bluphoenix - 3d models and animation

The following works are representative of the models and animations that I have made as cg studies (ie non-realtime rendering as with mental ray or renderman.) To see other models used for video game modding (ie weapon models) please select video game modding.

Brigantine, Junk, and Galleon

Created for King of Prussian Privateers, a pirate racing game co-created with (in alphabetical order) Michael Donovan, Travis Gorkin, and Adrian Roe during our time in the University of Pennsylvania's CGGT program. The models are all polygon, 20k, 11k, and 20k polys respectively, and then rendered with ambient occlusion in MentalRay.

More views:
Brigantine 1, 2, 3
Junk 1, 2
Galleon 1, 2, 3

Click the images below for much better versions:

Creepy flesh and gooey creepy flesh Mental Ray material networks

In both images above a material network created with various MentalRay shader nodes including color mix, ambient occlusion, phong, mia_material, fast subsurface scattering, displacement, bump, and 3d procedural textures was a applied to a simple sphere. Click to enlarge, the thumbnails don't do it justice.

Untitled matte painting

My first matte painting, I wanted mostly to experiment with lighting and also add a public transportation-style dirigible floating down the avenue. (Original photo © all rights reserved by Markus Bahlmann - used with permission.) Click for hi-res.

Apocalypse wind

Based loosely on an oboe, this instrument features some parasite horns snaking out, too many keys in positions impossible to be used by a human, and an ability to bring about the end of the world when played properly. The blood-text is based on Anglo-Saxan runic. Click for hi-res. Click here for turntable.

Horse

This horse is based off of the Clydesdale breed, with some liberties taken with the mane hair. Click for a turntable demo.

Nerf gun plastic and glass

This series of images were rendered with mental ray in maya 2008. The first is a depiction of the gun in its original plastic form, adhereing as close as possible to the many details inherent in the gun's original design (available for $8 at a store near you!) The revolving drum that stores the darts utilizes a subsurface scattering material, and the slide on top of the gun uses the car paint phenom. Click here for hi-res mages and details.

Water collision with RealFlow 4 study

The water pours from an imaginary rotating opening in the air that splashes water on the sphere as it revolves. The water was simulated in RealFlow 4 using metaspheres, and was subsequently imported into Maya to be shaded and have caustics generated with Mental Ray.

Ensnared

This still was made as an entry into CGSociety's Amazing Creations contest. It employs mostly ZBrush 2 for the body, and Maya for modeling the cables. The translucent effect is achieved via Mental Ray's Dielectric shader and photon map as well as the Parti_Volume shader. The energy and fog effects were then composited in Photoshop CS2.

Streetworks

This short animation began as a concept in my sketchbook. Originally focusing on the girl and a large pachinko parlor sign (now the large yellow sign in the foreground,) once I started blocking out the scene in Maya the focus quickly shifted towards capturing my unexplainable fascination with urban alleyways. Aesthetically, I tried to confine the bright lighting to this crack in the city landscape, with only a minimal light pollution enabled glow gracing the rooftops and sky.

Pagani Zonda

My favorite car - design wise - in polygon form to be rendered nicely in mental ray but also to be used in a video game mod. This model was designed to be as low poly as possible, and as such was made into an extremely low poly version (5102 triangles) as well as a higher poly version (25412 triangles.) See below for the lower polygon version. Click through to see the demo reel for the fly-around and wireframe animations for both versions.

Male Head

This model was started in Maya as a lofted NURBS surface built from many curves. These curves originated from the inside of the mouth, around the lips, over the head and down to neck - imagine a bent cylinder. The sunken areas around the eyes as well as the ears were modeled as seperate NURBS surfaces. All surfaces were then converted to polygons, faces were deleted on the head to accomodate the ears and eye areas, and all was fused together as one. A conversion to sub-division surfaces, back to polygons, and then an export to ZBrush finished the deal.

To view some older 3d related work, click here!