Back at it

Hello friends!

I suppose it's been two years since I posted, mostly due to school getting in the way. I thought I'd log in and post some of my new CG/animation work that I have done since the last time I posted.

The first I will post is a short film I made late last year for my compositing class final project, it's called "CURIOUS".

The next is a concept art/digital painting I painted during my winter break. I've committed myself to learning to break away from only using 3D for my artwork, it looks my portfolio look more diverse as well as giving myself more creative outlets.

That's all for now, I'll post some more soon!

-Sam

Fruit Bowl

Hey guys, long time no post. I've been swamped with studying for my upcoming exams, so little to no time for CG. I've got a few days off so expect some more posts! This is the stereotypical scene that lighting artists typically do. This is an old lighting challenge from CGsociety, the geometry was modeled by Jeremy Birn but I did everything else. I'm not sure this is the final render, what do you guys think?

Hope you all have a great weekend!
Sam

The Studio (v2)

Polished up since my last render. This beast took all night to render. Notice how the far right canvas portrays exactly the scene behind it, as if it was a window?

Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been down with a baaad fever for the past few days. It feels like I've been sick this entire semester so far. I'm lightheaded and can't sleep...

Anyways, still alive. For now.
Cheers!

The Office

I've got 50 followers! Thanks guys for your support and feedback, I really appreciate it.

The Office

This is, again, a re-imagining of an older scene I constructed last year with a better understanding of vray and photoshop. The diffuse pass took about 1.5 hours to render, time I used to talk to my girlfriend on the phone and finish reading my anthropology assignment. I actually had to re-render only the table and laptop (I didn't like how the shader I had chosen worked out) and composite it in, which was difficult because there is a chair blocking part of the table, so I had to use some masks to integrate the new desk and laptop successfully.

I applied a slight DOF effect but I didn't like how it looked. Click the next image to see a near and far DOF effect combined in an animated gif.

Animated GIF of DOF effects

I decided that the DOF effect in this scene was removing more from the scene than it was adding, but this GIF turned out pretty nifty.

Anyways that's it for me today. Cheers!

Sam

The Wine Tasting Room

This is actually a remake from an older version of this scene that I made last year, updated with a better understanding of how vray works, as well as my photoshop post-processing skills. The picture on the far end of the room (slightly DOF'd...addicted.) is the source image and inspiration for the composition of the scene. I'm pretty happy with the wine bottle shaders.

Depth of Field

I'm a shameless Gundam fan so this was kind of fun to make. It's another depth of field test using a Z-depth map, which I'd like to quickly explain how it works, if you're interested.

Basically, when you're setting up your Vray rendering paramaters, click on the "Render Elements" tab and click Vray_Zdepth. You type in a min and max number (the min being the closest thing you want in focus, the max being the furthest away object.) and it will render a z-depth map along with your beauty pass, and it looks like this:

You import this image into photoshop's channel tab and use it as an alpha map for your rendered image. This map tells photoshop what is close and what isn't, the lighter the image, the closer the object is to the camera. You can use this on the Lens Blur filter for simulating a realistic depth of field, among other things.

And this is what I did yesterday. I was making this to see how easily depth-of-field can create the sense of miniaturized models. A few friends commented saying they looked like a small scale-model of actual buildings, so I think I got the desired effect.

Anyways, hope you guys have an amazing weekend!

Cheers,

Sam  

Caustics, caustics everywhere!

A little personal project I did today after school. I was fooling around with glass shaders and glorious caustics, which like DOF effects, take a decade and a half to render. I like how this looks though. The piece was modeled by Jeremy Birn, lighting td @ pixar, and I textured and lit it. 3ds max + vray + photoshop

EDIT: I've got an 8am class and yet I keep messing with this thing. I'm too tired but is the perspective out the window even correct? For some reason I can't wrap my head around what that would actually look like from that angle. I did the depth of field with a Z-depth alpha map in photoshop. SO much easier than doing it with the vray camera.