Who is Nelson Hurst?

I am just the average guy that loves to animate, draw, and create custom software. I’m a self-taught artist and computer animator. It all started a long time ago. Since I can remember I’ve always love to draw and make comic books. In 1990, I started taking the comic book penciling career seriously, going to comic book conventions, submitting art to Marvel and DC Comics and Penciling Comic Books for local publishers.

I remember back then Comic Books sold millions of copies were the Big Thing;  Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Joe Madureira, Greg Capullo, and Jason Pearson… I was totally obsessed about becoming a comic book artist like these guys. Until 1993, the year I met “Anime”, at a Comic Book Convention. Not the kiddie anime stuff, the anime that “Mad House Anime Studio” created with blood, profanity and rated R type nudity. At the time the most Violent Animation I’d seen was animation cuts from the Movie CreepShow 2, and a few G.I. Joe episodes. That Anime was called, Jubei Ninpucho: The Wind Ninja Chronicles, You may know it by different name, Ninja Scroll.

At that very moment, I really wanted to be an animator, not because of the money, but because I had stories to tell just like Ninja Scroll, but figured everyone would find stuff like that too violent. The fact is, as scary as it may seem, most people find fictional violence very entertaining. Especially with a story that makes the violence more agreeable. I became an anime fanatic; it even started to show in my illustrations and personal comics.

1998 was the year I received my first computer, 400 MHz Pentium 2, 256 Megs of ram with a 6 Gig Hard Drive (High-End stuff for 1998). The following year, I decided to go back to college for Computer Science; hence my love for programming was born.

I was ready to become an animator, but had no idea where to start. I first started with gif animation, and then later found out about Macromedia Flash 4. It was awesome. I could animate, add sounds, add music and make it interactive too.

ShockAnime!

I was very impressed with what Shockwave Flash was capable of. I was addicted to Anime Movies. Enter ShockAnime, Shockwave Anime Entertainment. It was time to create my own anime style movies. ShockAnime was the named I carried on many forums, including one of the popular ones back then FlashKit.com, where I was a moderator. The plan was simple, learn the tools, make a short film, learn from my mistakes, and make another short film, and another, and so forth. Well I mastered the tools, made the short film “Genryu’s Blade”, but it stopped there. Genryu’s Blade was a blessing and a curse.

After it was finally released in 2000, I was approached by several media companies, book publishers, and software companies. Even Macromedia, (the company currently known as Adobe), contacted me to licensed the source files. Genryu’s Blade became an instant classic, and created hundreds of freelance jobs for me.

However, once you become a freelance animator, web-designer, and artist you pretty much eliminate all of your free time. I started on the Sequel to Genryu’s Blade over a dozen times, each with a better story, bigger cast, and more intense action; but never found time to do it. In 2003 my studio name “ShockAnime!” had to be changed due to legal issues which I have no plans on discussing, EVER.

R.I.P. ShockAnime, Enter Nelxon!

In 2004, Nelxon became the new named that signified my work. Due to the many freelance projects I completed, I learned many different aspects of software development, 3D production, and web design. It is amazing what you can learn through self-teaching once you realized you must do everything yourself to complete your projects. It was always difficult defining my job title because I did so many things. Web-Designer, Storyboard and Concept Artist, 2D and 3D Animator, Character Technical Director (Rigging), Character Modeler, Programmer… Just to list a few. That why I just call my title “Digital Assassin”. I’m a Jack-Of-All Digital Entertainment/Technology Trades.

My days of freelance became a thing of the past in 2006. I was hired by Camber Corporation OTTD Division as a Graphic Designer, 3 months later they realized that I could do more than just graphic design, and they also discovered I was the guy that created Genryu’s Blade; I even had fans working there asking about the sequel. A Year Later I was promoted to Senior Technical Lead. They couldn’t give me the title “Digital Assassin”, not yet anyway, but I’m still working on it.

My Jobs, Tasks, and Accomplishments at Camber:

GUI Designer/Web Developer and Programmer

I started as a Graphic Designer, which mostly consisted on using Flash for our Projects but later I was tasked to Design Graphical User Interfaces for courses, Design a Backend Database System for the Corporate Site (a Control Panel that allows staff to update/create pages dynamically), and develop ActionScript libraries to make our training course development more efficient.
Software: Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop
Languages: ActionScript, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, ASP

Character Creator, Modeler
I have modeled and created dozens of characters and props in Maya using my own custom character creation tools and software. This also includes UV Mapping and Texturing.
Software: Maya, 3DS Max, PhotoShop and ZBrush

Character Technical Director
I have rigged over 120 characters and counting, as well as a few vehicles and props. I introduced MotionBuilder into Camber’s Pipeline and the animators use it faithfully. I’ve created several plug-ins and scripts to the make the pipeline workflow between MotionBuilder and Maya seamless and faster.

Tools Programmer
I have developed custom software, pipeline tools, Maya MelScripts, Rigging Tools, Character Generators, Character Library Management system and Enhanced animation toolsets for Maya. Most of tools I’ve created streamlined many processes and reduced production time greatly.
Software: Visual Studio, Maya, MotionBuilder
Languages: C, C++, C#, Java, Python and MelScript

Animator, Compositor
I have animated numerous scenes for the training course vignettes and cinematic intros our office are tasked to do;  anything from Realistic Characters Animation to Animated Logo Intros.
Software: Maya, MotionBuilder and After Effects

Since I have been working for Camber, I’ve learned a lot, like how to work with a team for example. Now that I have a steady paycheck and a pretty enjoyable job, I believe it’s time for me to once again start making my own animated shorts films and possibly even mini video games…

Enter Microsoft’s XNA. This Chapter of my life has just started…