Website

hi


I am lacking behind in finishing my website. However, I hope to have it up sometime in the future for the meantime, though I will resume posting on my CG Scosiety portfolio.

turntable animations

For some reason, maya will not let me render an animation in either quick time or avi format even though I have installed the codecs for both the formats. There is absolutely no reason why it shouldn't let me do this except if there is a bug in the software either way I have submitted a bug report to auto desk, but I don't expect them to solve this issue any time soon though. There fore I have rendered the turntables in png formats and imported them to adobe premier, so I could export them as a quick time movie.

creating wire frame clay renders

In the process of rendering out some wire frame clay renders for the show reel. I am pretty sure maya is capable of creating wire frame clay renders of character yet I find 3ds Max to be a lot easier and more efficient for creating clay renders, mainly because the composite material in 3ds max is so easy to set up. That does not mean in any way that I don't like maya, in fact, I think they are both great softwares. They both have their pros and cons, it is how you know which tools to utilise for a certain task that makes these tools great.
This brings me to another point, and that is the knowledge of multiple 3d applications. I know some people who argue for one's superiority over the other and refuse to learn any other application than the one they consider to be superior but the fact of the matter is that certain 3d software will always be better at certain tasks than other applications. And by not learning more than one application the artist is really depriving himself of that useful knowledge that may come in handy at any time and may even prove to be pivotal to the completion of a project.

So I say rather than arguing that maya is superior to max or vice versa why not learn both, right.
The more knowledge is always better than limited knowledge.

The reason.

sumo

Apologies for not posting for a while.

I just finished working on the sumo character for my advance modeling and animation module. I am planning on creating a turntable of the model in Vray for my show reel in the meantime here are the two rendered images of the model.


Oh and am almost just about done with the website in dreamweaver hopefully if all goes according to plan, the site should be online in the next week or two.

PHP is proving to be a real pain to learn, at least I don't have to pay anyone for building the website.

website template

here is a rough draft for my online portfolio website.


this will be the home page for the website. it is going to fluid page layout in that all the pages will have the same colour scheme and style.

online portfolio

Hi,

Online portfolio is one of the most effective ways of promoting one's self as an artist.
Though there are many portfolio websites available on the web. However, its a good idea to have your own domain and use the forums to generate traffic to you own website.


And with that in mind i bought a domain name ''www.abu-h-a.com''.


I will be doing some skectes/concept for my website layout and the navigation system before I actually start building the site.

So on to dreamweaver

PPGI Prototype Showreel visual storyboard

Exit plan

High level Exit plan






The most important thing for any Artist is self promotion be he a traditional artist promoting his self through galleries or a 3D Artist who’s main medium of self promotion is through online forums. How ever there are many other methods of self promotion available other than the net. Here I will be listing a couple of ways in which I intend to promote my Artwork both in the world of online computing and national/international festivals.


    *

      Connections:- merely creating a portfolio and putting it online, while a great thing in itself. however, it will not get me a Job if there are no potential employers to look at it. One of the ways in which I will attract employers to my website will be through entering competitions, such as the ''dominance war''' held by the CG Society and many other online competitions held by websites such as ''3DTOTAL.COM''


    *

      3D MAGAZINE:- I am working on a piece of art work which I will be submitting to the ''3DWORLD'' Magazine.
    *

      Online Forums:- one of the best ways I think to promote one's self as a 3DARTIST is to show off your best work in online forums such as ''society'' which is the nets largest Digital Art forum. This method is very effective as it serves as a means through which one can generate traffic to his own website, the downside is that it is not free. However, the fee is worth the result.


My online portfolio on cgsociety


http://abuha.cgsociety.org/about/



Here are some statistics from the website.




Total Portfolios: 160,391 Total Visible Images: 295,284 Total Visits: 282,210,566 [http://portfolio.cgsociety.org/]

Character Artist Job requirments

What is required of character artists in the game's industry bellow is a list of Character Artist reimbursements, these are all based  on research done through looking at different Character Artist job applications





• 1-2 years experience within a similar role (promising candidates with no experience will be considered).
• Should be disciplined, creative, innovative, dedicated and passionate.
• Good verbal and written communication skills.
• Work well in a team.
• Ability to be able to pick up new tools quickly.
• Good time management skills.
• Can give and take both artistic and technical direction.
• Work well under pressure and excel in meeting deadlines.
• Good modeling and texturing skills with knowledge of current-gen techniques.
Good Knowledge of the following programs:
• Photoshop
• 3D Studio Max or Maya

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Senior Character Artist

Our Nordic client is looking for a talented Senior Character Artist who will work closely with the Art Director and other Leads from the project and will have a crucial role in establishing and maintaining the visual and technical aspects of the characters and character related assets.

Responsibilities include:

•Produce high and low mesh character related assets for reference purposes, in-game us or visual target.
•Work closely with the Art Director and the concept art team to ensure consistency between the concept and final 3D assets.
•Maintaining the vision and the expected quality level.
•Participate proactively in the constant improvement of assets production methods and techniques.

Skills and Experience:

•5+ years professional games development experience.
•At least one triple A shipped title as Character 3D Artist. Experience on MMO titles is a plus.
•Extensive knowledge and proficiency in Maya, Zbrush and Photoshop.
•Expertise with up to date art production techniques.
•Excellent artistic skills.
•Pro-actively seek art direction and cooperation with other team members.
•Solid understanding of next-gen character development process, limitations and dependencies.
•Solid time management skills.
•Strong communication skills.

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Requirements:
• Previous experience in a similar role within the video games industry
• 1+ shipped title to your credit in the capacity of character artist
• In-depth understanding of the human anatomy
• Strong knowledge of the structure of the human body and setup for facial animation
• Solid texturing skills
• Proficient in 3ds max or Softimage/XSI and Photoshop
• Strong knowledge of Zbrush would be highly advantageous but not essential


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I guess the most important thing for any employer when recruiting someone is their experience as can be seen from the above examples. Understanding of human anatomy is another important requirement for a character artist. What I found surprising was that most of the vacancies did not mention zbrush or muddbox to be a requirement. 

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reference

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/jobs//uk-and-europe/junior-character-artist-id45133

http://www.indeed.co.uk/Character-Artist-jobs

Importance of anatomy for artists

''However far technology advances, anatomical knowledge will still form the basis of good character design''

''An aspiring character artist might ask: “How is anatomy important to my work?” The emphatic answer is that as a character artist, anatomy should inform every aspect of your work! Anatomy is the structural foundation that grounds characters in the physical world and makes them believable, even if they are cartoons or imaginary creatures.''

Ever since I have started to do character modeling, I have found out that having knowledge of human anatomy is extremely important. I have been sculpting in zbrush for quite a while, and never really thought of learning Anatomy until I started comparing my work with some of the industry leaders in digital sculpting such as Chris Costa and so on. I have made it a goal to learn about human anatomy, even if I don't memorize the names of  every muscle in the human body I should at least know the insertion points of all the major muscles and how they wrap around the bones and overlap other muscles. This  I think is the biggest hindrance of my progress as a 3D Artist, which I hope to over come soon and so that's why I have bought a copy of, ''an atlas of anatomy for artists'' to help me improve my artistic anatomy.

 Long live ebay

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reference

computer Arts magazine

Career choice

there are many careers one can choose from within the 3d industry, some choose to specialise in Character animation while others may choose to take different paths. I have been studying at the university of derby for two years, this has given me enough time to think about my new career path and about its advantages and disadvantages compared to the rest of the careers that i could take.  prior to starting my studies i was a 3d visualiser. I left the profession as it was becoming very easy to be a 3d visualiser any one any where could pick a copy of a ''real-time renderer'' and produce stunning images without any effort or skills, its ironinc how the same technology that created jobs up ends destroying them too.

I have decided to become a character modeller and specialise in character art, reason being is that even though there are softwares that allows people to create models with a few clicks of a buttons like ''poser'', however the resulting models are hardly usable in any production pipeline be it for games or film animation, because you will always end up customising the models eventually and the edge flow of those models will never quite match your reference material. therefore in my opinion i don't think that the character  modelling field will suffer the same consequences as the 3D Visualisation industry

Showreels

Haven't been able to post much for personal reasons how ever i finnaly had the time to do some research on Showreels. Its going to important to know about Showreels how they are made and to learn about the does and donts 

Showreels

before we go any further I would like to make clear what a showreel is.

Show reel is ''A Video portfolio demonstrating the talents of an actor, directo, etc''.[web difinition]

from above definition we can sagely say that a showreel for us 3d artist is a short videio demonstrating or rather showcasing our best Artwork such us 3d assets, animation, etc.

''A strong showreel is essential if you want to get any kind of work in moving images – whether that means video, effects, 2D or 3D animation or Flashgraphics '' [computer arts]

it is absolutely essential that our showreesl must contain our best work not just anything garbage after all the company that we might be applying for will have thousands of applications and so if your showreels doesn't catch their eye then they will just chuck in the bin ''blur studio alone gets thousands of application every week and most of them end up in the garbage tin''[Feng Zhu ].

It is important to distinguish your self from the rest of the crowd and have a unique artistic style how ever if you we were applying to a specific company then it would be advantageous to study their art style and base our work on that style,, try to match it as much as possible as that would make them think that

a: your are very serious about the job

b: they wont have to train to match their art style

''Industry employers will be looking for specific things – if you’re asking for a job in animation, they won’t care much about textures and backgrounds. Equally, if you’re after work designing games characters, complex lighting isn’t going to impress'' _computer arts uk