This was the first time I was ever far behind in JF. Scene 2. I decided to have a fan art instead of a page. But then I wondered if the fan art would be good enough. I thought: "These characters are really just half done and I haven't gotten the right animations for a decent looking fan art strip. Maybe I should just make it into an apology strip. I'll keep the reader's attention for two more days and I'll give them the real deal then." So I put it up and hoped it'd be okay. Well, nothing happened, so it didn't go over too badly. Anyway, you want to know what was going on when I was making these models. Well, it's pretty cool. I took two pictures of Tycho and Gabe over at Penny Arcade and make the models from scratch. They aren't bad, but they aren't perfected yet. I traced the eyes, mouth, eyebrows in Corel Draw and made a skin from that. It worked out far better than just using their actual pictures. I'm not sure why. Lesson One to be learned: when copying other's 2d work into 3d, redo the 2d work in 2d first.
This is a good looking picture, no? The girl is just a Rave Kiddie from Scene 2. She is not my girl friend in real life. I don't have a girlfriend in real life nor does Jav in 2014. But if you saw Scene 3, Page 1, you might wonder as sensei does: "Where is your love?". Scene 3, Page 2-5 will answer that or perhaps it'll just make a bigger question. Scene 4 may answer it. But how did I make this girl? As you can see, she's dancing in front of the local Discotheque (pronounced Disco-tek), "Don't Stop". Well, first off, the face was modelled vertex by vertex, triangle by triangle from an original 2d vector graphic. That's why it looks good at such a low polygon count. The face alone took an hour or two. I stole the body from the Tycho model (hahaha!) but officially, Tycho stole his body from this girl (hehehe!). It doesn't really matter who stole what from who, the fact is that they're the same bodies with the same skeletons. You see, MilkShape 3D uses a skeleton system that allows a modeler to move body parts just like they had a it in their hands. You just drag and drop the body part to where it ought to go. This girl is an awesome dancer. Weighing in at just 553 triangles, we're seeing a real lightweight beauty. Compared to Tycho's 578, Gabe's 608, and Jav's 486 she's about as lightweight as beautiful can get. Jav is very blocky, no wonder, he was modelled from boxes. This girl's body was modelled from a cylinder using extrusion of triangles. This is vital for any 3d work, really. So Lesson 3 is: start with a simple concept model like a cylinder then select triangles where limbs protrude and extrude them. For example, the arms are made by extruding two triangles on each side of the cylinder. For beginners, this tactic is tougher with cylinders. Try a box instead. Make a box chest, extrude twice for a neck, three times for each arm, four times for each leg and there you have Jav's body. Of course, before Scene 4 starts, I'm going to redo Jav's Body. No problem, though. Since everything is object oriented, I can recompile the entire manga in a matter of hours with the new Javantea.
***PageBreak1***
This picture is a partial cast shot. Two male Rave Kiddies, the girl from the previous Making Of feature, Gabe, Tycho, and Javantea. They're all dancing if you didn't notice. These type of fun cast pictures are good if you don't have anything smart to say, just that the comic is coming soon. So what about the characters positions? Well, that's what AltSci3d Manga Director does. You click on a person's name and then you move them where you want them to be. Then when everyone is where they ought to be you click on the cam button and move the camera to where it ought to be. Then you take a pic and then you can see the cast. Oh, I added some lights, but they didn't work very well. I didn't want to make everyone fully lit, so I just attenuated it to 1% or so. The faces are hard to see, but the bodies are good looking. You can see that Gabe has orange on the front of his pants, not intended. Oh well. Lesson 5: Cast shots are good for the end of the issue. Make the lighting just right and you'll have something to put in a poster. I myself have anime posters all over my walls. We got Love Hina x 2, Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop x 4, Final Fantasy 9, and Nadesico. I'd say that it'd be cool to have JF posters on my walls also. It'll take a while to get it going at this rate, but with cast shots like these, no problem.
***PageBreak1***
This is sensei. A wonderful shot, I must admit. It's not quite perfect, but it's a roundhouse kick. Roundhouse kicks must be the hardest thing for a keyframe modeler. Sheesh. It only took me twenty minutes, but compared to a normal kick, it's heck. 551 triangles make up sensei and he's stealing the Rave Kiddie body model. I guess that's acceptable. What else is noticeable? Well, nice shading. Since this was done in MilkShape 3D, I can't really say much about how I did it. MilkShape 3D lights in the direction of the camera, for better or for worse, the shading is consistent.
***PageBreak1***
