jee-joh.blogspot.com

Happy New Year! [2012]

2012-01-01T09:00:00.001+08:00

First doodle sculpt of the year! Done in the wee hours of Sunday morning, Jan 1, 2012

*Joe is in his pyjamas in front of the window, holding a steaming bowl of oatmeal, while Rocky Balboa's theme blasts in the background. Bring it on 2012!

...Admiral Ackbar's Skinny Cousin?

2011-11-19T10:13:00.001+08:00

"It's a trap!!!" <- obligatory

Still working on the Fishboy short with Nadia & Azman in whatever free time we have.

To start things off, Nadia sent me a base model with the proportions we all agreed on.

Then I sketched out the rough forms, trying to get a feel for the general body parts and basic look.

Once it was agreed upon, went ahead and sculpted some anatomy details in. Parts which are gonna be covered by clothing and gear are less detailed. Still a work in progress - all the tertiary details are still missing [scales, wrinkles, folds, webbing, etc.] and it doesn't really hold up to close-up shots... but banged out a couple of isometric renders for Nad & Azman so they can start doing some concepts for the clothes & equipment & color tests.

More to come, hopefully! Juggling so many things, I could be a circus clown.

*Joe still hears the 'Asteroid Chase' theme from Empire Strikes Back when he's rushing to the bathroom

Arrr... Shake Yer Booty

2011-08-04T17:50:00.002+08:00

Great. Now we're doing pirate jokes.

Really quick 10-sec dance animation demo done for the animation class I'm teaching [topic of the week : identifying keyposes from reference video]. Link for original reference video [starts halfway in]. Playblast & wires below.

Song : 'Moment 4 Life' by Nicki Minaj
Choreo : Olivia 'Chachi' Gonzales [crazy talented crew member of I.Am.Me, ABDC Season 6 champions]

*Joe is out of breath. Fasting month and all.

Smoking Leads To Gill Cancer

2011-07-19T10:39:00.003+08:00

This is what you get when you're sketching too many fishheads and just watched 'Paul'.

A quick model I made for last week's 'Setup & Rigging' class. Construction stuff below.

*Joe felt sad when Mel exclaimed "It looks more like a cockroach than a fish!" 0_0

And I'll form.. the head! cue theme music

2011-07-11T12:24:00.003+08:00

Yay, managed to successfully use an obscure 80s cartoon reference in context [if you squeed 'Voltron!', then give yourself a pat on the back for being old].

Aaanyway... Some quick head concept sketches for the Fishboy project Azman, Nadia & I are working on - Nadia's working on the body details, Azman's doing hands and feet studies. Together, we're gonna see what works and frankenstein a character together from all these parts. So.. sooner or later, there should be another post of the finished thing.

Inspiration came from all sorts of things... manta rays, sharks, frogs, octopuses [octopodes? octopi? octopuseses?], fish, squid, turtles, and other underwater squiggly things.

*Joe just realized that 'Fishboy head' sounds like a weird sexual favour

Snoop Froggy Frogg

2011-01-06T16:19:00.004+08:00

A lizard-doggie-thing, modeled over a couple of free nights. Still not too happy with the textures, spent 2 hours just slapping them on... looking back, I wish there was a bit more variety in colors [green just seems so... cliche] :(

... and a couple of wires, for those who are into the construction stuff :

*Joe wants a robot polar bear to guard his house

Forgotten Work

2011-01-06T15:40:00.006+08:00

Woah. Totally forgot about these guys. They were done near the end of 2009 [...holy crap. How time's fun when you're having flies]. My wife helped me with modeling the basemeshes for these guys when I was scrambling trying to get some other stuff done too [*muahs!*].

These models were done for a university art exhibition, my entry was focusing on low poly character models and the use of textures to add more detail than the geometry allows. I'm not putting up the final artworks, but these are the models used in the posters. So.. first up:

Mr Rock Golem. Weighing in at 1041 polys. This was the most... unplanned model. Was literally just a lump of rock with stuff extruded from it which ended up being the limbs and stuff.

Arrrrr. Or 'garrrrrrr'. Captain Redrumm, be weighin' in at 3001 polys. I know, I know.. 3000 isn't really that 'low' :( Very influenced from the pirate captain from the Gobelins 'Pyrats' short.

..and lastly, Samurai Sam [yeah, I know. Sam? Yup... Sam.] with a polycount of 2374 faces. This guy was slightly trickier than the rest because of all his accessories and costume details that weren't part of the body - had to figure a way to optimize everything.

*Joe needs to put up stuff as soon as he's done with them. He's a forgetful old man.

Huzzah!

2011-01-06T15:17:00.004+08:00

New update! Old news! Last month at the MSC Malaysia Kre8tif! Digital Content Awards 2010 [what a mouthful], Glue Studios won in the the 'Best Short Animation Production' and 'Most Promising Start Up Animation Studio' categories.

*Joe is happy that all the hard work paid off

Starting Over

2010-08-15T01:49:00.007+08:00

Alright. Been pretty miffed lately by the fact that I haven't posted up anything in ages - sure, I've had a lot going on [uni stuff, studio duties, research projects, freelance jobs, the baby, etc.]... but then again.. who doesn't have a lot going on?

There are so many others out there who manage to squeeze in a little time between all their junk just to work on their own personal stuff, even if it isn't much. I have so much respect for the people who have done that - they're constantly inspired, and don't let the business of the world get in the way of that. So... I really am out of excuses. And what does that make me, boys and girls? 10 points if you guessed 'LAZY JACKASS' [congratulations, give yourself a pat on the back].

Anyway.. I'm trying to get in the groove again. So here I am.. in the middle of the night, in bed, with my baby sleeping next to me, trying to work on something... anything. But... so sleepy, lah.

*Joe is now a qualified baby-burper

Wonewy Negwected Bwog

2010-08-15T01:32:00.007+08:00

Oh gosh. Last post on Sept. 2009?! Aih....

Hello people, it's been a while. And a lot has gone on since then.. freelance jobs, exhibitions, projects here and there.. hopefully one day I'll find the energy to hunt them down and put them up proper here. And the reason I've been so tired lately? Behold, my newest creation! :D

[ Not a solo piece. More like a collaborative effort :p ]

Say hello to Seri Celestial! Not even 3 weeks old, but has already developed the ability to cackle!

*Joe had a nightmare of drowning in baby formula last night

Drumstick

2009-09-14T07:24:00.005+08:00

*Yawn* Monday morning, class in a couple of hours, haven't slept much. Finished the leg yesterday. Now polycount is 1300, if you duplicate the leg for the other side [*gulp*.. it's creeping up]. After work, gonna work on the head & torso.

*Joe keeps hearing Ra-ra-Rasputin! in his head.

Shake Your Booty

2009-09-13T00:55:00.005+08:00

Oh my kosh-b'gosh. Not a single post since July?! Grr.. shame on you, Joe [*spank spank spank*]

Aaanyway.. yeah, I've been busy. With boring stuff. However, one interesting thing coming up soon is an exhibition that me and some others in the faculty are gonna participate in. My work deals with low-poly modeling, so I'm gonna be churning out a few characters for that event - no animation, just big big printouts.

I'm fascinated with low poly modeling [been trying for years to master it and still haven't come close to some of the stuff you see online] and I have the utmost respect for game artists - they manage to churn out some of the most awesome stuff using the least resources and make some really beautiful stuff using all sorts of dirty 3D tricks. Go ahead, check out gameartisans.org... I could get lost in that site for hours.

I just started modeling yesterday [what??! so late?! come back here! *spank spank spank*] and finished the boots for the first character (some kinda mechanical dude). The polycount is around 250, and all the details are through textures. I'll post the model in bits.. hopefully I can finish all four characters before time runs out [with Raya round the corner, and exam week, and all the stupid meetings during the student's holiday aiyooo.. things look grim].

Aaaaanyway. Back to spanking. *spank spank spank*

*Joe's ass looks like mangled play-doh after all the spanking... and you can take that image out of your head right now. No really. Do it. Now.

Quickie : Lemony Snikt!

2009-07-13T04:00:00.002+08:00

Those of you who have been visiting this blog for a while should know that now and then, I feel bad for relying too much on Zbrush... so sometimes I just feel like tackling something old-school style, modeling completely in Maya.

So here's a cartoonish, Bruce Timm-like version of our favourite psychotic mass murderer. Gonna move on and model the whole body whenever I got some empty time to fill up.

*..ever wondered why Logan's teeth aren't coated in adamantium?

GoZ! GoFasterZ!

2009-07-02T22:50:00.003+08:00

Zbrush 3.2 with GoZ was just released!.... for Mac OSX users only. Only a matter of time before it swings the other way.. either that, or we gotta wait for Zbrush 4 :p

...but seriously... 3D workflow is forever changed with this stuff. Dammit - this is one of the times I wish I was a Mac user.

*Joe is clapping his hands jumping up and down like a little girl. He's THAT excited.

Goldfish Memory

2009-07-02T22:34:00.004+08:00

I totally forgot about this guy.

Semester started around 3 weeks back, and things were already going into full gear - the rest of this guy [since the last update] was literally done in a couple of hours; I had to rush because the students were going to use this model for their assignment.

The total polycount for the whole thing was around 1500 - a lot of the details was lost because of this, but I wanted to make sure that this model was friendly to computers of all ages.

All maps were just 1k [AO, normal and cavity]. No time to do any colour textures :(

Super quick rig

Last thing to do was a deformation test to see how pose-able it could get.

So... that's it. Really unhappy with how this turns out 'cos it was rush job... but there are a lot of other university things I gotta focus my attention on [and other stupid things that keep coming back to haunt me... that's right.. I'm looking at YOU, stupid KPI monsters and MAPS contracting grrrr].

Dunno when I'm gonna be able to post up anything else.. I see lots of unpleasant things to do in the near future.

*Joe wishes he had 8 arms and 3 heads

What is the human up to now...

2009-07-02T21:53:00.006+08:00

It's that time of the year when I'm teaching camera tracking again, so here's a couple of the example tracked footage that I cooked up this time round for class, both taken in/around my place.

Tam-Tam is not amused

I'm glad these worked out pretty well, requiring little to no fixing at all [this time round, I actually took measurements of everything, making it a bit more accurate.

...and, just for entertainment's sake :

Tam-Tam. Half cat. Half Demon.

Oh no! I've been cloned!

2009-06-06T22:36:00.005+08:00

Nothing work-related, but bizarre enough to mention.

Mel just got a copy of Sims 3. She made a sim of me. She uploaded that sim a couple of hours ago. I have been downloaded 207 times since then.

*...I look weird as a sim.

One Eyed WIllie W.I.P. 03

2009-06-01T02:54:00.004+08:00

Cleaned up the back details a bit more. I'm trying to give some impressions of bone patterns, just so that it doesn't look all mechanical, or a really padded suit (that's why the spinal column and ribcage patterns are on there. My main goal is to try and get a good blend between organic and synthetic forms in here.

That small thing on the back? I think that's like a little reactor in there that provides the power for this guy (a battery pack-lah :p) Will finish the chest and shoulder area in the next update.

Nadia : Ooh! Now there's a stingray on it's back!
[First fish... then eels... now a stingray. I'm sensing a pattern here.]

*Tomorrow. Monday morning. Oh joy.

I ^heart^ Pixologic

2009-05-30T19:25:00.003+08:00

Do those guys at Pixologic even sleep?!

First, earlier this week they released the awesome Decimation Master for ZBrush. And today they release this announcement for GoZ.

F'ing mind-boggling awesomeness.

*found out that washing detergent tastes kinda yummy in small portions

Rhinoceroses? Rhinoceroseses? Rhinocerosi?

2009-05-30T01:45:00.009+08:00

Was getting tired of paperwork, so decided to $#*&! it and try out something new this afternoon.

Maya's default skinning method is.. kinda horrible (and that's being KIND. It really really sucks). There's always weights in the wrong place, and even after skinning and locking and painting again, there's always weights moving around because of the normalization factor and you get stuck doing extra PSDs and adding influences and sculpts, yadda yadda yadda...

Anyway, was browsing around on the internet and found a cool little method on Highend3D that makes Maya bind the geometry to the bones, not the joints (simulating the skinning algorithm used in Blender) and it produces MUCH MUCH better results. I didn't even have to make any corrections to the binding :O Even in the 'problem areas' like the hip-leg and arm-shoulder parts.

This is the model I made for the test, a low-poly speed model of Rhino (one of Spiderman's villains). Around 1100 polys. Quickly rigged, and then skinned using the method described above, and did a quick run cycle just to test it out. Outtadawayyyy!!

Yeah I know... it isn't much and the timing's a bit shot. But this discovery kinda opened my eyes to a whole new way of doing things more efficiently. One of these days gonna explore it a bit more. But until that day comes... back to the boring work.

*Saturday! Yay! Waittaminit... more work?! Boooo.

One-Eyed Willie W.I.P. 02

2009-05-28T01:11:00.004+08:00

Between KPIs, CSRs, final marks, ICEMS, SIGs, LANs and arrghhhhh&$*#(@^~!

Anyways, managed to carve out a few more details on ol' Mr Goldfish. Still pretty much making it up as I go along (but a lot of references are getting mixed up in my head - it's pretty much a mash up of Crysis, Metal Gear Ninja, Stormtrooper, those funny-lookin frog suits we saw in that new GI Joe trailer, and a bunch of other stuff I'm not quite sure what I'm seeing).

Only managed to add some detail on the torso and carve out the rough proportions for the back part. Since I made the mistake of doing this part by part, and not planning the entire body proportions early on... I foresee a lot of cursing in the future. But I guess that's what you get when you DON'T PLAN :(

Didn't manage to sculpt it as detailed as I'd like since my com is already choking on polygons (looking forward to retopo this sucka to less than a few thousand polys). Extra details such as little plating bits, rivets, screws, dings, scratches and decals are gonna be textured on later (at least, I hope so. Really have no idea if I'm gonna finish this.)

I'm toying with the idea of donating this model to the FA2 students next sem - they could use it to make their obstacle course exercise, and hopefully put this guy through a whole bunch of ninja moves :O wachaaa! G'nite!

*Tomorrow is FAnite! Or is it? Have no idea what's going on...

One-Eyed Willie W.I.P. 01

2009-05-21T01:03:00.010+08:00

It seems like forever since I've posted up anything, so here's a little doodle I was working on earlier this morning.

Kinda making it up as I go along, so there's not really that much I can say about at the moment bout what was going on in my head while I was sculpting it. Maybe in the next update. Aaaanyway.. let's see whether I can actually devote myself to finishing this whole thing.. even with all the other stuff distracting me.

Mel = "It looks like a goldfish!"
Nadia = "It looks like 2 fishes! A giant fish sitting on top of a smiling moray eel!"
Joe = "........................................"

*Whee! FA Delta presentations tomorrow morning!

Quickie - ....whuh?

2009-05-04T01:03:00.006+08:00

Super quickie. This one pretty much reflects how I feel most of time these days. Need something to get me all excited again about something... about anything, actually. Gahh.. tomorrow is work again. Back to the grind. (<- refer to previous post about needing a vacation)

Fried.

2009-04-24T15:19:00.002+08:00

Everyday. So burnt out by job. Depressed. Need vacation. Now.

Quickie - Brainssss

2009-03-23T00:29:00.004+08:00

Some animals smile in a really cute way, even if they can break your arms and bite your head off (think = cats, dogs, bears, monkeys, etc...). And some other animals... they smile in a really cute way too... except they look really evil while doing it (think = crocodiles, snakes, piranhas, spongebob squarepants, etc...).

I don't know why I'm even thinking about that. Anyway, quickie sketch before going to sleep on Sunday and while wifey is playing SimCity4 (around 30 mins of doodling).

Nite guys.

It's Not Easy Being Green

2009-03-13T13:58:00.007+08:00

Coupla days ago we were in the greenscreen studio downstairs, testing out the lights, making sure everything works before the students start shooting for their VFX projects. This was a simple test to make sure things could work. Looking back on this, I really should've used a tripod... tracking handheld footage is unnecessarily painful.

*thanks to Jafni the Green Ranger for setting up the lights and to Nadia for being so good at... walking straight

D. Tales

2009-03-08T22:27:00.004+08:00

Not much of a post, really - opened up the Longneck model and started etching out some subtle skin detail on him (a bit too subtle in fact... maybe I should make em pop em out a bit more later...)

Blubberboy [Part 3, R.I.P.]

2009-03-03T22:17:00.005+08:00

Arghhhhh. Haven't really had the time lately to do any personal work ( translation = anything FUN).

Anyways, tomorrow I'm teaching a facial animation class. Came up with these 2 quick samples this evening. Still no textures on poor Blubberboy, and to tell the truth, I'd rather move on to something else. So... bye bye, fattie.

Quickie : Longneck

2009-02-14T10:05:00.003+08:00

Very quick morning doodle <- haven't even had breakfast or showered yet... wife still asleep in bed :p I just like the direction this is going in.. I might save it and come back to it later.

Blubberboy [Part 2]

2009-01-22T16:40:00.004+08:00

Still no textures yet, just a simple ramp shader. Just finished setting up the facial deformations, here are a few renders.

...it was only while testing them out, I realized there are quite a few mistakes that I gotta fix - some of the controls don't make sense, and I could've tied up the connections more efficiently :( ...anyway, that'll have to wait- my flight back to Sabah is tomorrow, will be gone all week, and since the new semester's coming up, there's still a lot of paperwork to do *grumble grumble*

Happy Chinese New Year, all!

Playing With Matches

2009-01-20T15:37:00.004+08:00

...is fun, no matter how much your mum tells you otherwise.

Just trying out some matchmoving stuff, and trying to figure out workflows that make the whole process a lot less painful.

So now.. what should I put in these shots? Robots? Dinosaurs? Flying naked midgets? Hmm...

Clearer than real life!

2009-01-18T02:41:00.003+08:00

Thought I'd treat myself to a New Year's present, so I got meself a new toy. This. Is. So. Cool. I can't stop playing with it! The video quality is sharp as hell, and it performs better than I thought it would under low-light conditions. Hopefully I'll be using it in a lot more VFX-related work in the future.

QUESTION : What do you get when you cross a Tiger during Winter?

2009-01-18T01:57:00.007+08:00

...give up? FROSTBITE!! Hahaha - get it? Huh? Frostb- ok, that joke sucked. *sigh* Anyway...

My first freelance project in 2009! But this isn't really it... everything down here is being scrapped and redone, that's why I'm able to post it. It's still a W.I.P., maybe will post the details and finished work when it's done.

Anyway, it's a Tiger [duh]. The client went to my wife first for her to make several designs of different animal mascots for their service/product and the tiger is one of the designs that made it. My part was to build the mascots in 3D and rig them up for animation and stills and stuff.

The challenge in this is that it had to really match the original 2D cartoon design - every pose that it makes needs to have a nice, smooth silhouette and all the deformations should still retain that 2D-ishness [?] of the original design. My favorite reference for that kind of stuff was Kung Fu Panda with their ultra-squishy 3D characters that behaved very 2d-like [no offense to WALL-E, but come on... Kung Fu Panda was wayyyy more fun!].

So these were the test renders to see whether the deformation rig would work or not [this is the model without the costumes on, since the main issue was body deformation]. At first I was going to do a full muscle-rig but then I realised that [*small voice* I wasn't being paid enough to go through that kind of trouble :P] So in the end, it came down to the normal careful weight-painting and a lot of pose-space deformers for corrective blendshapes.

Hopefully when this whole thing is done, I can post up the images a few months from now :D

Blubberboy [Part 1]

2009-01-18T01:50:00.002+08:00

Next sem, I'll be teaching facial animation in class again - so I thought I might as well model another head to use as an example file [kinda getting bored with the old broken-nosed boxer model that I've been using in class for the past coupla years]. So here's Fathead - I just thought it'd be more interesting to rig/animate something with more volume and fat/muscle mass in the face, shifting around and stuff.

Modeled in around 2 hours in the office, took a bit longer than usual cos I was really being careful with the wire topology (need it to be fairly tidy if I want the nice deformations later on).

Will be updating with new posts on this guy as I move on to texturing, rigging and animating him later.

WEDDING PICS! [Part 3out of 3] KL Reception

2009-01-18T01:25:00.007+08:00

Been meaning to post these up since a while ago, but got caught up with stuff that got in the way. Anywayz, here's the last smadgeroo of pics from the KL reception. Enjoyah! [thanks again go to Meester Jeppu for the pics!]

Midnight Quickie

2008-11-29T02:02:00.008+08:00

Was up keeping my wife company while she was working on her stuff, so I thought I'd just play around a bit and doodle. No real thought process in this one, was just trying out weird forms, trying new stuff as it went along. *yawn* Let's go see what's on TV at this hour...

WEDDING PICS! [Part 2 out of 3] Sabah Reception

2008-11-26T17:39:00.014+08:00

The day after we got married, we had the reception next to the beach at Pacific Sutera Hotel, Kota Kinabalu. I know that I have a tendency to say the stupidest things and I'm hardly serious most of the time... but I can tell you without any irony, cynicism, or pull-your-leggery that this was the most awesome night of my life. It was awesome awesome AWESOME... smiling faces everywhere, people enjoying themselves and rocking out - there was a real festive vibe in the air that I didn't know could even be possible at Malay weddings over here in Malaysia.

Thank you so much to all the people that made it possible, and it makes me feel so lucky to know that I was part of a really special, rare kind of wedding - the kind that I enjoy! [I normally feel a bit awkward at Malay weddings here... mostly because of the super heavy emphasis on tradition and behaving yourself in general, which I have a hard time doing]. Again, thanks to the super-ninja Meesterrrr Jeppu for snapping all the nice pics!

Here we are outside, before the whole thing started, surrounded by Mel's pretty cousins in their traditional costumes.

..and here we are marching into the ballroom. My FAVOURITE surprise during this time was that the band (led by Mel's cousin Brian) was playing 'Learn You Inside Out' by Lifehouse - my favourite band. That was just... cool. All seated and ready to eat! Little did I know that most of the food was very seafood-y... not that I don't like seafood, it's just that the image of little jellyfishes and eels swimming around in my stomach make me queasy.

Long shot of the stage. Me and Mel are the tiiiny bobbing heads at the back.
The bands switched out - and The Midnight Flyers (that's Mel's uncle with the guitar) came in. They provided the music for the rest of the night (was rocking out to Santana, Elvis, and more) There were a lot of traditional dance performances during the wedding. From the Papar region... ... from the Kadazan Tribe... [who started pulling people from their seats to dance with them :P] ... and also from the Murut people. This one's called the Magunatip. The bamboo sticks open and close with the beat and get faster and faster over time, so you gotta make sure your foot doesn't get caught when that happens. Mel's cousin, Marianne Estebella, gave a really short, sweet introduction speech about us...

...and the video montage of me and Mel's history started rolling.

The music is an acoustic version of 'First Time', again by Lifehouse.

While everyone was watching the video, we had to rush up and change into our Kadazan costumes. That's my best man, Tariq, behind me. Mel's lil sis was her maid of honor.

All those shiny coins and accessories that Mel's wearing? They add up to about 5 to 6 kilograms. No joke. You could swing those round and kill someone with them.

...my mum does not approve of me thinking of the lethal potential of Mel's accessories.

BIG wedding cake the size of Jabba the Hutt...

...which I only got to taste a small slice of.

Me and Mel trying out the Magunatip. We did pretty ok me thinks.

My dad seemed to enjoy the whole thing.

The anguish of Tariq, a moment in time, perfectly preserved for future generations to see...

...that apparently didn't last very long. He got over it soon enough. I wonder why?

...oh. Mystery solved.

So here I am, trying out this thing called 'dancing'...

..only to get ditched. Apparently kids are more fun to dance with, compared to me. This won't do...

...SO I START BREAKIN OUT THE MOVES!

Lots of occupation-themed dance moves that night. This one's the scuba diver...

...the truck driver...

...the boxer...

...the gangsta-pimp...

...the gynaecologist...

...and the hand-jobber. [sorry Azman :P]

So when things started winding down, it was time to take a breather and chill a bit...

Mum and Dad were having a good time too.

Mel's Mum : You think you can do better?

Melissa & Dad

The freaks come out at night! [Me, Melissa, all of her siblings, and the cool-as-ice grandma]. At this point, it was already midnight...

...apparently, not everyone is built for partying.

Hope you enjoyed the few snapshots from the KK reception. Part III [the KL Reception] coming up soon!

Lunchtime Quickie - Whattaloadabull

2008-11-25T14:00:00.006+08:00

Quick model I made during lunchtime last week for my Zbrush texturing class that afternoon.

Started out with a super quick base mesh in Maya.

Took about 30 minutes to get here.

The polyflow was all messed up...

...so did a quick remeshing using the re-topology tools...

...and here's everything with the sculpted details reprojected.

WEDDING PICS! [Part 1 of 3]

2008-11-25T13:35:00.009+08:00

Got married last month in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah! Here's a few pictures from the ceremony at my wife's house. (*special thanks to Senor Jeppu for taking all the pics!)

IMAM : Megatron must be stopped. No matter the cost.

JOE : Agreed.
IMAM : ...and pirates definitely are cooler than ninjas.
JOE : Er.. yeah.

Mel : pleasedontscrewuppleasedontscrewuppleasedontscrewup....

To answer your question, yes. My pants ARE on. Shame on you.

:D *sniff*

It's a custom over there for the groom to give a large brass gong to the bride. So here I am beating on it, after we were officially declared husband and wife.

GONG!! Crowd : SATU! [ONE!]
GONGGG!!! Crowd : DUA! [TWO!]
GONGGGGG!!!!! Crowd : YAYYYYY!!!!!! [er... YAYYYYY!!!!!]

By the time Melissa realized she was marrying Popeye, it was already too late...

The 'merenjis' part of the ceremony, where family and close friends throw nice smelling stuff on you :)

All 4 parents

...and a few of my new sisters decide to jump in.

You're never fully dressed without a smile. Even a big, creepy one will do.

...scaring away the neighbourhood cats.

PART II : KOTA KINABALU WEDDING RECEPTION coming up soon!

Sick-a-doodle-doo Quickies

2008-10-07T21:21:00.007+08:00

Woke up today feeling queasy, so took the day off work. Stayed in bed til noon, then got up feeling really useless - so booted up me good friend Mr Z for a quick etch-a-sketch session.

This 'un was done in about 7 minutes... the queasiness came back so I just decided to go back to bed. I shall name it... Sad-Old-Farmer-John-Who-Is-Forced-To-Kill-His-Favourite-Cow.

This one was done in the evening, after picking up me fiancee, and before taking a shower. Had no idea where I was going with this one, just kept doodling and doodling until I reached this weird Frog-Fish-Rat-Pig-Bulldog-Boy-Thingy. Eventually stopped when I realized that I had no idea what the hell I was doing, and that I had other more important things to attend to (like licking 500 stamps for the wedding invitations). *sigh*

Both of them were sculpted straight from a sphere, was too lazy to make a base mesh for them.

*hmmm.. is it possible to get sick (or sicker?) from licking too many stamps?

You Were Born In A Zoo

2008-09-21T23:16:00.003+08:00

Since today was my birthday, I thought I'd just cap it off with a small moment of WTF-erry. Enjoy!

*done with the help of yearbookyourself.com. Thank you to my fiancee for making my day. You weirdo, you.

Walk This Way

2008-08-18T12:51:00.006+08:00

Grrr....

Between doing stuff for the wedding, doing stuff for class/work and doing other stuff on the side, I just can't seem to find the time to do... ya know, stuff.

Anyway, just to keep something going on this silly blog, I'm gonna post up something I did very quickly last week for my students' animation class. Last week's topic was animation, and I included walk cycles in that lecture session. Their assignment is to do 2 distinct walk cycles, showing differences in attitude, personality or character. So these are the two examples I did for them.

This one's a gangbanger / ghetto / hip-hop kind of walk.

..and this one's a... perv. Sneaking around a ladies dorm.

I'm really itching to sit down and do something proper soon, but chances are I won't be able to post up anything funky til after the wedding :(

Moo.

2008-07-23T01:21:00.009+08:00

This was a quick proof-of-concept thing that I had to do last weekend. Can't really say what it's for yet (heck, even I'm not sure of all the details - only met with the client for a coupla minutes). This isn't the final design that's gonna be used, so I can put it up (the original sketch is the tiny one in the corner).

Modeled, textured and rigged all in one Sunday evening while sitting in the living room watching my housemate go through Heavenly Sword on the PS3 (and dammit - that is one of the most beautiful games I've ever seen in my life). Kind of a sloppy piece of work (that's what happens when you gotta do something for someone real quick... but you're not getting paid for it! :p).

Polycount is not economical at all, and the rigging was just enough to pose it, but certainly not good for animation. The rendering was done in that simple Pocoyo-like style (where you just render a light occlusion pass multiplied over a flat colour pass).

Billboard Baggins

2008-07-22T23:58:00.006+08:00

My housemate was on the way to work when he caught one of my billboard ads that I did a while back. Figured I might as well post it up and show a bit about the process of making it (since I haven't posted up anything for a while).

*thanks to Booyaking Hilmy for taking the pic!*

Anyway, this was a job I got quite a while back, in April. Streamyx was doing a whole bunch of ads for music, gaming, learning, etc - the one I got stuck with was the one for gaming. It's not a piece of work which I have fond memories of (it came at a busy time, really short working period, and not really happy with the end result) but hey, a job's a job - and if you sign up for it, you do what you can without excuses. Aaanyway, here's the final look:

Since they were gonna stick it in a bunch of places, I had to come up with several different sizes/ratios and compositions because apparently it was going to be on billboards, posters, LRT tunnels and stuff. Strange thing is, I haven't come across any of 'em - then again, I'm not the kind of person who goes out much :p

The elements, colour scheme and composition were all decided by the client. I was pretty much the guy who just made the stuff and put 'em all together. This was the first time that I've had to work with such high resolutions (rendering at 12000 pixels made my poor old computer cough up blood). Anyway, on to the making!

The first time I did a layout for the background it was in full 3D (I thought it would give me better control over lighting direction, shadows, and intensity). Turned out to not be worth the effort (rendering would be too crazy and texture sizes would kill my RAM) - in the end I just painted the background, mish-mashing photos together and stuff. Took around 2 hours, and was a lot kinder to my PC and Photoshop.

The sky element went through lots of changes. The client wasn't really sure whether it should be evening/morning/sunset colours so I basically did all of them, letting them choose. The clouds were a bit of issue too since they were very picky about the shape and direction of the clouds. Anyway, the end result was done with a combination of clouds rendered in Maya, and a bit of Photoshopping here and there.

The boy was shot in a studio. The body was then cut into several pieces, dumped under a bridge and... wait hold on, that was another project ahahahha *sorry guys, just went through a whole jug of grape juice, feeling a bit high* ...anyway, the boy in the photo just wasn't exciting enough, so it had to be distorted here and there. The picture on the left is the original, and the one on the right is after it was transmogrified.

The clients weren't too particular about the tiny characters that were going to be in the background - they just wanted some generic looking fantasy-like characters. They were going to be such a tiiiiinnnyyy part of the picture so I didn't spend too much time detailing them. Up there is the basic Maya models I started from (planned to put most of the detail through textures).

Up on the left is the model detail without textures, next to it is the textured and rendered version. I'm kinda glad that they were such tiny background characters (really really didn't wanna go into modeling all the tiny tiny costume and facial details). Still, I couldn't slack off too much - these guys were gonna be pretty huge on a billboard so I sorta had to make sure they didn't look too crappy when scrutinized closely. Took about a day just to work on these guys.

This is the Maya wiremesh for the dragon used in the picture (I posted up an earlier version of the dragon in a previous post). The reason they didn't go for the first one was that it was too big, drew too much attention and wasn't as sleek as they wanted it to be. So I went back and went for a smaller, more wormy-like dragon. This model was done in a super duper rush in about 1 and a half hours. I remember it was about 4am at that time, my stomach was aching like nuts, and the clients were expecting an update in their email by the time they walked in the office (my panic meter was on full).

So this was the first version of the dragon. Grey shade on left, non-rendered textured on right (no time for a proper render at that time). They didn't like the colour scheme and texture details too much (I don't blame them). However, they liked the new design of the dragon, and altered the overall composition a bit (this time, they wanted me to turn it around, re-pose it, and spew some fire at the boy).

So, after a good rest, went back to the dragon, turned it around, bent the wings back and changed the head angle a bit. Since they didn't like the original colours (it didn't go well with the other colours in the composition) I completely re-textured and added some lighting effects to highlight it against the background. Left, greyshade; right, rendered. The fire was just done as a particle render in Maya.

And done! Looking back on this project, I still have horrible memories of it - wish everything wasn't so rushed and that everything went smoother... but what to do. It's over and done with. Plenty of other stuff to worry about at the moment :p

Learn To Fly

2008-06-04T19:14:00.006+08:00

Normally I wouldn't post non-art stuff... but today I'm just too pissed off.

Saturday, 31st May: NAJIB QUASHES TALK OF PETROL PRICE INCREASE
PUTRAJAYA: Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has brushed off speculation that petrol prices will increase by 40 sen following the government’s plans to restructure the subsidy system, including the petrol subsidy. The Deputy Prime Minister said it was untrue and baseless, particularly when the Cabinet had not discussed subsidy restructuring at its weekly meeting yesterday. “There's a lot of speculation and talk going around. 'But none of it holds water. The public should not listen to rumours,” he said.

..and what do you know. Barely 5 days later?

Wednesday, 4th June: PETROL TO COST RM2.70 FROM MIDNIGHT
KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Wednesday announced price hikes for petrol, diesel and electricity. He said the new price for petrol is RM2.70 a litre, effective midnight tonight. The price goes up by 78sen from the current RM1.92, a hike of 40%. Abdullah also announced that the price of diesel would be increased by RM1 from RM1.58 to RM2.58. He also said that Tenaga Nasional Bhd would be raising electricity rates by 18% for homes and 26% for business users. The announcements are part of the new fuel subsidy plan.

Untrue and baseless? None of it holds water? Should not listen to rumors?

Bite me.

Grawr..?

2008-05-17T23:05:00.008+08:00

OMG!!! No posts for over 2 months?! Ai...

Anyway, thought I'd share something from a job I got late last month. The only reason I can put this up is 'cos it was one of the early elements that got rejected/scrapped from the final. I'll put up the other stuff when the thing goes public on June 1st, all over Malaysia.

Anyway. The reason this thing was scrapped was cos it didn't fit in the color scheme & composition of what the client wanted. I ended up modeling 2 other dragon variations for the client to choose from, but more on that some other time.

Due to the short period of the project, this one was done really quick. 4 hours on modeling and around 5 hours to texture it (I really suck at color combinations - kept doing it, then re-doing it, and re-doing it again... and still not happy with what came out). Glad it got rejected, it kinda looks rushed, I like the final one better.

Anyway, here's some close up head detail shots:

And just to end this post, the source of inspiration for the dragon element. My cat (Tam-Tam) doing... something.

*Gyaaaaaa!!!*

Particle Playground

2008-03-14T00:14:00.004+08:00

I am sick. *cough*cough*

This week I had to teach a class on particles. I must have sounded like a frog. Since I haven't posted anything in a while, here's a little something I prepared for that class the night before.

And here's a bit-by-bit progression vid (for the small nerd that lives inside you).

1. Plain animated geometry
2. Light Trails added
3. Body smoke
4. Smoke trails
5. Rendered

Sort of inspired by Bravestarr (an old 80-s cartoon which apparently NONE of the kids in my class have ever heard of.. makes me feel so old). Sometimes Bravestarr goes to an old shaman for help, and he sees animal spirits in the smoke.

Might not be posting stuff up as often as before, gonna be busy working on a project for my capoeira group. If everything works out, there's something very special I'd like to invite all of you to :D

CLink CLanK CloNk!

2008-02-24T15:27:00.006+08:00

Feeling a bit sad because I didn't get to do that much this week, too much other stuff in the way. Anyway, posting up the finished Iron Man model from last week. Still not too happy with it since it ended up heavier than I intended, and the wires are all over the place :( Still prefer organic modeling over hard-edged stuff.

Gonna throw this one in the closet though - no immediate plans to do anything with it. Maybe one day I'll get back to it. Until then, it's just a quickie modeling exercise.

*random Ultimate Iron Man fact : even if you cut him in half, he'll still grow the other half back. Sick.

Geek Spasm

2008-02-16T01:49:00.007+08:00

On Thursday night, after coming home from work, I totally geeked out when I found out that Kahnehteh (Eric Canete - check out his super duper blog from the link section) paid a visit to this blog and left a nice note. That... really made my day :D

So... Friday was a bit slow in the office, so I started workin on a new piece. Since Kahnehteh just wrapped up his work on IRON MAN : ENTER THE MANDARIN (a comic book, nothing to do with CNY oranges :P), I was in a really Iron Man-nish mode - so here's the start of my Iron Man model (this is the version from the Marvel Ultimates line of comics).

Just basic form, no surface details yet... and here's a wireshot.

I really like the Ultimate design for Iron Man - they made him look a more insect-like, heavy hitting tank. Plus, that universe's version of Tony Stark is way more funny :p The goal of this project is to be efficient as possible with the polys, and keep the wireflow nice and tidy. Just felt a bit worried after realizing how much I depend on Zbrush these days to do organic modeling, so going back to basics, modeling clean base meshes straight from Maya.

OMG - it's getting late. Will continue working on this tomorrow morning after my morning swim, weekly spring cleaning, bathing my two crazy cats and doing laundry *sigh* ...will I even have the energy?

Eff-Aye-Que?

2008-02-15T11:13:00.006+08:00

Ola! Just thought I'd post some answers to two questions frequently asked :

1) Why only quickies/3D doodles/sketches/schmoe work?
Well.. I'll post up anything depending on how much time I had to make it. If I ever work on something heavy, I'll post it up too - but at the moment I'm just limiting myself to around 3 hours for each piece. Kinda hectic between classes (did I forget to mention I'm a teacher? maybe) and other projects.

2) What are my computer specs?
Old OLD old 3.0 Ghz processor from around 4 years back, before today's fancy HT and duo-core stuff *sob*, 1GB RAM *sniff*, and an old 6-series Geforce display card *sigh*. Still works well enough to make stuff though... but it gets pretty choked up at times.

...and one more specially for a confused Mr. Pietr :P
3) What means 'tikusatuih'?
just a silly play on the word 'ratatouille'. 'tikus' means 'mouse/rat' in malay.. and 'aaa-tuih!' is basically the sound one makes during long-distance spitting 0_0

Okay, enough with the words. Another weekend piece coming soon!

CNY Post - Tikusatuih

2008-02-10T16:46:00.000+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year/Year of the Rat to all my chinese friends!

*another messy quickie, basemesh 814 polys, quick zbrush session, patches of maya fur here and there.

Quickie - Ultimate Thor

2008-02-05T23:02:00.001+08:00

Quickie model done last Sunday evening, 3 hours (2 hours, late mcnugget attack at McD, another 45 mins on the face and arms), with no regard AT ALL to wire topology or poly efficiency... so it's a real mess :(

If you like comics and haven't read Marvel's The Ultimates... you really should - it's a great read (at least, the first two volumes are.. the third one is kinda lame so far). Most of the praise for this comic goes to the gritty, realistic way they approached classic, iconic characters and made them really flawed and human. Anyway, one of them is our boy Thor; he's a big question mark early in the series. The others don't really believe he's the real Norse god, and later on Thor himself starts wondering whether or not he's the son of Odin, or just a freaky-strong mutant with lightning powers and a funky hammer.

This was just a 3D doodle.. not gonna use him for animation or anything, not even gonna bother texturing, just a quick practice session. There should be time to do another one of these next weekend if nothing comes up.

Any suggestions on who to make?

...and a few more leftovers

2008-02-05T19:47:00.000+08:00

This wasn't too long ago (December). Just a sequence of stills from a talky test I as doing. Thought I'd add it in cos everything's so.... colorless at the moment.

Also added a bunch of heads at the bottom of this page.

2007 leftovers...

2008-02-05T14:36:00.000+08:00

Ok, ok... I promised myself that I wouldn't put up any old stuff, but until I get home from work, I'll make an exception for this thing.

These were prototype character models for somethin short I'm workin on. Since this particular version of these characters were scrapped and will never see the light of day, I might as well post them up.

All these characters were modeled/rigged within a 3-4 week period, on and off, when I had the time. No textures, just wanted to see how well the forms and silhouettes turned out. Character designs by my talented and lovely fiancee, Mel (who, incidentally, also started her own blog recently at kusut-masai.blogspot.com - check it out! :p)

Ooh... a blog!

2008-02-05T14:07:00.000+08:00

Thanks for visiting this blog - if you're lost, and got here accidently.. er... thanks anyway? Anyway, this blog is basically an art dump for me where I can put up all the stuff I manage to do in my spare time when I'm not busy with class-related stuff.

This is something I've wanted to do for quite a while for several reasons:
1) I keep losing my stuff.
2) People keep asking me what I do when I'm not working.
3) To keep myself from slacking off too much.

All the work that's gonna be posted up here is February 2008 onwards, so no old stuff from me. Alright, enough introductions. As soon as I figure out how to arrange stuff in this blog, I'll post up some stuff, hopefully by tonight. Thanks again for visiting!