Starting a short film project. Should be exciting I have the story, now just need to define the style.

Alpha 0.0.5

A few items are now in the Temple of Izore and can be used. next up is weapons and armor then I'll have the monsters in. Its kinda slow going and frustrating at times, but I'm having fun.

New roguelike entering per-alpha

The game I've wanted to make since I was but a mere teenager is well on its way. It's in a very very early alpha as a learn the programming language of choice...python. I'm excited about working on it...I've always wanted to be a animator and programmer...such high goals haha...still beats doctor and lawyer in my opinion.

Side tracked, off track, something

I still want to do creating a scene. However, I think I bit off a rather large scene. Also I really really want to get a new website design up...I was having someone else do it, but that seems to have fallen through, leaving me to do it myself. Oh well, such is life.

Demo Reel 2011

New demo reel.

My new demo reel is complete. It should be making its appearance online in a few hours. Have to let it sit and I'll go over it again to makes sure its still like I wanted.

Creating a Scene - Part 1 - Inspiration

There are a ton of tutorials out there. How to model, texture, light, render. A lot of them are just a single piece in a giant puzzle that is 3d art. This blog series I will go through how I go from an empty scene to a final render. This isn’t step by step tutorial, but I encourage you to follow along with your own scene and ideas. I predominantly use Blender for my 3d work, but this series it doesn’t matter what software is used, the ideas, concepts and execution will roughly be the same. Without further ado let’s get started with the hardest part of all.

Inspiration – What do I do?!?!

There are millions of scenes that can be done. From single objects to vast vistas. The first thing to set before starting is what the goal is. Ask yourself, am I going for photo realistic, cartoon, painting, etc… Next is the focus of crafting the piece. Is one of the goals to learn new things, like hard surface modeling, attempting organic modeling, a mixture? Am I just going to practice something I’ve already done.

One of the best sources for inspiration is the internet, from Google image search, Flickr, photography sites, Youtube, it is easy to find tons of art and pictures. Don’t disregard playing, drawing stuff on paper. Because my drawing skills lack I just hop into Blender and randomly model objects, sometimes these turn into something, sometimes they get trashed. I may start modeling something that I like and slowly a scene will build around it.

The world around us also holds a lot of inspiration. Observer your surrounding and something may pop out. If you don’t have a good memory carry a notepad to write down or sketch out ideas, before they get lost.

What will I be doing for this series? Well while doing a Google image search for reference images of a “dark forest” I found this…

Credit for the picture goes to whoever created it, I could not find a name or company.

Queue light bulb and inspiration to create my own version of this scene in 3d. I decide what I need for the scene. Scarecrow, tree, barn, ground. These are my main objects. My method of work will make all of my art teachers cringe, I don’t sketch thumbs, I don’t lay out my objects, I do zero planning. Why? I like the idea of free flow. I’m not locked into a concept or construct. I can change things on a whim and not worry about things down the road. Some of the best things I’ve done have been unintended mistakes and screw ups that just worked. If I put rules out there those might not happen as often or well. This, of course, goes for personal projects. Projects that have a chain of command, may have a different criteria. A client may want to see thumbs before any modeling is done.

Most important of all though! Don’t get discouraged! Psychologists say it takes about 10 years for someone to master their craft. A good reference to this is Marek Denko at http://marekdenko.net/ he shows his early works, from 1999, 12 years ago. They are very amateurish, but his art now, is incredible!

Find your inspiration. Next blog will be the start of modeling.

Reality Series! - Creating a scene.

I want to blog. I've wanted to blog. I didn't know what to blog, and didn't want to do random crap. I came up with a plan of making a series about how I do an art piece from start to finish. I want to share the trials and tribulations of the process. It should be fun and I hope both of us will learn something new.

A little about the series. Its going to start basically from nothing and be about how I start, what I do first and proceed all the way to the finished product. I'll write about what I've done and post the occasional screenshot of the work in progress. I'll post things that went right, and things that go horribly wrong. 

It not really a tutorial series in how to model, texture, animate and all that. There is a lot of information out there about those. This is about process. A lot of the tutorials are splintered and fragmented from the big picture of a final scene, and how to fit something like that into your work.  However, feel free to email me 

Should be a fun ride and I'll attempt to be as entertaining as I can.

You can find me on twitter @morokiane and Google+ as Geoff P

Lux render

I downloaded Lux render .8 this morning so I've been playing around with it. I like it, the GPU rendering seems to be faster. I used the piano scene to test it out...both were after an hour...the top one is CPU render and the second one is GPU.

Stuff I've been up too....

So...yeah...I haven't posted in ages. I've finally decided to crack my knuckles and trash my graduate demo reel and make one that I love. Here is some of the stuff I've made.

10 lbs. of lean muscle mass in 30 days?

That rights...I will be attempting starting Jan. to add 10 to 15 lbs of lean muscle mass to my body. I'm gearing up and looking forward to seeing if I'll be able to do it. Should be fun.

New demo reel and the errors

Its impossible to do 3d art with out weirdness popping up. Such as trying to open Illustrator. I have 8 gigs of RAM, that is quite a bit and yet...

Next is working on my seductress. I am using particles to do her hair. I had it all combed out and styled the way I wanted it to look. I hid it so I could work on the texturing, turned them back on and suddenly its 6 am and she just got out of bed..

Ah the joys :)

I am a graduate

I've finally come to the end of college. The art I am now able to create is nothing I would have believed myself to be capable of. What I also find interesting is how Blender has grown up right along side me...as I got into classes Blenders latest release had the capabilities to be do what I needed. I was looking forward to moving on to Blender 2.5 for my school work, but now it will be utilized in my personal projects along with Max. My new future begins now...a whole new world has now opened up to me.

Good start to the week.

My marketing package arrived today, it looks great! I hope my business cards will make it in time, they are suppose to arrive the day of my portfolio presentation, I have my fingers crossed that they'll be here in the morning.

Extra awesome news! My chess render was accepted in the Showcase Gallery over at CGSociety. I would ogle over the pieces there and now to be among the ranks just feels good.

Next up my demo reel is posted and this is the one that will go with me to presentation. Below is the Blogger version. Higher quality version can be seen at Vimeo

Coffee

New version of my creek

New website

After years of neglect I finally have a website for myself over at www.dragon-realm.net.

Supporting Open Source

I am an advocate of open source software. The ones I use the most are Linux, Blender, Inkscape, along with numerous others. Blender Foundation is starting its next open source project Durian. This will focus on creating and shoring up Blenders tool for visual effects. In order to help they are doing a dvd campaign. It is $40 for the dvd's. Included will be the movie in HD, all of the project files, making of, art work, interviews, tutorials, etc... also being named in the credits...well worth the price. If anyone is interested in supporting the Durian project go to this link.

Animation

Using the rig from Big Buck Bunny...this is a playblast just a simple output to see how timing is before final animation which I will do this weekend.