Rusty Robot final

This is what happens when you combine all that has been learned thus far at school. Some cool things to follow clearly.

Maya Model/ character Blendshapes

Little Bot Christmas break exercise

Thought I'd try and build and animate a character on my break. Wanted to do my Transformer, but was talked into scaling it back and starting on a simpler design first.
So I started on the build today. And my Daughter has named the character RUSTY. I love it!

Lighting class with Jack

LIGHTING CLASS WITH JACK

Lighting in 3d is a skill. Learned the hard way as to use a 3d created image as design ref for an assignment. With 3d you can cheat reality. And create shadows and textures that ARE NOT REAL or POSSIBLE in real life.

Lighting assignment was to find images of dynamic lighting and recreate the pictures lighting in 3d. Easy right... not so much. But fun learning was had by myself on this one, with Jack laughing on behind me.
"3D will teach you"... Jack says this over and over to us. (Laughing)

 

I need to add rim lights to the bike now... and final gather to the image now that I have learned that new skill. Perhaps a bump map to the texture on the bike too.

MODELING MUPPET HEAD WITH TONY

Entry from DEC 1st 2010.
The Rigging class is the most intense class that I have had so far at Flashpoint. Being honest I'm not a fan of rigging, but very happy to have a greater understanding of what is involved. Also thankful that Tony knows how much effort I put into all my assignments and it seems reflected in my grades. It is very difficult to rig and I give riggers loads of credit. But making of a muppet head to rig and animate in class is actually fun. (for a change).

Below is some shots of my Muppet head assignment thus far anyway. More to come as the due date draws closer next week.

 

 

The Texture map creation for these things is crazy and strange. But Photoshop helps greatly with easing the frustration with bending a square texture around a curved head character.

For Example below is the texture map for the Knights face. My brain is melting!

LIGHTING CLASS WITH JACK

Wed, 24th Nov. We watched various scenes from movies showing clearly the progression of CGI lighting and texturing from the Eighties through the present day.

This was an awesome look back at how far technology has come in twenty years. And very inspirational to apply to our own art creations.
TRON, The last Star fighter and Robots were the examples used in class. Jack was very informative with telling us about how and why the older movies looked the way they did. What was cutting edge in the day was laughable to us now, even as first year VFX students.

Jack will prove to be an awesome source for Lighting and texturing tips.

He is an awesome teacher, I love the one on one that he offers all his students. I appreciate it greatly.

PHOTOSHOP CLASS WITH JACK CONTEST

In the space of one 2 hour class the task was create a photoshopped scene. Teaching us deadlines.

FIRST ANIMATED PIECE, JACK'S INSPIRATION FOR ANIMATORS CLASS

This was the very first thing I ever animated and it's far from pleasing to watch. But not a bad starting point I guess. Jack was awesome through this class and was always around to help out with issues as they arose. This was a great entry level course to the software and animation.

I had workflow issues and software glitches that made things rather hard at times. But as Jack says "The software will teach you!" un-fortunately it's normally after you want to throw a $3000 laptop across the room!

Final grade B+ because I did not check the shadows box. "Seriously!" mmm, Next time I will not forget, it cost me an 'A' Jack!
Poor Jack, we as a class asked point blank after our grades had been posted what we had to do to get an A, I don't think the poor guy had any clue the grilling he was about to get from us. Live and learn Jack. (Jokes)

WHAT NOT TO SUBMIT AS A 6 POSE EXERCISE

This was my submission in Rigging class as a six pose exercise, that until the start of class I was actually happy with. Until I was served up a thirty minute bashing of my work, posing, and design layout. I don't think Tony found a thing right with this submission at all. To the point I had to hold back my rage in class as I was really getting my buttons pushed.

I guessed that this was to push me to better things in the future. But I did confront Tony about this after class. And he admitted that he was harsh on my work. But we said our bit and moved on like the professionals that we are. I get along with Tony great, I think I just caught him on an off day.  We laugh about it now, I love the fact that I can talk straight with Tony. And in-turn he pulls no punches either. Tony is a great teacher and a nice guy. Just don't do this to the Andy rig and all will be well.