The telescope is uploading

Telescope uploading on dropbox to see together check the maya render these are marmoset renders of it and could only put one chunk in at a time as far as i could figure out.  Need to play around with it more to see but this is what they should look like in the engine if the materials are done right. Looking forward to going back and reworking something when I have more than just some change for time to work on it.  Really want to go the connection to the base right, but was just asked to do something resembling a telescope in a week i definitely think its mission accomplished.

Sitting at 15k tris.  Had to dummy it down around the connector to the base for time contraints but still a decent piece.  After semester ends going to redo some things and make it into a portfolio piece.   The render is terrible and for some reason the file saved the background as transparent.  Will update later this week with a better capture, but more worried about getting it finished.

Xoi Logo

Here is the log for the game. I pronounce the game X-O-I. Some of the students are calling it Zoe...I didn't not see that when I came up with the name. But its kind of growing on me. This will be a small demo, just having one puzzle in the game. We cam across some "technical" difficulties and had to scale the game back a lot. Its coming down to the wire, I am positive with the changes (even though late in the game) that we will have a nice finished demo.

Special Guest: Singkham Khamnouane Character Modeler

Special Guest: Singkham Khamnouane

So its been a while since I posted, been dealing with some personal and family issues. But I would like to take this chance and post about our special guest we have on March 30, Mr. Singkham Khamnouane from Reel Fx. Sing, as some of his friends call him, is a character modeler at Reel Fx. I have known Sing for some time now as we were classmates at UTD in the Arts and Technology program. I got to watch him grow as a talented artist. After graduating with his Masters, Sing went on to work for Disney. He discussed how great it was to work there, but how skilled you have to be to stay on. Sing was one of the modelers for the movie Tango, which by the way is one my family's favorites and I have to say they did a wonderful job on it - it reminds of of the old classic animations.

Sing, showed some of his portfolio work and how he constructed his demo reel that fit the needs of the type of job he wanted. He showed the work he did at Disney from the movie Tango and a short animation that they worked on.

After working for Disney, Sing landed a job at Reel Fx. He has worked on a variety of projects but most notably at the studio is the Looney Tunes shorts that have been released over the past 2 years in front of full length features. Mr. Khamnouane gave a wonderful demo on using Zbrush and the process he goes through to create a character. First doing a low poly model in a 3D program such as Maya and then moving it into Zbrush and adding the finer details there.

Some of the highlights of his talk, were how important it is to network and to play nice where ever you are at even while you are at school. Because the industry is such a close nit community, everyone knows someone.

In Photo: Nick, Anil, David M. Sing, Richard S. David R. In Frontl: Richard W.

Professor Programs

Telescope Main Body WIP

Talked to Raul and he said go ahead and tear it up on the telescope, so here is what i got so far.  Gotta admit I love this model.  Anyways pretty much got the main body of the telescope done. Next the base and the arms and stuff connecting it.

Special Guest: Brian Pow, Concept Artist

So, with spring break and a bunch of other events popping up I forgot to post the Special Guest we had on Friday March 9th. Here is the post and I apologize to our guest.

Special Guest Brian Pow

The class was greeted by Mr. Brian Pow, Concept Artist and Art Director for Trench Games, and indie game company who has been recently developing the game Galaxy for Hire. Brian is a former student of mine and an amazing concept artist.

His discussion and demo showed the students how to setup brushes to be more efficient and quick in concepting with Photoshop. He gave them pointers like actually taking pictures of foliage to use as brushes. Having perspective lines ready to use. To paraphrase, he said the job of a concept artist is communication. That concept artist are putting things together more than they are creating.

He went on tot discuss the game team is currently developing, Galaxy for Hire. He showed a lot of variety in the concepts and how not everything you "assemble" gets into the project you are working on. He show the students how to come up with an color palette that the texture artist and designers would be working off of. The students got a chance to ask questions about directions and his process.

In Picture from left to Right: Back Row - Anil, David M. Nick, David R. Richard S, Garrett. Front Row - Brian Pow and Richard W.

I might be a little bias, but Galaxy for Hire looks to be an amazing looking game. I am proud to have taught some of the people working on it and to have had some of the as classmates as well. Good Luck to Trench Games.