A big congrats to my good friend Jentzen Mooney for the debut broadcast of his weekly radio show Electro-Bytes. I dig the show, check it out! But beware, the archive only lasts a short while, so listen now!

A quick divergence from things CGI, as an Otaku and owner of 4 Great Pyrenees dogs I have noticed just how often big white dogs appear in anime and manga. Are there many great pyrs in Japan? I can’t imagine trying to own one in a crowded metro…

Dalies are at the heart of VFX. It’s where artists get feedback and develop their eye. It’s where production is kept on track. It’s also where seniors develop opinions on their artists, where directors evaluate their teams, and where critical choices are made.

My best advice for artists attending dailies for the first time is to be quiet and pay full attention. Take notes, as Garman suggests. Keep your mouth shut unless your input is needed or asked for. Never lie, never try to spin anything, never be defensive or explanatory – just listen to the instructions that are given, ask questions if anything is unclear, and be professional.

The people evaluating the work are almost always aware of issues or concerns an individual artist is not exposed to – a VFX sup may be thinking about continuity with other shots, upcoming changes, or criteria passed down from a director. The leadership attending or running the dailies may also not have much time, or the viewing theatre may have other teams waiting, so the general rule is to let the person(s) making decisions quickly and accurately evaluate what they are being shown, make a decision, and convey that decision as directives for action.

And always, always as an artist address the notes you are given. The people giving notes remember what they ask for, and nothing infuriates a director or VFX sup more than to give the same notes over and over. If you are dialing in towards a result, ie if the notes are on the order of “more” or “less,” that’s ok. But if the notes keep coming back as “where’s the fix?” then you are probably pissing someone off.

Anyway, it’s a good read, on an important subject, from a knowledgable source worth listening to.

Many people on the AVS HMZ thread, which has become a defacto go-to resource so far, have done a number of mods to make their HMZ more comfortable, and came up with the idea of a “bridge” strap between the forehead pad and the upper strap. The folks at blazin3D even make a simple (and quite nice) package of straps using this idea – but they are constantly behind demand, with a waiting list. What to do?

Well, before you get too far into modding, or make any significant purchases, here’s a fast way to see if this whole “bridge” bit will help you, comfort wise: Get a wiimote replacement wrist strap. They cost a couple of bucks. Then do this:

It works surprisingly well.

HMZ-T1 OLED display – $800. Two bucks to make your $800 gadget MUCH more comfortable? Priceless. (Does this even make sense?)

Mercedes “Santa.” :30, created snow rig using slipstream/fury which was then implemented into the shots by artist and friend Sue Jang. Method/NYC. The actor is Peter Xifo – nice job Peter!

The visual effects department is new, having risen from a small group of artists who performed miscellaneous visual effects as needed to enhance or fill out the stereo process, and my job as I see it is to lay a foundation for growth given the large demand for services we’re encountering. The effects vary from show to show, from environmental and supportive effects (snow, rain, smoke, fog etc) to more unusual effects, some of which are only possible in the realm of stereo.

Challenging, and a lot of fun. When I first arrived at StereoD I was staggered by the number of shows they are running concurrently, below are just a few, in no particular order. If you’re an experienced visual effects artist and are looking for a place that is growing and evolving and has work on some of the largest and most advanced films being created, StereoD should definitely be on your radar. And most amazing of all? Unlike some places (cough) the VFX dept at StereoD is already showing profit and has more requests for work than we can accommodate…. ;)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

]]> http://andy.moonbase.net/archives/541/feed 0 http://andy.moonbase.net/archives/539 http://andy.moonbase.net/archives/539#comments Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:12:02 +0000 andy http://andy.moonbase.net/?p=539 It’s been a while since I’ve posted, things have been really busy of late, and I’ve been doing a lot of traveling. There are a number of topics and compounds I want to share, but between work and home-life demands I just haven’t gotten to cleaning them up and writing them up. However, I just picked up a longer-term gig doing more feature film work and less commercials, so I may be able to settle into a routine that frees up enough personal time to get to some of this stuff soon.

Maybe I can get a bunch of stuff online as a Christmas gift to the community – I’ll be “heads down” in November but might have time after that…

Topics include:

• Fury 2 – this point renderer by Exocortex is starting to come into it’s own, with cast and self-shadowing, particle replication at rendertime, a standalone and maya version, etc.
• ICE terrain compounds – a long term project which I’ve detailed here, I’d like to add in some adaptive meshing (most of it was built prior to ICE modeling) and a better fluvial erosion compound, and release the compounds to the community.
• Electrical and lightning effects – I have a very nice “toolkit” of ICE tools for creating electrical effects which I want to clean up and release to the community.
• A slew of “utility” ICE compounds and one-offs for doing all kinds of fun stuff… from converting temperature to color according to a blackbody and color cycling compounds to branching strand systems and procedural snow deposition, etc. All compounds which come from production needs which I’ve been squirreling away with the intent of eventually sharing them.