Texture Painters (USA)

A US based studio is looking for Texture Painters for its new studio in Livonia, MI, near Detroit. This is an opportunity to be part of a new, diverse and talented team producing world-class digital visual effects for motion pictures and television.

Responsibilities

The Texture Painters create organic and hard surface textures for CGI models and perform UV mapping for the services of CG models.

• Photoshop
•3D Paint Package
• Ability to interpret others’ ideas and to communicate with others
• Traditional arts background
Desired Skills:
• Degree in Fine Arts
• Feature Film experience

http://www.smoothdevil.com/index.php?page=job&job_id=1415

closes: 31 Dec 2010

Expression Issue

I put this bit of code together and I’m stuck as to how I can integrate the simple expression below into one that uses the string names of the lights. As you see it’s just a basic formula telling the rim light to be the key * 2/3.

——-UPDATE——–

Nevermind. I figured it out!

Code:

global proc js_lightSetup ()
{
        spotLight;
 rename "keyLight";
 string $keyLight;
 string $kl[]= `ls-sl`;

        for ($key in $kl)
          {
                setAttr ($key+".scaleX") 6.0;
                setAttr ($key+".scaleY") 6.0;
                setAttr ($key+".scaleZ") 6.0;
          setAttr ($keyLight+".intensity") 1.0;
         
    move -r -ls -wd -42.0 102.7 86.0;
 rotate -r -os -46.0 -26.0 0;           
 xform -ws -rp 0 0 0 -sp 0 0 0; 
  }
 select -r $kl; 
 int $size= size ($kl);
   
//create fill light             
             
 spotLight;
 rename "fillLight";
 string $fillLight;
        string $fl[] = `ls -sl`;

        for ($fill in $fl)
          {
                setAttr ($fill+".scaleX") 6.0;
                setAttr ($fill+".scaleY") 6.0;
                setAttr ($fill+".scaleZ") 6.0;
 setAttr ($fillLight+".intensity") .5;

  move -r -ls -wd 37.6 80.6 102.0;
 rotate -r -os -31.0 25.0 10.0;               
 xform -ws -rp 0 0 0 -sp 0 0 0; 
  }             

 select -r $fl;
 int $size= size ($fl);
   
//create rim light
           
 spotLight;
 rename "rimLight";
 string $rimLight;
        string $rl[] = `ls -sl`;

        for ($rim in $rl)
          {
                setAttr ($rim+".scaleX") 6.0;
                setAttr ($rim+".scaleY") 6.0;
                setAttr ($rim+".scaleZ") 6.0;

              // expression -s "rimLightShape.intensity=rimLightShape.intensity= keylightShape.intensity * 2/3;";
  // expression -s "$rl.intensity=$rl.intensity= $kl.intensity * 2/3;"

 move -r -ls -wd 0 76.5 -104.0;
 rotate -r -os -142.0 -1.0 0; 
                xform -ws -rp 0 0 0 -sp 0 0 0; 
      }

 select -r $rl;
 int $size= size ($rl);
}


Smith Foulkes – Paint it Black

Paint It Black nasce alla Nexus Productions, dai direttori Smith & Foulkes. Il video è uno spot per la Panasonic ed è completamente realizzato in 3d e giocato su tonalità monocromatiche che utilizzatate con grande abilità riescono a garantire personalità e morbidezza ai personaggi. […]

Motion Theory: Target “A Better Bullseye”


Target has good taste. By enlisting Motion Theory, the studio has left its mark on the rich history of Target advertising and embarked on a project that sets itself apart from the usual Motion Theory repertoire—creating a different approach for the themselves and a fresh perspective for the client.

In A Better Bullseye, the studio has delivered a piece that fits easily into the Target aesthetic, but remains unique. Gone are the typical Warholian graphics and pop-art visuals of previous Target campaigns; in are the good, old fashioned methods of character based advertising.

By setting the location of the spot in a factory, the piece hopes to convey the spirit of teamwork and efficiency that keep the Target brand strong and healthy. Beginning with an establishing shot of the famous bullseye, factory employees work together to fully stock the towering icon like a refrigerator. The attention to detail, as explained by director Chris Riehl, was not to be ignored:

“The team and I explored every possible detail you see from the memorable cast of characters to the host of strangely specific heavy machinery and vehicles which we hope comes through when watching the spot.”

The character design of the piece—like the Target aesthetic—is distinctively retro and in many ways, resembles the 60′s style design of Pixar’s, The Incredibles. In a production schedule described as “condensed,” the team of artists—similar to the factory workers in the spot—worked feverishly to create something high-end for a mega-mart that has a commitment to good design.

Posted on Motionographer

Tracking rotation

I am a new Nuke user. I need to track a new sky to my plate. I applied to my mask a 1 pt track in translation another one in rotation. My translate data is working fine however my rotation is not working at all.
Does anybody have any idea….

thx
eric

How to develop good ideas for vfx

Hello, I am new to the world of vfx and I think many people, as well as myself, could use some advice on how to come up with good ideas for vfx pieces.

Where is the best place to start when deciding on a concept? (Having a specific vfx shot in mind, or starting with a normal video concept and incorporating effects into it?)

I have many ideas but do not think they are realistic for a beginner or would have a real story to it. I would like to create good work that will help further my skills and start developing a vfx portfolio.

Thanks!

Ocula 2.1v1 Released

Ocula 2.1v1

This is a major new release of Ocula with one new plug-in and many improvements and bug fixes.

Release Date
July 2010

Requirements
•Nuke 6.0v7 or a version of Nuke 6.1 on

•Windows XP SP2, XP64
•Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” and 10.6 "Snow Leopard" (x86 only)
•Linux CentOS 4.5 (32- and 64-bit)

•Foundry FLEXlm Tools (FFT 5.0v1 or later) for floating licenses.

New Features
•There is a new O_DisparityViewer plug-in, which lets you visualise the disparity vectors in your node tree. You can add it after any node in the Node Graph. As long as there is a disparity channel at that point in the tree, O_DisparityViewer produces a Viewer overlay with arrows showing the disparity vectors at regular intervals. For more information, see “DisparityViewer” on page 76.

Improvements

•O_Solver

•You can now add your own feature matches to the automatically detected ones by right-clicking on the image and selecting add feature. This allows you to get a good solve when there aren’t many good automatically detected matches. For more information, see “Solver” on page 15 and “Visualising and Editing the Results” on page 18.
•There is a new Luminance Correct control, under Features. This matches the luminance between the two views before searching for feature matches. Where there are large differences in in luminancebetween the two views, this can increase the number and quality of feature matches found.

•O_DisparityGenerator

•You can now sample over multiple disparity field detail levels (different resolutions of the images). This can help to reduce errors in the calculated disparity field. There are controls for the number of samples (Number of Samples), the minimum disparity field detail to go down to (Minimum Detail Level), and the sample spacing (Sample Spacing).
•There is a new Image Alignment menu with the following options:
Rectification – This is the default alignment method. The two images are resampled so that all matching pixels are on the same horizontal scanline in the second image as they are in the first.
Vertical Alignment – The two images are aligned along the y axis using a skew, but not moved along the x axis.
None – If the disparity between your stereo views is horizontal only (corresponding pixels lie on the same scanline in both images), you can select this option for faster processing. This is the same as Horizontal Shift Only in previous versions of Ocula.
•The Occlusions menu has been renamed Disparity Method. A third method, Unconstrained Motion, has been added to the menu. This calculates the disparity using unconstrained local motion estimation.
•There is a new Median Filter Size control. Increasing this value should reduce the noise on the disparity field. This control is only available when Disparity Method has been set to Normal Occlusions.

For more information on the new controls, see “Controls” on page 30.

•O_ColourMatcher

•There is a new Pre-blur Disparity control, which allows you to blur the incoming disparity map before using it. If the disparity map is imperfect, this can help to reduce artefacts in the colour correction.
•In the Block-based Matching Mode, you can now calculate the colour correction for multiple block sizes and then blend the results together. This can help to reduce errors and make the results more temporally consistent. There are controls for the number of samples (Number of Samples), the maximum block size to go up to (Max Block Size), the sample spacing (Sample Spacing), and the method of combining the samples (Colour Correction Type).
•There is a new control, Halo Correct, aimed at reducing the halo effect you can get around high-contrast edges in the Block-based Matching mode. Note that where occlusions occur this correction can introduce artefacts around edges. Another new control, Occlusion Compensate, is designed to correct these and probably needs to be tuned to your particular footage.

For more information on the new controls, see “Controls” on page 49.

•O_VerticalAligner

•If you have a pretracked Nuke stereo camera that describes the camera setup used to shoot the Source images, you can now use O_VerticalAligner to analyse the sequence and output a vertically aligned camera pair. This allows you to continue using pretracked cameras once your footage has been vertically aligned. This works in all vertical alignment modes except Vertical Skew (which can’t be represented by a camera transform).
Once O_VerticalAligner has analysed the sequence, you can see the analysis data in a Transform Matrix on the Output tab of the node controls. This represents a 2D corner pin that can be applied to the input image to create the same result as O_VerticalAligner. If necessary, you can take the matrix to a third-party application, such as Baselight, and align the image or camera there. There is one matrix for each view in the source.
For more information, see “Creating a Vertically Aligned Camera Pair” on page 43.

Fixed Bugs
•BUG ID 9188 – O_ColourMatcher: In block-based matching mode, colour fringing sometimes occurred where there were high-contrast regions in the input images. You can now reduce this by using Halo Correct, Occlusion Compensate, and the sampling controls.

etc.

Full Release Notes

Product Website

My New Shoes.

Facet Illustrations


I’ve been working on some illustrations which seem to have grown to a series I’m calling Facet. Check them out on my folio page.

Is M.I.A.’s ‘Born Free’ video a prelude to Romain Gavras’s new film? (NSFW)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Just sayin’. Notre Jour Viendra.

Click here to view the embedded video.