(by Paul Mikulecky - anyone seen my pencil?)
In case you were passing by and noticed that things haven’t been updated recently… I am still here! Busy as usual. I have something up my sleeve, but I’m not letting the cat out of the bag yet. If you are a cycling fan, be sure to keep up with the Giro d’Italia this month and the Tour de France in July!
This is my 3d entry for the Dominance War Mini Challenge.
This was a lot trickier than the 2d challenge. For starters you were limited to one of three polygon meshes (I picked the middle one, in case you didn’t guess right :o). You can’t alter the mesh to change it’s profile or vertex count. Also, all the detail has to end up in textures. That means you can’t change the polygon count (which is fairly low to being with - around 400 polygons). To create the detail you have to create a high polygon version (see mine here - it’s just under 7 million polygons in Zbrush), then you have to transfer those details to what is called a normal map. Then you apply that normal map to your low polygon object. This is fairly common in game engines. That way you get the low polygon overhead with the higher details.
The only real problem with normal maps is that if you see the object in profile, you don’t see all the bumps and indentations - that’s because it’s a lighting trick on the surface of the object. Working through the process is a definite learning experience and it can be frustrating to see some of the loss of quality as you move from your detailed high polygon object to your low polygon normal mapped one.
CGSociety (and other digital art forums) has an annual challenge that, guess what, helps to challenge you! It also had an added benefit of creating elements for your portfolio (since a lot of them can be under NDA). This is my entry for the Dominance War 2d Mini Challenge. Again, I don’t expect to win, there are a lot of talented artists out there, plus I think this one is just amazing. I wanna grow up to be just like him (well, at least in the 2d technical end of things!).
You can check out all the 2d entries and the 3d entries. Note: on the banner there are a number of forums represented, you can click on each of the forum names to get a list of all the entries by individuals of each of those forums. Note2: See if you can spot my 3d entry. I’ll post an image here later… that is if I remember.
Well, if the first month and a half of this year is any indication… it’s going to be a wild ride! Lots of work and lots of plans for personal projects. In that regard I finally finished my Steampunk challenge entry for CGSociety. You can check out the link to see the final video. There are sooo many things I would change/fix/add… I really pushed myself in the last month and I wish I had put that kind of energy into it the entire time, but alas live and learn. I don’t know how well I did in the contest, but it was a great learning experience.
EDIT: I didn’t win anything, but I had a great time creating it and pushing myself! I’ll post some details of the trailer as time goes on… assuming of course, you guessed it, that I don’t forget!
Wow, this blog is still here! And Christmas and the New Year just zipped by… and you are back reading. Sorry I haven’t been posting as much lately. I’ve been neck deep in work and a personal project. The Steampunk challenge entry is taking up pretty much all of my spare time. I really wish I had more time to do the project justice, but then… it’s like a real project - it has a dreaded deadline! I suppose if it were not for deadlines, we would noodle a project to death and never get it done. Onward!
Have you ever worked on a painting, 3d render or shot a photograph and it turned out looking like the subject was a toy instead of something bigger than life? I’ve seen some images made by people where you say, hmm… sure looks like a toy to me - and it wasn’t intended to look like a toy. I had a render of my Mclaren automobile that looked like it belonged in a toy box. What went wrong. Well maybe this will help a bit. It turns out that you can make reality look like a miniature set or a bunch of toys! The trick is to add a lot of depth of field effect (blurring the background and foreground). Add a high angle and voila… miniatures! These people do it on purpose, now I know what I can do to avoid it.
So it’s been an eventful few months! In the software realm I made the decision to not upgrade my Foundation XSI copy to Essentials. And boy am I glad. My main reason was… do I want to spend more time learning ‘another’ tool, or learn something cool - like matte painting or improve my drawing skills? That was a no brainer.
Of course, as many of you know, days after the deadline to upgrade, Autodesk pulls a fast one and buys XSI. My reaction: ‘eek!’ The debate on CGTalk raged on. Lots of people don’t like it. I, for one, don’t like it either - I hope I’m wrong. Anyway, the track record is that Autodesk buys something to improve their ’stake’ in the digital realm and doesn’t do much to innovate. That’s the main reason I’m still using good old Maya 7 (another reason is the cost of maintenance, I find I don’t get much bang for the buck). Now I’m seriously thinking about Blender. It’s looking really good. Maybe with the upcoming interface change it will look really, really good. Good enough for personal projects - but then again, that’s another new software package to learn! Argh. Might be worth it though…
Don’t get me wrong. As a freelancer I’ll upgrade my software to match my client’s needs, but do you know what? Most of my clients haven’t upgraded to anything remotely labled 2009 (Maya, Max, or otherwise). Even my last project in XSI was using version 6.5. Doesn’t look to me like there is a rush to upgrade.
Anyone here? Actually, yes! Busy as usual. And to make things even more interesting I decided to enter the CGSociety challenge. So if you want to see some of my recent work, head on over and check it out. Of course I have to do this in my spare time. The main problem is that the entire concept is foreign to me - spare time, that is… It is a steampunk challenge - which means what exactly? Maybe this will help? Or maybe this? Anyway, I’m going to try to wake up this blog since that silly Orphan Works Bill was killed (at least for now), but I think I’m going to be watermarking all my images from now on… just in case it rears it’s ugly head again. Thanks for stopping by!
I’m still here! Nothing much to report or comment on (at least that I’m allowed!), but I thought it might be a good idea to post at least something! I have been debating on whether or not to take advantage of the XSI offer to move from Essentials to Advanced (since Essentials is going away). I’m not too happy with Autodesk and the direction that Maya has taken in the last few iterations. I’m still on 7.0 as a result. Maya seems to be a dead end, but I sure love it’s character animation workflow and Final Render for Maya is a dream to work with…but maybe it’s time to switch (which of course means more learning curves to tackle - Mental Ray and XSI). I have till the end of the month to decide.
I would be posting more images/work in progress, but the orphan bill is still up in the air so I’ll just wait it out to see what happens (I think it is currently on hold). Then, depending on how it unravels I will decide on what direction to take on posting images/samples on the internet. Thanks for stopping by!
Richard Williams, animator extraordinaire, has now released his Master Class on 16 DVDs. I attended Richard’s class back in 2000. I had to drive to Los Angeles (about 25 hours from where I live) and pay a small wheelbarrow-full of cash, but it was one of those classes that was a ‘eureka’ moment in my animation career. I believe that his master class allowed me to move on to the ‘next level’ in my animation.
After I attended the class my head felt like it was going to explode, so much information in so little time - and all I had for reference were my notes and drawings from the class. I was certain that 1/2 of the class leaked out of my ears before they could make an impact (or even reach the notebook). During the class Richard taunted us by waving a stack of papers around which he claimed was going to be published. One year later he did exactly that and “The Animator’s Survival Kit” was born. For me, this book is an indispensible reference and, next to the “Illusion of Life”, one of the best animation books published.
Only one thing was missing, to be able to replay the master class. Even if it was 6 months later - how I wish I could have simply rewound a tape and watched it over again. For me, repetition is king. I need a pile driver to get it through my thick skull, and repetition is a good pile driver. Now, with the release of this set, that wish comes true! I can’t believe what an amazing resource this is… Dick is the link between some of the best animators in history and he’s passing that information on to us. It doesn’t get much better than that.
This DVD series is the master class and then some. It includes animations that explain the principles he expounds. The set is expensive, but so is/was going to the master class. As far as I am concerned it is well worth the cost. Even though I took the class, I have still ordered a copy - remember, repetition (and now with examples!).
Some people on CGTalk have been complaining about the cost. I guess it depends on how badly you want to learn from a master animator. There is no way you can get this kind of training from your local animation college (unless they buy a special group copy!). The internet is a wonderful thing, but unfortunately it seems to be breeding an attitude of ‘give it to me for free (or real cheap)’. This can easily devalue people’s work and achievements. So is it expensive? Yes, and so are many other things of value.
