nemezis design - what you see here, does not exist

Comparing procedural and painted texturing Article #1: Procedural This article is part #1 of my 2 articles to compare procedural and painted texturing. Next in  Part #2  I'll give my view on painted texturing, here we will have a look on procedural texturing the same asset. The intro of both articles is identical, but the conclusion of the series is included at the end of part #2. Intro I have been planning to write some articles honoring the 1st year I have spent in training until now to become a 3D artist. As subject of the first 2 essays I thought it would be appropriate to choose something which has given me the most thoughts in the past year. I have been fighting with a couple of things while getting to know different techniques for modeling, shading, lighting, rendering and post production, but from all these one of the few things currently, which seemed to me as a matter of preference instead of the actual progress of an artist on the learning path is...

I placed the previous gecko sculpt in an environment after finishing his details. It might be biologically imperfect, as this kind of animal lives in tropical rain forests, but I'll let this detail go as the animal itself is a mix of more subspecies as well. To be honest I have chosen a desert environment because the colors of green and beige go nicely with eachother :-) The rock is a recreation of a volcanic rock I have in my living room, originating from the lake Balaton. I used displacement an normal maps to get the details, based on the color map. The desert i made from an ocean type displacement (with dialing down the waves significantly) and adding some subtle tracks by sculpting. Finally post production added some depth of field, vignetting and chromatic aberration. So, I hope you like it :-)

Here a work piece, which I have enjoyed very much. Sculpting this gecko was really fun from the 1st second to the last. Maybe because I feel, that it is really successful. That means, that even though it is not very complicated, indeed, but complicated enough to  pose some challenges and it took me only about 3 hours. Therefor he is going to be my new mascot... but I still need to paint him :-) So here I share it with you as well:

One more entry to the plug contest. The concept was created for a contest with the aim of creating a fresh new design for a power plug. I designed it to incorporate as many features as possible and be interchangeable between power standards. The entry was rated 18th of 67 entries :-)

The concept has been made for a contest, with the aim to develop a high functionality UK power plug. I had fun and let loose my creativity. I have imagined a functionality, that deserves the name "Plug 2.0".  The base design is fairly clean and tidy, incorporating a number of handy features:  - On-off button  - LED visualization of on-off status  - Ejectors to help de-plugging, operated by a button placed ergonomically  - Turn able pins to ensure optimal plug position in any socket  - 0-90 degrees turn able cable outlet to prevent unwanted cable twisting and breaking  - Lock-unlock slider for the cable outlet  - Rubber grip  Features can be extended with offering the product in different colors and/or exchangeable pins for different power standards.

Refining my shading skills I was experimenting with adding certain physical values to parameters, like reflection and refraction amount, based on light entering angle and wavelength. I found also subtle improvement in materials, when more layers of speculiarity are added, similar to real layers on an object like dust grease, etc. The result will help to add better materials to my future renders:

Before post-production... After post-production...

I started to publish my portfolio on  Béhance ... Support is welcome in form of likes (if you like it)!

Another material for the Industrial TV concept. Speaker with an aged plastic material, UV worn, greasy, scratched and cracked surface. Also here no picture based textures used. The project starts to get its final look...

After setting myself high standards with the rusty paint shader, I was kinda stressed to produce a perfect background ice wall for the same Industrial TV project. After looking around how an ice wall actually looks (surprise surprise, it is not a huge ice cube), the result is a facing ratio dependent color subsurface scattering base with more reflection and bump layers. Well, looks great, but for the final render I might add some more color layers in the ice. Anyway, this is also only procedural, so no painting needed here (my texture painting skills will be tested in the next project for sure... but you'll see that later).

For the concept art project of the industrial TV I needed a procedural rusty metal (only because I did not want to paint a more complex rusty texture). Here the result: a dirt map distributed scratched rusty multilayered car paint with facing ratio dependent color. Hail to the power of mathematics!!! ... applause please!!!

The buttons have to be painted textures due to the good old fashioned indicator stripe on them. Painting included some signs of usage, dirt and bumps.

Getting started with the next project: Concept art for a novel - Industrial TV in an icy environment. Should be technically more realistic and retro (no steampunk or too sci-fi). So I took a look at older industrial equipment and started off with basic box with some vents and service openings.  Having the base some hinges, screws and handles were created. Then the final details, buttons, screen for viewing and old fashioned bulky camera, voltage meters and speakers. 

Mounting plate of an automotive product. Obviously here the shading, rendering and other stuff is irrelevant, as the product will be manufactured based on the 3D model.

Simple product visualization of a remote control with idealized materials for web purposes: LCD was created as a PS mask layer, scene is a virtual photoshoot indoor created with an HDRI environment (visible through the reflections). There is a realistic micro USB connector on the side.

Quoting one of my mentors "a model can be optimized indefinitely, so there has to be point, where the artist decides to go no further"... So that I decided is now the final bathroom, especially as I need to attend to other projects as well. But I believe it is a fairly good result. The raw one without post production: Then adding the lens effects, glare and bloom, the lens distortions (I choose an IPhone effect), chromatic abberation and vignetting: