Here I am just standing in a T-pose, getting ready to be rigged. I was created by
Mixamo, a great place to pick up more characters like me and a whole bunch of others.
I'm standing in a T-pose, since getting rigged for animation needs me to do this.
I originally came with a rig created by Mixamo, but I need a custom one made just
for me and my guitar playing. Yes, I must admit that I am a bio-mechanical man.
Here I am putting on some weight, or rather, weight maps, which is needed for the
rig that was just put on me. What a pain but required.
Here I am just posing for the camera here. I'm inside of Lightwave Layout, having
my rig being applied with weight maps.
This is Michelle here, which was created by DexSoft. Her name was something that was
given to by Michael. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to get into a T-pose, so again,
I had to create a custom rig for her. She's wearing an apron because she just got
finished preparing some food just before the concert.
This is Marisa, originally created by DexSoft as well. Her name was also given to her
by Michael, and a custom rig had to be created for her as well. She's also wearing an
apron because she just got finished preparing some food too.
Carl didn't have a name either, and was given the name Carl by Michael. He's like
Michael, originally created by Mixamo, and it's good he was able to get into a T-pose
as well, making the custom rig creation process easier. He originally had glasses
on, but he doesn't like wearing them when playing in concert.
Here I am creating my nylon-string, classical guitar with a cut-away. I could not for
the life of me find any of these, so I had build one myself. I can't play any other
type of guitar when playing for the classical guitar. I do play electric guitar for
rock style, and there are many of those out there, but this was an entirely custom-build
one. I was able to create the rosette by rendering an entirely separate model, taking
the rendered rosette, then using Gimp and compositing the image on top of the UV map for
the guitar to create my guitar. It's not a very expensive guitar, but it suits me well
for playing in concert. I like this one. It's not really clearly visible here in
Lightwave Modeler, but this does have a pickup and tone controls on the side of the body.
This can be seen close-up as it rotates around if you care to look at it more closely.
Michelle lost her flute, so I had to create one myself. I modeled it after a traditional,
Western, concert flute. She likes it. I started out with about 3,000 polys, but in the
end, I was able to reduce it to 999 polys, thank goodness. That's still rather high, but
I wanted a quality flute for Michelle, especially when it's seen up relative close.
This is the final result of my work for the flute. This is just a rendering in Lightwave
Layout. When rendered in real-time, it doesn't too shabby, which I hope you'll agree with
as can be seen below.
Real-time rendering of the flute against a bluish light. This is shown if the user
chooses to view Michelle's bio.
Here is Michelle shown with her favorite flute.
Carl's congas were stolen, so I had to create a pair for him for playing. Good thing
it's not as complicated as creating the flute, but it was still quite a bit of work.
Carl likes used congas better because over time, the instrument actual changes in its
tonal quality. I couldn't find any aged wood, but I found some aged skins, which can
be seen when viewed in concert.
I like pointy picks, and there are companies that make them, but I don't like any of
the materials used for those, so I wind up having to create my own. Notice the pointy
end, which isn't normally this pointy. If I do wind up buying picks, I always sharpen
the ends with sandpaper. For fun too, I put my signature on them, which can be see
if the user chooses to look up close at them. This was initially very high-poly, but
it was greatly reduced to around 500 I think. Regardless, as long as it has a good
feel to it, I can use it to play.
Here is my pick up close, which is shown if the user chooses to look at it up
close. This now has my signature on it.
Marisa's keyboard was lost when she was visiting her parents in Europe, so I wound up
having to create one for her. This is roughly modeled after my own Juno-D keyboard,
but this one is actually better than my own. It has some extra features that I do not
have on my Juno-D. Each key can be animated, but that isn't being done this time around.
Here is the result of my creation in Lightwave Layout. It doesn't really differ in the
final real-time render, so I am happy about that.
I needed a monitor as well. This was probably the easiest thing to create in all of this.
I created the mesh as a separate object, then I rendered it in Layout. I then used for
much lower poly of the monitor in the front portion.
The concert hall that I'm playing/played at needed a curtain, since that was torn when
an earthquake occurred last year. I created the curtain texture itself using Dynamics
in Lightwave Layout.
This is just me doing an initial test, noodling around. The stand-in model was kind
enough to help out, since Marisa was over in Europe at the time. The small stage
was just something I build real fast for this test.
My humble, little, so-called recording "studio" (missing is my Fender strat). I plug everything
directly into the multi-track recorder (Boss BR-1200). Because of this, every mistake can be heard,
although I hope you don't hear any. Pictured is my Olympia guitar, but somehow, it looks
different, but I'm not sure why. I can only use my monitor that I created for concerts, so I just
use cheap earphones when recording. Regardless, also this is my Roland Juno-D, POD XT Live, and my
BR-1200. I don't use anything else for recording, aside from Magix for assembling the final tracks
together. Each etude has a little bit of reverb, echo, and chorus applied, but other than that,
nothing else. In the future, I plan to learn how to do better mixing/mastering.
The Roland GR-55 Guitar Synth attached to my Frender strat. Without this, Michael Kreylar's Prelude
would not have been possible because I've no musicians other than myself (except for when I was in
concert for Michael Kreylar's Prelude with Marisa, Michelle, and Carl). The GR-55 was used for all
but one of the flute recordings; the Juno-D was used on Arc Journey for flute. Although the flute
is actual sample sound, due to my lack of skill, it's possible to tell that a real flutist wouldn't
necessarily play things as they are heard in Michael Kreylar's Prelude. It was particularlarly hard
to get trills to work, so it required overdubbing.
Here is my creation of the altar. It's a very small altar, not big like those in huge churches.
I created the model just going by some altars I've seen in some churches. The candle holder was
also inspired by a similar candle holder I had once see. The candle holder and candles have
no significance other than I just wanted to create something to go onto the table and for the user
to interact with.
Another pic of my guitar. Still can't figure out why it looks different here than when I use
it in concert. It has a pickup, and it's always directly plugged into the recorder because I
don't have a real recording studio, and I don't want to spend $500.00 for a good mic. The
little guitar is a nice pick holder given to me. It's the coolest worldly gift I had ever
gotten. I was going to bring it with me in concert, but I forgot and didn't have the time
to retrieve it.
Preliminary altar rendered in real-time This is the PC rendered version.
This is a close-up shot of the preliminary altar, PC version.
This is just the list of bible books. All 66 books are available for reading. The bible is
provided by New English Heart Bible. By far, the reading experience isn't going to be on par
at all with a real bible reading app. However, I wanted to add at least some utilitarian value.
The web version will not have the bible enabled, which is because I'm using a local database to
store everything, and I didn't see fit to fetch the data remotely.
Here I am holding a prayer cloth, after picking it up sitting on the table. As prayer
requests are visible, I ask that you pray for at least one person. If everyone does
that, we can have everyone's prayer request prayed for.
I wound up buying one space ship that I used to travel around, but I also created this
one as an extra one for touring. Perhaps this looks like a Manta-ray, since that was
sort of what I was thinking of at the time, so I call this my Manta ship. Michelle,
Marisa, and Carl wound up having to use this one while I had to make a quick trip back
to earth. I shall return though.
I wound up also buying the major space station, but I also created this one, again in
Lightwave. This has no UV map yet, but it can be seen below. I created this one for
possibly the second destination, but perhaps not.
Well, you may not see this unless you are able to discover the easter egg. It is not
hard to find it, but unless you do, this will never be shown. The earth (and Mars)
map texture itself is provided by NASA's Visible Earth archives, and I must say that
I have no association with NASA whatsoever. The main space station is something I
bought from someone that goes by the name Cerebus. I created the skybox with Spacescape.
Also can be seen is my own creation of a space station, as mentioned earlier.
You may not see this as well unless you find how to trigger it. That is, either I was
performing on Earth or Mars, can't be sure due to the phase shift that is occuring.
Regardless, I give thanks to my God, my family, and friends here because in the very end,
it is only these things that matter at the end of life. This also plays one of my
more up-beat etudes, which I figured might be a nice change from the mellow music
being heard for all other 6 etudes.
Here I just dumped my guitar in a mini phase dimensional shifter. Well, that and a
little help from Lightwave that I'm addicted to. The final, official render is on
the Music page.
This is my original attempt at creating my concert hall for me to perform at. I am
glad that eventually dedicided to scrap this and re-create it, as shown below. I
kept the stage though.
This is my second attempt at creating my concert hall. This is screenshot of Lightwave
Layout rather than Modeler, since all pieces were created as separate pieces. I find
that that is more effective from a modeling viewpoint, but from a real-time rendering
point of view, there's a price to pay. The motif was an image I bought by an artist
named Anna Poguliaeva, which I have no association with whatsoever. I think it adds
a very nice touch to things.
This is the concert hall shown in the News scene. This has a bloom effect, which will
not be available on mobile. It's the same concert hall that I perform in, but this
is just shown in the News scene for fun.
A secret Easter egg scene shown only on the desktop version.
Same secret Easter egg scene shown only on the desktop version, but I finished the
platform I'm standing on now, and some mystic plasma trails are surrounding me.
A snapshot of some of the old code I currently maintain at my day job. The work I
do is top secret, but this is so old that it just doesn't matter. It's written in
the old, pre-twenty-third century language C++. Yes, old code never dies. Notice
the ancient 2-D editor. These days, I mostly code in w++ and strictly with a
holo-editor with auto-correct gestures.
