From the Archives: 3D Work From College

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I stumbled upon some files I thought were lost to time. These files are all twenty-six to twenty-eight years old and are from my time in college in the late 1990s. I was working nearly constantly and making a ton of art across multiple disciplines and mediums. From printmaking, photography, drawing, painting, fabricating, sculpting, and making full monster suits and masks to computer graphics and animation, I was super busy experimenting and exploring avenues for my creativity. It was an amazing time, and I so wish I had the freedom and time to pursue art like that again.

Today, I want to share some of the 3D models and animations that I worked on. Most of the files I found are inert. The software to access them has been gone for over twenty years, and I do not think there is much hope for them. That said, there were some still images, renders, and a handful of (VERY DARK) video files. It is not much, but it is something to show for my work and time.

I was creating a small spaceport on a barren planet that involved a series of environments, clues, and puzzles that you had to overcome to move through the complex. The most fleshed-out area was the starting room, where you have just entered. You could look around the room and interact with some of the items, like a holo display and two doors. To start things off, here is a look at that first room.

Inside the first of many rooms - which I have lightened up dramatically so that you can actually see some of the stuff in it. This render was turned into a 360-degree environment that you could look around and explore. The software to view it is defunct, but the internet provides.

 

And if everything worked as planned, you will see the above image displayed more or less how it was intended 26 years ago. At the time, 360 image display only included left and right movements, some zoom, and nearly no up and down movement. Times have changed, and the new standard is trying to do the best it can with this image, so zoom out and try not to look up or down.

In addition to multiple environments that included rooms, hallways, a landing field, and even the interior of a cargo freighter, I created spaceships, robots, and loads and loads of boxes, containers, and equipment. I truly and utterly loved every second of it. I had so much fun making all of these things. It felt like I was on the edge of a technological shift, and I was exploring the unknown. Here are all that is left of some of the robots. They are simple but fun to make. 

The purple one was aboard your ship - until the ship explodes and leaves you stranded at the spaceport. Your ship's destruction is one of the very first events you experience, and your ability to leave where you came in is unavailable.

I did mention that everything was very, very, very, very dark. At the time when these were made, they were not this dark. Well, likely they were, but all of our equipment at the time was extremely bright and thus gave a false impression of how these actually looked. To be honest, I was playing with light a lot with these, where the light, sound, and effects did a lot of the heavy lifting.

The message at the holo-display from the robot on your ship, the TickTock.

Yes, I named the spaceship TickTock. I thought it sounded fun, and looking back, I am extremely happy with myself for doing that. I couldn't do this today, as the name has been taken over by the social media app. Some of these effects were old-school hand drawn, edited, and then composited into the scene.

This is the main door that leads you into the rest of the spaceport. I still love everything about this, from the sounds to the light effects. I really go into the audio storytelling with this project. I found the sound work was as important, if not more.

If you attempted to leave back out of the door you entered, you would see this.

Again, light and sound do the majority of the work.

Lastly, here is a scanning sequence if you want to check your surroundings.

It is all a little (a lot) too much for me now. It needed to be more like a 4-5, and this is at a 9.

But it is still a fun idea, and I was trying out ideas and storytelling.

As I have said many times now, these are all very dark, but I hope you can look past that and see what I was working towards. I wish more of the files were recoverable; I did so much work on this. I was really happy with my cargo ship designs. It was like a massive frog and had a working cargo door, cargo bay with detail, working stabilizer legs, and more. It wasn't going to win any design awards, but it was the early stages of my design aesthetic taking form. And I think it looked cool. If I am ever able to access the inert files, I will be sure to share them here.

That's all for another exciting Wednesday on the blog. See you back here on Friday! Until then... 

 For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability, head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com

3D Gray Wanderer by David Olson

I am happy to share with you today a most excellent 3D model and render of my Gray Wander created by David Olson. David is a student at Gnomon and his interpretation of the Gray Wanderer won best of term for 3D Creature Summer 2016! I am blown away by David's work and his attention to all the detail I put into the original drawing had me double checking if I had in fact put all of it in there. Take some time and check out David's gorgeous version on the Gray Wanderer...

3D Model and Render of the Gray Wanderer

by David Olson

So cool! I am honored that David would choose one of my designs to work on. If you would like to compare and contrast David's version to mine, here is the original drawing. You will be hard pressed to find any differences and I love how David has interpreted my mark making into actual objects.

 Gray Wanderer

9 x 12 - Pencil on paper

Original - SOLD

© 2014 Christopher Burdett

Also a tip of the hat to Ruben Ramos for alerting me to David's work when it was posted on the Gnomon Facebook page. Really glad to connect with David and to see his work.

That is all for another exciting Wednesday on the blog, see you back here on Friday! Until then...

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com

AR and VR Adventures

Today on the blog I am going to be comparing apples and oranges. While this is not always advisable, I am still doing it anyway. Recently, I shared with you the products of my work in Tilt Brush, the VR (Virtual Reality) painting program from Google. For the last couple of weeks I have been playing around (a lot) with an AR (Augmented Reality) app for smart phones, Pokémon Go. While very different, they are examples of where the VR and AR technologies are heading. Here is a look at some of my experiences with Pokémon Go and a reminder of what I am doing with Tilt Brush...

Pokémon Go gives me a world full of monster.

Which is very much like the world I try to make for myself.

Tilt Brush allows me to make virtual 3D marks to paint a monstrous form in space.

Now for the apples and oranges. These are two very different experiences and these technologies are really in their infancies. Both offer up a lot of potential and they are going to change and evolve in ways we can not yet imagine. All that said, give me more AR! I know VR will be powerful and will provide experiences vastly different then AR, I really am happier and more inclined to use AR. The VR I am using is limited by the physical space we have in the room where all the expensive equipment is set up and the user is tethered to said equipment by a cord. I know this will change in time, that is a given, but for now, I really don't enjoy the isolation of the headset and the disconnected feeling from the environment around me.

The current, and limited, AR experience that Pokémon Go is VERY inviting to me. I already walk a lot so the fact that I can walk around and see, capture, and collect various monsters is a win/win for me. AR can and will provide so much more in the future, but this little taste leaves me wanting more. There are exciting things on the horizon for both VR and AR, but the glimpses of AR's future is really exciting. It has already been done with Pokémon Go, but using this app makes me want to make my own experience where you can go around and interact with my monsters in the real world. Not necessarily getting that same spark of creativity when I use the current VR system. Tilt Brush is a tool and I can create with it, but I don't feel like it is a gateway to world building. AR feels like it can lend itself to building fantasy worlds that will mesh with our own in a new and unique way.

Of course, right now my interaction with VR is as a creator and my interaction with AR is as a user. These provide very different experiences, one is work and one is play. This can greatly effect opinions, and I am aware of it. But I still really enjoy the idea of AR.

VR and AR are both going to be useful tools and will allow different and equally useful experiences, but I think people will lean toward one or the other. I see it happening already. I am very much in the AR camp while some of my coworkers have built homes in VR town. I look forward to seeing what the futures holds for both technologies, but as long as I can run around and catch monsters in the real world I will be AR's biggest fan.

Say what you will, the gamification of activity goes a long way and for me moving around in the real world is by far the preferred place to be.

That is all for another exciting week on the blog, see you back here on Monday! Until then..

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com

Experimenting with Tilt Brush

Over the past two weeks I have had the opportunity to experiment and play around with Tilt Brush at the office. Tilt Brush is a VR painting program put out by Google for use on a HTC Vive. The office had invested in the Vive set up as we explore options using VR and what the near future will hold for this technology. I have invested about two hours of time with the Vive and Tilt Brush and found it all very interesting. Here are some thoughts and what I have created in those two hours, which were spread across three different sessions...

Fire Giant head

45 minutes working time

The Good - I found Tilt Brush, and the Vive for that matter very intuitive. I put it on and it all made sense and I was working immediately. I felt really no learning curve and everything felt more or less natural. Tilt Brush is a good proof of concept application. It has enough to get you going and just enough to keep it interesting for an extended amount of time. It is still very much a toy version of a painting / art interface but it is robust enough to have fun with and to get a taste of what could be just around the corner as far as VR technology for artists is involved. I was able to quickly and easily (after looking it up on... Google) export stills and gifs from what I was working on. There are two options for exported gifs, a five second free form capture and a auto generated rocking motion. There is also the option to export the file as a 3D model of some sort, but I have not looked into this.

The Bad - The more I experimented with Tilt Brush the more I realized how much was lacking and how little control you have over your environment. Once you start working you can not move your creation in space. You can move where you are standing in comparison, but you have no control over movement on the y axis. Likewise, you can not manipulate, sculpt, or warp your creation. If the eyes are too close together... they are just too close together, unless you want to erase them and start over. I would also like to see 3D brushes. There is no way to create any real volumes currently. I mostly used the oil brush and it was GREAT, but you, for a better analogy, are dragging paint over the surface of an invisible surface when working. There is also no way to move the light source. BUT, this is a test of concept application and it is a really slick piece of programming. There are just a bunch of features I have grown accustomed to in this type of application and I am sure they will be added in time.

The Ugly - This might have to do more with our current set up and the limited area we can currently devote to the Vive, but there were one or two dead spots and warp spot in the room that made working with Tilt Brush rather challenging. If I stood in just the wrong spot my view would dance around and my control would appear to fly away from me. Like I said, this is most likely more of a setup / Vive issue, but it was a hiccup during usage. The interface tools were sometimes not the easiest to read. I sometimes did not realize I had the mirror tool on or off until it was a little too late. Another pass on UI design will most likely smooth out any issues.

Overall I am really impressed with the Vive and Tilt Brush, but I am just not sure what to do with it yet. It just still feels like a really expensive toy. Many things we use everyday start this way, so it will be interesting to see where the new wave of VR technology takes us.

Monster #1 - 15 minutes

We had to sign up for blocks of 15 minutes when the Vive was first set up so that everybody had a chance to use it. For my first 15 minutes I got situated using the equipment and quickly knocked out a large nose horn dragon thing...

Dragon thing head

15 minutes working time

When I started working I was very much relying on lines. I more or less drew a dark lined wire frame in space and then filled it in with some color. It was quick and dirty and I got a feel for the equipment and program. Afterwards I thought a lot about how best to approach the program on a second attempt.

Dragon thing head

15 minutes working time

Monster #2 - 45 minutes

On my second time with Tilt Brush I did not have any real time restraints and I had something in mind going in. I wanted to paint a large giant face and to try to create better forms and stay away from lines. This time around I also experiments more with all the different brush options. Many of the brushes are just a little to gimmicky to be practical or are very specialized particle effects, but there are plenty of brush options that are good to work with.

Fire Giant head

45 minutes working time

I may not have created with one with as much dimensionality as I had hoped, but the final piece did feel more painted or sculpted and less like a bunch of lines in space. The fact that I can not raise or lower the piece in space along the y axis is evident here. I was reaching up as far as I could to paint the brow and I was on my knees to paint in the mouth. This is over 7 feet tall in VR / Real space.

Fire Giant head

45 minutes working time

Monster #3 - 60 minutes

Going into my most recent session with Tilt Brush I wanted to reprise my first creation and approach it fresh and with more time. With what I learned on the Fire Giant I figured I could pull off a better dragon this time around...

Blue Dragon head

60 minutes working time

With the exception of the top of the nose horn I am happy with how this turned out. I had a lot of fun with the particle and effects brushes to make the fire and it seemed actually relevant to use them in this situation. I used the wire brush on this piece which seems to be the closest thing to a 3D brush as you can get currently in Tilt Brush. It does not get very large but you can made a mark that had some volume to it.

Blue Dragon head

60 minutes working time

As expected, the more I worked with Tilt Brush the I felt I was getting out of the program what I wanted to. I found ways to add in the details and visual clutter that I like and was able to make a more complex objects. This was the most robust use of VR that I have had the chance to use and I am very glad to have had the opportunity to get my hands on it. I will definitely need to spend more time with it. I look forward to see what Tilt Brush and Vive have to offer!

That is all for another exciting Wednesday on the blog, see you back here on Friday! Until then...

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com

Name the Monster Contest Ends Today! Tilt Brush Preview! Looking ahead to "D" Monsters!

Got a lot of different things for you today. A contest reminder, a peek at things to come next week, and look at the long terms as it pertains to the next waive of monster drawings. Let's start off with the Name the Monster Contest...

Who or what am I?

Leave your answer in the comments below to possibly win this drawing!
9 x 12 - Pencil on paper

© 2016 Christopher Burdett

Here again are some rules, or head over to Monday for the whole story...

• Tell me who or what this monster is.
• Submit your entries in the comment section of this blog post or in the comment section of this image when I post it on Facebook on either my account or fan page.
• Everybody gets 3 chance to tell me who or what this is. Please number them so they are clearly separated.
• You do not have to submit all your entries at the same time, just make sure you number them.
• You can submit your entries through Midnight (EST) of Friday June 10th.
• I will announce the winner and winning name on the blog on Monday June 13th. 
• If you choose to incorporate the word "RAWR" into your submission it better be AMAZING because I am not looking for hundred variations of cramming "RAWR" into a name.

The office got in a VR set up and I have been playing around with Tilt Brush. Tilt Brush is a VR painting program from Google. I will be doing a full review next week on the blog with lots of images and gifs of what I have been doing. So far I have spent about 2 hours in the program and have three pieces to share. Here is a preview of things to come...

Tilt Brush Monsters! RAWR!

Last but not least, I have begun getting ready to start up on the remaining "D" monsters from the original Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. If you are not familiar with my Fresh From the Drawing Table series, here is the most recent post with ALL the links. I have already completed five of the "D" monsters, but that still leaves 68. That's right, 68 monsters that fall under the letter "D". Most are Dinosaurs, Demons, Devils, and Dragons. Still working on how best to tackle this mighty pile of monsters. I will need to get a game plan since I will be working on these for a while to come. Hopefully I will have new drawings from this series to you soon. Here is a look at the list...

Demons and Devils and Dinosaurs, OH MY!

68 "D" monsters ready to reimagined

That is all for another exciting Week on the blog, see you back here on Monday! Until then...

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com

Fungoid Model and Render by Christen Borras

I recently talked about how an artist's work can be used in a less than ideal way, in my opinion for whatever that is worth. Today I would like to share how an artist's work can be used and transformed in a completely acceptable way... again in my opinion, but it is my work, so... whatever.

Over the weekend I was contacted by Christen Borras, who is a student. He wanted to let me know that he used my Fungoid concept and design as part of an assignment to model and render a character. Here is a look at my concept design and illustration of the Fungoid...

Fungoid miniature turnaround

Pencil on paper
© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games

Fungoid

digital
© 2012 Fantasy Flight Games

Here is a look at what Christen did with my design as he translated it to 3D. I think it turned out great and is extremely faithful to the original design. You can see more over on Christen's ArtStation gallery. It is really fun and exciting to see someone else interpret your ideas into a new medium, not to mention that your idea interested someone enough to go through the time and effort to make something new based on the original design. Great job Christen!

Fungoid Model and Render by Christen Borras

You can see more of his work as well as a cool 360 turnaround of the Fungoid over on his ArtStation gallery.

Not to labor the subject, but there are reasons why this usage of my work is so different from the usage I posted about a couple weeks ago. First, Christen contacted me to let me know about his usage of my design and offered me the opportunity to have him remove it from his gallery. Second, he gave credit with a link to me as the creator of the design. Third, he has transformed the designed and made something new, which he created from scratch. Fourth, he is a student and this is on a personal gallery as an example of his work - and really this is no different from any other artist who is given a style guide to follow or reference that needs to be matched. We all make original work that has elements that need to match a companies IP or established characters. Christen is showing that he can stick to the provided reference and produce a final piece... which is a real world working requirement.

Again, great job Christen! It looks great and and I hope you all the best with your studies!

That is all for another exciting Monday on the blog, see you back here on Wednesday! Until then...

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com