Nate Draws (And does other things too!)

More New Demo Reel!

2011-11-20T00:55:00.000-08:00

Character Animation Reel

New Demo Reel!

2011-02-28T23:41:00.000-08:00

Animation Tech Reel

Some Stuff I Did

2011-01-14T00:45:00.000-08:00

It's Mr. Fletcher! I did the rig and animation. Model/Texture by Mike Bolger, designed by Evan Cagle.

I rigged and animated this from scratch in a matter of 5 hours, just in time for a pitch meeting. Modeled by Mitch Ahlswede, designed by Gideon Boomer.

Still Alive...

2010-11-16T19:20:00.000-08:00

Gadzooks! It's been over a year. I've been very busy...

I did the 3D animation on the main character. The rest is the work of Mike Bolger, Evan Cagle, and David Liu.

I'll try not to let another year slip by until my next post. :)

Number nine... Number nine...

2009-09-09T19:12:00.001-07:00

Happy 09/09/09! This is the only time this will ever happen!
(Just like any other day.)

Hooray! I'm still alive!

You know how I promised to update with cool drawings and stuff? Well I've been seriously distracted with... something.

More on that later.

In other news, here's a real-life photo of a floppy squirrel:

(Source)
See? They really do that!

Oh, and this is out. Maybe I'll try to see it this weekend perhaps.

Squirrelly Stuff

2009-04-21T01:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a super rough squirrelly animation test.

Floppy likes acorns! More to come...

Old Guy - Sketch Paint

2009-04-15T01:00:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna call this one done for now. :)

Doing Animation "Multiples" in 3D

2009-03-03T00:45:00.000-08:00

Step One: Be Silly!

So a while back, Henry Sanchez made a really spectacular 3D animation that looked like one of the good ol' Warner Bros. cartoons. (It's the second clip on the Animation Mentor Summer 2008 Showreel)

Then, Eddy posted a question on the 11SecondClub forums, asking how this guy achieved the crazy multiples and deformation-swipes and stuff in 3D.

After some monkeybusiness, I came up with a quick little tutorial on one way to achieve this effect. Here's the cross-post:

Hello! I saw that shot too and was really impressed! And... I know how to do it! :D

Here's how it works: Luckily for us, Maya can have fractional frames instead of just integers!
First I made this simple animation using just a few keyframes the normal way. A big chunk of movement happens between frames 5, 6, and 7.

Frame 6 has lots of speed on either side of it, so I decided its "ghost frames" are going to be on 5.75 and 6.25.
Frame 7 is a slow-out, so its ghost frames are on 6.5 and 6.75

Next what I did was type in these fractional frame numbers into the text box right next to the time slider. Once I had my fractional frame set, I could make further tweaks to the pose.

Then I selected the mesh of the character's body, and selected the menu Edit -> Duplicate Special -> Options box.

In "Duplicate Special Options" I set it to "Copy" and un-checked "Duplicate input graph" "Duplicate input connections" and "Instance leaf nodes."

This created a new ghost mesh of the character on that fractional frame.

I then selected that ghost mesh, set the time slider to the frame before it, set its "Visibility" to "off" and keyed it. Stepped forward one frame, keyed visibility on, stepped one more frame, and keyed it back off.

Repeat this process for each ghost frame you want to do, and that's it!

If you step through the animation, you can see where the real mesh is compared to its two ghosts by looking at where the rigging controls are. You can definitely use more ghosts per frame for faster movement. 3 meshes per real frame seemed to be the magic number for me this time.

To take things further, you could apply deformers to the ghost meshes like Henry appears to have done to squash/stretch and curve the rifle.

Hope this helps! :D

Also, Eric Goldberg covers multiples and smears and all kinds of other fun "gimmicks" in a chapter of his book Character Animation Crash Course, which I highly recommend!

Great Googly Moogly!

2009-03-02T23:59:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!....
I'm still alive, I swear!

Time to do some serious catching-up! This might take a few posts...

So what's been going on in general? We'll I've been on a pretty intense project at work that's wrapping up now. I can't really announce what it is yet, but it will be out soon, and will have a whole bunch of my animations on the main character! :D

I've become an active participant on the 11SecondClub forums and competition. I got 12th place out of 128 entries on the December competition.

And here's a higher-res and improved version of the animation on my portfolio: No Bananas!

11SecondClub is a ton of fun and I hope to get back into doing the competitions when I have a little more free time. (canned audience laughter)

I also like to answer animation questions posted on the forums with ramblings and tutorials. I think what I'll do is cross-post them here so we don't have to go digging around for them in the future!

That's all for this post.

Prometheus

2008-10-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

So, I've been helping out on Rachel's project for the Make Something Unreal contest, doing the character stuff. We just announced and released a demo a few days ago, and so far the response has been very positive!

Prometheus is: "A Single-Player-Cooperative FPS Puzzle Action mod for Unreal Tournament 3. Work with your past and future selves to complete your objective."

This character is still in the early stages. I've been using him to figure out the quirks of importing and setting-up a character in the Unreal 3 Engine. He'll see a major overhaul now that I know what I'm doing. :P

Here's the announcement on the Epic Games forum.

And here are a couple walk-through videos recorded by a player. (spoilers)

Advice From a Sage / Advice From a n00b

2008-09-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

Advice From A Sage:

I posted this before on my Facebook, but here it is again just in case. Thanks to Dani for making me aware of this.

Ed Catmull - How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity

Advice From A n00b:

Recently one of my students from the Summer Studio 2008 class e-mailed, asking me about my experiences in the Art Institute of Portland and the video game industry. I decided to post my reply so that perhaps it can be of use to more than one person.

Hi -----, I definitely remember you. You were one of the most inspired kids in that class.

Honestly, it's hard to give you a simple answer that doesn't sound like "Run!! Run away while you still can!!!"
So here's a more complex one:

The game industry was a very different creature when I first became interested in it. This was when I was in middle school, back in 1997 or so, and full-3D games were just becoming the hot new thing. I was also very much into animation, both traditional, and the CG stuff that the likes of Pixar, Rhythm & Hues, and PDI (now Dreamworks) were churning out. So the question for me was: Do I want to do games or do film? 10 years later I'm still asking myself that question, but it was always my dream to be doing this kind of stuff, whatever the medium happened to be.

And that's the important thing- it's gotta truly be your dream. You have to really want it. A fraction of people actually make it through the program at the Art Institute and graduate, and after that some still may not get jobs in the industry right off the bat. I think the reason why most drop-out in-progress is that they realize it's not what they really wanted to do, or because they thought it was an easy ticket to fame and fortune, and got a hard dose of reality instead. There are a lot of other factors, like they had financial problems, drug abuse, had a wife and kids, had to work two jobs and go to school at the same time, etc. etc. You must want it, and want it bad, because you're probably going to be sacrificing things like "having a life" to be dedicated to your work and your education.

After high school, I spent a couple of years in community college. I took a lot of computer science classes, as well as fine art, music theory, philosophy, played drums in a few jazz bands and the symphony, and other various stuff. I also got most of my "general studies" courses out of the way for very cheap instead of paying much more for the same classes at the Art Institute. I highly recommend taking this route, but if you've got your heart set on AiPD then I wont stand in your way. Just make sure to give yourself a very broad and diverse perspective through life experiences along the way. Join a baseball team, learn to play the trombone, study Inca art and culture, go teach English in Kiev for a few months, take your best friend on a road trip across the country to see a Dave Matthews Band concert and the car breaks-down half-way back, whatever. Contrary to what I just said, do try to have a life. These experiences are what will inspire and inform you as an artist, and they are far more important than just learning how to push verts around and set keyframes in Maya.

As far as the actual Art Institute of Portland goes, I believe it is better now than it's ever been before. You will learn everything you need to know to get your foot in the door of the game or animation industry, as long as you pay attention and do your best work. Be sure to make friends with other students and teachers, and collaborate with them. Networking is absolutely essential, and a school like this is the best place to start. You and your friends from school will help each other be successful for years to come. Build a great reputation for yourself and guard it with your life. These industries are still relatively small, and everybody knows everybody else after a few years into it. I've seen really skilled, experienced people have difficulty finding jobs in the industry just because they have a bad reputation. While you're in school, take creative risks and try new things. Try to work on collaborative projects. Do not be afraid to make mistakes, because this is the best time for you to make them. They wont cost you thousands of dollars like they can in the industry.

By the time you graduate, the game industry will be an even different creature than it is right now. Hopefully it will be a better, more mature one. Keep in mind that I've only been in the industry professionally for a little over a year and have only worked for one game studio so far, so my experience is limited. Right now, from what I've seen and heard from my friends at other studios, it's pretty common to be expected to work extra hours for free, competition between coworkers in the trenches and in management can end up getting bitter and self-destructive, the studio you're working for might go down in flames in a matter of a couple days without warning, etc. etc. It is comparatively a pretty risky industry, but it's improving and getting more diverse every day. Games like Braid prove that there's an alternative to the common "AAA" studio developer-publisher-distributor approach. It was developed by essentially two people, and shortly after its release online it was one of the top-10 games on Xbox 360 - amongst games like Halo 3, Mass Effect, and other "AAA" titles, which is encouraging. Hearing Ed Catmull talk about the way things work at Pixar, and the way they're helping to revive Disney is also very encouraging to me. So it's really not all doom and gloom, and where it is, it's really up to us to try to make it better.

Your first job will most likely not be your dream job. You might end up working on lame projects that don't inspire you. The studio might have a toxic environment due to politics and drama. I can't really speak on behalf of the film industry, but I think there are a lot of parallels. You'll just have to try to do your best every day anyway, and learn. The learning never stops. You must always take every opportunity to learn new things and improve yourself. If you can keep this up, I believe you'll end up at your dream job, or if not, you'll make something even better.

Over-all I think I made the right choice, because I can't imagine myself not working on this kind of stuff. Even if my day job was driving a garbage truck all day long (hey, I hear they get paid well!), I'd still come home to be creative with the computer. I think video games are a form of art, and are already a critical facet in our society, like the TV was 50 years ago, and the movie screen before that. We have a certain influence over our culture through media and can use it for good or evil (or in most cases, profit). We bring characters and worlds in our imagination to life and share them with a huge audience, we expose people to dazzling new ideas and new perspectives... Thinking about this kind of stuff is what makes it all worth it to me. If it does to you, then go for it. We need more inspired people doing these sorts of things, and I believe there will be plenty of different ways to be successful doing it.

So, after all that, I can now sum it up- It's hard, but it's worth it. There are a lot of things to stress about, but also a lot more substantial things to enjoy. Explore and discover, and you'll find out what you really want to do (and what classes to take). Use your time in school to make friends and help each other become talented, thoughtful, skilled artists, and you will be invaluable as an employee in any creative industry. This isn't just a matter of career choice- do what makes you happy, and what you think is worthwhile with the limited time you have in life. Settle for nothing less.

Keep in touch, I hope to see your name in the credits someday!
-Nathan

Directive?

2008-06-28T21:39:00.000-07:00

First off, I loved WALL-E. The first preview I saw sent chills up my spine: will this be Pixar's first bad one? In the end I forgave them for the things that bothered me about their marketing and some things they did in the film, and loved it. They made two robots fall in love, and they made me believe it.

I feel it kinda necessary to recap what happened over the past month or so, as well as some things that have been eating me for a while now. I may look back on this post in the future and chuckle at my own naivete or whatever, but oh well. Incoming brain-dump:

The last few weeks for me have been a blur. That feeling of being simultaneously totally stressed out and totally excited reminded me of the time leading up to my graduation a little over a year ago. Also, this little project has more or less marked the end of a very gripping (and kind-of secret and personal) art-block that I've had for more than a year. Attempts to force myself to work on my own stuff have been unsuccessful, so I work on other people's instead. I'd almost blame getting hired for this, except that I know it started well before my graduation.

Serious attempts to end the lack of inspiration and motivation started with this blog, but it really took this project to fall into my lap to obliterate the dam. When Liz first called and offered me the task I accepted without a second thought.

Summer Studio 2008 was an all-around tremendous success in my book. I was especially impressed with the Animation and Film departments, those kids have a very bright future. I really had no idea what I was getting into, trying to instruct and direct a bunch of high school students to learn Maya and Unreal Editor in one day and then make a 3D game in 2.5 more, but we pulled it off. The project turned out almost exactly as my original best-case-scenario vision, but I absolutely could not have done it without some major help from two other people. Rachel, as I mentioned before, who created the UT2k4 mod and showed me how to use it, and Kyle Hug, the mysterious student assistant I was promised, who turned out to be the best assistant I could have hoped for.

It was really great for me on a personal level to see how eager and excited many of the high-schoolers were to be working on a 3D game project. It reminded me of what it was like when I was their age, how the game industry was mostly a black-box, with some 3ds Max and WorldCraft tutorials scattered here and there. How mysterious and exciting it all was, and then when I went to school and eventually landed my first gig in the game industry, how it had become mundane every-day life to me. It was a reminder that not everybody gets to do what I do, even when they really want to, and I'm grateful for the things that have, and the people who brought me to where I am now. (Man, I feel kinda old now after writing this! Haha!)

Being up in Portland for a week and doing something totally different than my normal routine has given me a chance to do a lot of thinking about my life and where it's going. My head has really been spinning ever since the few weeks before graduation, then through graduation, then the couple of weeks afterward before I got hired... and from then on. I now realize that I never really felt any closure from being a student, and living in the artificial world of student life. This time around, over a year later, I now had something very specific again to focus on, and this time people other than myself were relying on its success. And this time I was not alone in the struggle, I had people who know things that I don't and who do things better than I do helping me on the way, and it all worked out. I couldn't have done it on my own, and realizing this has put a lot of things into perspective for me.

Hopefully in a couple of days I'll be able to link to the website that was made, documenting the Summer Studio so you guys can see what the gamers did as well as everybody else.

My diploma was sent to the wrong address (Well, technically, the right address, but the wrong time). It bounced back and had been sitting in the AiPD archives for over a year. I picked it up while I was there, got a nice frame and everything. Now my experience as a student feels pretty much complete. Maybe all it took was a silly piece of paper, eh?

One last thing- I've decided to start work on an animated short film. I've got a few ideas knocking around, I've also found a couple stories that other people have written that really touched me. If all goes well maybe I'll get the chance to make a film out of one of them. This will be a not-for-profit effort which I will hopefully submit to various film festivals. It's something I've been threatening to do for a long time, but this time it starts now. SO BE IT!

In-Game

2008-06-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

Finally figured out the stupid UV coords problem! Bleh! :D

Still Doing Stuff

2008-06-19T23:42:00.000-07:00

So I've been working on this crazy little project for a couple weeks now.
Here's the main character:

I'm gonna head up to the Art Institute of Portland next week to be the instructor for the Game Art and Design program at the Summer Studio. It's a week-long summer camp thing for high school students interested in going to the Art Institute. My plan is to make a very small "vertical-slice" of a story-driven video game using Unreal Engine 2. The kids will make character and environment art and I'll throw it into a playable game.

Unreal Engine expert Rachel Cordone is helping me BIGTIME on this. Check out her awesome Unreal mods and tutorials!

That's all for now, I'll post more some other time. :)

Brush Pen Doodle Dump

2008-05-14T23:25:00.001-07:00

I started watching Avatar: The Last Airbender again thanks to a coworker who graciously lent me his DVDs. Wonderful show! Anyway I started doing these quick doodles in my sketchbook while watching, trying to capture some stuff...

Dude in the top left- Did Walky Guy grow a ridiculously badass goatee? ...or ridiculously badass self-portrate? :P

Moar!

2008-04-29T01:01:00.000-07:00

Went ahead and roughly smoothed out Walky Guy. I need to practice doing stuff on twos instead of ones... I set myself up for trouble this time cause I wanted the key poses to be on 12, 6, 3, etc. But that means I had basically two tween pages per key, so I needed to figure out what 1/3rds and 2/3rds between each key is gonna look like. Good practice I guess.

This was all done with blue pencil and Flipbook will only shoot it in black and white for some reason. Maybe when I get my animation table set back up I'll go over it with a backlight and dark pencil.

Crits welcome. I realize there are problems with the facial features / sleeves / etc. swimming... I didn't use a backlight for any of this. That's my lame excuse. ;-)

Walky Guy Does Some Walking

2008-04-28T00:07:00.000-07:00

This is the first one I've photographed since I got out of school. I've let some moss grow on my temples while working at Pipeworks by day and doing other random computer projects by night. Need to get back into practicing this stuff.

At second glance he looks a lot more tired in this animation than in the previous drawing. Maybe I'll do another more lively version. This was also done with just a pegboard strapped to a piece of plastic, since my art table is currently hosting the tablet monitor project. More on that later...

Went for a Walk

2008-04-26T22:31:00.000-07:00

Here are some people I drew today. I went for a good long walk around the south side of Eugene trying to scope out good parks. The one just a few blocks away from me seems to be the best. Anyway, got more blisters on my feet than my fingertips today. We shall meet again, Monroe Public Park!

Ah hah!

2008-04-26T21:44:00.001-07:00

Now I'm obligated! Or something...

Anyway, let's see how this works.

A drawing! I did this a while back. Just a test.

You've now reached the very end of the blog!
Or the beginning! *Hmmph!*