After 3 and a half years..This is finally it..

Portfolio Review for graduation is less than 24 hours away. Its all come down to this day. Judgement day. I wont lie and say I am not nervous. But I am also confident. Ive learned a lot while attending college, but especially over the last nine weeks. I've learned to not doubt myself so much. I've learned to trust myself in that am capable of doing great work, if I try my absolute best. I know I did the very best I could.

Tomorrow, after they tell me I pass, that will only be the beginning.

New Golf Cart

Graduation in just a few weeks...Website updated

As graduation is fast approaching, I have been working my a** off trying to improve my work, as well as get everything else done that needs to be done like getting business cards printed and things like that.

I was really worried at first, but I think I will be just fine now. I think a lot of my hard work is going to pay off. I have my website updated with a slick new, user friendly design now. Check it out at brandonmcduffie.com.

Biz Card

Parody commercial is up..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chTNvWVCGao

New problems arise as my projects improve..

Ok the lighter image is what it should look like for the most part after I had to take it to Photoshop and adjust the levels of the image. The dark image is what the jpeg saves as after I render it in Max. The light one is what it looks like when I render it in Max, but the dark one is how it looks after I save the image. Makes no sense and I have no idea why this is happening. It just started happening yesterday. I have to get this problem figured out so I dont have to waste all sorts of time trying to adjust the lighting afterwards when it should already look right beforehand...ugghhh...

Back to living room..

Decided to try and use daylight instead of artificial. There is this noise issue around some of the objects that is driving me crazy. I havent figured it out yet. Whatever it takes to fix it, I'm sure its just gonna add to the already lengthy render time..uggh..

Starting to redesign website

A few weeks left until graduation, and I'm getting into the stage of finalizing everything. Anyway, I want the website to be short, sweet and to the point, so I decided to get rid of the gallery page and put it directly on the homepage, as well as eliminate the profile page and emerge it with the contact page. This way, there is less links to have to click. I will see what my teachers as well as others think.

Fixed stair issue

thanks for the feed back...you know who you are.

Fixed scaling issue on boxing ring..

And another..

Because I like posting on here. Several times. Of the same Project in semi-different phases.

So I ttok out that woodblock from the other pic..

It was recommended that it was taking away from the composition, so I took it out. I guess it does look cleaner now.

Another one..

Gym Update

Final working on something else. Starting to revamp the gym now. Progress so far.

First flythrough of living room.

I like it alot. It needs to be edited to get rid of that blemish in the beginning but it gives a good idea of whats to come. It will suffice for my 30 second reel.

Another Kitchen update..

I think after all the tweaking, I'm getting close to it being finalized. Man this project is a pain.

Living room update

Kitchen update

So back to the living room for a bit.

I'm switching back and forth. Probably wondering when I'm going to start tweaking the other projects for the demo reel. Well, just as soon as the living room and kitchen are the best that I can get them. Were close. Then it will be back to the bridge and boxing gym. Thats right the boxing gym is returning. Anyway, as for this, I added a a gamer chair and played with the material on the speakers and hdtv. I also added some Jaapanese Kanji which stand for "extraordinary", "Courage", and "extreme." Also added my guitar to the scene and tried to give the walls some depth. Not to sure about the regular walls yet. The red ones look better I think though.

Took a break from the living room...

..just to work on the kitchen. Took all day literally tweaking the lighting, changing textures, tweaking parameters, changing time of day, you name it, I went through hell today with this piece, to get it here. I think its a nice step up from before, even though I couldnt get the outdoor natural light shining through the window like I wanted. I think this is okay. I never understood how important lighting was or appreciated that much. Now I am beginning to understand the importance of lighting, as well as rendering. Its closer to my photo I used for ref when I started this project months ago. Its not perfect, and it may never be so, but I'm proud of how far I've come. For now anyway.

Another update..

More updates..

Trying to get the lighting right and add more assets. Lighting is definitely the most difficult and important part of 3d modeling I would say.

Another Idea for the Intro

Have these neon letters glowing on the wall and pull back to show the piece...maybe.

The Playboy Pad..

..is what this latest project is going to be called. See if you can see why in one of these updated renders. The rendering time for these frames though is pretty lengthy. Since I have to have my demo reel done by week nine, I'll have to get these projects refined and finished earlier than I may have had to so I can start rendering out the movies and wont shoot myself in the foot by running out of time waiting until its too late. I started on this today and worked on it for a lot of hours. I'm proud of it so far. Time for bed for now though.

Graduation is near..

That's right, graduation is this quarter. 8 weeks until my final demo reel is due and its judgment day. Gotta to beef up the portfolio. I started a new project earlier today and here is my progress thus far. Learning mental ray is really starting to come in handy. Look at the quality of this piece compared to some of my previous work. The results are getting alot better I'd say. I only wish I took more time to learn it sooner. I used a reference picture for this piece.

Mental Ray with sunlight

Here are the before and after differences with the Mental Ray using real sunlight as opposed to artificial light in the room. A noticeable improvement so far I'd say..