A new little friend

 

A new little guy was added to the number of sketches and creations!
Ok it is just a simple 3d model, and also quite schematic... so what can make it so interesting?
Trust me: there is a reason for each element of this simple model.
More on this in a future post :)

Apatosaurus (low poly)

Here it is another dinosaur, this time an Apatosaurus.
I think I'm going to create a group of them and then set up a scene of some kind (obviously I will not have enough time to do any of that ) ... we will see ;).
And now a bit of movement:

Rat Marauder 3D - next step

The Rat Marauder model has been retouched a bit during the past months.
The result is that has just some basic materials and textures but, ...
I've tried adding some hairs and now there are 5 hair particle systems applied to the model, but I did something more ...
I've experimented a bit with the armor he is wearing and the possibilities of animating it togheter with the body and:

Here it is it: with a bit of effort I managed the linking of the armor to the body (the most useful function available for achieving this result was not functionig in blender, hope they replaced/restored it now), and a constant struggle with the hair system was needed for doing almost everything, but in the end there is a model that can switch from low res to high res with its rig and hairs working because no modifier was applied but the mirror (the above render is a mix: low res hammer and armor high res for the body).

Stegosaurus (low poly)

Some months are passed from the last post. During this period I've made some different things, one of which was modeling a bit, as usual using Blender, and the result was a new dinosaur low poly model.

This time it is a Stegosaurus, with a basic rig to make some simple animation and poses.

Rat Marauder 3D

And now, at the end of the year, back to 3D!
One of the Rat Marauders found the way to the 3D realm and a new model was born :)
As you can see there are more details than in the original sketch: there is an armour and a great war-hammer as weapon.
 

Low-poly cartoon Dragon

And now: ... the main character ... the hero ... the small (and a bit fat ;) ) dragon Alex !!
Yes, here is the man who can solve the quest. Not really a man but ... child likes dragons, or so it seems. Obviously there is nothing to say about the name and who chose it (quite easy to guess, no ?)
I liked the idea of modeling a cute low poly dragon and, when it was finished, even Alex liked it and decided its name ad asked me to make it walk ...
From there it was easy thinking of doing even something more, it took a lots of time, but now the main structure of a simple game done in Blender BGE is ready and more ideas are coming! :)

Low-poly cartoon Black Knight

Some times ago I posted a picture of a low res model of a cartoon ghost.
Now is the time of the Black Knight.
They are both elements of a project that is based on Blender and the Blender Game Engine.
My last spare time was dedicated to thar and now, the base structure of the whole project is quite ready, there is still a lot of work to do, and some diasappointing findings are slowing down the progress but it is surely an interesting way of learning new things.
First of all, I found, that the 2.74 release of Blender is not more capable of reading correctly the events generated by an Xbox controller, hopefully this will be restored into the next patch or release.
Second I'm having a lots of trouble in using sounds, at the point that I'm really leaving them out of the project for now.
Third I found a 'bug' involving near sensor and the navigation mesh, I used a Python script to avoid the wrong results of that.
But going back to the small guy of the picture: he is a real bad guy! And he is going to use his sword to hunt down the main character, helped by the ghost, obviously! :)

Music of Nature

After a long time there is the animation related to the Leaf screnshot of a precedent post.
This was an idea born a long time ago and in its first version the storyboard included a tall plant (possibly a tree), a small pond, some vegetation and a sunrise. Then the semplification, and the search for what was my focus of interest in all the visualzation.
Now there is a minimal number of elements and the overall atmosphere is different from the first sketch but, really, is more near to what moved me toward this scene in the first time.
The story is about the discovering of the music hide inside the nature, as the drops falling from a leaf. It can be a difficult process and can run slowly at the start, but when its rules are grasped it runs faster as it becomes easier.
The project is completely done in Blender. The Leaf is a  complex model with a minimal depth and lot of details. The drop moving along the leaf surface is the result of a fluid simulation. Sad to say but there are not much instruments n Blender to work on the geometry resulting from a simulation, so, in the end, this was the best I could achieve in a reasonable time.
There is no sound but, if I will find what is needed and some more spare time, it could be that I can try to match the video with a simple sound project: it will start from the sounds of a quiet field, then giving space to the splash of the first drop, and then to the the sound of a single note released when it collides with the water surface. Easy but I think it cold creat a good oveall effect, just have to find the time to test this idea! ;)

Triceratops

This year I've had very few spare moments for doing 3D, just a bit of time for doing this other low poly model: a small triceratops. Hopefully I can succeed and spare some more hours next week and try to animate it :).