Animation

I'm going to upload a few of my weekly animations. We are assigned one task a week, and then submit it for feedback on the following Monday, when we receive the next task. These are going to be marked at the end of December, so are not final versions yet, but are good enough to put up here I figure.

This first one is a little guy jumping. It's a really-short vid, as it's only one jump, but watch it a few times and you'll get the details.




This second one is the little guy walking. Again it's really short so you'll want to repeat it to see how the walk cycle blends together.




Thirdly we have him walking and bouncing a basketball. He's not NBA standard, but he can do that all day, every day.



That's all for now, next time he'll be climbing a ladder and then lifting weights. Not lifting weights at the top of a ladder though, he's not an idiot.

Hospital Room continued

Here's the latest additions to the hospital room, as you can see it's looking a lot more full now, but still needs a few bits and pieces to tie it together. These parts are all ingame now, below is a screenshot of how they look when being played.


The room isn't complete yet, as it needs textures for the walls, floors and a proper lighting setup, but it should be ready and handed over to the programmers fairly soon I would have thought.

The reason progress has been fairly slow is a combination of loads of animation homework, and I've started working for a Half-Life 2 mod called 'Orion' as a prop modeller. It's fun having several projects on the go at once, but it keeps me very busy juggling them all.

Props for Game

Have just started a new module at uni in which I'm creating a game. Very déjà-vu, as this is exactly what I did this time last year as well, but I'm not complaining as it gives me a chance to stretch my asset creation legs. Last year I was one of 2 artists in a group of 4, this year I am running solo with 2 programmers for company so have much more responsibility on my shoulders.

Our game is taking shape nicely so far, we're exploiting the fact we have more programming manpower by creating a puzzle game. This means players will spend a lof of time in each room while they solve the puzzle, meaning less work for me. Also the puzzles themselves are fairly easy to model, but programming them is a much harder job, again playing to our groups strengths.

These first props are from the starting room. Our character has just woken up after being captured and finds himself in a disused hospital room with a voice over the intercom explaining to him that he's now a prisoner and will have to co-operate if he is to be allowed to live.

Uni Rigging assignment

At uni we recently had an assignment to create a character and rig them. The character had to be humanoid and the model <2000 polygons, but apart from that we had carte-blanche.



As you can see I picked Bugs-Bunny. This was so I could practice adding extra bones to the normal 3DS-Max biped, for his ears and tail. The animation is just a set of movements designed to show the deformations on the model, hence the weird break-dancing moves he's showcasing.
The temptation is now to go back and make a Daffy-Duck character so I can make a short for them to act in, but that's a slippery slope and I'd probably end up with most of the Looney-Toons clamouring to be made next, and who needs that when you're trying to do a masters.

First Masters Assignment

I started my masters yesterday and straight away have an assignment, luckily though, it's awesome.
We have been tasked with making a vehicle, something I have done quite a bit of recently as you'll know, and so I thought I'd try something a bit different to the cars that everyone else in the class is building (except my friend Tom, who is making the Mole from Thunderbirds)
I have decided to make a tank, the Leopard II Battle Tank actually, and below is my progress so far.


Obviously at the moment it wouldn't be much good in a battle, but maybe by Monday it'll be able to put up more of a fight, I'll keep posting progress as I go.

Ford Mustang

My most recent project has been this Ford Mustang, one of my favorite models so far. Smoothed it weighs in at 75000 polygons and the renders are done using VRay.

I'm now back in Sheffield to start my masters, "Animation for Games" so hopefully I should get the opportunity to work on a few more big projects, either for the course or just in my spare time, as long as student life doesn't get in the way, damned parties...

GameBoy Advance SP

I'm at home at the moment and was going through some boxes last week and found my old Gameboy, so promptly forgot about modelling for a few days and started playing through my old games again.
Yesterday afternoon I finished Zelda: The Minnish Cap, (a game in which everyone is happy to let a schoolboy run around with a sword and shield fighting the worlds most power sorcerer when there is an entire army of professional soldiers standing about) and thought I'd model something related. I pondered making some props from the game, but then thought I'd do something a bit more universal: hence the gameboy.





It's a good job I didn't decide to model something from each game I played, I'd probably end up having to make a Pikachu or the worlds most detailed Tetris block.

Dune Buggy completed

I finished the dune buggy, decided to make the engine properly in the end and am quite pleased with the way it turned out, but might re-visit it sometime to improve it.
I also put together a realistic material setup for it, and remade the seat , all of which I think has added to the look. I'll add some more pics up when I've done some renders.

Dune Buggy progression

Added a few more bits this evening, sort of a spot-the-difference update. Will complete the engine tomorrow, am not really sure what to do with it, model all the detail (time consuming) or put it in a protective box (would feel like cheating after all the other detail I've put in).
Answers on a postcard.

Dune Buggy

Now I'm settled at home again (for anyone who doesn't know, home is a tiny village in Somerset with a few houses and nothing else, not even a shop) I've found myself with some free time, and decided to finish the dune buggy I began in November.
Starting again yesterday I hit a rich vein of enthusiasm and have finished the main body of the buggy, leaving only a few parts to add on tomorrow (seat, steering wheel, engine, all rather vital to a car now I think about it).

The wacky colours are just for me while I'm building it, I'll create a proper texture set for it once the rest of the model is done.

Results

It dawned on me last night that it had been nearly a month since I received my final grade for university, and that I hadn't posted this most important of informations on my blog.
The chance that someone would read my blog who didn't already know the grade is remote in the extreme. Whether you came here because you are friend/family, you were sent a copy of my CV, or in fact found a copy of my CV in a bin somewhere, you'd probably already know. In any case, I got a 1st Class Honours, which I'm really rather pleased with. Last year involved a lot of hard work, not least my Dissertation which came out at 17000 words and nearly killed me (this is actually a fact) but I think it was all worth it for a top grade.

Car crash simulator

Recently I've been working on a car-crash simulator for university. We have designed it for a psychology tutor who wants to use it for testing how peoples memories can be affected by what questions they are asked.

Numark mixer

Continuing the DJ setup theme I modeled my new mixer last week, and have just taken the time to do some renders.
It should fit in nicely with the others, and the collection will keep growing until it's got all my kit in it.

One day I might even texture them.