The Concept Design Academy is really a great place to take a class. The scheduling and setup is really run smoothly by Kevin Chen and Estelle Lien. The atmosphere is warm and very welcoming.
For film score aficionados, the class has film scores playing in the background. Estelle has a great selection of music that can be barely heard throughout the lecture and keeps your mind working. I heard Batman Begins, Hook, and Lord of the Rings. Awesome stuff for concept art.
Robh is a consummate professional and teacher. He's easy to learn from, easy to talk to, but gives honest advice and reviews of work.
He's in this video talking about working on Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
I've never really done anything cohesive in 3d before. And to go from 0 to 200 mph is IMO a good guage for how good this class was. This is my general layout for a small walled-city.
See that wierd spec in the middle? That's the standard man model in Sketchup. I still have to model the castle, add windows to the buildings, vary the buildings in scale and add awnings/arcades/balconies, and just generally make the city look lived in.
The purpose of developing these models is so that I can use them in a photoshop painting, but I've taken it a step further and developed the general layout for the city so that I can position the camera anywhere I want and do several environment paintings. I'm going to do something with a market, the castle, the gates of the city, a slightly raised view from the ramparts, the criminal portion of the city, soldier's blockade, probably some others. This also serves another function as it will be helpful to anyone else who needs a map of the city for story reference.
Well... that's it for now. I look forward to posting more later.
6 comments:
Matt,
That's what I was talking about. You'll be amazed at how your work improves once you start mastering 3D as a quick layout technique. You're on the right track. Cheers, Kelvin.
Hey Matt , yeah the CDA is awesome!! Would have loved to have seen the Robh demo....hope you learned a bunch
Thanks for posting a bit on your experience at CDA and Ruppel's class. Did you render this out with Podium or is it all Sketchup?
I use SketchUp daily at my workplace. The 3D Warehouse and PhotoMatch features really saves a lot of time.
ah I wish I could attend classes like that!
Hey guys. I've been meaning to reply to here. I'm really good about commenting on everyone else's blog but never my own :D
Thanks so much for your comments
Kelvin,
Thanks a bunch. I appreciate your feedback and all the help you've given me by just pointing me in the right direction.
Simon, You're stuff is awesome. I've heard a few people say that you grew a lot when you went to a CDA class. I totally see why. They're awesome.
Roger. I actually use a free tool called Kerkythea to do my renders in. I haven't tried podium yet. Looks good though.
Jeffrey Lai. Dude, I wish Weta would hold workshops. I was actually considering spending most of the money I paid for this class with and purchasing Gnomon and CA.org videos. I actually chose the class route, and I drove out there from Arizona, so that I could have a chance to meet people and to get one-on-one time with Robh. I'm sure if you follow people at Weta and just keep being the cool guy you are you'll be able to attain knowledge like I did.
I like sketchup for it's simplicity and really curious to see the final image, maybe even a work in progress. good luck!
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