Over the past few days I’ve been tinkering with some of the new texture mapping tools in FormZ, and I’ve got to say that having the ability to place textures “live” in a 3d viewport is a huge help when it comes to composing a scene. In FormZ 6, the texture mapping tool was completely separate from the modeling windows and testing placements meant running test renders over and over again until the image map was positioned correctly.
It was a very time-consuming and clumsy process, so I ended up placing textures in Photoshop more often than not. Maya (my other favorite modeling software) is much better when it comes to texture mapping, but the process is a lot more complex and not as intuitive as doing the same thing in FormZ 8.
For testing purposes, I built a simple 3d model of a white coffee cup and played with different ways of placing the Starbucks logo on it live in the modeling windows. No, these aren’t the most exciting renderings I’ve ever done, but that wasn’t the point – I consider this set of Starbucks logo renderings to be more of a test than anything else. Perhaps I’ll create a full set of images with 3d Starbucks logos in the future if there seems to be enough demand, but for now, this is it.
Exactly why I chose to do this experiment with the Starbucks logo is interesting, as I’m not a coffee drinker at all. I do like the smell of it (quite a lot actually) but I just can’t stand the taste. My wife, on the other hand, can’t get enough and I’m convinced that she alone is keeping that company in business.
Anyway, our refrigerator and kitchen is overflowing in white paper cups from Peet’s Coffee and Starbucks, so I thought it would be fun to create some illustrations that depict her crazy addiction to coffee.
