Professor finished (sort of)

Earlier this week...

I don't know what the title of this week's post is going to be, because I'm writing this on Monday. And the reason is that I've just conducted an experiment with such a good result that I have to write this down immediately, before I forget. 

I've been thinking a lot about professor's face and how I don't want to re-draw it. First, I kinda like it, and second, the vertex painting mode is more user friendly, in a way. You see the result directly in rendered mode (so you don't have to save the texture first, only to find out it looks nothing like it did in the viewport) and it doesn't get all screwed up around seams, simply because it doesn't have any.

The experiment I was talking about involved two cubes. On one of them I quickly sculpted letters and painted them in vertex colour mode, the other one I kept as it was (I just UV unwrapped it). Using Blender Render (Cycles' older brother) I made a normal map first—nothing unusual there—and then I baked a diffuse texture. From the vertex colours! See for yourselves:

Not much of a difference, is there? Only the left cube has 3280 faces, while the other one has... 6. Now, I'll obviously have to retopologize and UV unwrap professor's head first, but this gives me hope that I won't have to put all of that make-up on him again. (I'll probably re-touch the texture in regular painting mode anyway, because it offers finer control, but the main colours should get "imported" and backed up, essentially.)

***

That was an unusual introduction, wasn't it? But the week-younger me was absolutely right in pointing out that I'd forget this by Sunday. I have. And then, when I found it here, I didn't know how to integrate it into the usual post structure. Silly me. It's not enough to have Blender-blunders, now I have to go and create some writing ones, too. It would be a lot easier if I could specify which image should appear in the preview, but no, it must be the first one. Deal with it, users. (I'll feel properly silly if someone points out to me that it's actually possible to do that, but please, do point that out, if that's the case.)

Anyway. I think I'm done with the sculpting phase and part of texturing. What I'm not done with is everything else that needs to be done before I can use the professor in an animation. Which is a hell of a lot of things, to be exact. I'll be doing the retopology bits next week, because it is part of the course schedule, and then I might try rigging the week after. The thing is that visually the professor is not going to change very much, which is why I'm not going to make him a main topic anymore. I might still show his progress in future posts, but I'd like to focus on another project next week.

Quite predictably, the CG Challenge topic for these two weeks is right up my alley: "Nature Up Close". You thought you were going to mess up my plans by running this topic while I'm boggled down with other projects, didn't you. No, no, way ahead of you. I've chosen a beautiful photograph of something that is especially close to my heart and I'm going to do my best turning it into a CG version next week. If I can get it half as good as the photo, I'm going to be very pleased with it.

Oh, and while I'm jumping around from topic to topic, I should also mention that I created a (back)story for the professor. I intended to open with it, but it seems that it is destined to be a closing act. Here you go, then:

Where is that damn thing again? It must be here somewhere... I swear if Peterson was through my things again, I'll paint her stupid rocks purple. She just can't keep her nose out of— Oh, here it is. Now, what did the notes say... Hmm, yes. Swish and wave! ... Oops! Eh, I'm sure she's not gonna miss that. No, maybe it's more in the wrist, like— Oh no, not on the chandelier! Now I'll have to call Mr. Hedgewort and he's still angry about last week. "They are priceless! Contest winning material!" Rubbish. Carrot is a carrot, if you ask me. Good for salad, but not to be fussed about like a... like a... vegetable! He really is a ridiculous chap, that one. And what would he have me do? Keep poor Fluffy in that stinky hat all day? He doesn't like it in there. It gives him... indigestion. Ugh. I can still hear that horrible woman's laugh when I took my hat off last time. "Oh look, Morris is planting his own garden now. With that amount of fertilizer you are no match for him, Peter!" Would that she'd fallen off that chair. But tomorrow, oh yes. Tomorrow I'll show them. Peterson, Kelly, even that wombat-loving Thompson fellow. They will all feel sorry for mocking me. And if the "Deck Predictor" fails to amaze them, I still have one last trick up my sleeve...