I’ve started Nodevember in 2019, on Blender Shaders. And this event has totally changed my way of creating.
Thanks to the nodes approach, my fear of code disappeared. I’ve become more and more confident to explore things I though definitely out of my reach.
I’ve even applied to my fav Tokyo company (I’ve always though I was not skilled enough to have at least an interview there). I’ve meet one of my digital creative hero. And even if finally nothing has happened… thanks to all of these I’ve learned so much in 2020 ! Like the BluePrints on Unreal Engine, Substance Designer.
I’ve started CryptoArt/NFT this year. I don’t want to debate about how good or bad it is here. The fact is, when I’ve tried to share 3D sculpture, I was somehow frustrated on the uploaded result : materials are limited, impossible to import procedural texture without baking them, impossible to animate textures and light. We are in 2021, surrounded by so much wonderful open source libraries, I wanted more for this sharing experience. I’ve ended up on HicetNunc thanks to the ability of minting code (and to my knowledge this is the only PoS platform able to do this.)
I’ve quickly stop UE or Unity, because I think it’s too heavy for web. I’ve tried Spline Design, based on ThreeJs, but I felt limited with my needs (sounds integration for exemple.). I’ve tried and studied BabylonJs, ThreeJs directly (3D librairies that help to display and interact with 3D on the web. )
But again, my low ability to “speak” code has limited my ability to create things and made me frustrated. By the way it’s funny to think how close language of code is -for my brain- close to… a spoken language! Like my Japanese skills, I’m more and more confident to read it, listen it, but I’m not able to speak more than about 10 percent from what I know. Same brain “cables”?
So, to go back to 3D, I don’t remember how I’ve found it but… I’ve crossed the path of PolygonJS, a “node-based 3D Webgl engine”.
And again…Mind blowing experience.The node base’s magic is here.
I’ve read some info on their GitHub, I watch some tuto on their Youtube. I’ve tested the free version.Ohlala the potential seems to be so huge! I’ve suddenly though “I will be able to make a 3D realtime interactive scene and shared it with Mama, directly on her phone thanks to a simple weblink”.In reality, it’s not that simple.(Mama doesn’t really mind of 3D realtime interactive scene.) More seriously PolygonJs is still young, there are still some bugs, some UI features are not live, the interface could be improved. But Guillaume, developper of this engine is really active, and has kindly helped me countless times! PolygonJs is inspired by Houdini and mainly based on ThreeJs and is up to date with their updates (for exemple the last update of PolygonJs has added among other features the refraction / thickness ).
In my point of view this node-based Webgl engine is the future 🙂
That’s why, I’ve chosen to do my Nodevember2021 experiences only with PolygonJs this year.
The Official 2021 prompt list was really interesting imho : 15 prompts, global and open themes.
Last year due to my personal and professional situations I was not really free, I’ve felt overwhelmed and frustrated by the number of prompts. Even if I’m quite happy of what I’ve learned and with some of my Substance Designer only Nodevember 2020 collection, I think if I could have spent more time I would have better results, less stress and more fun. I did not finish the list happily like today, I was just… relieved that it has eventually finished. This year, I’ve put highlight on fun and experiments. When I’m seeing my Nodevember 2021 full collection, I like the consistency, the pure colors and the global post processing effects. Thank you Nodevember, PolygonJS and ThreeJS Teams!
I’m so happy of the learning process, and I have a lot of materials and elements that I can reuse and improve for future projects.
Form – Days 1 to 10
3 Sided
A simple 3 sided “pyramid” with some interactions.
You can turn around and when you move the mouse from left to right, the RGB specter is divided.
4 Sided
An infinite 4 sided tunnel, probably inspired by my first screensavers on Windows95…
5 Sided
After testing the mouse interaction, I wanted to try the webcam as an input.
After doing it I think my inspiration is connected to The Tree Cabalerros haha (soon I think I will try to do a Seaman-like artwork with this input :D.)
6 Sided
I was directly inspired by cliches like honeycomb or France. Good for you, I’ve quickly stop to think about my hexagonal baguette, with wine and camembert.
I’ve finally chosen to create a “digital” honeycomb. A noise node is applied to the digital honey position, and the pointer change the level of it.
Rounded
An infinite tunnel with a sphere following the mouse, probably inspired by Phantasy Star Online loading screen.
Colors – Days 11 to 20
Red
“Lava” was the first prompt in 2019, I was happy to try it on PolygonJs. We are in the middle of a lava field, Zelda OOT for the mood thanks to the fog.
The mouse is tracing a lava path on the soil.
Green
After the Lava, it was quite logical to continue with element, so grass for green. The mouse pointer can be use to scatter the grass.
Blue
Simple scene, the moon is stuck to the mouse, the water is composed mainly by a noise node. Probably a bit inspired by Monkey Island on this one.
Black
I wanted to pair black and white prompts, by their additive and substractive color synthesis. When we move the cursor on the left black is divided to cyan, yellow and magenta (CMJK). There is a subtle noise node to give a dark matter effect on the main sphere.
White
When we move the cursor on the left white is divided to red green and blue. There is a noise node to give a “shiny sun” effect on the main sphere.
Scale – Days 21 to 30
Tiny
I’ve chosen to work this theme with ocean creatures’s scale. All procedural, no texture or modeling imported. Let’s start with Krill.
Small
Fish, actually based on a previous artwork for the material, the challenge was to recreate a basic fish with nodes.
Medium
Probably my favorite one. The Jellyfish
Large
Like all the other entries I’ve used the world position map to get basics colors, then I’ve add some value to get this aggressive red.
Huge
Soft and slow movements, cold colors, the whale is so huge that we can’t really see the whole animal.
More about PolygonJs on:
More about Nodevember:
Why am I minting my Nodevember prompts on HicEtNunc?
I’m still figuring out my relationship with NFT and Crypto art world.
If I put aside the possibility of copy / fake account / people who are just here for money, for me it’s currently one of the good way to build a “proof of trust”/“proof of support” between artists and supporters/collectors.
It’s more than a “like” or a “share” on a social network, I can see this as a crypto tips. I have chosen to mint my Nodevember prompts for a quite low price compared to some of unique edition artworks (every prompt as 30 editions, for 0.5 xtz, with 15% commission. ). I hope selling crypto art will help me in to spend more time on my own creations and less time on my daytime job. To all my collectors, a big thank you, even a tiny transaction really boost my motivation, to create and to go deeper artistically and technically in my digital creation.