Presentation: Photoshop Workflow Basics

Hey, everyone!  Here's a slide show I put together for an event I was invited to speak at.  The slides were composed for a specific audience, but other than the first 4 or 5 slides, any beginner can find something useful in here.  Enjoy!

3D Model of a Video Camera Created in Blender

Even though Photoshop is what you might call my "first love", in the interests of staying versatile I spend quite a bit of time working in other applications: After Effects, Flash, Illustrator, Audition, etc.  This weekend I found myself sitting in front of Blender, a 3D modeling program.  Here's what came out:

Full render

Rendered without materials

This camera is fully modeling, textured, and rendered from scratch.  For those who care, I used only one image at a single angle for reference.  It's rendered in Cycles.  The sample size is 1000 at 1920 X 1080 resolution.  No textures were used.  It's all done using Cycle's material engine with only a tiny bit of node work.  There is a bit of graininess.  It could have used some more time cooking in the rendering engine, but big renders take lots of time, and it's time to play video games, so couldn't have my computer tied up all night.

Anyway, there it is; a near-photo-realistic picture of a camera that was not taken with a camera.

Comments and feedback are welcome.

Enjoy!

2.5D Mario - A Homage to the Classics

Hey everyone!

I just can't seem to shake my fondness for 8-bit gaming.  No matter how advanced rendering technology becomes these are the characters I appreciate most.

In honor of that I've started a graphical series called "2.5D".  Here's our friend, Mario, being portrayed in the first installment.  As you can see we stayed true to the classic pixel art of the 8-bit era, then we gave it some depth and rendered it under realistic lighting.  It's a new twist on an old favorite.

Stay tuned as more of your favorite classic video game characters get the treatment.

Enjoy!

Minecraft Texture Pack: Update

I've made a couple of new items for the Minecraft Texture Pack.  Enjoy!

Minecraft Texture Pack

So I've got it in my head to try and put together a Minecraft texture pack.  I've done a few samples but haven't decided to go all the way.  What do you think?

Real-time Update Preview Window

Hello everyone!  In this tutorial we'll learn how to set up a live preview window so you can monitor your progress while zoomed in at extreme magnification.  With this simple trick you can spare yourself tons and tons of yo-yo zooming.

Enjoy!

"Resistance is Futile"

I wouldn't call myself a Trekkie, exactly.  I know very little Klingon.  I am a fan, though.  I just got a new workstation and decided it needed a custom wallpaper.  I quickly whipped this one up.  Enjoy.