myself.

I have since come to find out that flower objects are composed of a LOT of polygons!  What this means is that the bigger the number of polygons the more complicated the object and the longer it may take to load and render.

Rose 02 Render

Here you see a render of the Rose 02 object that I created in Plant Studio and rendered in Vue 6 - Personal Limited Edition.

Now if you look very closely at the rose you will see that it's not completely colored - at least not to my satisfaction!

Well I do want to get it right. So what am I going to do? Well I think that first I am going to re uv-map this rose object. For some reason the uv map that I was using doesn't seem to be working too well so I'll just "bite the bullet" and re-map the rose object.

One thing that I am learning from all of this is patience!

Since I'm going to be offering these Rose objects for sale I think that it would behoove me to get the texture maps right - at least to my satisfaction. I am going to use the UV Mapper program for this. It is available as a free download! You can find out more about this program by clicking here.

For right now the render that you see was made in VUE 6.

Rose 01 Render

My current project involves my Rose models!

As you can see from the picture above I have completed Rose #1. The rose object was created using PlantStudio. After I created the rose object in PlantStudio I then saved it as an .obj. The next step was to UV map the rose object which just means that I "fragmented" it so that I could add color / surface / materials to it. I used the UV Mapper program to do this.

Once I added colors to the object, the color / texture map was saved.

Next I imported the rose #1 object into Bryce. Once I uploaded the rose object into Bryce I could then add the texture map that I created for the rose object from the UV Mapper program.

And the final result you see here.

Now as you can see the rose(s) look kind of "light in color but since this is Rose #1 I have had time to learn more about UV mapping. I'm going to go back and re-texture this so that it looks more better.

Terragen - One of my contest entries!

Here is one of my Terragen renders that I entered in a contest on Renderosity.com. I didn't win but it was fun coming up with the creation!

In case you didn't know, Terragen is a 3d graphics program that creates terrains! You can find out more about this program by clicking here. It is also available as a free download - in fact there are 2 versions of this program!

VUE Competition Announced!

I was just checking some of the 3D-art-related sites that I belong to and noticed that there is a new notice about a 3D Design Competition. This competition is for
VUE users like myself!.



They are offering some great prizes most of which are some expensive 3D programs! If you're interested you can click here to find out more information about it.

My First Object(s) For Sale!

Well I have completed my first real object for sale!

What you see in the above picture is a render of some roses that I created in the 3D program PlantStudio. If you like these roses and want to be able to use them yourself you can find out more about how you can download this file for yourself by clicking here. Please be advised that this file is in PlantStudio format - .pla file - so you will need to have a copy of the program in order to be able to use this file!

I'm currently working on converting these roses into objects so that you can download them as .obj and be able to work with them and use them in other formats and programs!

Terragen 2 - Contests!

Terragen 2 is a very much more sophisticated terrain generating 3D Program. It has a lot of more powerful features that the original Terragen program. It is also available as a free download as well! You can find out more about the program by clicking here



If you already have this program then you may be interested to know that there is a Terragen contest regularly on Renderosity.com which is a place where "us" 3D Artists hang out! - LOL!

If you're interested in finding out more about these contests just click here.

Rose-Pink-Sample-Vue

I took the sample pink rose that I did and made a render of using Vue6. You can see the render I made below:



One of the things that I found out about creating plant models / objects is that they take a LOT of polygons to render them (this same thing also applies to tree objects as well!) As a result the more polygons in your render the longer it takes to render your picture.

One of the great features of Vue is that you can take a single model and replicate it many times over (again you have to be careful about this because the more models you have the more polygons you are using).

I took my rose-sample and replicated it several times!

the rocks that you see were already included with Vue!

The simple house (and the bench in the front) I made from the Vue tutorial and the house on your left was a free download that I got off of the Internet.

The trees are trees that I created in Vue and saved for further uses.

Rose-Pink-Sample

Here is a sample of a pink rose that I made in Plant Studio. You can download this free 3d object by clicking here.

I'm currently working on making series of them so that I will be able to sell them online.

I have a Working From Home blog where I talk about different ways that people can earn money from home and one of the ways that I mention here on this blog and also on my Dream Job Consultant page is that one work at home idea is to take a program that is already on your computer and use it to create a business of your own.

This may definitely be a possibility with this program!

Clother

This is definitely a program that is on my wishlist!

Clother is a program that lets you create clothing for your 3D models. It comes in different versions and I especially want the one for the V3 character that I have in Daz Studio. But it comes in other versions as well.

The only thing that bothers me though is that the clothing designed for the models is so skin-tight - LOL! But is definitely one of my must have programs!



You can find out more about this program by clicking here.

Here Is A Fractal Contest Announcement!

Fractalforums.com Spring 2010 Fractal Art Competition

Here is more information:

Fractalforums recently lost one of their Dearest and Most Talented members, Titia Van Beugen. We would like to dedicate this year's competition to her memory and we wish her family, friends, fans, and associates well in this time of great loss. Flowers, Butterflies, and images rendered with Fractal Explorer are strongly encouraged to remind us of our departed friend.

This year the annual spring competition on fractalforums.com is held for a third
time in row. There are 3 Sections, each contestant is allowed to contribute 3 images in each section. Entries may be submitted as soon as the appropriate sections in the Gallery "Go Live" and the deadline for entries is the 1st of May 2010.

After that period a one month voting session begins which will last until the
1st of June 2010.

This years prizes are for the first placed in each section, they will receive a
cup with the winning image printed on it.

The prizes this year are generously sponsored by fractalforums.com user Margit
Schüttler aka GFWorld.

The Images should not exceed 1600x1600 pixels resolution. New images as well as
slightly modified previously posted images are allowed. Post working images for color saturation, hue shifting, sharpness / blurring, and even just for fun is also permitted.


The Main Gallery is here.

The following sections are available:

1. Mandelbrot- In this section only z^2+c (The "Traditional" Mandelbrot) Formulas are allowed working
   with complex numbers. It is allowed to zoom as deep as necessary. Julia/Mandelbrot Initialisation can be used. And only one layer, but with an arbitrary coloring algorithm for inside/outside regions of the set is allowed. Interesting Deep zoom shapes may be found in the "Elephant valley" or "Seahorse Valley"
   

2. Fractal Fun - This section is meant as a "wild" section, everything concerning with fractals may be entered here. You may upload interesting Mandelbulb shapes, or any fractal type you like here!
   

3. Animation - This year an animation section is featured. Animations of all
   fractal types from IFS to Mandelbulbs and beyond are welcome! The only limitation to the Animation is that it should last at least 1 minute, and max 5 minutes.
   
   Since this forum does not host animations, entries will be handled as follows:
   
   Step 1) Upload video to youtube or similar host (if you can't access youtube, or
   just prefer other hosts, alternatives include http://www.photobucket.com http://www.vimeo.com and many others).
   
   Step 2) Upload screenshot of movie to the appropriate gallery and include a link
   to the uploaded video.
   
   Winners in all categories shall be determined by a Community Voting System using
   the "Ratings" feature already integrated to the forum's Gallery. Only ratings made in the fractalforums.com gallery on the images will be taken into account - this includes the screenshots for Animations as well as the "static" images in the other categories.
   
   If there are any questions concerning the rules, please post in this
   announcement thread for clarification.

You can view the full announcement by following this link.

Regards,

The Welcome to Fractal Forums Team.

Vue6 PLE - Along With The Good Comes The Bad!

Well my free downloaded version of Vue6 crashed a few days ago!

For some reason when I tried to open the program I got the message that it was unable to read the defaultatmosphere.atm file. I thought that if I re-started my computer that that would fix the problem - it didn't!

Then I looked online to find a solution but couldn't find anything specific. I did look through a few messages on a VUE-related forum and I saw where others were having problems with the program crashing and it was suggested that you un-install and re-install the program again. This is what I did. But after un-installing the program I found that I couldn't re-install it again. I tried checking my files to see if I still had the original copy of the downloaded file but I couldn't find it.

I looked online to see if I could find out where I could re-download this program but all I could find was the latest versions of Vue - meaning Vue7 and Vue8. I wanted to have the Vue6 version though because with it I was able to import 3D objects with this program.

I do have version 7 of VUE but I haven't gotten a chance to really look into the program yet. Since this is a personal limited edition of the 3d program, I still don't know yet what the limitations are. Hopefully I'll be able to import some 3d objects into this program as well.

The reason that I am blogging about this is because I want to send myself a message to remind me to not delete the original file because if I still had had it I could have simply re-installed the program. So let this be a lesson to you too to not delete the original files because you never know when you are going to need it!

I am sorely going to miss this program - unless I can find another free download of this particular version of the program.