My Journey into Animation

I will admit to the fact that I have kind of abandoned this blog. I just got carried away with school and work but now is a time to update it a bit in case someone stumbles upon it. I have still been able to devote some time to personal projects outside of school. Two of which can be found below in the video I  rendered out to show at CTNX to anyone that would watch. The dragon was really just a project  I created to use for rigging purposes so the model isn’t 100%.

The ship on the other hand is one that I have put a lot of thought into. I designed it as a futuristic type bridge but I  also wanted some older elements such as the steering wheel. That is the element that I thought the most about because I wanted it to look like it worked. Within the frame for the wheel portion is a control pad with a touch screen and throttle control. There is also a handle that the pilot could hold onto as he is spinning the wheel if he needs to push forward or pull back. The touch screen would display options such as how the steering works. Does it turn the ship like a boat, roll the ship, or move it sideways. I also thought about a counter to the impracticality of having a bridge with a huge dome on it so I have a blast shield that comes up to cover the area. In case this were done and the visibility is reduced, the stand alone consoles have additional monitors that come up.

An additional project that  I am trying to find time to work on is a project for CGtalk’s modeling challenge with the subject Hollywood Dream Cars. I picked one that is well above my level, the Nautilus car from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I have the main pieces of the body done and I  am going to start adding in all the small pieces that will need a lot of work, mostly through sculpting.

ShipDragonCTNX v1 from Darrol Moore on Vimeo.

I thought it might be best to go over what I have done up to this point. Apologies in advances since this is going to be a bit lengthy. Back when I was in high school, I was apart of the video production program and ended as the main editor for the weekly news show. Because most of the work for me came in later in the week, I had a lot of free time and I used that time to teach myself After Effects. I was just doing basic visual effects and motion graphic type work as I figured it was just something to fill the void since I wanted to go into film editorial at the time. (continue reading…)