Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? – Shakespeare’s 18th Sonnet

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I’ve received permission from Bryan Ferry to animate to his musical version of Shakespeare’s 18th Sonnet. Here is a completed bit where I’ve worked out some of the processes and look for the thing. So far I’m happy with how it’s coming along.

Click here to view in HD.

The drawings and animations were created in Adobe Illustrator and Flash. It was all composited together in After Effects.

Ultimately, I want this to look like it’s actual ink and paint on paper that’s animated. I’d call the drawing style Book of Kells influenced.

The Book of Kells, research paper

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[The following is a research paper on the Book of Kells that I wrote last semester for my Art History class. I'm trying to squeeze in a personal project that is connected to the Book of Kells, so I thought I'd share this here.]

The Book of Kells
By Dennis West
ARTHC 201, Section 3
Instructor: James Swenson

The story of the Book of Kells is as interesting, and in many ways, as aloof as the swirling ornamentations and illuminations in the book itself. Its history can be traced back to an Irish Nobleman named Columba, who it is said to have relinquished his hereditary right to the Kingship of Ireland in favor of devoting himself to the spread of Christianity. Perhaps his greatest achievement is the conversion of the Scottish Pict people on the small island of Iona off the coast of Scotland where he afterwards founded a monastery in about 565 A.D. Continue reading “The Book of Kells, research paper” »

Quint, the Turtle

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About a year ago I did this animation for an Intro to 3D Animation class. For some reason it makes me laugh, kind of like Aardman Animation’s “Creature Comforts.”

Well, recently I thought I’d revisit it to make it more presentable. I went back in and tried to make the textures a little more turtle-like and less plasticky. The animation is still a bit Muppet-like, but oh well.

Enjoy!

To view in HD, click here.

Houdini Shader Programming Final Project

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Today I turned in my final project for my Shader Programming class. The project was to take a picture and insert a CG model into it and “Shade” it (jargon for texturing and applying a surface material) so that it looks like it belongs in the scene.

So here’s a test. Don’t scroll down too soon, just look at the image below and see if you can tell which object in the scene isn’t real.

Ok, so can you tell what was inserted?

Here is the image without the object:

Yep, it’s the wind-up robot. A toy that I’ve had since I was about 10 years old. Here is an image of a wireframe of the model that I made of it in Maya:

Houdini is a piece of software used in the industry to do high quality shading and visual effects. It’s pretty complicated, but can do some amazing things. Definitely rewarding when it works out.