Web Links

• ArtGeek
  • About the scribbler. 
    The general idea and technique behind Ze Frank’s “scribbler” app.
  • Anatomy Figures and Armatures 
    Incredibly cool anatomical reference figurines and sculpting supplies
  • David Elsewhere, Dancer 
    Trust me, this guy is amazing.
  • DSLR Cinema 
    Tips, tricks and general articles about filmmaking with digital single lens reflex cameras.
  • Krita – Natural media painting and drawing application 
    A graphics application which focuses on natural media, worth a look.
  • My Plastic Heart NYC 
    Gallery in NY specializing in recent art trends like custom vinyl figures, toon art etc.
  • Paul Robertson, GIF master 
    Edgy and cute combined, his style is amazing of sometimes NSFW.
  • Peter Blaskovic's procedural experiments 
    Fun stuff with processing and flash
  • Temple of the Seven Golden Camels (AKA Storyboarding Repository) 
    “An online repository for everything I know about sotryboarding, filmmaking, drawing and animation but mostly storyboarding. Also curses lifted, relics appraised and fishing licenses sold Tuesdays 10-2.”
  • The Scribbler 
    Vector scribbles over line drawings you sketch out.
• Artist Communities
  • CG Record 
    A “daily newspaper” for CGI, this site isn’t a bad place to get a feel for some of the things happening in the realm of 3D.
  • CG Society 
    One of the most active 3D communities anywhere.
  • Creative Crash 
    Formerly Highend 3D. Large, active 3D artist portal.
  • Deviant Art 
    One of the most largest and most prolific artist communities online. Tons of resources.
  • EverMotion 
    Portal with high quality models and other resources.
  • InterArt Center 
    An Artist community and resource sharing site. Some good 3d models, tutorials, forums etc.
  • MattePainting.Org 
    Where I go to become inspired. All things matte painting.
  • Oddforce Houdini Community 
    You’ve gotta know about oddforce. Don’t you? Houdini. Users. Community. Go.
  • The Area at Autodesk 
    Maya, XSI Max etc community portal. Various resources, blogs etc.
  • XSI Base 
    The go-to community for XSI artists. Founded by my friend and coworker Raff Dickruder.
• CGI Industry
  • VFX Wages 
    Tracks wages at various studios. Useful as a resource when negotiating wages, obviously.
• CyberGeek
  • 20th Century Props 
    Can’t afford to buy? Rent your props here.
  • Geekologie 
    Geek stuff. Represent.
  • I want one of those. 
    We wants it, we wants it my preciousss.
  • Modern Props of Los Angeles 
    The coolest prop fabricators around. I want about half of their inventory.
  • NovelQuest Emporer Workstation 
    If the poetic workstations seem too friendly to you, up the ante with this scorpion-like scary workstation rig.
  • Poetic Aura Workstation 
    Cant afford a space station? Cyber up your workstation instead.
  • PropWorx 
    Film props for auction. Got a wheelbarrow of cash? Here’s the solution.
  • The FractalForums 
    The first place you should visit if you are interested in anything fractal, deep or shallow. (How many times do I have to say this?)
  • The Prop Store of London 
    Do you have TWO wheelbarrows of cash? Bid on some props here.
  • Touch Arcade 
    One of the best blogs out there for mobile gaming.
  • WordPress Templates 
    Various templates for WordPress (this site runs on wordpress, but I haven’t tried these templates. Maybe I should!)
• Fun
  • "Movie Bar Codes" 
    Take eevery frame of a movie or a sequence from a movie. Compress it to a line, and then line the frames up. The result? Beautiful.
  • PhysOrg Science News 
    Scientists are cooler than the rest of us. This is proof.
  • Political Compass 
    Determine where you sit politically by taking a test. Ordinarily I hate these kind of things, but some real thought has been put into this to try to make it actually have some informative value.
• Graphics Resources
  • 3 arc second satellite DEMs from USGS 
    Those USGS folks sure are handy.
  • 3Do2 3D models 
    High quality model store, strong on vehicles in particular.
  • About HTML5 Canvas 
    A great introduction to Canvas. Canvas allows you to draw onscreen and through Javascript do, well, fun stuff.
  • ArtBeats footage collections 
    This isn’t just a list of footage and prices, it’s a valuable source of reference and ideas.
  • Blueprint reference library 
    Blueprints of vehicles and misc objects.
  • Crystalline rapid prototyping 
    3D printing and rapid prototyping service provider
  • Digital X Models 
    3D Model site oriented towards daily life/architectural props. OBJ, MAX.
  • EverMotion 
    Portal with high quality models and other resources.
  • Freestyle NPR renderer 
    Programmable nonphotorealistic rendering interface via python. So… coool…
  • Freestyle NPR renderer 
    An opensource nonphotorealistic renderer which is currently being implemented in Blender. Those clever bastards.
  • HDRI Locations 
    Some gorgeous HDRIs and backplates for sale. Emphasis on roadways and locations appropriate for car commercials etc
  • High Quality Plant Models at 3dmentor 
    Some beautiful plant models for sale. All in max and c4d formats, but worth a look all the same.
  • Huge list of Computer Graphics Research Software 
    An incredible resource of links to CGI related libraries, research tools and papers.
  • Kuler – Color Palettes Online Toolset 
    If you need a swatch of colors which work well together – of any type – this is the place to go. Thanks, Adobe!
  • Moofe – High end backplates, 360s and HDRIs 
    Nice, but pricey.
  • NASA Earth Observatory 
    Some of the more visually interesting image and data maps of our planet from NASA.
  • NASA's Visible Earth 
    Satellite imagery and data maps of the third planet.
  • Octane Renderer 
    Fast gpu-based renderer by refractive software.
  • Open Source VFX 
    A great reference for what is available out there for VFX artists from the opensource community.
  • Polymonkey's Processing Libraries 
    A code library of routines Matt uses in Processing.
  • Shaded Relief Map Resources 
    A site with many useful links to cartography related resources (maps, DEMS, satellite data etc).
  • Softimage Ice – keeping track 
    A list of XSI ICE resources and websites by the polynoid guys. They included me, so I wholeheartedly endorse it. :D
  • Stock Exchange 
    Free stock photos, now owned by Getty Images.
  • Temple of the Seven Golden Camels (AKA Storyboarding Repository) 
    “An online repository for everything I know about sotryboarding, filmmaking, drawing and animation but mostly storyboarding. Also curses lifted, relics appraised and fishing licenses sold Tuesdays 10-2.”
  • The FractalForums 
    The first place you should visit if you are interested in anything fractal, deep or shallow. (How many times do I have to say this?)
  • USGS 30 Arc Second DEMS 
    Digital Elevation Maps from our friends at the USGS.
  • XYZRGB 3D Scanning Service 
    Scanning serivce in the LA area with a good rep.
• Graphics Tools
  • Animoto – Procedural Video edits from stills and video snippets 
    A clean, no fuss way to make a video from stills if you don’t want to get into any editing. Cloud-based service.
  • Crazy Bump 
    Handy utility for creating normal maps from images.
  • Freestyle NPR renderer 
    An opensource nonphotorealistic renderer which is currently being implemented in Blender. Those clever bastards.
  • Geo Control 
    An innovative terrain generator.
  • Harmony Procedural Sketching 
    Online sketching with a neat processing/npr feel.
  • HDR Light Studio 
    Software for creating custom HDRI maps to simulate studio lighting.
  • Image Magick 
    Image manipulation, thumbnail generation, filter/convert/etc, Python/etc friendly.
  • Mach Studio Pro 
    Realtime lighting and rendering software
  • Mandelbuld Raytracer 
    Render your own polar projection of iterated functions on the complex plane, how cool is that?
  • Next Engine desktop 3d scanner 
    We wants it my precious… excellent balance between quality and cost.
  • Pixelux, home of the DMM engine 
    They make a popular physics engine that handles shattering, fracturing, stress deformations etc.
  • TopoGun 
    Software for manually retopologizing 3d meshes.
  • Vector Magic bitmap to vector conversion 
    Online and desktop conversion of bitmaps to resolution independent vectors.
  • Video CoPilot – AfterEffects Plugins 
    Makers of Optical Flare and Twitch, very nice tools.
  • Video Trace – Modelling software 
    Models objects from video with user cues.
• MAYA Specific
  • CG Sutra Maya Resources 
    Heavily ad-laden site with some useful maya stuff. And some are in Hindi too, as an added bonus!
  • Maya videos on Vimeo 
    Active group posting videos (animations, breakdowns, tests reels etc) made with Maya, contributors of all skill levels.
  • Python in Maya group 
    Google group with good amount of activity.
  • Simply Maya Community 
    Good Sized online community of Maya users and fanboys.
• Models
  • 3d Model Free 
    In my opinion the best place to begin looking for good quality free 3d models.
  • 3d Xtras 
    Large quanity of free 3d models, some good.
  • Anders Lejczak Models 
    Excellent quality aircraft models
  • InterArt Center 
    An Artist community and resource sharing site. Some good 3d models, tutorials, forums etc.
  • Mesh Factory 
    One of the older online 3d model shops. Quality varies.
  • Mesh Factory 
    Small online model store, low poly animals and misc objects, quality not so great.
  • Renderosity Marketplace 
    One of the giants, this is a free for all in terms of quality and price, but it’s large and active
  • Rod Luc's 3d Models 
    Good quality 3d models, some free. Emphasis on things like castles, also some aircraft.
  • Wirecase 
    They claim to be high end in focus. Certainly there are some good models. Some free. I liked how turbosquid ads were all over their site… ;)
• Music and Audio
  • MV Nation 
    Online community of users of the awesome MV-8000/8800 music production workstations.
  • MV Patches 
    Patches for MV8800
  • Open Labs 
    They make powerful all-in-one boxes which combine PCs and music studio hardware. Use your preffered software and workflow on this hardware and >foom< you're on fire.
  • Philharmonica Orchestra Sound Exchange 
    Large library of samples from each instrument in an entire orchestra. Whoa.
  • Tangerine Dream Official Website 
    New Agey? Dated? Frighteningly similar to Jean-Michelle Jarre? It’s not true. And anyway I don’t care. Tangerine Dream is the shit. I’ll take a double helping with Kraftwork on the side and a Daft Punk chaser, please.
• OtakuGeek
  • Daily Bento 
    No otaku can feel quite complete without perusing this blog.
  • Otaku in Review 
    A fairly new blog on the scene with better than average articles on anime-related topics.
  • Vocaloid: Hakurei Shrine Festival video. 
    Shrine festival? If you’re a vocaloid/miku freak you know what this is about. The voice is synthesized.
  • Vocaloid: Hatsune Miku sings Diva Desu 
    Virtual character with synthesized voice, Miku. You. Will. Like. It. LIKE IT! NOW! DRINK THE JUICE!
  • Vocaloid: Miku in Concert 
    Welcome to the uncanny valley.
• Photography and Film
  • CGI Backgrounds 
    They are nice. But if you want a background and an HDRI, expect to pay about $4k.
  • Dynamic Perception Motion Control Systems 
    Small new company selling sub-$1000 motion control time-lapse dolly etc, good stuff!
  • Girocam 
    360-degree camera. Ok, it’s not as powerful as a $60 spheron, but at $2k it’s pretty cool. HDRI requires multiple exposures, big deal.
  • HDR Mill 
    3k HDRIs, mostly in and around Arizona, very cheap at $8.00 or so per. Some interiors of caves, which is unusual and kind of fun. Some nice skies.
  • OpenFootage-dot-net 
    Awesomeness. Online resource for footage, HDRIs, panos and textures shared under the creative commons license. Quality is adequate, cost unbeatable.
• Programming Resources
  • Cython – Generate C code using python 
    Cython is a language similar to Pyrex which is compiled to C, and can call functions from C libraries, etc. Awesome.
  • Freestyle NPR renderer 
    An opensource nonphotorealistic renderer which is currently being implemented in Blender. Those clever bastards.
  • Image Magick 
    Image manipulation, thumbnail generation, filter/convert/etc, Python/etc friendly.
  • Introduction to Matrix Transformations 
    Intended for game and graphics programmers, I found this tutorial hugely useful.
  • Maya MEL Wiki 
    Hugely useful online MEL reference.
  • Open Image IO 
    An open library for reading, manipulating, and writing images, format agnostic design allows easy conversions, Python bindings.
  • OpenFrameworks 
    An open source creative toolkit for c++ coding.
  • Processing: toxiclibs 
    An awesome open source library for Processing.
  • Python in Maya group 
    Google group with good amount of activity.
  • Python Org 
    Online comprehensive site for all things Python. Ni.
  • Sunflow Renderer 
    Open source powerful rendering engine which plays nice with processing. How cool is that?
• Realtime Graphics
  • Ben Cloward 
    Technical artist who shares HLSL info, tutorials and shader resources.
  • DR. Cem Yuksel 
    Interesting papers on real time waves, hair shading, caustics etc.
  • Nvidia Shader Library 
    Realtime CGFX and HLSL shader library.
• Research & Info
  • 2010 SIGGRAPH papers online 
    A collection of links to many of the paper’s presented at SIGGRAPH 2010
  • Algorithmic Botany dot-org 
    Algorithmic Botany, the website of the Biological Modeling and Visualization research group in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary.
  • DR. Cem Yuksel 
    Interesting papers on real time waves, hair shading, caustics etc.
  • Euclidian Space – Math and programming for CGI 
    Broad topics of interest, particularly in Math, Physics and Simulation.
  • Flipcode: The Art of Demomaking 
    A bunch of super articles on everything from shaders to affine transformations.
  • Freestyle NPR renderer 
    Programmable nonphotorealistic rendering interface via python. So… coool…
  • Huge list of Computer Graphics Research Software 
    An incredible resource of links to CGI related libraries, research tools and papers.
  • Hyperphysics – Physics Hypercards 
    Comprehensive physics reference online. If you need a specific equation, go here. If you need discussion, no go here.
  • Introduction to Matrix Transformations 
    Intended for game and graphics programmers, I found this tutorial hugely useful.
  • Lindenmayer systems 
    A good first introduction to l-systems
  • Motion Mountain – The free physics textbook 
    A free physics textbook, online. Physics. Free. Must. Get.
  • Parallax mapping overview 
    A good introduction to parallax mapping.
  • Paul Bourke's library of useful esoterica 
    This is a huge resource of miscellaneous topics of interest to CGI TDs, I hope it never goes away…
  • Popular Science Back Issues 
    130 YEARS of back issues now online. A great resource.
  • Proceduralism 
    Many example videos of procedural graphics.
  • Processing: toxiclibs 
    An awesome open source library for Processing.
  • Real time shadow techniques 
    An outline of a number of techniques for projecting shadows in real time.
• Studios and Professionals
  • Alan Fregtman's Blog 
    Alan is one hell of a line TD. Rigging, ICE, XSI.
  • Alok Gandhi 
    An interesting blog, the TD author has some very nice posts about math and CGI
  • Andy Nicholas 
    XSI TD doing great stuff with ICE, he’s on my short list!
  • Antropus aka Krishnamurti Costa 
    Kris is a well known figure in 3D and rightly so, he’s a brilliant guy.
  • Brad Gabe 
    XSI TD coolness and pop culture musings wrapped up in a blog that tastes like salsa.
  • Chris Covelli 
    I don’t know Chris personally, but he has a great rep and I hope to meet him sooner or later…
  • Chris Marshall's blog 
    Chris is an ICE guru and moderator of the softimage ICE group on vimeo, and I check out everything he does because it’s invariably cool.
  • Christopher Crouzet 
    Character rigger and developer, XSI and Maya, mostly feature film work.
  • Clayton Osmus 
    Some lovely character rigging work, esp. beautiful facial rigging.
  • Complexification 
    Jared Tarbel’s procedural graphics gallery and blog. Great stuff!
  • Djx aka David Johnson's Blog 
    David is a Maya artist and his blog is excellent.
  • Fabrico Chamon's Blog 
    Fabrico does some great stuff in ICE, most recently his awesome collection of L-system/procedural plant nodes.
  • Frenchdog aka Guillaume Laforge 
    Top-tier XSI artist, TD and particle guru.
  • Game Studios Map 
    A map of game studios. Great resource.
  • Google Map of VFX Studios 
    Map of studios worldwide, excellent resource!
  • Graham Clark 
    Some old guy who never updates his site….
  • IoXU aka BenP aka Ben Paschke 
    Excellent TD using XSI/ICE, one of my favorite blogs.
  • Joe Plaete 
    TD at Animal Logic. I don’t know Joe personally, I’d like to meet him and buy him a beer at SIGGRAPH because he does cool work.
  • Joe Plaete's Blog 
    Joe is a VFX TD/tool dev with history of studios including AL, MPC etc
  • Josh Robinson, Sculptor 
    Josh is a lead artist at lucas/singapore and a pretty awesome modeler and sculptor. Excellent blog!
  • Joshua Harvey 
    Another artist I’ve not met in person, his work is excellent and inspiring.
  • Julian Johnson's Blog 
    XSI/ICE TD and lateral thinker.
  • Karim Sahai Photography 
    Karim is an awesome black and white photographer, well worth a look.
  • La Maison 
    An excellent VFX house. I will learn French if they let me work there.
  • Leonardo Covarrubias' blog: maya realtime shaders etc 
    Leonardo is doing some very cool stuff with CGFX shading in the maya viewport, and excellent blog.
  • Magnus Wrenninge 
    I was lucky enough to attend his volume renderering SIGGRAPH course in 2010, amazing stuff. He is currently writing a book on volume rendering, which is awesome.
  • Monophyl and Polynoid 
    Incredible work, art and tech come together and the result
  • Monophyl and Polynoid 
    Incredible work, art and tech come together and the result? One of my favorite groups currently doing CG. wo0T.
  • Oliver Reguiero 
    Photography and CG landscapes, very inspiring stuff.
  • Pings from the void 
    Polymonkey aka Matt Ditton’s Blog. Life in Tokyo, processing and programming, and art.
  • Pixel Liberation Front
  • Psyop 
    One of my favorite studios. Fantastic work.
  • Rahu Venugopal's Blog: RaysInBlue 
    An excellent and informative blog by a VFX compositing and pipeline TD.
  • Scott Squires' Effects Corner Blog 
    If you don’t know who Scott Squires is, youre not a VFX guy. This blog has posts relating to the VFX industry as a whole.
  • Stefan Andersson 
    TD who has some interesting Maya/Python stuff on his blog.
  • Steven Stahlberg's site 
    One of the revered CG masters, his stuff is still amazing
  • Stu Maschwitz's Blog: Prolost 
    Blog of well known filmaker, Director, Magic Bullet creative director and FXpHd contributor Stu Maschwitz.
  • Tiago Costa's Lagoa Technologies 
    Lagoa is Thiago’s ICE-based physics multisolver which does an amazing job simulating granular, fluid and viscoelastic materials. I am officially a Thiago fanboy!
  • Tim Borgmann 
    Freelance artist who does some amazing procedural art, mostly with XSI ICE
  • Zeth Willie, Maya rigging 
    Zeth has some excellent videos discussing verious aspects of rigging from a maya perspective.
• Training and Education
  • About HTML5 Canvas 
    A great introduction to Canvas. Canvas allows you to draw onscreen and through Javascript do, well, fun stuff.
  • Caffeine abuse 
    Some great Softimage and ICE training, worth a visit!
  • Euclidian Space – Math and programming for CGI 
    Broad topics of interest, particularly in Math, Physics and Simulation.
  • FX PhD 
    High quality VFX training online… for a price.
  • Google Python Scripting Online Course 
    Google Teaching Python. Online. For free. Gratis. As in: ‘Help yourself and learn something.’ ‘How much?’ ‘No charge.’ ‘Whoa.’
  • Matte Painting Tutorial 
    An apparently inactive blog, but it contains a single highly useful overview tutorial on Matte Painting
  • Motion Mountain – The free physics textbook 
    A free physics textbook, online. Physics. Free. Must. Get.
  • Rigging Dojo 
    Maya Rigging training
  • TD College 
    Some of the best online training for Technical Directors you can get. For a hefty price.
  • The Art of CG Supervision 
    A blog with articles on pipeline design and management, naming conventions, bidding/estimation etc.
  • ZBrush Workshops 
    Highly regarded streaming media training for Zbrush
• WordPressLinks
  • LightBox for WordPress 
    WordPress plugin which adds lightbox photo viewing functionality. Nice!
  • Mashable's Blogging Toolbox 
    Excellent article on blogging resources available. Covers the major tools like WordPress, Blogger and Movable Type.
  • Sociable plugin for WordPress 
    Adds buttons to articles so viewers can tweet the article, add it to facebook etc.
  • Stash – large project video archive 
    Want to see what’s been done? Search through this video archive, thousands of past commercial projects by artists everywhere.
  • WordPress Official Site 
    Your starting point for all things WordPress, the blogging software this site uses.
• XSI Specific
  • Chris Marshall's blog 
    Chris is an ICE guru and moderator of the softimage ICE group on vimeo, and I check out everything he does because it’s invariably cool.
  • ICE videos on Vimeo 
    Highly active group of TDs sharing tests and output using softimage ICE, which is amazingly cool.
  • Rray XSI resource list 
    Been around for a while, one of the most thorough lists of resources out there for XSI users
  • SI Community 
    Newer and less active than XSIbase, but some good discussions and downloads.
  • Softimage Ice – keeping track 
    A list of XSI ICE resources and websites by the polynoid guys. They included me, so I wholeheartedly endorse it. :D
  • Softimage Wiki 
    It’s a wiki. About softimage stuff. Go figure. A good resource.
  • XSI Base 
    The go-to community for XSI artists. Founded by my friend and coworker Raff Dickruder.
  • XSI Blog 
    Some of the top artists in the XSI community contribute excellent posts, rather infrequently.
  • XSI Files 
    A mini-portal focusing on XSI resources. Dated, but still relevant.