Oct 10

Current London job climate

Posted in: The Pad
Hey Guys

Wanted some advice from you awesome artists out there. A lot of you guys are in the UK, and was wondering what the job climate would be say, Summer next year, for a Junior to progress into junior-mid. My wife and i want to be able to see the world ( a little bit) here soon, and it sounds like there is an endless queue for artists over there. Right now the junior arena is oversaturated in LA, and I feel like soon will be a good time to take it to London for a year or two.

Pay, hours, contract lengths, etc, what info can you guys hook me up with?

Thanks in advance!

Donald

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Oct 10

3d sterioscopic content

Posted in: The Pad
hi.
you guys know where i can find 3d content on the web???
things like trailers , short films etc….
until now the only nice thing I’ve found its the Scion Machine short film on sway studio website…
and other ones i found dont have any quality at all.. and i would like to see some 720p or 1080p 3d stuff..!!!!!!:D:D:D

thanks

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Oct 09

Which one is better for modeling?

Posted in: The Pad
Maya or Houdini?

(Let’s say one has the option of buying the latest version of either.)

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Oct 08

Warner Bros. Cancels 3D release of Deathly Hallows Pt. 1

Posted in: The Pad
Hey guys,

Just saw this in Variety and was wondering if anyone knew what was happening with this? Did they commission a company to do the 3D conversion and just weren’t able to get it done in time? Seems like a different approach from Clash of the Titans. Is 3D right for Harry Potter?

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Oct 07

Stop-Motion VFX

Posted in: The Pad
Has anyone here had any experience with stop motion VFX as opposed to CGI? I’m talking about stuff like Harryhausen’s skeleton fight sequence in Jason and the Argonauts, or a lot of the effects that Tim Burton used in the early days (i.e. Beetlejuice, etc.) Basically, before Jurassic Park put the nail in the coffin so to speak.

What are the challenges to using that kind of technique in terms of matchmoving, compositing, etc. Thoughts?

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Oct 07

“Envisage The Hidden” our short movie

Posted in: The Pad
Hey Friends here is our short film for " i am the change film project 2010" so check this out and give some suggestions for it……… and i think u will like it…………..:)

"Envisage The Hidden"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSl0hxiOPCg

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Oct 06

iPhone apps

Posted in: The Pad
Was wondering from all those 4 million or whatsoever apps out there.. which one do you think is useful or even fun.

Ignore this if you aren’t bored 🙂

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Oct 05

How to shoot a light probe for a moving scene

Posted in: The Pad
Hi,

I was wondering how to shoot a light probe in a scene with a moving camera. For example a camera mounted on a car. Let’s say it drives 500 meters. I assume I have to take a hdri shot every 100 meter. But how will I blend these different .hdri’s in my 3d package?

I hope someone could help me with this.

Thanks!
Maarten

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Oct 05

Introductions from a newcomer

Posted in: The Pad
Good afternoon everyone. I have been a lurker here and at CGTalk for a while mainly because I am a little shy when stepping into a pool of such talented people. I guess it is about time to get the courage up to introduce myself.

My name is Brett Dawson but I have gone by Buzz for almost twenty years. My background is about as varied as it gets but I will just touch on the major points.

I am a former NASA engineer (hence the forum name) that worked on the Checkout and Launch Control Systems project for the Space Shuttle at Kennedy Space Center. While there I became interested in robotics and competed regularly on the television series Battlebots. That led to my own television show called Robot Rivals on the Do It Yourself Network for a couple of years.

After our CLCS project was cancelled due to 9/11 I taught robotics at the University of Central Florida as a summer program where I would teach students math and physics through applied robotics. I also taught teachers how to integrate robotics into their own classroom curriculum.

After that I began working at the Orlando Science Center as the Exhibits Developer where I took complex science concepts and design and build hands-on exhibits to teach them to the general public. While there I was one of the founders of Otronicon (www.otronicon.org) and was its creative director for five years.

There was one problem with all of this though. I don’t have a degree. I am a self-taught engineer and as a result of not having a degree I was routinely paid half of what I was worth (i.e. underemployed). So, I decided to go back to school to get said degree and forego over a decade of mechanical engineering to get back to my roots as an artist.

I am a student at Full Sail University and have decided to focus on VFX because, in all honesty, I found it to be the most challenging and I have always tackled to the most difficult things that I can to make myself a more well rounded person.

I found that within the field of Visual Effects I can put my experience in math and physics to use with the eye of an animator to create some of the cool effects that I have loved in the movies and more. Now it is just a matter of learning how to do it within the confines of Maya and Houdini :-p

And that brings me here. I have followed closely people like David Schoneveld, Wayne Hollingsworth, Peter Shipkov, Duncan from The Area, and others in an effort to soak up as much information as I can. I hope to not only be able to ask a lot of questions and get great feedback to eventually give back with some of the knowledge that I have gained.

Here are some links to my personal stuff (a personal site devoted to my CG works is in the, um, works):

www.TeamDaVinci.com (my robotics and more website)

http://vimeo.com/buzznasa (my Vimeo page with a few hours of things ranging from school work to parts of episodes of my television show)

http://buzznasa.deviantart.com/ (my Deviant Art with recent stuff and stuff almost thirty years old)

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Oct 04

cmiVFX Releases New Photoshop Matte Painting Techniques Video

Posted in: The Pad

Photoshop Matte Painting Techniques
High Definition Training Videos for the Visual EffectsIndustry

Princeton, NJ (October 4th, 2010)- cmiVFX releases New Photoshop Matte Painting Training Video. This tutorial is designed to teach the basic concepts of a photo-based, digital matte painting. Masking, color correction, image manipulation, digital painting, 3D object creation within Photoshop, layer organization, and file preparation for animation/camera projection will all be covered in detail. cmiVFX breaks down each tool one by one with fast and easy chapter references designed for even faster muscle memory. cmiVFX continues to deliver the training and content you need, quickly, efficient and affordably. When it comes to high end CG and VFX training, there is only once choice… cmiVFX! This video is available today at the cmiVFX store for aSpecial Introductory Price!

Photoshop Matte Painting http://www.cmivfx.com/productpages/p…Matte_Painting

Concept
Everything starts with an idea. In this chapter, we are going to start with a basic sketch and work our way up using reference photographs and color correction tools to create the basic feel of the painting. A very quick and loose process, the idea of this step is to create a solid starting point. We will be looking for relevant photo references and elements to be used in the main painting, and roughly piecing them together to get the general idea on paper.

Groupings
Time is money. One of the most important things while working in Photoshop with hundreds of layers, is organization. By organizing your layers in a logical way, you will not only make your own life a lot easier, but you will also work much faster, and help the artists working down the pipeline find layers quickly and easily. This translates directly to productivity, not to mention sanity. Afterward, you will never need to use "right click" to find a specific layer among hundreds again!

Sky’s the Limit
The Sky is the limit, and masking will get you there. Learn masking techniques to extract complex shapes from photographs. You will learn how to extract a city skyline from a cloudy, low contrast photo, in 2 minutes or less. Then we will learn to quickly clean the mask of unwanted elements and add details directly to the buildings and incorporate the sky and shoreline into the snowy scene by painting.

Ships Away
Multiple techniques will be used to mask the ship and remove it from its background. We can then paint in elements that were impossible to save with the mask and begin the process of actually incorporating the ship into the scene by painting on snow and ice. We will also look at the 3D tools built right into Photoshop to put together 3d shipping containers from scratch

Layering
Now we have to clean up our PSD file by organizing and merging down layers where possible. The purpose of a matte painting is to be added to a live plate or to be animated. Naturally, for that we need to send it to camera projection or to compositing. Since we anticipate other artists accessing and working with this file, we need to prepare it in such a way that makes everything easy to find. We will flatten and rename the layers, organize by planes, apply filters, etc. Then we’re ready to send to composite.

Compositing
Bring it to life! Here we will go over the final After Effects project to show how the animation and camera were created. You will be able to get an idea of how the project is set-up and what is needed to bring a matte painting to life as a 2D animation.

Subscriptions – ACT NOW!
Gain access to Every New Release and the Entire cmi Library with a cmiSubscription plan. Obtain the latest releases automatically and special features from cmiVFX. For more information on our subscriptions:
http://www.cmivfx.co…ons_And_Pricing

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About cmiVFX
cmiVFX is the leader in High Definition Video Training for the Visual Effects Community. Register for FREE and receive hours of FREE content at the cmiVFX Video-on-Demand Player. For additional information about cmiVFX, visit www.cmivfx.com . © 2010 cmiVFX | cmiStudios. All rights reserved.

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