What makes a man? Wireframes and Textures!

The stages of construction for my character summed up in a few images for a small exhibition book. Alas, the wonderful world of the internet let me down and the book never arrived in time for the exhibition (and still hasn't...), so I figured why let them go to waste. These about sum up the way in which the character was made. The initial wireframes were modelled in 3ds max, then sculpted in Mudbox with texturing done between Mudbox and PhotoShop. The only texture stage I would have anything to say on would be making the hair... Hair shaders in max are far and away the worst abomination to the digital world that I have ever encountered (Right up there with the paperclip from Microsoft Word), and in hindsight would be far better to do in Maya, or preferably have a bald character. Even with third party shaders (puppet hair, actually surprisingly a good set of shaders.) it took an awful amount of time and effort to achieve the results above, which aren't even anything all that special.

A Challenger Enters the Ring

As previously promised, an updated showreel! ...Alright, maybe it isn't jam packed with exciting new work, but I'd certainly call it an improvement.



Showreel 2012 from Matthew "Rick" Shaw on Vimeo.

Composition of Character

This was the final submission entered for my final year project. The character required a scene to demonstrate his capabilities and so this was just a little something to see what he could do. I in no way consider myself an animator or a compositor, relying on motion capture files and an overly useful friend proficient in after effects to give it the finishing touches, but the construction of the digital scene was something I found oddly enjoyable. Battling with physics and particles can certainly take it out of you but are skills I'm glad to have revived for this. Hopefully I won't let them fall by the wayside again, and will look to add them into my next project, whatever that may be.


Composition of Digital Model from Matthew "Rick" Shaw on Vimeo.

The scene was based off simple footage taken in my hometown of Kilkenny, Ireland from a locked shot camera. It was digitally remade to allow for more accurate lighting and physics, with a separate ground added to allow for it to break up in a suitably over the top explosion. The worm in the scene that you probably didn't even know was there til I said it was a bit of a last minute addition. While I had planned for the ground to explode up and swallow him I hadn't really given much thought as to how it would do such a thing. So, 3 hours later I had a worm in the scene, modelled, unwrapped, sculpted and rigged. I was a little proud of myself truth be told. Maybe some day I'll even give the little guy a proper makeover and see what he turns into.