New section: Development.

Well, I had an animation section that stayed empty for way too long, so I decided to swap it with something new this weekend! As I create new work, I can now use this section to provide very brief overviews of how they were put together. Jester, Smile, Draeke, Guardian and some Look-Dev are discussed, as well as a new video that crams a week of work into 10 minutes. I've got a new 3D Creature Development 'master class' coming out soon that has 25 hours, eight DVDs, a 176 page book as well as sixty-six HD 1080p clips for students to use in their projects. But until then, this video provides a glimpse of what I do in the class (and editing 25hours down to 10minutes sure took awhile! heh). Hopefully this year I can keep this section updated with new stuff, assuming Gnomon allows me the time to!  -Alex

The Making of 'Draeke'

In this very brief overview, I discuss how this image came together, starting as a spontaneous Zbrush sculpt that gradually evolved into a finished narrative illustration. Without getting technical, I show progress images that emphasize that while I usually start with a concept, sometimes it is fun to figure things out along the way.

Modeling/Sculpting the 'Guardian' Insectoid

While making my image 'Guardian', I only recorded this small portion as I was working on one of the insects. This is extremely time-lapsed down to just six minutes, so expect to get a little dizzy as you watch me model, layout UVs and sculpt in Zbrush. Hopefully the music helps you keep up!

Creature Head Texture Look-Development

These images were created during my 2008 Gnomon Master Class. They Illustrate how Photoshop can be used to quickly explore the possible looks for a model, both in texture and surface properties. There are an infinite variety of ways that a character could look and before beginning 3D texturing, it is best to explore those options to find the most suitable look for the project. These examples are created in about twenty minutes each using a layered Photoshop document that has rendered passes from Maya for diffuse, cavity, spec and reflection. Once I settle on a direction, I can then use this file as a road map for what I will need to do using BodyPaint, Photoshop and Maya.

3D Illustration: Smile

This image was created quickly, in an evening, and is based on a pencil sketch that I had sitting around. It is generally faster to work from a concept, as exploring ideas in 3D can easily take up a lot of time, even though it is fun. As I had no intention of animating the character, I created a very rough box-modeled base-mesh in Maya, meaning that it has an unorganized topology, that was exported to Zbrush for sculpting. The sculpt is then rendered in Maya/Mental Ray using a Subsurface Scattering Shader (SSS), which is rendered as a series of passes. The passes are then combined in Photoshop, which is used to create the final image with techniques identical to my look-development procedure..

Jester

Jester is based on a series of sketches I did back in 2001 when Gnomon was commissioned to design and produce the SIGGRAPH stage demo content for Alias|Wavefront Maya V3. The project was called 'Zufuhr' and took place in a fantasy incubation factory. Jester is meant to be a plaything for the children. I didn't get to develop this guy then, but a couple years ago I finally got around to it. The final image has no post-processing, except for the 2D smoke added behind him. I chose to develop him in 3D, after doing some 2D look-dev, for the purpose of creating a DVD on character modeling, texturing and shading. Therefore this guy just needs to be rigged and he's ready to animate, which hopefully I'll get around to one day! Click here for a high-res image of the above progress stills. The high-res version of the final image is in the 3D Artwork section.

Heading to Australia for agIdeas 2010.

So in a little over a month I will be heading to Melbourne, Australia for agIdeas 2010! They were very kind to invite me to speak at this international design forum, where I will be discussing creature development as well as the importance of education in design, vfx, games, etc. I'm scheduled for a two hour presentation as well as a full day workshop. Should be fun... plus... since I'm going to be on the other side of the planet for agIdeas, I've also added a four day trip to New Zealand to visit Weta and middle earth! After years of hoping, looks like I finally will get to see NZ...

Avatar

Wow... what a frickin amazing movie this turned out to be!!! Thank you Neville Page (lead creature designer who hired me) for giving me the opportunity to be involved in something so special. I took a seven month 'sabbatical' from Gnomon to work full-time in the art dept from '06-'07, knowing that the experience of working on an epic sci-fi Cameron was something I just couldn't miss. There were about 25 artists at Lightstorm where I worked (more at other locations), and being in the same place as Neville (with whom I shared an office), Ben Procter, James Clyne, Yuri Bartoli, Tully Summers, Tyruben Ellingson, Daphne Yap, Jordu Schell, etc... was truly a privilege. When I joined the creature crew, most of the work was being done in 2D/clay with a little bit of Zbrush, so my role was to bring in 3D so that I could further develop some of the creatures in ways that 3D is best suited. I worked a lot on the Banshee, as well as the Leonopteryx, Fan Lizard, Woodsprites, Direhorse, and some other secondary creatures.... resolving 3D models, doing texture/shader look development, integration tests with paintings by Dylan Cole, rigging and pose tests, animation, etc. Its crazy that this is almost two years ago... What Weta pulled off is just mind boggling. Really the most overwhelmingly intense non-stop visual feast I've ever seen. It has been quite a while since I wanted to see a movie again, immediately. I've only seen it twice, but I know another viewing is right around the corner. Hats off to the hundreds of artists who contributed to it and to James Cameron for being a genius (who btw wasn't a tyrant as people say, but was always quite friendly during his weekly visits with the creature crew). And thanks again Neville! $2B and counting. Crazy.