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Buckwheat Sings posted:Quicker turnarounds just means quicker to layoff. Really? I don't know anyone who works in advertising who's been let go because a job ended - most people I know in that industry have been at the same place for between 3 and 5 years. Any they love the fact that one week they're on set/tracking then the next doing cloth sims then the next doing modeling & lighting etc. Most commercial houses only want full time staff too, the vast majority refuse to work with freelancers. Every senior person i've spoke to has nothing but horror stories about working with them to the point where I've make a habit of asking if they have any when I meet one. cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Mar 1, 2013 |
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Mar 1, 2013 00:33
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cubicle gangster posted:What about advertising places? Those work fine, you generally make enough to be able to dodge the lulls in work. For those in the US, healthcare can get expensive unless you have portable benefits [ie unionized]. Most of the commercial shops are nice small boutique studios, I've had friends who had to turn around elaborate commercial work within 2-3 weeks, vs say 2-3 years for an animated feature. it's a big change of pace. I got caught up in a big layoff but I'm lucky that I'm getting a few months severance out of it, others aren't so lucky. Thinking of jumping over to the games industry now... they're hiring a bunch of people.
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Mar 1, 2013 00:53
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cubicle gangster posted:Really? I don't know anyone who works in advertising who's been let go because a job ended - most people I know in that industry have been at the same place for between 3 and 5 years. Any they love the fact that one week they're on set/tracking then the next doing cloth sims then the next doing modeling & lighting etc. Before I moved into features, I spent some 6 years in commercials (In London), both as staff and as freelance. I'd develop relationships with 3-4 different shops and that would usually keep me busy. Jobs varied from 3 days to 3 months and once place I worked on back-to-back projects for 9 months or so. The thing is, as a freelance, you are usually given the crappy jobs. I found commercials way more stressful. You have very little room for experimenting with techniques/technology and all-nighters were far more frequent, because with the shorter turn-around, you had less time to recover from mistakes/bad decisions. As for horror stories, everybody got them. Be it about freelancers, clients, bosses, co-workers.
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Mar 1, 2013 09:39
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ImplicitAssembler posted:As for horror stories, everybody got them. Be it about freelancers, clients, bosses, co-workers. Can I hear a few? Not to derail too much but I'm interested in the industry and pet peeves thereof.
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Mar 1, 2013 18:05
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ImplicitAssembler posted:The thing is, as a freelance, you are usually given the crappy jobs. I wasn't suggesting it as a freelancer, what's wrong with going full time?
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Mar 1, 2013 19:49
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http://www.archiwaredesign.com/Architecture12.html posting a project I did over the summer, it was a proposal for a design incubator space, theres two versions there one in unity where I pretended I had a bigger budget and the cheaper version we did for the actual proposal. 
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Mar 1, 2013 22:25
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cubicle gangster posted:I wasn't suggesting it as a freelancer, what's wrong with going full time? Oh nothing!. Sweet gig if you can get it.
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Mar 1, 2013 23:55
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If? TJ's website which I posted above has a shitload of job postings between London/NY, even a couple where they'll do you a visa to cover both. fx, nuke, generalist & supe positions. Small shops are always hiring - every job i've ever got was through an unsolicited email asking if they'd be able to make room for me. We personally are desperate for good full time staff. I just find it quite annoying to see so many film vfx guys moaning about being out of work and their hours and treatment, yet not working on movies is totally beneath them, like they may aswell be scrubbing toilets if they don't get to work on a movie. It's weird. Me and 2 other guys have been working on a 4 minute film for the past 6 months that's been such an uphill struggle because literally nobody who's not total poo poo at their job is applying at our company. we're asking for seniors and getting school quality level poo poo. We've had to do everything ourselves - setting up the cameras to give to the motion control guys on set, going on set and supervising it, making sure the lighting matches, tracking it, comping it, all the cg and fx. it's ridiculous. I've not seen one cv sent to us in the past 6 months by someone who I felt could become a proper team member and get on with things. cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Mar 2, 2013 |
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Mar 2, 2013 07:54
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One of my best friends is lead artist at Taylor James, they do amazing stuff!
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Mar 2, 2013 11:05
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cubicle gangster posted:If? TJ's website which I posted above has a shitload of job postings between London/NY, even a couple where they'll do you a visa to cover both. fx, nuke, generalist & supe positions. Small shops are always hiring - every job i've ever got was through an unsolicited email asking if they'd be able to make room for me. We personally are desperate for good full time staff. Where do you work again?
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Mar 2, 2013 17:57
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I'm at dbox.
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Mar 2, 2013 19:45
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Back in the day I used to piddle around (read: devote most of my free waking hours) with Lightwave modeling at a strictly hobbyist level and occasionally taking a crack at setting up/lighting/rendering a decent scene. It's been a few years and I just loaded it up again and, after stumbling for a bit, muscle memory clicked in and I was back in the game. I'm content to stick with Lightwave just from a hobbyist standpoint, but if I ever wanted to make a transition into something less amateur and more professional (ie. maybe someday make some money), would it be smart to ditch Lightwave for something else, or can I keep on rocking Lightwave and just be open to the possibility of expansion into something else should work arise? Modeling was always the most fun for me, so that's where I'd likely devote my focus. Could never get the hang of reliably modeling organics, but architectural stuff and ridiculous scifi/fantasy like everyone else does were my main foci.
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Mar 3, 2013 03:53
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Modo is probably perfect for you. I could write more in the morning, but have a look into it. Reasonably priced and has some of the best modeling tools going.
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Mar 3, 2013 11:11
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Hey guys, do me a solid and come check out my new portfolio site: arch vis-à-vis the mobile experience is kinda poo poo right now, but it works well enough. I'm still struggling with supplemental content for each of the projects, whether it's verbiage or detail shots or wireframes or what, or if it should just be straight finished shots alone. Any crits or suggestions are greatly appreciated, of course. Handiklap fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Mar 4, 2013 |
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Mar 4, 2013 16:41
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Handiklap posted:Hey guys, do me a solid and come check out my new portfolio site: If I click an image, it brings me to a page with only that image, then I see an up arrow below the image, when clicked it brings me to 404. most of the images look good to me, I really like the bus stop one, but especially for the 2d work, it's not obvious whats going on, maybe a small caption?
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Mar 5, 2013 02:09
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Check out my face. It's literally my own face. Without Photoshop: 
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Mar 5, 2013 02:25
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HolyJewsus posted:If I click an image, it brings me to a page with only that image, then I see an up arrow below the image, when clicked it brings me to 404. Cool, the up arrow is a default scroll to top module that I've disabled for now, thanks for the heads up. I'm slowly working on background info for each image, but it's hard to not sound...toolish? I don't know, I mean it just feels strange trying to sell myself after being at the same place for almost 9 years.
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Mar 5, 2013 02:42
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cubicle gangster posted:I'm at dbox. Do you guys need an intern for the summer? I'm itching to get some experience in a studio environment and if you need qualified people who will work hard I'm down. What programs do you use? I'm most familiar with Maya.
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Mar 5, 2013 04:05
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Megaspel posted:Check out my face. It's literally my own face. This must be very gratifying; congratulations. The second image kind of looks like Anne Hathaway post-shave in Les Miserables. Not sure if it's your animated expression or the particular materials and lighting you've chosen that makes it seem cartoony. Only one thing left to do now: get it 3D printed.
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Mar 5, 2013 07:32
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kuskus posted:Only one thing left to do now: get it 3D printed slightly larger than 1:1 scale and wear it as a mask. fixed that for you
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Mar 5, 2013 16:58
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 a tool I'm working on for unity, it's a procedural level generator that uses cube tiles, I'm working on generating a low poly plane based version made from a single texture and material.
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Mar 6, 2013 03:48
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Just started learning 3ds max and so far I'm liking it way more than maya. It seems way more intuitive and also way more powerful, I dunno. Maybe it's just me though...But the amount of Crashes seem to be about the same. Oh autodesk. In any case looking forward to knowing both programs  HolyJewsus posted:
I love unity but drat if coding doesn't make me feel like a total dummy. Never had any real class past JavaScript for web and I'm using c# now.
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Mar 6, 2013 17:28
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I really enjoy c#, python is more fun and nicer to look at, but c# has so many good .net libs you can use with mono.
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Mar 6, 2013 19:15
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Reworked that lovely broken terrible dolphin mesh from earlier for class. Has a placeholder texture on it, need to go in and paint in some details/get rid of some stuff, there's a few issues like around the mouth and the one black poly near the eye. This is the high poly version, the low poly only has ~2000.  
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Mar 6, 2013 21:12
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JoeyJoJoJr Shabadoo posted:Just started learning 3ds max and so far I'm liking it way more than maya. It seems way more intuitive and also way more powerful, I dunno. Maybe it's just me though...But the amount of Crashes seem to be about the same. Oh autodesk. In any case looking forward to knowing both programs I've used Maya since v1.0 and was about to move to C4D because my work being a little more motion graphics based, but honestly I think I'm going to move to Max instead. I've been watching some Video CoPilot stuff and Max seems like something I'd rather learn.
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Mar 7, 2013 02:40
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uglynoodles posted:Reworked that lovely broken terrible dolphin mesh from earlier for class. Has a placeholder texture on it, need to go in and paint in some details/get rid of some stuff, there's a few issues like around the mouth and the one black poly near the eye. This is the high poly version, the low poly only has ~2000. Looking good man but if you want some crit post some wires!
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Mar 7, 2013 09:33
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cubicle gangster posted:I just find it quite annoying to see so many film vfx guys moaning about being out of work and their hours and treatment, yet not working on movies is totally beneath them, like they may aswell be scrubbing toilets if they don't get to work on a movie. It's weird. I agree, some of the best paid jobs are at the smaller boutique shops doing commercial and print work. The pay helps offset the downtime between jobs. One of my buddies makes more money doing slot machine graphics than he did in film. On the other hand some people want to be the next James Cameron or only care about what credit they have on the show. After the Dreamworks blow up, it was pretty silent on the job front for a week or two, I think all the usual HR/Recruiting channels were immediately flooded with the 1,2 punch of R+H's bankruptcy and Dreamworks 100M write down and production crew layoff. Things are picking up, interviewed a few game studios this week and a few more feature film gigs next week, hopefully I have everything sorted by April so I can enjoy some time off before starting work again. Heard a rumor last night that a big Bid was put in for R+H which will be revealed tomorrow so I think R+H will recover in some form by the end of the month. Thats good news for the film vfx biz.
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Mar 8, 2013 03:34
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It's true. I've been making more doing graphics for slot machines in less than a year than the past 3+ years in animation and film combined. 
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Mar 8, 2013 04:45
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So I tried modeling/texturing/rendering an environment for the first time.   
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Mar 8, 2013 06:51
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keyframe posted:So I tried modeling/texturing/rendering an environment for the first time. drat I like that a lot. A lot. You did a good job! Can't really see any flaws. Nice materials. Nice design. Nice skybox images. Solid work! Maybe a little too dark wood on the floor, but that can easily just be a design decision. It kinda helps pop out the white anyway.
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Mar 8, 2013 08:38
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I'm doing a thing   The hardest part is figuring out where patches should be.
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Mar 8, 2013 09:10
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Jewel posted:drat I like that a lot. A lot. You did a good job! Can't really see any flaws. Nice materials. Nice design. Nice skybox images. Solid work! Maybe a little too dark wood on the floor, but that can easily just be a design decision. It kinda helps pop out the white anyway. Thanks man! Hope to build a environment modeling/lighting portfolio so I can hopefully get a job doing that since I can't find a animation job anywhere 
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Mar 8, 2013 19:32
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Whelp, one of my interviews went well, I get a in game engine vfx art test to do next week. I'll post the result here if the NDA allows it. I'm guessing I get a fixed polygon/fps budget, but limited to x light sources, y textures, 512x512 textures but I'm allowed to pre generate volumetric/pyroclastic elements rendered on cards. Should be fun.
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Mar 8, 2013 20:33
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Is it with a custom engine or something more mainstream you can prep with?
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Mar 8, 2013 23:22
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Ccs posted:Do you guys need an intern for the summer? I'm not totally sure we do this - we never deal with temporary staff. If you come on without experience, you come as a junior with plans to make a career here. keyframe - There's a lovely feel to the lighting. Could do with a bit more distinct materials if you're going all white though - lacquers, leathers & painted plaster. cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Mar 8, 2013 |
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Mar 8, 2013 23:47
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keyframe posted:So I tried modeling/texturing/rendering an environment for the first time.  I do not believe that that's your first time.
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Mar 9, 2013 20:28
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To me it says that he has patience and taste. And is probably resourceful. It shows a lot of potential.
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Mar 10, 2013 00:08
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keyframe posted:So I tried modeling/texturing/rendering an environment for the first time. This is pretty good. A couple of things...bring in more texture. I feel like you may have used such a starkness to get around any weaknesses of texturing, but don't avoid it. Bring some in or else it feels a little THX'y. Also drop the shallow depth of field for a wide shot. It makes it feel like a miniature. That shallow DoF will be present in more macro shots, or full frame shots with a wide open f stop. But that sofa near the camera isn't really close enough to approximate that (otherwise most stuff past the coffee table would be out of focus as well since your plane would be so thin).
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Mar 10, 2013 00:55
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Thanks for the crit Bonoman, I will keep those in mind for the next one. I am still desperately trying to learn how to texture, this is the first time I UV'd and textured anything and it is more complex than I thought it would be. I am doing some tests now to get the hang of it.
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Mar 10, 2013 05:24
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HolyJewsus posted:Is it with a custom engine or something more mainstream you can prep with? The rest is probably something more mainstream, but the final toolset seems to be idtech or unreal engine or some offspring off that,. I'll use Houdini/Maya for it and send over all my assets via ftp and rendered/streamed texture data. From what I gather, a lot of in engine vfx uses a lot of decals, precached motion on particles driving animated textures on cards, and projected textures on cards. I think game studios have had issues with hiring folks who work in VFX who can't either work behind the box [leads or supervisors from other companies who haven't pushed a pixel in 5+ years] or people who can't economize to get something looking nice on a game console. I remember hearing stories about Ion Storm about 10 or so years ago where they hired texture artists making 1k texture maps for projectiles that are about 5-10 pixels big on screen  It's the classic case when changing fields within the same industry. Games, VFX and Feature Animation, many places will bring up that you don't have experience in doing x at their company if you haven't done it before. Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Mar 10, 2013 |
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Mar 10, 2013 17:12
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