Monday 21 December 2009

VOTE!!!

Happy Christmas people!!

I've been working the last 2 + months on a competition animation & now the time has come to vote. I think you have to register with the forum but if you already are registered or don't mind taking the time to register to vote I'd really appreciate it.

Or just look at the animation if you can't do anything else.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=139&t=833544


To register
1.Go to the top right of the page where it says Members Login & click the word Join.
2.Fill in all the info
3.Wait for an email to be sent to you.
4.Log in with the details that were sent to you
5.Go back to the page & post a reply at the bottom of the page

Best VISUAL EFFECTS
Stephen Macfarlane (StevieMac)

Best WIP THREAD
Stephen Macfarlane (StevieMac)


Thanks guys & gals & have a Happy Christmas & a great New Year!!

Steve

Tuesday 15 December 2009

Final Poster

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=139&t=812280
This is the last poster & it's the end of the competition tomorrow so get ready to vote for me!!!

Thanks




Poster 04

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=139&t=812280
There's one more poster after this & it's the end of the competition tomorrow so get ready to vote for me!!!

Thanks

Monday 14 December 2009

Sunday 13 December 2009

Poster 02

Saturday 12 December 2009

Bonus Posters!

As a bonus to the competition I've done 4 posters to lead up to the final dates so keep checking back for the next installment!!!!

These will be available 2000x3000 if I get enough interest. ;0)

Enjoy.

Tuesday 8 December 2009

Friday 27 November 2009

Update Nov 27th

Not much of an update today I've been rendering a lot & calculating explosion for the final shots. We've been given an extra 2 weeks so hopefully I can get it all finished in time & use some left over time to re render some bits I'm not happy with & work more into the comping.





















Tuesday 17 November 2009

Animated Storyboard.

This is an animated Storyboard for myself to help with my entry to the latest CGTalk FXWars Challenge. I used a few of my favorite artists see the list below.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=139&t=812280

Artists I used...........
JollyJack - http://www.collectedcurios.com/
Porco Russo - http://www.ghibli-museum.jp/en/
The Rocketeer - http://pulpsunday.blogspot.com/2008/06/pulp-pinup-rocketeer-1.html
The Rocketeer - http://seane.deviantart.com/art/The-Rocketeer-43334048
StevieMac - http://www.steviemac.co.uk/


Update 17th Nov

Not long left to go now & I'm starting to panic! It takes so much time to set up Scenes, Materials, Lighting then render it all I haven't even started on any explosions yet!

So here's another update of some rendered scenes.


































Saturday 17 October 2009

Updates 17th Oct

Just some screen grabs I got a lot of animation done this week but there is of course still major amounts to still do!!!
Hope you enjoy peeps.

























































































Wednesday 14 October 2009

Robofoot Design

This is for a shot in the competition.




Sunday 11 October 2009

Competition.

I've started an entry for the latest FX wars challenge take a look at the link below but here's what I've got so far.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=139&t=812280














































Wednesday 30 September 2009

3D!!! Testing 1 2 3

Get your 3D glasses out this is just a quick test with a model of Aang the last Airbender running.



Just another test using particle Cubes

Tuesday 29 September 2009

Car Smash

This was only supposed to be a test to learn Box Tools #2, so I was expecting it to take a few days, in the end it took a week to finish! Box Tools #2 still has a lot of bugs in it in my opinion & corrupted a few of my max files so most of the weeks was spent finding a work around. I was working between Max x32 for Box Tools #2 to work with PhysX & Max x64.

Originally I started out crushing the car & using Particle Skinner in Box #2 to collapse the mesh as the Engine falls onto it. This too a few attempts but the info on Orbaz's site is quite hidden but when found is really helpful! The idea did work but as you read on it might be better just to use an FFD box or something else.

The problems arose after cracking the ground using Rayfire & using the pieces as PhysX collision objects. This seems add something to the Max file which you can't delete. If you delete everything in the scene (except the ground pieces) & all PhysX links etc, when you open the file in Max x64 the PhysX comand prompt would emerge stating PhysX was in the scene somewhere. This on its own didn't cause problems but later on when using FumeFX. I found that FumeFX would not Sim passed frame 30 even tho the PFlow I was using to emit FumeFX Smoke from had no PhysX on it! In the end I had to re build the scene but still had problems after merging the ground peices in.

So after all the problems, I got what I could out of the experiece & this is the result. I'm not happy with it & I don't think I'll be using Box Tools #2 in rush again. Don't get me wrong the Box is a great idea but I think it still has a shed load of bugs that need to be ironed out. Keep up the good work tho Orbaz!







Sunday 13 September 2009

Just finished this.











Final

Saturday 29 August 2009

I'm Back!

Just a little something I'm working on. ;0)



Wednesday 27 May 2009

New Job

As some of you may of heard I'm now working for Prime Focus London doing Fluid/Particle FX. So I won't be posting as much anymore but when I can I've got a few test I'll post up.

Stevie

Tuesday 21 April 2009

Mortar Attack!!!

This one posed a problem for a while due to my collision plane being too complex but after shifting a few things around & knocking back the detail a bit I managed to get some decent render times.


Tuesday 7 April 2009

FumeFX Explode Smoke Plume

I think this one came out ok it's a bit boring but when I tried to add to it like a background some Afterburn particles etc my PC just couldn't take rendering it all out so I moved on. If or when I re do this again I'll start with a background image & work with the scale of that & sort the lighting out before doing a final sim since my PC seems to be getting on a bit now!

Saturday 4 April 2009

FumeFX ManOn Fire

This one took about 37 Gb of sim data on a spare HD & that wasn't a really detailed sim!

Sunday 29 March 2009

FumeFX Flamethrower

I think this is the first time I've finally got something I feel is really decent out of FumeFX. The hype about the plugin is way too high & I think a lot of people just open it, fiddle with the settings & think thats it, but if you really think about how the fire is growing & burning you get such a much more realistic flame as you can guess I liked this one!!!! More to come.



P.S. The guy with the flamethrower is just a character I made under 5000 Polys a few year back but didn't get around to finishing. I'm hoping to do a lot more with him in the future so keep an eye out for him ;0)

FumeFX Torch

Just picked up a DVD at the beginning of the week from my buddy Alan. So this week I've been doing some of the tutorials on there. Stay tuned for more!!!

Saturday 14 March 2009

Week 08

Here's the final Vid. I'm quite happy with the end result & the nuke but I'm sure one day I'll expand on it for a close up.

Friday 13 March 2009

Week 07 Nuke San Francisco!


This is the last 2 weeks so I really wanted to get something that looks good. On the course I didn't feel the look of the nuke was going the way I wanted so I tried a different approach which turned out ok. The pictures here are of the initial concept, the back plate & the aftermath plate which I painted for after the Nuke has gone off.

Sunday 1 March 2009

Week 06

At the end of week 6 it's been tough & I didn't really think about how built up London was before I did this so you can't see the ground explosions very well. I'm not too happy with it but it is only 2 weeks.


Monday 16 February 2009

Week 05

Ok we've got 4 weeks left to do twice as much as the first 4 weeks!! So here's the next concept.

Sunday 15 February 2009

End Of Week 04

Ok its the end of week 04, I had a few problems here & there but I made it in the end.

I found Fusion a bit of a pain since I'm used to AfterFX but after persevering I managed to do what I wanted in the end.

I think I'll prob add some clouds maybe some birds & I really want to add something to the foreground but that'll take time so I'll leave it for now.

Friday 6 February 2009

3rd Week

I'm in the third week of my course now & things have been hard. Mostly scale issues but I've managed to get things working how I want now.










Monday 19 January 2009

New Course


Today I started my new course in FX. This ones working with real footage & its looking good so far !!!

<----- This is a before & after concept fingers crossed I'll get it to look just as good in 3d!

Steve