Sunday, January 6, 2019

2018 Update + Dinosaurs!

2018 Was a pretty huge year for me. I've been MIA here but I figured now is a better time than ever for a quick update.

First off, I helped create a pretty dope short film called A Time To Remember. There's Time-Travel, Dinosaurs and explosions in it. Need I say more? Here's a quick VFX breakdown video of the film.


This whole project was so fun to work on. My duties were AD work, TRex animation and spaceship modeling / render / composite. We got best VFX and 2nd place overall at Z-Fest 2018! 
I'm planning a future post that goes into more detail on what was done to achieve some of the visuals. Perhaps when the full video gets released online?

In other news..
2018 also saw me leave Activation to work for Meditech and from there I took a job at Periscope as a Motion Designer. This Hot-Potato jumping act gave me an opportunity to work on some diverse types work. So there is no shortage of content, I just need to find the time to gather up & post it! 
So stay tuned, I'll have a more to show soon.

Monday, April 17, 2017

Robotic Frog / Rig Breakdown

Here's a breakdown the Robotic Frog rig I did a while back. There was a lot of extra functionality that wasn't needed in the final animation. Ie: the Chain Tongue was originally going to be dynamically simulated. I did a few tests but found it looked better hand keyed.

Frog Rig Breakdown from Nathan Dorn on Vimeo.

Monday, March 27, 2017

Drig ver2.0 / New Updates Incoming

So it's been a while.. 
Fresh content is on it's way. Some old stuff that never got shown and some new.
For now here is a breakdown of my personal maya rig Drig ver2.0!
It's public right now but I plan on doing another update on the whole rig.
Have a look! If you interested in animating it for your own projects, send me an email and I'll get you a copy :-)

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Nate's Reel

Hey guys, I made this reel a while back. 
It's now on my site. Check it out :)

Monday, May 30, 2011

Client Work Update

I've decided to start posting some of my favorite client projects I had a chance to work on at Gasket. Here's a couple that track back from the last few years. Check the Gasket links to see more detailed info on each of them with full credits.

Best Buy Microsoft Mouse



















I was the Maya animator on this one. I also did a good portion of the mouse model too. Here's a link to the full page rollout and credits on Gasket.tv.

SVGC "UFO"



















This one goes back a few years. We worked hard to get this one looking good on time. My roll was in doing a good portion of the animation modeling and composting. But I wasn't the only one! Here's a link to the full page rollout and credits on Gasket.tv.

Coke Zero “Fantasy Football”
Going back even farther I believe I modeled animated and rendered most of this. Here's a link to the full page rollout and credits on Gasket.tv.











Tylenol PM







I animated a few of the shots in here. Also did some modeling. Here's a link to the full page rollout and credits on Gasket.tv.





Best Buy Recycle




















Here's another one I worked really hard on. Funny how these can just go by and get forgotten so easily. I built the elements on top of the store and most of the interior factory elements with the exception of the pipes. I also animated half of it(from the "flying through the air" shot to the gate shots).Here's a link to the full page rollout and credits on Gasket.tv.

Korbel - Sparkler










Here's a beautiful one we did a few years back. I built the bottle. Here's a link to the full page rollout and credits on Gasket.tv.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Web Page Overhaul

My website is now my blog!

For the last year I've been meaning to revamp my website. It seemed unnecessary to have two sites that showcased my work. I wanted it to be instantly accessible yet organized enough so people wouldn't need to dig to find anything.

I played around with WordPress for a while but never had any experience with its code. After playing around with my blog, I discovered that I could do what I wanted directly within my Blogger. It has some minor design limitations, but it can basically do what I wanted.

Over the next few weeks I'll be doing minor adjustments to my blog in attempts to make it more accessible. I hope to keep all my video links to YouTube so I can track traffic. Although because the "play screen" isn't quiet so inviting, I might change it to another player.

Hope you dig the decision, check back soon for more posts.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

maya 2012 test


(a quick Maya 2012 playblast test of new features)

So Maya 2012 just got released and they added some great features to the animation section of the software. You can now edit motion paths in the view port. 3D studio max has always seemed to have this and I found it very useful when I was animating in max.

It helps you manage a lot of keys very early in the blocking stages. Gives you a good overall view of what the animation will look like without needing to use playback. And in the world of animation, any tools like that are greatly useful.

There are some post production features added to there view port 2.0 section too. You can do some very bare bones previewing of what motion blur, Ambient occlusion, and depth of field will look like before rendering a final output. Once again, there are similar features that were already in max.

The last Maya updates seemed very limited in terms of upgrades, especially when it came to animation features. Although these are small updates I feel as if it's a step in the right direction.