Cathedral : DONE!!

Finally it's done! There's a polycount in the tens of millions and brought not one but 2 PC's to their knees and me to the edge of insanity over the last 2 weeks of it. I've had dying machines to contend with, epic powercuts, both kids at home for 2 months due to crazy stuff by the local education authority who seem to see a simple move of schools as worthy of international debate...but I digress. The bottom line is its done.

Although modelling, texturing, lighting and rendering out the shots for both the Durham cathedral interior from last year and the exterior this year have been fun, I'd a little glad to be able to move onto something organic for a while. The above shot is a style frame from the actual shot done as part of the MOD302 class that's just wound up after 10 weeks spread over 3 months. Things can and do change before final composite although that could take quite a while before I see it. (The stuff from MOD 301 finished last October has only just came into my hands ..and there are still a few shots not rendered out and composited yet.) I'm sort of hoping I'm not the last dude to have it rendered out as be sort of a bitch if the guy who created it does not get to put it on a reel till after everyone else lol.

EDIT: Here's a quick reel of some of the shots I have got a hold of from MOD301 so far.

So no more Norman architecture for a while for Wayney boy! Its been full on 18 hours minimum a day the last few weeks and for most of this year in fact. So in one way its nice to have some more 'me' time and time for the wife and kids.

Its back to organics for a while and prepping for Anomaly in Vancouver for my lecture and demo at the end of this month. I can promise something special as you do not go to what could be called the 3d sculpting capital of the world unprepared ;) Not only is there the lecture but also 6 hours where I'll be demoing and available for questions and practical stuff as well.

I've not made an antique kids bike before to original specs...groovy.

Also I just did a quick logo for Danny John Jules film 'Bucky'. Very fast turnaround on this pone as a favour to Danny. I'd urge you to donate if you can as I'm probably one of the few people to have even a rough overview of what it's about (Danny has been purposely keeping it very secret). I can say it's going to be damn good.... I normally don't pimp other peoples stuff in my blog, but :

A - I count Danny as a mate

B - Its a very cool idea and story line

C - If I didn't he might get the thumbscrews out again...lol

So here is the LINK

So it's back to organics for me for a while so next week or so I'll be getting back up to speed after a year of mostly environment stuff. Expect monsters, expect creatures as it's been a bloody age since I did any. So no more banging on about the cathedral unless its to show you animated comped shots ;) ...mainly as of right now...my books are empty so back to freelance work searching for me.

Durham Cathedral: Modelling Finished!!

Trust me there is a LOT of detail behind those shadows!

After what feels like 6 life times (in truth less than 1 1/2 weeks) I'm finally calling the modelling stage of the Durham Cathedral complex for my FXPHD class MOD302 done. I feel like I know this cathedral better than the people who bloody built it afer starring at it for a week and a half lol 18 hrs a day.

So many areas are detailed I can't get them all into a single still

Now this was not just a modelling 'challenge' for me (it being without doubt the most complex model I've ever done...especaily if you count the interior I did last year for MOD302), but also a software one. in the end I had to use 3d max 2012 for this for one simple reason...it was the only software with any chance of being able to have the ammount of polygons in the viewport at the sametime without crashing like a bitch all over the place.

Its gives me migraine just thinking about ever doing this again LOL

We're talking tens of thousands of seperate parts and a polycount that technically should 'break' 3d max, its viewport ....as 3d max has a theoretical poly limit of 10 million for a single scene (without proxies etc). This model breaks that by a fair old bit. In fact its between 12-15 million..with no instances or proxies used. There is detail thats not visible even in a 1080p frame lol. (in fact even trhe sanctuary knocker is modelled even though it takes up about 3 pixels.) So every part of the cathedral complex is capable of supporting a close up.

Now I MUST give props to Neil Hazzard and the nitrous team who handle the 3d max viewport progamming. Any other app would have not only crashed but certainly not have such a nice viewport as respresentative of the final render. In fact below at the bottom is the viewport grab of the scene to compare with the 1st image in this post. Not bloody far away I think you'll agree!

The model will stand up to a close up on any tiny part of the entire complex.

So lets remember that when 3d tech works well...god damn its impressive...and this does. So hats off to Neil and his crew. (I promise to buy him several drinks next time I see him.)


But....

Now comes the hard part...texturing the entire cathedral complex ,setting shaders up and getting it ready to create the entire 3d scene it will go in. But 1st I'm taking a damn day off as a week and a half 18 hours a day working on this has me on the verge of running round with an axe.

insane polycount in the viewport of 3d max....

'Bedlam' TV Series Burning Man Model

Click on image for fuill sized 1080p version. All rights on this image are reserved by the owners.

The above is a model I did for the guys at Space Digital for the TV Series 'Bedlam' shown on Sky Tv over here in england. Without going into too much detail they asked for a partly burnt male head ( it had to be anatomically correct for the burning stuntman see throughout the episode who story wise it may or may not be and have white eyes.) This firstly meant matching the stuntman seen 'burning' in the episode in a high res sculpt in mudbox before taking this detailed mesh and creating the 'crispy barbeque version'.

It also meant working with some seriously nasty reference material, looking at dead burnt people is not my idea of fun but if you are to model something you must have appropriate reference material. The Model, textures and shader set up were done by me...basically everything but the composite itelf into the shot.

After spending over a week with the references of various burn victims and corpses I needed a bit of a break from scary stuff for a while. Needless to say that although reference material of that sort isn't my favorite thing in the world to work with, it is essential if the model was to be both belivable and correct for a body burnt for that length of time. The last thing I wanted it to look like (or them) was a big black lump of charcoal. So this is how a human head would look if burnt for the period of time set out. This was then camera matched to the back plate (a dummy in the burning skip BTW)

Eventually when they have time the lads at Space Digital have promissed to sort out a video breakdown of this short shot, when I have it I will of course stick it on here.