http://gnarlycranium.cgsociety.org/gallery/ gnarlycranium's gallery of images en-us 120 http://gnarlycranium.cgsociety.org/gallery/384929

This is an overhead shot of the entire 6-acre "The Shire" development, to give an idea of the scale and layout. There are a total of 31 residences-- the buildings of the inner circle are all unique, while the outer circle of the 2nd phase are random copies in appropriate sizes and placement since those designs are not finalized yet. The project includes some interior shots, stills, and so far 2.5 minutes of animation, with more clips and stills to come for "The Shire" website, brochures, and magazine articles.

Building designs by Vicki Wooster and Log Rhythms, Inc. Some initial 3d models by Vicki Wooster imported from Chief Architect (what a messy program!) and rebuilt entirely by me in MAX, with some assistance from Rob Kraft. More building models made in ADT by Log Rhythms and partially rebuilt by me. All texturing, lighting, and landscape done by me from elevations, sketches, and site plan.

Building elements, pavement, sidewalks, and water all in MAX. Landscape, clouds, atmospherics, and plants in WorldBuilder. Darktree procedural tiles used on townhouse roofs.]]> Mon, 24 Jul 2006 03:13:27 +0000 http://gnarlycranium.cgsociety.org/gallery/384771

Visualization for a local residential development with a fantasy style. Buildings and water are in 3ds max v7, while ground, sky and plants are in WorldBuilder v4.2. Render time 7:31.]]> Sun, 23 Jul 2006 16:19:12 +0000 http://gnarlycranium.cgsociety.org/gallery/333993

Part of a new housing development with a fantasy village style. Swordsman house model and design in ADT by Log Rhythms Inc. It took a weird combination of max area lights and mental ray to get the track lighting to behave. ]]> Thu, 23 Mar 2006 02:54:35 +0000 http://gnarlycranium.cgsociety.org/gallery/394919

This image is 3 years old, but it got onto the front page at one point, so why not submit it finally? Took me long enough to get up the guts to do so...
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Mikha is part human, part spirit, a fallen noble and an exiled warrior from a lost world. His true nature can only be seen by a few-- call them lucky or insane-- and even he is slowly forgetting what he once was as the weight of the mortal world settles over him. ...And he's a pain in the butt to paint because his skin tone is bizarre and his eye color can't be produced by computer screens, but I did my best. This character is one I've had for many years, I draw him often.
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Created in 3dsMAX, no plugins-- hence the lack of eyebrows (I tried to zoom way in so nobody would notice). I made the eyelashes manually with the Snapshot tool, copying a bent cone many times along an eyelid path and then randomizing the result. The face is part of a whole head, made with subd modeling. The eyes were made with two spheres, one with a bulge for the cornea, one with a dent for the iris.
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The eye material is designed to react well to different levels of light, though I cannot for the life of me get many of the map types to interact properly with photometric lighting, so it's all just normal lights. The iris material has at least a dozen different maps in it, a lot of nested Mix maps, Gradient Ramps and Falloff maps-- special thanks to Julian_J's very excellent iris textures, I used one for a mix mask.
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This image was used in Leigh's CGnetworks article "Women in CG" in Nov 2003. (she used a couple other images of mine also, and mispelled my name to be the same as hers, which made me chuckle)
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Tell me what you think! It's an old image and my techniques have already improved, so it doesn't need to be technically picked apart, but I'm interested in overall artistic impressions.]]> Fri, 18 Aug 2006 18:27:02 +0000 http://gnarlycranium.cgsociety.org/gallery/334007

Last day of my first term of figure drawing class, the teacher and a student posed clothed since we had no model that day.

18"x24", charcoal]]> Thu, 23 Mar 2006 03:19:25 +0000