Producer - Final

Lou's finished head model. I think this project went really well in terms of learning experiences, and this is something I will continue to work on after graduation for a portfolio piece. I think it turned out good technically speaking, I finally figured out how to model the mouth, though the teeth and tounge I put in are seperate objects to be used as placeholders until I figure out how to model those in accordingly. The body is my next large hurdle to tackle, along with a nice UV map and a basic rig for posing. I also picked up a tutorial for pixar-style eyeballs that I'd like to try. Anyways, enjoy the short video and image below. As always constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated. :)



Lou - Poly Head Model - Smoothed

09 Demo Reel

A Demo Reel I Admire:



My Demo Reel:

Producer - More Modeling Experimentation

Here's a screenshot of the progress on Lou's model. Not very far along, because I started over several times, and kept running into the same problems over and over when I combined and merged a part onto the head. I kept getting sharp edges around where I merged and I couldn't figure out for the life of me what I was doing wrong.

Lou's Head-Progress (the mouth is still scary to model!)

So, I took a break from Lou and tried my hand at another character I wanted to model, just to step away from it a bit. Again, I ran into the same problems here, but I eventually figured out the cause. My normals were inverted on some of the parts. It was an easy enough fix, so I went ahead and finished up the model just to prove to myself that I could do it, as well as to see how fast I could get through it. I feel like this is good grounds for a start and good practice. I feel a lot more confident in my character modeling now.

Fatcat - Front
Fatcat - Side
Fatcat - Perspective

Also, below is a quick video of Lou's environment model if you haven't seen it yet. This was what I did for my advanced time-based projects class and will eventually serve as some background scenery for Lou when he's textured and ready to be animated. :)

Lou Orthos

Admittedly I didn't get a whole lot done this week because I've been preparing for my Advanced Time-Based Projects class exhibition, but I did manage to narrow down Lou's design and come up with a couple of good head orthos. I plan to model this several times this weekend, and then once I have a good feel for facial modeling, I will move on to the body.

Side Ortho
Front Ortho

PS - The idea of modeling the inside of a mouth is daunting to me. If anyone has any advice or tips I would be very glad to hear them. Should I model the tongue hanging out for animation purposes?

Poly Modeling Experimentation

I recently asked Michelle to help me get off on the right foot with character modeling, and she helped me get a good start. I am getting a good feel for character modeling (faces at least) already! She originally gave me some orthos she had prepared for class, and went over how to model the difficult parts, such as eye sockets, noses and mouths. I started with her character, then decided to give a canine face a try and drew up orthos of one of my own characters (not Lou, I'm still trying to narrow down his design before I finish his orthographic views). Neither is finished, but I ran into a couple of problems on the dog face where I stitched the nose into the rest of the face, that I want to work out before I finish the model. Here's what I have so far.

Poly Human Head

Poly Dog Head
Poly Dog Head (Front)
Poly Dog Head (Side)

Designer - Final Palette and Story Development

Lou's New Colors
These are the colors I decided on for Lou. From the color tests in my last post I received a lot of positive responses to the tan brindle color. I chose a blue sash to subtly represent Lou's racing dilemma, and the warm tan brindle to represent his otherwise happy and caring nature.

Lou's Color Palette
This is Lou's color palette graphed appropriately. The 14 segments of the circle represent the 14 hues in the 14 hue color chart. Each color is placed according to hue number around the circle, and I tried to arrange them on the lines to correspond with the value of each color.

Lou, Max, and Riptide
I created this piece in an attempt to show the contrast in personalities between these three characters. Lou's colors were swatched directly from his color palette.

Designer - Color Test and Backstory

Seattle Slew a.k.a. Lou

Lou is one of the world's top contending race dogs. While he is a racing dog, and racing dogs are normally cared for differently than house pets, his owner is still very compassionate and this reflects on Lou's behavior. He is a very kind, good-natured dog. His best friend is also racing dog (Maximum Overdrive a.k.a. Max) raised by the same owner as Lou. While Lou is extremely successful at the track, he suffers from an inner conflict that causes him to hate racing for competition. The only real joy he receives from running is off the track, where he feels no pressure to be the best. His driving force is a dog named Riptide, who constantly berates Lou and Max out of jealousy, and is Lou's biggest competitor.

I have a good idea for a story pertaining to these characters, that includes more cast members including Lou's love interest, Mindy (who Lou meets while playing at the dog park with his trainer), but it's not very well fleshed out at yet. I'd like to finish the story with Lou, Max and Riptide attending the Waterloo Cup Meet (the Kentucky derby of greyhound racing). As Lou rounds the last turn before the finish line, he notices that Max is close behind him, Riptide following closely on Max's heels. Lou believes that Max can win, and decides to swallow his pride as he slows up, letting his best friend pass him to win the race. Lou happily retires shortly after the race, and is adopted by Mindy's owner. Riptide also retires shortly after but not so willingly, he is adopted by a small family with a particularly annoying little girl (think Elmyra from tiny toons). Max goes on to win many more races, and Lou's new owner even brings him to the track from time to time to visit his former owner and friend.

A few of the many ideas I've been tossing around and scrawling in notebooks the last few days. Would love some constructive criticism on the story particularly, and also would like to know which color tests catch your eye. :)