Andrew Klein Art Blog

OTH shot 13 blocking

2012-01-30T00:14:00.001-08:00

New shots 27, 33, 22, 24 in animatic 13a

2012-01-21T00:41:00.001-08:00

OTH shot 26

2012-01-19T01:13:00.001-08:00

updated animatic

2011-12-29T16:31:00.001-08:00

OTH shot 25

2011-12-27T23:21:00.001-08:00

OTH shot 23, the one in which a door opens

2011-12-19T08:09:00.001-08:00

OTH shot 11

2011-12-13T21:34:00.001-08:00

OTH shot 10

2011-12-10T18:35:00.001-08:00

OTH animatic 12a plus shot 09 rendered

2011-11-28T02:11:00.001-08:00

Over The Horizon, Animatic 12a from Andrew Klein on Vimeo.

OTH shot 09 unrendered

2011-11-21T03:16:00.001-08:00

Over the Horizon, shot 08

2011-11-20T15:08:00.001-08:00

Shot 07, retimed, reanimated

2011-11-18T12:02:00.001-08:00

shot 07 rendered

2011-11-12T23:52:00.001-08:00

hair

2011-10-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

getting ready for shot 08 which is a closeup on the back of my solider's head. He now has hair.

Shot 07 blocking

2011-10-30T22:09:00.001-07:00

-removed-

OTH shots 05+06 revised

2011-10-25T11:44:00.001-07:00

Made some timing changes:

Shots 05+06 rendered

2011-10-24T10:31:00.001-07:00

Well, here it is. 2 shots down, 32 to go.

Shots 05+06, unrendered

2011-10-19T10:20:00.001-07:00

shot animation has begun....

2011-10-16T01:24:00.001-07:00

So here is the first pass blocking on shot 05 for Over the Horizon. Starting with an easier one.

Finalized Animation Tests... revisions :(

2011-10-13T22:06:00.000-07:00

I lied. These Animation Tests should be final

Herd Layer-based Animation test

2011-10-10T10:46:00.001-07:00

Finalized Animation Tests

2011-10-08T18:32:00.001-07:00

Bazaar Cafe sketches

2011-10-04T22:30:00.001-07:00

ThirtyFour run cycle

2011-10-03T12:58:00.001-07:00

Upcoming work for CA640 Animation Technical Direction 2

2011-10-03T09:19:00.000-07:00

Below is a list of my major upcoming VFX shots based on the numbering of my animatic (elements in RED denote technical components):

Shot 15- which will include animated metaclouds from Vue rendered in passes, composited with sky plates from Vue and geometry from Maya, with a moving camera, lightrays animated in after effects and a syrupy coating of light based off of them as seen in Disney films such as Tangled. The shot will be rendered in 32 bit to control exposure and will also have a secondary render in regular 16 bit to animate the transformational lighting.

Shot 26- which will have the main cow (#34) running down from his hill towards the open truck, the herd cattle walking towards the truck using the Trax editor and anim layers, ambient dust suspension in the air, and dust particle and clump kick-up as #34 runs by.

Shot 33- which will feature the bus idling and producing exhaust, revving up it's engine and driving off producing a larger dark cloud of smoke which will dissipate slowly.

ThirtyFour run blocking

2011-10-03T08:26:00.001-07:00

ThirtyFour walkcycle test

2011-10-02T20:35:00.001-07:00

Herd Cattle walkcycle test #3

2011-09-30T03:02:00.001-07:00

HerdCattle Motion tests

2011-09-28T03:34:00.000-07:00

Herd walkcycle (still camera) from Andrew Klein on Vimeo.

New Herd Cattle walkcycle test from Andrew Klein on Vimeo.

Animatic 10c

2011-09-24T00:42:00.001-07:00

Ok, here we go, one last time

Animatic 10a

2011-09-12T02:17:00.001-07:00

some figure drawings

2011-08-31T09:37:00.001-07:00

Cattle Truck Interior--- final light test

2011-07-22T22:53:00.001-07:00

Created my final light fog tests. Shot renders in 3 minutes per frame (for all passes) at HD720, so probably about 6 minutes at HD1080

more flash progress

2011-07-22T22:36:00.001-07:00

Award Ceremony Environment test

2011-07-17T18:18:00.001-07:00

This shot has to have a low-key look to contrast with the higher key shots later. There will also be emphasis lighting on the purple heart medal in the shot to really make it stand out off of this background.

No Stanley, you can't have my shave ice

2011-07-17T00:42:00.000-07:00

So, I'm learning flash. Its a stupid program. Here's what I am making:

final grass test

2011-06-16T23:56:00.003-07:00

New Grass Test

2011-06-14T12:17:00.001-07:00

Buy My Book?

2011-06-12T18:32:00.001-07:00

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/1763547/73b75995794aef261a7d4f559b32e5ab

Envelope rig

2011-06-06T10:11:00.001-07:00

Another Large Render

2011-06-05T13:09:00.001-07:00

OTH grass test

2011-06-05T13:09:00.000-07:00

prelim grass test #3. I tried using Vue but MAN did that take forever to render. This setup is done with an instance randomizer script I made based off of my herd randomizer script. I think I either have to up the ambient color or mess with single siding on the planes to avoid the "pop-flicker" of when the grass penetrates another blade... or of course go and do a bit more manual spacing.

The final shot will have a lot more grass and it will also extend into the distance. But you know... I didn't want to finish the whole shot right now :)

Jungle Tree

2011-06-01T14:03:00.000-07:00

For those that are interested, this is what I had been up to for the last 3 weeks. The file is designed to run real-time in Hardware 2.0 in Maya 2012. Model is not mine, I did the UVs, textures, lighting and materials

Suck it, Hatas

2011-06-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

Giant Renders

2011-05-09T01:11:00.000-07:00

Working on Renders for my MFA thesis book, these renders were originally 7500x3150 @300dpi and have been shrunk to fit here. Pretty happy with these so far. I have a few more to do yet, will add when I can.

Farm Clouds and Lighting: MEGA POST

2011-04-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

First Vue 9 Cloud tests

2011-04-20T16:28:00.000-07:00

.... and I think its looking great!

Herdmaker release

2011-04-18T16:39:00.001-07:00

I wrote a MEL script called Herdmaker which you can download here: http://www.andrewklein.net/share/herdmaker_v8.zip

Dust composite test

2011-04-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

Farm Lighting Studies

2011-04-10T22:12:00.000-07:00

These are still missing many of the composited layers (only Beauty and AO here), so these are far from finished. They are also missing the clouds (i get my Vue 9 xStream copy in the mail tomorrow), and the kicked up dirt effects. But pretty happy with these 3 various lighting looks so far.

Late Day Lighting

Overcast Lighting

Sunny Day Lighitng

Late Day Lighting

Overcast Lighting

Sunny Day Lighting

Early Farm Renders

2011-04-08T01:49:00.000-07:00

These are uncomposited render tests, still have quite a bit of lighting and compositing work to do...

Reference Images

2011-04-04T23:08:00.001-07:00

i drove the I-5 in the daytime for the first time since coming up with the idea for my short film, and took some images off of the area I am inspired by.

Cloud Test with Ozone 5 plugin for Maya

2011-04-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

I tested out the PLE of Ozone 5 today for 2011 and 2010. Fairly straight forward and easy to use, it takes FOREVER to render in my scene file, but if I export out the camera from the master shot and render an atmosphere in a separate scene file, they kick out super fast. I made each of these variations in a matter of minutes, but I'm finding it hard to make a good anvil-shaped cumulo-nimbus, or other less standard variations. However, I have not played with the meta-clouds tool which I think will allow me to model that out. Plus I can render animations on these. This may be a good solution for the film, just not sure how it may integrate with the super-natural watercolor clouds, or I should just use the water color method.

I guess I should buy the real version and do my water color tests and find out.

(note the watermark, I am using the PLE version for now which will not be in the render later. Also, the horizon is halfway through this frame and the lower section should be ignored entirely)

Movie Poster!!!!!

2011-03-20T23:19:00.001-07:00

it feels like it's already 18 months from now :D

All day on just the terrain. Yikes

2011-03-17T21:52:00.000-07:00

Well, I got it blending properly. My hardest shader network is now out of the way. WHEW!

Even more Sculpting

2011-03-15T17:34:00.000-07:00

More Sculpting

2011-03-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

Haybales Sculpting

2011-03-13T22:56:00.000-07:00

Did some Zbrush sculpting this evening on the haybales. These will be combined with alpha planes to break up the silhouette (not pictured)

Farm UVing done

2011-03-13T20:27:00.000-07:00

....and just like that, I have completed all major Modeling, all Rigging, and all UVing for this film. Still obviously have some texturing and sculpting left, but I can taste the progress!

All told between this set and the bus depot set, there are 34 shared tiling textures, and 27 unique texture sets. This does not count the vehicle, character, and prop textures.

Farm Modeling completed

2011-03-07T17:38:00.001-08:00

all organic elements are in and re-linked to the render passes. Time to get started UVing this monster.....

Farm Modeling continued

2011-03-07T03:24:00.000-08:00

just have to place grasses and outer scene elements, then its on to UVing.

Farm Modeling Underway

2011-03-04T01:56:00.000-08:00

Began block out on the farm today, looking at layout and sight lines, and trying to determine where to put the damn buildings. They may not even end up in the film, but what the hell, I'll build them anyways, right?

Laid out the ground terrain, imported assets from the bus stop scene, and created the base for the hill and all of the fencing, as well as the gate and lock. Next up is to create the cattle shelter building, the major grain tower and two silos, the cranes, windmill, and other misc parts. After that, I will focus on tires and trash for the hill. Finally I should be able to take already created assets from the bus stop (grasses, weeds, bushes, trees, pebbles, roadsigns, etc...) and place them around the scene perimeter. All this should be done by monday or tuesday of next week (fingers crossed).

Once I have all these assets, I'm going to have to re-examine both my camera positions, and the position of my structures to see what works best.

Here's a look at what I have so far:

Learning Nuke

2011-03-03T04:43:00.000-08:00

I did some first Nuke tests today using Nuke 6.2. I learned how to bring in my individual base, ao, depth, and shadow passes, and how to composite them using grades for color correction, and how to shuffle channels. Kinda neat stuff. Hopefully helpful.

Here's my network and results from this early test:

Bus Stop: set dressing revisions

2011-02-28T19:21:00.003-08:00

Dragon Warrior, still more revisions

2011-02-23T04:18:00.001-08:00

Dragon Warrior, modeling revisions

2011-02-22T01:20:00.001-08:00

I made numerous revisions to the piece today including dramatic proportional changes.

Dragon Warrior, modeling in progess

2011-02-21T02:35:00.000-08:00

Dragon Warrior, WIP

2011-02-20T00:49:00.001-08:00

Got this far today. Hoping to finish the base mesh and UVs by tomorrow night and start sculpting on monday.

New Character

2011-02-17T19:21:00.001-08:00

starting a new character today

Lighting Revisions, Full Composites

2011-02-15T17:27:00.000-08:00

Did a lot of work revising a few elements today. VERY happy with the outcome.

Bus Stop Lighting

2011-02-13T17:04:00.000-08:00

I also wanted to share, that since I have a gradually shifting sun position throughout my shots as twilight hits, I wanted consistency in my base lighting. I will surely be adjusting this shot-per-shot by adding additional light, but I made a lighting control rig that allows me to blend the position, intensity and color of natural lights in the world, procedurally change the sky dome through blends on the ramp shaders, and also turn on the incandescence of my few lightbulbs... all with one switch. Its all Set Driven Key in Maya, so super easy to set up, and its how I was able to test render so many shots so easily.

Here is the switch set to day:

And here it is set to dusk:

Which, through a Blend Colors node, controls my sky.

More Render Tests-- Bus Stop: Complete

2011-02-13T13:03:00.000-08:00

Did 14 more render tests. Bus Stop: Complete

Bus Stop: First Render Test

2011-02-13T04:51:00.001-08:00

Many, Many, Many, Many more to follow. But, I think I'm close now. Should post some more late day tomorrow.

Bus Stop Texturing, FINALLY DONE! (terrain)

2011-02-09T11:52:00.000-08:00

Terrain! Awesome!

Keep in mind this terrain will be covered with alpha-grasses close up in the area immediately around the bus stop, but I am really happy about the scalability of this shader network. It uses 5 tiling textures (4x512, 1x256, not including 4x512 more for normals) blended with a combination of vertex color and 3d procedurals. I think it looks good close up, medium out, and from the airplane overhead. Here's a look at some default-light (for now) renders, and the shader network:

Top shot shows the terrain with small, blurred 256 "geometric farm pattern" controlling the diffuse channel.
Second shot show the dry-grass to gravel vertex blend.
Third shot shows the blend close up.

So much texturing!!!

2011-02-08T04:04:00.000-08:00

I keep making myself promises: "Texturing will be done tomorrow"... and then I keep finding ways to add more elements, and making existing textures more complicated, which keeps pushing back my promise. But seriously, this time, Textures WILL be done tomorrow (excluding tall grass which will come in last). 58 out of 67 textures are now done (see that... the math keeps changing).

Once the textures are done I have to:
-Set up the full shading networks with spec and normals and tweak the sliders
-Set up shadow shaders for the leaves
-Create my glass shaders and emissives
-Establish the lighting and optimize
-Create and separate the render passes, creating overrides and holdouts
-Create the tall grasses and add to render layers
-Clean out scene file of temporary display layer elements and lock the geo
-Render tests from each relevant camera angle
-Perform compositing tests
-Create individual asset renders and wireframes for portfolio.

...soooo, theres a long way to go. But it's getting closer.

Here is a sample of textures. These are just the more interesting ones, there are a lot more than these.

gas pump

2011-02-07T02:16:00.001-08:00

Texturing is nearly done

2011-02-03T20:34:00.000-08:00

I have 3 more unique textures to create (Col, Spec, Norm)

-gaspump
-side of bldg props
-front of bldg props

and 3 tiling ground textures to create for blending of the terrain (Col, Norm)

So thats 15 textures left, with 56 already created. Here's what I worked on today:

texturing progress

2011-02-01T16:21:00.000-08:00

Im using a whole heaping helping of Layered Textures to complete this piece. So 34 of 61 textures are complete (color, spec and normal) and the whole texture space is equivalent to 6.5 1024 textures. Here you can see the repeated blending of 3 of my largest textures used on areas where there will be a good deal of visibility in major shots: The back brick wall, the concrete, the roof, and the columns.

Bus Stop UV layouts

2011-01-22T02:07:00.000-08:00

All told there are 9 unique/stacked texture layouts, and 16 separate tiling texture layouts. All meshes are now parameterized in the Bus Stop Scene. Time to get busy texturing, or die trying.

Bus Stop, modeling completed

2011-01-18T01:40:00.000-08:00

****note, this is not the finished lighting at all, just a rough test with the MIA Physical Sun and Sky (which I probably won't even be using in the final film). Also, I think everything looks too much like a desert still for 2 reasons. 1- the tall grasses haven't been added yet, and won't be added until the end. 2-with no texture on anything, it looks all sandy white. So I have a feeling this will look a lot more prairie-like once I get some blues, greens and reds in there. That said... here's the final modeled bus stop. Now on to UVing and texturing.

Animatic 8a

2011-01-17T00:17:00.001-08:00

Here is my newest animatic, now with actual 3d!!!

Bus Stop, modeling underway

2011-01-13T18:46:00.000-08:00

Here are some screenshots of the bus stop I've been working on for the past two days:

The Truck is finally done

2011-01-08T19:36:00.000-08:00

So I had to take a 3 month break to get my classwork done, and finished it in 2 days. Ughhh... how I wish I just had the free time to work on my own film.

Post 200!!!! New Maya Tutorial: Basic Polygon Tools

2011-01-08T19:34:00.001-08:00

Posing Characters in Zbrush with a Zsphere Rig

2010-12-21T15:40:00.001-08:00

New Video Tutorial

Sapling

2010-12-13T22:16:00.001-08:00

Sapling from Andrew Klein on Vimeo.

I just completed this Short Film with Mark Baugh-Sasaki (www.markbaugh-sasaki.com)

Sapling explores the relationship between creation and destruction, as a tree is grown onto the very leaves it has lost.

Go Truck Yourself

2010-10-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

Modeling operations are completed (revised: I will fix up the size of the tires per requests)

Cloud Tests

2010-10-18T20:49:00.001-07:00

I'm not 100% happy with how these turned out, but I think its a good first step. The subtler the better I think, and these might be a little over the top.

Cattle Trailer WIP 1

2010-10-04T02:14:00.001-07:00

Started the Cattle Trailer today. Will hopefully get the cab of the truck modeled tomorrow.

Bus Renders

2010-09-20T03:13:00.000-07:00

Bus Textures

2010-09-19T17:56:00.000-07:00

I have 1x 2048 texture for the main unique UV set for the bus, 3x 512 tiling textures and 3x 256 tiling textures. Many of the supplemental textures are dirt layer overlays with alpha masks that will tile at a separate rate than the color to create procedural paint chipping and dirt splatter on top of the flat color.

Puppy Reference video

2010-09-18T22:53:00.001-07:00

Bus UVs

2010-09-14T02:54:00.001-07:00

This is the UV map for UVset 1, the only unique map for the model. The color map for this UVset will be 2048sq. There are 4 more tiling maps which will each be 256sq or 512sq.

Thirty Four Facial Controls

2010-09-13T23:29:00.001-07:00

ok, I'm calling it. September 13th 2010... all of my characters for my film are done.

Here are the facial controls for Thiry Four

Corp. Ayrshire Skeletal Retargetting Test

2010-09-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

Retargetted some MoCap data (as per an assignment for the CA610 course I am taking) onto my Animation Skeleton for Corp. Ayrshire. I used Maya's built in system for retargetting using joint labels, the whole process was much faster (MUCH MUCH FASTER) than expected as a result.

There are still a few issues:
1-The mesh has deformation problems in the shoulder, elbows, butt, and knees... but that is because this scene file that I retargetted to is an OLD file from before I set up my corrective blendshapes. Needed to go that far back to get before when I set up Edit Rig controls and Joint Limits.... and.... I was too lazy to import my corrective blendshapes and re-set them up in this older file for a one-off assignment like this.

2-There was 1 more joint on the feet of my character then on the MoCap input skeleton, as a result, I would need to do some cleanup on the toe bend to make sure I don't get slips through the floor.

3- Similar issues with the hands.... obviously. Would need to animate the hands on top of this.

However, I am very pleased with the results, Maya has done a great job transferring the gist of the motion and putting it down to the A-pose that I built my character in. The Input Skeleton had no upper thoracic joint as mine had, but the motion came through nicely anyways. Also, I had to scale the input skeleton and lop off the first 127 frames of the mocap to set up my Neutral Pose/Rest Position, but the transfer worked great from there.

Here is a link to the video (will swap out for an embed as soon as Vimeo processes):

Bus modeling and Rigging finished

2010-09-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finished the Modeling for the Bus after having done a bit more Rigging on Thursday. All told, about 15 hours in so far. Here's a look at the Rig:

Next up I have to UV, and texture. Hopefully I'll get around to that and maybe even materials creation by tomorrow.

Bus Building day 2.5:

2010-09-09T03:52:00.001-07:00

put in 3 more hours tonight:

Bus building day 2:

2010-09-08T16:24:00.001-07:00

WIP: about 9 hours so far

Herd Cattle Mock #2

2010-09-06T05:25:00.000-07:00

Herd Facial Rig

2010-09-06T04:49:00.001-07:00