Putting my facial rig through it's paces...

A quick posing exercise I did recreating facial expressions from photos.  This wasn't so much about accurately portraying the pose, but learning to exaggerate it using the rig I created.  I've noticed a TON of little tweaks I need to go back and fix on the rig now, but I think it's coming along pretty nicely.  The really good news is that most of the setup process is scripted (I still need to place and skin bones/make morph targets, but once that's done it's just running a script) and recreation of the rig on a new character is "easy" (easier).

P.S.  This was my first ever SubSurface Scatter texture render for the skin, and man does it create some cool effects.

Throughout my career as an animator, and having to rig my own characters...I've become somewhat proficient (IMHO) at rigging.

I watched Jeff Brodsky's (Character Technical Director at Disney) elephant trunk rig demo and I was so impressed that I decided to take a weekend and recreate it in 3DS Max (thanks to Jeff for answering some quick questions I had about his setup too).

I love the ingenious thinking that went into creating the rig as it shows the true artistry that can be found in rigging. The rig (simple to use....somewhat complex under the hood) behaves almost like it's magic! I may post the rig so people can play with/learn from it too.

WOO HOO FOR MATH!!!

You can watch Jeff Brodsky's original demo here: https://vimeo.com/49353110

Now I need to go and animate an elephant!!!

It's 2013 and time for...A NEW ANIMATION REEL!!! Polished, tweaked and re-rendered some things that were bugging me on some of my animations, and added some new stuff! Check it out...

Animation Reel 2013 from Michael Smith on Vimeo.

After a loooong drive from Maryland, starting my new job at TimeGate Studios out in Houston, Texas!

Animation Reel 2011 from Michael Smith on Vimeo.

Took the time to polish some of my acting exercises and make a new reel out of them.  Made a new page on the site that contains my most current reel and shot breakdown.  You can check it out here...

My latest reel...

Animation Reel 2010 from Michael Smith on Vimeo.

This Reel was thrown together quickly specifically for a job at one company.  Unfortunately I didn't land the gig.  I apologize for the bad compression on some of the videos.  I also need to figure out a cool way of showing, in the reel, how technical I've become as well with Scripting and Rigging.

Welp...I've finally returned to the graveyard of old animations I call my website.  As you can see (if you've been here before) I'm giving it a complete overhaul and changing it to a blog type format.  Should make it easier for me to post more regularly.