Bloopatone.com

Happy Joe Strummer Day

2008-08-21T21:04:00.000-07:00

Its Joe Strummer's birthday, happy birthday Uncle Joe, we miss you!

Its also the second anniversary of the arrival of my Boxx machine - still rendering away.

Go listen to The Clash when you get a chance...

Blogging from SIGGRAPH

2008-08-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

I'ts been a fun siggraph so far. I went to the Grindhouse Maya master class - very cool stuff I can't wait to try out. Autodesk is dominating, Pixologic has a great booth and a solid crowd. Side FX is MIA and no Gnomon booth. I actually enjoyed the second half of the Autodesk user group.

I rendered a turn table animation of my maclom character. the left side is ZBrush, right side is Maya + mental ray. single render pass, no compositing! PFX whiskers and hair. Click n the image to open the movie - 4 MB download. The colors are washed out by the compression.

More later...

SIGGRAPH 08 LA

2008-08-09T13:25:00.000-07:00

I will be at SIGGRAPH on and off in LA next week. Look for me at the Wiley booth on Wednesday morning at around 10:30. I'll also be at all the science nerd related Birds of a Feather meetings - one is hosted by Drew Berry!! I will also make my usual appearance i the crowd at the Autodesk user meeting and party. I understand there may be beer.

nearly there

2008-07-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

Here's an update to my 80 year old punk rock guy. Almost done, just need to paint some spec maps, add eyelashes, and maybe a little accessories.

Click on the image to enlarge:

Old Punk Rock Guy

2008-07-17T00:29:00.000-07:00

I'm working on the textures for this guy. the title of this composition will be "Punk's Not Dead I Know! (but it's really freakin' old)".

Still have to create specularity maps as well as improve the lighting and add hair, stubble, paint Eye, gum, teeth textures. Add a body and maybe a hand. Lots of other stuff too. The mohawk needs work - I may change the color so it blends in less with the background, oh there's a lot of crap I have yet to do....

Walking with Blue

2008-07-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

We're still working through our grief over Blue's departure. I made this short film about four years ago when we first found out Blue had a heart problem. Since then we treated every day of her life as if it was her last, appreciating her as much as possible. This film shows me walking Blue in Washington DC, she was in her prime, happy, healthy, and maybe even a little fat. Back then she could drag me all over town. Look at her big smile at the start of the walk!

Music is "Mike Mills" by Air, the perfect dog walking song. I listened to it all the time when we went for long walks.

Goodbye Blue

2008-07-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

Blue passed away yesterday. She was a dear friend. We miss her very much.

When I first heard that Joe Strummer had died I was a mess. Blue, came to me and pressed herself against me in a way that I will never forget. There's more going on in a dogs mind than we give them credit for. Do yourself a favor and go hug a dog.

Old Happy Dude

2008-06-24T21:20:00.000-07:00

OK, so I'm adding some personality to this guy. Bad english teeth and a big goofy grin. Still sculpting him but I think he looks pretty cool so far. Can't wait to do teh textures...

Old Creepy Dude

2008-06-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

Some updates to the old guy character. This time with textures painted for the epidermal, subdermal, back scattering, and specularity layers. Makes a huge difference! Couple problem areas but overall he looks pretty good. Next step is to give hime eyes, teeth, and personality...

Old dude

2008-06-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

Still working on the textures for this guy, slowly getting there. I think eyes, teeth, hair, and a better expression will also help a great deal.

Last of the Harvard Tutorials

2008-06-17T19:22:00.000-07:00

The final of the four tutorials I wrote for the Harvard "Maya for Molecular Biologists" class has been posted on molecularmovies.org. This covers the basics of render layers and some compositing tricks in After Effects. The link opens a PDF, all the files are available on molecularmovies.org

I was supposed to visit Harvard Medical School last week (Friday the 13th of course!) and sit in on the class (to heckle the teacher) however I had to cut my east coast trip short and come back to LA. My dog Blue (aka bloopatone) is getting very old and she had some accidents while we were gone. She's doing better now, lots of antibiotics and close attention. I'm glad I got to see some of my friends in DC for the brief time I was there. I only got to see my niece and nephew for a few minutes in a crowded bagel shop. Hopefully I can try the trip again sometime soon. In the mean time I'll keep the site updated with Blue's status.

Blue in better days when we first came to LA:

Book promo on Pixologic.com

2008-06-04T08:34:00.000-07:00

Hey, the front page of pixologic.com is featuring my book and Scott's book: pixologic.com They have a free preview - actually all of chapter 5.

Thanks Gnomon!

2008-06-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

I just finished filling in as a substitute teacher for Ryan Kingslien at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects. I taught four sessions of Introducing ZBrush while he is in Copenhagen. Thanks to Ryan for the opportunity to teach, it was a lot of fun. thanks to the students for allowing me to rattle on, I hope everybody got a lot out of the classes. If there are any questions please feel free to email me.

Next week I'll be on the east coast visiting friends and then up to Boston to hang out at Dr. McGill's Maya for Molecular Biologists class at Harvard Medical School - you can check out the tutorials I wrote for the class in the previous posts. I have one more tutorial I'm finishing up now.

Here's a quick animation I did for fun. This is a space capsule reentering the atmosphere, just keeping up my particle practice. Click on the image to play the animation:

More later!!

movietime

2008-06-02T08:57:00.001-07:00

I was playing with the scenes I created for the cell division tutorial and came up with this little animation. I experimented with combining some really whacky render passes in After Effects. looks kind of neat, like astro-cell biology from the 30s. Click on the image to view the animation (2.4 MB quicktime).

New tutorials

2008-05-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

Molecular movies has just posted two more tutorials I wrote for Harvard Medical School. One is on creating a plasma membrane using Paint Effects, the other is a variety of nCloth and hair techniques used to animate various elements of cell division. Science is fun kids...

Paint Effects Membrane (opens as a PDF):

Cell Division (opens as a PDF):

Just gotta love old men

2008-05-22T00:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, not literally...well you can if you want.

Old men are always satisfying to model in ZBrush because you can get a way with a lot of imperfection and they look good bald. I did this guy this evening because I need a bust for some texturing tutorials I'm going to write. I wish I had recorded this session because it was such a disaster for most of the process. In the end he's not bad for an evening's work but it was touch and go for a while. Reminds me a little of Peter Cushing but his face isn't quite narrow enough. I'm holding back on the wrinkles and details until I really have the forms down.

Laters...

Project all

2008-05-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

I am experimenting with project all and the projection brush to try and simplify the greenman mesh. currently its in two pieces that have been combined using insert mesh and the clay brushes, however this seems like it will be a pain to render in mental ray, I don't think the subD approximation is going to like two heavy peices of geometry that have been smeared together, plus I keep running into problems when I smooth the seams. So (after sitting in on Ryan Kingslien's lecture at Gnomon last night) I decided to try wrapping a single polysphere around the original mesh. i used project all and the projection brush to make the polysphere match the original. I'm still tweaking some areas but so far its working really well. the image below shows the original on the left and the projected mesh on the right. On the close up on the bottom you can see the differences in topology, the projected mesh, while not organized, lacks the nasty seams seen in the original. My guess is that mental ray will like the project mesh better, we'll see.

What's interesting is that this technique could be used to rebuild complex protein structures that are too heavy for Maya. Way back when I used the old shrink wrap mel script and some extensive ZBrush editing to create a simplified ribosome from the original crystal structure. The project all/projection brush technique is faster and more accurate (although it still involves a fair amount of work). Maybe if I ever have time I'll do a tutorial for molecular movies...

Green Man

2008-05-11T22:29:00.000-07:00

I've been working on an interior environment for some kind of pagan/elven temple (Tolkien not Keebler). I wanted to do some kind of stone carving for the wall so, naturally I decided to over-do it. here are some images, inspired by the pagan "Green Man" wood and stone carvings.

Still working on the pit but had to take a slight break to catch up on side projects as well as work at Imaginary Forces. I'm also working on more tutorials for the class at Harvard Medical School. Sometimes I think I'd have more free time if I just had a good old-fashioned drug problem. Ah well, curse my German work-ethic.

Mouse Embryo Modeling Tutorial

2008-05-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

OK, I don't have a clever title for this post. Anyways, I just finished writing a modeling tutorial for a Maya class at Harvard Medical School. It has been posted on www.molecularmovies.org. here's a direct link to the PDF. there's also a time-lapse of the modeling process. This is a pretty straightforward box modeling technique for Maya 8.5. You can use the same techniques in most other 3D packages (might be easier in Modo or LightWave!).

Happy DNA day

2008-04-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

How will you celebrate the 55th anniversary of the solving of the structure of our most beloved and misunderstood macromulecule?

1. Steal research from a female colleague in the hopes of getting the Nobel prize after she dies.
2. Play "spot the left handed DNA", bonus points for incorrect number of nucleotides, lack of major/minor groove, and other graphical atrocities.
3. Go through an exciting Maya tutorial on how to import DNA crystallography data and render as blobby surface particles.
4. Tell anyone who will listen how you think DNA is overrated, The real action is protein folding...
5. Clone a creationist just to mess with their head.

http://www.genome.gov/

Why not take all of me?

2008-04-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

You took my kisses and you took my love,
You taught me how to care;
Am I to be just the remnant of
a onesided love affair?
All you took, I gladly gave,
There's nothing left for me to save.

Why not take all of me?

Actually they just took my gall bladder. Finally rid of the damn thing, my appendix better keep itself in line or else its next! Surgery went well, I'm nice and sore today. They actually gave m pictures of the gallstones eeeew! don't worry, I won't post them. oddly enough they look a lot like these images I painted back in July:

pit progress

2008-04-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

Improvements to volumetric lighting, a little final gather and starting to add bump maps and texturing to the cieling.

The Pit

2008-04-10T22:15:00.000-07:00

This is a sneak peak of the Frazetta style composition in progress. Right now I have my character in the environment with his nemesis - the evil tentacle. I've blocked in the major forms of the composition and the basic lighting scheme (this version has Global Illumination but no Final Gather). The next step is to start creating textures and contrast (a side from the rocky walls of the pit this version is has no textures - just basic shaders). So far I'm pleased. I did put hair on the guy (I'm calling him Frank), but he looked like a hair metal band reject, i may have to revisit this or leave him sadly bald.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

I'll update the progress of this image as I go.

I finally got these two books from Amazon: Howard Schatz "In Character" and "Fantasy Art Workshop" by John Howe. The Workshop is amazingly inspirational - foreward by my favorite director Terry Gilliam. John Howe was one of the two principal concept artists for LOTR - Alan lee being the other. I'm more partial to sci fi themes than fantasy but this book has great instruction for anyone wanting to create narrative artwork. The best part is John's writing style makes you feel as though your getting art instruction from Gandalf.

Howard Schatz's book is as good a reference as your likely to find for interesting facial expressions from a number of great actors. The focal length on the images is rather distorted and stylistic so its not a great direct reference for modelling but there's a lot of detail as well as expressions I'd never think of my self.

Imaginary Walrus

2008-04-04T17:01:00.000-07:00

Hey, there's a story on highend 3d about Nim's Island credits, I worked on these at Imaginary Forces:

whu?

2008-04-03T16:19:00.000-07:00

Yeah, there's a fairie on my front page...bout time for a change! She started as a sketch for a 3D character I want to create, woked her up in Painter and I like it so I decided to replace the old robot with a fairie. Hey, she's got a gun....oh the irony!

Here is the thread on the development of this composition on conceptart.org.

More to come...