Category: Motion Graphics

Categories
3D Animation Mograph Notes Motion Graphics Project Notes

Hal(Green Lantern) Projection Animation Notes

For the past couple of months I’ve gotten into a new webcomic called JL8 which features various members of the justice league as little kids in school. The go to school like normal kids except that they have super powers and the comic explores this in many ways often with a side of humor.

 The creator of the comic Yale Stewart posted a some desktop wallpaper images on his deviantArt page and I got the ideas to try and do some camera projection using those images. I chose to use C4D because it has projection man which makes this very easy to setup. 

 

 After brain storming what kind of camera move I wanted to do I found a character model that was similar to Hal in the picture and started adding parts that would match the image and give it some slight depth. Using projection man to manage the images allowed me to easily jump back and forth between C4D and Photoshop and extract various parts. Above is a hardware video where you can see the geometry I used.

 My final goal was to create a simple 5 second camera move animation that featured Hal focusing on sky and his glowing ring.

 Check out the comic JL8

 

Categories
3D Animation Motion Graphics

JL8 – Hal(Green Lantern) Projection Animation

 Check out the comic JL8

 More info about my why I made this and my process in a later post

Categories
3D Animation 3D Modeling Motion Graphics

Moskarachos 3D Logo Animation

One of the areas I feel that I’m not as strong at in 3D sometimes are my rendering skills and the specific skills that help with it like understanding scene scale and lighting. I’ve also have tried out various tools to help me speed up this process. I have used Vray for 3DS max at work for a bit now and it greatly enhance the renders without much effort (at least for the type of work I do). At home however I don’t have max or vray and getting just a trial for vray for c4d is not a seemingly easy thing to do. So looking around I came across Maxwell render (now owned by Nextlimit, Realflow) again and this time I decided to give it a serious try.

Just going through the tutorials I was impressed with the real looking renders you get without much effort so I decided to get the learning edition which is only $99 with a few limit like render size but no watermarks. The above render is a character I modeled and rigged from a logo I found on brands of the world.

Moskarachos

moskarachos

I’m still not sure what the word means that the image was titled with even after trying to look up the word, hopefully nothing bad. I had two ideas for how I wanted to render the scene either glossyish plastic like a toy or flat shaded to seem like the logo vector. I decided just to go with the flat shade for now but it still has very nice lighting overall. I think I may work on a static image of a plastic version for a still shot.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out and learning how to use Maxwell Render. I did forget to turn one effect on in my scene for the final render which I’m kind of mad at myself for not doing but I’m not going to render it again now.

Categories
Client Work Motion Graphics

EUPC Capital Campaign Logo Animation

A while ago now I was approached by my church if I wanted to assist in developing a logo for a campaign they where putting on for the church. After getting some background information about the project I agreed to help with another designer, Crystal. After creating our initial designs and revisions for the logo the group decided to use of my logos after we present our design to the other team members.

I was then asked if I could create an animation that could be displayed during church to present the logo to the congregation. I did a quick brain storm of ideas in my note book and quick outline and I began animating the logo. For the bird and the hand I wanted them to have a fluid natural feel but remaining flat and clean looking so I decided to find some real footage of a bird and a hand unfolding to get the feel right for the motion and then expanded on it a bit. The whole animation took about 8 hours to complete most of it was tracing.

Categories
3D Animation Mograph Notes Motion Graphics

CV-Artsmart Logo Plugin


Cineversity just releasde this new plugin called CV-Artsmart. It’s a great plugin that takes you illustrator vector artwork directly into c4d with out breaking the connection. So no more re-building your paths doing, extrudes one by one or any other prep work. It will even take in your colors from Illustrator and make materials for you. Which you seem to have to if you turn on mograph.

Oh yea mograph is easily used with one click to effect either the whole logo or each layer. It makes quick work of making simple extruded 3d logos. Keep in mind how you group elements your layers in AI since it seems effectors will effect them as group or individual based on it.

This is a great plugin and I wish there was something like this for when I have to use other 3D packages… I see this a great tool to get your logo built quickly( this logo took me 5-10 mins maybe less to setup ) with textures. For more complex stuff you will have to break it eventually but it does keep a clean hierarchy.  My only issues is I wish you could used editable AI text (you still have to outline it) and,  I wish I could control each layer with position,scale, rotation in addition to effectors.

 

You can get the plugin from cineversity.com

 

Categories
Motion Graphics

Reel Refresh 2012

Just a quick redit of my reel to add a new piece of work.

My Reel for 2011 also includes some work from 2012.

Reel Shot List
0:00 – 0:07 – Opening
0:08 – 0:11 – Nutcracker (personal): 3D Animation, 3D Modeling, Design
0:11 – 0:14 – Bearmageddon Banner Animation(personal): Camera Projection, 3D Animation, Pyrocluster(fire/smoke)
0:14 – 0:18 – Wijmo (personal): Design, 2D Animation
0:18 – 0:21 – Uniqlo Display animation: 3D Design & Animation
0:201– 0:26 – RIT SportZone (client): 3D Modeling, 3D Animation
0:26 – 0:29 – Exoteric (personal): Design, 3D Animation, Thinking Particles
0:30 – 0:33 – Closing

Categories
3D Modeling Project Notes

3D Printed Bison Whistle

This past Friday I received a package from shapeways of my bison whistle. I was super excited when I found out earlier that week that it was shipped early than I expected.

double bison

 

After receiving them and getting over the initial awe of seeing something I made in the computer in real life (which lasted all of 1-2 minutes) I noticed many things about my developing modeling skills and understand a lot more about the translation from a 3D computer model to 3D real life object.

 

Scale matters…of course.

I have learned over time how relative scale work in regards to lightning object, dynamics to certain degree and even how fluid works with it in regards to real life size. Though making a real object took a bit of work and in the end I think I should have scaled my model up a bit more still.

I based my object on dimensions of a hair brush on my desk which seem a good size for the whistle. I did this in first center meters since that is one of the units of scale that shapeways takes, but for some reason I could not get my object scaled right even after adjusting the exports setting for stl or wrl. In the end I went with inches and the site took it perfectly. I’ll have to figure out what I did wrong eventually.

 

 

 

Full Color Sandstone vs. White Strong & Flexible Plastic

 

Both look awesome but plastic seemed to add even more smoothing to the model which is nice. I also notice less of the production process it took to make (though you can notice some stepping), where as on the sand stone I can feel and see where It also was heated, printed and is still smooth in some parts. However the sandstone one is fully hollow as I originally model it but the plastic is not. Not sure why though, maybe it was to hard to clean it out? The plastic also has some extra plastic on the horn tips as well.

 

My final thoughts is that 3D printing is awesome and I can’t see why people who really 3D modeling for a living shouldn’t get everything cool they model printed. It makes me want to become a better modeler just so I can print them out and see it in real life.

Also if any one else want this I put it up in my 3d printing shop for any one to buy.

3dprints.g2bproductions.com

 

Now what should I model next to 3D Print?

Categories
3D Modeling General

August Work Update Modeling

It seems I have gone a long period of time with out a real update to the site . I have been working on a number of personal projects one which was a little over ambitions with the time I have but it was fun to work on. I’ll probably keep working on it to complete at least part of it and post it here in a while.

In addition to that project I have been getting into modeling a bit again as which is partly fueled by the new release C4D 14 which has some awesome new sculpting tools and a suggestion for a co-worker about sculptris, a free model sculpting tool. My post a while ago was me attempting to use it.  It fun to use it like digital clay but just like using real clay (or doing any specialty skill) takes a lot of practice to get good result.

 

 

 

Another modeling project I started working on was this simple bison whistle from avatar the last air bender. My original goal was to use sculptris to make it but I couldn’t quite get the detail and control I wanted so I went with C4D to model it.

 Some where during the process of modeling it I got the idea to attempt to 3D print it. So remembering shapeways.com. I signed up and started to work on my model with the idea of printing it. Which I quickly learned is a lot different then just making something look good. I had an issue with center meters and millimeters scaling right in their system so I went with inches. Also extruding it to give it thickness altered it a bit which I’ll have to fix at a later date.

 bison whistle

After about 50 or so uploads after figuring out their system I final got one up their that I like enough to have printed. So I had two version printed a Full Color Sandstone  version & White Strong & Flexible version. So assuming it doesn’t fall apart in production I should have an avatar bison whistle. I will be sure to upload some pictures when once I have it.

I’m also working on another avatar based project modeling various types of character from the show for a game in development that I should be able to show soon I think.

 

G=out

Categories
3D Modeling

Sculptris Attempt

Just trying out Sculptris adding some eyes and wing to Mr. Humpty base mesh.

Categories
Mograph Notes

Robotic Notes

On envato they had there free items of the month release from their various sites and as an asset junkie I was compled to download all of the free items that I even thought I might need. One of these was a robitic creation kit from graphic river by
RZDESIGN.

 

  As a fan of robots and character designs I was drawn to the simple yet complex in customizeable optionsfrom these character parts. I decided as a simple exercise and quick project ( or so I thought) I would build a few of these characters.I picked one from his original dark set and light set. 

The white bot I built first which was fairly straight forward since it mainly consisted of rounded long cubes. The only “real” modeling was the done on the head since I had cut into the head to make sure the mouth and eyes where all one part of the head. I did a bit of redesign with the arms so that they could move without just seeming like there coming out of the sides of the body magically. 

The green bot was a bit harder to make which at fist seem like it would be pretty simple. The main issue I encountered was how to build the head/main body. A pentagon is a simple object to make in any 3D program and there usually is a one or two click solution. My issue was with cuts into the front face to make the eye and mouth with out there being a bunch of triangles and would allow it to smooth correctly.

There is seemingly no way to lay a grid out on a front face of a 5 sided object without some triangles though I did my best to hide or put them in places that won’t matter. I was able to layout some structure that let me cut into the face and allow for the edges to be smooth correctly with a hypernurb. Of course since I wasn’t really planning on doing any deformations in the face I might not of needed to take as much effort laying out the face, but using just booles ( which I’am sometimes guilty of using) would not have cut it. 

 I did a bit of redesign for the lower part where the treads are since in the original design they seem to connect directly to the main body, which in a static 2D design works but in 3D may be a bit of a stretch in how it would actually move. So I created a new base of the tread design of a model of a Hunting Russ Mk. II tank.

The next step I took was lighting the two bots which I started of well and posted some preview images of on my twitter, but as I continued to work on it I got hung up some details and reflection that I couldn’t get to emulate the original design correctly. Eventually I just said the heck with it and pushed through it and created a new save file that said final and after a few incremental saves, I had the final images. I also have a rotating camera up which I may render a full turntable of later.