Thought I’d try out some match-moving and compositing with Blender 2.8 beta with Eevee. I’m used to using Boujou and After Effects and wanted to see how it compares.
Continue ReadingApril 25, 2019#
April 25, 2019#
New MUTO music video!
The new MUTO ‘Cloud Party’ video is out and we did the vfx work. The work involved photogrammatry, re-topology and match-moving CG elements into chosen shots.
Continue ReadingApril 22, 2019#
SphereBot Creation
Another little project to help get some workflows down in Blender. I was inspired by the poodle moth. I really like the stocky structure to the insect and thought it would be a great basis for a robot.
Continue ReadingApril 22, 2019#
Making Drawer Arrays
Everytime I visit my dad’s house I religiously take a photo of the chest of drawers in the hallway. The many instances of drawers along with a dimly lit hall with a bright light at one end make for a great visual.
Continue ReadingApril 21, 2019#
WORKING HARD – 3D ILLUSTRATION
It’s been mostly animation that’s been going through the studio so I thought it would be fun to put together a 3D illustration. It started off as a quick mock up experimenting with some volumetric atmospherics and ended up being very handy in getting a solid workflow from Lightwave 3D to Substance Painter and back to Lightwave and Blender for rendering.
April 15, 2018#
Free 8bit HDRI Environments on supertextures.co.uk
I put up a new section on supertextures.co.uk for HDRI’s. However they’re only 8bit, but with a lot of dynamic range compressed into them, which can be expanded via in an image editor capable processing 32bit. Here’s a quick video covering it. Continue Reading
April 12, 2018#
Lightwave 3D 2018 Tutorials
Getting to grips with Lightwave 3D 2018’s new physically based rendering? Here’s a few things you can do with the new buffer export system, that allows for simple compositing and custom mattes to localise adjustments. Continue Reading
January 2, 2018#
Tea? Getting to grips with PBR in Lightwave 2018
Here’s a quick render test in honer of kicking off the new year. It features the PBR materials and volumetric primitive in Lightwave 2018. The materials where very quick to setup without the need for fresnel nodes plugged into various shader inputs. The volumetric primitive is also really nice to work with, easily controlled with nodes. Continue Reading
August 10, 2017#
Started ArtStation and SketchFab accounts!
Started an ArtStation account for myself and a SketchFab account for Formation.
July 28, 2017#
HDRI Environment Capture
There are numerous method for capturing high dynamic range images for use as CG environment maps. I recently acquired a new method and I thought I’d test it against more tried and true methods. Continue Reading
June 18, 2017#
Flat profile hack on Panasonic GX80 camera (Cine-D)
I really like the Panasonic Lumix GX80 (or GX85 in the US). There’s one this missing from the camera, and that is the flat CineD profile found on many of the higher tier Lumix cameras, until today. BTM_Pix user on the EOSHD forums shared their method for using the camera’s Wifi protocol to upload the CineD profile to a custom mode. Continue Reading
June 5, 2017#
Evil Ed, another Zbrush sketch.
I forgot how fun Zbrush is once I remember the workflow! I think I need to get a little more asymmetry into the next one, and maybe a neck and torso too. Started from a polysphere and Goz’d into Lightwave 3D for surfacing and render.
May 31, 2017#
Formation 2017 Reel!
New 2017 showreel finished up for Formation! Featuring work for Asda, Google, Duracell and more. For more information please visit out studio website at: weareformation.com or contact us at: hello@weareformation.com
May 29, 2017#
Sony A7RII clips in Margate
Day trip to Margate! Shot on a Sony A7RII with EF Tamron 24-70mm and Sony 10-18mm and a few shots from a Samsung Galaxy Note 4.
April 10, 2017#
New Lightwave 3D Pluralsight tutorial!
Boom! I’m now a published Pluralsight author. If you’ve seen any of my previous tutorials you may have noticed they’re a little haphazard in my attempt to quickly communicate a point. However, I’m happy to say that this tutorial is considerably more comprehensive, detailing each step to produce the image above. For more tutorials you can visit this category.
February 7, 2017#
DOF in CG animation video uploaded
I’ve uploaded a video talking about depth of field in for CG animations. I also quickly cover my workflow from Lightwave 3D to After Effects.
February 3, 2017#
Depth of Field Testing
I’ve found myself using depth of field a lot more in project, quite shallow depth of field which is very expensive in render time, require many, many samples. However depth maps can be used to MASSIVELY speed up the rendering process by processing the depth of field as a post process. I put together a little scene with the mind to test some of the solutions out there. Continue Reading
January 26, 2017#
Ted’s Tech!
Ted’s Tech is a 3D animation featuring a mock technology review of an absurd phone concept, drawing stylistic inspiration from fantastic YouTube channels like Unbox Therapy, MKBHD and Dave 2D. Continue Reading
October 19, 2016#
Vlogger – Scene Setup
Scene and lighting pretty much done as well as the body rig. I started with a custom joint setup but soon fell back on the Rhiggit V2 tools, which I absolutely love at the moment. The scene setup was inspired by Unbox Therapy on YouTube. Not sure if I’m going to keep it like this but it’s a clean start. I’ve still got a little texture work to go and am re-writing some of the dialogue but hope to start animated soon…ish.
October 5, 2016#
Vlogger Animation Face Rig
Fighting for time to work on my little vlogger animation idea and started creating the face rig. I’m heavily utilising 3rd Powers set of amazing LW Brush plugins for Lightwave to easily create different morph shapes and throwing in bones as and when it feels like it needs it. I think I’m going to go ahead with a basic setup and add finer controls as and when I need them.
September 18, 2016#
The Coast – Clips from Newquay
Got back from Newquay, Cornwall and took the Panasonic Lumix GX80 with me. So far I really like the handling for a travel camera, small enough to carry around all day and very unassuming. But perhaps the best feature, which makes this my preferred travel camera, is the ability to charge it from a standard micro-usb cable. No more carrying around a separate battery charger and adapter cable! I think the other thing, along with perhaps a GH4-like battery life, that could be improved would be the inclusion of flatter picture styles that most of the other UHD capable Lumix cameras have. This, I’m hoping, may still be added in a firmware update? Unlikely I’m sure but, much like the GH2 days, it hasn’t stopped the ability to achieve Continue Reading
September 17, 2016#
Zbrush Character Sculpt for a Vlogger Idea
I had an idea for a vlogger reviewing absurd products and am currently getting to grips with Zbrush so I thought it was be a good opportunity to merge the two. This is the first time I’ve started creating a character with zero consideration for topology and animation, which was incredibly refreshing. I was concerned that starting without a clean modelled base mesh and UV would result in more difficulty creating smooth surfaces with uniform creases, but I’m happy so far. Starting from ZSpheres, using Dynamesh, zRemesher and UVMaster was considerably different to the workflows that I’m used to, but they are amazingly powerful in their own right.
September 17, 2016#
Formation Logo Fun!
Not sure why but it was fun putting together these little logo idents, trying out a variety of animation and dynamics techniques in Lightwave 3D with the DP kit tools.
August 8, 2016#
Yay! Animated GIFs
I started making some animated GIFs (as a video collection here), I’m not totally sure why but I’ve had a lot of fun doing it. In each one I’ve been playing with different techniques like; animated GI, low-poly, SSS and nodal animation. I think the reason that they’re enjoyable to make it the very fast turn around time. Each clip only took 1-2 days to complete and so didn’t interfere with any ongoing work. Here’s a few making of images for those that are interested. Continue Reading