This section of my site allows me to keep family, friends,
and other viewers up to date on projects I am currently involved in. A powerful feature
of the News is that readers can give feedback on any of my posts by clicking the word "COMMENTS" at the bottom of each post. Also, be sure to check out my new forum for updates and critiques on artwork from myself and others!
Monday, January 30, 2006
New TestMap!
Thats right! I uploaded a little something that I have been using for some time now. If you have done any serious image based texturing at all you will know that a checker board pattern alone can help tremnedously while layingout those dreaded UV's. But what about those UV's that have been flipped by your favorite 3D package? For that you need something a little more advanced (or with a little more information that is) , unless ofcourse you dont mind that carefully crafted license plate texture on your latest car model reading backwards for all the world to see. So, I offer you my latest and greatest TestMap. Now, you may be wondering why mine is grayscale while others you have been seeing around the web are all fancy shmancy color ones....well..heres the deal, color versions help to aid you in tweaking diffuse levels (or the relationship between your materials and the light within the scene) however I have found that this just wastes time since you will most likely (hopefully) be using a diffuse map, so, all you should be worrying about when laying out UV's is laying out UV's (and ofcourse the rez at which the specified area will be accomadating the screen within a shot). What you should NOT be worrying about is colors, brightness, materials, and so on. For that reason I use a grayscale. Also, I personally hate watermarks, so, I left out link's and copyrights to my site to avoide distracting you while you work...all I ask is that you let people know where you got it. Ok, enough jibber-jabber! The TestMap can be downloaded by first clicking the "TestMap" link below, and then right clicking on the image that pops up and selcting "save as". I will be keeping this little bugger in the resources section as well so dont worry if you lose it on that 300+ GB hard drive.
Last but not least the WORM beauty shot should be done this afternoon. Once thats good to go I will be going through and cranking out the entire render of the opening shot. That should take the computer about a week to knock out so while its doing that I will be on my other machine animating (both for school and for the WORM). Its going to be a very busy semester.
OHHHHH YEAHHHHH!!! Folks I am on cloud 9 right now! I just found out from my wife that I am one of the happy 12 people who got into the PIXAR 1 class at the Academy! Man I cant tell you how happy I am. Ok...focus....must study....ahhhhh! Man I am a ball of nerves. I am truly lucky. God knows I couldnt have done it without all of the help and support from my loving wife, family, and friends.
In other news, my buddy the Shan-mister ( www.ShannonThomas.info)just performed a complete overhaul on his site where you can for the first time see the rusty pick-up truck (Ol' Red) from the upcoming WORM short in all it's glory! Thats right! Turntables, beauty shots, occlusion passes, the works! What are you waiting for...GO CHECK IT OUT!
Lastly, Roger has been tearin' it up on the environment like no other. At this point he and I have been working around the clock on breaking up all the data into seprate passes to be rendered (shadow, occlusion, diffuse, specular, depth, alpha. etc.). The tests have been beyond our expectations...its been alot of fun seeing it all come together for the first time. Basically, its just too much to calculate all at once so up until now we have been tackling each element on an indivudal basis defined exclusively by low resolution representations and concept art of the environment itself. This is good because it forced us to concentrate on the core elements of the short (composition issues, basic editing, timing of the short, etc.). Now that all detailed versions of each component (rocks, grass, cat tails, dandy lions, truck, tree, tree branches, tree leaves, etc.) are complete its just a matter of putting all of the pieces together. Anyways, keep checking in...I will definately be keeping you all posted.
I'm rested up and ready to go! Everything went decently smooth after my post yesterday...the tape converted nicely (no dropped frames, time conversion issues, quality degradation), the walk down to fedex (my uncle who works at UPS is going to kill me) with my wife was fun, and I also ran into a girl in the lab that was converting her animations for the same submission....if your reading this good luck Venice! Lastly, I included links below to the animations from my reel yesterday. Ofcourse these are also located in the animation section of my site. Also, due to emails from other students studying animation, for now on all animations (except for beauty shots/film clips from the WORM/AIRMAN, etc.) will include a frame count to accent Quicktime's frame stepping feature (left/right keyboard arrows) allowing people to see where or "when" I made my decisions. Enough jibber-jabber, heres some eye candy...
On a lighter note, the WORM project is in full swing. Shannon finished the truck (he is a perfectionist so I am sure he will contiue to tweak things here and there all the way up till' it comes time to render the shots that include the truck). It really does look great. Roger has become a foliage factory I kid you not! Look out mother nature cuz' this man is an animal! More to come soon so keep checkin in!
Well...today's the day....the day I send over my submission for the PIXAR class at the Academy. As if finals didnt do me in...lol! Anyways, I am pretty happy with my progress but I can still see where I need a little work....the great news is that I know what to do to fix the problem/s which is a significant stride as an animator. First you are happy just to be able to identify the problems....then its a matter of figuring out what to do to correct them which may sound a little obvious but it can get pretty harry pretty fast let me tell ya'.
Other than that I got my grades back...2 A's and 2 B's....good stuff. Now, as soon as this machine I am on gets done converting my reel to tape then its off to bed for me (havent slept in a couple days) and then back into gear on the ol' WORM. I am really learned alot this past week/semester and I am sure it will show. I just cant wait to apply some of my recent discoveries to my own characters (Inch, Wiggly, and eventually the AIRMAN). Well, take care and as always keep checking in.
Click here for new TestMap.
