Michael Thurston Gnomon Demo Reel 2021
My 2021 Demo Reel for my time at Gnomon School of Visual Effects. Utilizing Unreal, Maya, Zbrush, Substance Painter/Designer, SpeedTree Marmoset Toolbag Primarily. Megascans if indicated. A culmination of my learning at Gnomon school of VFX. Special Thanks to Anton Napierala and my various Gnomon Instructors.
My Demo Reel for my final term at Gnomon School of Visual effects all scenes created in Unreal.
Arc Furnace Unit 53
This was my own design inspired by a mix of Satisfactory and Apex legends made as one of the pieces for my demo reel. I'd been itching to do a sci-fi type piece and wanted to make something a bit different than a corridor. It started as a sort of forge and grew as I discovered some more interesting references in the form of arc furnaces and automotive robotic assembly arms. My goal was to make it appear functional and to make it feel like a huge amount of metal was being made by this process.
I relied on trim sheets and tile-able materials. It was a good learning experience in scene assembly with my own modular pieces. I used vertex painting on most of the objects and built in some extra edge loops to support it. Thinking of grime and other potential color and wear variations I wanted to add. I experimented with getting the arms to move by rigging them up in Maya and testing different rigs for the cable. I got them on a animation state machine to cycle different animations to make it fun by having them churn, along with programming the ladel on the rails to follow the whole track in a loop and bend along the inclines.
Ocean Palace
Inspired by Urashima Tarō and created for a Narrative Structure class and VFX for Games at Gnomon school of VFX. I started by blocking out in unreal and designing some buildings using the Unreal spline tool. Then once I got the shape I wanted I converted them to an assembly and swapped out variation or spots for windows and other variations. I forced around the rounded shapes and learned a great deal of composition and structuring for larger scenes.
The fish are controlled by a material with masks on each fin and utilize rotate about axis along with variables to control the pivot point and speed of rotation as well as randomness. I then turned the fish into a particle and setup parameters to make then attract to a area or run along a spline depending on case. I used Zbrush to create custom flowers for the coral trees and the anemones base with the tentacles grown in Speedtree. This allows them to be included by the tree wind or water current as I wanted them to appear to move slightly.
Mayan Waterfall Ruins
Inspired by the piece created by Petros Stefanidis called Mayan Watermill. I created this piece for my demo reel. Focusing on hand sculpted stone and a chance to experiment with Unreal Engine 4's new water system in 4.26. I decided to create modular pieces to assemble the whole tower structure and further cut and adjust to create re-usable pieces with variation. I then used vertex painting to add different material layers. I then created a layered material to use for each piece for moss and dirt and water wear.
The environment heightmap was created in Houdini then adjusted by sculpting in unreal and the automatic adjustment the new water splines do in unreal. I used a combination of mega scans for terrain material a blended with material functions. Foliage was sourced from both Megascans and Speedtree creating custom versions for variation. I used the Ultra Dynamic sky and Smart splines plugin for lighting and vine placement respectively. I weathered the piece and gave more vine work to play more on a ruin style versus the concept and made the water wheel wood based as a design choice.
Tankhead Nobukane High Poly
I created this sculpt based on Emerson Tung's Tankhead Nobukane concept. I modeled it entirely in Zbrush for an Advanced Digital Sculpting class at Gnomon with instructor Paul Gaboury. I heavily used ZModeler and Booleans after doing an initial block-out. Aiming to make sure that the topology remained smooth where I wanted it to be. I plan on making a game resolution version so I can paint it with more realistic textures and maybe get it moving around with a bit of rigging.
My topology is low but utilizing dynamic subdivisions except where I had to paint it I applied those sub divisions. Retopology should be swift though I can subtract some edges I used to hold the dynamic smoothness. Fun fact there currently 455 sub tools to comprise this whole model. I kept everything separated so Booleans could be applied to high poly and baked down later, as a pre preparation to game resolution version. Subtracting the symmetrical bits makes that number less daunting for making it game resolution.
The Bottom!!! Thanks for reading this far!!! I hope to continue to create inspiring 3D artwork hopefully at a game studio in the near future! Until then I'll be crafting away and sharing what I can! Until next time!!!
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