Snow Globe - Update #1

Hi!
I finally found some time to complete the scene for Digital Tutors competition. It is not finished yet but I have a rest if a day to get it done. By now I completed the scene and now is rest to light it and tweek shaders.



I'll add the picture in a background, some shadows and find a way to get rid of these reflections of HDR image in glass material. And of course, after all that, some additional postwork will be done in Photoshop.



Here are nodes in Hypershade just to show you how I made snow shader. It's a simple setup, nothing special. I'll cover more in depth making of this shader somewere in upcoming posts so stay tuned! Bye!

Changing UI theme in Maya

Here is just a short tip on how to change the color of the UI in Maya 2011.
First, locate your Maya shortcut, then right-click on it and chose "Properties". In tab "Shortcut" there is a text field named "Target", click on it.
Just add this command: -style cleanlooks


That is just an example, you can choose a diffrent style if you want. Here are just a few of them I found: plastique, cde, motif, windows, monolith... (don't forget to add "-style" before choosing a theme.)


And just to say that monolith theme is the closest to an old look of Maya, for all nostalgic :D
Hope this tip will be helpful for some of you. Bye!

Entering DT contest

Hello everybody, I'm back!
I haven't been active for some time now, but I was pretty busy with school and other stuff. Anyway, holidays are coming so I hope I'll be adding some more updates in my blog.
I decided to give it a shot and enter to new Digital Tutors contest for December. The contest theme is snow globe.
By now I modeled simple globe and now it's left to put something interesting there. I'm thinking of putting simple christmas tree with some crazy lightning and a lot of presents beneath it.

Updates and pics soon!

NURBS practicing

Hello everyone! This is my first post here :D
I recently started to explore some techniques with NURBS modeling and I can say they are great. Most of my time I work with polygons but there are always problems with making smooth surfaces, circular holes etc. With trim tool and many other tools you can do that with ease and get perfect smooth surface.
This is what I have been modeling past few hours. Its my old MP3 player that is really perfect for beginner NURBS modeling. I must say that this is still work in progress, few parts are missing like screws, earphones, display and other little pieces.