Swedish Space Odyssey... Kinda...

Back in June 2012, I was asked if I would be interested in working on some VFX for a possible short film a friend-of-a-friend was pitching.  It sounded like fun - with a little space action as well thrown in, I was more then interested.

As part of the pitch, to get funding (which was relatively low) it was important to show that producing Space effects were going to be achievable.  In this case, part of the story revolved around astronauts in a damaged old space capsule - so a concept image showing the ability to produce reasonably good CG was needed to prove that point.

This is the image that I completed for the pitch.  Its based on a Russian Soyuz capsule, featuring a Swedish flag (since the director was Swedish) and orbiting an image of the earth.  An aspherical lens was simulated to create that slight optical distortion, and a lot of additional glare and detailing were finished in post (which you'll see as you read this blog article).

Ready for launch... Ahem, I mean pitch...

Given that the time frame was short to get the pitch submitted (as in a day or two - no pressure, honestly!)  I built and rendered a 3D Soyuz-styled capsule with basic textures.

Basic capsule and background plane

Basic textures were painted up

As you can see, I did start to model in quite a lot more detail then I needed for this single image (I had planned to build a reasonably production-ready high detail model).  There are also additional plates and details on the back of the capsule (based on some of the reference imagery I researched) that we don't see in the render...

All those bolts, etc - when seen on the render, perhaps a little too ambitious.

The problem is that to fully build a detailed capsule with all the textures and detailing in place would take a few days longer, so I finished up the final details manually in Photoshop. Tight deadlines mean that being overly ambitious is not a good idea at this early stage (and if the film went ahead, there would be plenty of time to build on this model anyway)

From basic render, to finished image (mostly done in PS)

Final tweaks were to touch up some of the lighting on edges of panels, add that slight diffuse glare to the bright spots of the image and throw on a few additional details, etc.  After a year or so, I can now see a load of things I should have done, but for what was needed at the time it looked the part to get the ball rolling...

Unfortunately the pitch didn't get accepted as a whole, but this small project - like most small projects I tend to get - was a lot of fun and a chance to create something I would have never thought about doing...

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And even more free scripts... Ho! Ho! Ho!

If you've already seen the previous post, you'll have likely downloaded and looked at the collection of scripts I uploaded.  Here is a second zipped archive of more of them, along with the source for a handful of C plugins I also developed some years back (199x era)

Note that I'm releasing these as a free learning resource.  I'd like to think that anybody who downloads them will share updates or modifications back to the community.  All I ask is that you don't abuse this gesture by releasing 'similiar' tools based on things you picked up from the scripts here without credit or community sharing...

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Free LW scripts - Just in time for Christmas!

While cleaning up one of my hard drives, I found a collection of some of my LScripts I developed over many years.  By all means, these are not everything I've developed and I will upload more as I find them, but I figured that there is bound to be pieces of code or ideas that others can use or learn from...

Note that I'm releasing these as a free learning resource.  I'd like to think that anybody who downloads them will share updates or modifications back to the community.  All I ask is that you don't abuse this gesture by releasing 'similiar' tools based on things you picked up from the scripts here without credit or community sharing...

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The 8-bit project almost completed - A CG vision of my desktop at the age of 12.

Go outside and play in the sunshine?!  What?  When there are games to be played?!!

It all started back in the 1980's...  Like a lot of kids my age, I used to hide in a dark bedroom during the day and sit and code games in BASIC or Machine Code.  The home computing revolution had started, and kids everywhere would learn to program computers as its was just the way that it was back then.  No operating system - all machines had a programming ROM that meant when you turned it on, everything you did was a programming command.  Want to load a game?  You'd type in the load command, and then you'd start the cassette deck to begin the 2 to 10 minute wait as your game would screech and squeal from the audio cassette it was stored on.

In most cases, kids would type in the games from the many books and magazines available at the time.

It was a different era.  And if you wanted 3D? We were looking at simple wireframes, often programmed in by the user - not the desktop application with user interface and 1000+ hours of free video training on the internet everybody has the luxury of these days...

Hey - there wasn't any internet anyway...

Pfft!  Ok - so that's my 5 seconds of nostalgia out of the way...

As you would have seen throughout this blog over the last couple of months - all that 80's style modeling - well, along with a few more items, I've finally put a composition together (render that you saw at the top of this post).  A lot of the colour, grain and exposure have been done in Photoshop - and like most projects I could play with this forever.  At this stage, I'm just happy to get something rendered, tweaked and at least mostly done. (I'll very much come back to this again for more tweaking - its a compulsive thing)

But as I'd just mentioned, there a few more items involved along the way.  These were others that I didn't post up, but I think are worth sharing.

Load 'em up

You're probably aware that I've modeled cassettes and cases - and of course, I've also modeled cables.  What I also modeled was this cassette deck that is needed to load programs from.  This one is based on an actual object sitting here with the rest of my old gear - and its modeled to scale.

But didn't you already have a TV?

I had modeled an old style analogue screen a while back, but since then I've been through 4 variations on the same TV.  I finally decided on something with a little more digital edge.  Its still very much in the 80's as far as televisions go (yes, they did have digital channel changers back then, not just analogue).

Those all-essential set dressers...

A 3D scene is not just a simple model with textures rendered out to look pretty.  Its a scene, like in real life, where there can be all multitude of things jumbled about.  I created just a few very simple items that were fairly common.

Firstly - a classic old plastic Bic clic pen - the staple ball point in New Zealand at the time (actually manufactured in New Zealand for Bic - for over 40 years before the place was shut down just recently in 2013) also doubled as an emergency cassette rewinding tool.

1980's cassette rewinding tool

No computer room would be seen dead without some level of furniture.  In this case, I went for something a little more modern (but its a desk, of which very little would be seen close-up in shot).  Basing this off the state of the MDF desk I'm currently sitting at, I hand-painted up stain damage on a very flat generic MDF image.  The damage was painted through simplying using home-made grunge brushes and manually drawn rings with a simple overlay blended layer in Photoshop...

Well loved and stained MDF desk...  Just like the real one!

Glug! Glug! Glug!

And like any self-respecting nerd, there just had to be a coffee mug on the desk.  This particular model was based on one on my desk, including the colour - however the pigeon of doom (with its classic "typo" - honest, I spelt "pidgeon" wrong on purpose... ok, maybe... lol!) was a  photo I'd taken where a creepy pigeon was just staring straight back at the camera...

The staining inside the cup was another home made grunge brush.  Amazing just how versatile all those photo's of grimy concrete can be for texture mapping.

Looks hygienic enough to drink from... Honest.

Its all in the details...

The problem with most the models were that the textures were too clean.  After some mucking about, I managed to source a black image with dust and finger print smears - much like most self-respecting TV or monitor should have on them.

Using this texture on the glass of the old TV really worked out well.  Adding an occlusion shader around the edges of the screen also created the effect of dust build up...  Dust was always attracted by the magnetic attraction of the CRT, so it made sense to think about trying to recreate that obvious characteristic.

Don't touch the screen with those greasy fingers...

Like any realistic environment, like the textures, there had to be a little less cleanliness in the scene itself.  I ended up modeling a random collection of tiny hairs and very small rough-shaped crumbs.  Again, it helps to have a real location to reference...

While they're not seen close up like this, just the fact that they are present does help.  Its those small details we miss when they're not there, but don't notice when they are...

Nothing a wet sponge won't wipe away.

Location, location, location

The room was the easy part - essentially a box with a very retro 1980's style patterned wall paper (which reminded me a lot of my childhood home).  The curtains on the other hand needed a little work - modeled as flat geometry, UV mapped - I applied a cloth system and used an old technique of animating a morph to draw the curtains along the top...  This caused the cloth to fold nicely and produce realistic curtains.

The wrinkled cloth was exported as a mesh, and that was then used in this location.

Setting the mood.

This was something I had to really think about.  Originally I'd planned on a dimly lit room at night, with the soft orange glow of a standard bulb.  That kinda worked - when I tested this, I did have some stand-in textures as well (hence why the curtains look different).

But that wasn't quite the look.  It was ok, but it felt a little too simple...  I decided to also consider just no room light, and use the illuminated screen as the source of light.  A bit more interesting, and kinda where I wanted to go...

In the end, it came down to something more believable - and something closer to how I recall the days-gone-by...  That dark room during the day, with curtains closed as the bright sunlight cast shadows of the window onto the back of the curtains...

The back lit curtains are simply a translucent surface with a spotlight projecting a window frame gobo image.

Just to finish up, here's the last render I did.  This version is much brighter, though I'm not sure if I like it.  I figured I'd post this one nonetheless...

Yup...  Drawn curtains, dark rooms...  That's the way it used to be - in fact, its the way it still is...

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More desktop inspiration...

As some of my friends (and wife) know, I love Transformers:Prime, the fully CG kids show that sadly just ended a month or so ago...  I'd never really gotten into this toy franchise at all until the movies came out, and now this fantastic show...

A bunch of new kids

I also love having toys on the desktop (by that, I mean the top of my real desk, not the one in Windows), and while hunting around for the usual Christmas bargains for family, I managed to find a few more of the now hard-to-come-by Deluxe series 1 figurines.  The reason I love this particular series of toys is purely on the fact that they look probably the closest to the characters in the show itself.

Out of the 4 newest ones, the only one I'm no fan of is Airachnid.  She doesn't pose well, and a set of very flat hands as well as being hard to balance.  Its a pity, but given how hard it is to find these now in any store...

Flat hands, bad balance... Ouch.

Bumblebee, on the other hand has not only a solid stance, he's also quite poseable.  He also has a pretty mean facial expression that just says "Serious".  This one actually looks a lot better then I'd expected after seeing the rather "toy like" pose that is on the back of the packaging.  Like Wheeljack, this particular toy has attitude...

Don't mess with the Bee!

The last 2 kids are not too bad either.  Soundwave looks particularly technical - though he does seem a little tricky to balance, and I can't quite get any dynamic posing from him.  But he looks very cool...

Knock out looks as he should - Arrogant (he has a somewhat sarcastic smirk on his face) and he stands fairly well.  There's some scope for posing, though nowhere as much as the others.

Knock Out and Soundwave - best of buddies...

I need more!!!

I'll be keeping my eyes peeled.  In fact, hopefully Cyber Monday will reveal some old stock in the USA that may be at the right price!  I know I shouldn't - with the piles of paper, DVDR's, mouse cable, books and BSG toys - my somewhat tiny desk is now starting to look a little more cluttered (thank goodness for the wireless keyboard).

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When is a cow NOT a cow?

When its a flying machine for a Swedish childrens show called Ljudhjältarna...

 Late end of 2012, I was approached by film maker, director and editor/compositor Arvid Eriksson (whom I'd met through a colleague when creating a conceptual 3D space capsule image for an indie film pitch) to produce a 3D steam-punk styled airship for a Swedish childrens show.  The plan - to create a 3D model that he could then import into Adobe Aftereffects and animate in post.

Arvid's a very talented director, producer, editor and compositor - and he's also a lot of fun and infectiously enthusiastic.  Obviously, I just had to say yes - and hey, nothing says fun like a flying air ship that travels through outer-space... On top of that, the conceptual art we had been given had a stylised "cow" look to it - 4 hooves, rope tail and wings that formed the ears.  This should be a blast...

The finished model as used in the opening titles

Getting it started...

Based on the concept art, I produced a very low quality proxy model using LightWave3D's modeler.  Exported out as an obj, this meant the model could be imported into AE by Arvid to animate and get his project blocked out quickly.

Rough out proportions, and something for the director to get started quickly.

Taking it from there...

There were a few things to consider during this project when it came to building this model...

Obviously one was that it really couldn't be too poly heavy or texture heavy since it had to be importable into a compositing package.  While most CG applications will quite happily render high poly detailed models, After Effects isn't exactly a full featured 3D rendering package - and that also meant a lot of internal custom shaders and texture mapping techniques I could use with my rendering tools would need to be instead based heavily on colour image maps and the general capabilities After Effects offered.

Most the detailing came from image maps, with small detailing modeled where needed.

One other thing was that the ship wasn't going to need to hold up to extreme close-ups.  That meant that detail models and precision texture mapping could be relaxed a little more then I'd normally need to with a more CG detailed project.  There did still need to be at least some detail to make the machine look real.  Details in the leg mechanics and wing/engine/rudder areas needed a little planning...

Details such as legs were low-poly - however the 'mechanics' had to still hold up.

However, there was a close-up pulling back from the bridge to show the pilot flying the ship (video composited into the shot) - but this luckily was achievable with higher-res texture maps and minimal additional modeling (there was some, but only on details where the lower poly tessellation stood out in shot)

Luckily for me, the only real textures that were noticable at full HD was the overall wood on the main ships hull.  To get this to look clean and sharp in a close-up, I simply created the texture map at 4096 rather then the original 2048 resolutions I'd originally been using.

Replacing the 2048 res with a 4096 higher quality image fixed close-up issues.

Then it all changed.

After Effects is not a 3D animation tool - we knew that - and as Arvid's project went on, the limitations of what it could do started to become quite apparent.  In particular, objects that would move a fair distance would render with artifacts (caused, I can only assume, by depth calculations messing up the back face culling).  It also doesn't offer any real animation capabilities to add secondary motion - and this meant the model did have a rather "stiff" appearance.

Worse still - Adobe's decision to remove 3D model support suddenly meant that this project would need older versions of the software to be edited (and make any future changes quite difficult).  With the newer releases of the software having no backward compatible replacement - Well...  You can guess the answer on that one.

It was decided that we render it in a 3D application (in this case, LightWave3D) and instead plug the image sequences back into After Effects.  This meant I could throw in more polys, and while I did add some more "detail", I still let the texture maps control a majority of the look and detailing.

Most the look of this section are image maps. The geometry is fairly simple

Additional small secondary motions such as the hook hanging below the belly of the machine could be added.  It also meant I could throw in some occlusion to add to the final look of the machine, as well as softer lighting and shadows that AE could not.  More believable motion blur for the spinning of the prop's later on were also very easy to achieve...

It all worked out in the end

I had a real blast working on this project.  In total, around 25-26 hours were spent with modeling, texturing and rendering on my end.  Arvid's work can be seen below.  Credits also go to David Giese, who also produced this project along with Arvid for Cinelandia and Scandinavian TV.

Make sure to check out both of these guys' websites to see some of the amazing commercial work that they do.


Ljudhjältarna, Title Sequence from Arvid Eriksson on Vimeo.

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Still stuck in the 80's - which is a good thing...

"Stick with it".  Its way to easy (specially for myself, and I'm sure many of you others out there) to jump into another project and tell myself "I'll get back to that one later".  Completing a project means making sure that you keep yourself immersed in it and follow it through to completion.

This retro 80's project is just that - and what's helping keep me on track is actually having the machines here next to me, which in turn inspires me to recall that childhood where I started my journey into computing.

So what have I been up to since my last post?  Well, continuation of that asset building to get together materials to produce a final rendered result.  With the cassette and cases all sorted and looking relatively good, a ZX Spectrum computer and some Atari game cartridges already done, its those last few peripherals that I need to load up and play my games that have to be done.

"From Russia...", ahem, I mean cassette to computer, "with love."

Obviously there has to be a way to feed that lovely magnetic data across, and in this case its with mono 3.5mm cables.  While these aren't finalised (textures/materials still need work), I decided to do a quick test render with the cassettes...

You may be wondering what that whole "Bedrooms to billions" tape is about.  Well, its not a game from the 1980's, but an upcoming documentary taking a historical look at the rise of the gaming industry in the United Kingdom where kids (like myself) could be game developers.  Nowadays, not so easy to do with huge studios and billions of dollars floating around...  Apart from perhaps the mobile gaming market, where indie games are still a possibility.  But I digress...

The cables are rigged up with a simple skeleton to allow me to bend, twist and curl them around.  Its important to be fairly flexible (no pun intended) with these assets so that I have options for a final composition...

On the subject of cables, I also made a start on the necessary RF cabling.  Yes, back in the day tuning in a channel on the TV set was the equivalent of a computer monitor.  Obviously being an RF (radio frequency) meant that the computers output would interfere with the neighbours TV reception...

RF plugs - just a little more tweaking to go... and a cable (obviously)

Watch and behold - ahem, that all important TV set

You would be surprised at just how annoying it is to try and find a decent side-on photograph of a small 14 inch television set from the 1980's using a google image search.  In the end I needed to develop my own model sheets for a classic small television through a mixture of reference photo's and some bounding box measurements from articles online for televisions.

"Roll your own" - TV model sheet, that is...

What I did end up producing from a few images was something that looks a little more 1990's then 1980's - however that's not to say that I'd be creating a scene from the 80's - just a scene showing old computer tech being set up...

But lets keep it real

I did find one exceptionally good website while browsing, and for anybody wanting to learn more about obsolete television technology, then the obsolete telly museum blog is a must-read.  I took another look at what televisions of that 1980's era were like, and today just built a whole new TV from scratch.

Once the key elements were noted down (curved CRT tubes, framed screens and the speaker/channel/volume controls on the left side (about 1/5th of the width of the TV casing)) the whole model came together in a couple of hours.

Before we had LCD, LED or Plasma... We had CRT.

Again, like the cables, the TV is still a WIP when it comes to textures and materials - but its one step closer to getting this project to completion...

Just making sure to follow through is the key...

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I'm in the clear!

I thought I'd better test out my cassette case model, as well as make sure I built a folded inlay for future models as not all games had the simpler flat cover...

I threw the front case surface onto the backing for the case to see how it would hold up visually, and I have to say it actually looks better then I'd expected it to.  Often this is where modeling flaws start to show themselves and I was all prepared to switch it back to black if I needed to.

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Just in case...

...a cassette case...  That's the only case we're talking about here.

Since my previous post for "Galactic Abductor", I've now modeled up the case for it as well.  The insert came from an online archive housed at the awesome World of Spectrum site.   The cassette label itself I drew up in Photoshop based on images I found on google.  The hardest part of that cassette label was finding that funky font for the AR - but in the end, daFont delivered one that was almost identical.

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Its a screecher!

Well, its a cassette - that screeches!  Its always interesting to hear young kids claim that they don't believe that computer programs could be stored on an audio cassette...  But in 1983, that's how we did it...  The screeching sound of bits and bytes as they loaded across to the 16 or 48k of memory of the ZX Spectrum...

 I guess the concept of how you can store digital data on an audio device sounds a little wierd - but then again, back in the 80's the whole concept of sending "video" via a telephone to have some kind of visual chat was also a pretty "impossible" to imagine concept.  A phone was for voice - a television was to watch video - and of course to use as a monitor for that home computer...

But look at where we are now.  Its common place to video chat with people, everybodies carrying around a computer in their palm, we communicate with people on a global level every second of every day...  In the 1980's, this was still all "science fiction" material...

Computer games on cassettes?!  Yup... Thats how we rolled back in the 80s.

 

Now, where was I again? Oh yeh, that screeching tape...

I decided to fill in a little time, and expand my assets for my whole 3D "8-bit phase" I'm going through, to model and texture up one of the very first cassette games I got with my ZX Spectrum back in the day...  Galactic Abductors, by Anirog Software.

Another quicky 3D asset.  One of my first ZX Spectrum games

Its a very quick model, created using just the usual generic modeling tools and a few bump maps.  But I'm one more asset closer to getting around to creating and rendering a nice composition...  The plan is to next model the case and inlay and finish this asset off ready for whatever comes next into my head...

Was it the first?  It was one of two that started off my ZX Spectrum experience...  The other being Frenzy, a clone of the classic arcade game Bezerk...

Anyway, enough reminiscing for this blog entry...  Until next time...

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Re-live the 80's with Illustrator.

I developed a design brief for my students that requires then to recreate their own work in the style of the 80's arcade pop-culture.  Its a great era and one that seems to be fairly popular even today with its pixel-art, rainbow electric graphic design asthetic and just the fact I grew up in that era also helps... :D

While its easy enough to create pixel-art in a bitmap editor such as Photoshop, Windows Paint or the Gimp - For some real flexibility artistically, Illustration software like - well - Illustrator is a better choice.  Because its vector based, pixel shapes are crisp and square.  They can be rescaled without pixel artifacts or antialiased soft edges.  And it can be manipulated with transforms, 3D extrusions and more without losing quality.

That means groovy poster art, alongside the usual pixel-level bit map export.  Some examples below show a range of ways that we can make the classic invader into a variety of visually interesting styles in Illustrator.  Of course, we can also export the original image in actual screen res. pixels too for those actual bitmap projects (ie. like game makers, etc).

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"Its a wrap" - a light wrap that is...

Often when in a hurry, I'll render out composit shots from my 3D software once the main lighting and surfacing are working rather then spend time rendering passes and compositing them. Today I was thinking - one thing that often helps integration with a photographic plate is applying some light wrapping.  Its a process that is common in compositing - but what about throwing that idea into a 3D application's rendering output?

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ZX Spectrum lives on - part 2 of the work in progress

After just posting up my work earlier today here, I'm now back with an update for the evening.  This time around I've added some detailing under the model (only about 15 minutes to drill and bevel/extend a pile of insets) - and I've also finished the keyboard texture maps.

Yep...  I'd say the modeling is now safely done and out of the way - but we're not done just yet...

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The 80's called, and they want their technology back - 3D ZX Spectrum (work in progress)

With a couple of days off work, and with nothing better to do yesterday morning, I decided to snap a pile of photo's of my old ZX Spectrum (the one from my earlier posting).

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Hmmmm... Would I jump ship from CG to Compositing?

Good question - and one I asked myself last week after spending a good amount of time working my way through Nuke (NukeX to be exact) and python scripting. It seems that Nuke has snagged me - I'm loving it, and just getting a buzz from working my way around techniques and tools.  Its all been very easy to pick up, and I have to say that the ease of upskilling in this tool is an exhilarating roller coaster ride that I'll keep travelling along.

So - with this buzz happening as I progress along with Nuke, would or should I jump ship from CG to work with compositing instead to get my fix?  Its a tempting decision - I really do love what I can do in post, but the answer would be No - yet on the other hand - Yes...  The reality is that both of these areas are joined at the hip, and they work well together.  CG needs compositing to polish and finalise it's look and style, as does compositing need CG assets for tasks such as front projecting a 2D plate into 3D geometry for additional depth, or creating virtual elements for visual effects work.

This blog post, I've posted a few examples of how I make use of both production processes to both edit my own personal work, but to assist in teaching others...

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Dropping a Nuke on a pesky Python

Well, more like a little basic 101 on using Python in The Foundry's Nuke compositing package.  I wrote this example script as an initial introduction to learning simple python scripting in Nuke.  As well as the chance to dabble in Nuke, it gave me the opportunity to develop a useful tool for my own work...

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Maya and Python - scripted gaming

One challenge I set myself while teaching Python 101 was to show just how easy it would be to create an interactive game, or other user-driven application, that runs in Maya.  The first question was just how do you run python in real time in Maya?  You can't use a loop in Python - this tends to tie up Maya, and its relatively easy to lock up the software this way.  Trust me, I did that - several times.  Its not fun to keep bringing up the task manager to kill Maya...

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Is it a keyboard, is it a plane? No... Its...

...my new acquisition.  I picked up this old ZX Spectrum from our national online auction site, trademe for NZ$10 4 days back, and received it today.  Its got its faults (the keyboard membrane needs replacing) and I'm yet to dig out an old Sinclair power supply to test it runs.

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Hisssssssss! Slithering around rocks in Python...

Its been a week of teaching basic 101 programming in Python, and I must say that I'm getting a real taste for Python as a language for scripting.  Having experience in many different languages over the last 30 years, Python takes me back to my early BASIC days of the 80's, where as kids, we'd learn to program by writing our own games, something that was common back when off-the-shelf software wasn't as prevalent as it is today.  In fact, this home computing phenomenon was what built the foundations of the gaming industry in the United Kingdom.  And some software stores here in New Zealand would offer to sell games and pay royalties - something completely unseen these days...  But I digress...

Python's syntax is simple and easy to understand, and when they said its designed to produce readable code, they weren't kidding.  This made teaching programming for me a piece of cake.  Of course, the hardest part of teaching such a subject to our future 3D artists who are excited to produce animation, models and render can be tricky.

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The 8-bit childhood returns in glorious CG...

As much as I tried, I hoped to post regularly to this blog...  However after a few weeks, I'm back with another post.

A couple of weeks ago, I'd decided to purchase some cartridges for my old Atari 600XL I've had lying in storage for 15+ years from eBay.  The reason I'd not used the machine at all (yes, 15+ years of storage and about 30 minutes of usage mucking about, eh, 15 years ago) is purely because I didn't have any software for it.

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ZBrush - Looking a head to see where things are going.

Or surely just "a head that's now looking". :-)

I decided to just do a little additional fudging about with the head example I'd done in the first class.  In this case, I thought I'd throw in a couple of stand-in eyeballs and add a few additional wrinkles here and there.

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Sculpt me silly... or "how to make a really old model look less old"

While my brains running in ZBrush mode, I figured why not apply the same techniques I covered in class today to a character model.  The challenge tomorrow for my students will be to use the basic work flow and tools to take the low-poly model I built and give it some "oomph".  Afterall, the work flow is no different - subdivide, build form and mass, smooth and refine... Ad infinitum.

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Getting in to the basics with ZBrush

The first class is done!  In this class, I just wanted to get the students familiar with the Interface, sculpting basics and a workflow process for sculpting.  In a way, the work flow is no different then anything we do in 3D - start with the basics, then detail up from there.

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Generic Aliens with generic taste in clothing style...

I'm about to embark on teaching a new ZBrush class tomorrow.  As a part of my power-upskilling over the last week, this is my first attempt at sculpting something using this fantastic application.

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First person gaming and the story telling arc...

At the start of every new class each year, we begin with a short module on story telling. That means making sure students understand the simple concepts of 3 part narrative, what genre and theme are and of course the different ways in which stories are delivered (including classic old 1950's style radio plays, comics, written, etc).

One issue I've always run into is that the materials I've been working with never really take in the current trends and adapt to meet the new intakes. While we need to maintain the core principles behind story development and design, delivery and topics need to be dynamic and exciting, and should connect with the current generation - a generation that has a much shorter attention span as technology and delivery of information has changed the way we share and communicate.

The diploma is all about digital Animation and Film, and when students are young and so excited about the latest gaming, animated movies and vfx-laden action films it's always great to find articles on the way in which all of these story telling principles are applied in areas that students can relate.

Developing Meaningful Player Character Arcs in Branching Narrative

This article from Gamasutra is just one of those things - it encapsulates what makes for an interesting and dynamic story through character and conflict - in the gaming sense - and how to build around the branching narrative to compensate for player decisions.  A great read, and one I can use for my next session with an upcoming class...

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Attention to detail...

The number one thing that I've found while teaching over the years is that student projects (well, 99% of them) suffer from this - lack of attention to detail.  And that is exactly what makes them look like student work.

Attention to detail is important - we see it everywhere - in cooking, music, cars, software, movies, cellphones, etc.  If it wasn't there, we'd have music that was flat and simple.  We'd have food that was bland, or tasted bad. Software that was of a low quality and missing those small features that make it popular and powerful...  Its the exact same in CG - lack of attention to the details make for basic, uninteresting or unbelievable work.

I'll often use this model I built a couple of years back to point out some of the smaller detail points that students would miss without taking the time to look at what helps make such a model feel realistic (there's definitely many things on this model that still need work, mind you).

Small details such as the canopy slide (the rail that the canopy slides along when opening), mounting for guns in the wing (many times I see people simply sticking cylinders into the edge of a wing), the bulge in the tyre because the weight of the aircraft is pressing down are things that are picked up from attention to detail.

 

Looking with your eyes, not your mind...

So what exactly does attention to detail entail?  Its all bundled up into one very simple word - observation.  Look around you, collect visual reference, visit the things related to your project in person and absorb the reality of it into your visual memory...  That means sketching, drawing, photographing, touching...  Being aware of the way your subject matter looks or behaves is extremely important to how polished and professional the quality of your work will appear.

One typical example where a lack of this can be seen in many projects is always at the early design stage.  Often people attempt to develop ideas without reference - they base it on what they think they know, and without paying attention to the details, the results are always unpolished.  Proportions are wrong, small details are missing that make the design look more believable, or the design is not logical at all because the concept is based on what they imagined it looked like.  In particular, its character design where I see this occur most.

 

Knowing your tools from your Skills.

I don't know how many times I've told my classes this - but I'm starting to feel that its possibly a skill that takes time and practise (like any art form) to improve upon.  Its obvious when people with good traditional art and design skills already demonstrate better looking CG work.  The 3D software may initially be a challenge to pick up, but in the end it simply becomes a new tool for their creative output.

From my experience, I feel that its likely that students in particular invest a lot more effort into understanding how to create things by how they operate software, but not many spend the time to understand what it is they are creating before they touch the software itself.

This rolls back to one of my previous posts on software vs. skills - Its the artistic skills that have been built up that are then applied with the tools that they learn.  Its definitely not the case when its software operation first followed by creative skills second.

Students, or anybody who is new to CG or even experienced but struggling with their own design work, should take the initiative to get away from the software side and look around them.  Take a sketch book with you on your way to work, examine the world around you - and don't just do a google image search.

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Inspiration on the desktop... If you have space...

Ok, so I'm no spring chicken these days, but I'm just as much a kid at heart as I've always been.  Over the years, I have amassed a good collection of inspiring toys of characters from my favorite shows and comics.  Unfortunately though, many are still in boxes, or in storage purely because I just don't have space to set them all up...

Recently I did buy this guy - Wheel Jack - from the show Transformers:Prime.  I have to say, this toy is GREAT for dynamic action posing...  It also looks just as cool as the show! The other bonus is that its small enough to sit nicely on top of a DVD spindle right in front of my keyboard.

One day, I'll get the rest unpacked when I find some space for them...  Until then, I'm going to just be inspired by robots...

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Tools or Skills? Time for a quick vent...

This has always been a pet peeve for me...

The one thing I've noticed a lot here in New Zealand is that animation college graduates that I meet at events have formed the perception that knowing how to operate an advanced software application is the skill that makes them a professional artist.  This isn't just a one-off, it appears to be a trend that is common.

imho, mastering software is more something that makes for an employable artist.  Professionalism is built through experience and practise.  Having both is definitely even better, but in that case you'd probably have been an industry professional for some time.

We should never overlook the fact that software is just a tool.  The skill is in how you understand the art form/technical field and what you can produce with the tools - its like comparing brands of pencil as a way to judge how good a sketch artist someone is.


And not all professional artists master their craft with the same tools.  However once the skills are in place, transitioning between software tools is often extremely easy.

For me personally after almost two decades working with other applications, picking up Autodesk Maya (as complex and intimidating as it first looked) when I found it was an unavoidable necessity for my day job was surprisingly easy to do.  But I didn't have to change anything about the way I modeled, textured or animated - I knew these literally inside-out having done this for so long - I just found the same tools and adapted the approach to match the tools process.


This is the mindset we should be teaching our future artists in colleges - its about mastering the skills, understanding the processes and then being able to apply them in the tools we're provided with.  Too often its the other way around...

That's just my 2c on the matter...

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About time I blogged...

I used to be very active on forums and post up work frequently, but having been full-time teaching for almost a decade (steady work, steady income - the way the bank loves you to be when you are paying for a house) really takes it out of you over the years.  When I was working in an animation studio, it was always fresh and exciting - no matter what job came through, there were always challenges that would pop up and keep the old brain cells ticking over.

But hey - Most industry jobs tend to be contracts, and not long terms ones at that.  With a mortgage, its a risky industry to try and keep yourself in financially.

Don't get me wrong.  I love teaching - however after a few years, the daily grind really eats away at you.  Same questions, same subjects, same problems, and a whole load of paperwork to deal with.  There's something missing when you're not challenged with ongoing projects constantly and seem to be able to fix problems without thinking because they're so common year after year that you can literally answer them in your sleep.

Then there's the "I can't discuss this subject because its way too confusing for new students who need to learn how to make a box" that limits what you can talk about, and that is hard when you really want to talk about some dynamics feature or surfacing concept you've been playing with.

BUT - this year we have a whole new 3rd year 3D diploma - and it has definitely given me back my spark.  I can finally talk shop with students who have been through the basic training.  Its definitely a case of feeling "un-chained" from the restraints of keeping to the basics...


While I'm still passionate about CG - over 20 years and still as excited about it as ever - I've found my whole online presence has dropped back a lot.  A blog is my way of crawling back up that hole and with a new fresh diploma and lots of great new challenges ahead,  I'm excited about 2013 - Its going to be a blogging good time.

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