Low income houses for Zacapoaxtla, Mexico

This I did in one working day. As usual, year's end is slow unless it is urgent work. The final corrections I did them in the Gimp, re-rendering was out of the question, the deadline was extreme.
The cars are from e-frontier's car collection for Shade, the human figure is Poser6 James G2. IBL with hyperfocal's free hdr background, with a skylight. Bushes from e-frontier plant collection for Shade. Modeled and rendered in Shade with Callisto renderer.

House in Playa del Carmen, another update

I really don't know if it would classify as an update, it is merely a render showcasing the full front facade of the house. The garage had not been included, as that part of the house had not been completely designed.

The football fever is in!

This weekend is the final game of the national winter tournament here in Mexico, and for once this year, the mood between two opposing camps is friendly.
I don't do much football, but I did this drawing all the same to capture the general happy atmosphere going on everywhere.

Thursday December7th was my birthday!

It all started when I woke early in the morning, eagerly awaiting early phone calls, from friends trying to be the first ones to congratulate me. However, mysteriously I had not recieved a single phone call by 7:30am. So I took the phone and tried to dial to see if I had left it unhooked. And no, it was not unhooked. It had been suspended! I had forgot to pay the phone!
So I quickly got dressed up, grabbed my car and speedily went to pay the phone bill. Or so I thought. I got caught in a huge traffic jam. I could only advance about 200m in an hour. Fortunately, I could eventually escape the traffic, and promptly went to pay the phone. After that I hurried back home. If you are wondering, I lost my cellphone, so nobody could locate me that way...
So anyway, as soon as I returned, the phone calls started rolling in. So did the ecards I recieved by email. I was quite lucky, I got congratulated by lots of friends and family. Some even sang me a birthday song!
But the best was yet to come. I organized a small gathering at my mum's place, it is quite bigger than the house I am living in, even when I am all by myself there. I got and bought my own presents (two figures of Saint Seiya bronze knights). I also bought a copy of Dante's Inferno, illustrated by Gustavo Dore, which I gave my little brother as present, with whom I also share the same birthday, even when we were born 11 years apart. I managed to by a very good looking and extremely tasty chocolate cake, ate a double whopper at burger king (it is my birthday after all), and went to my mum's place to treat myself to a well earned siesta while the guests arrived.
I told everybody that the gathering began at 7pm, although only one person in fact arrived at that precise time. Gisela was the only punctual friend. Well, I cannot really blame anybody, lots of my friends have to get home from work, tidy up a bit, and then come to the party. Most of them in fact started arriving after 8pm.
I believe the party was a roaring success. While not everybody I hoped for could make it, more people than I actually anticipated did come. I had a friend coming that had not made it to my birthday for 10 years!
Soon there were not enoughs seats for everybody, I had in fact to sit on the edge of a table for a little while. A good friend of mine, Angelica, organized the food and beverage logistics, and she was in fact quite good at that. There was red wine (a very good mexican wine, highly recommended), apple cyder, and of course soft drinks. Then there was three huge pizzas, absolutely delicious stuff. The birthday cake, and gelatin. I really must thank all my friends that made it to the party, I had a wonderful time with all of them.
There were not enough plates to serve the pizzas or the cake, so some guests had to make to with napkins.
When the birthday party was over, we went to a karaoke bar to continue the celebration. There I got the pleasant surprise to meet even more friends, mainly those that didn't make it because they got out of work too late to arrive earlier.
It was all over at 3am. It really was a wonderful birthday.
To all you friends of mine, I thank you all, I really had a blast.

House in Playa del Carmen, previous version

Thanks to a comment (which I thank, btw, so much nice words!) I am uploading the previous version of the house, so there can be some objective comparison between one and the other.

As you can see, it is practically identical, save for some mouldings in the roofs, and the columns, here they are really square pillars. Basically they are square pillars, as the project design had not yet reached the milestone deciding how they would look like, so I just extruded the square bases. I opted for that option, as in case I inserted some nice but expensive columns, it could radically change the intended cost per square meter. It might not look like much, but the back of the house has a whole semi-open roofed space supported by columns.

House in Playa del Carmen

This is a revision on a house already done some time back, mainly on the textures of the moulding and the colour of the walls. There has been some slight changes in the roofs, as well as in the mouldings surrounding the windows.

Female 3D character WIP

In my free time (meaning, in Friday), I have been working on modeling my own female character. I have really not done much work on my male character, I sort of got lost in that one, I think I will start that other one from scratch once I finish this female one.

The breasts look sort of strange, I know, but they look just like the girl in my reference pictures. I am looking into other references to make them look more predictably "right".

Group of Contemporary Houses, Update

Same Point of View, background has changed, as well as the position of the sun, to get some nice volumes.

Mage raising the dead

This is the image I submitted to the Renderosity contest. This year I did not get lucky. As the final winners have been announced, at last I can share my submission. I have been told that it looks a bit dark on some machines, so if that is the case, raise the brightness of your monitor a bit...

Group of contemporary style houses

As the title says, a group of houses.

Day of the dead

It is time to honor the dead. A tradition from precolumbian times, this is a very important day for the mexican people. A time of reflection, spirituality, and also of forgivenes.

That is why I share with you a link to some pictures I took of an offering I made several years ago for my grandparents, which I fondly remember.


by manholoz

Renderosity Halloween Contest 2006!

The theme is "wake the dead". I have not had that much time to play around in getting an image for the contest, but anyway, I am quite pleased with the result. As part of the contest rules is no showing the image anywhere on the internet until after the winners are announced, I provide you with the link so you can see it for yourself. I am not sure if you have to be a Renderosity member to in fact see the image, lets hope it is open to all! :D

The skeletons, mage and wolves are Poser figures imported into Shade. The dungeon ground, arches and vaults were made in Silo2 beta, the dungeon cripts in Shade8.5. Also done in Shade8.5 is the mage's cloak and staff, as well as the swords held by two of the skeletons (barely visible because of the mist, but still there). Rendered in Shade8.5 pro with Callisto, with FogPlus fog effector. Slightly tweaked the exposure in hdrshop, and very minor postwork in the Gimp. Mainly the "hand of power" effect and the enhancing of the creepy wolve's eyes.

I hope you like it

Office interior by night WIP

Still lots of noise on the image, so I must let it render a bit more, but I think the general idea of the design is coming through quite nicely.

Front fachade of a contemporary mexican house.

This is seeming repetitive... I must think of an alternative title to contemporary mexican house, but that seems to be a recurring theme for the work I do...

Still, here it is in all it's glory

Illumination test on a night fachade

I wanted to do a test on the relationship of the luminaries and how they influenced the night fachade. I suppose I should have taken into account the illumination coming from the lamp post though...

Yet another mexican contemporary house, garden view, update

Some modifications in the project design were made, improving the overall feel of the house.

school project

This is one of several views I made for the proposed building of a school. I like how Vue5infinite populates the characters :D

Yet another mexican contemporary house, garden view by night

This is the same view, but by night (duh). Hehehe

Yet another mexican contemporary house, garden view

This house IMHO has some hints at the postmodernism as suggested by Richard Meier, or maybe with traces before that, from Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe. Anyway, this is a view from the garden. Still is a work in progress, so you will probably see some modifications soon

Town fair in Atlixco, Puebla

Next weekend I went (again with this same friend) to the town fair in Atlixco, famous around here for the temperate climate, and for it's flower production. The main reason for going is that there was a group performing there, of which he is a huge fan, called Jeans. It was a nice trip, Atlixco is about half an hour's drive away, so we just went there, went to the fair, saw this group, and returned.

Trip to Cordoba, Veracruz, Mexico

Some two weeks ago I went for a weekend trip to Cordoba, at the invitation of a friend, who is pushing his singing teacher to perform outside our hometown of Puebla. As I was really stressed out for all the work I had been doing, I agreed wholeheartedly to the endeavour.

Córdoba (Cordoba for those who cannot read the accent), is a city located about 1.5 hours from Puebla, in a privileged position, with abundant flora and fauna, of the subtropical highland type. Historically, it is a spanish settlement, with an informal rivalry with neighbouring Orizaba, which has traditionally been a more ethnic melting pot.

So anyway, I was supposed to accompany him to a party celebrating the baptism of the son of a friend, and we took along his teacher, who singed in the event. His teacher is a Cuban, and sings quite well, practically everything. He is also quite goodnatured, which helps alot when he is up on the stage.

I ended helping rig the sound stage, and even singing a bit after his performance was over. A very nice party, lots of nice people.

After that, to celebrate (huh? OK, we love to celebrate all those subtle aspects of life), we went at the invitation of some new Cordoban friends to the disco, which was in a restored colonial building, surprisingly respecting the original structure. So I danced the night away.

Nest day we went to neighbouring Orizaba to visit some friends there, and took the occassion to visit some famous landmarks there. As it was, it was nightfall when we started the trip home.

Industrial warehouse, overall view

nuff zed

Industrial warehouse, back view

The back view of the propposed enlargement of an existing warehouse, salvaging some elements already existent. A really quick mockup of one of several possibilities.

House in Playa del Carmen, night view

At the last minute, the client wanted a night view. I had a very very tight deadline for this one, but thankfully, it turned out reasonably ok.

Garden house, view2

Garden house, view2.
This was rendered right after doing the other view, but I had not had the time to upload it till now.

Garden house, view1

This I modelled on Sunday, and spent all of yesterday testing and rendering two views.

House in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, update

And this is the back view.

House in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, update

In fact this was ready since Sunday, but these last two days I was really busy, so I did not update my blog.

Front view

House in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, WIP

And this is the back view of the house. I forgot to comment, the house was modelled in Shade8.5pro, some uvmapping in unwrap3d, and rendered in Shade8.5pro with one HDRi base skylight.

Back view

House in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, WIP

Working this weekend on this house. This is the first draft, the second draft should finish rendering tomorrow

Front view.

Industrial warehouse, front view

Of course several surrounding buildings have been suppressed in order to get this view... I am specially proud of the mexican flag :D

I won a dvd on the cgarena: haunted challenge!

A consolation prize, certainly, but a prize nonetheless :D

BBC Radio pending, because the coup in Thailand

The program has been delayed, because of the coup in Thailand currently under way. Lets hope there is no violence involved in the coup.

I got quoted on the BBC!

I recieved about 20 minutes ago a call from the BBC, asking if I wanted to participate in their show, 6:30pm GMT today. Of course I said yes!

As they said they were quoting me from my post, I looked around the bbc website, and yes, a comment I said got accepted! The comment is:

Added: Sunday, 17 September, 2006, 13:12 GMT 14:12 UK

Lopez Obrador is once again forgetting things. His campaign slogan was "for the good of all". How is promoting instability, undermining the authority of the government institutions, insulting his adversaries and even his supporters, doing good for anybody?
For the good of all, mr Lopez Obrador, shut up! Please!

Juan Manuel Bautista Hoepfner, Puebla, Mexico

Warehouse WIP

This week will be intense. I have to finish three projects, and this is just one of them! A simple warehouse, still lots to do, props to insert.

Challenge: Haunted, in cgarena

Didn't make it to the final voting stage, snif. But now that all the dust has settled, here is my image submission, in all it's glory.

Challenge: Haunted, in cgarena: Final submission!

At last, I have posted my final image in the challenge forum! In accordance to the rules, I just post the link to the forum thread, and once the voting is over, I will upload it here. It has been a very learning experience, the challenge, and I am eager to participate in the next one!

Domestic Hydroponic station, long version animation

Here is the long version of the animation. Mind you, it is timed to coincide with how the presentation speech was calculated, etc.
3D done in Shade8.5pro, Poser6, and Vue5infinite. 2D done in the Gimp, and the animation itself done in Virtualdub.

sports facility complex for petrol union animations

This is part of the walkthrough presentation for the sports facility I posted some time ago. Rescaled to a smaller size for internet reasons.

Challenge: Haunted, in cgarena: update

Not having too much spare time is taking it's toll on my work on the challenge. Grrr. Anyway, here is where the image stands right now.

House2 in Puebla: Update

This is the front view, now the garage has been covered, with it's roof functioning as a terrace which can be accessed by the bedroom.

House2 in Puebla, another night view

This is the back side of the house, I quite like the result, but maybe I should have left it rendering a wee bit more time. Maybe I will...

House2 in Puebla, another view

As promised, here is another view of the same house, some correction on the floor, and now with the palm tree and the car inserted

House2 in Puebla, night view

The same house but with a night view. Rendering another view right now, as soon as it is ready, I will post it.

House2 in Puebla

This is the project for another house in Puebla, Mexico, where the main topic is a dialogue of the contemporary with very subtle hints of the colonial heritage of the city. I suppressed some elements as a palm tree and a car to avoid obstruction of the view of the house itself.

House in Puebla, Mexico: Update

The client made some corrections to the design, so I did those changes and re-rendered. However, this time I also made a night shot.

House in Puebla, Mexico: Update

The client made some corrections to the design, so I did those changes and re-rendered. However, this time I also made a night shot.

Challenge: Haunted, in cgarena: update

I am definitely getting some interesting results with this pyramid I am doing for the challenge in cgarena. This time I added a creepy tree and a background with a full moon and stars, and tweaked the lighting some more.

Challenge: Haunted, in cgarena: update

I had some spare time this afternoon, so I got myslef to work on the challenge. This is a test render I did. Still lots to do, but I like how things are turning out.

Casa Marcial: Cholula: Front View

At last! The front view is finished! Took some time to render, but then again, the original image is quite big...

Casa Marcial: Cholula: Update

The modelling has finished!

The most challenging part was the sloping roofs, where it intersects with the walls. I used some booleans to solve that, as well as several well placed "patches". I also wanted to experiment with non-shade content, which can be seen in the car.

I imported the palmtree from Shade, and subsequently tweaked the trunk in Silo2.0beta, where I also uvampped the trunk. The bushes are from an efrontier Shade collection. The two human scales are Poser6 figures. The car is a 3drt model from 3dworld issue 81.

Casa Marcial: Cholula

Apart from the cgarts challenge, and the gymnasium for the sports facility, this is what I am currently working on. The first floor (sans complementary elements and furniture) is ready. Still lots of work to be done for the second floor, fortunately the windows are very similar, so at least that will not be so much repetitive work.

Challenge: Haunted, update

At last I have had some spare time to make a bit of progress on this challenge! Still lots of work to do, but I am getting there, slowly but relentlessly getting there.

Casa Sergio: Playa del Carmen: Backside2

This is of course the back side of the house, as seen from another angle. I rendered using pathtracing this time, no post work beyond adjusting the gamma etc

The bold and the virtual contest at 3dcommune.com

After finishing casa: Sergio, I just needed to get my mind distracted for serious stuff, so I entered the fashion image contest at 3dcommune.com

As part of the rules is not to post the contesting image until the competition is over, alas, I cannot post my entry here. However, if you click on the title it will take you to my contest entry.

Casa Sergio: Playa del Carmen: Backside

Here is a render I recently finished on the backside of the house. There were several corrections made to the rooftops, as well as to the railings, etc, but it gives a general idea of what the concept it striving for.

Casa Sergio: Playa del Carmen

Here is my most recent work, a house in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. The project was made by a good friend of mine, Sergio.

It has been completely modelled and rendered in Shade. The only thing that was not made in Shade was the palm tree. That one I exported from Vue and imported into Shade. The car is one of the cars that comes as a bonus in Shade8.5 (although I had bought that collection some time before that was a bonus, I really cannot regret the purchase, the cars are really nice)

Rendered in Callisto and in normal raytrace. Why? Well, I did a test render in Raytrace and I liked the reflections in the glasses better. After I rendererd everything in Callisto, I liked the reflections better in the Raytrace version. So as not to spen some time tweaking the reflections in Callisto, I decided to do some postwork in the Gimp and replace one for the other.

Challenge: Haunted, in cgarena

I decided to try my luck in this month's cgarena challenge. As the title implies, it involves creating a haunted scene, and for that, I will do an ancient mayan pyramid, with jungle and mist, to create a haunted look.

Casa Fidel: Cuernavaca update: front view

This is the front view of the house. The grass in the foreground as well as the background are rendered in Vue5 infinite, and composited in the Gimp with the main render (done in Shade8.5 pro). The original files for compositing were all hdr files to get contrasts in illumination blend in nicely.

House in Puebla, Mexico

This render I did for my good friend Marcial. It follows his traditional architectural styles, reconciling contemporary with traditional elements, in a very subtle manner.