Hong Kong, Circa 2009

Way back in 2009, I went on an all expenses paid trip to Hong Kong (ie, a family holiday). I was only 16 at the time, and the whole world was in front of my pimply face. I attribute a lot of my works inspiration from experiencing the culture there over three years ago, inspiration which is still flowing.
The other day I found a 4GB class 4 SD card in my draw. I wondered what could possibly be on it, as I tend to be quite anal about backing up my photos. On it was nearly 900 photos I took in Asia back then,  which non of such had been looked at for a few years.
After panicky backing them up I decided to select a few I quite liked, and upload them. Why not 'eh? They were doing nothing else except rotting away on my HDD either way.

I wasn't exactly rocking the best equipment back then. All the following photos were taken with a $150 10MP Kodak camera. It was a nice little camera for someone of my demographic. It was my first digital camera and I literally saved up for it by working for $8 an hour at the local KFC. Dark days indeed, but I guess I was 16. Funny side story actually; the day I flew back into Perth after this trip was the day I rang up and quit. Don't mean to rant or anything, but damn that was a shit job.
Anyway without further ado ladies and gentleman, Hong Kong.

New Camera (ie the most exciting thing to happen yet)

Bah! I'm sick. So, so sick. I shouldn't really use this blog to complain about something as moot as a cold, but damn it sucks. Luckily though, on Tuesday (the day before this sickness started to get uncomfortable) my first ever DSLR arrived. Last post I briefly mentioned this, and I also wondered how reliable FedEx were going to be. FedEx, were great. What wasn't so great is that their services stopped at the Belmont depot and were then carried on by Australian Air Express to my house. I've had lots of problems with AEE. They're suppose to deliver the package straight to my door, but they never so much as knock to check if you're home. They just leave a slip in your mailbox telling you to pick it up from the post office, which pretty much defeats the purpose of paying for a courier service in the first place. It's happened to me at least three times, and numerous times to other members of my family.
Enough complaining though, I said I wouldn't use my blog for that. I don't want to lie to my fabulous audience (hey, that's you!).

It's a Canon EOS 1100D, which I bought in a pack that came with a 75-300mm telephoto lenses. I bought it through JB Hi-Fi's Direct Import service. What they do now is grey import products through their website and it's so much cheaper than buying in-store. I worked out I saved around $250, if you don't factor in postage.
JB are running a very competitive service compared to other local grey importers. It is a little bit more, but the one bonus that sold me is that it comes with a one year JB warranty. If it kneels over within a year, I can just take it to a JB storefront. I don't have to mail it off back to Hong Kong or whatever and worry about it never coming back. They also did other small things like making sure you received an English instruction manual and local power cables. The instruction manual was photocopied, but it was photocopied damn well. It also came on a disk so you could read it on the computer in PDF.

This was also incidentally the first picture I took with the Canon. The joke is I took it in auto mode because I hadn't read the manual yet. Yes, I know. I'm hilarious.  

The actual package it was posted in was A-grade in my books as well. It was wrapped well in several layers of bubble wrap, as well as a tough outer package. It was a pain in the ass to open, but it meant it was posted safely so I can't complain about that, not on this blog anyway. I don't want to break that promise more than once.

Taken with my phone as by this point I had run out of working cameras. 

Going from a point and shoot to a DSLR is a huge jump. My point and shoot was fairly decent (as well as having a kickass retro exterior) but I felt it was time to move on.
I'm still getting used to the all the settings on offer as I've only had it a few days, but I'm determined to use it properly and not just be one of those dudes who has a DSLR for the sake of having one and takes all their photos in auto mode. I would probably have a few of my photographer friends disown me I did turn into that guy anyway, so it's for the best. I spent quite a lot on this eitherway, so I would just be wasting my own money if I treated this like a glorified point and shoot.

Anyway, here are some photos I have taken so far, some in auto mode, some where I have been a bit more adventurous...:

An ode to Retro Game On... 

Taken at 1/60th of a second to let that perfect amount of light in.

10 second exposure.

Some basic light painting. I plan to go full retard on this once I get my greasy mits on a tripod.

I'm still obviously a novice, but I plan to really work at this. Stay tuned as I hopefully improve.

Even More Abandoned Photography!

I don't get to take photo's of abandoned things as much as I would like. It's a hobby I immensely enjoy, but something I seldom get a chance to do.
This long weekend I went camping out in the Twilight Zone, seriously, in the middle of nowhere. I think we were at least two hours drive from the nearest McDonald's  D:  Good fun though.
Anyway, that's what that looked like:

Faces obscured because lets face it, no one wants to be seen hanging out with me. 

As we were leaving Bat Country, I saw this diamond in a puddle and we stopped for some photo happy time:

I have no clue as to what 'DSP' stands for, Googling it returns a bazillion different results. If any fine member of the internet has any idea, please feel free to leave a message. For the most part it was a house, plain and  simple. It didn't look like it had been inhabited since disco was alive though.

Seems to be an old style ice box (ie, a fridge). 

The best angle I could get, because, well; there was no floor. Also another fridge. 

Doesn't matter how far out you are, shit is still going to be vandalised :'( 

I would have liked to stay longer but my driver got spooked by another car driving around, maybe I'll come back in the near future. Sometime this week I should be receiving my first ever DSLR (I'll also find out how reliable Fed Ex is). This will mean more photography, as I want to step my skills up. Been wanting to for a long time but insufficient funds stopped me from upgrading my okayish point and shoot. Getting off my arse and actually getting a job seemed to fix this. I also need to buy a car so then I can easily seek out locations. It seems they're a lot of abandoned farm houses and what not about an hours drive from where I live, so it might be a good little niche for me.

Check out my other abandoned photos if you please. First lot is of the remains of a train station near my house, proving that local infrastructure was better 50 years ago than it is now. Second lot is of a French cottage which I totally lucked out on finding when I was on holiday there last year. Make sure you click to the full albums to a Live Journal abandoned photography group, as I have only posted samples of those albums on this blog.

Jake Blues

Time for some juicy 3D renders of non other, than Jake Blues (scroll down that post a bit for more information).
I've been working on him quite a lot since I wrote that post. Modelling is finished, texturing is nearly finished (need to mess with the skin a bit more) and the hair will be created soon.
First off, I should add that I did a bit more 'concept art.' I found out I had to add a front perspective and I also tried to fix the side perspective. Whatever I do I just can't get it to stop looking like a Tin Tin character though.

Now for the renders themselves:

And that's that. Stay tuned for more TAFE work as good progress is being made on all fronts.

Tram Video is Complete!

All that rendering, done and dusted. It was as interesting journey, but a boring one. In all I rendered out 500 frames individually, some only talking 2 minutes while some took up to nearly 10 minutes! All worth it in the end though for this 20 seconds video. Enjoy.

PS: Play in 480p for the best results.

Beginning of TAFE Work and Stuff

Last post, I mentioned that I would talk about some of the 3D class work I have coming up this term. I have two different 3D classes now, which could probably warrant for two different posts, but meh. $2.50 Stream games aren't going to play themselves.
First off lets talk about my 3D environments class. As I hinted at before the main project for this is creating a huge futuristic city. You may remember that I tried to do this type of thing waaaaaay back in 2010, but I got limited by my computer when the poly count got too high. I'm not making up excuses there either, a 500,000 poly scene with a dualcore computer that doesn't even have 2GB of RAM isn't fun. It got to the point where I just gave up, because not being able to move around a scene is a major morale killer. These days I'm supporting a kick-ass setup which I recently bought because of the diploma. I have no excuses in that regard now.
Everyone in my class have to create their own building, and then pool them together so everyone can make their own totally awesome city without having to worry about modelling every single damn building. I find this to be quite a good idea, and we of course can mess around with the meshes once we get them so there isn't 30 or so identical cities in the end.
So far I've made my one building for communal use, and a rough concept. First off, lets take a look at the concept:

As you can see it's quite bare bones, with a lighting system added to make it look purdy. The assignment brief said we could use any software we wanted for the concept and after rage quitting while trying to paint something up in Photoshop, I decided to just create a still in Max. Like, why not? Works for me.
Like it's 2010 counterpart, I'm going for the whole floating city idea. I dunno why this keeps appealing to me since I hate the ocean, but I guess the whole media frenzy of the world supposedly flooding has always appealed to me. How would we live? I like to play around with ideas how we would, and this is one of those.
Where would we get the resources to build such a thing if the world did flood? Fuck knows, I'm just the technical artist. Here is my building:

Now lets chat about the 3D Character class. Or rather I talk, and you listen intently lapping up my every word.
Like I said last post, I would probably be creating Jake Blues from The Blues Brothers. Considering I kinda forgot about it (whoops), and the concept art was due, I went with him. I quickly did this sketch up in Photoshop today (quick for me is roughly an hour and a half) and this happened:

Um, yeah. Probably not up to it's full potential, but it will do. I do feel as if I'm getting better at tablet drawing when you compare it to some other stuff I've attempted. I don't want to even link those. Ah well, I want to be a 3D modeller, not a drawer. I'm only really doing this because I have to.

While I'm here I mind as well give an update on the tram video. I've slowly but surly being rendering out the frames. I've done 250 so far, with probably about another 100-150 to go. It's such a slow process, and it locks up my whole computer:

The problem is that this computer takes up most of my spare time (sad I know) so when it's locked up like that, I'm at a loss of what to do. Which is why I've been kinda putting it off, but I've been making good progress these last couple of days.

Tram Is Finished

It's been a longish journey, but hurrah. Modelling and texturing of my 1910's USSR Tram is complete. I know I said I would get this done before I started my diploma at TAFE, but since that started my time has been nil (mostly because at the same time I got a new computer and have been playing a lot of MW3). TAFE is going pretty good by the way, thanks for asking. I have two 3D classes now which I'm very excited about. One assessment is for a futuristic city (which I'll delve into in a future post) and another is for my first character. At this time I will most likely be recreating Jake Blues, because... why not.
All is well on that front, except for sound class. I mean why the fuck would you put a sound class in a technical artist game development course? If I wanted to be involved in sound, I would of done a bloody sound course. Sigh, I guess I'm just pissed off more than usual because I have an assignment due for that in two days which I haven't even stared yet. Needless to say, unlike my other TAFE work I will not be posting that!
Anyway's enough rambling, have some early 1900's Soviet public transport in yo face!

Also a video like I did with my tank will be up soon enough as well.

Tram Modelling Is Complete!

I know I said I wanted to finish the modelling aspect of this project half a month ago, but I guess I got side tracked with nothing in particular.
Ah well, the point is it's done now. Three days into my Diploma I should add as well. I was originally planning to have this done before TAFE started, but I guess I'm just a tard. The texturing will start very soon, but I'm waiting on a new computer for that. Towards the end of the modelling process it got very... painful. The computer I'm on now isn't that good. Two words- dual core! D:
But last week I ordered in a new computer (one word- i7!) and they told me it would be ready mid this week. Considering it's Thursday as I write this, I'm hanging on the end of a thread for it. But I guess when I finally do get it, the satisfaction will be all the more sweeter.
Anyway, please enjoy some more progress shots- the last you'll see of modelling I should add. Next time you hear from me it will either be textured or at least partially. Also the classes this year are looking quite rad, so you'll see some more TAFE work here in the coming year. The future is looking bright!

More Trammyness

Bare with me as I'm posting this late at night, it's nearly 2AM Perth time. I literally feel too lazy to sleep. 

I never thought that would be possible, but alas, I've outdone myself.

While I'm being too lazy to sleep, I mind as well do something about my conciousness and be productive. Work on my tram is continuing at a good pace, but I doubt it will be finished in time for the my diploma- which I start next week. I won't stop this project though as I've come too far, to stop now would be just plain shitty.

I've nearly finished the modelling (including the inside) and the texturing will be starting very, very soon. Please enjoy some more screenies of progress. Byeeee.