Motorola DROID: Stealth commercial

30 frames of fx, hah. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9fXYQjwR0w

I did the ground explosion at :30 ubber quick, helped out with a few hours after my normal hours to help them finish (still at Asylum just not on my normal project)

The Game Plan

EDIT/UPDATE: Taking a term off from teaching and going to push hard on upping my skills. Of course in Maya effects, but also in other areas... here's the plan. Right now, 3dsmax, Fume, Krakatoa, Fracture, and Maya are my main focuses.

Nuke :: working knowledge - advanced
    currently : none
    plan : Gnomon Nuke DVD's or just have some guys at work show me the ropes.
General Compositing, going through "The Art and Science of Digital Compositing" <- great book

3dMax :: general good working knowlage
    currently : Got 3dsmax, doing some basic tutorials to learn the interface
    plan : Assortment of Gnomon DVD's (not sure yet which ones)
Fume :: advanced
    currently : got it, not working.
    plan : mess around with it, have my friend Ian Farnsworth  show me a thing or two
Krakatoa :: working
    currently : none
    plan : online tutorials


Maya
advanced lighting; rendering in Mental Ray
    currently : good
    plan : Gnomon DVD's and read "Introduction to Computer Graphics" by James D. Foley

Fracture (Maya Plug-in): advanced
    current : some tutorials
    plan : use it at work (got it) and get really good with it.

Houdini :: not actively 
    current : decent can get around and do what I need to, but I'm slower right now in H than Maya

The overall plan is to get 3dsmax, Fume, and Krakatoa into Asylum so I can use it everyday on shots that would benefit from it. Thats the best way to learn it, but have to start by showing some cool examples of what I can do with it first.

Comments enabled!

Finally figured out why comments weren't enabled.

Halo ODST

It's not much (what I did) but in 2.5 days I made 2 of the alien ships explode with smoke trails. The easiest one to point out is the crash right before the fade to the future of that Marine or whatever master chief kind of guy he is. Anyhoo, cool trailer/short thingy!

http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/852871/bungie-project-2/videos/haloodst_liveaction_trl_090409.html

Fire Reference Photos - links

It's of course, important to study real elements when creating them digitally. That is very true with fire. The more you study it the more you realize the wide variations of fire and the many forms it can come in. For your convenience and mine here are some good links.

http://celestiniosity.com/wp-content/fire.jpg
http://www.sces.uk.com/content_images/flame1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_photography
http://my.firereference.com/
http://www.firephotography.com/
http://www.firegroundaction.com/
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal
http://www.printroom.com
http://www.pbase.com/fotoguy77/mikes
http://www.juanguerra.smugmug.com

and a awesome rocket launch reference
http://www.wghartenstein.com

Fire Part 1

Fire Part 1 from destruct007 on Vimeo.

Here we start with the basics of fluid fire in maya. We just get the ball rolling, but it should be enough to get people well on their way to making fire, play with this setup and get to know it, understand how and why it moves. Next time we'll be pushing it further but when you make your own you'll need to know why things are moving the way they are. 90% of making fire will be knowing how to tweek it per-shot and per instance of your fire. Fire is a tweek fest of the highest regard.

Please to enjoy!

Vimeo videos

Upload complete. All video's now on vimeo, and future ones will be there too. It's got the best playback and general viewing. Just watch it fulls screen (or not) but it should still have the resolution 'n all.

Please to enjoy.

AUDIO-VIDEO SYNC issue fixed!