PATRICK
SCHWALBE
CG Artist
ABOUT ME:
I graduated from the Art Institutes, MN in 2000. I spent the following years working in the medical animation industry doing technical direction for Ghost, Hybrid, and Meditech. My favorite things to focus on with CG are: creating Mel/Python user tools, procedural modeling and FX using the SOuP plugin, and Houdini.
HARMONY
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About a year ago I decided to make a full CG short myself, here is the result. It's a hybrid of a music video and an art film. Two nights a week for almost a year I'd stay up till I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore and work on this.
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Harmony is a short film meant to be elegant, artistic, and expressive. I "hand-animated" the hands inside of Maya. I did the special effects in Houdini. Then I rendered using Redshift inside of Houdini. This is my first project of any sort using Houdini. I hope you like it.
PROFESSIONAL DEMO REEL
Demo Reel December 2016 :
This includes some personal and professional work. Take a minute to check it out! Thanks.
Music credit: Dave Depper (Perspective).
BRANCHING STRUCTURES
Branching Structures November 2017:
To date, this is the most complex structure I've ever built and it only crashed my computer once! I am fascinated with organic patterns and I'm definitely going to explore this technique in Houdini more.
Music Credit: Peace Settling by Podington Bear
KNEE ANIMATION
Knee Bending Animation: Joint Biomechanics October 2017:
Something as seemingly simple as a knee bending became quite complex. We are not made of machined hinges; our joints slide and twist a lot as they articulate with each other. That's something I found out the hard way in this high-detail study of the human knee. Note the way the kneecap (patella) slides in the Patellofemoral Groove. Very Groovy :)
3D IMAGERY
Walnut Leaf Surface SEM (3D replica):
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The goal here is to replicate the look of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) image. Technical achievements here include: surface quality of the modeling being high-resolution enough to be convincing, and getting the lighting sources correct enough to be like a real-case scenario.
Bone Marrow RND:
This is an early test of procedurally building bone marrow (very dense and numerous branches)...looks more abstract than it does organic, hence "early test". :) It's still neat-looking though.
SEM Grain of Salt:
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I wrote this Mental Ray shader to produces a reverse Occlusion effect. It ends up kinda, but not really, looking like Scanning Electron Microscope imagery.
SEM Organic Surface:
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I wrote this Mental Ray shader to produces a reverse Occlusion effect. It ends up kinda, but not really, looking like Scanning Electron Microscope imagery.
SEM Bumpy Cells:
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I wrote this Mental Ray shader to produces a reverse Occlusion effect. It ends up kinda, but not really, looking like Scanning Electron Microscope imagery.
Bone Marrow RND:
This is a later test of the bone marrow procedural modeling toolset. This produced a much more organic feel.
SEM Cellular Surface:
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I wrote this Mental Ray shader to produces a reverse Occlusion effect. It ends up kinda, but not really, looking like Scanning Electron Microscope imagery.
SEM Cellular Surface:
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I wrote this Mental Ray shader to produces a reverse Occlusion effect. It ends up kinda, but not really, looking like Scanning Electron Microscope imagery.
Bone Marrow Close Up:
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The same techniques were used to create this as the other bone marrow models. However this one has an added displacement/bump texture and is much more zoomed in.
Skeleton Modeling Project:
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I've taken the time to study each bone and do research of their functions inside the body. This allowed me to create custom bones with a new level of quality. They're designed to look beautiful and have stunning accuracy. (a work in progress)