Tin Omen! My 2009 VFS Modeling Reel

[eldee.s]

I just wrapped up my final term at Vancouver Film School, and this is my finished modeling reel. All visuals are my work unless specifically noted otherwise. Special thanks to my classmates for giving me ample opportunities to work on a variety of projects. It was an incredible learning experience, and a lot of fun.

If you like my reel, feel free to visit my site and see what else I've been working on:
http://www.ldsmith.info/

I am available for freelance and fulltime work, and I specialize in Modeling, Texturing, Shading, and Lighting.

I used Softimage XSI for the bulk of the modeling, Mental Ray for rendering, and a bit of Maya & 3dsmax as well. I did the final composite in Nuke, and assembled everything in After Effects. I modeled this environment and characters based on a painting by Daryl Mandryk. I was also involved (in varying capacities) with five other demo reels from my class, each making an appearance on my reel as well.

Here is a direct link to the video:
http://ldsmith.info/index.php?reel



And here are some stills for those who don't feel like watching:









I used ZBrush extensively on the humanoid character, using it to quickly design something that fit my concept art. The painting provided by Daryl didn't include any type of detail for the other character, just a basic silhouette, so I had to fill in a lot of blanks and ZBrush came in handy for that.

My basic workflow was to start with a very basic base-mesh with a nice even distribution of polygons. I sculpted the nude base to get an idea of the build and proportions I wanted to use, and then started masking out areas where I knew I wanted armor to go. From here I just extracted the masks as subobjects and just started playing with designs. Having these extractions as subtools was handy because if I didn't like something it was easy to just delete the subtool and extract a new shape. I used the Pinch, Flatten, and Clay brushes extensively for this process.









Once I was happy with the design, I retopo'd the sculpt, took it back into XSI to add extra edgeloops in areas where I needed nice sharp edges, brought it back into ZBrush, and then sculpted in my final surface details that I could bake into a normal map.



When it was time to get my model into a pose, I used transpose to avoid rigging him (since I didn't plan on animating him anyway).

I also used ZBrush for a large part of the texturing in my reel, though the characters were textured in BodyPaint 3D due to the need for layers. The TRex was done almost entirely in ZBrush, except for the base mesh.

Edit: My TRex made a cameo on local news! Here's the link (it's in the segment about district 9): http://www.globaltvbc.com/video/ind...S9wa_3huw M4RF

[gregoconn]

Man, if my modeling reel looked like that after graduating from TAFE in Aust I'd be a happy camper haha.

Good work I'm sure you'll go far. BTW you the same eldee over at CGSociety?

[eldee.s]

Man, if my modeling reel looked like that after graduating from TAFE in Aust I'd be a happy camper haha.

Good work I'm sure you'll go far. BTW you the same eldee over at CGSociety?

Thanks!

Yes, we are the same eldee. eldee.s is my doppelgänger

[cherub_rock]

Why is it that xsi and lightwave works not often are as good as maya or max? is it the artists behind them, or the program restrictions? Cause I find xsi and lightwave far more modeling friendly, somewhat between zbrush and max, with the great move tool soft selection kinda tools they have.

[paulcopeland]

Remarkable reel, and a very impressive resume.

Best wishes for your further career.

Paul.

[rad66203]

Great use of smoke. I never thought of adding that to a reel. The lighting is sweet.

A suggestion, your guy looks off the way he is standing. The shoulders look broken. Have a friend pose for you and take a picture. You'll see the problem.

The demo reel looks good. The t-rex looks amazing, some nice detail. What about other characters? Watching your reel I was waiting for the character stuff, but never saw it. I didn't see any realistic character models like you see in the zbrush gallery. You might want to add a model of a realistic guy to your reel.

It's nice that you have some animation in your reel but what about models?

[RawSunlight]

Some great work here, a promising show-reel... you'll do well!

[KHAlexander]

Great work man!

[eldee.s]

Thanks everybody for the comments! Glad to have your support

A suggestion, your guy looks off the way he is standing. The shoulders look broken. Have a friend pose for you and take a picture. You'll see the problem.

Thanks for the tip! I'm actually making a condensed cut of my reel, so I will definitely take another look at the pose.

I didn't see any realistic character models like you see in the zbrush gallery. You might want to add a model of a realistic guy to your reel.

That's actually at the top of my to-do list! I specifically avoided a human character on my reel because rendering hair and skin is a nightmare, and I knew I was going to be doing smoke which would only exacerbate the problem in the short amount of time I had to get everything done. But now that I have my own time-line I plan on doing a few creature concepts and definitely a realistic human or two.

Thanks again for the comments and suggestions!

[eldee.s]

Some people indicated that my site was having some issues loading, so I made a few changes on the back-end that hopefully fixed it. Let me know if anybody has any trouble viewing it, and as always I'm open to comments or suggestions!

[eldee.s]

hey.... my t-rex showed up on the news here! they were doing a segment on district 9 and wandered by my classmate luke's station, where he was animating the T-rex for his VFX reel!

Either way, pretty cool:
http://www.globaltvbc.com/video/ind...S9wa_3huw M4RF

[V-Rex_Freak]

nice reel, the 1st part i like the music because it from metal gear series. like your t-rex but for me the rex's legs look like the v-rex from peter jackson's king kong, which is also very nice.

[eldee.s]

Funny you mentioned that, because I watched King Kong about 5 times while I was working on this project. In fact the robot itself was originally rigged and I had a proxy animation that was influenced by King Kong.. the robot is designed to be very gorilla-like. My friend luke and I always joked about doing a king kong vs T-rex remake using our two characters

good eye! and thanks for the comments!

[Azurae]

Nice work! Love the enviroment work you did on your demo reel.
One thing tho your base sculpt you used looks a hell alot alike to the one base created on the workshop of "Character 3D Modeling for Next-Gen Games with Richard Smith". ( http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/523/)

Still great work keep it up

[Disco Stu]

Im not to shure if i like moving smoke on a no motion camera flight
but the reel has a very nice quality congratulations.
How did you go about using fume fx(if u did)
Did uyou import the whole xsi animation into max placed the smokes
and rendered a seperate pass?