Ed Coyle's Art Blog

Link: http://www.twitter.com/EdwardCoyle86

It's been a while since I've updated. I've had two big freelance gigs going on at the same time, so it's been tough (very little time to myself to play with 3d). However, I've recently signed up for Twitter due to a few friends from college coercing me into it. I've been having a lot of fun with it. If you like to tweet, hit me up @ EdwardCoyle86. I'll put a link up here when I get some time.

At least, that's what I would have thought as a kid if I had seen this. In my free time, I've been making adjustments to my signature character to make him look a little more realistic. I finished the unwrap yesterday, and I'm working on retexturing him now (still need to make some nice looking, open-fingered gloves and add a bump map to the whole thing). Not to mention, I added some Vray HDR lighting now that I'm familiar with it, and it's looking mighty fine. By the way, this is rendered with Vray 1.5 SP2 for Max 9.

I plan on redoing the rig from scratch, as there are some more complicated movements that I'd like him to make for the new demo reel that I'm planning. Just figured I'd post this today because I'm very proud of the way it turned out.

so after struggling for awhile to get my head around how Vray works, I've finally started to make some progress. I've got what I believe to be a nice evenly lit room in the works, and now I'm working on unwrapping and texturing everything in it. I'm very happy with the way its coming out so far, even though I'm just playing around with textures at this point (as you can see, some areas of the room aren't even textured in this render).

This image was rendered with V-ray 1.5 RC3 for 3ds Max 9. I believe it took roughly a half hour on my machine, but that was because it was drawing up a fresh irradiance map and light cache. It should go down a bit when I'm ready to do the final render and I have these two files stored. If you're 3D savvy, leave me some feedback on this sucker (make sure you click the thumbnail to get a better view).

I'm trying to keep this blog up to date, but the truth is I'm just bad at updating it. I've done a ton of work over the past few weeks on various things including my own website, Hurdler 2 graphics, and other 3D models. I will try to update every other day this week with new posts about this new work, rather than just give it all away in this post

UPDATE: I just realized that the original image I uploaded had an Alpha channel on it and was making the render look a little funky... if you took a look at it before, take another look at it now, it's much better

I've been re-creating a character from an old TGP game that we've been considering resurrecting for a 3D sequel sometime in the future. We're not completely sure what style we would be going for with the game, but I figured I would stick with the original, cartoony look that I'd often conveyed in the game's promo art. Below are some screen shots of the original game in action to compare to the model itself:

And now, here are some normals and wireframes of my model in its current state:

Hopefully I can get this model painted soon. 2009 is coming up, and I'd like to have a new reel ready for the holidays Please leave me some feedback if you are 3D-savvy.

So I've been doing a lot more website work lately than I would have liked to do, but it's all good. I'm happy with the results of my recent overhaul of The Games Page's Back Room. Before the overhaul, it was very plain and a little hard to look at in my opinion. Many of the visuals didn't match the design, and were unrefined. I decided that since the Back Room is the place that Gary and I have set up for people to just come "chill and play some games", to make it feel like you've just walked into someone's newly-finished, game-room-styled basement. It's nice and dimly lit in the background, with the main focus on the table where the games are laid out. The interface is clean and easy to understand, and there are some nice Javascript rollovers to finish off the buttons.

I personally think this is the nicest looking site I've built so far, and I think I've just raised the bar for myself. From this point on I'll be striving to make my designs look even better than this. Click the image below to see a screenshot of the site, and please make sure that you visit the Back Room and enjoy the games that Gary and I have been working on recently.

Also, I've been freelancing recently at D4 Creative Group, the ad agency in Philadelphia that I interned at during school. During my 2-week freelance venture, I worked on 3 different commercials for Comcast Cable. I'm not new to working for Comcast (as my demo reel actually has some footage of a commerical I helped complete last year), but nonetheless it's more experience in the bag. When I can get copies of the work I did, I'll make a Comcast reel or something...

I also had the opportunity to work for Navteq again, this time ON-SITE. Unfortunately I turned them down because I was working at D4 at the time. Now that D4 doesn't exactly need me, I'm kicking myself for it because it was 5 weeks of guaranteed work. Oh well, next time I will absolutely take up that offer.

That's all I have for now. I may update within the next few days with some colored photoshop's I've been doing. I also have a new character model in the works that's slowly but surely been getting done. But we'll see...

About a week or so ago, I made some major graphical and layout changes to my resume. However, since I'm just a tad forgetful, it never made it onto the blog afterward...

Anyways, you can now access the updated PDF from the resume page.

As for the artwork I should be uploading daily, my current job is taking up a lot of time so I haven't had as much downtime as I used to. However, I do have a new character model in the works that I may just have some untextured shots of to put here soon

Also, starting next week, I'll be putting a lot of design time into finishing up a major TGP game. Gary and myself are hoping to have the game done sometime in December, so keep your fingers crossed. I may post some screenshots of that game here too, once I get it looking spiffy. Speaking of games, make sure you check out the Backroom and play Rabbit Stew, because it's just amazing.

I've recently been doing models for Traffic.com's traffic simulators. They're low-poly models that mark minor landmarks in major metro areas. Pretty cool stuff.

Below are some test renders of some of the models I've been working on. I got the OK from the company today to use them as portfolio pieces. Supposedly they take these models and place them into a program similar to a gaming engine. I figure that it's getting me closer and closer to game animation, so what the hell.

All logos are copyright their respective companies. The artwork is all copyright Navteq/Traffic.com

A quick photoshop of me. I just felt like sketching on my tablet, and then I added some simple color. It's not done, but at least I did some sketching.

It's been a while since I updated my blog. My original goal was to do a sketch or a model once a day to keep my skills sharp. Unfortunately, I've been spending tons of time doing other things, and I've managed to land myself a few small jobs in the process. I've got myself a part-time job starting soon, and I am in the middle of a few freelance gigs. I've also been doing some pixel art for one of Gary's games, and I've also been trying to learn the basics of Bodypaint 3D. So unfortunately, I've been slacking off a bit, haha.

So hopefully, I can once again begin to keep this blog up. I also want to redo the design a bit to make it look a little prettier.

So now I've decided to take my pool room a step further and create my ideal GAME room. My ideal game room would have more than just a pool table. Obviously it would be a place to entertain, and a place where I would have many of my close friends come and relax with me. For this reason, I'm going to be adding a bar into the mix. While it's not complete by any means, I've built the frame and begun to add the finer details, like some cabinet doors and a wet sink.

Also, I will be adding a section of the room that has a large television with lots of video games attached. I plan on modeling it all myself . But any gamer knows that you need something comfortable to place yourself into while you game. Because of this, I spent about an hour or two this afternoon crafting a nice, comfy recliner that I will have multiple of in my television area.

My goal for this piece is to eventually give a beautiful walkthrough of this desirable game room. I think it will be a great addition to my reel.

One of my favorite 3D pieces that I've done would definitely have to be my pool room. Even though I'm not so good at it, Pool is a game that intrigues me. Being the 3D animation nerd that I am, whenever I'm playing or watching a game of pool, I can't help but notice the various textures, colors, and reflections in everything that makes up the environment that is the billiards room. It's such a unique environment, and while I'm proud of my portfolio piece, I can't help but think that my presentation of it just isn't doing it justice.

So, I've decided to upgrade it!

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