This is a short flight sequence I created for my upcoming 2d animation short I created.

I am in the middle of creating an epic 2D animation staring these two characters(Picture Above) Super Guy and Rocket Bear. So far I only have 54 drawings.

So for this project I created the effect of fire in Houdini. I had several reference parts for this project. I found several photos from Google. Also I found this podcast on Vimeo, which shows you how to create an explosion and it goes through all of the settings in the shop and using all the sliders. So for this project I basically followed what he was doing in the podcast. Until I realized about halfway in that he was using a fireball and not the regular fire we were using. So after that I just kept playing with all the sliders and nodes in the AutoDopNetwork. Mainly in the pyro solver and the pyro. After I rendered out my scene and brought it into Nuke and applied a blur node because it was coming out too crisp. 

This is my first project for Visual Effects 2. We had to simulate either fire or smoke using Maya Fluids. I decided to go very cartoony on this one. I wanted to recreate the iconic smoke out of your ears scene you see in a lot of cartoons. To do this I had to create one 3D container but two emitters, one for each ear. After I had both emitters created, it was just playing with all the settings to make it look good.

This is the Project 3 final for my Compositing and Scene Finishing class. We had to track the original video in Syntheyes and then bring it into Maya to attach it to the Helmet Rig. After doing that we had to bring the rendered images into Nuke and just basically play with a lot of the settings until you came out with something you liked.

Well this is my final for VEF1. For the project we had to create our own scene of pretty much anything we wanted as long as we used Soft bodies in some way. So for my project I chose Batman!!!! There are a few things that I had to do to really get this project going. Number 1: I had to make it look like Batman was actually in Gotham, so for that I made a plane and put a texture of Gotham onto it. Then I took the plane and slowly started to wrap it like a circle around the scene until it covered every inch. Number 2: I had to make the cape flow using Soft bodies, and to do that I turned the mesh of the cape into a soft body and gave it two fields. An Air field which was placed facing the cape, and a Turbulence field which was behind the cape(basically inside batman's chest). And then I just kept messing around with the settings on both fields and my goal weights until I got something I liked. Then I realized it was missing something.... Bat Signal!!!! So for that I took a cylinder and cut all the faces off except for the top, then I flipped it 90 degrees and projected  the batman logo on it. Then to get the ray of light that creates the signal I took a cone, cut it in half, and flipped it upside down. Once I had them both positioned the way I wanted, I turned down the opacity until it looked almost completely see through. There you have it that's how my project was done. I hope you enjoy.

This is the motion test for my soft body final in VEF1. My scene is Batman in Gotham chilling on a rooftop while his cape is flowing in the wind. Also when you render it out the Bat signal is in the background going back and forth, due to the crap graphics card you are not able to see it in the playblast.

So this is my VEF1 project 1 final. Its a Rube Goldberg machine using Rigid Bodies. There were a bunch of tools I learned that helped make this project work. The main tool that came in clutch was the Gravity tool. It basically does exactly what it says. It applies gravity to an object to keep it from floating off into space. I researched the active rigid bodies button a little bit just to get more of an explanation to see what it does. Also to make it more appealing and less boring I gave it a Star Wars theme. So here it is and I hope you like it. Also a couple of things. It only took 1hr and 30min to render. Also my favorite part of this project was having all the awesome textures look awesome and seeing that the whole video worked after rendering everything out.

Working on my VEF1 final. The scene in Batman standing on a rooftop in Gotham while his cape is flowing in the wind. Here are some screen shots.

This is the camera view for the particles project. This is basically the track the camera will be on and what you will be seeing.

Doing a bunch of sketches for the new project in VEF1. We have create a bunch of effects using particles. I myself am creating Fire, Steam and a Spark.

Machine In Houdini

Alright so this is the whole machine put together in Houdini. Now due to the fact of not enough time I will not be able to make the machine function.

Machine in Maya

Alright so all the pieces were modeled in Maya. Now when you put all the pieces together this is what it will look like. So now all I have to do is bring all the asset's into Houdini and make it work(hopefully).

Asset#5: The Cup

Alright so this is the last asset of the machine and it is ........ the cup!. So after circling through the bowl, the marble will drop through the center of the bowl and into the cup.

Asset#4: Bowl

Alright so this is asset#4: the Bowl. So after the marvel travels down the long ramp it will shoot into this bowl. After circling the perimeter a couple of times it will drop through the center hole.

Asset#3: The Ramp

Alright so here is asset#3: The Ramp. So after the marble spits out of the bottom of the coil it will travel down this ramp.

Asset#2: Coil Ramp

Alright so here is asset#2 the coil ramp. So after the marble travels down the starting ramp it will go into this coil and spit out at the bottom.

Asset#1: Starting Ramp

Alright so the next couple of posts are going to be the modeled assets for the machine. So here is the first asset The Starting Ramp. This is where the marble will start at the beginning of the machine.

Marble Machine Day 1: Planning

So today starts the first day of planning for the marble machine project. Now I have created some blue prints of what my machine is going to look like(If I figure out how to post it). It starts out on a platform with the marble on it, then the marble will travel down these two metal pipes into the coil. It will go threw the coil for three rotations and shoot out onto a concave pipe where it will roll down into a half of a sphere with a hole cut out at the bottom and into a cup. And that will be the end.