3D animation generalist, artist, illustrator, interior designer, storyboarder, graphic designer. I love to work in many different areas of visual art and enjoy learning new skills to push my creative ideas into new directions.
I wanted to practise on my new Wacom pad, so I decided to create an illustration rendering. I began by posing my model in Xsi softimage, then place a few lights into the scene and textured the model with phong and blin shaders in black and white. Then rendered a frame and openned it up in photoshop. I coloured and draw details using photoshop and also put a back ground on the scene. I then saved the image as a jpg and imported it back in Xsi and projected onto the geometry using a straight forward camera projection. I then finished of the lighting and rendered the final scene. this whole prcess took about 8 hours.
storm trooper model and rig provided by Juan Correa
fig Afig B
The lighting for the storm trooper is a very simple rig as you can see from the screen grab fig A. I used 3 lights, Key (spot), Fill (point) and Rim (spot). I used the fill and rim to introduce the blue and red colouring into the scene. Fig B shows the xsi render I took, using just the model, lights and ground plate. I took this render into photoshop to add the details on the helmet and background.
This second Illustration I did again for drawing practise on the Wacom. This image is part of my character developement for my MA 3d computer animation final piece. It took a couple of hours.
The scarecrow. Character concept.
This last image again was created under the heading of Wacom practise! I took a photo of a chimpanzie and copied it. I used photoshop to help me create layers for the fur.
10Monkeys -Delirium Tremens: is a group project of ten guys for the MA. We had 10 weeks to produce a short animation peice. My role in the group was environment modelling and Lighting/rendering.
For this blog , I would like to show you the scenes I was responsible for and some background work for those scenes. The finished animation is first, then the breakdown.
The film is about Al's experience. He lives in a world where everyone is the same, but there is another world that can be accessed through a weird machine. The machine is frightening so nobody wants to go into it..until Al puts his hand up..then the machine sucks him up and he is transported to the weird world. It is a surreal world where things dont really make sense. However when Al is there he has his head taken by a strange diamond guy, who offers him a different head in return. Al fights for his own head back but is ejected from the machine. When he is returned to his own world his head has been swapped. Seeing that he is now different the other people think this is a good thing and all now want to go into the machine. The reasoning behind the film is loosly a metaphor for the internet and how when we go online we can all become can become something or someone else. We also have access to so much information that we can also change our views and perspective, altering the way we think. The internet is a strange and weird other worldly place.
Scenes I did the lighting for:
Sucked up the tube: For this scene it was important to get an inside a living organism type feel. I looked at the lighting for The fantastic voyage (1966) which used lots of pink and orange rim lights.
Inner Machine: this scene is the big reveal shot. Here I had to light not only the scene but also the individual characters with animation. This was a challenge as this was the first time I had tried lighting.
Diamond Guy reveal: This scene was also an important scene as it is the first time we see the diamond guy. It was important to give a strong sense of how the diamond guy influences the inner world environment. I did this by colouring the rim lights on Al's head to match the diamond guys head, to create drama I used a pinkish red rim light on the back of Al's head and body.
Al & Diamond struggle:This scene had to be quite a dark scene in the sense that the story had taken a darker twist. I wanted to have strong under lighting highlighting the underside of the tendral and the mushroom, Also i wanted the feeling that the only light in the scene was a reflection from the diamond head.
Al's return with on lookers: Here the important thing was to balance the forground and background, the guys faces and the machine in the background. the lighting on the guys had to feel like it was shaded light..like they were in the shadow of the machine.
3d model: The Inner machine Environment.
The Inner machine Was my first ever attempt at modelling in 3d. I had only 2 weeks to get to grips with the tools and build the model.
The pre-production:
This was the most creative and enjoyable part of the project. The whole dynamic of the 10 Monkeys was a collective of artists bring there own ideas to the proccess. It was a melting pot of ideas bouncing off each of the members...sometimes in radical tangents and we had many discussions and debates. It was important to go through this and even though at times it felt like we were going in circles, it was still very crucial in bringing together our comman purpose.
Here you can see one of our brain storming sessions. Basically we all went away and produced drawings that we felt fitted the theme and then we would put them all up on the wall and start trying to mix the images and partner them up into some kind of narrative.
Some concept drawings that I drew, that where adapted to the final animation.
Cinematography:
After modelling the environment, Alan Serra and I then began locking down the camera shots as per the story board. This helped the animators to locate the correct points on the environment model to organise the scene they were working on. We then printed out the scenes and form a second storyboard. The director and animators then used this storyboard to make the final choices for action etc.
Here is a number of black and white lighting tests that I produced during my Personal Investigation as part of my MA 3D Computer Animation course at NCCA, Bournemouth. The idea was to take a shot from and old black and white movie and try and creat something simular in XSI softimage. .
Below is an image of the same model which I lite in XSI and then added some more effects to it using compositing software called NUKE.
Below is an example of virtual gobos. Basically a light filter attached to the virtual light to create the Horror effect of the intensely lite eyes.
A bright sunny day lighting test. Pre-production test as part of my MA final piece. There are 3 spots associated to the character, Character key, fill and rim. Also a point light associated to the backplate. Character is a test model.
This Light test is for the opening shot of my final piece for the MA. I is supposed to look a little like a sunrise. Notice the non-realistic look of the rendering. I was trying to recreate a painted finish. Like a animated painting coming to life. I used camera projections for the textures and set up a small light rig to highlight the landscape and animated a point light to create the effect of dawn. A simple test. on reflection for the final piece I will included some colour changes with reds, oranges and blues.
Further to my simple experiments above I have also rendered some scene lights tests. with lighting for different times of the day.
This is a early morning light test. The light is clear and clear, but there is a hazy eliment to the atmosphere. This Scene is at the beginning of the piece. The Scarecrowwill slowly lift his head as the realisation of his predicament has begun again!
This scene is midday light test about half way through the piece, the pose is taken from icon imagary of jesus on the cross. looking down on us.
This scene is a twilight light test, as the sun begins to set. The scarecrow's movements will become more desperate and violent as he knows when darkness comes he will again slump into a dormant state.
Here is a night time light test. The last frame we slowly zoom out from the slumped scarecrow and the light fades to black.
All this work was producted using XSI Softimage as part of my MA course work and practical practise of animation theory and techniques.
Billy in the Gallery: This was my first animation piece after learning XSI Softimage. The idea was to create a small comedy piece, which would show off a couple of animation principles. The bouncing ball, the walk cycle, as well as modelling and texturing. I feel the piece is an ok attempt for a first go! but I am not happy with the walk. I am happy with the jump back and fall section. The artworks on the walls are art pieces I created for a previous project and you can see them on the 2d portfolio section of my blog page.
Two bullets for Billy: This is an animated short where I was practising lighting techniques for mood and story telling. The story is carried with light and shadow rather than dialogue and sound effects. I feel that the story of this piece works well, mostly due to the lighting effects and the basic facial animation. However if I was to redo the piece I would have rendered slightly differently without the ambient settings on and I would have tried to get a stronger contrast within the light and shade. especially on the characters shadows.
Running Billy: A run cycle as part of my animation technique and software practise. The run cycle is ok, I like the leg animation but I would now apply a smoother up and down torso and hip motion.
Run cycle test. This another run cycle. this time I had the leg key poses and inbetweens animated slightly differently than the previous run cycle. However the torso is pretty stiff and has no up or down motion.
Another walk cycle piece, again I was using lighting to create mood. It is a basic piece that i was practising environment building and lighting.
XSI Softimage, camera test. In this piece I am trying to recreate a dolly zoom effect. A cinematography technique famously used in Hitchcock's Virtigo and in other films like Jaws, Lord of the Rings. It is used to create an uneasy feel and perception disorientation to add drama to a shot.
A first attempt at lip syncing. Again animated using XSI
fig A
fig B
