Website and branding

 Have been working on setting up this business website and graphic identity. Logo designs, copyright free imagery and various jiggery pokery in Blogger, Google Contacts and Mailchimp. Triple Moon Gong.

VFX Tutorials Playlist

 I have a growing collection of VFX tutorials that I have made on my YouTube playlist. These were all made at or for the modules I teach at Greenwich University, London. Some of these were recorded in classes and some were pre-recorded from home. 

Direct Air Capture system 3d model

 I made a detailed model of a DAC system for drawing carbon directly from the air. This was based on photos from the leading Swiss manufacturer of this technology. 3d model and render using Maya.

Bronze Age Warriors

 My latest built from scratch low poly models. These represent Sumerian / Akkadian / Kuti / Mari warriors from Mesopotamia in about 2000 BC. I made a standard warrior and equipped some with axes, bows and javalins. One single texture map for all with some variations in faces and costumes. Each model is about only 2000 polys. There are normal and specular maps to add detail.

I handpainted textures and extended seams in Gimp

ten basic poses and variations multiplied into army

Normans published on Tabletop Simulator

Uploaded the army for use in any online game on Tabletop Simulator.

Normans 1066 !

 I have been modding 3d game characters for a while and really wanted to build some from scratch. With most of the work done during lockdown early summer 2020 I have just got round to finishing these models. They are low poly figures in multiple poses and with many possible variations in colours and costume texture maps. They should be easy to multiply into armies of hundreds without crashing anything. They are pretty historicaly accurate and researched I think. They include image, bump and transparency maps. They were made in Maya and rendered there with Arnold. 

Simple Character Modeling in Maya

 I wrote an earlier post showing basic steps to make a basic 3d character. I then made a movie tutorial ( my first one ever) . Unfortunately I put a music soundtrack on it and it was kicked off Youtube. I just found the edit files so went in and removed the music .. and here it is .. again ! This makes clean topology ready to rig mesh bipeds. Can be used for cartoony or much more realistic style characters. Click here to see the tutorial movie. The text based step by step instructions are here.

L'Art de Guerre on Tabletop Simulator Tutorials

I made a set of simple tutorials on the basics of setting up the wargame L'Art de la Guerre on Tabletop simulator.  You can go to the first one by clicking here or the on the picture above.

The other two tutorials are here:

Terrain Deployment
Army Deployment

Wargaming with Miniatures - with Tabletop Simulator

I've discovered during Lockdown that my favourite tabletop wargame 'L'art de la Guerre' has been turned into a 3d online game. Tabletop Simulator ( TTS ) is a 3d gaming platform which allows you to recreate your favourite games and play them in real time against real opponants.

You can simulate 'bases' of army units for use in the game. Here are some classical Greek Spartans lined up.

You can construct all the boards, parts, cards etc needed and they move with simple controls. Its problably based on Unity or something but it has a simple interface and is customisable by adding simple 3d models as .objs r .fbx. Flat art can be put onto cards etc as jpegs and pngs.

A medieval battle showing some of the simulated game props and terrain plus the TTS interface

The L'Art de la Guerre game board and miniature armies have been put together for TTS by Massimo Gamberi - an Italian wargamer. Since I discovered it I have figured out how the mods work and added four or five armies myself.

Low poly hordes of Dacian barbarians in Maya

The base figures are taken from existing 3d computer games such as Field of Glory or Rome Total War. Then the models are file converted using Blender and adapted and posed in Maya. They can then be imported into TTS and saved as 'Workshops' in whole army groups which people can access and bring to their own games.

Adapted texture maps - to give more variations of paint jobs to miniatures

When I edit the models in Maya I am looking to make two or three poses to mix up and then up to four different texture varaiations ( to make over 16 combinations of shield design, clothing, heads etc) . I can also mix up the horses and positions / facing directions to make them look a bit less uniform.

figure in Maya - showing the low poly mesh. Fairly easy to pose - but needs attention at shoulders.

Once I have a selection of individuals I can group them into bases of units - some mixed and random lik ethe barbarians. Some will be close ranked and uniform like this Roman army I put together.

Middle Imperial Romans - Auxhileries and Legionaries

Still from a battle I lost - my Spartans were defeated by the Carthaginians around 250BC

Heres a Youtube video I made just showing a medieval army selection I put together.

There's a Facebook group for ADG with TTS here

08 Tutorial to make a breakdown of your Nuke composite

This tutorial shows a simple way to make a labelled breakdown of your composited sequence. This would be useful if you are making a showreel and want to show how you made a visual effect or alterations to original filmed footage. Made for my students at Greenwich University to make breakdowns of their projects during the Coronavirus term extension allowed through April.

Grading Principles

Comping Multipass CG renders in Nuke

Breaking down and comping a single 3d render using Nuke. The multipass 3d render is separated out into the various constituent passes - diffuse, specular, shadows, ambient occlusion. Then they are layered up one at a time over the background footage. This tutorial uses Maya with Arnold and NukeX

Planar tracking tutorial using Nuke X

Video tutorial on planar tracking using NukeX . Part of a series of basic skills for VFX work. This video is an english language version of a video made in Hindi by learning lab. The free to download footage is from Hollywood camerawork

Nuke Chroma key tutorial / exercise using two keys

This tutorial was recorded at Greenwich University in 2020. This lesson was to demonstrate a VFX method for making a good chromakey combining a good subtle key for edge details and hair plus a hard key for keeping interior details. Learn to get a good edge key using Keylight. Also using Keylight you can make and add an InMatte . Using a Roto shape you can make an OutMatte garbage matte.

Roto-splining the Flying Carrots

This tutorial was recorded at Greenwich University in 2020. This lesson was to demonstrate a VFX method for making a magic flying bowl of carrots. This is a basic lesson covering ROTOSCOPING, CLEAN PLATE use and MERGING to remove unwanted elements in the footage.

Herd Immunity

Nuke Tutorial - Clean Plate Prop Removal - The Levitating Colt 45 Pistol

A simple tutorial for merging through to a clean plate to make an object fly. We will remove the unwanted prop and hand of the operator to make the pistol appear to float into the air. This tutorial will teach skills in clean plate production and rotoscoping as well as simple grading and image manipulation

Intro to 3d Compositing and Projections in NukeX

Lecture at Greenwich University for the VFX Principles module 2020. Recreating a 2d still background in a 3d environment. Adding a chromakeyed person to the scene and making a 3d camera move into the scene. The tutorial is an introduction to the basic 3d nodes and to cards and projections within the 3d environment. Footage can be found and downloaded at the Hollywood Camera Work website . www.hollywoodcamerawork.com The warehouse can be found on Google

Tutorial 01 - Basic Nuke Comping

So as part of my new role teaching VFX at the University of Greenwich I am recording tutorials which I have made. Here's the first one I've recorded from home. 

click on pic to watch on Youtube

Lenny and Spex 2d character animation

click image to view movie

Before last Christmas 2018 I worked at Toast TV in Soho on a 2d character animation in Aftereffects. The 30 second animation was a Trinidad cinema commercial for an optician.

3d Industrial / architectural visualisations

A selection of 3d renders showing large complex environments created in Maya.

oil refinery

development in Saudi Arabia

bridge in Nigeria

housing project in Damascus

Sundance Film Festival Projections

3d render from 2014 project for the digital archives of the Sundance Film Festival. Sponsored by HP the archive was launched at the festival and I produced the HD projections for the room where the archive was being promoted. More images, movie and info about this project here.

Music Promos and Event Graphics

I've worked on many pop promos and music ads and events since the early nineties. Amongst many artists I've made graphics featuring:  Bjork, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Lana Del Ray, Abba, Frank Sinatra and a host of lesser known acts.

pop promo for Ultragirls

pop promo for Hannah

Cyberdolls

hologram for Lucianna

TV album promo for Italian boy band Il Volo

Abba animations hologram for Abba museum, Stockholm

pop promo for Zlata - Ukrainian Eurovision winner

Sinatra hologram for Simon Cowell

DJ Eric Pridz - Randstad hologram

Gaming Graphics

There was a boom in online gambling around 2010 and I worked on a whole lot of different projects for brands Bet Fred, Sky Vegas, Poker Night Live, CelebPoker, Coral, Gala TV, Betfair TV, Racing Post, Bingo on the Box, Bingo Palace, Golden Palace, Super Free Bingo. There were a mixture of TV and online advertising plus we made actual programme and game onscreen graphics assets. Some graphics were for live playout systems - others for the programme editors to use. I made a short compilation showreel with some of the best bits here.

click image for gaming showreel