A little something I’ve been working at Tribe. I created the 3D visuals from sketches my colleague Stuart made. Check out the ROI document here.

Went on search the other day to see if there was an alternative to 3Ds max’s physics system, Reactor. I soon came across Physx from Nvidia. Its currently still in public beta which means you can download it for free once you sign up to the nvida developer zone (You can also Google the links).

Once I installed it I soon realised that this was 10x better than Reactor. With out looking at and instructions I managed to work my way round the controls in no time (its that intuitive to use). After a bit of practice and looking at some of the example scenes they provide, I was soon creating some pretty interesting things.

The best thing about this program is the ability to play the simulation real time in the view port. This is something you could only dream of doing with Reactor. Because its so quick to view the simulation it means you can play around with different things and see the results almost straight away.

For my first experiment I’ve taken my new logo, divided it up in to small sections and dropped it through this pinball style course..

I have quite a few ideas I want to try out so keep tuned for more

So I’ve been meaning to update the old DigitalAnthill look since I started my new job.. that was 8 months ago now! I finally had a weekend where I was free and it was raining so I was encouraged to stay indoors. This was a perfect opportunity to get the job done. Alex was about too so I asked for his help in designing a logo and identity for me. First we went through various fonts trying to find one which was suitable. At first we chose neue Helvetica and Alex played around with the position of the text until he came up with the current look.

Helvetica looked good but I didn’t really want it, so we looked some more. Finally came across Code Pro. I loved it as first sight, so we did a quick mock up and it worked perfectly. I decided I might as well purchase it. Got the full font family for £30. Not a bad deal I think.

We then continued to fiddle with the poisoning till it looked sweet. It was looking slightly off balance next to the top right L so we stuck in a ® for good measure. Yes I know DigitalAnthill is not a registered trade mark but hey it looks cool, so what ever. If anyone asks, it stands for Rob

Click more to see how I created the 3D Logo..

Once the flat vector was finished, I could then import it in to 3Dsmax. With a bit of extrusion and edge chamfering I had my 3D model. I set up a vRay scene and played around with different angels until I got the desired look.

Here vRay is doing its thing..

Below is the final high res render of the new logo.

Here’s another example of a slightly different idea for the logo..

For the footer I created my very own digital anthill, it has a minecraft feel about it. I think the digital cube thing is going to be my new mark..

Once I had the 3D renders I then used Photoshop to lay out the the new blog.

With a bit of help from Greg, my house mate, we managed to get the new theme up and running.

Below is the portfolio section of the new site. I’m pretty pleased with the clean and clear look.

For the record here’s how the old site used to look, quite different to say the least..

I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out. I now finally have a logo and font that I can use through out my work from now on. There nothing like consistency

Let me know what you think..

Tribe Brand Communication Showreel 2011 from Tribe Brand Communication on Vimeo.

So I’ve been a busy bee the past 3 months, working on the tribe showreel. It’s finally complete and released into the wild..

I’m putting together a how it was made post soon..

The first stand is based on three different styles you might find in home, Modern, Classic and a Hall Way. Tracey gave me a rough idea of what she wanted in each section. It was my job to create the furniture to match the style. This was the first time I’ve modelled chairs like this. I was a little apprehensive at first to whether I could do it. I nearly decided to just down load some chairs of the net. But I carried on and cracked it in the end. I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out.. They’re not perfect and improvements could be made on the texturing but I just didn’t have the time to tweak them any further…

Below are some renders with the chairs in place. Over all I’m happy with the results.

Click MORE below to see more renders..

Below is the other model I created. Not as complex as the above one but complete none the less.

I have noticed again a huge improvement in the speed en-which I can produce a piece of work like this, which is a good thing because today I was under a great deal of stress to get this finished by the evening. With out the practice and time spent learning as many short cuts as possible I know it would have taken me a lot longer!

Any questions just comment below..