LWF

I've tried understanding linear workflow before, but never seemed to get over the hump. I think I'm finally grasping why people use this technique.

maya/renderman

It really bothered me that textures never render quite the same as I had painted them. I also use to wonder why using lights with linear decay looked better than lights with a physically accurate inverse^2 (quadratic) decay. Who knew I was just texturing and rendering incorrectly for the past 4 years- and why didn't they tell me? Now that I know, it's hard to sleep. I don't know if it's cause I'm excited or upset- or maybe it's just cause summer's quickly coming to an end :P

ps. coincidentally I used the same wood texture in this test as I used (incorrectly) for my floor in the previous post.

Sit Stand

a quick update for a not so quick project

Animatic (for your amusement)

***Final***

C&C welcome and appreciated

Sit Stand Ref

Getting ready for sit-stand first pass. When you're 6'10" you can get a lot of crazy stuff happening with your lanky limbs, but when you're self-conscious it's hard to go all out when you're shooting reference in a public place. I like to play my odds and shoot a crap load of reference. There's bound to be some good stuff here and there. Now I just need to find the time to really use it. Here's the frame that inspired me to update.

I had just popped a balloon and so I was getting up, nervous and embarrassed, pretty authentically.

Poly Exercises

Primitive Theater

This semester has been insane, I've never felt so challenged. I'm normally a very laid back, stress-free person but never in my life have I had more instances of being faced with the impossible, freaking out and then feeling totally hopeless and defeated. I'm not saying this so I can say, "but somehow I make it work," because I don't. I've let myself down so many times this semester, I almost think it's bad for my health. I am learning though. It's not just about the artistic difficulty. My personality and habits are being challenged. I've been a perfectionist my whole life, frequently taking a 0 on easy assignments because I was afraid of not doing an amazing job on them. I realize this semester, that I've got to distribute myself evenly to make it through this program. There's just no way to give any one class 100% (at least not at the speed I'm at right now). It's so hard and frustrating to have such a core trait that get's in the way. I know this and I think I'm slowly starting to understand, accept and work through it. At least that's what I'm banking on. I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels this way.

Enough rambling, he's my primitive Theater. I had really high expectations when I started this project. Then, a week before it was due, I spent too much time on my other classes and I realized I was really behind and figured there was no way to make it not suck. So even though I had bigger plans for it, I feel it was at least somewhat successful. hopefully I'll find some time this winter to clean it up for my portfolio. C&C welcome.

http://webspace.ringling.edu/~rshowalt/access/CG220/Prim_Rshowalt.mov

Ball Bounce

So, I just recently finished my first major Computer Animation project and the first real thing I've done in Maya. This is cause for a celebration, but first, an update.

I must admit, I was struggling to find a decent color layout at first. My render would have looked pretty crappy if not for helpful criticism that led me in a better direction. That's what's nice about the labs, so much available input.

original render


Altered


and finally the action:
http://webspace.ringling.edu/~rshowalt/BB_RShowalt.mov

C&C welcome and appreciated.

Digital clouds

So a while back I was toying around with different methods of creating seamless textures. The technique itself worked out pretty well, although I found my use of image-based textures and displacement needs a bit of work (I usually favor procedural textures).



While doing this I stumbled across something I thought was pretty neat. When starting the seamless-ness between different images- or in this case altered versions of itself- I generate a black and white image; The black is where it blends and white is where they're too different to blend. While I was painting away the different areas I started seeing shapes and faces and characters like you would with clouds. It seems like it might be a creative and unbiased way of designing characters. This was the original character I saw when working on the texture pictured above:


I haven't had too much time to play around with it but I did do a few more. These were from scraps of nuts, bolts, and washers.



What's interesting is how much the principles of design and rudimentary elements come into play. If I were looking for warm, fuzzy characters I could create these abstract black and white images that were generated from warm fuzzy textures. Then as I search through these random blobs they tend to take on those characteristics. Same goes for sharper more aggressive characters. I really don't think my examples do this method much justice. It might be very good to help break someone away from their habits and create some very unique things, but that's just a theory.

Another theory is it's a lot like a Rorschach ink-blot test; the sort of mood or frame of mind you're in will determine the type or style of characters you might find. I haven't had the time to really explore this, but I thought I'd share anyways.