Well the Winter 2014 quarter has ended, and it appears I am getting some decent grades (2 A's and a B), but what is really exciting me is what is to come ahead.
First of all, my graduation. I will be graduating next quarter, and as such I have to prepare. I have ordered a cap, gown, stole, tassel, class ring (custom made by my awesome professor, Matthew Maloney) invitations, and a partridge in a pear tree. Well... no peach tree, this is Georgia. So if anyone is interested, the graduation will be May 31st, and will be down town Atlanta (you can find details on the SCAD website).
Other than that, I am working on my senior film, Last Light. It is coming along nicely, but I have a long way to go. I helped a bunch of friends on different projects last quarter, including an awesome short by Michelle Ionescue called Leaping Place, and a group project short called Nor: A Cloud Story. Now it's my turn. I watched these students go from scratch to a finished film in 10 weeks, while missing almost 2 weeks of class due to unexpected snow storms. I also watched my friend Nora take her senior film from a a project with no models, no rigs, and no animation, and complete it in the same amount of time WHILE directing Nor. That is inspiration right there. If these amazing folks can do it, so can I. And I probably don't have as far to go with it either. So I will be spending a lot of time on my film and perfecting everything I can about it.
When I'm not working on my film or my other class, I will be working on a very important project... I like to call it GETTING A JOB. Or at least an internship or apprenticeship or something. I have had a lot of awesome opportunities come up, and this coming quarter has a lot of them hitting me all at once. The career fair in Savannah is soon, followed by several internship opportunities, and then Out2Launch (sort of a reverse career fair where the students set up booths and the employers go around looking at them). I have a LOT of stuff to do for this including fixing up my portfolio, and I have to do it all as soon as possible.
So I'll be working a lot this break, although I still plan to have a little fun. I have to meet with some of my friends to go over changes to my film, and get some feedback on my portfolio, and get my iMac fixed, and my printer, and my scanner... There truly is no rest for the wicked.
Well I better get back to it. Right now I'm fixing up some of my older works that I really liked, starting with my Diner. I'm liking this 1950's feel I got going, maybe I'll do more with that theme.
Oh, and then I have to get a hair cut, and shave, and get a picture... and go to the printers... and get my images approved... and submit for my monitor.......
Showing posts with label finals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label finals. Show all posts
Monday, March 17, 2014
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Plant Shader
One of my final projects was to create a "shader" in Renderman for a plant. The idea of a shader is essentially all the colors and patterns of a surface as well as the way the light interacts with it. In short, it is a tool that the user adjusts that makes 3D objects look like what they represent. So a rock will have a rock shader, a tree with a tree shader, and so on. But in reality, these shaders are rarely so specific. Most shaders are adjustable to look like a variety of things, and you can stack things on top of each other to change the look. It gets really involved actually. But to actually write a shader out by hand means you have far more freedom to make something look exactly like what you want, and for a very specific purpose. As such, we were learning how to make an organic plant shader. We actually had to go out and buy plants to study the patterns and figure out how to recreate the look with a coded shader.
I admit my shader is not as refined as I would like it to be. I intend to take it further and add what are called "octaves", which is really just another level or two of detail, to really refine the shader. I also want to refine the controls, but overall I am pleased with what I was able to come up with. I would love to learn how to implement things like image based lighting and ambient occlusion into the shader, so I may have to study this on my own. There is so much more to learn for shader writing, and I really enjoyed it so I wouldn't mind diving into this more.
So for now, here is a final render of my shader. All aspects of it (including the interaction of light and shadow, the transmission of light, the backside colors, and so much more) are developed by me, and I hope to take it further.
Enjoy!
I admit my shader is not as refined as I would like it to be. I intend to take it further and add what are called "octaves", which is really just another level or two of detail, to really refine the shader. I also want to refine the controls, but overall I am pleased with what I was able to come up with. I would love to learn how to implement things like image based lighting and ambient occlusion into the shader, so I may have to study this on my own. There is so much more to learn for shader writing, and I really enjoyed it so I wouldn't mind diving into this more.
So for now, here is a final render of my shader. All aspects of it (including the interaction of light and shadow, the transmission of light, the backside colors, and so much more) are developed by me, and I hope to take it further.
Enjoy!
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Shaders and Textures Final (TECH 311), part 1
Another sleepless night, but that is expected during Finals week at SCAD.
Our final was to use a non-traditional shading technique to make something that looks 2D in a 3D world. We aren't talking toon-shaders, but something more advanced. Our in class assignment was to make it look like a drawing, and still have a reaction to light. As you can see here, the sketchy pencil marks really help make this scene look drawn, but it is in fact 3D.
Today, I have for you all my final from my Shaders and Textures class. In short, this is a class that teaches how to make objects looks really cool with textures and a realistic reaction to light. So you'd think the final project in this class would involve making some photo-real objects, but it isn't. In fact, it is quite the opposite.
Our final was to use a non-traditional shading technique to make something that looks 2D in a 3D world. We aren't talking toon-shaders, but something more advanced. Our in class assignment was to make it look like a drawing, and still have a reaction to light. As you can see here, the sketchy pencil marks really help make this scene look drawn, but it is in fact 3D.
So for my project, I decided to do a painting. Specifically, I wanted to make an homage to one of my favorite artists, Vincent van Gogh, and his most famous painting, Starry Night. In order to make this project, I got the assistance of my beautiful wife to help me literally paint with Acrylics (because I don't have nor know how to use oil paints) onto Bristol board and scanned into a computer. I then manipulated the scans, adjusting colors and tiling the images and such. From there, I input them into Maya, did a lot of adjustments, and placed them inside various procedural textures which add a lot to the render to make it look like more than just a bunch of flat strokes. The scene I chose to do is, in fact, a direct homage to Starry Night, which is not as well-put-together as I would like, but I will play with that later.
I am also working on animating this scene with a camera pan through the painting. I tried this already, but I forgot to bake in some of the textures, which messed up the sequence. Once I fix this as well, I should have a pretty cool short flying out of a painting.
So for now, enjoy my rendition of a 3D Starry Night.
And now... SLEEP!
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Composition Final (TECH 420), version 1
Hey everyone!
I have 2 finals down, and (and a half) to go. Why a half? I have to take one of my projects and do a simple breakdown, but that's for another post. For now, I have finished my final for my Compositing for Technical Directors class, which has been teaching Nuke, as I mentioned before. Our final project was to take an existing live-action plate, which is essentially just a video taken of an environment (in this case) with the intent of adding a CG element to it later. The CG element we could add was our choice, and I decided I wanted to do something a little different.
In the end, I am not satisfied with the level of detail the model is. While I did a LOT of work to make it look better, including displacement, specular highlight, specular color, and more, which I did in Mudbox, Maya didn't properly import anything, and I had to fight with it to make it look halfway descent. However, as a result, I spent to much time trying to fix bugs and errors that I had to stop fixing minor problems and get to the point of the project, which was to integrate the object into the scene.
A LOT of work went into this, but too late I ran into a bigger bug that I've seen before and couldn't figure out. I'm not even sure how to describe it to get help, and I didn't have any time left to try to repair it or even remove it. If you look at the object in my scene, it has a sort of polygonal look to it, but I assure you this is a smooth model with no polygonal edges on it. The problem is the displacement I used fell apart. I've seen this before, where my displacement lost all definition and became a mass of polygons on the surface that no longer even tried to retain it's original shape, but it only shows up on high resolution renders, so none of my smaller test renders caught it. So I am NOT giving up on addressing this challenge. I WILL fix this, and then I will post it.
So for now, enjoy my little scene, and again, if you have any feedback on how I can integrate the CG elements into my scene better (and please refrain from mentioning the texture, polygons/displacement on the object, or the clipping yet because I am already addressing those), I would appreciate it. Ta ta for now...
I have 2 finals down, and (and a half) to go. Why a half? I have to take one of my projects and do a simple breakdown, but that's for another post. For now, I have finished my final for my Compositing for Technical Directors class, which has been teaching Nuke, as I mentioned before. Our final project was to take an existing live-action plate, which is essentially just a video taken of an environment (in this case) with the intent of adding a CG element to it later. The CG element we could add was our choice, and I decided I wanted to do something a little different.
In the end, I am not satisfied with the level of detail the model is. While I did a LOT of work to make it look better, including displacement, specular highlight, specular color, and more, which I did in Mudbox, Maya didn't properly import anything, and I had to fight with it to make it look halfway descent. However, as a result, I spent to much time trying to fix bugs and errors that I had to stop fixing minor problems and get to the point of the project, which was to integrate the object into the scene.
A LOT of work went into this, but too late I ran into a bigger bug that I've seen before and couldn't figure out. I'm not even sure how to describe it to get help, and I didn't have any time left to try to repair it or even remove it. If you look at the object in my scene, it has a sort of polygonal look to it, but I assure you this is a smooth model with no polygonal edges on it. The problem is the displacement I used fell apart. I've seen this before, where my displacement lost all definition and became a mass of polygons on the surface that no longer even tried to retain it's original shape, but it only shows up on high resolution renders, so none of my smaller test renders caught it. So I am NOT giving up on addressing this challenge. I WILL fix this, and then I will post it.
So for now, enjoy my little scene, and again, if you have any feedback on how I can integrate the CG elements into my scene better (and please refrain from mentioning the texture, polygons/displacement on the object, or the clipping yet because I am already addressing those), I would appreciate it. Ta ta for now...
Monday, May 27, 2013
Photography Final
So today, I delivered a presentation for my Photography final. In short, my assignment was to research an existing Photographer, and as I mentioned n a previous post, I decided to research Michael Eastman. Specifically, I decided to try to capture the feel of 2 of his projects, Urban Luminosity and Vanishing America. My project is called City and Country, and is meant to show a contrast between images of the city life and country environment.
For the City side of my project, I took pictures around Atlanta, including the beautiful Hyatt Regency hotel, and outside The Loft. In all, I took about 160 images of this set, but for the final project, I had to choose 5. I already posted several favorites that didn't make it into the final project, and I may add some more later. These images were all designed to focus on the transmission and reflection of light, with a low ISO for high quality, and long exposures to catch as much detail as I could.
For the Country half, I went to Pendelton, South Carolina, where I visited the historic areas and went off the beaten path to a few other areas, including an old train yard that was falling apart and covered in rust. It was my favorite place to take pictures, but I started to run out of time as the sun was setting and the last few images got too rushed. In the end, I took over 200 images from Pendelton, and chose 5 for my final, although I will post more later that really loved but didn't make it into the project. These images mainly focused on the textures and wear/aging of the objects and locations.
I did do Photoshop editing to these images as well, to try to match the aesthetic Eastman uses, or something similar at least. For his Urban Luminosity, he would saturate colors, clean up the dirt/debris (but not completely), and present a clean and vibrant image with patterns and colors boarding on the edge of abstract. I cleaned up the majority of my City shots where I removed distracting dirt/debris, while enhancing colors. For Eastman's Vanishing America images, he would often darken and enhance the sky, desaturating it while increasing the contrast and details. Other than working with the sky, I would apply a slight desaturation (using an adjusted "Black and White" adjustment layer at low opacity) and bringing details back into the highlights of the image. There is a huge advantage to working in 16bit with camera raw, which allows for HDR images and really pulling in the details lost in shadows and highlights. While none of these are actually HDR in my final, I did bracket my images which will allow me to get HDR out of them, and I did work with HDR on a few that didn't get into the final. I will be presenting more of these later.
Enjoy!
For the City side of my project, I took pictures around Atlanta, including the beautiful Hyatt Regency hotel, and outside The Loft. In all, I took about 160 images of this set, but for the final project, I had to choose 5. I already posted several favorites that didn't make it into the final project, and I may add some more later. These images were all designed to focus on the transmission and reflection of light, with a low ISO for high quality, and long exposures to catch as much detail as I could.
For the Country half, I went to Pendelton, South Carolina, where I visited the historic areas and went off the beaten path to a few other areas, including an old train yard that was falling apart and covered in rust. It was my favorite place to take pictures, but I started to run out of time as the sun was setting and the last few images got too rushed. In the end, I took over 200 images from Pendelton, and chose 5 for my final, although I will post more later that really loved but didn't make it into the project. These images mainly focused on the textures and wear/aging of the objects and locations.
I did do Photoshop editing to these images as well, to try to match the aesthetic Eastman uses, or something similar at least. For his Urban Luminosity, he would saturate colors, clean up the dirt/debris (but not completely), and present a clean and vibrant image with patterns and colors boarding on the edge of abstract. I cleaned up the majority of my City shots where I removed distracting dirt/debris, while enhancing colors. For Eastman's Vanishing America images, he would often darken and enhance the sky, desaturating it while increasing the contrast and details. Other than working with the sky, I would apply a slight desaturation (using an adjusted "Black and White" adjustment layer at low opacity) and bringing details back into the highlights of the image. There is a huge advantage to working in 16bit with camera raw, which allows for HDR images and really pulling in the details lost in shadows and highlights. While none of these are actually HDR in my final, I did bracket my images which will allow me to get HDR out of them, and I did work with HDR on a few that didn't get into the final. I will be presenting more of these later.
Enjoy!
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Sera
Well I'm smack dab in the middle of finals, which is why I haven't updated in the last week.
However, I do have a lot of new stuff to show, and more coming soon.
So for now, since I am so busy, allow me to show a project I have been working on in a program called Mudbox. This is like ZBrush, but easier to use. This is not an in-depth look at either program, but it did help give an idea of how to do such a technique and where to go from here.
I decided to model a triceratops. The original base model is one found in the Mudbox community, what I did was literally paint the 3D texture, color, specularity, and everything else, onto the model. It is a technique called Texture Painting, and uses something called Displacement Maps, which I combined with Bump maps to create my image.
While I did bring this into Maya to render using Renderman, it wasn't as successful a transfer as I would have liked, so I am showing the mudbox file for now until i can get the renderman render to work properly.
I plan to go back and "dirty" it up a bit, and make more adjustments.
Enjoy!
And yes, this is based on the Triceratops in Jurassic Park.
And yes, I did name it "Sera" after the Triceratops in Land Before Time.
However, I do have a lot of new stuff to show, and more coming soon.
So for now, since I am so busy, allow me to show a project I have been working on in a program called Mudbox. This is like ZBrush, but easier to use. This is not an in-depth look at either program, but it did help give an idea of how to do such a technique and where to go from here.
I decided to model a triceratops. The original base model is one found in the Mudbox community, what I did was literally paint the 3D texture, color, specularity, and everything else, onto the model. It is a technique called Texture Painting, and uses something called Displacement Maps, which I combined with Bump maps to create my image.
While I did bring this into Maya to render using Renderman, it wasn't as successful a transfer as I would have liked, so I am showing the mudbox file for now until i can get the renderman render to work properly.
I plan to go back and "dirty" it up a bit, and make more adjustments.
Enjoy!
And yes, this is based on the Triceratops in Jurassic Park.
And yes, I did name it "Sera" after the Triceratops in Land Before Time.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Finals already?
Hi all,
My lack of recent posts isn't a sign that I'm giving up, but it is a sign that finals are (already) here. I have some good stuff to show, plus I'm working on taking more pictures this weekend and some more digital art. This quarter has seemed to go by so fast, but I guess that's normal.
So for now, I am waiting to go into a museum for a class trip to look at renaissance art (yay!) and I'll post more this weekend.
Stay tuned!
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