Works In Progess

This post is going to be a lot of work I've done in the past....some is older though, which is completely relative since I only have less than 2 years experience to 3D.

One of the biggest things that I've learned so far in a little more than a year and a half of playing with 3D computer graphics, is that for each project I need to finish them before moving on. It's been fun jumping from thing to thing but it's time to work on a project for more or less the long haul. Since I'm working on some 3d modeling right now then that means I'll finish the entire 3d model to my liking before moving on to another since I have a lot of WIP.....but at the same time it's nice to know that I don't have many compared to some people. It seems like some people create a cube, move a vertice, and then move onto the next project, lol!

The current modeling project I'm doing is the Terran Marine from StarCraft 2. I'm only using a single image for reference, which is the first picture below. I don't have any orthographics so it'll be a bit difficult to retain the volume.


After a couple days work this is currently where I'm at :



This is Master Chief from Halo that I did. This was for a 3d modeling class at the University of Utah that I took. It's essentially been the only modeling class that I've taken.









Here's a couple quick renders of him with a gun or two. I like the outline/pen kind of look to it.

Here's a model of a female pilot. The initial concept is by Simply Maya. Obviously I never finished her.

Here's a female android. Initial concept by Digital Tutors. I changed some of the model to make her easily animatable...which I went on and did an animation or two with her. You can check out my demo reel at www.shawnahall.com that has an animation of her doing some backflips.

Here's a horned man that obviously was never finished.....he doesn't even have teeth! Initial concept by Digital Tutors. I believe this was my first experience with ZBrush.

This is one of the first characters that I played around with for textures/materials and a little animation. It was quite fun. I found the initial model on the internet but then I went and changed it around quite a bit, rigged him, and did a simple little animation that is listed below.

This is the simple animation of the droid character (wow, I just checked the video and on this blog it appears soooooo dark ! :

This is one of my first uses of subdivision surfaces....obviously he isn't done. The initial concept by Digital Tutors.

This is an Apache Helecopter that too, isn't finished. The initial concept is by Simply Maya.

This is one of my first character models, which I never really got around to animating. The initial concept is by Simply Maya.

This is a Jedi Starfighter that looks like junk because I left it forever ago. The initial concept is by Simply Maya.

This is a canal scene that I spent a few hours on that is based off of a photograph that I found on the internet. I really like the scene and I'd like to finish it down the road. The water was just thrown in real quick so there was some ground....in the finished scene the water would obviously look much better. :)

This is a head model that is partially done. The initial concept is by Gnomon Workshop.

This is a flying bike thingy where the initial concept is by Digital Tutors. This is one of the first vehicles I tried to create.

This is erythrocytes in an artery. This was based off of some tutorial I found online.

This is a head test that I was playing around with in Maya. One of my first heads that I semi-created...since it's not done.

This is a test of breaking up a glass as a bullet flys through. Yeahhhh....it could look a bazillion times better! One thing is for certain, the video size on Blogger is crap.....videos turn out so horrible!

This is another early vehicle creation. Initial concept is by Digital Tutors.

Machinima Fest

So in school I took this Machinima class, which is creating movies using video game engines. Here's a couple movies that we did whilst in that class.

Spy Game (134 Mb). Download. This one has quite the different ending.


Venison Curry (195 Mb). Download. This is a mystery based off of the game and movie Clue.

And here's an image from the terrain and map that I created for my Senior Project Half-Life 2 modification. Maybe I'll post the actual zipped version of the mod sometime soon.

The beginning

Without further ado, here's to the future of this blog and more or less my journey in computer graphics. Now, I'm not coming from a whole lot of graphics background actually. I graduated recently with a bachelors in Computer Science but a little more than a year and a half ago was my first real introduction to animation and ever since then I've decided it's my passion for a career. I've only taken basically two classes in 3d modeling and everything else has been me studying on my own, so it's been a little difficult at times when I was trying to finish my Computer Science degree and study animation on my own at the same time. I also took a couple machinima classes in school but that was ummmm.....not quite the computer graphics that I'm passionate about, although it was loads of fun! Then for my senior project me and a few buddies created a Half-Life 2 DeathMatch mod. That too was fun, as I created the entire map and different effects during gameplay. I ended up bringing a Master Chief model I created into the mod too, which was pretty exciting. But lo and behold it's time for me to move on and so in some spare time I've almost thrown together a demo reel and I'll have to update my resume so hopefully here soon I can get working in the computer graphics industry.

Keep on keepin' on