Shot Breakdown


Shot 1: Cleveland skyline and building facades

For this animation, which was about two minutes in length, I modeled the landmark buildings of Cleveland in their entirety. I also worked alongside two others to model the core of the other buildings throughout the city. Then I modeled details such as facades and windows onto those simple polygonal buildings.
The clips that are textured onto the buildings, were mapped on using planar projections
on the selected geometry of the facades. Those clips were rendered as a separate channel to be composited in on top of a render without those specific textures.
Software Used: Maya
Project Duration: Two months

Shot 2: Car driving past building

This is a clip from a short animation I made. All modeling, animation, and rendering were done myself. I used ramp shaders that were attributed to the textures of all the objects in this scene in order to give everything a somewhat surreal flattened appearance.
Software Used: Maya, Premiere for some compositing, and Photoshop for texturing.
Project Duration: Eight months for the entire seven minute animation.

Shot 3: Grayscale forest scene

From another older animation I created. I made and did everything regarding this clip too. For this short animation, however, I used all grayscale textures in order to make a black and white animation.
Software Used: Maya, Photoshop, and Premiere.
Project Duration: Four months 

Shots 4-6: Additional clips from animation shorts

More brief clips from the previously referenced animations. I have intermingled clips from various projects throughout the reel in no particular order for the sake of  pacing and such.

Shot 7: A pig in a fenced off yard

A short experiment I did to try to animate a four-legged character. I modeled the pig in about a day, textured it the next day, and animated a short clip of it walking.
Software Used: Maya and Photoshop.
Project Duration: Three days



Shot 8: Zoom in to Terminal Tower

This is a quick zoom past a few of the buildings surrounding the public square area of Cleveland that I helped model for an Indians scoreboard animation. After the zoom the camera pans around the Terminal Tower model that I built for the animation, and I also mapped those image sequence textures onto the building.
Software Used: Maya
Project Duration: Two months

Shots 9 and 10:  Short clips of character animation

More clips from shorts that feature characters emoting. I enjoy character animation, and creating characters and these two personal projects reflect that.

Shot 11: Character model

A recently built character model made as a revision of a character from one of my shorts. I redesigned him a bit and wanted to build a new version to coincide with the redesign. Instead of using Maya’s hair tools I wanted to see if I could make a head of hair for him that looked more suited to his exaggerated proportions and features. I modeled the hair essentially using poly planes and textures I drew.
Software Used: Maya, and Photoshop.
Project Duration: Five weeks

Shot 12: Quick shot of a building with an obscured train
 
A short clip from another, much shorter scoreboard animation for the Indians. I planar mapped the short baseball clip onto the side of the building in the foreground, and I modeled the street area the train in the background is passing by.
Software Used: Maya
Project Duration: I worked on this project for about three weeks

Shot 13: Zoom in to Jacobs Field

Another clip from the Indians scoreboard animation. The camera quickly passes by some building I modeled facades onto and as well as the windows and facades there are some assorted building elements I built. Water towers, stairwell exits, vents, and stairwells scattered on the buildings were modeled by me. The stadium at the end of clip was modeled by me also, however the big chrome baseball player wasn’t.
Software Used: Maya
Project Duration: Two months





Shot 14: Pig close-up

This is a little clip I rendered to show a closer shot of my pig model moving around and going through some of its blend shapes.
Software Used: Maya and Photoshop
Project Duration: This clip took about half of a day

Shot 15: Trains colliding

Here’s another clip from the second Indians animation I helped work on.
I put together the area the trains zip through using some of the models I had built and some other assets I had already helped make. I also textured those boxcars with the clips playing on top of them. I just put the planar projections in the group containing the train’s movement to compensate for the train racing around.
Software Used: Maya
Project Duration: Three weeks

Shot 16: Laser fight and electrocution

More spastic character action from my student animation. The action and effects are more indicative of the “cartoon” look I was going for with this project. I avoided Maya’s canned particle effects in favor of my own custom particles for things like smoke and electrical sparks. I thought the hand drawn clips I made for the customized emitters would make everything look more cohesive, and maintain that overall flat look I wanted.
Software Used: Maya, Photoshop, Premiere
Project Duration: Eight months

Shot 17: Various drawings and character designs

These are a few examples of my drawing ability. There’s a short comic strip I drew  while conceiving one of my personal projects, a clip of a modeled character and one of the concept sketches depicting him, and some miscellaneous characters drawings.
Software Used: Photoshop
Project Duration: A few hours for each

Shot 18: Pan past billboards and Jacob’s Field

These clips are some closer shots on some of the buildings that I modeled and helped texture for Kaleidoscope’s Indians animations. Some façade details and additional ventilation details were modeled especially for this first shot, and aside from modeling the stadium, I also made and animated the balloon particle effect emitting from the stadium.
Software Used: Maya
Project Duration: Two months