Studio Rat bike

Here's a render of the bike I've been working on for a really long time. It's a Blender project aimed at expanding my skills in the program.
I generated this model using Agisoft Photoscan from photographs taken by a colleague in North Carolina. It's a highly modified Yamaha XV 750 Virago. 

I'd noticed the cheeky USD forks but really wanted to know where they came from. Well it appears that they are from a Suzuki GSXR. I don't know much more than that except to say that it must have taken some serious work to replace the entire front end. I wonder how she rides?

Leica camera Corona test

This is a test for the newly released Corona renderer. At the time of rendering Corona was still in Alpha testing and I decided to see what it could do. In comparison to other iterative engines that I have trailed I found it extremely straightforward to use. The render times are long compared to a biased rendering system but I think the results are worth the wait.

This image also has some creative post production which was not part of the initial render.

The second shot is a straight render using Corona Alpha.

https://corona-renderer.com/

Slitscan textures & map generation

I purchased a cheap motorised turntable from China about a month ago.

This was intended to be used for a photogrammetry project but instead became

really useful for a different application.

Slitscan photography or temporal photography is typically used for photo-finish images in eg. the 100m sprint.

There are some examples where it has been used in a different way

This script by Martin Dixon processes a video file and extracts a strip of pixels. These are then stacked together

to form a single image.

I sat a bottle (empty) of beer on the turntable and switched it on. I then set up my

Nikon 3200D to shoot portrait hd video.

The processed file looks like this:

Taken into Photoshop and processed. I needed specular, diffuse, mix and normal maps

to create the final rendered version in 3ds max.

I created a simple studio style lighting setup and rendered using Vray. The model that I mapped it to is a generic bottle. At some point I will recreate an accurate Moretti bottle. This should complete the look.

Observations at this stage: The lighting while recording the footage needs to be more even as some of the colours are not accurate.

The normal map for the glass is a bit on the heavy side. It seems to be suggesting a condensation look.

The camera wasn't aligned correctly when I recorded the footage, and as a result the textures are wonky..

Other than that, I feel this is a pretty successful first attempt at seamless, (semi) automatically generated texturing for cylindrical based objects :)

gallery... again

I started a blog a year ago to document my work and some cool stuff that I'd happened upon the way. A few months later the site closed down and it was all gone... Downer!!

So now I'm back and starting a new blog. The aim of the blog is to mainly document my CG and photography work. I may post some influences in and amongst too..