FRAN POWER'S ANIMATION BLOG

Updates are here!

2011-05-17T14:06:00.005+01:00

Hello there, I've been meaning to update my blog posts for a while, just been so busy lately. I'm currently compiling clips and images of some of my latest works. Stay tuned....

So as promised, here is my new showreel...

....its been a real job trying to get a resolution that fits most of my clips for the showreel, so I settled on 640 x 360, as there's some stuff that was done a while ago that I can't get re-rendered to HD, or even 720 x 576! Anyway I'm also going to put up some new stuff that I worked on a lot in March and April, it was designed for an outdoors projection but, well, its a long story......

Back soon!

Lovely Jubbely

2011-02-22T01:06:00.003Z

Finally got a short 3D animation that I've been working on for a while in the evenings done. Its just some comedy character animation to the soundtrack of a scene in 'Blazing Saddles', a classic comedy. I just wanted to try something completely different to what I remembered from the film. Its also been entered into the upstart event in Ireland (http://upstart.ie/) It's called Space Ditto.

I also wanted to see if it makes my nephew Sean laugh, I hope it does. I haven't seen him in a while.

Until next time!

Fran

Its Christmaaaasssss!!

2010-12-27T18:57:00.004Z

Well its been and gone so Happy New Year. This month I'm uploading the second motion graphics animation I did for Asavie. I decided to try something different this time as the piece was aimed at people 'on the go' in modern businesses. I referenced a lot of different styles on this project but mainly some Art Deco architecture and some stylized illustrations from 'Hirschfeld's New York', a book which I got for last Christmas. Funny how things work out in a year.

Snow in November! No way!

2010-11-28T18:43:00.004Z

...Hello humans. I can't believe its snowing here in Dublin in November, that's never happened before, there's tonnes of the stuff. Its feeling very Christmassy. I filmed some of the snow falling at 2.30 am this morning, it looked really cool. Well, its been a very busy few months and I've got more RTE junior idents to post here. I took my time animating the mermaid on this one, trying to get her to twist and swim was difficult, cloth simulators were used to get the hair flowing effectively.

Here's the Halloween one...

Some new 3D motion graphics work in progress

2010-10-27T11:18:00.003+01:00

Yes its October, well its nearly over. Time is feckin flyin! Slow it down, I can't! Aaargghgh! Well I'm working on some new 3d motion graphics for Asavie again. This time its a different product for 3G services. here's a couple of still images of what it looks like so far. I wanted to try something with a more illustrated style, using less colours but having more of an impact. More soon...

New Idents for RTE junior

2010-09-27T23:07:00.004+01:00

How's it goin? Pretty busy last couple of months. I've been working in RTE doing some character/motion graphics animation on the new RTE junior idents which replaces the old TV slot for kids, The Den. Its been a great project to work on and the results look really good. I'll post up some video links as soon as I get them, along with some more info.

Stay tuned...

...Okay, there's a bit of a delay in getting the new ident videos up coz we're so busy....

Here's the first one! Tropical. Hooorah! Sorry about the delay. The second one is below its called Space.

New stuff, Blog and website!

2010-07-20T13:22:00.006+01:00

This is the new look blog as of today. Its in the same style as my new website which will be uploaded as soon as my new 3D animations are rendered, Its taking quite a while cos they're HD 720 sized. I also found some of my old TV ads showreel stuff from 2002 - 2003 on VHS, so I'm going to go and get it converted to DVD. Lets hope it doesn't look too blurry, VHS stuff really does look crappy compared to DVD, or Digi Beta for that matter.

Summertime!

2010-06-25T15:15:00.019+01:00

Asavie Promotional Motion Graphics Video from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

This is my latest animation which I did for a computing technology company called Asavie. Promoting their Site to Site solution for businesses.

I did the design, animation and music over the last month or so. It was a great project to work on as the company gave me a lot of freedom with ideas and I really enjoyed it. Its a mix of 3D and 2D with simplistic shapes and colours.

I'm updating my website over the next few weeks (which is difficult considering how good the World Cup is getting, Come on Argentina!) and I've got some more 3D character animation to render and upload. Stay tuned

May day, may day

2010-05-21T14:49:00.004+01:00

Hello!

...been really busy lately with other freelance projects and I want to completely redo my website and blog, so when I get a chance I'll put up my latest animation videos here on this post. Bye for now.

Okay...here's some screen shots of an commercial that I've been working on this month. Its for a Cloud Computing and information technology company called Asavie. I'll upload the video when its done in June.

here's the last one...

Busy March

2010-03-29T15:44:00.004+01:00

Well its been a busy month. I've been creating, rigging and animating Low Polygon 3D characters for an online E-Learning language game. Its pretty cool, they wanted the characters to talk also, so morph targets I created were incorporated into the Unity3D game engine. If you're interested in learning about how they make 3D games for any platform check out Unity3D. I'll post some images of what the characters look like as soon as I get them rendered.

Also coming up....the new short 3D character animation scene for my showreel and some photorealistic vintage Car animation.

bye for now,

Smooth!

2010-01-31T18:08:00.006Z

Fail - Five second Project from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

Hello there. This is my latest Five second project animation for GreyScaleGorilla. I did it in Photoshop, 3ds max and After Effects. I was going for a late 1950's movie feel, I saw a really cool scene in North by Northwest and wanted something of a similar look. More 3D stuff on the way soon too.

Thanks

Home Sweet Home

2009-12-13T20:27:00.003Z

Home Sweet Home - 5 second project from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

Hey ho hey ho, here's a quick post of my latest 5 second project. The theme was Home sweet home, I enjoyed animating this and tried out some new After Effects techniques as well as trusty old 3dsmax. I was going for a German/Bavarian forest feel to the thing, as well as the type.

Thanks for watching.

Alien!

2009-11-29T23:32:00.003Z

Hi again, I missed the last months post but thats because I've been busy with some new characters and animation. This one is an Alien I've been working on a good bit. He's nearly rigged and ready to animate. I've never really done a non - human full rig before so it will be interesting. Should have some nece renders up soon too because I bought a new workstation, the HP Z800. Its great! Renders fast and handles large and detailed scenes without crashing. What a novelty! Looking forward to rendering a lot of HD stuff now. Stay tuned

Hup!

Showreel - Autumn 2009

2009-09-28T01:47:00.007+01:00

Showreel - Fran Power - Autumn 2009 from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

Some new stuff added to my showreel mainly some character animation and Motion Graphics done in Maya and AE. Thanks for watching, more animation at www.narfnarf.com

Retro Motion Graphics : Brain Wave!

2009-09-25T12:31:00.020+01:00

Brain Wave : Motion Graphics from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

Here's a little motion graphics piece I just finished. I'm pretty happy with it. Its supposed to be like something you would have seen on British TV in the 80's, creepy but fun. I found a retro graphics tutorial on http://ae.tutsplus.com/ and decided to add a bit more on to it. I created the synth music with Reason, great program.

Bye for now Eggheads!

Motion Graphics - Modern Monkey

2009-09-03T11:41:00.004+01:00

Modern Monkey - a 5 second Project from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

This is a short piece of animation/design I did for GreyScaleGorilla.com's 'Five second projects' which run every couple of weeks. This weeks theme was 'Modern Monkey' and this is what I came up with. It was a good exercise in speeding up your work habits. Mostly done in After Effects, Maya and Photoshop.

Thanks

Almost ready!

2009-08-31T18:25:00.003+01:00

Ok, its the last day of august so I gotta stick something up here. Well, its just the 3D layout from my next short animation. I'm also taking part in the 5 second project on GreyScaleGorilla, the theme this week is Modern Monkey, (Great excuse to put a wig and a pair of pants on a monkey) it has to be finished by the 7th of september so I will have my entry up over the next couple of days here. What will I do? I'm on it.

New Character Animation Work

2009-07-31T19:54:00.003+01:00

Sneaking Walk Cycle - by Fran Power from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

Hello again, well this month I've been plodding my way through Maya 3D, its been a mix of satisfaction and frustration as it is quite a bug filled program. Yet it is amazing for Skinning a character to a rig, and there are lots of rigging tools for it available as MEL scripts online. For the most part I'm really enjoying learning it. So as I'm almost up to scratch on everything I need to know in Maya, I will be uploading an animated scene soon using a character I modelling, textured, and rigged using the book 'Mastering Maya 7', some Digital Tutors and Gnomonology training videos.

This clip is of the character made learning Maya, doing a sneaking walk cycle, he's a supervillain, I haven't named him yet.

PS: The clip will appear soon, I'm waiting for Vimeo to sort out their uploading problem

Motion Graphics - Narfnarf Intro

2009-06-29T18:16:00.006+01:00

Motion Graphics - Narfnarf intro from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

This is a new Motion Graphics intro I just finished for my showreel, just thought I'd upload it here in HD, because some of my older showreel clips have resolution limits. I've also updated my website and blog with a new look. Fancy that. Thanks for watching

New Showreel Summer 2009!

2009-06-29T13:40:00.010+01:00

Showreel - Fran Power - Summer 2009 from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

Hello,

back again with another Showreel edit, this is the latest one for June 2009, I've been working on some more character animation as well as Motion Graphics as you can see. I've shortened it a little too. I should have some more new work uploaded seperately onto my animation blog at http://www.franpower.blogspot.com and my website www.narfnarf.com over the next few weeks.

Thanks

Motion Graphics - Ancient looking titles

2009-06-09T12:28:00.003+01:00

Ancient titles - Motion Graphics from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

This is a new one I just completed, working with Particles is cool, gives you a lot of ideas. I needed a name or title so I just picked Athens, for a change.

Motion Graphics stuff

2009-05-21T11:34:00.009+01:00

Car Animation - Motion Graphics from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

Hi everyone, this month I've been mainly learning some new tricks and techniques. This 10 second animation was made using just a couple of photos and After Effects, and of course a great tutorial on GreyScaleGorilla, which is a really cool site for learnig Motion Graphics. I've a link to it on the right, check it out. I'm also continuing my other projects in Maya, which I'll be posting next month. I think Jaguar will be well pleased that I'm making them free car commercials, so I'm expecting a free car in the post. Thanks guys, I just bought some fluffy dice to stick on the rear view mirror.

The car won't fit in the letterbox so just drop me a line ok?

Oh yeah, you might need to click on the title link just below the video here to watch it full screen on Vimeo, blogger cuts off the widescreen frame a bit.

Cheers

Showreel! Spring 2009

2009-04-14T18:21:00.006+01:00

Showreel - Fran Power - 3D animator from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

Hello, well I finally got the new character rendered. I put him on the front end of my Spring 2009 showreel as the newest part, I reckoned I needed some lip-synch and expressions in there. I animated Ambrogio (the guy in the tracksuit), doing some heavy lifting, his least favourite thing. I was thinking of maybe making him part of a series of short sketches, could be good. Anyway thats it for now.

Spanks.

Characters can kill!

2009-03-05T17:28:00.003Z

...That is if you want them to. This is a character I've been working on a couple of weeks called Ambrogio. I've just finished rigging him up so he's ready to animate. Its pretty obvious who he's influenced by, tracksuit maniacs! ie: The Mob. I'm looking forward to having him busting some dudes head or just pistol whipping a relative for lookin at his Goomah during his Nephews barbeque. Classy stuff. Lets hope the rendering won't take too long. Back soon with some animation..

BBC Short film - Days like this, "Loneliness"

2009-02-03T05:24:00.001Z

Days Like This - Loneliness from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

Hiho! Just a quick post of the BBC short film I worked on, I finally got the full version with music and sound fx converted to .avi so here it is. Its called 'Loneliness' and was based on real life recordings from everyday people with BBC Radio Northern Ireland. This particular one was based on a guy who owned a bookshop in Belfast and had an irritating recurring experience with an old man.

Cheers

F

3D Realism continued...

2009-01-27T14:20:00.003Z

Hello again, well its back to the grind of 3D, and I've made alot of progress with the 3D girl character as you can see. My plan is to fully rig the character and create a short animation piece with her. The further I get into this project though, the slower my machine gets at being able to process all of the details, textures, polygon counts etc. So I have to be quite patient myself. Rigging a high polygon character such as this is very time consuming and memory intensive but it will be worth it when its all finished. I'm currently designing clothes and I'm still trying to figure out the best way of doing the hair. Using hair modifiers such as the one that comes with 3dsmax is almost impossible with only 2 gigs of memory. So I decided to try with Nurbs surfaces and hand painted textures, which seems to be the most promising method so far. Well thats whats on her head in this image. Next month I should have some animation tests uploaded.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I'm going to upload the short film I animated for the BBC to my website www.narfnarf.com it should be up in a couple of days.

cheers

Merry Christmas!!

2008-12-15T15:55:00.003Z

Hello again, so I'm still working on the 3D realism character, the hair is taking ages to get right. I'll post some more work in progress images soon. My short film for the BBC will be aired tomorrow night (tuesday 16th dec) at 10.35pm on BBC1, its part of the 'Days like This' series and its about an old man in a bookshop. I'm putting up a nice Christmassy pic of that now. More stuff soon...

stay frosty..

Work in Progress : 3D Photorealism

2008-11-19T13:04:00.003Z

Well, my website is back to normal and as you can see I've been busy working on this model here. That rendering of the hand is still a work in progress (needs to look a bit more slender), I've still got to finish the bump maps and specular maps but you get the idea. I've never created a photo-realistic 3D character before so I thought I might as well challenge myself. Its a female character model and the entire body is about 75% complete. I'm still working on the feet, and I've yet to tackle the eyebrows and eyelashes etc.. I'm learning alot, and even though texturing a character with this level of detail is tedious as hell, I reckon next time I need to do something like this I will fly through it. Once I'm finished the entire skin texturing process I'll model a few outfits for her then put a quick animation scene together maybe using that ship interior I made last month. It will take a couple of weeks to render but its worth it.

If you are interested in learning how to model characters like this then you should visit www.3dm3.com. Its a great website, with loads of tutorials and techniques for 3D explained. Until next time..

Where's my website?

2008-11-05T14:52:00.002Z

...Bloody hell! Seems that my website is down temporarily because I moved web hosting companies and the old web hosting company I had still hasn't transferred my domain name registrar info, and it expired. So I'm on it and have contacted those responsible and should have everything back to normal soon.

Easy now

F

Still melting!

2008-10-24T15:53:00.003+01:00

..Holy shit! Its still going. Well, I have limited access to the internet because I moved house, so I'll keep this post short. I'm studying loads of new stuff in 3D like the latest Mental Ray rendering techniques and Sculpting & Skin painting in ZBrush. I'll stick up a work in progress picture, I'm going to make a short animation in Mental Ray for my showreel. I'll be back up proper in a couple of weeks. Stay solid

F

Recession, God Damn financial meltdown!

2008-09-26T13:25:00.002+01:00

Hey ho all,
so there's a recession in Ireland, and everywhere else really, the U.S. banks have collapsed because they gambled too much on shitty bets and now they need to be bailed out by the working class and middle class tax payers, so they can keep their yachts and holiday villas. Thats fair. So this month to counter the global financial doom I am going to be animating money, thousands of euros and dollars floating in the city streets, in the valleys of the countryside, in the schoolyards, in the sweatshops of Asia...and then hopefully it will cheer everybody up, and we can start spending cash again. Hurrah!

..in reality, I'm working on some new stuff but I don't have any work in progress pics to show so maybe I'll have something to post next month.

Damn it I won't eat beans!

New look website and blog!

2008-08-18T20:16:00.004+01:00

So I've just finished revamping my main website www.narfnarf.com, it took a while to convert all of the old videos to flash videos. I'm very happy with the design, all I have to do is change my webhosting company because the one I'm currently with is rubbish and so slow that my flash videos are playing stuttered first time they are played, but ok second time they are played coz they've been loaded into memory or something. Still though, its not good enough and my domain name is currently being transferred. You can't have a stuttering showreel, no siree. My blog is all new looking from today onwards too.

Here's a still from my latest film which was made for BBC Northern Ireland's 'Days like this' series, which you can see clips of by clicking on my showreel at narfnarf. The full short film won't be online until after it has been televised, sometime close to Christmas on BBC. Thanks for viewing, later square eyes

F

The Video is Finished!

2008-07-23T01:40:00.008+01:00

Finally! Well, I've got the new music video for 'Under the Mirrorball' by Spiders up online at vimeo.com so far, but what a pain in the ass it was to get the video's file size down and keep the quality high. I'm embedding the video below, hope it works. Actually, I've never tried this on a blog before. Here's hopin'..

Under The Mirrorball by Spiders from Narfnarf on Vimeo.

....and its back. This is as high quality as I can get the video online, I'll follow it up with a youtube upload as soon as possible. They only take 4 hours to upload, oh man.. Cheers

Fran

Back to the video

2008-06-24T13:49:00.004+01:00

Hello again, so I've finished the other job I was working on so now I can concentrate on finishing the 'Mirrorball' video. What a relief! I reckon there's about 25 seconds left to render so I hope its uploaded before my next blog entry. There's so much to do on my website update, where do I begin? At the drawing board thats where. Yikes! Later

Fran

May day, May day!!

2008-05-27T13:43:00.003+01:00

Hi again, how's it going? Well, this month I want to upload a clip from the forthcoming music video for 'Spiders'. Another job I'm working on has had a few hiccups and I've been very tied up 'time-wise'. So hopefully, and by that I mean very soon, I will be finished that project and able to complete the music video and upgrade my poor website, and maybe jazz up the look of the oul' blog too. So check out the video clip below for whats in store!

Cheers

F

Its April Fool!

2008-04-24T16:37:00.002+01:00

..ah yeah it is. Unfortunately I'm up to me eyes in the freelance department and haven't had any spare time to launch the music video or start on the new site. Looks like it will be mid May before I'll get the chance to. So no new stuff to show as the project I'm working on is secret util its televised I think. So if your reading this post STOP! Its not worth it, go back etc...

F

Finalise This!

2008-02-25T17:17:00.003Z

Wellity, wellity, so the music video is almost there! The rendering and effects are taking a bit longer to process but the animation is done! Hopefully I'll have it up on my new revamped website www.narfnarf.com. Along with a new showreel, new everything! I'm also working on a couple of Short films for a well known TV station which will be completed over the next 4 or 5 months. Its all go Babog! I'll upload some more pics soon.

Later

Fran

New Animation Project

2008-01-25T18:24:00.000Z

Hello all! Well this month has been quite exciting as I've started work on a new animation project which I'll be working on for TV over the next 3 or 4 months. I can't say what its about yet so I'll just post up a couple of early screen stills. Its going to be a mixture of 3D animation and compositing techniques which is a new area for me that I'v been experimenting with a bit lately. The music video for 'Under the Mirrorball' should be finished on schedule, I'm inserting a shot below from the latest scene. Should be great. So until next time...

Christmas

2007-12-30T20:25:00.000Z

Well its been a really busy Christmas with my band stuff/gigs and importing a new Vespa from Vietnam (what a hassle, it needed alot of repairs with the mechanics), and I hope to get back to my animation projects soon. There's just a little bit left to go on the music video and I've done some Lighting tests using Mental Ray rendering for my 3D film. So the plan is to get the video finished in january and onto youtube as soon as possible. I'm going to resume working on my film as soon as thats done, probably early february. My blogs should be a bit more detailed once I get back to business, they've looked a bit skimpy lately.

Merry new Year!

Very busy month

2007-10-30T14:20:00.000Z

Well, this month was spent mostly on trying to finish the music video on time for the album launch of my band Spiders, but we hit some snags with album production/duplication which needed to be sorted immediately. So I'm still working on the video. I'll stick up another couple of screen shots and hopefully it will be done over the next two weeks. Then I can go back to my film. Happy Halloween!

Album Launch Poster

2007-09-26T20:50:00.000+01:00

I just made this in the last day or so while I'm rendering bits of the music video. Our album launch is coming up in a month from today in Radio City, Dublin. It should be a great buzz altogether with a music video and visuals being projected inside the venue.

Music video for Spiders

2007-09-20T23:31:00.000+01:00

How doo? This month I started working on a music video for Spiders, thats my band. We've got our album launch on 26th of October so I decided it would be great publicity-wise to have a video doing the rounds on youtube. Its for a song called 'Under the Mirrorball'. So its a simple idea that will be created mostly in 3D and rendered quickly. Here's a still from it so far. The plot is complicated and somewhat political and involves cross-mogenized stemcell super robots and there quest for religious freedom in an ever changing world obsessed with unreal aesthetics and treacle. Well thats all nicely wrapped up then. Back soon

In the thick of it

2007-08-22T14:18:00.000+01:00

Hello again, well after going on holiday to Cyprus and getting tonsilitis right in the middle of it and having to go to hospital I'm back. I'm still chugging away on the film. I've got most of the exterior of the apartment building done as you see in the pic. At the moment I'm working on the park beside the building, which will be in the background during most of the film. I was going to use 3D trees and bushes but they seem to slow everything down so much during rendering that it would take 1hr 20 mins per frame! Screw that! I'm going to have to be economical and use multiple photos of trees and bushes on planes. It should look just as good. Or maybe better. The main character is completely modelled, costumed, setup for morphing/expressions and hair. At the moment I'm just getting his bone Rigging and Skinning finished so hopefully I can do some animation tests soon and the fun can begin. Oh yeah I started composing the score for the film and thats almost complete too, good ol' Reason. Until next time....

Tedious Shit! (Hair and Cloth simulations)

2007-07-17T23:48:00.000+01:00

...Yeeeaaargh! I've been working on hair and cloth simulations for 3 weeks now and its a royal pain in the arse. Its almost done and I've written down my settings so I don't have to wander aimlessly through guides and tutorials again. No matter how many times you do these simulations you never remember the settings exactly when you try again 2 weeks later. So, anyway as you see in the pictures above and below the character is coming along nicely. I'm fairly happy with the comparisons to my drawings. I've just got to keep the eyebrows settings seperate from the head hair settings in the simulator.
The Clothing on the character just needs some details, a bit more texture mapping, some pockets etc. I'm not gonna get bogged down in texture mapping though, coz its the worst thing I can think of doing for a day. I'm just dying to get animating this guy. It took a while to get the cloth to act like a real pair of overalls. I think these simulators have the cloth moving way too much during animation under their presets for 'cotton' lets say, it moves more like silk.

So Yay! I got stuck into the characters expression through the morpher. I love doing this bit. I've got a total of 14 mouth shapes and expressions, and 13 eyebrow/cheek/forehead expressions. So I'm very happy with his range of 'Acting'. As you see in the image above, this is his angry expression (with the hair simulator off) I believe him. So, right, I'm moving on to the other character after I've finished the bones/skin system on this guy. Then maybe a bit of set modelling. Until next time. Keep it foolish!

F

Busy Busy

2007-06-13T20:38:00.000+01:00

I've been storyboarding for a few days and I hate it! Its nearly finished though. I started the animatic to music anyway, so there's progress. I started modelling the main character, but I never want to storyboard again! Aggh! I've also been going around outside my apartment and recording sound effects on my minidisc and getting funny looks from people. I like that. Anyway, back again soon.

Pre-production for Short Film begins

2007-05-29T12:59:00.000+01:00

Hello again, this is the main character (so far) from my new film based on the adventures of a TV licence inspector. It might not make sense to Americans coz you don't have them nosing around your cities, but we do have 'em over here in Ireland and Britain, maybe the rest of Europe too. The other main character is below. The TV addict. Everybody has these, even Cuba! I know I was there. Funny TV, the Castro channel ha ha ha..

I'm finished the script entirely and have started my shot count to begin storyboarding and the rest of pre-production. But I hate storyboarding so hopefully it won't take too long and be very painful. Its only going to be a 5 minute film anyway. Back to it then...

Last day of April!!

2007-04-30T17:41:00.000+01:00

Aghh!
Well, I'm just starting the sketch ideas process for my short film. I've found a few old character sketches which I'll put up now. I'll like the style of the 'Brad' drawing, I used to work with that guy in NY for a summer. Happy days, happy days. The other drawing is a cartoon of my dog Jake. What a legend! I really have to get the new sketches up there soon. I'm fairly busy doing artwork for my band 'Spiders', flyers and such. I'll post again next week.
Easy now

Film idea

2007-03-26T18:19:00.000+01:00

Well this month I decided that I will make a 3D animated film this summer. At the moment I'm finishing off my script idea and some quick character designs. I'm aming for a five minute film but who knows how long it will actually be. I've no pictures to show, just some very rough sketches, not even good enough to post on a blog. So I'd better get cracking on the pre-production/storyboarding etc.. I can't say what its about, top secret and all of that. Pixar might rip me off again.

Oh yeah, I'm also gonna make a music video for my band 'Spiders'," ze crack, she vill be flyink!"

3D work on Rabo-Direct online ads

2007-02-27T19:52:00.000Z

Well, february was a busy month I worked freelance on a series of online ads for Rabo-Direct. It started in late january and finished half way through february. They basically wanted a chubby 3D character running around in a suit like the ones they wear in their TV commercials. So I modelled the 3D guy on a couple of different photos from the actors they used. Below is a still from one of the scenes where we have the character running on a threadmill. I'll try to get some of the video files up onto my main webpage soon.

Updating the Showreel...

2007-01-17T16:10:00.000Z

How's it goin? I've been trying to get my hands on various commercials and TV work I've done for Animation and TV companies/agencies for a while now and its proving impossible. Seems to be a trend with Irish companies to not bother giving the animators who've worked on their projects the finshed broadcast quality result so they can put it on their showreel. Very professional. Anyway I've scraped together the scraps of those projects and put the videos on my website www.narfnarf.com. I hope they will do for the moment. Here's a couple of pics from the projects I'm talking about.

Album Cover Artwork - Part 2

2006-12-19T17:30:00.000Z

Stage 6 ...so here's the rest of the cover work in progress. After I brought the photoshopped collage of the girl into 3DsMax I had to sort out a really good outline so her shadow would appear more realistic. This took a bit of tedious tracing around the edges. Then I applied some light tracer lighting and a couple of raytraced shadows from spotlights, with a hint of yellow, so it would look more outdoors.

Stage 7 ...et voila! I modelled some random stuff like cans, ciagarette boxes, and butts and randomly chucked them onto the ground, just like I do in real life. The yellow wall looked better than the pink one. I took some of the textures of the ground from photos I took while on holiday in Cuba, Havana streets or something. Also along the way I thinned out her figure a bit, because it was a bit out of proportion earlier. I'm well chuffed with that shit I tell ye

Album Cover Artwork

2006-12-18T01:27:00.000Z

Last March I started designing the album cover for my bands debut album. I love the old Roxy music album covers from the 70's and wanted to create something like that, so it would grab people's attention on the shelves, and not look like your typical boring as indie irish rock band. You know the type, the band photgraphed in a blurry way looking in different directions in a forest or on a beach. Anyway I started out with a sketch of a girl. A pretty rough sketch it was too, but I would be using it as a template to create my Frankenstein girl, a collage made up from 30 or 40 different images of fashion models I nicked from the interweb. Here's the first sketch above..

..so I basically started cutting pieces out of photos that I thought would fit nicely over the drawing. All of this was photoshop work of course. Every single piece of a photo I used had to have a layer of its own so I could get the proportions right later on...

...stage 3 - Finding the clothing as a decent size image from the net is hard. Most images on the net are horrible quality, so I turned to some fashion magazines too. I found some good legs though...
.....Stage 4 - I changed the top to a pink one then, with Hue saturation editing. Found a decent belt, sure she's looking better than Twink already. Deadly!

...Stage 5 - when I had her almost finshed I brought the image into 3DStudio Max so I could create a backgound behind her and light it nicely. I'll post the rest up tomorrow

Some more 3D Cartoon style stuff

2006-12-17T17:34:00.000Z

This was a little idea I was working on for a short film I never got around to making. It was created in Softimage XSI just after I did the O2 pitch. I was trying to make everything look a bit child-like and simple.
I liked the idea of everything in this film being made of glass, except for the characters. Who's behind the tree?

Oh its that guy...unsurprisingly I never even wrote a script for this. I should though.

Some 3D Cartoon style stuff

2006-12-17T16:58:00.000Z

These two images are from a pitch for an O2 TV commercial a few years ago, at the time I was into messing around with clean and simple 2D characters in a 3D environment. I created this with Softimage XSI at Screen Scene.

The little guy is working in a factory at a conveyor belt, pretty boring....then he gets a text message with the latest football results .....

...and he finds out that his team won! Suicide was no longer a neccessary option.

3D Forest layout [Work in progress]

2006-12-17T16:30:00.000Z

Just working on a new 3D showreel at the moment, I wanted to put some of my sketches and works in progress up on this blog, so I'll start off with a forest scene I was working on with my first year class for 3D layout. I found this Layout sketch in an article about Open Season, its one of the rough layouts from the movie. So I decided it would be good to show them how to work from a sketch.

Firstly I blocked out the scene with rough shapes a couple of trees and some basic lighting. Then I drew up a displacement map for the river, and continued populating the scene.

Then I created a water material and a fog environment, changed the lighting to blue, and already it started to look more atmospheric...

...so I kept on adding trees, with more leaves and also I increased the fog. I dimmed the lighting a little too. So next I'm going to work on the tree in the foreground and make it as detailed and strongly textured as possible, and model some overhanging branches with leaves.

My first blog

2006-08-31T12:21:00.000+01:00

..phew, it took a while getting through the forms but I bloody did it. Just posting my first blog to check how it looks, I'll put up some pretty pictures soon.

Fran

http://www.narfnarf.com/