Charley DiMonte - Square One

Checkmate

Inspired by the elegant vengefulness of the game of chess, this project for Texturing 2 class was a wonderful learning oppurtunity. My aim was to capture a sense of stillness and unease, but also beauty in the same composition. I have always been drawn to antique objects, so I chose to set this project in the mid nineteenth century. 

Finding reference for this piece was very enjoyable. While the focal point of the composition was to be the chess pieces, I wanted to include a reference to time, as well add a bit of a darker side to the piece with a smoking gun and pools of blood. I had never used Substance Painter before, so I wanted include a variety of materials on which I could practice. Thank you to Tran Ma, my incredible Texturing 2 instructor, who helped me so much in creating this piece.

For the gunsmoke and floating dust particles, I ventured for the first time into Houdini and had so much fun learning the software. I used Pyro for the gun to create a wispy, dramatic smoke. For the dust particles, I referenced Christian Bohm's Houdini-Course tutorial on creating dust with Houdini's particle system.

Finally, to composite in my effects elements, I learned how to use Nuke. A huge thank you to Kian Babayi who helped me learn Nuke's powerful workflow.

Responsible for all aspects

Delicate Machinery

This piece was created for my Hard Surface Modeling class at Gnomon. I have always been very taken with the elegant shapes of birds, so I was inpired to try to replicate that using only rigid forms. This project was based on a few rough sketches I did, so it was quite a challenge to ensure the model's shape and proportions felt real. I enjoyed playing around with the pose until finally settling on a landing posture similar to a type of hawk referred to as the White-tailed Kite.

I went back and forth on textures before deciding to go with a simple, metal and ceramic look with minimal wear. I wanted the body to feel pure, while the clock eyes held the most wear and detail, so as to envoke a soft sense of aging with time. 

Responsible for all aspects

Rivers of Gold

This mini project was an exercise I did over a few days in my spare time between classes to challenge myself to create my first project entirely in Houdini without the help of a tutorial. The final look of the fluid was inspired by the melted gold scene from Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. I had a lot of fun experimenting with various attributes to influence the behavior of the golden lava, and I learned so much through this project. 

This piece was more of an exercise than anything, and there are definitely areas I would improve, but I am happy with how it came out for the time I had to work on it, and I can't wait to apply these concepts to more in-depth projects this coming year.

Responsible for all aspects except volcano collision geometry

Temporal Distortion

This was a fun weekly project for my Animation and Visual Effects 1 class. My first time working with bullet rigid body dynamics in maya, I had a lot of fun playing around with forces and combining various fields to achieve the tornado effect. Shoutout to Ethan Cornell for suggesting the reformation of the bricks at the end.

The visual story I set out to create for this piece was destruction followed by recreation. I wanted to play around with a visual representation of ending up in the same place you began physically, even after an emotional journey. This was a fun, short project, and while I would have liked to add more to this piece, I am happy with what I learned from it. 

Responsible for all aspects

Swingin' Shwartzies

Last but not least, meet the Shwartzies! I wanted to include this little cluster animation purely for fun. Another weekly project for Animation and Visual Effects 1, my main focus here was to practice visual storytelling through camera movement. I began with smoother, static shots, and once the Shwartzies discover the joy of music, I aimed to transition to more dynamic shots to visually convey their emotional state. 

This was more of a short exercise in basic camera movement than anything, but it definitely was a fun little story to animate!

Responsible for all aspects

Sneak Preview - What I've been learning

This year has been a huge learning period for me, and I am so excited to keep pushing my work to improve. Here are a two little Houdini projects created in a few hours of just pure fun playing around in the program.

Stylized Tornado

This piece was an experimentation with Houdini's particle system. I wanted to create a more stylized, almost crystal-like tornado, similar to something you might see in a fantasy game. Again, a simple learning piece, but I am excited to build off of this in my future work.

Responsible for all aspects

Under the Surface

This project was a fun little intro to Vellum in Houdini. I had fun working around with building a system that would enable me to art direct and control the origin and behaviour of breaking the top skin layer.

Responsible for all aspects except face geometry

Onward!

Thank you for viewing my collection of work from this year. I am so excited to build off of what I have learned and keep pushing to improve.

This was square one, let's see where we can get in a year! 

IG: @charleydimonte