NEWS..

06/2006: Well, it seems I have been nominated for the Autodesk 2006 Masters awards. This was originally known as the Maya Masters program and was initiated by Alias some years back. But as Autodesk recently acquired Alias, they have decided to expand the programme to also include 3dsmax masters. You can find a list of the nominees on this page, I'm about seven down. Here is my bio page, and if you wish you can vote for me on this page. Better get those votes in soon as the voting period is pretty short.

04/2006: Back from Brazil.We had a great trip and this time we had time to travel to the South of Brazil, to see the waterfalls at Igauca. Amazing place, and I'd recommend it to anyone for a visit. Great scenery, wildlife and food.

03/2006: Finished work on Xmen3, I understand there are a few weeks of work left, but I have a 3 week holiday booked over in Brazil. Going to see the in-laws and get some much needed R&R after X3.

01/2006: Started work again on Xmen3, and I've come back into something of a maelstrom (literally). Huge amounts of work to do and so little time. I think this is going to involve a lot of late nights at MPC, weekends too no doubt. The sequence I am on is cool though, should look good in the final cut.

2006


12/2005: Coo, working in the R&D team for a short stint, and also working on a pitch for a future project. Should be going back on to Xmen3 in a few weeks. No rush, this is actually pretty good fun.

11/2005: Bugger, it looks like the shots I have been working on will have to go elsewhere, or have been dropped by the director. Such is film production. I'll be working elsewhere in MPC for a few weeks whilst Xmen3 shakes out a little i..e it becomes clearer what shots are in or out.

10/2005: Started work on Xmen3 at MPC, so far I have been doing some R&D on an fx shot. Great fun and it looking cool.

08/2005: Started back at MPC, this time on Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire. MPC is producing a number of shots, but I'll be working on the Voldemort nose replacement effect. He has a flat, snake like nose, just two holes in his face really. The guys have done a great job on setup, this should be easy enough to render.

06/2005: Finished work on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The end result looks pretty cool, looking forward to it hitting the cinema. Looks like there is some down time at MPC, six weeks or so. Just perfect for me to do some more DVDs and other CGA related work.

07/2005: Decided to give Siggraph a miss this year. Its in LA again, and its a nice enough place, but 3 years in a row there is a bit much for me. Besides there is a lot of overlap between conferences, so this year I'll skip. Of course, lots of people want to meet me because of CG Academy and I'm not going, typical. But I helped sponsor the launch event of 3dsmax 8.0 with a complete DVD Bundle give away at the launch show. Apparently the DVDs were very popular. Also sent some DVDs to be given away at the exhibtion. Next year, its Boston, so I'll be there :)

05/2005: Started work at MPC in central London. Working on the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie. I'll be working on a short sequence of a melting chocolate palace. Looks like fun :)

2005


09/2004: Started part time work on a CG project, working from home. Pretty much ideal as it allows me to split my time between the job, and keeping CG Academy's ball rolling. Working away on more DVDs of my own and also brining on board more 3rd party instructors.

08/2004: I flew out to LA to attend the 2004 Siggraph Conference with Claudia. She went off shopping and sight seeing around LA, whilst I bussied myself around the conference center. Kind of a frustrating show in some ways as I wanted to make a splash with CG Academy, but with our budget all I could make was a drip. Still, it went well and the DVDs are selling well.

07/2004: Well, the cat is out of the bag. I have made the existence of CG Academy public, and done so at launch with 6 DVDs ready for sale. CG Academy was an idea I had a few months back. I wanted to take a stab at producing high quality training DVDs for 3dsmax, and its worked out quite well I think. I've started with 2 instructors, my self and Alan McKay, a great FX TD who's a real expert with Afterburn. Check out the site via the link, there are some really cool DVDs on there for 3dsmax.

06/2004: Hammering noises issue from the workshop.....

05/2004: Finished work at Framestore today, whilst I was there I had an idea to start a new business. So I'm going to take off some time from studio based work to give it a shot. More on this soon.

2004


10/2003: Started work at Framestore CFC in London. I'll be working on the new Thunderbirds movie as a lighting TD. This will be my first job using Linux & Prman. I know Maya to some degree, but Linux and Prman are going to take some learning. Still I like a challenge, should be a fun project.

07/2003: Attended my second Siggraph, this time in San Deigo CA, USA. Again great fun and good to meet up with some new faces and also those at the last Siggraph. Claudia came over at the end of the show and we travelled on to LA and San Francisco for a sight seeing holiday. Had a great time, and as ever, I got sun burnt :(

2003


08/2002: Popped my latest showreel up onto my animations page.

07/2002: Attended my first Siggraph conference over in San Antonio in the US. This is the worlds biggest computer graphics conference and exhibition. Something of a Mecca for 3D artists. It was great fun, and it was also nice to meet a lot of people I have up to that point onlt spoke to online i.e. various 3dsmax artists and the Brazil developers.

06/2002: Added a new tutorial on using scripting to produce procedurally animated spiders in Particle Flow.

04/2003: Added a new animation of a meteorite, produced with Particle Flow to my animations page.

10/2002: Added some more new artists to my links page.

09/2003: I've tied the knot!!! I got married to my beautiful fiance Claudia on the 27th back in good old Port Talbot. It was saddened slightly as her family could not make it, not surprising as they all live in Brazil. We'll visit them again just as soon as we can though. But overall it was a great day, and my god did it go quickly.

09/2002: Added some new artists to my links page.

09/2002: Added some new pics to my Brazil page. Brazil 1.0 is shaping up very nicely.