single stranded binding protein

I got a friend to build me a pretty awesome computer back in December, but I've only been Photoshop-ing and surfing the net. It's been difficult for me to get into Maya outside of work, but I finally installed it today out of sheer guilt over my seemingly unjustified purchase... I wasn't feeling up to modelling, so I just grabbed a protein to play with using the Molecular Maya plugin. :)

I still struggle a lot with lighting and shaders, and rely way too much on compositing to fix everything. One of my profs noted at one point how my lighting fails to bring out the full form of the objects, resulting in a flattened look. I think this is still often the case in my work. I recently purchased Digital Lighting & Rendering by Jeremy Birn, so hopefully I will be able improve on this point!

SSB protein in two rendering styles / pdb ID: 1EQQ

Autodesk Maya 2011, Adobe After Effects CS5.5

Technical stuff: In the top image, I used a strong backlight and a simple subsurface scattering (SSS) shader, The bottom image is a tweaked ambient occlusion pass. 

A bit of background on the protein: As implied by their name, single stranded binding (SSB) proteins bind and stabilize DNA in its single stranded, unwound state name in events such as DNA replication. Depending on the conditions, SSB proteins can operate in two modes: (1) (SSB)35: ssDNA wraps around two SSB subunits so that ~35 nucleotides are occluded, and (2) (SSB)65: ssDNA interacts with all four subunits, resulting in the occlusion of ~65 nucleotides.

Perhaps it's time to build that DNA model...

surgical tools revamp

This isn't a exactly top priority project but I figured it'd be nice to have a good render of my old surgical tool models for my new website. :)

surgical tools

Autodesk Maya 2011 + Adobe Photoshop CS4

I was messing around with MIA materials in Maya and this is the best I could come up with for a metal texture (I think I used the copper preset blended with some chrome and satined metal). The cloth texture could use some serious work too (more imperfections and variation, etc.) but as always with these procrastination tools side-projects, it's time to move on for now!

I apologize for not updating my blog - I've been working on a new html/css website that will be launched soon (hopefully)! I plan on adding process for most portfolio pieces, but as I can't write as freely (aka ramble) as I do here, I might still retroactively add things here...

late night coffee

I actually don't drink coffee, but I came across this CGsociety thread last night and it piqued my curiosity. The thread houses an excellent, in-depth discussion about how to create a coffee shader in Maya using mia_x material. If you know me personally, then I'm sure you're not surprised at how I obsessed over this inconsequential, minute detail... After many, many hours of fiddling, this is what I've come up with:

I also took the liberty of populating the desk with random items! My coffee shader is still not as good as some of the ones in the thread, but I think it's time to move on (aka MRP is beckoning me)...

This sort of contributes to my MRP (5 seconds worth?!) and I'm learning so this shouldn't count as procrastination, right?!

EDIT: And yes, this shall be cold, stale coffee because I'm not willing to attempt steam right now lol.

small preview!

I am currently working on an 8 second interstitial animation depicting actin filament assembly. Here's a preview image for now! I'm using Autodesk Maya 2011 for modeling and animation. I did a pretty hack job in After Effects - need to render out the depth map properly...

Ahhh the next two weeks are going to be craaazy! But I have quite a few things to share from this term. :)

Transverse section of the eye

This is my first fully textured Maya model! I actually finished this back in December, but didn't get a chance to blog about it. :)

Still image:transverse section of the eye
Autodesk Maya 2011

Turntable animation (compiled in Adobe After Effects CS5)

Reference image (drawn in Adobe Illustrator + Photoshop CS4):

The most difficult aspect of this model was making the layers fit snugly. Starting with an accurate reference drawing was key. To create the most anatomically accurate eye possible, I followed the steps provided in Basic Anatomy of the Human Eye for Artists by Linda A. Warren (Journal of Biocommunication), an excellent resource that goes in great depth of the measurements of the eye!

Kickin' off the year with Maya...

I must admit, I hit a new low this New Year's Eve. I entered the new year with my favourite gal, Maya... The fruits of my labour:


I have never worked so hard during winter break in my entire life. Last year, my holiday was wrought with gradient mesh, but that seriously pales in comparison to what a holiday with Maya entails lol! Well, we did ask for an extension... /endrant

This model was surprisingly difficult and extremely time consuming (6 days++?! I stopped counting because it got too depressing...). Bones are always a lot harder to model than I think, especially small bones that are rather amorphous (i.e. carpal bones omg).

Anyway I'll wait until the final textured and rigged version to render out the mesh and stuff. I plan on texturing in MudBox or ZBrush (more programs to learn!).

Maya modeling month!

Over the past few weeks, I've come to appreciate how much planning (and trial and error) is involved with modeling. I scrapped countless numbers of models due to poor planning. But that's part of the process - or so I'm told!

Here are my category 1 (bones) and 2 (surgical tools) models for class. My category 3 model is too crappy to be viewed at the moment haha. ;) These will be properly textured and thrown into turntable animations by the beginning of December!


On the topic of texturing, I've also been learning about materials and UV mapping. For class, we had to map photos onto our hand models. It honestly creeps me out a little bit... and by a little bit, I mean a lot...

I had a lot of fun with texturing this teapot! 8D


And here I am, up to no good in Photoshop! I've learned that seams are very difficult to deal with...


November is going to be a busy month - deadlines approaching...

Polygon modeling in Maya

It may not be NURBS modeling, but it is still noob modeling lol! We started polygon modeling techniques last Monday and our assignment was to model our hand. I think I enjoy polygon modeling a little bit more - it's more similar to how I worked in Cinema4D. However, I was still excruciatingly slow at making this model!

I modeled this using photo references of my hand. The thumb is supposed to be outstretched but it looks rather long. I wonder if it's a reference photo distortion thing I ended up modeling (or perhaps camera distortion from me taking a screenshot too close to the object in Maya)! To sum up my process, I used polygon primitives + lots of point pushing + extrude for nails + the polygon cut tool excessively + the sculpt tool.

Oh and here's the teapot exercise of the week - this time using a combination of revolve + bridge + extrude on polygons...


Sorry for the bad geometry everywhere. I hope one day I can look back at these and laugh! Oh Maya, when will I be able to tame you? D:

NOOB/ NURBS modeling...

We started our Autodesk Maya 3D modeling class last Monday. Now, I was mentally prepared for a steep learning curve. But I've done a bit of modeling in Cinema4D before, so I figured, how bad could I be? Well...I was bad. In fact, I was terrible. We were modeling a simple tea pot using NURBS and I just couldn't get things to work. I thought I was doing exactly what the prof was doing, but my Maya just didn't feel like producing the same results... (I later learned this was partially due to reversed normals and partially due to the fact that Maya likes to mess with you)

It was honestly one of the roughest days I've had in a long while. The kind where you feel absolutely useless and pathetic. But hey, you pick yourself up after that, right? (And downing a chocolate bar and a can of Pringles seemed to help lol!). I was secretly hoping for some hidden 3D modeling talent that would come through for me. But looks like I'll just have to work my ass off to get through this course! >:

But anyway, I present to you my very first Maya models. Yes, I know they are incredibly noobish with awkward areas of geometry and horrible materials - but we all have to start somewhere right...?!

In class assignment: The %#$@-ing tea pot:


Homework: Kidneys (modeled on top of an image provided in class) that took way longer than it should've for a normal human being 8D:


Here are a couple of screenshots of working in Maya 2011:

These were mostly done with a combination of pushing/pulling NURBS primitives with a lot of CV curve + extrude + loft + isoparm-ing.

Tomorrow morning: Maya round two. Polygon modeling.

Fish! process part 3/3

After finishing sketching in part 1 and modelling in part 2...

Step 6: Putting the scene together
Here's what my final scene looked like before rendering:

i used a Free Form Deformer (FFD) to bend the fish body and fins (i couldn't get good results with the Bend Deformer) and added a Stick Texture Tag so the texture matches up with the deformed body.

i added random ice chunks by first modelling a single ice chunk, putting it into an Emitter, applying Current State to Object, and manually tweaking the positions of the ice chunks.

Here are a few of the scenes i tested out. With the help of my professor, i settled on a strong red light in the back to bring out the effects of Subsurface Scattering at the fins. My professor also advised be to add a cool light on one side and a softer, warm light to offset the cold one. A weak environment fog and depth of field were also used to soften the background elements a bit:

Step 6: Final image
In Photoshop, i tweaked the contrast and added a glow to the proteins. I also did the mock journal cover layout in Photoshop (yes, i probably should've used Illustrator, i know :P)
Only AFP was rendered separately and brought into Photoshop because using C4D's depth of field killed the (not very attractive anyway) glow.

Here is the final product!

Will be doing process posts for my surgical and neuro illustrations soon!

Fish! process part 1/3

Hello! Sorry I've been a bit MIA this month - been bogged down with watching too many kdramas school work and other unplanned things! Anyway, here is something i've been meaning to put up - a break down of how i created my mock journal cover.

Disclaimer: Since i'm very much a novice at 3D, i created this more for myself and it's not intended to be a how-to or anything lol! i felt the need to document how i did some things before i forgot! ;)

Project objectives: To create a mock journal/science magazine cover about antifreeze proteins found in Atlantic Herring.
Target audience: General public

Step 1: Find an interesting protein
Unable to let go of my fishy past, i looked up proteins found in fish species in the Protein Data Bank. i settled on an antifreeze protein in Atlantic herring.



Step 2: Sketching
Here are some quick sketches i did. i envisioned this dynamic illustration with a fish breaking out of ice. Looking back, i think my illustration would have had more impact with a whole school of herring.


ballpoint pen + col-erase pencils

Step 3: Final sketch
This was my final sketch from the planning stage. In hindsight i really shouldn't have worked this up so much, in order to encourage more feedback and changes at this point! i got really carried away because well, i like fish. :) Comparing my sketch and my final model, i was sad to realize how many drawing errors exist in this sketch haha...


Adobe Photoshop CS4

So that pretty much concludes the planning stage. Part 2, modelling...

Fish! process part 2/3

Continuing from the final sketch...

Steps 4 & 5: Modelling & texturing
To get a more accurate structure for the fish, I used some illustrations as references to build off of.



Click to see my attempts at modelling the fish and ice...


After completing the fish model, i tried to use BodyPaint to texture the fish, but i wasn't able to achieve very good results. Since the fish structure is pretty simple, i just painted a texture in Photoshop without bothering with UV mapping. The image was added to the color channel and projected flat onto the fish model. A bump map was also created for the fish scales.


Lastly, the protein structure data from the Protein Data Bank was opened up in Chimera. I chose to go with a ribbon representation in the end (the surface representation was too reminiscent of fish eggs according to my classmates). I then brought the protein model into C4D and applied a simple material.



That wraps up modelling! Now to build the scene...

ice ice, baby

Here is a work in progress for my mock journal cover! i swear our 3D professor is magical! He clicks a couple things in like 2 seconds, and suddenly your render becomes beautiful! (And special thanks to Jurie, Bea, and Diego for helping with my retarded titles! 8D)


mock SciAm cover
Cinema4D + layout in Photoshop CS4 (i should've done it in AI, i know...)

i'm mostly done, but there is some funky geometry in the fish model i still haven't been able to tweak out. The scale texture (bump map) got a bit strange after adding subsurface scattering and i need to repaint some parts of the fish texture map. And i added the nastiest, last-minute "glow" to my molecules in Photoshop, so need to fix that as well... i need to play around with the lighting some more as well...Also, i think i will try to get a more dynamic feel with some actions lines...not sure yet!

Wow, now that i typed out everything i still have to do, i actually have a lot to fix...

snip snip!

Here is my first full-fledged 3D model (that's actually somewhat presentable)! This was done in Cinema4D as a reference for surgical illustration class. There are still some glitchy areas i haven't figured out how to fix yet... i find HyperNURBs rather difficult to manipulate. D:


surgical scissors
Cinema4D