"...If I never model another cathedral it will be too soon!"

This is just the front section of the complex...there is far more behind this!

I've been putting some intense hours into the model of the durham cathedral complex the last day or two. Now that the front and main towers are done (I'll have to leave off the many statues for now as it'll simply take far too long and probably make it nearly impossible to render.) There are still loads of decorative thingies to put on, but those can wait till the last minute.

Durham cathedral as its not been seen (in newly erected condition ) since 170AD

Once this is done then I have to texture the whole damn complex and then create the cgi enviroment that I am going to replace 80% of the final plate with. Although I have been enjoying the challenge in a strange masochistic sort of way, if I never model another cathedral for at least a year I'll be a happy man lol. There are only so many widdly bits of stone the human mind can put up with before it threatens to break and I run round with an axe lol.

So for now its decorative thiniges and lots of windows and doors I have left to do modeling wise , and roof supports and borring shit like that. There can't be many 3d guys who have modelled an entire cathedral complex and its interior.... I dont think most people are insane enough to try unless they have to on pain of death. Seriously though I have been enjoying it, but yes I will be glad once its done.

Durham Cathedral Exterior WIP PT2

The front two towers raw poly model

OK the two front towers I'm calling about done modelling wise (given the extreme crunch on this one)...starting to add the side windows and deco now.... the biggest pain in the backside will be the main tower as there's more polys needed for that than the rest of the complex combined.

Now in an ideal world (when is it ever that??) I'd sculpt every part and render through renderman...but alas time will not allow this...it also occured to me that apart from a few design tweaks this is the first time durham cathedral has been seen in its orginal state since 1100AD!

Still loads to do!

Durham Cathedral Exterior WIP

Work in Progress (about 1 /20th of the cathedral complex!)

Well it seems like a lifetime since I finsihed off the durham cathedral interior for FXPHD course MOD301 that I gave last year. But now about 4-5 months later its now time to get on with the exterior of the cathedral. This is no men task as the whole cathedral complex is massive and once you get a 300mm lens out you see detail that is not visible with the naked eye.

The bad side? I only have a week and a half to get it all done in before it has to be used in tehfinal few classes of the MOD302 3D digital environments course. Its the 1st time in ages I am geniuely crapping bricks it wont be done on time as usually I've give myself at least another week or two. but if this isn't done right it coud ruin the whole series of shots for the Joan of Arc short that FXPHD & mike seymour are making.

You know people ask me why I like using 3d max for personal stuff. Thats an easy question to answer, its got a lot of power and most of all the nitrous viewport... I hope neil hazard and the nitrous team are ready for it to be pushed to insane levels ;)

With a viewport like this its far easier to judge forms and lighting.

FXPHD Interview & doc on my time as an escape artist

FXPHD / FXguide were nice enough to ask me for an interview a while back that they have just made live and you can watch it here:

http://www.fxphd.com/blog/professor-profile-wayne-robson/

...also for this I made a 22min documentary on my time as an escapologist. Until a couple of weeks back most people in 3D didn't have a clue about this and its safe to say there was a fair bit of interest in knowing more. So here is the full 'directors cut' of my short doc on my time as an escape artist. In some cases the footage is 27 years old and are the only copies that survive anywhere so this isn't the HD footage you may be used to.

I warn you it is a frank and often brutally honest look back at what I achieved and allows me for the very 1st time to put the record straight on something from over 23 years back thats been eating away at me all that time. So while to many of you in 3D thats not really important...to those who knew me before 3D this allows me to right a wrong and put my side of the story for the 1st time.

I realise that as a result I may well get the piss taken out of me now every time I appear at a 3d or art event to lecture or demo, but you know what... I'm still proud of everything I did back then. This isn't the character I use to present the 3d videos I release, or the crazy version of me from my youtube videos, but rather the real me.... this is as personal as it's ever going to get.
Enjoy

Wayne

Finally can show this a month and a half after I finished it

This is actually the Sanjay who runs the corner shop near me ;)

As the next issue of 3D Artist magazine is now on sale I can finally show this model I did a month and a half back. You may remember seeing a couple of early work in progress shots before it was pointed out that actualy I wasn't allowed to show it in this particular case before publication. Its safe to say that after that it went a bit further onwards.

It nearly drove me nuts having to sit on this for a month and a half and it was also one of the reasons I did the last bust...as wanted to show how something along similar lines (hence why they both have a jumper on....) Oh and there's a tutorial of mine in there as well.

Done using mudbox and 3dmax

So enjoy...

an iteration with no jumper

Calling this final now....

ok calling this one done or I'll sit and tweak stuff from now till doomsday...so it'll do for a weekend doodle. It uses Three 4k maps (color, bump and diffuse) on high res model using couple of spot lights in 3D Max.


also this weekend (back on thursday night) produced this full 3D scene as well (so its been quite a productive weekend!)

Saturday Night Render

Sort of start of a work in progress.... ignore the jumper as it not been sculpted yet and the uvs are screwed up... but threw it into max and did a render anyways. Not the worlds most challenging model on the sculpting side as very little to do really...although may change a few proportions next time I pick it up. Runs off Three 4k maps, a diffuse, a bump and a spec....these are then plugged into various channels of the shader and color corrected in app as needed.... render time is only 40 seconds and this way saves a fair old whack of render time.

Some of you I know may see that it bares more than a passing resemblance to someone on the london 3d max scene...thats totally by chance.... honest ;)

Anomaly 2012

I'e just agreed to give a lecture at the Anomaly 2012 event in Vancouver this year on April 28th, no I am not telling you whats its about just yet. It will be as usual a one off lecture, I've not been to canada before so it should be an experience.




Captains log.... additional:

did a quick 2hr 'speed matte' tonight...although in truth its a totally 3d scene..I had to work around the crash from hell so only the above shot looks the way I wanted it to... in this case its game model res.

Yep tiz all 3d before you ask....

Crash meant this one is unfinished so lighting and shaders bit off

Two Scenes...One bit of Geometry doodle

The idea behind this doodle was a simple one, to take the same geometry and from it make 2 scenes by changing just lights and materials. (I actually made a third as well but its pretty borrring to look at so I've left itout.) Why? well just for something to do really on a sunday evening to relax and I wanted to try something else as part of my enviroment pipeline.

I'm more partial to the 1st image as it has a more 'alien' feel to it.

Tweaks

"Give me a chocky muffin and custard!"

I sharpened things up a bit and tweaked a few minor things...may extend it to full body...not sure. I'll see how I feel in a day or two. Took it into zb to render for a change (as I get sick of the same thing lol....plus nice to switch things up a bit.)

Warm down doodle

Its been a while since I did some sculpting what with all the 3d vue / maya stuff..and even longer since I did a monster...so this is my warm down sculpt for tonight...I 'may' actually continue with this one and do a few fixes that are annoying me at the moment with it.

Waterfalls Scene Final

About as final as you'll get until its in shot

This is about as final as this will get here on my blog now until its used in the Joan of arc short FXPHD are making that these shots are meant for. Not one but two animated waterfalls and neither use water sims, both are old school practical effects. ;)

It may seem very little has changed since the last update but I can assure you it has... drastically... so that everything works in the actual shot and isn't going to take 6 million years to render. In fact it should be less than the average frame time for a TV series shot.

Now for my MOD302 class this is the final result you'll see in the next video covered from top to bottom, There is of course always a chance we'll change or add things slightly for the shot that's actually used..but nothing drastic. Its going to look nice once rendered out and properly graded (as its ungraded at the moment).

There's a combo of Nuke, Vue, Mudbox, Photoshop and Maya in this (maybe one or two other app's I can't remember as its been a busy 48 hours lol).

So for those of you taking my MOD302 course....get a notepad ready as this class is going to up the ante on the complexity front several notches or so. This leaves 2 shots left to do before the end of the course, the desert scene and the cathedral exterior matchmoved very complex shot that will give you nightmares..... as there is not just the cathedral to add.... ;) lets just say I have had an idea I want to run past mike 1st.

Escapology....

Local news programme..complete with copper

You know I've been promissing those interested in my life before 3D some actual proof that I wasn't making up the fact I worked all over the world as an escape artist for a long time now over a decade in fact. (I only stopped due to a health problem that made it dangerous...well more dangerous.) So as I spent till 4am converting from old VHS one of the tapes of tv apearances I have to AVI here's a few screen grabs. I've lost count of how many people have asked about this over the years both in person and in interviews...so here yougo...better late than never..... Up till now not even close freinds in 3D knew much about this period of my life.

a thing with Tom o Connor

As this was long before the internet and back starting in 1987 for the 1st screen grab (I dont have a recording ofmy 1st time on TV aged 11), the only stuff about me as an escape artist online is what I have put there...ie next to nothing. Thus proving that things are infact still true even if you can't find out about them on the internet lol.

Last but one show Eammon Andrews ever did before he died.

Why am I converting them? Well the tapes are degrading fast and I want to have a record of all the things I achieved back then for my kids,and maybe one day decades for now... grandkids. Plus I'm also proud of what I managed to achieve back then. Maybe I'll stick one or two of the old tv spots up at some point..... but either way I'd sstill be embaressed to hell to see myself aged 14 onwards online lol.

Kids TV show called 'knock knock'

...Oh and here's a few of the hundreds of press clippings of mine I have from back in the day....many are missing though :(




So there you go...that should do you all for a while.

Additional:

Got to say the reaction to this has been off the scale lol. Now I realise its far more interesting to others than it is to me. So I'll answer the more common questions from today so I dont type them out a zillion times....

• In the photos shown I range from about 14 or so to about 18 (I think)..I do have one from press cutting aged 11 but not showing that yet...if ever lol
  
• Yes I still hold the world record, yes people have tried to break it and no its not in the guiness book anymore as they consider it 'unbreakable' (which is total and utter crap, as in practice I regulalry did 2.5 seconds lol).
• Yes I can pick locks,no I wont open your cupboard , car , safe etc..... that you've lost the key to for you PMSL.
• My talent was 1st spotted aged 2.....if you can call it that.
• I was asked to write and published books and articles from age 14 that are apparently considered standards in the field (no I dont get royalties for them anymore....)
• Yes I can 'still do that stuff' and part of my gear is in boxes in my office where it has been for long time. yes from time to time when no one is in the house I do get it out and have a go...no I will not show you.
• No I will not go back to doing that....... its far to risky a feild for a guy with a wife and two kids to be taking those sort so risks every day....plus at 40 I'm a wee bit old and fat these days.
  
• Yes I held a special explosives license from aged 17, which you have to have if your doing any escapes that are dicking around with high explosives...and yes I did do those. But I let that license lapse over 10 years ago.
• No this is not the only thing I haven't made known in 3D up till now that I have done.
  

Now obviously I dont want this to take over from the art side as to be blunt I've been doing it far longer part of my life now. But I did promise rather a lot of people over the last decade or so to show some of this stuff.....just took me a decade to find the bloody time to actually do it thats all lol

Tree's and Waterfalls

Waterfalls and all elements added...still a work in progress though ;)

Update to the 3d scene from the MOD302 '3D Digital Environments' course I'm giving at FXPHD this term, this is from week 5 (next week) and sort of a teaser. Unfortunately I can't show the animation I've ran a test render on, but I have to say that it looks very nice with those waterfalls added. Although it was sort of a cheat render as using a still for the scene elements so I can test the waterfall integration.

10 min cheats can be fun

Also as I had the elements lying around as a result of the above I knocked out in 10 mins the following crazy trees render....for shits and giggles. There is a rather obvious problem with the above shot if you can spot it and no its not the girls scale...any smaller and you'd not see her and think she was a branch lol

More Mattes

No waterfalls yet....(there will be two)

A couple of mattes, the 1st is a late work in progress for my next couple of FXPHD classes. Its been nightmare to do as I'm seriously pushing Vue way beyond what it is designed for. Although people in the class won't need to, as I'm the only bugger who has to be able to load it all into one scene so you guys know what your aiming for lol. The final scene will be split across 3-4 scene files and composite.

This is just begging for a caption lol

and the other a mess around..... its a full 3D matte thats got my old mate Joep Van der Steen in it comped from a photo from EUE lol. See now its either begging for a caption or something added on the left on that sand bank lol.