Leaderboard

I was nearing the end of my third and final year in Illustration when my teacher approached me with a volunteer assignment outside the usual class projects. In Oakville, there was a summer festival that took place in the 1990s and early 2000s called the Oakville Waterfront Festival. It was a major event at the time, featuring live music, games, food, and craft shows. The previous year, my teacher’s studio had illustrated the festival poster, which featured a 3D rendering of an ice cream cone. Having seen what I was capable of modeling in A:M, he asked for my help in creating a 3D version of the festival’s beloved mascot, "Jake from the Lake." Over the next few weeks, I modeled Jake and his buddy, Fishy, and the rest is history. Below, you can see a screenshot of the final poster, along with the Photoshop revisions my teacher made, including the addition of the ice cream cone from the previous year. It was such an exciting time I had never seen my work in print like that before. The poster was displayed all over the city, featured in newspaper articles, and even printed large scale for bus shelter ads.

Lately, I've been seeing some posts on here and on other forums showing vintage CG stuff, it got me looking through some of my old projects, reminiscing about my first experiences with 3D and starting my career in 3D graphics. I figured maybe this is a good space to share some old works that I never posted on the forum before maybe some of you will recognize some of the stuff. I got into 3D in the early to mid-'90s in high school and college. I didn't quite understand how 3D graphics were made in high school and used programs like DeluxePaint Animation to try and create my own. I even did a few projects for teachers, animating the high school logo. Then, I eventually learned about POV-Ray and tried every free 3D modeler available at the time that worked with it but it was never satisfying. I eventually started using 3ds for DOS and was able to get somewhere. I used it to create a 3D gallery for my uncle’s website, showcasing his paintings, drawings, and sculptures. I switched to Ray Dream Designer but it wasn't until college that I found out about Martin Hash's 3D Animation Pro, or A:M 4.0. With A:M, I was able to model organic shapes that I had been struggling to make in other programs. I used A:M for my computer class projects while taking Illustration at Sheridan College and because of what I was able to do with it got hired by my computer teacher at his design studio in Toronto. Below is one of the first projects I did for my computer class using A:M 4.0 I'll be posting more as I sort through my files

Initially, I wanted to pursue illustration to become a book illustrator. Some of my favorite artists at the time were fantasy illustrators like Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, the Hildebrandt Brothers, and Keith Parkinson. I thought studying interpretive illustration would set me on the right path, but I found that many illustration teachers in the ’90s were jaded about the industry’s direction. With Photoshop taking over many traditional illustration jobs, photographers could now do work that had once been the domain of illustrators. Maybe that’s why computer class was one of my favorites, the teachers were excited and enthusiastic about this new field. Many of the skills I learned in those classes, like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, are tools I still use today. This was one of my projects for computer class. I believe the assignment was to create something using Photoshop, and of course, I used it as an excuse to do something in A:M, using Photoshop mainly for creating textures and final touch-ups. I was also experimenting with achieving soft shadows in ray tracing by creating a small cluster of bulb lights.

I got "Mario" and "Scrabble" working and "Change"

I didn't know we still had that! That is left-over from long ago. 😮 If you click and drag, it will make a two-point spline. Back in the dark ages, "A" would get you just that two-point spline behavior and you had to SHIFT-A ("lock mode") to get the continuing spline-making that "A" gets you today. I think you can ignore "lock mode" today.

The y key. Normally it adds a CP between two CPs, but if you select a CP by clicking just beyond the end of a spline it extends the spline by one CP.

thanks to Robcat was up and tinkering again whatsup2a.prj

I hope everyone had a great Holiday, and will have a happy new year! Windows: Windows 32Bit Windows 64Bit SDK: v19.5 SDK Change Log: Fixed 0007283: Action lost on PRJ Save Fixed 0007279: Splitpatch gone? Fixed 0007286: Can't select target for Group Constraint Fixed 0007281: DarkTree/Symbiont Materials render blank Fixed 0007285: Importing MDL files will result in "No Name" as the name of the model Fixed 0007280: Imported Materials have no name Fixed 0007209: Texture Sequence as a Decal: Image > Timing > Frame is ignored by final renderer

Getting in the spirit of Halloween, so played around with an older model and some lighting.