Anatomy and Art

Happy Halloween everyone!

Enjoy this amazing pumpkin carving by artist Ray Villafane from Michigan.

Been working with lighting and textures lately in Maya.  Inevitable technical frustrations aside, some of this stuff is actually pretty cool.  This particular scene is lit (with the exception of two small low intensity red spot lights against the wall) completely with planes textured with a surface shader.  The surface shaders were turned up to white and then the value increased in the settings until the texture itself (and thus the plane) was actually projecting a nice white light.  The planes themselves have their primary visibility turned off within their render stats.  One is just in front of the glowing screen, and the other is behind the room to cast light as if it were coming from another room or area.

You’ll also notice the use of an ocean shader for the flooring.  I mean, who wouldn’t want a home entertainment den that was also it’s own fountain or pool?  This is just simple use of the ocean shader that comes with Maya.  You can pick your colors.  I grabbed reflective colors from around the room (particularly the movie playing, which by the way is the last frame of The Wizard of Oz – in case you were curious.)

Sometimes it’s fun doing things that aren’t anatomical at all.

This coming week marks the 2010 Armitage Lecture series at UIC. Last year we had special guest speaker, David Bolinsky talking about his career and in particular his recent work on The Inner Life of a Cell.  This year, we have special guest speaker Jane Hurd of Hurd Studios.  I had the pleasure of meeting Jane last summer at the 2010 AMI Conference where she was named president-elect of the association.  She seemed really cool, and I look forward to hearing more from her this week at our lecture series.

Joining Jane, we will also have presentations by Christine Young and Vanessa Ruiz (of streetanatomy.com), and then Dr. Luc Renambot the following day.  If you would like to join us, the lectures are free, and the exact schedule is as follows…

Wow, my first YouTube video to surpass 20,000 views, and it’s my educational piece about the sliding filament theory of muscle contractions from my Animation 1 class with Greg Blew. Neat. I just wish I had said adenosine right, instead of muddling the word into adenine as I’d thought it was supposed to be said at the time. Just the same, it seems to be helping people understand the process.

Last week I finally managed to export a playblast from Maya of my blood vessel project.  It’s nothing too impressive at this stage, but I’m liking the roller coaster ride feeling of it…

Here are a few stills to give you a better idea of what the final render will look like…

I recently decided to end the ride with the blood cells being pulled off course up into a blood clot. Seemed like a fitting end to the journey. But I’m currently having some difficulty with rendering images that use a jpeg in the color channel. I’m still not certain if this is a matter of my laptop’s capabillity or some limitation of the Maya Hardware renderer which has allowed me to do some other tricks with my textures that I really don’t want to give up. Anyway, here is a screen shot of that final clot area as it stands now.

I still need to model some fibrin in there to really say blood clot, but the rendering difficulties have made it very difficult to do anything lately. I’m trying to change up the texture of the vessel walls themselves as well. Fingers crossed for awesome results!

Don’t forget – Art showing this weekend!

http://www.weburnchicago.com/

This right here has been my primary obsession of late.  I get one area looking decent and I notice another where the polygons are all a mess.  Today the main area of concern has been the teeth.

Must finish.

Must complete animation.

Must graduate.

Well, I’m doing it again!  It’s time to show some paintings!

This time I’ll be showing with We Burn Chicago!  Local Chicagoans, please do come and check out some fine work from your local burners.

I’ll personally be showing these paintings and more!

Come find us at the Morning Glory Gallery at 571 W. 18th, 1R, Chicago, IL 60616!

We’ll be there Saturday, October 16th and Sunday, October 17th.

Sometime back, we were shown a brochure in the clinic entitled “Your Silicone Prosthesis and It’s Care.”  It was clearly made a long time ago, and it was put forth that maybe someone would take on re-doing this brochure.  I started to take on the project, but the scope of what was wanted changed, and it was decided to leave things as is for now.  Since I’d already put in the effort of rewriting it I wanted to go ahead and share those words here.  At some point I’d like to go ahead and finish with the design despite the change in plans at our own clinic and make it available as either a poster or downloadable brochure for anyone to use across any clinic.  In the meantime, this is just the content, and perhaps some of you reading will have suggestions about how to make it better before I move into the design aspect.

**note – The title “Your Silicone Prosthesis and Its Care” comes directly from the original brochure.**

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Your Silicone Prosthesis and It’s Care

What is a silicone prosthesis?
A silicone prosthesis is a silicone replacement for a missing, underdeveloped, or disfigured body part.  Silicone itself is an inert synthetic compound.  It is used widely across a variety of industries including cookware, toys, and medicine.  We use it in anaplastology because of it’s flexibility, durability, lightweightness, and capacity for color blending and translucency.

How long can I expect my prosthesis to last?
Wear and tear on a prosthesis is to be expected.  Colors will change over time, silicone will tear, and the fit may even change, especially in growing children. In general, one can expect a silicone prosthesis to last one to three years.  This estimate is of course greatly impacted by the environment to which the prosthesis is exposed.

Contributing factors
There are a number of contributing factors to how quickly a prosthesis will degrade.  Sun exposure is one. As with most things, the sun can fade the coloring of your prosthesis.  Outdoor wear in general can be a problem if you are in particularly dusty or grimy places.  Smoke filled rooms are also problematic, as is smoking in general.  Over time the smoke will stain the prosthesis.  Around children or animals it is generally advised that you exercise caution in where you leave your prosthesis when you are not wearing it.

General Care
Attention to cleaning and storage (when you are not wearing it) of your prosthesis will help extend the amount of time between replacements.  Your prosthesis should be taken off every night before bed and washed by hand with mild soap and warm water..  When not in use, store your prosthesis away from heat and sunlight.  Avoid unnecessary handling, and airtight containers.

The Attachment Site
Whether your prosthesis is retained with adhesive, by implants, or anatomically, special care must be taken in cleaning the attachment site on the prosthesis as well as the skin around where the prosthesis sits.

An adhesive retained prosthesis requires careful removal of the adhesive from both the prosthesis and the supporting skin.

An implant-retained prosthesis requires careful cleaning around the metal of the prosthesis, and also the attachment site where it connects to you.  A solution of saline and hydrogen peroxide is advised for cleaning the skin around protruding abutments.

An anatomically retained prosthesis simply requires general cleaning of both the prosthesis and skin.

Regardless of the type of attachment, you should always pay attention to the surrounding skin and report any changes to your doctor or anaplastologist.  If you have any questions regarding proper care for your prosthesis please do not hesitate to ask your anaplastologist.