Still in the fast lane...

I really enjoy having the chance to challenge myself, getting the opportunity to really get into a project.  I think being trusted with difficulties is the best part.  And that's why I keep working so hard.

Busy

I've been producing a news show KTBU channel 55.4 in Houston.  It's a local interest show, focusing on the bilingual populations in Houston.  It's a 30 minute news program chopped in 1 - 2 minute segments.  The shows are designed for a mobile device, such as a smart phone or Ipad; however, we (I) also composite them for tv to show throughout the day.  The graphics and set design are mine, and constantly morphing into what I hope the show will one day be branded.  These are some screen shot of my peeps- the on-air talent- Cynthia Leal, Rebecca Sotelo, Roger Palomino, Maritza Willis and Vanessa Palacios (not pictured are Teri Medina Galvan and Roy Vasquez).

Oh my Barnes

 I took this sketch from Jason Barnes and made it my own, stylized and converted it to fit the theme of my short.  I am rather concerned about the challenge of Maya hair for this guy's curly locks.  I've got experience with ndynamics, but have very little power over hair and fur.  The short hairs for the legs and face were sculpted in zbrush.  Turns out however, with the use of this brush and particular alpha, I will be able to put fur on my rats without using Maya fur... this is a breakthrough for me. 

 

Still working on a lot of the pieces, but it's coming together.

The Funky Fur

Some assets I've been working on for my short, The Squeakeasy (working title). It's a mixed media cartoon about an incident that goes down in a bar called Dirty's Funky Fur. This is Maya and After Effects, very basic light effects with some particles. I've got a lot of the set put together, going to get some characters modeled and rigged here shortly. Probably should have thrown a color correction layer on the video, it is a little darker than I thought after the upload- guess you'll have to wait to see it better in the final :).

Get Your Gun

My own play on an old Broadway musical bill. Probably I should feed my horse ;)

a day out of exile

Time for something new.

Pole Dancing Rats, y'all

More sketches to build up the bible for my short, The Squeakeasy. Some will end up as layouts. Looking for a color scheme that is very specific- so far, no luck.

Squeakeasy Shots

Some pre-vis drawings for my short, in varying stages of disarray.

Wardrobe Malfunction

Various passes tweaking the attributes for the uniform for my Shoeless Joe character rig. The first playblast shows the nCloth with basic attributes applied to it. The initial uniform mesh was first bound to the skeleton, just like the body skin, and the weights were copied from the original mesh onto the uniform mesh. At least then, you can pose the character however you want, and the uniform mesh moves with the rest of the rig. After binding skin, make the uniform mesh nCloth in the usual way. The belt was skinned the the main hip joint, and set as a passive collider, which in hindsight may be a mistake on my part. I'm thinking later trying skinning just the buckle to the main hip, making it a passive collider, and then making the waist portion of the belt nCloth as well.

The referenced rig in the scene. From here, I referenced a workflow borrowed from a gentleman who is absolutely brilliant, Duncan. If you frequent the Autodesk forum AREA, you can see his blog post regarding nCloth workflow for animation here: http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/duncan/basic_cloth_on_character_setup. Basically, you connect your original mesh to the posed nCloth and make a rest shape, which will pull back the stretched mesh in simulation. After that, you paint weights on the cloth mesh under a couple of different attributes, depending on how you want that part of the mesh to behave. It's trial and error as it goes.

Maybe time to cache everything out and finally inbetween and cleanup this piece- I can't believe I let it stay this way for so long. After the animation is clean, it will be easier here to diagnose problems with the cloth, and key the attributes necessary to make it look a little more natural.