This the final render I did for the cgtalk Lighting Challenge. It was a film noir theme. So I went for a render with loads of black, skewered angle, deep shadows. Nothing fancy as most of these films were made like this. To me it feels like old film so I am happy with that. Doing a render these days its hard to turn off all the fancy new rendering tricks like final gathering and occlusions, but I wanted this to look old. Those elements are in this render , just not obviously.Didnt go nuts with texturing, wanted to focus on the the lighting and composition. On a downside I never quite got the body on the ground right. Will do some touchups in the future.
Did alot of layers in the end. Found this to be the fastest way to get all the elements working. And I could use Mental Ray for some layers and software for others.
Right, finally got this done. This was a milestone in the production. Set all the passes up! And have organized all the render layers in Maya. Then into After Effects and started to sort out any post work, such as motion blur(Real Smart for this, great plugin) A rain plugin and some lightrays. Alot of work too with the lights in After Effects. This is very handy, and helps to flesh out a shot, add a highlight, change the ambience. Changed the edit in the housem before you didnt see why he was scared, so I have added a few shots to deal with that. Much clearer. So now that is the last change. Other reasons for doing the production is to try to evaulate the work remaining. I have done my first pass on the lighting, no I can see what worked and elements that need more work. Colour pallete, shot consistancy. Even just the rendering. The same lighting set up might not work for all shot. The same rendering setting might not work. Shots inside the house I am starting to like. Different tints on the occlusion pass help to change the ambience. The other major factor was the fur. I really need to see how the fur behaved and how it rendered. Which settings work, etc. Fur renders change depending on the distance to the camera, so fur would need to be adjusted - made thicker and amount decreased. All pretty obvious, just has to be sorted. I didnt have the fur on the character until most of the animatic was done, so I didnt bother with any test. This is my test, and this way I can fine tune my renders and animation to suit. Dad fur is very poor, have alot to do, I am hoping that is just a rigging problem primarily, and then I tune up the fur. Other thing I have had trouble sorting is the flicker on the fur and getting the nicest settings here. Imposable to see in this movie, its rude and is high on my list to fix. Next up is a breakdown for me regarding fixes. Will show the animation to some collegues, and get feedback. Get the octo rigged, fix the dad and kids rigging. Render it all again. Do the final grade on it.
This character is from Strontium Dog. Darkus and his Howlers. Its by one of my favourite comic artists, Carlos Ezquerra. I Love this character, very much a creep. I have been doing lots of work on the one project lately, I need to do something else. So will make this guy with maya, Z brush, maya work flow. And with lots of fur, SSS etc. Looking to get a lot of character and narrative in a single render.
For this series of interior shots, I am working with the colour pallete. Strange purple fill, will pinkish key light. Trying to avoid the conventional green/yellow horror film setup.
These renders are getting somewhere. They are un-textured so far. The Kid has his textures. I have a light beam plug in After Effects to help with the feel. Gives a nice beam, rays across the scene.
For the shot with the running on beach, I have been trying out a rain plugin in AE. Its getting there, but I am not that happy with it yet. Ocean is looking cool and I like the feel of it. All of the pieces are without a grade so far.
The monstors, or octos, are needing alot of work Still. I have some displacement maps from Nik, but I have tried to not use them, might not be able to render them.I have eight of so of them in some shots! But I think I will try to this maybe in in Maya 2008, they dont look that hot right now. Using Sub surface scattering, a bump pass and shadow pass on them at the moment.
Fur in the close up shot is starting to look good. Will have to change the tip opacity and the base width. At this stage of the production I am still trying to get all the elements together so I can get a hard look at the progress.
Here are some higher rez stills from the latest work in progress. Have been rendering with mental ray, Maya 8.5. For the water I have used an ocean sample, tweaked it and lit it. Had not done the lighting of an ocean before, works really nicely. Lot of work in After Effects. Layering up of the skies, blooms, light rays, tinting of the scene. Try for a early morning feel. The projects is only 2.50 min long so I am using a kind of accelerated time. Will get from early morning, to lunch, dusk, then the next morning.
Here is the dad turnaround,with my first pass on the fur and vest. I have some problems with the ears to fix. I think the unwrapping is not quite right and is messing the ears up. I have to finish off the vest. Its just the high poly from Z brush so far. I like what I have got so far out of it so will come back to it. Now I have the characters fur I can start to test out lighting and animation with it. I still have the octo to go....
On another tack here. Wanted to rave about this ipod stereo from Vers Audio www.versaudio.com/ Came across this product in a Dwell magazine. Had been looking for years for a cool looking, nice sounding ipod stereo... with a remote. There aint that many around, some get great reviews, like the altec lansing, but hey do you want to put that ugly thing in your lounge!? The system from Vers is awsome, look at it, its beautiful, and it has a remote. The sound is sweet, but I am not one of those that spends much time talking about how great his ears are, and I dont care much. If it sounds good I am happy and I more that happy with this one. The service was excellent, maybe the best I have ever had on online. Fast nice pro service.
On many levels this fits the bill and I think you would be hard pressed to find another system that is better at looks, price, service and sound quality. And did I mention that it has a remote? One niggle, be nice if the remote was finished with the same lovely wood as the unit. Natch.
Being working on the characters lately. Re-did the body and the hands and shoe. Only had these as place holders really. And fur was talked about so I had to get that sorted. Used a great program called UnFold3d for the unwrapping. I cannnot recommend this app enough. I have not spent that long with but its great. Hours of time saving. After all that I did some work on the shoes, this needs work. And this is the first pass on the fur. Its gettting there, next will be to place him in some shots and see how it works. Cant wait, being alot of fun to a character with fur. You can get some crazy results. After that the Dad will be recieving the same treatment.
Here is the latest animatic. There is are some shots that are getting the first pass on lighting and shadow layout and one with the plants and extras. I did shorten the running shot and added a new shot of the kid running up the stairs at home. I did this to get to closer to the action and increase the sense of urgency here. The running shot was too calming. The house has had some modeling done, this will help with lighting and readability when in shot.
I have been wanting for many years to get some character models down. Also I want to get some zbrushing in. I read 2000ad when I was a kid. Used to get them delivered to the Campbells Bay stationary shop. I still have a few 100 if them. There many cool characters that I want to model, Torquemada, Kano from Bad Company and this guy. They are all made for Zbrush. When I get done with the music video I will be onto this guy! Too much to do!!
I have been on this sucker for ages. Its one of those projects I would love to finish. I have got the modeling 80% there, but need to detail it and render out a still. I have it rigged to be posed but no plan to animate it. Just could never crack the final compostion.
So here is the animation block out. Compted in After Effects and the starting of organizaton of the footage. Also serves to place any of the post effects such as rain, lighting, cutting editing etc with this low quality footage(playblasts) Again this is to add work flow as its simplier and faster to work with and to forese problems that might come ahead. The plan is to work in this style until the animation is final and then move on to the lighting and rendering. This is of course an ideal workflow and one that cannot always be followed with tight deadlines. So its a working model that I am keen to practice and observe its effectivness.
This is always a big thing to get down. As its a limited production- only a few people and no money as such, we have to make sure that we get this right. So there are many animatics.
When I was working at Binary Star I meet a very talented concept artist Andre. We talked about doing a music video together. He wanted a piece for his band the Posioners and I wanted to work with his art, learn about animation and work on non commercial product..Very slowly we have been working on this. Its only been the two of us for most of the time, until another Binary Star guy, Nikalas was brought in to bring his talents to bear. This was over 2 years ago. Dre came up the concepts and fleshed out the first storyboards. We then ironed that all out and once we had something we liked. Dre started to produce the background artwork. I started on all the 3d elemets. We are doing a 3d 2d style blend. I will do all the 3d content and Dre would do all the backgounds and concept art.
Some of Characters that Andre has done for the project. The characters are built. Have to work on the fur and texturing yet. Nikalas has started on the monstor and has done a top job.
In September I was on holiday in France. Got to see most of country and have lots of fantastic food and meet some great people. Except for the people of Arcachon. What a dump, here look at the trees, even they look like they are tortured! Went to get a local hot-dog. Now you know you are trouble in when the food selection is so grim, a hotdog is your best option-in France remember! So what the lady did was cut a crap piece of french bread, shove it on a hot metal rod and heat it up. First one was ok , then the hag forgot about mine. She went to grab it off and it wouldnt budge. Had her hands all over it! Pulling and tugging away at! And then when she did get it off she made the hot dog with palm grease smothered, broken, dry husk! Then for dinner, I had a seafood platter, sounds good, Wrong! It was all rotten! Smelt rank. Top town! Ugly, boring. If you are going to France avoid this town at all costs! RUDE RUDE RUDE. Rest of France was fantastic. But not Arcachon, ohh nooo. Total Dump!!!
I am a 3D Artist working as Lead 3D at Yukfoo Studio. I used to be a chef. I worked in brassieres and fine dining restuarants. I was lucky to work with great people and learnt how to cook. I would recommend this anyone in their eaerly twenties. I however it was my not great love, and after many tiring years in hot kitchens it was time to change. I went to animation school at Media Design School in Auckland in 2001 worked hard and managed to graduate with Distinction. I was then lucky enough to be picked from an international search to be the intern for the Art Department at National Geographic Magazine in Washington D.C. I was working with the art directors on the sea monstors story. It was a fantastic time and I worked with amazing people and learnt so much.
After this I was back in NZ and taught 3D for awhile until I was hired at Binary Star, a start up game development studio as the Lead 3D. This was a great year and with a top team we won Best Startup Studio and Best unsigned game at the Austrailan GDC.
After this I was drawn into the world of TVCs. I went to Yukfoo in Auckland as Lead 3D and am lucky to work with a great and talented bunch of people.
