3D | CG Hijinks

Archive for the ‘3D’ Category

An Exciting New Render Engine

June 24th, 2008
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fryrender6-23-200810-05-49PM.png picture by Jawabiscuit

192.jpg picture by Jawabiscuit

I‘m not one for staying up to date on renderers because i’m usually trying to stay abreast in the standard Vray, Mental Ray, et al. renderers. This one however has piqued my interest considerably.

I’m not sure how long it has been around but as far as quality, I daresay there is nothing that matches some of the images in their gallery when it comes to realism. Some of these I really can’t tell the CG parts or if they are totally CG as far as the lighting and materials go. That is a first for me. I’m going to have to try and use it for myself or read up more on how easy this thing is to use.

What’s also good is that they have plugins already available for the major 3D packages which also allows you to make changes to the material properties in the host software. This way you will bypass having “to learn a new application”. Wha?

That’s not all they’re working on apparently. There’s a new feature not out yet called Random Control 4 that’ll allow “real-time” navigation of scenes. Seems promising.

Siggraph 2008: Killer Animation

May 25th, 2008
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Bragging rights go to yours truly for having something in Siggraph as an indirect result of having worked on the RockBand game trailer. If you go to the article on CG Society’s website via the link below, you may be astonished, or unimpressed depending on who you are, that there is a preview of whats to come this year at Siggraph in my fair city of Angels. I really can’t wait to go! If anyone knows of cheap/free tickets comment me. I will be posting updates as they come along.

CGSociety – SIGGRAPH Animation Mother via kwout

The article is centered around some pretty sick new 3D sculptures by Meats Meier. If only I could be working on stuff as great as his.

http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4526

CGSociety – SIGGRAPH Animation Mother via kwout

Time is definitely not on my side at this point! I’m working on a short at the moment, but I’m trying to find more time to sculpt vis-a-vis:

Gnomonology – Designing with Digital Clay: Gill-Man via kwout

This tutorial was done by Cesar Dacol Jr. whom I had the recent pleasure of working with at Image Metrics where I currently still work. He has since left, but his work will influence me for quite some time.

3D . Animation
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CrazyBump!!

May 9th, 2008
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These are a few screenshots of a really cool app called CrazyBump which is now out of beta so go and download the CrazyBump v1.02 demo. I have to say, this is really a godsend for saving lots of time previewing, creating, and saving displacement, normal, specular, occlusion, and diffuse maps. Here’s a photo I found on the web mapped onto a simple cube, but there is also an option to use an actual .obj file or another mesh file of your choice to preview the displacements on! Excellent app. I will definitely be using this heavily!

crazyBumpscreen001.jpg picture by Jawabiscuit

crazyBumpscreen004.jpg image by Jawabiscuit

crazyBumpscreen006.jpg image by Jawabiscuit

crazyBumpscreen002.jpg image by Jawabiscuit

crazyBumpscreen003.jpg image by Jawabiscuit

crazyBumpscreen007.jpg picture by Jawabiscuit

crazyBumpNormal.jpg picture by Jawabiscuit

crazyBumpScreen009.jpg picture by Jawabiscuit

disclaimer:

This is not the actual bump map for this character by the way. I was just testing it with a random character head. So I am in no way claiming this as my work, but it is for demonstration purposes only.

3D . Modeling
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Concept Art: Project: TBA

May 9th, 2008
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CarBody_wChar_Ref_006_large.jpg picture by Jawabiscuit

Some concept art I worked on for an upcoming short. I won’t give anything away, but it’s nice to have some actual concept art for an actual production to show off. Painting this piece was really enjoyable. I didn’t want to put it down! More screen shots of the actual finished 3D model I built to come. Right now it’s well on its way!

3D . Concept Art
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Radiohead RE/MIX

April 2nd, 2008
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Radiohead, my favorite band of all time, have called upon the general populous to create the next remix of their song “Nude”. It’s a brilliant idea. They’re obviously testing out fresh ideas to make music the music industry a more interactive engaging experience instead of being like a cold hand that force feeds you through a tube.

Animation wise, they have called on animation artists of all types to come up with provocative adaptations called a music video of a song on their new album as well. I hope they continue to do that. You can check that out here. The finals on June 23rd have yet to take place and I can’t wait to see what comes out of this competition!

Animation . bands . competition . contest . Music . video
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GTA4 Trailer 4 Out Now

March 28th, 2008
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Ok, i’m not a serious blogger and I don’t pretend to be. It’s getting late in other words and i’m keeping this short and sweet for my own benefit. Maybe when I give a $#!+ if people read my blog i’ll start being more thorough about my posts. I just call it as I see it right now. I’m not on the edge of the razor blade but i’m getting there. Making the $#!+ streamlined is what i’m trying to do right now and writing more, recording what i’m seeing instead of passively letting it wash over me. Sooner or later I want to go back and read this stuff I guess. Or maybe it’s just to cement in my mind that it really happened. Naw, but really, I have work on some stuff before I start getting serious about forcing myself into the limelight. I’m content with doing that yeah… Until then, i’m just-a-dancin’-with-ma-self-oh-ohhhh.

Oh yeah, this is got some good $#!+ in it. Some bad $#!+ too.

$$ GTA4 Trailer 4 $$