What else now ?

Back in the days

2009-06-24T12:18:00.009+01:00

enough with the 3D ! Here a fun exercice, I had to put my face on an old painting.

I kinda like thoses pants !

final year project

2009-06-24T12:00:00.007+01:00

At the end of the year, I had to work on a big project during around 4 weeks. And this time I had only this to worry about !! It's nice to focus on a single project.

I had to create 2 images. And these two images had to be related, I had to tell a story through these images with no characters.

The theme of the project was the theater (again), I made a preprod report with all my research and the message I wanted to put into this project.

I choose to work on the Crazy Horse, a famous cabaret in Paris.
I illustrate my story through the scene and the backstage.

Here they are:

Uch Uch

2009-06-24T11:56:00.004+01:00

The first 3D model character !

I had to choose a BD character and then draw his model sheet in order to model it.
I decided to work on a french bd which is also a serie of short 2D animations called "Les Lascars". Check this out if you don't already know this.

time: 1 week

Let's go to the theater

2009-06-24T11:49:00.002+01:00

Animation on the theme of the theater.
The show it about to start, illustrate.

animation_theatre
envoyé par woinj.

It's christmas eve !

2009-06-24T11:37:00.003+01:00

In order to make sure we don't get bored during christmas, we had a small animation to do about christmas of course.

I had to illustrate christmas eve and more precisly the wait of Christmas (not sure if it makes sens)

animation_attente_de_noel
envoyé par woinj.

I prefer when it moves !

2009-06-24T11:31:00.005+01:00

Even if it's the first year, the 3D teacher wanted us to try some animation (basic) , no character, just camera, lights, simple objects ...

It's like a tradition at the ESMA, you have to make a animation with the logo of the school.
Well, I decided to use a famous icone for that. You'll recognized it.

logo_animation
envoyé par woinj.

As I made this animation a few days before St Patrick's day, I decided to add a small bonus to it.
here the second version, I prefer this one personnaly.

st_patoche
envoyé par woinj.

Quoi ma gueule !?

2009-06-24T11:03:00.014+01:00

Here we are, we've started to work on human body !
It's the first hand and face I model so it need some more work.

First, my hand :
time : 1 week

And then, my face. That was pretty cool to do but even if I see myself everyday, it's still hard to reproduce his face in 3D.

time: 1 week

La cabane du pêcheur ( avec accent)

2009-06-24T10:53:00.006+01:00

Another subject but still in 3D, I had to sketch a few shot of a hut. This hut had to be in an environnement with a story in it ...

As you can see I decided to talk about the deforestation in Amazonie and the pollution of the river.

Here is my image, I would hae scan the sketch I made but I need to find a scanner here first...
time: 3 weeks

(don't know why it's so bright when i put it here ...)

I'm back !

2009-06-24T10:02:00.006+01:00

It has been a while, i was very busy this year and i didn't take the time to post some of my projects. Here are some of my 3D projects from this year. It was some exercices with one or two weeks of work.

First, a phone, it was a free modeling exercice :

Antother exercice was to model a playmobil, it sounds cool but you know a playmobil is not so simple in reality !

A texturing exercice, the teacher gave us a child shoe and then we had to map it and create the texture.

Drawing workshop

2008-03-30T16:51:00.013+01:00

I have to build a drawing file that I'll present to the different schools so I'm starting to organise a bit my work into different parts. Most of my sketches have to be finalised generally. But I managed to work on some basic action drawings frame by frame, also some hand expressions; body expressions and nude models. I scanned all these drawings but I want to modifiy them before posting them here, so you'll see them later.

Here are the last sketches from my drawing lessons:

Animated texture

2008-03-22T18:19:00.004Z

Just an old exercice I had to do at uni last year. It's not much but I liked the idea of using a picture or drawing and then playing with it to realise a moving texture.

Can_texture
Vidéo envoyée par woinj

drawing workshop

2008-02-07T15:46:00.005Z

Since December I've been taking some drawing courses twice a week. It's only nude models and it's taking place in a cool mood with lots of different people coming for different reasons... A teacher from l'ESAD is with us. He suggests some exercices and helps those who need it.

here are some of my drawings:

when the plush becomes a 3d character

2008-02-03T20:02:00.000Z

When I was still at Teesside, I worked on a 3d character which I created firstly to make it as a cuddly. I'm crazy about cuddlies and especially the Uglydoll (http://www.uglydolls.com/) I find them pretty cool and I'd love to make some animations with them. I'm sure they could act on some animations with a simple but humoristic story. They have "la tête de l'emploi" as we say in France.

I wanted to finish it before leaving but I didn't have enough time.
So here he is :

Character Design

2008-02-02T15:21:00.001Z

I'm also working on some character faces, I try different shapes and designs. I'm focusing on faces at the moment coz I still have difficulties to draw the entire body with the clothes and stuff ... (maybe not the best to do in this case)

So here they are :

Some more designs will come later.

My little Munny !

2008-02-02T14:14:00.000Z

I don't know if you know what it is,(if you don't just have a look on that website http://www.kidrobot.com/html/munny3/gallery.html).

I recieved one last year, the christmas model, with his santa's hat of course. And "he" is pretty cool to draw actually as he isn't too complex.

Here is the original one (the one with the hat) :

and here is the one I drew :

It has been a while !

2008-02-02T13:46:00.000Z

I'm preparing my drawing portfolio as I will have to present it to the schools I want to enter next year. The most important aspect to show is that you know how to draw so I have given up my computer a bit to concentrate on drawing.

I 've bought my scanner :D so now I'll be able to post my sketches. I'll make some colorisations later on.

Here are some of my last drawings, there aren't really finish but I'll finalise them on photoshop I guess, like adding the shadows properly.

As you can see, I'm more or less working in a project which takes place in this kind of environnement, with bugs, mushrooms, hedgehogs ... It could be fun to work on that.

4L trophy

2007-11-03T16:48:00.001Z

Is has been a while I know, I'm back in France and I don't have access to a scanner here or at the uni so I can't post my new drawings yet ... I'll make it up for that.

Anyway, here is a poster I made for the 4L trophy which is a humanitarian operation to help children in north Africa. Some friends of mine were particpating in this event and asked me to make an A3 poster which would represent their team and thank their sponsors.

Angel final animation

2007-05-19T23:59:00.001+01:00

Here is the final animation:

Dailymotion blogged video
Angel
VidÃ©o envoyÃ©e par woinj

Feel free to leave any comments.

Turn around videos

2007-05-19T22:17:00.000+01:00

Here are a sample of the videos I ve done for my portfolio and the Angel project.

The uni is also running a competiton for all the uni projects split in different categories such as animation, character design ... and there are nice prizes to win. These videos will be send to this competition for the charcater design and set design categorie.

Dailymotion blogged video
Angel_turnaround
VidÃ©o envoyÃ©e par woinj

And the one of the scene:

Dailymotion blogged video
Scene_turnaround
VidÃ©o envoyÃ©e par woinj

Sample of sketches

2007-05-16T20:37:00.000+01:00

Hey, it has been a long time again, but I was very busy with my uni work so I didn't have the time to post anything lately.
I'm just going to post some pictures of the last drawings I worked on.

This skecth is a reproduction of Fafi's work

These last sketches are for a future project I have in mind could be for 3D characters but also for dolls (why not?)

I found my face

2007-03-30T11:52:00.002+01:00

Thanks to the ExpoTees, we had a shooting session for the brochure. So I decided to take this picture as my avatar. héhé

Han ... doesn't work, it suppose to be in the right corner with my profile as well...

As this post is a bit about me, I thought I could add a short film that I made during my second year with other students (Leigh, Ray and Dan)
It was a pretty cool project even if we were a bit just on time, the idea was good and it was fun to edit this film ... anyway I'm acting in it ( not much no worries ) and I hope you'll enjoy this piece of work.

enjoy the show guys:

Texturing !

2007-03-29T17:14:00.002+01:00

I've never really used texture in my last projects, but now that I know how to use, it's gonna be different.

I've finished the texturing for my scene. I didn't really expect this result so I'll probably change my main character texture a bit, just by adding a bit of clothe texture under the design. I still have to make some tries for that.

So here is my scene, the light is a bit strange on some renders but it's just to show how it will looks like.

Phone faces

2007-03-22T19:48:00.001Z

Here is a series of face expressions. These drawings are meant to be in mug's project. It's about mobile phones and he needed simple face expressions for his stop motion phone animation. I'll add some images later, when the project will be done.

Various face expressions:

Crazy expressions (when the phone is ringing) :

Here is an example:

Trip to Oslo !

2007-03-18T11:06:00.001Z

A few weeks ago, I went to Oslo with the Interlink society (international student) for a couple of days. This trip was amazing ☺!

I’ve never been to Oslo before, to any Scandinavian country actually. Some Norwegian friends told me before I leave that it could be a bit cold at this season and guess what … that was true. We left Newcastle on a sunny Friday and we arrived at the beginning of the night in Norway. The first thing you see when you get off the plane is the snow of course. The airport was 1h30 from Oslo’s centre so we took a coach and I think we were a bit in the middle of nowhere cause we were surrounded by the snow! The landscape is very different than in the North East of England, we went from factories to woods and snow!

Once we arrived at the youth hostel we decided to have a quick walk in the centre and maybe grab a drink but we learnt, that night, that it’s not that easy to have a drink in Oslo. They have lots of rules, like you generally have to be 21 to enter in a bar, sometimes even more and don’t think you can cheat coz they check everybody's ID. For most of us, the age wasn’t a problem but as there were quite a few of us that evening there were people younger than 21, well I don't want to mention any names but ... . We tried some other places to hang out but unfortunately we just walked around that night! hihi It was maybe better to save some money coz everything is expensive in Norway, for example we compare the price of a Mc Donald meal, it’s about 80 crowns, which means about 12euros …

Luckily for us, you don’t always need money; there are plenty of nice places to see for free. We visited the basic stuff the first day, went to see the see, the fortress, the castle … that was a nice day, a bit cold coz we weren't really equipped for this kind of weather!

We slept in a different hostel the second night, it was a bit further away from the centre, that was good for us coz we were like in a park with a slope (small one of course but still) so we spent the night there having fun and we even managed to get some homemade sledges (trash bags)! That was a great night, a bit cold at the end but as professionals of snow we had some warm drinks with us ☺! hihi

The day after this freestyle sledge session we went to a real downhill for sledges only, we took the subway and as usual in the subway, everyone had a pair of skis or a sledge with him. The subway brought us the slope and we walked on it, we still had our trash bags but it was a bit hard to use them sometimes coz there was a lot of people on it so we had to be careful ☺! We were surrounded by snow in the wood; it was amazing to be in such landscape! The next stop on the visit was the ski jump, as you all know, there was the Olympic games in 19…. in Oslo. So we decided to go on the Olympic site, the ski jump is something huge! You have to be brainless to get on this!

To finish this day wewent to the outdoor ice skating ring! It’s in the centre, there is a good atmosphere, music … was fun to go on the ice, it had been a while since I last skated and for some people it was the first time, so it’s always funnier in this case.

The last day, we went to another part of the city where we visited the Viking museum, it was impressive how big the boats were but except for the drakkars there was nothing else really… We finished the day with a last walk in Oslo and then got back to the Airport under the snow. I had never taken the plane when it was cold and snowing, it’s not like I’m scared when I fly but it’s not my favourite place to be and as it was cold … the plane didn’t take off directly, there are 2 trucks which prepared the wings, they sprayed some strange liquid on them before we left. Then, the plane could go onto runway and try it before doing it for real just in case it’s too slippy! I mean it’s a bit strange when you see that before taking off! But the plane finally brought us back to Newcastle.

I'll do a files with pictures later.sorry bout that.

What up ?

2007-03-15T16:16:00.000Z

It has been a few days since I last posted an article so let's get back in the game.

There are a few reasons for my absence, I went to Oslo for a couple of days and we also had some visitors at home.Was good to travel a bit and see some friendly faces.

I'll post an article about Oslo as soon as I can (very busy indeed) with pictures of course.

Where am I now ?
There aren't visuels of what I've done so far for the moment as I've been working on my main scene, the angel's planet. It's a big part of the modelling process and it has to be done quite well. As I was progressing in the modelling, I realised that strong angles didn't look as good as I thought ... On paper it seemed alright, but in 3D it looks better when we smooth (less bumps) the forms. Plus, my supervisor told me that using this kind of modelling could be misread by the people who will judge my work. Indeed, using less polygons and strong angles could imply that I can't model with more polygons and make nice curves ...
That's why you'll see some nice curves instead of the original design.

I've almost finished this part, the planet is done I just want to add a few elements to the scene to make it look better. After what, I'll do some renders and post them here. I still have to work on the texture a bit, I've already thought about how it's gonna look. After this, the animation part will begin!

Finished version

2007-02-15T17:54:00.001Z

As I said earlier here is the new draft of my main character:

I changed the head and the wings as you can see. It looks better like that. Don't you think ? (sorry for his hair cut again :))

The modelling is finished now, there is still a lot to do for the scene but it's gonna be easier than the modelling of the character. I've already finalised some parts of the scene but I had to work on something else as well so ... can't be everywhere!

I drew sketches for the angel textures, and then i redid it on Illustrator. As I said I worked on the clothe's design. After a few tries. I managed to obtain the result I wanted.

You will see it soon but first I'd like to explain a bit what a texture is. It's very simple (not to do but, to understand), you prepare your textures with a graphism software like Photoshop and then you put your form or polygons in the 3D software and you stick the texture on it. There are lots of settings but the principle is to take an image and stick it on your 3D form.

When i did my texture for the clothes the result wasn't supposed to be like that but but to be honest I prefer it now.

Here is the Angel with his textures. This is theoretically the finished version of him ... theoretically.

Animex Festival 2007

2007-02-08T22:12:00.000Z

Animex festival arrived in Middlesbrough at the beginning of this week!

That means two things, first I have no courses this week (coool) but it also means that a lot of professionals in the animation industry are at the uni this week.

This International festival is about animation (2D or 3D) but also computer games so it gives us the opportunity to see some really nice short animation movies. As I applied a bit late for my ticket I couldn't get a full pass but It doesn't really matter. I'm not that intersted in computer games and the staff who check the pass are mostly friends from my courses :).

Anyway, I've been to the screenings, I watched almost all the pieces which were selected for the festival. I saw some really good works, as usual, SUPINFOCOM presents amazing animations (no, I'm not saying that coz i'm french) like "Moutons" but also "Sigg Jones" (http://www.supinfocom-arles.fr/galerie.php?annee=2006 for those who are intersting). However, you feel good when you see a bad one, and there were some ... (nope, I won't tell you any names :p)

Also last night, after the screening I went to the Animex Lounge. I've never been to this kind of meeting, there were students and professionals in a bar to meet each other. As, it is not very easy to speak with people like that, the guy who were running the meeting asked us to do some exercises like speaking with people we’d never met before and find something you have in common or something like that ... After he compared this lounge to the speed dating and it was kinda that for the rules I mean of course. Most of the professionals were from the animation industry but also games and illustrations. Some came from the US and others from Bristol or London. Everyone was waiting to speak with the professionals who are already almost drunk ... :) and fake giving a crap of what you're doing (not always it's true but often)
Anyway, I didn't bring my portfolio with me and I wasn't expecting anything. I went there mainly because I wanted to know how this kind of meeting works. However I spoke with a lot of new people from the same area of study as me and it was very interesting.

The awards were today or will be tomorow, I'll add who won prices.
I don't know yet but I won't be suprise if SUPINFOCOM wins an award as they usualy do.

Drawing workshop...

2007-01-31T16:37:00.000Z

I've wanted to go to the workshop since the beginning of the year. Workshop is free . You can train your skills there, like do drawings, 3D, photography ...

So this morning I tried one of the drawing workshop sessions. This workshop is split in 2 parts. You can work on objects or human bodies. I tried the second one this morning.
This kind of trainnings are very useful for studies, the human body is not the simplest thing to draw and once you manage to do this you can modify them to your own style.

This was my first session so it was a bit difficult but I' ll return to these sessions.

as usual click to see it better

3D modelling...

2007-01-31T09:31:00.000Z

... My lecture has been cancelled... thanks to that i'm at the library early in the morning and i'm able to write a new post here about the 3d modelling. (I could go back to my bed ... but as i'm already out, it's not woth it, is it ? )

Actually i started the modelling of my character a few days ago and I have already some quick render to show.

First I'm gonna explain how it works. At the beginning of almost every object or charcater, we start with a basic cube and then we duplicate some faces, we modify the scale, the angle, move some points ... and at the end, it starts to look like what you wanted.

Since i started the modelling, i changed a bit my character, I figured out that some of the aspects of my character could be removed or modified. So, he lost his nice hair cut (yep, Louis XVI asked for his wig back :P). Seriously, I think he looks better without the hair and I modified the wings too. You'll see that soon.

Here you can see one of the render I've done at the beginning of the modelling:

As you can see, the head is not really nice and the wings are too discreet. That's why i decided to redo the head and the wings in another style. I redid the character design drawings but as they aren' t finalised yet i'll add them in a few...

So back to the software with my new design charcater, i used the same technics but I used them in a better way :) and here is my almost finished Angel (almost yep cos I' m sure I will modify it again slightly in the future)

Here is the wireframe render to show you briefly how its structure is, it will probably change a bit because of his skeleton i have to add some polygons to the articulations but basicly here is it under his skin :

And now the moment you were waiting for of course, the quick render :

There is no colours on him at the moment. I wanna try some design clothes but i haven't created the textures yet. That's the next step.

As i said i'll add the new character design soon no worries ;)

Storyboard and Animatic

2007-01-28T19:27:00.000Z

Finies les recherches ... on doit commencer à produire maintenant.
Pour avoir une meilleur vision du scénario, la conception d'un storyboard est bien utile, ça permet de bien représenter les actions et mouvements de caméra c' est aussi à ce moment qu'on précise tout ce qui est timing et sons.

Vu mes talents de dessinateur j'ai préféré faire des dessins simplifiés mais clairs. Comme ça on comprend bien ce qui se passe :)

en voici quelque exemples :

Toujours cliquer pour mieux voir.

Une fois ce Storyboard fini, il m'a fallu réaliser l'Animatic, c'est moins répandu comme nom donc petite explication.
L'animatic est en fait le storyboard mais en vidéo, alors on scanne tout les plans et on fait le montage, ce montage permet de réaliser les travellings et certains autres effets de caméra.Il me permet aussi de bien me rendre compte du temps que dure chaque action. J'ai pu donc faire une estimation du temps de l'anim, elle devrait tenir en 2 minutes. Je n'ai rien d'imposer niveau timing normalement (enfin je crois) et ce sera déja bien suffisant.

Humm ... pas possible de mettre la vidéo dans l'article (enfin ça demanderait d'aller dans le code et j'aime pas aller la bas ... fais tout noir).

Aprés cette étape on peut s'attaquer a la 3D ... Quelques apreçus de modélisation ne devraient pas tarder.

What's the mood

2007-01-27T20:01:00.000Z

... Apres avoir trouvé mon acteur principal, il m'a fallu installer l'ambiance et les décors. Etant fan de toutes les Burton's productions j'ai voulu reprendre un peu son style de décor comme les angles assez prononcés et des trucs qui s'entortillent.

Pour mon animation, je n'ai pas besoin de beaucoup de décor, l'action se passant principalement dans l'espace... (jva pas meubler l'espace non plus ...)
J'ai quand même accordé a ce petit ange un p'tit morceau de terre dans l'espace, on peut y trouver sa 'tite maison, son p'tit jardin tout son environnement.
Il n'y a pas beaucoup de choses chez lui mais dans mon scénario il s' ennuie avant sa fameuse rencontre alors j' étais limité vous comprenez, je ne pouvais pas lui mettre une balançoire ou autres jeux hein (question de crédibilité).

Cliquer pour mieux voir :)

Comme vous pouvez le constater, juste un p'tit îlot dans l'espace. Ok, le puits est de trop ... je le sais bien, il ne devrait pas être visible au final d'ailleurs.

Enfin voila la scène où se passera une partie du scénario, cela permet de montrer un peu l'ambiance tout ça.

Distribution du rôle

2007-01-24T21:36:00.000Z

Comme prévu, les visuels de mon personnage principal.
Pour l'instant ce n'est que du dessin mais son avenir sera en 3D ...

Rôle principal décerné à:

tadam !!!
Pouver cliquer pour mieux voir

Pour vous prouvez ses talents d'acteur, le voici en demonstration.

De même.

Il était une fois ...

2007-01-24T21:03:00.000Z

Alors avant de se lancer dans la production y' a toujours de longues heures ou y se passe pas grand chose ... beh ué ça prend du temps de trouver une 'tite histoire.

Mon projet sera donc une animation 3D de quelques minutes ( environ 2 je pense), réalisé donc sous le logiciel Softimage XSI, et travaillé ensuite sous Final Cut Pro et Combustion.

Au début des recherches je voulais un scénario assez simple et fonctionnant relativement bien (bon début hein?) pour résumer une tite histoire sympa avec une chute marrante. Le genre de scénario qu'on trouve le plus souvent dans ce type de film d'animation.

J'avais en tête l'intention d'expliquer un phénomèe naturel par une explication toute bête en fin de compte. Donc je m'explique 'tit peu mieux, par phénomène naturel j'entends quelque chose d'expliqué par les sciences ou bien la nature. Par exemple, le jour et la nuit, les vagues de la mer, une tornade, l'eau bout a 100°c ... Et donc mon animation serait une explication quelque peu différente de la vérité.

Je ne sais pas trop pourquoi mais le ciel m'a paru être un bon thème, on y trouve plein de choses plus ou moins bizarre... les étoiles, le soleil, le ciel ... bref plein de sujets exploitables.

Apres moult recherches et creusages de tête je m'arrête sur l' étoile filante, beh oui pourquoi pas ça? y a une etoile dans le ciel qui se tape un 'tit tour comme ca en faisant une trainée derrière elle, ça peut être un bon sujet.

Et me voila parti sur ce sujet, paralellement à mon histoire je travaillais sur mon personnage principal, il y en aura que 1, c 'est le genre de choix que le logiciel et le temps prennent a notre place... Ce dernier sera un Ange. Aucune raison particulière, je cherchais qui vivait dans l'espace et resultat ... personne (enfin on ne sait pas ...) D'ou l'idée de cet ange.

Pour expliqué briévement mon histoire, en voici le synopsis :

Un ange s'ennui sur sa petite planète, cherchant quoi faire il regarde autour de lui et là apparaît devant lui une étoile. L'ange enchanté par cette apparition s'empresse de s'amuser avec mais le jeu ne se déroule pas comme il l'avait prévu. L' étoile réservait en fait une petite surprise a l'ange.

Afin de rendre tout ça plus parlant des visuels vont arriver.

Y'a Koa la dedans ?

2007-01-22T11:14:00.000Z

Hum, bonne question, que va t-il y avoir à lire et à voir ...

Eh bien déjà, une 'tite interrogation me traverse la tête, Should I write this blog in english which will probably take more time, alors je pense que le français m'ira bien mais je ferai bien en fonction du moment. Faut varier les plaisirs c'est ça ?

Passé cette étape, je pense faire un suivi de certain de mes projets du moment. Et oui cette 3eme année est riche en projets plus ou moins intérressants... Un projet perso qui me prend la plupart de mon temps (j'éxagère peut-être) représente la plus grosse partie de mon année. Ce projet devrait avoir un petit article à son sujet bientôt.

En dehors de l'univ on devrait trouver par ici quelques articles et photos de tout et n'importe quoi. La colocation par exemple peut être bonne source et bien sur Middlesbrough et ses secrets.

Activité soudaine

2007-01-21T18:48:00.000Z

Apres avoir créé ce blog il a fallu l'entretenir ... chose qui bien sûr demande du temps. Comme je n'ai pas réussi a trouver ce dernier il est resté avec une activté qu'on pourrait designer par nulle.

Pour resituer un peu, aprés un DUT de Service et Réseau de Com. j'ai décidé de partir à l'Université de Teesside. Etant donné mon diplôme français j'ai pu dirèctement intégrer la 2eme année du BA(Hons) Creative Visualisation. L'année passe et elle aboutie sur un passage en dernière année.
Pour parler du cadre, Middlesbrough (uk) n'a pas perdu de son charme, ses rues sont toujours aussi plaisantes et les pubs, toujours a leur place respective.

Place au présent désormais! Et oui une envie soudaine de construire un suivi de ma dernière année. La tentative de l'année dernière ayant échouée je me lance dans une nouvelle tentative. Une chose est sûre par contre, c'est que le contenu de cette année devrait être plus interessant à lire que ce qui aurait pu être posté l'année dernière (c'est que ça ne valait pas tant le coup que ça alors d'en faire un récit)

Je ne sais pas exactement comment m'exprimer sur ce blog, alors on va se faire ça tranquillement et on verra bien ou ca mène (Aïe le mur!)

Ca marche ?

2005-08-17T13:06:00.000+01:00

si oui, c'est cool.