Monday, June 29, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Setting Up For A Picture
This is just to show how we can take pictures with 3D scenes. I put a girl doll or model on a stage with setting and told her to just move around while I showed how preparing for a picture was much like setting up a scene for a play with props. I wanted to show how we could move the camera to get different angles and perspectives of the model and even fly above the scene. The problems with movies is that the clothes and hair are stiff as you can see how they just hang and there is what we call "collision" where the legs and slacks pass through the half-skirt or v.v. And the back of the hair passes through the body stiffly. That is why those Japanese Anime cartoons have girls in very short skirts or they have to wear slacks or shorts. Dresses are a pain in animation. When making single photo shots these things can be corrected and the hair and clothes can be moved to adjust to the body movement.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Where All The Girls Come From
The doll with the captain's hat in the bar picture was just one of the girls. All these models were "morphed" from a base doll called Aiko 3. It is a third generation Anime doll. Lammy is made from Aiko 4, a fourth generation base doll, much more complex in it's wiring. The base doll is basically a wire frame like chicken wire, with skin covering that is textured and toned. Then we add a wig and clothes. Or make them transparent like Spooky Gal in the back. They also have other base dolls which they gave to us for free as DAZ3d.com gave us the program free. But we must buy the clothes and settings and props. They give us several free props and sets free each month. Artists create clothes and props and sell them. DAZ sells more advanced programs where you can make clothes and buildings and props, but they cost in the hundreds of dollars. Also this kind of program should be run on a desktop with advanced graphics cards added like a gaming computer. Most graphic cards cost from $100 on up around $500. It takes from a few minutes to sometimes hours for the computer to create or process one picture if it is very complex. That is why I like these third generation dolls so much, they a very simple and easy on the computer resources and load from the matrix quickly and are easy to manipulate and pose and quick to process in a picture.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Wide Angle Lens
Photography has been a hobby for me for fifty years. Whenever I had spare time, I'd go take walks for hours and take pictures, or look for things to take pictures of. I'd have to find something interesting and then try to get a shot of it. Now with this matrix of 3D files, I can get an idea in my head and then create it and take the picture instead of just happening upon something by luck. The cameras work just like real cameras, like setting wide angle lens or telephoto and getting the same effects as with a real camera. And the subjects are very patient and never complain, doing whatever I direct them to do or even how to dress or even morph them into strange creatures. I have to do the make-up, costume, lighting, set design, camera settings: all right here in my comfy chair. It's kind of fun, for me anyway.
