My works

My Final Year Project
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAqprHk9Lwg&feature=plcp\

A compilation of some of my other works
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1brNkxwj3o&feature=youtu.be

The Final Project Breakdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxUpacNtzOs&feature=plcp

Follow this links to get a glimpse of my works. Still working on several other things too.

Head Modelling

Well its been quite some time since i have posted
something. I have been travelling a lot recently,here and there. I started working on my portfolio from scratch. Between my portable HDD got corrupted and I'm trying to recover the data from it. My current works are in it,so fingers crossed.
About my work,i have completed a realistic human head model,here are some screen shots

Back again...!!

Well, I'm back again.... after my course...!!! Last three months was hell, trying to complete my project within  the deadline. Guess what... I passed...!!! From now on is the real test....JOB..!! So I started to build up my portfolio from scratch again, starting with organic modeling. So wish me the best.

I was also SHOCKED  to see the number of page views on my blog.... 1311....!!! When I took a break from blogging after April it was only 500+....!!! Thanks everyone for the support.....it means a lot...!!!

The Snake Model

I haven't in a mood to blog for the last few days. I don't know why, there's no particular reason, plus I haven't been doing well in my project during these days. I almost completed the baby vulture rigging. I have facial rigging left in there to be done. The set model file got corrupted and I will have to unwrap the tree again from scratch. I was really frustrated with my lappy. I then did the texturing of the mother vulture. It wasn't coming up the way I wanted it to. I was not satisfied with the result. But hey, still working on it. The major thing I did was modelling my third character, the snake. I didn't had the patience to draw blueprints for it so I did the model looking at the rough sketches I had. I'm not sure about the mesh flow. This is the character that I'm looking forward, because most of the film will be around it. This is also the most expressive character in my short film. Here is  a screen shot.

The Zbrush Power

Today I went to college to work on my character rigging. Rigging is the area I hate the most. May be I don't hate it, but I don't like it. I tried couple of methods and was confused. But in the end after some discussions with tutors I finalised on one method. So, the rigging has started.
After returning from college I thought I would do something in Zbrush. Zbrush icon just decorated my taskbar. I didn't give much attention to this wonderful software, except for I have tried to do some sculpting long back, which of course was crap. I did a human female blocking during my last vacation, well the plan was to go create a realistic female human,which didn't turn out well. I took that model in to Zbrush and started sculpting. Here is the final result.

The front

The back

There are tons of things that I have to learn about sculpting, especially the anatomy of human body. I did this with very little knowledge of the muscles and curves of human body.But I liked it. I guess I should keep sculpting and study more about the anatomy. GOD...!!! I LUV MODELING..!!

Modelling Barrett and Concept Revolver

I can't prevent myself from modeling things that are not related to my project. I would be peacefully working on my project when some random thoughts sparks some ideas in my mind. Just like what happened a few days ago, and now I'm modelling a rifle. It's not some ordinary rifle, its the mighty .50 cal Barrett, the most dangerous of it's kind (Sniper). I took reference pictures and also saw some videos. Came to know that this rifle has a history of blowing the enemies into two. The modelling is still unfinished because of the detail I intend to give. The scope has the maximum detail but the rifle maintains an equal shape throughout its length. While modelling I came across my another model,which is a revolver. That model was inspired by the game Borderlands which offers players several kickass guns. Here's a render.

My concept revolver...yeah that's a scope..!!!

Here are some reference images that I pulled from google for modelling the Barrett.

To the extreme right is the .50 cal bullet used in Barrett. You dont want to be the bad guy..!!

Here is the occlusion of the model I'm doing.

 

Still have to model the trigger and some details for the Scope

Plus I'm working on something else also, about which I've already blogged.

Texturing...and A pain in my rear...!!

I spent last few days working on texturing and modelling of my set, and its a real pain in my ass. Considering the kicks I got on my birthday (25th Feb) the pain is even more,literally. My friends bought me cake and gifts, sponsered by my sisters who planned it with them. That was a surprise. I didn't expect my sisters would be involved in it. But it was a fun night, the best I have ever had. Thanks to my friends and ever loving sisters. Aww fffaaacck I'mm getting OLDDD...!!!!

Work..!!?? This is what I've been doing.

Still a long way

This is the whole scene...but there are still elements to be added

I formatted my lappy but still it welcomed me with a Bluescreen error...!! Before my nest blog, I believe I'll have something good.

Sculptris Fun

I'm not getting any mood for doing my project work for the last few days. Its in texturing phase and I suck in it. Taking the trial renders is exhausting stuff. I don't know whether it's because of the heat in the atmosphere or something else. Today I thought I should do something and I resumed texturing. But there came another blow. My laptop started choking like never before. It happened when I applied a bump map to one of the tree bark in my Set. The render wasn't showing up, and there goes my day. When I start do something, anything will f**k up the whole thing.

Today I also thought I would model a Rifle a .50cal Barrett. Google gave me some pictures and the project was already set. I started watching the videos of Barrett in action. It's stunning what it is capable of. I was surprised to find that the Indian Commandos have it.

But my attention went somewhere else. To be specific, to Mass Effect 3 trailer. I don't want to talk about it see it for yourself. Then I opened up Sculptris and started to sculpt something. I had no idea what to sculpt. It's such and amazing and easy software to create concept 3D Arts. I started  drawing on the default sphere and made a creature. I haven't named it yet, but I felt great to have done something that is purely my concept. Here is the screenshot.

My first Sculptris model

A wasted sunday for gaming competition...!!!

Yesterday was a totally wasted day. Our college's Gaming festival (Game Grind) was yesterday and me and some of my friends registered for the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare tournament. Despite being a sunday we went in to participate and came to know that we that there is registration fee of INR 1500 per team. We were like 'Kiss my ass, no goddamn way we are gonna pay'.Last year in the same tournament and the registration was free. That time we were newbies to COD LAN Multiplayer and yet we finished as Runner Up. After that almost everyday we had LAN party and we were confident that we could be winner this time. But all the expectations were blown away.

Last year many teams showed up but this year only two teams showed up for COD (we didn't play). It was an epic failure. We were spectating the practice round and one of the teams were full of noobs ( later the COD host himself agreed that). The score difference went like 100+ everytime, and we were disappointed. It wasn't even a tournament. The kind of tournament were there is only final.

Experimenting the Hair in Maya...!!

I have said in one of my previous posts that I made a warrior helmet in Maya. Yes, like the one we see in 300. So yesterday I tried using the hair system in Maya on the helmet. I haven't implemented hair on any of my models before. So this is the first time I'm using it somewhere. Here is a screenshot.

The hair system in 59th frame during playback

I used Paint Hair tool on a plane with output as paint effects. I increased the hair counts per clump and the scale. I also changed the color of the hair and had to adjust the stiffness of the hair. My laptop choked when I switched on self collision and ground collision. The render wasn't that great but it was nice to see the animation when I hit the play button.

Ford Mustang RTR-X- Time pass Render

This is something I did in Maya for timepass. I was struggling to get some sleep, so I opened up Maya and did a quick render of my Ford Mustang RTR -X model with a background. Its not that perfect but I guess good for a first time, plus I'm not good in Lighting...!!!

Ford Mustang RTR - X

Digital Painting

Today I went to college after a week and showed my progress in project. The character unwrapping is done but I still have a long way to go regarding the other models like set. Also today I did something interesting after getting back from college. I did my first digital painting (black & white). Its not part of the project. I was just curious to put the pen tablet to some use and to see how my digital painting skills are. I already had a drawn sketch on my book (a terrorist) ,of which I took a photograph  and brought it to the photoshop. It took some time to get the hang of it and I started to mess with the strokes and play in different layers. This is how it looked when I finished.

Shit happens when you start to care about others

I am planning to do night lab (overnight work in college) from next week so that I believe I can put some real time to my project. The problem is that the college authorities won't give up a class for night lab for just one guy. So I posted in out batch's facebook page whether anyone wish to joining. The replies weren't that encouraging. By 'replies' I mean several replies from one guy who think he'll start night lab when he thinks its time for texturing. I said I'm ready to start texturing as I have my one character unwrapped. In reply he kind of mocked me, well I know he was joking. So now the situation is that I cannot do my night lab without any of my other batch mates. But at the same time I asked myself 'Why the fuck should I  care about others?' So what I'm going to do on Monday is that I'll ask the faculties if they will give me a lab. If they ask me to bring on more members I'll say I'll sit with any other batch. After all my batch isn't the only one in college!!!

Unwrapping- Baby Vulture

I have been working on unwrapping my first project character in Maya. I thought I would use any 3rd party plugin for it since its a lot easier than UV texture editor in Maya, but I didn't. The unwrapping took some time because I was also modelling my second character and watching lot of movies (playing Trine 2 also).  Now the unwrapping of the character body is done and the leg is remaining, which I could finish soon.
I did the unwrapping on one side of the character since it's going to be mirrored later. I used Planar projection for the wings and Cylindrical for body and leg. The beak I used Planar again and the rest of the face upto neck I used Automatic projection.

The UV's are in weird shapes since the symmetry is not yet applied

There are some stretches here and there which needs to be rectified. On the other hand I am modeling my second character ( Mother Vulture) and its not coming out that great. Anyway I'm still working on that and I intend to start the rigging in this week.

Playing Trine 2

Last day I was surfing through IGN to check out the game of year award winners. I was hoping Assassins Creed: Revelations would get something but it didn't. I was pretty sure that Skyrim would own but in overall Portal 2 scalped most awards. Then I looked for top rated games and the name Trine 2 struck me which is having a rate of 9 (http://pc.ign.com/objects/076/076949.html). I read the review and I realized that it's kind of a small puzzle game, something like Limbo and decided to give a try.
Even though its a sidescrolling game the levels are awesome with variety of colors and puzzles. I really liked the idea of switching between the characters( The Wizard, Thief, Knight) in order to get across each level. As the abilities and powers of each characters are different, there are many ways to reach each checkpoints. I look forward to finish it soon, because I'm buried deep under my project and it smells real bad.

The Knight in Trine 2

One down, 2 to go...!!!

Yesterday I completed the digital model of my project character that I've been working on for the last few days. Today I had some more detailing to be done such as modeling the inside of the mouth. My plan was to Unwrap the character so that I will be able to start rigging from next week. So I combined the head and the body both of which I did separately and the model looked just like the character I was looking for. Still I guess there's something to be done with the tail of the baby vulture. The tail isn't that appealing so I guess I have to spend some time to that. Anyway I'll have to finish the unwrapped model by tomorrow evening. Besides today I did the blueprint of my another character's head and I hope to start modeling by tomorrow evening after I complete my first character's unwrapping. So it's all busy time ahead and I have my own deadlines to follow, which I think is great idea. So today's target is to finish detailing my first model and start unwrapping.
P.S. I'm having a terrible headache right now :(

Texturing and Rendering - Warrior Helmet

I have been doing texturing on the finished warrior helmet model since evening. I kind of wanted like a ruined effect with lots of scratches and tear and wears.So I took some metal scratch textures from Internet and tweaked in Photoshop. It was fun doing though right now I'm stuck with presentation. I have a theme in mind according to which I plan to do the render. But I have some more modeling to be done for that. I have been try to do the lighting for some time and the mood is not turning up in the render. It sucks. So I thought before I go to bed I would blog on it. Here is the screenshot. Its not a render but a high quality view in Maya.

A Warrior Helmet - Inspired by Spartacus

I was watching Spartacus - Blood and Sand last weekend and I really liked its concept. This is the most explicit picturisation that we can expect from a television series. I was really inspired by all those Roman picturisation and gladiator stuff and the stylized blood effects kind of give a graphic art style. The blood effects reminded me of the movie 300 by Zach Snyder.
I liked this series and so I did a digital model of a Gladiator Helmet. It was fun modeling even if I was buried deep under my project. Here is the screen shot.

Body Modeling - Vulture

Last day I started modelling the character body. I did the basic blocking and here again the mesh flow is my villain. I want it to be prefect and so before doing further detail I have to make sure it’s coming in the right way. So I’m heading to college to get some directions from tutors. I still have some confusion regarding the type of wings for the character (Baby Vulture). But for Mother Vulture I have made the decision on the style of wings. I can use the same type but logically it won’t be correct (there are differences between the wings of two).  The advantage of using the same kind of wings is that I can simply copy the rig of one model to another when it comes to rigging thereby, saving me some time. Else if I use different type I’ll have to do two different rigs and that’s the boring part. Well, I’ll have to make a decision today.

Here is the screen shot of the model I've been working on. I'm doing head separately.

Project Character - Baby Vulture

As I said earlier in my earlier posts, I started to model my character for the project which is baby vulture. Basic blocking was done like in 4 hours. I was really afraid to get into detail because I wasn't really sure about the mesh flow. So I consulted the model with my modeling tutor and he showed some stuff that was really useful. Based on that I build upon the blocking and I think its coming out good. It's the mesh flow that scares me as it's the most important thing when it comes modeling and the results reflects  in Texturing and Rigging (When you Paint Weight the character). So here I'm attaching the screen shot of the basic blocking that I have done.

 

 

Project Set.....Starting to Model...!!! Wish me Luck

In the morning in half sleep logged in to Facebook to see a notification-a threat, I would call. In our batch group on FB there was a post saying by Monday it is compulsory to complete the digital model to get further help on Rigging. For some reason I didn't felt like usual deadline threats and giving a WTF to that wasn't  goin to help me at all. So I decided to go with the tide, let's do some shit. Then I started to draw blueprint for one of my character. Right now I have completed it and set the project in Maya.  But for now I'm modeling only the head and the body will be done later after finalizing the type of rig I'm going to use.
Modeling is the phase I like most in the Digital phase. I always found it really interesting to model stuffs so I'm expecting that this character would come out nicely. This is the first time I'm going to model a bird and I'm really worried about the mesh flow, after all that's the only thing matters when it comes to rigging. If the rig is perfect Animation wouldn't be a pain in the ass. It was a pain, during last years project. I hope it wouldn't happen again.

Working my way up...!!!

Yesterday I decided to pull up my sleeves for my project. I haven't been doing good all this time and I knew it. But somehow I guess this was the right time to take some decisions. My first step was uninstalling all my games ( had 5) which I did yesterday. Games was my weakness and distraction all this time. I was like an addict who needed a dose of COD everyday. And I ended it by playing COD:MW3 Spec Ops up to level 42. I played the map Resistance and stood up to wave 26 until in the 27th wave an army (there was like 10 of them) of Juggernauts raped the shit out of me. That was my best score and wave in all of Spec Ops. Well, that was yesterday.
Today I woke up in the morning at 9 am. I was told to my mom to wake me up on 7:30 am which she didn't do. I had my stick notes ready yesterday and according to that my work today was doing the Facial Expressions for my project character. I sketched some expressions and my next task today is to do some Action Posses. I also have to come up with the Set Design about which I have no idea what to do. It's great to work listening to Coldplay...!!!

Reading something after a long time....!!

I have been a fan of novelist Dan Brown since I read his epic novel of The Da Vinci Code. I bought the book soon as it released (though it was in regional language-Malayalam). From the time I finished reading it till now I have read all of his other books such as Angels & Demons, The Digital Fortress and The Deception Point. Right now I'm holding his latest publishment The Lost Symbol.

Da Vinci Code gave me the impact I never experienced. When I read all the places and the things told in the novel are actual facts, I got very much excited for more of his books. It was then I got Angels & Demons from my cousin and it carried more impact than the Da Vinci Code. There was even time while I was reading the books I doubted the existence of god. Angels & Demons talked about the relation between Science and Religion and their ultimate goal, God. The book points out several facts such as the facts about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider )
It also talks about the scientific facts about things like Matter, Anti-Matter, Gravitron, The god particle, Higgs- Bosons so and so, and new facts pop up in every turn. So is the case in his other novels too. I am about to finish 'The Lost Symbol' but till now I don't feel it that much interesting like Angels & Demons or Da Vinci Code.

Back to College,Back to Project...!!!

Well I'm back in Chennai and I don't see any sign of the cyclone which struck here during New Year time. Happy it wasn't that bad. Went to college the day I came here and resumed my work on the clay modeling of my project character. I am looking forward to start the digital modeling of my character by this week and I got some advices from our modeling tutor. The character is a vulture. So my tutor asked me to consult with the Rigging professor to come to conclusion about the rigging first and depending on the type of rig the modeling can be started.
Talking about modeling I haven't touched Maya may be for the last 3 weeks. But yesterday I found a new (I guess it's new) software called 'Autodesk123D'. I downloaded and installed the 550MB software even though its in a beta stage. Initial looks reminded me of Blender. Simply speaking we can call it modeling software for beginners/kids. But I like the simplicity of the software while they still have options like Extrude. I think Autodesk is trying to reach into a new level giving the knowledge about 3D space and entertainment to young minds.

A New Year with no Resolution

Another year passed by and its a New Year ahead of us. We all hope it to be the best year we had forgetting sadness and cherishing those happy moments we had in past. I never believed in the New Year Resolution thingy. What is it? Isn't it just kind of promise with the difference that we do it on New Year. Why should I have a resolution if I'm not sure if I would keep it? So that's it no resolution and I never had one though. It's just another year coming up and I hope for the best. This is my year with lot of expectations and it's because I'm graduating this year and this is the year that I may be stepping out into my career and new life. All we could do is Hope and Try for the best to Happen. Happy New Year World...!!!!