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THESIS ANIMATION BLOG
5.13.22 Film is done! Password: bounty
2.16.23 V16 has a new paint job now, thanks to staff feedback.
V16 is inspired by:
1970s Conti
Late 1960s Interceptor (mad max)
9 ABY era Razor Crest
1970s rear-engine drag race cars
Mr. Wolf's car
2.17.22 Some of Val's largest movements have been animated by the talented Jordan Leblanc, such as this run & jump.
2.16.23 I am Currently animating Val's face a little on top of the mocap.
This is for a sequence where she is surrounded and has to fight her way out of a looney-tunes esque scrap.
2.5.23 More motion capture!
(12.20.22) Bass Battle Axe modeled, textured, and rigged!
1.28.22 Some of the last mocap session, with a focus on the Big Bad robot finally giving up.
1.27.22 Mocap for VAL is now being done 10am-5pm every Sunday at the Zemeckis Center! These are my best bits of acting for the little minions. Try though they might, they cannot even put a scratch on Val, they are too weak. What you are seeing is a hybrid of motion capture that has been altered with animation layers to appear more pushed and animated.
(1.20.22) Moog Synth based on Hans Zimmer's original (modeled by Thomas Grose & Textured by me) is finished!
(12.19.22) Drumset Modeled and textured!
(12.17.22) Mothership in Progress!
(12.17.22) Rigging V16 in progress
(11.20.22) all the background characters and crowds will be photoscanned, mocapped people that I know. keep an eye out for familiar faces :)
(11.14.22) The Overlord is textured!
(11.13.22) Val Walks!
(11.13.22) Simon Burdick has re-rigged Val's face and now she deforms much more realistically. Thank you Simon!
12.05.22 I did some modeling work in exchange for rigging work. made one of Simon Burdick's enemy characters for his upcoming game, Flaming Star.
check his website out here: simonburdick.com
(12.01.22) The minions are lookin' good textured all dull and tarnished :)
(11.3.22) The Val Rig is finally in development! she has a long way to go, but we're starting off strong! :)
(11.3.22) Updated work in progress of Velo, still unoptimized but we're getting there. check out the mad max interceptor for scale!
(11.1.22) Textured & Test Rendered Val's PBR version with Cycles and Optix Denoising.
(10.23.22) Textured & Lit the GENERATOR1 set piece, rendered in Cycles.
I put a video (Cracker Island by Gorillaz) on the TV just to test how it would look.
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(10.19.22) I prepared the VAL asset browser library so my 3D modeling apprentices Rosemary and Thomas can
quickly model to scale with references / instances in blender.
(10.10.22) Visited my schools' F1 Team, they gave me pointers on my cars' design!
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10.1.22 My performance is now mappable to the BigBad Robot rig! Watch me get into character :)
(9/27/22)
The first flashback style shot is out!!!
note: it did!
Rosemary, Thomas and Zadig
have joined the VAL team!
(9/23/22)
Tonight was pitch night @ SCB104! Hopefully now the VAL team will grow a few members stronger!
(9/20/22)
We are now in the rig & model R&D phase! Jordan made these short tests and I wrote down fixes to be made for the v002 rigs.
(9/19/22)
the first minion has joined the walking ranks!
(9/18/22)
motorhead now walks normally
(9/7/22) this week was robot week!
I updated motorhead's body to be more bulky
(8/25/22) Improved jet shader with animated VDBs I made in Embergen, now there is smoke.
(8/25/22) Developed a rigged blend of four shaders that make this jet exhaust flame!
(8/24/22) Made a friend (Anna) who made rocket animations for USC's RPL Club. She gave me helpful feedback on my rocket Car, and took us to see the only rocket launched into space singlehandedly by a University students.
(8/23/22) I Developed a rigged shader that can be scaled to fake exhaust pipes glowing red hot - custom color control.
Travel back in time to see V16 Velo in it's earliest of stages :)
(6/14/22) third round of revisions on the evil rockstar robot.
(5/29/22) second draft of Val as she sees herself. more masculine and bulkier- she now looks like a brawler.
will be working to dial up her appeal and dial back her aggressive form slightly.
(5/2/22) Today I made a first draft for Val in her quirky youthful form. I modeled everything except her hat, which is a temporary 3D scanned asset from sketchfab.
(4/22/22) Today I revamped the robot's designs, made them a bit more action figurey.
(4/7/22) Today I got feedback from Jason Reisig and Fernando Gonzales, will be making changes to both robots and val's design.
(4/5/22) Today I came up with an inital model of how Val sees herself, along with her fearsome weapon of choice:
a bass guitar fitted with a .50 BMG cannon.
With too much hair, VAL doesn't look like the type that would hurl foul language without thinking about it twice. Plus, this hairstyle does not strike fear into the hearts of the enemy.
VAL started out with Max Rocketanski's shoulder pad- but she is a mercenary first, and a musician second- she needed armor to appear more battle ready, and less casual.
I wanted VAL to be modest, but this little armor plate didn't have enough room in it for her massive personality. Plus, it is not intimidating in this design.
Eventually, I settled on this. Geometric, sturdy, and sharp, this plate of armor safeguards Val's heart of gold.
(4/5/22) some ideas I wanted to set in place for Val
Val is an action hero, not a supermodel, or somebody who cares about fitting into the mold of femininity.
(4/3/22) Today I came up with a test model for the robots.
Playing with the shirt integration, not sure if this specific crop top will make it to the end.
Big hands = big guitar sound
___VAL ARCHIVES__
Ideas that I have since left behind
(5/4/22) Here is my most recent animatic for VAL!
In my Third draft of Val, she becomes more of a silent strong type.
Val, action hero, must save earth from invasive robot overlords.
In my second draft of VAL, she was an overconfident deadpool esque gun for hire.
Val, protector of everything rad, breaks the fourth wall to preach action hero one or two liners.
In my first draft of VAL, she was a wanna-be rockstar.
After wrecking a music studio with her powers, VAL becomes a hit-woman to pay her debt off more quickly. She is eventually tasked with eliminating a line of rival rockstars, but she cannot bring herself to kill the youngest, a toddler, and opts to raise him on her own. Also there is an evil opossum.
Ⓒ BEN RAGASA 2023
I appluad you for getting this far! that's as far back as you can go! press the on / off switch at the top if you're curious about more of my hobbies :)
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