From time to time I do tutorials to aid my learning on top of the University project and work. This was a world creation Maya tutorial, I am fairly happy with the results but this piece still needs some work. The tutorial contained texturing and lighting the planet surface as well as cloud, shadow and atmosphere creation along with adding city lights on the dark side of the world. As I said it still needs some work but see what you think so far 

I next started on some very basic Building models, these are untextured and unlit at the moment but serve the purpose of acting as a trial to get the style right and get feedback on from the project leaders. Both of these need tweaking, texturing and lighting and I will post my progress on them as well as and project developments.

Here are some stills of the Bookcase I modelled for the headless team. I am quite happy with them on the whole. The style of the project is meant to be quite quirky and crooked which I think I have managed to capture. The feedback I got was also very useful, they said the the poly count was fairly high for the object and I need to keep it down where possible to make rendering easier in the future.

Here are some stills of the crate I modelled for the headless team

As part of our second year module Digital Animation Practice we are working on the third year final projects. This process started by pitching a presentation of our skills to the third years. After this I was contacted by the Headless Team who are making a 3D animated short about a character who's head is separated from his body and their alternative personalities cause conflict between them. This story will be set in a 3D town based on the Seaside cornish town of Falmouth. I hope to be modelling environments, buildings and props for the project as well as maybe helping with Animation in the future. This first thing they asked me to do was to model a simple crate or bookcase in correlation with the concept and inspiration to see with we could get the quirky style and to test my skills.

Here are final renders from the work I did at Island Monkey

I am fairly happy with the end product because it is a huge improvement on my first attempt at 3D modelling of the Norwegian Church. Despite this there is still a lot of room for improvement, I am fairly happy with the main model of the buildings, bridge and river although these could've done with more detail. In contrast to this the background is not well detailed and rushed, if I had more time I would've like to expand the basic area of the city I modelled or at least added more to the surrounding area. On top of this some of the texuring on the buildings hasn't come through in the final renders. I hope to build on what I learned in Island Monkey and develop my skills further.

Island Monkey work

During the Summer after my first term at Falmouth University I spent a week in a small animation studio in Bath called Island Monkey. They specialise in 3D Animation, Video Production and Visual Effects. This was a great opportunity to develop my skills in 3D Animation as well as gaining studio experience. Throughout the week I learnt a lot and mainly worked to create a 3D environment in Maya. I built a section of the city of Mostar in Bosnia Herzegovina, here are some stills from the production process.

Mazed Project - This was a product of a group project, Mazed. By the company 'Mazed Tales' we were assigned traditional tales from around Cornwall. This Video depicts the story of 'Elowen and the Bramlebush'. I took the role of Art director and co-animator on this project and created the backgrounds, helped with character designs and contributed to the animation.

Director: Leonie Isaacs
Producer: Joseph Stout
Art director/animator: Ben Langham
Lead Animator: Grayling Breckon
Editor: Joshua Keen

2D Background project - 3 fully tonal backgrounds
1. Monument Vally, Utah (Photograph)
2. Great Wall of China, Mulan (transcription)
3. Spiral staircase, Sword in the Stone (transcription)

2D Drawing project - Five drawings including foliage and an aspect of depth or dramatic perspective

2D background project - perspective line drawings of buildings from photographs
1. Sante Fe - New Mexico
2. Mostar Bridge
3. Bran Castle - Romania
4. Venice

This is two different renders of the same model. The first is an unlit, untextured version without a sky while the second is a fully textured, lit version with the sky.

As part of a backgrounds project we created a 3D environment in Maya. I chose to do a model of a church in Norway I photographed from several angles. The top picture is a digital matt painting of a still render the the bottom two are still renders from two different angles.

Experimental animations

These animations are short experimental animations using more traditional techniques such as plasticine or cut outs in preparation for a more complex animation using similar techniques. I think they have worked well and developed my understanding of these methods. The cut out style is the one I think I will use for my longer soundtracked piece.

Fisrt term show real

This video is a compilation of work built up over the first term through assignments and briefs. It is a mix of both Maya and Flash work. The objective of these assignments was to gain a better understanding of the software through the process of making them as well as an expansion of knowledge of the animation principles. I think that these clips are largely successful as I feel more confident using the software and there is a gradual improvement of technique and understanding

juggling assignment

This was another simple flash assignment, the objective was the get a character juggling three balls with a focus on the weight and timing of the balls.

Sound File assignment

For this assignment we were given a sound file and were given free roam over the animation, as long as it fit the sound. I tried to keep the characters and animation simple but in time to the sound effects

Animation reaction

Again very simple, one simple character reacting to another while trying to demonstrate the basic animation principles such as squash, stretch and anticipation.

Block man reaction assignment

Another simple animation again getting used to the software and getting to grips with the animation principles, the brief was very simple, animate a basic character reacting to a sound or motion

Jumping block man assignent

Just a quick animation getting used to the software and the basic animation principles

Bowlingball Assignment