Meet the Hiphop-o-bot . . .

He was built with only one function . . .

. . . To Party!

Sorry about that! This is my submission for Advanced Animation. I think the scene with his hand turning the CD player on is actually the best animating I've ever done. Its the anticipation and the thought process that make this 4 seconds so appealing to me. I'm also pleased with his weight distrobion after his spin. When he is dizzy, I think I accuratly displyed his loss of balance.

If anyone wants to party with the Hiphop-o-bot, just remember his favourite type of music is Heavy Metal.

You know, robots . . . metal . . . Tsk, never mind.

Facial Expressions

"The 46 facial muscles are capable of producing over 5,000 different expressions."

Dr Paul Ekman.

Ouch, thats quite a lot! Umm, well heres some of them . . .

I was attempting some exxageration of expression in this. The hat is animated to reinforce the emotions being conveyed. Its still a bit rough, but this was my first time using Blendshapes in Maya. Also, I was aiming to create a fairly low poly model so I couldn't work with a lot of detail.

I think the face is quite well modelled though! The whole head and face started as a single plane, then I used the different viewports to shape then into the outline of head. It was important to give special attention to the corners of his mouth and eyesockets. These will face the most polygon deformation during animating.

Character Animation

This my Character Animation submission. I wasn't familiar with animating in Flash at this point, so I was quite skeptical at how this would turn out.





His jacket caused a lot of problems in his walkcycle, which is why I cut the scene pretty sharp. The hardest part of all was trying to convey the fact that his wife is giving him in touble at the end. It was a 15 second limit, and there was a lot of infomation to absorb in the last scene. I think its understandable though!

I'm happy with the final product though, it took a while and I think the premise is good! (For those middle aged men who still creep around the house like James Bond, who know who you are and we're coming to get you . . .)

Persuasive Narrative

Filming modules are my favourite modules at uni! As a member of the Film Making Society, I'm developed a lot of skills with camera operation and editing techniques! We were briefed to create a 3 - 10 minute piece made to portray a point or change opinions. I decided to do a promotional video for my bands new E.P. (To be launched this summer!) Check it out!

The audio is only the ghost track of the song 'Tell Me Lies.' Our E.P is being mixed in the Caribbean as we speak! (Our producer; Phil Carus, works as a sound engineer on a cruise ship!) So get excited everyone! We're planning a launch night soon, so I'll keep everyone posted on that! I'll be designing the CD cover and posters too!

I basically filmed our journey to a gig and cut it in with footage from another gig and a practice session at Stage 2000. Thanks to Wayne Dudley for helping out! I'm pretty pleased with the Continuum of Movement in this, so easy to forget about sometimes!

Anyway, hope you like it! For more tunes and info on gigs, visit www.myspace.com/14milesfromhome.

Jack X

15 Minutes Of Fame!!!

Thats right! Thats me on Google Street View! I'm famous!

Well maybe not, but its pretty cool huh? Although I do look a bit shifty there . . .

Personal Project

For my Personal Project Module at uni, me and two friends decided to create an Animation together. Its about Robots harvesting flowers as an energy source! Its basically finished apart from a few minor glitches . . .

This is the DVD cover we designed for it! Get excited people! Yeah, so we animated all the scenes but when it came to rendering, we hit a few problems, (no surprises there, Maya hates us! Maybe we offended or abused it in a former life, I don't know, but Maya really hates me with a passion!) Firstly, the our files got corrupted becuase uni doesn't have the plug-in for the grass effects. Secondly, there was a lot of confusion between importing characters into scenes and swapping files etc . . .

This is a screenshot of the Robot (or Biobot!) that I designed and modelled. The Environment was done by John Anderson and this was the first render when I imported my Character. This really got me excited about animating!

I like this render . . .

Anyway, we made the animation and submitted it on time! But we're sticking together over the summer to finish it to the quality we're aiming for! I'll post it when its finished!

By the way, has anyone ever written a 3000 word critical essay? I've just finished . . . my introduction! HELP!

Jack X

College Work

I thought I'd start off with my Showreel I made at Dundee College. I know it'll be quite dated now and my more recent projects will be a better reflection of my work, but I'm really proud of some of the stuff in this. The Life Drawing was my first time at the evening classes, the animations are some of my first attempts using 3D Software! Plus, I like it and it will save me digressing later . . .

The Audio is 'Evil Has Never' from the album Violence and Birdsong by Union Of Knives, I would recommend this album to anyone, its awesome!

Also, I want to show my HND Major Project off. Again, this was my first time rigging, skinning and animating in 3DS Max. I think it came out well considering . . .

As you can see, a lot of the SFX are a bit dodge, the animation is rough around the edges and the inconsistancies in the edit are through the roof, but hey, it was my first time! I learnt a lot from this project, mostly about pre-production. (The learning outcome asked for a 2 minute run time, my animatic was fine but then I kinda got carried away during the animation phase. . . )

That was great 2 years though! I learnt so much and met great poeple, the only matter I could criticize was the lack of emphasis on keeping a sketchbook. It was hard to get into the swing of things at uni! I had a great time there, some of the highlights are Action Man Armageddon, (A puppeteering spoof of Saving Private Ryan.) The Johnfather, (A film noir-esque silent film.) Knee Deep In Dead, (My game concpet design, basically Resident Evil 4 but with a stealth mode!) and my participation on the 3D:DC Team! For more info, visit http://www.3ddc.co.uk/.

Wakka Wakka!

Jack X