Getting used to blender.

Wow its been a while since my last post! As always the reason is the same, been crazy busy!

Lately been looking at using blender more and more instead of Maya. I had a friend ask if I could animate using blender for a possible work opportunity last week so I had a bit of a play on Saturday doing some basic animation to get used to the animation tools and editors inside blender.

Blender animation, Squash Stretch Overlapping action. from Geoff Ind on Vimeo.

After getting over the initial frustration of not being able to find things and getting used to the blender hot keys I must say that animation using blender is not that different from Maya. You have all of the same editors to adjust your animation frames and curves etc. Once you get over the initial hurdle of the fact that the axies in blender are not the same as the ones in Maya which threw me a bit to start with! I can definitely see myself learning more blender in the future and possibly trying to migrate all of my current skills and workflow over.

Ta Geoff

Fun Flash Animations

Been looking through some of my old flash work and found these fun little animations which I made a while ago, they are not really long enough to have a home or use anywhere so I thought id put them on my Vimeo page.

I would have made each of them in no more than a few hours some even quicker than that. They were done just for fun.

Anyway here they are for your viewing pleasure!



Catapault from Geoff Ind on Vimeo.


Arrows from Geoff Ind on Vimeo.


Cannon from Geoff Ind on Vimeo.


Boom from Geoff Ind on Vimeo.

Old Well Turnaround and more detail.

The Old well model I posted on Monday was completed entirely with the aim of giving me a piece of work that showcases texturing for my reel. I think it has a bit of a Disneyish feel to it which was not really my intention at all. I guess its my background at Disney Animation in Sydney and all of those Disney movies I have seen in the past!

I intend next to come up with some new pieces that are more based in the real world, as if they could be included in live action films. Mainly because that is a gap I have in my reel as it currently exists.

Anywho, here is a turnaround of the completed Old Well Model. The quality of the video is a bit fuzzy at the moment because Vimeo will only allow me to upload one HD video per week. Ill upload it again next week which will hopefully fix the problem.


Old Well Turnaround from Geoff Ind on Vimeo.

And here are some more detailed stills of the model with complete textures and lighting.

Back Orthographic View

Front Orthographic View

Left Orthographic View

Right Orthographic View

Top Orthographic View

More Detailed angles

Stone Well UV and painted Maps

Timber Frame UV and painted Maps

Updated Demo Reel

Yesterday I completed a new piece of modelling and texturing work to go on my demo reel which was in sore need of dusting off and revamping a little!

I have now updated my reel taking out a bunch of old stuff and adding in the new. I hope to get at least one new piece of work completed specifically for my reel from now on just in case I need to show it at short notice. 

I have also decided to spilt my work into several different reels that are for specific skills. This I believe is more in keeping with what the animation industry requires nowadays, this one is focused on texturing and lighting which is my strongest skill set currently.

anyway here it is, my new 2015 Lighting and Texturing Demo reel.


Geoff Ind Demo Reel 2015 from Geoff Ind on Vimeo.

Old Well Modeling and Texturing.

I have been very busy over the long Easter weekend creating some new work for my demo reel. I started the modelling on Thursday morning and worked through till the the afternoon of Easter Monday.

The model itself was complete in less than a day, with about half a day to unwrap and layout all of the UV's. By far the longest part of the work was creating all of the various texture maps (36 in total when you include all of the variations, bump, specular and colour maps) and setting up all of the materials. All maps where painted in Photoshop completely from scratch using some reference material but no photographs where used in the completed textures.

this is the final complete model rendered out of Maya as colour and occlusion passes and then comped back together in After Effects.

Ta Geoff

Old Well model.

Viking Sketch MkII

Yesterday I posted a sketch of a Viking which I had fun drawing. After coming back to him this morning with some fresh eyes I noticed a few things that I wanted to change, mainly about his pose. Which when I looked again seemed a little stiff and not so interesting. I also received some really great comments and feed back so I decided to re-work the sketch a bit before I went ahead and spent a bunch of time painting him up.

I also received a request to show my working ruff drawings which include my construction etc. When sketching on my Cintiq I tend to redraw and refine over and over making a new layer for each sketch. In this process I tend to loose allot of the ruff feel of my initial drawing which I am trying really hard to rectify.

Anyway here is the new version, a progression of all of the sketches from the first to last, and a side by side comparison between were I was yesterday and where I am now.

Thanks for viewing,

Geoff.

Viking dude MkII

Viking progression. Please excuse the faint one in the first version.

Side by side comparison of yesterdays version and today's.

Viking sketch

Been doing some drawing on the Cintiq again, still trying to break out of my usual drawing style and come up with something that I like. Getting there I think, pretty happy with this sketch will have to sit down and get some painting done at some point.

Enjoy 

Geoff

Viking warrior dude.