Small Update

Added new texture for door, changed some of the blood splats on the walls and added some bloodprints for effect.

How 3DS Max should be used.

I recently bought a 40inch television which I now primarily use as a monitor, and I must say 3ds max is now much more fun to use! I use my old monitor as a secondary one for iTunes/Firefox/Reference Images/Seperate windows which I don't want over 3ds max.

The 'Darker' Knight?

I've decided that I want my interpretation of 'The Dark Knight' to be a little darker than the original. Below are a few stills from my scene to give you an idea of what I mean.

Scene ReVamp

I decided to put some of the techniques I picked up whilst working on my showreel and apply them to my final project environment. I think it's an improvement, little more of a realistic feel. Not completely happy with it but I can come back and alter things later if needbe. Tomorrow I am dedicating the day to perfecting the character models, bones and rigs.

Just because it's easter doesn't mean I have to sit about doing nothing!

The Art of Seeing

I both enjoyed and hating this assignment. Initially I hated it as I thought time spent taking pictures was time not spent modeling and producing stuff for my showreel and end of year project. HOWEVER! Once I started it, I did actually enjoy it, and if it wasn't for the fact my camera only allowed me to take 280 photos before insisting it was full, I'd of probably continued taking more. Probably worth mentioning the reason there aren't 280 photos on the flickr account is because my housemate was doing the same assignment so we went out together and halved the images for our accounts. Otherwise it may have looked like one just took the images from the other.

After about 2 hours of taking photos it was hard to stop, and everywhere we went we were just looking for more interesting things and textures to capture. At this point the camera ran out and we began deleting less exciting photos for new ones.

Anyway, here's the link to my flickr page. I've separated the images into 'Sets' so they're easier to browse. and have now added all today's images to my computers texture library. In the end, it wasn't such a bad assignment!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdawilliams/sets/

ShowReel

Well it's been a busy few weeks but here it is! The final copy of my show reel. Still not 100% pleased with how it turned out but can't say I'm completely disappointed.

Enjoy!

Don't forget to watch in HD!

I have been working hard!

As the title says, I have actually been working my socks off recently. Mainly on my show reel. I don't want to really give away too much at the moment as I was hoping just to post the finished piece.

I've been taking care to make sure its produced to a rather high standard, as I plan to use it not only for the assignment but also to give to 'would-be' employers.

Rest assured, you'll see it soon! I may put a few taster/teaser stills up later, but currently I'm just perfecting everything.

Joker Rabbit designs

I was debating between modeling all characters then spending a day rigging all together or simply completing each character one by one.

I have decided to model them all, then rig them all, then unwrap them all. I find it easier to work this way as once I'm in the flow for modeling I find it difficult to change my mindset towards rigging, and the same for rigging. I find it easier to to just rig them all consecutively.

Below are my designs for Joker Rabbit. I don't think he will be as difficult to model as DoberMan, as I found the suit and dog features were the most difficult to do.

Rough Draft of Joker Rabbit

Rough Draft of Joker Rabbit Inverted

Joker Rabbit - Front

Joker Rabbit - Front (Inverted)

Joker Rabbit -Side

Front&Side

Front&Side Inverted

Doberman Redone

Due to some unexpected issues with Doberman I had to completely restart the model. This wasn't much of a set back, and if anything worked in my favour. I wasn't completely happy with my old model, the head wasn't formed very well, and everytime I tried to use the connect tool on the edges to make the hands it crashed 3ds max. After trying everything to get around this I decided to just remodel the whole thing. This, in my opinion, has worked out for the best. The new model looks as good, if not better, than the old one. Also it is a lot less complicated and messy in terms of vertices and faces.

Old DoberMan

New DoberMan - Front

New DoberMan -Back

New DoberMan -Side

New DoberMan - Orthographic

 Influence for the DoberMan Design 

CGTextures

After Roma's lecture and seeing the massive collection CG Textures had to offer I decided to join. There is a free membership which allows you to download 15mb a day, however that doesn't allow access to the highest resolution images so I paid for the 'Private Use' package. It works out at about £56 for the year but lets you download up to 100mb a day and grants you access to the highest res textures. So far I'm pleased with joining.

http://www.cgtextures.com/