brandonmiles.blogspot.com

Portfolio Pages

2012-01-23T19:36:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the pages from my print portfolio.
I modeled, textured, rigged, lit, and rendered everything.

My modeling demo reel:

Ramone W.I.P.

2012-01-15T18:34:00.001-08:00

I try not to put work in progress images on here but I am really excited by this project and I want to share my progress.

The character was designed by Jorge Zarate.

Alien Boy Model

2012-01-11T20:27:00.000-08:00

I modeled this alien boy inspired by Spielberg's Close Encounters. It took 2-3 hours to model.

Click to enlarge.

Demo Reel Projects update

2012-01-10T21:19:00.000-08:00

I updated the first two scenes that I modeled for my demo reel. I put the Indian motorcycle in a cobblestone street scene with a mailbox, and the guitar in a cutaway scene of a room. You can find my demo reel in the post below this one.

2011 Demo Reel and College Graduation

2011-12-15T11:15:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm done with college. It's been a long time coming. Graduation is this Friday, and I had my portfolio show last night. I have some job interviews right now and everything is looking pretty exciting.

Thanks to those who take the time to look at my blog. I will continue to post the projects I work on professionally, as well as those that I develop on my own.

I'm currently still working on the reel by adding more content as well as polishing existing elements.

Summer 2011 - Demo Reel!

2011-09-22T13:20:00.000-07:00

Brandon Miles - Demo Reel Summer 2011 from Brandon Miles on Vimeo.

A couple previously unreleased projects that are on my reel:

Chuck Taylor All Stars

1964 Fender Mustang
(Old, bad render. Look two posts above for better renders.)

Hootin'

2011-09-21T20:32:00.000-07:00

A 3D animated short for studio production class. We had 10 people working for 11 weeks.

I modeled/textured all characters and props(didn't texture main owl, didn't model tree/barn), animated a scene as well.

Bill Hicks Memorial

2011-09-05T13:53:00.001-07:00

This is from a project that I've been working off and on for the last six months. It is a memorial scene for the deceased comedian Bill Hicks. I modeled/textured/lit everything.

Click to make bigger!

Wireframe with lighting setup.

tweeeeet

2011-09-01T10:17:00.000-07:00

Add me on Twitter! I talk about awesome things like being a parent, as well as the projects I'm working on. How exciting!!!

@B_in_3D

Another World music video/particle tests

2011-08-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

Messing around with particles in Maya. Put together with Nuke and After Effects.
Wish I had the time to finish this project!

Song is called "Another World" by the Chemical Brothers.

Baby Davey - Production Class

2011-05-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

This character was designed by Harry Hamernik for our production class. We have a group of about 15 people working on an original 2-3 minute long animated short, created by Harry. It is about a rowdy class full of children at a magic school.

I modeled, textured, rigged and animated the lil guy, as well as various other duties during the course of the production.

There are still some kinks in the animation that will be worked out before the final film comes out in July. I'll post it up when it is ready!

Dino Family Home Videos

2011-03-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

The cutest thing I've ever made... a dino family! Created for my 3d camera techniques final. I was given the scene which had some pterodactyls and cavemen and such, I cut it down, and threw the brontosauruses into an aquarium. Did cameras, lighting, editing, etc.

3d animation: Jump

2011-03-02T18:21:00.000-08:00

Made for my 3d character animation class.

Music Video: Norma Jean - Creating Something Out of Nothing, Only to Destroy It

2011-02-23T11:22:00.000-08:00

Made for my 3d camera techniques class. I was provided the scene and did the lighting, camera moves and editing.

Of course you should be sure to click the HD button, watch it in full screen, and turn the sound way up. But who am I to tell you what to do?

Tail Ball 3d Animation

2011-01-20T12:29:00.000-08:00

Created for my 3d character animation class.

3d Match Moving test

2010-11-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

Here is a 3d match moving test that I made. Made for fun on a boring evening. After a bit of trial and error, I came up with these results:

If interested, here is the approach that I took:
I filmed live action footage of the top of a dresser in my spare room, and used clay spheres as tracking markers. I then imported the video footage into Nuke, and exported the whole thing out as an image sequence to be imported into Autodesk MatchMover. Once in Matchmover, I tracked the clay spheres, which generated accurate 3d spatial data, as well as a 3d camera so that I could replicate the live action footage in a 3d-computer generated environment. I then imported the scene into Maya, and set up dynamics so that the cubes would react to gravity and fall, as well as bounce on a non-rendered plane set up where the counter top would be. After this was done, I rendered out the cubes on a layer of their own, and then composited it together with the original image sequence that was exported from Nuke, within Autodesk Composite.

My latest creation... a baby!!!

2010-10-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

Miles, Brandon, Jack Evan Miles. 10-20-10. San Diego, California. Baby.

Felix flip book and 3d FX talk

2010-09-22T15:31:00.001-07:00

I had to make a flip book of a classic animated character for my Language of Animation and Film class. I chose to animate Felix the cat. I did the rough animation using traditional hand drawn animation, then took those drawings into Flash for the final animation and printed out each frame for the flip book.

Also, due to a computer crash, I lost all of my 3d Visual FX work that I was going to put on here. I had made a really nice looking campfire scene, 3d smoke, and lots of other good things. It's frustrating for me to not be able to put that work up here, but what can ya do?

Christmas Matte Extension - Compositing

2010-09-21T21:53:00.000-07:00

Here is one project I worked on for my compositing class. Outside of the window was a green screen. I created everything outside of the window in 3d using Maya, and did the snow and chimney smoke in After Effects. The only thing I didn't make was the tree model, courtesy of TurboSquid. The final comp was put together in Shake. I need to go back and fix the indoor footage because it looks craptastic...

Here is a render of the background that I made in 3D:

Can you guess what movie features this house? I'll give you a hint, the movie also has a sequel...

I would like to do some more work on this when I have the time... I learned a lot in my compositing class, we learned the in's and out's of Shake, and I am teaching myself Nuke as well.

Animation Studio

2010-09-21T11:56:00.000-07:00

My group did this animation primarily in flash. I did the sequence with the Jawas talking, and then calling back to the sand crawler as well as building flash assets and helping with story concept.

Biohazard - My first movie credit!

2010-09-07T17:39:00.000-07:00

check it out!

IMDB

Biohazard is a zombie film written and directed by Clay Von Thomas

Check out a trailer here: http://vimeo.com/user1614490

I did some color correction as well as compositing and animating a 3d helicopter into one of the scenes.

Party Bear

2010-06-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

My final for advanced 2d animation. Anyone remember party boy from Jackass?

Advanced Material and Lighting final

2010-06-16T17:21:00.001-07:00

We were given this memorial scene to light and texture.

Final gathering, light photons, global illumination, ambient occlusion, good times!
Modeled a lil bit here and there to add to the scene: the cracks in the glass, the ashes in the tray that houses ashes (commonly called an "ashtray"), the wax drips here and there. Stuff like that.

Old man flash walk cycle.

2010-05-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

For my advanced 2d animation class. Notice the extra special flash 3d in the background. :D

Light Fur

2010-05-19T19:10:00.000-07:00

For my visual fx class. I'm gonna use it on my Maynard Bear! Yeah!!!
I have a lot more projects from my viz fx class that I'm going to put all together in a nice lil video when the quarter is over, and when I do I'll be sure to throw them on here.

My in class midterm for advanced material and lighting. I had 3 hours to texture and light as much as possible, using light photons and all that magic.

Flash myself.

2010-05-07T16:00:00.001-07:00

My advanced 2d animation class midterm. I had to animate myself talking for about 15 seconds.
I refer to the 3d software Maya at the end, it's better than 2d stuff. Yep.

cartoon kitchen, wip.

2010-04-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

Everything modeled/textured by me.

3d Eye

2010-04-14T01:13:00.001-07:00

3d Eye modeled and textured for my advanced material and lighting class.

MooM 3d Walk Cycle

2010-03-02T17:23:00.001-08:00

3d walk cycle using the MooM rig.

Movie Posters

2010-02-15T18:57:00.000-08:00

For my 3d animation class I had to make 3 movie posters using the MooM rig. The first is a parody of Simple Jack from Tropic Thunder, the other two are original, with the monster movie being inspired by an old horror movie poster. Horse rig courtesy of turbo squid.

3d Bouncing Ball

2010-01-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

I had to animate a bouncing ball in Maya for my 3d animation class:

Material and Lighting Final

2009-12-20T17:13:00.001-08:00

I was provided with the model of the room, redid some of it and modeled/textured/lit everything else in the scene.

2009-12-16T19:04:00.001-08:00

Click to make bigger.

Model with geometry,bones, controllers and facial sliders, etc.

My final for my character rigging class. I (mostly)finished rigging Maynard Bear. My skin weights are not where they should be, and they still need a lot of work, so I wasn't able to pose the lower body as much as I would have liked to, but I'm going to fix that asap. Ya dig?

More lighting and Maynard Update

2009-11-18T01:06:00.000-08:00

Here is what I have modeled of Maynard Bear so far (with bones):

For my lighting class, indoor night render:

More lighting and texturing

2009-10-29T18:58:00.000-07:00

Day interior lighting.

First go with artistic 3d lighting

2009-10-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

A lighting assignment for my materials and lighting class, notice the tree shadows. :D

Sunset.

Night time.

Random.

more Maynard

2009-10-09T00:12:00.001-07:00

Just a quick update with some more Maynard progress. Also, this quarter is looking like its going to be a good one, so i'll have some stuff to show soon. Thanks for watchin'.

Character Update

2009-09-24T17:55:00.000-07:00

Still work in progress.

Sorry about the bad lighting :(

Backflip animation

2009-08-15T18:54:00.001-07:00

I got this rigged model from high end 3d, found some reference footage on youtube and animated a back flip. This is my first 3d character animation, so take it easy on me.

Maya dynamics.

2009-07-30T04:36:00.001-07:00

I've been working in Maya 24/7 and here is a small test I made:

Isn't it amazing? Huh?!?

And a quick Maynard update:

More from last Quarter

2009-07-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

I'm in my second quarter now after returning to school. I have a new computer now, so I won't have to work at school. Ayo

Flash Animation:

Animation set to dialogue.

Inked and Painted a few frames from one of Dario Calcines animation.

Animation set to music. Very rough.

Rough ball bounce. Wacom.

Shape animation ball bounce.

update

2009-05-07T10:01:00.000-07:00

I've been really busy with school (ayo), here are some of the things I've done so far this quarter:

This is my character for advanced sculpture class, we have to do a half robot half human. The sculpture has two replaceable heads, and two replaceable arms. His name is Bo, he has a muffler gun for an arm, an engine on his back and a tire tractor for a leg. He puts his foot up on the accelerator pedal and balances while cruisin'. (update: kinda abandoned the sculpture in favor of doing it in 3d.)

I'll post images of the sculpture sometime soon, it is coming along pretty well.

This was a 4 hour painting, we had a plate image that we had to extend out. 1/3 of the image is a photograph.

20 minute concept painting of a forest.

Our first painting of the class, only done with dots of paint. We weren't allowed to finish it.

Rough animated walk cycle done in flash.

I have a bunch more stuff that I've worked on in classes, I guess I'll throw it up some other time.

His name is Carl.

2009-02-18T03:05:00.000-08:00

This started out as a quick sketch with a sharpie on paper, then I kept messing with the shapes and pushing it in different directions. After that I took it into photshop, redid the lines and then colored. It took way too long and my ass is numb.

girl

2009-01-31T01:09:00.000-08:00

I've been sketching all day... on paper and with my Wacom tablet in Photoshop,
and this is one of my favorites:

Turn around in clay.

2008-09-18T20:18:00.000-07:00

This is Maynard sculpted and baked, sanded and prepped for painting with spray on enamel stuff:

Maynard redesign with color

2008-06-17T22:21:00.000-07:00

I did a character redesign of the bear:

Strawberry digital paint.

2008-06-15T01:29:00.000-07:00

I finally finished this painting... It look much longer than I would have liked it to.
I got really bored with it towards the end, I hope it doesn't show.
Originally on a magazine cover.

Life drawing.

2008-06-12T16:56:00.001-07:00

These were done in one of my life drawing classes.
Models would pose for 1-5 minutes before changing position.
I never got particularly good at it, but I guess these are alright.

5 minutes each.

3 minutes each.

The two smaller ones were 3 minutes, the large one was 10 minutes.

Hand drawings.

2008-06-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

Yep, that is my hand.

3D Desk.

2008-06-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

Desk made in 3Ds Max.

3D Wacom pen, 3D church.

2008-06-09T21:45:00.000-07:00

Wacom Pen done in 3Ds Max.
I had originally made the Wacom tablet and pen in Maya,
but decided to re-do it in Max for the practice.

Church interior done in Maya.

Character design - Maynard the Bear.

2008-06-06T20:49:00.000-07:00

This is a character that me and my lady made up for a class project.

His name is Maynard the Bear. She wrote much of the story, and I developed the look of the character. I've used him for several different class projects, including an animated walk cycle, and a short animation. (Which may be lost forever because of a dead computer.)

Here is his character turnaround:

Tangible things

2008-06-05T23:31:00.000-07:00

Richie Tenenbaum's head. Made with super sculpy and femo.
Now broken down into another sculpture.

Ramone.

2008-06-04T09:48:00.000-07:00

Jorge Zarate was nice enough to let me color one of his characters, Ramone.

Two more for today. (These go to 11...)

2008-06-03T10:31:00.000-07:00

Painted the front of my amp.
(Not completed)

Digital paint to start things off.

2008-06-02T22:51:00.000-07:00

Hello.
...

Hmm... I loved to draw as a small kid, and as I got older I discovered stop motion animation. I would sit in my room for hours making my collection of Star Wars toys come to life. As I got older, I discovered girls and gave up that foolishness.

But, fate took hold again, and I discovered Cinema4d in 2001, and have been creating 3d in some capacity ever since.

I moved to California a few years after graduating high school to go to the Art Institute of San Diego to study 2d and 3d animation.

Anyways, I have a few digital paintings to show first. Feel free to comment, good or bad.

-Brandon

Mushroom Scene

Apple

Forest
10 - minute