Hi, y’all!
This is Hanwen Xu. I am a senior in IMGD Art. I am from Shenzhen China, and Chinese is my first language.
Again, I am an art major, and I plan to be a technical artist in the future. Art is not only my passion but also what I will probably end up doing for a living. So art is a pretty huge part of my life, and I absolutely hate it and love it more at the same time.
I started drawing at a very young age. I used to paint a lot and wanted to be an illustrator, but later on, I realized drawing and painting were not for me.
Since drawing was too hard and I wanted to keep making art, plus I like video games, I decided why not make some digital art assets for video games? And this is where it all started. I applied and studied IMGD BA as my major, and throughout the last three years, I have investigated different aspects of the video game art pipeline. I have done a little bit of everything, and here are some of them:
A Maya 3D animation practice I did earlier this year:
Character rigging:
And on my Junior year, I did an ISP on Houdini. A procedural digital content creation software. I was interested in technical art, but my ISP in Houdini made technical art a part of me.
A short physics-based animation done in Houdini
Some PBR materials I made in Houdini:
I am currently working on a Houdini project for a barrio house generator that will be a part of my MQP.
As you can see, the magic of Houdini is its procedural nature. If you finish a model, everything is easily adjustable. If you follow a certain way while modeling, you can promote some parameters and make 200 more of the same thing, which looks different, just by changing the parameters. I can talk about Houdini for a whole day, the message is I like it, and it is my strength as a technical artist.
Aside from 3D stuff, I also make actual art, such as 2D animation and interactive electronic art (shoutout to IMGD 3200).
That was a whole lotta video. And I hope you enjoy them 🙂
I draw a lot of inspiration from Japanese video games, especially older ones. Not only did I grow up surrounded by them, but also there is something in their art styles that intrigues me a lot.
After accidentally playing Silent Hills as a child, I became a huge fan of horror games. My personal favorite is a game called SIREN. It is directed by Keiichiro Toyama, who directed the very first Silent Hills game and proceeded to direct the famous Gravity Rush series.
I am inspired by the general art style, story, and enemy designs of SIREN a lot, but I will not put any pictures of them here (they are disturbing).
Badge: Shiny
There are a lot of really cool effects and textures shown here! The explosions especially were really impressive, and your texturing is super sleek and shiny.
Badge: Impressive
Holy lord all of your stuff is astounding!! I loved all of it and just sat here in awe as I looked at it!!
Badge: shiny
From your impressive texture work to your clean physics animation work, your work is very crisp and shiny.
badge: dark
the last video with the tv static was really spooky and surreal. What class was it for?
Badge: impressive
Your entire portfolio is so impressive and I honestly can’t even tell where your strengths/weaknesses lie because all of it is so good! You have a really diverse set of skills. I’m also blown away by your character rig but maybe that’s just because I can’t stand doing technical art myself and nothing I’ve been able to make was even as close to as good as yours.
Badge- impressive. The work on all those 3D models and effects is something that, as a primarily 2D artist, blows my mind.
You got the funny badge! It was your animations that stood out to me, both the 2D animation and the 3D animations in the Makey Makey project. I loved the talking mug, and I loved the newscaster in front of the Dunkin.
Dark
I like the fact that both Silent Hill and Toyama’s works are big sources of inspiration since Silent Hill 2 is personally my favorite Silent Hill game, and the vibes of the last animation managed to express the right amount of subtle horror that Silent Hill is famous for.
Badge: Shiny
The 3D models are well polished, and well made. I love the metallic sheen to the hammer sketch as well.
Badge: Inventive
That explosion effect looks very nice! Your texturing is very sleek and your animations are very smooth!
Impressive – The effects you’ve made are really impressive! Your work in Houdini is awesome, both artistically and technically.
Badge: Shiny
Explanation: Wow, the hammer and PBR materials are quite literally so shiny, I love them!! I love those textures, they’re so aesthetically pleasing!
Badge: Impressive, Shiny
Both your 2D and 3D art are impressively detailed, and your 3D assets are very reflective.
Badge: Familiar/Impressive
I had seen your work with Houdini for making Barrio houses at Protofest and was very impressed with what you have accomplished with it. Can’t wait to see what your MQP looks like once it is filled with houses generated by this.