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Double post, but wanted to keep stuff separate. High Castle season 4 trailer dropped last month, has a bit of my shading work in it. And this was my first foray into using Arnold directly in production (instead of Cycles which another artist would then convert). Once the show is out I'm sure there will be some BTS deep dives as it's the last season and I'll hopefully be able to share some of my own stuff. Besides my s2/s3 work at the beginning, I have the following assets in there (mostly texturing/shading, with some modeling as needed). And as always, this was all made possible through the awesome teams we have: - bullet train + track/pylons - attack helicopter - Volkshalle - the big man/woman statue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIT2JD4BJ9M And on top of that, the Silicon Valley episode I worked on aired last night! My stuff was pretty simple and only in about a dozen shots, but still fun to see! It's been quite a while since I've had any client work I can publicly share, feels good.
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Nov 4, 2019 18:42
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3D CG thread! Help me navigate my future career path! I'm coming to the end of my first year in vfx on a huge show, and I previously had 4 years experience in tv animation. Since the last show was so huge they don't have enough spaces on the next show for all the animators. So my choice is either to transition into a cfx role at that studio at the same pay scale (junior vfx salary) while waiting for future projects that require animation to come along, or jump to a tv studio as a mid/senior animator and make more but be out of the world of big budget vfx/feature. Looking long term I'm probably going to try to transition to games as one of my mentors left his job as a supervisor at a big vfx firm to work in games and now has longer contracts, bonuses, relative job security, etc. He recommended me to that game company but because I don't have quite enough high-profile animation experience I haven't heard anything from that studio hr. Going into games also piques my interest as part of a long term plan to create an employee-owned studio eventually. But I don't see that being viable in vfx as no vfx studio owns their own ip. But a games studio can do, and there are more obvious paths to distribution and profitability than "underbid against all the other vfx studios that are trying for the same 6 clients."
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Nov 12, 2019 06:15
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If you want to keep moving up (and can't at this stage get into games), you need to stay in VFX. That they want to keep you on in a different discipline is a sign that they at least like your ability to do shots, just be aware that it can be tricky to return  .Make sure you keep working on your own stuff. Do tutorials. Experiment!. Do a bunch of 10-20 second studies. Use references. Even straight up copy stuff, just to show (to yourself) that you can. Step 1 as a junior is to be reliable, not a jerk and show a little bit of talent. Next step is be more independent (start anticipating the feedback, address potential notes before they're given, etc) . Still keep it simple, don't over-think it. Add a little flair, but the main point is to prove that you reliably handle more complex work, are paying attention to notes. You also, for better or worse, need to be willing to put in the hours. (when required..don't be that guy that does OT just to impress people..it's so obvious when people do that). The most important trait is simply to be reliable and then not be a jerk. Then it's just a question of putting in the work. This is assuming that you have a base level of talent.
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Nov 12, 2019 07:31
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So, Quixel's been bought up by Epic. Thank god it wasn't Adobe. To sum it up: They're halving all prices. Mixer 2020 and Bridge 2020 will be free for everyone. All assets are free for use with Unreal Engine, meaning if you link up your account you have free access to everything. If you're using other programs, they'll refund your current monthly subscription in accordance with the new price. If you're only using Unreal, they're refunding all your subscription payments in 2019. Also Bridge 2020 will be getting an AI search, so you can find assets matching the look of an image. And the Soon-coming Mixer 2020 will have 3D Painting finally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd_sdFaYdIk It's a lot. I'm curious what the next 3D 3rd party thing they're going to buy out is. e: And oh yeah, they removed the resolution limit, so even the cheapest subscription tier gives you 8k assets now too. Previously it was capped at 4k, I believe. SubNat fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Nov 12, 2019 |
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Nov 12, 2019 13:30
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Holy crap. Rip Substance. 
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Nov 12, 2019 13:39
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Ccs posted:jump to a tv studio as a mid/senior animator and make more but be out of the world of big budget vfx/feature. I've been working in TV for almost four years now, and it's definitely an interesting/complex gig. Likely not as in-depth as feature work, but I constantly come across challenges that require a bit of forethought and experimentation to solve. Compared to features though (afaik, only have coworker experience to go on), there are some big differences: - gigs will be in the span of weeks to months, occasionally 7-8 months if it's a prestige show. That means if you're contracting, you have to hope you made enough of an impact to be recommended for work in the down time. I'm very lucky to have been with both my studios since they were still pretty new, and I'm on indefinite contracts for both. Still have weeks here and there with no work, but I can plan for those and don't have to sell myself constantly like I would otherwise. - You'll need to be able to solve issues quickly or know someone who can. Sometimes you'll get a shot with a drop-dead of the next day (or worse, EOD), with no leeway. Then it's a matter of hitting the broad supe/client notes asap, getting feedback, and doing one extra pass if time. This can suck, obviously, but can also be immensely rewarding when you pull it off. - it's not features, but you'll be working with people (artists, actors, directors) who've done features. This is more on the prestige side of things, but the divide between film and TV is shrinking. I can't say what direction would be best for you, but it seems like you've got some decent options with the "games" goal at the end. Both paths (current studio, TV VFX) should be able to get you there, though feature work may offer a leg up in the hiring process (not fully sure though). It's mainly about the kind of work you want to do to get there. Longer schedules, more R&D, (potentially) more prestige? Features. Shorter schedules, more dynamic work, and less longterm pixel loving? TV. (Tbh I'd prob recommend staying in features and doing CFX as I think that's super cool, but that's only because I've never done a feature and have a starry-eyed view of it)
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Nov 12, 2019 15:31
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Or for way less prestige but also way more fun, do AR/VR work as a stopgap. It's a nice introduction to the game engine work, very unsexy, but clients will range from ad agencies to museums to theme parks. Animation is usually simpler with those, too, due to device limitations.
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Nov 12, 2019 15:36
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Yeah, I do have options which is awesome. The tv studio uses a real time pipeline and Unreal which I’m really interested in. But the build department supervisor at the vfx place says I can be an asset to their RnD. Unfortunately me staying at the vfx place after February relies on them winning future bids which are still up in the air, so I’m not sure which is more forward thinking...
Ccs fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Nov 13, 2019 |
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Nov 13, 2019 06:49
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http://pixologic.com/features/ Zbrush 2020 is out. Some pretty interesting features, including sculpting on a uv-flattened mesh. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMRDCebWy70 and extracting detail as a brush https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrYHXwTmZrY
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Nov 17, 2019 07:49
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Ccs posted:Yeah, I do have options which is awesome. The tv studio uses a real time pipeline and Unreal which I’m really interested in. But the build department supervisor at the vfx place says I can be an asset to their RnD. Unfortunately me staying at the vfx place after February relies on them winning future bids which are still up in the air, so I’m not sure which is more forward thinking... Go for the sure contract than a maybe in those cases. At least they're being honest if they come out and say we don't have any work past "X show". Unlike say, Image Engine which couldn't hire people for short term contracts [everyone else in Van was offering 1 year +], so they lied, offered people 1-year contracts and broke them 3-4 months in. A lovely situation, but they were broke and then got eaten up by Cinecite. I was in the same boat years ago with ILM, I was on a short contract with them 10 or so years ago, but they had work coming down the pipe but no guarantees past my contract yet. I had a phone call from Dreamworks, I almost turned them down saying I wasn't available but I figured I'd line it up as a backup plan and I'm glad I did. I wound up spending almost 3 years with DreamWorks then went to ILM after DWA had one of their big layoffs. Otherwise, I would have had a couple of months gap in work if I decided to wait for a maybe. As for VFX vs TV, I'd try to stay in VFX as well, going from animation to tech animation/shot/character finaling is a jump and it may be hard to jump back to animation if that's what you really want to do. Usually its easier to hire animators then good character td guys. I've been in that exact situation before. I was animating, hated the rigs, fixed the rigs, got put in charge of rigging on the next show [tv], eventually wound up rigging and doing tech anim on films then jumped back and forth between that and FX work. Eventually, it came to a point where I had to make a choice and left a job where I was at for almost 6 years because I wanted to do FX full time instead of creature work [more pay/job stability since every VFX show has VFX but not every VFX show is a heavy creature show...]. I jumped over to games after 20 years of VFX, it's a nice change and I still get to use Houdini for everything.
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Nov 17, 2019 15:59
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SubNat posted:So, Quixel's been bought up by Epic. Holy poo poo
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Nov 19, 2019 09:34
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This seems a little nuts.
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Nov 21, 2019 05:34
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I work for a company that needs 10 high-poly cars turned into low-poly cars with uvs and normal maps. We have modellers in-house, but not enough time to do all that work. Is there any shop we can outsource to for a fast turnaround?
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Nov 21, 2019 06:17
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sigma 6 posted:This seems a little nuts. They dont look great, it's still just a photo mapped onto a pre-made smooth face. making the model looks like it takes just as long as it would take someone to morph a preset head in zbrush to get the same result. I guess it stays rigged, but it's only really useful if you can retain that rig and modify the model even further.
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Nov 21, 2019 17:22
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Big K of Justice posted:Go for the sure contract than a maybe in those cases. At least they're being honest if they come out and say we don't have any work past "X show". Unlike say, Image Engine which couldn't hire people for short term contracts [everyone else in Van was offering 1 year +], so they lied, offered people 1-year contracts and broke them 3-4 months in. A lovely situation, but they were broke and then got eaten up by Cinecite. Thanks man! Your advice has always been solid so I’m going to go for the more sure contract (it also comes with a nice pay bump...) I can use the extra time and money it affords me to take another creature class and prepare for the jump back to vfx. I learned my lesson from last time, can never get too comfortable at one studio and need a strong reel. Maybe Framestore will take a look at my reel if I have a few more cool creature shots.
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Nov 22, 2019 09:39
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sigma 6 posted:This seems a little nuts. I played around with it a tiny bit, and it's pretty decent, though somewhat limited by the morphs (and skin tools.) it currently has. Though you can easily just export the head and sculpt it a bit, and retain their facial setup + morphs, which is nice. Unfortunately, the whole thing suffers from a pretty bad case of either walled-garden-itis, or DRM-paranoia. The program does not allow exporting of morphs/blendshapes, outside of a small pool of stock facial morphs (Around 50, no phonemes or anything, just the basic eyebrow and mouth movements. You can't even disable/enable them separately, it's all or nothing. ), and has no way to let you add custom facial morphs for animations either. (You can pretty easily make your own morphs and import them for use, but those are only for shaping the character. ) If you want to say, have a character in Unreal with lipsync and some expressions, or a FACS rig, you have to append those to the model after export. (Which is a bleeding shame, because if you could set them up once and reuse them across all characters in a game, then I could see it being very useful for games.) If you want to do lipsync, or mocap, you're expected to use a different one of their programs, iClone. (Which has a streaming live-link to Unreal, but as far as I can tell, it'll only export canned sequences. No option for runtime lipsync or anything ingame, due to blocked morph export.) If they didn't DRM-it-up by blocking off morphs (Scanning through their forums, they have no plans for allowing it, either. ), then it could be a pretty useful tool for genning up a lot of npcs and the like for a game, and having standardised lipsync + expressions work across them easily. Atleast the programs are buy-to-own instead of subscribe-forever, so that's a plus I suppose.
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Nov 25, 2019 18:04
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Anyone in Montreal going to the VES mega-party next week? Never been to one before but the studio handed out free tickets, so... Things seem really good in mtl right now. Though some of the more experienced guys are looking at the landscape and going “this will all be in Australia or Germany in a few years...”
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Nov 30, 2019 16:37
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Ccs posted:Anyone in Montreal going to the VES mega-party next week? Never been to one before but the studio handed out free tickets, so... If you can nab a ticket extra I'd come and meet up. I work at a big gaming company but gently caress if I know whom to ask there to get hooked up with tickets.
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Nov 30, 2019 19:49
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Odddzy posted:If you can nab a ticket extra I'd come and meet up. I work at a big gaming company but gently caress if I know whom to ask there to get hooked up with tickets. They won’t even give me a +1 unfortunately. I got my free one from my supervisor so maybe yours would know if they’re giving some out?
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Nov 30, 2019 21:31
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Ccs posted:They won’t even give me a +1 unfortunately. I got my free one from my supervisor so maybe yours would know if they’re giving some out? I'll ask around, but not sure it will turn out positive.
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Dec 1, 2019 06:53
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So Framestore announced they’re opening a new facility in Mumbai and MPC has laid off most London staff, frozen hiring in Canada and committed to crewing up in Bangalore... I know there’s been other attempts over the years to shift everything to Asia and it never quite worked out, but this is a really big push from two of the biggest vfx facilities. Starting to feel like it will become even harder for westerners to get their foot in the door of this industry. Meanwhile this kind of thing is my dream: https://mobile.twitter.com/bombsfall/status/1103313703896780800
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Dec 5, 2019 06:16
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https://www.creativebloq.com/news/do-you-earn-more-or-less-than-the-average-creative Drama teachers and tattoo artists make more than a 3d animator, apparently
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Dec 5, 2019 06:31
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There's still plenty of work in Canada. MPC especially is still suffering from the Fox/Disney merger, but other studios are picking up again.
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Dec 5, 2019 07:01
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nm
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Dec 5, 2019 09:04
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Comfy Fleece Sweater posted:https://www.creativebloq.com/news/do-you-earn-more-or-less-than-the-average-creative Those numbers make me question their data source and the age range of people that answered. feels like the answers of people between the ages of 25 and 30 - either that or exclusively people who live in the north where 35k goes a long way. Or the lower end of the average is just really depressing and i'm out of touch. cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Dec 5, 2019 |
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Dec 5, 2019 16:52
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cubicle gangster posted:Those numbers make me question their data source and the age range of people that answered. feels like the answers of people between the ages of 25 and 30 - either that or exclusively people who live in the north where 35k goes a long way. The movie industry average was a lot higher than that 10 years ago when lived in London. New anchors are also missing a zero, unless they're talking about local radio stations.
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Dec 5, 2019 19:31
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That’s in pounds which is like 60k CAD. I wish I was making that much, though I can still live comfortably on much less.
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Dec 5, 2019 21:56
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I'm trying to use Zmodeler to do some simple box modeling, and I'm trying to work with polygroups, and the behavior is erratic and it's driving me nuts. When I hover over a poly and bring up the action menu, I select the polygroup action, and then I use it with the Alt key to select a bunch of polygons. As I click each polygon, the color changes to a new color, which I assume means that the polygons have been assigned to a new group. Then, I switch to a new polygon action, like extrude or move, and I select the Polygroup All modifier so that I can apply the new action to just that polygroup. Sometimes the action gets applied only to that polygroup. Sometimes the action gets applied, but then all the polys get put in a new polygroup (when I'm using move, not extrude). Sometimes, the polygons get added to a different, already existing group, and THEN the action gets applied, so I end up extruding or moving polys completely outside my new group, on an altogether different part of my model. Am I missing something obvious or is polygroup functionality just really buggy?
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Dec 5, 2019 22:01
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Ccs posted:That’s in pounds which is like 60k CAD. I wish I was making that much, though I can still live comfortably on much less. It doesn't quite translate like that. Cost of living in London is significantly higher, taxes are higher, etc. You'd probably be paying $1800CAD/month in rent for sharing a flat within a 45 minute commute of work.
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Dec 5, 2019 23:30
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Listerine posted:I'm trying to use Zmodeler to do some simple box modeling, and I'm trying to work with polygroups, and the behavior is erratic and it's driving me nuts. When I hover over a poly and bring up the action menu, I select the polygroup action, and then I use it with the Alt key to select a bunch of polygons. As I click each polygon, the color changes to a new color, which I assume means that the polygons have been assigned to a new group. Then, I switch to a new polygon action, like extrude or move, and I select the Polygroup All modifier so that I can apply the new action to just that polygroup. Theres a bunch of modifiers in the menu. One of them is assign all to new groups every time you perform an action. This will be on the extrude modifier in your example. You can change that behavior
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Dec 5, 2019 23:38
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Listerine posted:I'm trying to use Zmodeler to do some simple box modeling, and I'm trying to work with polygroups, and the behavior is erratic and it's driving me nuts. When I hover over a poly and bring up the action menu, I select the polygroup action, and then I use it with the Alt key to select a bunch of polygons. As I click each polygon, the color changes to a new color, which I assume means that the polygons have been assigned to a new group. Then, I switch to a new polygon action, like extrude or move, and I select the Polygroup All modifier so that I can apply the new action to just that polygroup. I confess I don't box model in zbrush. Zmodeler was supposed to make it convenient but honestly, if you are comfortable box modeling in Maya or Max or Blender, then it seems odd. Use the polygroups outside of the zmodeler brush? Use Cmd W to make a polygroup out of the selectoin / mask? First pass at texturing. Material dev will be done in keyshot, so the glasses, fur and skin will ultimately look very different. 
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Dec 8, 2019 06:01
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sigma 6 posted:I confess I don't box model in zbrush. Zmodeler was supposed to make it convenient but honestly, if you are comfortable box modeling in Maya or Max or Blender, then it seems odd. Use the polygroups outside of the zmodeler brush? Use Cmd W to make a polygroup out of the selectoin / mask? When I've had to go back to box modeling, I would use an old installation of Softimage that I was comfortable with and had set up to work quickly. IT however screwed something up so I can't log in without submitting a ticket that takes days to a week to get a response. Turns out I was making some mistakes with assigning polygroups, and I figured that out, but Zbrush was also bugging out. A little after I posted Zmodeler started only performing the previous action that I had selected- so if I switched from Move to Extrude, it would only move the polys, and if I then switched to the Polygroup action the brush would perform the Extrude. I had to restart the software twice to clear out the issue and get Zmodeler working correctly again. I think this is the first time I've had a bug in Zbrush outside a straight up crash of the software.
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Dec 9, 2019 21:36
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Yikes, no more mpc Vancouver. Permanently closed...
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Dec 11, 2019 21:03
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A framestore montreal dude was mentioning they hired a ton of MPC dudes recently.
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Dec 11, 2019 22:54
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Now a former MPC employee: We could see it coming from miles away. They're taking good care of us and I don't think anyone lost out. There's still plenty of work in town and I start my new job on Monday. (I wanted a longer break, but they were desperate....).
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Dec 12, 2019 02:07
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Are you senior level? I heard from friends things are bad for juniors and mids, work permits canceled and people having to fly back to Europe or America this weekend without jobs. Plus they were all working 16 hour days on a certain project before this happened and they're not sure if they'll see that OT reflected on last paycheck.
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Dec 12, 2019 05:40
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There was only a handful of people on contracts left, most of them runners. The rest was staff, (So not juniors/mids). I don't think anyone on contract had a term beyond this week. This is for Vancouver. To the best of my knowledge, MTL is also mostly contracts expiring. A few management people let go. Also. Technicolour hasn't gone bust, so all OT, notice, etc is being honoured.
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Dec 12, 2019 05:52
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ImplicitAssembler posted:There was only a handful of people on contracts left, most of them runners. The rest was staff, (So not juniors/mids). I don't think anyone on contract had a term beyond this week. drat man, that sucks for the people. Can you say where you're at now?
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Dec 12, 2019 06:15
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Ah okay maybe it was wishful thinking juniors believing contracts would be extended even without new work having been announced. I was that dumb a year and a half ago in a tv studio where there were vague promises about future work but the design, storyboard and layout departments hadn’t started on anything yet. And I had dumb belief that “well maybe in a month when my contract is over they’ll be more for animators to do”. (There wasnt, but it worked out by moving to Montreal which is way better)
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Dec 12, 2019 06:19
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Odddzy posted:drat man, that sucks for the people. Can you say where you're at now? I'd prefer not to .Frankly, this has been a blessing in disguise. As mentioned, work is available and everyone (bar one) I talked to, had already talked to multiple companies. Only one guy I'm concerned about, but I'm sure he'll be fine (He's talented enough,). The big push to MTL over the last 2 years has also moved a lot of people that way, so I think it's now actually harder to find people in Vancouver.
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Dec 12, 2019 07:24
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