NHI: 3D Renders/Animations

3D + Animation

Stills and videos of my 3D and 2D animations, visual effects work, and 3D video game models. Everything here has been created in Maya with the exception of the 2D work.

[ 3D Animation | 2D Animation | VFX Work | Game Models ]

3D Animation

Animation projects created while at Bell Centre For Creative Communications (BCCC). Each was a solo effort, from initial storyboarding, modeling, and texturing to the final edit and sound design. I used Maya 3.0 for modeling and rendering, and Alias Composer for compositing, editing and sound. The textures are largely file based, created from photos and digital paintings in Photoshop.

These Borrowed Eyes
[ 10mb MPG Video ]
[ Still Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ]
[ Article: The Making of These Borrowed Eyes ]
This was my final project. I wanted to do something reminiscent of some favorite introspective scenes in anime like Kare-Kano, FLCL and Cowboy Bebop. To tie everything together I used a haiku found at scifaiku.com written by Graham Huesmann. If I've been successful the result, which runs just under a minute, is the animated equivalent of a haiku, conveying the emotion of a single moment, using simple shots and minimal animation.

These Borrowed Eyes was broadcast nationally in Canada on The CBC's ZED TV with an alternate soundtrack in 2004

Scout
[ 5mb MPG Video ]
[ Still Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ]
This was my special FX integration project. The background is a still photo taken in my basement. I then rendered the insectoid robot, matching the lighting and focus as it jumps off the shelf and runs out of frame. Inspiration for this one came from a robot model in a Autechre music video created by Chris Cunningham.

Dr Squeak
[ 5mb MPG Video ]
[ Still Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 ]
A mad scientist squeaky toy zaps a blob of fleshy protoplasm, which transforms itself into a vinyl record. Watch the video to see what happens next. . Dr Squeak's character design was influenced by Spooky the squeaky toy in Jhonen Vasquez's brilliantly twisted comic "I Feel Sick".

2D Animation

2D animations created in After Effects.

Shinnyo Interactive Audio - 17 seconds
[ 6mb Quicktime ]
[ Still Images: 1 | 2 | 3 ]
A motion logo created for Shinnyo Interactive Audio, based off of the design I created for their business cards. The paper is a blend of various Japanese hand crafted paper, with all brush strokes created in Painter, and animated using Adobe After Effects.

Deaf Planet - Blinky - 17 seconds
[ 9mb Quicktime ]
[ Still Images: 1 | 2 ]
Funny little bird character created for the children's show Deaf Planet. The animation is made up of various loopable sections, allowing the editors a large amount of flexibility when adding him into live action footage. Blinky was created in Photoshop and Illustrator and was animated using Adobe After Effects.

VFX Work

Samples of the visual effects work created while at Mr.X Inc. I've listed which parts I worked on as well as which show it was for. Since I didn't have access to the audio for any of these clips I did some quick and dirty sound mixing of my own so they wouldn't be completely silent. All the 3D elements were created in Maya 4.0 and textured using Photoshop and Deep Paint 3D.

Cameron Cruz: Gryphon Head - 23 seconds
[ 4mb MPG Video ]
[ Still Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ]
Cameron throws a moving gryphon statue off a boat. The sequence was filmed with a headless statue and a CGI head was added in post. I did all the texturing, lighting, animation and tracking for the head. While I didn't create the model, I did do some tweaking around the neckline adding feathers and getting it to blend seamlessly onto the statue.
What it's From: Cameron Cruz - TV - Pilot Episode.
What I did: camera tracking, texturing, lighting, animation, some modeling.

Cameron Cruz: CGI Airplane - 17 seconds
[ 3mb MPG Video ]
[ Still Images: 1 | 2 ]
A computer generated airplane flies through a storm. The airplane model was purchased but I did some much needed alterations and additional detailing to get it to match the real life airplane that appeared in other shots.
What it's From: Cameron Cruz - TV - Pilot Episode.
What I did: texturing, lighting, animation, some modeling.

Game Models

Kids MMO Game Test
[ Still Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 ]
This was a large test for kids Massively Multi-player Online game. The characters were to have a playful anime aesthetic with a touch of Rayman (floating limbs) and textures were to have simple flat colors. Included is an avatar, mascot pet, and an environment with a tree house observatory theme.

Technical stats:
- Avatar mesh: under 325 triangles
- Mascot pet mesh: under 350 triangles
- Environment and object meshes: under 1000 triangles

Spy Ship
This ship was created for a simple stereoscopic "flying through tunnels" game. I attempted to mimic some of the the clean texturing and mechanical style used in Metal Gear Solid 2 and think I did a pretty good job given this was a quick done on the side sort of thing. The texture maps could easily be shrunk without much loss of quality, however the game had only a few textures total so I could afford to keep them big.

Technical stats:
- Mesh complexity: under 400 triangles
- Texture map: 2 x 512 X 512 x 16bit color (00 | 01)

Quake 2 Punky Angel
This Quake 2 model was a little side project I worked on at school to teach myself low poly modeling for games.

Technical stats:
- Mesh complexity: under 1000 triangles
- Texture map: 256 X 256 8-bit indexed color (view image)