The Rose

Well, the rose is coming along. I've started over several times, and am working on another one that I think will be "final." Here is one of the variations I ended up with, obviously, it's not textured or lit yet.

I've been changing around the model because I can't decide on a composition. I've decided to get really close to the model, so that I can show extreme detail in the texturing. The one I'm working on now is much more detailed, and I think more realistic. Renders to come.

A rose is a rose is a....

So for my first project for Photo-realistic rendering, I decided to do a rose. It's not super-creative, but hey, it'll be cool, right?

Anyway, here's how it's coming. I started modeling it today and it proved to be a lot more complicated than I originally thought. Here's how it's looking as of right now. Obviously it is still a work in progress.

This is the first "organic" model I've done, so I know it's going to be a huge learning experience. I don't think it's too bad for a first attempt, but it's going to take a lot of tweaking to get it where I want it. A huge part of this project is the lighting and texturing, so I don't want to spend too much time focusing on modeling. We'll see how it goes. Back to work!

Tomorrow Marks...

.. My last first day of Winter quarter! This is the homestretch of my SCAD career! It's bittersweet - I'm excited to get into the industry, but I'm going to be sad to leave college behind me. But more about that later.

Tomorrow I pitch my idea for VSFX Studio II to the class. I've started a blog specifically for that, which you can find here. It's still in the works, but I will be posting updates there regularly, and I will post large landmarks here to let both of my readers know how it's going. Right now the project is still in it's concept stage, and I've got my good friend Arielle working on some concept art for me. This project is going to present a lot of challenges for me, and I'm excited to get it started.

I am also taking Photorealistic Rendering, which I know is going to be TOUGH, but I am excited to take it head-on. It's going to be a great quarter!

Stills From Studio 1

Well, I'm still fighting with Youtube to get an HD version of the video uploaded. I think I'm going to have to try uncompressed, but it will be interesting to see how it gets handled. In the mean time, here are a few stills. They are not full quality, but you can get the general idea behind it.

The first shot is an overhead shot of the city. I don't have it uploaded quite yet because I'm not happy with the quality of the still, so just pretend it's here.

This second shot (directly below) probably provided the most challenges. We had to make it a 50% mix between the city in the first shot (which looks entirely normal), and the city in the 3rd shot that is entirely overrun with toys. We kept adding and removing elements from the 1st and 3rd shots to create a balance that was more believable.

This third shot (directly below) was probably the most fun to work with. Coming up with ideas for toys and seeing what my group members came up with was a blast, and we had a great time reminiscing about toys we had years ago.

This final shot is my favorite. We decided last minute that we needed something more, and ended up adding it in the last 2 weeks. It was a bit of a rush getting it together, but I think it was rather successful. We got a lot of great feedback on this one.

Overall, this turned out to be a great experience. I'm glad I did a group project, it was a great learning experience. I was surprised about how well we all communicated. I've heard about, and experienced less professional group projects in the past that fell apart or hurt friendships because of miscommunications. But the three of us came out of it with a nice portfolio piece, and some strengthened friendships.

Hopefully more to come soon. And preparation for Studio II (YIKES!).

Update on the Studio 1 Project

We did end up successfully finishing our Studio 1 project! I am currently working on getting an HD version uploaded to the web, and then I will be adding that here. Sorry for the delay!

Match to Live With Animation

Object animation from my match to live project.

More to come later.

Exploding UVs!

Well, I had some more issues with my UVs from shot 1 of my Studio 1 project. But I DID manage to find a solution with the help of one of my friends. But still, I can't help but laugh at the ridiculous damage:

So anyway, apparently the trick is that you have to delete construction history before moving an object with it's UVs laid out. Hey, who knew? Ok, probably everyone, but now I've joined the ranks.