M.C. Escher's Waterfall - Part 2

updated - but not yet completed - the background (a slight deviation from the original m.c. escher print). first post was here

the addtion of human figures will be quite a challenge..

MM 3D Playroom

Opening Soon.. :)

3D Post No. 43 - Exterior Minimalist

on a roll today.. dug these from my old files.. :)

3D Post No. 42 - Vray (Again)

..of course we did win some projects too.. using Vray renders:

Vray settings to follow..

3D Post No. 41 - Scanline

For animation purposes, I did this proposal in scanline aside from Vray - I thought it was a cool concept.. :

..too bad we didn't win the project due to the client's budget and design preference. (Heck they were a bunch of bored 50-yr old chaps anyway..)

..It Sucks

M.C. Escher's Waterfall

M.C. Escher is one of my favorite painters - he is not only a gifted artist but he also made a substantial contribution to mathematics and architecture, despite his apparently inadequate training in these fields.. he pursued graphic arts extensively, and has produced a lot of great lithographs and drawings.. mostly illustrating impossible structures. And like most great artists (Michelangelo, Da Vinci, etc), Escher was left-handed.

As a tribute, I tried reproducing one of his works, Waterfall.

This one is still in progress.. will post the finished product one of these days.

Art Kuning No. 1

After overkilling photography, now it's painting. :D Here's my first attempt, can't remember the last time I used acrylic.. Got inspired because one of our colleagues' cousin just had a successful art exhibit here in Singapore.. I'm putting in some sections of the piece first.. a.l.a. master strokes (:p) nuninuninuninu..

.. and for the whole piece..

:D

3D Post No. 40-something - Render Settings

.

As you may have noticed, I have nothing much to do re 3D interiors lately - just playing around with those libraries (both 3D and materials) that I have built, collected, begged for, over the past months.

To make this entry useful, perhaps I will share my Vray settings here: (can't read the text? click the image to blow em up :p)


image sampler is set to -1, 2 for an acceptable antialiasing quality. indirect illumination is set to light cache (much faster than the old but reliable QMC), set to .8 to avoid overbleeding of colors. color mapping is set to exponential at .8, 3 to give that sharp hi-contrast look to the image.



irradiance map is set to low. you don't really need to render a still image using a high setting for this. almost like rendering at 50% radiosity, which is really all you need. there is always neatimage to fill in the cleaning part for the noisy results anyway.


light cache settings here only work for stills. for animation, you need to increase the subdivisions and reduce sample sizes. environment is set to dark blue to create that subtle bluish tone. QMC sampler controls the noise quality and global subdivisions. increase the multiplier and you automatically increase all subdivision values by that multiplier.. for example if a vray light has 8 subdivisions, a multiplier of 2 will override it at 16 value. 8x2=16.

when i've got the time i always try to jack up all the settings to give me a more solid GI solution and cleaner renders. the trouble is, there is never enough time.

I just needed blog about something I guess.. goodnight folks.

DVD Review: Swimming with Sharks (1995)

.

As the movie's opening line goes - "there are stories of love inspiring success over the most insurmountable of odds - this is NOT one of those stories."

If you loathed more than loved Miranda in "The Devil Wears Prada" then "Swimming with Sharks" will fulfill your desire for revenge on a**hole bosses.

Absolutely one big movie man.. Kevin Spacey really rocks in this one!

DVD Review: The Devil's Backbone (2001)

Being a Guillermo del Toro movie (the guy who did Pan's Labyrinth), this movie is full of symbolisms - like he's painting a canvas of icons. It is a political allegory disguised a horror film. Fascism, Communism, whatever isms that plagued the old Spain, it's here, you can almost assign each of the boys a name tag.

It is still scary. I'm still having nightmares..

But I wanna watch it again! :D

DVD Review: Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

If you're bored of seeing Pacino as Michael Corleone or some other gangster role, dig this movie. (I'll lend you my copy if you like.) The director, Sydney Lumet, has directed another equally great movie, starring - who else - Pacino also, "Serpico". Now that I gotta see too..


100% at rottentomatoes. That should be enough to see this one. Go watch it..

DVD Review: Seven Samurai (1954) ang Kagemusha (1980)

Forget Tom Cruise's "Last Samurai."

Just got hooked into Akira Kurosawa samurai movies at the moment.. I remember my ex-boss used to bug me to watch "Seven Samurai" before I die, and revealed to me that "The Magnificent Seven" was nothing but a ripoff of the Japanese original. I declined then - because the only AK movie I saw was "Dreams"- and it bored me.

So what the heck, I finally decided to watch it anyway. I haven't seen the Hollywood version, but I'd say "Seven Samurai" would be one of the finest movies I have ever seen - this is of course, bearing in mind that it was done in 1954. Name any aspect of filmmaking, and it's all here, masterfully crafted.. plot, story, characterization, cinematography, visuals.. Never mind that it is 3 hours long, there is never a dull moment here. So I thought, hmm, AK isn't so overrated after all. If you had to choose only one AK movie to watch, this definitely it. (Trivia: the film was released in black and white, and yet AK rejected certain samurai costumes for not having the correct red tint..) Rottentomatoes gave it a.. 100%. Dang..

Getting all excited with his samurai films, I decided to watch another of his later projects, "Kagemusha". It's a story of a "shadow" warrior, a double for a Japanese shogun who had to impersonate the feudal lord three years after his death. Quite nice though, visuals are stunning, but it was a bit dragging. Story is ok, but pales in comparison to "Seven Samurai". "Kagemusha" is the perfect companion while washing and pressing your clothes. Perhaps I shouldve watched this first, before going to the AK main event.

Googling AK films though, a lot of AK fanatics actually rate "Ran" (Japanese for Chaos) as his best work. Will hunt for that as well..

They ran indeed..

And posed for a shot.

Train Station

.

.. station based on clifford pier

Sunrise

.

CBD Closeups

Lantern Festival - Chinatown Part II

..experimenting with channels. nudged the red and green channels then filled the blue channel with black.

Harbourfront

Lantern Festival 2007, Chinatown

"The celebration of Mid-Autumn Festival is a Chinese traditional where families gather for reunions at a time when the moon is at its fullest and brightest, enjoying mooncakes and pamelos with a cup of fragrant tea. The Festival celebrates the legend of Chang Er, the lady of the Moon, who is believed to have floated to the moon after swallowing the elixir of eternal life. From 8th – 30th September, colourful lanterns will frame the streets of Chinatown and Singapore River, complemented by spectacular festive lighting and street bazaars."

(text lifted from SingaporeSights.com)

.