TROYS YR2 MULTIMEDIA BLOG

NEW YEAR. NEW BLOG...

2009-10-12T02:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.troy-browne.blogspot.com

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iDOG

2009-05-26T15:47:00.000-07:00

Well here it is… my finished animation!
It has been a long project, it almost feels like Christmas (weirdly)…. Lesser the excitement of getting stuff… more, the build-up element.
I feel reasonably happy with it…. I spent a long time considering the look and (for me) it has paid off. However, I understand now that I should have spent abit more time perfecting the animation. I believe its the best animation Ive done so far, but its not the best at reflecting that I could have done.
Ive learnt lots though… and here's a tip.
“However long you think somethings going to take… times it by 4”

iDOG - Troy Browne 2009

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ROCKGEM

2009-05-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

I was searching for animation clips and found this animator on YouTube, amongst all the '2 second, blink and you miss it' stuff on there this guy (sex, undetermined) stood out to me as possessing a good eye for aesthetics AND motion resulting in some really thoughtful concept animations...

check out his(or her) YouTube channel below.... or this link http://www.youtube.com/user/rockgem

ANIMATION PREVIEW...

2009-05-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

....This will be the last post until the submission... Ive yet to animate my second character and the dance has a couple of minutes to add on to this.

Trying to be people being robots - Troy Browne

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BOOMBOXIN' UPDATE

2009-05-12T02:50:00.000-07:00

...With this one I used '2NAQ' by Rusko...

I changed the levels on the original WAV file so that the only sound was the bass tones. I then attached the bass tones to the movement of the speakers to make them practically explode when the beat kicks in... lovin it!...

BOOMBOXIN' - Troy Browne - Music by Rusko '2NAQ'

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BOOMBOXIN'

2009-05-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

This is quite cool... using AudioFloats to manipulate the motion of an object in Max.

Im going to use this alot in my animation... I feel it produces movement that would be near impossible (ball ache) to do by hand.

BOOMBOX - Troy Browne

RE_EDIT OF PAKA...

2009-05-11T14:31:00.000-07:00

Heres a little re-edit of the older animation... I done it because the track on that one does my nut... and Ive added some titles.... basically I was bored and wanted to practise edit something before I put together my newer animation.

PAKA - FreeRunning Monkey - Troy Browne

GIGANTAPOST

2009-04-21T05:06:00.000-07:00

I say 'Gigantapost' but its not a long one...

Here's a video of renders, pretty much all of what Ive been doing for the past month or so...

Comments appreciated as its time to get on with the actual animation.

ANIMATION TESTS/DEVELOPMENT 4/09 - TROY BROWNE

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Level Design concept

2009-02-18T15:55:00.000-08:00

Always been a fan of FPS and have played on probably thousands of different maps and navigated my way through lots of virtual environments, this project gives the opportunity to explore what I feel works as a FPS gaming environment.

I like the blasting the occasional sci-fi themed FPS but the themes that work for me are based on current times (especially online). I'd rather (virtually)shoot a (virtual)human with a (virtual)M4Carbine not shoot purple lasers out of a neon pink gun at a 'monster' wearing a crown... it goes slightly against the feeling of realistic immersion...so I'll be keeping my theme based on a current occurrence... like a war.... but where?...

I play Call of Duty - World at War quite abit and I'd be lying if I said that my inspiration for environments didn't come from environments from that... most of all the prequel, Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare. The environments are awesome, just as you would imagine a battle smashed street. All the little nooks you can snipe from and hide, debris from past confrontations. These are details I'd like to consider for my level design.

Because of the level of reference I'd need, I chose somewhere that I can get allot of access so that I can take all the picture I need. Im choosing The Boninington building... and theres been a war.

Ive worked on a few environment concepts... working from photos I imagined the destruction of war and took it out on the Bonington...

BONINGTON BOMB#REF/DES#1 -ENTRANCE

BONINGTON BOMB - ENTRANCE - TROY BROWNE

BONINGTON BOMB#REF/DES#2 -CORRIDOOR

BONINGTON BOMB - CORRIDOOR1 - TROY BROWNE

BONINGTON BOMB - CORRIDOOR2 - TROY BROWNE

GIMP9

2009-02-09T03:24:00.000-08:00

GIMP9 - TROY BROWNE Here's a new character for the animation part of the year...

Ive been looking at work by Yoji Shinkawa (character designer for Metal Gear Solid) and if you don't know, alot of this guys work is based in the future, which lead me to research robotics and the future of warfare... and I found lots of military projects that scare the crap out of me! One thing I found that is current is the Japanese Yoshiyuki Sankai's 'HAL' suit ( hybrid assisted limb ) which is an exoskeleton suit that amplifies the wearers strength 5 times!... the Americans are looking at its military potential...

Yoshiyuki Sankai's 'HAL' suit

Following on from this, I imagined the advances of this type of technology and decided to redesign the suit.

GIMP9 - TROY BROWNE

GIMP9 - TROY BROWNET.

Have you seen my brown sack...... boy?

2009-02-04T10:56:00.000-08:00

LITTLE BIG PLANET - MEDIA MOLECULE 2008

-the main character is named 'sack boy' I was not referring to my genitalia.

I just got this game and have had a little blast on it and I think its living up to the hype people have been banging on about it. If you don't know by now it plays like a 2d platform game (like the some of the Mario games) and boasts to be the most customizable game environment ever. You can even design your own levels and upload them to the Playstation Network for other people to play on. User created content alone has projected the popularity of this game and has millions of fans uploading and enjoying The Little Big Planet universe worldwide.

HORRIBLE, FAT, CYBORG THING...

2009-01-27T13:52:00.000-08:00

No offence... to all you horrible, fat cyborgs.

This character has morphed from the image that came from the net.

HORRIBLE, FAT, CYBORG - TROY BROWNE

HORRIBLE, FAT, CYBORG that walks - TROY BROWNE

SECOND ANIMATION PROJECT - WHAT I'VE BEEN WORKING SO FAR

2009-01-27T08:01:00.001-08:00

FAT - TROY BROWNE

Following on from my research I decided to get some ideas sketched down. Less towards what I want to do more to get me in the mood for drawing in general. I am rusty.
There is some 3ds Max stuff at the end, more design ideas.

Same again, I found that putting all my images in a movie file was the best way to Blog my development and source my own research.

WHAT I'VE BEEN WORKING ON SO FAR - AVI - TROY BROWNE

RESEARCH FOR 2ND ANIMATION PROJECT -

2009-01-27T07:24:00.000-08:00

AFRO SAMURAI - Takashi Okazaki

Here's some research that Ive been looking at to get an idea or feel about the up and happening second animation project.

Ive been looking at work by Yoji Shinkawa and Takhiro Omori (lead artist and character designers for Metal Gear Solid 4) Ive been researching how they develop their characters and what design principles they may use to achieve this.

Ive also been looking at the work by Takashi Okazaki, creator of Afro Samurai from the Gonzo Japanese animation studio. I love the stylised look and dramatic animation style and hope to translate it into my 3d animation (a task that will soon be seen in the new Afro Samurai PS3 game and the new Street Fighter 4 game....coming this Jan).

I wasn't sure of how to Blog what Ive been looking at without uploading lots of different screen shots, so I compiled them into a movie, with music. I found that when I was brainstorming with a video of research playing it was easier for ideas to translate.

RESEARCH CONCEPTS - Yoji Shinkawa/Takhiro Omori/Takashi Okazaki

PICTOPLASMIC

2009-01-19T07:30:00.000-08:00

Here are some figures styled from the DOT DOT DASH book. This book has all the toys spawned from the Pictoplasma movement.

It shows me the the different ways/techniques to convert 2Dimensional contempory style into a 3Dimensional format.

Dot Dot Dash!

Designer Toys, Action Figures and Character Art

Editors: R. Klanten, M. Huebner

useful linkageness - http://pictoplasma.com/

I compare some of my work to this style, so its exciting to see that I could inject my 2d style into my 3d characters.

COMPLEXITY - TROY BROWNE

David Shrigley

2009-01-14T07:26:00.000-08:00

I got this book for Christmas and thought it was worth a mention as it coincides with the 'visualisation from a book' brief coming up next term. His work is very interesting I urge you to look him up abit. I found this animation he worked on...

who i am and what i want - David Shrigley

FINISHED VISUALISATION ! !

2008-12-10T04:10:00.001-08:00

PAKA, THE GAME - COVER DESIGN#1 - TROY BROWNE - JPG

Im not happy with this really, I think I spend too much time on the animation and didnt give myself enough time to tweak this up... anyway, its done now so maybe I'll start the ESSAY!

PAKA, THE GAME - TROY BROWNE - AVI

MUSIC - AUSECHRE - 90101-5l

PAKA, THE GAME - COVER DESIGN#2 - TROY BROWNE - JPG

FINISHED ANIMATION ! !

2008-12-04T08:13:00.000-08:00

Sweet! have finished this thing off now, so have a look tell me what you think before I submit it. Boeth!

PAKA - TROY BROWNE - AVI

MUSIC - BATTLES - DDIAMONDD

FOUND EDGES...

2008-11-25T04:28:00.000-08:00

I done this last night as I was messing with renders for my animation project...

Have a look, tell me what you think.

FOUND EDGES - TROY BROWNE - AVI

MUSIC - BJORK - POSSIBLY MAYBE

NEW ANIMATION PREVIEW

2008-11-18T03:59:00.000-08:00

PAKA-PAKA (ANIMATION TESTS) - TROY BROWNE - AVI

MUSIC - SQUAREPUSHER - DELTA-V

BOARDGAME ANIMATION PROJECT PREVIEW

2008-11-15T19:11:00.000-08:00

Ive put together a sequence of my test animations as a sort of preview for my final animation.
Everything is still in concept mode so alot may change still. Comments appreciated... bo!

PAKA-PAKA(PREVIEW) - TROY BROWNE - AVI

MUSIC - SQUAREPUSHER -DELTA V

WHAT HAPPENED TO CHOPS??

2008-11-11T17:19:00.000-08:00

CHOPS & MILLER - TROY BROWNE - PNG

JUST CHOPS - TROY BROWNE - AVI

MIRRORS EDGE

2008-11-11T17:00:00.000-08:00

MIRRORS EDGE - EA - PC/PS3/XBOX360

Mirrors Edge by EA has just come out on various formats. It features 'runners', charcters that use city rooftops as a means of getting about in a Parkour-ish style. It was pointed out by Phil who compared my early design ideas to this title so I downloaded the demo for PS3 and had a little go... its a really fresh idea for the first person genre, considering guns are not used your skill lies in escaping danger quickly. The game has a real flow controlwise and looks amazing and is quite simular to the direction of my project.

MIRRORS EDGE - EA - PC/PS3/XBOX360 - timetrialmode

SUCK MY CLOCK

2008-11-07T06:33:00.000-08:00

CLOCK - TROY BROWNE - JPG

CLOCK - TROY BROWNE - AVI

MORE ENVIRONMENTS

2008-11-07T02:17:00.000-08:00

ENVIRONMENT CONCEPT#4 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

Here are more environment tests... I say tests but they will definitely be part of my final 'board' design. I really like these shots, the shadows that are created from the staircase are really nice and they give to the sense of atmosphere... another thing I may need to work on is the surrounding environment IE; birds, clouds, debris...

ENVIRONMENT CONCEPT#5 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

ENVIRONMENT CONCEPT#6 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

SPANKING THE MONKEY

2008-11-04T06:37:00.000-08:00

'CHOPS' - CONCEPT IMAGE#1 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

Say hello to 'CHOPS'...

CHOPS is the monkey character in my 'board game' project... the image is only a concept and I'll be tweaking it, he probably wont be wearing a gas mask...

'CHOPS' - CONCEPT IMAGE#2 - TROY BROWNE - PNG
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ENVIRO-MENTAL

2008-11-02T15:55:00.000-08:00

ENVIRONMENT CONCEPT#1 - TROY BROWNE - PNG ...yes 3DS Max, yes Ink and Paint... Ive been working in my sketchpad and still will, but feel its more practical to 'sketch' ideas in 3DS Max. So here are a few environment tests.

I really like them but feel its too normal for the idea I have in my head, its a start though.

ENVIRONMENT CONCEPT#2 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

ENVIRONMENT CONCEPT#3 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

GREAT EXAMPLE OF PARKOUR

2008-11-02T15:16:00.000-08:00

Ive been looking into Parkour and have watched quite a few videos, they all got abit repetitive until I stumbled across this four man group, Team Tempest. They operate out of Los Angeles, California and have had lots of appearances on American TV. Watch the video and see for yourself....

FREERUN LA - TEAM TEMPEST - YOUTUBE

...if anyone else can point me in the direction of anything better, please do.

KISS MY GAS

2008-11-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

GAS MASKED CONCEPT#1 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

...these are just concept images for my gas masked free runner. Again, done on 3DS Max and just to get an idea of the style of my characters and environment.

GAS MASKED CONCEPT#2 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

GAS MASKED CONCEPT#3 - TROY BROWNE - PNG
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DODGY BIPED BULLET TIME

2008-11-01T03:26:00.000-07:00

PARKOUR SEQUENCE#1 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

PARKOUR SEQUENCE#2 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

PARKOUR SEQUENCE#3 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

PARKOUR SEQUENCE#4 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

(Parkour image - BennehBoy - Flickr)

Here I was messing around with Biped animation on 3DS Max. I found some really usefull reference images of Parkour (FreeRunning). They were taken sequentially of the postures required in a 'move', similar to the images they used in the Olympics to show the postures of a Horse vault. I basically married each stage of the posture on the timeline and let 3DS Max do the rest. I admit that they're not very smooth animations but give basic animations to work from and study.

BIPED BULLET TIME - TROY BROWNE - AVI

As well as testing the animation side I found it made sense to experiment with the camera angles too. So done this dodgy bullet time render. I think it works well and would like to carry on with experiments like this.

SEX, DRUGS AND SAUSAGE ROLLS

2008-10-30T03:08:00.000-07:00

This was a short exercise set by Roma. We were asked to recreate a wooden toy train from reference and place it into an environment. I made the environment in the summer, its based on a really messed up kitchen after a freshers party. I placed the train into this environment because I thought a toy train is one of the random things you'll see in a post party atmosphere, amongst other thing such as traffic cones etc...

TOY TRAIN LOOP - TROY BROWNE - AVI

MESSY KITCHEN #1 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

MESSY KITCHEN #2 - TROY BROWNE - PNG
MESSY KITCHEN #3 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

MY BOARDGAME CONCEPT

2008-10-29T06:17:00.000-07:00

http://parkour.doginvan.com/ It came to me last night and knew it was a good idea because I wanted to get on with it straight away... my idea is to have a FREE-RUNNING style board game! there'll be two players a monkey and a man... it will take place on the city rooftops, every time a player rolls a dice (TBC) they move/free-run to the subsequent rooftop, if they roll a number that results in a gap inbetween buildings they fall and have to start from the beginning! Ive made a short animation to show the basic movement of a player.

MOVEMENT OF PLAYER - TROY BROWNE - AVI

I visualised the two characters being a topless man wearing a gas mask and a monkey with a white backpack on, simple. So am going to get on with designing them. I imagine the look to be very stylised in-keeping with my 'industrial' style.

This idea excites me because and scares me at the same time. I think I'm biting off more than I can chew, but its all about setting myself a high bar and problem solving ...... watch this space.Bo!

FREE RUNNING - SABBATHSTONE -YOUTUBE

REMEMBERING THE RIGHT LION

2008-10-28T04:26:00.001-07:00

RIGHT LION#1 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

Again, made on 3DS Max. I made this so that I could practise with maps/materials. I mapped a number of different surfaces on this but feel the red one (above) came out best.

RIGHT LION#2 - TROY BROWNE - PNG

CROCODILE DENTIST

2008-10-28T03:27:00.000-07:00

CROCODILE DENTIST - TROY BROWNE - PNG

Here is my test of Crocodile Dentist. I made it 3DS Max and used the amazing MentalRay renderer. Using MentalRay made alot of difference in regards to the material (plastic) realism.

I'm really pleased with how this came out and it helped me get to grips with an alternative renderer.

CROCODILE DENTIST - TROY BROWNE -AVI

Im going to recreate a number of classic board games for practise and to get a firmer idea what Im going to do for my final piece.

DICE, DIE, WHATEVER...

2008-10-20T03:17:00.000-07:00

DICE - TROY BROWNE - JPG

One of the projects this year is to produce a 3D version of a board game. So for an exercise I messed around with Reactor on 3DS Max.

I made a couple of dice (as they are a staple to most board games) and attempted animating them as they are thrown/rolled. I feel the outcome is quite effective as using the Reactor in 3DS Max helps to simulate a real throw. I also added a hand, I cheated abit with that though as I rendered the hand throwing the dice, but added the the dice being throw as a background in 3DS Max.

HAND THROWING DICE - TROY BROWNE - AVI

DICE THROW - TROY BROWNE - AVI

O, but I didn't stop there. Using Reactor made me think of other little renders I could simulate of games that rely on gravity.... JENGA!... so recreated the Jenga set-up with my hand pulling the final supporting block... its cool, check it out.

JENGA - TROY BROWNE - AVI

HEXIDECIMALISATIONARY FAILURE

2008-10-16T01:08:00.000-07:00

STRIPE GUY - TROY BROWNE - JPG

....well thats just a made up word.

I done this over the holidays and it taken a month, I found a track I made ages ago and started thinking about what I could do with the things Ive taught myself on 3DS Max.

I must admit that I think its crap considering the amount of time it taken... I had high hopes for this and feel disappointed with the outcome... its a shame that no-one reads these blogs because maybe I could've received abit of feedback to help me through my next attempt...

What I think doesn't work is the audio to visual sync-ing, by the time it got to the stage of putting the whole thing together my laptop decided that it wanted to have a 'IMMINENT HARD DISK FAILURE' and asked me to 'PRESS F1' to boot my computer resulting in all my installed software to go .........s...u...p...e...r..........s......l.....o.....w........ I lost patience with the project at that point and just wanted to get it done and dusted.

I like the character in this, in keeping with the 'avatar head' I made in a previous project. If I got anything from this project it was getting to grips with character animation techniques using the 'Biped' tool on 3DS Max. I also like the idea of mapping AVI onto planes and placing them into an environment.

...well just have a look and tell me what you think......... whoever you are.............. ?

HEXIDECIMAL - TROY BROWNE - AVI

OPACITY MAPS/MAPPING

2008-10-14T08:01:00.000-07:00

'BYE AVATAR' - TROY BROWNE - JPG Opacity maps in 3DSMax allow users to map onto a surface/object so that whatever is black on the mapping texture becomes see-through, this also works with AVI maps.

For this video I layered 2 planes on top of each other and mapped one AVI on the foreground and another on the background plane I also applied an AVI onto the opacity map of the foreground plane, so that whatever is black on the AVI for the opacity map shows through to the background AVI.... it sounds kinda confusing, I tried to explain it in writing but theres a diagram to explain it a little better...

So what I did was add my 'AVATAR' movie on the background plane, then add my stop motion animation to the foreground plane and finally I added the other edit of the stop motion animation to the opacity map of the foreground plane, resulting in the imagery like at the top of this post.
I love the results. The outcome is very experimental, theres lots of detail (...so it'll probably look REALLY messy uploaded to Youtube, if so if you get in touch I can instruct you on how to get the full res version)

'BYE AVATAR' - AVI - TROY BROWNE

Music - 'Machine gun' - Portishead

LITTLE BIG BLOG

2008-10-11T16:21:00.000-07:00

DEVIL DOG BLOKE - JPG - TROY BROWNE

...Ive not 'Blogged' in a while, all summer to be precise and I feel rusty. I told myself that I'd just do a big blog at the end of summer, sum it all up in one sesh sort of thing but am finding it hard to cover four or whatever long months into a small paragraph. I feel that Ive done a fair bit towards learning 3DS Max, Ive worked on a number of exercises, some tutorials.

Ive compiled a 'Summer work Showreel' of those particular exercises and have some other work to upload soon.
I made the track too, its an attempt at drum and bass...lol

SUMMER 08 - AVI - TROYBROWNE