Muddle Earth nominated for a Bafta!

CBBC’s Muddle Earth, on which I was the lead Compositor and VFX guy, has been nominated for a BAFTA!  How crazy is that?  This wonderful show that took up 18 months of my life has received some sort of industry recognition, which, humbly, I think it deserves.  Animated by a small team of amazingly talented British animators, designed by some of the best industry talent from the past twenty or so years, funded entirely by the BBC – i.e. the British Public – this show has been nominated by industry peers for a Bafta.

Well, you know, I want to say well done to all the people who worked on it.  We should be very proud.

Just to prove it, here’s the link to the BAFTA website:

http://www.bafta.org/awards/childrens/2011-childrens-awards-nominations-winners,2169,BA.html#jump0

Yippee!

Fire and Ice

Well, the first two days at my new place of work – albeit for about a year – has already thrown up some interesting things.

Firstly, the first episode of this show that must remain nameless is probably going to be the hardest. I have met the animators – serious cred to these guys, they are animating in Flash and they’ve got to get up to 8 seconds a day! – and they are all really great people. And I have broken down the VFX that I have to create. There are around 183 shots in the first episode, and around 50 of these are going to be quite effects heavy; the most biggest stumbling blocks being the fact that everything begins frozen – except for the characters – and then after one thing or another there is a resolution that includes fireballs.

So, no pressure there then (gulps).

And, due to the imminent release of Maya 2010 – come on Autodesk – I have been denied a computer. Great joy. It will now be on order since, as of today at Siggraph, people now know the approximate required spec for this Matchmoving, Toxic wasteland of Autodesk’s bundled creation. So, I will be After Effecting and Dynamic making in no time. I hope so, the schedules not getting any longer.

Erk.

street tests on Vimeo

An amzing test using particulate in After Effects. I would watch out for this guy.Testing out Particular 2, ON THE STREET!
Sound design by skeletonsuit.com
Shot with a little Canon SD960.
Tracked with PFHoe Pro pfhoe.com

Quicktime at trapcode.com/gallery/p2_street_tests.mov

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about "street tests on Vimeo", posted with vodpod

Been a while…

Sorry for the time I’ve not been posting.

Work has been quite a rollercoaster, the highs and lows of advertising taking its toll initially and now springing back to heights unseen for a while.

Anyway, I have put the 3DWorld tutorials for magazine 111 – 117 up on my website.  These are:

111 – How can I make an occlusion textureUV map in Maya?

112 – Is there a simple flocking procedure in Maya?

113 – How do I create is a material with the look of tarnished silver?

114 – Is there a way to stop Paint Effects flickering during camera moves?

115 – How do I create a tooth brushing action in Maya?

116 – How do I simulate a magnet, like balls rolling to a common point?

117 – How do I grow Maya’s Hair system?

I hope they are of some interest.  If there is anything that you would like to see on the website, or even have a question asked, please ask me.

Thanks for reading

A white out and black out

Okay, yup, snow, yadda yadda yadda.  It’s all over the UK.  First time in years, whatever.

It’s cool, in more ways that one, especially as it means I’m getting out of the office and taking any work I can home.  Rather be buried near Buxton than in the depths of Manchester

Also, hell’s teeth!  The bandwidth on http://www.garynoden.co.uk was been exceeded so I’m going to have to find a cheaper way of getting out the files.  I think. I’m going to have to keep the archives and just leave up the PDFs seeing as they don’t take up much room in comparison.  If you need the archives, I’ll sort out another way of getting them to people.  As soon as I can upload again, I’ll put this info on the website.

As for now if you try to go to my site, well, you can’t.  And I can’t afford over £150 a year for unlimited bandwidth right now.

My Maya Tutorials are back online

Hello there, long time no blog.

Well, I am delighted to let you know that the tutorial section of my website is back up and running.  About time too.  There are 33 tutorials covering a wide range of topics from modelling objects, through animation, dynamics, rendering and some compositing. 

I have some more up and coming – one in particular about nCloth which will go up in a couple of months that shows exactly how to make it… well, you’ll have to wait.   Wow, I’m such a tease.

Anyway go to http://www.garynoden.co.uk follow the link to tutorials and check them out.

Monsters vs. Aliens.

Right, well, I saw a really early version of the trailer from Comic-con shot on a phone, and since then there has been some major tweaking of the trailer. It’s up at the Apple sight, and if, like me, you like your movies full of pop culture references, this little puppy is the one for you.

Plus it’s all CGI and it’s going to be shown in some cinema in 3D too.  God, I love this sort of stuff.  It’s what my eyes were created for.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/dreamworks/monstersvsaliens/#

New Website

Hi there.

Just a quick note to anybody who might be reading my blog, I have completely updated my main website.  The tutorials have gone offline for now, but everything else is pretty much there.  Learning Flash is becoming a positive new thing and I have begun dreaming in actionscript.  Only 2.0 though, 3.0 I will get to.

Anyway, please take a look and tell me what you think.  Bye.