Mucked Up

A quick mucking around...

This is a familiar shot from "Star Wars" which I recreated and rendered twice, once in Maya Software to get the Toon lines, and once in Mental Ray to get the Raytracing Shadows. Both renders were then composited together in After Effects, Normal Mode, but with the Mental Ray render on top, set at 55% Opacity. I also added a glow effect. May the Force be with you... sometimes.

Family Guy is up for Best Comedy Series!

5 frames an hour

5 frames an hour - that's the pace at which my computer rendered the above 1100 frame sequence - so if you're doing the math, that's days. Although I could have adjusted certain render settings and achieved the same result in less time. As it was, I turned off shadows to speed things up a bit. In any case, I'm happy with the post work I did on this - namely the warp effect, very derivative of the Star Trek: The Next Generation main titles. I also took a page out of the JJ Abrams' interpretation of all things Trek, and included a couple of lens flares - the tell-tale sign of an amateur, but hey, it works in some instances.

Miracle grow

Here's a simple PaintFX tree. I animated some of the values such as gravity and texture color. There's tons more fun to be had with other attributes such as turbulence, wind, etc.

Grass

Yeah, bitches, that's grass that I rendered! Okay, it's nothing to get so excited about, but normally I use Maya PaintFX for this kind of thing - however, the grass featured above uses Maya Fur and looks much better. It was rendered with minimal tweaking, and with default lighting so I'm pleased that it looks as good as it does since the opening shot of a short I want to produce features a fair amount of grass. So as I said before, "Yeah, bitches!"

Hearst Castle in 3D

I took a tour of Hearst Castle and made this stereoscopic photo. Something tells me he never had any trouble paying the bills. Double-click on the photo to get the full effect - and obviously, wear anaglyphic glasses.

Stereoscopic Photo

My computer is currently rendering a stereoscopic image sequence of the starship Enterprise - the latest trend in animated features. I began the batch render around 8AM this morning, and it's only a little past half-finished ONE CAMERA! Tomorrow is Camera 2. Then I also need to render the background twice. So hopefully I'll have something to post by Friday. In the meantime, above is a stereoscopic image I just made. You'll need anaglyphic glasses to see the 3D effect. It's an imperfect experiment, but its true value is what I'm learning from it. I'd like to try this with actual live action video. It's entirely doable - just requires a bit of planning. There are choices to make - but each choice comes with its own set of somewhat unbreakable rules. With parallel cameras (just one of several options) there is a point where objects too close to the foreground become unfusable. I love this shit.

Up

***SPOILER ALERT***
"Up" is the latest animated feature from Pixar. With its combination of adventure storyline, sympathetic characters and animation in eye-popping Digital 3D that floats the viewer to heights that would make even an expert skydiver dizzy, this tenth Pixar film is easily their best work to date.

While the visuals of octogenarian Carl's house floating through the clouds are stunning, the most shocking and effective moment takes place on terra firma. Carl hits a construction worker over the head causing him to... bleed. While blood is no stranger to anime, I'm almost certain "Up" represents Pixar's first use of it. It's an effective device that immediately raises the stakes and informs us that there is actual jeopardy ahead. When the bitter and evil adventurer Muntz hints at the many "trespassers" he has killed in the past, we really worry for Carl's life.

"Up" is nearly perfect. If there is any nitpicking to be done, the visual pun of dogs flying planes in a, um, dogfight, is a misstep. It seems like something that probably came up in a story meeting and got a big laugh in the room, guaranteeing its inclusion. But dogs flying planes seems somehow beneath "Up," (if you'll now pardon my pun) especially for a film more sophisticated than your average animated feature. Secondly, the joke of Beta's Alvin & the Chipmunks voice went a little too long.

Workspace

My bedroom is small. At first, I tried to make do with the layout and the furniture I had, but every time I sat down at my desk to work I was immediately annoyed and felt cramped in. Solution: design and build the perfect desk.

I'm nearly finished - just need to add a stabilizing beam to the back, plus some shelving. Above is a photo of the desk as it stands now. The top is 8 feet long and is supported by six 4X4 pine wood posts. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out - especially since I've never built anything like this before. This also represents my first time staining wood, which was more fun than I thought it would be.

The only bad experience I had was with Home Depot. Getting them to cut wood at 90 degrees is asking a lot. I ended up having to take the wood to an independent lumber yard to clean up the mistakes made by HD.

This whole project has been a gigantic learning experience - I'll impart just one probably obvious piece of advice: if the wood is heavier than you think it should be, don't buy it - the extra weight isn't because it's more dense or sturdier, it's because it's filled with water, and if left outside, will eventually cause the wood to crack.

Excuse the unmade bed - I'm going to get a smaller mattress and push it against the opposite wall. In any case, I already feel less boxed in. Los Angeles freeways have enough congestion, so who needs it in the bedroom? Well, maybe Wilt Chamberlain, but he's the exception, not the rule.

Another Enterprise clip? Are you F'ing serious?!

Yeah, I guess the starship Enterprise has been on my mind lately since the release of the latest "copy and paste" update to the Star Trek franchise. Of course, the effects from Abrams' film are billions of light years away from what I've done below - another stab at the Enterprise in space - similar to a final project I did a couple years ago. This needs to look way better, but it's helping me figure out the right camera move - which this is not. I did something a little different this time: rather than creating the warp effect in post, I parented two particle emitters behind the nacelles, key framing them to turn on when the ship warps out. From a distance I think it works. The real reason for this project is to create an animated stereoscopic sequence, which I will do once I nail down the scene.

Super 8

As a gift for my brother, I assembled a simple book of stills from the dozens of Super 8 films my parents shot between 1966 and 1979. Below is just one of those stills of the two of us. Aw...

Another quick pass at toon shading Enterprise

Here's another pass. I spent a minute trying to match three shots from the original series main titles. It's not an exact match as I didn't bother with the focal length of the camera. Needs a LOT more work. Again, just call me Mr. Quick and Sloppy.

Toon shader

A lack of time has forced me to be Mr. Quick and Sloppy, so forgive the awful framing and thick lines. Using the model of the Enterprise I had already built, I decided to see what it would look like using Maya's built-in toon shader. I have to say, with a little more tweaking and better camera moves, this has the potential to look superior to the hand drawn animated Star Trek series from the 1970's. Click below to boldly go where no-- Well, you know.

Resistance 2 / Live Action Mash-up

This is a super rough pre-viz of a gag I want to do: putting everyday, unarmed, live action people in the middle of a violent video game. This took 10 minutes so don't expect much. I need to buy Dazzle so I can get a good quality recording of game play rather than this poor man's process of pointing the camera at the TV - yes, that is sad. Oh, this also represents my first use of color keying/green screen. I was surprised to see the relatively clean edges I was able to achieve with poorly lit green construction paper.

Yellowstone 2007

This was sitting on the shelf for a long time, but below is a trip I took to Yellowstone National Park in May of 2007. If I had more time I would have done more than just a crappy one-take demo of the song.

H2O

I'm much happier with how this came out. Below are some fluid dynamics set to simulate water. Maya wasn't designed for this purpose, but as demonstrated below, it can get somewhat close. Any CG water you see in film or television was most likely created in software such as Real Flow. If I find a few thousand dollars between my couch cushions, maybe I'll purchase the program. Until then, here's to getting wet in Maya.

Lenny Bruce Is Not Afraid

This came out looking like crap, but I'm posting it anyway. The 2D explosions were rendered in Maya, then composited in After Effects. Oy.

Star Blazers

This animated series scarred me for life - hopefully in a good way. For anyone unfamiliar, Star Blazers is, in my humble opinion, the best animated cartoon series ever. I'm sure as an adult, I'd laugh at the plot points and logic - after all, it is about a World War II Japanese battleship flying through space to save the Earth - but having said that, it's a series that offered a much more complex story than your typical kids' show. There were unexpected twists and reveals as the series progressed - not to mention (pardon the pun) stellar music. While the animation itself is minimal at best, nothing beats the build up to firing the wave motion gun. An updated live action Star Blazers feature film has been bouncing around from studio to studio for years, but has yet to materialize. Below are a couple of video links - the indelible main titles from season one, and the firing of the coolest sci-fi weapon ever - the wave motion gun. My guess is that the preachy speech about the wave motion gun [read "atomic weapons"] is not accurately translated. Enjoy - and hurry, Star Force, there are only 365 days left to save the Earth!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMcrep48Wz0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty-1zWsXFNs

Fun with compositing

Below is a clip from the as yet unfinished next Detective Bleak webisode highlighting a composited shot I'm pretty happy with. The two people you see in the shot are, in fact, the same person - videotaped a few minutes apart and composited together to form one shot. I was a bit sloppy so if you look carefully, you'll notice a plane disappear in the background - whoops - but overall, not too shabby.

Rough Cut

Working on a short Noir webisode thang. The CG intro is a rough pre-viz - the final pass will look MUCH better, but that's at least weeks away.

A Beautiful Goodbye

A line of 25 police cars led Ralph's body to its final resting place, first passing borough hall, his home, and the park named after him. At each location stood several police officers who saluted the caravan as it drove by, paying respect and honoring a great, but humble man. Below is just a small portion of the funeral service.

Ralph

To the majority of people in my hometown, he was the mayor. To me, he was simply Ralph, my stepfather. On Wednesday, January 14th, Ralph passed away at the age of 87 due to complications resulting from pancreatitis. Ralph was also in the early stages of Alzheimer's. My last visit over the holiday was especially difficult, as Ralph seemed a ghost of the man he was six months before. I drove him to the hospital, where the combination of pain medication and pancreatitis quickly robbed him of the rest of his mind, leaving a vacant look in his eyes. However, there were brief moments of clarity during his last days. My mother held Ralph's hand, told him she loved him, and he smiled. Ten minutes later, Ralph died. My aunt put it best: "Ralph let everyone off the hook." It was true, no matter your faults or mistakes, Ralph had pockets full of forgiveness. He was deeply religious without being preachy. It was a personal choice - he felt no need to convert others. I am agnostic, but if there is a Heaven, I'd like to think that Ralph has just been given the best seat in the house. I'm headed home in a few hours with the video below to be shown at the service, set to the tune of Ralph's favorite song. I'll miss him.