The end of sculpting as we know it?
- Thread starter james9487
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Infidel Castro
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Admit it! Sculptors will be neglible in large-/medium-sized companies within the next few years. Still, we could pay sculptors to do individual jobs for our own use.
I\'m not laughing at the sculptors as I have a friend who sculpts, but we have to accept that the machine is bette than we are overall. Deep Blue beat that Russian chess-playing dude, and now they\'re making light work of sculpting. The next step will be painting machines and I\'d welcome them as painting is a right old chore
I\'m not laughing at the sculptors as I have a friend who sculpts, but we have to accept that the machine is bette than we are overall. Deep Blue beat that Russian chess-playing dude, and now they\'re making light work of sculpting. The next step will be painting machines and I\'d welcome them as painting is a right old chore
it\'s a pretty cool bit of kit, but stupidly expensive, plus they only use it for plastic kits, not the metal casts. It\'s not actually used to add small detailing, it\'s used for the whole miniature sculpting process. It would take longfer to have to design chain and things on the pc than it would just doing the old fashioned way, with green and a pair of tweezers...
And I thought we already had painting machines...they\'re called freelance painters!
And I thought we already had painting machines...they\'re called freelance painters!
Infidel Castro
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Nice one Tammy, now get back to your painting station lol
The machine is greater than we are...like Hal on Space Odyssey!
The machine is greater than we are...like Hal on Space Odyssey!
Infidel Castro
New member
I\'ll send some drones to ensure you do just that.
The MACHINE is the sum of all our knowledge and we are powerless...............................
The MACHINE is the sum of all our knowledge and we are powerless...............................
Infidel Castro
New member
The drones are all-powerful as they have our minds at their disposal
This might be the case now, but technology is ever-evolving. If a company like Blizzard (a video game company) decided to write software for this process the chains would look more dynamic. It would also become more of a point -and-click, drag and drop, so you would be able to choose \'chain\' from a menu and drop it on the location you want, then \'nudge\' it here or there to make it look just right. Unfortunately, ours is a niche hobby and big companies won\'t be designing us software anytime soon. GW has the cash flow to have something of that calibur designed for them, but then it wouldn\'t be available to other companies. I know from using cad that I can design a deck or room or even a house for someone in 2D, push a button and show the entire thing in an isomorphic 3D view, or even give them a virtual walkthrough! It\'s very easy once you learn the program, and you simply pic items out of menus and resize them as needed. I\'ve seen amazing \'customizable\' options for characters in video/computer games, so no two characters look exactly alike. Once our little hobby catches up to the rest of the entertainment industry I think this will be one sweet way to design a mini. Our local games store could have a machine where we could pick the options we want and \'print out\' a mini.Originally posted by Minigrrrl
it\'s a pretty cool bit of kit, but stupidly expensive, plus they only use it for plastic kits, not the metal casts. It\'s not actually used to add small detailing, it\'s used for the whole miniature sculpting process. It would take longfer to have to design chain and things on the pc than it would just doing the old fashioned way, with green and a pair of tweezers...
And I thought we already had painting machines...they\'re called freelance painters!
Sculpters will still be important, for both the smaller companies and for the larger ones wanting to produce a \'special\' piece.
Originally posted by FredrickvonCarstein
Dave, you have absolutely no idea how dissapointed I am that a man with such an avatar doesn\'t have some reference to sharks with freakin\' lasers on their heads, within this thread.Originally posted by Evil Dave
Oh, good I was looking for a reason to teach myself 3D studio Max and Maya. Now I have one.
Heh, check out the lions thread.
Also, while the shark is one of nature\'s perfect killing machines, I doubt the sculpt very well. Even with freakin\' laser beams on their heads.
That was me, and having both digital (mostly mechanical, some organic) and manual sculpting (both) I was not having a laugh.
Mirroring and copying helps a lot with symmetric objects like mechanical and architectural ones. Most robots and building are are much easier to do in CGI for that reason. Organic beings are not that symmetrical. What you step over so quickly with \"reposition if necessary\" just happens to be where the headache comes. After reposing you will have to redo muscles, drapery, interaction with other parts etc. And for this you will miss the ability to \"walk around the sculpt\" since what you see on the screen is still without depth (till VR is incorporated better into sculpting that is - they are working on that).
Have you seen the documentaries on the production of lord of the rings? Have you noticed that many if not all creatures were first manually sculpted and then scanned for use in the computer? Have you seen the large number of maquettes of buildings and terrains? All this though they have absolutelly magnificent CGI artists around?
Have you seen the large number of lifeless CGI figures on internet? If it all would be that easy every figure would be as great as you see them in 3D world, 3D ark or over here: http://pixologic.com/gallery/galleryfr.html Have a look at the angel at the bottom of the page (figure is impossible to cast before you get too exited
). That one is magnificent but to archieve that skill you have to be the equivalent in CGI as a master sculptor is in traditional sculpting CGI is a great tool but just like any other tool it has it\'s limitations which makes that in some cases manual sculpting beats it (and the other way around). Neither of the two is better than the other in itself. They are just tools to choose from depending on personal skills and subject.
Oh, about that painting machine; the technology is already there but the machine isn\'t. There is at least one rapid prototyping machine that can print in colours. It\'s not used to create prototypes of objects where colour is important and to visualize finite element analysis results. In theory such a machine could be used to print a coloured CGI figure as a full colour figure. No worries yet, there does not yet seem to be a demand for the level of refinement we need so it will take a while for this to be suitable for figures.
I explain in more details here: http://www.planetfigure.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4360
Y\'know, my father always said...\"If you can really play pool, you\'ll play with a broomstick...and still clear-up.\"
I say:...If you give a room full of monkeys a word-processor with predictive text and spellcheck; the best you can hope for is the Dictionary, not Shakespeare.
I say:...If you give a room full of monkeys a word-processor with predictive text and spellcheck; the best you can hope for is the Dictionary, not Shakespeare.
Capt spalding
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this is a topic quite close to my heart but at the moment im far too knackered to comment properly, i\'ll edit this one in the morning with something a bit better
\'Lo Dave
\'Lo Dave
Capt spalding
New member
riding dogs bareback?
with little cats in clown outfits
with little cats in clown outfits
Capt spalding
New member
that was a bloody waste of my 100th post wasn\'t it lol
Infidel Castro
New member
Aye aye Dave. How\'s it?
Unfortunatly, I doubt we\'ll see much of a colabortation between the game designers and the new laser-molding process. Mainly because one\'s a process designed for toy companies and one is designed for video games, there\'s a little animosity there.
I doubt even more that we\'ll ever see a Blizzard/Games-Workshop group project. Not after one has been trying to sue the other for years of what they called \"copyright infringement\" and what I call \"free advertising for a company that does no advertising themselves\".
I\'ve also noticed that since the article, GW prices are actually going up, not down. :flame:
This process isn\'t anything new either, if you haven\'t gotten that from the other posts. Toy companies have been using this for years.
BTW. I\'m constantly chained to my paint desk because my computer is attached to it, and some of those griffon flights in WoW can take a while. On the plus side I\'ve improved my painting skills and am actually up to the decent job level.
I doubt even more that we\'ll ever see a Blizzard/Games-Workshop group project. Not after one has been trying to sue the other for years of what they called \"copyright infringement\" and what I call \"free advertising for a company that does no advertising themselves\".
I\'ve also noticed that since the article, GW prices are actually going up, not down. :flame:
This process isn\'t anything new either, if you haven\'t gotten that from the other posts. Toy companies have been using this for years.
BTW. I\'m constantly chained to my paint desk because my computer is attached to it, and some of those griffon flights in WoW can take a while. On the plus side I\'ve improved my painting skills and am actually up to the decent job level.
