Frank Vanderwel's Art Blog

Blue Shell Update

2012-01-19T22:19:00.000-05:00

My Blue Shell piece in my portfolio needed a bit of tuning (namely the very obvious seam on the lower lip, pictured above), so I took the opportunity today to add some of the latest bells and whistles that I've been researching for my workflow, such as the new specular map as well as the extra detail pass on the normals. I also did some colour correction to the diffuse map, namely adding some lighter hues to the blue to jazz it up a bit.

Pictured below is the final spread used on my portfolio site. On that note, I also recently redesigned my portfolio to make it simpler for my clients to view (click here to see it). Originally it was divided into multiple sections (environments, paintings, etc.) but I think this new approach is much cleaner and requires way less clicking. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Low-Poly Proximity Mine

2012-01-10T21:59:00.001-05:00

For this one I decided to make something more sci-fi, suitable as an item in a futuristic FPS game. In the game setting, the two strips on the back of the device are highly adhesive, allowing the mine to be placed on any surface. Once activated, the mine would scan the surrounding area for hostile targets. When a target breaches the blast radius, the two highly-reactive chemicals inside would automatically be introduced to each other causing a devastating explosion, rendering the target immobile.

I'm cool, I know.

Grandfather Clock Low-Poly Game Asset

2012-01-09T18:06:00.002-05:00

Similar to the microwave prop, this prop was an exercise in deriving a low-poly model from a high-poly one, in this case the grandfather clock background element from my thesis. I decided to take this in a different direction and give it more of a haunted character than the original.

For this project, I used the program 'CrazyBump' (http://www.crazybump.com/) to add extra detail to the Normal map (the purplish texture pictured up above). It's incredibly user friendly; all I did was open a PNG of my Diffuse map, moved around some sliders, and very quickly generated a detail pass that I overlayed over my original Normals in Photoshop, so then all of that surface detail (ie. wood grain, the designs on the clock face, etc.) would now appear to have some bumpiness, instead of the default flat 'CG' look.

Film Prop to Game Prop Conversion

2012-01-09T13:07:00.000-05:00

This prop was originally designed for Garth Laidlaw's upcoming thesis film that I've been helping on. From the original high-polygon model that I made for Garth (which was around 13,000 polygons), I created a low-poly model suitable for use in a real-time environment like a videogame (the final model ended up being 604 triangles), and then baked the high-poly info into the low-poly's normal map, making the two models nearly indistinguishable. Fortunately for me, 3DS Max's modelling tools made the retopology a fairly painless process; even though I was removing a substantial amount of the original model's polygonal detail, the UV maps remained in place, so then I could reuse the same texture files for the low poly model without having to unwrap it again or make a brand new texture.

For this project I hopped between 3DS Max and Blender, using the OBJ filetype to move the model between programs. In general, all modelling (both high and low) was handled in 3DS Max 2012, whereas the UV unwrapping and texture baking were handled in Blender 2.61. I tried using Max's unwrapping tools to do the job, but I'm not a fan of how the program displays texture seams (from certain angles and distances, seams that should be visible disappear from view). All texture painting was completed in Photoshop.

LevynLight Compilation

2011-12-22T21:13:00.000-05:00

Here's a series of environment and character paintings that I made for the fantasy Facebook game 'LevynLight' (https://apps.facebook.com/levynlight/). Each painting is used as a card within the game, and the idea is to collect enough cards to develop a stronger team. On average it was about a painting a day, longer for the more elaborate ones, and sometimes I'd just do one as an excuse to not animate haha. Anyways, enjoy!

Speed Painting

2011-12-21T22:44:00.002-05:00

Photoshop, 1 hour.

2011-12-10T00:12:00.001-05:00

Site Redesign/New Portfolio!

2011-11-27T02:04:00.001-05:00

Felt like switching things up a bit so I redesigned the site and started a new portfolio site @ frankvanderwelportfolio.blogspot.com (or you can click the 'portfolio' tab at the top).

By the way, the Concept-to-Completion tutorial is still happening, but being a side-project it'll be done when it's done.

P90

2011-10-28T02:42:00.000-04:00

High poly mesh. Low poly and textures to come soon.

Low Poly Rock

2011-10-26T17:33:00.001-04:00

Just a quick model to practice texture mapping. I was going to make a specular and gloss map but found the diffuse map did the job for all three. Made using ZBrush, Blender, and Photoshop, 140 Tris, two 2048 textures, viewport render.

Concept to Completion: Part 1 - Concept - 'Finding Inspiration'

2011-10-04T00:23:00.001-04:00

Concept to Completion: Table of Contents -> (Link)

Concept - 'Finding Inspiration'

What you'll need:
-Something to draw on
-Something to draw with
-Ur noggin

( (c) givetake (Link) )

The first step of any artistic project is coming up with an idea. Literally anything can be your source of inspiration; a doodle in your sketchbook, a photograph you took, a scary dream you had, or a funny story that a friend told you about. Anything. The only limitation is your own mind, so dive deep into your imagination and see what you come up with. Every facet of life, be it biology, personality, society, music, technology, comedy, history, fiction, philosophy, nature, the future, and the cosmos is at your disposal as an artist. Think about the things you like, the things you don't like, strong emotions you've felt, places you've visited. There are so many things to do and say and think and feel in this world, be a sponge and soak it all in since everything you learn will feed into your personality and make you a better artist. Be honest and don't hold back. This is your chance to shine.

For me personally I find that I do my best thinking when I keep active. Going for a walk or a run, playing with my dog, working out; it all serves to clear my mind. It raises my mood and gives me time to organize the thoughts running through my head. Channel your inner philosopher. Whenever I think up something that I'm fond of, I'll write it down or thumbnail it out. That way, I no longer have to juggle that idea around in my head; the idea has been said and I can always refer to it and improve upon it later. Try to make this a habit for yourself. Eventually you'll have a pool of ideas that you can tap into at any time.

Feed your brain with knowledge. One website in particular that I find very inspiring is ted.com (Link). The site has hundreds of short presentations each around 20 minutes in length, given by the world's leading intellectuals in every field imaginable. Did you know that the technology exists for a real life working kidney to be fabricated with a 3D printer that prints cells? Or that exoskeleton suits are in development that can be worn by paraplegics, allowing them to walk again? Mind blowing stuff.

Now, in my particular case, and in the case of the workflow I'm discussing, I want to be able to create usable assets (props, buildings, characters, etc.) that are suitable for a 'triple A' grade videogame (the best of the best) since that is the type of job I am applying for right now, so, I thought it might be cool to take an item from a pre-existing game and put my own spin on it. I give you 'Project Up-Rez':

This is what would qualify as a 'Written Proposal'. It could be more complex, or it could be more brief; it all depends on the particular project that you have in mind. I find it's helpful since it establishes what my intention with the project is, the end goal that all my decisions following will be directed towards realizing. Oftentimes in a studio setting, you'll be told what it is they want you to do (ie. your assignment may be to 'design a series of medieval props for a television show'), so the skill of 'drawing with intention' becomes an incredible asset. The more planning you do early on, the easier it will be for you down the road, since all the important decisions have already been made, leaving you to focus on the task of achieving them.

(image of original blue shell design, (c) Nintendo)

For this project, I decided to go with my first example, that being the winged blue shell from Mario Kart. For those familiar with the series, this item can often make or break a race for you in the game, since it directly targets whoever is in 1st place. I figured that taking something iconic that other game developers would recognize would be a nice way to show off my own skills, as well pay homage to a series that has brought me much enjoyment throughout the years.

After I established what my purpose for this project was, I immediately grabbed my stack of cue cards and scribbled out a few thumbnails. I'm a fan of having cue cards on hand to draw on since they're portable, they can easily be taped to a monitor, and their size prevents me from getting too elaborate during these planning stages. As you can see, this drawing is pretty ugly, but that's perfectly fine. This was maybe 20-30 seconds worth of work. As I said earlier, after you 'record the idea' you can always fix things later. Nothing is set in stone.

(This is really expensive on Amazon, try your local art store.)

For those of you who are just starting to learn to draw, or if you're an artist looking to brush up on your fundamentals, I recommend this book. The Vilppu drawing manual will teach you how to draw structural, 3D objects in 3D space. While I'm not writing a 'drawing tutorial' per-say, being able to take an idea or image in your head and quickly put it on paper is incredibly important in a studio environment since it will give your director an immediate basis to work from. In some studios, 'nothing' gets made in 3D unless it has first been designed on paper, simply because it is way faster to output a 2D image over a 3D one. Plus, drawing is a lot of fun. It's entirely ennobling being able to project your imagination to a medium that everyone can see; it opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. So even if you think you're not great at it now, get rid of that negativity and recognize that you can always improve.

This concludes the 'Concept' stage. As always, your feedback is much appreciated.

-Frank

Concept to Completion: Table of Contents -> (Link)

My first ZBrush crash...

2011-10-03T18:10:00.000-04:00

...and like an idiot I forgot to save. Here's what I lost:

Live and re-learn.

Concept to Completion: Finessing Your Work Flow

2011-10-01T13:04:00.000-04:00

Making 3D computer artwork is one of the more challenging things that an artist can do. With the saturation of 3D artwork in film, games, advertising, etc., and with content such as 'Avatar', 'Gears of War', and 'Tangled' leading the path in terms of visual fidelity, the unwritten 'standard' for what 'good' 3D art is continues to rise at an extremely fast pace, and as an artist trying to break into the commercial art world it can at times be somewhat overwhelming. How can I take something like an idea or concept and make it into a workable 3D character, prop, or environment that matches if not exceeds the level of quality certain studios seem to churn out regularly? What software should I use? What hardware should I own? Where should I go to school? What should be in my portfolio? At times the questions can go on and on, often without clear-cut answers. Not only this, but 3D programs tend to sway towards the complex, and while they offer a near unlimited level of control once you understand them, getting to that point can be daunting when you don't know where to start. Tutorials, either found on the internet, books, or training dvds often focus on one small aspect of what you have to do in the process, often with very little perspective of 'the big picture'.

As such, I figured that it would be handy for both myself and other artists to discuss what my pipeline is in creating 3D artwork. Every project you do will offer new challenges, and this particular pipeline is always evolving and changing, yet I find that the more I focus on 'the big picture', the easier it is for me to look past the details of 'what buttons do I press?' and other more trivial matters.

This particular pipeline is how I go from a simple sketch to a highly detailed yet low-poly and animation-friendly character or object, fully textured with 'normal', 'diffuse' and other types of texture maps, and ready to be used in a 'game' setting, yet this workflow can also be modified to encompass 'film'-like animation. Each individual section will be illustrated with my own personal work, and will have links to various tutorials that I have found to be helpful. Software I have used for this project include 3DS Max, Blender, ZBrush, Photoshop, and After Effects, though none of these are 'written in stone' and can easily be swapped out with other software that I'll note. This pipeline is a work-in-progress, and any feedback that you may have to improve it is much appreciated.

Table of Contents

Concept
-Written Proposal
-Thumbnail

Research
-Photographs
-Google Images
-Textures/Material Reference
-Inspiration

Development
-Photoshop Sketch
-Model Sheets

Base Mesh
-Modelling 101
-Poly Flow

Sculpt
-Low Poly to Hi Poly
-ZBrush Basics

Decimate
-Hi Poly to Low Poly Part 1

Unwrap
-UVs 101

Bake
-Hi Poly to Low Poly Part 2

Texture
-Photoshop 101

Rig
-FK vs IK
-Deformer Joints
-Controls
-Auto Rigs

Skinning

Animate
-Keys
-Breakdowns
-Timing
-In-Betweens
-Splines

Lighting
-Lighting 101

Render
-Quantity vs. Quality
-Render Times

Composite
-After Effects 101

...and you're done! Easy, right?

Also: Hardware Recommendations

Night Scene

2011-08-28T20:25:00.001-04:00

Pleasant Memories

2011-07-16T20:51:00.004-04:00

My thesis film made during my final year at Sheridan college.

3D Animation Demo Reel 2011

2011-04-28T13:39:00.003-04:00

Almost there...

2011-04-17T02:57:00.006-04:00

Here are two screenshots from my upcoming film. It's going to be finished within the next week! Exciting times.

2011-02-18T23:56:00.002-05:00

A viewport screen-grab from my thesis film. More to come soon.

Experimenting

2009-09-12T13:09:00.000-04:00

Trying out some stuff, getting an oil on glass type effect. Still want to do a little more on this one, but WIP stuff is fun to look at too :)

dustin out the cobwebs

2009-08-15T18:18:00.007-04:00

howdy all, hope your summers have been enlightening and relaxing. I've been working at my co-op since the end of April, having a blast, making art and animations for the Facebook game 'Myth Monger' by HitGrab Games. Anyways here's some of the card's I've been painting up, I'll post up more as they're released in the game. Enjoy!

Daphne Cove Environment Card

Tombstone Village Environment Card

Bubble Bot Character Card

Playful Lummoxes (Trolls) Character Card

Green Leaf Bridge Environment Card

Troll Pit Environment Card

Lots more to come, I'll post them when I can!

2009-03-15T18:29:00.000-04:00

Pegasus Bike Concept

2009-02-18T20:21:00.006-05:00

Edit: finished painted version ^

Tried cleaning up in Photoshop today, it takes a very long time but the results are nice. The painted version should be finished soon.

Portrait of Mr. Beeso

2009-02-09T22:22:00.002-05:00

Brock asked if he could do a portrait of me today, so I did one of him in return.

Photoshop, 1 hour.

My New Demo Reel

2009-02-03T02:37:00.002-05:00

Make sure to follow the video into Youtube and watch it in all of it's HD goodness!

I also posted a link to my internship portfolio on the right-hand side of the page, check it out!

Render Dump

2009-01-20T23:52:00.003-05:00

Did some rendering today, here's what I ended up with. If you click on the videos you can watch them in HD too!

Portfolios

2008-12-08T00:05:00.004-05:00

Here are both my Royal Winter Fair and Final Portfolio submissions for life drawing.

New Pass

2008-12-06T21:59:00.001-05:00

Dog Animation

2008-12-04T18:25:00.001-05:00

...cuz it's ruff ruff.

2008-07-17T13:29:00.001-04:00

For months this blog sat here collecting dust, and now here's my 4th post this week. More schoolwork this time, the first a graphic-styled interior (done entirely in photoshop from scratch) and the second a more traditionally-based digital painting used for a large medieval-themed story assignment (the same project I posted about way back in February).

Never again.

2008-07-17T04:04:00.000-04:00

Hey again, here's my latest. This guy came into my work not too long ago and so I sketched up a quick caricature of him before I could forget what he looked like (one of the perks of working at a gas station, that and unlimited slushes). Anyways when I cleaned up the linework with graphite I decided that it wasn't as good as it could be, so rather than do another clean up or fiddle around with the original in photoshop until it looked decent, I chose to use the original cleanup as reference and redo everything with the pen tool. Though I like the results, ultimately I think this method is way too time consuming, and honestly can't recommend anyone else doing it. Chalk this one up as a learning experience I guess...

The Barnyard.....of Doom!

2008-07-15T13:02:00.001-04:00

Some gouache paintings for school.

And it begins...

2008-07-14T14:25:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone. I'm finally going to start posting more regularly. Here's a little something-something I just whipped up. I was thinking about how incompetent cops must feel in a batman/superman/insert-favourite-superhero-here universe.

Edit: For people who like the process:

A few things.

2008-02-06T17:14:00.000-05:00

Howdy all.
Here's some of the work I've been doing lately.

Some tonal studies for our first digital painting assignment in photoshop...

..and the final painting.

A weight lift/toss animation. It was my first humanoid character animation (not including walk cycles). I wasn't too pleased with it so at the very end I had him collapse into the shards of glass, which made their way into his organs, causing him to...expire.

For this assignment we had to have one character walking, another running, and some level of interaction between the two. Gotta love them flapjacks.

Hope you like, feel free to comment. More to come soon!

Why Cloverfield Stinks

2008-01-19T00:32:00.000-05:00

Man, it's been a while...heh. I'm currently on the market for a scanner, so as soon as I get one I'll start showing you all what I've been up to art-wise, but until then I suppose I can do a bit of writing to get the ball rolling.

I just returned with some peeps from the movie Cloverfield, and while the group's verdict for the film was unanimously positive, I'm afraid that I have to disagree with much of their praise. Now don't get me wrong or anything, I am one who enjoys a good action/adventure/monster flick as much as the next guy, but as hard as I tried I simply couldn't get into the film. Here's why:

First off, this is by far the shakiest camera work I have ever seen in a blockbuster movie, and while I think the technique itself can be used to great effect to intensify a scene (ala 'Children of Men' or 'Gears of War') in Cloverfield it is simply overdone. Now some may argue that the first person perspective helps immerse the audience, making it feel as if they are right there in the action, but I must disagree. When I'm walking around during the day doing the things I do, never does my vision start behaving so erratically that light begins to trail and everything falls out of focus. Heck even during more intense situations like bursting off into a sprint I still keep a fairly clear check of the world around me. So why is it then that even in relatively calm situations such as the opening party scene is the camera work so jittery? Here I was trying to figure out what the characters were all about but instead I felt like I was strapped onto the front of a roller coaster. It was incredibly distracting. Eventually at about the half hour point my eyes adjusted and I finally began to accept what I was seeing, but it wasn't without much effort on my part. A message to the filmmakers: save the crazy blurred pans for when the shit starts blowing up, but in the meantime just give my stomach a break and let me find out if Rob still has feelings for Beth. Is that too much to ask?

Another problem I had with the film was the plot, or lack thereof. Here's a brief rundown; guy has fight with girl, monster attacks, people die, guy goes to save girl, people die, guy saves girl, people die, monster attacks again, everyone dies, the end. Now of course there's more to it than that, but overall I'm left wondering what's the point to it all? We've seen these sorts of things in countless films before (Godzilla, Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, and King Kong to name a few), but unlike those films Cloverfield does very little to break new ground. The film suffers from following too many cliches (hmm, a dark room, I wonder what will happen when I turn on this ligh..OH NO, A MONSTER!!), the characters themselves are pretty standard fare (hero, funny guy, love interest, nothing new), and the ending is way too abrupt, leaving the audience wanting more (not in the sense that they want more of what they have already seen, but instead because the film is empty).

I must confess that I did find the marketing for this film really intriguing, how they kept things like the monster's identity very ambiguous and simultaneously left the possibilities for the overall plot wide open, but after watching the film ultimately it turns out to be yet another monster film, offering hardly anything new to the genre, and pushing a camera effect far beyond its worth.

It's about freakin' time.

2007-10-20T16:40:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my blog. I intend to use this primarily to showcase my artwork, but I'll also do posts on the art in general, movies, games, and really anything else I'd like to talk about.

Check back soon for updates.