John's Creative Space

Recent Character Work

2024-08-14T00:33:00.000-07:00

Developing vehicles is tough work. Developing characters is even tougher work. I have lately found a style for which I could produce a number of low-polygon characters. The primary intent was to develop characters that can be animated. What I will do in this blog post is break down some of my recent kick of developing low-polygon characters. You also will get to see some of the work I have been doing lately, even including prototypes I developed.

Recent Character Work

I will share my recent work and prototypes later in this blog post. For now, though, I will provide you some background.

Character development has been a very tough thing for me to try to work on and develop. I designed characters in voxel form long ago. You can look in this blog or on my Weebly page to see the full array of my work.

Why develop characters? Well, you want to be able to have characters become their own stars of games or media projects, or you may want certain characters to fill spaces and bring life to scenes. How you develop characters and what kinds of characters go a long way towards building your portfolio. It also helps establish yourself as a designer. No one obviously wants to see created characters not be utilized proper.

One of my plans was to finally make something a long time coming- take my voxel model characters and evolve them for use in 3D modeling software, games, and media projects. I looked back at my original 43 voxel model characters and thought about how I could bring them to life and enhance them from voxel form. At the moment, most of my designs are in the prototype phase. I will improve them over time using different techniques and learning new techniques. A lot of the low polygon techniques are from studying 3D models from older games and less-intensive games. Mostly, these are models from the PlayStation 1, Nintendo 64, and SEGA Saturn era.

The Low-Polygon Technique.

What has become my method for a lot of my modeling of characters has been a grid-like system. Through Blender, I have had a habit of setting up front-facing square planes of 10 centimeters length. I try to rough out the model I want to create through these grid-like meshes. I may keep them like their grid form, or I may refine the models to make them more realistic. I do want to keep everything low-polygon. Because I want the models to be animated, I tried learning... actually, re-learning how to rig models. This meant I had to allow enough geometry for which animators can properly animate models. Since I am not going to make the models intensely realistic, I can actually get away with some 3D modeling styles that still allow for low-polygon, low-spec 3D modeling.

The Minecraft (and Some ROBLOX) Influence.

When most people think of low-spec 3D, a lot of people look to Minecraft, once the greatest independent/indie games of all-time before being sold to Microsoft. Minecraft is absolute simplicity in regards to 3D and 3D animation. Only six cubes make up a Minecraft player. They then have small PNG files as textures. Minecraft is the bare minimum for some low-polygon or blocky work.

Did you know my original voxel model characters were meant to be used in Minecraft? Minecraft never happened for those models. One of the things I was thinking about was making the re-made voxel models to have the six-bone style setup. Minecraft player models have animations for the body, head, both arms, and both legs. The human models I developed have kind of the six-bone human setup.

ROBLOX had two different character styles for their Robloxians. The ROBLOX R6 model is highly like a base Minecraft player with its six-bone setup. That explains the "6" in R6- nearly the same six-bone armature setup as a Minecraft player: torso, head, both arms, and both legs. Later, ROBLOX would release the ROBLOX R15 model. As its name suggests, the R15 has a 15-bone setup: two torso bones, each shoulder, head, two bones for each arm (upper arm and lower arm), two hip bones connecting to the legs, and two bones for each leg (upper leg and lower arm). The initial goal of my reworked voxel characters is to give them a 15-bone setup. What I started off with is trying to give them a six-bone setup. Once I learned some newer techniques, I decided to try my hand at a 15-bone setup for my characters.

Now that I have filled you in, I will go ahead and share some of my latest work.

Recent Character Work: Character Prototypes

Let me show you a lot of what I have worked on in regards to developing my low-polygon characters. Some of these pictures can also serve as previews of future characters I plan to release or want to release. So what you are getting here are possible previews of what I will offer across a number of different 3D model stores. If you are ready, please keep reading.

Shaka.

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - This is Shaka, a protagonist to an unnamed project of mine.

I have no name for this project, but its main character is named Shaka. As I practiced making my prototypes for my enhanced voxel character models in Blender, I did this sort of one-off 3D model representing the hero of this project. I had to move around some mesh parts to make this character look good.

(Potentially Renamed Female Series).

These are some of the 3D characters for a past game project. The tentative name of the project is "Top Diva," but I may change it to something else. That is why I am labeling this as "potentially renamed female series." Each featured model is shown in the order of which ones I worked on least recently going to most recently.

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - This is Suzie, a French teenager.

When I first created Suzie, I realized I haven't developed any 3D character since January 2024 when I made this model for late July 2024. So imagine my happiness when I developed Suzie here. I did not know how I wanted to design the hands. I had loose hands in mind rather than clenched hands. I specially designed the cuffs for Suzie's shirt and her wool shorts. I used some good imagination to try to design her ankle boots in a stylish way.

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - Keisha is an athletic American dancer.

The original prototype for Keisha above has kind of the loose hands I thought of. However, no thumbs were modeled for those hands. I cuffed Keisha's pants. What I was going for is an urban girl with a little sportiness. I have made a duplicated mesh for testing making clothing designs. What this would present is the possibility of allowing a person to put one's own T-shirt designs or messages on it. That duplicate mesh layer is only one millimeter apart from the main mesh. Around the time of this model, however, I was unable to find out how to make transparent textures remain transparent.

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - Tomomi is a Japanese teenager who stands only five feet tall.

Tomomi was my third design using the character style I've adopted for this series. I tried to design various elements through meshes rather than with textures. I also developed Tomomi with a hand model I developed that I was starting to like.

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - Lydia is a Brazilian woman with a finely built body.

Because I developed Lydia to be a bit different with her pants, I kind of went the difficult route of designing Lydia and then texturing her from the stripes on the sides of her pants. I also went with a different hand design along with making her gloves.

2D Facial Rigging Prototyping.

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - A duplicated mesh positioned a millimeter away from its face makes up this mesh. The intent is on 2D facial rigging through textures.

I had facial animation in mind when I worked on this prototype. Originally, I did not know how to make transparent textures or pictures with alpha parts appear transparent. I then learned how to use Shader nodes in Blender to allow for the use of transparent images and alpha images. I had to change up a few Shader notes and change the alpha type from opaque to Alpha Clip. Later on, my face image for the model became transparent! While I haven't learned how to implement 2D facial rigging, at least this was a step in the correct direction towards eventually making 2D facial rigs or even animating textures for 3D models.

I will now be looking at breaking down the models you've seen in this section.

Low-Polygon Model Breakdown

I will use this time to discuss the finer details of my 3D modeling of these characters.

The models I made for Blender follow nearly the same front dimensions of my original voxel models. For more ability, I made their legs one or two bits longer. I have not truly developed a hand style I want to develop for all characters. The head style is a mesh grid of three squares horizontally and four squares vertically. If there were parts that I wanted to be implemented with making textures that can be changed, I duplicate those parts of the mesh and then position them slightly away from the main mesh.

From the textured parts, the second, third, and fourth rows were used for facial rigging. I use Blender's "Projection From View" to map out the facial texture. I do the same by picking a row of vertices to use for designs for a shirt or some other details. Since my models were low-spec, I had to find a good enough texture size to allow for words to be put on an outfit. I found something like 128 pixels across to be a good start. Later, 256 pixels across for outfit graphics would be good. I want to learn how I can implement 2D facial rigging or even setting up animated textures for models.

Implementing armatures involves me learning how to set up armatures along with weight painting. I felt the best method of armatures was to use Armature Deform With Empty Groups. Only recently I learned of a better weight painting method that works well for my models. All I had to do was change one of the Weight Painting options to where the falloff is linear or constant. It quickly painted the mesh parts I wanted to weight paint properly.

As of this moment, where I struggle is finding a style to properly animate the arms and the legs. I made the upper arms and upper legs shorter than the lower arms and lower legs. However, I am not certain how I want to structure some models. So I am drawing more inspiration from other early 3D models to help construct my characters.

Rest assured that if/when I create models ready to be animated and utilized, I will share them on as many different 3D stores as possible. That means Turbosquid and Envato's 3D Ocean currently. I also will be looking for more platforms; such as (but not limited to): CGTrader, SketchFab, (maybe) ArtStation, and more. Stay tuned to my blog and my other social content for more information!

Now I want to make note that if I work on my individual characters, I will make blog posts as well as add to my Github personal page. I want to keep you entertained and engaged. It is the least I can do. The rest is up to you. Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Support me further by connecting with me on social media; and if you are inclined, feel free to donate to me (tips/donations are voluntary but would be appreciated). Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Recent Vehicle Work

2024-07-03T20:53:00.000-07:00

I have been 3D modeling vehicles lately. Part of these are 3D re-imaginations of my voxel vehicles. Others are completely original 3D vehicles. Gaining experience in modeling vehicles made me embark on a new project. I am doing what I can to try to showcase my skill in 3D modeling. I want to share some of my work and my plans in this blog post. So if you are inclined, let me share my work with you all.

Recent Vehicle Work

This blog post discusses work I have done lately in developing vehicles. Before I can share more of my work, I have to share how I got to this point.

Building Blocks.

This movement towards making vehicles began with me trying to learn to develop a vehicle controller for Unity3D. I properly followed a tutorial from Unity, and it got me to wonder how to develop more vehicles. The tutorial package from Unity had a car that would spin out too easily. Like, the tutorial couldn't handle sudden avoidance turns. That was besides the point of this blog post.

I kept practicing making the same Blockbench truck in a tutorial. Rather than re-create it in Blender, I re-made it in Blender. Once I got down how to develop it, I wanted to animate it. So what I did was add on some wheels. As any vehicle to be animated in 3D, I separated the wheels from the vehicle chassis. The next challenge was to take the same vehicle scripts from the Unity tutorial but implement them to a custom vehicle. This was harder because I had to rely on being able to properly set up the custom vehicle. I had to do some editing because I didn't set the origin of each wheel to their geometry. Therefore, my early vehicle had wonky rotation with the tires. I then changed up 3D options in Blender and re-exported to Unity. The end result? This picture:

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - I developed this pickup truck and this simple oval race track.

I was so happy to get in enough of a groove to develop an interest for 3D modeling vehicles. My interests only pertain to low-polygon work. More to come.

The Low Polygon, Low-Spec Style

Let's get something straight. Low polygon can be very subjective. It is only as low polygon as one perceives low-polygon. Granted I never developed anything of seriously high detail, I have done enough to warrant some kind of attention towards low-polygon modeling. The most realistic 3D model I ever made was a human foot from a tutorial on YouTube. I lack the confidence to make a fully real vehicle. It didn't mean, however, I could not give full effort towards trying to make believable vehicles. Let me share with you some of my work.

Low Polygon Challenge.

Previous attempts at making a low-polygon vehicle haven't been too good. I fear not making things as detailed as possible, though I do not specialize in hyper-realistic and hyper-detailed models. It wasn't until one time that I made a true vehicle that could be perceived as "low-polygon."

Previously, what was to be a low-polygon model ended up being something I further to being not low-polygon at all. One sports car model I developed in 2020 ended up with 2490 vertices, 1878 faces, and 4848 triangles. I made a low-polygon sport-utility vehicle (SUV) in 2021 that had 285 vertices, 221 faces, and 544 triangles. I surpassed both marks with a model I developed in June 2024. Here are the stats on my 2024 model: 183 vertices, 324 edges, 155 faces, and 340 triangles. The model I made in 2024 was a hatchback based on one of my old voxel vehicles. Here is a look at it:

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - This was one of my best low-polygon efforts to date.

Trying to come up with as few polygons as possible but with decent detail is its own challenge. I made it happen, though.

Low Polygon With Pixel Textures.

One of my best creations to date is another SUV I developed. The challenge was to make a vehicle and then it pixel art-style art. I still need to learn how to better detail things in pixel art. I actually thought of trying to learn how to bake lighting and shading into UV maps in Blender. I looked to old PlayStation 1 racing games for low-polygon insight. That is how I learned to make simple side-view mirrors. The work of about 3-6 hours to model and texture one vehicle led to this effort:

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - This was one of my best low-polygon efforts to date.

I had kind of a tough time thinking about how to texture this crossover SUV. I basically thought of it having a bold grill, lights with daytime running lights, and simple designs for the door handles and tail lights. I even had a bit of fun making a window banner saying "Pixelate." I used a blueprint of the 2006 Cadillac SRX in developing the side profile of it. Then, I used my imagination to make my own vehicle. This model is meant to be one of my 3D reimagined versions of one of my voxel vehicles.

My Latest Vehicle.

One vehicle I worked the past day or two (as of July 3, 2024) is this:

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - This microcar is one of my most recent works, and it is also one of my creations not based on any of my voxel vehicles.

This is a microcar I was working on. It is based on a blueprint of the 2015 smart fortwo. I did not complete a proper UV map for it, so that is why it has no texture to it.

Now that you have seen some of my latest vehicle work, I have to share what my plans are with these vehicles.

My Vehicle Plans

Originally, I developed these vehicles to be implemented into racing/driving games. I had the likes of GTR2, rFactor 1, and Assetto Corsa in mind. I may also just have them to be vehicles to use for nearly any game engine. The intent of these are to make vehicles that can be operated. However, I may develop some static vehicles that can be used as props.

TO DO.

I am slowly learning how to make better-quality 3D vehicle models. What I want to be able to do is develop vehicles with interiors as well as make vehicles with light housings. I have no plans to develop actual vehicles. My focus is on original, "generic" vehicles. Some generic vehicles of mine draw inspiration from actual vehicles while not being outright copies of them. Anyone who really knows vehicles may know what elements and machines my work spawns from.

Remember earlier I talked about making my custom vehicles for Unity car controllers? Well, one plan of mine was to take the Unity Skycar from their long deprecated Standard Assets Library and swap out the meshes to suit my vehicles. Doing this will allow me to tune the Unity Skycar code to fit any number of vehicles. It also means I get to be able to have engine sounds and braking sounds implemented. What I COULD do is learn to swap out meshes for Edy's Randomation Vehicle Physics, but I am not so sure that would work too well.

What I Want For My Supporters.

If you have ideas of having vehicles you can control for games or media projects, just know I have you covered as best as I can. I want to provide such products to the public-at-large. While I may not have complete material immediately, I will work over time to improve my skills and make better material for you all.

Wait, John... What About These "Blueprints" You Speak Of?

Oh, I downloaded a bunch of blueprints from a site called "The Blueprints." I have to do some adjusting to build them to a proper scale, but they have been a big help in modeling. Take a look at the blueprints offered in regular images and in vector images here: www.the-blueprints.com. Maybe you can create your own lovely vehicles with these blueprints! :)

That's all for this blog post. I hope you got some insight from me. Stay tuned to my creative works to see what all I have for you! Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Support me further by connecting with me on social media; and if you are inclined, feel free to donate to me (donations are voluntary but would be appreciated). Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my JohnMarineDesigns Weebly site, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin! Let's connect:
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College Car Concept

2024-05-22T01:19:00.000-07:00

Earlier in May 2024, I saw a live stream of Formula SAE competition at Michigan International Speedway. I was somewhat inspired to make some concept or project to set up based on seeing these college formula cars. Additionally, I thought about a second concept similar to Baja SAE, but that is for another time. Allow me to share with you my concept.

About the Label: Breakdowns

Blog posts under the label of "Breakdowns" involves an explanation of individual projects to help you understand certain works of mine. As many elements of it as possible are brought into greater detail. Breakdown posts can include stories, artwork, audio, and more.

College Car Concept: The Car

Collegiate motorsports is not a concept that has been visited much in virtual racing. There have been two primary examples. "Live for Speed" is a game that features the MRT5, a formula race car inspired by a car developed by McGill University in Canada. There are also a handful of mods featuring a Formula Student car developed by the University of Carlos III Madrid, the MAD Formula Team.

There are no real wheel-to-wheel racing series involving colleges and universities. What comes very close, however, is the Purdue Grand Prix. The Purdue Grand Prix is a go-kart race held on a go-kart track meant to raise scholarship funds for graduating students at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. If you get to see any videos on the Purdue Grand Prix, take a look. It gives you an idea of colleges taking on the challenge of motorsports.

As nearly anyone would know, motorsports are expensive and surely dangerous. No one wants to see their prized racing machines become a heap of scrap metal after a crash or some other unfortunate incident. Thankfully my idea is a fantasy deal whereas this is more a spec car rather than colleges building them up from scratch. Also, getting into any sort of racing series usually does not require a college degree. It is not like American football or basketball where you need a certain amount of time in college prior to joining professional leagues. Part of the beauty of fantasy involves imagining things that defy logic and are sometimes too good to be true.

In reality, however, these collegiate motorsports competitions are held by mostly engineering students at college and universities; and the competitions themselves do not usually involve wheel-to-wheel racing. The goal of these colleges and universities is to build a formula car for a fictional company. This becomes a journey of about a year and a half to build, develop, present, and actually race these machines in a number of different events. Students of these programs usually go on to receive Engineering degrees and work mostly in the automobile industry.

This idea basically is about taking the college sports style route and work flow and adapting it to motorsports. So to get started in explaining this project, let me talk about the car.

The Competition Car.

Here is a breakdown of what I created as a rough draft. This is a rough draft or concept of what I developed:

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - This is a rough draft of a formula race car I developed based on what colleges make.

For me personally, this is my best-ever attempt at 3D modeling a formula race car. This concept car is an interpretation of a formula-type race car that a university or college would develop. I did not know what to name it, so I named it as the "College Car Concept." Such cars have a restriction of having engines no greater than 710cc displacement. A lot of these cars are mostly powered by supersport/middleweight motorcycle engines. Such engines have roughly 600cc displacement. A few others use a 450cc dirt motorcycle engine. Once, Western Washington University developed a 554cc V8 engine for their Formula SAE car in 2001. It is one of the wildest FSAE cars ever developed.

I decided to get wild with this idea. How wild? Try these cars being fitted with superbike engines! So this concept could possibly have superbike performance. Normally, one of these Formula cars will usually race on tracks like go-kart tracks. A car with a superbike engine would be too much for some go-kart tracks. This would defeat the purpose of these superbike-powered cars on a go-kart track or most autocross courses. This would be a superbike-powered car racing on longer and more proper courses if this car was powered by a superbike engine. Now if you need some examples, I have seen videos of superbike-powered race cars take on hillclimb events in Europe, so that is a bit of perspective.

The Competition Car Specifications.

I have no idea about the rules and regulations of Formula SAE or Formula Student. In fact, there is supposedly a rule book in Formula SAE with over 100 pages. This car was built as a loose interpretation of modern formula cars by colleges and universities.

There are actually a lot of options for the player in regards to the college car:

CHASSIS AND ROLL CAGE: While the car featured is a winged car, lower-powered versions can have no aerodynamic enhancements to it. The options would be having no wings and then being to choose a winged car. Usually, it is up to the colleges themselves to develop a car to either take advantage of aerodynamics or not. It all depends on if you want your car to generate downforce or not.

ENGINE: The college car could be fitted with a host of engines. I figured the "starter" or "beginner" spec would be a measly 125cc engine, like with a go-kart faster than rental karts. Another option is a 250cc engine that superkarts have. There are also 250cc dirt bike engines. If you fancy a dirt bike engine, you could choose either a 250cc dirt bike engine or a 450cc dirt bike engine. The primary class of engine is a 600cc engine, such as with supersport/middleweight motorcycles. If I could think of a unique flow to it, the superlative class of the College Concept Car is a 1000cc superbike-type engine.

Besides motorcycle or kart engines, I kind of thought of possibly engines by Japanese kei cars. I thought of an Inline-3 or Inline-4 engine for this car. However, I think they would be a bit too big for my College Car Concept.

TIRES: Hoosier Tires supplements the tires for Formula SAE cars. The tires are proper racing-spec tires. These tires developed by Hoosier are 16 inches in diameter. I initially thought of high-performance street tires for my College Concept Car. They probably wouldn't grip as well as competition tires, but it might keep some costs down. I would be thinking any number of tire makers who make racing tires would provide more options to the player. Such tires can cost between $200 USD to $300 USD for each tire. So take the price of one tire and multiply it by four for a complete set.

SUSPENSION AND HANDLING: I am not certain how collegiate formula cars are controlled suspension-wise. I think active suspension and/or semi-active suspension are allowed. Other than that, I haven't thought about suspension settings much.

Because these formula cars race mostly on kart tracks and on autocross, the cars are set for snappy steering and kart-like handling. These formula cars, though, have better grip than racing karts with the bigger tires.

TRANSMISSION: The transmission is likely set up more towards taking on shorter courses. Therefore, cars would be set up with short gears for acceleration.

This gives you some insight on the specs of this car.

The Competition Car: Performance.

This car can basically be thought of as a formula-style go-kart but with a bigger engine and more snappy performance. If you watch a lot of Formula SAE and Formula Student videos of these cars in action, you can get an idea of how they perform. The more dream scenario would be if the cars were fitted with superbike engines, bigger and more grippy tires, and a few other enhancements greater than what regulations in Formula SAE and Formula Student.

Now let me explain the concept a bit more. But first...

The Competition Car: Other Ideas?

I actually have other ideas outside of a collegiate formula car for some college motorsports concepts. I have ideas even for something like Legends Cars and even an idea for sportscar prototype racing similar to the Sports Racer categories of SCCA Racing. I may come back to "John's Creative Space" with ideas of other styles of collegiate racing. Stay tuned!

College Car Concept: The Concept

I was thinking of a concept in which a specially-designed, turn-key, customer race car that various colleges can use. The idea is of college students still in college enjoy some racing and racing for their beloved schools. So the idea here was to make a game concept or simulation concept of colleges racing against each other. While I do know a lot of my own American colleges and universities, I also thought of American schools vs. non-American schools.

For inspiration, I looked up the kart classes of Automobilista 1. This game has six classes of karting- rental kart, race-spec rental karts, 125cc direct karts, 125cc bodywork karts, 125cc shifter karts, and superkarts (250cc). The superkarts are powerful enough to run on full-length circuits. The other kart styles, however, are more akin to what a lot of these college formula cars could race on. Some of these college formula cars are even raced on kart circuits for testing and hot laps.

So anyone looking for a more authentic-type experience with this level of formula cars can have them on proper go-kart tracks. They would be too slow for a lot of bigger size tracks. I am thinking even superbike-engine college formula cars may still not be enough for a lot of full-length tracks. However, don't get too excited about something like college formula cars racing on tracks like Spa-Francorchamps, Circuit de la Sarthe (24 Hours of Le Mans course), the Nürburgring 24-hour course, or the Snaefell Mountain Circuit (Isle of Man TT).

Now you have an idea about this college formula car I have thought of. If I continue to develop it better, I may offer something like this for sale if/when it is complete. Or I may just pass this along for free and take some donations for anyone who really appreciates my work.

I am glad you could join me for my breakdown of this concept I thought of. You are always welcome to share your thoughts about my material. My only suggestion is to use proper comments and not spam or hate. Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Support me further by connecting with me on social media; and if you are inclined, feel free to donate to me (donations are voluntary but would be appreciated). Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my JohnMarineDesigns Weebly site, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin! Let's connect:
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Low-Spec 3D Pixel Art

2024-04-23T00:04:00.000-07:00

Low-polygon, low-resolution 3D is something I have slowly worked towards. Having no real success at hyper-realistic or photo-realistic 3D, I decided to downsize my 3D work. Blockbench was a start. Blender has continued it. Recently, I had the chance to try my hand at low-spec work through making a texture atlas and then using Blender for 3D modeling. I will break down my process here in this blog post.

Low-Spec 3D Pixel Art

I wanted to try doing low-spec pixel art to downsize my 3D art efforts. I never exceled at making realistic 3D; or at least, 3D art that can be seen as "acceptable" to most people. I figure my calling is to try to design 3D art and textures with my own identity. Because I am someone who is about bare essentials instead of making something overly flashy and beautiful, I am slowly moving towards downsizing my work.

What I did recently was design a race track inspired by an Adobe Flash game called "Moja Grand Prix." This game used some very low-spec graphics and textures for design of these 3D tracks. The game had some pseudo 3d sprites (nowadays "billboards") and some basic 3D with the walls, signs, overlays, and grandstands. The point was to design low-spec graphics for a model. A quick map I designed in about 10-20 minutes is what you see below:

^ from: (my X/Twitter (@johnbmarine)) - This sample race track is one of my first experiments in building low-spec 3D models even with low-spec textures. (NOTE: This image does not represent any project I am working on.)

While this is not going to win any awards for most beautiful track, it is certainly a better effort than a lot of low-quality models I've seen on certain 3D retailers like Turbosquid. If I were to test it, I'd use my vehicle controllers in Unity3D or program these tracks into Assetto Corsa. I actually intend on making these track models available for games and game engines. I prefer doing mostly original courses. I feel like I wouldn't do real locations justice or respect if I were to 3d model real-world places. So to limit would-be damage, I'm doing my own thing.

One of my inspirations is to design low-spec material as if Mode 7 games were given a more 3D facelift. While not making things hyper-realistic or photo-realistic, I am somewhat trying to balance old-style 3D with a few modern tricks while keeping everything fairly classic. I'm even studying Super Nintendo and Game Boy Advance games that use 3D style modeling for its environments. These will not be impressive 3D models and maps, but I feel I can make low-spec cool. That is even if I want fancy pants, modern, simulation racing games to take advantage of my work. I'm actually serious on making low-spec cool for racing games of the arcade, "simcade," and pure sim variety. If we have (for example) a LEGO race track and Mario Kart series tracks for Assetto Corsa, I can make my own low-spec and low-resolution work to be just as cool as the fancy stuff.

I used a texture atlas for this sample run rather than separate textures. I had to learn how to re-map UV mapping when using the Spin tool. The Spin tool is the most effective way to model curves for race tracks. I once made a practice race track for Assetto Corsa that had elevation changes. I found it was best to bevel the top and bottom of elevation changes to ensure smooth movement when going uphill or downhill. Adding about five segments of beveling spread decently enough will make elevation changes not as sloppy (unless you want sloppy elevation changes). A texture atlas can be effective if you're trying not to have so many smaller images for textures. I seen some of the older mod tracks I had for old Sports Car GT (and a few vehicle mods for SCGT as well) used texture atlases instead of individual bitmaps for textures. However, it can be a bit messy to designate certain faces to one specific part of the texture in a texture atlas.

My original idea was to use a large texture of 1024x1024 or 2048x2048 to design the track, and then subdivide the Image as Plane down to 16x16 tiles. I then would refine the geometry to include 3D models and elevation changes. It was a cool idea, but I feel it would be rather tedious. So I went with a different method. This method was a variation of trying to make Mode 7-style maps to have greater 3D depth. The idea of using a completed race track texture map was inspired by the likes of Super Mario Kart, Wacky Wheels, Skunny Kart, and even the original Turbo Sliders.

Advantages and Disadvantages of This 3D Method.

I can have more control over using the individual tiles and produce some better low-spec 3D using tiles instead of a tile atlas. I do not need to re-create the greatest artwork ever conceived to make quality material. I am not overly cheap, though; so I have to make textures and models to where I have made at least some legit effort at producing everything. This low-spec method means I do not have to produce AAA-quality art or models to be successful. Since I have the idea of giving a unique twist to pixel art and low-res 3D, I want to be able to make it fun. I am thinking of making things 3D but not overwhelming what might have been popular in the 1990s with 3D. Since my current concentration is on race tracks, I want to be able to see my low-style creations be made for different systems and engines. I have no shame in using an advanced simulator like Assetto Corsa to make low-resolution style race tracks. Of course, I will need to make the Assetto Corsa experience interesting to give a modern style to what seems to be low-spec 3D art and low-spec 3D modeling.

The disadvantages are obvious. People are not going to take art seriously if it looks like someone in grade school for a school project created it. There is still some accomplishment in creating something if it turns out being something fun and that you put full effort into. Creative work should be about putting in your best effort to try to impress your audience. You can not impress everyone, but you can still impress just enough people to make something enjoyable.

Lessons Learned and TO DO Notes.

Establishing your own identity and doing creative work in your own way are key to letting yourself be known in any sort of media. While my recent ambitions seem like giving up on realistic 3D, I am also trying to solidify and showcase my own style. You sometimes have to do things your own way to where you are happy with what you produce even if others think you can do better if they don't like your work. While anyone can produce great creative content, you also need to produce content that you can be proud of making. I am therefore happy with what I have produced and think I can do better.

What I might do is maybe design textures into their own separate images rather than put them into a texture atlas. I even thought of doing my texture atlas a different way. I also have to try to learn how to better UV map textures after using Blender's Spin tool. The method I came across is to reset the UV mapping, straighten the UV islands, and then use a Follow Active Quads to properly utilize the 3D space I am using.

I also may want to improve my pixel art skills. I am not adept at things like using a limited palette or using different techniques to produce more amazing pixel art. That will be something else to enhance upon my work. It will help make my low-spec pixel art become liked more even by those more into pixel art.

Future Plans.

When I feel I have done enough making race tracks and other things, I want to then try to design characters in this same style. I also want to try to make scenes and worlds that are not race tracks. Besides my 3D racing ambitions, I even had ideas for action, RPG, fighting, and sports settings (motorsports technically count as sports). I had some ideas for RPG-style worlds using my current methods.

Inspirations.

Click on the links in this section for inspiration on all of the different things I have discussed in this blog post:

• I mentioned Moja Grand Prix. Even though Adobe Flash was discontinued long ago, you can view this site that gives you an idea of Moja Grand Prix: Moja Grand Prix on BeautiFl (WARNING: Site is not entirely in English). If you have Adobe Flash Player, you can play this game in that program if you download the SWF to your device. There was also a sequel called Moja Grand Prix 2, but I don't think there is too much difference from the game except for more Chinese text.

• If you don't know what Mode 7 is with games, mostly from Super Nintendo and Game Boy Advance, learn more about Mode 7 in this Wikipedia entry: Mode 7 - Wikipedia. What I have planned previously was adding more 3D depth to Mode 7-style 3D.

? Assetto Corsa for non-realistic tracks is what I made mention to. To give you insight on fantasy tracks that are unrealistic in nature, here are two videos for you to watch (thank the uploaders for making their videos public):

^ [Assetto Corsa] LEGO Speed Champions - 1:12:779

^ Mario Kart in Assetto Corsa Track List!

Hopefully this all gives you an idea of the low-spec work I plan to do in the 3D art realm.

This concludes my breakdown of my low-spec 3D art. Maybe this inspires you to try some low-spec 3D models and textures. Stay tuned to this blog and my social media to see my latest works! Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Support me further by connecting with me on social media; and if you are inclined, feel free to donate to me (donations are voluntary but would be appreciated). Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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3D Modeling Asset Breakthrough

2024-02-29T16:56:00.000-08:00

Of late, I had a breakthrough in testing 3D assets for games. Using GZDOOM for DOOM and JFDuke3D for Duke Nukem 3D, I finally found a way to test out my 3D assets. I learned to import my creations into these ports. The impact from my first successful 3D model importing is me trying to make more models to replace some of the sprites in such games. This blog post is a look at some of the creations I made and what I replaced some graphics with.

3D Modeling Asset Breakthrough

Most of what I have created was done in GZDOOM. I used Duke Nukem 3D also because it is my favorite first-person shooter. GZDOOM, though, was easier to import and implement my creations. JFDuke3D was more of a pain to get my models into the game. I still succeeded.

Model Showcase.

Here are samples of the 3D models I worked on...

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - Carry around a canteen to hydrate while on duty.

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - My Canteen, in Duke Nukem 3D.

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - This is a collage of assets in DOOM I developed. From left to right, top to bottom: canteen, small sci-fi healing kit, large sci-fi healing kit, pistol clip, ammo box, and four shotgun shells.

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - This is a small healing kit. It will recover minimal health in a game.

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - On the left is a large health kit, and on the right is a berserk health kit meant to be used in DOOM. The large health kit will recover a moderate amount of health. The berserk operates as it does in DOOM- full health and a damage increase.

^ from: (my X/Twitter) - This is a Paramedic bag. Depending on the game, this item restores a massive amount of health, grants full health, or takes your health a level above full health.

These are only a handful of game assets I developed. I may go back and edit some of the other game assets I worked on previously.

My Workflow Explained.

My workflow consists of using Blender to make the topology for my models. I use GIMP for texturing my models. I export a map (as well as a UV layout) from Blender to aid in trying to develop UV mapping for my models. Once that is done, I export my models to FBX.

I only exported selected objects and the animation and geometry data. From what Blender considers forward (-Y), I change Forward to "-X Forward" and Up to "Y Up." Other options: Apply Unit enabled, Use Space Transforms enabled, Apply Transforms enabled, triangulate objects, and bake animations.

I use a program called Noesis to convert my FBX to either MD2 or MD3. I had some better luck with MD3, so that is what I use for my exported format from FBX. What I do in Noesis is rotate the model 90 degrees. If exporting to GZDOOM, I use an Advanced Command of "-scale 0.5") or something so the model doesn't look massive in GZDOOM. The original FBX size of my models seem just fine for Duke Nukem 3D in most circumstances.

Struggles Implementing Models.

GZDOOM has been rather simple to implement models into. The one problem I run into is forgetting to put my creations into my own custom PK3 file. I realize why I don't see updated material because I fail to update my PK3! So if you're importing 3D models and textures into GZDOOM, remember to implement them into the PK3. It is recommended you use SLADE for editing PK3s, and also get ZDL to load up DOOM or DOOM2 using a custom 3D PK3.

I struggled so much with Duke Nukem 3D because I had trouble setting things up in DEF files. What makes DN3D easier, though, is that while you have the High Resolution Pack (HRP) installed, you do not need to compile everything into one file like with GZDOOM. The big problem with me is that the MD3 files I've used do not have animation frames to use. So when you define a model, you have to leave the part blank about certain animation frames (the "definemodelframe" property) if you're using a static model.

While I haven't tried out importing models for "Cube Engine" or "Cube 2 Sauerbraten," they were two other options I considered for making 3D models for. The process is rather difficult doing so. I also considered trying out my 3D assets in "Quake 3 Arena" or "OpenArena."

Future Plans.

I hope to be able to develop models that can be animated. I am looking at GZDOOM, Duke Nukem 3D, and even Cube 2 Sauerbraten for animation of MD3 models. GZDOOM seems the easiest to implement animated models, so most of my early attempts could be with GZDOOM. I am going to offer models anyways that will not be rigged or have any animations for those who want to use Mixamo or something for animating models. They will be offered in Blender format along with GIMP's XCF files. The benefit to this? You save money! That is... unless you prefer to subscribe to an *industry standard* at exorbitant prices...

That's all for this blog post. Thanks for checking out my creative work blog, John's Creative Space! Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Support me further by connecting with me on social media; and if you are inclined, feel free to donate to me (donations are voluntary but would be appreciated). Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Embracing Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Creative Works

2023-10-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

I have always been a creative type. I have not relied on other sources to help me produce my own creative work. I had a certain disdain and guilt about using artificial intelligence (AI) for creative work. Lately, however, I tried to train my mind to embrace AI. I was drawn to the appeal of AI art when I found out I could prototype work better. I ended up having several stints of trying new AI prompts using the free Bing Image Creator. Powered by DALL-E 3 (as of October 18, 2023), I tried a number of different AI art prompts. Some prompts turned out well. Some others resulted in "unsafe results." No matter what, I have started to use AI for prototyping and for getting realistic results of what I want to create.

This blog post is a discussion about using AI creatively without guilt. I may create similar blog posts for my other blogs based on this topic.

BEFORE I BEGIN...

Most of what I will discuss in this blog post relates to my adventures using the free Bing Image Creator, powered by DALL-E 3. There are other AI art generators available online, offered for free or for a fee.

Okay. Let's get it!

About the Label: AI

Blog topics that mention or feature AI-generated content will be featured under this Label.

Embracing Creative AI

Artificial intelligence has been one of the hottest things going among the past 10 years. AI usually is known with games to provide realistic entities able to act and react. Lately, AI is being used to automate tasks normally filled by humans and with human labor. Many people fear AI will be like robots- replacing human labor.

If you think AI can be damaging to many different industries, it certainly impacts the realm of creativity. AI art generating has been popular in the usage of AI. Using certain prompts can yield certain results. Some people use AI voices to automate certain people.

Even though a single user can generate almost any sort of AI media, one has to be careful of what one can actually produce. What one can produce can either be blocked or regulated. Some people have tried things such as using certain AI art prompts regarding certain celebrities or re-creating certain controversial and deadly moments. Some people made certain audio works with AI voices resembling actual people. Certain celebrities can even sue people who use AI samples of their voice, such as hip-hop legend Ice Cube.

AI Isn't Perfect...

One thing to be mindful of in AI Art Generators is that your AI prompts for AI art can often times produce results you will not be happy with. So you may need to use the same prompt again to produce a different set of images. Keep using the same prompt to try to produce a better image or set of images you want to generate. If need be, adjust the AI art prompt to something more specific to what your idea(s) is/are. However, be careful. Sometimes, the same prompt you input can produce "unsafe results." And about such results...

The "Unsafe Results" Conundrum.

If you produce a prompt which is deemed unsafe, it is because you mentioned something that gets blocked. This usually involves material that is copyrighted, considered offensive, considered seductive, or anything of that nature. You may use the same prompt and get safe results one time. Then with the same prompt, you may get unsafe results. You just have to try your luck and hope for the best.

Be wary that some words may be banned terms for certain AI art generator prompts. I found using words like "top," "bottom" or things like that will result in unsafe results. I also found using certain body parts in my prompts can also result in blocked prompts. For example, I probably can't use "shoulder" if I make a prompt about off-shoulder dresses. I think I also did a search about grilled chicken breast sandwiches, and that prompt was also blocked because of the word "breast."

Conversely, I was surprised at what terms I could use. I actually used words about certain ethnicities and some body types. For example, I did a prompt about an "athletic black woman" that did not result in me getting unsafe results. Prompts are all trial and error when it comes to AI prompts for creative material.

Your Results May Vary.

I tried a number of different prompts to test the waters of what is possible with AI art generation. I got some oddities with some prompts I generated. You might find some oddities in images. I usually found this with some of my fashion-themed AI art generated images. Usually, I would have a female fashion model that has three legs. Some female fashion models through AI may be wearing a hat while also holding onto another hat. I think I even had one female fashion model that had a severed leg. For some reason, when I did a prompt about dress outfits with sneakers, the model was holding a skateboard. I did NOT specify having a skateboard.

In other words, do NOT expect your results to be perfect the first time around. Unless you are given one result that does not result in what is close to what you are looking for, keep running the same prompt and keep trying your luck. It is like spending more money at a slot machine- keep trying until you get something you'll be happiest with. Don't give up until you've exhausted all of your efforts trying to generate something perfectly or near-perfect to what you are trying to generate.

AI simply uses algorithms based on terms you use. It will never be perfect. A great thing about AI is that it is always learning. Like how one gets better practicing something in repetitions, AI can get better with repetitions. Sometimes, your AI prompts may result in something deemed not safe for work (NSFW) and may result in your search results being blocked. Most of the time, this is a restriction set by certain providers rather than the proper AI art generator itself. So often times, your AI art generating can be hampered by the service you are using.

With an idea about AI, now it's time I discuss AI without guilt.

Embracing Creative AI: Avoiding Guilt

If you are concerned about guilt in creative works created by artificial intelligence, one thing to understand is that AI is meant to HELP you, not REPLACE you. It is perfectly safe to use AI for concept purposes. As long as you are not creating AI art to be your proper artwork, then you need not feel guilty about a lack of originality for something you could have done on your own. If you feel originality is paramount, using AI will make it seem like you cheated creative work. So avoid using AI if you feel you will suffer a lack of originality or if you feel you did not entirely make the creative work yourself.

I am personally using AI to generate concepts that I otherwise couldn't produce through making my own art. The AI I generate are concepts. I feel like using AI to generate art that provides a realistic view of what I eventually will create. In no way are the AI images I generate meant to replace any of my actual art and talent. I still maintain originality in my work no matter what AI material I produce.

I usually rely on some images online to help me express points. While this is good, some of the material may be copyrighted, and hotlinking to images can be denied. I could use AI art to express points without needing to look online for images to help prove points or demonstrate things.

Do not feel guilty about using AI unless you are making material you claim as your own and generate through AI. Just use AI to produce prototypes and concepts of your creative ideas. Once you get the proper inspiration, use those generated images to help you create the sort of work you want to produce. Try to find ways to incorporate AI into your work without letting it replace your creative work.

Embrace Creative AI: Final Thoughts

Rather than see artificial intelligence as replacing creative work and human work, learn to embrace it. AI is not entirely a bad thing if you are using it for purposes outside of prototyping or concepts. Some websites and services actually let you monetize your AI generated work that you produce. For the most part, though, the safest way to feel good about using AI is if you do not use it as your "original" prompt or your "original" creative work.

No matter what prompt(s) you use, there is a chance you may produce something deemed unsafe, resulting in a blocked prompt. This even includes if you use the same prompt that yields different results. You may need to keep using the same AI prompt to keep generating images until you find something you will eventually be happy with. You may also have to change up the prompt to something that will not result in a blocked prompt.

The point of this blog post is not about questioning the merits of artificial intelligence. Instead, I am providing this discussion on creative works AI to help you think about producing content through AI generators. In this case, mostly about AI art generators. Use any sort of AI systems to help you produce all kinds of material.

Want to Try AI Art Generation?

I started with Bing Image Creator, powered by DALL-E 3. If you want to get an idea of generating AI art, you too can start with Bing Image Creator if you have a Microsoft account. You can use any AI system besides Bing's suite of AI tools; but if you want to get started with AI art generation using Bing, follow this link: Bing Image Creator.

That concludes this blog post. If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Hallucination

2023-07-26T18:22:00.000-07:00

Let me break down my latest song for you all. "Hallucination" is the latest song I worked on and released to Soundcloud and Bandcamp. It is a hip-hop style song I first worked on in 2016 through Linux Multimedia Studio (LMMS). I made a much better version in FL Studio. The song is very simple. I used only seven tracks in its creation. A big part of its creation is how I dedicated one entire track to the beats. I learned I could put together all of one element of a song into its own track. That is what I did with the main beats in "Hallucination." The other six tracks all involve the individual elements of the song.

In its infant stages, "Hallucination" was created as practice for using a triple oscillator called 3x Osc. I was not really happy with the sound when I tried to re-create in FL Studio, so what I did was replace it with an organ sound. I felt using an organ sound worked a good bit better with the song. The FL Studio re-creation also got me to be more creative with the beats. To that end, I tried to come up with a good kick, hat, and snare. The middle of the song has the only real variation in the beat style.

Though "Hallucination" is my latest song, I put it among a new album on Bandcamp. I am releasing some of my songs as part of suites. These suites contain simple songs created by me for you to enjoy and maybe use in media projects if inclined. "Hallucination" is part of my Hip-Hop Suite on Bandcamp. More basic songs in this category will be made available. If you're a paying visitor to my Bandcamp, enjoy the prices for my work before I bump things up for anyone who wants the full package of my songs.

Song Preview.

I have previews for you on Soundcloud and Bandcamp. Use the items below to hear my work:

--- SOUNDCLOUD ---

John Marine · Hallucination

More of my music on Soundcloud

--- BEATPORT ---
John's Hip-Hop Suite by John B. Marine
More of my Hip-Hop Suite on Bandcamp: John's Hip-Hop Suite (Bandcamp)

Thank you for taking a look at my breakdown of "Hallucination!" I might post this also on YouTube in the future, so that might be featured in a future edit to this post.

If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Feel Good!

2023-07-17T18:22:00.002-07:00

"Feel Good!" is a song I worked on privately since about 2016. Like the "Urban Dream" song I mentioned in my previous post, I constantly developed "Feel Good!" to something I felt would be enough to share with the world. This is a song that has a light dance feel. It is melodic while also being peppy and upbeat. It also sounds a bit mellow, but not too much to dilute a lot of the vibes this song generates. The one thing I struggled most with is trying to get many of the instruments to respectable volume levels in FL Studio. I also thought about ways to spice up the song. I am still fairly amateur with FL Studio, but I am evolving and learning. This song was created almost entirely with stock FL Studio instruments and samples as part of the Production Edition. Most of the instruments were in using the Sytrus generator.

The mood I was going for was a sunny Monday. Not many people like Mondays, but I often embrace Mondays as the start to hopefully make the upcoming week great. Musically-inclined me often thinks of Monday songs to be in C Major. I had this song originally to be part of a special suite of original songs as a Monday soundtrack. "Feel Good!", however, may be part of its own suite of songs as I have a few different versions of it in mind.

I also had a vision of stories I could tell with this song. I had the vision of a family enjoying a sunny day having fun. Think of it a bit like being able to enjoy a beautiful day by having fun and not letting the world's problems get in the way. You are free and at your happiest. Let's say you are enjoying a city park, a theme park, a festive carnival, some celebration, or simply feeling happy doing some normal stuff. You could also think of this as a song where young folks are simply dancing the day away to a fun tune. Have friends and/or family to enhance the experience? Even better! In the outro of the song, the day was an amazing one, and it's time to head to bed, but not without having an enjoyable time. Those are the vibes behind "Feel Good!".

I sort of hope you find some enjoyment in this "Feel Good!" song I've worked on. I invite you to have a listen if interested. Here is how:

^ "Feel Good!"

Have a listen on SoundCloud:

John Marine · Feel Good!

Have a listen (and please buy?) on Bandcamp:
Feel Good! by John B. Marine

Or visit: Feel Good! on Bandcamp

That's all for this post. Thanks for visiting! :)

I thank you for taking a look at my breakdown of this song. If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Urban Dream (2023 Version)

2023-06-24T21:34:00.003-07:00

(UPDATED: July 17, 2023)

"Urban Dream" has been a song I made privately since 2013. I went from Linux Multimedia Studios (LMMS) to FL Studio with this song. I did enough work to make a better version of my old song. And now, I put my work on Beatport. It's my first song uploaded to Beatport since 2016, so this is nearly seven years since I released any completed song to Beatport.

All of the instruments except for drums and other effects are made with Sytrus in FL Studio. It was tough to try to put together a solid set of instruments to help shape the song. I later had to adjust the volume levels so the song didn't sound so distorted. I was happy enough to where I felt I could make this song final and release and sell it. I now am able to share this with you all.

You may click on the material below to hear my full version of this song after a series of revisions in 2023...

^ Urban Dream (2023 Version)

John Marine · Urban Dream 2023

Or check out this song on Bandcamp:

Urban Dream by John B. Marine

I hope you like my work!

In Case You're Interested...

To see an older version of my "Urban Dream" song, take a look at this older post: Urban Dream.

If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Goodbye Payhip, Hello Ko-Fi!

2023-03-24T21:55:00.000-07:00

After some thought, I decided Ko-Fi would be better for me in selling my creative works. So I am announcing the termination of my Payhip store in this blog post. I thank everyone who even visited my Payhip store. I feel Ko-Fi will be better for selling and for profit. Also, I can connect with my audience more. If you want to help support my work, my Payhip is no more- support me on my Ko-Fi store now!

For More Information...

You can find links to my Ko-Fi in my future tables at the end of posts. But visit me right now if you're interested and want to connect: JohnMarineDesigns on Ko-Fi.

Use this graphic to visit:

Or show your love directly with this:

Thanks, mates! :)

If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Beginning My Blockbench Journey

2023-02-08T21:37:00.003-08:00

Blockbench has become one of the hottest 3D modeling software of late. This is especially popular among pixel art types. I mostly have avoided Blockbench, thinking this can be done in Blender. I also thought it was only to modify Minecraft. However, I have a new perception regarding Blender of late. While you can do a lot with Blender, the learning curve and being able to produce some of the same content can be quite challenging. More focused and niche programs can help you better produce the kind of results you want to make. That is even if you are ready to make a few sacrifices. That explains how I plan on taking on the challenge of Blockbench. I'll be sharing my thoughts on embarking on a Blockbench journey in this blog post.

About the Label: Blockbench

Blog posts under this label are for work and advice in using Blockbench for 3D modeling.

Blockbench at a Glance

The way I understand Blockbench, it is an evolution of certain programs designed to make models for Minecraft. Previously, there was a program called Techne, which was one of the earliest programs used to develop 3D models for Minecraft. An easier program to develop cube-based models from MrCrayfish, called Model Creator, was then developed for making Minecraft models. After these two programs were used to develop 3D models using a cube-based architecture, along came Blockbench.

Blockbench is a program that utilizes cube-based modeling to develop mostly pixel art. Anyone who is adept with impeccably-detailed 3D will be downsizing considerably using Blockbench. The emphasis is on developing 3D models using cubes and mesh planes. UV mapping is also fairly easy considering the ease of pixel-style work. So Blockbench is all about simplicity mostly with a focus on Minecraft-style cube modeling.

Even though Blockbench modeling is done in cubes, you can mesh edit for some simple low-polygon art that isn't a hodgepodge of cubes. So you can turn cubes and rectangular prisms into some more interesting shapes. A simple cube could, for example, be a trapezoidal prism. The program even comes with meshes of cones, cylinders, and even a torus among other 3D model types. Another perk to Blockbench is that you can also animate your Blockbench creations. You can set up animation sequences and even use a dope sheet to act out every nuance of your creations. That's right- you can breathe life to your Blockbench models!

You need not develop models for Minecraft when using Blockbench. In fact, you could make any sort of generic model in Blockbench to be used in other 3D modeling software or for game engines. You can even sell your work in Blockbench if you choose to on sites like SketchFab. So the opportunities can be endless.

And what is the cost for all this awesomeness? How about the absolutely low price of free?! It is also free and open-source (FOSS). Blockbench can be downloaded to your computer (for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms), and it even has a web version that you can use in your Internet browser. So it is possible you can even use the Cloud to save your Blockbench work as you operate in a browser. Cloud-based modeling also opens the possibility of getting other people to work on the same model. The versatility is certainly there in Blockbench.

Blockbench: Where I Come In

Now I tell my side of how I got into Blockbench.

I got into Blockbench as I was learning and practicing a method of 3D modeling through Blender. I had a nice go of making voxel-style models. I was thinking I could do 3D modeling making my models in the form of a bunch of cubes. It would make some UV mapping easier and could lead to some simple making of base meshes. Even back when I used MagicaVoxel to develop 3D voxel models, I knew the simplicity of developing 3D material by not going through Blender or some other 3D modeling software.

Later, I realized the potential of Blockbench. Around this time, I began to realize I could utilize the low-resolution technique using Blockbench instead of trying to find my way around Blender. I also seemed content trying to develop models in Blockbench while making certain sacrifices from what I could accomplish in Blender. Could I do a lot more in Blender? Absolutely. However, could I do much less with Blockbench? Not at all.

One Blockbench modeler inspired me to try to develop models in Blockbench. While this modeler's scope was outside of my own, at least I thought about what was possible with Blockbench. My current focus has been on making 3D characters. I began thinking about how I could make a real evolution of my original characters. From what I have been able to assess, Blockbench could serve as my not-Blender solution for 3D modeling characters.

A Blender Revelation...

The previous segment leads to a new revelation for me:

Blender is too complicated for me to make material from start to finish.

Do not get me wrong- Blender is an excellent tool for making almost any sort of media ranging from models to full films. It is also a great free tool to use if you want to 3D model with a quality software without having to commit to a subscription to more powerful and more capable 3D modeling software. I felt like trying to learn and master Blender has hindered me from developing anything really interesting. When you spend more time trying to navigate your way with a program rather than develop wonderful content, you lose your creative energy. I still want to use Blender, but I may use it now for certain things I can't accomplish in native programs. For example, I want to use Blender to make quality renders and possible animations.

I felt like there would be more incentive in making something from start-to-finish with Blender even if Blender isn't an *industry standard* in media. Trying to adapt and execute with Blender really has worn me down instead of fuel my creativity. Using dedicated programs and focused programs like Blockbench will help me to simply enjoy making material without being worn down with too many different avenues to create one simple piece of media.

If you followed my past, you may know it took me nearly 20 years before I finally created a model from start-to-finish that I was totally proud of. I did it in Blender. It came from gaining confidence with Wings3D, going through the Google-owned days of SketchUp, and then finally making a start-to-finish Blender model. So you can imagine the pain I've endured trying to 3D model. I was never an adept modeler to begin with. However, I enjoyed doing 3D modeling for the hope I can make material for all of you to enjoy and utilize. I may lose credibility for not using quality 3D modeling software from a powerful program, but at least I am trying to find success using other programs.

My Blockbench Experience So Far.

For now, I am simply learning how to use the program. I have yet to make my first true Blockbench model. I would like to create my first model and then try to see what I can do UV mapping or even animating. The potential is definitely there, and all I need to do is produce content to finally realize my visions.

If I do develop anything, you know I will be sure to share on social media and even here on "John's Creative Space." Could I do all of this in other 3D modeling programs? Yeah- pretty much. However, Blockbench gives me hope and opportunity to make amazing things. Whether or not they happen remains to be seen.

For More Information...

For more information about Blockbench, please visit www.blockbench.net. To see what is possible with Blockbench, here are some links for you to see others' Blockbench work:

• Blockbench Gallery
• "Blockbench" results on SketchFab

Hopefully I've gotten you into my future 3D plans for now.

BONUS! My Blockbench Plans (for now)

I thank you for reading my blog post! I'd like to announce something here. This may or may not materialize, but at least you know what I will be up to. So here goes...

Depending on how much I can utilize Blockbench, I may use Blockbench in re-working my voxel character models. I am not sure if I will give all of my creations similar animation sets, but I may develop Blockbench models to bring my old voxel characters to life. In addition, I will be considering making some of my original characters in Blockbench. Any creations I make could find their way to more friendly formats for game engines and other 3D modeling software.

At the moment, I have not considered my voxel vehicles. With some more experience, I could possibly develop 3D vehicles through Blockbench as well.

Any creations I make will be offered for sale to a number of different online retailers. That way, you can own my creations as well as help support my creative work.

Thank you for viewing my announcement!

A new journey, a revelation, and an announcement. Quite the post, eh? I'm glad you were part of this experience! If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Low-Res Journey

2023-02-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

Incredible 3D graphics and models have never been my forte. However, I felt if I went the low-res route, I wouldn't be as regarded for the best 3D graphics and models. This blog post features my latest focus on 3D modeling. I want to sort of announce my plans moving forward with this new direction of 3D I am taking.

Basically, I may slowly transition to doing pixel-style art. Cartoon-style art was never one of my strong points. I may try to learn to do low-res style art to go with low-polygon modeling. Just because I go the low route, though, doesn't mean my quality will be equally low. I am basically wondering- can I make low-res fun? Can I make low-res beautiful? Can I make high quality with low-res?

The move to low-res for me is in response to not having much success making realistic or more interesting models or art. This style of media is easier and honestly more fun. There is nothing wrong with making hyper-realistic 3D art. There is nothing wrong with photo-realistic art. I, however, have never been adept at true 3D. That is why I went with voxels to get my start in 3D style art. I will be willing to try to learn and develop some pixel style to proudly use to showcase my art style. This means I will have to learn to utilize a set palette and develop a new art style different from what I am used to.

In a future post, I will announce one program I will be using to try to begin my newer journey into 3D. And as a hint... I won't be relying on doing everything in Blender. I have nothing to share in terms of my new 3D adventures. When I do produce something, I'll share my work across social media. So stay tuned!

I'll keep you all posted through all of this. If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Urban Dream (2023 Revision)

2023-01-22T19:50:00.002-08:00

(UPDATED: May 3, 2023)

"Urban Dream" is a song I made a long time ago and have recently released a newer version of. As I got more inclined with FL Studio's Signature Edition, I developed the passion to make more music. Urban Dream was just "Dream" long ago. I first developed this song around 2014 in Linux Multimedia Studio (LMMS). Back then, it was simply called "Dream." Because I sort of envisioned this song is more like a song with an urban feel, I decided to later name it "URBAN Dream."

LATEST UPDATE(S)/REVISION(S).

MAY 3 2023 - added second revision

I guess "Urban Dream" has become my signature work. While I don't consider it my theme song, it has kind of been like my song for my work. I somehow have seemed to have a knack for making a lot of songs in the C-Sharp key. As much as I try to diversify my content, some things you always seem to come back to, even if unintentionally.

I shared my original work of this song on YouTube years ago. Only recently, I began sharing my music work on Soundcloud. I offered my FL Studio work in 2022 followed by my 2023 rendition of the same song. The key to this was in utilizing different instruments. My 2023 rendition utilized more Sytrus channels. While the in-program FLEX instruments are of a great collection of free instruments, too many FLEX channels can slow down your real time playback of songs Sytrus, however, is much lighter on CPU load. Sytrus is more for those who mostly use a lot of electronic dance-style instruments. I'm okay with that since I mostly am big in the electronic scene.

I started to get confident about my work when I found a kick and snare combination I felt good about. I had to try to paint in a pattern that I thought would sound great. In my 2022 work with the song, I went with some agogo bells that I thought sound cool. However, I thought that would have given the song a tropical or jungle feel, so I ditched that style for this song. I made sure to put in wind chimes to sweeten the song and some smart bomb sounds to spice the song up. I had a piano effect in my private 2022 make of "Urban Dream," and one piano I found for Sytrus sounded more natural and fit the song better. So I used that Grand Piano effect at times for accents for the song.

When I uploaded my 2023 rendition of the song, I noticed one instrument sounded light and drowned out by the other sounds. So what I did was change the instrument to something that I didn't think would be drowned out by the other sounds. I still felt good about my work to where I released it to the world. Want to hear what I came up with? Check this out:

John Marine · Urban Dream (2023 Revision)

UPDATED: May 3, 2023) Hey! I made another revision to my song! Have a listen:

John Marine · Urban Dream (2003 Revision-2)

I hope you enjoy my work!

Cross-Promotion/Other Reading.

Apparently, I posted about my older version of "Urban Dream." You can hear my old version of this song in this blog post:

• Urban Dream (John's Creative Space)

Seeing my old post will make you look at how far I come in developing my old song.

If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Voxel-Inspired Modeling

2022-12-08T21:30:00.001-08:00

As a veteran of voxel modeling, I felt I have tried to find way to make models out of 3D pixels. It was recently I adopted a newer strategy of 3D modeling. I basically have given up on trying to be highly realistic models and instead will focus on low polygon modeling. Part of that appeal goes with modeling using a simple cube followed by lots of extrusions (and maybe some duplications). So for this blog post, I figured I will focus primarily on this approach to modeling and what I could accomplish with this method. Come along, and let's get modeling!

Before I Begin...

The methods I express here are with my experiences using Blender 2.79b. You will need to adjust my methods for any other 3D modeling program you may use besides Blender if you plan on following my lead.

Voxel-Inspired Modeling

Voxels are essentially 3D pixels. Whereas a simple pixel has x and y dimension, a voxel adds z dimension. Porting over raw voxel information often results in a 3D mesh you can manipulate if your heart desires. The blocky nature of these models is often apparent in games such as Minecraft.

Discovery and Analysis.

I discovered through editing in Magicavoxel about the size of a single cube when I saved a model in PLY format and imported it into Blender. I noticed a single voxel is 0.1 in Blender Units. You could say it is 0.1 meters, since the Blender units are close to metric units. The size of 0.1 Blender Units seems just right without the model looking extremely large or extremely small.

In preparing this blog post, I tried a different size of a cube to make a more precise pixel-perfect size cube. A pixel-perfect cube is 0.0625 in Blender units. This is nearly 40% less of size of a cube at 0.1 Blender units. However, I found it harder to snap to the grid with equal size using 0.0625 as my size and increments. I probably could set up Blender to snap to these pixel-perfect measurements, but I found sticking to 0.1 Blender unit increments works much easier.

Because these models using this voxel-style method are essentially still cubes, it is possible to make them no longer "voxels." In fact, I could refine the models to basically enhance these rough drafts of 3D models. That was part of the plan as I was thinking about doing these voxel-type models from start-to-finish in Blender.

Some Voxel-Inspired Models of Mine.

Since I thought it would be too complex to share my workflow, I will instead share models I have created. So take a look:

^ I re-created one of my past voxel vehicles cube-by-cube.

^ This is a barbecue ham I modeled in Blender.

^ I modeled this blocky ham thigh in Blender.

^ Hungry for a slab of steak? I modeled one in Blender!

^ This is a re-creation of a model I intended to be a Minecraft mob. In a future blog post, I will share more renders and a story on this model. Stay tuned to John's Creative Space!

^ Three health kits were modeled by me here. Since these were intended to be game assets, I put in their healing values in the overlay. These could be offered for sale/download in the future.

So now you've seen some of the blocky modeling I have worked on of late. I will try to make as many of these models as I can while I still have this burst in creative energy.

If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my JohnMarineDesigns Weebly site, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin! Let's connect:
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John Joins Payhip!

2022-11-18T14:12:00.001-08:00

I joined Payhip on November 15, 2022 under my "JohnMarineDesigns" handle! The intent is to sell my creative works on a proper store. I want this to be an outlet for which to get direct financial support from my audience. As I do have some other places where I have uploaded my creative content, I feel the best way to get things across is through a proper store rather than a real third-party service (like Envato). This blog post discusses most of the reasoning behind me wanting to set up this store.

John Joins Payhip!

I decided to join Payhip recently. But...

Why Payhip?

On Facebook, I announced that I might consider joining Gumroad for which to sell my creative content. I was mostly convinced... except for how poorly organized content can be. You have a sidebar on Gumroad stores that trims down the available categories of resources in Gumroad for a Gumroad store. However, I was ultimately convinced about Payhip.

I went with Payhip because it seemed better organized and with some better options towards sales and content. Since I mostly produce digital content, that is what I have gone with for my store mostly. I even went ahead and included things I uploaded to other sites and have them available on my own Payhip store. One such thing is the Breakout Block Pack that is on OpenGameArt. When Voxel Art Shop was discontinued, I added my pack to Payhip. I also edited the links to my Breakout Block Pack on OpenGameArt so people could find my paid package online.

Another reason why I joined Payhip was because there are no monthly fees to set up and maintain your store. I don't make my own money outside of blogging, so having some sort of way to have some income would be great. Neither Payhip nor Gumroad have monthly fees, so either service would have worked for me.

Items offered on Payhip from me are offered either for free or for a fee. My free content will be provided on a name-your-price basis. I am hoping someone can pay whatever they like for some of my content that they will offer a bit more as a tip. Some of my paid content will be name-your-price outside of paying the original price for my content.

My Payhip So Far.

Payhip for now has a lot of the past content I have developed and offered for sale or download. Before coming up with this blog post, I uploaded all of my old models that I sold on Turbosquid. I will later look at selling my eBooks and music to my Payhip in the future. I may still sell any future content on other sites, but I want to try to build up my Payhip store all the while. I will add links to my blogs and a lot of my different social media profiles for interested parties.

Want to Visit My Payhip?

If you would like to visit my Payhip store, you are invited to follow the link below:

payhip.com/JohnMarineDesigns

Happy shopping! :)

I hope you get to support my work directly through Payhip if it so interests you. If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Voxel Character Evo Project

2022-11-12T13:35:00.001-08:00

For years, I have contemplated what to do with my voxel model characters. I felt it wouldn't really be enough just to have voxels in the raw. So for this blog post, I will discuss my plans with my voxel models. You have an idea of what it is by the blog post name, but you don't know about my full plans until you take a look at this full post. Read on to find out about my plans!

Voxel Character Evo Project

About as far back as 2014, I developed a series of voxel model characters. I spent the better part of about a month to develop five different sets of voxel characters. I made a total of 43 characters including a handful of extra characters. I therefore made about 50-60 characters total. The base 43 characters, though, are what I am primarily focused on in trying to breathe new life into my voxel model collection.

Wait- what "new life?" Well, I have a bunch of static voxels. You can only do so much with a set of static models. I decided to re-do my voxel models through a combination of Magicavoxel and Blender. What I intend to do is take my voxel models and break them up for animation. This will allow for people to either rig the models themselves or look to a service like Mixamo for animation.

It is that simple, right? Well, no. I feel my voxel characters will have to be extensively modified and enhanced to make them better for animation. That is where the "Evo" part comes in for my models. "Evo" is short for "evolution." Whereas most people will immediately think of Minecraft or something for pixel-perfect or blocky voxel models, I need to make these voxel characters different but still retain a small semblance of voxel roots while not being hyper-realistic.

Project Inspiration.

A YouTube channel that has made animations of voxel-type characters has been one of my influences to work on my old voxel models. Even better, I saw a YouTube video that gave me some ideas on how to model voxels made in Magicavoxel. The channel in question with all the different 3D animated films is Zaminmation. Zamination is famous for their 3D animations based on "Minecraft" and the "Five Nights at Freddy's" series videos among others.

The Evolution Process.

A key in the evolution process of re-working these voxel models is in understanding the newer possibilities working with models in a unique way. Part of that involves considering things like how to enhance the models. I want to make the voxel models to be sort of textured. The way I seen my exports from Magicavoxel in PLY format, I could take the individual faces and maybe replace them with some textures I could make in a different program. Maybe I could re-do these voxels and take them beyond their voxel form without going overboard. Basically, I want these voxel models to be much more than voxel models.

Let me sort of explain the process in Magicavoxel...

• separate the feet, lower legs, upper legs, torso (including neck, just moving it), upper arm, lower arm, hands, and head
• separate accessories and certain long hair pieces
• add some extra voxels to the lower legs, the upper legs, the lower legs, and some of the torso
• move all parts of the body backwards except for the lower legs and the feet
• move the neck, head, upper arms, and lower arms forward
• clean up any painting errors

At best, this process can take about 10-15 minutes for each voxel model in Magicavoxel. It can take hours to do the whole process with about 43 of my voxel models. The point of the Magicavoxel work is to prep the modified model to be modified further in Blender for refinement and animation.

Once I start making certain things available, I will share my process and maybe some sample animation tests from Blender. So stay tuned for that! For now, though, here is a picture preview of what I am doing with my voxel character models:

^ Here is a preview of what I am working on towards enhancing my voxel character models.

If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my JohnMarineDesigns Weebly site, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin! Let's connect:
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Air Fryer Grilled Cheese Sandwich

2022-10-11T21:47:00.001-07:00

A grilled cheese sandwich is nothing food-wise. However, it isn't a bad meal to start off with in using your air fryer. It is just two pieces of toasted bread with a slice of cheese in the middle. To introduce my first food-themed blog post to "John's Creative Space," I will share how to make a grilled cheese sandwich from the air fryer. Hopefully my blog post will give you a little interest in using an air fryer. Let's get it!

Air Fryer Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Let me offer up a grilled cheese image for you to set the mood...

^ from: delish.com - A grilled cheese is simple but is very tasty.

If you are fairly new to using an air fryer, it is best to start slow. So my first food/drink/cooking post on "John's Creative Space" involves a grilled cheese sandwich. I need to give you some back story before I share the cooking instructions.

I actually started to make a grilled cheese sandwich in a toaster oven before I tried making one in an air fryer. I followed instructions to an online video and applied them to the air fryer. I made two grilled cheese sandwiches in the toaster oven; one of them had bits of cocktail shrimp I chopped up. When I flipped over the sandwich that had the chopped cocktail shrimp, I had trouble flipping it over, and it came out wilted. It was still tasty.

I had used my PowerXL Air Fryer to make another grilled cheese sandwich. What I loved about the air fryer was that I could open the air fryer basket while it was cooking, and the air fryer would stop until I put the basket back into the air fryer. I also had to learn how to flip over the cooked food for meals that require flipping over or shaking the contents of the air fryer. One thing I learned about the air fryer is that it doesn't take long to toast bread. So some air fryer meals involving bread can be completed sooner than you think. As I became more experienced with the air fryer, I began being more fond of air frying food instead of microwaving them.

Now that you have some back story, let me get to the main point of this blog post. I am going to explain the main method followed by an improvised method.

Air Fryer Grilled Cheese Sandwich - Plain.

When making a grilled cheese sandwich from the air fryer, the key is to try to get the bread nicely toasted. A good way to add some flavor to the bread is to either spread mayonnaise on the bread or butter on the bread. I used butter in my cooking. Follow my lead.

INGREDIENTS NEEDED:

• two pieces of bread
• butter or mayonnaise
• a slice of cheese (your choice of flavor)
• (OPTIONAL) either aluminum foil or air liner paper - to make cleanup easy
• (RECOMMENDED) a spatula for flipping

Air Fryer Grilled Cheese Sandwich - Tuned: Grilled Cheese Shrimp Sandwich.

Now let's improvise the grilled cheese sandwich recipe. You are applying the same method to making a grilled cheese sandwich, but you are also adding pieces of chopped meat to make it a more interesting grilled cheese sandwich. My first air fryer grilled cheese sandwich had pieces of chopped cocktail shrimp to it. You may also add something like chopped grilled chicken or maybe some small pieces of beef. However, to keep things simple, I will add cocktail shrimp to the recipe. I am adding this recipe to prove you can get creative with your meals. So enjoy this one!

INGREDIENTS NEEDED:

• two pieces of bread
• butter or mayonnaise
• a slice of cheese (your choice of flavor)
• cooked cocktail shrimp, preferably from a cocktail shrimp ring bought from a grocery store
• (OPTIONAL) your choice of seasoning for the cocktail shrimp
• (OPTIONAL) either aluminum foil or air liner paper - to make cleanup easy
• (RECOMMENDED) a spatula for flipping

INSTRUCTIONS:
1.) It is recommended to put in aluminum foil or air fryer liner paper for easier cleanup. So put in aluminum foil or air fryer liner paper in the inside of the air fryer basket. A lot of people suggest you pre-heat the air fryer. This recipe does NOT involve pre-heating the air fryer. Since this recipe involves cooked cocktail shrimp, it is best you refrigerate your cocktail shrimp and not freeze it. If the cocktail shrimp you are using is frozen, you will need to thaw it.

2.) The first part of this can be a bit sloppy as you prepare the bread to be toasted in the air fryer. Spread mayonnaise or butter on both sides of the bread- the bottom side and the top side. You are going to do this for both slices of bread. Place the bottom side of the bread into the air fryer basket.

3.) On the bottom bread slice in the air fryer basket, place a slice of cheese on top of it. Again- it is your call as to what flavor cheese slice you use. I used American cheese for mine.

4.) Take out some pieces of the cooked cocktail shrimp (I used four) and remove the tails of the cocktail shrimp. Then proceed to chop up the cocktail shrimp into pieces. Spread the chopped pieces of the cocktail shrimp on top of the cheese. If you want to season the shrimp, now is the time to do it. You can use any sort of seasoning you choose. Among seasoning options- salt, black pepper, lemon pepper, garlic powder, paprika, or whatever seasoning you prefer if you want to season the shrimp.

5.) Place the top bread slice on top of the bottom side and the shrimp in the air fryer.

6.) Bread toasts fairly quick in an air fryer. Depending on your air fryer, your cooking times may be different from mine. This was one of my very first air frying attempts, so I went with a high temperature to cook at. I cooked my grilled cheese sandwich at 400°F for eight minutes, flipping halfway. At the halfway mark, open the air fryer basket. The air fryer will stop until you put it back in. While it is out, flip over the grilled cheese sandwich with a spatula. Once you flip it over, put the air fryer basket back into the air fryer to finish cooking. Be careful not to wilt the sandwich or make a mess trying to flip over the sandwich.

7.) Once the air fryer is done cooking the grilled cheese sandwich, lift it out of the air fryer basket using a spatula. Place it onto a plate or a paper plate and enjoy!

Remember that this sandwich is the same as with the previous one but with cocktail shrimp. What you will get is not only the taste of the grilled cheese sandwich, but you also will be tasting shrimp with a cheese taste (and any seasoning you may have applied). Using store-bought material may seem cheap, but this is a simple way to level up a basic grilled cheese sandwich. This was meant to be a basic meal to prepare with a few advanced parts.

Other Considerations/Advanced Techniques.

If you become more advanced using the air fryer, you can try putting in something like grilled chicken pieces, beef crumbles, bacon bits, or anything like that to add to the grilled cheese sandwich instead of cooked cocktail shrimp. You may also want to try adding mixed vegetables if you are inclined. You be the cook- customize to your heart's delight!

This is my first cooking post on "John's Creative Space." I will learn from this and try to come up with more complete and comprehensive posts in the future when I discuss food recipes. I will end this post for now. If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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New Life to Old Track Concepts

2022-06-13T16:49:00.001-07:00

It was always a creative dream of mine to develop race tracks for games. While nothing has truly materialized into in-game works, I recently have taken hold of past projects for non-racing games. It was not possible for me to take levels from older games and give them modern 3D life. So therefore, I had to take my old concepts and then refine them. As someone who is into simulation-type racing games, I wanted to get into the style of thinking realistically about my older race track designs. This blog post will not announce any future plans or upcoming designs to share. It will, though, give you some early insight as to what I am working on as well as why now I am thinking of releasing some of my designs. So feel free to take a look at what I have to discuss here on "John's Creative Space!"

New Life to Old Track Concepts

I have been using Blender to try to 3D model. Let me explain something about past courses I made that I want to revive and bring to a modern world.

The Backstory of my Older Courses.

A number of older race courses I designed for games were mostly for a non-racing game. What game am I discussing here? Duke Nukem 3D. Since circa 1999, as I was learning more and more about motorsports, I wanted to take a concept of racing into my work. I would mostly set up bot multiplayer matches in Duke Nukem 3D (called DukeMatches). The only "racing" was that it was me going around the tracks defeating as many of the bots as possible. There were also competitions to try to score the most points during the course of a race. Races were limited to score counts or time. There were also pit stops for which to try to avoid being defeated. Since I was the only intelligent being against bots, I utilized pit stops to stay in the race.

Time is of the Essence.

On the basis of time, I have always been a fan of GT/Sportscar/Endurance racing. So I looked into a way to implement a sort of system to where time would change every so often. What I ended up coming up with is an animated sky that simulates time changes. To set the time distance apart, I had to make the time between frames rather long. I made two sets of animated skies- clear and cloudy. I also developed one set of skies for a 24-hour setting and then an "all-night" setting, which lasts from early evening of Day 1 to sunrise of Day 2. The cloudy sky animations were meant to simulate endurances either for cloudy days or for rainy (and even snowy) days. Because the animations would be a bit tough to follow, I set up timing gauges to let me know how much time is left in one phase of the day before going to the next.

Believable Race Tracks.

I was not very good at designing believable tracks, so a lot of my 3D modeling in Duke Nukem 3D was fairly basic. I did not utilize proper-looking curves in 3D modeling. A lot of the corners were mostly fake true curves. I had a lot of sharp corners also. The reason why tracks seemed so long was because I wanted the tracks to remain deathmatch-style courses. So to try to get away, blocking bits were used in trying to prevent the player to go out of bounds or to try to evade attackers.

Why NOW Trying to Update Past Concepts?

I felt a lot of my past race tracks designs deserve to be used for more modern applications and games. Also, I have had a tough time trying to play Duke Nukem 3D, my all-time favorite game, on a modern Windows 10 system. Rather than let old memories rot and die, I felt it was time to make my old concepts come alive in more modern forms. I also needed some practice to improve my 3D modeling skills.

I feel this is an opportunity to work closer towards one of my many different creative goals. It is just sad it has taken THIS long to realize this goal.

The Challenges Ahead

I now will share some of the things I am learning and hope to accomplish in providing these old concept tracks from Duke Nukem 3D. Please note that I am using a combination of Blender 3D, Unity3D's Skycar, and Edy's Vehicle Physics Pro (Community Edition).

The 3D Modeling.

All courses start with just the main road or roads. So when they are tested on, the challenge is to try to keep the car on the road and not fall forever if I drive off the main road. I am therefore careful driving my courses because of this situation.

The Realism Factor.

Many of the courses I created had a bunch of elements playfully added in. These even included a bunch of foolish-looking models and effects in levels. Essentially- eye candy. Because I have simulation racing games in mind, I have to think about how to make certain past ideas flow better in a proper sim racing game. It required me even to modify configurations to make them more believable. For one thing, some of my past courses had incredibly unrealistic elevation changes that would not even be completely possible in even the most decent simulation racing games.

One thing I want you to realize is that this not exactly a legacy project, but rather modernizing old concepts while not veering too far off course from previous styles. I had to lengthen old courses as well as add extra sections for multiple layouts. This was to provide much more usability and offer a handful more options for any player.

Another thing I was thinking about was trying to make tracks of a realistic scale. When I learned of unit scale in Blender, it opened my eyes to making my small-scale designs more realistic. What I did was put my measurements in Metric and used Meters. I found that using a unit scale of about 100.000000 was enough to make the roads wide enough and the overall map not feel so small without needing to scale up or down.

While this was great, I was still unsure as to how to properly measure my courses. One method I took was to make edge loops around sectors of my tracks. I would measure the distance from the start of one sector to the end of that sector. There are three sectors to courses I design. I would later take the sum of each distance and add them together to learn how long the courses are. However, most of the results I got seemed unrealistic. I felt my courses would have to be much longer than some of the unrealistic scale numbers I got. Basically, I felt like tracks long enough to host FIA Formula 1 or World Endurance Championship races were about as long as go-kart tracks from my measurements. For the most part, the tracks had the proper width and length of what I want to accomplish.

Though not a critical factor, I also found it important to try to set up each course in terms of the time of day. This was great in trying to make realistic conditions. However, it made some environments tough to drive in, especially courses meant to be done at night or with not as much sunlight. The VPP cars also had very weak lighting systems. You basically need to make your own spot lights on the car to illuminate the way. Either that, or add lighting around your course.

The Driving Aspect.

I needed a decent way to test my designs, so what I did was use the Vehicle Physics Pro asset for Unity. The provided asset for Unity for racing and driving is good for prototyping, but I needed a realistic solution for my simulation-type racing tracks. So I was fortunate enough to pick up the Vehicle Physics Pro asset (the Community/Free one).

Because I am using on-road racing, I am not using a model for off-road racing. The VPP asset from Edy features a sports coupe for on-road racing/driving and a pickup track tuned for off-road racing/driving. The default settings for the sport coupe are more than enough for performance driving, though the car seems pretty slow often times. The sport coupe's default settings max out the torque at about 220 Nm of torque (or about 162.32 lb. feet of torque). Granted this Unity asset doesn't drive like Gran Turismo, it is still a great way to get an idea of my courses in a simulation driving environment.

The Racing Aspect.

To test the tracks of mine in a performance environment, I set the car close to the Start/Finish line and then set up a stopwatch. I used a Clock application on one of my old smartphones to time one lap around the course. If my car flown off the track and falls forever, the run ends. I've done that multiple times. Sometimes, I had to re-do my sessions because the stopwatch function would not stop when I requested it to. I only tested in the normal direction of tracks.

Here is a progression in the tests I run:

• Hotlap - from a standing start, complete one lap around the course. These one-lap tests take place on each offered layout of each course.

• Two-Lap Sessions - from a standing start, complete two laps around a course. There are different two-lap tests for different variations of a track.

• Three-Lap Challenge - from a standing start, complete three laps around a course. A three-lap test is the default for a lot of races, so this is a test of a course in a basic sprint race.

One thing to keep in mind is that there are no AI drivers to contend against in these sessions. The purpose is to get a realistic driving sample for each course. With more experience and confidence, I may also pull longer tests- such as five-lap tests ("Grand Prix") and ten-lap tests ("Endurance").

A look at what you can expect is coming up, so visit the next section.

What You Can Expect Here

Any created track of mine that I complete will be made available across a number of 3D modeling stores online. I possibly will allow for my creations to be used in commercial racing/driving games, but reselling or selling modified versions of my courses will be disallowed or may require permission. This is a chance to finally share some of my most personal works with the world and make them available to the masses.

In Case You're Wondering...

If you are wondering about the vehicle controller I am using for my racing/driving tracks, I am using Edy's Vechicle Physics Pro (Community Edition), which you can find here: Vehicle Physics Pro - Community Edition | Physics | Unity Asset Store.

Again- I have nothing at present to share, but I will highlight more of my works in the future. So be sure to stay with "John's Creative Space" for more details. Thanks for visiting! If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Food on John's Creative Space

2022-01-05T15:41:00.001-08:00

"John's Creative Space" now has a new creative outlet- food! I had a long thought process on where to share my latest interests in being a cook. I have decided to breathe some extra life into JCS by discussing food I have prepared. So in the future, you will seeing me discuss meals I have prepared and how I prepared them. I feel this will be an opportunity to talk about food as another outlet of my creative energy.

When I do prepare posts regarding food, I must stress to you that I am NOT an experienced cook. I basically just started becoming better and more creative at preparing food. So don't take any of my cooking topics to be of the highest quality. Even I am still learning the ropes. Most of what I have been preparing is not only in the microwave, but I also have been learning to use my air fryer and my toaster oven air fryer. I may even give some of you all some inspiration and motivation to use your air fryer. I can only hope.

About the Label: Food/Drink/Cooking

Topics listed under this category pertain to preparing food and drinks. These can be recipes, gadgetry, and things of that nature.

Anyhow, that concludes my brief blog post announcing the discussion of food among my creative material. I hope you enjoy your time here! Be sure to Follow/Subscribe in some capacity if you enjoy my work. Your support is vastly appreciated.Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Going Low-Polygon, Low-Resolution 3D Modeling

2021-09-08T17:39:00.000-07:00

Low polygon and low resolution usually are not what most modern 3D types are like. However, those who model in the vein of Minecraft or PS1/N64/Saturn find a unique attraction to low-polygon work. I figured I'd join this realm myself. The reason why is because despite my best efforts to make 3D that can be well-loved and utilized, I never fully succeeded with many models I am proud out. So I figured I'd try to lessen my focus while still trying to find high quality in my low-spec work. I am also focusing in on a 3D modeling method I have adopted and practiced. This blog post is a look at my low-polygon, low-resolution work. It represents what I have worked on and what potentially may come in the future.

I can't believe I haven't updated this blog in almost a full year! That changes with this new blog post on "John's Creative Space!"

Going Low-Polygon, Low Resolution

While impressively realistic 3D rules the roost, some fancy lower-spec 3D. Mostly the reason lies in the simplicity of basic 3D models. Some even enjoy older 3D for the aesthetic. One thing I am realizing is that I am not a good digital artist or a good 3D modeler. Therefore, I am concentrating most of my artistic efforts towards low-polygon and low-resolution art. There is still a unique charm to doing this style of 3D work, and I look to try to capitalize on that.

Learning the Tiling Method (Through Blender).

Let me explain the method I am using as best as I can.

Although Blender has an add-on that allows you to make 3D models from a tileset or palette called Sprytile, I am doing my work without it. Sprytile actually originates from an older 3D modeling software via tiling called Crocotile 3D. What I define as the tile method is when you try to make models out of a series of plane meshes. One of the advantages of this is that you can apply a UV map to it easily to handle your art. What you do is make one plane and then duplicate it a lot to set up great art pieces. You will need to choose the proper sort of UV mapping to a tileset as you need to. Once you get into the process, it provides a nice challenge to 3D model. Having something like Sprytile and Crocotile 3D are not bad at all, and I am not opposed to financially supporting either program. My only thing is that I am learning of how to do those techniques without needing either tool.

The first thing to take note of is to build a texture atlas. If you already have a texture atlas to use for your work, disregard this section and move on to the next paragraph. A texture atlas combines all of the needed graphical assets into one image. Especially if you will be tiling art, it pays to build a texture atlas to contain everything. I am also trying to practice pixel art. So therefore, most of the textures I've developed in my art appear rudimentary. You can use whatever paint program you like, but I am using GIMP (one of many free art editors). For pixel art types, Aseprite is popular. I later learned that you do not need to necessarily have all tiles the same dimensions. In fact, the tiles don't even need to be powers of 2 in size (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.). For example, I saw a texture atlas for a track for the PlayStation 1 game "Rage Racer," and it used a variety of different texture sizes to pack in this texture atlas. So sort of draw out and prototype the different tiles you want to use for your modeling project. You're going to be editing things again and again. If you are using Blender, you will need to constantly update the image you are using for your texture mapping. This means pressing Alt + R in the UV/Image editor panel (at least in Blender 2.79b).

The next step is to simply add a mesh plane in Blender. Make a new Material for it. Go to the Texture panel and choose "Image or Movie" for the texture type. Load in the texture atlas or whatever image you are using. Unwrap the plane mesh. To make your efforts much easier, enable "Snap to Pixels" in the UV/Image Editor panel. You can then take the vertices of each plane and adjust them accordingly to whatever tile(s) you are trying to connect to. Once you have one plane set up, you're going to do LOTS of duplicating to get the desired model you are trying to create. Duplicate as many different planes as possible to construct the scene. Afterwards, keep adjusting the UV mappings to whatever image you want a plane to show. Keep going until you complete the model you want to create. It is best to try to keep things connected. If you can, use a combination of holding down Ctrl and even Ctrl + Shift to properly move about faces. It also helps to go into individual views in orthographic mode for some movements of planes.

Once you are happy with the final model you've created, there are a few important things you need to know. I would recommend you save a copy of your finished work in Blender before doing anything else in this paragraph. It is important to select all of the planes and Remove Doubles. That means Alt + W (Blender 2.79b). Removing doubles reduces the number of vertices while also allowing you to properly manipulate the individual pieces of your model. If you need to adjust it again, it will be easier to do

My 3D Tile Modeling Runs.

Here are some of my practice runs of trying the tile modeling technique.

• Tiling a Simple Room
The point of this was to practice simply making a room. Only the floor, two walls, and the ceiling were modeled. I had to learn some of the ins and outs of trying this method out. All pieces were 16x16 tiles except for the windows. What I struggled most was trying to get sufficient lighting to the scene. Here is what I came up with:

• Water Temple
This more complex interior modeling job really tested my patience. Originally intended to be a modeling of two different rooms, I basically went with just one. I left out the throne room of this temple and just modeled the hall leading to the throne room. The way to the throne room can be seen with the blue carpet. I had to properly adjust the individual tiles to get them the proper lighting. I also needed to adjust the alignment of the UV texture atlas to get some of the planes to display the correct UV mappings. I was still pretty pleased with my work that I decided to close this modeling run.

• Outdoor Scene
This was a challenge. The sky was not a tile challenge; instead, it was trying to model a skybox using a cube. I learned in one YouTube video how someone used a cube rather than a sphere to make a sky. The cube was made big enough to house the scene, and then the cube was given a Subdivision Modifier. I found out at least level 2 of the Subdivision Modifier is good enough to properly portray a sky. A skybox is easier to work with than a sphere, especially when UV mapping. I needed to adjust the alignment of the UV map for the faces of my sky when I was preparing my skybox.

I began to realize two important parts of the 3D tiling method. First off, these tiling models are done using shadeless settings. I prefer to work in Blender Render (nowadays called Eevee). I didn't learn to do this in Cycles yet. The second thing I learned was to turn off backface culling. If you enable backface culling, certain faces will not show from certain angles. I modeled my material more in the vein of Minecraft. That means a lot of boxy models. Here, however, I tried modifying the planes to try diagonals and even simulate things in Minecraft like tall grass. My only regret was maybe not adding variety to my pixel art grass and trees.

This was the final result after all of my modeling attempts:

I hope to make more material like this and practice more modeling in this style. I'll keep practicing and show you my best work in the future. Stay tuned!

It is really sad I haven't updated this blog in almost a full year. "John's Creative Space" is back, though! It will really be back when I keep making more content to share. Be sure to Subscribe/Follow if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Voxel Buildings

2020-09-19T08:11:00.001-07:00

I returned to voxel modeling to try out MagicaVoxel 099.6. This newer version 099.6 ushers in a new level of development as it has enhanced facilities for modeling and rendering. Most notably, voxel models in MagicaVoxel can now go up to 256³, rather than being resticted to 126³ in dimensions. So more complicated models in one piece can be developed or viewed. This is great mostly for massive models or complex worlds. With these things in mind, I want to share with you two models I created and what I may intend using these for. Check these out...

^ from: (JohnMarineDesigns) - My model of a vintage church house modeled and rendered in MagicaVoxel.

^ from: (JohnMarineDesigns) - This is a vintage school house I modeled and rendered in MagicaVoxel.

What do I intend on making these models for? Well, I have had ideas of using them for possible game assets or some media projects. I was kind of thinking of making a classic-style SimCity deal where you build a city from the ground up with the voxel building models I am trying to create. Also, I was considering the voxels being used for voxel-style 3D RPGs. The problem with that is that I am mostly fixated on more modern style structures. Therefore, I am not as adept designing Medieval-type structures or worlds. The two models I created will still get things rolling as far as designing voxel buildings. I also want to make this easy by having consistent dimensions to piece together spaces in equal grid amounts. I may also decide to just let everything be set up freestyle, letting the developer add the voxel models as he/she/they see fit in their voxel worlds.

I'm glad you got a chance to view my creative works blog! This is my first blog post since the new changes Blgoger/Blogspot blog posts are made. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my official website at johnbmarine.com, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin!
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3D Model and Showroom Plans

2020-06-01T16:16:00.002-07:00

Making skins for vehicles in games is cool and all, but I have lately had interest in designing my own original vehicles all skinned up. Actually, I have wanted to develop my own models and my own showrooms. It was a dream for a long time to develop my own showroom for vehicles for games. As I started getting better with Blender, I am having more realistic visions of developing the sort of showrooms I want to develop. Allow me the opportunity to express myself. Okay? Good! Let me begin...

3D Model and Showroom Plans

I feel the need to develop even more original content. So I want to share plans I have in regards to various 3D models and showroom plans. Take a look:

3D Plans: Models.

My main areas of concentration for 3D modeling include vehicles and characters.

Vehicle Plans
On the vehicle front, I am starting to gain a new sort of direction towards how to model vehicles. The main concentration lies in low-polygon vehicles. I want to make low polygon a quality thing. This could even evolve into trying to refine them for other projects. This is actually a plan of mine of late. As I am starting to better use Blender, I feel I could master some techniques to at least attempt high-quality vehicles.

Previously, I noted that I had no interest in high-quality 3D vehicle models. I've learned some techniques that make me think otherwise in recent times. One of the most important things I am coming around to is that I do not need to put everything into one single mesh. In fact, some high-quality designs are a combination of separated objects. So a headlight assembly could be the main casing and all the individual lights that make up that headlight case. You also could independently work on a certain object of a full model. The one thing I always fear is that I may make a lot of changes that somehow will require me to do extra merging so that the model remains as complete topology-wise. It seems like a daunting task to make a high-quality vehicle. However, part of me says it is doable without stressing too much over certain details.

I also previously did not have interest in re-creating actual vehicles. That has changed... to an extent. I am not seriously considering completely accurate models. At the same time, though, I don't want to make any models of actual vehicles that seem overly cheap. I need to be careful on this front because some legal clearances have to be granted to make 3D products of actually-licensed vehicles available and can be used. I am not sure if I want to develop such vehicles for free for game mods, or if I want to offer vehicles for rendering. I still prefer doing original designs, but I am somewhat open to modeling actual vehicles.

Character Plans
I have not yet attempted any original characters. On one end, I have thought more along the lines of avatar-type models. I am talking about mostly humanoid models that you could freely customize as opposed to some completely original characters. I have not yet found any true inspiration to make this happen. However, I do have some ideas by following a bunch of different videos. No concrete plans have been considered as of yet. If and when I do get around to developing characters, expect a mix of freely-customizable characters and original characters.

Other 3D Models?
I have considered locations as 3D model projects. Namely, I have thought of things like buildings, some light scenery, and some light terrain. I also want to develop things like motor racing tracks. For race tracks, I am slowly looking at trying to develop in the mindset of Assetto Corsa. Assetto Corsa prefers you measure things in meters. So to that end, I will have to learn to put things into meters for measurement.

3D Plans: Showrooms.

No 3D model(s) will ever be worth showcasing if you lack a proper way to market them. So as I make skins for games like Assetto Corsa and Automobilista among others, I feel I have to develop a showroom to nicely showcase my 3D models. A showroom doesn't have to a "room." It can, in fact, be an outdoor scene stylish enough for showcasing work. One idea i seem to like is that Blender can handle HDRI images. For the uninitiated, an HDRI image contains color information within the image that can serve as the lighting and color for any given scene. Usually, some of these HDRI images can be pretty big files. I tend to like decently-sized images that won't beat up my PC in trying to render. Blender rendering through HDRI images is only done in Cycles Rendering. I will need to practice Cycles Rendering to be able to come up with great renders.

While showrooms suggest indoor scenes, showrooms can really be indoor or outdoor scenes. While I don't want the showrooms to be the focal point of my work, I do want them to serve as stylish 3D locales for which to display my work. I am gathering ideas for which to think about what kind(s) of showrooms I want to make. Because Cycles Renders allow you to develop a vast amount of ideas, I want to be able to make the best renders I can make regardless of my PC's power to create them masterfully. In fact, I dream of making certain render scenes that would be great for Assetto Corsa, since the majority of my renders are for Assetto Corsa. I have used custom showrooms for vehicles in rFactor. So I have a general idea of the importance of making quality showrooms for any set of vehicles for almost any racing/driving game.

Other than vehicles, I want to make some stylish showrooms for characters and other things. Imagine stylish scenes for which a character can be showcased. For example, imagine a stylish young lady at a stylish restaurant on a date night. Certain props or game assets can also be stylishly shown off in some kind of showroom. I haven't yet thought of any interesting showroom concepts to make these visions happen.

Now you know about some of my 3D plans. We'll see what materializes from my work in the future.

Thank all of you who love and support my work! I hope I can keep bringing the awesome that I can provide. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my official website at johnbmarine.com, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin!
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3D Modeling Detail

2020-02-29T20:45:00.000-08:00

A tactic of 3D modeling is to focus on how much to model for whatever application(s) in mind. Some go with high-polygon modeling and then dumb it down for low-polygon modeling. Some begin with low-polygon modeling and then increase the details. Which method is better? Well, it depends on how detailed you want your work to be and for what application(s) you plan on distributing your 3D models to. Through my modeling work, I have mostly focused on low-polygon modeling. I don't have the patience to try to flesh out low-polygon modeling. Some people do an amazing job taking basic rough shapes and then turning them into amazing 3D models. The different methods used to develop detailed models varies from different modelers.

I haven't yet designed anything spectacular, but I do hope to build 3D models from rough shapes to detailed modeling masterpieces.

This was a very brief post but with sufficient detail. Here is my discussion question for you:

What is your method of 3D modeling as far as detail is concerned?

Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my official website at johnbmarine.com, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin!
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Does Blender Get the Respect it Deserves?

2020-02-12T08:31:00.001-08:00

(UPDATE: February 13, 2020)

#Blender3D is a free and open source program for 3D modeling. Everything from videos to intricate 3D models can be produced with Blender. Game developers even use Blender for assets and even complete games. However, Blender does get a bad rap from some people for a number of reasons. Even still, what you can accomplish in Blender goes far beyond what most other 3D modeling software can do. So I decided to blog about Blender and show some respect for it. Does Blender get the proper respect? I will explain why you should care (or maybe not) in this blog post here on "John's Creative Space!"

Before I Begin...

This is my first JCS blog post of 2020. Happy new year!

LATEST UPDATE(S)/REVISION(S):

FEB 13 2020 - added some extra details

Does Blender Get the Respect it Deserves?

Allow me to discuss Blender to you all.

^ from: (Pinterest) - The Blender logo. Does Blender get the respect it deserves? I explain in this blog post.

Blender's history dates back to 1994, and its initial release dates back to 1998. What you can accomplish in Blender for development of media is astonishing. Many people look up to programs like 3D Studio Max as the gold standard of 3D modeling. It is a top-tier industry standard in regards to 3D modeling. Blender, however, is sometimes criticized for a number of reasons. People say the interface and UI are not very charming. Blender also has a seemingly steep learning curve. As someone who has not had much success making proper 3D models, even I am more comfortable using a program like Wings3D (which is also free) for 3D modeling. Maybe even another reason people discredit Blender is because it is free and open-source, usually meaning that free programs don't have the same level of quality compared to the top-level programs. When you finally learn and master Blender, you can do almost as much as you can with the more popular 3D programs like 3D Studio Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, and more. Blender makes you able to make impressive material without needing to stick to a payment schedule or subscription like most of today's 3D modeling powerhouse programs. You can use certain renders outside of Blender's own render engine to produce your images. These include the likes of the Cycles Renderer and the Eevee (not to be confused with the Pokémon Eevee) engine. While you can make 3D models, you can even do simple video editing as well as create entire videos and films with Blender. A popular example of a Blender film is the 2008-released film "Big Buck Bunny." Blender is free and always will be free unless someone buys Blender and cheapen the Blender experience entirely.

It took me over 20 years to make a 3D model I could be proud of when I made my first true Blender creation back circa 2016. My 3D skills are still subpar, but I have tried especially recently to learn Blender and utilize it. A handful of YouTube videos on Blender have helped me to develop my 3D modeling skills in Blender. I slowly tried to develop and practice using Blender techniques to produce 3D models. I still have a lot to learn, but I feel I can do a lot to try to master using this program.

One reason I have tried to learn Blender better is because I am offering my material for sale through sites like Turbosquid and Envato's 3D Ocean. Surely the latter is one of the different programs you can share as being the program you made models in. As of the time of this initial blog post (February 12, 2020), these are the accepted programs for which you share as being what 3D model was made in:

--- 3DOcean Accepted 3D Modeling Programs ---
• 3D Coat
• 3D Studio Max
• Autocad
• Blender
• Cinema 4D
• Lightwave
• Maya
• Moda
• SoftImage
• Vue
• ZBrush

You can still use whatever programs you like to 3D model in, but that is pretty much a list of top-level 3D modeling programs for you to sell your models on sites like 3DOcean. Blender even has a suite where people can sell their Blender 3D creations on called Blender Market.

One must also consider using Blender for more popular applications. For one, there is the crowd of using Blender for virtual reality and augmented reality. VR/AR has its own specifications and considerations when modeling. Blender can be a good enough program to use for VR or AR if you know what you're doing.

Blender for Gaming and Game Development.

Blender was made in C++ and Python. If you have skill in using Python, you can make simple games in Blender using Python code. Blender has had its Blender Game Engine (BGE) serve as the gaming base for those who develop games using Blender. Of late, however, Blender has dropped support of the Blender Game Engine. A program that maintains the appeal of the former BGE is a program called UPBGE. UPBGE stands for "Uchronia Project Blender Game Engine." Many of the features that made BGE an excellent suite for gaming and game development can be had with the UPBGE package.

While Blender could be used to develop games, some people ranging from hobbyists to various independent (indie) developers make assets in Blender to be used in programs like Unity3D and Unreal Engine. People who compete in game jams use programs like Blender for simple modeling of 3D models. Such people even do as great of a job with modeling 3D assets in Blender as almost anyone could with popular paid 3D modeling software.

Blender can also be used for programs like Armory3D. Armory3D is a 3D framework that integrates into Blender. So using a combination of Armory3D and Blender can work perfectly fine in the development of 3D games. So everything from a casual game project to a AAA-quality game could be made with a combination of Blender and Armory3D. You can use a number of other 3D frameworks and interfaces to use in game development with Blender, but Armory3D is a popular option.

Blender for Web Development.

Did you know you can build 3D websites with Blender? People use programs like Blender to build things such as 3D stores and various configurators of products. You could see 3D material with Blender with items ranging from fashion goods to even building your own car. I am mostly positive this suite for Blender mostly pertains to front end development and not much about front end and back end web development. There are people who model through Blender for website development to packages such as WebGL, Blend4Web, and Verge 3D.

Even I have thought of practicing making a 3D environment people can use to navigate for material I've created. Though, I haven't made anything cool enough to warrant any sort of attention. Stay tuned to "John's Creative Space" if I do develop some kind of 3D online environment for you to explore.

Blender for Video Production.

Let's face facts. Blender will NOT replace or substitute programs like After Effects, Premiere Pro, or Vegas. A lot of the videos and video effects you can make in most popular video programs can be done in Blender. If you were to try to upload your creations to video sites like Envato's Videohive, you can't say you created the video material in Blender. So you may need to find some other programs for which to produce videos with. I haven't had too much video experience with Blender, so I will leave my discussion there.

Since I mentioned Blender in a number of lights, does this program get the respect it deserves? Here are my final thoughts...

Does Blender Get the Respect it Deserves? - Final Thoughts

Just because something is free doesn't mean it lacks the quality of more established programs. Really, Blender has become its own established program throughout its development. Some people don't want to commit to a subscription service just to use a high-quality 3D modeling program. Those who don't want to do so have limited options for which to 3D model with. Therefore, Blender and its free nature is a boon to the 3D modeling community. Just because not many people look to Blender for quality 3D modeling doesn't mean there is no reason to use Blender. The interface may be tough, the learning curve may be steep; but once you master using Blender and learn many techniques to model with Blender, it becomes apparent this program is just as good... if not better... than most of the top-level, *industry standard* 3D modeling programs. You can always make Blender better if you develop scripts and add-ons to enhance the capabilities of Blender. Just because Blender is free doesn't mean it lacks the quality and polish of other top-level 3D modeling software. You can always make sacrifices if you feel Blender is somehow not good enough to meet your standards of 3D modeling.

So if you are on the fence about Blender, give it a chance and try to learn to use Blender. Try to master using Blender even if you are more comfortable using other 3D modeling software. Blender actually deserves more credit than most people give it. At least... to me.

For More Information...

Learn more about Blender by going to www.blender.org. Find more 3D resources I've curated by visiting my Creative Resources page.

Those are my own thoughts on Blender. Let me know what you think...

Do you think Blender gets the respect it deserves?

Be sure to Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) to keep up with my latest material. Visit my other blog posts to see more of my work and more of my thoughts on a variety of issues. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my official website at johnbmarine.com, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin!
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Basic Voxel Vehicle Pack

2019-10-10T06:58:00.000-07:00

After several years putting it off and in not deciding what to do, I recently have FINALLY offered my voxel vehicles to the Internet public! This blog post describes what all I have done with these voxel vehicles I created. You will be able to purchase my voxel vehicles towards the end of this post. So stick around for more information!

My Basic Voxel Vehicle Pack

This is an opportunity for me to share with you my voxel vehicles. More information is included in this post, so read on if you are interested in my voxel vehicles.

What You Should Know.

My voxel vehicle creations were as of 2014 producing them with MagicaVoxel. I shared my voxel models across social media showcasing my work. I long planned to use my voxel models to develop a racing game. That game, however, never materialized. So the models I created have basically remained on my PC to never be available to the public. Despite a good amount of demand by some people who reached out to me, I was never fully ready to share my voxel models. That is until I finally decided in September 2019 to consider joing Envato. On October 1, I joined Envato. My first upload to any Envato product was made on October 7. My package was approved to 3DOcean for my voxel vehicle pack. Therefore, I am pleased to announce that my voxel vehicle pack is LIVE!

In my original upload to 3DOcean, I decided to keep the vehicles as static models. I had planned for some time to make the voxel models ready for animation. That will probably come in either an update or as a separate package. To keep polygon counts low, I filled up the invisible portions of the voxel models with voxels. Most of my models originally came with visible interiors if you remove the glass windshields and doors. Everything is low-polygon for the sake of game development. That was the original intent of my models.

The reworked voxel vehicles can be imported into programs like Blender or in game engines like Godot Game Engine. If you want to further use models for various applications, you are on your own to take my models and import them into other programs. So you will need to use a program like Blender to export my models into Unity3D if you want to use Unity with my voxel vehicle models. The Basic Voxel Vehicle Pack is available in three different formats: COLLADA DAE, OBJ, and the native MagicaVoxel VOX. Use the native VOX to freely edit the voxel models in their raw form.

Want to Get My Voxel Vehicles?

My voxel vehicle pack is available on Envato's 3DOcean. Purchase the Regular License if you want to feature my voxel vehicles in a free game or in certain media projects. Purchase an Extended License if you plan on using my voxel vehicle models in a paid game. Click on the image or link below to get started:

^ Click on the image or click on the following link to buy my voxel vehicle pack: Basic Voxel Vehicle Pack (Envato, 3DOcean)!

If you use my voxel vehicles in any project (personal or commercial), please let me know! I want to see how you plan on utilizing my voxel models. Please help support me and my work any way you can. Purchasing this package is one such way of showing your support... if you don't mind. I would appreciate your support.

That is all for this post! I hope you found it interesting. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my official website at johnbmarine.com, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin!
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