Been Busy..

Its been at least a month since I last updated my blog. Sorry!! Things have just been crazy and school is pretty much taking up most of my time. I think I will just make this short and say I got a huge project coming up, biggest I ever had and its from a big source as well. I can't really disclose anything right now but eventually you will hear about it ( assuming I do a good job which obviously I will ) :P

Peace!!
John
Illumination Studio

Christmas Came Early or Birthday Present Came Late?

THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH!! ITS LIKE A DREAM COME TRUE AND HOPE YOU KNOW THAT !!!

So we've all watched "WANTED" ?

First time I saw WANTED I was more impressed with their absurdly cool abilities, bending bullets --- whoa!! That's to name one of the many BUT what really tuned my attention was the visual effects that were used in the movie. Let me tell you one thing before I go any further., I watched movies like everyone else but when I sit there infront of the screen I usually go " hmm I wonder how they make that effect, I wonder how many camera they used, I wonder if the background is real, I wonder if that is CG or real..." those are the things that are going on in my head when I watch a movie.

Anyways, when i watched WANTED, I WANTED to watch it again and try to achieve one of the very first effect in the movie where a fancy bullet shot the guy in the head and their was some fancy blood effect. Of course now I am faced with resources and time and not to mention those great talented artists, well I wanted to do it so I sat down and studied the scene again and again after which I started to model the bullet ( this was the easiest part and maybe the most fun'nest' part ). I knew I won't be able to achieve the effect as precisely due to some obvious reason like resources mainly and also its a hollywood movie effect that took atleast few thousands $$ wise and hour wise..which I dont have ( neither of them ).

My point really is that, its a feat that is quite high up there but I honestly think if I have more time and patience I can get this effect almost like the movie. The video below is my test render though I don't think I will work on it any further. Zero dollar spent and maybe 2 days for the making. I think it aint that bad and well it was a good practice.


Wanted Effect (Revised and Improved) from John Paite on Vimeo.

Tired But Functioning.....

I know I have not been updating my BLOG for quiet sometime now. I have been busy with the same old thing which of course is my education. Since this is my last year ( I Hope ) everything is getting harder and required sincerity. In my extra time I have either been recording tutorials or R&D with 3dsmax. Before I bore you with my wordddsss this is my latest work. Look familiar? WANTED..ring any bell? Actually I modeled this bullet so I can use it for my upcoming R&D. Anyways here are some pictures. As always the model is available for free in the download section.

Color by Illumination Studio

This is a shorts about the Ying and Yang collision which when it did happened forms color. Its just really a message that we should not discriminate any colors. I am working on the tutorial of the entire making process since it has been publicly demanded. I used 3dsmax, aftereffects(post production) and for the smoke fumefx. I wanted to share the making of it because it really is a simple modeling, texture and lighting process that are put toghether for good effect in the end and can be a good start off point for any beginners using 3dsmax or for that matter any 3d artist.

How to do little things as big things!

As I have written on my website and pretty much everywhere else, "..Doing the Little Things As Great and Wonderful". This is exactly what my work tonight is all about. I have seen so many CG artist who are sooooooo good in regards to their knowledge about the program, yet complicate you so much more when they try to explain simple things to you. It should not be like that. The picture is what I am working on as my next animation.


I will understand if you're thinking that it took a great deal of work to make it, I wont blame you. A lot of artist thought it did but the trick here is correct posture of everything, lighting, placement, that certain depth of field, that little reflection on the floor etc are the ones that catches the eyes. This is a basic modeling, lighting, texturing and rendering but when its done right, you can take it a long long way. I guess thats why I love 3D, upto a certain point you can cheat quality and skills,.....if you just know how!!!!

Animation will be done soon too..might not either who knows I might add this and that etc etc hahahaha...afterall its me!!

Quality for everyone.

A small character animation that I was talking about in my previous post. I see a lot of room for improvement but for now its good enough. I used 3dsmax,V-Ray and Aftereffects. I think it works out good for me because along the way, I tackled lots of things from an experimental point of view that I was sorta scared of before. It wasn't that hard!!! WHEW!!
Check out a good resolution from www.illuminationstudio.net

Quick Update Sinkoy comes alive, but the devil's born!

Like what the F&*#. I was just playing around with "Smudge" Tools last night, just R&D in Photoshop then after a while I looked closely at my painting and saw it resembles the devil or how Oriana calls it, 666!! Take a look but remember it wasn't my intention to paint out a devil, I was aiming towards a more of an abstract look.



Anyways,Its been a while!!
I've been really busy with my exams and in my free times I'm attempting to make a character animation. I know to most of us animation is animation but having to animate a character is much more complex, the procedure involved is very tedious. Its basically like making a human being from scratch. You have to give him/her a bone, a skin that should react to certain part of the bones, also the bones have to co-ordinate with each other inorder to make it look natural ( this is called RIGGING ). I bought a few motion capture file and used them. Its my first character animation so I see alot of room for improvement. Right now I'm just in the mode so I'll save those loopholes to be corrected in my next project. I have been working on this animation for a couple of weeks now. It should be ready soon since most of the 3D render is done, think there are 2 more to go. Look forward to it, come back soon!!

www.illuminationstudio.net

ILLUMINATION-STUDIO <--------(Website)

Yup, People good news, my website is up finally. It took me a few days because I didnt want to spend any dime to hire someone else to build a website for me. So I took it into my own hands. What did I do? Well I paid for my domain and webhosting, called up godaddy.com and asked them my server name and got myself dreamweaver ( dreamweaver WHAT? ) yeah I was like an alien to that software. It took me quiet a day to learn the software and after that I was on my way to develop my first website. Please do check it out, its nothing fancy but well its a start.

Whats on the Plate?

(Exposure too much?? I think so.. but look below...the overexposed parts are the area I don't need...make use of that to brightened up darker areas that you need ;).. Also I didn't work or put in much work on this, it is for a new bar and they are sorta in a rush).

Been a bit long since I last updated my blog...anyways here it is.. I was working on some bigger scene but then I got a phone call followed by an email.. ( John I need you to design a Menu for the bar ) Like WTF!!!! To be honest I'm not really a menu designer as to what Im saying is that I dont think it has nothing much to do with a gfx though we could do it, I think all you really need is a camera and photoshop to color correct and arrange the pictures. Anyways, I dont like to upset clients ;), if they ask for it, I gotta try...and since I dont have a camera I had to create a sort of a kitchen+Bar look-ish since the bar is serving food as well I got a little extra time today I decided to make the little scene..it took me around 2 hrs to make everything, I could have put a lot more work into it but its going to be stuck up in a corner page so "WHY WORRY".


Now you see what I mean right !!

I created a lot of other extra things that I didn't use but right now I wanna eat and watch my movie as I drift off to sleep just to get up 5 hrs later and run around till 10pm.. Sigh!! Life Oh Life!!

World of Football ( Leg 1 )

Shorts:
It will be a series of shorts. This is the first one, the birth (B'Earth) as I would say. I used 3dsmax,Fumefx,AE. Not upto my 100% satisfaction but well, YouTube version is bad so here is a download link, DIVX codec required to view the video, Download Good Quality Video Here

Some Screen Shots:





Here is the YouTube Version

Test Subject!

I'm thinking well having an idea about football and what cool thing I can do with it..ahh EURO fever still lingers!! So anyways tonight I was just laying out my plans in my head and then put it down on the 3D program (below). Okay the funny thing is that I spent so long trying to figure out a way to model the football, from trying to get a cheat through texturing and materials to forming it super-detailed and then I finally got hold of an article about some of the dynamic models and manipulating them. Walla!! a football in less than a minute, haha ~ Sometimes we look too far ahead for solutions when the answers are right under our nose!!

Test Subject 1:

The Dalipidatory

After getting really comfortable with VRay and basic shaders like glass, car-paint, chrome etc, I thought of making a scene. A lot of us will think finishing a car is harder well in some points yes, for example the modelling part is a lot harder than making a scene but when it come to materializing the scene it takes a lot of percision, the process to assign materials to every items in the scene could be two to three or more steps according to what sort of material one desires to apply. The light set up was fun (NOT) because this is really important. It was the first time I did it as a sun and a moon ( Direct Light ).

Click on pictures for better resolution


As you can see in the picture. Also for the drapes I used reactor, its much more easier than trying to model a cloth but to use plain and then applying cloth reactor and the floor and the carpet were rigid bodies so in that way Max calculates the folds etc for you as it drops to the floor. Anyways here is the finish scene

Click on pictures for better resolution

Day Scene


Night Scene

Ferrari F430

Whew! Its finally done...It took me long well quiet long because I wanted to model it quiet detailed BUT its done!! This probably will be the last time I model a car unless there is someone paying me to do so or am getting something out of it. It just that I am pretty cocky and I did it mainly because I can do it!! Animation of this hmmmm its pretty heavy in the scene, I used up all 24 material slots and required some more as well. I learnt a lot from this work.. One thing I got stuck on was the Lights ( u know how car lights are, there are some pattern/texture on it and once u don't model it right off the bet, its pretty hard to define that just with materials and textures, and guess what, I DID NOT MODEL IT just used a base cylinder to make the lights so it took me maybe 5 hrs to fake the lights but i did it and learnt alot about materials during the process ( always something good comes out of it ). Then comes the light set-up and scene setup..wow it took a lot of experimentation to get a good result. Below you can see my scene set up.

Click on picture for better resolution

The scene is already pretty heavy with my model itself, since i made the engine, the logos,the brake disc and brakes and also the interior, below is the wireframe picture of the model and imagine thats after I isolate the turbosmooth, there were more than 10000+ vertices before I apply the turbosmooth so multiply that by 2-5 thats how much heavy my scene became without the studio setup. Here are a couple of the wireframe stills



Click on picture for better resolution

Now comes the rendering part, I set up 5 cameras and replaced it again with 8 more because I wanted to capture the closeups. I tried rendering in HDTV which is 1920×1080p but I didn't have the patience. So I switched to 1000x800 and one scene took maybe like 5 minutes to 10 minutes to render ( I used Vray, Irradience set to Low, 20x20) I cant imagine how long it will take if it was set to high. Anyways enough about the procedure..here are the results: Pay close attention to the lights, Im proud that I faked it quiet nice :)

Click on picture for better resolution (1000x800)
Click Here if its a little blurry for clearer version.


Click Here if its a little blurry for clearer version.


Click Here if its a little blurry for clearer version.


Click Here if its a little blurry for clearer version.


Click Here if its a little blurry for clearer version.


Click Here if its a little blurry for clearer version.


Click Here if its a little blurry for clearer version.


Click Here if its a little blurry for clearer version.


Click Here if its a little blurry for clearer version.


There you go. On a final note this goes out to my hardest critic my 3Dloverlover ( all those patience huh) and also to Vray ( I love you Vray hahaha, since I met you my life has changed in all 3dimensions :P )

Lastly, this is a 3D car and not a real one...if it doesn't look real to anyone of you well its not real once again haha but well there is a way to make it look real and that is to set it up in a real-life enviroment ( I might do that one day if I get the patience and the urge ) otherwise the only solution is GO GET ONE!! ;)

Enjoy!!

Work In Progress

Modeling a car has always been like a fun thing to do but I had a very bad first experience and now almost a year has past and I never tried to model a car again but I think it long overdue. I have been improving in 3D alot and so I tried again and this time I chose a rather complex car Ferrari 430 with lots of indents and cuts... and now I am almost done well I'd say 50% is done...Will post up a picture and maybe a short video according to the time I have... Here is a look at my work in progress.

SKUHC!!

No its not a german!! Its something I share with someone. So I was talking to her and she wanted a rose, I guess I could send her a few... The real one is due but hey I think this took much effort than whipping out my credit card and buying it in 10 seconds. This took me 2 days ... Anyways here is my latest 3D work, I call it SKUHC!!


click on image for higher resolution

Side Note: Its a headache to model a rose...totally underestimate the level of difficulty but it was a good challenge and I learnt alot. Thank You!!!

Sinkoy (Current Project)

Current work project, someone asked me why are u so involved with bulbs?? HAHA my answer, I don't know. I have never rig anything in 3D so this is going to be my first, hopefully it will go well, hopefully!! Anyways, this is coming soon but due to my machine ( not the top of the line right now ) it's not going to be long..will try though. I wanna use it as my illumination introduction video, like how they do it for big time companies hihihi, eg: pixar

Red Red Wine.......

How realistic can VRay Rendering get?? Pretty damn real.. I used 3Dsmax to make the Chateau Lafite 1787 and used VRayMtrl and Light and rendered it with Vray of course. It was the most expensive wine in the world maybe it still is, check Wiki.

Chatto Or Not To Chat?

Apparently this is what some people in this world are trying to develop..maybe if it becomes BIG after they launch it, I can get a royalty from the logo I made for them. :P

Logo (?)

iProduction. "i" is short for iLLumination,... Dont ask me how I come up with it, it was random but I like it still!!

iLLumination ( revised )

The competition ends in 2 days now...So after reviewing my video I made some little changes..here is the revised version:

What Matters To You?

VFS Scholarship Competition
"What matters to me"
3D and Visual Effects
(I found out about this competition 2 days before I leave for my summer work, didn't have much time but I did what I can instead of watching from the sideline).
p e a c e
John Paite
Illumination Production!!

(revised version above)

Genesis

I started out with Reel Production before I touched any 3D but since I'm touching a lot of 3D graphics, I thought a fresh new start is best altogether and so ILLUMINATION is born. Here is the first thing I did as an introduction. A simple wording and a light bulb in 3Ds Max.

First Pay

It feels good to get some dough for a job that you enjoy to do. Hope I get lucky enough to keep doing this and get paid for it.

Video Project

Mi(sual).com Video


Mimi Renthlei Debut Album Promo


Got Moves ( Dance Project )

Miscellaneous Print Works

Band Poster

Vector Girl

Vector Mazda

Misual.com Christmas Banner

AE86 Sale Poster

Hiphop'logy Event Poster