29 December 2008

Ashtray and Smoking Cigarette: Exercise 3

Everything here I modelled by myself from scratch except for the smoke, which was made possible thanks to Aziz Khan at Oman3D


Can anybody tell me how I can get this video away from the left and into the centre?? 







Reflections: Exercise 2

Using a Torus Knot and Plane (with a nice marble map) to practice the use of reflections
No additional lighting used, because i wanted to keep render time down to a minimal.
One camera to give the depth of field shot.
I thought it would look a bit cooler if it was widescreen so rendered to 1024 x 512.






Thoughts and comments please!

28 December 2008

Jack-o'-lantern: Quick Exercise

I wanted to create something new to allow me to find it easy to experiment with lighting and effects.

Modelling time: Half an hour
Total Rendering time: Half an hour to an hour
Software used: 3ds Max, Photoshop CS3







It was very easy to model because I used this tutorial.

27 December 2008

Research: 3D Visualisation

I went onto cgarchitect.com and straight away I found this great work. The first video is an advert for a Student Accommodation company based in London but for their branch in Barcelona.
The second video is another advert but I couldn't find any information about the client.
Both videos and image were made by a company based in the UK called Uniform.









These videos and other videos all won awards from cgarchitect.com. The rest of the videos are here.

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This year cgarchitect.com also set a challenge called the Architectural Visualization Competition(AVC2008). Participants had to create the most unique visualisation animation for the Tower of Hercules lighthouse, which is situated in Spain.

The winner for this was Jakub Gabriel



I also really liked the work of Pawal Mysiorek



I hope that I will be ready to enter next years competition.

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Interesting animation showed to us by Roma


The beginning bit with the shaky camera is quite annoying and might induce a bit of sea sickness, but when it gets to the building itself it's a really nice piece of work.


This is really great work. Made by Yannick Puig for the song I Lived On The Moon by Kwoon. I like his style!





Useful links:
Simple Tree Design and Technology
GA Architectural Visualisation
Assist CG

26 December 2008

Chaplin in 3D

I would love to make a Charlie Chaplin animation in 3D sometime in the future, so I had a quick search to find out what has already been created. I came across this video and I think it's very nice.


Charlie Chaplin 3D - Watch the top videos of the week here

Dinosaur Bones

I've spent the past few days making this Dinosaur skeleton in 3ds Max. Here are a couple of images I've rendered while practicing the use of Depth of Field and other general camera variations.

Please let me know what you think!


















































The next stage in my mini Dinosaur evolution is to export the .obj file from Max straight into Photoshop with a background, like I did for the Toy Train, to give it a little perspective and hopefully some narrative.
I also hope that sometime in the next couple of weeks or so I would have finished making a short animation of the T-Rex.
I haven't decided yet if the music for the animation will be the Jurassic Park theme, or this (blatant plug for my favourite band! hehe)...




UPDATE:
03/01/08
New Dino render with VRAY (thanks to realexis)

16 December 2008

My Render Farm (and a Monkey?)

I thought I'd show off my magnificent laptop, which has worked so hard to bring me to meet my deadlines.





Music: Jaga Jazzist - Doppleganger

Animation Project - Finito!

I couldn't get any closer to the deadline, but hey I've finished it and I've done my best so I'm very happy.

I've completed all the projects and now I just have to fine tune everything to be happy to hand it all in... tomorrow! ahh!

Applications: 3ds Max, Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, MPEG Streamclip
Time to render: I lost count of the time it took to render but I think the total time to render took about 30 hours.
Time to edit: 2 hours



Music: Jaga Jazzist - Kitty Wu

15 December 2008

YouTube Symphony

On my quest to upload the Visualisation project to youtube I noticed an advert for this

I think it's a really cool idea. I wish I could play the trumpet! It's a nice piece of music too. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.




Music: King Crimson - Sex, Sleep, Eat, Drink, Dream

Visualisation Project...finished!

Wow! After two full all night camping sessions, I've finished my Visualisation project for Roma.
I'm really pleased with it as a lot of things went wrong - I have a CRAP laptop! But in the end it all worked out with a nice bit of editing.

Applications: 3ds Max, Adobe Premiere, MPEG Streamclip
Time to render: 11 hours for each camera angle!! 2 cameras so 22 hours :/
Time to edit: About 2 or 3 hours

Issues:
The bit at the beginning when the ground quivers in a really odd way. I blame the laptop, it's not a sturdy machine to do high quality renders!
My version of Premiere (for MAC) wouldn't let me export the edited video as an AVI. I had to export it as a .mov, which came to 519mb and then use MPEG Streamclip to convert it to AVI. Now it is 66mb! Much better :)




Music: King Crimson - Dinosaur

12 December 2008

1 Project finished, 3 to go!

Board Game 101 - Mayan Expedition







Music: Duke Ellington Orchestra & Count Basie Orchestra - To You

11 December 2008

How Are My Projects Coming Along?

Animation
After about 2 or 3 weeks sketching different designs I finally settled on the idea of modelling and animating a Wooden Labyrinth Box. I haven't decided if I will keep it wooden or give it another texture, such as plastic yet. I am using the Robot Arm I created and animated earlier in the term with Andy. And pistons on a table to move the Labyrinth and give it a futuristic look, mechanical style.

Visualisation
I am happy now with the environment that I have made for the Park. I've completed making all the models and I have created a 20 sec walkthrough to see how the models will look when rendered. For some reason the video rendered extremely fast so I slowed it down more than 50% in Adobe Premiere. I hope to have this finished by the end of the week

Board Game
My board game has gone very well. I've had good feedback from people who have played it and now that I've played it through at least 10 times I feel comfortable finishing it off by including some artwork. Perhaps the only other thing I should work on is condensing the Rules.

SPP2 Essay
I have a feeling that a lot of VE people are on the same boat here. I have only just about started it, thanks to a seminar we had, but being realistic about it I have no idea if I can finish on time!

Visualisation Render 01

First render.
Took 3 hours.
Will add textures next and then should be finished.

04 December 2008

Cool Lighting Effects

Im loving 3DsMax at the moment. Everything we're being taught is a lot of fun and interesting. Here's a really quick render of a cool lighting effect. mooodyy!


I will try to use these new techniques in my board game for both Visualisationa nd Animation.
Ahh!gfsdhjkhk! Less than two weeks to go!