Shane Ross Murphy

Animex!!!! looking forward for the portfolio tips and tricks/reviews and the talks of the behind the scenes by Larian for baldurs gate 3!! #animex #teessideuni #conceptart

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Some of the results of my university animation & vfx degree. Environment Modelling. Fully rendered versions on the way with the appropriate lighting.

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New artwork. Energy rifle concept fully made in Plasticity as practice and learning of this wonderful app. https://lnkd.in/d2dgwjp6

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So cool to see more workflows exploring the combination of 3d mockups and an ai overlay. To me this has been one of the most exciting use cases of Gen ai since my early explorations of real-time latent consistency model. #ai #art

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Amazing news from Germany: after 25 years at Piranha Bytes, the creative force behind Gothic, Risen, and Elex, Björn Pankratz and Jennifer Pankratz have announced the formation of Pithead Studio. This decision comes after lengthy discussions and a desire to pursue a fresh start. The news follows a period of turbulence for Piranha Bytes. The studio, a German development powerhouse since 1997, was acquired by THQ Nordic in 2019. Recent financial struggles within the parent company, Embracer, led to studio closures and project cancellations. Despite a government grant in May 2023, Piranha Bytes' future remains unclear. Undeterred, the Pankratz duo is forging their own path. Pithead Studio, named after the exit shaft of a coal mine, symbolizes a return to their roots (the Ruhrpott region) and a fresh start. Pithead Studio plans to focus on creating "unique and immersive indie games." Fans can expect dark action adventures rich with story, horror, and RPG elements. Initially, the studio will collaborate with external partners, with publisher discussions still ongoing. With the official announcement and social media channels launching today, Pithead Studio is ready to take center stage. This is exciting news for RPG fans, as the Pankratz's experience promises a thrilling new journey into immersive worlds. Wishing Björn and Jennifer all the best for their new studio! (source: https://lnkd.in/e3dDSf8r and https://lnkd.in/ewHJjeBX)

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ENDA Episode 20→ The time when the Endless Apprentice learned the importance of listening to critics (Part 1) As a VFX student or a beginner VFX artist, the fear of being criticized is always present, no matter what is your area of specialization. Here we will refer to “critics” as those given in a work or education environment. I’ve myself experienced that feeling of my work being torn apart and told to be redone again or to change things. Most of the time from clients, supervisors or teachers and sometimes from colleagues or friends. Thankfully, I eventually stop to feel that way, when I saw that my work improved thanks to that feedback. However, it was a slow process, because one thing is to “hear” critics and another very different is to “listen” critics. “Hearing” critics is either one of two things: → You do not pay attention to what are you being told: it is very rare to see, but I’ve seen some cases and obviously, those did not end up well. → You are paying attention, but you follow blindly the critics and make all the changes suggested: I’ve done this one in my college years, and in some projects I’ve done. It made me either compromise the quality of my work or that I ended up overworked for trying to fulfill every comment I was given, instead of considering if they made sense. “Listening” critics will mean only one thing: you analyzed every one of the suggestions and after thinking about them thoroughly, you will act according to the circumstances: → In a personal project: you’ll apply the changes that you know will help you improve your project without sacrificing their identity or their initial objective. → In a professional project: you’ll follow all the demands that are non-negotiable from the client, but for the few ones where there is flexibility, you’ll find a way to propose another solution. This comparison may seem simple today, but at the moment I wish I had known about that difference, it would have helped a lot. I know that by this point you are asking one important question: What could happen when someone does not know how to listen to critics? Well, that would be for the next episode. Part 2 https://lnkd.in/eBYq5uzn Part 3 https://lnkd.in/e5-EtQW6 Part 4 https://lnkd.in/evfZmg9Y

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Recently, I've been involved in developing a metaverse for Technology Reply Romania. We designed the 3D environment with careful consideration for polygon count and material optimization, ensuring a smooth experience for users exploring the virtual office. During this project, I utilized 3ds Max for modeling, Substance Painter for materials and had the chance to explore Frame VR which serves as the tool enabling the integration of this metaverse on the web. I also found Blender to be incredibly useful, as it works well with FrameVR. #metaverse #framevr #3denvironment

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Want to try out Procedural Content Generation (PCG) in Unreal Engine ? you can now download the Cassini sample from Fab https://lnkd.in/eKvc82rF #unrealengine

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EMOPortraits: Emotion-enhanced Multimodal One-shot Head Avatars 📣 📣 📣 The paper introduces the EMOPortraits model, designed to enhance the realism of intense and asymmetric facial expressions in head avatars animated by visual signals. This model significantly improves emotion transfer performance, achieving top results in handling intense facial movements. Additionally, a speech-driven mode is incorporated to enhance audio-visual facial animation, complemented by a unique multi-view video dataset that better represents intense and varied expressions, filling a gap in current datasets. project: https://lnkd.in/dZ4PFCvm paper: https://lnkd.in/dYed8FB5 #EMOPortraits #FacialAnimation #HeadAvatars #VisualSignals #EmotionTransfer #AudioVisualAnimation #MultiViewDataset #FacialExpressions #AIResearch #TechInnovation #RealismEnhancement

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There are good shading tips for handpaint, check it out!

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This morning, I read a very useful and exciting #article from Remedy Entertainment Plc into #AdobeBlog! In this Article, Benjamin Lindquist shares more about Remedy's content creation #pipeline for their latest hit game, #Alanwake2 So I think it can be very helpful for any Artist in the #Gameindustry #Gameartist #Gamedeveloper #Remedy

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More VFX! I wanted to share a personal piece of mine. This effect shows off distance based Mesh particle scaling - the further out from the simulation position a mesh is, the larger it's initial scale values. I use local space masking in the icicle material to help blend the base of the icicle with the snow elements on the ground. To top it off, ice chunks which collide with mesh distance fields, snowflakes, and a quick initial shockwave tie things together. Dynamic Parameters drive the icicle dissolve in the material with information from the Niagara emitter. You can see more about this effect on my ArtStation! https://lnkd.in/g2AR7Mhy

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My first ever 2D animation of a supposed 'Game Trailer' for an assignment. I had chosen 'Little Red Riding Hood' as my theme and when with it, with a few concept spins such as the Big Bad Wolf not being the main antagonist but a support summon and the main foe of the 'Game' being these 'Tree Monsters'. I had Riding Hood wield a massive wood cutting axe used against the tree monsters. [Scenes 3 and 4] (spin into crouch jump and aerial attack) are currently as of this final outcome the oldest scenes in the animation being made between the first and second day of me animating that's why they aren't to the same quality standard as the rest of the animation. I have future plans to either come back and redo the 'bad scenes' or the whole animation using the abilities I gained through out the animation process or make a new separate animation entirely. This animation was produced from on 22-26/04/2024. #Art #Animation #2DAnimation #Digitial #Digitalart

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Swamp environment I made in Unreal Engine 5 with Quixel models, water simulation, and Ultra Dynamic Sky. https://lnkd.in/dW-NsirB

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ENDA Episode 10→ The time when the Endless Apprentice met the Artist, the Technician, and the Producer (Part 1) During my time in both college and the Animation and VFX school, I met and worked with different people who wanted to enter the industry. The more and more I knew different groups I started to notice that certain profiles were always present in every project group, even when I started working I noticed these profiles would still exist. Particularly three who englobe different areas in a production being a live-action or an animated one. I decided to call them the Artist, the Technician, and the Producer. → The Artist: a person with heavy artistic tendencies, most of them will have an innate talent for drawing or design. In some cases, it will even be a talent for crafts or handmade constructions. Most of the time it will be them who would have the drive to write and tell their own stories, even directing them. In a live-action production, they would end up in the Art, Photography, or Storyboard department. In an animated feature, they would end up in areas like Concept Art, Modelling, Animation, Lighting, or Compositing. Their weakness is wanting to reach the moon without having wings or a floor to start jumping. Their idealism is the drive of the project, but they need someone capable of turning their ideas into a reality. → The Technician: a person with a talent for the technical aspects. Usually, they would be the first to learn a new software and try to figure out how it works from the inside out. Some of them might start learning programming and even if they don’t, they would eventually learn in the future. They will also be the first to grab and experiment with film gear: lights, microphones, sensors, consoles, etc. You name it, they would need a few days to know every aspect of them. It is most of them that end up inclining towards the VFX world given the heavy technical knowledge required to start. In a live-action production, they would end up in the Photography, Sound, Editorial, or Postproduction department. In an animated feature, they would be part of departments like Animation, FX, Compositing, etc. Their weakness is that they are used to working with an existing art reference, rather than creating their own. This does not mean they do not have an artistic side, because they do, just not as big as an Artist. For that reason, they prefer to work on someone else’s stories. However, until this point, we have someone who has the vision and a person who can turn it into a reality. It would seem that we have the perfect match…. but NO. Experience would tell you that leaving two people like that alone with a project will mean that either that project never finishes or when it finishes it is already too expensive to recover the budget. So that’s why for better or for worse the figure of the Producer exists. How is their profile? Well, that would be for the next episode. Part 2 https://lnkd.in/ek3895NE

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