Dan's Destiny

This is it. My animation for Adv Animation.

As a reminder for anyone who doesn't know the story Dan is waiting for a phone call to find out if he got the job he wants.

He also now holds the record for endurance thumb-twiddling.

Demo/playthrough idea for concept showcase

A demo/playthrough idea I had for showcasing our groups concept work (all work belongs to Tern TV)

Character Designs: Alan Morris

Audio: John Stevens

Welcome to Vine

Here's a log-in idea for VINE for my Personal Project.

Pretty chuffed with this, purely because I figured out how to do it by myself in Maya, without a tutorial.

Go me!

The audio was created by John Stevens

Dan - More animation, better quality render

Here's an updated video of my Dan animation. I've added some more animation on the end but the main reason for the upload is the quality's better. Feel free to fast forward the reading bit at the start if you've already seen it.

Dan - Opening 10 seconds

First 10 seconds or so of my animation with Dan.
He's such a geek.

Who likes short shorts?

Firstly, apologies for radio silence again recently. I've been without internet for a few weeks having moved house and all. Anyhoo, updates!

Here's Dan and he is wearing short shorts. I'll see what my peers think and will likely make the shorts a bit longer but we'll see how it goes.

I've just recently discovered the RampShader in the Hypershade menu in Maya, pretty nifty. I plan to look into its finer points soon such as its controls for specular levels, incandescence etc.



Barring a few tweaks to the mesh here and there, my firm plan is to be animating before the end of this week. So rigging and skinning awaits. Going to be a fun week.

Personal Project

Hey guys, just thought I'd fire up a quick update of renders for my Personal Project module:





Twa Suns - a cafe/pub, going to improve the textures







Big Ben - the first landmark of an environment full of landmarks that I'm working on

Persuasive Narrative

Another new module is Persuasive Narrative, where we have to create either a documentary, an advert or a public information film.

I've volunteered my services to my uncle, Ian Cain, to create an advert for his fire alarm/burglar alarm company IC Fire and Security - http://www.icfireandsecurity.co.uk

Going to keep it informative and in tune with the website to help extend his brand.

Advanced Animation

I've not decided yet whether to carry on with my Glen idea from Adv. Visualisation last semester or to start fresh.

The new idea I have is Dan:













Dan is waiting on a phonecall which will decide whether he gets the job he is wanting or not.













I think I'm likely going to run with the Dan idea because I fancy working on a new character.

Frank runthrough

Here's the animatic I created for the Hole-in-the-Wall, Frank idea last semester

Forgive me Blogger, I have sinned

It's been 8 weeks since my last submission on this here blog. My bad.

A combination of focussing on getting my submissions in for Uni and plenty over-consumption over the holidays are just a couple of my excuses.

Thankfully, the last couple of months haven't been a waste of time with the biggest change being that I have started teaching 3D modelling and animation at Dundee College.
While it was initially daunting and is still taking a bit of getting used to, I'm really enjoying it, especially after the first pay cheque. The last couple of weeks have been a big confidence boost, mainly when I showed the students a UV mapping technique and was greeted with surprised/impressed faces. Could get used to that feeling.

Most importantly though, seeing coursework from the tutor point of view is definitely improving how I am as a student. I'm not saying I've become a strict boresome academic, god no. I'm just starting to appreciate how important some stages of the creative processes are is all, which is only a good thing.

Anyways, another recent update: last week's visit to Tern TV's studio in Glasgow.
It was pretty eye-opening and definitely gave me the kick up the backside I've been needing. After seeing a few of their current exciting projects, Operation Get A Job In The Industry is officially under way.

I'll keep you posted, as long as I remember to keep posting.

Getting Up

Gona fix the lighting and cut the first couple of frames off from the start.
Also planning on making the overall movement smoother.
He is shaking his head but its kinda hard to see.
These are just first draft renders for anyone interested.

Waking Up

Needs some polish, gona clean up the textures once the animations out of the way cos that's what I'll be marked on. He's mumbling "eurgh my god."
Gona add a bit more to it methinks, needs more head movement.

Natural Reaction

Makes sense, I wouldn't want to get up at that time either

Oh, a little light bulb that blinks

The alarm is going off, Glen better get up, lazy git

A clock!

Horrible time of day, poor Glen.

Wonder how he'll react, find out soon.

NEW POST!!!

Hey all, no I've not disappeared and no I've not stopped working. You'll be pleased to hear that the reason for my lack of updates is because I've mainly been rigging and skinning both Frank and Glen. Posting pictures of that process would have gave a rough idea on how frustrating this process was but alas, its done.

Since I last posted I had my Crit week, which once again went well and now it is out of the way I can focus on getting on with everything now.

Last Friday we had a meeting with Tern TV on the shiny 2nd floor at Abertay. Now normally I'm not a huge fan of meetings but this one was a good 'un. We got divided up into different art departments with my focus being to create the VINE environment from "But n Ben a-go-go." To keep everyone up to speed, the VINE is effectively like The Matrix/Tron where the users plug in to a machine. People enter the VINE for different reasons be they good (going on holiday) or bad (fugitive on the run inside VINE).
Anyhoo, safe to say, I'm happy with what I've been allocated and as a start here's a quick logo concept I put together. Hope you like it.

Adv Interatction - Character

Here's the start of my character for my run/chase/escape game.

Let's call him Frank, with a jawline like that, Frank fits.

The camera will be behind him in the actual game so his face doesnt matter a whole lot, just nice to know he has one.

Started skinning him earlier, once thats done, I'll cut poses of him out of pieces of wall that will come towards for the "Hole in The Wall" part of the game.

If you don't know what Hole in the Wall is, have a gander at this

Glen with added vest

Glen wearing his work vest, nuff said.

The headless body is for when he's just wandering round the house (naked?)

Quick Tern Sketch

Wanted to show a quick sketch I did for the Tern TV idea. Met with them last Friday and safe to say we're all pretty excited about this project.

The project will see us working on a game idea based on the book "But'n'Ben A-Go-Go" by Matthew Fitt. For more info on the book click here.

The jist of the book is that in the year 2090, after global warming has caused "God's Flood" one of the last places to be above water is the Highlands of Scotland, now known as the "Drylands."
The Senga virus (similar to HIV) is running rampant but the only cure is to find the person who infected you and get some of their DNA. The characters that hunt this bounty are known as "blood lawyers" of whom we will be basing the game around.

Based on some of the concept art I've seen from others in the group and the general feel of the book I'm hoping we're going to go for quite a dark feel to the game, something I would love to work on.

I'll let y'all know how it goes