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Comfy Fleece Sweater posted:Garbage men have better unions than Polygon jockeys lol as well they should btw
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Mar 30, 2019 22:13
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R+H is still around, after the bankrupcy the reformed version kept some core people and they moved forward, but much smaller. They recently won an technical oscar and some awards for Game of Thrones work. They finally had to leave the campus in El Segundo and move to Culver City. The old R+H owners are running a new VFX company called Tau films but I wouldn't want to work for Hughes and co. again. They knew what was coming and instead of being straight with everyone, was silent. There was warning signs. I bailed early enough from R+H and managed to get my sabbatical and vacation cashed out. I had a friend who had $200-300k in vacation backpay owing to him since he never took a day off in 20 years basically and all that earned income went to dust. After R+H I always make it a point to never let too much pto accumulate. Comfy Fleece Sweater posted:Garbage men have better unions than Polygon jockeys lol Literally the case. The Teamster driving the Stake truck in and out of the Sony Lot on Washington Blvd in LA is pulling down $45-50 an hour plus benefits. The entire film industry is unionized except for the computer nerds who think they are too good for that poo poo. Dummies.
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Mar 31, 2019 21:45
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Ccs posted:The whole process of getting projects is also twisted. Vendors bid for shows with absurd schedules and budgets, and of course both they and the studio know that it’s unrealistic. So when the time comes and the project is still months out from being delivered, Hollywood will throw a few more million at it. The bids and schedules at the start are all just part of a game the companies are playing to see if they can squeeze just a little more out of each other. There’s a dozen major films whose tentative release dates are in 2019 but there’s no way they’re gonna come out until 2020, and everyone involved knows and plans for this. If BC/Canada ever audited the film credits/subsidies program they would find out there's a bunch of rampant fraud. I only spent 2 years in Vancouver but holy gently caress the poo poo I've seen. Seen VFX studios figured out that generator trucks and fuel could be written off/reimbursed in some fashion. It was meant for on-set productions lasting 2-3 days to power set lighting, but since that wasn't technically defined, I saw a few Caterpillar semi truck trailer sized generators running 24/7 for months on end. Powering all the machines and the farm from diesel fuel. BC Hydro must have thought those VFX studios were super energy efficient  Best one was a London VFX company who forgot to account for overtime in their bid. They won a big show and realized they were completely hosed. They had to cook the books and had their Vancouver staff work 8 hour days on their project but pulled some creative accounting by having London crews finish things up, but somehow had their labor billed as Canadian labor.  The US production company was aware of it but didn't say anything because, gently caress it, they were still saving money.
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Mar 31, 2019 21:52
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I went to a lecture from one of the R & H guys a great many years ago ( 2003 ) or something, they were showing off their laser scanning stuff for Harry Potter and the renderer they made for Cats and Dogs. Pretty interesting on a technical level, especially since around then I was still dicking around in 3DS Max 2.5 or something and was interested in VFX. After seeing their stuff I decided I was never going to be good enough and continued working in regular IT. Reading all this stuff, I am sorry such a cool part of a really high end industry sucks to work in.
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Apr 1, 2019 06:05
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For every horror story there's also good jobs/companies out there. It just takes a while to find them. Its like anything. The best places to work don't really out themselves, they're smaller companies you never heard of. I switched over to games and.. its better for me, I make the same money but I basically just work normal hours now.. 10-6 generally and that's it, lots of free time for other stuff.
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Apr 1, 2019 15:56
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So how does Beeple do it? I’ve seen some interviews with the guy and they’re not specific at all, it’s just “just sit down and DO ART MAN” fluff. I mean does he have like a huge kitbash for things, I’m guessing he uses the same 3D models for persons? How much is modeling and how much is photoshop painting/retouching, or outright rendered? Is it mostly laying out the scenes with premade assets? He makes some great stuff but it blows my mind that he’s been doing it every day for years. I kinda wanted to do the same thing but got stuck rendering particles which turns out are really loving slow (but super cool)
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Apr 2, 2019 21:33
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I don't know about others here but I find that most people getting into 3D now know the names of some guys as if the're a big thing but I'm not sure. I would ask around the workplace if anyone knows that guy but I kinda doubt it. What does he do exactly?
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Apr 2, 2019 21:52
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Odddzy posted:I don't know about others here but I find that most people getting into 3D now know the names of some guys as if the're a big thing but I'm not sure. I would ask around the workplace if anyone knows that guy but I kinda doubt it. https://www.beeple-crap.com/everydays He decided to make a new artwork every day and somehow kept at it for 11 years straight, it's insane. I'm new to 3D too, just kept seeing his name pop up on Artstation/Tumblr/twitter and I was like "is this guy just reblogging or doing the modeling or just the lighting...?" Edit: here’s his past 7 days of posts       
Comfy Fleece Sweater fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Apr 2, 2019 |
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Apr 2, 2019 22:26
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It is all kitbashed, he's built up a huge library. It's also now his full time job and makes him a decent amount of money, and I got the impression that in his first few years doing it he didnt need money anyway. If I got to work on personal work for 8 hours a day for 11 years straight i'd probably have a solid body behind me, I cant bring myself to be impressed. It's 'just do art' fluff because an interview where he says he either moved back into his parents house and didn't pay rent for 4 years or was already independently wealthy probably wouldn't land very well.
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Apr 2, 2019 22:59
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Moving back in with family to save money owns.
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Apr 2, 2019 23:20
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cubicle gangster posted:It is all kitbashed, he's built up a huge library. It's also now his full time job and makes him a decent amount of money, and I got the impression that in his first few years doing it he didnt need money anyway. Yeah I have a friend of a friend who's been "inventing" some sort of self-balancing electric space pod commuter vehicle for about ten years now. He has a company and a few employees but they never seem to really produce anything, still have the single prototype sitting unmoved in the garage while he decides he's going to use it to work on his land rover instead or whatever. So I eventually asked my friend "how does he make any money with that company? It seems like he just kinda farts around and doesn't have any clear goal, but it keeps going year after year" and he was like "oh well his grandfather started Kawasaki Heavy Industries." 
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Apr 3, 2019 00:48
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I've been noticing a lot more of these double-high avatars like Mutata's new one. How do you manage that?
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Apr 3, 2019 01:25
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abusing the text field
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Apr 3, 2019 01:34
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Has anyone ever gotten a real statue made out of a 3D sculpt? Like bronze/some other metal. Something that can live outdoors. Cost isn't a concern at the moment.
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Apr 3, 2019 04:21
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If you're feeling intimidated by Beeple just look back at where he started: That's the first CG everyday, a year in to the project (before that it's bad drawings)   ~2 years in   ~3 years in   ~5 years in (year 4 was photography, not CGI) It's not until like year 6 or 7 that the instantly recognizable (and endlessly copied) Classic Beeple(TM) stuff starts coming:     And now (years ~9 through almost 12) he's focused more on lighting, mood, and composition, (and animation) so he kitbashes and recycles assets for more complex and concrete scenes. His output from the last couple years isn't possible to replicate daily unless you have a big library of assets. But I bet you could find your current technical skill level represented somewhere in his middle years of output (3-8), when he was creating everything or nearly everything. As in, you could make something similar in a single day. From there it's just a daily grind, slowly upping the ambition / complexity as you get better. If you want to follow his path, that is. But he really did just start super simple and keep at it every day. Prolonged Panorama fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Apr 3, 2019 |
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Apr 3, 2019 05:31
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Christ I forgot what his early work looked like. Maybe he did only spend an hour a day on it. Also how does someone keep producing stuff that looks like poo poo for 5 years every day until it takes off without just giving up at some point. There's probably some level of truth to his 'just do art', but I'm honest enough to admit the only reason I got good at CG is being depressed enough to think maybe if one day I did something good it would make me happy. That level of persistence is not borne from a decision, it's a compulsion. cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Apr 3, 2019 |
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Apr 3, 2019 06:08
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cubicle gangster posted:That level of persistence is not borne from a decision, it's a compulsion. Heh, yeah. I kept wishing that I one day would work on a good movie. They're pretty hard to find when you're specializing in creatures and blowing poo poo up.
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Apr 3, 2019 07:06
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Since we're on the subject, I might as well share this here. For the last few weeks, I've been doing the Weekend Challenge on blenderartists.org, trying to come up with an interesting model from scratch in only a few days. Week 1: "Escaped"  Randomly got this idea when listening to Jet Set Radio music and decided to run with it. Trying to avoid the cliché of "implied action from an unseen character" but now I can see why everyone does that; this took way too long and I ran out of time for the lighting, so everything is way too dark. I could go back and fix it now, but that would defeat the purpose. Week 2: "Still life"  The prompt was "still life" so I made a dinosaur in a block of ice (There's a pretty good tutorial on YouTube showing how to do ice in Blender.) I was torn on whether to do a frozen creature or a realistic fruit bowl. I was originally going to to a tardigrade. I got halfway through modeling it before I decided it was too ugly and weird so I should use something with a face instead. It's actually my second attempt at modeling a feathered dinosaur in Blender. Week 3: "Sand"  This has got to be the best one so far. The main figure is a sculpted model with some particles and for the background I tried to make a procedural sky from scratch. Week 4: "Falling"  It's OK I guess.  I should probably render a full animation of this, since the still image kind of boring.Week 5: "Mountains"  Re-using my character from week 1 but with better materials and experimenting with procedural terrain erosion. At some point I'm sure I'll look back and this will all look silly by compared to whatever I'm making at the time, and I look forward to that. I'm already taking away a few valuable lessons from the weekend challenge. It's easy to get bogged down in technical details (for me that's part of the appeal) but with only a few days to work on something you have to focus on getting the important stuff right first. Lesson #1: Finish modeling early and make time for lighting. If you have 4 days to make a CGI image, you should have a viable model and be starting on the lighting by the end of day 1 or else you'll run out of time. Lesson #2: Nobody really cares how much detail is in the image, only if the idea is interesting.
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Apr 3, 2019 17:10
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I'm also still working on my short film, which is about 90% finished (or so I keep telling myself.) I've had the Blender fluid simulation and FLIP Fluids both crash on me about 100 times, but it's getting there. What do you think, should the goldfish be male or female?
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Apr 3, 2019 17:15
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Komojo posted:I'm also still working on my short film, which is about 90% finished (or so I keep telling myself.) I've had the Blender fluid simulation and FLIP Fluids both crash on me about 100 times, but it's getting there. How could you even tell  Those weekly challenges are pretty cool, I should do that but I’m just so drat slow. Personally I think the more detail in an image the better, but then you get an extra 20 hours per frame rendering glass in a corner of the image or something. I guess the real skill is knowing when to stop in order to meet a deadline. “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations”, or as I initially heard it, “creating without limits is just jerking off”
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Apr 3, 2019 17:28
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Comfy Fleece Sweater posted:How could you even tell It only makes a difference for how I refer to the character, and I'm trying to come up with a name. I've been thinking of them as they/them, which I might just keep doing. Here's a good example of what I mean by the detail thing: After all the effort I took making a rigged character and city environment with vehicles, the entry that got the most votes for "Escaped" was this:  Eggscaped by parclite That looks like something I could recreate in a few hours, but the idea is interesting enough to stand on its own as a work of art. That's what really counts.
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Apr 3, 2019 18:41
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ImplicitAssembler posted:Heh, yeah. I kept wishing that I one day would work on a good movie. They're pretty hard to find when you're specializing in creatures and blowing poo poo up. After 4 years as an effects artist a friend of mine recently worked on a movie that cracked 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. Every other film has been in the 20-40% range. He picked the studio since they paid a lot better for a first job than one of the big prestigious places. That’s actually a question I have for those of you more experienced: Would you recommend starting at a big studio on a big project for 40k or a small studio with B-movie projects for 55k? Also kinda weird the studios with the lower budget projects can afford to pay juniors more. Maybe they need fewer senior artists for the really challenging shots since every shot is easier? Or the quota is higher and that mitigates cost concerns?
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Apr 4, 2019 02:37
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Arch viz is similar, some studios that poo poo out basic work with 3 day timelines can often pay more as their profit margins are higher, despite charging less. Clients buy a certain amount of time and the project gets cut wherever that lands. It's not universal but for a lot of my career I'd have made more money doing lower quality work. Not why I'm in it though, I like having the time to get things right. maybe if it had been double... My answer would be - don't gently caress yourself over, but if it's a 20% pay difference or less and you can live on the lower salary, take the one that's going to help you grow and be a better artist. And that doesn't mean pedigree only - sometimes you can learn more at smaller studios. Great experience is more valuable in the long run than an extra 10 grand. cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Apr 4, 2019 |
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Apr 4, 2019 04:48
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If you want to hear more about GameWorkersUnite, here's a great interview! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz1Pij1X78s
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Apr 4, 2019 15:24
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I'm sure you've all read it already but it's worth spreading, and fascinating to read: https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964 Jason wrote that "Blood Sweat and Pixels" book and it was more of the same with the occasional inspiring story, he's good at this kind of thing. Geoff Keighley used to write stuff like this but back then the focus wasn't so much on the exploitation of workers but rather the "crunch time heroes" they were, so awesome pulling off the magic at the last minute (at the cost of psychological damage lol). Bioware magic indeed
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Apr 5, 2019 04:55
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cubicle gangster posted:Christ I forgot what his early work looked like. Maybe he did only spend an hour a day on it. Work vs. art. This is a continuum. Beeple made it work. Read The Painted Word by Thomas Wolfe. There is a dance. It is called "The bohemian dance". You must work and then promote, or be driven mad. More to the point. Make time for your self to develop. This is key. Then promote. It is an old dance but a truism. The itch. sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Apr 5, 2019 |
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Apr 5, 2019 05:25
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Honestly I don't know what you're trying to tell me.
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Apr 5, 2019 05:48
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Take up dancing I think
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Apr 5, 2019 07:23
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EoinCannon posted:Been loving Mari recently, abandoning the layer editor and going full nodes, with the extension pack is a great way to do complex textures quickly Have you tried out the Material system yet? Any good? Jens has done a great job on the extension pack!
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Apr 5, 2019 23:09
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forelle posted:Have you tried out the Material system yet? Any good? Haven't installed the new one yet as I'm mid project. I don't know that much about it but I'm the only one in the studio using Mari so I'm not sure how much utility we'll get out of the material system. I'll install it when I'm done on the current job and dig into it. iirc you work or worked on Mari? If so great job 
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Apr 6, 2019 00:37
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cubicle gangster posted:Honestly I don't know what you're trying to tell me. It isn't hard. All I am saying is that all artists experience burnout or issues with balancing their lives. Pablo Picasso had a "bohemian dance". At least that is what Thomas Wolfe called it. Basically the idea that the artist would take time to develop themselves and their work and keep that separate from rigors of marketing / industry. Certainly VFX artists burnout and although Pablo Picasso is far from modern VFX artist, the idea of the bohemian dance is just to learn to balance your life and work. Picasso would develop his work and then promote it. Once he sold a bunch of stuff he would disappear and make time for himself to develop stuff away from "the scene." Then repeat the process - hence his "periods." Anyways the studio daily grind is the opposite of this and not necessarily healthy. That's all I am getting at. Pretty sure Danny "Pointpusher" Williams started his Lunch crunch group to try and battle this kind of burnout.
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Apr 6, 2019 02:17
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BonoMan posted:Has anyone ever gotten a real statue made out of a 3D sculpt? Like bronze/some other metal. Something that can live outdoors. I'm doing some modelling work -> 3d printing -> mold making -> casting at the moment. Right now I'm starting with pewter sculptures, I use high temperature silicon molds that I made up out of glued together 3d prints. I should be able to use the same technique with aluminum and zamak/kirksite [die cast alloy] but past that getting into bronze and other high temp metals you'll need to move to sand casting as one option. I'd probably talk to experienced casters of bronze. I know some guys work with brass with backyard forges but they're nuts, they have no temperature control and while the copper is at the melting point, the zinc is at the vaporization point and zinc oxides aren't fun to deal with. Your big issue is going to be scale, or how big the item is, building a template and building a mold around that to cast in.
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Apr 7, 2019 02:08
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sigma 6 posted:It isn't hard. For what it's worth, I'm still not totally with you. Balancing life and work is a thing but career artists don't have the same issues that Picasso did. I have trouble balancing my professional work with personal because I always put more effort and time into the professional work; it pays the bills. Coming home and putting 100+ hours into a personal project is difficult to justify. It's not a dance, it's basic economics. Burnout doesn't come into it, I'm pretty sure my team is happy and content with what they work on.
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Apr 7, 2019 05:54
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I have this blender 2.8 issue that's driving me nuts. I have a scene with an unrotated object, a simple 1x1 plane at 0,0,0. I also have an unrotated bone in an unrotated armature. When I attach the object to the armature (using Child Of -> Armature -> Bone) it gets rotated 90 degrees X. The Bone appears to have a rotation, but looking in pose mode I can't see anything other than the identity quaternion (w1,0,0,0). Uncrossing the Rotation:X checkbox in the Object Constraint tab removes the rotation, and rotating the bone (or the object) -90 degrees in euler X cancels it out. But, I'm trying to set up a workflow with blender, and I really would love to feel like I have some sort of idea of what's going on. I can't figure out where this rotation is coming from! Is there some part of the GUI i haven't seen where there's more bone rotations? I put the file here if anyone can help me figure this out: http://andreascarlson.se/rotation_repro.blend Update: Rectus helped me out on the gamedev discord: Selecting the armature and going into pose mode, then selecting the bone, right clicking the plane in the outlier and pressing select, then pressing CTRL+P and choosing "Bone" from the context menu will apparently set the bone as parent without applying the spurious rotation
Mata fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Apr 7, 2019 |
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Apr 7, 2019 09:19
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cubicle gangster posted:Also how does someone keep producing stuff that looks like poo poo for 5 years every day until it takes off without just giving up at some point. For me it's not the fact that he produced crappy beginner work for so long, but that he shared it publicly that whole time. I wish I could do that, but my brain is always like "just get a bit better first, then you can start posting". Having said that, here's a thing I'm working on in Substance Designer. Recreating the snowflake from Frozen as a learning exercise. 
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Apr 7, 2019 10:51
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500 posted:For me it's not the fact that he produced crappy beginner work for so long, but that he shared it publicly that whole time. I wish I could do that, but my brain is always like "just get a bit better first, then you can start posting". drat man, why did you post that horrible thing!! EW!!! U suck!!!
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Apr 7, 2019 20:08
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anybody else accidentally create optical illusions in 3d? i was just using orthographic view in 3ds max and accidentally made a penrose triangle
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Apr 8, 2019 00:20
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Kanine posted:anybody else accidentally create optical illusions in 3d? i was just using orthographic view in 3ds max and accidentally made a penrose triangle Everything I do in 3d is an accident More acquisitions: https://www.globalbankingandfinance.com/maxon-acquires-redshift-rendering-technologies/
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Apr 8, 2019 18:41
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Ccs posted:After 4 years as an effects artist a friend of mine recently worked on a movie that cracked 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. Every other film has been in the 20-40% range. At one point, a bunch of colleagues and I started looking up who had the lowest rated movie on RT. I had 2 at 8% 
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Apr 8, 2019 20:15
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Comfy Fleece Sweater posted:More acquisitions: We use 3dsMax and redshift, not sure I like this acquisition. Of course I don't, all these acquisitions suck
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Apr 8, 2019 20:52
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