00:00
00:00
zayJax
certified three dimensional menace
contact: zayjax3d@gmail.com
pfp by https://twitter.com/mambocarmo

Age 18, Male

3D Artist / Animator

Planet Earth

Joined on 3/11/20

Level:
29
Exp Points:
9,155 / 9,340
Exp Rank:
3,808
Vote Power:
7.08 votes
Art Scouts
2
Rank:
Town Watch
Global Rank:
56,502
Blams:
12
Saves:
128
B/P Bonus:
2%
Whistle:
Normal
Trophies:
5
Medals:
61

zayJax's News

Posted by zayJax - December 31st, 2023


2023 was quite the eventful year compared to practically....... uh........ every other year in my life? i think?

So much stuff happened so it's best to start at the beginning.


December 2022!


REREDEEMER is in a terrible spot. The thing has been in production since February and i only have 2 and a half scenes done? That's fucked! Especially since i made the incredibly wise decision of dropping a Sneak Peek of sorts on Madness Day 2022. It ain't easy doing a full animation while trying to balance school and other projects. So as a "New Year Goal Type Thing", i decided that once the year was over, i would sit my ass down and finish this animation once and for all.


And fresh out of graduation, The next 5 months of my life began.


From January to May.

The Non Stop Balls To The Wall All Shits Given Grindathon Began with me animating the remaining frames. Which took only from January to February.

That's right. HALF of reREDEEMER was animated on just two months!


iu_1138293_7898514.png


In March i took a tiny little break to do other projects, most notably i got invited to be a part of the Duke Nukem Forever 2001 Restoration Project in early January, as an animator. Haven't done a lot of animation due to custom rigs and animations not being supported at that moment in time, but i did contribute by doing some props, and most notably, making a model of a major boss, the Praetorian Snatcher, seen here. Aside from that, once i finished those Pizza Tower renders, i was back on the reREDEEMER grind. Doing bullet casings, muzzleflashes and the sort.


A friend wanted to help with the blood splatters and had an idea that sounded great on paper. Animating frame-by-frame every single blood splatter with Blender's Grease Pencil! What could go wrong? The few examples they sent me were fantastic but it was clear that we would not make it out on time if we continued with the idea. So to the Google we go! Awez made some pretty chunky blood splatters and i proceeded to not make them justice because i made them too damn small.

But there was blood! At least...


iu_1138295_7898514.webp

iu_1138294_7898514.webp


SFX was finished in 3 days. Don't have a lot to say about it other than i will use Kosmos' Mega Sound Pack until the day i drop dead.


iu_1138296_7898514.webp


Rendering was a big problem that almost killed the project. You see, said friend had an insanely powerful graphics card. I could do raytracing! But once they dropped the whole animating blood thing, irl stuff kept popping up, and they had to leave the project. Which is completely fair, i'm not gonna force anyone to do work they can't handle.


So i'm sitting here, no RTX card to assist me. Do i tweak the shading of EVERY SINGLE SCENE so i can render it on Eevee or do i just brute-force my way through Cycles? Guess which one i chose.


The main laptop i used was unavailable during the last week of production so i had to throw large boulders at Scientist once again for rendering assistance. And by rendering assistance, of course, i mean "hey can you render over 3500+ frames of animation in Cycles with your not-RTX-card?" He agreed. And he's pretty much the only reason reREDEEMER crossed the finish line.

But that also explains why the final project looks so... noisy. Especially the elevator scene good lord that looks like hot garbage. I had to lower the sample count a LOT. And i did some questionable compositing choices that made it even more noticeable.


Notice how i've been JUST talking about reREDEEMER? Well that's how my life was from January to May so it's accurate.


So.

reREDEEMER has officially released at the night to an unsuspecting public on Pico Day at midnight. And of course, i'm scared as shit. What if they don't like it? What if i missed a scene? What if there's a mistake animation-wise? I even had nightmares about the possible negative reception. That's what spending 14 months in a project does to a man.


But, fortunately, it got an insanely positive reception, one that i'm still grateful to this day. But one question remains.


What the hell did i do between reREDEEMER's release and the Pico Day winner announcement? Because keep in mind i no longer had a good laptop to do stuff. Sure, i could make a simple render like the Annie one but that was it for me. Just crossing my fingers hoping SOMETHING would happen. Aside from my dad occasionally bringing different work laptops that could kinda handle my projects.


And SOMETHING did happen oh my god. I still don't understand HOW or WHY, but it did happen!


Treasure Hunt 2023, Pico Day 2023, and Best of May 2023. All competitions with my stupid ass name at the top. This plus some extra commission work gave me the funds i needed to buy myself a GOOD PC. Scratch that, an EXCELLENT PC.

What you have to understand is that all of my work was powered by an Intel iGPU from 2016. It was bad.


Parts arrived Early August but that was it. It was time to go NUTS.


Showdown was the first thing i released that was made from scratch on my new PC. Hopefully it showed what i'm capable of with ACTUAL HARDWARE.

Everything rendered in Cycles with barely any splotchy visuals. (looking at you reREDEEMER)


And after all that........ It was quiet. And for good reason.

I was finally at peace. Achieving a childhood dream. Doing my funny art with barely any limitations. Running any game i wanted at 1080p max settings. Beautiful.


Then i opened commissions, didn't get a lot of clients, but a BIG highlight was Coda, who wanted to use my TADC models, but they were uhhh kinda garbage if i'm being honest.

iu_1138297_7898514.webp

Rough Pomni model/rig with mishapen hands and eyes so i could do some funny cheating to the camera.


So, with no experience doing advanced rigs, i said yes!. I had never used any advanced rigging tools, so it was a very good learning experience having to re-rig all 7 characters, plus Bubble for good measure.


iu_1138298_7898514.webp

The current Pomni rig. Much better looking! And much more complex.


And also the rigs are good as hell on their own. You can see what they're capable of here:




And.... yeah. That's basically all that happened this year..... If you exclude my insane ability to never release any animations i say i'm gonna release.


That's something i noticed this year. I HAVE to keep my mouth shut about upcoming projects because they're almost never finished.


Remember that Joel animation i was doing after reREDEEMER?

Remember that Madness Day 2023 animation?


Yeah. No more promises like that in 2024 and beyond. I work better when i shut my mouth and show stuff publicly when it's almost done.


And if there was one word to describe this whole year. It would be Exhausting. I'm tired, believe it or not.


A lot happened irl that i won't get into because this'll turn into a big vent post and i don't want that, but i'm just Tired. And i can't exactly take a break due to my current circumstances. I've been doing nothing but crunching projects all year. Will it get better? If this year has shown me anything is that it WILL get better. It always does. But for the time being, i'm in the grinder. 


See you all in 2024!


Tags:

3

Posted by zayJax - December 30th, 2023


Another zayJax has been spotted in the wild. Wanted for 50 dollars for such crimes as: "Making Semi-Accurate TADC Rigs", "Camping in PvZ:GW2 as Cactus" and "Littering". Stop this madman at all costs.



Tags:

3

Posted by zayJax - November 26th, 2023


But where oh where you may ask? Aren't i seeing him right before my very eyes? Yes! You are! But you haven't seen THIS one!



That's right! Coda approached me to use my TADC models for an upcoming project of his, and this being such an insane opportunity, i said yes! (Ignoring the fact that the original models were held together by duct tape and gorilla glue, so i completely re-rigged them, so now they're pretty damn good by zayjax rig standards)


Go check out the video! NOW.


Tags:

8

Posted by zayJax - October 18th, 2023


mr retro said so


16

Posted by zayJax - September 24th, 2023


iu_1086074_7898514.webp

is this real


Tags:

20

Posted by zayJax - September 22nd, 2023


Greetings! As you may know, it's currently Madness Day, you may notice that because there is a hyper-realistic Hank and Jebus in the banner. I was originally gonna do a funny lil cartoon to celebrate, but due to time constraints, lack of motivation, and a struggle to balance other projects, it got shoved aside. Maybe i'll finish it next year, maybe not. But i can't just leave you all empty handed! So have what little i did, rendered in solid view, so no fancy PBR materials or raytraced lighting.


https://youtu.be/0PY8ysS4LEo


If i had fully rendered it, it would have looked like this:

iu_1083697_7898514.webpiu_1083698_7898514.webp


7

Posted by zayJax - August 16th, 2023


Hey! You can get yourself a 3D guy, static, or in motion, for a price? What's the price? Check out the image!

Or better yet, look at this link for more details: https://www.newgrounds.com/collab/view/15949iu_1053130_7898514.webp


Tags:

Posted by zayJax - August 4th, 2023


Well, you may have noticed about 2 months ago in the Pico Day Winner comments that i said and i quote:


I'm gonna keep saving up until i can afford the parts that will power a pc that can truly handle my stuff.


That day has finally arrived! Or it was about a month ago, thanks to a couple of commissions and some extra money from the Best of May (thank you!).


It took a strangely long time for the parts to actually ship to where i live, and i had to go to some PC shop to pick up the parts, which was lame because the car ride back home was filled with traffic and that's not something you want to do to a teenager that has used an Intel Celeron n3050 powered laptop for over 6 years.

BUT! It is here, built by me (and my dad.... my dad did most of the heavy lifting now that i think about it), I present to you; the fruits of my labor, something that couldn't have happened without your support, the END of me using shitty laptops and other people's devices to get stuff done!


featuring: slightly okay cable management and obnoxiously bright B's (i like em so it's okay)

iu_1041815_7898514.webpiu_1041816_7898514.webp


Looks kinda neat i think

And the only thing to really heat the PC up was rendering (obviously) and flying really fast in a singleplayer minecraft world with 20 chunks render distance


But, let's get out of the way and focus on the real meat: PROJECTS N STUFF!


The ZAP-BOT & ROX render ended up being way more fitting for my final render on my dad's GTX 1050 laptop compared to the Annie render i did back in June. Because it struggled HARD to render the damn thing, a little too much compositing and displacements made it feel like i couldn't expand my abilities as much as i wanted to. Like, if i can't render this, how would my future animations be limited?

But it was insanely funny that A DAY LATER after the render was posted i got told that the PC did arrive.


The Joel animation i teased back in May is still in development, but i got sidetracked with the ZB/ROX redesigns and other projects. Whoops! At least i have some good ass models i can make some new animations with.


Speaking of which, you think i'm just gonna use those models for a single render? Two renders? Nah! An animation would be more fitting. I'm tired of these guys just looking badass they gotta MOVE!

This one is ACTUALLY gonna be short and IT WON'T take too long to make. It's mostly an experiment to see how should i tackle animations rendered in Cycles.


Then i'll do a render promoting my commissions once again, but this time the full-body prices will be altered since the old ones no longer represent what i'm capable of.

Head/PFP and Simple Asset prices will remain the same though. I just gotta make something that is a bit more eyecatching. They are still open, but there's no fancy render to promote them.... for now.


ALSO i'm probably gonna remaster reREDEEMER if i have literally nothing to do and i haven't done anything for Madness Day 2023.

Just a bump to 4K, making some darker areas brighter, and fixing that overall "blotchiness" present during the entire thing due to the low sample count. Just a bunch of wee little fixes, won't be as noticeable as the Dance Party update i did a year ago.


ALSO ALSO thanks for 990 followers holy shit

i have more in newgrounds compared to twitter which is funny to think about


Tags:

9

Posted by zayJax - May 21st, 2023


So. reREDEEMER has been out for two weeks, it has gotten a lot of praise (thank you!), and hell, it might even win this year's Pico Day! Who knows? But i can't just sit back and relax! My ape brain doesn't work like that! So i'd like to answer the question that someone probably wants to know:

What's Next?


Some folks have been suggesting MORE madness remakes! Which to that i say.... no.

Animating nothing but Madness Remakes for a year straight gets tiring, (reREDEEMER started production a week after DANCE PARTY!) I will certainly do one last remake, but that one has to be special since it's one of my favorites, and i want to give that one the best possible treatment it can recieve, so i won't start production until i have done a couple more original projects and have cleared my mind and improved my animation skills.


BUT, an original 3D Madness project is something i'll definetively do one day, i have many ideas on how it should play out but it'll probably be released in a future Madness Day, but not now.


As for what i'm doing right now, here's a little peek! Yes it's a Joel animation, every animator has animated a segment of his streams and/or songs at some point in their lives, don't lie to yourself.


This one will be over a minute long so hopefully i don't take too long making it.

Hopefully.

Hopefully.


iu_976589_7898514.webp


5

Posted by zayJax - May 7th, 2023


iu_966258_7898514.jpg


7