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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...

My Students 2009

For those of you that don't know. I have had the privilege to teach a couple of courses for the CGT department during my graduate studies. This has truly been a rewarding experience that has had a lasting impression.

I teach 2 courses. CGT 221 is an Introductory course to 3ds Max and Architectural Visualization. Students in this course are charged to both learn the software and reproduce an interior with acceptable renders at the end of the semester. This semester has by far been the most successful.

I am very proud to present the best of the class (in no particular order):





















The other class I teach is Introduction to Animation and 3ds Max. Students are responsible for learning the basics of all pieces of the production pipeline. They are required to storyboard, create an animatic, model, texture, light, rig, animate, render, and use After Effects to compile their work into a narrative storyline. This class is very taxing on all the students, but the work keeps getting better and better. We really emphasized production value this year. I am very proud of these students' work as well.

Here are the top 4 of this semester (in no particular order):

CGT 241 Best of 2009 from Zeb Wood on Vimeo.

If IUPUI were Hogwarts, these '1st years' have just mastered the Petronus Charm. Geek-out.

If you are a past student (not 2009) please feel free to post a link to your video as a comment!

I'm Sold. Autodesk Mudbox 2009.

One of the latest CG Society Feature Articles went over the newest Mudbox 2009 release. Simply, amazing potential. Bravo to Autodesk for investing in the product and backing its refinement! I never thought I would steer from ZBrush's fluidity. But I think I may veer off course and take the plunge.

For those of you new to 3D, and are asking "What the hell is this ump-teenth Autodesk release you speak of Zeb?!" I answer. ~ The one you have been waiting for kiddies!

I won't go into every little feature, but the 2 features that stood out primarily to me was in the "realtime shadows, reflection mapping, ambient occlusion mapping and depth of field." Mudbox can handle well into the 30 millions of poly's as well! Thats like sculpting with water ladies and gentlemen... I saw this demo live @ SIGGRAPH 2008 in L.A. and I had to pick my tongue off of the floor.

Game changing software capability # 2 for me is the ability to model and paint in different subdivisions on different layers and at the same time be able to control the opacity and multiplier effects of each layer in combination or individually with the ease of painting alpha maps! "WTF?!" you ask... Unlimited control I answer.



I leave you with some goodies~


The famous Mudbox frog


Harsh Borah


Danny Williams


Peter Zoppi

If you want to see the full article check out it out at CG Society.

Looking forward to the summer. Muscle project is almost complete, and I want to make creatures again. Now with Mudbox 2009.