New Year, New Reel!

2016 Film Reel

Jay Machado Hard Surface Modeling/Texture Painting Reel 2016 from Jay Machado on Vimeo.

I'm doing an Alumni Panel at Gnomon next week so I cut together this reel of my film work since I've been at ILM.

I would like to note that the Millennium Falcon was a collaboration of artists.  Dave Fogler supervised and did the blocking and proportions, Landis Fields blocked in the cockpit, Masa Narita (a fellow Gnomonite!) modeled the ramp, landing gear, saucer trench greeblies, docking ring greeblies and 4 of the access pits' greeblies.  I was responsible for the armor plating, the dish, the quad cannons, the hull and mandible greeblies and the other 9 access pits' greeblies.  I was really fortunate to take this asset to the finish line but unfortunately part of the reason I was able to work so much on it was Harrison Ford's injury which slowed production down.  The early initial blocking of the X-wing was also done by Landis but most of that asset is my work.  Textures on both the Falcon and X-Wing were done by Aaron Wilson.  The trench was an awesome collaboration between me and a few members of the generalist department here including Mike Wood, Joshua Ong and Votch Levi.  And finally the oscillator walls wouldn't have made it on screen without the help and guidance of environment artist extraordinaire Carlos Munoz.

One thing I didn't have time to include was my work from Noah on the Genesis sequence:

I modeled the creatures from the single cell to the last reptile.  The mammals were done by another artist.  Since this is a very long shot and creature work isn't really my forte I decided to leave it out of the reel, but here it is for posterity.

Thanks for watching!

God of War: Ascension

These are images of stuff I worked on for God of War: Ascension.  I had a fantastic time working at Santa Monica Studios.  I met some really incredible artists and learned a ton during my time there.  I'm also very impressed with and proud of how the game turned out!  

I was given several tasks at the studio that ranged from multiplayer weapon polish to shader tweaks and blood decals, but I feel these images are my finest moments.  Unfortunately I didn't have time to render these using the awesome shaders and engine at Sony but these came out looking pretty good in Marmoset Toolbag.

These first several images are what I spent most of my time working on.  I was given a sculpt by the very talented Jim Van Den Bogart and spent the next few months breaking it into pieces (the statue is broken apart in game), adding high frequency detail, retopologizing a few levels of detail for each piece, texturing and shading.  I then passed off to the environment team to use as vista elements in the Delos section of the game.

These are two examples of the texture maps used on the statue.  The scale of it is massive and you get really close so each piece had it's own texture sheet at pretty high resolution.

This is the yoke that appears around Kratos' neck in the first moments of the game.

This is a weight that is chained to the ankle of the Scribe of the Hecatonchires.

This dagger belongs to Orkos and is usually seen around his waist...

as is this bottle.

This is Perseus' shield as it appears in 1981's Clash of the Titans.  I was given concept art of this initially but ultimately I had to make a version that resembled the God of War II Perseus Shield.

This fruit was made for the Oracle Seeker who is killed by the Manticore.  Only the apple appears in game.

Cargo Ship WIP

Been working on this beast during my recent time off.  Kind of an idea I've been playing with in my sketchbook for a long time.  I have all the major part lines modeled out (though I will likely redo those ugly ones on the engines) but I will be adding a lot more surface detail before moving on to textures. I also have the interior blocked out and plan to model most of that out as well.   I suppose the ultimate goal is going to be to get this thing into a game engine.  It's been one of those weeks where I start modeling in the morning and before I know it it's 2am... in a good way! This will be the biggest model I've ever taken on by myself and I'm excited to see the finished product.

CNC Music Factory

As a 3D artist who loves cosplay, I recently invested in a CNC machine.  It's been really cool building stuff quickly in 3D so the machine can do all the hard work.  I haven't had too much time to mill stuff since we crunched so much at Sony this year, but here is a gallery of some of the projects I've been working on.

Photo Gallery by QuickGallery.com
For higher res photos and descriptions, view these photos on Flickr

Cosplay Fun

Having a steady job for the past year has afforded me the opportunity to do this stuff in my spare time.  It's been a learning experience, and sometimes frustrating and expensive, but overall I've had a blast, and I'm really happy with the results!

Photo Gallery by QuickGallery.com
For higher res photos and descriptions, view these photos on Flickr

Secret Outlast Commercial

This is the Secret Deodorant commercial I worked on with COPA through the holidays.  A lot of long nights and weekends, blood, sweat and tears went into it!  Modeled A LOT of objects and architectural elements with some help from Dan Edery.  Did layout on the big pile of stuff for just about a month under the tutelage of Giancarlo Lari.  Initial layout was by Paulette Harutnian.  Lookdev was by Jon Balcome and Dustin Colson.  Environmental mattes were by Giancarlo Lari and Rob Nederhorst.  Lighting and rendering was by Scott Metzger.  Not totally happy with the finished product in terms of the blending of the CG and live action, but I worked a long time on this project and it is nice to see the finished product and all the models I made for it.

Can't Sleep...

I have a bad habit of saying to myself "It's time for bed" then laying in bed watching TV for 2 hours before I fall asleep... WELL NOT TONIGHT! Here's a Batman painting... nothing too complicated, just for fun. Been so long since I painted anything...

David Guetta - Turn Me On ft. Nicki Minaj

Had the opportunity to work on this music video with COPA. It premiered last Tuesday and it's already had over 15 million hits!






I was part of the team that modeled the robotic pieces of Nicki. Paulette Harutnian modeled the face, Mario Quan modeled the arms and Kris Fancsali modeled the legs. I modeled the spine, ribcage and mechanical innards of the torso and neck. Lookdev was done initially by Jon Balcome and the lighting and additional lookdev was done by Scott Metzger. 

Here's a behind the scenes interview with Alex Frisch, founder of COPA via FXGuide TV

Here are some beauty renders, courtesy of COPA. When I get a better handle on V-Ray I'll do some renders that better showcase my contribution. For now, enjoy!


















As promised, here's a better view of the torso.  I left the head because Paulette and I overlapped a little bit working on the neck.  Also it looks bizarre enough without arms and legs.

Sci-Fi Sketchstravaganza

Had an interview earlier this week during which I mentioned my sketchbooks full of spaceship doodles and they said they'd like to see some of them so I went through the past couple years of sketchbooks and scanned some choice cuts. I actually had a great time looking back, seeing what phases I went through and remembering what influenced me at the time. It's actually kind of funny how some of the sketches I did years ago can inspire me now. Anyway, enjoy!



These ones actually made me laugh. I was kind of amazed at how many times I redesigned the same ship over and over and over. Funny how different the first and last incarnations are.

Wires!

Have an interview coming up so I wanted to post some new beauties and wires of a couple personal pieces from last year. I did some minor updates to the Batmobile but both of these still need more work, mainly in the interiors. It's been harder to find time to work on these than I expected, especially with this commercial I'm working on now. Ten hour days plus weekends! Rough! Anyway pretty happy with these renders, but this might be one of the last times I use mental ray as I've been learning vray and I'm pretty impressed with it so far!