Production Journal

Just some "doodle"

2009-07-22T19:58:00.001+03:00

3ds max, Geo Control, Vue

The Ansel Adams shot: Animation WIP

2009-07-18T12:19:00.002+03:00

A shot from "Dyrrachium" from Andrei-Cristian Murgescu on Vimeo.

2009-06-29T14:48:00.001+03:00

Work in progress landscape for "Dyrrachium". Background mountains modeled in Geocontrol which I then imported into Vue. The landscape is loosely based on a phtograph taken by Ansel Adams.

Yubari. Over but not yet out.

2009-04-23T01:57:00.005+03:00

(Yes the displacement map for the ground is a low res image of some cracks snatched from Google, it's just a test OK?)

The seven headed god of vertex pulling seems to have finally smiled upon me. After almost a year of long pauses and interruptions I've finished the work on the Yubari. Next steps are a bit of shot preplanning, a quick animatic and with a bit of additional help from the aforementioned deity I should pick up the pace and finalize this project.

Obviously I couldn't help myself so I came up with a quick render concocted out of an extruded box, a fast vray material and a map snatched from a google search, a sun light, dragon heart potion and crocodile eye, all for my own private pleasure.

Haven't figured out yet who's gonna lend me the computer needed for rendering the final animation, but I'm still a long way from there.

Enjoy!

Hello Mr. Euler

2009-03-10T14:25:00.007+02:00

For those of you lazy enough (just like myself) to dig deeper under the hood of their 3d software of choice, there are these guys who care enough to explain those thing that gave us headaches for countless times.

The guys at GuerillaCG, to be more precise. Andrew Silke, came up with this very neat video explaining Euler rotations. You can watch the video here.

Some old update

2009-03-09T17:19:00.006+02:00

Until more updates on the Yubari and Dyrrachium projects are available, I thought of sharing with you a piece of work I've done a few months ago. It was to be photorealistic and to match as closely as possible a photographic refference. The model is an old "National" cash register.

The model took me some time since I also had to figure out a good way of rendering the floral motifs engraved in the surface. In the end I just drew the models in Adobe Illustrator and used them as displacement maps in 3ds max. Rendering was done in V-ray with a HDRI map for the environment and reflections.

3d model:

Reference photograph:

Shameless Self Promotion (well, not quite)

2009-03-05T00:15:00.006+02:00

I just wanted to let you people know that I pimped my Animation and Motion Graphics Channel on Vimeo, thanks to the new features of the recently implemented Channels 2.0. Lately I've been adding some great shorts and reels found on Vimeo. Just bookmark it and take a look from time to time for updates.

Animation and Motion Graphics Channel

The smell of wet paint

2009-02-26T22:50:00.008+02:00

If there is a thing the otherwise perfect libras lack, that's patience. I can barely spell the word.

So I felt like posting some update on my work on the Yubari. I hope that in about two weeks I'll be done with the texturing, but that's very much dependent on the time I'll be able to reserve for the Yubari. I'll spare you any further blah blah for now. Enjoy!

Mass Effect 2 Teaser

2009-02-22T20:52:00.005+02:00

The guys at Bioware just released a first teaser to Mass Effect 2, as well as some additional stuff.

One can only hope to find an even bigger universe in the new Mass Effect and perhaps a bit more detail and life to the worlds in the side quests. As far as I know, more info on ME2 will be available at the Game Developers Conference.

The "Yubari" and The "Van Rijn"

2009-02-08T14:20:00.001+02:00

I just finished texturing the "Van Rijn". After relentless persuasion from my side, Dan agreed to keep the new version of the zeppelin as well as equiping it with contra-rotating wooden propellers.

Also, Dan finished helping me with the detailing of the partial replica of the Japanese light cruiser "Yubari". The "Yubari" is going to be the main "character" of my next animation short.

Today I'll start working on the textures for the "Yubari"

Quick update

2009-02-02T09:36:00.001+02:00

Last night I took my time and looked around for zeppelin references and I remarked that the old designs still looked better than what we came up with. So I modeled a new zeppelin, as a close replica of the USS Los Angeles. I don't know what Dan will have to say about it, as he didn't see the model yet, but I am pretty happy with it, much happier than with the older model anyway.

UPDATE - Dyrrachium project

2009-01-27T16:22:00.001+02:00

I finally started helping my friend and co-worker Dan with his personal project "Dyrrachium", a steampunk flic. In the meanwhile he's helping me with some valuable extra modeling on my still secret project.

Currently I'm working on the "Van Rijn" zeppelin, texturing and adding some final details and here there,especially on the ballon itself.

So, since we had some progress I decided to put the Van Rijn in an environment I created on the fly in Vue,just for the kicks. The final environment will still be done in Vue, but with a different setting and some elements directly linked to the universe my friend imagined.

Here it is, after some hours of playing around (and recovering after several computer crashes).

Further updates as we have them.