Space Soldier: Compositing in Nuke

In my compositing class, we are fine tuning our skills with integrating live action footage and CG in Nuke. I enjoyed this project, but it was a little difficult since I haven't even looked at nuke in quite some time. I think my colors may be a little off for the soldier. But over all I am happy with my work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0BXrfomI_0&feature=youtu.be

Volcano Smoke in Houdini

http://youtu.be/yKuxqjMgaVE

This month in my visual effects class I have been learning more about visual effects. I have currently been learning about Houdini's  pyroFX. For this particular effect I utilized Houdini's built in Volcano Shelf button, just to give me the base structure for my node tree. I then dove into each of the settings and adjusted the attributes until I reached my desired effect. For the look of fire, instead of eating up render time, I  put a put light in the origin of the smoke. This saved me a lot of time when it came to running the simulation. Which still took quite a bit of time. The hardest part of this project was figuring out what each attribute and setting did, I still have a lot to learn with this program. I had a lot of fun working on this project, It made me realize that it might be time to get a more powerful computer though.

LipSync Final

I had a lot of fun with this project! It is amazing to me how the face works and makes these shapes that people can recognize as speaking. I am very happy with how this project has turned out, it is definitely my best animation yet!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4gW9BH_aaM&feature=youtu.be

LipSync StoryBoard

Characterization: 

Snooty over confident detective

(comparable to steve martin in the pink panther) 

energy level:

high

power center: 

chest

Temperament: 

Calm but excitable, therefore he always walks with confidence leading with his chest. 

Status: 

Renowned detective for solving every case that would generally not be considered important to anyone but himself, mostly for being a laughing stock of the detective world.

Backstory:

Has grown up  dreaming of becoming a first rate detective,

Is rarely ever right, but always thinks he is.

Feels the need to deduce everything and be the smartest person in the room.

To him every case is the biggest case ever and he takes them very seriously, maybe even to seriously. 

Scene:

He is investigating the case of the stolen custard, some custard has gone missing and he is the only one capable of solving such a mystery! Our detective feels he is very close and has gathered many clues, expect for one.. the culprit! The evidence all points to one man. Boric. After an hour of questioning, our detective feels he almost has it and is trying to get Boric to confess to the crime!

"One thing puzzles me Boric…

HOW did you manage to get so much..

CUSTARD out of such a small CAT?"

Marble Machine SImulation in Houdini (Low Res Pass)

For a research project, I had to make a marble do some kind of activity using the rigid body simulation within the program. I really enjoyed the domino simulation so I decided to have my marble get knocked over by a little hammer which would in turn topple a line of dominos. I am happy with the set up of my simulation. I think once I add in the high res dominos it will look very nicely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpHjzw2XQR4&feature=youtu.be

Lipsync WIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF3ZDyzlHeU&feature=youtu.be

In my Animation class this month, we have been fine tuning our animation skills. For the final, we have done a lip-sync. I am going to do one more pass to finish up my motions. I like how this project has turned out so far, it was a little difficult at first understanding how an animated lip-sync actually works, but once I got the hang of it it was actually fun! When I go back over I plan to give more movement to the antennae, as well as push some of the strong poses a little farther so that I can have the best possible silhouettes.

Houdini Domino Simulation

This month, I have been learning some new software called Houdini! This is just simple shot of a domino simulation that I made. I liked this project quite a bit. Houdini's node based interface took a second to get used to but once I got the hang of it, it was just a matter of completing the project. So far, I have found the rigid bodies in Houdini fairly simple to work with. The part that I got a stuck on was using the expressions that were needed to create each different domino. If you are able to see, there are not any two that are the same type. Using expressions, I was able to quickly generate each individual Domino in just a few seconds. Which is pretty exciting! I can't wait to dive deeper into this program!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN_iahkymQc