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Coming Back To Torque

Name:	Stacey Mickens
Date Posted:	Jan 25, 2007
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I have the wonderful book The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque and I am now testing out Blender being that a lot of people have been raving about it. So just today I have decided to sit down and play with it. This month has been so busy being that I design clothing for Poser that I haven't really had the time to play around with anything as far as game development. I want to continue on with my plan that I had laid for myself in my very first blog of a small game. So just a preview of what I have done so far today for blender
still a lot that needs to be done. But I will try to juggle Torque and Poser at the same time.

Till next time.

Recent Blog Posts

List:	06/28/07 - Continutation of Blender Character 05/19/07 - When You Need Your Own Texture 02/19/07 - Back In Blender 01/27/07 - Progress With Blender 01/25/07 - Coming Back To Torque 01/27/06 - Let's Make... 01/27/06 - Bored, So I Sketch 09/12/05 - Plan for Stacey Byrd

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David Montgomery-Blake (Jan 25, 2007 at 15:56 GMT)

What work have you done with Poser? I looked back through your previous blogs (it has been a long time!) and love your art style!

Good luck with Blender!

Stacey Mickens (Jan 25, 2007 at 17:09 GMT)

You can see the content I have as of now. I am still building it up though. market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=361910
Edited on Jan 25, 2007 17:10 GMT

Phillip Daigle (Jan 25, 2007 at 17:19 GMT)

So while I realize Maya costs money and Blender is free, are there any other reasons people would prefer to use Blender? I've done basically zero 3D modeling in my time, so I wouldn't know.

Joseph Greenawalt (Jan 25, 2007 at 17:28 GMT)

@Phillip:
The main complaints about Blender are it's unconventional user interface and steep learning curve. If you're prepared to put in the time and effort to learn it, I'd say go for it. Otherwise, use whatever tool is the best fit for you. One of blender's main advantages is that it's free, and new features are being added all the time. The soon-to-be-released Blender 2.43 will include a z-brush like sculpting tool, which should make organic modeling in Blender much easier.

Stacey Mickens (Jan 25, 2007 at 18:09 GMT)

Yes. The User Interface is quite intimidating that is what stopped me from playing with it sooner. But today I am just messing around with it. While I am modeling I am also learning where to find the buttons and the tools. There are some tools I haven't even played with yet. But I hope to go from beginning to end with this model. Texture and animate it also in Blender. Here is an update:(*Yeah I know the legs are still a bit funky I was just working out the upper area.)

*Update 2:16 PM
Okay I fixed the leg area. I guess the next area would be the breast area.

Edited on Jan 25, 2007 19:19 GMT

David Montgomery-Blake (Jan 25, 2007 at 19:33 GMT)

Great Poser clothes! I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Stacey Mickens (Jan 25, 2007 at 19:39 GMT)

Thx. :)

Stacey Mickens (Jan 25, 2007 at 22:35 GMT)

This is where I am now. Just need hands and a head for her.

Anthony Harris (Jan 25, 2007 at 22:53 GMT)

have you heard of 'makehuman' www.dedalo-3d.com it's an open source (free) human modelling program, it imports into blender and other 3d apps, and it will save you a ton of time. that is, unless you are modelling for the practice.

Sean H. (Jan 25, 2007 at 23:04 GMT)

woah nice breasts Stacey. :)

Stacey Mickens (Jan 25, 2007 at 23:30 GMT)

@Anthony

Thx for the link and info. Yeah this is the first model I have done for blender wanted to get familiar with the controls. I checked out the site. Nice, but isn't they a bit too high in polygons for games??

@Sean

Thx :)

Sean H. (Jan 26, 2007 at 00:31 GMT)

ur welcome sweetheart. :)

Ishbuu (Jan 26, 2007 at 02:14 GMT)

Those breasts are.... Distracting..... If they ever stop drawing eyes I'm sure you might get someone moaning about the knee-shin transition, but I don't know ;)

Ehm, jokes aside, the Knee-shin transition really does bother me, the legs seem a bit thin in the lower half when compared to the rest of her figure, but maybe its just the angle. I'd suggest revising them a bit either way. Cheers!

Stacey Mickens (Jan 26, 2007 at 02:36 GMT)

Yeah I said the same thing when I looked at the legs. I was like my god they look like sticks. Rub them together fast enough she would make fire. But yeah I was still working out areas. Here is my update I have started on the head:

But I will be tightening the body up some more. Also I haven't figured out how to get blender to show me my poly count so I have no clue what the count is right now.
Edited on Jan 26, 2007 02:38 GMT

Joseph Greenawalt (Jan 26, 2007 at 02:44 GMT)

Setting the mesh to be smooth shaded will get rid of the faceted lighting and make the model look much more rounded. Editing Buttons (F9)->Link and Materials Panel->Set Smooth button. It may actually be better to keep it solid shaded while you're editing the mesh, just so you can get a better idea of the angles of the faces at a glance. You can switch it back to solid shading with the Set Solid button on the same panel.

The polygon count is shown at the top of the screen, to the right of the green "www.blender.org". If you switch into edit mode and select all faces it'll show you the count of the selected faces. It looks like you're using mostly quads, so double that amount to get the triangle count. Also, when you're ready to export, be sure to turn off "double sided" for the mesh, or the count will be doubled yet again :-)

Stacey Mickens (Jan 26, 2007 at 03:37 GMT)

Thx you very much Joseph for the info!! :)

Anthony Harris (Jan 26, 2007 at 03:52 GMT)

the poly count is high for the posing and muscle targets in makehuman, but you can lower the poly in most apps including blender when you import, you could even normal map the high poly clothes you design onto a low poly model for more detail.
anyway, good luck with blender, you're braver than me, i'm fiddling with silo and cheetah3d currently.

Stacey Mickens (Jan 26, 2007 at 04:19 GMT)

Well I do like a challenge at times. ;)

Stacey Mickens (Jan 26, 2007 at 05:47 GMT)

I guess this is the last progress post for the night. Here is where I have gotten so far with the head

The head at the moment comes in at 832 polygons after calculating in the triangles. The body comes in at 1396
Edited on Jan 26, 2007 05:49 GMT

Andrew Hull (Jan 26, 2007 at 07:08 GMT)

Man, that's really cool stuff. Do you think you could put together a step by step outline on how you did that model, for people like me who also use Blender (pretty exclusively)? That would be so helpful. I know the program and interface pretty well, i'm just not so good at the modeling part.

But either way, good looking stuff!
Edited on Jan 26, 2007 07:09 GMT

Stacey Mickens (Jan 27, 2007 at 06:41 GMT)

Possible when I get the chance to set aside some time again. Back to making my next Poser clothing pack.

J Sears (Jan 29, 2007 at 10:08 GMT)

that is impressive work, I tried blender for a couple weeks I decided to practice on a car first thinking a human might be too hard, I had a tough time getting it to look good. After a lot of frustration I got it looking decent but it had plenty of problems. But seeing how quickly you got it all working good apprently I just don't have the knack for modeling because that is amazing progress shown through out those pics.

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