Martin's Sketchblog

New website

2010-09-27T10:48:00.006+01:00

I've been meaning to redo my website for a long time now. Having had some spare time recently, I've managed to come up with a nice simple design to replace my currently bland looking site.

Shiny new design

Since doing a total overhaul, including a new showreel, blog, CV, and portfolio site would take a big chunk of time (likely resulting in me not being able to finish) I've decided to implement this update in stages.

Alter my blog. I've already done this as it's the easiest thing to update.
Update my showreel, which hasn't been done in well over a year (maybe even two).
Change portfolio site to the new design.
Totally replace my current blog with a completely customised wordpress blog.

My aim is to have the new showreel done by this Friday (the 1st of October), but as for the website and blog, it's hard to say since I'll be learning as I go on this one. Stay tuned for lots of exciting updates! Well, I say exciting...

Stereo Electric Mistress

2010-09-12T15:34:00.005+01:00

I've just finished designing a logo and logotype for a new band called Stereo Electric Mistress. Created in illustrator.

Finished video

2010-04-13T22:52:00.008+01:00

Just a quick follow-up to my last post. It took me two weeks, half a dozen take-aways, and a load of coffee, but the animation I was working on has been completed and posted online. I only worked on the core animation and the initial tracking shot that takes us from the video into the animation. I can't take credit for any of the video, sound or titles. It was all done using Illustrator and After Effects. Feel free to check out the chinese version while you're there.

Tracking and animating

2010-03-16T01:16:00.004Z

Well, I've been getting lazy with my blog again, but that doesn't mean I've not been doing anything. After starting the year out on a dry spell, I've suddenly been hit from all directions with a nice array of varying jobs. Here's a little peek at one of the projects I've been working on recently.

First of all, here are some assets I've been creating to animate in after effects (I say animate, but it won't really be much more than moving them around like paper cut-outs).

Pretty basic stuff but I was looking to do it in a stylised way, and the final product should be pretty slick.

The other thing I'm uploading today is a quick test shot I did. This video will be made up of live-action footage that will segueway into animation. This will happen by having the camera fly into a map on the office wall. The problem we had was that the map was to be created by me after the live-action footage had been shot. To get around this, I asked the director to put some tracking markers on the wall the map would be on, so I could simply add the map later. This is a quick shot to test out the tracking, and to also see how well the HD footage holds up when we do a zoom in post. The motion of the camera seems to cover the fake zoom to some extent but the main thing is that the shot doesn't pixelate. Which is nice.

I've added a before and after comparison below, to show where I removed some of the markers and plonked the map in (this isn't the map that'll be used, it's just a placeholder).

It's a very rough shot, like I said, but I'm looking forward to seeing how the final thing turns out.

That's your lot for now. Back soon with more goodies.

Caught in the Web

2010-02-09T17:18:00.005Z

I've been staying at my parents' house for the past few days trying to recover from a pretty nasty stomach bug. As a result, I've not been able to do much else other than sit/lie around watching TV, and trying to work on my (not very capable) laptop. As I was flicking around the channels today my eye was caught by some interesting animation on BBC1. The program was titled 'Caught in the Web', a Newsround special aimed at educating kids about the dangers of the Internet.

I rarely take an interest in children's telly because (with the exception of the amazing 'Samurai Jack') most of the time it tends to be a load of wishy washy bollocks. I wouldn't say that CITW was a hard hitting programme but I did think it took a very interesting approach to quite a serious subject matter. I figure it's easier to simply post a link to the site than try and explain but I would say, if you have an interest in storytelling and/or film making and animation, it's definitely worth a look.

Interview clips and Bioshock 3 teaser

2010-02-02T03:07:00.005Z

Here we have a small selection of clips I put together from various video projects I've done over the last year or so. As a motion graphic designer, my showreel mostly focuses on motion graphics, and a potential client asked to see some examples of videos I'd worked on. The emphasis was on interviews, so I've taken 3 examples from that area.

This next video is just me messing around in After Effects. I've been doing a few tutorials on Video Copilot as a bit of a refresher, and seeing where I can make them a little more interesting. This is one of the more basic ones I've done, but the sound makes it less boring for the viewer than other tutorials.

And finally... This is quite similar to the Bioshock titles (made up from part of the same tutorial) but I've also incorperated part of another tutorial to create a sand dissolve effect. I'm playing around with this idea a little and hopefully I'll have a slightly more interesting video out of it, but in case I don't find the time, here is what I came up with in about 20-30 mins.

Too long

2009-11-20T08:04:00.010Z

As stated in the title of this post, it has been too long since I posted anything. The relatively weak reason being that I have been working, and not really working on anything worth posting about. I'm hoping for all that to change over the coming weeks though as I'm taking on a couple of animation projects which will hopefully stretch me a little.

With that in mind here is an animation test I just finished for a client pitch.

It's just to give the client an Idea of the proposed look for an animation, and I had to do it at very short notice with not a lot to go on, but it does the job.

There isn't really anything interesting left to post so that's all for now, but like I said, I'm hoping to be doing much more fun things in the coming weeks with lots more fun scraps to post.

Just to prove I haven't spent the last couple of months sleeping, I'll leave you with a link to a video I put together for the lovely people over at Kisky Netmedia, to demo their new iPhone app, Little World Gifts.

http://www.vimeo.com/6980132

A New Dimension

2009-08-11T01:09:00.004+01:00

Well I've had a fun weekend getting stuck into some 3D. As well as working on a couple of rough little models in 3DS Max, I also managed to run off a quick ident for Glow New Media using a 3D version of their logo as requested.

This is to be the first bit of what I hope to be much more 3D in my portfolio. I've also done some more work on my bike model from a while back and hopefully I'll find the time to finally finish it over the next few days.

As one last little treat, I thought I'd have a play around creating an autostereogram. If you don't know what an autostereogram is you can save me the hassle of explaining and look it up on wikipedia.

In case you're wondering, the Glow logo
was just the nearest thing to me at the time

Basically look at the image cross eyed until the two logos form a third one in the middle and you'll be looking at a 3D image (some times it can help to keep focus by putting your hands up either side of your face to narrow your field of view). It's an old trick, but I've read that a couple of companies are producing 3D TV sets based on autostereoscopy, which would mean no more dorky polarised specs.

I'm back

2009-08-08T00:21:00.004+01:00

Well it's been a while but I'm back. To be honest there isn't really any excuse for the hiatus, I just haven't been keeping up with the blog. That's not to say I haven't been doing anything, just nothing that I can easily post. Hopefully I should be able to get some stuff up over the next few days and so I'll start off by posting a quick test ident I knocked up for Glow New Media here in Liverpool.

I was given a fairly loose brief to simply create a short sting with the Glow logo that would go at the start of a video. They liked the sting but requested a few changes, including making the logo in 3D, which is a perfect opportunity to practice my 3d rendering. There are few other problems with it such as the fact that the spinning cubes aren't true 3d, so the parallax with the logo looks odd.

I've got a few things going at the moment that I will hopefully be able to blog about, as well as a project which I have just finished and will be up online soon (I hope).

Still going

2009-05-20T23:42:00.007+01:00

Well, work is kind of grinding to a halt here while I wait to hear back from people, but that doesn't mean I'm resting on my laurels. I've been able to get on with some more 3D modelling. First up is the latest picture of my motorbike.

Things have been going slow on the bike and I've been doing it in bits between Photoshop, After Effects, and Illustrator work. I'm quite eager to finish it, and being well practiced in the techniques now, I'm pretty sure I can get it done over the next couple of days.

I've also been aiming towards doing some character modelling, rigging, and animation to add to my portfolio. With that in mind I've also started a high-res character model.

I have decided, for a number of reasons, to try and model Jason Statham as seen in the Transporter movies. The reasons for this are:

It is more of a challenge to model a real person than make one up as people will know if you got part of it wrong e.g. the nose is too big etc.
I like Jason Statham
Jason has quite a toned physique which gives me plenty to sculpt
Jason plays very physical roles and due to my intention to animate the model, it made him a perfect fit for the job.

I don't really have to justify myself with reasons, but I just wanted to point out that there was some reasoning behind the choice. I have found a rigging tutorial which I will be doing and should hopefully have a video of that to upload in the next week or so. I'm also thinking of using this as a chance to try out some normal mapping, and have been reading up on that too.

It's all go around here so stay tuned.

3D crash course

2009-05-15T14:29:00.005+01:00

A couple of things to show this week. I'm still working on my website so that has taken up a chunk of my time this week. I did get around to making a few minor fixes though and got my CV up (I say 'I' but my brother actually put it up on the site for me). In conjunction with the new site I will be putting out my new show reel including some of the stuff I've been working on since last year. With that in mind I put together a quick demo of how my logo might be animated. This is only a quick test and obviously doesn't have any useful information on like contact details or a web address, I just wanted to try out a technique I learned on videocopilot.net.

In other news I have come across an opportunity for a few months work in a game art asset creation studio here in Liverpool. This particular role will require me to step up my 3D output and get into some serious modelling, texturing, rigging, and animating. And I have two weeks to do it all in. I love these high pressure working situations. For you, dear reader, this means lots more 3D, and with that in mind, here is my current 3D project.

This is only the start of it, but as I learn the techniques, the whole process is getting faster and faster, I should be able to show you a finished model here in a few days. I'll leave you to try and guess what it will be.

And on that bombshell I shall leave you. Lots more exciting things to come, just wait and see.

Hand

2009-05-07T23:34:00.004+01:00

Just a quick post to let you know I'm still alive. This week I have been mostly doing... website stuff. I'd put some work in progress pictures up but that would just ruin the surprise. I have also done a little more 3D modelling. using the same tutorial as my last post, I box modelled a hand.

I've picked up a couple more tricks from this tutorial and I think I can actually do it better than the basic way shown. Still, its not bad for a first effort.

8mm

2009-04-28T02:22:00.004+01:00

I've been pretty bad with remembering to take screen shots of my work, but I have been working on stuff. I spent a good chunk of Friday doing a tutorial on how to do box modelling in 3DS MAX. Here is how far I got in just a few hours following the tutorial.

The results are OK but I'm thinking that rather than continuing to follow the tutorial exactly, I'd rather use the techniques I've learned to create a different character. I'm not so interested in creating a musclebound monster.

The other thing I have been doing is looking at ways of altering digital footage to look like it has been shot on a super8 camera. I had a bit of a play around and here is what I came up with.

Its not quite perfect but I'm sure with a little more tweaking I can get it looking quite convincing.

TOAST

2009-04-22T23:51:00.004+01:00

Just a quick tutorial today. I made a toaster from a tutorial I found on 3dtotal.com. Its a pretty simple model and didn't take long to do. I also made a couple of minor changes to the design so I wasn't copying the whole thing poly-for-poly. the smoothing could do with a little tweaking but aside from that It looks fairly snazzy.

I had a look at another tutorial to get an idea of how lighting and materials work.

I've downloaded a few video tutorials as well so I'll be doing those between work over the next week or so.

First!!!1

2009-04-22T01:05:00.005+01:00

This is where my new blog begins. This is where you can read about all the terrible stuff I do when the bedroom door is closed. Stuff like graphic design, 3D modeling, and long hot sweaty video editing sessions.

To be honest, I just wanted to get the blog up as soon as possible and as a result it is late and I'm too tired to go through putting up examples of recent work. A lot of what I'm working on at the moment is in the early design stages but the good news is that I will be spicing my week up a little with some post-production and animation EXPERIMENTS for my latest job. I've also just got my hands on a copy of 3DS MAX 2009 which I had a look at before. It has been well over a year since I used MAX so I had to go over some of the basics. I found a basic modelling tutorial and spent 20 minutes going over that. Check out the results below.

OK so it's crap but it's a start. I promise future posts will be far more impressive so make sure you check back. In the mean time, if you want to check out a couple of my previous projects, take a look at my website at www.martinshannon-smith.com.