VR Experiments

I've got another personal project in mind and wanted to do some experimentation with panoramic and object spinner Flash files before getting started. So I did some renders of Mechacoyote for a test. Welcome to the amazing world of "Virtual" "Reality"!!! < doing quote marks with fingers >

The picture link below will open a new window so you can look at the Mechacoyote head. Click and drag to control the viewing angle.



This panorama of the scene will show the amazing work I put into the areas that are off camera. It's like a behind-the-scenes of a 3d render. Again, click and drag in the new window to take a look around.

Mechacoyote

Well, here is the piece I did for the Saturday Morning Cartoon show.



It was great fun making it and putting my nutty modeling system to the test. In essence it's a modification of the Subdivide Proxy system in Maya that lets you work on a low-poly mesh while seeing the results in a hi-poly smoothed mesh.

Only for mine, it applies an extrude before doing the smoothing and creates a couple of attributes for controlling the thickness of the extrusion and how hard to make the edges. The result is that you are only working on the top surfaces and get automatic thickness without having to deal with all the extra verts and faces from the sides and bottom. I started work on the system when I was modeling a hi-res vehicle and was like "they build the thing out of formed panels, I should do that too."

To see an example of how much less information you have to deal with check out the low-poly mesh below.



You can see that the elbows are really just a bunch of square faces of different sizes. The panels are all a couple faces with the edges cut to allow for the extrusion of both pieces to show.

Sat-Mo-Toons

Hey...long time...no post.

I've got a piece in the upcoming Saturday Morning Cartoon Show at the Ouch My Eye Gallery. The opening for the show is on March 1st at 8pm. I hope to see you there.

From Aliens to Zombies

Here is the Halloween window for 2007. I even picked up a smoke machine to pump a bit of exhaust down onto the Trick or Treaters, hehehe.



Also, we're going to the Zombie Walk again this year. Only this time...we're out for braaiinssss. We have our zombie theme and I've done some practice makeup effects so I'm really looking forward to it.

October 21st at the Freemont Troll, at 2:45pm. We hope to eat you there...

Bioshocked

Well, I finished up Bioshock recently and was very happy with the game. It's been awhile since I had been excited about a game before it came out and finished it within a week of getting it.

The audio is very good in the game, (I still love the crazy psionic monkeys from System Shock 2 though) and there were some good freaky bits in it. I only played at night with all the lights out to make sure I was getting the best vibe possible.

You can just go to Mel...

Slight update and re-org to the site.

The Mutagenerator has been put into storage for now. Feel free to visit Subject #46N2 anytime though.

I posted the full pages to my Cell Culture Clash story. Button is on the left for it (and hopefully some future updates as well).

I also added a Melscripts section for Maya tools I have made that are interesting enough to make public.

Free Floating Spectre

Well, my final day at Sucker Punch was last Friday (07/20/2007 ... which is an oddly appealing date to me, kinda like a mixed up palindrome)
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So it's both a sad and exciting time for me now.

I'm going to be spending time working on different kinds of art, Maya scripts, and some programing to see what really clicks with me these days.

I got a new desktop PC to make working and rendering at home more productive. My old laptop was brutally slow at times when I was working on my Atomic Lead panels.

Stay tuned here as I will be posting progress on stuff I'm working on.