Lee Greatorex photo/2d/3d blog

Ipad sketching - Procreate

2012-01-21T18:09:00.004Z

Just bought procreate a few days ago on the itunes store (3.99 Euros currently).

Here are a few sketches I did on it (finger painted, not got a stylus yet).

It's a really good art tool. I'd recommend it if those are looking for something other than Sketchbook pro. This and artrage provide more of a painter/traditional style workflow. I picked this over artrage as it was cheaper! (Also I have Artrage pro on the pc so was just interested in seeing the differences).

Ipad App Reviews 1

2012-01-20T18:32:00.017Z

I thought I'd review a few photography apps after testing out a number of them on my new toy. There are so many apps out there for photography ranging from simple editing suites to highly stylised art effects or filters (emulating a number of old cameras).

First note is the ipad's own camera isn't very good at all. I wouldn't recommend it for serious photography (the iphone 4's camera is apparently much better).

These are just a couple of the apps I've used. I'll review more down the line.

Snapseed:

This is a great photo editing app, providing a number of options to edit photos either from your own photo library or the camera roll. It provides typical touchup features (cropping, fine tuning, straightening) yet also provides some nice looking effects including vintage and grunge filters.

It is extremely easy to use and provides a nice and quick way to edit photos on the go, the output quality is enough for uploading to websites (not tried printing yet) and it has auto share options for flikr, facebook and twitter.

Above: One of my photos taken on the d80 imported and grunged up in Snapseed
Below: Taken with the Ipad Camera

The grunge filter is probably the best 'arty' filter I've seen in an app so far and is probably going to be overused (as it's so fun!). I like the way you can build up your effects (although as a warning there are no layers in this so you are essentially just stacking effect on effect). The compare feature is a nice touch to see the original unedited photo.

The new details feature almost works like Clarity in Lightroom, providing sharpening options as well.

Price wise I managed to get this free in a sale! But it is usually around 3.99Euros/£2.99 - I'd say it's worth the full price as probably the most robust and versatile on the go photo editor app.

Pixlr-o-matic:

This provides you a number of filters emulating Holga or Toy style cameras/lens. It seems to be a little like popular iphone app Instagram although this has a little more tweaking ability. It is completely free! With the option to purchase additional filters if you want (although you get plenty to choose from with the basic package).

Above: Taken with the ipad camera

It can give nice results, even from photos taken with the ipad camera (In fact I'd recommend this over snapseed for ipad camera shots for the full 'ghetto' feel). The ability to save out in small/web size or original size is a great bonus.

Above: Taken on the d80 and made to look like it's taken on a toy camera. As explained I'd still just use this for photos taken with the ipad camera.

As free this is completely harmless, while these looks can be overused they are still very fun to play around with and can give you some quick and easy lomo-style stuff.

Percolator:

This is an app which converts your photos in to a cool circle print art style image using a Circle Packing algorithm (or something like that! Go check out their site for more of the how it's done!).

It provides extremely unique imagines from your own photos (from your library or camera) which you can then save or upload. The quality is great and it can produce some really great results although it is stronger on images with clear lines/block shapes in the image (or so I've found in my own playing around with it).

Hopefully these images from my own portfolio will speak for themselves about the style and quality of images it produces.

I really recommend this app although it can be more trial and error than trial and improvement. Not every photo will work well with it. The price (usually around $2.99, I picked it up on sale) may be quite steep for some for an app with 1 trick as it were but it is a quality one which I think is worth it.

Another neat little feature of it is the titles of the pieces (Not visible above as I put them in another package when uploading to pc) provide you with the exact editing done in the package. For example my Lisbon streets shot (Middle image) has the title 'Grind: Medium (Smallest Circles & Effect: None), Brew: Treble (1/2 Pic & Darkest Blended Circles), Serve: Stirred (Sucralose Tone & Brown Bag Texture)' (the style of the app is done in a coffee roaster/blender).

Hopefully this is a nice intro in to some of the apps available all with their own bonuses for using them. 3 very different apps for about the price of a pint!

Cork City Gaol

2012-01-11T14:00:00.004Z

These were taken a few months ago out an about at Cork City Gaol. The full gallery can be found Here

(Above: Standard issue Prison uniform while the Gaol was still active)

(Below: Found a Caterpillar on a tree!)

(Above: Abandoned buildings were dotted around the Gaol, I love seeing overgrown nature in and around buildings)

Recent Sculptris work

2012-01-09T16:14:00.004Z

I had a dabble with Sculptris earlier in 2011 and enjoyed it. I've now got a keen interest of eventually buying Zbrush so will continue to work/ practise with Pixelogic's Free software; Sculptris. Here are some of my most recent sculpts.

These are rendered in the tool itself. I just added some overlaying texture and colour via the Snapseed app on my ipad (imported the photos to it and saved them back out).

For those wanting to give it a go you can get Sculptris completely free here! It has Zbrush integration if you do have access to Zbrush (I'm going to buy it after I am fully comfortable with sculpting).

The New Year

2012-01-04T13:03:00.009Z

Hope everyone had a great holiday! I have been busy with work but I want to start to update this again. I have been keeping up with my photography but more so sculpting.I've been learning steadily with pixelogic's sculptris as my goal this year is to buy zbrush for some personal statues ready for 3d printing. I'll upload some of them in a later post.

I'm currently on my new toy! (iPad 2). Going to try and review some art + photo apps. Just testing the functionality in the browser first! Here's an image using free/on sale camera app Snapseed with one of my own photos;

update: uploading images didn't work from the ipad itself (at least the formatting). Nodoubt there will be something which can be used instead for it. I'll look in to more upload ways as well as other apps.

When The Boat Comes In

2011-06-23T00:24:00.006+01:00

50mm - Cobh

Case Study

2011-06-21T21:33:00.003+01:00

Pun intended! Inspired by June 2011 Black+White Photography Magazine runner up Imre Csokonyi. Happened to come across some vintage cases during a visit to the Cobh Heritage centre.

50mm 1.8

Unlike the inspiration I wanted to pick out the leathery colours as well as the texture (trying to work in more colour to my work).

I still do enjoy B+W though, I can see why it is used to bring out the textures more in leathers.

Fisheye Cobh

2011-06-15T01:46:00.004+01:00

Shots taken June 13th Cobh around 8pm, Samyang 8mm.

The Moon II

2011-06-13T23:10:00.002+01:00

Been a while since taking a photo of the moon. Think this is an improvement over the last one. Earlier today as well I took some photos around town with the Fisheye (will upload them here tomorrow).

Tamron 70-300mm (at 300mm) f6. Click for larger view!

Photos from a Free Lens - Marexar-CX 28-200

2011-06-13T01:24:00.007+01:00

My dad used to buy as many cameras/accessories from car boot sales as possible, usually picking up old box brownies or similar for about £5-10 each at most (giving me some of the duplicate or broken cameras he had). Along the way people tended to just give away the rest of the photo gear they had just to get rid of it.

After moving to Ireland I only managed to take 1-2 old camera bags with me (one of them containing a Bolex 8mm clockwork movie camera!). One of the bags has an old 35mm camera which needs some repairs and a lens which didn't fit it. the mystery lens fits my nikon though!!

The Marexar-CX 28-200 3.8 is a manual lens, the nikon doesn't recognize it (like the recent fisheye I bought) however it works fine in full manual mode. It has no lens cap and has taken a battering, nice heavy duty lens though looks like it could take a few more. From what I could tell the CX range was made between 84-94. Online reviews seem to be pretty positive about the lens! I was just surprised and happy it worked, I'm impressed with the results! Will give it more of a test soon. Here are the tests shots I took with it: (shots were from hand so may be a little motion blurred, ISO was quite high just to test it indoors)

New Lens: Samyang 8mm Fisheye MF

2011-06-01T10:43:00.005+01:00

I bought this a few days ago. A cheap (279 euros roughly) and cheerful fisheye which works well. On cameras below the d90 it won't recognise the lens so you need to run in manual mode and ideally get a light meter (otherwise a bit of trial and error is required).

I still need to get used to composing with such a wide angle/distorted view (usually I stick with my 50mm now or use the 70-300mm for wildlife work) but overall I'm very happy with it!

Take a bow

2011-05-29T21:55:00.002+01:00

Another reverse lens/freelensing here;

I bought a new lens this week. It should be here in the next few days so will be uploading some new photos soon!!

Below is a photo of our regular bird we're feeding at the moment. It's become pretty tame over the past few weeks as we feed it/ give it food for it's chicks. No longer scared of the shutter sound either!

Reverse Lens Macro III

2011-05-25T21:40:00.003+01:00

Getting more practise with it. When I get my Macro lens later in the year it will be nice to compare the reverse lens to a lens specifically created with macro photography in mind (the micro nikkor 105mm). The lens I usually use for my macro work is the Tamron 70-300 (tend to use it more for the recent wildlife shots). Using the 50mm reversed gives a better quality but extremely hard to focus and currently haven't had bright enough weather to make the aperture narrower (1.8 is giving such a shallow depth of field to be useful).

I'm still having fun and really enjoying the results though!

Reverse Lens Macro II

2011-05-24T21:44:00.004+01:00

Some more shots playing around using my 50mm 1.8 backwards to make a macro lens.

Reverse Lens Macro tests

2011-05-23T20:35:00.004+01:00

DIY photography linked a video by Destin (see link for his youtube and flickr page) about how to create a simple macro lens with your existing lens' simply by taking it off and holding it backwards. I gave it a go with my 50mm 1.8 and it worked! Need more work on it though but certainly fun!

A few notes - just remember you need to widen your aperture manually and it needs a lot of light! Remember as well to be extra careful with your lens (and camera!) if doing it!

Lisbon Street Art

2011-05-11T21:57:00.000+01:00

A couple of shots from the last trip to Lisbon. 50mm (click for full view)

(Above: Some of the tiling/wall art in the underground in Lisbon - panorama compromising of 4 images.
Below: The building just near our hotel. This kind of art is on alot of the derelict buildings)

Plants and the Bird II

2011-05-09T23:42:00.005+01:00

A bit windy here at the moment! Dragging plants and things indoors to shoot. A couple more shots from the Wildlife conservation as well. Tamron 70-300mm

I'm also looking at getting a new lens. After some thought (sports lens or macro). I've decided to go for macro for now. This is the lens I'm looking at;

The 105mm f2.8 Micro Nikkor will be a great choice for me and a good upgrade for my current macro lens. Quite expensive but worth it for the picture quality.

Thursday 21st April - Wildlife Park

2011-04-23T01:18:00.005+01:00

Back to Fota Wildlife Park.

Tamron 70-300

March 30th: The Beetle

2011-03-30T20:02:00.002+01:00

5 horned rhinoceros beetle (click for full view)

Tamron 70-300

March 23rd: The Bee

2011-03-23T22:08:00.005Z

Tamron 70-300mm

March 21st: Plants and the bird

2011-03-21T21:18:00.002Z

Tamron 70-300mm

Cobh Feb 28th

2011-03-01T22:07:00.005Z

Taken with the 50mm - Cobh

Old man portrait WIP

2011-02-15T02:29:00.004Z

Some more painting in Artrage. This is still WIP but I'm happy with it so far. Just darkened it a bit in an online editing program (Picnik) - I usually paint with mid range grays then add a little more contrast after, hopefully after more confidence with my drawing/painting skills I'll be able to apply it directly to work during production.

Artrage Studio Pro

2011-02-10T00:22:00.004Z

My girlfriend recently bought me Artrage . Great and affordable art package based around emulating traditional brushes/pens. I'm having lots of fun with it so far. It's simpler to use than photoshop if doing straight artwork so my plan is to use it in a general workflow, doing the main design, shading, colouring in artrage then taking over to PS to add any more final touches (textures, level adjustment etc).

Here's a sketch anyway done in Artrage. (first quick sketch but I'm happy enough with it!)

Edit: Just tweaked a in PS for a little more contrast and gave it a subtle tone. (see below)

The Birds

2011-01-19T23:59:00.005Z

Some shots taken earlier. Put some food out to get some of the birds down on to the ledge and then a crow came down and took it all! Managed to take a few before he took over though.

Below: The Culprit

Zombie Concept

2011-01-19T02:49:00.002Z

Just been trying Autodesk Sketchbook here's a quick zombie sketch/concept with it, put a few textures in via PS. It seems like a good tool for fast concept work. It's also great fun for just doodling, very simple interface but great for tablets.

Lisbon HDR

2010-11-10T23:57:00.003Z

A couple of shots from Lisbon I just been working on.

This is in Oriente, Lisbon

Dogs

2010-11-02T14:43:00.005Z

Still waiting on the new PC to get back on with 3D work. In the meantime took a small trip to Ennisskeane/ Bandon again. (shots below taken with 50mm 1.8)

Brand X Lighting WIP

2010-10-18T20:01:00.013+01:00

Scene/model taken from the 3drender.com lighting challenges.
This is still a WIP - caustics not yet done and could do with a few more lights.

Render time (on my very slow laptop 2min5sec)

Here's a view of the rig so far, 1 directional light and using Final Gather with some image based lighting, also using the white planes (primary visibility and emit/receive shadows off) to add a little more to the reflections/ lighting (appearing more like studio work).

I also had a play with some Lens/output shaders and gave the mia_exposure_photographic shader a go with these settings;

It produced these results which I kinda like, with some more tweaking I think it will be a pretty fun shader to use - it added 1 second to render time.

and after amb_occlusion pass + some colour balance/ noise in PS;

(model by Anthony Thomas)

Lighting Studies '09

2010-10-17T00:49:00.005+01:00

These were from the Lighting and Rendering with Mental Ray course I went on last year. The course ran by Jeremy Birn (Lighting Artist, Pixar) was great for further study in to lighting/rendering with 3d packages (Maya used for these). I'm continuing studies in lighting by doing the 3D Lighting Challenges found here

I'd recommend the course for anyone interested in Lighting or Rendering, the basic techniques can be used in any package really and it teaches how to use lights well and more importantly efficiently (getting good results without necessarily the need for advanced rendering options like Global Illumination).

A few shots from Lisbon

2010-10-12T23:59:00.010+01:00

Just a couple of shots from my Lisbon trip - working on all for prints currently. All shot with 50mm Panoramas patched together in PS.

The Panorama below is much larger currently looking at a few panorama viewers to enable a larger view for people

Panorama of Lisbon 1 on CleVR.com

Fota Wildlife Conservation

2010-10-11T07:45:00.005+01:00

Some shots of the protected Wildlife at a local conservation park.

Particle Studies

2010-10-10T19:15:00.004+01:00

Further studies in particle work (Maya)

playblasts and render tests can be found here http://www.youtube.com/user/scutteh

Sculptris Tests

2010-09-30T22:32:00.011+01:00

Sculptris is currently a free to use 3d sculpting program (currently in Alpha stage). It is slightly more basic and raw compared to the big sculpting tools (mudbox/Zbrush) but it still has a great charm and excellent ease of use.

Here are a few tests done with it (using the default sphere as the starting point).

Above: test/wip work of a Magneto/ Raiden character (head would be covered with helmet)
Below: A goblin

Above: WIP of a Kingpin style character
Below: Test Render in Maya with bump and skin shader applied

I found the program really easy to use and a nice start for those not used to importing objects in to Maya for a render. (I used a modified version of MayaSSS Fast Skin Shader as a base for the skin with my texture painted colours as bump added to it, then a simple lighting rig for the images). The downside is it's quite a bit harder to get a refined model such as in zbrush and poly count can be quite high (although the reduce brush does an excellent job of lowering poly count).

This program is perfect for lunch time doodles at work or test ideas which can then be developed in more powerful software combinations. Give it a go!

Flame Studies

2010-09-30T00:13:00.005+01:00

This is progress from working through the flame section of the Maya Studio Projects: Dynamics book;

I'm kind of happy with it, still working through the burning building project while also working out how to utilise the skills learned in the book in to my own work, possible a character walking through a dungeon with a torth or similar.

Here's progress on the house section;

My laptop is on it's last legs so I'm not sure it will handle the higher res (currently the higher one seen at the bottom is at 80 - 90 and 70 compared to the books suggested 160+. I'll work out a proper ratio tomorrow and raise it accordingly from the low 40-50 and 30 suggested resulution values.

Progress and Sketching

2010-09-29T14:52:00.005+01:00

I've not posted in a long time, been doing a lot of photography work, ranging from Wildlife photography to shots in Lisbon (will upload a few of them on here shortly) as well as working on a new portfolio website - progress can be found here .

3D wise I'm currently using the program Sculptris and will do a couple of tutorials/ show some of my work since using it later this week.

Also as part of 3D work I'm currently going through the Maya Studio Projects: Dynamics book as a kind of top up to the degree (been a while since doing more detailed particles and since university moved to Maya) - you can find the book here

I'm currently working through the flames section (previously done the cloud of dust/ volcano project). I will be working through the whole book, hopefully then will link a couple of effects together to get a little test reel done.

Finally today I've been sketching today, Just thought I'd upload it as is (just changed the contrast/ colours slightly not going to colour or digital ink it yet).

Kinsale

2010-08-17T14:07:00.004+01:00

Some shots taken around Kinsale, the beach, James and Charles' Fort. 50mm

Cobh Aug 10th

2010-08-11T09:27:00.004+01:00

Shots from Cobh, Ireland during the docking of The World 50mm 1.8

300mm tests

2010-07-26T15:00:00.004+01:00

These with my 70-300mm lens. Not used it in a long time but quite enjoyed taking some shots, will definitely be doing more with it now I've moved.

Enniskeane II

2010-07-13T23:33:00.004+01:00

Just a couple more shots from / around Enniskeane - B+W

Enniskeane

2010-06-11T22:01:00.006+01:00

Some shots from our trip to Enniskeane, Co. Cork, Ireland.
50mm lens

Sherlock Holmes

2010-05-28T21:34:00.003+01:00

Rough Sketch from my sketchbook.

Update: Here's after some neatening up and messing around in Photoshop. Looks like he'd fit in more in Deadwood now mind but I still like it.

Cobh II

2010-05-15T22:29:00.006+01:00

Second time in Cobh, some more shots done. Still working on the colour panorama of the town (black and white HDR is a few posts below). (click for full view as always)

Below is a photo of the Cathedral again done with 2 images. This time for stitching just tried Photoshop's (CS3) photo merger. It worked pretty well. To find it go to File> Automate > Photomerge. Seems to handle photos well and is a lot more straight forward than normal stitching programs although you get much more control in those. A mix of the 2 is ideal,

Fighter Sketch

2010-05-14T19:43:00.003+01:00

Photoshop: Liquify for Concepts

2010-04-29T16:48:00.009+01:00

Recently after scanning in some of my sketches I've been using the liquify tool in Photoshop to modify and test concepts for characters. While this technique may not be art 101 or considered as 'cheating' for traditional artists it's a great way to get quick character ideas from 1 basic sketch. I see it as a similar thing to using a basemesh or a Squirkle in Zbrush for some quick character concepts (sculpting and moving the original mesh).

I don't think Liquify needs much of a tutorial, the icons are self explanatory and you will find it under the filters menu (near the top). Alternatively if you want a shortcut for it --> Shift+Ctrl+x by default.

For this example I scanned in a sketch I did a while ago;

After doing some basic colouring for this an extremely rough blurred skin highlight and lowlight and a blue shadow layer, gaussian blurred and then flattened. I bulked the character out a bit and raised his nose, mouth and shrank his ear a little to help with the proportions.

Following on from this I tried a few more things, a bit more extreme but just to show the range of characters you can create. These were both done extremely quickly so things like the collar are still distorted but are just examples;

While I wouldn't recommend this for final work it's great to just get a few ideas going or work on expressions or proportions of characters. I'd personally recommend just sticking with the move brush for bulking out characters as the bloat or pucker tools can quickly get out of hand - use the reconstruct tool rather than the global reconstruct option to bring major distortions back. Worth giving a go anyway!

(Below: The old man sketch from 2 posts ago altered)

Cobh

2010-04-23T23:08:00.006+01:00

Some of the sights around Cobh (this place was the Titanic's final stop before embarking and crashing).

Below is a test HDR B+W Panorama. I used free stitching software Hugin to put it together (from 5 images). I am working on the full colour one at the moment but just wanted to test the software. Click to see an enlarged version.

Filters used: Circular Polariser, ND8 Grad + Neutral grey ND 8 Cokin filters

Sketches via Scanner

2010-04-22T21:36:00.006+01:00

Just finally set up our printer/scanner. Scanned a couple of the most recent sketches I've done. Here they are;

Above: An old man, reference from an old photography book 'The book of portrait Photography'
Below: A happy aged Asian man, reference from 'City of Darkness' (a book about Kowloon Walled City)

Finally I did another little test before heading to the coast tomorrow (weather permitting) of the filters with the circular polariser. I am still getting quite a bit of lens flare which isn't too hard to take out of shot if needed but not really desired.

A quickly knocked up HDR is below, I've not taken any lens flare or screen marks out just to show the issues I am getting currently. They'll be sorted tomorrow though.

Prints and Filters

2010-04-18T22:31:00.007+01:00

Finally got some of my shots taken last year printed (got a few from the year before printed as well). Mainly did this to check how they looked enlarged and I'm generally pleased with the outcome. I did have some ratio issues with my shots which caused some cropping issues (for the smaller prints I didn't mind as they were at a test size, unfortunately enlarged the one of Potsdamer Platz in 24x18 instead of 24x16 so there were some big cropping issues there (not shown on the photos taken of the prints).

By the way if anyone is interested in buying one of my prints feel free to contact me, drop me a message on here or similar.

Above: The shots used to test printing. A mixture of B+W, HDR and standard colour corrected shots minimal cropping issues.
Below: Prints framed 10x12" had to crop the shot on the left a little tighter than I wanted and let it a little too dark but overall happy with the outcome.

The biggest challenge I encountered with the printing was looking for suitable frames. Most frames in retailers had only up to 10x8 or standard ratios, frames that required 12x10 or 24x16 were a little harder to find here although a local hardware store can provide them (as well as an Irish frame company online).

Also this week I bought a new filter for my Cokin Filter system, A ND8 (neutral gray). Using this along side the other ND8 Gradient as I'm wanting to get some long exposures near the coast over the next few months. Here is a test shot taken earlier with them (and a circular polariser attached).

Finally this week I looked back on an old digital painting I was working on (studying digital painting and faces) and worked a little on colours and balance with the image. Here's what I ended up with.

St. Patricks's day 2010

2010-03-18T13:10:00.007Z

A few shots on an overcast Patrick's day. (Cork, Ireland)

Dynamics Projects

2010-03-05T23:50:00.007Z

Just going through a few new dynamics books for Maya currently to learn more MEL scripting and Expressions. My first test is a of a plinian eruption. While the speed isn't correct here I'm quite happy with the result currently.

The animation itself runs too fast, simply as it was just a test to see if the plume went up in the air. Render time roughly 2 hours for 60 frames. the sequence was originally meant for PAL but I rendered the final animation at 15fps just so it was a little slower/more like how the full animation should be.

Instruments and uploads

2010-03-01T00:34:00.006Z

Just a couple of photos I took tonight of the new instruments the Mrs bought me!

Above: A Suling - an Indonesian bamboo flute.
Below: A Mbiri or Kalimba - Thumb piano

I have also uploaded my test shots for my final year project (which was during the 2007/2008 term) to youtube. While they are already up on here I can't seem to share them so here they are for all to see!

Back in the Studio

2010-02-25T23:44:00.009Z

Last week went back to university to help a friend with a VFX project. This time being a character in his VFX shots. It was great to see the studio again (the last time I was there was when shooting parts of my final year projects and learning Flair Motion Control camera software and general studio lighting).

Now the studio is fully set up and is looking great. For the shots he needed Gareth used a combination of the motion control camera and used the scissor lift with a camera attached to it.

Above: working on the second shot, while the light in the monitor looks a little flushed the lighting balanced the greenscreen well so a decent key can be taken from the footage.

Above: The Scissor Lift with the camera being attached. This worked well as a replacement to a Jimmy Jib which was out of action at the time of filming.
Below: The Scissor lift in action in a practise shot before the actual shoot.

This week I did a little photography, mainly setting my D80 in Aperture Priority mode to shoot in b+w, although as it is in RAW format it still keeps the colour data. This is mainly for personal preference as I used to shoot largely in black and white and it helps me visualise images a little more. Here's an example with a shot taken earlier today.

Sketch and current work

2010-02-14T19:25:00.007Z

A little more face sketching.

Also been working on some Dynamics in Maya and will be buying 2 more books when I'm back from a short trip back home. Dynamics/particles is pretty much what I spent most of my final year doing and also enjoyed it the most throughout university.

While most of my work was done in XSI/pflow I spent a lot of time using realflow and Fumefx. I'm currently moving the skills learned from that to Maya/MEL scripting. I've set myself some pretty simple effects tasks to do for now (smoke,fire,explosion,snow) just as starting points while I get used to the expressions editor and such.

Sketches and more Landscape work

2010-02-01T00:32:00.008Z

Just a quick post of some sketches I did this week as well as a few photos I finally got round to sorting out which have been on my camera (memory card) for about a year or so. Enjoy!

The sketchbook I use is an Earthbound Cachet sketchbook (think that's what it's called) so if the paper looks dirty that's why! (I just enjoy the extra textures on it really).

New Year!

2010-01-17T23:29:00.005Z

Hope everyone had a great Holiday Season and New Year!

I am starting the new year with more specialisation in mind. I have recently purchased a years subscription to The Gnomon Workshop and carrying on with the Boujou tutorials on there first, as well as referring to Tim Dobbert's great book Matchmoving: The Invisible Art of Camera Tracking

I'm aiming to really specialise in matchmoving this year as not only did I enjoy it at university but like Lighting and Rendering it incorporates a lot of previous photographic techniques learned.

I'm currently working through some little tests with the footage from the book as well as the footage from the Gnomon DVD - Boujou 1: Tracking a Crane Shot

I have the footage still that my workmate shot for me as well which will be excellent for more tests. The advanced lighting and rendering techniques learned in the previous course will help a great deal with final renders and I'll also get some breakdown shots. I'll be uploading progress throughout anyway.

For now here is some a photo I took a while ago but finally got round to editing it. I took it around the time I only really did black and white photography so I thought I'd load it back up from my old memory card and see how it went. Anyway Enjoy!

Amaryllis II

2009-12-20T00:12:00.003Z

Just a quick post with another photograph taken Thursday.

Happy Holidays all! (if I don't post before the new year Happy New Year as well)

Amaryllis shots

2009-12-12T21:02:00.005Z

We bought this flower last week and it has just bloomed. Really fast blooming Christmas/Winter blooming bulb plant. Took some shots of it as we don't know how long it blooms for.

There are a few more shots I took of the flower and the bulb itself which I want to have a play around with.

In other news I went to the final Drink and Draw of the year. I only drew a few things but will paint them up and put them on next week. It's great to have a regular event where you can get together and chat with other people interested in all areas of art/design. There are plans of setting up life drawing sessions which I'd enjoy and can't wait to see what the new year brings for the group!

I have recently got the book Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right which has nice advice on creating and modelling a head with animation in mind. It was recommended to me by a friend as it seems to be a great way of modelling a head which I can then take in to ZBrush.

As far as other projects go I'm currently moving my University project from Realflow/XSI in to Maya and continuing particle/realflow studies with a new CGSociety course starting in January (Realflow Essentials with Allen Mckay).

Sculpting

2009-12-06T21:08:00.003Z

Just a quick post. I currently have a nasty virus/bug/food poisoning thing at the moment and I've been in bed and off work for the past week or so. During the time I've not even been able to get any 3D stuff going but I needed to do something to take my mind off it.

I had some clay I bought over summer and still hadn't used it so I got it out and for the first time ever I tried sculpting.

Aside from the few little tries at making things (my original plan was to make Christmas decorations for a tree which went a bit pear shaped). I tried making a foot using a simple wire base and building on top of it. I have now found out you are meant to fill out the wire bone/base with something like tinfoil to give it more form so perhaps I might try a torso using that technique in the near future. Here's where I got anyway;

Back to Boujou

2009-12-01T12:31:00.006Z

Long time no post. I've been finishing the Lighting and Rendering in Mental Ray course. It's been really good and I've learned a lot of techniques and tips for not only making my lighting/rendering better but also more efficient. One of the most important things I've done to improve is to no longer just 'guess' lighting work. It may take a little longer at first to take time to set up your key lights etc but taking time on small changes instead of adding new lights to overwrite errors in the scene is worthwhile in the long run.

Since finishing the course I've been planning on how to use it, as well as starting a redesign for my website. I updated my current CV/Resume (which can be found to the right of this page). My new website will be easy to use and just have simple links to gallery, videos, CV and then the news can be updated from here.

Finally I've been dusting off Boujou and doing some motionmatching. As most starting 3d jobs within VFX/film require motionmatching skills I thought I'd pick it back up and start to test footage/ scenes to bring me up to scratch again (I last used it last year while at university).

I have a friend at work who has a good camera and did a favor and shot the above footage for me. While it's still a little slippy I'd say I have more of an understanding of the program now and setting the co-ordinates/scene geometry made a lot more sense than previous tests. I'm going to work on it till there are no slippages and then concentrate on shadows/lighting etc.

I did come across a few problems within Boujou and Maya, looking on various forums I found the solution to some of it. Here are a few tips if you are unable to find them.

The image plane sequence may not load in Maya, or if it does it may only be freezing on frame 1. If this is the case you will need to make sure the sequence is something like filetype.sequencenumber.fileformat - eg testfootage.1.jpg - having it as testfootage_001.jpg can cause some issues.

If you are using XSI remember that it is required first to change the playback speed to the correct fps (in my case PAL) as well as rotoscopy playback and size. Overall I found Maya easier to use for getting a preview as XSI did not render the background image plane on the default pass (as this is test footage currently I'm not splitting up passes till I have the camera moving smoothly with no slip).

I managed to get a smoother camera within Boujou when testing geometry in there but unfortunately I'm getting crashing issues when trying to export the sequence with the geometry within Boujou. In future I might just get some screen capture software to capture it.

Anyway I have a lot of work to do although it is coming up to Christmas so I'm going to take it a little easier and take the time to really learn the ins and outs of the program, maybe try some harder shots to match when I have become comfortable with the software again.

HDR portraiture

2009-10-15T20:32:00.004+01:00

Thought I'd update as I haven't in a while. I'm currently doing a lighting and rendering course with Mental Ray with Pixar's Jeremy Birn . I'm really enjoying it although there's a lot to learn in so little time (especially while working full time). Aside from that and some colouring I'm working on currently I'm just trying some techniques in this month's Black + White photography Magazine which explains some tips for some low key as well as HDR portraits. Here are a couple I've just had a go with.

Motorbike II

2009-09-18T21:39:00.004+01:00

Just a few more shots of the bike so far. I'm not too keen on the materials for the brakes currently but I'm just testing out lights and materials while I go do each step. Aiming to get started on the engine over the weekend and if I can put it on the bike for Monday.

Modelling Practise II

2009-09-17T22:12:00.004+01:00

Currently still working on the car as well as some traditional digital art.
Something that I've always been keen on trying is a motorbike and I'm going to be modelling one (not this tutorial one) for my showreel (for motionmatching).

So far here is the frame I've done;

Just did a quick render with some blinns and FG using a similar lighting rig to my old FYP setup. Basically using grids with lamberts on and FG instead of using lights then having image based lighting on (without actually using it for lighting, just reflections).

I came across a big problem after trying out the Approximation editor (Window>Rendering Editors>Mental Ray> Approximation Editor). Basically used to show your geometry as smoothed out (as if you are pressing 3) without the need to convert to a subd or smooth deformer.

DBN 0.4 error 561001: invalid topology, object will not be tessellated
GAPM 0.4 warn 092001: tessellation empty for object "polySurfaceShape5"

This made the selected geometry (in this case the frame itself) invisible to any Mental Ray renders (but not with Maya Software)

After trying everything franticly (thinking I had not set up my materials correctly or Mental Ray itself) I had a search on some forums and found a fix that worked for me.

Mesh>Cleanup> Select Nonmanifold Geometry

This solved the issue and work resumed as normal. Before I finish my bike I'm going to check the geometry of each piece and make sure this doesn't happen for future renders. I'm glad I found the error now instead of when the end product even though it was quite frustrating and I hope if anyone has this issue themselves it will help them.

Roses

2009-09-03T20:44:00.008+01:00

Still working on 3d modelling currently but while I had some nice flowers I thought I'd take some photos of them before my lack of gardening skills kills them quickly.

They are really silky roses (don't know if that is normal, but it is certainly cool!)

Finally I am starting a course from CGSociety for Lighting and Rendering on the 21st. I can't wait to start!

Modelling a Car WIP 2

2009-08-25T15:40:00.005+01:00

Here's a bit more progress on the Car

As you can see I've nearly finished the base model. I'm going to be altering it and making space for the doors after it is done. I'm also currently working on the inner areas such as windosills and an area for the bonnet to rest. (For the rubber and metal Window fix they will be modelled separately so just added a little geometry so the body has no sharp edges).

After a few days off and on of modelling (I work full time so until my weekend I only have an hour or so a night) I decided to mirror the geometry and take a little test render. Here is the result.

For this I tried out the Mental Ray car shader. Usually I build my own shaders and materials but have heard good things about the shader. I think after some more tweaking it will look ok for the body at least. Also instead of creating my own environment sphere I tried the Mental Ray HDRI image based lighting option in the render settings. I think I prefer having control over my own environment/reflection map and I still prefer creating my own light setups.

I added a little negative light inside the body just so the emphasis was on the exterior for now.
Overall I'm generally happy so far but can't wait till I start adding the details to it to break up the model.

After the base model is done I'm going to do bonnet/boot then start working on windows, lights and doors.

Modelling a Car WIP

2009-08-21T19:34:00.003+01:00

Currently I'm modelling a car (Alpine Renault 1600 SC) in Maya. I'm doing this to get back in to the habit of modelling and having a manageable project I can do on my laptop (my is still not ready yet).

I gave up on the outdated tutorials for box looking cars as I wanted particularly to do this car. It has a little character and also has a lot of nice fluid lines and contours.

I'm poly modelling it from reference (2d blueprints and I made some reference curves to so I can flesh it out/ keep the contours).

This is the first attempt at modelling a car and I'm finding it quite challenging but fun. I'm currently getting the basic body down, then going to work on other parts such as bonnet, trunk and windows. After that I'll redo the door and add lights and bumpers. Finally I'll start working on the interior (a very simple chair , wheel, dashboard) as well as tyres/wheels.

Here's my work in progress so far;

Sketchbook Work

2009-08-11T01:20:00.005+01:00

Here are some of the sketches from my sketchbook. I've just cropped some of them and put them on 1 big page. Varying styles. A lot of it is just character work / study but some doodles are related to my 3D work (such as the street/ market scenes).

Below is a quick painting I did of the Goblin (top right in the sketchdump). I've always found Orc/Goblin skin tones a bit easier to build up, I think mainly because when I first started painting models they were the first I gave a go and simple Highlighting techniques worked. Ugly characters are easier to draw/paint as well! You get a little more leeway. The next one I'm going to try is the girl with the Goggles (steampunk esque). Anyway enjoy!

PS for those that haven't had a look head on over to the new Digital Tutors site. Now all of their tutorials are online and ready to learn with a monthly subscription. I think it's an excellent idea and as soon as I get payment sorted I'll be signing up for 6 months straight away!

More 50mm photos

2009-07-23T17:16:00.007+01:00

Taken yesterday around the local area.

I tried taking a range of photos allowing me to work on different techniques with aperture.

Finally I bought a new top loading case for the camera so I can take it around with me and take some quick photos.

Up until now I've been using this, the Lowepro Fastpack 350 . It is great for generally transporting my camera and laptop. As a generalist it is the perfect bag to carry everything at once in a neat, organised backpack (It's great to take to weddings with the laptop in the back to show clients during their reception some of the photos as a little bonus for them :) ). It's downside is that it is far too bulky and hard to get too if taking out on a normal day of shooting/snapping. I've been noticing this more now I've been going out with just one lens (price for the bag €50-80). So I've bought this now;

This is the Lowepro Topload Zoom Mini . It's relatively cheap (<€30) and is sturdy/ good enough quality. Easy access to it and waterproof it's ideal for me while I'm doing some 50mm tests, the only downside is there isn't enough room for my flashgun but currently I'm not needing one outdoors. It doesn't fit my telephoto lens in either so it's a good thing I don't use it much. It fits in my 18-70 and my 50mm fine though (when they are attached)

Updating older work

2009-07-17T21:01:00.006+01:00

I managed to find an old memory card I used for shooting a few years ago which still has all the photos I took in RAW format. I thought I'd go back to them today and use some techniques I now use within adobe Lightroom and Photomatix Pro. Initially although they were shot in colour when I originally uploaded them (they are still in an older gallery) they were all monochromatic simply because I've always been more comfortable shooting for/in B+W. Now I'm a bit more experimental with colour so here are the results;

Today I also found a couple of books in a second hand book store.

Berence Abbott - Masters of Photography

The Book of Portrait Photography - Jorge Lewinski and Mayotte Magnus

They should be good for some reference work when painting / designing and I've always been fond of Abbott's work, especially as he started as a darkroom assistant to Man Ray (ended up doing similar experimental work at college when I did A level photography).

50mm Lighting Tests

2009-07-17T04:00:00.016+01:00

Some tests done earlier with my 50mm lens (Nikkor AF 1.8) for lighting. Slowly getting back in to photography and forgot how much I enjoyed the 50mm.

The Wooden dummy is something I'm going to model in Maya for some matchmoving tests for my showreel. It is a relatively simple model which will allow me to put a lot of effort in to texturing while not killing my laptop. My PC should also be arriving in the next month so I can really get started on the showreel. Until then I'm planning out my scenes for the new demoreel now on paper and in 3d. Here's my new revised (ideal) showreel idea;

Intro - Name, contact information, website - Generalist
3D street scene - Static camera - Arabian marketplace - sunny daytime to stormy dusk - simple dynamics and lighting rig - breakdown of passes and dynamics.
Matchmoving - Live action footage of desk with 3D animated wooden dummy - breakdown of composite layers.
Dynamic experiments / tests - Re-rendered university final year project tests as well as re-rendered elemental effects.

Ideally I'm aiming for my first real showreel ready to send to companies to be no more than 1:30-2 minutes which should be ample time to show breakdowns in full and allow a long enough look at each animation.

I've been doing a lot of sketching recently to plan out this work as well as do more simple sketching of characters/ objects etc. I'll photograph some more and maybe paint a few tomorrow if I have time. Expect some of the very simple/basic test shots for the showreel within the next few weeks (just boxing out scenes and getting lighting ready).

New Sketchbook

2009-07-03T16:52:00.006+01:00

As mentioned yesterday I bought a new sketchbook! Here are some doodles from the first page.

I'm using a Conté white pencil/crayon just to add some highlights to things (I wanted an organic sketchbook as opposed to a plain white one to test some lighting / highlighting later on as I'm going to be designing my 3D projects in here).

Just before I go off to get food and similar here's a quick painting of the batman sketch. Photographed, uploaded and painted on with the mouse not the Wacom (really quick 5 minute job just to see what it looked like coloured in).

More doodles

2009-07-02T22:24:00.006+01:00

Here are more sketches I did in the past few days. This week I've also bought myself a sketch pad for the upcoming Drink and Draw in Cork (hopefully a regular thing) with a Daler-Rowney graphic pencil set.

Today I also bought This:

Street Sketchbook

by Tristan Manco

It's a great book packed with sketches and work from a lot of street artists (although I wouldn't call it Graph art more like modern graphic design).

I'm going to try and work on more cartoon/simplified characters this week and some full body sketches and try a bit more lighting skin tones when painting digitally.

Above: More work on lighting, starting from an orange/peach to navy/purple gradient.
Below: Sketching Judge Dredd. I went for an older style Judge (Mike McMahon possibly?). I think I still prefer just the standard black and white one here. Took a photo of my sketch and went over it on the Wacom. Thankfully my new sketchbook isn't lined!

Wacom Painting Tests

2009-06-24T23:38:00.005+01:00

Here are a few sketches/paintings I've done with the Wacom in the past few days. I still need to work on proportions a lot but I'm trying to get a feel more for the lighting and colouring currently.

Above: No reference. The proportions are a little off but I'm please with the lighting and colouring overall.
Below: Captain America. Needs some work on the neck / shoulder muscles. I've added the shading for the feathers which sit above his ears but not drawn them in yet.

I should be going to the coast again tomorrow to try some more landscape photography as well as get a little more use out of my 50mm and shooting some portraits.

Crosshaven Photography

2009-06-21T22:59:00.009+01:00

Landscape/Seascape tests while there's still some sun over here :)
I'm finding clouds a challenge. Need to work more on compensating for them, possibly even invest in another ND filter.

Finally here is a picture of a dog that followed us around (pestering us for food). Coming up this week I'm learning some digital blending techniques (on the Wacom) and getting some more sketching/painting done.

More Doodles

2009-06-14T22:54:00.005+01:00

I'm going to try and do one every day to get used to the tablet and get back in to colouring and drawing light. Here are yesterday and today's;

Above: just some scribbled orcs/goblins.
Below: Working on building up from the colour. No reference used (he'd be a pretty ugly guy if I was hehe!)

This week I should also be buying this DVD from the Gnomon Workshop : Comic Book Coloring with Steve Firchow
I've been wanting to get it for a while now and think now is a good time now I actually have a Wacom to play with.

Any feedback is great by the way. Will hopefully post more tomorrow!

Wacom doodle tests

2009-06-12T17:24:00.006+01:00

This week I've been able to give the Wacom a go. I'll mostly be using it for Zbrush but have been having a little play around with it and doing some doodling. I've also picked up a few of the Andrew Loomis books online in PDF format. They can be found Here. I've always no matter how many books I've looked at still not been able to draw a head properly (well, lets just say draw in general :P ) so now I have the Wacom I'm going to be doodling a lot more and getting my core drawings skills up. Coming from 3d/cg lighting from photography as opposed to art there are some definite challenges I have when it comes to the art/design side. I'm hoping continued drawing + colouring will help keep the creative juices flowing and add some more real/2d art to my portfolio.

Here are a couple of my first tests with the tablet;

Above: A zombie character. I quite like the sketchy/rough style it seems to work well with zombies. Artists like Aadi Salman used a similar rough technique (although more with paint) for the Silent Hill comic series.

Above: Model posing reference from my anatomy book
Below: An evil character, loosely jokerish with a touch of 80s anime glow!

3D wise I'm currently relearning UVs and have started modelling some simple objects for an 'Aladdin' esque street market scene. I'm going to use the tablet to create some organic touches to the textures I make, possibly even sculpt some wear and tear on the objects. A rough sketch/doodle with be up of that soon as well.

Simple Lighting Tests

2009-05-31T00:15:00.006+01:00

These were done a week or 2 ago (some a little earlier) on my camera. The first set was based on only using natural light and positioning the objects in the optimal light. The next were based on using standard room lighting or a simple spot to move around the static objects.

Above: Natural Lighting Studies of Tablas detail, Guitar and Coins on a ledge.
Below: Standard room lighting of layered beads.

In other news I now have a Wacom Intuos 3 so expect some more hands on texturing and sculpting in ZBrush as well as getting back to basics in 3D again and doing some hand made textures for different render passes.

Finally here's the final photograph I took on the day of shooting the beads. Just for a bit of fun :)

Zbrush doodling - Ork

2009-05-29T22:44:00.007+01:00

I've been following some simple tutorials online on how to create a macro in Zbrush which allows you to create a good base sphere to start modelling/ doodling on. It is called a 'Squirkle' I'm sure if you google it you will find the same or similar tutorials.

Following the recommendation of experienced Zbrush artists I have started 'doodling' with just the move, clay, standard and smooth (as standard as possible) brushes. This is simply because I'd rather learn each tool properly and to a good level before I start flying off the handle with snakehook, stitch and track brushes. I've found the move tool invaluable and the main tool to use until you feel you can sculpt from the base shape of the model.

Here is a step by step look at the Ork head I created (based on the Games Workshop models), currently without teeth and eyes (which will be added once the subtools system has been learned fully).

After changing the material and doing some rough shades of skin and highlighting in Zbrush I took it in to Photoshop to add a little more detail such as drawing eyes and adding a little more shading/highlighting to the skin. The result can be seen below;

I have the teeth, eyes and ears to work on still but I'm going to practice ears and maybe fill a whole post just on my 3D study of them with my WIP/sketches. In the next few days I'll also be posting some of the photography I did over the past month.

Thanks for reading as always.

Photography

2009-04-02T00:19:00.004+01:00

This week I've explored the local region where I'm currently living and done some photography. Back to the 3D work and learning tomorrow.

I've been experimenting a little more with HDR trying to reduce the halo effect seen in the Organic Architecture photo. So far I've been quite successful by using under exposed photos and using my gradient ND filter. I could do with another ND filter though to add to my current filter system.

Previous Lighting Tests

2009-03-29T13:55:00.008+01:00

Looking through my old footage on my laptop I found some test shots of my Final Year Project at university and I thought I'd put them on here so that I can compare my lighting techniques after learning some new tricks and techniques later.

My final year project was based around mainly using fluid particles to make a glass of water turn in to a flower (well a flower growing from the water). I knew I was going to be shooting it on just a black background as I was wanting to emulate the slow motion Sainsbury's food adverts that were out a few years ago. Lighting was obviously going to be one of the key things I looked at as I needed to make it efficient and yet still look good. For this I decided not to use caustics as the was no solid background for light to reflect to. Then I created a simply lighting rig using grids with a white or gray Lambert texture on them, hiding their primary ray visibility in the render and then using final gather. This cut the render times down by a great deal without the need of global illumination/caustics and gave me the ability to create a nice studio lighting setup using grids as reflected lights and reflectors themselves.

Above: a wireframe view of the full lighting setup for the stem rising up from the water. I added an environment map to add a little extra to the reflections.
Below: A closeup of the lighting setup used when the petals are created.

I don't remember the exact render times but they were at most 2-3 minutes each per frame. The only troubles I had were actually with using XSI and Realflow together. I made a decision at the time to stick with the package I knew as opposed to which had better fluid/Realflow integration and it caused some pretty nasty glitching problems during the render phase.

Here are a couple of test videos of the petals growing, hopefully the video compression on here doesn't make them look too bad. Unfortunately I don't have the final render/shot on this laptop but I was going to re-render it or infact reshoot it completely using Maya to make the most out of it.

Personal Project Progress I

2009-03-27T18:11:00.012Z

This will be a weekly or bi-weekly update of my current projects/ideas in development. I've decided to do this to keep me busy and give myself own personal deadlines which I think is important in order to maintain healthy motivation/pressure.

3D Modelling:
Currently learning some core modelling techniques from a tutorial researched at university. The goal is to build a simple Android model. I'm following the tutorial exactly here before I deviate away too soon. I think learning core 3D skills again will help me show off the areas I want to concentrate in (lighting/rendering/particles).
After this I'm going to do a few simple car tutorials and make the generic car model as a studio lighting and render test. While I could just use a premade model I don't think it will hurt to learn some extra modelling skills with this.

Mini Project Idea:
I want to use the techniques learned to create a 3D version of the image below. It will provide some modelling and lighting challenges and yet not be too complex to be impossible for me.

angel alita rendition by ~emotionography on deviant ART

Lighting:
I've been looking back at some tutorials gather from university research as well a great lighting theory tutorial found here . I plan in the next week to provide some very very simply modelled scenes (cubes, spheres in a room, no complex geometry) to show things I've learned, maybe advance that to a few challenges not looked at much in most lighting tutorials (evening shots, multiple artificial light sources etc).

Sculpting:
While this is very much more fun still at the moment I've bought an anatomy book and intend to develop my sculpting skills. My goals currently in this is to create a full body maquette/statue and texture a head.

Long Term Personal Project Idea:
I currently have an idea to develop a short story I visualised near the end of my university course and adapt it in to a simple comic although using 3d models/zbrush sculpts instead of drawing it. As my skills still aren't as proficient as I'd like while I'll be developing this throughout I doubt any practical progress will be made on this till I am comfortable in the areas of organic modelling and sculpting although I can start on the sets.

Reading/Viewing/ To Buy List:
I am currently reading Anatomy for the Artist
I still don't have any of my books from university over here yet so I don't have much else to ready aside from the tutorials and research I've gathered on this laptop so I'm also reading those.
I'm currently watching a few Pixar movies for some lighting ideas and composition techniques. It's interesting to see the evolution of the camera angles used. As always generally speaking the films I watch in my own time I usually watch again in greater detail and write some notes or ideas as to how they did a certain shot. I might write a little essay on futuristic design theory soon as it has been on my mind recently.
My current to buy list are 2 dvds from Digital Tutors. I think Digital Tutors tutorials have improved greatly over the years and now provide some interesting workflow solutions and methods in a good range of 3D packages.
Character Creation in Zbrush - This is a start to finish look at creating characters from scratch in Zbrush and may help me in my comic idea.
Motorcycle Modelling Techniques in Maya - These tutorials have been developed with a bike company and have a lot of techniques regarding modelling parts visible on a motorbike which aren't necessarily shown when modelling a car. These shapes and parts would work well in an android based model as well as improve complex objects. Also one of my projects down the line is to model one of my father's motorbikes.
Mental Ray Nodes online Reference Library - I think this will be invaluable when the time comes to look at advanced rendering techniques. I am considering buying this although the others currently are more important to me for my short term goals.

I shall update this soon with any progress or ideas developed.

Zbrush digital sculpting

2009-03-22T00:39:00.011Z

I have rarely had more fun testing out/ 'Hobbying' as my lecturer used to call it than when recently trying out digital sculpting in Zbrush. It has got me hooked and I intend to learn this along side my current modelling / lighting tasks. It may slow my initial learning down but it is great fun and is helping me get more of an interest in organic modelling.

Above: My First attempt at sculpting a face from a sphere. No references.
Below: Adding ears and some room for the eyes (need to work on ears!). No Reference

Zspheres have been interesting to use and my first attempt at using them ended up with an interesting male torso a little heavy chested. As a note I find it best to create the base torso using zspheres and moving the body in to a basic shape then using the adaptive skin (default 'a' when still moving zspheres) and altering the density to 3-4 and getting the basic shape down. After this I create the polymesh3D and save it as a tool. Although I remove quite a bit of flexibility of the zspheres moving the character after doesn't seem too hard and I can start upping the poly count more.

Above: A turntable of my first attempt at a torso. No reference.

All of this learning has inspired me to buy an anatomy book. I bought Anatomy For the Artist a DK book. Plenty of pictures and character studies in there. Next week my goal is to create an anatomically correct model. Maybe even attempt a whole body (albeit a simple one).

Finally for those also interested in trying it please remember instead of saving the document you save the tool. I lost the above torso after wanting to do some more work on it today. I must have saved the document in error. It gave me another go at creating one from scratch though.

Above: my second attempt at a torso. No reference.

Fresh Start

2009-03-19T13:03:00.009Z

Firstly, I apologise for my lack of content since I've started this blog. My plans to complete a masters straight away changed after a bit of financial bother. Instead I am now working for a popular online games company (in the customer service area). This job allows me to work on my portfolio and actually encourages movement within the company.

I have now started to settle in a little here ( I had to move country for the job) and so I'm making it my goal to create a new portfolio showing the skills I've learned.

I've decided although my interests are lighting, particles and rendering I need core modelling skills in order to show these off so I've recently gone back to the drawing board and have started learning Maya again from the ground up. (I first used Maya in around 2001 but 'moved' to XSI at university). I've also started working on new projects that will go towards my final portfolio this year. My plans are to emphasise my lighting, texturing and rendering within the scenes I create and to composite some of them in to a real world environment. My particle work will not be neglected in this (especially as my final year at university centered around particles).

I intend to use this blog to show my learning and improvements as well as show you some of the films and shows that give me inspiration and ideas for my own work. I will also be posting up photography as I am keen on learning new techniques with the camera as well (as well as lighting techniques as soon as I get a proper lighting kit here).

Thank you for reading this and hope you stick around for the work to come!

Here are a couple of photos I've done since the last blog.

XSI 6.01 Physical Sky/Final Gathering/Environment Maps + Glass

2008-08-20T21:25:00.007+01:00

OK so I've recently started delving in to XSI 6.01's features (after being stubborn and sticking with 5.11 for most of my final year project) and thought I'd test the Physical Sky that was added with 6.

To start off i created a simple scene with a simple poly grid for the ground (with a Lambert material added) and a poly sphere with a very simple glass setup i created. Here is the rendertree for it;

Usually i would use a shader downloaded as xsi's presets arent very good but i thought i'd make my own so I can tweak it and learn how well the glass works when using the Physical Sky.

For those that don't know how to create a physical sky go to render mode (3 on the keyboard)>Pass>edit>initialise Sky Shader (alternatively this can be done through 'edit current pass' and adding 'physical sky' in the environment section of the pass shaders tab.

Final gathering needs to be turned on and the effect is quite impressive, I played around a little with the physical sky options (the final options i used can be seen below) and also after seeing the intensity of the light used a tone mapping lens shader on the camera (select camera>lens shaders>tone mapping)

Here is the final result;

And just to test how the glass works using Final Gathering and HDRI mapping i tested it with a simple photography of mine for the environment (instead of using physical sky in the pass shader tab> environment add 'Environment instead' and apply an image, preferably a HDR image). here are the results of that. Any Questions don't hesitate to ask :)