3D Artist/Editor
MIBAAVR
After over a decade working in VFX, my interest in real-time graphics has increased dramatically. Video games have come so far with current graphics card technology and Virtual Reality has produced some really cool titles. Since I've had some time off during the pandemic, I thought I'd brush up on some of my modeling skills and learn some new applications/procedures- specifically Substance Painter, ZBrush, Arnold, Unreal Engine and Unity.
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Men In Black: Alien Attack is my absolute favorite theme park ride (I ride it at least 5-10 times/day during my visits to the park and I'm a member of the MIB 900 Club on Facebook). Every time I've strolled through the queue I've often thought how cool it would be to build a CG model of it. Then early in 2020 I was convinced to purchase an Oculus Quest and thought that creating a VR version would be even better!
For this project, I've focused on a queue walkthrough and a playable Training Range (still in development!). It's been a fantastic learning experience thus far. Pretty much the entire queue is constructed and imported into Unreal and I have also tried a few tests in Unity. Eventually I'd love to complete the entire attraction with realistic scoring! There still is a lot of detail to be added and tweaks to be made, but these images display where the project currently sits.
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All assets were modeled in Maya. Textures with Substance Painter and Photoshop/Illustrator. Materials and lighting in Unreal Engine 4.
WESTGATE THEATER
In 1977 I first saw Star Wars as a 6-year-old at the Westgate Theater in Beaverton, Oregon. Back in that time, it was one of the only auditoriums with 70mm projection and Dolby Sound in the Pacific Northwest and the Westgate was the home of one of the longest first runs of Star Wars, lasting over a year in the main auditorium before finally being bumped by Superman: The Movie.
The theater itself had a huge, curved screen, and about 1100 plush seats. It was always my favorite theater growing up and I even worked there for a summer before I went to college. Unfortunately the Westgate was remodeled in 1992, going from three to five screens. It was later closed and demolished in the early 2000s.
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After viewing many movies on the Quest headsets using Bigscreen Beta and Skybox, I've set out to create a theater environment that replicates the original as best I can. Unfortunately I've only been able to find a few pictures of the auditorium itself, but I was able to obtain building plans for it and it's sibling, the Eastgate.
