commit 45680fd7a47bf61667639e380f6461a0a2240fd4
parent 51388ee650a27513a55a79aa066b07521ba798b7
Author: FIGBERT <figbert@figbert.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2024 17:35:12 -0800
Add Baymax on Memory Lane project
Diffstat:
5 files changed, 60 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
diff --git a/content/projects/baymax-memory-lane/alt.png b/content/projects/baymax-memory-lane/alt.png
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diff --git a/content/projects/baymax-memory-lane/geometry-nodes.png b/content/projects/baymax-memory-lane/geometry-nodes.png
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diff --git a/content/projects/baymax-memory-lane/index.md b/content/projects/baymax-memory-lane/index.md
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+title = "Baymax on Memory Lane"
+description = "A 3D scene leveraging advanced graphical techniques in Blender"
+date = 2024-12-14T17:31:45-08:00
++++
+
+
+
+The above image was created as my final project for [CS148], under the
+auspices of renown bodybuilder and occasional professor [Ron Fedkiw].
+Everything in the scene was made from scratch in Blender, while the
+final image was rendered with the Cycles engine. All my work in the
+class was done in collaboration with my good friend Naama.
+
+The scene was inspired by the movie Inside Out, in particular when the
+character Joy ventures into the annals of her host’s memory. We
+appropriated the concept of a colorful shelf of memory orbs, and then
+brought another charismatic Pixar character into the scene, Baymax. We
+would like to think that he’s having a happy moment perusing good times
+past.
+
+
+
+The stars of the show when it comes to this 3D model are the memory
+orbs. Most impressively, there's actually only one canonical orb in the
+scene! The rest are procedurally generated duplicates (same with the
+shelves). There is some simple math to figure out how to place them, and
+then a color is randomly selected from a weighted list of options:
+
+
+
+
+The most notable benefit we get from ray tracing in our scene is once
+again in the memory orbs lining the shelves. These orbs glow many
+different colors: yellow, red, green, blue, and purple. However, the
+light source for each orb is actually the same—a bright white light in
+the center of the ball. The light source is surrounded by the material
+of the orbs, which is transparent but tinted, and thus changes the color
+of the light ray after emission and before it hits the camera. Other
+benefits include the slight light penetration through Baymax's
+inflatable body as well as area and sky lighting.
+
+On a more personal tack: making this scene vindicated a lot of the
+philosophies that I've picked up in Stanford's Design program. During my
+[first forays into Blender], I was paralyzed to the point of inaction by
+the fear that any step I took—extruding a face, tweaking a texture—would
+mess up what I'd built so far or would build going forward. I was
+limited to following tutorials, which restored some of the structure I
+was familiar with from programming to the complex world of modeling
+things that looked good (technical term). But the d.school has [changed
+my perspective]. The will force you to spend hours and hours sitting in
+the in-between phases, acting first and iterating, abandoning ideal
+perfections to make something real. With practice, you get comfortable
+in this space. That willingness to screw up and `CMD-Z` was crucial on
+this project.
+
+[CS148]: https://cs148.stanford.edu
+[Ron Fedkiw]: https://physbam.stanford.edu/~fedkiw/
+[first forays into Blender]: @/posts/i-wrote-this-two/index.md#making-a-doughnut-in-blender
+[changed my perspective]: https://fosstodon.org/@FIGBERT/113553595653702641
diff --git a/content/projects/baymax-memory-lane/render.png b/content/projects/baymax-memory-lane/render.png
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diff --git a/content/projects/baymax-memory-lane/shader.png b/content/projects/baymax-memory-lane/shader.png
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