Busy Beetles

I finished the Mercedes, it turned out very nice.  I really ought to try to update this blog more often.  I've been busy with freelance, but I decided that I can't just take the weekend off, so I started modeling a 1967 Volkswagen Beetle, after being inspired by an article about the first real-world object to be 3D scanned, all the way back in 1972! It was "scanned" by hand, with students at the University of Utah taking measurements and manually entering them into a computer.*  You can read about it here.  My, how far we've come. Now students of computer art everywhere get to complain that modeling cars is hard, without even having to do any of the mathematical calculations to accomplish building a car in the computer.  The most amusing bit about the whole thing is, the original computer scan of that Volkswagen cost more than the car itself.  

1962 Mercedes Benz 190SL :: I even rigged the roof to retract

I think I'd like to take up painting in my non-existent spare time.  Or sculpture. 

*A computer in 1972 was probably about the size of your house.

Time goes faster than a 1962 Mercedes Benz

Wow! Time flies. I haven't updated this blog in a while. I've been working on lots of things, teaching, doing freelance animation, technical editing my former professor's book (which you should totally pre-order!), and also modeling random things and writing in my spare time. I'm currently working on modeling a 1962 Mercedes Benz (in Maya using NURBS only), so I'll try to post that when it's finished. I'd really like to have one come to think of it, and I do, as one of my students said, in the 'imagination land' that is Maya. LOL

What the hey, I'll share with you the work-in-progress: here's a test render I did earlier today. It's not finished and I see things that need to be fixed, and I haven't done all of the interior yet. As you can see I've been playing with HDRI maps (the lighting still needs more work) ;)