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.......
Monday, March 17, 2014
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Image Based Lighting and more
So last time I showed some photographs I took studying light, specifically time of day outdoor light changes. I have been working on a short animation that involves an outdoor shot of a market as the sun sets. Right now it is suffering from rendering errors that our renderfarm occasionally puts in, so my next step is to fix all those. I also have a slight displacement problem, but the other big factors include the light colors and positions of the street lights. I have a lot of work to do to make this scene work, but once it is finished, it will look really nice.
But that isn't all I've worked on. I have also been taking this to another level and creating a scene that uses actual photographs and actual light information from the environment and integrated by own CG element into the scene. In other words, like action plate CG integration. I went out and took a series of images at SCAD Atlanta's DMC, where I captured "background plates" and environment maps. These environment maps are made as HDRI so they hold more information than a regular image, and are then manipulated in a program called HDR Shop to fit into my CG scene. I can then use this to capture the light information in the scene to capture the ambient light, and then tweak it from there. I also had to render in passes, so I could isolate everything from the shadows to the reflection of the chairs to the ambient occlusion. I finally used Nuke to composite it back together, and voila! Movie magic!
Image Based Lighting with CG Character Integration from David Hixon on Vimeo.
Image Based Lighting with CG Character Integration from David Hixon on Vimeo.
But that's not all! I've been a REALLY busy bee. I can't show anything currently from my last 2 projects I've been working on (not to mention math), but you can check out my other blog to see updates to my senior film, Last Light, at LastLightFilm.blogspot.com. Besides working on my film, I have been lighting and rendering and compositing Michelle's film, Leaping Place. It continues to be a challenge, but this entire thing must be done in one week, so it's crunch time! I'll update more on that later!
Friday, January 31, 2014
A Study of Daylight
So our next lighting project is to make a time of day study and recreate it digitally. Now we are not actually trying to mimic the exact lighting in the scene, that is we aren't re-creating the study digitally, we are supposed to do more with it. We have to make an outdoor scene with a transition of light from across the day. I'd love to do the entire day if I have the time, but that is a big 'if'.
The first step, of course, is to make the study. Unfortunately, at the time that I was able to make this study, the weather did not cooperate with me, and clouds moved in to make the sunset completely overcast. While this is a great study of ambient light, it isn't showing the sunset colors like I had hoped for. However, I plan to take another study of the light at sunset when the weather clears (and I have the time.)
For now, here is my study, showing noon (winter time), dusk (overcast), "golden hour" (overcast), and dawn (twice). I plan to add more to this soon, we'll see how it goes.
(These are photographs, not digital renders.)
The first step, of course, is to make the study. Unfortunately, at the time that I was able to make this study, the weather did not cooperate with me, and clouds moved in to make the sunset completely overcast. While this is a great study of ambient light, it isn't showing the sunset colors like I had hoped for. However, I plan to take another study of the light at sunset when the weather clears (and I have the time.)
For now, here is my study, showing noon (winter time), dusk (overcast), "golden hour" (overcast), and dawn (twice). I plan to add more to this soon, we'll see how it goes.
(These are photographs, not digital renders.)
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| Noon (Winter time) |
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| Dusk (Overcast) |
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| Golden Hour (Overcast) |
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| Dawn |
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| Dawn (closeup) |
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Eggs-hausted!
Ok, it's 4 in the morning... and I JUST finished rendering my Egg project after a lot of hard work and fighting with my computer to render. I just wanted to make a quick post to show the final product. What I was supposed to do was make an image that looked like this:
This is what I got (trust me, I'd spend more time on this if I could, but I am too tired and need sleep, and my back hurts...):
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| Original Photograph |
This is what I got (trust me, I'd spend more time on this if I could, but I am too tired and need sleep, and my back hurts...):
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| 3D Render |
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Eggs and Ice
So I've been busy working on various shaders and am moving onto lighting. I have been working on Michelle Ionesue's senior film doing her texturing and lighting. I have just finished a shader focusing on icicle stalactite/stalagmites in her cave scene. It is supposed to have an eerie other-worldly feel to it, and I think I managed to get the feel she was going for. Once I finish with the final tweaks on the textures, I am going to be moving onto the lighting for her scene. I also have my film to texture and animate, and another friend, Raymond, who's film I'll be helping him texture and light. And I am going to try to help with the 3D Group Project film as well. Busy busy busy...
Other than that, I've been diving into the advanced Photorealistic lighting class. This is promising to be a challenge, and is somehow both frustrating and fun at the same time. The current project we are working on is to recreate a photograph of a bowl (or plate?) of eggs as accurately as possible. I am struggling to get the lighting just right, but the biggest problem is trying to get the geometry just right, repositioning, resizing, reshaping, and adjusting every single object dozens of times and then fixing the lights and shadows. It is far from perfect right now but I am well on my way with it. I want to make this look as close to the original photograph as possible.
So I leave you with 2 images, one of my eggs, and the other of my ice shader. Enjoy! (Updated)
Other than that, I've been diving into the advanced Photorealistic lighting class. This is promising to be a challenge, and is somehow both frustrating and fun at the same time. The current project we are working on is to recreate a photograph of a bowl (or plate?) of eggs as accurately as possible. I am struggling to get the lighting just right, but the biggest problem is trying to get the geometry just right, repositioning, resizing, reshaping, and adjusting every single object dozens of times and then fixing the lights and shadows. It is far from perfect right now but I am well on my way with it. I want to make this look as close to the original photograph as possible.
So I leave you with 2 images, one of my eggs, and the other of my ice shader. Enjoy! (Updated)
Monday, January 13, 2014
New Year!
Hey all! This will be a short post.
First, I wanted to say Happy New Year! Also, This is my last year at SCAD, as I graduate in the spring quarter (if all goes well). Now that it is getting down to it, it is time for me to get an internship, apprenticeship, and/or job out in the real world. So I am going to be preparing a new portfolio site, and putting together the best work I can to show. I am also going to be attending the various career fairs and other events. I will also be attending SIGGRAPH this year. I just submitted my application for a Team Leader position, so here's hoping it gets accepted!
This quarter is supposed to be easier on me, but helping so many other people with their films is proving to make up for the easier class-load and I am already staying up late on assignments and deadlines. Oh well, back to the grindstone.
Check out my latest update on my senior film blog, Last Light. Got some cool new stuff up there. Sorry about having to password protect my animatic, from here on out it is going to be getting too close to the final and I need to keep it from the public so I can prepare for film festivals.
So stay tuned for more work! I'll leave you with a Sub Surface Scattering test I just finished that I think came out pretty good. Still needs work on the highlight and bump, but it is a good first step.
First, I wanted to say Happy New Year! Also, This is my last year at SCAD, as I graduate in the spring quarter (if all goes well). Now that it is getting down to it, it is time for me to get an internship, apprenticeship, and/or job out in the real world. So I am going to be preparing a new portfolio site, and putting together the best work I can to show. I am also going to be attending the various career fairs and other events. I will also be attending SIGGRAPH this year. I just submitted my application for a Team Leader position, so here's hoping it gets accepted!
This quarter is supposed to be easier on me, but helping so many other people with their films is proving to make up for the easier class-load and I am already staying up late on assignments and deadlines. Oh well, back to the grindstone.
Check out my latest update on my senior film blog, Last Light. Got some cool new stuff up there. Sorry about having to password protect my animatic, from here on out it is going to be getting too close to the final and I need to keep it from the public so I can prepare for film festivals.
So stay tuned for more work! I'll leave you with a Sub Surface Scattering test I just finished that I think came out pretty good. Still needs work on the highlight and bump, but it is a good first step.
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| No SSS (sub-surface scatter), lambert. |
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| Adjusted SSS |
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Gnomon School Master Classes
Hi everyone! While we are all getting into a full Holiday swing, I have been busy with tutorials and projects, working from building ice and tree shaders to Maya dynamics and Sub Surface Scattering. I am really hoping to get as much out of this break as I can, and one of the things that has come to my attention are the Gnomon Master Classes for 2013.
These 14 classes are taught by leading professionals in the industry in Visual Effects. They've done everything from commercials to video games like Star Craft II and films like Gravity. These classes last for 2 weeks, and cover a wide range of topics, with private forums and 2 hour long HD tutorials with over 28 hours of instructions. I know this is a little last minute, but I figured it would be better to post this now rather than later.
The best part is, if you can't make it every day for the instructions, you can come back later and watch all the videos as many times as you want! So you won't miss out on much if you have family obligations.
But in case you need more convincing, check out this video:
These 14 classes are taught by leading professionals in the industry in Visual Effects. They've done everything from commercials to video games like Star Craft II and films like Gravity. These classes last for 2 weeks, and cover a wide range of topics, with private forums and 2 hour long HD tutorials with over 28 hours of instructions. I know this is a little last minute, but I figured it would be better to post this now rather than later.
The best part is, if you can't make it every day for the instructions, you can come back later and watch all the videos as many times as you want! So you won't miss out on much if you have family obligations.
But in case you need more convincing, check out this video:
Remember students get discounts as well! So consider this a great opportunity to get some master classes from veteran Visual Effects masters!
I will post more of my own stuff soon as well.
I will post more of my own stuff soon as well.
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