Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Batmobile Armored Ver2.0

An "upgraded" version of my old Batmobile model.



    BATMOBILE Armored Ver2.0
    by Chaitanya Krishnan
    on Sketchfab






Heres the older one


    batmobile armored
    by Chaitanya Krishnan
    on Sketchfab



Sunday, December 7, 2014

Merman

This was one of my older sculpts.. few years old, obviously inspired a by Davey Jones.. but hopefully less grotesque  :).

This was Done in Sculptris(a free 3d sculpting software)



Due to the complex geometry on the face i had to print it face down with all the scaffolding on the face.. removing it post print took a while(more than a day) after cutting off a few layers it had to be left in the sun so that some of the inner areas that were still wet.. could cure and harden.









Saturday, December 6, 2014

Is your Vine app buggy?

Is your Vine app suddenly buggy? 
Mine has been for a while. At first i thought it was my aging phone(moto Defy+) but then it continues to be buggy on my Nexus5 as well.

The issues have mainly been with the option where you can import an existing video from your phone.. the app just white screens and goes back to a blank timeline. 
Am sure the Vine team will fix it eventually.. but..

For now these are the temporary fixes I use.

Option 1- Wipe the app after every 2-3 uploads. It actually sort of works.
1) exit the app.
2) if your using a custom launcher just touch and hold the app icon to get to the "app info" ..

 for vanilla android users, get to it via Settings/apps/ and so on.

3) force stop the app

4) empty data and cache..
voila the app should work fine now (for a few uploads atleast).

Option 2- Use the 3rd party desktop alternative VineClient 

This is a chrome extension that lets you login via your desktop browser.. thus totally bypassing the mobile app and its bugs.

the only caveat is that it requires you to login with an email id rather than the more popular twitter login method. But its easy enough to do. I just had to login to vine.co , go to settings and reset the password.. and it worked.
After that i was able to post vines with no more issues.

heres their video installation guide


In a nutshell:
1) download the extension file manually by clicking here and saving the file to your computer.
2) in chrome type this into the address bar - chrome://extensions
3) Open a file browser and drag and drop the extension file from that window into the chrome page to install it.
4) A popup is going to ask your for permissions to install the extension, click "Add".

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

3d Printed Puch 250 SGS

This model was comissioned by a goldsmith.. aparently his client loved this bike and wanted it as a pendant in gold..

Displayed here in Blender's matcap gold.


Modelled entirely in Blender using some photographic refrence material.
The final model is  quite different and this one wasnt used.. but it stayed a favorite.



    on Sketchfab



That hand break lever is a 1mm thin hair!

there was space on the build platform so i crammed in this dogtag model..

UPDATE:

Cutting it out of the scaffolding proved to be quite a task. Usually one can just tear off the scaffolding.. its designed to break away easily.. but this time i realised that there were a lot of delicate teeny tiny details on that side.. like the kick start lever.. which as it turned out was a couple of hairs thick.. so anyway i wound up sitting with the clippers that came with the printer.. and manually clipping each and every bit of scaffolding. 

Heres the unsanded result..




Heres the Puch that was finally used by the client.. i guess i'll be printing it next :)





    puch 250 sgs 024_merged
    by Chaitanya Krishnan
    on Sketchfab



The 3d Printed Bird

The next proper print was something i modeled a few days back.. 
Its a bird in the mockingjay pose… modelled and sculpted in blender..



    Bird 001sculpt
    by Chaitanya Krishnan
    on Sketchfab


I printed a simplified version(complex version is at the end of this post).. all the long tendril like feathers are pretty bad geometry.. it was a very rough sculpt.


Its gorgeous in the transparent material, but the beak and talons didn’t print properly



so i then tried out the black resin and its been a big improvement.. !..

heres the more complex one i plan to print eventually




    on Sketchfab


First set of 3d prints

So a while back I was commissioned by Sketchfab to do models of various 3d printers. Some of these were very basic models..they didnt need much detail


Formlabs the company that makes that Form1 3d printer contacted me a few weeks back.. they want me to do a more detailed model.. so have sent me the printer for a month!!!!



Its one of the best(very detailed prints) and expensive printers out there.. and i started printing with it a couple of days back.. heres one of the first things i printed.. and then painted..






heres the 3d model of the creature



    Brain Bug
    by Chaitanya Krishnan
    on Sketchfab

A quick sculpting and texture painting exercise in Blender. heres the animated model



Monday, November 24, 2014

Miniponics DIY Aquaponics for under 10$





Vinil is a friend from way back.. we both along with another friend set up the office aquariums at the studio we worked at.. Vinil continued his passion with aquaponics..



visit his blog and Facebook page for more details and dates for workshops he conducts around Bangalore.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

The Evolution of Games Graphics

From naïve origins to the rise of cinematic realism: an account of graphical milestones in video games.
A fun and informative 5part series by Ahoy

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Got Lollipop last night

Got the much awaited Lollipop update last night.. er.. early morning at 2:10am. I checked the phone for what sounded like a Vine alert.. and saw the system update notification right on top..  

It was a 479.5mb download so i connected it to the charger and let it download..

Then the installation took about an hour.. because i have all these apps and games that had to be "optimised" .. 

Voila! Lollipop in all its glory.. that flappy bird'esque game is frikkin difficult though!

That stunning wallpaper is 

Holding the power button just gives you one elegant option now- a confirmation to shut down.

On rebooting i was welcomed by the new lockscreen.. i usually prefer to stick to custom lockscreens using GoLocker.. but have disabled that for a few days to see how the Lollipop lockscreen does.

Unlocking it brought me to my Nova Launcher home screen.. all widgets and the theme still functional.. 

quickly switched to the Lollipop homescreen and realised its still lacking the icon density customisability that i expect from a homescreen.. after using launchers like nova and Go i can't go back to the measly 4 icon rows on a full hd screen.. so will not be using this homescreen.

The obvous compromise will be with quick launching voice features and search.. which i didn't really use on Kitkat anyway. The other thing missing will be all the slick animations and stuff.. 
As a designer i do appreciate the work they put into all the new graphics and animations .. but after a few hours i'd had enough. will play with it a bit later.. but i just cant go back to 
a 4 icon grid. 

The rotation toggle was actually missing! For those who were looking for it i already had a power toggle app installed that did that for me.. but with lollipop one can actually make do with the built in toggles. There is no customisability.. so i forsee installing a power toggle app again https://play.google.com/store/search?q=power%20toggle

Anyway a quick visit to accessability settings and turning "Auto-rotate screen" off and on again.. enabled the toggle.


now to test my games and stuff.. will post an update on performance soon.



UPDATE (20|11|2014  7:42): 
bugs.. 
1) when someone calls me.. am unable to slide-to-unlock the lockscreen and answer the call! this happened 3 times.. have now uninstalled go locker incase that was interfereing.. (although it was disabled anyway).

2) weird glytch where the entire screen locks out except for the menu/task manager button which can be pressed to bring up the carousal of running tasks.. but nothing is clickable. have to reboot. After this occured 3 times.. ive now disabled Nova Launcher as well.. lets see if it happens in the android launcher.

A different kind of war based game

This War Of Mine provides an experience of war seen from an entirely new angle. For the very first time you do not play as an elite soldier, rather a group of civilians trying to survive in a besieged city. 

During the day snipers outside stop you from leaving your refuge, so you need to focus on maintaining your hideout. At night you get a chance to scavenge nearby locations for items that will help you stay alive.
Make life-and-death decisions driven by your conscience. Try to protect everybody from your shelter or sacrifice some of them to endure the hardships. During war, there are no good or bad decisions; there is only survival. The sooner you realize that, the better.


Heres the other poignant trailer featuring a survivor of the conflict in Sarajevo

available on Steam at http://store.steampowered.com/app/282070/
compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux/SteamOS

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Puch 250 SGS Twisted version

Done entirely in Blender. A modified version of my old Puch model






heres the old one


Interstellar



Saw it last night in a regular theatre(non 3d non imax) and it was good enough. Of course i won't have a frame of reference unless i go see it again in imax/3d(hmm i don't know if its in 3d).. but i really can't sit through it again. 

Still my verdict - ★ 
let me explain why i can't give it a 5 rating

Caution.. spoilers start here:

1st✩
The science was good.. the Escher-esque time-bookshelf-tapestry was mindblowing.. This was the one movie that treated time dilation realistically and made it a seriously heartbreaking part of the plot.

2nd✩
The characters were mostly well developed.. though the robots seemed to have tons more personality than the other crew members.

3rd✩
The robots were brilliant. Took me a few scenes to get used to their weird monolythic form.. 

but like i already mentioned.. what they lacked in form they made up for in spades of personality. I'd watch a movie with just these weird robots in it.

4th✩
The ship and space sequences were great.. all the cg was pretty faultless.. except for the trippy event horizon shots..when you get really  really close to the distortion it tended to look like bad cg.. to anyone not familiar with the science its trying to depict. 


Minus★
The damn flash back bits.. did every bookshelf sequence have to be rewatched? got tedious and seemed like a dumbed down way of showing time/travel/contact.. 
Also what bugged me is when Murf runs upto Tom waving the watch around and yelling "it was him" ... just after setting fire to poor Tom's farm. The guy seriously looked like he was about to kill somebody.
The final reunion between Coop and Murf was .. so weird.. theyre meeting after decades.. and it lasts a few seconds of  "it was me"s and "it was you"s  and then she tells him to take a hike, she's got her own kids to spend time with now.. er.. wha?



Final Thoughts.. I loved it for the most part.. wish it had ended a full half hour earlier.. but ok.. i can live with the ending.. i guess. I do recommend it to anyone interested in Science Fiction, space travel and Leaving this messed up eco-disaster of a planet for greener pastures.