Voxel-Inspired Modeling

As a veteran of voxel modeling, I felt I have tried to find way to make models out of 3D pixels. It was recently I adopted a newer strategy of 3D modeling. I basically have given up on trying to be highly realistic models and instead will focus on low polygon modeling. Part of that appeal goes with modeling using a simple cube followed by lots of extrusions (and maybe some duplications). So for this blog post, I figured I will focus primarily on this approach to modeling and what I could accomplish with this method. Come along, and let's get modeling!

Before I Begin...

The methods I express here are with my experiences using Blender 2.79b. You will need to adjust my methods for any other 3D modeling program you may use besides Blender if you plan on following my lead.

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Voxel-Inspired Modeling

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Voxels are essentially 3D pixels. Whereas a simple pixel has x and y dimension, a voxel adds z dimension. Porting over raw voxel information often results in a 3D mesh you can manipulate if your heart desires. The blocky nature of these models is often apparent in games such as Minecraft.

Discovery and Analysis.

I discovered through editing in Magicavoxel about the size of a single cube when I saved a model in PLY format and imported it into Blender. I noticed a single voxel is 0.1 in Blender Units. You could say it is 0.1 meters, since the Blender units are close to metric units. The size of 0.1 Blender Units seems just right without the model looking extremely large or extremely small.

In preparing this blog post, I tried a different size of a cube to make a more precise pixel-perfect size cube. A pixel-perfect cube is 0.0625 in Blender units. This is nearly 40% less of size of a cube at 0.1 Blender units. However, I found it harder to snap to the grid with equal size using 0.0625 as my size and increments. I probably could set up Blender to snap to these pixel-perfect measurements, but I found sticking to 0.1 Blender unit increments works much easier.

Because these models using this voxel-style method are essentially still cubes, it is possible to make them no longer "voxels." In fact, I could refine the models to basically enhance these rough drafts of 3D models. That was part of the plan as I was thinking about doing these voxel-type models from start-to-finish in Blender.

Some Voxel-Inspired Models of Mine.

Since I thought it would be too complex to share my workflow, I will instead share models I have created. So take a look:


^ I re-created one of my past voxel vehicles cube-by-cube.


^ This is a barbecue ham I modeled in Blender.


^ I modeled this blocky ham thigh in Blender.


^ Hungry for a slab of steak? I modeled one in Blender!


^ This is a re-creation of a model I intended to be a Minecraft mob. In a future blog post, I will share more renders and a story on this model. Stay tuned to John's Creative Space!


^ Three health kits were modeled by me here. Since these were intended to be game assets, I put in their healing values in the overlay. These could be offered for sale/download in the future.


So now you've seen some of the blocky modeling I have worked on of late. I will try to make as many of these models as I can while I still have this burst in creative energy.





If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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John Joins Payhip!

I joined Payhip on November 15, 2022 under my "JohnMarineDesigns" handle! The intent is to sell my creative works on a proper store. I want this to be an outlet for which to get direct financial support from my audience. As I do have some other places where I have uploaded my creative content, I feel the best way to get things across is through a proper store rather than a real third-party service (like Envato). This blog post discusses most of the reasoning behind me wanting to set up this store.

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John Joins Payhip!

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I decided to join Payhip recently. But...

Why Payhip?

On Facebook, I announced that I might consider joining Gumroad for which to sell my creative content. I was mostly convinced... except for how poorly organized content can be. You have a sidebar on Gumroad stores that trims down the available categories of resources in Gumroad for a Gumroad store. However, I was ultimately convinced about Payhip.

I went with Payhip because it seemed better organized and with some better options towards sales and content. Since I mostly produce digital content, that is what I have gone with for my store mostly. I even went ahead and included things I uploaded to other sites and have them available on my own Payhip store. One such thing is the Breakout Block Pack that is on OpenGameArt. When Voxel Art Shop was discontinued, I added my pack to Payhip. I also edited the links to my Breakout Block Pack on OpenGameArt so people could find my paid package online.

Another reason why I joined Payhip was because there are no monthly fees to set up and maintain your store. I don't make my own money outside of blogging, so having some sort of way to have some income would be great. Neither Payhip nor Gumroad have monthly fees, so either service would have worked for me.

Items offered on Payhip from me are offered either for free or for a fee. My free content will be provided on a name-your-price basis. I am hoping someone can pay whatever they like for some of my content that they will offer a bit more as a tip. Some of my paid content will be name-your-price outside of paying the original price for my content.

My Payhip So Far.

Payhip for now has a lot of the past content I have developed and offered for sale or download. Before coming up with this blog post, I uploaded all of my old models that I sold on Turbosquid. I will later look at selling my eBooks and music to my Payhip in the future. I may still sell any future content on other sites, but I want to try to build up my Payhip store all the while. I will add links to my blogs and a lot of my different social media profiles for interested parties.

Want to Visit My Payhip?

If you would like to visit my Payhip store, you are invited to follow the link below:

payhip.com/JohnMarineDesigns

Happy shopping! :)





I hope you get to support my work directly through Payhip if it so interests you. If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Voxel Character Evo Project

For years, I have contemplated what to do with my voxel model characters. I felt it wouldn't really be enough just to have voxels in the raw. So for this blog post, I will discuss my plans with my voxel models. You have an idea of what it is by the blog post name, but you don't know about my full plans until you take a look at this full post. Read on to find out about my plans!

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Voxel Character Evo Project

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About as far back as 2014, I developed a series of voxel model characters. I spent the better part of about a month to develop five different sets of voxel characters. I made a total of 43 characters including a handful of extra characters. I therefore made about 50-60 characters total. The base 43 characters, though, are what I am primarily focused on in trying to breathe new life into my voxel model collection.

Wait- what "new life?" Well, I have a bunch of static voxels. You can only do so much with a set of static models. I decided to re-do my voxel models through a combination of Magicavoxel and Blender. What I intend to do is take my voxel models and break them up for animation. This will allow for people to either rig the models themselves or look to a service like Mixamo for animation.

It is that simple, right? Well, no. I feel my voxel characters will have to be extensively modified and enhanced to make them better for animation. That is where the "Evo" part comes in for my models. "Evo" is short for "evolution." Whereas most people will immediately think of Minecraft or something for pixel-perfect or blocky voxel models, I need to make these voxel characters different but still retain a small semblance of voxel roots while not being hyper-realistic.

Project Inspiration.

A YouTube channel that has made animations of voxel-type characters has been one of my influences to work on my old voxel models. Even better, I saw a YouTube video that gave me some ideas on how to model voxels made in Magicavoxel. The channel in question with all the different 3D animated films is Zaminmation. Zamination is famous for their 3D animations based on "Minecraft" and the "Five Nights at Freddy's" series videos among others.

The Evolution Process.

A key in the evolution process of re-working these voxel models is in understanding the newer possibilities working with models in a unique way. Part of that involves considering things like how to enhance the models. I want to make the voxel models to be sort of textured. The way I seen my exports from Magicavoxel in PLY format, I could take the individual faces and maybe replace them with some textures I could make in a different program. Maybe I could re-do these voxels and take them beyond their voxel form without going overboard. Basically, I want these voxel models to be much more than voxel models.

Let me sort of explain the process in Magicavoxel...

• separate the feet, lower legs, upper legs, torso (including neck, just moving it), upper arm, lower arm, hands, and head
• separate accessories and certain long hair pieces
• add some extra voxels to the lower legs, the upper legs, the lower legs, and some of the torso
• move all parts of the body backwards except for the lower legs and the feet
• move the neck, head, upper arms, and lower arms forward
• clean up any painting errors

At best, this process can take about 10-15 minutes for each voxel model in Magicavoxel. It can take hours to do the whole process with about 43 of my voxel models. The point of the Magicavoxel work is to prep the modified model to be modified further in Blender for refinement and animation.


Once I start making certain things available, I will share my process and maybe some sample animation tests from Blender. So stay tuned for that! For now, though, here is a picture preview of what I am doing with my voxel character models:


^ Here is a preview of what I am working on towards enhancing my voxel character models.







If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Air Fryer Grilled Cheese Sandwich

A grilled cheese sandwich is nothing food-wise. However, it isn't a bad meal to start off with in using your air fryer. It is just two pieces of toasted bread with a slice of cheese in the middle. To introduce my first food-themed blog post to "John's Creative Space," I will share how to make a grilled cheese sandwich from the air fryer. Hopefully my blog post will give you a little interest in using an air fryer. Let's get it!

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Air Fryer Grilled Cheese Sandwich

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Let me offer up a grilled cheese image for you to set the mood...


^ from: delish.com - A grilled cheese is simple but is very tasty.

If you are fairly new to using an air fryer, it is best to start slow. So my first food/drink/cooking post on "John's Creative Space" involves a grilled cheese sandwich. I need to give you some back story before I share the cooking instructions.

I actually started to make a grilled cheese sandwich in a toaster oven before I tried making one in an air fryer. I followed instructions to an online video and applied them to the air fryer. I made two grilled cheese sandwiches in the toaster oven; one of them had bits of cocktail shrimp I chopped up. When I flipped over the sandwich that had the chopped cocktail shrimp, I had trouble flipping it over, and it came out wilted. It was still tasty.

I had used my PowerXL Air Fryer to make another grilled cheese sandwich. What I loved about the air fryer was that I could open the air fryer basket while it was cooking, and the air fryer would stop until I put the basket back into the air fryer. I also had to learn how to flip over the cooked food for meals that require flipping over or shaking the contents of the air fryer. One thing I learned about the air fryer is that it doesn't take long to toast bread. So some air fryer meals involving bread can be completed sooner than you think. As I became more experienced with the air fryer, I began being more fond of air frying food instead of microwaving them.

Now that you have some back story, let me get to the main point of this blog post. I am going to explain the main method followed by an improvised method.

Air Fryer Grilled Cheese Sandwich - Plain.

When making a grilled cheese sandwich from the air fryer, the key is to try to get the bread nicely toasted. A good way to add some flavor to the bread is to either spread mayonnaise on the bread or butter on the bread. I used butter in my cooking. Follow my lead.

INGREDIENTS NEEDED:

• • two pieces of bread
• • butter or mayonnaise
• • a slice of cheese (your choice of flavor)
• • (OPTIONAL) either aluminum foil or air liner paper - to make cleanup easy
• • (RECOMMENDED) a spatula for flipping

INSTRUCTIONS:
1.) It is recommended to put in aluminum foil or air fryer liner paper for easier cleanup. So put in aluminum foil or air fryer liner paper in the inside of the air fryer basket. A lot of people suggest you pre-heat the air fryer. This recipe does NOT involve pre-heating the air fryer.

2.) The first part of this can be a bit sloppy as you prepare the bread to be toasted in the air fryer. Spread mayonnaise or butter on both sides of the bread- the bottom side and the top side. You are going to do this for both slices of bread. Place the bottom side of the bread into the air fryer basket.

2.) On the bottom bread slice in the air fryer basket, place a slice of cheese on top of it. Again- it is your call as to what flavor cheese slice you use. I used American cheese for mine.

3.) Place the top bread slice on top of the bottom side in the air fryer.

4.) Bread toasts fairly quick in an air fryer. Depending on your air fryer, your cooking times may be different from mine. This was one of my very first air frying attempts, so I went with a high temperature to cook at. I cooked my grilled cheese sandwich at 400°F for eight minutes, flipping halfway. At the halfway mark, open the air fryer basket. The air fryer will stop until you put it back in. While it is out, flip over the grilled cheese sandwich with a spatula. Once you flip it over, put the air fryer basket back into the air fryer to finish cooking. Be careful not to wilt the sandwich or make a mess trying to flip over the sandwich.

5.) Once the air fryer is done cooking the grilled cheese sandwich, lift it out of the air fryer basket using a spatula. Place it onto a plate or a paper plate and enjoy!


You can cut the sandwich in half with a knife or break it down the middle with your hands. You can sense the cheese strings if you pull the sandwich apart. The sandwich will be a cheesy delight for you to eat.

Air Fryer Grilled Cheese Sandwich - Tuned: Grilled Cheese Shrimp Sandwich.

Now let's improvise the grilled cheese sandwich recipe. You are applying the same method to making a grilled cheese sandwich, but you are also adding pieces of chopped meat to make it a more interesting grilled cheese sandwich. My first air fryer grilled cheese sandwich had pieces of chopped cocktail shrimp to it. You may also add something like chopped grilled chicken or maybe some small pieces of beef. However, to keep things simple, I will add cocktail shrimp to the recipe. I am adding this recipe to prove you can get creative with your meals. So enjoy this one!

INGREDIENTS NEEDED:

• • two pieces of bread
• • butter or mayonnaise
• • a slice of cheese (your choice of flavor)
• • cooked cocktail shrimp, preferably from a cocktail shrimp ring bought from a grocery store
• • (OPTIONAL) your choice of seasoning for the cocktail shrimp
• • (OPTIONAL) either aluminum foil or air liner paper - to make cleanup easy
• • (RECOMMENDED) a spatula for flipping

INSTRUCTIONS:
1.) It is recommended to put in aluminum foil or air fryer liner paper for easier cleanup. So put in aluminum foil or air fryer liner paper in the inside of the air fryer basket. A lot of people suggest you pre-heat the air fryer. This recipe does NOT involve pre-heating the air fryer. Since this recipe involves cooked cocktail shrimp, it is best you refrigerate your cocktail shrimp and not freeze it. If the cocktail shrimp you are using is frozen, you will need to thaw it.

2.) The first part of this can be a bit sloppy as you prepare the bread to be toasted in the air fryer. Spread mayonnaise or butter on both sides of the bread- the bottom side and the top side. You are going to do this for both slices of bread. Place the bottom side of the bread into the air fryer basket.

3.) On the bottom bread slice in the air fryer basket, place a slice of cheese on top of it. Again- it is your call as to what flavor cheese slice you use. I used American cheese for mine.

4.) Take out some pieces of the cooked cocktail shrimp (I used four) and remove the tails of the cocktail shrimp. Then proceed to chop up the cocktail shrimp into pieces. Spread the chopped pieces of the cocktail shrimp on top of the cheese. If you want to season the shrimp, now is the time to do it. You can use any sort of seasoning you choose. Among seasoning options- salt, black pepper, lemon pepper, garlic powder, paprika, or whatever seasoning you prefer if you want to season the shrimp.

5.) Place the top bread slice on top of the bottom side and the shrimp in the air fryer.

6.) Bread toasts fairly quick in an air fryer. Depending on your air fryer, your cooking times may be different from mine. This was one of my very first air frying attempts, so I went with a high temperature to cook at. I cooked my grilled cheese sandwich at 400°F for eight minutes, flipping halfway. At the halfway mark, open the air fryer basket. The air fryer will stop until you put it back in. While it is out, flip over the grilled cheese sandwich with a spatula. Once you flip it over, put the air fryer basket back into the air fryer to finish cooking. Be careful not to wilt the sandwich or make a mess trying to flip over the sandwich.

7.) Once the air fryer is done cooking the grilled cheese sandwich, lift it out of the air fryer basket using a spatula. Place it onto a plate or a paper plate and enjoy!


Remember that this sandwich is the same as with the previous one but with cocktail shrimp. What you will get is not only the taste of the grilled cheese sandwich, but you also will be tasting shrimp with a cheese taste (and any seasoning you may have applied). Using store-bought material may seem cheap, but this is a simple way to level up a basic grilled cheese sandwich. This was meant to be a basic meal to prepare with a few advanced parts.

Other Considerations/Advanced Techniques.

If you become more advanced using the air fryer, you can try putting in something like grilled chicken pieces, beef crumbles, bacon bits, or anything like that to add to the grilled cheese sandwich instead of cooked cocktail shrimp. You may also want to try adding mixed vegetables if you are inclined. You be the cook- customize to your heart's delight!





This is my first cooking post on "John's Creative Space." I will learn from this and try to come up with more complete and comprehensive posts in the future when I discuss food recipes. I will end this post for now. If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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New Life to Old Track Concepts

It was always a creative dream of mine to develop race tracks for games. While nothing has truly materialized into in-game works, I recently have taken hold of past projects for non-racing games. It was not possible for me to take levels from older games and give them modern 3D life. So therefore, I had to take my old concepts and then refine them. As someone who is into simulation-type racing games, I wanted to get into the style of thinking realistically about my older race track designs. This blog post will not announce any future plans or upcoming designs to share. It will, though, give you some early insight as to what I am working on as well as why now I am thinking of releasing some of my designs. So feel free to take a look at what I have to discuss here on "John's Creative Space!"

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New Life to Old Track Concepts

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I have been using Blender to try to 3D model. Let me explain something about past courses I made that I want to revive and bring to a modern world.

The Backstory of my Older Courses.

A number of older race courses I designed for games were mostly for a non-racing game. What game am I discussing here? Duke Nukem 3D. Since circa 1999, as I was learning more and more about motorsports, I wanted to take a concept of racing into my work. I would mostly set up bot multiplayer matches in Duke Nukem 3D (called DukeMatches). The only "racing" was that it was me going around the tracks defeating as many of the bots as possible. There were also competitions to try to score the most points during the course of a race. Races were limited to score counts or time. There were also pit stops for which to try to avoid being defeated. Since I was the only intelligent being against bots, I utilized pit stops to stay in the race.

Time is of the Essence.

On the basis of time, I have always been a fan of GT/Sportscar/Endurance racing. So I looked into a way to implement a sort of system to where time would change every so often. What I ended up coming up with is an animated sky that simulates time changes. To set the time distance apart, I had to make the time between frames rather long. I made two sets of animated skies- clear and cloudy. I also developed one set of skies for a 24-hour setting and then an "all-night" setting, which lasts from early evening of Day 1 to sunrise of Day 2. The cloudy sky animations were meant to simulate endurances either for cloudy days or for rainy (and even snowy) days. Because the animations would be a bit tough to follow, I set up timing gauges to let me know how much time is left in one phase of the day before going to the next.

Believable Race Tracks.

I was not very good at designing believable tracks, so a lot of my 3D modeling in Duke Nukem 3D was fairly basic. I did not utilize proper-looking curves in 3D modeling. A lot of the corners were mostly fake true curves. I had a lot of sharp corners also. The reason why tracks seemed so long was because I wanted the tracks to remain deathmatch-style courses. So to try to get away, blocking bits were used in trying to prevent the player to go out of bounds or to try to evade attackers.

Why NOW Trying to Update Past Concepts?

I felt a lot of my past race tracks designs deserve to be used for more modern applications and games. Also, I have had a tough time trying to play Duke Nukem 3D, my all-time favorite game, on a modern Windows 10 system. Rather than let old memories rot and die, I felt it was time to make my old concepts come alive in more modern forms. I also needed some practice to improve my 3D modeling skills.


I feel this is an opportunity to work closer towards one of my many different creative goals. It is just sad it has taken THIS long to realize this goal.

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The Challenges Ahead

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I now will share some of the things I am learning and hope to accomplish in providing these old concept tracks from Duke Nukem 3D. Please note that I am using a combination of Blender 3D, Unity3D's Skycar, and Edy's Vehicle Physics Pro (Community Edition).

The 3D Modeling.

All courses start with just the main road or roads. So when they are tested on, the challenge is to try to keep the car on the road and not fall forever if I drive off the main road. I am therefore careful driving my courses because of this situation.

The Realism Factor.

Many of the courses I created had a bunch of elements playfully added in. These even included a bunch of foolish-looking models and effects in levels. Essentially- eye candy. Because I have simulation racing games in mind, I have to think about how to make certain past ideas flow better in a proper sim racing game. It required me even to modify configurations to make them more believable. For one thing, some of my past courses had incredibly unrealistic elevation changes that would not even be completely possible in even the most decent simulation racing games.

One thing I want you to realize is that this not exactly a legacy project, but rather modernizing old concepts while not veering too far off course from previous styles. I had to lengthen old courses as well as add extra sections for multiple layouts. This was to provide much more usability and offer a handful more options for any player.

Another thing I was thinking about was trying to make tracks of a realistic scale. When I learned of unit scale in Blender, it opened my eyes to making my small-scale designs more realistic. What I did was put my measurements in Metric and used Meters. I found that using a unit scale of about 100.000000 was enough to make the roads wide enough and the overall map not feel so small without needing to scale up or down.

While this was great, I was still unsure as to how to properly measure my courses. One method I took was to make edge loops around sectors of my tracks. I would measure the distance from the start of one sector to the end of that sector. There are three sectors to courses I design. I would later take the sum of each distance and add them together to learn how long the courses are. However, most of the results I got seemed unrealistic. I felt my courses would have to be much longer than some of the unrealistic scale numbers I got. Basically, I felt like tracks long enough to host FIA Formula 1 or World Endurance Championship races were about as long as go-kart tracks from my measurements. For the most part, the tracks had the proper width and length of what I want to accomplish.

Though not a critical factor, I also found it important to try to set up each course in terms of the time of day. This was great in trying to make realistic conditions. However, it made some environments tough to drive in, especially courses meant to be done at night or with not as much sunlight. The VPP cars also had very weak lighting systems. You basically need to make your own spot lights on the car to illuminate the way. Either that, or add lighting around your course.

The Driving Aspect.

I needed a decent way to test my designs, so what I did was use the Vehicle Physics Pro asset for Unity. The provided asset for Unity for racing and driving is good for prototyping, but I needed a realistic solution for my simulation-type racing tracks. So I was fortunate enough to pick up the Vehicle Physics Pro asset (the Community/Free one).

Because I am using on-road racing, I am not using a model for off-road racing. The VPP asset from Edy features a sports coupe for on-road racing/driving and a pickup track tuned for off-road racing/driving. The default settings for the sport coupe are more than enough for performance driving, though the car seems pretty slow often times. The sport coupe's default settings max out the torque at about 220 Nm of torque (or about 162.32 lb. feet of torque). Granted this Unity asset doesn't drive like Gran Turismo, it is still a great way to get an idea of my courses in a simulation driving environment.

The Racing Aspect.

To test the tracks of mine in a performance environment, I set the car close to the Start/Finish line and then set up a stopwatch. I used a Clock application on one of my old smartphones to time one lap around the course. If my car flown off the track and falls forever, the run ends. I've done that multiple times. Sometimes, I had to re-do my sessions because the stopwatch function would not stop when I requested it to. I only tested in the normal direction of tracks.

Here is a progression in the tests I run:

• Hotlap - from a standing start, complete one lap around the course. These one-lap tests take place on each offered layout of each course.

• Two-Lap Sessions - from a standing start, complete two laps around a course. There are different two-lap tests for different variations of a track.

• Three-Lap Challenge - from a standing start, complete three laps around a course. A three-lap test is the default for a lot of races, so this is a test of a course in a basic sprint race.


One thing to keep in mind is that there are no AI drivers to contend against in these sessions. The purpose is to get a realistic driving sample for each course. With more experience and confidence, I may also pull longer tests- such as five-lap tests ("Grand Prix") and ten-lap tests ("Endurance").



A look at what you can expect is coming up, so visit the next section.

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What You Can Expect Here

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Any created track of mine that I complete will be made available across a number of 3D modeling stores online. I possibly will allow for my creations to be used in commercial racing/driving games, but reselling or selling modified versions of my courses will be disallowed or may require permission. This is a chance to finally share some of my most personal works with the world and make them available to the masses.

In Case You're Wondering...

If you are wondering about the vehicle controller I am using for my racing/driving tracks, I am using Edy's Vechicle Physics Pro (Community Edition), which you can find here: Vehicle Physics Pro - Community Edition | Physics | Unity Asset Store.





Again- I have nothing at present to share, but I will highlight more of my works in the future. So be sure to stay with "John's Creative Space" for more details. Thanks for visiting! If you enjoy my work, please Subscribe/Follow my blog(s) in any capacity if you love my work and want to support me any way you can. Share my blog post(s) with others if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Food on John's Creative Space

"John's Creative Space" now has a new creative outlet- food! I had a long thought process on where to share my latest interests in being a cook. I have decided to breathe some extra life into JCS by discussing food I have prepared. So in the future, you will seeing me discuss meals I have prepared and how I prepared them. I feel this will be an opportunity to talk about food as another outlet of my creative energy.

When I do prepare posts regarding food, I must stress to you that I am NOT an experienced cook. I basically just started becoming better and more creative at preparing food. So don't take any of my cooking topics to be of the highest quality. Even I am still learning the ropes. Most of what I have been preparing is not only in the microwave, but I also have been learning to use my air fryer and my toaster oven air fryer. I may even give some of you all some inspiration and motivation to use your air fryer. I can only hope.

About the Label: Food/Drink/Cooking

Topics listed under this category pertain to preparing food and drinks. These can be recipes, gadgetry, and things of that nature.





Anyhow, that concludes my brief blog post announcing the discussion of food among my creative material. I hope you enjoy your time here! Be sure to Follow/Subscribe in some capacity if you enjoy my work. Your support is vastly appreciated.Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Going Low-Polygon, Low-Resolution 3D Modeling

Low polygon and low resolution usually are not what most modern 3D types are like. However, those who model in the vein of Minecraft or PS1/N64/Saturn find a unique attraction to low-polygon work. I figured I'd join this realm myself. The reason why is because despite my best efforts to make 3D that can be well-loved and utilized, I never fully succeeded with many models I am proud out. So I figured I'd try to lessen my focus while still trying to find high quality in my low-spec work. I am also focusing in on a 3D modeling method I have adopted and practiced. This blog post is a look at my low-polygon, low-resolution work. It represents what I have worked on and what potentially may come in the future.

I can't believe I haven't updated this blog in almost a full year! That changes with this new blog post on "John's Creative Space!"

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Going Low-Polygon, Low Resolution

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While impressively realistic 3D rules the roost, some fancy lower-spec 3D. Mostly the reason lies in the simplicity of basic 3D models. Some even enjoy older 3D for the aesthetic. One thing I am realizing is that I am not a good digital artist or a good 3D modeler. Therefore, I am concentrating most of my artistic efforts towards low-polygon and low-resolution art. There is still a unique charm to doing this style of 3D work, and I look to try to capitalize on that.

Learning the Tiling Method (Through Blender).

Let me explain the method I am using as best as I can.

Although Blender has an add-on that allows you to make 3D models from a tileset or palette called Sprytile, I am doing my work without it. Sprytile actually originates from an older 3D modeling software via tiling called Crocotile 3D. What I define as the tile method is when you try to make models out of a series of plane meshes. One of the advantages of this is that you can apply a UV map to it easily to handle your art. What you do is make one plane and then duplicate it a lot to set up great art pieces. You will need to choose the proper sort of UV mapping to a tileset as you need to. Once you get into the process, it provides a nice challenge to 3D model. Having something like Sprytile and Crocotile 3D are not bad at all, and I am not opposed to financially supporting either program. My only thing is that I am learning of how to do those techniques without needing either tool.

The first thing to take note of is to build a texture atlas. If you already have a texture atlas to use for your work, disregard this section and move on to the next paragraph. A texture atlas combines all of the needed graphical assets into one image. Especially if you will be tiling art, it pays to build a texture atlas to contain everything. I am also trying to practice pixel art. So therefore, most of the textures I've developed in my art appear rudimentary. You can use whatever paint program you like, but I am using GIMP (one of many free art editors). For pixel art types, Aseprite is popular. I later learned that you do not need to necessarily have all tiles the same dimensions. In fact, the tiles don't even need to be powers of 2 in size (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.). For example, I saw a texture atlas for a track for the PlayStation 1 game "Rage Racer," and it used a variety of different texture sizes to pack in this texture atlas. So sort of draw out and prototype the different tiles you want to use for your modeling project. You're going to be editing things again and again. If you are using Blender, you will need to constantly update the image you are using for your texture mapping. This means pressing Alt + R in the UV/Image editor panel (at least in Blender 2.79b).

The next step is to simply add a mesh plane in Blender. Make a new Material for it. Go to the Texture panel and choose "Image or Movie" for the texture type. Load in the texture atlas or whatever image you are using. Unwrap the plane mesh. To make your efforts much easier, enable "Snap to Pixels" in the UV/Image Editor panel. You can then take the vertices of each plane and adjust them accordingly to whatever tile(s) you are trying to connect to. Once you have one plane set up, you're going to do LOTS of duplicating to get the desired model you are trying to create. Duplicate as many different planes as possible to construct the scene. Afterwards, keep adjusting the UV mappings to whatever image you want a plane to show. Keep going until you complete the model you want to create. It is best to try to keep things connected. If you can, use a combination of holding down Ctrl and even Ctrl + Shift to properly move about faces. It also helps to go into individual views in orthographic mode for some movements of planes.

Once you are happy with the final model you've created, there are a few important things you need to know. I would recommend you save a copy of your finished work in Blender before doing anything else in this paragraph. It is important to select all of the planes and Remove Doubles. That means Alt + W (Blender 2.79b). Removing doubles reduces the number of vertices while also allowing you to properly manipulate the individual pieces of your model. If you need to adjust it again, it will be easier to do

My 3D Tile Modeling Runs.

Here are some of my practice runs of trying the tile modeling technique.

• Tiling a Simple Room
The point of this was to practice simply making a room. Only the floor, two walls, and the ceiling were modeled. I had to learn some of the ins and outs of trying this method out. All pieces were 16x16 tiles except for the windows. What I struggled most was trying to get sufficient lighting to the scene. Here is what I came up with:



• Water Temple
This more complex interior modeling job really tested my patience. Originally intended to be a modeling of two different rooms, I basically went with just one. I left out the throne room of this temple and just modeled the hall leading to the throne room. The way to the throne room can be seen with the blue carpet. I had to properly adjust the individual tiles to get them the proper lighting. I also needed to adjust the alignment of the UV texture atlas to get some of the planes to display the correct UV mappings. I was still pretty pleased with my work that I decided to close this modeling run.



• Outdoor Scene
This was a challenge. The sky was not a tile challenge; instead, it was trying to model a skybox using a cube. I learned in one YouTube video how someone used a cube rather than a sphere to make a sky. The cube was made big enough to house the scene, and then the cube was given a Subdivision Modifier. I found out at least level 2 of the Subdivision Modifier is good enough to properly portray a sky. A skybox is easier to work with than a sphere, especially when UV mapping. I needed to adjust the alignment of the UV map for the faces of my sky when I was preparing my skybox.

I began to realize two important parts of the 3D tiling method. First off, these tiling models are done using shadeless settings. I prefer to work in Blender Render (nowadays called Eevee). I didn't learn to do this in Cycles yet. The second thing I learned was to turn off backface culling. If you enable backface culling, certain faces will not show from certain angles. I modeled my material more in the vein of Minecraft. That means a lot of boxy models. Here, however, I tried modifying the planes to try diagonals and even simulate things in Minecraft like tall grass. My only regret was maybe not adding variety to my pixel art grass and trees.

This was the final result after all of my modeling attempts:




I hope to make more material like this and practice more modeling in this style. I'll keep practicing and show you my best work in the future. Stay tuned!





It is really sad I haven't updated this blog in almost a full year. "John's Creative Space" is back, though! It will really be back when I keep making more content to share. Be sure to Subscribe/Follow if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Voxel Buildings

I returned to voxel modeling to try out MagicaVoxel 099.6. This newer version 099.6 ushers in a new level of development as it has enhanced facilities for modeling and rendering. Most notably, voxel models in MagicaVoxel can now go up to 256³, rather than being resticted to 126³ in dimensions. So more complicated models in one piece can be developed or viewed. This is great mostly for massive models or complex worlds. With these things in mind, I want to share with you two models I created and what I may intend using these for. Check these out...



^ from: (JohnMarineDesigns) - My model of a vintage church house modeled and rendered in MagicaVoxel.


^ from: (JohnMarineDesigns) - This is a vintage school house I modeled and rendered in MagicaVoxel.

What do I intend on making these models for? Well, I have had ideas of using them for possible game assets or some media projects. I was kind of thinking of making a classic-style SimCity deal where you build a city from the ground up with the voxel building models I am trying to create. Also, I was considering the voxels being used for voxel-style 3D RPGs. The problem with that is that I am mostly fixated on more modern style structures. Therefore, I am not as adept designing Medieval-type structures or worlds. The two models I created will still get things rolling as far as designing voxel buildings. I also want to make this easy by having consistent dimensions to piece together spaces in equal grid amounts. I may also decide to just let everything be set up freestyle, letting the developer add the voxel models as he/she/they see fit in their voxel worlds.





I'm glad you got a chance to view my creative works blog! This is my first blog post since the new changes Blgoger/Blogspot blog posts are made. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my official website at johnbmarine.com, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin!
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3D Model and Showroom Plans

Making skins for vehicles in games is cool and all, but I have lately had interest in designing my own original vehicles all skinned up. Actually, I have wanted to develop my own models and my own showrooms. It was a dream for a long time to develop my own showroom for vehicles for games. As I started getting better with Blender, I am having more realistic visions of developing the sort of showrooms I want to develop. Allow me the opportunity to express myself. Okay? Good! Let me begin...

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3D Model and Showroom Plans

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I feel the need to develop even more original content. So I want to share plans I have in regards to various 3D models and showroom plans. Take a look:

3D Plans: Models.

My main areas of concentration for 3D modeling include vehicles and characters.

Vehicle Plans
On the vehicle front, I am starting to gain a new sort of direction towards how to model vehicles. The main concentration lies in low-polygon vehicles. I want to make low polygon a quality thing. This could even evolve into trying to refine them for other projects. This is actually a plan of mine of late. As I am starting to better use Blender, I feel I could master some techniques to at least attempt high-quality vehicles.

Previously, I noted that I had no interest in high-quality 3D vehicle models. I've learned some techniques that make me think otherwise in recent times. One of the most important things I am coming around to is that I do not need to put everything into one single mesh. In fact, some high-quality designs are a combination of separated objects. So a headlight assembly could be the main casing and all the individual lights that make up that headlight case. You also could independently work on a certain object of a full model. The one thing I always fear is that I may make a lot of changes that somehow will require me to do extra merging so that the model remains as complete topology-wise. It seems like a daunting task to make a high-quality vehicle. However, part of me says it is doable without stressing too much over certain details.

I also previously did not have interest in re-creating actual vehicles. That has changed... to an extent. I am not seriously considering completely accurate models. At the same time, though, I don't want to make any models of actual vehicles that seem overly cheap. I need to be careful on this front because some legal clearances have to be granted to make 3D products of actually-licensed vehicles available and can be used. I am not sure if I want to develop such vehicles for free for game mods, or if I want to offer vehicles for rendering. I still prefer doing original designs, but I am somewhat open to modeling actual vehicles.


Character Plans
I have not yet attempted any original characters. On one end, I have thought more along the lines of avatar-type models. I am talking about mostly humanoid models that you could freely customize as opposed to some completely original characters. I have not yet found any true inspiration to make this happen. However, I do have some ideas by following a bunch of different videos. No concrete plans have been considered as of yet. If and when I do get around to developing characters, expect a mix of freely-customizable characters and original characters.


Other 3D Models?
I have considered locations as 3D model projects. Namely, I have thought of things like buildings, some light scenery, and some light terrain. I also want to develop things like motor racing tracks. For race tracks, I am slowly looking at trying to develop in the mindset of Assetto Corsa. Assetto Corsa prefers you measure things in meters. So to that end, I will have to learn to put things into meters for measurement.

3D Plans: Showrooms.

No 3D model(s) will ever be worth showcasing if you lack a proper way to market them. So as I make skins for games like Assetto Corsa and Automobilista among others, I feel I have to develop a showroom to nicely showcase my 3D models. A showroom doesn't have to a "room." It can, in fact, be an outdoor scene stylish enough for showcasing work. One idea i seem to like is that Blender can handle HDRI images. For the uninitiated, an HDRI image contains color information within the image that can serve as the lighting and color for any given scene. Usually, some of these HDRI images can be pretty big files. I tend to like decently-sized images that won't beat up my PC in trying to render. Blender rendering through HDRI images is only done in Cycles Rendering. I will need to practice Cycles Rendering to be able to come up with great renders.

While showrooms suggest indoor scenes, showrooms can really be indoor or outdoor scenes. While I don't want the showrooms to be the focal point of my work, I do want them to serve as stylish 3D locales for which to display my work. I am gathering ideas for which to think about what kind(s) of showrooms I want to make. Because Cycles Renders allow you to develop a vast amount of ideas, I want to be able to make the best renders I can make regardless of my PC's power to create them masterfully. In fact, I dream of making certain render scenes that would be great for Assetto Corsa, since the majority of my renders are for Assetto Corsa. I have used custom showrooms for vehicles in rFactor. So I have a general idea of the importance of making quality showrooms for any set of vehicles for almost any racing/driving game.

Other than vehicles, I want to make some stylish showrooms for characters and other things. Imagine stylish scenes for which a character can be showcased. For example, imagine a stylish young lady at a stylish restaurant on a date night. Certain props or game assets can also be stylishly shown off in some kind of showroom. I haven't yet thought of any interesting showroom concepts to make these visions happen.


Now you know about some of my 3D plans. We'll see what materializes from my work in the future.





Thank all of you who love and support my work! I hope I can keep bringing the awesome that I can provide. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my official website at johnbmarine.com, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin!
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3D Modeling Detail

A tactic of 3D modeling is to focus on how much to model for whatever application(s) in mind. Some go with high-polygon modeling and then dumb it down for low-polygon modeling. Some begin with low-polygon modeling and then increase the details. Which method is better? Well, it depends on how detailed you want your work to be and for what application(s) you plan on distributing your 3D models to. Through my modeling work, I have mostly focused on low-polygon modeling. I don't have the patience to try to flesh out low-polygon modeling. Some people do an amazing job taking basic rough shapes and then turning them into amazing 3D models. The different methods used to develop detailed models varies from different modelers.

I haven't yet designed anything spectacular, but I do hope to build 3D models from rough shapes to detailed modeling masterpieces.





This was a very brief post but with sufficient detail. Here is my discussion question for you:

What is your method of 3D modeling as far as detail is concerned?

Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

Visit my official website at johnbmarine.com, subscribe to My Blog(s), and/or Follow on Bloglovin!
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