Zoom Raleigh Opening

Click here to see ZOOMRaleigh!

Come check out ZoomRaleigh in downtown Raleigh, near the Raleigh Times at the corner of Fayetteville and Hargett streets. Open now and until December 31, 2009.

For ZoomRaleigh, I made all the 3D elements. I modeled the buildings and did the animations in Maya 2009. After completing a true to landscape model of downtown Raleigh, I made camera animations that circled the city. I then passed these along to the other awesome people who worked on the project, Melissa Church and Lee Cherry, who did the interactive elements and coding. Our art director for all of this was Patrick Fitzgerald, who oversees the Advanced Media Lab of North Carolina State University.

Check out one of the camera "zooms" below:

Final Look Test from Stacie McGowan on Vimeo.

Advanced Media Lab

More about the project:

Zoom Raleigh is a rich interactive interface that has been installed in the window of the Urban Design Center right on Fayetteville Street. Further refining and developing 3D interfaces for exploring urban spaces. This project is the culmination of that work along with the refinement of large touch-screen interfaces.

Zoom Raleigh is co-sponsored by the Raleigh City Museum, City of Raleigh Planning Department, American Image Graphics, and Empire Properties.

Zoom Raleigh has incorporated multi-media montages, archival materials, historic photos, and interviews with Raleigh leaders like Greg Hatem. The result is a massive interactive screen that sits behind glass that entices passers-by to reach out and play with the interface. Part art, and part technical feat, the work both educates the public and reinforces the technology culture of Raleigh.

Zoom Raleigh as a 3D interactive digital installation allows viewers to interact with digital media related to the history of the arts, architecture and culture of Raleigh, NC. Featuring an interactive 3D visualization of downtown Raleigh, viewers can manipulate the digital model by rotating the city itself, selecting buildings of interest and interacting with narrated slideshows of historical photographs and text specific to selected sites.

Exploiting experimental touch and hand gesture recognition technology developed by students and staff a the Advanced Media Lab at NC State University, College of Design, this system utilizes camera recognition, back screen projection and large-scale store-front windows as display screens. Zoom Raleigh represents a new generation in inexpensive human/computer interaction platforms that can be operated in interior/exterior urban environments.

Show Reel 2009

Show Reel 2009 from Stacie McGowan on Vimeo.

My fresh demo reel for July 2009.

Caveball!

Caveball! from Stacie McGowan on Vimeo.

My newest animation. Made from scratch over one month. All modeling and animations by me. Rigged characters from J. Baskin at 3dcentral.com, though modified in appearance.

Sock Gnomes from Stacie McGowan on Vimeo.

A project from my current animation class.


Block Animations from Stacie McGowan on Vimeo.

Animation Exercises from NCSU.



Kriplyana from Stacie McGowan on Vimeo.

Kriplyana is the Eskimo word for blue snow at sunrise.


Fly Away from Stacie McGowan on Vimeo.

My senior film from Savannah College of Art and Design.
"A girl who longs to "fly away" from the drudgery of everyday life has to make a decision to take a leap of faith or stay trapped in her life forever."

Life Drawings

Two minute/ three minute poses. Made on tablet PC.






Five minute gestures.

Flash Experiments

This is from the Fall of 2008, I was experimenting with one of my simple characters in Flash and making a seamless background that could go on forever. I just like the colors, even it is just a simple walk cycle. This is from a larger interactive Flash project in which I made a "book" that read to the user and could teach words with sounds and animations.

Final Project

Here is my final Match Moving piece. It was made using PFTrack, Maya, Final Cut, and After Effects and Premiere for compositing.

Camera Tracking and Match Moving

I've been learning lots of new software and camera stuff. Here is my first camera tracking with footage we recorded and then tracked in PF Track. We then imported it into MAYA and added our CG elements into the match move. It was a lot to learn and we had to do it quick and make three this week. My shadow pass didn't render properly for this one, but it's my best one where the CG doesn't slide any. I have another one I need to correct because I forgot to lock it, and I'll post it when I get the chance to fix it, because these things are cool!

Ball Bounce

In my animation studio we had to make a ball rig and do some ball bounces. This is mine. It was fun coming up with the stuff and then making a squishy rig.

Fat Cowboys With Wiggly Arms

Well, I keep messing around with this and I'm not really making any more progress really, so I thought I'd share this. It's one of my first attempts at a more painterly style, usually I like outlines and fills.

This is my most recent lighting project from Digital Lighting and Rendering. We had to light a still life we were given, though I added the walls and tablecloth. I'm happy with this image overall, the composition turned out well and the lighting is impressionistic like I wanted.

It's Here!!

(image from Jerry's Blog)

Well, its finally out! The new Planet Heroes episode with some of my shots is online. I had an awesome time interning at Fisher-Price, mostly thanks to the wonderful guys I worked with. They did an awesome job on everything and it turned out so cool because of them. Great job!

Here is the link to view the trailer/ full episode
Here Comes the Sun!

Dog Run

So here is the final for my run cycle of a four legged animal. I'm fairly happy with the way it turned out, though I wish the feet had more options for control.

Great Dane Run Cycle

So I decided to block in some animation tonight for my quad run cycle. I've been animating from the side view, which looks pretty good, but any other angle is looking wonky. I want to do a camera turn around, so I need to clean it up. Or maybe I'll do two versions instead. His face has no controls, so I can't help that. Overall, I'm happy with two hours of blocking.

Lip Sync

Since I can't show any of my lip syncs or animations from my internship for another few months, I've been making new animations to compensate for my demo reel. This is my lip sync test so far. The Moom Rig is from High End 3D, I just animated it. He's really good, except some of his mouth shapes leave me wanting a better "L" and "O" and more of a width control for his mouth spread. Enjoy. I'm still working on it.

Final Flash Animation

My final flash animation I made for class. I like the way it turned out overall, but of course I'd always like to change things after they're done! Mine from concept to finish.

My First Project in Flash

Flora Textured

The current status of my main character, Flora. I've started texturing my UVMaps in Photoshop.

3D Model

High Res version of my main character for my senior film.

Zoo Day!

So I went to the Atlanta Zoo today. There were so many people I could only get a few gesture drawings in.

I got to sit with the gorillas for a long time. It was a very busy exhibit. I got a lot of gesture drawing in, though none more than a minute or so.

Character Design: Ruby May Maquette

Maquette of Ruby. I can't seem to get a good photo of the maquette after numerous tries. This is the best shot. She was modeled on an armature I made and sculpted using Super Sculpy. Hand painted. The pearls and fuzz on the slippers were store bought. Otherwise I made it.

Character Design: Ruby May

Meet Ruby May! Ruby is a kinda cranky old gal, but has a good heart. Her pet cats live in her large amount of hair, which is her pride and joy.

Character Design

Ruby May's side view.

Character Design

Ruby May's pet cats.

Pumpkin Model

A project from Fall 2006. I modeled the entire scene. Some file textures (such as candy labels) were found on the internet.