Mudbox Hub: CLOSED

Mudbox Hub is now closed after 5 years.

As of tonight I have closed the forum I started back in 2008 Mudbox Hub. I had handed its day to day running over to Cris from 3D-palace.com but Cris had neither the time or mudbox experience to keep it a vibrant place (as he was too busy with his own business understandably). As such it had been on a downhill slide for a while and was dying that slow death that forums do when they cease to be as active.

So rather than see it die a horribly slow death, I have killed it tonight, it now forwards to mudboxLIVE.com where there is over 46 Hours of my videos and DVD's for free with no adverts or forums to run or sidetrack you. As these days most digital sculptors use or can use more than one app I feel a dedicated forum is no longer needed and can be in some cases overly divisive between artists.

As Mudbox 2013 has just been announced it also gives it a clean start with no external forum interference. (This also saves me about 10 gigs of server space lol.)

Mudbox: Voice operated

"What if you never had to remember hotkeys"

"What if something actually did as you told it to?"

"What if you could get rid of the entire interface for an app?"

You know every now and again I have an urge to do something crazy while waiting on a render or such like. Occasionally I come up with a pretty nice idea such as 'Waynes Vector Displacement shader' (which was the 1st for mental ray), or MudWalker (which spawned a host of clones) or things I never got around to releasing such as ReDucto my own uniqiue polygon reduction algorythm .

youtube link in case other one is blocked in your country

I also come up with some crap no one see's and is of no use to anyone but me.... so which is this idea? I'll let you decide. What I will say is yes this video is real and I am operating mudbox by voice control alone. Its very easy to do (I'm suprised no one has done it up till now to be honest), and is intended to augment my usual sculpting workflow so I can maximise screen space and get rid of all the menus when working or lecturing. That is its only purpose.... plus it can be expanded to other apps.

As Mudbox 2013's feature set was announced today I thought it seemed as good a time as any to show this. Even more so as this only took about an hour to get running and working 99.9% from initial idea. So it could be something you as an artist find nothing more than a 'toy' or maybe you can see how it frees up things to concentrate on the sculpting and texturing. But in the words of the Oracle from the matrix films "You'll just have to make up your own damn mind".

What you can't hear as you can only hear it over my headphone's, is on mudbox start up you hear a certain voice saying 'what is thy bidding my master?' lol.

Disaster ....

First off I have to say in all honesty that this last few days have been not exactly fantastic. But as with anything , you can gaurentee when things are busiest and going far too well (all be it with an impending deadline) shit will go wrong somehow. Its known as 'paddy's law' in these parts... 'if something can go wrong...it will'. There is also 'Wayne's ammended version' which goes "If something can go wrong it will...if it can't, then it will still find a way to fuck you over right royally'.

I was banging onwards with the texturing stage of the cathedral complex (complex in both name and nature) when in the spaceof 24 hours 1st my main PC went down...then my laptop went down. The PC was due to the CPU dying, the laptop...weel, thats any buggers guess. (To be honest I'm not even thinking about getting that fixed till the cathedral is done).

This leaves only my son's laptop I bought back in 2009 and little more than a calculator on modern terms and certainly never in a milion years capable of loading the cathedral complex max file. Then there is my wifes pc which I dare not touch on pain of death as each time I do something screws up, so best bet is to leave her to it lol.

So PC wise I'm sort of screwed until a new pc arrives so I can finish the cathedral model and scene's. Now luckily in a moment of madness I had bought an ipad the day before, while I can't do meaningful 3d on it, it does mean I could get in touch with Mike Seymour over at FXPHD and say 'shits gonna be late'. Also Mike was nice enough to forward some payment long before due to ease things buying a new PC (as suprise suprise...I don't budget for a new pc every week or laptop repairs lol. )

Mike's an absolute diamond for that and means that I just have to wait for the thing to be delivered. Of course there will be the usual 2-3 days to reset things up then I'm good to go again. now this isn't my scheduled 'upgrade' this year, just a mild one to get this model and its scenes done and out the door. So being to all intents and purposes 'offline' is driving me crazy, although oddly enough when I am away working on site somewere it never does if there is no internet in the hotel. So yep thre may be a short delay till the next FXPHD class but then its all systems go and 'ahead warp factor 10 Mr Sulu'.

Yes some files havebeen lost but I do have some backups so its not as bad as it could have been thank whatever passes for a god in this universe.

Sculpted Liquids in Mudbox

This is just a Mudbox direct screen capture.....it can do magical stuff when you know what your doing with it.

It seems I can show these images now that I did about 3 months back...two from about 8 varations done for a client of liquids sculpted for a drink manufacturer. The 1st image is a direct screen capture of the sculpt in Mudbox...yes a screen capture....really. The second shows a final render done in 3D Max using mental ray with a HDRI created by hand painting in mudbox.

The final render (3D Max and mental Ray) using a HDRI hand painted in Mudbox

The liquids had to match precisely the concept from the art dept with no room for any mistakes or fudges. Got to be the 1st time you've seen a sculpted liquid from me ;)

As Monty Python used to say: “...and now for something completely different!”

"Adoramus Vertexium" soundtrack link

The last week I’ve been getting back into something else that predates my 3D Career, I’ve started writing and arranging my own music again. It’s been amazing coming back to things and noticing the massive change in music software it the last 10 years or so! Apps that were in version 1 and to be honest a bit crap are now fully featured DAW’s with a feature set I could only have dreamt of back then. I’m still finding my feet and trying to get used to all these software changes, plus I’m treating it in two ways, firstly as a way to relax away from 3d and secondly to write the soundtracks for shorts I have in mind.

These two are dark ambient choral pieces intended as part of the soundtrack for a short film idea I have and to be honest probably not the ideal things to use to learn new music software as is sort of pushed my poor laptop and the software way too hard with so many VST's and fx layers routed in somewhat unique ways. The 2^nd is unfinished as the file managed to corrupt before it was done (which is a shame as I liked the final version far better).

"The Holy F*ck" (Requiem Mix 2): Soundtrack link

But not everything will be dark choral thingies lol.... I used to write in many different styles of music...I recorded and wrote songs I wanted to listen to that I couldn’t find. That’s my rule as it’s the ultimate selfish act to me...I write for me and what I want to hear and no one else.

On the 3D side my main machine upped and died yesterday so I am reduced to my laptop for the foreseeable future until I either fix or replace the main machine. I also now only have the main tower of the model of Durham cathedral complex left to UV map. I had a day off yesterday due to being ill from working too many hours to be frank. But I’ve pencilled in a bit of down time for once this is done and finished. Then its prepping for the Anomaly event in Vancouver and catching up on stuff.

Durham Cathedral: Modelling Finished!!

Trust me there is a LOT of detail behind those shadows!

After what feels like 6 life times (in truth less than 1 1/2 weeks) I'm finally calling the modelling stage of the Durham Cathedral complex for my FXPHD class MOD302 done. I feel like I know this cathedral better than the people who bloody built it afer starring at it for a week and a half lol 18 hrs a day.

So many areas are detailed I can't get them all into a single still

Now this was not just a modelling 'challenge' for me (it being without doubt the most complex model I've ever done...especaily if you count the interior I did last year for MOD302), but also a software one. in the end I had to use 3d max 2012 for this for one simple reason...it was the only software with any chance of being able to have the ammount of polygons in the viewport at the sametime without crashing like a bitch all over the place.

Its gives me migraine just thinking about ever doing this again LOL

We're talking tens of thousands of seperate parts and a polycount that technically should 'break' 3d max, its viewport ....as 3d max has a theoretical poly limit of 10 million for a single scene (without proxies etc). This model breaks that by a fair old bit. In fact its between 12-15 million..with no instances or proxies used. There is detail thats not visible even in a 1080p frame lol. (in fact even trhe sanctuary knocker is modelled even though it takes up about 3 pixels.) So every part of the cathedral complex is capable of supporting a close up.

Now I MUST give props to Neil Hazzard and the nitrous team who handle the 3d max viewport progamming. Any other app would have not only crashed but certainly not have such a nice viewport as respresentative of the final render. In fact below at the bottom is the viewport grab of the scene to compare with the 1st image in this post. Not bloody far away I think you'll agree!

The model will stand up to a close up on any tiny part of the entire complex.

So lets remember that when 3d tech works well...god damn its impressive...and this does. So hats off to Neil and his crew. (I promise to buy him several drinks next time I see him.)


But....

Now comes the hard part...texturing the entire cathedral complex ,setting shaders up and getting it ready to create the entire 3d scene it will go in. But 1st I'm taking a damn day off as a week and a half 18 hours a day working on this has me on the verge of running round with an axe.

insane polycount in the viewport of 3d max....

"...If I never model another cathedral it will be too soon!"

This is just the front section of the complex...there is far more behind this!

I've been putting some intense hours into the model of the durham cathedral complex the last day or two. Now that the front and main towers are done (I'll have to leave off the many statues for now as it'll simply take far too long and probably make it nearly impossible to render.) There are still loads of decorative thingies to put on, but those can wait till the last minute.

Durham cathedral as its not been seen (in newly erected condition ) since 170AD

Once this is done then I have to texture the whole damn complex and then create the cgi enviroment that I am going to replace 80% of the final plate with. Although I have been enjoying the challenge in a strange masochistic sort of way, if I never model another cathedral for at least a year I'll be a happy man lol. There are only so many widdly bits of stone the human mind can put up with before it threatens to break and I run round with an axe lol.

So for now its decorative thiniges and lots of windows and doors I have left to do modeling wise , and roof supports and borring shit like that. There can't be many 3d guys who have modelled an entire cathedral complex and its interior.... I dont think most people are insane enough to try unless they have to on pain of death. Seriously though I have been enjoying it, but yes I will be glad once its done.

Durham Cathedral Exterior WIP PT2

The front two towers raw poly model

OK the two front towers I'm calling about done modelling wise (given the extreme crunch on this one)...starting to add the side windows and deco now.... the biggest pain in the backside will be the main tower as there's more polys needed for that than the rest of the complex combined.

Now in an ideal world (when is it ever that??) I'd sculpt every part and render through renderman...but alas time will not allow this...it also occured to me that apart from a few design tweaks this is the first time durham cathedral has been seen in its orginal state since 1100AD!

Still loads to do!

Durham Cathedral Exterior WIP

Work in Progress (about 1 /20th of the cathedral complex!)

Well it seems like a lifetime since I finsihed off the durham cathedral interior for FXPHD course MOD301 that I gave last year. But now about 4-5 months later its now time to get on with the exterior of the cathedral. This is no men task as the whole cathedral complex is massive and once you get a 300mm lens out you see detail that is not visible with the naked eye.

The bad side? I only have a week and a half to get it all done in before it has to be used in tehfinal few classes of the MOD302 3D digital environments course. Its the 1st time in ages I am geniuely crapping bricks it wont be done on time as usually I've give myself at least another week or two. but if this isn't done right it coud ruin the whole series of shots for the Joan of Arc short that FXPHD & mike seymour are making.

You know people ask me why I like using 3d max for personal stuff. Thats an easy question to answer, its got a lot of power and most of all the nitrous viewport... I hope neil hazard and the nitrous team are ready for it to be pushed to insane levels ;)

With a viewport like this its far easier to judge forms and lighting.