MograThis weekend I was a new guest host on an Avatar The Last Air Bender Podcast. You can hear and other avatar fans talk about a great episode of Avatar. Also check out a bunch of other great podcasts too.
http://avatarthelastairbenderonline.com/avatar-online-podcast-episode-67/
Avatar the Last Airbender is on of my favorite animated shows, and although the series has been done for a number of years now, they have been producing comics about what happened after the series was over. I have personally been really enjoying these giving us fans a look at what happened to our favorite character as they get older and what helps shapes the world that we see in Legend of Korra.
In the latest comic The Search Part Two we are following most of the gAng with Zuko on his quest to find his mother and at the End of the Book we find a meet a new Spirit the Mother of Faces which I really like the design of.
I wanted to do a simple cut out animation of the character and make a simple gif animation that I could quickly post online. It turned out not quick to do since I expanded my original idea of the project. I was simply going to break it up and place the parts in 3D space in C4d then bring them in to After Effects using the new Cineware plugin and animating them in AE. Creating an animation in only 2D space. But I wanted more control over the Spirit and cineware to work to slow for an efficient workflow.
I ended up doing a full rig for the Spirit in C4D and a more involved camera move that required me to recreate the whole background. I also added some music from audio jungle to add some atmosphere to the animation. I also learned the limits of gif sizes on various sites due my full gif being to large for most site to be posted on so I edited it and made a shorter gif in addition to the long one. Check them out and tell me what you think.
This past Friday I received a package from shapeways of my bison whistle. I was super excited when I found out earlier that week that it was shipped early than I expected.
After receiving them and getting over the initial awe of seeing something I made in the computer in real life (which lasted all of 1-2 minutes) I noticed many things about my developing modeling skills and understand a lot more about the translation from a 3D computer model to 3D real life object.
Scale matters…of course.
I have learned over time how relative scale work in regards to lightning object, dynamics to certain degree and even how fluid works with it in regards to real life size. Though making a real object took a bit of work and in the end I think I should have scaled my model up a bit more still.
I based my object on dimensions of a hair brush on my desk which seem a good size for the whistle. I did this in first center meters since that is one of the units of scale that shapeways takes, but for some reason I could not get my object scaled right even after adjusting the exports setting for stl or wrl. In the end I went with inches and the site took it perfectly. I’ll have to figure out what I did wrong eventually.
Full Color Sandstone vs. White Strong & Flexible Plastic
Both look awesome but plastic seemed to add even more smoothing to the model which is nice. I also notice less of the production process it took to make (though you can notice some stepping), where as on the sand stone I can feel and see where It also was heated, printed and is still smooth in some parts. However the sandstone one is fully hollow as I originally model it but the plastic is not. Not sure why though, maybe it was to hard to clean it out? The plastic also has some extra plastic on the horn tips as well.
My final thoughts is that 3D printing is awesome and I can’t see why people who really 3D modeling for a living shouldn’t get everything cool they model printed. It makes me want to become a better modeler just so I can print them out and see it in real life.
Also if any one else want this I put it up in my 3d printing shop for any one to buy.
Now what should I model next to 3D Print?
Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Promise Part 1 by Gene Luen Yang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I liked the book based on how I can see events developing into the new avatar series. If you have been keeping up with the fan fare about Korra you will easily be able to see how the new world evolved into what it is from where the last series ended and the new one picks up off from. That being said I’m still interested to seeing how things develop to be what they are especially after the cliff-hanger at the end of the book. The book is short “really short” and quite easy to read, probably due to it’s intended age market but most fans will still want to read it any way I think. That is if they where able to resist reading the leaked pages a while ago.