Haven't blogged in a while, I think it's down to when I do 3D work, i'm a little fussy with what I post [mainly because its a lengthy progress of looking at something ugly and messy, before having something near finished and something that I'm relatively pleased with, to show] but anyway, here she is thus far. These are just viewport captures, I think if you can make it look good there, then it will look good in anything.

Pre-Production is on pause for a cheeky 3 week mudbox/zbrush project.
The brief advises us to choose something simple and stylised, nothing real, and something that has already been designed. It also states that we should set aside the first day/evening to choose and research the chosen character....Well...I'd rather spend said time designing my own. So yeah..here she is, robot hand+feet super original chick, anyway, hopefully should be able to mix this up when I get to sculpting this, on to the turnarounds! :D

The final design of my Racer, decided to tone down his armour because it would be difficult for him to drive in. I wanted to include some tattoos aswell so this was a better way to show them off, gonna go ahead and cover his entire body in them.
Oh the bottom picture [clicky], its a progress gif from the body shape to the final image

Some of the throwaway stuff before I started designing my choice, these look more like punk characters than a racer/punk/future guy so none of these were used, useful exercise to get a feel for a character though.

Some more development on...the..guy face man. Want to get an interesting silhouette on him so i drew...silhouettes of him. Also...since this silhouette idea seems to have caught the interest of a few people [not my idea anyway, thank conceptartists across the globe for that]
if you dont know what to do with them next...then here is a clue

Just reviewing the brief for this project, nothing too exciting. This is more of a quick reference for me to lookup, I spend more time on the internet than looking at the briefs.

"Your Production Folder should include:

• Initial research
• Design & Development:
• Source material for textures, lighting, etc
• Model Pack
• Final Colour pre-viz Artwork/Macquettes
• Production Tasks Breakdown, Technical Requirements, Schedule & Charts, Roles & Budgets
• Production Values"

I have been doodling today so i'll get those up later.

Thus far, on a percentage level of completion of where I am [vehicle and character]
I am something along the lines of:

Character:
Research and Source Material Gathering: 40%
Concept and development: 60%
Model pack and Turnaround: 20%
Final Pre-vis: 0%

Vehicle:
Research and Source Material Gathering: 80%
Concept and development: 50%
Model pack and Turnaround: 10%
Final Pre-vis: 20%

Obviously I cant continue onto pre-vis before i've decided on the character/vehicle etc, but aside from that I'm just going to keep on chugging the work out.

I'm currently helping develop a character for use in a future game called RUST, dont think im allowed to say anything for the minute, but yeah, heres some doodles

Work in progress, massive canvas :D

okay so..heads....development schmevelopment..

Messing around with this guy, hell knows whats happening with him... looks cool though? isnt that what counts? oh no wait...quantity! I forget! NEEDS MORE HAIRSTYLE VARIATIONS! COLOUR, SHAPE, PASTEURIZATION!
WURD

I'm going to bed, can't do anything moar right now,
here he is with an extremely useless spanner....doesnt he know he looks ridiculous?

Began character work...by began I mean I sat down and drew a guy, thus deciding he should be my character, I liked the design of him in any case [/continues on to draw him with a 1000 different hairstyles to satisfy the brief] kinda punky esque general badass on a vagina ache 24/7

Anddd beginning to finalize [whut?] my vehicle, just gotta look at weapons and accessories.. I think the turnarounds will come before the previs, just so I can get everything where it should be in a technical precise manner rather than winging it in photoshop.

A glance at my layout sheets aswell as some pre-production for the vehicle.
Please...feel free to peruse

Started experimenting with silhouettes for the vehicles, most of them just playing around with the different vehicle classes we plan to have. I'm taking up the medium size class; jeeps, hummers, rally cars, general off roaders which is in the bottom image. Ren and I collaborated to create the hover type vehicles and the rest was just me.

Thought I had better put the ignition key back into this blog, I've done a few bits over the summer that aren't really worth posting, more tests for myself to improve in different areas.

Anyway, my current project is to create an environment in Autodesk Maya, and here is what it look's like:



Particulary happy with the text, getting russian text into any 3d program was proving impossible so instead, each letter was lovingly handcrafted, there goes my life.
Nearly finished with the modelling, by the end of today would be epic, then off this whitebox stage and onto the pretty textured whitebox stage, I love concrete.

The scene crashed just before a render, I loaded it back up and hit render again but forgot to add another light, scene came out a bit dim, but sod it, cool beans for a test.

Getting very excited about finishing the animation now....EEE

Test Render from Liam Grice on Vimeo.

Just a lil test of what a render may clock out at etc. This took something like 15 minutes, no render farm, something like 60 frames. Anywho, I like.

Oh snap, finally have a render worthy of showing or....sh-nowing...

"this time there's snow joke! I thought this one was very n-ice and gave me chills when I saw it." - Ren Manuel

Yeah a render....bam, full size for all the snowy goodness, gotta work on the skin, but this isnt too far off. All procedural, no mapping. Badabing

Better start doing this bloggermajig again. Uhm, basically finished the organisation of all the shots and layed them up in a sequence in premier, some have animation..and hopefully by end of the week/weekend, i should have them all done....eep...promises.

Anywho, heres the sequence [this is also for my animating team to pick shots from]

Short Film - V.2 Terrible pass x 2 from Liam Grice on Vimeo.

Updated version. No.2

Advance Tech weeks, blah blah
Make a character/something, texture it, rig it, pose it.

Extremely rough animatic, it has plenty of issues with timing etc, but for a rough, it will do
Onto focusing on the Working storyboard..not looking forward to 96 images though...grr

Anyone fancy making these into an animatic for me...yikes

Pushing some faces about, ended up colouring some in photoshop,
Feedback/Preferences etc would be awesome..
Cheers
P.S I realise the bottom one looks like he's carrying a MASSIVE Weetabix... :D

Tying up story right about now. Think I have a decent amount to work off of, enough to get started on other things anyway, development throughout will obviously still apply.
I have decided to develop this initial character design:
[coloured him so this page doesnt get repetitive, this may be an accurate representation of my colour palette..] So yeah, gonna push him about a bit...thats easy to do to an elderly man, i doubt hell put up much of a fight
ShutupLiamBlahBlahBlah
Hopefully post up some further designs ..I am currently working on that now so...laters
Cheers

More and more and more and MOAR...All in the favoured biro, coloured quickly in photoshop - as they didnt scan too brilliantly, need to configure scanner a bit better. No advance on story at all, need to sleep.

Just updating with some scribbles that i've been churning, these are on...Paper..gee
With the old biro, because im reckless..and...dangerous...okay i couldnt find a pencil, ANYWAY.
Had a couple crazy ideas, need to wait until a certain postman delivers me some goody goods before I can confirm 100% whether its possible...quite excited about this actually.
Progress = Still Developing a decent solid story, and still very basic initial designs.
On the design side, i'm still not certain what I want him to look like, Is he a rough bite his own feet off to survive guy?? or some terribly amateur old fart who shivers at the very mention of the name "Bear Grylls". I do quite like the beardy guy in last place down there, but as I said..i'm not sure whether you would connect with a tough old man as much as the cowardly hero guy...graghh, decisions!!
Anyway, comments, crtiques etc appreciated
cheers

More intial shabazz-ing-a-ling...drawings, drawing..anyway..erh...DERRRUH
Nothing exciting to report, talk with tutors tomorrow may possibly reveal something more relevant to blog about
OH..have been playing with Snow in 3dsMax, when I get a decent looking render together, I will post.
Out

Been spitting out a couple of photoshop scribbles for initial designs, entirely in photoshop, may crack out a sketchbook...ACTUAL paper?!...mmm, yeah, may be a bit looser on that.
I am rather liking this latest one, going to start pulling around some shapes, and look at some influence. Also thinking that the hood holds A LOT of potential, can pull that around forever, perhaps turning the hood into shapes to reflect his emotions/state etc, like it is part of him.

I have been brainstorming possible outcomes to the end of this story, and a story is actually starting to come together.
I'm definitely going with the time-lapse idea for the main chunk of it, and have been contemplating over what I can include in these mini scenarios he's going to be getting into.
The feel of the scenes that I'm going for is for the audience to look at it, and hesitate to laugh, because of shock value and what not.

I said I was going to do them, I don't lie
all speedpaints, around 5-10 minutes each, just to get a general colour palette, quite like the muddiness of no.2, no that is not a poo joke