More Rayfire!

Spent a bit more time playing with the Rayfire plugin for max, adding a secondary particle system for a bit more oomph.

Nuclear…

Poor Dalston getting blown up again. This is in a draft render because this number of smoke particles would take aaaages to render.

Space explosion

Just messin’. Particle systems, biped motion and a bit of a comp in AE

Desk tracking

Still spending valuable cheese-eating time trying to nail this tracking business. This is getting closer, but I think using the tripod is cheating.

Car explosion

Just purchased a new HD camera and this is my first test with it. Using PFHoe to track the motion here; pretty basic but just feeling my way for now.

Wall Smash

Having some fun with the Rayfire plugin. Rendered with *proper* DoF, not a Z-Depth pass, and you can really see the difference. Love it.

The Cube

Playing around with my new copy of CS5 and shiny new Trapcode plugins. Very impressed with Form.

New UFO logo sting

Here’s an intro I’ve been working on for my new showreel, which I’m blatantly too busy to finish for the foreseeable.

Spider attack!

OK, so the spider rig is getting milked a bit. Added laser gun and stock effects.

Spider 2 – The Return

More arachnids. Or should a say *an* arachnid, singular.

Spider 1

Aarrgh! Spiders! Run for your life!

Character variations

A few more scenes with this little blue fella

Water simulation

Dodgy DoF, but playing around with water is lots of fun.

Space warp

I thought I’d do something spacey and warpey after being inspired by a couple of youtube vids.

Earth refract

More with this globe fixation I seem to have at the moment.

Target practice

Added bullet-time for Matrix-style skill levels, with the usual dodgy texturing and masking.

Up in the clouds

I found a really interesting tutorial by Jonas Ussing

Jonas employs a nifty technique here to achieve realistic light scattering (which you can read about on the link).

Ballet!

I found some pre-made motion capture files and created this character to go with it.  Bit rough and ready as always, but I can see definite progress with this technique.

Man & boxes

I hand-keyed the biped and added a Reactor simulation to the bricks

Flowerbed

Playing around with a flip technique and then building in soil and grass particle systems. I stuck a rainbow in for now; next version will have some sort of flower perhaps.

Flippage

Using an idea from this tutorial, I stitched together a reactor simulation and a vortex . . . blah blah . . . no one reads this anyway

Reactor Soft Body

Having some fun with soft body simulations

Dissolve!

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Poor fella.

Car rig

Big thanks to Trapt CG for their brilliant tutorials and also the-blueprints for their huge database of car projections!

Jump 01

I used a bone rig for this character, as opposed to a biped rig. All very basic, but progress nonetheless.

Biped animation

I *finally* managed to get some bones working in this character mesh I created. Yes, he has a funny shaped head. Yes, he has dodgy knees. But he WALKS!

Planet > vortex

Reusing the fractured sphere from a previous post here, and destroying the planet. Just because I can.

as3 interface prototype

A prototype navigational system that I created in AS3 for an upcoming project. It’s a bit rough and ready, but the final version will be totally driven by XML and will have a drop-down menu system.

Wall fracture

Simulating a ball fired into a wall with the usual dodgy textures etc.

interior lighting render

Playing with the mental ray daylight system

Car subdivision modelling

Made from a single plane, with added go faster stripes.

Thanks to Grant Warwick and his great inorganic modelling tips

UFO!

Simple UFO object, particle system to blow out the light, comped in AE with some camera zooms / shake.

Tornado simulation

Just having a play with a tornado effect inspired by (and not in the same league as) this reel by Pete Draper.

Green man

Playing around with some render settings, whilst building up to rigging a character.

3d text explode

More messing around with particles

glug beer

A test render I made for Nick Clement and the boys at glug london