End of the Year and 2014

Closing out the year, I just wanted to post a freelance project that I just finished.  Since the actual videos I worked on are still under NDA I will just post the demo I made to land the job.  This was a demo I made using After Effect and the Element 3D plug in with an iphone model provided by Video Copilot.  If you want to check out the phone model or Element 3d, head here, it will have everything you need.  I did this over a weekend as a pitch.

Here are some breakdown shots of all the composting for all the menu animations. It was a lot of still screen captures from my own iphone that I edited and animated in After Effects.  The goal was to show off the phone and try to mimic as closely as I could the animations of the menu system on the iphone.

modeling process

layers for pre-comp in After Effects.  I got the job and the gig was pretty fun.  Hopefully I will get a chance to post the actual work for the gig soon!

As for 2014, I want to really focus on my work and my goal is to make 1 post a month! Happy New Years Everyone!

Archer fixes

Got some feedback from my friends about the archer and I made the changes.  It helps to have other artist look over your work and offer critiques on things you might of missed.  It helped me exaggerate the Archer's proportions and textured his face to be more inline with the rest of his body. Man did those stitching on the trim take forever.

Here's what the texture looks like

And thanks to my friend he is also rigged and ready to be animated!

Can't wait to get this guy in game and see him in action! Well on to the next game asset!

Archer

This year is proving to be a very difficult one for me. Trying to find a 3d job has been tough and frustrating to say the lease. It is hard to keep a positive outlook but a spiral of negativity doesn't get you anywhere. So I'm trying to stay positive and continuing to work on projects definitely helps. So I created this guy. He's just a test character for a game prototype my friend is working on.

The idea was to keep it as low poly as possible.  I piece together some ref and just went at it. When I got something that I liked I decided it was time to move to texturing.  It was very helpful to think of this guy as just a place holder. I was able to not worry too much about how "perfect" it had to be.

I tried my hands at some hand painted textures, which was a first for me. I looked at alot of examples and downloaded the Dota 2 style guide and a tutorial from Hai Phan (these 2 things helped alot).  Did a tonal pass, lay down blocks of colors, added more detail and fake AO, and then a final polish pass.  I was very happy with the results!

 Going to try and see if a friend of mine can't rig up this guy, and get him into the game prototype.  If this project goes forward, I might be creating more of this low poly characters. It was a good learning experience and alot of fun!

Challenges

Wow, it has been way too long since my last post. A lot of stuff has happened. Life throws a lot of challenges at you and sometimes you might not be ready, but like it or not you have to face them. It has been tough lately, and one of those recent challenges was this art test.  Here is a break down of what I did.

Ref:

Favela Houses

Spec:

Model a Favela House along with a stair on the side and a palm tree

-Below 1,000 tris
-two 512 texture sheets
-1 lightmap
-realistic texture style

Overview:

 
you can find more detailed images of the art test below, and the final images at the very bottom of this post!


Block out

Base textures and stairs

Palm tree

Doors, windows, and details

Final textures and light bake

Applying the light map on a seperate UV sheet

and done! Easy right? LOL

Here are some final shots taken via screen caps:

And there we are! Pretty solid, yeah? Maybe not solid enough.  I didn't get an interview after the art test.  But I did learn a few new tricks from this fun little challenge.  I also got a lot of great feedback, critiques, and encouragement from my friends! 

Like I said, ready or not, challenges will always come up in life and you have to face them.  Whatever the outcome, these challenges always present an opportunity.  The opportunity to learn, prove yourself, and keep moving forward it all depends on how you want to approach it and what you want to get out of it.

It can be frustrating at times. After the art test, and the waiting, I found out I didn't get an interview.  I was down, I wanted to just crawl into a hole and lick my wounds.  But if that was how i faced every challenge, each of them would get to me, and these challenges aren't going to stop coming.  All I could do was learn from this, get better, move on and be ready for the next opportunity!

  

A Scene

props make up scenes and sometimes I get to build a whole scene. Working with a lot of other 3d artist at work, a library of assets starts to accumulate, it makes scene building a lot easier. I had to build a bedroom scene.  I saw an office scene in the library of assets that i liked (an office), and started from there.

Deleted all the props inside the office, kept the blinds and the character.  I modified the room to be have more space.  Pose the character and boxed in the bed.

Created some primitive furniture and textured the bed. Added some props to the nightstand to fill in the scene.

Grabbed some blankets and pillows from the asset library. Re-textured the blankets and cloth-simed it. At this point I realize that even though the character is in an ok sleeping pose, here’s wearing normal clothing. I re-textured the character to make him wear PJs. I also added a little more to fill out the room. Picture frame, rug, and hardwood floors, are making it look a little better....right?

Making adjustments for finishing shots.  I adjusted the lighting for 2 difference day times.  I pose the character, for getting into bed and getting up in the morning.  also made sure the blankets look believable for both scene.

Till I have a better scene to show!

A prop

I love creating props! In any scene, movie or video game, the props slowly build up what becomes the scene.  Every little piece adds that much more to the environment.  World building is all about prop placement and lighting.  I think that’s why I love game environments. You have to use a set amount of static props in very limited ways to build scene that is immersive to the players.  When it’s done right the player really believes that their in that world. But it all has to start with basic prop building.

Not that this prop is amazing or super immersive or anything.  But I enjoy creating props, so any chance I get to create a prop for a project, i’m all about it!  This project called for wood chips, so I started to create some wood chips.  Wood chips are a mix of organic and so much mechanical.  The wood material itself is organic but the way it is cut up is mechanical. So i started with a cube, modified it a little to look like some chips. Apply 2 texture variants, and it’s start to look...OK.

Wood chips have to be varied and random and their usually in piles. Bam, varied piles. 

Looking over the project, it not only called for wood chip samples but large amounts of wood chips. Instead of a few small varied piles, a big pile would be needed.
 

 

It’s looking a little like a pile of wood chips, the texture is doing a lot to sell it, but there are issues.  Wood chip piles aren’t mushy or smooth, they are more like piles of rubble, there’s also texture stretching.  So I used the previous small piles I had to help break up the silhouette, cover areas with too much texture stretching, and surface area. 

Till I have a better prop to show!

Jack of all trades

so sometimes the work is more than just 3d. 50% of the time I spend in After Effects editing the 3d to match the audio and also making whatever graphics is needed for the project.  Sometimes that means more Photoshop work or After Effect work than just 3d, but all fun, keep this interesting.

Blood cells and explosions are cool, right?...