Mike Renouf

Interior / Exterior rendering

2012-02-09T18:35:00.000Z

My interior visualisations have never successfully blended with the outside world - I never quite got the hang of adding an environment map until now.

The example above is far from perfect because there is no texture map or geometry detail on the ground, but at least now I'm getting somewhere. The addition of real geometry trees using mrproxy objects opens up plenty of possibilities too.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T12:37:00.001Z

Builders Express

2011-10-06T22:46:00.005+01:00

Recently the new SIG brand "Builders Express" has been at the forefront of my diary. I've been involved with everything from promotional photography, design of flyers and advertisements and 3D interior Visualisation.

3D Interior Visualisation - Builders Express Gatwick

Pickering Hutchins did a great job of coming up with the initial brand graphic identity and a lot of the subsequent banners and leaflets. These have set the theme and I've followed for some of the pieces I worked on.

Builders Express Brentford had its Trade Day event last week on September 30th, and its the turn of Gatwick on October 20th, so for me its an exciting and fast-moving campaign. Follow this link for the new website to see what's on offer at the branches.

Early-stages visual of Reception Counter

Relocation

2011-09-28T08:23:00.001+01:00

For the last year I've commuted to Sheffield each day for work. I'm happy to say that from next week I'll be Manchester based once again. Look me up if you're in the area!

Woodhead pass is beautiful to drive in the summer but no fun whatsoever at 6.30am or pm during the winters.

Still plugging away

2011-09-17T12:15:00.001+01:00

I've not updated much recently but I am still wrestling with Max and mentalRay for interior visuals when I get a chance. I'll share some progress on recent projects very soon.

sig!

2011-07-28T21:22:00.000+01:00

Interior Render

2011-07-05T23:24:00.000+01:00

I re-rendered this visual of my old office this evening, the lighting solution seemed to come out quite well even though it wasn't a particularly high quality. Still learning to balance materials quality/time.

Space Marine

2011-06-14T23:00:00.000+01:00

Well, the mesh is admittedly looking a bit ragged, but I'm quite proud of this so far considering it's my first go. I've had to rework bits and pieces after looking more closely at reference images. That's a lesson for the future - check your references more...

Space marine 3D model

2011-06-14T00:14:00.000+01:00

I thought I'd try my hand at modelling a character. It's far more difficult than I first thought!

GI and Glossy reflections

2011-06-10T20:03:00.000+01:00

One of these days I'm going to write a basic tutorial on the mentalray render system as found in 3D Studio Max.

I've just climbed the learning curve on "glossy reflections" and "max reflection distance", chopping my render times down by about 75% in some instances. Also when I had some free time this week (haha, there's a joke right there) I also made broke a bit of ground with "photon mapping", once again giving a time saving on photo-realistic renders.

Mentalray can produce some really fantastic images with a little understanding, but it tends to take a billion years to do so. It's only with a lot more understanding that you can get it to spit out similar images in an acceptable time.

Photoshop Friday - Tigger

2011-05-27T21:01:00.000+01:00

Studio render setup

2011-05-26T20:06:00.000+01:00

I followed a tutorial to set up studio-style lighting for product visualisations. Getting the lighting levels right is a bit of a challenge, but the quality of light is pretty promising.

I had a go at a glass and liquid render too with the same studio setup and this proved even more challenging to light effectively. I will need to learn more about traditional photography-style lighting methods (and here's some more) in order to get this right.

Greeble City

2011-05-25T19:28:00.000+01:00

Greeble is a cool plug-in for Max and it can quickly create random-looking cuboid shapes. This took about 20 mins to build, light and render.

"That'll Never Fly". (1 hr modelling session)

2011-05-25T19:19:00.001+01:00

Bugatti restart

2011-05-24T20:17:00.000+01:00

After some good advice from the friendly folks at Maxforums I've decided to restart:

Bugatti

2011-05-23T20:15:00.000+01:00

Radiator grille started, edge flow around bonnet and doors cleaned up. Wing mirrors chucked in for good measure. Might be time to start on the engine area and back end soon, but I'm thinking I might just finish what's required for this view alone allowing me to complete sooner and move on to another project.

Bugatti

2011-05-20T19:21:00.000+01:00

Not much of an update, but the front radiator area is shaped. Refined the air intakes to the front and sides and added rough geometry to the rear.

A little more Veyron

2011-05-19T21:52:00.000+01:00

Bugatti Veyron - Lunchtime project

2011-05-18T20:41:00.000+01:00

I want to keep practicing with Max, and I don't get much of a chance to do so at the moment - most of my work is Quark Xpress desktop publishing, so I started this as a little lunchtime project. It's a sloppy start, but not bad for an hour or so with a sandwich in one hand.

Here's what the real life Veyron looks like:

Rhodes: Photo highlights

2011-05-13T23:40:00.001+01:00

Photoshop Friday

2011-05-13T21:29:00.000+01:00

Monkey Business in Photoshop

2011-04-12T23:12:00.003+01:00

Apologies and Thanks

2011-04-12T01:33:00.001+01:00

Unfortunately I've been running behind with episode two of relay due to traveling around with work and keeping my website up to date. Thanks to Chris Broughton of Protec Direct for his suggestions for organic search optimisation.

Relay - Episode 1

2011-03-30T00:41:00.000+01:00

Web comic - under construction

2011-03-26T17:24:00.000Z

Figure drawing is not my strongest suit - especially since I usually punish myself into drawing without any references. That's why the idea of creating a web comic has taken a long time for me to develop into an actual finished article.

The above is partially completed version of the first episode of "Relay", a futurist sci-fi story. My intention is to make an episode every few weeks (maybe every two weeks if I can!?). In order to stand a chance of doing so I'll need to streamline my workflow dramatically. It was always my intention to make the first version to the highest possible standard so I've taken the better part of about 20 hours in total to get it this far; there are still backgrounds to ink and the whole thing needs colouring. But future episodes may just be lower detail - a manga style of character illustration.

Suffice to say, I've got a big chunk of story to tell...

Top Gun Photoshop Fun

2011-03-18T18:10:00.000Z

test

2011-03-15T21:33:00.002Z

Photoshop... er Tuesday

2011-03-15T21:07:00.000Z

Shopping trolley for wheelchair users

2011-03-12T19:48:00.003Z

One of my old Uni projects re-rendered now that I'm getting more familiar with production techniques for comic-book style artwork:

Skyscape

2011-03-12T19:47:00.000Z

Quick painting using Photoshop and the tablet/pen.

Powerpoint... Wait! Hear me out.

2011-02-09T07:52:00.002Z

Whilst it's still a Microsoft program, and has it's frustrating traits like those silly hidden parts of the dropdown menus, PowerPoint is actually more capable than many people realise.The last couple of weeks have seen me working on slideshows at SIG, so I had the opportunity to develop relatively intricate animations and transitions to help explain timelines and the evolution of various elements of the business.A company called 'Eyeful' have pioneered the use of PowerPoint and their stuff was very inspirational - to be honest at first i was convinced they'd used some cheeky Flash, but you live and learn: http://www.eyefulpresentations.co.uk/samples Sent from my iPhone

Linking it all together

2011-02-07T08:21:00.002Z

Im still at it; producing visuals and graphically interesting brochure designs. It's been a busy couple of months since my last post so I figured it was time to try a mobile blog update and to see if that would enable me to update more easily and hence more frequently.

Who knows, I might even figure out how to use twitter for this instead!

Edit: further to that idea... Twitter feed viewable on the right of this page!

Photoshop Friday

2010-11-05T18:55:00.003Z

Illustrator Training

2010-11-04T22:12:00.000Z

I provided a member of staff with a couple of hours of training on Adobe Illustrator today. It's the first time I've given any training on that particular program and I hadn't realised just how much I knew about the package.

Illustrator is one of those that I've used on and off, but never had a solid requirement for in a work setting until this month, - when I was asked to generated some logo designs with it for an SIG group project. For this reason I was thinking that my knowledge was probably full of holes that I'd just learned to work around, but today proved otherwise.

I'm really tempted now to come up with a little side project of my own in order to showcase what I can do with the package.

Alternative Options

2010-10-24T14:50:00.001+01:00

A quick example of how different colour schemes can be explored using the same 3D model.

Global Illumination abomination

2010-10-15T19:36:00.000+01:00

Rendering problem *sad face*. I think its Global Illumination that I've got poor settings for, but I don't know for sure. I'll be hounding the Maxforums people to help me solve it.

Lighting

2010-10-14T00:01:00.001+01:00

I took a little time to investigate actual lumen levels of lamps, and found that my lighting in 3DS Max was a bit out. I had most of my luminaires at twice the actual brightness they should have been - revised renders are looking nicer.

I also had a bit of a play with translucency to get the lampshades right.

3D models

2010-09-22T00:48:00.001+01:00

A reminder to myself more than a post really:

Really great 3D models for free: http://archive3d.net

W.I.P. FRONAT Tank

2010-09-12T07:32:00.001+01:00

and again..

2010-09-10T18:30:00.001+01:00

Yep, its Photoshop Friday once again...

2010-09-10T17:54:00.000+01:00

Tank treads

2010-09-05T23:16:00.002+01:00

I've made a start on the FRONAT tank at last. Here is a reference image for the treads:

I managed to put together this so far:

Better luck with macro

2010-09-04T17:13:00.001+01:00

I figured out how to make my aperture setting count when reversing the lens. This has helped me to get far sharper pictures in closeup. Its still a bit hit-and-miss, but I'm getting better.

Photoshop Friday - just a bit of fun.

2010-09-03T18:28:00.001+01:00

F.R.O.N.A.T. tank

2010-09-02T20:54:00.001+01:00

Well... Here's my concept for the next round of the competition. Its called the Feline Retribution Orbital Navigation Aqua-Tank. (FRONAT).

The vehicle enables garden owners who are tired of neighbour's cats s**ting on their lawn to torture the moggy by squirting water at it (every cat hates this with a passion).

The vehicle is crewed by three highly trained operatives - a driver, communications specialist (allowing airsupport to be called in via satellite uplink should the moggy try to escape) and a weapons officer who is responsible for accurately squirting the cat with water. The FRONAT is armed with a 500 litre reservoir of refridgerated water, and is armoured with teflon coated plate steel incase the cat tries to scratch the crew. Every eventuality has be catered for.

Macro

2010-08-30T17:48:00.000+01:00

I had a bit better luck today than previously. Here's a couple of shots taken with the 18-55 reversed. Manual mode at f22, 1/80sec. I'm not sure if the aperture setting is being stored once the lens is taken off, but I like what I acheived today.

Macro photography

2010-08-28T16:56:00.000+01:00

Maxforums competition

2010-08-28T11:48:00.001+01:00

The Brief:
"In this round you are to create a device of torture. Most importantly, the device must be really inefficient i.e. require the most amount of energy to produce the least amount of actual result. It must be really bad at what it does.
It doesn't even have to be a device that tortures humans. It could be used to torture robots, aliens, coconuts, gerbils, crazy frogs; it's up to you!"

Well.. its not that inefficient I guess, but its just a first idea..

Completed Maxforums Competition Image - Ant

2010-08-21T16:04:00.004+01:00

Kitchen visual nearing completion

2010-08-20T18:41:00.001+01:00

Here's one that I experimented with - including various Ambient Occlusion and compositing techniques to improve the quality. I still want to add some more geometry to the kitchen area such as pots and pans. Think I need to improve the wood finish of the nearest vertical panel.

3D Kitchen

2010-08-19T19:08:00.001+01:00

A photo from the Poggenpohl website

Final image

2010-08-15T20:25:00.001+01:00

Well, I think I've done my bit on this project. I've learned a heck of a lot putting this one together and I'm looking forward to the next Maxforums competition so I can have a go at a new subject.

Ants- update

2010-08-15T14:33:00.001+01:00

Foil corrected!

Photos

2010-08-15T14:03:00.001+01:00

The weather is FINALLY half-decent today, so I popped out into the garden with the camera. I'm pleased with the spider shot particularly since I've not got a proper macro lens. I'll have a mess with the RAW image when I get a chance.

Have a break

2010-08-13T23:33:00.001+01:00

I had a break from working on this for the last few days, when I came back to it today it seemed logical to add the kitkat in that I made a while ago. I still need some help to get the foil right though :\

Ants, Plural

2010-08-09T19:34:00.001+01:00

I haven't spent much time on this in the last couple of days, but at lunch today I did re-render with some different camera angles. The really wide and low angle wasn't making the ant look small, quite the opposite infact. I've adjusted it so its a less distorted image and that has helped to make the ant more like a little'un. I need to plan proper composition for the finished piece. This is what I've got thrown together now:

Sparkly.. :(

2010-08-07T21:57:00.000+01:00

Partially completed render - I'm having real problems with the materials and their specular reflections :S

Test composition

2010-08-05T23:01:00.000+01:00

Ant texturing

2010-08-05T14:39:00.000+01:00

I'm finally getting some textures together. My first attempt at unwrapping and texturing a "character" is teaching me a lot about Max. It's a really fun process but it takes a fair bit of patience!

Unwrapped

2010-08-04T18:56:00.000+01:00

Boy, you is UGLY:

More detail

2010-08-03T15:13:00.002+01:00

Abdomen and leg segments refined.

Slight update...

2010-08-03T11:27:00.000+01:00

I've tweaked the mandibles and added some more detail to the antennae. During this process I also detached the sections of the ant into separate objects so that the mesh is easier to manage.

6 legged Hairball

2010-08-01T20:29:00.000+01:00

Hmm... think I still need to learn some before using the Hair & Fur modifier...

Sweet!

2010-08-01T17:58:00.000+01:00

An ant's-eye view of sugar granules.

Research

2010-08-01T10:23:00.000+01:00

A bit of visual research for the ant's scene. I want to put some sugar granules into the scene for the close foreground.

Ant in Scene

2010-07-31T21:39:00.000+01:00

Setting the scene - needs something in the foreground - maybe some spilt sugar grains? I'll be working back into the model of the ant if I can - time will be against me though. There's something funny about the smoothing on the kettle too...

Sig

2010-07-31T19:25:00.000+01:00

Just need to host this image somewhere and photobucket's annoyingly stopping me from doing so.

WIP - ant

2010-07-31T18:42:00.000+01:00

Thinned out the legs and made them more refined, added antennae and eyes, also sharped up the mandibles.

Ant, an update

2010-07-31T15:31:00.000+01:00

Not bad for a modelling noob I thought?

3D Modelling

2010-07-31T00:33:00.001+01:00

Been trying to do an Ant for the Maxforums 7 competition. I'm well pleased with my work in progress, considering how this is the first edge modelling I've ever done:

Here are a few reference images that I'm working from.

And here is a link to the Maxforums work in progress thread: CLICK ME

Arty Farty

2010-05-09T18:23:00.000+01:00

I enrolled on an art course this week - ink and printing to be specific. I'm actually really excited to have an excuse to do something arty to add to my portfolio.

Also I felt it had been too long since I used my digital SLR, so whilst out and about I took a couple of shots...

Temporary measures

2010-05-07T20:46:00.000+01:00

Since Blogger decided to withdraw FTP support for uploading blogs to custom domains, I'm now at a loss as to how to integrate my existing blog into my own site.

For that reason I decided to just make the best of the situation and continue blogging using the blogspot domain. When I understand the web issues better then I'll try and reconnect the two.

Quick post

2010-03-26T18:39:00.001Z

It's been some time since I posted. Things at work have been very hectic but now moving into far more positive territory!

Watch this space...

Attention all City fans - and beware all designers...

2009-12-14T21:24:00.001Z

Recently I was contacted by a client who emailed me with a straightforward request - produce a piece of artwork showing the City of Manchester stadium amongst a montage of famous Mancunian buildings.

I made the mistake of failing to ask for any payment upfront. Because the deadline was looming and there probably wouldn't be time for a cheque to reach me in the post before I would have to complete the designs, I figured that just this once it'd work out okay. This was my first mistake.

We went through a couple of revisions - nothing hugely complex, but in total I probably spent about 3 hours on it. I stated that £40 ought to be a good fee for my services - I figured this was a bargain, as a studio would have probably charged 5 times that - and it was agreed upon. Basically I thought it'd make a great addition to my portfolio as well as being a source of a bit of pocket money.

Now, the deadline that was originally mooted was "end of November". I had crazy things going on during the last couple of weeks of November including trips to london and so on, so there were a few days where I failed to check my hotmail in the evenings. I had sent one or two draft versions over to the client as the project progressed and I had kept up to date with the amendment requests.

The second mistake I made was failing to get a proper postal address for the client.

On something like the 28th - as I type this I can't be bothered to check back on my hotmail as to when the actual date was - I found an email from a couple of days previous, asking how it was progressing. I polished off the final changes, sent off the finished design and, within about 2 hours, I got back the following email:

Hi Mike

As I hadn't heard from you I had organise an alternative as time scales were tight, so apologies

Thanks

I knew I'd taken a silly risk commercially speaking, but I didn't expect to be so blatantly ripped off. In response I wrote stating the work had been completed to the originally specification, on deadline and for a minimal fee. I even suggested that the finished work would be ideal as a Christmas present
if the birthday date had mysteriously jumped forward, so I would expect at least partial payment immediately. I've since heard absolutely nothing and obviously I've no way of hunting down the client.

A little reminder to any designers out there: When starting work with a client, get them to clearly state a deadline - in writing - (even down to the time of day), and always get somekind of financial commitment from the client before commencing work.

So...

In order to ensure that the robbing so-and-so hasn't received a unique piece of artwork for free, any Manchester City fans are welcome to download the picture above and to distribute it with no strings attached. It's my little present to you. Oh yes... and if your girlfriend gives you a framed copy of this for your birthday and claims it's a one of a kind commission, just give her a slap for me would you? Alternatively, if you do like the attached artwork, please send a quick email to elainewood24@hotmail.com thank her and say Mike says "hi".

Home of Hope

2009-10-07T23:10:00.002+01:00

"Home of Hope" is a children’s home, ten miles west of Accra, the capital city of Ghana. This school provides education for the resident children in the home and over 170 children from very poor families the surrounding villages. These children are also fed daily.

Since 2005 the ‘New Day New Life Ghana’ child sponsorship programme has supported the accommodation, feeding, education and health needs of the children under the care of Pastor Osmond Owusu in Ghana.

The attached poster is part of the package of graphic design work I created for New Day New Life Ghana this month, to help with their fund raising efforts. If you would like to know more about this fantastic cause you can click through to their website here New Day New Life Ghana

Multi-lingual designs!

2009-10-07T22:53:00.002+01:00

B.O.J. Catering approached me to design a new logo and a promotional poster. This project presented a new opportunity for me, since the poster had to be in Polish. My knowledge of the language is basic (I can understand most of a conversation) but I'm not up to spelling anything yet!

Interiors

2009-09-14T19:27:00.002+01:00

Well, I've been continuing with my sketch studies, learning how to draw people. The progress is encouraging, but I can't get at a scanner for the moment to upload examples. Instead, here are a couple of interior visuals I produced some time ago. The process was nothing new, but I quite liked the colour schemes, and a certain mate of mine helped come up with the poster slogans in the blue room :o)

cartoon illustrations

2009-09-07T19:46:00.001+01:00

Well, I'm still trying...

Comic-book-guy

2009-09-01T19:42:00.001+01:00

Having tried to create some comic-book style characters and scenes over the past week or so, I found that my understanding of the human proportions wasn't good enough to allow me to draw without references.

I spent a little time learning the proportions for a male superhero character and this was my most recent attempt at drawing a muscle-bound dude. The chest isn't right and I'm sure there are a bunch of other things that need work too, but this was produced with only a grid-background as reference.

Sketchy Sketchy

2009-08-28T19:11:00.003+01:00

I've been trying a mixture of techniques in Photoshop with the use of a pen/tablet. The combination I finally settled on today gave pretty good results for emulating a traditional hand-rendering.

Initially I planned to sketch up some concept designs for a game character during lunch-hour, then I lost interest and just went off at a tangent!

Here's a concept jet... or something. It's not even half-realised as an idea. The back end is just a fin and hence as ugly as sin. At least I developed my photoshop skills in the process.

Boing!

2009-08-24T18:58:00.003+01:00

Some photoshop artwork (produced with paths and layer styles) for a friend's little baby. This was printed at large scale as a poster for his bedroom.

If you click on the image above you can download a decent sized image for your own printing.

3D Studio rendering

2009-08-21T17:44:00.003+01:00

In the past few days I have improved my understanding of the 3D Studio Max rendering system. This is the programme I use for visualising special furniture designs and office interior schemes. Its capable of producing really impressive photo-realistic images, so its a great piece of software to work with.

Certificate

2009-08-01T00:35:00.000+01:00

Another just-for-fun piece of graphics work: A friend was organising a school-leavers party for her daughter and classmates. Caps and gowns were the order of the day, so I produced a mock-certificate to add to the theme. Its basic Photoshop styles and shapes, but it seemed to go down a treat.

Low-cost leaflet

2009-07-28T00:22:00.001+01:00

Practical Karate approached me to design a flyer for their club in Wilmslow. I went with a clean, crisp look and minimal use of colour, in order to allow the flyer to remain legible after numerous photocopies were made.

Web Design

2009-07-26T00:15:00.000+01:00

I'm currently producing a new website for the Dean Row School of Dancing. The original site was essentially a place-holder that went live about 2 years ago. Now the school's principal requires a more fully-featured site including a photo album of the stage shows they performed over the last 20 years or so. Here's a screengrab of the work-in-progress:

Invitation

2009-07-20T00:30:00.000+01:00

Here's the design draft for an invitation to a theme night.

It was sent as a PDF to Architects and Interiors Contractors. I would have preferred to finish it off with some gothic scroll-work but time was tight.

Comicbook Art

2009-07-13T00:42:00.000+01:00

I created this comicbook-style piece from a sketch scanned into Photoshop and coloured up in layers with a Genius digital tablet. The tablet was dirt-cheap at about £20.00 and its a fantastic tool for work of this type. I was so impressed with it I went and bought a second one for my Dad for his birthday gift... and then a third just for myself incase my first one broke!