UVA vs VA TECH Battle Bowl Animation

Here is another animation that I worked up for our company's Rivalry Week Sale for the Commonwealth Cup. I primarily used Cheetah 3d for modeling and rendering. Final finishing work was mainly done with Photoshop. Another huge learning experience. There were so many curve balls thrown at me, I was not sure it would get done in time. Just had to find solutions and put in tons of work to get it done. Sounds were made primarily from free sound effects with adjustments and enhancements in Audacity. Another learning experience in a quick amount of time. Normally I would have used Final Cut Pro to piece it all together, but I had to do with what I had at the time and make it work. iMovie did the job. Gotta make it work to make the deadline.

Animation was made for Rivalry Week Special 20% off Virginia Tech & UVA Big Sport Party Bowls! You can see a much better quality version of the video at the link below.

http://bigsportgifts.com/pages/20-off...

Check out http://bigsportgifts.com/ for other schools too.

Big Sport Party Bowl Animation - University of Washington

Here is the first cut of an animation I made using Cheetah 3D and Photoshop. Most of the work was done in Cheetah 3d with finishing touches and additional animations done in Photoshop. There are some trouble areas that I would like to fix up at a later date. Great re-learning experience. Some of the things you would think would be so easy were the most time consuming and difficult. I'm sure with time and additional tools it will become easier. 

This was done in order to provide promotional content for our companies new line, Big Sport Gifts. Additionally some of the product renderings used throughout the website were also done with Cheetah 3d. For the price it is a pretty robust and useful program.
 

Texas Jakes Lenticular Postcard

This was an animated lenticular postcard I conceptualized and rendered for Texas Jakes located at the Stockyards Station in Fort Worth Texas. Flashing neon, bucking bronco, dangling spurs, Fort Worth Herd cattle drive, and more cowbell! This was a fun one to work on. If you would like a custom lenticular image you can find out more at Design Masters.

Cast Iron Key

This is another 3d model I made in a totally different program. A colleague had pointed me in the direction of a program called 123D Design. After digging around in it, I decided to use it for a project we are involved with at work. It was my first time working in this program and some methods were similar to other 3d programs but the overall method of building was very different from what I was used to. I learned a lot just trying to make this not so simple key and in the end I was pretty darn happy with the result.

2014 Texas State Capitol Ornament

The 2014 Texas State Capitol Ornament. This is an ornament that our company worked on. It was chosen out of at least 9 designs proposed. This one in particular was a design that I had worked up during the presentation phase. As with most ornaments we do at Design Masters, once a design is chosen, it is truly a team effort to bring the end product to life. The ornament really is stunning and the packaging just sets it off. At the top of this post is a rendering I did for how the end ornament would look. This is done with my "patented" bling action, additional digital illustration, and doowahs. The next image is a photo of the final lid. The interplay from the multiple foils really looks great. Below the lid is a movie of the ornament based on my very first rough rendering. I was toying with a new 3D program and wanted to see if I could build an ornament inside it. Since I was working on this ornament I used it as a test. It definitely took some time to do with the learning curve, but I was happy with the end result. Building in 3D is something I really would like to delve more into and whenever I can add a new skill, I take the chance. Overall this was a challenging and fun project to work on.  

Stop on by their gift shop and pick on up.    Texas State Capitol 2014 Ornament

Colonial Williamsburg Lenticular Concept

This concept was for a Motion Lenticular project. I am going to put an animated gif since some people cannot see the video on their mobile devices. We ended up not using this version, but I chose to show it, as I felt it was pretty successful. The reason the top version was not used, was that the wrong group was shown. The official Fife and Drum Corps was replaced in the scene and we used that version for the final. I actually got to go down and take pictures of the Fife and Drum Corps in full dress rehearsal. This version is shown below the top version. Notice the difference in Costume and Movement. The official Fife and Drum Corps does not do the high leg lift. For those in animation this would be a cakewalk. Most of us here though were not animators and have developed a sort of animation-lite approach to making art for Lenticular items. One of the great things about working with a bunch of other talented people is being able to learn from them as well as use techniques and art they have created. In this case, I was able to grab a sequence of fireworks made by Steve Hannah. The rest was a combination of found imagery, digital retouching and some digital illustration. Our company has put out some awesome Lenticular products. Fun jobs to work on. Click on each image to see the animated version.
*NOTE* I just realized that in some cases mobile browsers are not supporting animated gifs. In that case if you would like to see them, after you click on the image you can then save it to your phone. Once opened in the gallery or image viewer it should animate.

Odor Eaters Carpet Cushion System Animation

While I was working for CommuniQue' Marketing, I was able to practice 3D modeling/Animation and actually put it to use. This was an animation that was done for Odor Eaters Carpet System. The carpet had an enzyme layer that activated with spills. It would attack the stain from the bottom and the additional spray would attack from the top. This was my first real 3D modeling and animation project and it really pushed my limits but also taught me a lot. I particularly remember building and rendering the carpet fibers which to me was extremely difficult. I had to look up a tutorial on extruding along a spline. The other part that was killing me was the bubbles. I had the hardest time getting the timing down. The bottom bubble would be flying at top speed and the top bubbles would be slow as a snail. Took some a lot of tinkering to get it right. The logo at the end was something where I decided to add a the spin to the orange swashes. The animation ran in the middle of a commercial. One memory of working on this project in particular was the final rendering of the frames. I used at least 5 of the computers in the office to render the frames in order to meet the deadline. The video is much sharper than what is seen in this small down sampled video shown above.