Legacy Work: Uni Outcomes

This post features some of my legacy pieces of work from my university days. I felt that these videos were particularly important to my progress throughout CG art and animation.
The topmost two videos display my Minor and Major project outcomes, whereby I had to devise game assets and an environment using Autodesk Maya and the Adobe Suite (2015).
It was my task to develop a concept from scratch, develop the concept in 2D before creating the assets in 3D. I stumbled across the idea for the Aqua Marines because I was particularly concerned with the contemporary environmental issue of trash vortexs inside the Pacific Ocean. I therefore decided to make a game designed to educate young children of the environmental disaster. The game concept featured a series of animals from the Pacific Ocean who used the various personal attributes to overcome missions to save the environment. (Think ThunderBirds but with live creatures instead of an assortment of machines).

The final video was a small project I undertook to produce some assets based on historic evidence. I chose to design assets from the battle of Arnhem WW2. This was an excellent project which introduced me to the notion of LODs and correct UV texturing processes for games. It was also really nice to learn about the sacrifices of the soldiers and to build something important and meaningful to our history.

I hope you enjoy these legacy videos, it's a pleasure to share some of my professional past with you all.

University Demo Reel

Short, sharp and sweet; this post features my University demo reel. A collection of my best bits I developed throughout my three years in Rochester with Maya and the Adobe suite.

University Major Project: Outcome

Overview:

This blog pretty much kicks off from where Uni finished. This was the climax of my studies, my major project, which again focused on creating a series of Games characters and environment using Autodesk Maya, After effects and Photoshop. 

This project required me to think about the design of my characters and their target audience as well as pushing forwards  my existing knowledge of a CG games pipeline (see the attached document for a detailed understanding of my various procedures and decisions in the progression of this project).  

The aim of this project was to:

a) develop five coherent characters with a complete character profile.

b) Out of those five, chose the strongest three to develop into 3D characters (along the games pipeline as detailed). 

c)To then develop am environment around the characters in which they would be able to perform. 

d) Create a turnaround for the characters and an animation which displays how the game may work. 

e) develop rules for the game. 

f) establish branding for the game which reflects the characters style. 

See what I came up with...

Fig.1 Nipper the Crab

Fig.2 Patch the Turtle

Fig.3 Woo-Zee the Whale

The Art of the Aqua Marines: Major Submission. by shanmason93

Operation Market Garden.

Overview:

I feel that my first significant contribution to the world of CG came in my second year at university; whereby I was tasked to create an 'adaptation' from a textual source and develop it through a CG pipeline. 

Having recently been inspired by the war poetry of the first and second world wars, I decided to pick the famous battle of Arnham (1944) as my source for adaptation.

As for the pipeline of work, I decided to manifest this source through a 'games' pipeline, (which is why I feel this work is a significant contribution), this means it was my first introduction to high poly- low poly modelling ( or LODS), baking, maximizing and using texture and UV space to its full potential, as well as introducing myself to Hardware rendering and Maya's viewport 2.0. 

Despite being a relatively old project, I think it is still significant because I started to look at CG as a neat and perfected method of art rather than slamming a model with geometry and/or using texture space wastefully. 

Anyhow, below is my final turnaround, featuring its key assets as well as the bridge itself. I've also included an old research powerpoint so you can see my methodology, mistakes and sucesses throughout the project. 

Art of Arnhem by shanmason93