Website

Worked on putting up a more professional website so I can keep it simple for those who want to get straight to the point and not read through all the details!



rendermyworld.net

Will be an on going process through my years I'm sure! I already want to change the colors and layout. But I know I should stick with something for awhile at least.

Enjoy!

Side Project

Shading and Lighting Side Project from Jessica Colet on Vimeo.

Had a lot of fun working with John Agostino on this project. Worked really hard on getting this looking good. We worked back and forth trying to perfect the scene. The results came out pretty good.

Enjoy!


John's website: Agostino Animation

Animation

Here's a sample of some animations I've done over the past year. Definitely not an animator, but it was fun to do! 


This animation is from our first animation class, Fundamentals of Animation. In this class we learned the 12 principles of animation. 
-Arcs
-Anticipation
-Appeal
-Exaggeration
-Overlap and Follow Through
-Slow in Slow Out
-Staging
-Pose to Pose vs. Straight Ahead
-Squash and Stretch
-Secondary Action
-Solid Drawing
-Timing

The following videos are from Character Animation. This class was tougher. We were told to wait until this class to decide if we were Animators or not. I definitely decided no. Ha ha well, anyway, here are the videos!

Juice Box Animation

Basic Walk

Emotional Change

Lip Sync

Shading and Lighting Art Test

Learned a huge amount about shading and lighting doing this test. I wasn't so good at it when I first started, but I've come a long way with help from various people and some studying of my own. I still have a lot to learn! But it shall be a process of trial and error as it always is!


Enjoy!

Compositing Fundamentals

We had to do speed paintings the for the first four labs. A lot of our class had never touched photoshop before. It was a very interesting experience. I had never speed painted before.

Here are some of the things we did in Compositing Fundamentals.

We also had to chose a line art from an artist and color it. I chose Aaron Pocock's piece:

Then we had to recreate two textures from a scene:

Using Photoshop again, we were to create an Xbox skin and apply it to an image of an Xbox:

For our final, we used a project we had already done from Principles of Design and made a Tunnel Parallax:

Over all I had a lot of fun during this month. I absolutely love Photoshop and digital painting. Making textures is fun as well. I feel I have improved a lot because of this class and it has allowed me to work on my skills since then.

::Amblyopia::

"We see with our brain! Not just our eyes!" -vision3d.com

Before

Now

Amblyopia, also known as lazy eye, is a disorder of the visual system where one or both eyes has poor or indistinct vision. Most of the time one can recognize lazy eye disorder right away by the fact that one of the subjects eyes will not be focused in the right direction.

I have always wanted to know more about my own disorder. I've struggled with it since I was younger and with help from optometrist, plus my own sheer will, I have corrected a lot of my problem. I started to recognize when I wasn't using both eyes and began to force the lazy eye to focus. This helped a lot, plus I would do exercises with my finger, pulling my finger slowly from a few inches in front of my face to really close, only using one eye at a time. Doing this on both eyes a couple times a week really helped build my muscles and get my brain to work right. However, my lazy eye still does exist and without corrective surgery, I will always have it. So I decided to do some research and post it for others who are interested. I believe this could help a lot of people who are in my industry and also for people who aren't able to see 3D.

There are three types of Amblyopia:

Strabismic amblyopia also called lazy eye, is a condition in which the eyes are misaligned. Strabismic usually results in one eye being normal in vision and the 'lazy eye' varying in vision from poor to somewhat alright. This should usually be corrected at an early age. Children's brains are much easier to correct, being neuroplastic, which means that a younger brain that is still developing is easier to mold and less resistant to change.

Strabismic can be corrected in many different ways. Two main ways that I was subjected to when younger were glasses and an eyepatch. An eyepatch can be placed over the good eye to stimulate use of the 'lazy eye'. Glasses can also be prescribed to help with the vision.

In order to correct the ocular alignment there are surgical and non-surgical methods depending on the severity of the disorder.

Refractive or anisometropic amblyopia is when there is a difference in refraction between the eyes. Basically there is no obvious physical manefestation and one eye becomes dominant, almost 20/20, where the other eye's vision is blurry. This is commonly overlooked by physicians because of the lack of physical abnormality.

Form-deprivation and occlusion amblyopia results when the ocular media becomes opaque. This can cause drooping of the eye and needs to be corrected quickly in order to prevent further damage. There isn't that much information about it that I could find, however I believe it is corrected much like cataract surgery.

Solving the 3D problem:

Many people can't even see through polarize lenses. I have a friend who also suffers from a lazy eye and she can't see 3D no matter what. I myself can see through polarized lenses. So to those who also suffer, I suggest finding a way to test polarized 3D. If this still does not work for you, don't fret just yet! Talk to your optometrist about corrective surgery or non surgical methods.

Here are some other websites you should check out to learn more:

Wikipedia - Amblyopia

http://www.vision3d.com/whycant.html

::Blurred Pictures Turned Clear::

Stereoscopic is taking over the new world.

Everyone has heard of the new 3D craze if not seen a 3D movie. The blurry red, green, and blue pictures corrected by glasses with red and blue lenses have been around for a while now. 

Well, a problem arose for me a couple years ago. I have a lazy eye, and it makes it difficult to focus through both lenses of glasses. Being the poor child I was, my parents never took me to a 3D movie or attraction when I was young, so I never thought I anything of whether or not I could actually see the pictures. 

Sad stories aside, I first encountered a true 3D attraction in Disney's Epcot when I moved to Florida. I couldn't see anything different. I just saw red and blue pictures separated from each other. I had met a friend with a lazy eye as well that year and I asked her if she had the same problem. Turns out she did. However, hers was a little worse than mine. Then, my art class had a 3D exercise using the red and blue glasses to create an abstract piece that 'popped.' I couldn't see that either. Last month is Compositing and Scene Finishing, we had an entire lecture using the glasses. I was furious at this point, afraid that my future would be in jeopardy because I wouldn't be able to see 3D. Creating assets for movies would be in vain if I couldn't see what I was making! 

Well folks, after a trip to Busch Gardens and my curiosity to see a Sesame Street short, where polarized glasses were given out, turns out that I can see 3D after all! Polarized glasses are the key! I hope that this means more people with my condition can see the amazing possibilities 3D has in store. I always though 3D was a gimmick, but after seeing Resident Evil 4 I now see the potential (which by the way was my first 3D movie, not the greatest for my first time, but whatever.)

So for all those 3D seeing-handicapped persons out there, I hope you will be able to experience the same things I did!

Good Luck!

More Modeling, Shading and Lighting

I started a side project. One that I ended up having to stop half way through due to being busy with classes and other people wanting to do their own side projects with me included. However, I still keep up with it every once in awhile. Here's a render of a bar stool from the night club I eventually hope to have modeled, shaded, and lit.

Shading and Lighting

My first month experimenting with Shading and Lighting techniques was the best month ever. I had so much fun working on this project. I remember staying up all night for 5 days straight just experimenting with different things to do to the scene. I look back now and I still see many many ways I could make it 100x better.


We were given the basic models to work with. I hid a lot of the elements in the scene to give the final image the feel I wanted. (The scene was originally the National History Museum)


I learned a lot of helpful things in this month.


Bump-mapping:
This can be your friend, or it can be your worst enemy. Always make sure you don't use too much bump depth in your scene. It may look really cool and awesome to make something look torn up, but it also may look horrible to everyone else. 


The easiest way to do bump mapping is through a Blinn. Take the original texture you're using for color, drop it into photoshop, desaturate the image and adjust the contrast and brightness. You may have to paint out any artifacts you don't want in your bump. Drop the file back into the bump section of you Blinn and you're on your way to a great shader. Just make some minor adjustments and you're set!


Surface Shaders:
Super helpful! I used surface shaders for my stained glass windows. You can apply an image or texture into the color attribute and voila you have a pre-lit object. Surface shaders don't need any lights or adjustment to have them show up in renders. However, this means that you may have to do some adjustment in post (photoshop or another compositing software) in order to get the desired effect. 

Model Creation

This is a model from back in my 3rd month at Full Sail University. 


This was our classes' second time doing anything with Maya. We were given a series of pictures to model from. Each were a living room type scene and we had to chose one from which to model our final. 


Some problems I ran into a long the way were:
- not getting the camera perspective right
- knowing a small amount about modeling, so having to teach myself a lot of techniques
- learning to have multiple saves in order to go back if problems occurred


Helpful shortcuts learned:
Shift + D - helps a lot when creating things like stairs. Duplicate one step and adjust the translation/rotation/scale, then shift + d the next step and all the settings you already made will transfer over and you can quickly have all of your steps made without having to hand adjust each one! **Be careful using scale. If you adjust scale, each duplication will continuously get smaller or bigger depending on how you scale the object.


Simple Shading and Lighting:
I wanted to add some simple color and mood to the room without spending too much time going through and shading every piece.


A very simple method to use is the Mia_physicalsky. Located under Render Settings - Indirect Lighting - Physical Sky - Create
Once you hit create, a directional light will show up in the center of the world. Depending on how you rotate the light, you will get different lighting effects for different times of day. For instance if you have the directional light pointing straight up and down, it will simulate high noon. If you rotate the light to be horizontal it will simulate sunset or sunrise. 


I have tossed up shading and lighting the mode more over the past couple months... maybe soon!

::Creation::

Dawn: I've been thinking about making a blog to show the progress of my work for awhile now. A few classmates have made their own and my work was getting a little jealous and wanted it's own lime light. 

So I decided to create Dinosaur Footprints. Named to represent the giant steps I've been taking to better my work, the impact I hope to make, and the progress I still have to come. 

Beginnings: A little bit about me. My name is Jessica and I am currently a student at Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida. I'm originally from Illinois, born and raised. No, not Chicago... the good ol' southern rural part of Illinois that no one ever knows about. 

I have always been interested in the arts, which goes for just about everyone else in this industry I guess. What makes me different? I'm still not quite sure. I like to think I'm easy to get along with, time manage well, do whatever it takes to get the job done, and I'm always trying to find new ways to get the job done. Plus, I'm just plain fun to be around.


I love 3D shading and lighting. I also am always trying to improve my drawing and photoshop skills.

But anyway, time to start getting some more of that work done so I can post my progress. Enjoy!