The week.

This week has been all around strange for me. I was sick three days, started a new job, and now have the prospect of getting a second (which I really hope I do), and on top of that have been trying to stretch myself as an artist in my spare time. With only monday and today actually counting for real days (when I haven’t been ill and immobilized) not much has gotten done other than a lot of reading and thinking. In that reading and thinking bit I’ve been searching out and finding tutorials to help me become a better environment artist and found some very helpful articles and  forum threads. In light of that below is my most recent render of my building scene which only needs two more objects (one is modeled and ready for texture the other is going to be from the ground up) to be complete. You’ll notice in this update that a good amount has changed and some objects have been taken out or moved (that’s because they just didn’t seem to really fit or became unnecessary).

So there you have it. I’ve been planning my next project (or series of smaller projects) out during the week and I’m excited to finish this and move on. My next project is going to start as a collection of scifi game props and will eventually become a kind of hangar scene. I’ll be exploring modular building materials (like walls, doors, ceilings and floors which I did in this project with the sidewalk, windows and props but not the building itself) as well as using ZBrush to do high res details on my hard surface models (like crates, walls, doors, machines, etc.).

In other news, I’ve been playing a game of d20 Modern (like d&d but set in the present to near-future) with some friends and been acting as game master. It’s been incredibly rewarding and this last wednesday was our third session which went spectacularly. It’s been a blast to sculpt the game and its systems on the fly in response to my players, and to be able to see them do some crazy, awesome and unexpected things in the game. In light of that, I’ve been thinking about doing a short 2.5D side scroller with one or two friends, as well as been throwing the idea of doing a small mod for Left 4 Dead or Unreal III. All up in the air, especially with my newly fluid schedule of work.

Some of you know I’m in a band, and we have several shows over the next couple months. When I know dates, I’ll post them here. We’ll also be recording soon (we hope) and so we should have a nice EP to hand out/sell.

That’s about all for now, but in the next month or so I’ll be posting a (relatively) long narrative about a very extraordinary weekend I recently had, so stay tuned for that.

You may have noticed…

…Some changes have occurred. The first you may have noticed is that I’ve given my blog an actual name, instead of my actual name. Also, I’ve rearranged the right sidebar, but both of these are superficial and prompt the question, “why did I Jeff change it?” The answer, my loyal readers [all both of you], is that my website no longer links here, and I’ve decided to make this even MORE of a personal blog and less of a professional one. [I'll still post work of all sorts, but also just personal ramblings and thoughts, more of the latter].

So, with that aside, I hope this is a good change; a change we can all get a lot out of.

It’s been a little while

Sorry for not posting in a while, but a lot of non cgi activities have been taking up my time, so little progress has been made… until now. Today I sat down with my city scene and restructured it a little bit. The whole thing was just too big for me to be doing in my free time right now, so I’ve scaled it back quite a lot. I’ve left the larger city intact so that when I finish this new, smaller set I can just drop it into the larger one and keep going. After I finish the small one, however, I’ll be starting a completely new project for the sake of variety.

After I restructured the scene I spent the rest of my time lighting it and getting everything look nice with the right colours and all that. I realised midway that I don’t really have a strong focal point anywhere, which makes sense because this portion of the scene was going to be the focal point for the larger city scene. I’ve been thinking of some ideas so we’ll all have to wait and see what I decide to do with it.

Anyway, there’s still a lot to be done on it, but at least now my lighting needs are pretty much done. I decided to light it as if the sun were just setting over the city. That way I could take full advantage of all the lights and sign I had built to make the scene really pop. Take a gander at these beauties.

As you can see, a lot of the texturing hasn’t gotten done yet, so next week that’s primarily what I’ll be doing, and I hope to get it done by then too.

Busy, busy weeks.

After a crazy weekend and some long days, here’s another update from my city street scene. I wanted to texture one more piece than I did, however the extra time spent on the signs really paid off and was totally worth it. Enjoy!

Updates

A lot has happened in the last few weeks, and it’s been as busy as ever. Last weekend I went to Pitchfork Music Festival and saw some amazing bands perform and got to meet one of the musicians later [who was extremely nice]. Outside of that, my band has two shows coming up tomorrow and Sunday which I’m very excited about. To check us out, go here.

I’ve finished up the marketing material for the pitch I have been working on with this guy. Here’s a final shot not found in my reel or website [yet].

Also, I’ve been working on my street scene [which has been pushed back in priority several tims]. I’ve finally got around to texturing bits of it, and here’s the progress so far.

Once I’ve finished all the modeling and texturing, I’m going to render a series of Day and Night shots of the scene, working with lighting to get some very cool effects. I’ll be trying my darndest to post updates regularly, so stay tuned!