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About Toby

Toby Liad started life after having observed plenty of daily art projects online and having done a few shortlived ones. Problem was that just drawing, painting, modeling, rendering or creating textures wasn’t enough. Toby allows for flexing both art and coding muscles at the same time.

Daily renders by the likes of @beeple are fascinating in how they are simultaneously incredible art but also meaningless instant-gratification eye candy. I’m curious to see how far both sides of this double-edged sword can be pushed by applying some @archillect-style automation of curation.


Future

I’m often thinking about new stuff for Toby. Some ideas are easy and can be put into practice right away, others might require re-engineering the pipeline so I’m trying to be a bit careful about how much extra work I cause myself.

Some examples of ideas I’m toying with:
- Simulations. Still frame renders of the result of some fracture/softbody/growth thing or similar.
- Post FX on the renders. Bloom, glare & aberrate ALL THE THINGS!
- Using assets much more. Either modeling a bunch of stuff and throwing it in or incorporating pre-made models from Turbosquid or maybe some of you might be interested in sending models to use in the scenes.
- Videos/GIFs. Not near future, rendering animations is too much effort for now.
- Twitch stream was briefly tested already, fun idea but non-essential so it will have to wait.
- Popularity feedback loop on social media. Trying to algorithmically figure out which renders people like most and why and create more of that.

If you have a scene idea for Toby, feel free to holla @tobyliad on Twitter: “Hey @tobyliad, I think you should have >>>more dolphins<<< in your renders!” and so on. DMs are now open too if you don’t want to be public about it.

FAQ

Q: Where are the newest renders?
A:
Everything gets posted on Twitter first.

Q: Where else can I find TOBY besides Twitter and tobyliad.com?
A:
There is also an Instagram account, but there’s nothing substantial there yet. I’d be happy if I can get automatic render uploads working there without getting banned.

Q: What brushes do you use?
A:
Mostly Houdini and Python.

Q: Do you make all models yourself?
A:
No, I use stock & other assets as well. See bottom of this page for details.

Q: Thought about prints/merch?
A:
Sure, those could be offered later. Right now everything is being rendered at 720x720, which isn’t very print friendly, but a copy of the scenes is being saved so that they could be dug up for higher-resolution re-renders.

Q: I would like to tell you something. How?
A:
Just @ me on Twitter.

Q: I would like to privately tell you something. How?
A:
Twitter DMs (open) or tobyliad@gmail.com.

Q: How do I stay updated on the development of TOBY?
A:
Go to Twitter and search for: “-#hourlyrender from:tobyliad” (<– or just click that) and select the Latest tab (see image below).
NOTE: This is probably not working for anyone but me yet! Twitter filters search visibility for spam-like accounts like this one. I’m confident it can be solved though, if Archillect appears in searches Toby can too. Stay tuned!

About Page Twitter Search Example

Assets & Licensing

The renders sometimes feature the following models made by other creators who offered them for download under the CC Attribution 4.0 license on Sketchfab:

apollyonxhttps://sketchfab.com/models/882b63b4dee749509a1798634a81a860
Bohdan Lvovhttps://sketchfab.com/models/9a70978c84034529a5c9d2874b75c7ec
Loïc Huethttps://sketchfab.com/models/ed00cf5ea92741eab1d9ce1371681618
Bohdan Lvovhttps://sketchfab.com/models/95537929b1c04dc5a3d0b8fdc5310ee1
CIMtech Inc.https://sketchfab.com/models/ca49ab1ebfe64ca0a241e0b1fe82efa0
Bohdan Lvovhttps://sketchfab.com/models/280863886fee409ab3c8168f07caa89f
Oleksandr Zymohliadhttps://sketchfab.com/models/3cee8ada5d99468cbc93ded83b3ca70a
andreehttps://sketchfab.com/models/914462422fc4471a8139fdc50ab70c38
Bohdan Lvovhttps://sketchfab.com/models/d24d19021c724c3a9134eebcb76b0e0f
lumoize https://sketchfab.com/models/a2210a0ba6834141af3bf83ee1e03f07
Demeter Dzadikhttps://sketchfab.com/models/6729c5dfd98248e3bc9282b8f1d3a48f8
FelixBDesignhttps://sketchfab.com/models/8e8fd14f7f1546b9bcf2f5cfee5c116c
Loïc Huethttps://sketchfab.com/models/e2b64f5031fa45e8be661a89baeae3f0
Comrade1280 https://sketchfab.com/models/a361c0f7b7e041fc8f3437a5cbec681a
Loïc Norgeothttps://sketchfab.com/models/2938b8237531482d9750ce2717fbe099
lumoizehttps://sketchfab.com/models/948b689301f44a19b8502d27623948b1
Francesco Coldesinahttps://sketchfab.com/models/81ad7a1c00834749a5befbbd56eb920a
Geoffrey Marchalhttps://sketchfab.com/models/7b11a5d9e69b4ba98cb2da3d799fd9eb
Vincent Garnier / Miledanhttps://sketchfab.com/models/e5d2e3431fff45d1ba5c1fcd77d95fb2
artssionatehttps://sketchfab.com/models/9f79f47d9b664f238bd7eac5781a5ed0
katykatehttps://sketchfab.com/models/dd939d6e5f5d478ead53622ddaa120c7
Bohdan Lvovhttps://sketchfab.com/models/b3d59ec1714542f49cc6a879b2c85c06
lumoizehttps://sketchfab.com/models/c6a0b51f52934a739fae43d734d099ec
FelixBDesignhttps://sketchfab.com/models/8ffb084d2bfa4cb18f9306865b4a5fd2