New Addition to My Portfolio! -- Rendered POES 18,19 Satellite

I recently rendered an old model that I created during my internship last year at the IRC.

The low-poly model is the POES 18,19 satellite from the Global Precipitation Measurement mission.

I rendered it in Mental Ray:
- using the blin materials and an aluminum foil source photo for the foil textures
-using the bulletin_bdsf_mirror shader for the instruments
-using specular and normal maps for the Thermal Cylinders
-using the MR Sun and Sky [(no) Background] render option

Final Project--A Character Animation

My final project for my Advanced 3D class at UMBC was to animate the character rig that I've been working on for the semester.  Above is the final, fully rendered, result.

 Steps for creating it:

1) I extracted audio from the film Born In Flames (1983) for the soundclip.

Here is the portion I used.

2) I imported the audio and used my character's blendshapes to lip synch with the audio.

3) Once all of my lip synching has been completed, I modeled a simple microphone to use as a prop and for eye-tracking purposes.

4) I then animated the character's torso, head (head, neck, eyes), lower body, and arms.







 5) My next step was to create a scene and render it. I created the radio station using Photoshop and bumpmapped it using Crazybump.

6) I added lighting and arranged the wall textures for the final scene.

7) Lastly, I batch rendered the scene as .PNG files and then composited the images with the audio in After Effects.

Finished Game Assets

Here are some new screenshots from "Detached". During the second phase of development, I was tasked with a large redesigning of the level (compare to the old level from before) . I had to remodeled some of the gravestones and walls and I then textured them using photographed images and bump maps.

Some of my assets were:
-Rocks
-A tree
-graves
-Mausoleum
-walls

I was also tasked with building the level in unity by laying out the assets and assigning colliders to them.

The ground, lighting, and rendered grass were created by Stephanie Ruff.

Blendshapes--Human Character Project

For my Advanced 3D Animation class I have been building a human character throughout the semester. One past project was to create the blendshapes for the character and to animate to lip synch the animations to an audio clip.

The clip I used was from the Harley Quinn character from an episode of Batman: The Animated Series.






I created the blendshapes by duplicating and extracting the head and then moving the vertices of each duplicated head in order to replicate common phonemes and facial expressions.

When animating the character, I tried to match her facial animations to the character from the audio. Harley Quinn is a villain that is known for her madness. I tried to keep that quality in my animations by creating some exaggerated smirks and odd grins.

New Projects and Internships

Wow! Quite a bit has happened since I last updated:

1) Unfortunately, my game "Conduit" was not chosen to be continued past its prototyping. Despite this, working on the prototype was an excellent experience that provided me with the opportunity to learn level design/editing in Maya and arranging level assets in the Unity game engine.

Instead...I will now be an 3D artist/level designer for the game "Detached", a third-person, action role playing game. "Detached" follows a zombie that awakens in a post-apocalyptic world in which mythical creatures run amok. As your body parts rot off, you must replace them with the appendages of your enemies!

2) Since mid-February, I have been hired as a part-time 3D Artist Intern for UMBC's Imaging Research Center. I am very excited about the work I am doing with them and I am looking forward towards the final product; an informative animation that I will elaborate on once the project is complete.

3) The World War II special effects project, that was a collaboration with a Cinematic Arts student, has been canceled due to the student had problems with acquiring the props and locations for their film and the time constraints that were placed on their project.

4) Due to conflicting commitments, I can no longer continue to be a game artist for KleptoClockers in the Game Developers Club.

 
Here is some of the work-in-progress from "Detached"

Sewage Worm

I sketched a worm-monster in a sewer and then scanned it into the computer. Using Photoshop, I painted in the colors and traced the outlines.

Rotoscope

"Parallel Scenes" is a rotoscope project of mine. I rotoscoped by tracing over frames from a video project I made, and clips from "The Matrix" (1999, Warner Bros.) I used the 2D animation software "Pencil" and a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet and stylus.

Here is the clip from "The Matrix" I spliced throughout.

Landscape--Grasslands

This is a mountain range environment cross-section I created by modeling it entirely in Maya and applying textures that were manipulated in Photoshop. I then applied a bump map onto it.

 

 

 

When Stinkbugs Attack!

I created a 3D model of a stinkbug. I modeled the basemesh in Maya and sculpted the fine details and shape in Mudbox. I then imported it back in Maya, textured it using photoshopped images, and baked it for use.

Monster Mesh

This was an exercise in digital sculpting. I used a basemesh from CG artist Bobo the Seal and imported it into Mudbox.