jamie3d.com

My main focus these days has been on learning the Ruby on Rails web development framework, but I have blocked out some time to finish up my latest 3D Bike: The Kawasaki ZX-6R.

While my Rails progress has been steady, I am realizing more and more that Web Development and 3D design exercise different parts of my brain and I need to be more disciplined about when I do Web and when I do 3D. After some more Rails progress has been made, I'll shift focus to the Dorsoduro 3D model.

I've started a really cool class project; Video Game Character Modeling is the name of the class. I figured it would be a great idea to model a biker for some of my bikes. Thus far I've got the biker and the helmet modeled, but have yet to take any snapshots of either one.

The new 2007 / 2008 ZX-6R that I've been modeling since... well, 2007 (it's been on the back burner) is almost done. Technically speaking, the actual modeling is done, and I am currently UV mapping the finished model.

Well, it's back to school for another 3D class. This time the class is called Electronic Game 3D Animation but I like "Low Poly Character Modeling" better.

More on that later...

I divide all the work on my site into projects and most, if not all of these have a few images associated with them. I've created an experimental view for my projects that simply shows images from all the projects in random order, and each image links to its respective project. It's just a little experiment and simply for fun right now. Use the link below to go there.

Update: Thanks to the advice and suggestions of one of my web design instructors, the functionality of this collage page has been extended. When a thumbnail is clicked on, that particular thumbnail is remembered, and when you arrive on the respective project page it's automatically expanded.

The jamie3d.com experimental collage page

I finally found some free time to work on this model. The last change I made before working on the model today was the mirrors. Today I did some work on the engine. The engine is a tricky part simply because it's usually hidden and any photos I can find of the engine are taken at interesting angles instead of the convenient orthogonal views us 3D modelers prefer. The latest image is of the water pump on the left side of the engine.

View the ZX-6R project page & gallery.

It's a really tricky situation when using one program starts to eat away at your knowledge of another program. A perfect example of this is my current simultaneous use of Cinema 4D and Maya. Some of the keyboard commands translate beautifully. A good example of this is: Hold the Alt (Option) key and drag the mouse to rotate the 3D View. Then there are the other keyboard commands... in Cinema 4D, the middle mouse button is used for two commands: Panning the 3D or 2D views (same as Maya), and switching from a 4-panel view port to a single (camera view) panel view port. In Maya however, the middle mouse button is used for camera movement, dragging virtual sliders, switching between Object, Faces, Points, Edges etc.

The frustration begins when I start to cross my wires. I'm using Maya and I need to switch views, so I tap the space bar. Thats great and all, but that means after using Maya for a few hours, I tap the space bar in Cinema 4D and all of a sudden, I've chosen the selection tool and my view doesn't change. I tap the space bar again and still nothing. Then I remember I need to middle click to switch views. Similarly, in Maya, I find myself switching views when all I wanted was my selection tool.

I've started to map different keys to different functions in Cinema 4D as I dare not change the Maya shortcuts as I use it on a shared computer at school, and It's an industry standard and I dont want to have to uncross my wires out there in the real world. If we want to take this idea a bit further, consider that keyboard shortcuts are usually on quizzes and tests as a favorite area to snag a few easy points. If I were to start switching keyboard shortcuts, I'll probably get less of those easy questions correct.

Update:

I was thinking about this subject a bit more and am wondering if I should wear my watch on the other hand when using one of the programs. Alternatively I could wear in-ear headphones when using one & over-the-ear headphones when using the other. Perhaps there is a way to partition my brain and train myself to switch different memory regions on and off.

I'm working on my current class project; a self portrait in 3D using ZBrush & Maya.

The thing about 3D models is that every time you add more detail, the model becomes more cumbersome to work with in your 3D application. This is especially true if you are animating the model.

ZBrush & Maya Self Portrait

My latest 3D project is a scale model of a motorcycle carburetor. The Mikuni VM36, which will be used in the building of a scale model of a 1974 TZ350 race bike.

I've created a page showing some of my friend's bike frame designs that I rendered in 3D for him a few years ago. He was a great rider, but more importantly he always had clever and innovative ideas. The last time Cow (Michael DePeza) and I hung out, he brought some of his drawings of concept bicycle frames for me to create digitally. At this stage, he was branding his concepts with the name Heffa Bikes, a tribute to his long standing nickname.

I've posted a project that talks a bit about my friend Mike's site. It's a simple one page site, but I explain a little bit about how it came to be. I also mention some of the technologies that make it a hassle free portfolio when it comes to adding new images.

Anyway, enough of that... here's the link to the project page.

After my last post about stumbling upon that great sitepoint mod_rewrite article, I figured why not me? After some research I found that the benefits of mod_rewrite are considered dated by some. The claims vary from "Google knows how to handle 'ugly web addresses' and the functionality of making more attractive, easier to read addresses is no longer needed." to "A complex .htaccess file (the file used to configure mod_rewrite in most cases) can slow down your page views." I felt that I needed to give it a try and I'm happy with the results. I've also added some backwards compatibility for Google to update the existing links in the index.

I recently found a great mod_rewrite article on SitePoint

Whats mod_rewrite? When the url of a site looks like this: www.example.com/page/particular_topic/page_2/ instead of www.example.com/page.php?topic=particular_topic&page=2 that's mod_rewrite in action. In short, it helps make your web addresses look friendlier to your visitors.

I've added a nice shiny HDRI Render to the 3D Pickup Truck Model

I've added a comment system to the site. You can now leave comments on my projects, tutorials or works in progress. You don't need to sign up, but every comment needs approval before appearing on the site. (I hate spam as much as you do)

So go ahead, use the system and let me know what you think of the system itself and or the projects.

The new version of jamie3d.com is here, not that this is an amazingly popular web site, but I hope that my visitors like the changes that have been made—See the changes and features Here.

Well, it's official: Mozilla Firefox is now the single most popular browser on the web. As posted on the w3c Browser Stats Page, IE 7 holds 21.0%, IE6 holds 34.5%, Firefox holds 36.0%, and Safari holds 1.6%. The remaining 8.5% is held between Mozilla, Opera and IE 5.5.

IE 6 and 7 still hold 55.4% of the web if you combine both versions... But for how long?