Saturday 30 May 2020

May 3D Review

In the month of May I started using Blender 2.82a, the free 3D software program, to push my drawings as far as I can.  Blender 2.8 is a complete overhaul of the software, and has been out for less than a year.  


 Summary VIDEO
3D Projects

The video below is a compilation of all the 3D projects that I have been working on in the last decade:





Summary VIDEO
360° Animations Compilation 

I created a compilation video of all the 360° animations that I created in Blender. 



You can change the scene by pushing your mouse across the YouTube image (while left clicking).  You can pause the video, and still move the mouse to change the point-of-view.  I understand that on a smart phone, one just has to move the phone to change points-of-view.


I N D E X
* MAY BLOG POSTS *





MY DRAWINGS INTO 3D

PROCEDURE

I discovered two free online programs that will convert my drawings into digital 3D objects, as seen below:

Digital 3D objects:
Left: created with PhotoAnim, OBJ file ,
Right: created with VectorizerSTL file 


PROCEDURE

P N G
*with transparent background*

I start off by preparing a PNG file of my drawing, with a transparent background.

I outlined my drawing on newsprint, in heavy pencil lines, and scanned it.  After bringing up the contrast in XnView, I removed the background with RemoveBG.  

I can also do the whole job in Photoshop Elements (which is not free), if I erase the background and save the drawing as a PNG file.

PNG file
-- with transparent background --



There are two free programs that will convert the PNG drawing into a 3D file -- see the difference in the darker gray image above, two pictures up

1)  Best Method: The PhotoAnim software (free, but you have to download it) will give you a more robust 3D image, in an OBJ (+ MTL) format:




This YouTube tutorial clearly explains how easy it is to make a 2D image into a 3D object in PhotoAnim:




SHORT PHOTOANIM SYNOPSIS

a) Import PNG image, and select the middle button at far right, outlined in green.



b) Animation/Intialize/3D from Front View Image... 



c) At the bottom, check "Symmetry" and pull the "Guard Ring" tab all the way to the right



d) File/ Export 3D (3ds,.obj, stl)  --  Export the 3D drawing as an OBJ file.



2)  Alternative MethodVectorizer is an online program, that will give some thickness to the drawing by extruding it, then converting the image into an STL file.  I then have to convert the STL file into an OBJ file by importing/exporting in SculptGL (which also allows me to alter the 3D figure). This is a very flat 3D image, such at that used to make the animated GIF below.





I then upload the OBJ file to Mixamo (free, but you have to sign up) to animate the 3D figure.  There are many choices, and one can download the animated figure as a FBX file.






BLENDER 2.82a 


Blender is free 3D software.

One can "import" STL, OBJ (+MTL), and FBX animation files into Blender, and image files for the background and as planes.  I imported a variety of file formats into Blender to make the video below (using all the free math art software that I found in the last decade).


VIDEO
MATH ART 


Free math softwares:

Blender
T U T O R I A L S


BEGINNING

I started learning Blender 2.82a with Grant Abbit's series of YouTube tutorials:

BACKGROUND IMAGE

I discovered how to add a background image with Henry Egloff's tutorials:


The turntable animation is a little bit more difficult.



360° ANIMATIONS


I added a 360° scene to an animation of one of my drawings.  I took the 360° photograph of the South Broadway Cultural Center in Albuquerque, when we showed 83 prints during the "Prints by Southwest" exhibition in 2017.





360° from GOOGLE MAPS
ANIMATIONS


I followed the tutorial below to get the 360° street scene from Google (note: if iStreet View does not work, saying "for development purposes," keep trying).

Then I followed previous tutorials to make a 360° scene animation, of one of my drawings dancing in the center of Mexico City.




GOOGLE MAPS IN 360° 3D




Blender GIS looks promising, but it was freezing my computer:


GENERATIVE
 BLENDER ADDONS

Generative Blender Addons:
Derived from the simplified middle 3D figure
Left: SuperPoke
Right: BY-Gen

The two generative Blender addons below, altered the simplified figure in the middle in the grey animated GIF above.

I decimated the middle 3D figure of my drawing above, with GitHub: Instant Meshes, into very basic polygons before importing it to Blender 2.82a.  If the 3D image is too complex, it freezes my laptop during the final rendering phase.  Download the decimated OBJ +MTL files of the 3D object, derived from my drawing (Zip file, 31.36 KB)



With the Blender cube below, I first applied the BY_GEN (Organic Shell) treatment, and then applied the SuperPoke treatment.  However, when I reversed the order, applying SuperPoke first, my laptop froze and could not apply the BY_GEN treatment.

Blender Cube with 2 generative treatments --
altered first by BY_GEN (Organic Shell),
and then by SuperPoke



The figure below was altered with BY_GEN with the "Organic shell" option.  I downloaded Boccioni's sculpture (by Darioc)  from Thingiverse -- "Unique Forms of Continuity in Space" -- and stretched and modified it first in SculptGL (as seen in the PNG to 3D post).  This is entirely different from the approach of Ander Raden and Matt Smith, who faithfully recreated some Boccioni's sculptures using digital 3D programs.




Other addons and related:


DOWNLOADABLE 3D FILES

There are many sources for free 3D files online:

Below is a screen capture of two 3D files I juxtaposed together, the Triceratops downloaded from the Smithsonian, and the Gudea figure downloaded from the Thingiverse Metropolitan of Art collection:

Triceratops and Gudea 3D files
remixed together in SculptGL


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