Major Project Update #1

I havent been on my blog for ages because of the huge amount of work i had from uni. This will include all the stuff I created on the last couple of months and some of my uni projects!

This is my first presentation in uni for major project! Basically is a lost of my ideas and what i was thinking of doing for major project

1st Presentation PDF

My second presentation was about simulating millions of particles and use them as granulation materials such as sand, and how to render it efficiently using instancing in Renderman!

2nd Presentation PDF

Inspiration for this kind of project came from various pics i found online such as:

Early test i did using Houdini based on putting any mesh and scattering surface point and giving the melting sand effect:

Third presentation was about different types of fluids and going into detail about them in Houdini and how they are gonna be used for simulating granule materials and the combination of using CUDA

3rd Presentation PDF

this is the video of the FLIP fluids used for granular material i found on vimeo:

Sand girl. Houdini FLIP fluid test from Zebra Zulu on Vimeo.

Since the third presentation research i decided not to create a solver for granule material since thats one of the features of FLIP fluids in Houdini! looking for fresh ideas my fourth presentation was about procedural modelling and a bit of houdini's history

4th Presentation PDF

This is the digital asset I created for my 4th presentation based on Fermat's Spiral:

Fermats Spiral from Valentinos Demetriou on Vimeo.

Talking with my supervisor tutor he gave me the idea of creating an animation so i started looking around for ideas and the fifth presentation is about what a story is and what it makes good stories successful , also talks about Theo Jansens work and Rube Goldberg machines!

5th Presentation PDF

Inspiration on Rube Goldberg machines is the beautiful honda advert

The sixth presentation was going into details about being a VFX supervisor and that the project i will tackle will be a story from concept art all the way to final shot! Detailing the RnD tools that have to be created for making this whole thing achievable!

6th Presentation PDF

Major Project #1 - PyroFX Experiments

Some PyroFX Experiments in Houdini. Experimenting with different methods for my Major Project of 3rd year in University.

PyroFX Experiments from Valentinos Demetriou on Vimeo.

modo - Wii Controller

Discovered about modo randomly in youtube and wanted to give it a shot. So i started the rendering tutorial from Luxology and this is the result i got out of it. Then i changed the materials and created the black version of the wii controller.

Gun Model

Havent posted anything for ages but i was busy learning ZBrush , more Houdini stuff and now am learning rendering in modo!

This gun is modelled in Maya and some procedural modeling in Houdini aswell! This is the basic model! I will render it on modo later on and add a mechanical rig to it, to make it transform into something!

Univercity starts soon so if i have time i will compose it in real footage too.

Death Eater Smoke Test II

This is the second attemp of the Death Eater effect! 4 million particles simulated. Used wedge ROP , 8 steps of 1 million particles each, bout 2 mins per frame and then rendered with mantra!

Millions Particles Test II from Valentinos Demetriou on Vimeo.

I doubled the particles and took it to 8 millions and made it thicker at the beginning. The colours are just 2 animated spot lights with shadow maps in mantra! This is the result:

Millions of Particles Final from Valentinos Demetriou on Vimeo.

Death Eater Smoke Test I

This is the first attemp of the Death Eater effect! 1 million particles simulated. Used wedge ROP , 5 steps of 250 000 particles each, bout 5 mins per frame and then rendered with mantra!

Million Particles Test I from Valentinos Demetriou on Vimeo.

Death Eater Smoke Apparition/ Disapparition Effect

Love this effect! Just love it! So I will start experimenting with different methods in Houdini and try to came up with a solutions that simulates the same effect of the Death Eaters apparition! Here are some samples i found online of the movie:

First Rendering Project with Houdini Mantra

My first Houdini project using Mantra! I found this renderer to be really powerfull and has a lot of potential for production renders! The first image is the results of the tutorial i was doing from cmiVFX. The rest are alterations on the shaders and lights to get different results and moods for the scene! Each render took about 2 hours with Raytrace and Indirect Illumination.

VFX Compositing

This is 2 VFX compositing assignments i did for my second year of Swansea Metropolitan University! The first one it was a greenscreen shot (terrible greenscreen) and had to model the street, texture it , light it and then composite everything together

VFX Breakdown of First Compositing Assignment from Valentinos Demetriou on Vimeo.

The second one was a still image and i had to create a 3d version of the building and project the image on the 3d geometry. The explosion and debris were created using 3d maya dynamics. The rest was done in Nuke using 3d camera projections!

Swansea BT Explosion VFX Breakdown from Valentinos Demetriou on Vimeo.

Sentinel Finished model

I haven't modelled anything decent for ages so i wanted to get my hands on something complicated and fun to do. At first I was thinking of doing something organic but then i wanted to model something mechanical because I watched Transformers (yeah i know, awesome movie).

I decided to go for a matrix sentinel, because it looks organic but it has a lot of mechanical parts on it! The modelling took bout a week and this is the results. Its not rigged yet or textured so be patient!

Typography - Old work

Old typography work i did in college when i was studying Graphic Design. All of these where handmade and not one of them was done in the computer. Just results of experimenting, it took a lot of effort to please the tutor though and come up with this results!

Enfoton Painting

This is a painting i did a while ago for a company called Enfoton! The company creates solar panels and the painting resembles the sun in different stages

Photography projects - Part 1

One of my greatest passions is photography and this are some projects of mine

Work from 1st year - 2008 Part 1

This is work from 2008 , my first year of university studying 3d Computer Animation! I haven't touched a 3d program before university or anything that has to do with animation so am quite proud of the outcome!

First Character Animation Ever!

Alfred Dance Animation from Valentinos Demetriou on Vimeo.

Modelling a character and rigging it for a walk and run cycle!

Walk & Run Cycle

Walk & Run Cycle from Valentinos Demetriou on Vimeo.

Modelling of a bridge in Swansea

First Post!

I was planning on creating my own blog a while ago but i never got to it until now! I am creating this blog for me mostly to keep a diary of my work and check how much i progressed throughout my research and project in Swansea Metropolitan University!

I will upload all my work that i finished so far and then start uploading updates of unfinished projects i have , hoping i will finish them by the end of summer!

Hope you like my work!

Valentino