Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Week 14 - Final Post. Ever

Shmeegoal
Posterous is closing down so we won't be able to use it anymore.  Go figure...

Anyways, we've finished modeling half of Gollum from Lord of the Rings.  I know we said we'd be doing the Witch King last week, but we found a picture of Gollum that was literally made to be a reference image.  Normally, the two would be about egual in difficulty and impressiveness, but without the side shot of the Witch King, it would be nearly impossible to get an accurate representation. 

To make this guy's legs, we did some box modeling.  Whcih is where you take a box and model with it...

We used the Edit Poly modifier to extrude the faces, throw on some smoothing, and arrange the vertices meticulously in order to make a perfectly sculpted leg.  Then we cheated and added a Symmetry modifier to mirror it.  And you will never see the finished product.  Ever.  I hope this haunts your dreams.

Week 13 - Emanon

Witch_king_1
We've finished modeling the Wtich King's weapons.  Now we really need to get to work on the actual model.  Without a side view of the character, we're going to have some problems accurately making him in three dimensions, but we may have found a loophole.  Maybe.  I'll tell you all about it next week if it works.

Week 12 - Final Project

Witch_king_2
For the next couple weeks, Tony and I will be working on modeling and possibly animating the Witch King, from Lord of the Rings.  We may or may not include his sword, and we're probably not going to have time to tackle his flail, but I can guarentee we'll do as much as we can.  Rigging this guy is not going to be fun...

Week 11 - There is No Try

(download)
We spent this week in Adobe After Effects.   We had a video of an old student of Mr. Smith's waving a stick around, so naturally we turned him into a Jedi.  We used two solids, a white and a red, and feathered them out to make it look more genuine.

Week 9 - Tony is a Blizzard Wizard

(download)
We've been working on a piece of blended media this week.  We used a plane with the noise modifier for the ground, a fog effect to make the...  fog like...  effect...  Clever, right?

We might have a little guy in this scene next week, but I don't know how much time the process takes, so no promises.

Week 8 - Saving the Best for Last

(download)
This is not the last.  In a week or two, you'll get to see the big project, the compilation of our smaller animations this year.  This week's post, however, was a simlpe tube with a Bend modifier thrown in there and a bit of fire.  It took us about half an hour to make the fire look perfect, to adjust the flame size and intensity, but the rest of it was thrown together in about thirty seconds.

Week 7 - Passing the Time

(download)
This week's post is a compilation of everything we've done in between projects this year.  I won't be able to say how we did each of them, but for the most part we used basic shapes, interesting materials, and some pictures.  Some of them were done by me, some by Tony, but the majority of them were cooperative efforts.  Enjoy

Week 6 - Running Out of Clever Titles

Desertscene2
This week, Tony did most of the work.  We spent some time working on and old project of his.  What began as a simple field of sand with a few dunes turned into an inttense looking desert, complete with a sandstorm and a sun.  I'm not entirely sure how we did all of this, because, as I said, Tony did most of it.  I know the sandstorm was an Atmospheric Apparatus with some Volume Fog, and I'd guess the sun is just a sphere with a material.  The desert itself is a plane with the Noise modifier, and the two lonely-looking cylinders are probably just cylinders.

Week 5 - Time Well Spent

(download)
This week, we made a short bowling animation.  It started out as about five minutes of effort, having a little ball knock down a couple pins.  Then we added textures, giant exploding text, and a few bombs.  We could probbly spend another week making this even better, but we probably won't do that.  We're probably gonna spend next week beefing up a different little animation.