Ryan Tan Subscribe

For those of you who find yourself in ZBrush’s online help a few times too often, Pixologic has a downloadable indexed and searchable documentation for ZBrush 3.1, you can get it at:

http://www.zbrush.info/docs/index.php/Downloadable_WebHelp_System

It is common to want to bring your model out of zbrush to do up the uv’s (although it is always a better idea to deal with them BEFORE getting into zbrush), but importing the edited .obj back into zbrush can be a hassle, esp when your model ‘explodes’ inexplicably when you move up the subdiv level.

Example of a exploded model:

Exploded model

To save a few souls, below is what worked for me and you can try to take note of the following when nothing seems to work:
(Tested with ZBrush 3.1 and Maya 2008)

In ZBrush

When exporting from zbrush, make sure you are at the lowest subdiv level.

Under Tool->Texture, make sure you have UV enabled:

Enable UV

Under Tool->Export, turn off the ‘Grp’ option and on the ‘Mrg’ option as such:

Export from ZBrush

In Maya

Go to File->Import Options, and set the settings as below:

(Note: When editing DO NOT move the vertices in maya, only edit the UV’s)

When exporting, go to File->Export Selection Options. Select OBJ and off all the File Type Specific Options in the last section:

Back in ZBrush

Import the .obj while still at subdiv level 1.

After import, move up a level to check if it explodes.

Feel free to leave any comments whether this worked for you and also for others to benefit from your experience =)

This is a short animation I created a few years ago, about pencil and a sharpener. Its called The Pencil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-CGTczACYw

Spent around 6 months on a P3 system running 3d max 4 or 5 I can’t remember.

(Update: Audio is disabled by youtube due to copyright issues, well done Youtube!)

Yesterday night this question suddenly came to me. I realised that althought I have always assumed they have the same number of ribs, I have not actually confirmed this fact.

So a quick search landed me on this interesting site that answered my question with science and logic, along with many more myths originating from christian faith (mainly the bible) It was sort of a mini wiki on the subject and I couldn’t help but spend a few hours reading through topics such as How old is the earth according to the Bible? and How did dinosaurs fit on Noah’s Ark? While many of the responses are a tad bias, using the bible as evidence, it nonetheless presented many ideas and facts that proofed to be interesting read.

Visit the site at http://www.creationtips.com/ or jump straight to the ribs article: http://www.creationtips.com/ribs.html

Recently my IIS service have been failing with COM+ errors in my event log:

A condition has occurred that indicates this COM+ application is
in an unstable state or is not functioning correctly.
Assertion Failure: SUCCEEDED(hr)

Server Application ID: {02D4B3F1-FD88-11D1-960D-00805FC79235}
Server Application Instance ID:
{A62B5BD2-D95E-4CA0-AD12-E719088125BC}
Server Application Name: System Application
The serious nature of this error has caused the process to terminate.
Error Code = 0x8000ffff : Catastrophic failure
COM+ Services Internals Information:
File: d:qxp_slpcomcom1xsrccomsvcstrackertrksvrtrksvrimpl.cpp, Line: 3000
Comsvcs.dll file version: ENU 2001.12.4414.308 shp

Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool reports that it removed CutWail from my system but on furthur inspection CutWail was still present and I manually removed the 2 files (ip6fw.sys and secdrv.sys) in %systemroot%/system32/drivers/ along with some reg entries.

Next I suspected a corrupted IIS installation, so I reinstalled IIS but the problem persists. It turns out the COM+ System Application Service could not be start. (And IIS depends on COM+)

The symptons are as follows (i’ve ranked them in order of discovery):

1. Visual Studio refused to load web application projects. (giving me the “visual studio cannot create or open the application because the web server on this computer is not running” error)
2. Browser unable to connect to localhost
3. World Wide Web Publishing service stops by itself after it starts. (Or when i try to load projects in VS)
4. IIS Admin service stops in the same fashion as the above.
5. COM+ errors in event log (see event details above)
6. COM+ System Application could not be start (Error when you try to start it).

After looking around and tested many solutions I finally found one that fixed the problem (without reformating and reinstalling everything, as a few people suggested).

Solution:

1. Refer to How to clean up a damaged COM+ catalog (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315296) to repair COM+
2. Reinitialising IIS by running rundll32 %windir%system32inetsrvwamreg.dll, CreateIISPackage (also detailed in the KB article)

Did the above work for you too?

For those who have not seen the movie Kungfu Panda, it’s a 3D animated feature about a panda dreaming of kungfu greatness and eventually realizing his potential after going through various humiliation and training. While the film was undoubtedly high in standard, as expected from the producer of Shrek, I was surprised by its well executed opening sequence, which was done in traditional 2D animation.

Barely two and a half minutes long, the audience is treated to a fast paced action sequence with superb timing, color, character, staging, sound effects and narration, and did I mention timing? I feel that although the rest of the elements worked great together, it was the timing and pacing which managed to pack so much back to back action and effects into the 2 minutes yet allowing enough time for the audience to take it all in. Every motion had a purpose and was well planned to carry on the story and pace.

You can download the piece in quicktime format at Art of the Title, and enjoy it frame by frame.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/10/03/kung-fu-panda/

Macro photography of everyday objects.

This was a class assignment, we’re supposed to find a space and do a photographic exploration. I came across this alley behind clark quay while wondering around the area. When I showed it to my hall mate the next day, he informed me that this place has a nick name ‘air con valley’. Oh well it did struck me that the walls were almost entirely filled with air-conditioner compressor units =)

A set of great tutorials on texturing at CG Talk that should not be missed. For beginners and the average mapper

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=46&t=77484

Came across Processing today, excerpt from site below:

Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool.

Sounds interesting, can’t wait to give it a try this weekend.