Poltergoose turnaround

Here's a pic of Poltergoose's turnarounds. these are needed to create a 3D version of him. From here the 3d modeler will take this and apply it to 3d geometry so he can build the character. In our case we are using a program called Modo to model Poltergoose.

Poltergoose is Back! (sort of)

Well it's been a looooong time since I posted here and a lot of things have happened since that last post. The biggest thing in terms of "Poltergoose" is that the idea has been swirled into a new concept which will be part of a series of live action films slated to come out next Summer!
Yep that's right! Soon you'll see Poltergoose telling his terrible jokes on the big screen! Imagine THAT! Pretty cool huh? Well, I can't go into too much detail because of legalities right now, but I will post a few pics and renders when I get them.

Good ol' Poltergoose will look pretty much the same but be rigged by a new group of people and modeled by the same. We're finally going to model that exterior of the cemetery which should be really cool.

Hiatus

Sorry we have not posted anything new but we have been extremly busy with other endeavors. Life always seems to get in the way of personal films. Jason is busy recording a music CD with his band, I am in production on a pilot I created at Nickelodeon and Patrick has been taking care of family matters although he is also texturing the interior set. We have all been busy with other ventures of late.

Feel free to peruse my latest production at Frederator/Nickelodeon while we take a short hiatus.

We hope to resume production on Poltergoose soon so keep checking back for more updates!

Laugh Casket Interior - camera pan

Below is a quick flythrough of the untextured club geometry, the main purpose being that if anyone involved in the production sees something they'd like changing, now is the best time to get it fixed. It's currently made of polygons, which will look rough in places but you'll have to take my word for it that every facet will be ironed out way before final render time. Click here to open up a larger, sharper Quicktime (that weighs in at 11.8MB, so if that's a little big just click here for a more easily digestible version). The curtains are dynamically animated but aren't using any Maya plugins (I wanted to to look like they were being affected by the warm air from the lights, torches and crowd), though it's difficult to tell from this as the camera is moving a bit too fast. I apologise in advance if anyone has difficulty getting the Quicktime files - they're on the free webspace given by my ISP so it probably won't be the fastest server in the world.

From here I think the cemetery is next. I'll get that fleshed out then start texturing both of them (working on the assumption they'll have roughly similar texture palettes).

The Club interior

Patrick is virtually finished the inside of the club now, there are just a few minor details that he have to add... as you can see it's coming along amazingly well!

This is an exerpt from Patrick vai e-mail:
Have a look at the attached pictures and see what you think. I'll be adding detail to the tables and chairs (as well as actually putting objects on the tables), the stage area and some more around the bar itself. I'm going to add some more fabric round the top of the walls and then, all being well, that'll be the end of the geometry - that's when we can fine tune the shape and look of everything prior to texturing, which together with the lighting will be the main driver for the eventual look.

Amazing stuff huh? MAN is he hugely talented!

Rigging Update

Hey All Poltergoose Fans

I am in the process of revising our Hero of the story, Mike and I have been bouncing back and forth different versions of Poltergoose to get he right look and feel for him. I think we have done about 6 versions of him and still haven't arrived at a rig and look we like for him, but he is closer now than when we started ...

Here is a pic of a rough textured Poltergoose


Also I am now using TSM to do a secondary characters for the short here is the second Charater I have done using it. the first was the werewolf.

The ever so sexy Waitress.



For Now
Jason

Cemetery gate

Hello there! I'm on board to help out with the background modelling and texturing - making the sets in which all these great characters will act out the great script. I've finally finished the cemetery gates. They're made from pretty light NURBS and textured using Maya's procedural shaders only. This was primarily because, due to the nature of the geometry, using regular texturing techniques would have been twice as awkward and looked half as good. Another advantage of this type of texturing is that the detail is infinite - you can zoom right in and (if it's done right) the textured colour and bump (and so on) maps never pixellate, unlike what happens using 2D image files. I hope the picture below isn't too dark. Next stop: the interior of the comedy club, from sketch to set.