Hamish Beachman's blog

Visual Effects Society Award Nomination

2012-01-29T23:27:00.000-08:00

I was lucky enough to get a nomination for the environment I worked on in Tintin, Bagghar. Here is the list. Will know on the 7th Feb if I win! Exciting stuff!

Work of 2011 cont.....

2012-01-04T01:04:00.000-08:00

And the last film I worked on for the year was The Hobbit and something I did got in the trailer. Background for this shot. So my blog didn't get much action, but I was busy.

Work of 2011 cont....

2012-01-04T00:47:00.000-08:00

After Tintin I was again lucky enough to work on Prometheus, but since it aint out I don't have anything to show.

Work of 2011 cont..

2012-01-04T00:24:00.001-08:00

Then I was on Tintin. I got to do the baghaar environment. The hills, terrain, roads, bridges I was lucky to model. I had a blast.

Work of 2011 cont.

2012-01-04T00:20:00.000-08:00

Next up was Apes. On this film I worked on the primate shelter. I modeled the dome windows you see in the grab and all the gantry mechanisms that Ceasar uses below it. I also did a car for the golden gate sequence.

Work of 2011

2012-01-04T00:14:00.000-08:00

This was my first film modeling at Weta. I was part of the team that built the Kresta battleship. I did a few things on the boat, but they are hard to see, the main ones you can see there are the big guns.

BPR tests

2011-06-28T03:25:00.000-07:00

Well I was just bored the other night and wanted to play with lights and rendering a little in Zbrush with the BPR.Just 2 lights ambient occlusion and shadows. Basic material and bumpPreview mats.

Scott Spencer Workshop

2011-05-22T02:23:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I was in zbrush workshop, with Scott Spencer of Weta Workshop. Was great, he covered almost everything in his books over the course of 2 days. It was pretty good for me cause I have not got into zbrush for ages! So nice to sculpt and then learn the tools that are version 4.
We did sculpt all the time but I tried to get as much done as I could, here is the result.

Small improvements

2011-04-04T06:51:00.000-07:00

We are told that things should get better the more version we do, or the more time spent on it. I have wondered about this one, in all the years that I have been plugging away at this are things really going to get much better? Got to ask yourself sometimes.
Here is a shot I am updating. Below is my first pass, which I am proud of. Hey its pretty ugly but it was part of getting all the passes and all the shots comped together. Not much has changed, I am rendering fur with raytracing, sand is decimated from zbrush, octos have SSS, Not alot but it has made a difference, and I am happy that I am still working away on it.

Latest take, 2011

First pass, 2008

Dingy Model

2011-04-03T04:26:00.000-07:00

So i was wanting to model something again and I had seen this very nice dingy model at work, so I talked myself into needing this in one of shots, it looked empty under the house,any excuse would have done it. So 5 hours to model and then 1 hour to unwrap,texture material etc. Then I did a quick turntable, just because I can, not required at all. And down below you can see how amazing it looks in the shot!

Depth map to raytrace shadows.

2011-03-01T03:22:00.000-08:00

As I stated in the previous post I have to render some shots with raytraced shadows. I used depth map shadows before. I think the depth map looks better, softer, more natural. The raytraced one is very harsh and the colors are different. But the depth map flickers and its just not acceptable. Got to raytrace!!

Fur render with depth map shadows

Fur render with raytraced shadows

Shot updates

2011-03-01T02:58:00.001-08:00

Lately I have worked on updating all the interior shots with the textured files, and at the same time going over the lighting and rendering. Did find out that in many of the shots I will be rendering the fur with raytraced shadows. I had been using depth map and they are good, but in close up shots there is fair amount of flickering. Not so with the raytraced, downside is that fur look less soft. Will post up some images to compare.
In this shot I wanted to do something with the sand. Its about the most we see of the sand in any shot, however it looks dull. So did a quick zbush of the sand and got it rendered out.

Here below is the old sand

and with the zbrush sand.

Lost Concept Challenge Result.

2010-11-26T01:23:00.000-08:00

Well turns out , after voting- I won the challenge.!I gotta say I am really happy about this! Really enjoyed making it and so it was very nice to win.
here is the link.

Final Images for Challenge

2010-11-25T15:41:00.000-08:00

Lost Concept Challenge
Here are the final maya and zbrush renders that I submitted. Had some good advice for the sack and it did improve, but I think its not there. Didnt get enough fine detail into it.
Will always think to do a proper lit and textured version, but you never know. Had a great time with this, good to get some rest now.
I will watch the voting over at cgfeedback to see how I do.

Lost Challenge Update

2010-11-23T15:45:00.001-08:00

First pass on the sack in Zbrush. Not feeling it right now, some work to do.

Lost concept Challenge

2010-11-22T16:23:00.000-08:00

Right so work continues on this piece, here some un-smoothed renders.Got most of the geo I want done. Now its time to take the sack into Zbrush, I am hoping to finish the sack sculpt tonight which then will leave me one night to final it all, tweaks, renders etc.

Female Head W.I.P

2010-11-09T03:16:00.000-08:00

When I did the pin up challenge I was never that happy with the face. And I did some work for the woman with M.A.k machine but that still needs work. So I been working on this slowly, really slowly. I found it was really good to make the planes for the face, quite like how it looks like this, but not sure how to more forward. Sure it will happen. Be nice to finish so I can attach to bodies.

Lost Concept Challenge

2010-11-09T03:10:00.000-08:00

Here is the block out based on the concept art and colouring stage. I think I have most of it sorted out. Now can start the hard surface part.

CG FeedbackChallenge:Lost Concepts

2010-11-08T16:06:00.001-08:00

Going to do the challenge over at cgFeedback. Chose this one by Christian Pearce. Its a cloning tech thing, from District 9. Did a quick colour in to see what I need to make and figure out the tubes. Will be cool to make as its hard surface and some organic.

New shot

2010-11-08T15:56:00.000-08:00

First look at one of the new shots I have made to replace an old shot that caused me no end of trouble. Just getting the shot together. Have more animation to do yet.

CG Society Portfolio

2010-10-03T02:04:00.000-07:00

Got around to making a portfolio of my work over at CG Society.
Click here

Sand Test

2010-08-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

I have been looking at the sand in some of shots and finding it a little dull. So to address this, I tried to take the mesh into Zbrush and work it up.Wanted to keep it lose and have fun with it. Here is frame of what I got.
When I first started on the film I could not see a good way to work this sand up, not with the resources that I have. And it wasn't till Decimation Master came out for Zbrush 3.5 that I could see a way.Really helps to give the characters of feeling of being in the world, rather than walking on it. Now I dont think I am going to animating this ground, its very heavy, so have will to choose where I put it carefully.

California Sports

2010-08-26T19:06:00.001-07:00

During my last year at Yukfoo, a collegue approached me to do some outsourcing for a Wii game that he was Art Director on, California Sports. This was possible to do as I had game experience and we had a team that I knew could do it. I did the initial benchmark assets, such as the first character and building and worked out the kinks of how we were going to do this. Once that was done I just had to run schedule and do a bit of quality control. SHOo did the all the character texturing and Yoshi Harimaoto did the rest of modeling and most of the texturing on the props. I thought they did a great job as it was alot of assets in short amount of time.And there is another whole phase that I had nothing to do with.

HAFS Curiass

2010-08-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

A post of my latest model. This one I am going to texture finally. And I am also going to be adding a character. This helps to give the bot a sense of scale. The first section of renders are ones I did to check that the mesh is good and that the smooth approximation will work right. Down below this are the renders with the character in. As I thought it changes the perception of the model hugely.

Short Film Update

2010-08-19T15:07:00.001-07:00

So its a while since I posted an update to the film.I have done alot of work on it lately. So here is an update. I finally got around to unwrapping the interior of the house and started to texture that up. Makes a big difference. Still planning to let SHOo cut loose on those textures. The majority of my time has spent on animation. Tackling shots that I being avoiding. I have also reworked a shot that I could never render and was struggling with. I broke it into 2 shots now. Done plenty of comp work on various shots. And I have changed the ending! I have said that I would never change the edit..but it had to be done.

Zbrush 4

2010-08-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

I got my update to Zbrush 4.0 going last night. I needed to get a larry render out. Going into maya with decimated geo is not much fun really. So I wanted to try this BPR rendering out and get a turntable done. I spent most of my time setting the SSS that you can now hook up in zbrush. I just hooked up my painted ED map to the texture and used a preset. Its not perfect by a long way, but I can see this will be getting plenty of attention.

Larry Bust W.I.P

2010-07-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

Back to Larry.. This has a long way to go.I wanted to focus in particular on painting the SSS layers in zbrush and detailing the skin. Here are my wips so far. The lower wips was my first renders out of maya but I was not mad about it, the upper one has everything tweaked.They are both using the same maps on the SSS but I did some work on the eyes texture and a blockout of his outfit. I have to rework some of detailing and change the coloring of the skin, but for now I am looking at the general feel of the maps.
Also in the piece I decided to get some hair renders. I have used the fur a fair bit, but always avoided the hair and it can be more trouble than its worth. But for this I think it will be the right way to go.

Final Pin up

2010-07-14T17:21:00.000-07:00

I did some more work on the pin up. I wasn't able to get everything right in time for the challenge. Main area of work was sculpting the face, so I made her more expressive. I did some adjustments to the feet, legs and fingers. I did some touch ups to the rendering, softened the shadows, moved some lights,and made some eyelashes. Really had a good time with this and can't wait to start my next one.

Final Image for Pin up challenge.

2010-06-30T04:51:00.000-07:00

Here is my final image for the challenge. I am pretty happy with how this came out. It was great to finally make a female body, and a pin up. I have been wanting to do a pin-up for ages so the challenge was a good excuse to get it done. I would like to think that I will do some more Pin-ups in the future.

final Sculpt for pin up challenge

2010-06-30T04:48:00.001-07:00

Just the latest sculpt, almost the final one. Still have some work to do on the face I think....

Test Render for Pinup Challenge

2010-06-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

Test render for the Challenge over at cgfeedback. Its on 50's Pin ups. I have a few days left yet to finish this. The sculpt here is the pose, gesture only I have a day of sculpting ahead of me.

2010 Showreel.

2010-06-03T22:19:00.000-07:00

Hamish Beachman Showreel from Hamish Beachman on Vimeo.

Face Details Sketches

2010-05-12T21:21:00.000-07:00

Here are some practice sketches. Parts of the face this time. I have the excellent book Portrait Sculpting by Philippe and Charisse Faraut, so this me working through this book.

Avatar Shots

2010-04-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

So with the release of Avatar on DVD(not the best quality..) I can get my hands on the shots I was lighting TD on, here they are! WHOoA! Amazing right?.If you are watching the film there is a section called Quaritch Fight, this was sequence I was assigned to, and these shots are from it.
As this was my first film, I was very happy to get to run 3 shots.All the assets were unreal,hard to light them badly. Good times.
Avatar copyright 20th Century Fox.

Larry Render W.I.P

2010-04-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

Decided to try a new light setup for Larry. I found the old one, which was good on the Krieger work lacked somewhat in feeling. It didn't pull any details out. This setup is an improvement, sculpts out the form and is more reflective of the character personality.

Latest Larry W.I.P

2010-04-22T07:03:00.000-07:00

Here is my latest work on Larry. I tried to sculpt hair for the first time, was hard but I am sure will get easier. Started from a base mesh from maya. Rest of the outfit was modeled in maya also. As for the head, I have spent the most time on the eyes area, lift the right eyebrow for some expression, but didn't go nuts, just another element to work into the piece gently.

Larry the Certifiable W.I.P 2

2010-04-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

After looking at the reference for Larry-my old comics, I decided that what I had was ok, but I had lost some of the character. This WIP work was moving the elements around to address this. I did some work to the mouth and eyes also. Well most of the head got some work done. I am almost there, soon I have to do the shoulders and the hair, this as I found out thanks to my wife helps hugely in balancing the bust.

Larry the Certifiable

2010-04-08T04:45:00.000-07:00

Next in Scott's book is doing a character with a large grin and a lot of fat rolls. I started this exercise and it looked rude so I have made it again(teeth and base mesh from the book) and its starting to come together. I think that is my workflow for now, build and then rebuild. I guess this is down to in-experience. Trying to get the head nice and then I will go onto the hair and outfit, aiming to make this a bust. This is Larry The Certifiable, design by Carlos Ezquerra from 2000AD.

Quick render out of maya

2010-03-31T17:29:00.000-07:00

A quick test to see what the head was like to render with the same render setup that I used on the MK models. I used decimation master in Zbrush to reduce the poly count going into Maya. Worked great.
My render passes are an occlusion, reflection pass and color. For the color I used a Physical Sky.The reflection is just a blinn with reflection blur turned on under the mental ray settings. Then a quick mockup with Photoshop. Ramps for background, then the col pass, next the reflection pass(made this blue but it could be any color so we have some infomation to work with when adjusting the Hue/Sat) on overlay and lastly the occlusion over the top (multiply) to bring some details out.

More Head..work..

2010-03-30T03:21:00.000-07:00

Here is the head again after some adjustments. Work was done on the ears, eyes, nostrils, temples lips. I changed the profile at the back of the head also.

First Zbrush Head.

2010-03-21T03:13:00.000-07:00

Right, so I have being wanting to do this for ages. Learn Zbrush, or rather learn anatomy and learn sculpting. I am not a stranger to the Zbrush. Used it over the years plenty but I have never put any serious time into it. Well this year I am dedicating lots of time to it. I have Scott Spencer's excellent book "Character Creation" armed with this and lots of anatomy books, going to get into it. Here is my first head. I took my sweet time over it, and I realize its not perfect, but it was great fun.

Krachenvogel FNS465 rear

2010-02-15T21:17:00.000-08:00

Just a link to the camera move of around the back..

Krachenvogel FNS465

2010-02-14T02:05:00.000-08:00

This model has some nice details at the rear and I realized that I have not rendered much of that out. With this in mind I setup some other cameras and rendered it out.

Krachenvogel FNS465 360

2010-02-08T22:45:00.000-08:00

So this is just a posting of the 360 turnaround for the Krachenvogel FNS465. That is the end of this model. I have some other renders witch I don't really need to post.

Model Render.

2010-02-07T23:57:00.000-08:00

Just a clip of one of camera moves around this model.

Final Renders

2010-02-07T23:44:00.000-08:00

Had of course some little changes to be able to finally finish this model. Its the same rendering setup that I did on the satallite model. Physical Sky, occlusion and reflection passes. I could have lit this lots of ways but I wanted a nice quick method that shows of the model nicely. Its all about the model. I have just changed some diffuse values to highlight some details that were not easy to read, other than that its just plain shaders.

Krachenvogel FNS465

2010-02-02T01:51:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest of my modeling of Maschinen Krieger models, its my favourite. I did have to mash up a few versions from the reference I found. I just could'nt get some of details. The worst area is under the arms on the central upper body, I struggled to get this area working correctly, but got there in the end.Otherwise its done, I did have the benefit of recycling some parts from the Vampyre,that helped cause this model has tons of parts. I can render this out and dream of getting it textured....one day.

Vampyre Close up

2010-01-31T16:22:00.000-08:00

Just a close up of the vampyre model.

Vampyre Turnaround

2010-01-31T01:43:00.000-08:00

Turnaround of the Vampyre.

Other renders of Vampyre

2010-01-19T05:03:00.001-08:00

Here are some other angles of the Vampyre. I am in the middle of unwrapping the model so SHOo can texture it all. I am also working on another model from the Krieger universe..exciting stuff I know!

Vampyre A FNS 478A-U1

2009-12-07T15:27:00.000-08:00

Well after having so much fun with the satelite I wanted to tackle something harder. This is the Vamprye. Its a pretty cool design. There are loads more I can model, but I have to stop sooner or later. There are few issues with the render and I have no close ups as these are just frames from a turnaround.

Catapult Satellite turnaround

2009-12-06T22:51:00.000-08:00

Did this to have a look at the whole thing. Very simple render setup. Physical Sky for the color. With this I noticed that you have to adjust the settings, gain, knee, gamma etc on the exposure node or else all the colors get a little too washed out. Then an occlusion and reflection pass. The reflect pass is just a blinn with reflection blur on, which helps to make it feel metalic. And this just looks at the physical sky for nice reflections. Note to turn off the physical sky light, or just don't add the node to a render layer.

Catapult Satellite

2009-12-06T15:18:00.000-08:00

Such a long time since I have had the time to do some modeling. So I got around to some. I was put on to this Japenese robot design a few years ago called Maschinen Krieger. It was designed by a guy called Kow Yokoyama. Anyway here something I did based on the Catapult Satellite that is on www.maschinenkrueger.com/joomla/

Avatar

2009-12-02T13:05:00.000-08:00

So my work on Avatar is done. Well it was done a month ago almost. It was super intense period of production. I was working on the this sequence which is in the trailer. I did get to be a TD on 3 shots from this sequence, which are my first for film(These stills are not my shots). So to get 3 shots in a film as huge as Avatar was more than I ever hoped for. Cant wait to see the film! And see my shots!

Off to Weta

2009-06-20T03:19:00.000-07:00

That ain't Charlie Brown, its me and they are Weta's. Having the good luck to go to Weta. I start in 2 days. Whoa. My fiance Shoo made this fantastic card as a farewell to me She has been super amazing and supportive over this decison. Makes it soo much sweeter to share it with her. Its a little bittersweet as she is not able to join me. Its hard, we have never been apart and we always are happy, so yay, we get to apart and sad! It wont be forever of course. I also dont think that I will be doing much work on the film. I know where I am with it, 6 shots left to animate, very close. It came down to Weta or my film...tough one

Shot 03

2009-06-20T03:15:00.000-07:00

This was an old shot, and since I decided to back and put the dynamic scarf in it never worked. I have had soo much trouble gettting this right. In fact I had given up on it. But had another crack at it and changed the animation slightly, this has come out ok. Finally.. It might be last shot for awhile as I am off to Weta.

Sequence Renders

2009-06-18T03:00:00.000-07:00

Well I can't just animate all the time(even though I am supposed to be), so when I wasn't animating I was doing some rendering. Getting there, I still have some work to do. These shots have the grade that I like, trouble is that is got loads of banding, not great, but I do love what it does with the subtle colours and blooming.

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Latest Sequence

2009-06-18T02:43:00.000-07:00

Got another sequence here.Needed to post something.. I have been working on this section for awhile. Its nearly there, I am getting happy with the first 3 shot, last one quite there yet. I will take this chance to mention Alex and Karl whom I work with and have helped me loads. Please check out their blogs.

Shot 25

2009-06-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

Just another shot that I have uploaded to Vimeo. I am allowed 1 highrez a week. This is pretty final rendering and animation. Will be getting a more hand crafted sky when Shoo gets some time to work on them.

New Scarf

2009-05-28T05:41:00.000-07:00

So here are some renders of the new scarf. Amazing no?! But it looks soo much better than the last one. Have almost rendered out all the shots that have it in, still a few to go. And at the same time I am getting the dynamic scarf in.

Shot playblasts

2009-05-14T04:17:00.000-07:00

Here are some playblasts of a sequence of shots. Had to repost them. Getting loads done right now! But still a ways to go....

Shot 38

2009-05-14T03:34:00.000-07:00

Just another shot render sample. Its a pretty complete shot. Animation is final and so is the rendering. Shoo has done a fantastic paintover on the house. So what needs to be done is a final background and then it will get a final grade.

Shot render with Vimeo Player!

2009-04-30T04:04:00.001-07:00

Here is a render of Shot 04. This has the scarf. I have added a new scarf displacement texture which looks way better. I knew you noticed. For some reason the scarf sim works super good in this scene, but in others its not too good. I worked out that stiffness is not a great attribute to crank up, better to use the attract start curve. Can't remember where I just read this, pity. This post is the first to use Vimeo. Loving that. Looks much better. Will be adding more!!

Scarf Test

2009-04-01T15:48:00.000-07:00

Got a scarf for the kids rig, work super well in this shot,thats why I am showing it! It looks good makes him even cuter.. I have some problems with it other shots so looking like I will have to bake out the dynamics and keyframe it.

Interview

2009-03-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

My old school found out about my film and wanted to interview me about. If you want to read more about that click here
Thanks.

Shot Updates

2009-02-16T13:03:00.000-08:00

Mostly working on the animation lately, still hoping to get all the animation done this month. But when I am not on this I can render any shot and get some fixes in. I have also being working on the grade, and these shots have the grade on them. I have got to animating and rendering some shots with the octos in them. Was pretty excited to be getting that in. They are looking good, the rendering is not too complicated( thankfully) Nice to render something on this project that does not have fur on it. Fur is a challenge, some shots have just never wanted to render. I have tried to different renderers, dmaps resolutions, anti-aliasing settings blah blah blah. At the moment I am using all of. Can depend on the amount of light that the fur is recieving, size in frame. Crazy, but worth it of course. I have added a dynamic scarf to the kid, it looks great but takes some time to get right, so I am having a internal debate about putting in or not. Dont really want to be adding stuff late in the piece, but can be hard to ignore a good idea.

More playblasts

2009-01-15T01:42:00.000-08:00

So here are 3 shots. At this point in the film, the kid has to secure the house. With a very strong chair... So these are final animations...I hope. I think they run together quite nicely.
These ones have been rendered also, but I will not be posting them here, as the details get lost. I think I have 27 or so shots to go, done 20. Its been hard to get this far, but just working on it everyday, adds up, like a savings account. I am putting off the walk cycle for the octos still! The shots with the octos are the most complicated. It might have a better idea to tackle those shots first, but oh well.

New Animation

2009-01-14T01:16:00.000-08:00

Have been re doing all the animations for the last few months. Here is the final animation for shot 38, the second to last shot. At the moment I have 20 shots animated and rendered. Will be posting the rest soon.

Camera Mapping Shots

2008-09-24T05:59:00.000-07:00

Some work has been done on the exterior shots of the house. Camera projection of the house taken in maya with a pretty flat render.. Taken into Photoshop and worked over by Shoo. Came out very nice. Mapping works very well as long as the camera move is nothing extreme.

More of the shots that have had the camera mapping done. Interior shots next.

Shot 22 movie

2008-09-19T19:12:00.000-07:00

Here is the reworking of shot 22. I had to change this as I couldnt quite get this working how I think it should have been. It had a POV to start with, but I just found the action of the otco jumping in the air a little strange. So I worked it into 4 shots, its nice and I think the last shot has a nice revealing of the next bunch of octos.Will be able to convey some nice emotion of the Dad and build on the danger the son is in. Still have some issues with the Dads fur but did make some progress. I was rendering his fur with rasterizer and some Dmap shadows. Got better results with raytracing, and raytraced shadows, without a huge hit in the render time. Also got a more working texture on the dead octo. Will update the texture on all of the octos when I finish the final weighting.

Shot 22 Stills

2008-09-19T19:11:00.000-07:00

Some stills of the new shots.

Shot 22 Stills

2008-09-19T19:10:00.000-07:00

Some stills of the new shots.

Final Render For Lighting Challenge

2008-07-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

This the final render I did for the cgtalk Lighting Challenge. It was a film noir theme. So I went for a render with loads of black, skewered angle, deep shadows. Nothing fancy as most of these films were made like this. To me it feels like old film so I am happy with that. Doing a render these days its hard to turn off all the fancy new rendering tricks like final gathering and occlusions, but I wanted this to look old. Those elements are in this render , just not obviously.Didnt go nuts with texturing, wanted to focus on the the lighting and composition. On a downside I never quite got the body on the ground right. Will do some touchups in the future.

Did alot of layers in the end. Found this to be the fastest way to get all the elements working. And I could use Mental Ray for some layers and software for others.

Lighting Challenge

2008-06-10T05:10:00.001-07:00

First render for the CGTalk lighting challenge.

First Pass on Rendering and Lighting.

2008-04-09T20:25:00.000-07:00

Right, finally got this done. This was a milestone in the production. Set all the passes up! And have organized all the render layers in Maya. Then into After Effects and started to sort out any post work, such as motion blur(Real Smart for this, great plugin) A rain plugin and some lightrays. Alot of work too with the lights in After Effects. This is very handy, and helps to flesh out a shot, add a highlight, change the ambience. Changed the edit in the house, before you didnt see why he was scared, so I have added a few shots to deal with that. Much clearer. So now that is the last change.
Other reasons for sorting this out is to try to evaulate the work remaining. I have done my first pass on the lighting, now I can see what worked and the elements that need more work. Colour pallete, shot consistancy. Even just the rendering. The same lighting set up might not work for all shot. The same rendering settings might not work. Shots inside the house I am starting to like. Different tints on the occlusion pass help to change the ambience. The other major factor was the fur. I really need to see how the fur behaved and how it rendered. Which settings work, etc. Fur renders change depending on the distance to the camera, so fur would need to be adjusted - made thicker and amount decreased. All pretty obvious, just has to be sorted. I didnt have the fur on the character until most of the animatic was done, so I didnt bother with any test. This is my test, and this way I can fine tune my renders and animation to suit. Dad fur is very poor, have alot to do, I am hoping that is just a rigging problem primarily, and then I tune up the fur. Other thing I have had trouble sorting is the flicker on the fur and getting the nicest settings here. Imposable to see in this movie, its rude and is high on my list to fix.
Next up is a breakdown for me regarding fixes. Will show the animation to some collegues, and get feedback. Get the octo rigged, fix the dad and kids rigging. Do all the animation again.Render it all again. Do the final grade on it.

Darkus

2008-04-06T00:45:00.000-07:00

This character is from Strontium Dog. Darkus and his Howlers. Its by one of my favourite comic artists, Carlos Ezquerra. I Love this character, very much a creep. I have been doing lots of work on the one project lately, I need to do something else. So will make this guy with maya, Z brush, maya work flow. And with lots of fur, SSS etc. Looking to get a lot of character and narrative in a single render.

Shot Renders

2008-04-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

The last two shots of the piece. Time permitting, will have some flying beasts in the background.

Shot Renders

2008-04-05T23:57:00.000-07:00

Shot Renders

2008-04-05T23:53:00.000-07:00

For this series of interior shots, I am working with the colour pallete. Strange purple fill, will pinkish key light. Trying to avoid the conventional green/yellow horror film setup.

Shot Renders

2008-04-05T23:50:00.000-07:00

These renders are getting somewhere. They are un-textured so far. The Kid has his textures. I have a light beam plug in After Effects to help with the feel. Gives a nice beam, rays across the scene.

Shot Renders

2008-04-05T23:48:00.000-07:00

I like the rain and lighting in the shot the approach to the house. I do have him trip up, just for a laugh, I mean poor guy has just lost his Dad...

Shot Renders

2008-04-05T23:45:00.000-07:00

For the shot with the running on beach, I have been trying out a rain plugin in AE. Its getting there, but I am not that happy with it yet. Ocean is looking cool and I like the feel of it. All of the pieces are without a grade so far.

Shot Renders

2008-04-05T23:43:00.000-07:00

The monstors, or octos, are needing alot of work Still. I have some displacement maps from Nik, but I have tried to not use them, might not be able to render them.I have eight of so of them in some shots! But I think I will try to this maybe in in Maya 2008, they dont look that hot right now. Using Sub surface scattering, a bump pass and shadow pass on them at the moment.

Shot Renders

2008-04-05T23:23:00.000-07:00

Fur in the close up shot is starting to look good. Will have to change the tip opacity and the base width. At this stage of the production I am still trying to get all the elements together so I can get a hard look at the progress.

Shot Renders

2008-04-04T02:59:00.000-07:00

Here are some higher rez stills from the latest work in progress. Have been rendering with mental ray, Maya 8.5. For the water I have used an ocean sample, tweaked it and lit it. Had not done the lighting of an ocean before, works really nicely. Lot of work in After Effects. Layering up of the skies, blooms, light rays, tinting of the scene. Try for a early morning feel. The projects is only 2.50 min long so I am using a kind of accelerated time. Will get from early morning, to lunch, dusk, then the next morning.

Dad Turnaround

2008-01-17T15:46:00.000-08:00

Here is the dad turnaround,with my first pass on the fur and vest. I have some problems with the ears to fix. I think the unwrapping is not quite right and is messing the ears up. I have to finish off the vest. Its just the high poly from Z brush so far. I like what I have got so far out of it so will come back to it. Now I have the characters fur I can start to test out lighting and animation with it. I still have the octo to go....

Character Images

2008-01-17T15:28:00.000-08:00

Some of the character work. The turnarounds dont quite display the detail. Still got some issues to iron out with the fur.

Vers Audio Ipod stereo

2008-01-13T17:57:00.000-08:00

On another tack here. Wanted to rave about this ipod stereo from Vers Audio www.versaudio.com/ Came across this product in a Dwell magazine. Had been looking for years for a cool looking, nice sounding ipod stereo... with a remote. There aint that many around, some get great reviews, like the altec lansing, but hey do you want to put that ugly thing in your lounge!? The system from Vers is awsome, look at it, its beautiful, and it has a remote. The sound is sweet, but I am not one of those that spends much time talking about how great his ears are, and I dont care much. If it sounds good I am happy and I more that happy with this one. The service was excellent, maybe the best I have ever had on online. Fast nice pro service.

On many levels this fits the bill and I think you would be hard pressed to find another system that is better at looks, price, service and sound quality. And did I mention that it has a remote? One niggle, be nice if the remote was finished with the same lovely wood as the unit. Natch.

Kid Turnaround

2007-12-19T16:24:00.000-08:00

Being working on the characters lately. Re-did the body and the hands and shoe. Only had these as place holders really. And fur was talked about so I had to get that sorted. Used a great program called UnFold3d for the unwrapping. I cannnot recommend this app enough. I have not spent that long with but its great. Hours of time saving. After all that I did some work on the shoes, this needs work. And this is the first pass on the fur. Its gettting there, next will be to place him in some shots and see how it works. Cant wait, being alot of fun to a character with fur. You can get some crazy results. After that the Dad will be recieving the same treatment.

Latest Animatic

2007-12-07T19:26:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest animatic. There is are some shots that are getting the first pass on lighting and shadow layout and one with the plants and extras. I did shorten the running shot and added a new shot of the kid running up the stairs at home. I did this to get to closer to the action and increase the sense of urgency here. The running shot was too calming. The house has had some modeling done, this will help with lighting and readability when in shot.

Monstor Turnaround

2007-11-11T13:31:00.000-08:00

This is a quick turnaround in Zbrush of the octo monstor. Its by Nikalas Bulhmann in Sweden. He has also done the rigging for this character.

2000 AD

2007-11-11T03:15:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting for many years to get some character models down. Also I want to get some zbrushing in. I read 2000ad when I was a kid. Used to get them delivered to the Campbells Bay stationary shop. I still have a few 100 if them. There many cool characters that I want to model, Torquemada, Kano from Bad Company and this guy. They are all made for Zbrush. When I get done with the music video I will be onto this guy! Too much to do!!

Kriger Renders

2007-11-11T02:37:00.000-08:00

This is a Snake Eyes mech suit that I wanted to get done. And this was as far as I got with it... sad I know. I will post some stuff in the future if I get onto this.Would love to detail in up in Zbrush.

Krieger

2007-11-11T02:31:00.000-08:00

I have been on this sucker for ages. Its one of those projects I would love to finish. I have got the modeling 80% there, but need to detail it and render out a still. I have it rigged to be posed but no plan to animate it. Just could never crack the final compostion.

Animation Block out.

2007-11-11T01:51:00.001-08:00

So here is the animation block out. Compted in After Effects and the starting of organizaton of the footage. Also serves to place any of the post effects such as rain, lighting, cutting editing etc with this low quality footage(playblasts) Again this is to add work flow as its simplier and faster to work with and to forese problems that might come ahead. The plan is to work in this style until the animation is final and then move on to the lighting and rendering. This is of course an ideal workflow and one that cannot always be followed with tight deadlines. So its a working model that I am keen to practice and observe its effectivness.

Backgrounds

2007-11-10T20:06:00.000-08:00

Here are some of Dre's work on the backgrounds.

Early Animatic

2007-11-10T19:36:00.000-08:00

This is always a big thing to get down. As its a limited production- only a few people and no money as such, we have to make sure that we get this right. So there are many animatics.

StoryBoards

2007-11-10T19:18:00.001-08:00

Here are some examples of the storyboard panels. From here we planned it out with some indication of camera moves, framing etc.

Music Video

2007-11-10T19:09:00.000-08:00

When I was working at Binary Star I meet a very talented concept artist Andre. We talked about doing a music video together. He wanted a piece for his band the Posioners and I wanted to work with his art, learn about animation and work on non commercial product..Very slowly we have been working on this. Its only been the two of us for most of the time, until another Binary Star guy, Nikalas was brought in to bring his talents to bear. This was over 2 years ago. Dre came up the concepts and fleshed out the first storyboards. We then ironed that all out and once we had something we liked. Dre started to produce the background artwork. I started on all the 3d elemets. We are doing a 3d 2d style blend. I will do all the 3d content and Dre would do all the backgounds and concept art.

Character Concepts For Music Video

2007-11-10T19:03:00.001-08:00

Some of Characters that Andre has done for the project. The characters are built. Have to work on the fur and texturing yet. Nikalas has started on the monstor and has done a top job.