Good Friday

 As a hobbyist 3D artist, I would recommend doing projects you really care about--not in a fandom kind of way, but nothing is going to take you as far in your creative endeavors as doing something that really, personally matters. I've been doing images Good Friday on and off since 2015, and it's helped me to delve deeply into some topics I wouldn't have normally felt the need to research, including nodes and volumetric materials. 3D is a medium that can be used for worship like any other, so why not dive in and go all the way?

Three crosses on a rocky ground in front of clouds
 

Three crosses with a more detailed landscape and more realistic clouds
 

Three crosses, now in a more symbolic landscape, in front of the Earth and a stylized sky

I decided to lean more towards allegory in recent years, switching from emphasizing accuracy itself to depicting the more cataclysmic event that the Crucifixion is at its core--the reuniting of Heaven and Earth and the unwriting of the rules of death. One doesn't have to abandon a realistic art style in order to convey this sort of symbolism, so I decided to give it a try.

Decided it would be best not to go into much technical detail this time around, but I'll give a quick rundown: the transparent items in the final image used gradient textures (and also musgrave for the "liquid" substance) linked to color ramps as the factors for Mix shaders between transparency and a general diffuse shader. The sky similarly used a noise texture as a factor between a standard red shader and a gold emission shader.

Happy Holy Saturday, everyone.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seven Quick Takes Friday

Image
So, it's been over a month since my last post and I haven't done a thing.  This is partially because I was: a. in New Jersey with my grandparents and cousin in early early July. b. packing up for summer camp in later early July. c. earning merit badges in summer camp for a week in mid-July. d. this is late July.  And next week I'm going on a family vacation. On to the other excuses for non blogging what's been happening: 1. Of course, there are all the minor details like my birthday , earning a learner's permit , signing college applications, etc. 2. Back with computer animation, I am happy ecstatic to announce that someone has downloaded my TARDIS model !  Somewhere, someone is using it for their own projects!!! 3. Speaking of downloads, I have downloaded and am coloring a Tardis interior from the same website.  To tell the truth, I actually like it that downloads all start out colored gray; it gives the person working with it something to do....
Read more

K12 Project and Assignment 3: Build a Creature and a Monkey

Image
Did you notice I have no idea if the “k” in K12 is capitalized or uncapitalized?  See, in the last sentence, k12 was capitalized.  Yet in that previous sentence, K12 was lowercase.  And yet, in that previous sentence… well, you get the idea.  Anyway, Project 3 introduces modeling , and taught me something new–using a bump map texture; which makes the object look, well, bumpy.  It’s interestingly called “normal” in the influence section of the Texture panel.  My special addition for this project was using “emit” (same section, same panel) to get some parts of the creature to seem to glow.  Upon noticing that it wasn’t a huge change (as well as my not being able to see its eyes), I also changed the camera angle and provided some more lighting.  I actually noticed then that it looked like he was jumping down, so… well, I suppose a picture’s worth a thousand words. “Jason the Jumper”, as I call him, uses particles for the crashing-glass...
Read more

Blender 101 1/2: the Physics Engine

Technical alert: this post explains how to do things in technical detail; you can skip this post if you're not interested in that kind of thing. Now, I am an amateur as you could see by some of my models, but nevertheless I also like teaching others about what little I know about Blender and other 3D software.  Today, the physics engine is my focus. There are seven different types of physics in Blender.  Force Field can make things like wind, tornadoes and, well, force fields.  Collision is necessary for projects that involve gravity--which would include clothing, floors, objects... basically anything in an advanced project.  Cloth makes your object turn into, well... cloth.  Fluids and Smoke also speak for themselves, and I have no idea what "Dynamic Paint" and "Soft Body" do. The physics engine is absolutely necessary for any advanced project; if you want snow to move around, that's a good time to use Force Field; Collision can help if yo...
Read more