Update On Paris Talk in 2017

I'll be doing a talk in Paris in March on the making of the Inc book project, I'll be discussing our process, doing a live digital painting demo, and showing off a ton of never before seen art. The conference will also feature 19 other artists, some amazingly talented people will be there, artists from all different walks of life. Check out the official site below, you can watch the teaser video and get tickets to attend in person or tickets to watch from home. Hope to see some of you there!

http://www.iamag.co/features/iamag-master-classes-17/

CGTools Updated Nov 29th 2016

I've received many requests over the years for my 3dsmax UI, so I've just uploaded my 2017 UI files. I'd recommend taking what you want from these and customizing them, no two people work alike and I don't expect anyone is going to use my exact UI. But it is interesting seeing how other people choose to organize their tools, and so maybe this can help inspire a UI for you that's better for your own workflow. Enjoy!

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_tools/ui/ui_3dsmax.htm

Desert Wandering

“Although I knew better, I pushed us day and night, sometimes taking shortcuts we should have avoided. We were nearly devoured several times.” - Landis

From the Inc Book Project.

Link Removed

New Paintings

Soulburn 3D Education Page Updated Nov 22nd 2016

Added a new 45 minute video tutorial called Shading A Hard Surface Model 2016: Texturing A Robotic Mask, which shows off my workflow for texturing hard surface models (and shows how max 2017.1's new BlendedBoxMap and Curvature work as part of that workflow)

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/shading_a_hard_surface_model_2016/shading_a_hard_surface_model_2016.htm

Available at low quality on youtube or high quality downloadable for $1 on gumroad.

Soulburn 3D Education Page Updated Nov 21st 2016

The Soulburn CG Education Page has been updated:

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/cg_education.htm

Updated the Curvature Based Edge Wear tutorial with a new video showing how to use the Curvature modifier in 3dsmax 2017.1

Visit the page above for the full tutorial, or if you already know the theory and just want to see the video tutorials showing the new features, follow this link...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgQfbxsp-iQ

CGTools Updated Nov 17th 2016

Updated 1 older Asset Packs:

Soulburn_MaterialAssetPack_Free_v002: Updated the asset pack to use the BlendedBoxMap and Data Channel Curvature available in max 2017.1

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_tools/assets/assets_3dsmax.htm

You can still download the older v001 of the asset pack if you're using max 2012-2016, but the max 2017 material asset pack will be the only one to get updates from now on.

Soulburn 3D Education Page Updated Nov 16th 2016

The Soulburn CG Education Page has been updated:

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/cg_education.htm

Updated my Blended Box Mapping and Blended Cube Projection tutorials with new videos showing how to perform these techniques using the new BBM map inside of 3dsmax 2017.1

Visit the pages above for the full tutorials, or if you already know the theory and just want to see the video tutorials showing the new features, follow these links...

Blended Box Mapping 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js3tA-wYj0c

Blended Cube Projections 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDQPXunmTfQ

SoulburnScripts Updated Nov 16th 2016

For years I have wanted a Blended Box Map and a Curvature Map in max. I wrote my own scripts to hack something together, but really they were just good enough to work, they lacked the polish that only actual max plugins could bring.

Well, 3dsmax 2017.1 adds a BBM and Curvature to the max base package, and I couldn't be happier! You can expect new scripts, new assets, and new tutorial videos from me in the coming days to show off the new workflows.

Lets start with a brand new script pack that use the new tools, with the option to always go back to the old soulburn methods for people who want to use older copies of max. First, download 3dsmax 2017.1 from your autodesk account. Then install the latest script pack...

Added 2 new scripts:

blendedCubeProjectionManager: Lets you change parameters to any Blended Cube Projection inside the material you currently have active or the objects you have selected.

curvatureManager: Lets you change parameters of any Curvature Data Channel on your selected objects. Also lets you propagate an existing curvature modifier to all selected objects. So say you have 3 objects that have a curvature Data Channel modifier and you add 2 objects to your model, propagating will copy and paste that modifier to all 5 objects. 

Updated a bunch of older Maxscripts:

blendedBoxMapMaker: You can now create a BlendedBoxMap using max's BlendedBoxMap map. Also added compatibility with vray's Triplanartex map.

blendedBoxMapManager: You can now update the parameters of a Max BlendedBoxMap map.

blendedCubeProjectionMaker: You can now create a BlendedCubeProjection using max's BlendedBoxMap map.

cameraMapTemplateRenderer: You can now render max's BlendedBoxMap map projections.

curvatureMaker: Renamed script from cornerEdgeToVertexMap to curvatureMaker. Added ability to create new max 2017 Data Channel Curvature.

modelPreparer: You can now render your projections with max's BlendedBoxMap map.

groupWithPoint: Added option to have it not size the point based on bounding box size. The point will be of whatever default size you last chose. Added option to use a dummy instead of a point, which helps when exporting the scene as fbx to maya. Point is still default.

wireMaker: Fixed an issue where not having SplineMesher installed causes tons of error dialogs.

subdivisionAutomator: Added UV boundry controls for Opensubdiv. Now will always place the subdiv modifier under the data modifier in the stack.

modifierUtilities: Adjusted preset modifiers a bit. Added "Collapse To Modifier By Type" and "Collapse To Modifier By Name"

layerCleaner: Fixed a bug where it would not work in max2017 or higher.

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_tools/scripts/3dsmax/soulburnscripts.htm