Jamal Coleman

Unity FX test

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:53:00 +0000

Sandstorm Unity FX Test from Jamal Coleman on Vimeo.

I have been experimenting in the Unity game engine recently. I have been playing with different fx ideas for Semnat Studios next game. Here's a recent screen cap in Unity of a sand storm effect I've been working on. All the art is courtesy of Semnat Studios. Click here to check Semnat's recent work.

Fluid test

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 04:35:00 +0000

Been playing around a lot recently with fluid dynamics in Maya. Here's the most recent test.

Maya smoke test from Jamal Coleman on Vimeo.

"Unspoken" now available for viewing online

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:27:00 +0000

"Unspoken," my BFA Short movie is now available for viewing on my Vimeo page. It can be found here.

Announcing "UNSPOKEN"

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 01:35:00 +0000

Officially announcing "UNSPOKEN," my senior project short film. Previously known as 'Red Tea,' the project now has an official title. Also a premiere screening at my BFA Department Senior Show. The first screening is at 5pm on Friday, April 30th. The second screening is three hours later, at 8pm on the same day. The location of the gallery is at the Lee Edwards Gallery in the UMass Studio Arts Building. A notification of the location of the screening will be posted at the gallery prior to the screening. The gallery will also be open all week, playing the short films in hour or half hour intervals after the first initial screening day. The gallery and screening space is shared with five other students with some brilliant work from the same department. It's an open event, feel free to invite anybody. See you there!

Digital Scratch Film Technique

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:22:00 +0000

In my early tests for "Red Tea," I tried using a rotoscope technique in photoshop as an accent to the emotional state that the character is in as well as to heighten the surreal and tortured look I was trying to achieve.

First roto test

The idea behind the rotoscoping is to show a sort of self-hate feeling of depression. Drawing over this test was a unique experience and added to the psychological overtone of the film. However, the mark making in this test, using a standard small soft brush in photoshop looked too much like a marker, and did not feel very well integrated as part of the film.

In review of the test with my advisor, she suggested I look at some Len Lye short films and traditional scratch film technique. My problem would be that I was dealing with HD video, and not 16mm film to produce this very unique analogue mark making of scratching away the emulsion. I wanted to stay in photoshop, and to achieve as close a look to traditional scratch film as I could. After scouring Google and Vimeo for hours with no luck on anything resembling digital scratch film, I decided to jump into photoshop after careful study of some scratch films and design my own brush. After only playing with the custom brush settings in photoshop for a couple of hours, I found a nice combination (mostly thanks to the dual brush mode and jitter settings) that looked very much like a pin scratch into traditional film.

This is one of my favorites. Perhaps channeling some Joker?


Still able to achieve a thick mark by repetition.

I was very pleased with these results, and will continue to explore how to capture the look while in motion. Unfortunately my photoshop crashed shortly after I finished the first test, and lost the brush from my lack of custom brush experience (not saving). But I am working on reproducing this effect, at least I'll know how to do it again after this experience.

I was very surprised not to find any resources online about digital scratch film. And if anyone is interested in the exact process and settings used for the tests I'll be happy to share technical details.

Conceptual Drawing

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:10:00 +0000

In my quest to become a better artist and feel more natural with a pen in my hand, I've come across some of the best drawing tutorials by an artist named Glenn Vilppu. My brother turned me on to him, giving me a couple of his DVDs. Last night I finally had the chance to sit down and watch his in-studio lessons.

I only watched about 20 minutes of the first DVD, and it was the most valuable drawing lesson I've ever had. In the lesson I watched, he explained how to visualize shapes inside form. Once you can see the shapes, like a sphere and a cube in a sock, if you you twist them, you can visualize how the material of the sock changes and express that in your mark making. Elaborating from this, he goes on to show how simple a few spheres, and some cube corners can make up the human form. From the the visualization of how the sock (skin) twists and turns, the translation from pen to paper is that much easier.

As basic as these concepts might seem, the way they are presented is very helpful. I've taken a few figure drawing classes, and they've all failed to break down these concepts a clearly as Vilppu. His website can be found here.

What is Red Tea?

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:20:00 +0000

My BFA has evolved over the past few months. From working on an animated narrative to working on a music video as my BFA thesis. I have finally settled (about a month ago), on a short experimental film code named "Red Tea." Here's a description from the new about page:

Red Tea is the working title for Jamal's BFA Animation thesis short film. The project focuses on exploring the emotions of depression and that "rock bottom" feeling that can lead people suffering from the illness to take their lives or feel that it is the only way to find relief.

This heavy topic is explored in the film through experimental film making and animation by using an array of technique in editing, compositing, and digital "film scratch" rotoscoping.

Updates about the project, and test footage will be posted on Jamal's youtube page. The finished short film will be screening at the Animation BFA show at the end of April. Dates, time and location will be announced on the blog.

Test shot 2 uploaded

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:24:00 +0000

Here's the latest test shot. I'm still working on the sequence, and should have a rough of that up pretty soon. I've also changed to Youtube recently. Just testing that out, as long as ads dont pop up on my videos, I'm ok with it. Especially since they dont cap upload amount per week like Vimeo.

Project Red Tea launches!

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:12:00 +0000

"Red Tea" is the codename for my BFA Animation thesis. The subject matter has gone through a lot of revisions, but after a very difficult month, I have finally found what the project is really about. "Red Tea" will be a short experimental animation/film(video) exploring the emotional landscape of depression. The script has mostly been written and I will start shooting the project today at UMass with a few friends.

Here's the first test shot, which is very rough at this point. I was trying out a lot of different things here. I'll probably end up re-shooting this shot, but using a similar idea.

"Red Tea" test shot from Jamal Coleman on Vimeo.

Weekly Sketches

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:08:00 +0000

Inspired by Jeff Smith's comics, this is my attempt to get back into illustration and drawing. I don't draw too often, hopefully this attempt at weekly sketches will get me back into it.

This one I don't like too much, but I was still in the "draw a cute creature mode." Might as well just put it up.

Tube

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:36:00 +0000

Currently working on Tube (which means I got that internship!). So I am blogging on the production blog about what we are currently doing. Visit tube.freefac.org to check it out.

Reel

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Thu, 14 May 2009 05:33:00 +0000

Just finished my reel today in time to apply to an internship at Hampshire. My first time using Final Cut Studio as well.

Jamal Coleman Animation/VFX Reel from Jamal Coleman on Vimeo.

Badi - Paper Cuts

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:26:00 +0000

The video is ready! Finally! I'm really happy with how it turned out, granted it only being a minute long. But we've only had three weeks to work on it, and I think it turned out pretty decent for my first music video. Enough talk, here it is...

Badi - Paper Cuts from Jamal Coleman on Vimeo.

Almost done!

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Wed, 06 May 2009 06:07:00 +0000

I'm almost done with this semester. It's been an exciting last couple of weeks. I have been collaborating with my rapper friend Badi, producing his first music video. His stuff is very good. Check out his website by clicking here.
That video will be done by Thursday, I'll post it up here then hopefully. It's only a minute long, it's all the time I had to produce, since I've only had 3 weeks to do this project. I'm super excited to finish this project and show the world the video, as there are a lot of fans of Badi, now finally he'll have a music video to go with his amazing lyrics. And here's a teaser screen shot of the video so far:

The other video I'm finishing up is a rough animation for my Maya class. I made a small city, nothing textured, but I put up some fancy street lamps and lighting. The animation takes place from the first person view of a handycam, kind of like...well no, exactly like Cloverfield. I'm a huge fan of that movie, and thought it would be interesting to try to simulate that type of filming in my own digitally created cityscape. It's a fun project, not exactly what I had intended for this colossus character, but at least it is something. My main goal was to make him feel like he's, well, "colossal." Here's a screen shot of my rough animation. Please forgive the lack of texturing.

With sound!

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 05:46:00 +0000

Update: Just finished adding sound effects with the help of a friend of mine, Badi.

Semnat Studios Logo Animation from Jamal Coleman on Vimeo.

Semnat Studios Logo Animation

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:57:00 +0000

Finally done with my first real animation! This was the first assignment for my motion graphics class. I still wanted to work on the timing, but this is the final project turned in. Deadlines, deadlines... I'm happy with the final product.

Semnat Studios Logo Animation from Jamal Coleman on Vimeo

Crazy Jump

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:57:00 +0000

So in a lightbulb moment...er..day, I spent seven hours or more playing with maya and rigging my character using the Setup Machine. I figured out how to do it pretty much alone, with a few pointers from my teacher as well, so I was happy to have had such success. Then I went home from the coffee shop I was working at and played around with keyframes and changing positions to make a silly small animation. The result: "the crazy jump"

I kept trying to make the hand animation static, but i guess i kept twisting it in the wrong way, so the result was a crazy jump with crazy silly hand movements. I think it's really funny, and I laugh at it while it's on a loop. But it's really bad animation, but my first, done in about half an hour.

Note: You have to click on the image to open the actual looping animation. I only exported it as an animated gif so it would keep looping, cause then it's funnier. Enjoy.

Colossus model update

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:05:00 +0000

Ok, I'm ready for my class. I'm finally having fun in the Maya 3D environment. I just wanted to post a new screen of my model. It's hard to tell the differences in the small image, but lets just say there was a reason I was hiding the legs in the previous post. It's a very rudimentary model at the moment, but the polygons are decently layed out finally, and it's ready to be rigged for movement tomorrow in class. The arms still need a lot of work...hmm....

Juggernaut the Colossus

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:31:00 +0000

So I've been pretty busy lately, that's why I havent kept up with the new blog very well. But I'm back to give an update on my animation classes. My after effects/premiere class has been really fun and I'm loving the programs. The software environment is really easy and natural to work in, and so far I'm loving everything about it. Compositing is very fun.

The maya class isn't going as smoothly as I had hoped. I'm off to a pretty rough start, since maya is such a daunting program to use to someone who has had no real experience in environments similar to it, except a very small amount of time playing around with Blender with no real goals.

But I actually got to a start, and I think that was the hardest part. My hopes of creating a colossus are slowly dissapearing. It was nice to have it as inspiration, but I doubt my final product will be as much as a ripoff of the game as I was planning. Well here's a screen shot of the current work in progress. There's a lot that needs to be done, I have a lot of 5+ sided polygons which is a no no, but my professor showed me in class a great way to clean those up, so I'll be working on it much much more.

Colossus

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:54:00 +0000

Just thought I'd share my current inspiration, and what I hope to model some of my own character designs for my current class project after. The PS2 game, Shadow of the Colossus, I played for the first time in December, and I was amazed. The art direction was phenomenal, the characters were beautiful, and the entire world and game mechanics were perfect to me. While playing the game, it felt like I was watching an amazingly well directed movie. I highly suggest playing and beating the game if you haven't gotten around to it, and if you own a PS2.

So what I want to do with my project is to design a 'giant' or 'colossus,' if you will, to fulfill my project requirements in Animation II and to hopefully stimulate more ideas in the future. After all, you learn to draw well by imitating the master works of art (da Vinci, Michelangelo and all the other ninja turtles :). Hopefully I'll do it justice.

So here's a great article my brother Daniel (from Semnat Studios), showed me a while ago about the making of Shadows. Enjoy the article. (click here to go to article)

1st

noreply@blogger.com (Jamal) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:31:00 +0000

So I've taken to starting another blog, as my last attempt was when I was still in the nursing program, writing about what people didn't really care to hear about. Also, I wasn't very good at keeping it up to date, as I didn't have a real topic to blog about.

Since the launch of my new website, jamalcoleman.com, I have focused my efforts on my art career, which is very much in transition right now, and currently highly focused on computer animation. But I wanted to have a blog space to share some ideas and thoughts about my current projects as a supplement to my web site. So expect a redesign soon. With the new semester just starting, it may take a while, but I will not have any new projects to post any sooner than one month from now anyway.

For those of you who are still reading up to this point, and dont know much about me, here it goes. I am an art student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the B.F.A. program. Over the past year I have taken an interest to computer animation, and am now taking a course in Autodesk Maya, and another class focusing on Adobe Premiere and After Effects, all to explore my interest in animation. I am very much a beginner in animation, but am also very passionate and anxious to push the envelope in all my art when I am able to do so.

I am starting a new character design based off of the "Shadow of the Colossus" art for my animation course, and will be posting here and sharing some of my learning process and art from that project, since I will be putting a lot of energy into it. So stay tuned.