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Looking awesome. I know its stylized but I'd personally move the ear towards the front of the face more. Depends if that's what you're going for of course.
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Aug 24, 2009 14:09
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brian encino man posted:Looking awesome. I know its stylized but I'd personally move the ear towards the front of the face more. Depends if that's what you're going for of course. Hmm, no you are right, thanks. Anything else you (or anyone else) would like to suggest before I take it into blender? Here's the update. Made his cranium go back a little further too. 
Max A Million fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Aug 24, 2009 |
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Aug 24, 2009 14:17
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I'm interested in making psychedelic visuals, am I right in assuming most people who make visuals for concerts are using a 3D program and probably After Effects? I'm looking to make crazy outer-space nebula visuals that simulate certain effects of being on LSD, as well as bigger ideas, including fractal like things involving other things (regular images turning into fractals). Think a lot of the stuff you see in 'The Universe' series on History Channel, but on acid. I've got a little history in Film Editing and Motion Graphics(All of highschool + 2 years of Film School), but I don't know anything about 3D editing, can anyone recommend a good program that would be easiest to get into what I'm looking for?
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Aug 24, 2009 14:45
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The problem with visuals is that unless it's changing in some way to provide variety, the audience at a gig will get bored of it within about 15 seconds. So I go by the philosophy "more is more" and have a ton of clips that might be pretty average quality. Then you can make things interesting with real-time filters. I use Resolume for clip playback: http://www.resolume.com/ And here in Toronto a spin-off company from SideFX makes an app based around VJing ideas. It's very, very cool and you can set up whatever node based system to make an effect: http://www.touch077.com/
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Aug 24, 2009 14:53
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Can't have a VJ/video art discussion without mentioning Max/MSP/Jitter. Glanced through my bookmarks and saw vidvox.com as well. Worth taking a look at.
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Aug 24, 2009 15:41
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Travakian posted:Out of curiosity, do any of you VFX folks do the international/traveling freelancer bit? That is, six months in LA working on one show, a year in Vancouver on another, another six in London, etc -- I've heard of some people working solely contract-to-contract (as opposed to permanent employment at a studio); what is it like? Is it doable? I'm a compositor -- is it rare for compositors to shop around, as opposed to 3d? It's fine if you are single, and it's a great way to build up experience. Jumping around is more normal. It's rare that you'll be staying at one VFX studio for long periods of time. Most guys I know worked in California, London, Toronto and New Zealand for a few years before they settled down at a long term gig. That typically happens when they have a family. Either people burn out leave the industry, become a supervisor in some capacity at a vfx studio, start their own vfx company, or move into animated features or video games for stability to get out of the freelance loop. Permanent contracts is anything but. There is no real job security in this industry, even the major vfx houses are a few weeks away from closing their doors if they don't land constant work. So being flexible will help.. Case in point, at a few large VFX houses you have better security as a contractor than a staff employee. Normally staff employees in our industry get laid off last, but in the case of an at-will employment agreement they can get rid of you with a few hours notice, while the contractors get kept on because they would have to buy out their contract. Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Aug 24, 2009 |
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Aug 24, 2009 18:31
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At the last studio I was at I did 2.5 years of freelancing with the longest contract being 6 months. On most of those stints I didn't know if I had a new contract until the last day or so of the old one. My current contract is until January and things look pretty positive in Vancouver at the moment so I'm planning on staying here for the time being at least. With the main cost in VFX being labour it would be suicide for Studios to keep everyone on if they don't have work on. It would be great to have job security but sadly I don't see it happening any time soon.
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Aug 24, 2009 21:51
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Do any of you guys have much experience of working abroad in contractual work? I asked in the games thread but no one replied. I'll have two years experience in industry soon, 5 released titles, working on another. Obviously its all about the portfolio but I know they usually say "A good candidate will have _this much_ experience" etc. I'm always slowly working on my portfolio but would you guys say I'm viable to be employed from abroad or would you say wait another couple of years or its entirely dependant now on my portfolio or this sentence is going on way too long please use some punctuation?
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Aug 25, 2009 09:11
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brian encino man posted:Do any of you guys have much experience of working abroad in contractual work? I asked in the games thread but no one replied. I'll have two years experience in industry soon, 5 released titles, working on another. Obviously its all about the portfolio but I know they usually say "A good candidate will have _this much_ experience" etc. I'm always slowly working on my portfolio but would you guys say I'm viable to be employed from abroad or would you say wait another couple of years or its entirely dependant now on my portfolio or this sentence is going on way too long please use some punctuation? I'd say give it a go, not too sure about video game industry, but the film industry is pretty open to this, I've seen people pretty much travel the globe with 2-3 years of industry experience. It's all on your work and how you present yourself, if you've got the right skills and the right attitude, it should be no problem. P.S., why am I still awake at 2AM when I gotta be at work at 9 
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Aug 25, 2009 09:57
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Ratmann posted:I'd say give it a go, not too sure about video game industry, but the film industry is pretty open to this, I've seen people pretty much travel the globe with 2-3 years of industry experience. It's all on your work and how you present yourself, if you've got the right skills and the right attitude, it should be no problem. Also the more experience you have the more a studio is likely to want to go to the effort of helping to get you a visa. I would just go for it though.
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Aug 25, 2009 17:11
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Thanks for the advise guys! I'd love to work in NZ but from what I can see there are very few games companies there and I don't have any experience working in film. Canada sounds great, especially Vancouver so hopefully I'll start applying in a couple of months when my folio is looking better.
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Aug 25, 2009 18:16
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Update on the head I'm doing. Made a diffuse and specular map, added hair and added eyeballs. 
Max A Million fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Aug 25, 2009 |
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Aug 25, 2009 19:03
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mashed_penguin posted:The USA is pretty hard if you aren't Canadian or don't have a Degree etc. Yes, you basically need a bachelors to be considered for professional VISAs in most developed countries.
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Aug 25, 2009 19:16
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Seeing that previous ZBrush video was nice, but I've always been more a hard surface than organic modeler. I figure for me it'd be much better if I learned Vray than ZBrush. It's weird that I haven't already learned it, but is there some good website/book that covers it? I've always used Mental Ray in 3ds Max and have no experience in Vray at all.
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Aug 25, 2009 19:41
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Heintje posted:Yes, you basically need a bachelors to be considered for professional VISAs in most developed countries. I know a few talented artists who can't get work in the US because they don't have a degree. On the other hand if they have won awards for their work [paintings/film/etc] and have had their work published in a magazine or book, be it an interview or tutorial or art book, then they can document all that and go for an O-1 visa [which is also used for athletes, actors, and other people that are a benefit to the country in terms of art and culture but may not have a traditional background].  On that note you may notice a fair number of Non-US people doing a lot of siggraph paper submissions for a reason  That being said, Work visas are easy if you have a 3 year degree plus a few years work experience. But it's case by case. I've seen people who only went to a 1 year animation program swing a work visa, and on the other hand I've seen people who screwed up one question during the INS interview and get bounced. That being said, a few companies are absolutely clueless in regards to visas, stay away from any place that tells you to do the paperwork on your own. Most places that employee foreign nationals should have an lawyer do up the paperwork for you and the customs/immigration agent. brian encino man posted:"A good candidate will have _this much_ experience" etc. Anyone who reads the requirements and doesn't submit a reel anyway is a dum dum. What HR want's in a employee and what production actually wants for a show are 2 different things. That's why you get crackpot job requirements like Zbrush texture painter with C++ programing experience with IRIX knowledge a plus. Or someone with 5 years of software experience on a package that only has existed for 2 years. Submit a reel anyways, if it's really good, other departments may hand it to another team to look at in another department. I mean submitting reels is a crapshoot to begin with. You may be an idea hire, but because your reel was received 3 months ago, and someone elses reel just came through the door through siggraph, they may get reviewed first, someone will get tired of looking at reels and you may never get looked at. So if you don't know someone at the company, keep sending in good reels every few months to the same job. Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Aug 25, 2009 |
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Aug 25, 2009 19:48
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Two questions: 1) Are there any good free tutorials on basic modeling in Houdini? A couple minutes in the interface the other day did not reveal an "add polygon" tool to me; I probably just don't know where to look though. 2) Do you folks use Projection Master in Zbrush that much? I can't seem to get good results from it, the model doesn't inherit the changes well after picking up. I think this has to do with the pixol to pixel ratio but I can't find the old thread at the Zbrush forums that explained this. How do you guys set things up so that Projection Master works for you?
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Aug 25, 2009 19:48
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Listerine posted:Two questions: Generally the steps are: Create a primitive object, say a box, grid/plane, sphere, ensure they are type polygons and start appending polygons to it, extruding, etc. While SESI added many different modelling tools to houdini, it's more useful for procedural modelling. Most places that use houdini bring in models done in another package. It's not that houdini doesn't do the job, it's very hard to find a houdini modeller when maya/zbrush guys are a dime a dozen.
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Aug 25, 2009 19:58
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Houdini is a bit of a bitch to do standard modeling with, just import OBJs via a file SOP, but then you often have the issue of normals not doing what you want. But if you want to do some basic stuff, just put a box down, then an edit node after it, move stuff around- then select some primitives, hit tab in the viewport to lay down a poly extrude, rinse and repeat. On the shelf are other handy tools to add edge loops etc, they will prompt you for what to select. To select different elements of geometry (points, edges, primitives) hit the numbers 1, 2, 3 etc.
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Aug 25, 2009 21:19
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Cool once again thanks for the info. I said 5 games experience but I have 1 currently (amazingly 4 are due to be released in the next 2 months!) so I don't really want to start applying until I can chuck work stuff in. Also gives me time to do a couple of personal study work pieces. I do have a decent grade 3 year degree so I guess that helps.
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Aug 25, 2009 22:43
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This is an interesting dialogue going here. How many years experience does one need before considering going over seas? I see a lot of jobs popping up online for UK and Germany and occasionally Canada and India as well. Is this feasable for someone with 1-2 years experience? One of Houdini's weakest points is modeling. The software's strongest points are procedural animation and procedural FX as a whole.
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Aug 25, 2009 23:58
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrde-Ow_8Jo And here are some high res pics of the final version: http://j.photos.cx/uglymofo1-5d6.jpg http://j.photos.cx/uglymofo2-a99.jpg
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Aug 26, 2009 00:45
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Max A Million posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrde-Ow_8Jo Really nice but I think he'd benefit from more detail on your diffuse map. Like really draw those wrinkles in, don't just let the geometry do it for you. Also think if he would have like a red nose and cheeks like lots of people that look like that do because of drinking or whatever, really get in to the character and paint in those things that stand out. Its ok guys I know I sound patronising but I know max so its ok
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Aug 26, 2009 09:14
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The Merkinman posted:is there some good website/book that covers it? The manual for it is online here: http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/VRayHelp150beta/ Get it in your favourites, it's all you'll ever need to know about vray. The examples section is essential browsing.
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Aug 26, 2009 10:51
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brian encino man posted:Really nice but I think he'd benefit from more detail on your diffuse map. Like really draw those wrinkles in, don't just let the geometry do it for you. Also think if he would have like a red nose and cheeks like lots of people that look like that do because of drinking or whatever, really get in to the character and paint in those things that stand out.
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Aug 26, 2009 13:05
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More quiet time in work... Playing around with a watercolour/sketch style in photoshop. It's an old render, just loads of PS over it. Quite like how it turned out, definatly need to get some more practice in with this 
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Aug 26, 2009 14:17
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cubicle gangster posted:More quiet time in work... That's cool as heck
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Aug 26, 2009 14:44
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cubicle gangster posted:More quiet time in work... Real men write their own Renderman or Mantra toon shaders for this kind of stuff! (Cool though)
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Aug 26, 2009 17:34
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cubicle gangster posted:More quiet time in work... Everybody pay your fuckin respects to Cubicle Gangster, don of Archviz
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Aug 26, 2009 20:00
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cubicle gangster posted:More quiet time in work... I'd be interested to hear how you've done this. Several times in the last couple of years I've had bosses talk about producing more conceptual design renders than finalised picture perfect ones. The theory is that when you're creating a design from scratch there's a chance that you're preparing something that the client wont like. If you present it as a polished final render there's a bit of a feeling that this is the whole concept and colours and materials are locked in stone, conceptual renders on the other hand leave a bit more room for the client to be a complete and utter oval office and change their mind every three loving hours.
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Aug 27, 2009 01:02
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Aargh posted:I'd be interested to hear how you've done this. Iv done a few things similar to that, so I can tell you what iv done while we wait for Cubicle to spill the beans hehe. Basically the best way iv found is to take your normal render and overlay a vray toon outline over it in photoshop. Then start making the base image look more like a water colour render by adjusting saturation and contrasts. Erasing the edges was a nice touch and it looks like he probably added some sketch lines in photoshop. Also, on the bottom left side it looks like he might have coloured on top of the render some but that's the only area I can pick up on it. Its a great image and im definitely going to try something similar.
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Aug 27, 2009 02:22
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http://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo359/synthorange/showreel/watercolour.jpg Took a quick shot at it. Nowhere near as polished as Cubicle's, but still looks a million dollars better than a plain old render. Made a copy of the original, used the Find edge filter and desaturated/lightened it up a little. On top of that was another copy run over with a watercolour filter, then more HSL prodding. Then masking over the edges with a brushy brush. Synthbuttrange fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Aug 27, 2009 |
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Aug 27, 2009 02:50
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SynthOrange posted:Made a copy of the original, used the Find edge filter and desaturated/lightened it up a little. On top of that was another copy run over with a watercolour filter, then more HSL prodding. Then masking over the edges with a brushy brush. This is along the lines of what I thought it would be, I might have to see if I can play around with the idea later today (If I ever get this work done).
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Aug 27, 2009 04:30
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SynthOrange posted:Made a copy of the original, used the Find edge filter and desaturated/lightened it up a little. On top of that was another copy run over with a watercolour filter, then more HSL prodding. Then masking over the edges with a brushy brush. That's came out really good The first test I used find edges, but that one used a rendered vray toon line pass - just black outlines on white. Stops it loving about with your textures.What you did there is pretty much spot on though. I didnt use the filter, which i'm going to have to play around with now - I copied a lighter desaturated version over the base layer and painted soft brush masks in at various strengths and sizes to give the watery washed out look. Drew in a few of my own black lines for varying thickness/extending them beyond the edges too. The colour on top of the render is in a few places, too subtle in some, too obvious in other. Need to practice with that. Aswell as extending the render beyond the edges I did a lot of it with a really low flow in photoshop so it would add suble patchiness to the colour within the render. Hard to notice on the small one though.
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Aug 27, 2009 10:28
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Aargh posted:If you present it as a polished final render there's a bit of a feeling that this is the whole concept and colours and materials are locked in stone, conceptual renders on the other hand leave a bit more room for the client to be a complete and utter oval office and change their mind every three loving hours. This is the ultimate single line treatise on customer satisfaction in our industry. Thanks for starting my day off on an awesome note.
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Aug 27, 2009 13:33
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cubicle gangster posted:The manual for it is online here: I was reading this yesterday, but I've still run into an issue with VRay and the MTLWrapper material. I'm having trouble making it mimic the Matte/Shadow material. I had a render working well in the scanline renderer, you can see below the fragments leave shadows on the ground plane, and little ramp thing where there is a matte/shadow box.  Click here for the full 2026x1140 image. So that's great, but I want nice motion blur so I switch to VRay and use VRayMtlWrapper on the ground plane and the ramp, and end up with this:  Click here for the full 2026x1140 image. The parts that render flat black are where two VrayMtlWrapper objects overlap, here's the checkerboard so you can see:  Click here for the full 2026x1140 image. And my material settings:  Click here for the full 373x834 image. I've had the Affect Alpha box checked, and unchecked and saw no difference, in this screenshot it was checked. Gangster, do you see what my problem is here? I don't want anything to be flat black when it is behind an object with a VRayMtlWrapper, and I'd like the ground plane to have shadows while still being transparent, like the default scanline renderer does. It seems like it should be working after everything I've read here: http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/150SP1/mtlWrapper_params.htm bring back old gbs fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Aug 27, 2009 |
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Aug 27, 2009 15:27
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nm, er, Reckon you could upload a stripped down scene with just the 2 ground objects and a cube to show the issue? Something is up, but I cant tell from the renders. I'll have a play around see if I can see it.
cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Aug 27, 2009 |
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Aug 27, 2009 15:49
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Handiklap posted:This is the ultimate single line treatise on customer satisfaction in our industry. Thanks for starting my day off on an awesome note. Except in film where you have a final and polished render and the client makes changes every few hours until they run out of money 
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Aug 27, 2009 19:38
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BigKOfJustice posted:Except in film where you have a final and polished render and the client makes changes every few hours until they run out of money I love this. My favorite is the one where they don't really know what they want, "It kinda has to look like smoke or fluid motion, but I don't want it to be that"
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Aug 27, 2009 20:18
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^^^^ ooooh this is going to be fun. I got in at Framestore for FX work
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Aug 27, 2009 20:34
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cubicle gangster posted:nm, er, Reckon you could upload a stripped down scene with just the 2 ground objects and a cube to show the issue? Something is up, but I cant tell from the renders. I'll have a play around see if I can see it. http://www.filesavr.com/etststrippeddown Here's the ground, ramp, and wall. Thanks so much for taking a look at this, it means a lot. Heintje posted:^^^^ ooooh this is going to be fun. I got in at Framestore for FX work I want your life.
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Aug 27, 2009 20:40
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