Sarcasm is Magenta

Moar stuff

2009-10-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

First up is the intro to my demo reel. Not rendered yet, but here is a playblast. The animation is still a little wonky, But with the camera shakes, I don't think it will be super noticeable. Ignore the placeholder meshes, they will be replaced with my weapons and shield.

Also attached is the inspiration for the whole piece from EA Mythic's Warhammer Online.

I also took Bryan's advice and tweaked my blend heads. I re-did the lighting so that much more detail is visible and tweaked the material pretty heavily for more of a clay texture. Sadly the badass decimation plug-in doesn't work for blend shapes, since it re-topologizes based on detail. I wish I would have known about that plug-in earlier, I've been using a workaround through 3dsMax that was kind of a pain.

Blend Heads Finished Kinda!!!

2009-10-16T16:42:00.001-07:00

Here is the draft render (no background yet) for the blend heads. I ended up having to use the level 4 division out of zbrush, anything higher would crash any available computer. I think enough detail is preserved that making really clean normal/disp maps are probably counter productive.
Custom mental ray shader/lighting setup.

Portfolio Crunch: Now with fiber!

2009-10-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

So this Wednesday is the start of what will be the most grueling 10 week crunch I have experienced thus far, and something tells me it will be only the first of many to come.

Up first are some more busts for the blend shape thingy. I'm re-posting the fish-girl and chupacabra-Anubis guy in video form. As well as the last 3 (for now) heads: a mob boss, the basic planes of the face, and the start of a toddler. Not sure if I like the pattern on the fish girl's head...

And after that are the base mesh of my coat of arms: 2-hand orc blade, pump action grenade launcher, and a shield with my logo in place of the Triforce.

SIEGE was this past weekend and I got some really great input on my portfolio stuff, and some very honest criticisms of the Nightmare tower level that I've been doing with Yusuke and Aaron. So one of the many tasks next quarter is to retool most of the assets and textures to make them really pop and actually look next-gen.

Update:
I did some testing in maya just to see how exactly I was gonna do the animated blending of one head to another. So i ended up just using a blend color node in hypershade to blend between one normal map to another (just color in this demo). I initially tried doing really clever stuff with animated gifs, but turns out you can just key the blender attribute :P

Only small snag is that the blender node only has 2 blend targets, I have like 8 heads. So I will have to render each section separately.

Game Jam 2009

2009-09-23T17:29:00.000-07:00

So, last weekend was game jam, a 48 hour contest between groups of students from AIA and SPSU to see who could make the best game. All assets, programming, and even game ideas had to be made within the 48 hours.

So my contribution to H.E.A.T. (Hyper Extreme Attack Tanks, lol) was to model 4 tanks, each with its own set of stats. The game itself is sort of a mash-up between Joust, Blaster Master, and Smash Bros. First day was spent on modeling, second day was for title screen and other junk.

Tank 1 is the Slug. Average build, basically the human in D&D terms, ho-hum.
Tank 2 is the Heavy. Obviously has higher attack and defense, but really low jump and speed. Also fire rate is pretty bad.

Tank 3 is the Bike. This one has the lowest attack and the least amount of armor, but it's also the fastest and has really fast fire rate.
Tank 4 is the Pider. Look up Baman and Piderman. Basically average, but with really great jump ability.

some creature bust WIP

2009-09-17T18:46:00.000-07:00

Probably will leave these alone for a little while, gotta go make furniture now!

Bust turn arounds

2009-09-10T18:08:00.000-07:00

Some busts that I have been working on in very tiny increments. I will post the level that me Yusuke and Aaron have been busting our butts on for the past quarter. But for now I am goin to catch up on sleeeeep. Also, I'm calling the Goya thing done for now.

What does a wraith, a horse and a possesed statue have in common?

2009-08-07T20:50:00.000-07:00

They are almost done! Or at least they are progressing along.

So, some more work on the horse. Really trying to get a better understanding of it's anatomy. Once you realize what you're looking at, it's odd how similar their anatomy is to ours.

And the wraith. Textures are mostly done, just got a couple seems to play with. I have been experimenting with ambient and alpha maps on his skin and cloak respectively. I would post actual renders but...

THAT is what maya is giving me right now. The normal map must be completely off the scale. I can either tweak some stuff in maya or I may just render him in unreal. Me, Yusuke, and Aaron are putting together a psychological thriller horror level and I have a feeling he will fit in just great.

Speaking of which we have a segemnt similar to bioshock where when you turn your back, the statues move around. So this is them so far. Gonna clean em up a bit and try to find a plaster matcap (or maybe make one). If not he might be bronze or stone.

Also, the goya sculpt will be getting some more attention now that the wraith and horse are finishing up! WOO!

updaaaaates

2009-07-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

Some stuff I've been working on. Nazgul is nearing completion now that if figured out the problem with the uv's. Looking pretty sweet if I do say so myself.

Nazgul's horse. Just making it a regular horse to begin with. Later it will be emaciated, undead, and posed. Maybe give it that broken back thing that some horses get.
with hair planes and such

starting some busts to be put into a blend shape animation (good example here at 2:30) . I plan on doing several by graduation, so I'm trying to spend under 10 hours each. nearing 5 on this one.reference from good old 3d.sk

Finish Him!

2009-07-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

I am seriously sick of messing with this nazgul guy. I never get to spend a big chunk of time on him so It ended up getting spaced out over like 2 quarters. He WILL BE DONE in less than 2 weeks, including most of his horse!!!!!! Beginnings of texturing. I tried reapplying normals, texture etc to lowest poly mesh (around 5k) looks crummy, so i will probably just use a higher subdivision, or crunch a higher one or somthing.

Also his teeth are glowy because of matcap and reversed normals, and he will be MUCH paler.

"AAAAAaaaaaarrrgggghhhhh!! Fear me and my horrible UV seams!!!"

Colossal again

2009-06-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

So, Bryan Wynia's concepts blew my mind so I started doodling around with a Shadow of the Colossus creature. Just starting, but I think I will do either humanoid or a dragon thing.

update

2009-06-10T11:15:00.000-07:00

just an update on goya

After I finish up a few things, I am going to do a really high poly coat of arms. Except it's gonna be a gun, an axe, and a shield in front. Now to decide which to use. I want to do a preexisting gun, a warhammer axe, and the legend of zelda shield. I need some detailed inorganic props for my portfolio for some diversity, and I thought this would be a good way to make some very unrelated objects and comp them together.
Here are some of the things I was thinking about using as reference:

Not too sure about the shield, but I can't really think of any other recognizable sheild other than captain america's, but his is a little too simple. Here is how I'm going to have them positioned:
Any suggestions are welcome as always!

Anatomical sculpture

2009-06-04T22:05:00.000-07:00

This piece has been done for some 2 months now and I finally had access to a decent camera so I took a few pictures. Tomorrow I will post fliers at the school to see if any photography students would like to help me light and shoot this at a better quality, cuz right now.... ugh....

Anyways, pics should be good enough to get the idea. I'm starting another one, a cartoon character. I hope to be done before next quarter starts up. Should be a much less intensive undertaking, less detail, more exaggeration. WAAAAAY MOAR.

Big thanks to Elio Guevara, Budowick and Bryan Wynia for helping me out on this, the anatomical knowledge i gained from this exercise has been far more useful than I could have imagined.

MOAR

2009-06-04T03:37:00.000-07:00

Trying like hell to finish this thing soon. Next is the hands and feet, and a few other areas need tweaking. Namely trapezius, forearm, knees, and stuff. Can't wait to texture this guy.

Goya

2009-05-21T18:47:00.000-07:00

edit: a little more work on it

Final project for mythology class. Only about 2 more weeks to mess with it, for the class anyways so any comments or anything are super welcome as always.

Bird

2009-05-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

Turnaround video. I plan on texturing this later.

Dominance war

2009-05-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

Finally had some time to mess with this some more. The hideous boots will be all but hidden, so i spent no time on them. Now the texture map....

also, the cloth will be mostly transparent/ripped up

Colossal

2009-05-07T16:12:00.000-07:00

I was bumming around the internet the other day, week, i dunno, but i found this. ....holy crap....

It was done by, not one (phew),but a group of a few students at the Vancouver Film School, the credits are tough to read though. So anyways, no I have been drawing nothing but Shadow of the colossus, panzer dragoon orta, howl's moving castle, and legend of legaia inspire creatures. I'll post some silhouettes later.

Tiki

2009-05-06T11:12:00.000-07:00

For mythology I am doing a little presentation on tiki's so, here is my visual aid!

Edit: Forgot to mention, the first matcap I made after looking at about a million of em and not finding the one that I wanted. The other 3 were just some really cool ones I found. The first is based on one of sathe's bronze matcaps, and the next three were made by mrpeculiar, Erklaerbar, and klein respectively.

I really enjoyed making the matcap, I think I will do more!!

Stymphalian birds

2009-04-22T11:24:00.000-07:00

Modeling is basically finished, just playing with some rendering options and stuff like that. I will unwrap and texture a few pieces, but most of it will be just shaders. Tiki head soon!!

DW4 Update

2009-04-16T20:01:00.000-07:00

Forum link!

Dominance war is going pretty slow, BUT I SHALL FINISH!!! The clothes will be all but see through, especially in the back, and he will have snarly broken little teeth and some wispy old, dead guy hair. The cloth and hair will be made wispy and tattered with alpha map. PLUS, he will be glowing from inside his chest cavity like a puffer fish lantern. Hopefully bringing in the teeth and eyes will make him look less like he is sneezing. And then onto the horse...

I'm also working on a steam punk robot bird (1/2 done), a tiki head (more like 1/3 done), and pretty soon I'll be starting some low poly environment stuff. After THAT I'm doing a Goya/Rodin homage by recreating Goya's "Saturn devouring his children" but with a rough Rodin sculpture style. This is gonna be a super busy quarter, but I tend to do best with pressure, so here goes!!

Massive dump

2009-03-23T05:45:00.000-07:00

It's the end of the quarter so, finally here is some stuff:

First up is the rhino. Really brilliant concept by Chi Duong, I was really glad I finnaly got a chance to model one of her super cute designs. Kind of a Madagascar style, not textured yet. To make it fit the style mroe, I think I may add the concentric nose swirl thing they all have.

Next is the robot. Started it for a contest but i ended up not getting anywhere near done. I do plan to go ahead and finish it. I will do a polished new robot and a battered old rusty robot with the same mesh to practice different texture stuff.

concept. I plan on building most of the background as well.

Transformation:
"final" render. I need to drop the horns, they were there to help it fit the contest better, but they don't aid the design much.

And this started as a project for a mythology class as a nazgul from lord of the rings. However I am going to push the design much further to make it more interesting. I plan on making him look as though he is a hollow dried skin stretched over bones, with a glow from inside.

concept (very much inspired by Warhammer, I need to stray away from this a bit)

low poly mesh

high res, first zbrush pass

Horse mesh with poly plains for the hair. Here is what I plan to do there.

I also finished my anatomy sculpture, just need to take some pictures. It came out pretty nice, but the main thing is my anatomical knowledge skyrocketed with that thing. I thought I knew some anatomy before, but now it is much more solid.

mini update

2009-02-10T14:30:00.001-08:00

Been a while since i took the other pics. I thought I would have access to a better camera but, no such luck.The arms are still really stuff and the angle is making stuff look weird. Any critique is more than welcome.

And now for some stats to take your mind off things....

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5 hours sculpt

2009-01-31T21:59:00.000-08:00

Challenge 13 over at 3d Total was Fear. The provided base mesh was two cubes, one for the head, another for the blindfold.Some other entries were spiders, sharks, drowning, etc. I picked blindness, both figurative and literal. The inability to see the future, the fear of the unknown. And the more literal, the fear of the dark or loss of sight. One of my biggest fears is losing my ability to see, and therefore create anymore art.

p.s. the santa i did earlier got 3rd place. Woo, free book!

New Sculpture

2009-01-27T09:52:00.000-08:00

I started a sculpture using chavant nsp and so far, its pretty awesome.

Here is the model I am using, from 3dsk.

and here is the armature:

and my current progress:

J-0b5

2009-01-16T20:15:00.000-08:00

Finally got around to doing an actual drawing of the robot I have already started modeling. I'll post the sketches and stuff later.

The basic idea is the robot is powered by a captured forest spirit. I wrote a ridiculously long description/explanation for the contest over on 3dTotal. http://forums.3dtotal.com/showthread.php?t=64414

Feel free to check it out and give me some pointers.