Best of 2009 Fall Semester

Continuing my ritual of showing off most of my student's work. Here are the best of my classes from the Fall semester of 2009. This semester was great in all aspects as I taught 4 classes, 2 of which were new to me. I don't know if I'm allowed to show off my Art Institute student's work yet so stay tuned. (I taught Maya and After Effects compositing there)

CGT 221: This class is introduction to Architectural Visualization. Students spend the majority of the semester figuring out the program, modeling, and in the last 3 weeks get to try out lighting with mental ray and using the Arch and Design Materials. Each students contact is here and/or on the work.

Alison Wallace: aliwalla@iupui.edu
Nicole Bradford: bradforn@iupui.edu
Tara Carlile: tcarlile@iupui.edu
Megan Newbury: mnewbury@iupui.edu
Jason Smith: jason@jalanvisuals.com , Jason's Blog

They always turn out great work despite their frustrations. In no particular order:


















CGT 241: This class is introduction to 3D Animation. It sounds like an animation class but it is actually an introduction to every part of the production pipeline for a 3D short. Students are charged with writing their own 20 second story, story-boarding, animatic, modeling, texturing, lighting, rigging, animation.... You get the idea. They always seem to pull through and work their hearts out to come up with some truly amazing work for first time 3D artists. In no particular order:



I'd also like to acknowledge my new classes CGT 411 which was a capstone course. 2 of the teams worked on projects I'm personally involved with. Seamless Media created the entire IndianaUploaded brand, splashpage, and soon to be released website check out their work here http://indianauploaded.com/ and stay tuned!

Also, from CGT 411 was the team that did the entire storyboard production, character animation, and Cloth simulations for THE RED KITE a 3D short that will be released in April 2010. Check out what we can show you at http://theredkitemovie.blogspot.com/ I'd like to thank both teams for a wonderful experience, and hope they enjoyed (some are still working) it as much as I did.

Here's to another great semester and stay tuned for the great work coming out of the Art Institute of Indianapolis as well!

Avatar: A hopelessly Inspired Review

It has been a bit over 48 hours since I have seen a movie that totally renewed my enthusiasm and hope for film making.

I might first mention I am the type of person that will go out on a limb to find inspiration. I manage to find magic in the smallest of things, it is what one must do to stay creative and keep a sense of motivation in the hardest of times. Most films I enjoy, my dearest friends and family do not. Avatar was a welcome exception, the release also happened to be on my birthday of all days, leading me to be able to convince 35 dear friends and family to go see the flick. To my pleasure, not one of them was disappointed, and a few announced it was their favorite movie of all time. I was quick to agree in theater, but things have digested and I have come to decide to put this film in my top 5 all time, and favorite of the year (we have had some good ones in 2009).

Avatar regrettably isn't the most unique flavor, nor has it any sort of depth in character development. Its visual effects and creative vision however allow for a quick buy-in to characters that are close enough to human for an audience to become quickly attached. I have watched every major VFX blockbuster and 3D animated film since the time of Final Fantasy the Spirits within; Avatar ladies and gentlemen was worth the long wait.

There have been more failures in our craft than successes. It is possible to pick apart so much on a big screen when a story requires a near-human actor to both perform believably and to evoke a sense of empathy and relativism in an audience. Avatar manages to make you forget what you are watching is even CG (a most crucial ingredient it seems). There are some major undertones in the film that may get preachy, even pushed upon some, but they are all messages that should be re-visited. Some lessons from the past we may have forgotten, and others that dread upon us now are at the root of the film, yet any type of audience can see the questions and dilemmas this story attempts to address in a new yet flashy way.

Outside the story and the character development flaws comes the experience of watching Avatar. Even with the highest of expectations going into the film, a critical eye, and past let-downs fresh in my mind, I forgot the 'critic' within almost instantly and remembered how it felt and what is was like to watch something as a child again. The magic of watching someone run for the first time that can't walk, or master a beast and fly around a world so distant from our own left me in such wonderment and awe. This was an experience I can relate to only a few times in my life, and I get goose bumps even now while recalling this experience; something I will treasure for some time to come.


Even now the film seems like a dream. It sounds funny to put something up so high on a pedestal, but even outside of the production, storyline, characters, and visual effects this film, a huge undertaking of technology, passion, and creativity is a simple promise to creatives like myself that the magic is back. It may have never left, and for me that is way more than enough to keep me looking for and creating the next best story wherever it can be found.

I wholeheartedly recommend you go see Avatar in IMAX 3D, you are in for one hell of a ride. You know I will.

Indiana Uploaded is Coming!!!

Imagine an online ART community that supports, encourages, and inspires future Indiana artists through scholarship opportunities, criticism from professionals, and collaboration with other Indiana artists.

This community could encourage the next generation of Indiana's Traditional and Digital Artists to grow both inside and outside of the classroom, and at the same time, encourage them to stay in Indiana to study the ARTS.

Well, that community is HERE! Enter IndianaUploaded !!!!



IndianaUploaded.com is an online community centered around design competitions that high school and college design students can embrace and grow with as they hone their design skills and learn the value of collaboration and criticism.

Sign up today, keep up to date information about Rules, Registering, and PRIZES!!! Prizes will range from college scholarships, software, hardware, internships, contract work, and notoriety!

IndianaUploaded will go Live in late December with the first competition following shortly after! Your support by signing up now can help Indiana Uploaded secure scholarships and prizes! http://www.indianauploaded.com



For more info email: info@indianuploaded.com

Red Kite Characters Update

All, its been way too long! I missed you for the past few months while our Red Kite Group has been tearing it up! Where have you been? What have you been doing?

Me you ask?

Well, I'm Going a little crazy-outta-my-mind texturing the main characters, rigging, tweaking, rigging, tweaking, for our animators whom always find something wrong with my rigs... But working none the less. Just kidding animators, you are doing great!

Update:

- We have completed our animatic and are on our way to character animation as I finish off facial blend expressions for the main characters!

- Texturing and Rigging is nearly complete on all characters!

- We keep finding more assets that need modeling

- We just received great reviews for our animatic when we presented to our Score and Foley sound artists!!!!

- Vue (vegetation creation software) is giving us rendering woes, Ryan is tackling that issue as well as lighting!

- Texturing for Interior and Exterior environments is going well, as you can see in last week's post

Stereo is a big question mark, but we got our man Huckaba on it!

Here are some current screen shots of our main characters in ZBrush 3.0. Next week we will try to have a few shots of the animatic that we will show through progression. (can't let too much of the story out)

Enjoy!











Stay tuned for more updates! I'll try to post other happenings more often as well! Want to show off the rigs, but can't decide on a way to show them off as of yet...

SIGGRAPH 2009 New Orleans

Many times I have been asked what is SIGGRAPH? Why do you go every year? Well, as many of you are creatives, and many of you are NERDS like myself, this is the Mecca and merging of 1 whole year of new 3D technologies, artwork, animations, research, and camaraderie packed into one memorable week!

This year SIGGRAPH was hosted by New Orleans. A city that is far more welcoming than most of the cities that I have been to (especially Los Angeles). New Orleans offers a perfect evening backdrop for those who don't get out much, to let loose, and to meet face to face to forge new relationships!





This year I was lucky enough to speak with hundreds of professionals about game design ideas that my brother and I cook up (thanks Will Wright), preview new softwares, meet hundreds of new students who are excited about their future, and eat oysters with good friends and well known CGsociety bigs (owners and editors)! Not to mention I received feedback and research on about every part of The Red Kite's production pipeline from several professionals within Pixar, Digital Domain, ILM, and Sony ImageWorks to name a few!







So Why SIGGRAPH? My answer is why not? Its the only place you can go to find people as passionate as you are about your work! And its the one place a lot of you weirdos could fit in! Next Year is Los Angeles hosts once again. Counting professionals, students, and IUPUI Alumni we had 32 Indianapolis people that I know of in attendance! Lets beat those numbers in 2010!

My Students Summer 2009

Once again I am posting the best of my courses for your enjoyment. Once again I am impressed with the results. This Summer brought 2 expedited 6 week courses.

Here are the best of CGT 221 Intro to Architectural Visualization and 3ds Max. Students are required not only to learn the software but to take that knowledge and create a space from a previous project or an image

(In no particular order):









Here are the best of CGT 321 Advanced Lighting and Rendering for Architectural Spaces in 3ds Max. Students are to master both Scanline and Mental Ray lighting and rendering techniques. The final project consists of taking a previous project's lighting and texturing the space as realistically as possible.

(In no particular order):

Red Kite Characters

Comrades,

Its been quite a long time since I have had a chance to show you what I have been up to. Luckily its been worth the wait. To bring you up to speed, I am working on a short with a couple of my Arc-nemsis' ;) New Media Grad students... just kidding.

Anyway I am working with some of the best artists here at college, and The Red Kite will be a great project come its completion in March 2010.

Current Progress you ask? My responsibilities lye in the realm of Characters: modeling, texturing, rigging, hair and clothing dynamics, animation, and Recruitment. Our Modeling deadline was just recently so I have 5 of the main characters finished (or nearly) to show you tonight.

You can see our progress continually from all members and recruits via our blog and soon to be website http://www.theredkite.com

So, without further ado, and with promise of fully colored and furry characters around mid August. My muscle project progress will be posted within a week or so from today. I will also let you know when my defense is so you can come see it and ask questions if you like.

Characters:

Maxwell Lostrum





Michael James Chapman



Laura Chapman



Thomas Chapman



Nurse Kate



These are the 5 main characters of the short. Max is a bitter old man. Michael is an 11 year old boy who is sick with cancer. Tom and Laura are his parents. Nurse Kate takes care of both Max and Michael. The story will be left a mystery for now...

Thank you for all of your support and frequent request for updates. I average about 6 hours in zbrush per character. A Rough estimate start to finish for all 5 characters would be around 30 hours per character to model bodies, clothes, and accessories, then unwrap everything, then zbrush. So I have spent roughly 150 hours on these guys so far...