Get out of here S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

   No, no. You can stay! It's a fairly iconic line of dialogue mentioned (a number of times) in GSC Gameworlds cult hit/smash/epic, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl. As I'll tell you now, I've have been playing a fair amount of that series in the past week and it's carried over into the 3D world!

   First up is a render of some Pripyat apartment blocks based on a photo I found while surfing Google. I think these turned out fairly well!

The Grass is done using a colour image and an alpha image on a plane and then have it duplicated and spun a couple degrees. Same with the Trees

   After I was pleased and happy with the results I took that image into Photoshop and did a bit of tweaking and editing until I got to this image!

Old Timey filters and distance blur added, plus a bit of fiddling with the Levels.

   Once I was happy with that I went ahead and did some more searching on Google for a Radiation sign and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat game logo. Once I had those elements, it was a short time later that I came up with this, the finished product!

I'd say that's none to shabby!

   So, I had done that up after I had completed Call of Pripyat...So, in keeping with the theme of doing something like that after finishing a game...I did up a Desktop Wallpaper for Shadow of Chernobyl as well!

All Photoshop using real world photographs!

   As you can tell by the caption, that's all Photoshop. Showing off what I can do with it might help one day in getting a job...but we'll see! Never hurts to show off your skills!

Until next time!

Enjoy and don't hesitate to comment!

It's a Bird...It's a Plane!...No wait..it IS a Plane! (A MIG-15 to be exact!)

   During my final year of Animation, the class had 3 major modeling projects. Make a Building, make some mechanical and make a character.

   For the Mechanical piece, I decided fairly early on that I'd make a plane. But not just any old boring plane, like a 747 or a Airbus. No, no. I wanted to make a jet fighter, one that was fairly iconic and legendary.

   The MIG-15.

   The first two images below, shows the Migs untextured state. I made two models, one with landing gear and space for the wheels to retract into, and one without all that extra bits for when it's flying. I even had one side of the landing gear rigged so it could fold up into the wings (and it looked pretty darn close too!)

Coming together nicely!

Even added detail to the wheel wells, even though they never got any attention. Oh well, still looks cool!

   After the model making had been done I went to town making her look pretty. I used XSI's Architectural Material as the base and plugged the MIG-15 textures into it. The follow shots show that off, along with some Bokeh shader to make it look a bit more real.

That's a rendered image, not a Photograph!

Nope, still not a photograph!

Guess again! Not a photograph!

Okay okay...oh wait...Still not a photograph!

   With that, I'll leave you with two more photos of my first Airplane/Jet Fighter model.

Still shot from a little fly around animation.

Made this to look like it had come from a "gun camera" from a chasing Jet.
Turned out alright!

    Enjoy and leave your comments below!