Blog Archives
Game Portfolio 2 Final Turn In
Female Anatomy Study
This is my final turn in for GPF2 Female Anatomy study. I feel I have improved a lot as a character artist and improved over last months male study. I had a lot of fun working on her all month and improving her look. I took my female from 3 months ago and re-sculpted her to look more like the reference and added a lot of detail. Re-topology went a lot better this month and I did it all by hand.My Substance Painter skills improved a lot and I feel like I did very well trying to replicate skin.
Here is my full months worth of turn ins. From first weeks final detailed sculpt to the final turn in. This shows the progression of my work over the course of the month. I am looking forward to being able to work on some new models on my own time where I can spend as much time as I want on things to really perfect my craft.
Game Portfolio 1 Final Turn In
Male Anatomy Study
This was my final turn in for my very first full character for Game Portfolio 1 class. We were tasked at completing our 80% done characters from previous month to 100%. As you can see from the first post, to now this post, I have put a lot of work into this guy. I learned a lot in this class and it feels like this was a true test of everything I have learned over the past few years.
I used ZBrush 4R7 to sculpt at around 8 million Polys, then Maya 2016 for retopology down to around 50k Polys. For color, I used Substance Painter and then Marmoset for the final render. I am finding it very fun to use so many different programs to come up with one final result. I received a B+ for my final grade and of course I would have preferred an A, but I understand that this is “Finals” It has gotten very serious when it comes to grades and critiques.
This is my model that I used for 3d.sk for this months male anatomy. I feel like i know this guy, I have stared at him for so long. haha
Reference Blog Post for Game Technologies Class
This month I will be posting a blog post for each week as part of my class assignments. Good thing I already had a blog up and running huh? Full Sail is starting to “force” students to make them start using a blog and some classes, this is a requirement. I like to think my blog is part of the reason they are doing this 😉. I am not sure why most students are so against this too. They moan and groan when the teachers mention blog posts. I personally think it is great to have this blog for my personal use and so others can see what I am doing in school. I also feel it will be a great asset for securing a job in the industry after I am done.
This month will be sort of an introduction to finals. I will be tasked to model three different characters. A human male body to 80% done, a female body to 80% done, and the third I get to choose. I choose to do a Rhino as they are one of my favorite animals. The first blog post will be just of the reference I have gathered and then each week after will be one of the characters modeled. I am looking forward to working in ZBrush again and honing my skills.
Male Reference
All Images used from www.3d.sk
Female Reference
All Images used from www.3d.sk
White Rhino Reference
All images found on Bing
I will see you next week with the Male Human Body done to 80% and look forward to hearing some critiques on my work.
Bill Baxley the Bounty Hunter – Advanced Game Character – AGC 1508 – ZBrush Sculpt
Bill Baxley the Bounty Hunter
Hey everyone, Sorry it has been a while since I made a post, that will tell you how busy and serious my classes have been these last few months. But, I wanted to make sure I get this one posted because I am very proud of this one. This past month I had Advanced Game Characters AGC and our assignment was to create a character from scratch. We had to come up with a design of a character that we wanted to make and it was amazing to see how the design process can change from day-to-day. I originally wanted to do a Robot but once I got into ZBrush, this guy kinda just emerged from my digital clay. I really feel like I might have found my calling here with this one. I have been at Full Sail now for a little over 2 years and I have enjoyed almost every single class, but I have not gotten as excited about a class as I did this one. I am thinking this might be my focus, Character Design and working in ZBrush.
After the class was over and I turned in my final I decided to make a 360º Video so everyone can see the detail from front to back. I also wanted to show a few different views, some with Wireframe to show the layout, to without the mask so you can see the detail I put into his mouth and nose that you don’t see in the Main image.
Click for High Res
Please watch in Full HD and turn on Sound
Please feel free to comment below and let me know what you think. Even though the class is over I would love to hear different critiques and Ideas of what YOU think might have made him better. This is a learning process and part of that process is getting feedback from people. I would love to know what it is like to see my character with fresh eyes. Because I have looked at him for a month now and watched him morph into what he became its hard for me to see him and appreciate him to the full extent.
Learning how to do Hand Painted Texture for TPS – Part #1
Texture Painting and Sculpting
For this new class we are learning to do Hand Painted Textures, which is a fancy way of saying Digital Painting, which is a fancy way of Photoshopping. We were tasked with painting a texture using 4 different materials. I choose Wood, Stone, Cloth and Metal. My stone turned out pretty decent in my opinion and was a lot of fun bringing it to life with all the cracks. The cloth was by far my best piece and I had a lot of fun doing that one. I learned a technique where you paint all in grayscale just focusing on where the highlights and shadows should be and then adding color at the end. That way you do not have to worry about color and getting all the colors to look correct. I used the smudge tool for 98% of it and with a lot of time it comes out looking like a real cloth. My wood was my least favorite, only because I left that for last and didn’t get to spend as much time on it as I would have liked. I added Metal nails for effect, but I am sure with a few more hours it would have been much better. I received a B+ on this for my grade Mainly due to the wood.
Our second project was to Hand Paint a barrel to tell a story. I choose to do an old radioactive barrel with lots of damage, rust and mold. I really enjoyed making this one because It was fun to see a nice fresh looking barrel become old and beat up. I used a bunch of different techniques in this one to get the final result and lots and lots of different layers in Photoshop. The trial and error were fun on this one and learned very quickly it is fun to make a layer and experiment and if I don’t like it, just delete and start something new. That’s how the mold turned out. I had several different versions of the mold and after receiving a few critiques decided to end with this version. I received an A on this for my Grade.
I am currently working on Legacy/Current Generation Textures making another wall, and soon will start on a box. So I will post those at the end of the month once they are completed. Enjoying this class for sure. It’s nice to get back to feeling like I am making art.
Keep Calm and Sail On
Just a little something I made for my Full Sail University Networking Group on Facebook.
Back when I first started at Full Sail, we were told “NETWORK!!!” I mean, almost every day we were told how important it was to network and get to know people and come out of your shell. Well I took this very seriously and when it came time to try to network on Facebook, I found it very difficult to find one good place where I could reach out to as many Full Sail students as possible. There were plenty of groups here and there, Full Sail Soccer group, Full Sail Writing group, Full Sail This group and Full Sail That group, but no Full Sail Networking group, (that had more then 100 members). So I took it upon myself to start one and make sure it became the go to place for all former and current students to come and network with each other. Little did I know this was going to become the BIGGEST Full Sail group on Facebook with over 7,500 Members as of this minute.
I am just honored that it has become such a great community and place for us all to get together and discuss all kinds of things. A place where I hope I am making a difference and connecting people together that might not have had a platform to meet. Where people might find that next contact that lands them that job. Where someone might be encouraged to come out of their shell and maybe make a new life long friend.
So if you have happened along this post and are a Full Sail Student, Full Sail Alumni, Industry Professional, or looking into attending Full Sail University, I invite you to come on in and say hi.
Visual Effects 1 – My 3 Projects – Full Sail University
Visual Effects 1
This month I had Visual Effects 1 and we were tasked to make some pretty awesome effects in Maya 2015. My first project was a Rube Goldberg Machine. We had to practice making rigid hard bodies and passive hard bodies. Along with different fields I was able to make the Rube Goldberg machine work. I then gave the scene some colors and also practiced lighting the bulbs by making the texture glow instead of using a light.
Quick History lesson
For those of you who don’t know, Rube Goldberg was the guy who invented the machines that you already know about. They are the machines where one thing triggers the next and then that thing triggers the next and so on. You probably just didn’t know that was the name of them. Reason everyone knows about them is because he was a cartoonist that drew these wild machines that we have all seen in cartoons and now in modern days people build them, but fun fact, that most people do not know is, he never made one himself.
Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, sculptor and author. Reuben Lucius Goldberg (Rube Goldberg) was born in San Francisco on July 4, 1883. After graduating from the University of California Berkeley with a degree in engineering, Rube went on to work as an engineer for the City of San Francisco Water and Sewers Department.
More info on Rube Goldberg here.Â
Here is my Pre-Pro Storyboard with my plan of what I was going to use and how I was going to do it. The fun thing about this class was they made us do our story board and plan before we even knew what we were capable of doing. My guess is so we didn’t feel limited to what we knew how to do and it would challenge us to try to learn how to do what we wanted.
Storyboard Sketches
Here is my final project, Please watch in HD if possible for best results.
Rube Goldberg Machine – Lesson 1 – Rigid Body Dynamics
Our second project was a Foundry scene that was given to us and we had to create particles for Smoke, Fire, and Liquid. We had full control of what the scene would look like. We used all kinds of particles to create certain looks. Lots and Lots and Lots of setting tweaks to try to pull off certain particles. My original plan was slightly different then the final project, but sometimes that happens. My original plan was to do Steam, Smoke, Fire, and Sparks. But I changed it up by getting rid of the steam since it was so close to smoke and changing the sparks to liquid to keep the scene short for rendering purposes.
Here is a look at my Pre-Pro plans. You will see how I had slightly different plans then the final project.
Storyboard Sketches
Test Renders of my Fire and Smoke
The Foundry – Lesson 2 – Particle Effects
Here is my final video of Lesson 2. I am very happy with the way it turned out considering some of the challenges I ran into on this project. Of course IÂ see some of the errors and things that I wish I would have had time to change. Please watch in HD for best results.
Our third and final project was a super fun one for me. We had to practice creating soft bodies. The first thing that came to mind when the professor was presenting our final project was Jello! Who doesn’t love watching Jello Jiggle? So I did some research and found a video on-line of Jello being dropped at high-speed to give it a slow motion effect. I wanted to try to recreate that look of Jello falling and rippling in slow motion. But how was I going to do it? After many different methods I found one that really gave it a very nice ripple effect. The first few tests made it very stiff and cartoony. Once I found out how to make the Jello look real, then it came to color and trying to get a good look of the surface. I used a MIA X Material and set it to a solid glass, but then tweaked the settings for hours. Below is a few test renders once I got close to what I liked.
My original plan was to try to replicate the video as close as possible with about 12 pieces of Jello all interacting with one another. Once I got to two pieces of Jello I started running into issues where each piece I added after would change the dynamics of the first two pieces of Jello. I knew that rendering was going to take a VERY long time as I wanted to render in the highest quality of mental ray for this final project so I decided to just work with two pieces but make them look the best as possible. With 600 frames it took over 40 hours of render time to produce the quality I was looking for and the final video shows it!
Storyboard Sketches
Test renders of my Jello
Jello Simulation – Lesson 3 – Soft Body Simulation
Here is my final video for Lesson 3 and I am so happy with the way it turned out! Please be sure to watch this in HD so you can see the full quality that I put into it. I mean after 40 hours of rendering at least take a minute to watch it in all its glory. I also found a commercial for Jello from the 1970’s and thought it was perfect for this video. Please feel free to comment below and tell me what you think of all these projects.
Hope you enjoyed my 3 projects from Visual Effects 1 as much as I enjoyed making them. Feel free to let me know by commenting below. I sure learned a lot about Maya and how to make things look amazing within it. Excited to continue to learn more. On to the next class!
Character Animation 1 (CAN1) is in the books! All of My Projects
Another class is in the books. I had a great time in CAN1 this past month. Learned a lot more about animating a character. I do enjoy doing it, something about making it precise and getting the character to look fluid when they move appeals to me. I feel like I did a real good job on all of my projects and of course there is always room for improvement. Feel free to take a look at my projects below and comment on what you like or what you see I could have changed. I love to get hard critiques on my work. It helps me become a better artist, so feel free to nit pick.
Return to the Walk
Our first project was to make a character walk again to get us back into the groove of Maya and doing animation again.
Turn Around
This was my project that continues the walk from earlier in the month. This time we had to make the character turn around. This can be a little tricky because now you are moving on many axises not just in one direction.
Silhouette Poses
We had to make strong silhouette poses with Bugsy to try to concentrate on making strong poses
Final Project
Our final project is we had to make Bugsy walk across the platform from a standing position or a relaxed position. He had to take 5-6 steps then once he reached the button, do a turn around and then anticipate and hit the button,then make a strong pose. I choose to add a little more and make the elevator go down, for a little added bonus. This was good practice. Grades will soon be posted.
François Boucher’s Odalisque 1749 Remake to Bugsy 2015
CAN1 Media Center Activity
For Character Animation 1, we had to go to the Library and choose a book with some famous artwork and then re-create it in a drawing. Then we had to insert Bugsy, Our Character Rig for CAN1, into the drawing the second time. I choose François Boucher’s Odalisque simply because I thought it would be funny to see Bugsy all sprawled out looking like a 1749 French nude model. Sure enough I think it is pretty funny looking, Don’t you?
This is obviously the ordinal painting.
This is my remake of the original.
I used Sketchbook Pro and my Wacom Intuos 5 Tablet.
This is my Remake with Bugsy looking all sexy!
This was only worth 1% of my grade, and I feel I went way above and beyond what was even being asked for this assignment, but I was having too much fun because most of my work lately has been in Maya, and I have not had a lot of time to get back to drawing. So I decided to do my best. Feel free to tell me what you think in the comment section below.
2015
WOW! I can not believe we have made it to the future!
I am very excited that it is 2015 because this means that I only have just over a year to finish my degree. I had such a wonderful year in 2014 and I have learned soo much. The year flew by which means I must have been having some fun. When I think back at the beginning of 2014 and now I feel so much smarter when it comes to my field. Classes are really ramping up when it comes to difficulty but I feel I am still keeping up and getting A’s.
Character Rigging 1
I made a few tiny mistakes in this class which gave me a %99.20. I am extremely proud of myself for this grade. I really enjoyed doing rigging a lot. I had heard from a few fellow students who had already taken it and they warned me and some down right hated it. That made me a little nervous that it might not have been such a fun class, but they were all wrong. For me, this was my type of class. My teacher, Mr. Clavan, was a wonderful instructor and was able to teach us the basics or rigging very well.
Character Animation 1
I have started my next class and it is going to be a fun one. Character Animation 1 is a continuation of Fundamentals of Animation. I am looking forward to using what I have learned from that class and adding more knowledge to create some fun and exciting animations. I will keep you posted.
My Full Sail Journey.com 