2D fx

Here's some 2D effects I did in Flash for an upcoming Unity game.  This was a quick first pass for the animations, then they will be cleaned up and painted over for the final ones.  I had never done any 2D hand drawn particle effects, so it was a fun experiment.  I'm looking to try Photoshop for 2D animation next as you have more control over the final look.

The Room

I wanted to get better with 3D in Unity, so I created this little first-person demo in between projects at work to explore advanced shaders, effects, and lightmapping.  Some of the models were downloaded from free sites, others I created from scratch.  The graphics and effects are downscaled a bit for the web demo, but they still hold up pretty well.

You can play the demo here!  (you'll need the Unity web player installed for your browser.)

Once it loads click on the player and you should be able to look around with your mouse and move around with WASD keys.

This makes me want to make a full game!

Cars

I've wanted to do some realistic car renders with vray for a while, so that's what I did during some downtime at work!  The car model was a free download, but I set up all the shaders and lighting.

Masked

Here's my short film created for the MG Collective 2014 49 Hour Animation Competition.  Again, all work was done in the 49 hours given.  The theme this year was "If everyone knew my secret..."

Wanted to try a different variation of this art style this year, but was going to run out of time since it required more detailed background paintings.  This fit well with the kind of film noir style anyways though.  It was hard to keep track of the shots since I wanted the sequence to go in reverse to reveal the mystery.

Here's the other 49 hour films in the Professional Category

And here's the Student category films

Interiors

I've been experimenting doing architectural V-Ray renders during downtime at work.  The lighting and rendering system seems a lot more intuitive than my experience lighting with Mental Ray, what you expect a light to do in a scene seems much more predictable with V-Ray.  I modeled the room, but most of the objects in the scene were downloaded from turbrosquid or other free model sites.

 day

night 

overcast 

TV illumination 

composite

49 Hours 2014

Finished the 2014 49 Hour Animation Competition from MG Collective last night after a weekend of crunching!  I'll post the final animation after the screening in May, but for now here's a gif from part of the animation.

New Reel

It's been a while since the last post!  I was busy with some things, but did manage to take a class at AnimSquad at the end of the year.  Here's my updated reel which includes the two shots I did during the workshop.

Will try to keep the blog more updated when I can.  49 Hour Animation competition in about a month, so that's next!

Minuit

Here is my short film created for the MG Collective 2013 49 Hour Animation Competition. All work completed in 49 hours!  The theme this year was "Nothing good happens after midnight... or does it?"

I was lucky enough to get 1st place this year in the Professional category, but there were some really great films in both the Pro and Student categories.  My little brother Mariano helped out again this year by modeling some of the background props and the car.

I really liked working in this 3d/2d style, going to try and explore it a little more.  Also my first time working with a quadruped rig.  Used the new Tribe rigs from Animation Mentor and they worked out really well with this style.

Looking forward to the 2014 49 Hour competition!

49 Hours

Just finished working on the 2013 MG Collective 49 Hour Animation Competition about an hour ago.  The theme this year was "Nothing good happens after midnight... or does it?"

Decided to go for a more simplified style this year and try to do something that closer resembles 2d animation.  I think it worked out pretty well!

Here's a still frame from the beginning of the animation.

Look forward to posting the full short online around May after all the films have been screened at the event.

Need to lay down now, my back hurts after 49 hours of hunchbacking.

New Site

Decided to buy a domain with my name and make a simple portfolio site to have as a stand alone to this blog so it's easier to get directly to my reel and info.

marcelomeijome.com

Sketch Dump

Some of the more recent sketches from my sketchbook and paycheck envelopes.

Bedtime Layout

Started working on some new stuff after work.  I've had an audio clip I wanted to work on during AM, but never got the chance to.  I really wanted to do a scene where I would get to animate a little kid, and this one provides a good contrast to the father character.  More soon.

Cintiq

Recently picked up a Cintiq!  Such a huge difference being able to draw directly on the screen, and a lot easier to control line work.  Here's a few quick paintings/sketches I did testing it out.  

Homeland

Been watching Homeland lately.  Season 1 was really good, but they kind of started to lose it towards the end of Season 2.  Did some sketching with the Paper app on iPad while watching.  Sgt. Brody and Carrie!  Need to do one of Saul next time.

Travel

Been missing for a while from this blog, but I'm starting to get back into it and posting updates on new work and sketches.  Here's some sketches done over Thanksgiving during my trip to Argentina to visit family, should hold you over until I can post some new animation work!

All done on a really cool sketching app for iPad called Paper.

IIFF Bumpers

Got the chance to work on this bumper animation for the Indianapolis International Film Festival with a few coworkers in our spare time at work.

I worked on the animation, some character modeling, and even rigging!  Also on the team were James Ratliff, Stephany Cardinali, and Sean McDonald.  We used kind of a weird workflow and went from Maya to Cinema 4D, but it all worked out in the end!

There were a total of 5 bumpers, all created by Indiana artists.  These will play before the screenings at the Indy Film Fest later this month.  The other four bumpers can be seen here.

49 Hour Panic

This is my animated short created for the 2012 49 Hour Film Competition by MG Collective.  I can finally post it and make the video public now that all the films have been screened.

The theme given to everyone was Panic, and everything was created within the 49 hour limit.  I worked solo this year, which means I was able to get a lot more sleep!  This also meant I was going to run out of time, so I ended up playblasting and keeping the animation in stepped because I knew I wouldn't have enough time to spline and render the whole thing.

My lil brother Mariano helped out a bit by creating the background models and props.  Music is by David Ari Leon, from the Contre Jour OST.  Rigs provided by Animation Mentor.

There were a lot of great films this year, and overall an improvement from last year I think!

AM Demo Reel

I've had this posted on the Animation Showreel Tab at the top of the blog for a bit, but never got around to actually posting it on my blog!  This is my best work during the 18 months at Animation Mentor.

It feels like those 18 months went by so fast.  I remember just starting in class 1 doing the bouncing ball, and then suddenly I'm doing a dialogue shot.  The school was a great experience and I learned so much more than I thought was possible in that short amount of time.

Thanks to all the AM staff, mentors, and students that gave me feedback and helped me out along the way!

Dialogue

I had planned to render out this shot over the holidays, but it never happened, too much Arkham City!  Here is my dialogue shot from Class 5 at Animation Mentor.

Just started Class 6, the last one.  Working on polishing some of these shots and maybe doing a new one.  Almost over!

Faces

Created these face poses based off of the pictures throughout class 5.