Archive for Life
Electro-Bytes
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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!
Great Pyrenees and Otaku
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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…
New gig…
Posted by: | CommentsSo I’ve picked up a position as VFX Supervisor at StereoD, a company which started in 2009 doing stereoconversion and which in less than 3 years has grown to a leading edge studio of over 600 artists and growing.
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…. ;)
Busy, Busy, Busy…
Posted by: | CommentsIt’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.
Real-life flocking behavior
Posted by: | CommentsHere’s some interesting reference video which came up on the XSI mailing list, vacation video of a shoal of fish avoiding predators…
Deep in production…
Posted by: | CommentsI haven’t posted for a while, I’ve been doing a lot of projects and my attention has been elsewhere. And annoyingly, most of the things I’ve been working on aren’t in the public eye yet, so I can’t show much. To make up for it, here are some simple iphone image from one of the studios I’ve been contracting at, Janimation. Nice folks, and they have a beautiful studio.
On location
Posted by: | CommentsWorking on location at Green Lantern for a bit, and having fun with ICE as a happy by product. I’ve been putting together some interesting deformation compounds which I’ll eventually put online, but currently too busy to do much besides this quick note. Back to work!
I am really getting tired of the color green, BTW...
The 5 miserable VFX jobs that make movies possible.
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Producer and crew, c. 14th century
This is why I live in Florida…
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Good news for XSI is good news for the industry.
Posted by: | CommentsMark Shoennagel posted some good news on his blog on the Area a few days ago. XSI’s sales have been quite good of late and the dev team is likely to expand. Why is this a good thing for the industry as a whole? Because let’s face it… Maya is showing it’s age.
Maya Community?
I have to admit, I’ve got a love/hate thing going on with Maya. It’s an industry standard. It changed the world. It broke new ground. And it… well, kinda sucks.
Look, before you get out the pitchforks and torches, Maya fans hear me out. You have gotten used to coping with things you shouldn’t have to worry about. Every dedicated maya user I know has a cornucopia of tricks, scripts, workarounds and fixes just to get the basics done. Want to constrain an object on a curve? Sure, you can. Kinda. If you know the trick, and are willing to think about it, or have a script handy. How about editing the animation curves on an animated texture? Visually? Make particles flow on a deforming surface? The answer is always the same – yes you can. But it’s not going to be straightforward….