That alley thing is almost done!

Here are some finished renders of the boxes and pallets... I'm going to render out the whole thing later today, but that will take my computer a few hours. Updates to come later!

Work in Progress...

Here is a preview render of my alley. I really like the boxes and the pallets. The dumpster is still a work in progress, I only started on it today...

Luckily I have the day off tomorrow, so I can finish the dumpster and fix the concrete flooring. I was being lazy and used the same texture from the street. Now its too stretched out for close ups like this... But for now I think I'll fix the lighting before the scene gets too heavy. *sigh* I hate lighting...

Here it is after a little lighting work:

A New Direction

After talking with some industry contacts of mine, i've decided to seriously cut back some of the material in my portfolio. I'm going to put up a new piece that is definitely my strength, but uses all the new skills that I have learned from all of these tutorials. And then create a turn-around reel with break-downs of the textures on all of my best pieces. Here is a link to my portfolio as it stands  now: http://slewis21.daportfolio.com/ .

Originally I was going to make my new piece a walk through of a city street. As I was modeling it, it became way too big. I was already cutting corners int he interest of getting it done, rather than taking my time on each piece. So I changed it to just a dark alley with a few pieces that I can really focus on. So far all i've worked on are the boxes. Here are a few screen shots:

I still plan to take these guys into mudbox and create a normal map of fold and wrinkles in them. I'm excited about this project and I hope it comes out as great as I am imagining!

In the mean time, the job search continues. Something is gonna happen eventually, and i'm not going to stop until it does!

Still Life - still no job

So after that last tutorial, I decided to try and replicate it for myself. This is what I came up with. I still wanna re-render it in layers and work some compositing magic before I put it up in my portfolio. But I'm pretty happy with the way it came out. I really need to work on my rendering and mental ray settings in general. That's something that I am still pretty weak with...

On the job search front... whole lot of nothing. But I will continue to look while I continue to develop my skills and eventually something has gotta stick, right?

Gettin back to Maya

So I had been doing a lot of photoshop tutorials trying to buff up my skills there, but now I need to get back to using Maya (and mudbox with this one). So I went to digital tutors and pulled up a still life texturing tutorial. Unlike all the tutorials I did before where I actually created everything from scratch, I used a lot of the pre-made project files to do this project. The bread, lemon, and flowers were all done by me though!

Despite not making a lot of the texture maps myself, I learned A LOT from this tutorial and it took me three days (and an entire night of rendering) to finish. Firstly, I have always used mudbox for sculpting and exporting normal or displacement maps. But for the bread and flower I used mudbox for painting. This really opened my eyes to a whole new (and easier) way of making texture maps. 

I also now know how to properly apply a normal or displacement map in maya's hypershade (I've been doing it wrong this whole time). On top of that almost all of these textures are placed on mental ray shaders, which I have always been hesitant to play around with. I've really learned the different setting and presets and how they can really help me take my hand made textures to the next level. Along with learning how to apply those maps, I have also learned how to layer several bump maps onto one object. That was something I didn't even know you could do (though I am not surprised you can). 

Doing this tutorial has shown me that I still have a lot to learn about the profession and the specialty that I have chosen, but it also proves that I greatly enjoy it and love learning and applying new things! I think my next project will be modeling my own still life and putting it together much like this one. That way I will have something to add to my reel that will be unlike anything else in there. I have quite a few days off of work this week, so hopefully I'll be updating soon! 

Fire!

Here is another tutorial I did on my day off yesterday (finished today). I learned the merits of a clipping mask on this one, otherwise its nothing I really couldn't have done on my own. I think that means its time to move on to different/harder projects.

Well until the new year!

Doin' Thangs

To keep up my skills and force myself to not be lazy, I've decided that on every day off from work, i'm going to pick a tutorial and follow it in its entirety. The last three that I did were all photoshop, and came out with some really cool results. I'm also learning some nice tricks that will def come in handy for my texturing work. Yay!

With this project I learned about making custom brushes, and got a clear grasp on how to work with masks. I dont know why, but they've always confused me before. I also learned how to make special selections like shadows and mid-tones. All in all it was fun, and now i have a really cool facebook profile picture!

I made this one with the intention of having it the header for this very blog (which also got a much needed makeover). I got some cool spray paint custom brushes from the project. Honestly, I didn't really learn much from this one. It was fun though.

This bad boy actually took me two days to finish. It was so long and complicated! I learned about creating your own alphas int he channels box and then loading them into selections to make masks and adjustment layers. Soooo many adjustment layers (which I had never used before)! I really like the adjustment layer, now that I know what it is and how to use it. I also made curve adjustments a lot, where I used to fall upon the levels slider, so thats something new and useful. This is one that I know I wont be able to recreate without looking at the tutorial again. But I like the final product and I can see how it can be useful in the future. I can also easily replace the coke logo for something else and just slap it into a project whenever I need to!

We'll see what I come up with next time... I wanna do some maya and mudbox/zbrush tutorials as well. I need to get better at using mudbox/zbrush in general and in maya I want to get better at basic lighting. Its a skill that can really help me in my work, but that I am seriously lacking knowledge in. That and procedural texturing... but that scares me.

Ja!

What i've been up to...

So thesis is completed. Degree has been earned. What have I been doing with my life since graduation?

Well, besides getting a fun part-time job at a sex shop, I've been working on my reel on and off. In the 8 months since graduation I have added three new pieces, and touched up a few others.

First I made this piece to show off what I know I can already do, and do relatively well. I'm really happy with the way it came out. I just grabbed some random model from the internet and got to UVing. It was fun and I got it done pretty fast. It feels good to do what you love, do it quickly, and do it well.

Next it was time to challenge myself a bit. This was my first attempt at using sub-surface scattering to make a cartoony little girl. All of my other projects are more photo real, so I was trying to show that I can make something like this as well. I like the way she looks, but the way I lit it, she seems more doll like than I'd like. I definitely need to work on my lighting skills.

Finally I made this guy. He was a bitch to UV and even more complicated to texture. So many individual pieces! But that's what i wanted to get from this project. It ended up being more of a burden and less fun, and once again can use the help of much better lighting that what I can provide, but I like it. 

With these new pieces in my portfolio I'm hoping to land a job sometime soon. I had actually stopped searching/applying for a few months. But then an animator from South Park came in to my part time job after pulling an all-nighter to finish the season finale of the latest season. We spoke for about 20min and she gave me her contact info. She really inspired me to start trying again, and so I am.

My friends all around me are getting their first jobs, I feel like its my turn. Fingers crossed!

Screenshots from the final product!

I know that I stopped posting for a long while... but that is because I got into the full swing of production. Now the film is "finished". If I ever feel the drive to, I would like to go back and fix a  lot (almost all) of the animation and truly finish it. But considering this took me a month to render... I don't know...

Still I am very proud of the final product! Here is a link to the youTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR4iTVD2niM

And below are a few screen shots.

What do you think? I really love the way it looks!!!

~Sam

I gave up on fur

So I gave up on having Billium be covered in fur. But his texture is a lot better now, and he is actually something I can be proud of. He is also successfully fully rigged! He is literally the first thing I have fully rigged in over 3 years, so I am really happy. Next up is Charlie... uh oh.

In other news, my sets are completely put together now! Well, one needs a sky, but hey. Now all they need is to be lit, and a friend of mine has agreed (after I bugged him about it enough) to help me out on that front. Though I am told that to be the texture artist that I wanna be, I should become better at lighting myself... We will see how that goes. Also another friend has agreed to do my score. I have the upmost trust in what he can do, so I am super excited about that as well! I am getting a lot of help on this thing, and I don't think I will finish without it.

Success!

Billium is done, after MONTHS of crying/cursing maya fur...

More coloring

I'm coming to the end of all my coloring, which feels really good! It willd efinately all be done by the end of November. Next all I have to do if light everything. Then I am going to stop production in the interest of making myself a new reel with all of the pieces that I am most proud of. Anyways, here are some screenshots.

I've colored Charlie!

Here is is with his color map on. The texture is not done, of course... but its nice to have at least this much done.

P.S. Here he is with a quick bump and specular map!

I'm also getting a lot further on the fur for Billium. Here is the  last screen shot I took of him. His feet wont be furry in the end, so please ignore that!

 And lastly, this is a mushroom tree. Isn't it pretty?

Color Tests 2 and 3

The Leafrets and Iadinos in thier natural habitats. Can you tell which is the main charachter versus the background creatures?

Color Test 01

Here is my first color test: that two main characters in their environment:

I am not really a photoshop painter (or any kind of painter for that matter) but now I have the colors down. Next I will work on what the Iadinos (the one eyed creatures) look like together on their home planet and the Leafrets (fuzz balls) on their drums.

Coloring!

Here are some screenshot of my first textures...

Please note that in this strange world, the foliage is purple and the wood is dark green... also I haven't done any lighting or changed any render settings, so things still look a little off... but yeah, there you have it.

Charachter Model Complete!

All thats left for Charlie here is to texture him...

What do you think?

Character Model

I've started modeling the star of my thesis, Charlie. This is what he looks like so far:

And this is the original concept drawing:

Thoughts?

P.S. I took some feedback and came out with this.... better or worse?

Yay!

Wow, things are serioucly coming along really quickly. I am loving it, and so are my professors. I do need to revisit my animatic a little... but I feel like i really know my story and I know how its going to work out. The beauty of 3d is that I am not locked into a certain camera angle from the start, I can jsut animate, and "discover" the editing that works best for me.

Anyways, here are a few more props that have been completed. One that is even by the sophomore student worker that has been assigned to work for me. She's great. Thanks Caitlin!!!


First, the star props of the show, the taiko drums! Odaiko, shime, and chyu:

And this is a metalic lantern that willhang infront of every house made by Caitlin: