What I am doing.

It has been a while since I have posted anything. Mostly because I have been busy trying to prepaire for my journey to Germany. I am currently working on a few things that I will be posting about soon. The first is my new website. I recently have felt that I could do much better web design now that my knowledge on the subject is much greater then before. I decided to go for a "Little Big Planet, Coraline, and Nine," look that invokes a more playful feeling and something that fits the "Mittens" persona a little better. I will probably update my demo reel to better fit this theme as well, but I am currently working on a lot of projects I would like to finish first. One such example is the Zombie project. Some friends and I have recently come together to create a zombie animation for the Nation Undead website. We are currently in preproduction but will be doing some hardcore modeling soon. I am really satisfied with my group members and I believe we will have an amazing animation when everything is said and done. I will post my character designs when I have access to a better scanner. I also recently finished my internship at Ghost and am very satisfied with that project as well. You can find the finished animation on my 3D page and segments in my demo reel. Also, the clients I produced the animation for built a scale replica of the model for a presentation and the animation received a lot of positive attention. The images of the model and my website work in progress can be seen below. Toodles!

Heart Gadget

Here is the latest version of a project I am working on for the U of M and for Dr. Marie Johnson. The gadget is designed to pick up sound anomalies in the vessels of the heart. These anomalies can be traced back to blockage in the heart. In this example, the blockage was located in the Left Anterior Descending Artery. You can learn more about the device and the doctor in this article

Demon all ZBrushed

Finished Zbrushing the demon and done with most of the painting too. Just have to bring it into Maya now and make it look pretty. I was hoping to start the rig tonight but I am pretty tired. Think I will spend my day tomorrow on the rig.

Demon in ZBrush

I don't think this is too bad for using ZBrush mostly for poly painting. The model is still not complete, but I will finish it tomorrow.

Demon's Prison

This is the Prison scene I have been working on for Pixel Farm. A little demon will be teleporting from box to box. Each box that he is in will cause the demon to be a different color. In the end, this piece should have a kind of "light show" feel.

Website Update

My website is up and running with improvements. Let me know what you think.

mittensanimation

Business Cards

Good business cards?

Demo Reel

This here is my almost completed demo reel. Unfortunately, I have had a million problems with rendering and, therefore, it is not to the quality that I want. I will have to make some improvements by graduation but am unable to do so before my reel is due. Optimus is nowhere near the quality I originally had him. I will have to re-render him at home due to the problems with the school computers. Mandy also needs some tweaking but overall turned out well. There are other issues I would like to address but will not mention here.

Another Reel Cut

This is another update of me demo reel. I had a lot of negative feedback on my last cut, let's hope this one will recieve more positive feedback. :) Anyway, any animation still needs a little tweaking and there is some stuff not shown here like render passes and stuff. I will be experimenting with that next. For now, I have to work a little on my print portfolio.

Reel Cut and Stills

Too Many Posts?

Is this too many posts of almost the same thing? :P

Just Another Update

Another Mandy Scene Update

Here is another update for the Mandy model scene. I changed the windows to be a little more warehouse like. Then I played with the lighting and texturing.

Reel Updates

Here are the latest updates for my reel including a rough cut. Everything needs a bit of tweaking and adjustments, but its looking good. Some feedback would be great.
I still need to do a little fixing on the Hera scene, especially where the grass meets the platform.

I also need to ad some damage to Optimus and I will probably ad some foliage to the mountain.
The Mandy scene needs to be dirtied up a bit and corrective blendshapes need to be created for some of Mandy's more extreme poses.
All of these scenes are now set up for animation too. I just need to sit down and do it.

Mandy Scene Update

Continued...

Mandy Scene Update

Here is the Mandy scene once again with some textures.

Mandy Scene Update

OK. Here is a better update of the lighting on the Mandy scene. Mandy, if you do not know, is the nude figure I modeled, textured, rigged, etc. This is the scene I will be placing her in. I decided to go with the art studio to keep the project artistic and not pornographic. All of this is lit using Maya's Sun and Sky with Global Illumination and Final Gather. This lighting is probably pretty close to what I will be using on the final scene. Right now, everything just has a white Lambert shader applied to it and no textures yet.

Mandy Scene

Here is a test render of the scene I built for the Mandy model. Everything just has a white Lambert assigned to it and then rendered out using Sun and Sky. Expect a better render tonight.

Updated Optimus

Updated Optimus lighting test. I am getting mixed reviews about the rails and platform.

Hera Comp

Still working out the kinks but this is what I have so far. I have to work on the render layers.

Hera Scene

Here is the scene for Hera. This is almost 100% complete but I am planning to use Mental Ray for everything but the Paint Effects. For that I will have to use Maya software. I want to use MR because I want to use Final Gather and Global Illumination on the final animation for my reel. Plus, Hera is set up with the Maya Fast Skin Shader which uses MR (not shown in the image above).

Reel Intentions

This is another version of my reel that I am currently working on along with some stills of what I have been doing to improve on it. As you can see, I have been trying to tie everything together using the hovercraft ship. I am going to drastically change what I have here since this version was not that well received. I have to figure out whether it is worth it to tie everything together or if I am just creating more work for myself. Every idea I have come up with has seemed forced.

Here is a quick run through of what I was trying to do here and what I may do now.
After the intro animation with the hovercraft, I was going to tie the next project with the Optimus model using a hologram wireframe effect through the ships "monitor." The ship would see the toy lying in the street next to the garbage cans and then pull up its "data" on the ship's monitor. This would then fade into Optimus on a lift up a mountain. He is damaged and on his way back to base.
I was then thinking of having a pair of headlights pass Optimus as he is on the lift. This would then fade into the Mandy scene as lights pass an open window in her scene (I am no longer planning to have her posed in front of the mirror in the bathroom). As you may have noticed, I skipped the handgun section of my reel. I am actually considering taking it out or moving it after the Mandy scene. I think I would place the gun next to Mandy which could possibly hint at some sort of "assassin girl" alter ego. This would then play into the handgun animation. If I take out the handgun animation, then I think I would go with the picture frame or television transition into the Hera scene. Although, that seems a little cliche. I was then tying the Hera scene back the the beginning with the ship coming down and observing Hera at the edge of the mountain.

I am also including some stills I have available that show where I am at with these projects. Some are still a little out of date but are the closest I have at this minute. Some are lighting tests and screwing around with Global Illumination and Final Gather in the Optimus scene. The other is a still of the Paint Effects grass for the Hera scene.

New Reel Cut

Here is another version of my reel. Of course, it is still low quality and is mostly for just brainstorming. This version is already extremely out of date and most of the projects have been updated. I am not sure how to best tie everything together. Should I tie everything with the intro animation? Or should I tie everything together per project? I just don't know. One idea was to have the hovercraft ship passing through all my projects. Along its way it would spot the Transformers toy or maybe pass by an open window to see the Mandy model (nude women). I will have future posts with more ideas.

Rough Reel Animatic

Here is a rough animatic of what I want to do with my demo reel. I have placeholders for the actual work though. For example, the nude Mandy model will be put into a scene for the monitor, a wireframe of the model will be shown in the hologram.

Demo Reel

I am currently working on me demo reel. Who knew it would be so difficult to compile all my works? I just don't know what to do with it all. If anybody is reading this you can check out my work on my portfolio site http://www.mittensanimation.com/reel.html. Please use firefox or safari, I am having issues with windows explorer... of course.

For right now, I am planning on having the ship and buildings still be my intro, but I want to create the cockpit of the hovercraft ship to use as a transition for my projects. For example, to show the Optimal Optimus model, a panel would appear in the cockpit that would produce a holographic image of the model. I am going to storyboard it all out and post it later so it makes more sense.
I am not 100% sure this is the route I want to go, but I think the finished result would be really cool.