Picture is unrelated

[Guartho]

Ok, these are clearly not trek-related, but I wanted to share them anyway. This humble little ceiling fan is quite possibly my first complete 3D model. I've tinkered in 3D here and there before, mainly with Blender. But way back in '04 I got the student version of Lightwave 8 for Christmas. I made a nowhere-near-done Enterprise with it right away, and tinkered with a never-was-finished model of a one of Warped9's ship designs, but there was a hard drive crash or something and I lost them both. Then real life started happening.

Anyway, I pulled out the old discs and my USB dongle that I made sure never to lose and I invested in an out-dated training series to match my out-dated software.

I finished watching the first tutorial project, a chandelier and then made this. I wanted to do something different, but still similar enough to make referring back easy. It's just your basic household ceiling fan, but I'm pretty happy with it.

They're washed-out, but I even put bulbs in the lights. There are no switches, so I guess I still can't call it my first finished project. I guess this is just one of those expensive remove-control-only fans.

I've got a 10 second animation rendering now, so all you Trekkers who also get excited by watching ceiling fans can look forward to a treat tomorrow.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Most ceiling fans only have the direction switch anymore.

Great work.

 

[sojourner]

Good to see "There are four lights!".

 

[Psion]

Replace the ceiling with a starry background, re-texture the fan with a metallic panels and windows, then call it a Starbase!

Anyway, very well done.

 

[The Axeman]

Been there, done that!

 

[Guartho]

Hey Axeman, I made the motor vents, and the hole in the blade-arms using techniques I learned from your shuttle tutorial.

I know I promised an animation yesterday, but I decided to go one step further with my experimentation. I undersized the fan since I only have 7 foot ceilings and a full-sized fan would look even more ridiculous than it already does. As you can see, there's a kink or two yet to be worked out in my match-moving process.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwN_3rbG6g0[/yt]

 

[The Axeman]

What are you using for the matvh moving? Synth Eyes? I've tried a couple of the free camera matcher programs and they're woeful.

 

[Guartho]

Yes, it's Syntheyes. I have learned recently that CMOS cameras and their rolling shutters are quite bad for match-moving. Which is fantastic news for someone like me who no longer has any CCD cameras and never had any HD CCD cameras.

 

[The Axeman]

I wish I had the cash for Syntheyes, it's easily the best I've seen. I've done models for a few projects and the compositors were using SE and the results were always impressive. Unfortunately the only video camera I have is the Kodak Zi8, which is an HD CMOS camera with lots of rolling shutter issues if you move at all quickly. It's a fabulous camera for the money, way cheaper and more capable than a Flip-HD, but not great for special effects work.

 

[Guartho]

Yep, I'm running in to issues that I'm blaming on the rolling shutter for now as well. I'm thinking about getting my old Panasonic DV-100 single-chip miniDV camera out just to see if it's really the shutter or not.

 

[Guartho]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1kzi43EonQ[/yt] One more attempt at a better match move, and a more plausibly sized fan. This is with the same original CMOS shot. The global shutter footage from my old consumer miniDV drifted in and out of focus too much for me to use.

And with that, I think I'm done messing with this fan. I'll try to do something Trek related for my next experiment.

 

[The Axeman]

Nice work, the match moving looks excellent. Your next project with Syntheyes will certainly be a must-see.