Nov
16
An animation test for soft body physics on a plant in motion. Physics and animation in Blender, render in Luxrender.
Plant model originally by Tim Edwards (Timzero4) from Blendswap.
I updated the textures for Luxrender.
A little bit of leaf intersection noticeable if you pause, but self collision wasn’t working very well with the manifold mesh.
No audio.
Nov
15
I’ve done a test render using Blender and Luxrender at 720p to test out the limitations of animation using Luxrender. That’s why I’ve used multiple materials.
The clear poor performers are the rough glass and glass materials. Render settings were adjusted for high speed so I’m actually really pleased with how well most materials render at with only 2 minutes per frame. For future animations the time necessary for clearing up even the glass materials should be reasonable even at HD quality.
No sound, sorry. Also, apologies for fireflies and the “T” cracking a little too early. Physics were calculated with Blender’s internal game engine bullet physics. Letter shards were created using the “Fracture” tools plugin.
I’m very pleased with and have learned a bundle from this test! And hooray for my first YouTube upload!
Nov
07
I’ve rendered out a little bit more of a dynamic image for my fighter jet that I modeled in Blender. This time in flight.
For those interested, I have uploaded the working texture files here.
Sep
23
This is a fighter jet I’ve modelled for a Blendswap contest. It is inspired by the SU-37 flanker series jet made by Russian aircraft company Sukhoi.
The model is fully rigged and textured. Also comes with optional nose-art. Armature movement is automatic where appropriate (landing gear only requires rotating one bone, wheels and turbines spin automatically when moving forward etc.). Detailed instructions are included in the file.
For those interested you can download the .blend file HERE Simply download and open in Blender (both the file and Blender are free for any use).
Sep
23
Nose Art for my airplane model I’ve created in Blender.
Aug
30
Character illustration of one of the protagonists from the animation I am working on. Just for the fun and the practice.
Aug
19
A new picture of Motoko from Ghost in the Shell. The character design is kind of a mix between the original movie, and the newer TV series – Stand Alone Complex.
Jun
03
I got a decent sized picture frame for free from a cousin so I decided to make an artwork for it. It’s a bit of a larger format and different aspect ratio than I’m used to but it was fun as a semi-quick one shot.
Mar
27
I wanted to do a better render for the Togruta Jedi that I’d created. Something that was a bit more flattering and dynamic with the model. I may even do more with this character. It’s hard to get too much Star Wars 
Mar
11
In this session we are creating the basis for the entire project. Arguably the most important step since what we do now determines the entire course of the project. This is the area where we get all our ideas down so that they can fight it out for supremacy. All the work done following this step would have to be re-done if we changed our minds later, so now is the time for mind changing.
Feb
28
I’ve been addicted to Minecraft for the last month or so. I thought I’d do some fan art of the iconic tools. I might expand this to include more tools at some point, but these ones were the tools that most easily translated to a 3D object. Since all the items in the games are 1 dimensional I thought it would look funny to model something like the bucket since it would require changing the design or having a “flat” bucket.
Those of you that have never played Minecraft I highly recommend checking it out at www.minecraft.net – it plays on all platforms Win, Mac, Linux. And it’s so addicting, even my wife is playing it now.
Jan
24
I’ve made a shocking discovery recently regarding Super Mario 3 for the NES. It all started after I watched this video from College Humor http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1937585
Now, any video gamer worth their salt has played Super Mario 3. I myself played it countless times as a kid. But unfortunately as a kid I would either lose interest after getting to world 2 or 3, or I wouldn’t have the presence of mind to leave the system on to resume playing later. Either that, or I had little motivation to play through all 8 worlds because I knew where the first 2 warp whistles were. That made it easy to skip to world 8, where I would subsequently be stricken by the harder difficulty that I didn’t get a chance to work up to in the intervening worlds. As such, I never beat the game as a kid, which I wear as a badge of shame. Watching the above video made me decide to play it through again – this time with vengeance! I vowed to play through every level without cheats or whistles. Of course I used an emulator, because who the heck still has a working NES?
Jan
15
There are many large digital animation companies in existence today that all specialize in different markets, applications and end products. However, many share a similar vein in the way they go about CG production and the order of operations required to achieve great animation. For instance, companies might create animation for feature length films, video games, TV shows, or commercials. One shared and highly important aspect of all animation is that it tell a story. That it communicate something to the audience.
Jan
15
It’s called “The Rabbit Who Cheated Death”. Check it out at HERE.
Jan
01
Inspired by a cool pair of socks so I modelled a silly scene. Modelled in Blender 2.5 + and rendered with LuxRender 0.7 + and Blender for the laptop screenshot.
Dec
30
Just did a quick sculpt in Blender and it turned out nice so I rendered it up in Luxrender. 19114 polygons, material is just a simple luxrender “glossy” material with a small absorption layer. Original image was rendered at 1100 x 1700 pixels. Samples per pixel was somewhere up in the 4000′s after about 16 hours of render time. Bloom and a slight vignette were added later with Luxrender’s internal effect layers. The plaque just has gibberish Lorem Ipsum text.
This turned out so nice that I might do more speed sculpts in the future – especially once I get my new Wacom tablet.
Dec
24
*note* I’ll be updating this post with links to individual session workshops as I complete them.
Intro:
I personally designed this course for myself so that I would have a way to show my skills to people in a tangible way other than just a diploma on the wall. I am primarily self-taught in CG and 3D art. I went to post-secondary for Industrial Design, and if I were to do it again I would probably major in 3D animation, but as it stands I am in no rush to go back to being a starving student. I also just generally learn better and enjoy learning more when I teach myself than when I sit in a classroom.
Having dabbled since high-school, and seriously invested time in CG in the last few years I have come to hope, as many people may, that I might turn this love into a career. Therefore I’ve decided to create this course to both demonstrate the skills I’ve learned so far, and to learn the skills that I don’t know yet. All in one neat package with a clear set of goals to fill a cohesive and themed portfolio with.
I’m going to document my progress and share it here on my website. So for anyone with similar aspirations to mine, or who is thirsty for knowledge, or simply wants to follow my journey – welcome on board.
Dec
06
Suppose you were given infinity – what would you do? And not just a slice of infinity, I mean every infinity you can get – time, space, power, capability.
My answer: I would do everything. And it is that concept I’d like to explore with this post.
If a human being is given such an infinity it is easy to imagine what would happen – we would get bored as balls, unless we found something to do with all our time and power. The only thing to do would be to keep reconfiguring the universe until every permutation was made. And not only every permutation, but every sequence of permutation after permutation. Of course with infinite everything the number of permutations would be infinite and it would take us an infinity to create them all.
Dec
01
I was on a Star Wars kick for a while, so I decided to do some fan art of one of the slightly lesser played alien species. Although there is a Togruta Jedi Padawan featured prominently in the newer Clone Wars animated series.
Nov
01
It’s Death riding a Velociraptor. Because what else would he ride! Modelled and rendered in Blender, including the smoke in the background. This is my first experiment with the new smoke simulation tools in Blender and I’m fairly pleased with the results.
Oct
03
In this article I will be giving you an overview of the creation of my piece “Kryptonite Cave” staring Power Girl, the main purpose being to act as a tutorial for those interested in doing some digital colouring or digital drawing of their own. Or for people who are just interested in how I do my thing. Ready? Alright, let’s rock.
Oct
01
Some fan art after seeing “Revenge of the Fallen”. I was sad that Fortress Maximus wasn’t in it, or Unicron for that matter. There’s always movie #3 to hope for though.
Image modelled and rendered with Blender.
Sep
04
Okay, I’ll be using my illustration of The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for this tutorial. Mostly I’d like to cover the nuances of using photoshop for colouring (or “coloring” for you crazies south of the Canadian border) line art. I can only assume that if you want to colour line art, that you have line art to begin with so open photoshop and lets giddyup.
Sep
01
I suppose this is my advertisement for vegetarianism. Modelled and rendered in Blender.
Aug
03
Do you want to draw but find the task difficult and overwhelming? Me too! But for those who want to get into drawing seriously there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that it never seems any less overwhelming and difficult because as you improve you will find that your standards are always moving up with you. This is what drives me to keep improving. If I only got as good as I wanted to be in 3rd grade I’d still be on stick figures.
Aug
01
Made this around the time Street Fighter 4 came out. And wasn’t I pissed when they came out with Super Street Fighter 4. Looking forward to the new Marvel vs Capcom.
Jul
05
Do you have linearts you want to ink over but can’t be bothered to use real ink? Well then this article is for you. While there are a great number of ways to ink something on a computer I’m going to focus on how to use Adobe Illustrator to do so. This is only one of the many ways I myself ink drawings and I encourage you to experiment to find the way that works for you. Sometimes you won’t even have to ink your drawings if your original lineart is tight enough, but if you draw like I do then inking is an essential step in making your art presentable. Also, thankfully, this is one of the easier things to do with a mouse since I know many people don’t have a tablet. The editability of vector art is quite suited to clumsy hands or clunky mice.
Jul
01
A little fun with someone skateboarding on the ocean. Modelled in Blender and rendered with Blender and LuxRender.
Jun
01
My mother has a collection of owls, so I made her one for a gift. Modelled and Rendered in Blender.
May
01
Some fan art of Rogue. I don’t think she’ll be in the new X-Men: First Class movie, but that’s alright, it still looks sick.
Apr
01
Revy from the anime series “Black Lagoon”. Really good anime if anyone cares to check it out.
Mar
01
If you have some classic red/blue 3d glasses, now is the time to get them out. Modelled and rendered in Blender.
Feb
01
Motoko Kusinagi from the anime “Ghost in the Shell”. Here she is in her “Stand Alone Complex” outfit.
Jan
01
Hooray for plaid skirts, and jumping!
Dec
01
Flying and doing fairy stuff.
Nov
01
This was gift for a fan of the Smallville series.
Oct
01
A digital ink and watercolour character drawing.
Sep
01
This was a gift to make a coffee mug with.
Aug
01
A mech suited panda hunter. hahaha. Modelled and rendered in Blender.
