BA - 1st Year

Performance A/V (Group Work)

Here, I leveraged my previous photography skills to light and shoot black and white short films within a group. As the assignments were restricted in the scope of demonstrating filming techniques and understanding of film theory, they did not demonstrate any application of these techniques in conjunction with 3D imagery, I would like to explore this area further in the future.

Modelling, Lighting and Rendering

This was my first true 3D environment - modelled and lit in Maya, and textured in Mudbox. Texturing was applied very close to submission, in conjunction with being my first attempt to paint textures onto a mesh in 3D, the quality suffered, compounded by my incomplete early understanding of UV's. While the lighting for the scene was satisfactory in my eyes (being a replication of scene in Blade Runner to reference), the overall model detail was low, with both the interior lacking extra props to achieve a 'lived in' look, and the textures only painted onto the table - the floor was a tiled circuit design repurposed as a bump map, which although effective for the scene had far less detail than intended.

BA - 2nd Year

Effects Production

In general, more detail was needed to bring these submissions up to a higher level. Tighter control of Chroma key on close up shots would have also significantly improved submission quality.

Creative Practise #3 (Group Work)

This assignment required me to create and light an environment for a short animation piece.

While overall satisfied on my work on this environment, significant problems arose from starting the work in the most recent version of Maya, in the future all such issues should be set in stone at the beginning of the project to avoid miscommunication.

BA - 3rd Year

Major Project (Group Work)

While greater detail on geometry would have been preferred, rendering time constraints would have made it difficult to add further layers of detail in that area. However, significant improvements could have been made by adding grunge effect to the texture work, especially where different larger parts of the saloon meet and would have gathered a significant layer of dust and dirt.

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Environment and Ligthing - Kenny Hill (Myself)

Character Modelling and Animation - Joe Long and Sean Ferris

Gun Prop Modeling - Kane Morris and Sean Ferris

Assorted Prop Modelling - Kenny Hill, Kane Morris, Sean Ferris

Pre Production Storyboards + Planning - Sean Ferris and Joe Long

Advanced Effects Production

This was an assignment to create a visual effect, preferably appropriate to my major project subject matter. For the assignment, I modelled the front of an Old West era wood constructed building with a window containing multiple glass panes. These glass panes, and the surrounding wood frame were then used to create a shattering effect, combined with a rigid body dynamic simulation. The original intention was to use a live action film shot to create this effect on top of, however I grew short on time and was forced to settle for a purely 3D shot. Too much time was spent modelling and texturing, and only a short amount of time was spent researching and practising the rigid body dynamic techniques.

The 'sticky' nature of the ball movement is a result of that.

Any future VFX work requiring a similar effect will need thorough research and practise of techniques before attempting its practical use for a viable work product.

Personal Work

Most of my personal work has been based on recreating scenes from films that have inspired my lighting methods, and have helped me to hone my skills for modelling environments and lighting them in a manner consistent with live action filming.

I have as yet done no work that composites my own live action filming with artificial backdrop, and this will be necessary to further my understanding of the skills necessary for visual effects production.