prospector
05-18-2003, 12:10 PM
Thought I would start this to see what everyone uses around the house or work area to help them with LW in any capacity, so that others may use them to create a better working inviroment.
Here's what I use to help.
I have one of those spice holders that sit on a table that go around and around to get to the right spice or catsup, a little turntable type of thingy.
then I glued a circular protractor (one of those geeky things that are marked off in degrees of circumfress) to the top (centered).
I use that to sit on the desk and turn objects a precise amount and use my digital camera (a wall Mart 29.00 dollar cheapy) to photograph for textures and modeler background pics. AND if you use it to model, ya can turn the table to say 15 degrees model a section, UV that section, rotate it back 15 degrees in modeler, it will line up with other parts of the model that were different degrees, ya get the pic as a texture from the correct angle every time :D .And if ya want to model humans or anything like that, ya can take a Barbie doll, make 1 leg go straight out and up as far as possable to get out of the way, use candle wax and (Glue her to the turntable...CENTERED) and rotate and take pics every 20 degrees, use as background, make a spline drawing of edges of leg, and continue all around leg,(remembering to rotate the spline the same amount of degrees each time), now you have a perfectly splined leg that you connect at top and bottem, patch and ya get a pretty precise leg, do same for body and head..:D
As the camera is mounted on a tripod, I get the same distance and angle every time. (no hand shake and movement :cool: )
And a Barstool with the same setup (protractor) so that when someone sits on it, I can get precise pics for textures (camera mounted on bigger tripod tho), no camera movement or person movement.
And at a yard sale I picked up some track lights (set of 5) for 3 bucks that I removed from track and wired individually and set on the adjustable camera tripods (12.99 at wall mart) with 10 ft extention cords (.99 at wall mart) and now have adjustable studio lights for that perfect lighting with different wattage and different shades of color bulbs :D
So what else is out there that might help everyone out ????
Get those ideas flowing :)
Here's what I use to help.
I have one of those spice holders that sit on a table that go around and around to get to the right spice or catsup, a little turntable type of thingy.
then I glued a circular protractor (one of those geeky things that are marked off in degrees of circumfress) to the top (centered).
I use that to sit on the desk and turn objects a precise amount and use my digital camera (a wall Mart 29.00 dollar cheapy) to photograph for textures and modeler background pics. AND if you use it to model, ya can turn the table to say 15 degrees model a section, UV that section, rotate it back 15 degrees in modeler, it will line up with other parts of the model that were different degrees, ya get the pic as a texture from the correct angle every time :D .And if ya want to model humans or anything like that, ya can take a Barbie doll, make 1 leg go straight out and up as far as possable to get out of the way, use candle wax and (Glue her to the turntable...CENTERED) and rotate and take pics every 20 degrees, use as background, make a spline drawing of edges of leg, and continue all around leg,(remembering to rotate the spline the same amount of degrees each time), now you have a perfectly splined leg that you connect at top and bottem, patch and ya get a pretty precise leg, do same for body and head..:D
As the camera is mounted on a tripod, I get the same distance and angle every time. (no hand shake and movement :cool: )
And a Barstool with the same setup (protractor) so that when someone sits on it, I can get precise pics for textures (camera mounted on bigger tripod tho), no camera movement or person movement.
And at a yard sale I picked up some track lights (set of 5) for 3 bucks that I removed from track and wired individually and set on the adjustable camera tripods (12.99 at wall mart) with 10 ft extention cords (.99 at wall mart) and now have adjustable studio lights for that perfect lighting with different wattage and different shades of color bulbs :D
So what else is out there that might help everyone out ????
Get those ideas flowing :)