July 13th 2020 - 3D Modeling practice

I've switched back to focusing on improving my 3D modeling skills and here are the two projects I've been working on.

Skeleton King Concept by Satoshi Matsuura

I had actually made an attempt to 3d model this piece two months ago but stopped because I felt it was bad. Decided to try it again since I felt that I've learned a lot since the last attempt and I can definitely see that its much better. 

  

Plasma Gun - CGcookie Tutorial

My current project is trying to create a hard-surface object using Blenders 3D Sculpting tools. The biggest challenge is trying to get and maintain straight lines and details. After working on this for a while I realized how I can use both sculpting and polygon modeling together to create better pieces in the future.

I'll spend maybe one or two more days working on it before moving on. My focus for the rest of the month is probably going to be on improving my 3d modeling skills with less emphasis on coding for now.

VR Enterprise Webinar and State of VR/AR for training notes - July 9th 2020

Just watched a webinar on Enterprise use case and a recent state of VR/AR for Gaming, Healthcare, Training & Education hosted by BrightTalk. Here is a short collection of the key points I got from the both of them.

The following notes deal with VR/AR future developments to look out for, how to identify a potential VR training opportunity, general steps for creating the VR training experience and some case studies.

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Future of VR/AR training - Potential development of interest 

Biometrics

Using information from biometrics to change the VR/AR training experiences. For example, tracking heart rate to better gauge engagement and stress on the trainee. Based on the heart rate you can ramp and scale training difficulty. The device they used to track heart rate was the Apple watch and they were able to tap into the information using Apples API. 

Machine Intelligence  

This was focused on an AR experience and was created to help with Starbucks training challenges. Starbucks wanted help with improving their employees coffee order accuracy and provide employee training on drink variations and combinations.

The example was a demo experience with the intent of using technology to listen in on what the customer is ordering. Based on what the machine learned and customer information, the mixed reality device can help the employee with the listing and highlighting the steps for creating the drink and displaying the customer order so the employee can verify it is correct.

Haptics - More embodiment

More and more haptics devices are being developed and can serve as tools to make experiences more immersive. For example feeling temperature such as hot/cold and etc. 

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6 Business Criteria for potential VR training opportunities

• large groups of people that need to be trained
• scalability is a factor
• situational - training scenarios can be difficult to safely and reproduce reliably 
• reality - how close it matches the actual experience is important
• business impact
• full engagement is important

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Foundry45 General steps for VR training creation

Step 1 VR Training guidlines

• Design document
• content developement
• pilot implementation

Step 2 Deployment throughout the business

• additional sites of content
• IT/Learning management system integration
• Measure

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VR Case study - Construction Industry VR use case

Selling heavy equipment. Created a app that creates a mobile AR version of their equipment and how it works and its different parts. Useful for selling their tools at conventions/trade-shows because they can't bring the equipment into the convention space. AR allows them to showcase it and bypass this limitation. 

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Westrock - Tips for VR adoption within a business

Getting staff and employees to try VR to better understand its capabilities. Trying is best way to get buy-in as not everyone has experienced VR. 

Look for partner and champions. Find a problem to create a simple pilot project and involve key decision makers. 

May 19th 2020 - Animation and Sculpting practice

Continuing to work on animation basics and I've made a short clip of the classic ball bouncing.



Also just discovered Beeple and inspired by how he has been doing daily renders for over a decade now. His daily work is amazing with some of it feeling like concept art where I would love to see more of. I looked up a few interviews on YouTube and listened to his explanation for why he does his daily's and realized that it allows him to experiment and discover his style and how to create unique effects.

I won't be doing daily renders like Beeple but I do want to incorporate more experimentation into my practice. Here's one of my physics and particle effects experimentation.

Another one inspired from the controversy around the deadliness of Covid-19.


Sculpting is still an area I'm working to improve. I'm doing gestural sculpting to get better at creating shapes and continuing to study human head anatomy to try and create better and more realistic head sculpts.

May 12th 2020 - Moving on to animation practice

Just finished two advanced tutorials on CG cookie focused on vehicle sculpting and creature sculpting. Learned a lot from the process in terms of how to achieve finer details. One area that I know I still need a lot of work in is how to properly retopologize models based on sculpting. I'm definitely not an expert in anyway but I do feel a lot more confident and comfortable creating 3d assets that I might want or need now.

After I finished with them I also decided to put them together in a short 360 video as well. I'll be focusing on improving animation next.

May 2nd 2020

Getting more comfortable and familiar with modeling in Blender and using the modifiers now. Still a lot to learn if I want to sculpt realistic objects but I'm confident creating simple shapes and forms now.

Also played around with my airplane model with a short animation using a audio clip from Dunkirk. While working on it I realized how sound can be really useful for storytelling when it comes to building anticipation.

Character Modeling

Character modeling is something I want to progressively get better at for sure though so I'm making a time investment in learning the human anatomy and practicing it frequently. Trying to accelerate my learning so I'm doing focused practice and study on the human head. Trying to create a human head without reference and then reviewing my work to identify where I'm making mistakes and to avoid making them again on the next attempt to get better more quickly.