Learning the 3Ds

Aus Poker League

2010-06-08T19:26:00.000-07:00

Doing some title work for an APL ad.

Class Project - WIP

2010-04-27T04:31:00.000-07:00

TEDx @ CarriageWorks - Sydney

TURBO2000

2010-04-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

Chainsaw

2010-04-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

Made this in an hour or so before class.

Why are you sleeping?

2010-04-07T18:46:00.000-07:00

A turntable render for a class assignment.
Had to model, texture, rig and animate a fish.

Jump

2010-04-06T16:12:00.000-07:00

First Lip Sync

2010-03-30T04:25:00.000-07:00

Had my first lesson in maya lip syncing.

So much fun.

Headspin

2010-03-11T14:39:00.000-08:00

Practicing modeling with edge flow. I also rigged the eyes, but haven't gotten around to animating them. Looking forward to doing the rest.

Here's the original sketch.

First Lesson in Character Rigging & Animation

2010-03-04T00:47:00.000-08:00

Experiments In Dynamics

2010-03-02T03:31:00.000-08:00

I never got around to posting these. So here they are...

AFTRS

2010-02-28T20:35:00.001-08:00

Ok, so. Its been a while. And if you know me, you already know this. But for those one or two people on the internet who came here by mistake, I'll fill you in.

I got accepted into AFTRS (Australian Film Television Radio School) for their Graduate Certificate in 3D Animation. Once I found out how small my class is, I started to realize how lucky I am. Apparently the school is highly regarded in the industry, and having this on my CV will set me up for amazing opportunities. So awesome.

I've been going for a week now, and most of the stuff we've learnt so far, I already know. But it's really good setting it all in concrete.

SO! No more trying to teach myself, and time for some real progress.

Will post again when I've made something worth looking at.

Here's an iPhone snap I took in a class. We were supposed to be making an arctic scene. I ended up making Tatooine.

Street Wars scene in progress.

2010-01-14T16:06:00.001-08:00

Hey

2010-01-13T21:18:00.000-08:00

Leaky

2010-01-09T21:10:00.000-08:00

FC

2010-01-07T21:36:00.000-08:00

Da, na na na, na na, na naaaaaaaaa, da dum dum!

Playing with nParticles

2009-11-26T22:07:00.000-08:00

Skullzors

2009-11-10T16:42:00.000-08:00

Been a while since I've played around in maya.

Decided to try a stylized skull.
Picked up some new UV mapping tricks.

Paper Planes

2009-10-06T14:27:00.000-07:00

First play with Maya dynamics and particles. Fun stuff.

Schroomz

2009-09-09T00:20:00.001-07:00

Hello again.

2009-08-31T00:46:00.000-07:00

Practicing some modeling/shading.

Made a volumetric shader to simulate light disappearing inside the mouth.

A dude man with no head.

2009-07-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

What I got up to last night. I gave up after I had to hard reset my Mac for the 3rd time. Not something I enjoy. Can't wait till I get my Mac Pro.

I am in no way proud of the arms... avert your eyes.

Sort of stuck.

2009-07-26T16:37:00.000-07:00

So my iMac at home can't handle Maya. I can't get past 20 minutes of modeling without my graphics card shitting its self, and turning my screen into this:

Which sucks, because all I want to do is spend my spare time practicing.

Time to save for a macbook pro I guess.
This is balls.

Kicking this shit in the face!

2009-07-20T19:20:00.000-07:00

Did some UV layout tutorials. Now I know how to make custom UV textures in photoshop. WOO

One day, I hope to be able to get something even close to this amount of cool.

woo

Work in progress.

2009-07-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

Have a slight grasp on modeling now. Having a lot of fun! Still need to finish the shoes and arms.

Rigging and animation still eludes me. Back to hours of tutorials!

ROBOT ROBOT ROBOT

2009-07-15T02:57:00.000-07:00

Frustration

2009-07-14T19:22:00.000-07:00

I was up until 1:30am last night trying to work out how to render a video of a really nice model of a robot I made. It was so damn frustrating! A whole nights work and I couldn't even show my friends. Even googling tutorials failed me.

I knew I was missing one little check box I had to tick, or use a different type of camera or something!! I knew it was such a n00b thing I just couldn't grasp. So I went to bed tired and pissed off.

Got to work this morning and had another try at researching. Turns out I was right. It was another tiny hidden switch on this Jumbo Jet's cockpit.

Did a quick model to test it out.

Really wana get home and render that robot now!

First Batch of Shit

2009-07-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

Here's the first lot of things actually worth showing.

Was playing around with standard shaders (the material of the object) and a rendering mode called "Final Gather". Gives it the nice shadows in the corners of everything.

The Beginning

2009-07-14T18:19:00.000-07:00

This is the 3rd time now I've tried to teach myself 3D. This shit is hard.

I've dabbled with Cinema4D in the past, and have come up with some decent looking stuff. I chucked them up here a while ago.

But I've been told that if I'm going to get into it, I should be mastering Maya. So even after spending cash on C4D books, I put aside it's clean and simplified user interface and ability to make extremely impressive images and animations with ease, and traded it for Maya.

This transition can only really be described as going from driving an automatic car (with cruise control), to a jet plane. Sitting in the pilots seat of this thing is fucking daunting. But from what I've been told, Maya can reach heights that Cinema4D can't even get near. So, if I'm going to master something, it should be Maya, right?

In this blog, I plan to document my journey from n00b to pro/failure.

Here we go...