So, there is some stuff that i felt worthy of a quick update. First off the project GiantFreakingRobot was just finished and It really turned out great! My hats off to Aldrich Torres, Shaun Galinak, Adam Flynn, Bum-Joon Kim.

Then there is BattleStar Galactica... First and foremost i just want to say that if you where apart of that production my hats off to you. The caliber of the show is unparalleled by any other show i have witnessed. Thank you for bringing this inspiration to my life. I will finish by quoting myself in a post i just recently made on a forum.

"wow... I feel like words wouldn't really do this last episode justice. I don't think there will ever be quite another show like this. The level at which they have continually produced and delivered an amazing show from all aspects is truly inspiring.

I have never followed a TV show in my entire life, seen ever episode, cared so much. With only 3 episodes left I am truly starting to feel the bitter sweetness. Endings are beautiful in there totality but i will miss bsg."

0 Comments

Alright a new post! exciting huh?.....well maybe lol. As the title says check it out! I will be pulling together fdafx, onedigitalartist, and crazy8studio.com into a cohesive design. As they each serve a specific purpose but are all so different it would be nice to have some unity across the board. Also, I’m looking to flex adobe's newer web app language for delivering content from crazy8studio.

So what’s been going on here? well first I thought I would clear up the last post. Here I will sum it up short and sweet:

By pluging in a MR ambient occlusion node into the ambient slot of a Maya shader you can achieve a fake GI effect. You can also achieve this same effect with a mia_material_x by checking the ambient occlusion box built into the shader.

Have fun! Try some experiments! If you come up with anything cool please be sure to let me know!

Moving on, recently I have been working on doing some product renderings for a website that I have been working on and I thought it might be fun to share a trick I developed for composting an occlusion pass in Photoshop awhile ago. Now when I say I "developed" I’m sure there are plenty of people out there smarter then I that do the same thing or have but just haven't shared.

First take your occlusion pass and invert it. Why invert it? Because we want to select the parts that we want to occlude. If we think of our occlusion pass in terms of a mask where white is visible and black hidden then this should explain the rationale behind inverting it. Once we have the occlusion pass inverted and is the only visible layer, proceed to the channels box. While holding CTRL click on the RGB channel, this will create a selection. After the Selection is created, make your way to the layer menu at the top of the screen and click and move down to New Fill layer > Solid Color. It doesn’t matter what color you choose initially because this creates an easily editable layer where you can change the color and the mask later.

After you have your occlusion layer, multiply it down on top of your ambient pass then group the occlusion and ambient pass. Finally, place the group on top of your beauty pass and change the groups blending mode to Linear Dodge (add).

I have attached a PSD with an added reflection pass where I used the same occlusion mask for reflection occlusion. This should help illustrate the diversity of working like this and the usefulness.Download Here

Lastly here are some renders that I have been working on. The interior rendering will be on my demo reel as a jib shot. I hope you enjoy them! (I am not responsible for the couch model) the focus of this was rendering and lighting.

0 Comments

I think i will start of this post by talking about some recent news.

First off i just want to thank Julian Sarmiento for his friendship and also for making me an official part of MyMentalRay.

Secondly I have finished a 3 month paid internship with a talented artist and studio GMDThree. This was a great experience and allowed me to see what it was like to get paid for what i went to school for. As for whats next? im on the lookout but NYC is a tough market it seems for VFX. I also have not be heavily persuing leads because i am in the process of reworking my demo reel. I have chosen to focus on rendering and lighting even though i enjoy all parts of visual effects.

Alright enough said about my life here is some good stuff......

So yesterday i was on the phone with my good friend Al and he was telling me about this technique that he saw. I was so thrilled about what he was telling me that i started to try it while we where still on the phone. It's pretty freaking awesome! As of right now i will just be posting the renders but if you contact me i will share with you how i did it :p This is just until i figure out an exact method and use for this.

The green sphere on the left is a lambert, the tan sphere is a Mia_Material_x along with the cubes and the background.

There is absolutely no light in this scene, nor is there any FG, or GI turned on

Same Settings as above except GI added with 100k photon's

Same Settings as above but photographic lens shader added to render cam

Well thats about it for now! I just wanted to shout out to another amazing artist who has been helping me with another project on MYMR. Ethan Janssens is truly talented and i feel lucky to have the opportunity to work with him. I can't wait to show case what we have been working on. Though you most likely will have to mosey over to MYMR for look

0 Comments