Today's picture of the day is early! 2:30 PM I'm going work hard on my Quantum Physics tonight, so I don't want to be disturbed by the thought that Javantea's Fate is more important, even though I know it is. =) What is today's picture? Well, duh, look back a page and you'll see the exact picture as last time. Except it's different somehow. Yup, this one features AltSci3D. I've talked a lot about it, but this is the first actual in-program shot. I added the title GUI after I took the picture. As you can see, the GUI is nowhere to be found, except the remnants, the text that drove most of the GUI. Why do I say most? Well, I had a nice little VCR control on the lower right. The rest have text. So, what can I say about this over the previous one? Well, this one is beautifully dynamically lit, of course. It's very nice. I had to get rid of the Dojo, the ground, and the sky, but I'll fix that later. As you can see, from now on Jav and all the secondary characters will be very well lit. I won't let them be poorly lit ever again. =) But still, I need help on the model. What is wrong with the new Jav? Is his face too ugly or something? I might have to mess with it. It looks funny, right? Hmm, arms at his sides, a little more muscle, and a better shaped face. Then he'll be Javantea! Do people like the old Jav face better than the new one or is this new one better? I could just add mouth movement to the old one. I'll check it out. The lesson for today is: get that character right! Don't let your main character be mediocre, let alone crappy. If the shading is all wrong, just say, "NO!" Start all over if you have to, you will later anyway. People don't like a change of characters in Scene 3. Hehehe, but that's what I gotta do. And I'll do it in Scene 6 or 7 too, but that's a different story.
Another day, another "Making Of". If you get sick of other sites not updating enough, try JF. I'm consistent as the moon and frequent as the sun. Of course, the moon has phases and once a month it's full and once a month it's new (and invisible, I might add). And I might add that both are clouded out ~ 100 days per year where I live. If Seattle was ugly when the sun is shining, it would be considered the most beautiful city in the world. Hahahaha... "I'm only happy when it rains."
Today's picture and lesson are pretty simple. Actually, that's the lesson: simple makes beautiful. This girl may look complex, but she is not. I use three bezier curve in this model and only two are showing. The rest is straight lines. The two bezier curves I used for the breasts were just by laziness. I didn't want to put the time into making those lines straight. But why would I want straight lines instead of curves? Well, the applicable reason is that 3d can only use triangles. No curves allowed unless they're made with straight lines. But that makes a bit of sense. Why? Well, the computer's 2d curves are made of straight lines. If you stare into your computer screen very closely, you'll see the pixels on the screen. Red green and blue, even. So when I tell the computer to draw a cyan curve from (0,0) to (50,50) through (15,20), it does the math and figures how it can display the curve as a series of lines. Then it draws a bunch of lines in the forms of pixels (might I also suggest the irony that the lines are not lines at all, either, they're simply a bunch of connected dots!). The computer's 3d curves are also made of straight lines. When I make a high-polygon model of a girl's breast, I make a curve out of a bunch of straight lines. When a person looks at it, they see a curvy breast. But when I use a low polygon model and it's from far away and it's anti-aliased in a paint program, it looks curvy anyway. But the simplicity makes it beautiful. I find the simpleness, the purity of anime to be enlightening. Not only do we forget the bad things about the world, we also focus in on the good things. So when you draw, keep it simple, stupid. You'll be rewarded for your focus.
As you might be able to see from first glance, this picture is very different from every other one before it. Yup, this one has manual 2d shading. Ugh, it wasn't easy, fun, or rewarding, either. Something is wrong with my techniques, or perhaps that's just the way it is. I assume that professionals get their assistants to do the shadows for they must just dread drawing them. Perhaps it's easier on pencil and paper. Ya, this one was pencil and paper first. It is number two of three that of that bunch that I scanned this summer that I haven't CGed yet. I tried shading it back then and I couldn't do a good job. That's what prompted me to try shading now. The lesson for today: I learned that shading is best done by shrinking the original object in such a way that it distorts the object so that a person thinks that you're actually doing shading. Yup, faking it is as good as doing it, I say.
