Sunday, May 31, 2009

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.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

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.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

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...

Saturday, April 25, 2009

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.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

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.

Monday, April 13, 2009

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.

Monday, April 6, 2009

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.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

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.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

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