So im doing the latest outfit ,  its far from completed,  as there's lots to do ,  but as always a little sneak peek ,  and ive found a rather nice tool to show 3D content online.

DUN DUN DUUUUUN - New Snatched Release

Yay,  its finished,  with a new name  and as always filled with love and creative juices flowing faster than a housewife with 50 shades of grey..  I introduce to the masses

THE STORMGUARD!!!!

You have seen it being made on the blog,  so  I wont go into too much detail ,  yet is a complete outfit  all boots,  pants,  belt,  coat and tunic  coming in 5 sizes ,  yes that's right  FIVE.  that means it has the standard ones of Xsmall,  Small,  Med and large ..  but also the Snatched sizing that I normally  release.

It also comes without any layer shading  just in case you want to mix and match.

Available in Store at Tokari ,  and on the marketplace. ( demo also available )

Enjoy

Bray

Little update on the progress of the next outfit,  I never realized quilting could be such a pain in the arse, needless to say...  here we have the zbrush work so far  for the high poly texturing.

I get asked many times how I always manage to get so detailed,  well  I am not some big time graphic artist with years of skills under my belt ...  I just try REALLLY hard.

so hears the latest pics,  of the zbrush work,  and the resulting textures im currently working on.

after a little trip into PS,  and rendered out in Blender,  please note this isnt final product as their is still lots left to do.

Hokays - Sneek Peek

I had a few messages in game to ask what I was making next,  Well ......  last week I finally talked myself around to taking some time to buy into the whole " game of thrones " world,  and to be hon est it was fantastic,  in fact in many respects its like the Gor we all love and know so well,  slightly medieval dancing between the cold north and the sunnier south with hints of the Celtic and Mediterranean thrown in. So after doing a 26 hour " throne - a thon " I felt energized and enthused.  What does this mean,  well  it means that Ive been inspired and started throwing this together.

I hope you can see where its going,  progressing along nicely.

Bray

This may be the last variation.

I have not yet decided as to whether to do a brown and tan version of the Sage outfit yet...  but one thing that was needed was a black one. So without further ado........  here it is

Yay .....

Bray

errrmm  YES YES (again)

Well  under request from many,  I've started making colour variations of the Sage outfit,  and by popular demand mainly from those red caste folks I've done a RED version of the sage outfit.

Again,  available in store and the marketplace ,  but I have also been asked for a green version,  and neutral so expect a black or brown one sooooon

Enjoy

Bray

YES YES YES!!!!!

Believe it or not  the new outfit has finally  been released,  after months of delay and computery type problems last night I finally  managed to get my new release completed.

Its both on the marketplace and in store,  you can always check earlier posts for how it was done but the finished article is done ( at least in blue,  I hear more colours are wanted )

so here it is......

and btw,  I released a DEMO  available at the store  if you are concerned about fitting.

I sincerely hope you like  it,  and thanks for your patience.

Bray

Where have you been ?

Well,  I know most of you have sent me messages in-game about both my sofa tutorial  and when my outfit and IF my outfit will ever be finished....

Well  The reason it went on hold was due to my being contracted for 6 months in the real world,  as I am professionally  in IT and I was overseas for some of that time  it was difficult to keep on with my building,  but I can confirm that since I got back  I built a new PC, and I have opened up blender and started to work again on my unfinished outfit.

To say that I do that with a nervous outlook is an understatement,  but I am on the case again so  I hopefully should get the long awaited outfit out soon.

Thank you so much for all your messages and encouragement..  and as always "Watch this space"

Thanks

Bray

What's next from Snatched

The latest Work in Progress from Snatched,

Well ,  as you all know,  I always like to post my new outfits for Gor and Medieval RP even before they are finished,  I've been working on this one for the last few days and this is the current status although this is quite a complicated piece but that's no surprise considering that they always seam to be.  After the raging success of the Rarius sets I decided to look at the other castes,  I know theres always a plethora of womans outfits about from various designers but Mens ware is always lacking.  Anyway ..  Latest starting point Work in progress is here,  I know this leaves myself open for imitation,  but i like folks to see what I'm doing.

DAMN THE OLYMPICS!!!!

I cant say ive made much progress on this outfit lately,  mainly because everytime i turn around the olympics are on BBC 1 and I keep getting distracted.  Ive been working on the belt assembly though ,  and made the smaller belt and dagger etc

As always .....  progress ,  just not as fast as I would have liked,  but im spending more time on this one in general,  the UV's are still a mess though ,  so that will need to be tidied up before they get thrown into Zbrush.  Watch this space

Bray


OK ....  so after being completely overtaken with the joys of the olympics I have neglected to progress with my outfit,  but I did restart my work this week ,  and this week I have cleaned a lot of my UV maps and started to do the detailing somewhat in ZBrush. I want to do some more progress on my tutorials too soon,  The kids are home for the summer so  having " DAAAAAAAAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  half way through a video  isnt something i want *lol*

as always ......  watch this space

OK ,  well  I had a few IM's  in world as to what was the progress with this outfit as I hadn't posted anything in a while,  a mixture of various delays unfortunately ,  being its the school holidays here in the UK,  I have had to be subjected to a noisy house and I have had a couple of job interviews recently which have been a a priority but there has been progress of course,  but I have also found a few issues with the sculpted hi rez version of the outfit that i have had to redo in the tunic and the various belts,  So i have resolved those and started doing the base texturing.,  but just for you folks that are waiting with baited breath ,  heres a basic progress report on how its doing...  the texturing is still very early and there's still modelling to do

I know ..  I know ....  I bet you are all wondering why this outfit hasnt been released yet ,  well  theres lots of reasons...  but there is progress, I really was not happy with how the blue material was coming over,  so ive had to create a new blue fabric,  along with that i have been working on more texturing parts in ZBrush and PS and refining some that I had done previously. I will get there eventually,  Once this is finished I have been asked for a Black version of the Vanguard outfit,  so thats something thats going to have to be done AFTER ive finished this baby,  anyway,  heres a new pic to tide you all over

Even though Ive not finished the texturing really ,  I in my ultimate wisdom,  jumped in feet first as always and have been weight painting the coat,  weight painting is always a peach,  especially in the walking pose,  but it is getting there

Well ....  here it is ,  I have been working on this puppy for what seams months,  its very BTB style but in real terms could easily be found at home in either Roman or Spartan RP situations. It comes complete with extensive variations on the theme.

Available at the marketplace at

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Snatched-MESH-Rarius/3779858

or in store at

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tokari%20Square/117/99/22

Cloth Simulation in Blender

Ok ,
A very rough and ready tutorial on how to do cloth simulations in Blender,  hope its of some use,  feel free to comment or ask questions

Better rez version is ont he you tube channel

http://youtu.be/Syi_VzBr1hE

So whats next....

Well ,  I've mooched around for a bit ,  asked a few folks  as to what I should do next now that the vanguard outfit has been completed... I really wanted to do a woman's outfit,  and asked if anybody had any desires for a MESH woman's ensemble and the feed back was lack lustre if not non existent. So if you would like something considered please let me know,  as my meshes take quite a while to do  so I dont want to do something that wont be enjoyed.


anyways...........


I've had quite a few requests for a new MESH rarius style outfit,  ive looked at whats been done previously,  checked out various centurion,  legionnaire and Spartan outfits as well  as googled a considerable amount of resources and I have came up with a few ideas that will be more authentic, so no masses of red cloth,  no large metal armour plate and will be far more blood and sand style  than " carry on rarius "  


But where am I so far ?


I always like to post pictures of the development work that I do on these things and this is no different

Anyway ..  thats it for now .....  keep smiling and I will catch you all on the next post.


Brayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy




Well this is comming out better and quicker than I had expected, ive done a little bit of detailing so far,  but nothing so much on the texture front, still heres the update of its progress......

I thought I would give it a little render and check out the musculature on the chest plate,  its going to be leather and not metal,  so no need for nipples etc.  did the stiching while i was at it  and in my opinion its looking rather snazzy

Well capt'n  sims died a death  and wont be up tonight ,  so ....  this is what ive come to finish with for todays little work....  hope you like and watch this space

I have been asked by various people if i could do a version of the helmet with the plume as it seams tob e a popular option,  so today ...  ive been doing a few things,  I have meshed it out but also did the flexy alpha horse hair plume in SL ,  i wont show the SL one ..  mainly because its not textured yet ,  but the meshie one  is here.....

As always  ..  i know WIP  arnt the most exciting stuff in the world,  I have completed the sofa tutorials,  so I am planning on doing some clothing ones very very soon. and rather than doing a particular thing ...  will just show how to create tops and pants ..  possible also skirts and boots.


Bray


This evening has mostly been about sculpting the detail for the damage to the helmet ready for the texturing process, sorting out the feet for the shoes and starting to model the shoes out,  

So I hear you say ...  what have you done?

Well ....  ive done mostly texturing work,  and modelled the feet as you can see from the picture above ,  and this evening I textured those so called feet.
 was not a fun experience I can tell you that ,  but ...  after projection painting  about 12 different pictures

TADAAAA

I know there doesn't seam to be any updates on this puppy in a few days ,  well  the main reason for that is that I decided to practice my projection painting technique ,  and it kind of got out of control,  so rather than a foot .....  I photosourced a skin and just kinda ran with it,  it was quite fun to do and although its not perfect its actually pretty good ,  considering the original reference was a pasty sun burnt  guy with a strange beard.  Every picture had different lighting ,  but I managed to pull it off ....  any skin makers out there ..  I really respect as the single arm SL avatar is hell  to match up

anyway ,  here are a few pictures of what I did ......  and then I will post an update on the rarius outfit.

The rarius outfit though , is actually moving on OK ,  I made the cape mostly ,  and have started the texturing process on that so here is a picture of its current state ,  I have yet to make a cape broach for it..  but anyway

i would like to say i have something to post .....  but todays been totally shyte,  firstly ..  somebody hit my car while it was parked, if that wasnt bad enough ...  my wacom tablet has bit the dust ,  so im having to see whats available for the very limited funds that i have available.

Hopefully will be up and running soon.


well....................
after a night of whining to myself about how crappy my day was ,  i decided to bite the bullet ,  I tried my tablet on various computers and the same thing happened no matter what i did.  So i looked online  and decided to get myself a replacement.  went to the usual suspects like curries,  dixons i checked online for the best prices etc  and checked PC World. still completely put out that i would have to get one at all ..  i spoke to the Lady Banker about it  and she said that as it is important to my work ...  i cant exactly go without one, I know many of you other creators may use a mouse etc for drawing ,  but its like the multiple monitor thing ....  when you get used to a pen ...  its very hard to go back to a mouse. I had forgotten how expensive wacom tablets were as my grapphire is over 6 years old  and is a bit of a workhorse,  but was a medium active area which is 21cm x 15cm i was pissed and had resolved myself that i couldn't afford to get a newer bamboo  tablet of the same size,  so was looking at the lower A6 versions aka ..  the bamboo small which at 14xm x 9cm  you can imagine my disappointment,  but at least it wasn't the very small one at 12 x 8,  but the wifey said again " why are you buying something that you ultimately are going to be disappointed with" so i bit the bullet and ordered a wacom bamboo medium special edition  which at £109  on special offer hurt like hell.  I tried to go to the store ,  but i guess with the recession you just cant buy things in an ACTUAL store any more,  so came home and went ahead with the order online,  So anyway....... knowing that i had nothing to lose ...  i decided to hack my old tablet ...  i had heard that tablets tend to have faulty USB leads after a while ,  so I took my tablet apart ,  smashed up an old USB cup warmer and as im a dab hand at fixing crap that would otherwise be fit for the bin ...  i swapped the leads over ..  and so far it has stayed alive for the last hour with out turning off.  Although its too late to cancel my order for the replacement tablet it seams as though I may have rectified the fault on my old one.

so what's the benefit of the new one.?

tablets tend to do pretty much the same no matter what you choose ,  the main differences are active area ,  and software ,  as i dont use the crappy shyte they bundle with it ,  and you cant opt out of it, the new tablet really only gives you touch ability ,  as well as the pen ....  is it worth the £109  outlay .....  well  I guess that depends on wether or not you consider a tool to be worth the outlay ...  I didnt want to spend the money ,  but at least I have a replacement  and if my old tablet stays operational I have a spare .....  or indeeed my wife gets to have it for her work as upto yet ...  shes always prefered a mouse.

It may be old ...  but it worked hard

so is this going to be any good ?  hey I dont know ..  it better be as I resent spending money on things i dont need,  and upgrades for the same functionality makes it a waste.

here it is ..... the VANGUARD!!!

after all of the sneak peeks etc ...  its finally done....  I never thought i would be able to pull this one off,  but I did..  I think this is the best outfit ive done to date so I really hope you like it.

The picture barely does it justice...  but this outfit really rocks. 


Its available instore at 
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tokari%20Square/117/99/22

or the marketplace at 
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Snatched-MESH-Vanguard/3692018


Bray

Snatched Vanguard Outfit - Sneak Peek

Its not quite ready for release, but I thought i would give a little sneek peek video


Hope you enjoy


Bray

Well  i was hoping to get this out this weekend,  but due to issues with weighting im having to scrap the skeleton and resize and re-weight it  all ,  so the chances of it being done this weekend are virtually zero...  you never know,  could be lucky


HOKAYS!!!!!


Done most of it ,  for those of you like my friend Randal Gloom and Crix Rain who have been waiting ,  its on track for tommorow as long as nothing serious throws it into the trash.
so one day late ...  but its worth waiting for.


Bray

New Tutorial - Sofa

Well .....  here we go ,  heres another tutorial ,  after the initial blender 101,  I've decided to do one for a sofa,  There are a few mistakes i know ...  but mainly as i dont have a script ,  and I dont edit it ,  so its all done live as it is modelled. So any mistakes or changes in track ..  are all seen as and when,  I hope in me leaving those mistakes in ,  you can see that I am human ,  and that its not an exact science.

Anyway .....  i hope you enjoy

Bray

ps .....  the better rez versions of these videos are available on my you tube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/BraydonRandt?feature=watch

Part 1 - Blocking out,  Seat Base,  Mirroring and starting the arms

Part 2 - Filling in the arms,  detailing the cushion and creating the back cushion

Part 3 - Finishing modelling and checking for issues

Part 4 -  marking seams and Unwrapping

Part 5 - Texturing

remember you can see these videos in a better resolution on our YouTube channel. But that's the sofa completed,  its not as nice as the one I released free on the marketplace as the time allocation isn't the same but the methods and processes are the same and only you can decide to what detail you would like.  That's it finished .. and i will be looking at clothing very very soon

market place shninanigans

So was looking around the marketplace today and as you do  I put in my search words,  and what should come up ..  but pages and pages of Sn@tch stuff, now those of you who have known me a long time know the run in I had with Ivy ,  as I am the owner of the Snatch group,  and was also the owner of most of the snatch domain names.  yet Ivy griefed  ..  yes griefed my old store by buying the land around it and blockading my store ,  joined my group and harrassed my members till eventually I changed the name to "Snatched" this of course was a long time ago ...  I can understand why her meta data would include "snatch" but can anybody tell me how her search meta data can contain the likes of not only snatched ....  but also Luck Inc,  another maker ..  seams that ivy is still continuing her nasty tricks

and just for your enjoyment ....  heres the screen shot of her meta data

Blender - A lesson in self abuse

So as promised,  I have created a small tutorial for setting up blender for SL ,  this is only the first one ,  so I will do more and more as time goes on.  But I hope you like it as there is more to follow.

Im feeling very productive today ,  so ive thrown together the second part of blender fundamentals,  Sorry if my style seams a little bit unusual,  but i like to do things as they would be used,  rather than creating a script ,  and going through stages.  so heres the final part of the 101 tutorial and it will be covering loop cuts and extrusions.


Enjoy

NOW WHAT!!!!

I was looking at making a viking outfit , as for quite a while its something that came of some interest ,  I found quite a nice reference which i found to be not really viking but certainly a very rough and ready warrior,  I wont post the image here ...  as well ...  I dont want to pre-empt what might be the death of me  modelling wise ,  but its gonna be a push ,  so I will post lots here as I do ,  and if possible i will post some videos up of the process, but as I tend to have a strange workflow  process,  its just about my limit posting development pictures,  anyway .......  so it has started


Ive exported a taller AV from SL and loaded it into Blender,  Ive roughed out the pants so  far but its the rest that is the difficult part but here goes.

So anyway ,  latest update ...  ive done a lot on this ,  but again ,  its early  and its not going to be a lightweight outfit.,  I know most people are more interestest in tutorials  than WIP,  and i do have some tutorials comming soon 

Ive done a little bit of Zbrush work on this outfit,  to the most part im not over confident with the texture work as yet ,  as it all seams a little bit too clean and harsh ,  but that will soon be over come,  anyway ...  this is it so far

okey dokies,  my latest outfit is progressing quite well really ,  my workflow ..  is essentially  model it in Blender,  then export the OBJ  into zbrush  to do the detailing,  then create a normal map  for blender.  I know it seams convoluted ,  but it does work  ok ,  i will do a workflow tutorial at some point

anyway ..  heres the latest WIP pic

Latest WIP

Facebook

Just a quite note ....


Snatched have now started a facebook page,  Feel free to contribute etc


http://www.facebook.com/pages/Snatched-Apparel/267830709991884

Thankies


Bray

Gor and Mesh .... whats it all about.

Ok ....  I've been loitering about SL  since early 2006 so I've seen many changes during my time here,  from flexies,  all the way through to mesh. and on each generation theres the pro and con camps.  Most of SL has adopted Mesh with open arms,  I know that to the most part there are issues ,  with sizing  etc.  but ive heard some various funny statements especially recently So i thought i would put some of those to bed so to speak. Of course some of what im saying could be wrong ,  but from the information ive gleaned through various sources ..  this is what i know


Mesh is laggy.


Ok ..  this one I find the most preposterous statement ive ever heard of, lets look at how things work in SL,  
Second Life essentially is allready all mesh ,  even the humble prim consists of a mesh item if you press Ctrl Shift R  you can see what Sl sees,  even the SL Primitive Cube has 16 vertices per side and 18 triangle " faces" on that side

As you can see from this picture...  Its really a mesh ,  just one that your viewer is pre-instructed to display,  so LL says render a cube ..  your viewer pulls it out of stock so to speak.














Now ...  with this in mind,  the two VERY laggiest things in the render engine is Alpha channel and Flexies,  despite them being on the viewer side of things ,  they will slow you down significantly.
Of course those 250 sculptie boots you might be wearing  when you consider that just a single sculpty is 1024 vertices thats 256,000 vertices you have on just ONE FOOT!!! couple that with the flexy hair or flexy skirt/kilt you have one ...  and then you add an AO,  with various script times, Weapons that dont JUST fire an arrow,  they also can virtually fire themselves and generate reports for all manner of hits,  now that data floods a sim with internal messages on a channel.   You may tell people they have to have low personal script times yet you fill the sim with trees ,  poseballed furniture etc,  all of which have render values that possibly are through the roof ....  A mesh item thats 3 prims and 2000 vertices most definately is far less intesive on the render engine than that 256,000 vertices boot.   




Mesh doesnt fit right


OK ...  how can i put this nicely .........  when has ANY item of clothing ever fitted right in SL, even your default AV is a rather ugly mesh,  and the way we texture meshes is something called unwrapping,  the Sl av is unwrapped in such a way  that it can be laid flat so the average developer can texture it easily,  yet in order to do that,  a large amount of distortion is generated in places like the shoulders,  the crotch etc. Even if we put that aside,  we have gotten used to things being a certain leval of unacceptable tolerance. A perfect example is textures distorting,  or not matching up and sculpties poing through or into your body,  flexy skirts dropping through chair seats exposing your legs etc. We have gotten used to these problems as being part of the experience.  And through that we have had the anti flexies,.  the anti sculpties ...  and now the anti MESH ...  Mesh doesnt fix everything ,  it can create with less prims,  it can give better results for texturing ,  and moves when the AV moves ..  rather than the " wind tunnel " hair and skirt when you walk. 
Of course with the deformer project comming to light ..  their willb e more availability to recitify a lot of these issues,  but making 6 standard sizes isnt the way ,  as I make clothes ...  and 96% of my clothes FIT!!!  because i bothered to know my business,  and e.g Gorean men come into two factors ....  Hulk ...  and Bruce Banner,  Woman tend to be harder ..  as even though the looks untill recently were either of woman ...  or 12 year old girls,  there was always things like boobs and bums..  and after all ,  if we just do basic maths ..  if we have 5 sizes for bums and 5 sizes for boobs, and each item needs to be in relation to another,  it becomes so completely cost prohibitive, its virtually impossible to cater for everybody and some alteration has always been necessary,  yet we do try as you are important to us.


Conclusion.


Mesh is here to stay ,  that's for certain,  its not laggy ,  and groups like Primus have done extensive testing on its mesh weapons to show its usefulness and proving by filling a sim with mesh arrows with over 60 people firing ,  and still not touching the lag that prim arrows cause. We understand the concern and fear ,  but also understand that the fear maybe due to certain factors such as
1. I cant build in mesh,  so i will tell everyone its laggy to extend my business 
2. I heard somewhere its laggy .....  so it MUST be true
3.  Mesh doesn't fit my AV and i refuse to alter to suit.


I believe that unless we are all prepared to stand there ..  in simpsons skin,  Linden Hair,  no sculpties or flexies ..  nothing scripted etc and no alphas .. we will ultimately put away our fears and start enjoying those new facilities that are available to us.


Thanks for your time on this extensive read.


Bray

ARGG Me Hearties ..... ITS FINISHED!!!!!

Well me shipmates,  I can say finally that the Snatched Buccaneer is finally put out and is complete. What an outfit this was I can tell ya. 

Of course you can see the process from the previous post in our blog ..  its not been done lightly and is exceptionally well done even if i do say myself.  Its high detail and everything is done by us,  from textures  to Meshes through any scripting  and sculpting that's needed to be done. 

So what's included in the pack,  well there's three versions available

The Natural version.

The Natural version comes with pirate laced boots,  leather pants,  a sackcloth sash,  belt,  dirty laced cotton shirt,  chest belt, sabre ( not weaponised but will be available through SWS soon) and a traditional Tricorner Hat (in 3 sizes to suit hair use). I have placed a rudimentary hair and beard in the package,  I don't pertain to be a hair maker so its just a little extra so its a complete look  bar skin.  

The Red Version

I bet your thinking ...  wait ..  thats a blue shirt,  well yes it is ....  but a red Shirt would make you look like the pirate version of the flash ...  and like superman ..  what goes better together than blue with red pants eh?

Everything in the natural version is included in this version ,  just instead with red highlights and for those that are more into the popular culture pirating ..  STRIPEY PANTS

and finally ..........  The Blue Version

The Blue version is as highlighted with the other two ..  however where was red ...  is now blue,  and the shirt is black  rather than Blue. 

I know many of you may want to chop and change ,  but I didn't want to push everything in to one pack ....  but for those of you that subscribe to the blog ....  just IM me in world with proof of purchase and I will happily send you one of the alternative shirts note however this offer is a SUBSCRIBER benefit and not available to the general public.

I hope you like it ...  as I'm exceptional proud of this outfit and I think its turned out absolutely amazing. 

Final Note.......  I've tried my best to make sure this outfit reaches you in tip top condition with no temp textures etc. ...  sometimes they leak through ,  so if you find something that isn't quite right .....  don't live with it ..  tell me and every effort will be made to sort it out for you ( except sizing as alpha mask is supplied ).