portfolio

http://ashleyobrienart.blogspot.com/?zx=af4f5d5df0537e48

My online portfolio. check it out. still under construction.

WIP character

lil update of the character i am doing. the textures were painted in zbrush. so far i'm liking zbrush as a painting application. it speeds up my work flow quite nicely.

its been a while. ive been doing a little zbrush practice for my portfolio, i wasnt sure if what i had gained in 3 years really showed what i can do. so im going to have a 50s theme character environment and vehicle ready for my site.

FMP WIP

Thought it was about time i took a break to post some wip. got allot to do to these to finalize them but they're coming along. Fagin is around 7500tris and dodger is just over 5000. both characters have 1024 for their head and 1024 for the body spec norm and diff. they are both completely painted. no photographs.

the crunch

It seems that nottinghams very own Free Radical design has gone into administration. not only does it mean that 140 jobs have been axed and there may be more companies doing the same but more professionals are going to be searching for work just before we send our cvs and portfolios off. A little bit disheartening to find yourself competing with highly skilled professionals especialy in work that has few job openings as it is.
Free Radical has a now 40 strong workforce, with other companies ready to make offers, free radical should be seing some sort of future. Just have to wait until mid to late january before we know if they can recover.
Free Radical were working on a star wars game for lucas arts that has already seen two years of development but it recently fell through, they have also worked on games such as haze, second sight and Timesplitters.

week 9 project

Im on the way to finishing the model for my character. who is pretty much a ww1 soldier. he's a basic soldier because i didnt want to waste much time thinking about how he would look instead i wanted to get an accurate representation of my dad as a soldier. Im pretty short on time so ill stick with my second head model in wich i didnt overlap his face on the uv.

week 8 project

I have decided to base my character off my dad. mostly because i started the project while i was at home and he was easy to get refrance of. The model i made of his head isnt perfect but the wirframe is modeled in a way i descovered only recently. after texturing i was reasonably pleased with it. even though it was probebly my second head after my self portrait, which was pretty terrible. if i modelled it again i would do a much better job. no normal map at the moment. im still getting the hang of zbrush.

week 7 project

The van is pretty much completed. fully unwrapped and textured but still open for revision later on when i have time to tweak. Im not happy with its final look. I have modelled and textured a simple skybox and floor to place my assets in. The render doesnt look as nice as id have liked it to. if i were to do it again i would pick a smaller section. Probebly focused on a corner of the childs playground rather than the whole thing.

week 6.5 project

Half way through the term i can say that i am ahead of schedual as i have finally completed the texturing of all scene assets and began texturing the van. the van was textured using sections of other photos and some painted. so far its looking ok but if i get the opotunity to use photo graphic textures, i will.

week 6 project

The van is now fully modeled apart from the little bits such as the lights and handles but i will go ahead and unwrap everything i have done so far ready for the end of the week. i have began texturing the landscape swings, both benches and the seesaw are completed. i had to remove some graffiti from the seesaw as it had a comment that probebly wasnt necessary.

week 5 project

Completed the modelling of all the assets for the scene. next is to unwrap them. after taking a long time to model all the assets i went back to the park and due to the fast chaging winter weather, the ambiance of the park is alot colder as you would expect but if i were to take textures again the change would be very dramatic. there are alot less leaves on trees and the floor is damp rather than dry and dusty, it almost reflects some of the color of the assets in the floor.

Due to the change in weather ill use most of the refrance i obtained from my first visit.

week 4 project

beginning the hvan without any of my own refrance wasnt to difficult as there are many images floating around the web that show the vehicle from many angles including the partial inside. such as this one. to date i have finnished the blocking out of the main chassis. i came in to a problen with the front wirframe as i had to many verts exiting the wheel arch and entering the door panel. i couldnt find a neat way of flowing those lines at first but i decided to lower the poly count of the wheel arch just enough to neaten it up and keep a beleivable curve.

week 3 project

i collected some refrance and began the modelling of the scene assets. having a park close by meant for easy texture and refrance sourcing. so far i have modelled the major assets that will go in my scene. the ones i have left to complete are the elephant rocker the bin and swings as well as some sort of setting/surroundings.

im retty sure that im going to change some of the models as they are far to high poly. starting with the bin. personaly i feel confident enough to stop and start again due to having finnished a large part of one of the projects.

wiimote white board

over the summer break we were left to our own devices, without tv maybe even without internet. i personally dont watch tv any more unless taking a break from googling. one of the many, many days i spent in front of google i found my self at a youtube page that seemed to show that i could draw on my moniter and my projecter for £1500 punds less (pretty much free) as long as i had a wiimote and a bluetooth adapter handy. luckyly i did, well my nefew did, i proceded to follow the instructions that on first glance looked quite complex but turned out to be just two bits of software and a dash of luck (windows isnt exactly a dead sert). the idea based itself upon the wiimote being a sensor for a moving infrared led that i would fashion into a beautiful looking pen. the wiimote infact is just a very cheap high quality infra red camra. it works on a reasonably high resolution compared to standard, lets say, web cams. after i completed my dodgy pen and positioned the wiimote all that was left was to use the software given to calibrate the wiimote to the irpen. it gladly worked to my amazment, first time. its fairly limited as there is no preasure sensitivity and if you put yourself in the way of the wii sensor the pen ceases to funcion but all in all it was a sucess. you might think that i would stop there but after a few web searches to find the seed site where all this came from, i descovered that there are two more projects that were relitavly simple but worked off the same basic principle. one being virtual reality. ir leds attatched to said persons head, as he/she moves so do the pictures on screan thus creating the effect of a window into your computer. this project i have also completed but the software isnt as great as i imagined or maybe it needs a little more work on my end as the picture does not seem to fake perspective as well as the demonstration suggests. the third and final project that interests me the most is ir gloves that allow me to control up to four points with four fingers from a distance. although people have developed on this design to make a fully working touch screen, it will take a hefty amount of time money and effort to get that finished so im going to put it on standby until i have the time.

week two project

project one : character

i have yet to gain anything other than refrance for ideas on this project. but the refrance i have gained has given me a clear idea of who and what i want to create. he will be a trrench warfair soldier, most likly geared up for gas attacks and partially wounded. but i have yet to draw any concept scetches of him as i need photo refrance of somone to base him off. ive wanted to design and model a ww1 character for some time now but never had the chance.

project two : vehicle

the mesh is fully completed on the outside and almost all unwrapped but the inside is a problem as non of the schematics have inside layouts and i have yet to find the actual van. putting that aside i have decided to turn the van into the style of "bellville ronde vou". which is an amazing french silent animation. after i have finished unwrapping ill leave texturing to later on in the week.

project three : landscape

modelled most of the smaller assets. no more than 2 or 3 left to do. todays task is to get them all modelled and hopfully unwrapped as this is the only project i have photo refrance already taken from a park not far from where i live.
week two finnish unwrapping of both project two and three. then texture assets from project three

week one project

today is a working day. starting with what will most likly be my choice for the three projects. project one: characterthe ww1 character. i have wanted to make a character from this eera for a while. partly because its easy to get hold of photos and museums with real objects are common place but mainly because the way people dress around the time was probebly the most interesting to me in the 1900s. ill focus on a british soldier in the trenches as i found some inspiring short quotes from peoplees lives in the trenches that instantly give a picture of a good character.
project two: vehiclemany of the vehicles listed are not as common place as i was expecting. there is a bubble car in i beleive lincolnshire but as for the citron van. texture refrance is not going to be easy. i will focus on the citroen van as i can get teh refrance to atleast begin this vehicle but texturing wont be easy if i cant find the van to photograph.
project three: landscapefirst of all i chose to doa scrap yard but recently going on a photographic trip to the various leicester scrap yards it became increasingly difficult to get in as they seemed a little less than above board and wouldnt allow me on site thus i have decided to begin the childs inner city play area. its going to be fairly easy to find and not at all difficult to make a texture library.
week one gain refrance and textures for all three projects. saturday 11th of october. childs play area texture/refrancesunday 12th october. citroen h van refrance(textures if possible)monday 13th october. ww1 soldier refrance(textures if possible)