Jason M. Conrad

About Me

Hello.  My name is Jason, and I’m a serial tinkerer.   My undergraduate degree is in interdisciplinary humanities.  I have always been interested in research based artwork, which is why I studied modernist and postmodern literature, logic, and evolutionary theory as part of my artistic practice.  In addition to my studies, I have always been interested in 3D modeling and compositing.  When I started college for the first time in ‘97, the technology in my department was not ready for me.  Now that technology has caught up to my ambitions, I am ready to stop tinkering and take my work to a professional level.

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Realflow Test

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Mr Chips

I originally started this project for the Greyscale Gorilla “Milk and Cookies” 5 second challenge. I decided to make it longer and do a short character animation. I learned a lot from this project: The criss-cross pattern on the glass was an interesting modeling exercise. The background and table use baked global illumination to speed up render times. I learned to manage my timeline workflow a little better. I even got to use a little mograph and Soundtrack Pro. All-in-all, a very entertaining exercise!

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Bullet Blur

This is a new concept I’ve developed. While the *effect* is nothing new, I believe this implementation within C4D is. The motion of the camera, the motion blur, and the flow of time (here, zero) are all independent. I’ve kept the scene very simple because it takes a long time to render.  The use of MoDynamics poses an additional challenge because it uses the Bullet Physics Library, which currently doesn’t calculate sub-frames in C4D.  I would like to compare this result with a vector motion blur based approach, as I’m sure that would render much faster, but I don’t currently own RSMB.  However, I’m sure my method is valuable because it is absolutely accurate, whereas motion vectors may not work with transparency, reflection, animated textures/lights, particles, sketch&toon, etc.

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Disco Tiles

I’m experimenting with an alternative to the sound effector for the rhythmic timing of lights.  I want more of a 808 kind of thing.

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Spline Dynamics

Just playing around with spline dynamics and deformers.

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Self Portrait

I animated this video using Photoshop.  Everything is hand-drawn.  Through the first part of the video, I gave myself one minute to draw each of the frames.  Once my hands become visible, I gave myself enough extra time to increase the level of detail while keeping the look consistent.

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Boom

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iChat Look Test

So my good friend William Howell edits all of these lectures for IHMC in Pensacola.  He went out of town for a week and I got a chance to “ghost” edit.  Using his previous lecture as a guide, I edited this one.  I thought that I could devise a more efficient, less time-consuming method to achieve the iChat look that Bill uses throughout his videos.  This is the result of those tests.  This setup allows for drag-and-drop replacement of the video and intuitive manipulation of each element.  Unfortunately, it’s a little processor intensive.

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Moon Rover

This is part of a series of short animations I did for a proposal IHMC was giving to NASA.  We were pitching virtual cameras for the new rover.  Since lunar geography doesn’t change very quickly, you can use satellite imagery and topography in to make sure you’re not driving over any cliffs… at least that’s the theory.  The rover’s driver would be able to fly a virtual camera to improve his situational awareness.

I can’t take credit for this particular rover model, although I do have one of my own, but the moon and animation are all me.

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Green Screen Test

This is just a short green screen test.  It was part of a project I was working on for the robotics department at UWF.  I learned a lot about lighting green screens while I was interning at Skill-Q.  They also taught me how to use ScopeBox to monitor all of the lighting.  I learned to key earlier, thanks to my research grant.

The talent is Daniel Gonzalez.

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Projection Mapping

I’m using C4D to emulate a popular effect.

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Motion Tracking

Trying to get a grasp on motion tracking.  In this example, I’m using PFtrack.  I think the hardest part of the process is actually figuring out the sensor size and focal length of my cheap panasonic camera.  To do this, I used some formulas I found in Optical Tracking From User Motion to 3D Interaction, a paper written in 2002 by Klaus Dorfmüller-Ulhaas.

There are plenty of other issues that make motion tracking a headache, though.  CMOS sensors with rolling shutters wreak havoc on motion tracking software.  So finding a good cheap HD camera will be difficult.

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The National - Slow Show

I’m experimenting with text in Motion.

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Robot Spider

This is my first attempt to composite a matched camera move with an animated 3D character.  I used icarus to track the camera and C4D to model and texture the spider.  I’m hoping to revisit this file to better integrate the spider with its surroundings.  That would be a good AE exercise.

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Gallery Space

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