3D Reinvention: Project Clock

Having gone to school for 4 years to get into the field of 3D for a job, I have gone almost 5 months without touching any of my 3D related programs. I am a bit disappointing, but I honestly burnt myself out on them, not to mention the result of being unsuccessful finding a job that dealt with it as well as not feeling my skills were up to spec where I wanted to be. I have had computer issues galore, the programs themselves have been doing funny things, life has required me to not focus to much on it as well. I have an excuse for everything, but in the end, I was just burnt out with it and didnt feel I should continue on the path I had chosen. It had gotten me nowhere, but alas, its what I enjoy and I have been feeling that itch to try again.

Brings me to now. I am planning on retrying again. I have many training videos that I plan on rewatching, though I am planning on changing my workflow a bit here. Before, I would work almost non stop on something, sometimes literally for 8 hours a day straight. I realize how wrong I was to do this. This was the way I burnt myself out, all work and no play makes jack a dull boy. So I am switching things up a bit. I am planning on working in maybe half hour to an hour long increments. The length shall be dependent on how intense of a time I am having with the project, the harder and more focused I have to be on it, the sooner I shall take a break. Breaks lasting for about the same time I work on something, thinking at most to be a half hour or 45 minutes.

Anyway, back to what I plan on doing. I am once again going to be delving back into Architectural Visualization. I shall be starting small with a simple clock of sorts. This will be the type of clock you would see in a study, library or even on a shelf in the living room. One similar to the photo below.

I have made some very general notes on the specific sections that will need to be modeled separately for this to be completed in a timely manner.

Original image found at http://www.theclockworksunlimited.com/ShelfMantelClocks.ivnu

Starting at the bottom. The part colored in blue is a very simple base which can be easily copied over to create the other side. With that created, its an easy enough fix to cut those roughly in half, edit the inside edge shapes a bit and extrude and weld the center section between them which will give me the over all base.

Now the overall shape of the main clock box will be a simple box with a rounded top. Could create this a few ways, hinge from edge on the top, or just model a cylinder and delete half of it. Overall a very very basic shape.With the basic box created you then need to go and inset the edges a bit to give you the outer shell of this. Then extrude or delete the middle edges as it is a door for the front and is not needed at all. Or better yet, just detach that face and use it for the door mesh. Just would need to recreate the edge faces for the surface then inset and bevel out the lower shape and the actual clock edges. The detail work is mostly spline work and should not take too long once the shape is drawn out. Its at this point I might take some liberty with the design and change it up slightly, shall see once I get there.

As for how long this will take to get done? To hell if I know, I have tried created time lines in the past and something always goes wrong, so this piece will get done when it gets done. As I work on it I shall post blogs about the production of it, as this will be an addition to some models that I already have up for sale. Not sure if this will be a free model or if I will charge for it or not. I will decide that once I figure out if I like the work I had done or not. If I dont like it I will likely just make it a free model for download via my turbosquid account. If I do like it, then I shall work out a price point I think is fair and work from there.

This shall be modeled to scale, as such, the dimensions are on the image file for the notes.

Look for more here soon! (hopefully)

Review: Star Wars The Force Unleashed by Sean Williams

  The Force Unleashed was first released as a game for several gaming consoles back in April of 2008. The premise of the story is that you are playing as Darth Vader’s secret apprentice who has been trained for what appears to be close 16+ years. This would have put the beginning of the training back during the purge, which is the events that happened after the Revenge of the Sith movie, in which Anakin Skywalker claims the title of Darth Vader and begins a genocide of any force users in the galaxy.

Anyway, the story here is that of the Apprentice who goes by the call sign Starkiller. Coincidentally, or not, Starkiller, is also part of the original title of the first Star Wars movie from back when it was still being written in the 70’s. Now it seems that while the primary reason that Vader has trained the Apprentice was to fight Jedi, but you found out fairly early, that that reason is a smoke screen for their true goal, which is to unseat the Emperor from power and to take it for themselves, Darth Vader becoming the Emperor and the Apprentice becoming a true apprentice and not just a secret ally. In order to help with the training, as there is only so many Jedi in the galaxy now days, Vader had the droid Proxy created in order to asset in Starkillers’s advancement. Proxy’s primary programming is to try over and over again to kill the apprentice, as such; he has been programmed in the art and style of a variety of forms of lightsaber combat. Along with Proxy, Vader has assigned the elite Tie Fighter pilot, Juno Eclipse, to be the Apprentices pilot chauffer him across the galaxy on his murderous and one tract quest to exterminate the remnants of the Jedi.

Now as per the rule of the Sith, deception is a key with the story arc, seems at every turn Sean Williams adds in some sort of plot twist to the story which always keeps things interesting and keeps the reader guessing. Right from the outset, a set of events is set in motion that gets Starkiller thinking about his place in the galaxy and what it means to be sith. There is a large web of sub stories being told here are that are told over the course of the entire book, and it’s not till the end, that you are able to put them all together. Even so though, there are a few things that are hinted at, but, not ever truly said to be known as true, guess I will have to read the second book in order to find out the answers to these questions.

The depth of the characters in this book is by far its best attribute. Sean Williams adds a lot of inner monologue with the characters Starkiller and Juno. Its during these instances when a lot of the subtleties of the story is brought to the fore. He brings to life the insecurities of both characters so well that by the end you truly do care for the characters, they seem to become real people that we are reading about. Not some fictional story about a place that never existed in the real world. Although, the relationship that seems to start developing seems a bit odd to me, as there almost does not seem to be any merit for it, a minor complaint though against otherwise phenomenally fleshed out character development.

On the downside though, while Starkiller and Juno are equally well done characters, most of the other characters in the book seem only to be there to progress the storyline, they don’t really add to much. Even the main Jedi that is around through the majority of the book Rahm Kota, seems to be a flat character overall. This character especially had the chance to be something great to add to the storyline, but I just never really cared about him like you do the others. While he does serve the purpose of why he is there, I just wish he could have had a bit more depth added to him. Instead, he just comes off as a whiner for the majority of things, which made him more annoying in the long run than anything else.

All things considered though, I found this to be a great addition to the timeline that which is Star Wars. The story here fills in a gap of previously unknown area of the events leading to the rebellions rising between the events of Revenge of the sith and A New Hope. If you are a fan of the game and want to get a bit more depth into the psyche of the characters you grew to enjoy playing as, this book is for you. Otherwise if you are a Star Wars fan, I find this one to be a must read, if for no other reason than to fill in the gaps as previously mentioned.

Rating: 9/10