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Niko Mäkelä's
online portfolio since 2004
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Work in Progress | 2D | 3D | Animations
Multimedia | Documents | Author | Guestbook

19.8.2008

Updated the Gmax Help-document. It is indexed too.

7.8.2008

Many things going on as usual. Something I can show is a modeling timelapse in anim-section. Watch me build a head :)

25.7.2008

Ultima 6 Project, our freeware game, has reached Milestone 5, which expands the playable world and story. Feel free to download and play. You will need Dungeon Siege(few euro in a store) to run it, though. U6P has had me for 3D models, characters, animation and more since Jan 2006.

17.7.2008

A little update: Added some links to Documents and one image to Work in progress.

1.7.2008

A bran new Sleepyghost! Website is rebuilt as a sunnier version - just like I hope this summer will turn out to be.

Added several images to galleries, go browse. Also there's a new section called Documents where you'll find little docs(currently on Gmax) I've written (and links coming soon).

25.6.2008

Well, spring came(=rush) and the web-update didn't. I'm working on it: A new look and feel for this website is coming, maybe this month.
For now only added one image, my final entry in Cgchallenge.

5.5.2008

Lots of things done for the movie project, little to show. I wait for others to finish their part on some effects so I can show you the final ones. For now just added one image the to WIP.
I'm taking part in Cgchallenge competition. Life intervened so I might not be able to finish in time, we'll see. Added one image to WIP. See more here: Uplift Universe entry.

Plan is to update more about the competition and something else later this month.

24.2.2008

Hello there. Update is just this: Our movie making team's website, Guiding Light Flicks, is up and running. See www.glflicks.com
There's some pictures and info about us. More is due to come a bit later.

Gallery - Work In Progress

Recent bits and pieces and one long project

Click images to open.
Mouse-navigate with overlay buttons or use keyboard arrow-keys. Click "X" or hit ESC to close.

WIP is recent. My animation project is an exception, a very long venture - has both recent samples and others years old(from numerous storylines).

Gallery - 2D

Illustrations and things alike

Click images to open.
Mouse-navigate with overlay buttons or use keyboard arrow-keys. Click "X" or hit ESC to close.

I make illustrations for various uses with mixed technigues. These images go, from the top, from somewhat recent to the old.

Gallery - 3D

Models and scenes mostly

Click images to open.
Mouse-navigate with overlay buttons or use keyboard arrow-keys. Click "X" or hit ESC to close.
If image-animations don't play, close images and refresh the page.

3D is my 'main thing' if I have to name one. Goes from low-polygon game work to high-poly everything else. Strongest areas are probably modeling and animation. I enjoy characters the most, colour-play comes good second.

Images presented here go (roughly) from new on the top to old at the bottom.

If Ultima 6 Project (many images present here) got your interest, check the site to see more.

Gallery - Animations

Little clips

Right-click picture and "save file as".
Head timelapse, AVI H.264 codec Character project - modeling timelapse
  • 5 min 32 seconds, 800x412 pixels, 12,6MB, AVI H.264 codec
  • music/sound: none
  • Character Project where I record some working stages. First made the base head (for future modeling and displacement). Video is a timelapse of modeling the head: 1h 25min. compressed to 5+ minutes.
    Process is a bit loose, could be shortened to one hour. I recorded in several clips to keep them in reasonable size. All are combined in this video. Each clip has a time-counter so you can observe real time taken for each step.
Fisherman's Friend, demo, AVI and MP4 MP4-video file AVI-video file Fisherman's Friend character & animations, 2007, made for RNO Finland.
  • 16 seconds, 960x620 pixels, 1MB, AVI and MP4 available
  • music/sound: none
  • Collection of these animations was at http://www.fishermansfriend.fi/kisa/, but no longer. I can provide more samples at request.
Spock dancing, 2007, rough and quick test, low-poly.
Anim reel, 2006, old clips.
Dinofaces, 2004, brief demo.
  • 24 seconds, 640x480 pixels, 2,2MB, AVI(DivX 4)
  • music/sound: none

Gallery - Multimedia

Graphics for interactive projects

Click images to open.
Mouse-navigate with overlay buttons or use keyboard arrow-keys. Click "X" or hit ESC to close.

I have studied and done multimedia in many forms, two cd-rom productions being the most notable. There my role was creating all visuals. 'Maqamia'(2001) in this gallery shows some of my first steps in 3D.

Documents

Docs and links

Docs : Gmax and Ultima 6 Project
Sometimes I write little quides on creating 3D with Gmax for our game team. Lately I've collected them into 2 PDF-documents. One has general tips on making 3D for games with Gmax, the other focuses on texturing/UV-mapping characters in Gmax. Please note that these were not originally written for everybody.

Use the documents at your own risk and where you want, but if you borrow please credit me as the source, thank you.
I will update at least the general 'guide' occasionally so it gets better with time. And I will try to keep these available for some time. I hope the docs are of use to you.

3d_help_gmax.pdf
PDF, 670kb. ver. 1.7.

character_mapping_gmax.pdf
PDF, 558k. ver. 1.0.
Links : Inspiration
Anfinnsen, Arild
Baysal, Timur (Taron)
Bergkvist, Linda
Blanché, Pascal
Bouvier, Nicolas
Bruckner, Jean-Francois
Church, Ryan
Coffin, Pierre
Cortina, Francisco
Dusso, Yanick
Ferrand, Nicolas
Hyung-tae, Kim
Marquis, Xavier
Mullins, Craig
Stahlberg, Steven
Van Der Byl, Leigh

Author

Niko Mäkelä



Animator, illustrator, 3D generalist and a friendly fellow, Niko Mäkelä creates for the digital world and focuses on the illustrative, interactive(game or multimedia) and motion side of things - speciality is 3D. Work experience in mentioned is 4-5 full years now.
Skill Set
  • 3D: modeling, texturing, lighting and animation
  • 2D: illustration, print-work, web(graphics rather than code), video editing and more
  • Multimedia: Mixing all of the above. Have experience in making art for learning media and games.
Tools (currently favoured but not limited to)
  • Photoshop
  • Modo, Lightwave, Gmax
  • Flash
  • Video Vegas
Milestones
  • Barchelor of Arts (326op / 326ects, major: Cultural Anthropology), 2006, Jyväskylä University, Finland. Degree is bloated with extra like Multimedia(BA equivalent), Visual Communication, Journalistics, languages, Computer Science and Literature.
  • Animation Production diploma programme (Tampere Polytecnic)
  • Multimedia and Digital Animation (Cumbria Institute of the Arts, UK, 2002)
  • 2 Multimedia productions (all graphisc & design, 2D and 3D, animation, interface..). Productions are learning media about music and music culture.
  • 3D Generalist in Ultima 6 Project computer game since 2006
    • (3D-items, structures, characters and animation + 2D-items and interface-elements)
  • Lead 3D Artist in movies:
    Finaali(short, coming 2008) and And White Was the Night(feature, coming 2009)
Work Interests
I'm happy creating both still images and animation. Very interested in creating characters (and character animation). Something else on your mind? Just ask.