Plant Sciences and Campus Dining

What do Plant Sciences and Campus Dining have in common??

Answer: They had videos produced by us that were finished and mastered on the same day. Oh, and they both relate to food, but that's not really the answer I was going for. Other than the fact that they were finished on the same day, Plant Sciences was a year-long project which was mostly finished about a month ago, whereas I started the graphics and edit for the video for the NACUFS conference less than two weeks before I finished it.

The "NACUFS 2013 Conference Preview" video was shown last weekend at the latest conference. Each year the participants watch a video preview of the next conference. Rather than bore the participants with a traditional video, the idea was to entice them with this short "music video". I did not design the logos or the "tomato bomb box" featured at the end of the video, but I did make them move. For more info and stills, visit the project on my behance portfolio.


For "The Division of Plant Sciences" video, I made the graphics, made adjustments to the video backgrounds of the graphics, and even shot a few clips of the video.


For more examples of the work we've done at the University of Missouri, visit the MizzouVideo YouTube site.

A New Invention as a 3D Animation

In April, the University of Missouri Biodesign and Innovation team asked if I could create an animation for their new invention. The final animation was shown as part of their presentations to potential investors and end-users.

They modeled the device, which I then texturized, animated, and modeled other elements in the scene to bring it to "life" in this 3D animation:


The Innovaject team are: Mr. Michael Barnett, M.D., Ms. Miranda Shaw, Ph.D., and Ms. Xandra Sifuetes, MBA

My first 3D animation re-rendered

Since I decided to put some of my work on my vimeo account for the world to see, I realized I should probably go back to that first 3D animation I did for Saturday Morning Science (the clients decided they didn't want to use it but that doesn't mean I shouldn't keep it) so that it is in HD and has audio. Unfortunately I couldn't find the original audio I had, so I found something else that works just as well. It's amazing I'm still proud of this thing...it's been about 3 years since I created it.

Saturday Morning Science Opening Titles from Katrina Boles on Vimeo.

Ads really can be Beautiful

Most of the commercials I end up seeing are trying to sell me a drug for a problem I don't have that may lead to a side effect worse than the problem I'm trying to cure. No thanks! It's no wonder I change the channel, mute, or otherwise avoid commercial interruptions. But occasionally, I come across a real diamond in the ruff and those are the times that I want to call up the production company and say "Hey, I have degrees in both design and art, am a working designer-artist, and though I wouldn't normally want to work in advertising, I'd love to work for you!" The commercials I've watched on Buck's website make me want to do just that. The difference is that with these commercials, they're all diamonds and there is no ruff...what a beautiful thing!

Here are a couple of my favorites:

C-Tree from Own Your C on Vimeo.



Sherwin Williams - Bees from Buck on Vimeo.


Google eBooks from Buck on Vimeo.

Blow Your Mind Animation

I shall say from the onset - so that no one gets the wrong idea - I did not find this video, it found me. By that, I mean that Mike sent me a link. And I was so blown away that I knew I just had to post it.


ShapeShifter from Charlex on Vimeo.

I haven't been doing 3D animation long enough to really even call myself a novice, but I think I can call myself an expert on watching animations since I have been doing that for nearly 30 years. And this is one of the most amazing 3D shorts I have come across.

Don't get me wrong, I really, really like all of the other 3D animations that I've referenced in my blog, but this one is flat-out stunning! Who needs the virtual 3D world that seems to be all the rage now, when there are people out there making the world break apart and put itself back together in 3D animation?

The world of 3D

I'm certainly overdue for a new post, and since my creative work life got overrun by a project, I haven't even had time to contemplate what's been inspiring to me. However, I still have adjustments to make to the video we have been working on, and for which I created some 3D and 2D composite graphics that weren't as effective as we'd like them to be. So, my world has been Maya and After Effects lately. Noting that, it is fitting that the video I found today was created in Maya. What's more is that I couldn't help but think "this is what I think transformational and disruptive technology could look like". And that is one of the subjects of our video that has been a struggle for me to grasp. I still don't know what it means for the University's Mizzou Advantage mission, but it sure looks disruptive to me.

Anyway, this stunning video is called Artificial Paradise, Inc. and here it is:


ARTIFICIAL PARADISE,INC. from Jp Frenay on Vimeo.

My work in Maya pales in comparison, but when I think about the fact that I don't use the program 40+ hours a week (most of the time) and I've only been using it for about two years, my animations are perhaps up to par with where I'm at in my huge learning curve.

Just to give an example, here was my first Maya animation created in 2008 as a way to introduce the University's Saturday Morning Science. (They did not end up using it because it did not feature their logo. I adjusted it later and added the logo, but it was not what they wanted. They decided their flat static logo was exactly what they wanted. Oh well, at least I was happy with what I created in a week's time.)

Abstraction in Maya 2011

So the other day I came across this really interesting 3D image on deviantArt

"Tactual" by xxtjxx

And I was once again looking at the image today, thinking "how would I do that in Maya?" when I noticed that this artist was inspired by another artist. So, I went to look at Jason-C's work, where I found more beautiful 3D images such as:

"Mandala" by Jason-C

This image, as noted by it's artist, took over 255 hours to render. I didn't see that before I started my own version. Anyway, so our tech guys finally got Maya 2011 to install on my work computer and I got in there to see how much had changed between the 2008 version and this one. What better way than to play with an idea of how I could create something similar. Maya crashed on my first version before I saved it, so in the last 25 minutes of work I created this:

 

It's not so bad when you consider the 180 layers + 3 lights in only 25 minutes with a total render time of about 1 second. With some tweaks - adding an environment, turning on raytracing (so it will show reflections), and adding more lights, etc - it could look pretty cool, and perhaps might make an awesome background for something. And amazingly enough, it took no script writing, which is very similar to programming and I don't really do that so well.

And of course the next question is... how could I make this in true 3D out of hand-dyed fabric?!