My Jeep Tech Demo

[kndrewa]

http://www.kndrewa.com/jeep/akreelmed.mov

check her out.

lemme know what you guys think.

this is two years old already; somehow I never thought to post it here.

its part of my personal portfolio and what i used to get where i am now.

it will take a sec for the quicktime to load, and theres ten seconds of black before it starts. (old industry standard)

anyhow, enjoi!

-andy

[RyleyF]

That is amazing dude, good work. I did some 3d modelling back in the day, but nothing like that. I thought it was real until the end.

[2000xjclassic]

That was amazing. I was extremely impressed.

Chris

[black2door]

That was awesome. You definatly have extreme talent

[Mtb Jak]

that was amazing how long did that take?

[xjh3]

That is really impressive. I can't imagine the amount of time you must have put into that. You really missed no detail at all.

[POSJ]

You have talent...plain and simple.

[casm]

Great stuff. Very impressive.

[pb_beaker]

That was awsome, do you have any other we can see.

[bb_xjer]

very very nice! i also wonder how long that took to make?

[swbooking]

wow... that was sweet. VERY nice job.

[SteelblueSteve]

I hope you are making lots of money somewhere doing that. Very cool.

[T&A-XJ]

Wow! Very impressed.

[kndrewa]

wow, thanks a lot for all of the positive feedback!

I did all of the work on those shots from concept to final rendered output with audio over the course of about 6 months while I was finishing up school in Florida. That work was my first attempt at photo-realistic digital modeling, texturing, and compositing.

I used one month for preproduction where I sketched all of my shots with a pen and paper. I also used that time to scout locations and generally think about what I wanted to do. I took literally hundreds of reference pictures of my 1997 Cherokee from all angles, including the drive train and undercarriage. Preproduction is the most critical step in any type of large undertaking of digital manipulation.

Next, I spent about one month modeling the vehicle and all of its components all the way down to the brake lines. Even with all of my reference photos, sometimes I needed more information on how things are laid out or how they line up. I oftentimes resulted to laying under my XJ or running outside again and again to make sure I was creating an accurate depiction of the Jeep.

Once I was satisfied with the fidelity of the geometry, I began laying out my UV sets so that I could texture the flat grey model (add color, specular highlights, height to the geometry, as well as dirt and dust). This UV coordinate layout and texturing process resulted in of all of the texture maps you see in the middle of my reel. It took me close to a month to fully texture the Jeep.

In order to animate the Jeep, I had to build an expression and keyframe based control rig. This is where you associate hierarchies for movement, rotation, scale, and transformation. This rig can been seen as all of the red lines when the camera goes under the vehicle in the reel. For instance, I am able to select my front axle control handle and use the rotation manipulator to simulate flex. I wrote code that registered how far I had moved the axle and used that information to deform my front coil springs and shocks the appropriate amount. I also linked rotational values from my tire controls to the u-joints and axle shafts as well as the drivelines. Even the rear leaf springs were weighted and set to deform accordingly; every aspect of my digital stunt double performs and behaves like its real world counterpart. I even made windshield wiper controls ; ) , This rigging setup helps to automate and expedite the animation process. This took me yet another month.

Next it was time to extract 3d information from the 2d film plates I had shot during preproduction. This process is known as matchmoving, or camera tracking. Parallax movement is the definitive factor in a solid matchmove. I plot and follow hundreds of points of high contrast in the video over the duration of each shot and then give each point an approximate distance from the camera based on measurements I took in the field. Once I have gone frame by frame through the shots hundreds of times, I am able to export a cloud of floating points as well as a digital camera that is keyed to move exactly like the real camera I used to shoot the footage. I pull that data into my 3d application and I can then animate the vehicle in the point cloud and render out an image sequence as seen through my simulated camera track. This data is represented by all of the little X marks you see in the breakdown shots of the reel. Chalk up another month.

Once I had all of the digital assets mentioned above, I was able to package them all together using node based layering software which results in my final composites. This allows me to make subtle adjustments to things without having to re-render (a timely and undesirable process). For instance, if the windows were too reflective, I could tone that down. Or make them more transparent, whatever. This is also when I did color correction to all of the assets in order to seamlessly integrate the computer generated content with the live action film plate. This took about two weeks.

After I have my final composites, the only thing left to do is to sequence the shots to music and decide what order they go in, as well as add any text or other sort of titles that were not part of the original composites. 2 weeks.

Thanks again for all of your interest!
Being my first attempt at a lot of big tasks, these times are a bit long.
If I were to do the project again today, I am confident I could do it in about 3 months.

END>

[hideyoshi]

I hope your making a lot of money with all the talent you have!
Good work man!

[rocklandxjer]

as someone who is a 3d modeling junkie... that was the most outstanding modeling ive seen in some time.!

what program was this all done in?

i hope that you will/are making the money to equal your talent... very impressive

[87manche]

very impressive.

and I dig modest mouse :)

[aroncull]

Great work, very impressed... you certainly have a positive future in CG and 3D art.. that was great...... looks like a fun place to wheel!lol

[blackdoutxj]

wow that was incredible:)!

[ChuckstrPT]

Very impressive, and obviously talented!:yelclap:

[kndrewa]

Thanks for the positive feedback, everyone.
Any and all criticism is welcome, as that is what drives perfection!

I definately love what I do for a living, and I surely can't complain about anything, really. Although, my XJ has changed quite a bit since I created my demo reel, and I haven't had the time to update my 3d assets accordingly. When I spend 8+ hours a day behind a computer working on things like this, coming home and doing more of it is hardly one of my top priorities. I like to spend my time at home actually working on the REAL JEEP, among other things. I need to digitally trim my fenders, add a snorkel, drop on the new bumper and winch, model a fuel tank skid... ...the list goes on...

I love my jeep so much, and when I gained the skillset I did at school, it just seemed natural that I would make a digital stunt double for it.

I used Maya 6 for all of the modeling and texturing and rigging as well as for the animation. I used Boujou and Matchmover Pro for the camera tracking. I used Shake 2 for all of my compositing. Finally, I edited the reel together using Final Cut Pro.

-andy

[black2door]

I need to digitally trim my fenders, add a snorkel, drop on the new bumper and winch, model a fuel tank skid... ...the list goes on...


-andy
Thats sweet!!! Can you digitally trim my fenders so I dont screw them up with the grinder? :D Once again amazing talent you got there

[GSequoia]

I only have one thing to say.

You need to model a rear axle that isn't a Dana 35. You should do a JV animation and see if the axle breaks ;)

Good work.

[kndrewa]

I only have one thing to say.

You need to model a rear axle that isn't a Dana 35. You should do a JV animation and see if the axle breaks ;)

Good work.


hahah, when i drop in a dana 44, i will model that... ..until then, shes true to life!

[kndrewa]

very impressive.

and I dig modest mouse :)


thanks.

the first time i saw modest mouse was at the university of washington in 97.

they played in the gym and i paid 7 dollars.

i just bought a ticket for when they come to chicago in april.

37 dollars, ten years later.

i miss my secret little band...

[kndrewa]

as someone who is a 3d modeling junkie... that was the most outstanding modeling ive seen in some time.!



hey awesome!

all feedback is rad, but its great to hear from people who do the same kind of work.

i totally appreciate your comments.

[95meangreen]

WTF? that was the most amazing Jeep video i have seen in years.... Truly impressive Good luck in what your doing and i almost couldnt tell if the XJ was real or not i had to look really close and the detail was unbelievable.... maybe one day i can drive a XJ on my Xbox 360 that would be awesome! Good Luck!

[DaveKerwin]

That was great, thanks for posting

[JoesXJ]

that was way cool! :thumbup:

[FitchVA]

holy snikeys!!! that was/is awesome!

[kndrewa]

holy snikeys!!! that was/is awesome!


thanks guys!

one of the cool things about working in 3d is that i have the ability to previsualize any modification i do before i drop the cash.

for a while there, before i was working fulltime, i was modeling all sorts of things to see how they would look on the ole xj.

playing with color schemes, paint jobs, seeing what an olympic rack would look like, all that good stuff.

course, this is pretty time consuming, but pretty radical too.

the next thing i model will probably be a mock-up for a rear bumper.

course, i need to learn to weld in the meantime...

..but i really want to make it myself, and i have a great resource with naxja here...