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SynthOrange posted:Venting time. I'd complain to the program heads or school heads, I know that academia and industry people rarely work together well in a teaching environment, especially when someone else's main job is taking away from teaching. Switching software in the middle of the semester is a big no-no. Hell, professionally speaking you never switch software in a production, you'll get to a point where you lock down the software versions you are using because you can't risk upgrading software without getting a new bug that shuts things down.
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Jun 18, 2008 17:57
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Sigma-X posted:There is no reason for 3d other than video games I think it's probably from the request of recruiters. If the program is geared towards VFX and film work, and feature animation work. Max usage drops off to practically zero with a few exceptions. You're better off entering the workforce knowing the software that most of the large studios use [ie. Maya, Houdini, etc]. I noticed thats what killed off softimage/xsi classes at many places. In the mid 90's there were softimage classes everywhere at major colleges with good animation programs. I got into things during the power animator to maya transition. Softimage dragged their feet and came too late to the party with XSI. At that point most schools were dumping softimage because the students were bitching that everyone who took the maya class got jobs and they didn't and had to wind up learning maya anyways. I had a good laugh at the 3d crash course I took at Seneca College. The softimage program head was a raging rear end in a top hat. He felt you can't do character animation in a alias package.. which was true until Maya came out. He gave us poo poo for doing character animation in Maya 1.0 -> 1.5. Oh well, it's funny how times change.
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Jun 19, 2008 21:40
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PowerLlama posted:I would not say learn Houdini. The knowledge you learn with it won't be really translated anywhere else, and I don't know of any other studios besides the really big ones that use it. And when they do use it, it's primarily for particle work. Not translated anywhere else? That's a good one  Many people think that and go other routes. Traditionally speaking at the immediate and senior levels of film/fx studios and small commercial shops, theres a shortage of good houdini talent, which reflects in the wages and demand. Theres a old joke where there is no such thing as an unemployed Houdini TD. Houdini has one of the strongest foundations of any 3d package on the market, you have access to more internal data then most other packages, and an incredibly flexible environment with a powerful renderer, dynamics engine for fluids and of course the strong particle system. The node based procedural system is easy to pick up, and with the digital asset system you don't need to script or write plugins 95% of the time. With Houdini you'll learn all the underpinnings of 3d, you have easy access to every vertex, every attribute, and every simulation calculation. Nothing is hidden from the user. Case in point, On Incredible Hulk, I came up with an entire L-system branching cardovascular system with hearts and lungs, nerve endings, etc, in 3 days for Abomination back when he was going to have translucent skin [I can mention this since Arron sims posted the early concept for him] which meant we had to do layers of 3d muscle, skin and misc stuff. All the internal guts was procedurally modeled in 3d, along with proper uv's and procedural groups and was ready to roll into production. Everything was setup to pulsate and pump as well. Then the studio realized how expensive the translucent option was going to be and they dropped it, and went with a different concept.  Thats a bunch of R+D work down the drain.The main problem with Houdini, is the lack of a labor pool, which leaves a few shops wasting the package just to use as a particle engine. Which is fine, many studios are picking it up for use as a pipeline backbone which has already been proven in production. That being said, any package is good to learn. I started with Sculpt Animated 3d Jr which did glorious 16 color renders, flat shaded. The idea is to learn the concepts behind the tools, and be able to apply it in any package because its very possible for one job to be using a different software setup then your last job. If your goal is just to mess around as a hobby, then it doesn't really matter too much. If you want gainful employment then is best to pick something that is used in your target market. Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 08:47 on Jun 20, 2008 |
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Jun 20, 2008 08:38
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BonoMan posted:Man I was so close to getting an internship with Side F/X. One of the alums of our grad program worked there and gave me an in road and I went through the interviews only to get to the final one and have the interviewer realize I still had a year of grad school left: Working for side FX is the fastest way to get a job at a studio. Half the houdini td's I work with worked at side fx at one point. The best bit though, is not to mention it to SESI [aka sidefx]. They usually have interns and staff people that stick around long enough before they get some crazy offer from a studio. Funny they have high turnover like that .
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Jun 20, 2008 17:08
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That scene is neat, what is the area of focus the scene? The table? or the cityscape to the right? You can add in some elements to help frame things a little better, when i get home I'll do a few sketches to show what I mean.... Just waiting for SAG to sink/slow down the visual effects and film industry. 90% of SAG members are people that don't do meaningful work on a regular basis [ie. Waiters, baristas, etc], and typically will vote for a strike because it doesn't impact them since they don't work for a living in that industry.  Thats what happens when you allow anyone to join into a union who doesn't actually work in that field.
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Jun 25, 2008 18:49
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treeboy posted:This was one thing in the OP or second post that I thought deserved some discussion. One of the things that I've always felt, and has always been pounded into me is the quality of the reel submitted needs to feel very professional. Now this doesn't mean you need to have thermal pressed DVDs with an incredibly detailed and overworked identity logo. But simply writing your name and contact info in sharpie on a DVD really doesnt cut it. I've spoken with several reel reviewers that kind of shocked me when they said anything with handwritten DVD labels would get trashed almost immediately and they'd often only look at the work on a lark. I don't know what companies those reel reviewers work for. Things with major studios, goes in this order: 1. Resume review 2. Sorted 3. Reviewed 4. Sorted 5. Contact if needed 6. Interviewed 7. Sorted 8. Ignored, interviewed again or hired. My only requirement is the reel to be legible. I've seen blank dvd's that had no contact information on it, or on the reel for that matter. Of course you have a problem with huge cooperations where some HR peons and recruiters wade through the chaff and that individual may have his or her own ideas on what makes a good reel, only to have someone in production review it and go what the gently caress is this poo poo? I'll put it another way, if someone applies with ILM, DD, Weta, R+H, PIXAR, Disney, etc. On their resume, no one is going to give a poo poo about labels. Personally, after seeing thousands of reels shuffle through here, the more fancy the presentation, the more lovely the reel. This is almost an absolute 99 times out of 100.
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Jun 26, 2008 21:51
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Portable Staplefrog posted:This is what I needed, thanks! That way works but with large setups you can lose track of model bits embedded in your skeleton. What I like to do is similar to large production companies is to keep the deforming and non deforming geometry out of the actual character skeleton. I guess in maya terms that would be doing bind via sets and groups, so each geometry would have one influence at 100% for those elements. Keeps scene organization real easy and neat, and you only have one or a few objects in your scene instead of 1000's of small bits of geometry scattered all over the place on your skeleton.
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Jul 25, 2008 01:39
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wasabimilkshake posted:
This happens with obj, some software packages will invert surface normals and vertex normals and you have this happening. Happens all the time with obj/obn formats porting between max/maya/houdini/etc. Some packages don't support vertex normals as well which adds to the confusion [ie you end up with black non shaded models in some rendering software] Basically you can invert the vertex normals in maya [I forget how, it's been 5 years since I used Maya extensively] and the problem will go away.
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Oct 15, 2008 19:48
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I rigged on a bunch of live action and animated features. If you want to make a rigging reel, I'd rig a few realistic things, an animal and a decent human. I say realistic because I see a ton of cartoon characters on demo reels with very complex rigs that don't really show why the rigged needed to be so complex and slow. Rigging itself is fairly straight foreward. We have ours scripted out to preset skeletons and limbs/body parts with mounting points. It's the deformations that take a while. Thats what we look for on demo reels is complex deformation and how you handle volume preservation/ fat jiggle/ folds, etc. It's hard to do that when you are rigging a cartoon pencil character, but it's easier to demonstrate when you are rigging a cat or a horse. The majority of riggers at large studios are hired to do hair and cloth simulation as well as deformation cleanup. Not creating the actual hero rigs per se.
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Oct 18, 2008 17:02
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Heintje posted:Don't go there! The bottom dropped out of the 3d market a long time ago, right around when alias dropped their prices to less then $2,000 for maya. The old $50K then $20-10,000 prices for software licenses killed growth. They just moved the costs to the backend for support [ie. Sony, ILM, etc pay millions a year in support contracts]. So we got Lightwave and Houdini left. Someone tried to buy sidefx out before, so I doubt that will happen. Larger studios are starting to use more and more proprietary versions of software, our studio has about 90% proprietary software utilization [the remainder being some Zbrush/maya and houdini for vfx]. Other then houdini, I haven't touched a mainstream 3d package in years, it's not the end of the world. I'm really not surprised with XSI, they came out too late behind Maya and was kicked in the curb. They lost most of their top clients as they switched to Maya and other packages.
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Oct 27, 2008 18:02
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Heintje posted:I've also been talking to SideFX and am looking at doing an internship there for min 3 months, does anyone know anyone that went through that process or have any idea what it might be like? Side FX internship is a guaranteed ticket to a future job at Rhythm, DD, Sony or any houdini shop. Just don't tell SESI the only reason you're taking the internship is to jump ship to a job later. I know many people who interned at SESI, I work along side a few of them. That's not just limited to SESI, for any type of TD position the only thing that tops a kick rear end demo reel is working for the software developer in some capacity [which helps loads]
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Oct 30, 2008 00:17
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No, the big boys do that as well at times, in my case it'll depend on on the project and what the client studio gives us for footage. Typically we flatten out the plate/remove distortion during the color correct/cleanup BG prep phase, and then composite everything flat with no distortion. Once the comp is done, the lens distortion is reapplied. Do you have the lens information? A bunch of studios I worked at usually has a set of grids shot with a couple of dozen lens/camera setups that we use in comparison with on set notes to match things up.
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Oct 31, 2008 01:17
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Weapon? Where's the dude holding that, some sci-fi thing without an guy to carry it is largely out of context. Not bad as an exercise.
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Nov 16, 2008 22:11
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So I went into work and a few of us got the below email in our inboxes: *Sigh* I suppose this can be applied for any industry, but folks, in this business keep business emails for business only and keep personal details out of them. Some guy at a studio sent a private email to an alias by mistake and it got beamed to most of the tv networks and fx studios in Los Angeles. No one responded for a few hours but man.. what a boner... Names/companies removed to protect the idiotic... Somebody who didn't check his email settings posted:
That guy must be pulling his hair out now. It's still pretty drat funny. Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Dec 5, 2008 |
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Dec 5, 2008 22:49
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brian encino man posted:Guys how do you motivate yourself outside of work to do 3d stuff? I'm really struggling after doing it all day. I picked up another hobby, desert racing. I can't do 3d at home anymore. After spending 8-12 hours a day doing cg poo poo, the last thing I want to do when I get home is more work. I got a 8 cpu, 16 GB of ram machine at home with a quadro something or other video card, 64 bit OS, a huge rear end wacom and 2 big rear end flat panels. You know.. for working on stuff at home, my own project/short. In reality? Surfing the web. Sad.
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Apr 15, 2009 06:05
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tuna posted:I'd totally use Houdini if it didn't suck for animation. I worked on a Disney production that used Houdini exclusivity and even had a few ex-pixar people comment it's the best animation software they used outside of Pixar. And this was back in 05, they picked up the software in 2 days and were off animating sequences. That being said, it's mostly relegated to FX work, even though it is quite capable at all aspects of production [non procedural modeling can be weak, but its not fair to compare the big 3d packages to displacement paint modeling packages]. I rigged in Houdini for years, since version 3 or so. Unfortunately there isn't many rigging jobs out there, most of the big character studios use their own tools and aren't willing to really switch software.. for any department usually. I still occasionally do FX work from time to time, but all the best houdini riggers I know are elsewhere rigging/working in Maya. Not because it's a better package, its what their job requires.
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Apr 18, 2009 10:07
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Hinchu posted:
Listen to Hinchu, hes got a point. After you model a character/environment, before you get to working on shaders and textures, dump out a grey image, and do a mock up in the paint package of your choice. Working out the lighting goal, and the look/color of the final result is much quicker in 2d instead of wasting time running around in circles in 3d trying to hammer down a look. Once you get a rough idea of which way you want to go, then start matching up what you did in your test image in 3d. You'll save a lot of time that way, plus its faster turnaround for client approvals*. *- Just make sure whoever does the illustration paints in such a way that can be recreated in 3d dimensions. Also don't be afraid to adjust the image after it comes out of the render, be it in photoshop or a compositing package. You're not going to get a perfect image out of the box every time, work in layers.
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Apr 18, 2009 19:41
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Hackuma posted:That houdini stuff is pretty neat. Can you adjust the elasticity or something? In the high poly shot it looks like the car is made out of rubber. You can adjust spring strength, if I recall it's similar to a cloth simulation. Mind you it'll only get you so far before you start having to hand tweak things. I haven't seen a good car crash impact that was entirely convincing come out of a raw simulation yet, its a fine balance between looking like rubber and looking like a mess of sharp degenerated polygons. Often times you'll need to rig a car/truck/etc that's being torn apart to augment the simulation. Often times violent impacts are so fast you never really see the transition and you can use a blend shape instead. We were experimenting with using houdini 9 with this [in the past we hand did things with simulation for secondary animation] but we didn't really get anywhere in time for use with our last project so we did it the old school way. I'll probably bust out my old test I did [tractor trailer collision/disintegration] and try to do it again as a home test in houdini 10 this summer.
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Apr 19, 2009 01:23
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SynthOrange posted:Pretty much, yes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you're modelling without reference. It's not cheating to just wander over to your kitchen and checking out what the real things look like. Pretty much this, it's fine to use a few basic set pieces to do render tests, but honestly the whole effort will come off as lazy modeling if you don't attempt to match something in reality, especially if you are trying to render something to look real. Grab a bowl, spoon and glass and measure it. I'm not saying everything has to be photoreal, I'm just saying start from something grounded in reality. As they say in art school, learn the fundamentals first before breaking the rules in regards to style, same applies to chrome robots, anime chicks, demons and aliens  .
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Apr 23, 2009 18:08
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Heintje posted:Here's that crazy camera mapping experiment. Got that part down so now refining the sim and hacking a render together: Oh god. Flash backs from our Hulk debris tests.... Aiee...
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May 17, 2009 15:53
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Check this poo poo out it's amaaazing. http://fredandsharonsmovies.com/animation.php I should have sole real old poo poo kicking around at home. I'll dig it up this weekend and post it. Most of my C64 and Amiga art is long gone though  .Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 23:06 on May 21, 2009 |
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May 21, 2009 18:35
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Odddzy posted:http://www.viddler.com/explore/odddzy/videos/1/ Delete Pixar and Pink thing. Weak animation. Animation basics from my book is being able to animate a quadraped realistically and knowing how to break and merge complex cycles. Eg. Have a character run, jump, recover keep running, climb a rope then land on a platform all in one motion for starters. Also having 2 characters acting well well be a good animation reel. 99% of "animation" reels are people getting the basics wrong with super simplified rigs, or people doing a deadpan character lipsyncing a funny dialog bit from a popular movie while staring at the camera. I'd focus on your textures/environmental/modeling work that seems to be your strong suit. Travakian posted:What Travakian said exactly. If you are new, don't be a jack of all trades, master of none, focus on 1-2 things and get really good and bad rear end with it.
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May 28, 2009 06:27
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brian encino man posted:OT in the 3d industry seems like a rare thing indeed :-( Every company I worked at I had overtime... except for one place in Canada where they would give me extra vacation time in lieu of overtime. I guess that depends on the state/province you are currently working. Smaller companies will tend to be sneaky and attempt or claim that you are not eligible for OT, I'd check your local laws. In California, at my company... freelance, and staff receive the state standard overtime. Work more than 8 hours in a day you get 1.5x pay, more than 12 hours you get 2x pay. Weekly rule also applies, so more than 40 hours a week is 1.5x pay, 60 hours+ is 2x, the 7th day is golden time, which every hour on the 7th day pays double, the same with holidays. You're not permitted/supposed to work the 14th day according to the California labor laws [golden time applies then as well, but you can refuse to work and the law will protect you]. Since payroll is typically 80-92% of the cost of running a studio, that tends to keep the producers honest and ensure that the right number of people are hired for the job. Even with that, I worked mostly overtime for the last 6 months, so the only thing that keeps me sane is payday. Canada is a toss up depending on the overtime law on a province by province level. The UK has no overtime rules, and it's one of the reason why the US studios are hurting. The UK studios are sucking up a shitload of film / fx work right now. They don't have to pay overtime, they have a 15% tax credit from the government for film production and the pound is relatively strong compared to the dollar. So a place like double negative may have 10+ films they're working on and you have places in the US going out of business [Orphanage and a few other places]. Sony Imageworks just practically laid off all of their full time staff employees... so they would operate as a contracts/projects orientated studio only. Of course it's a political hot potato since apparently we're not deserving of a similar tax credit because you get: "loving  liberals in Hollywood ain't gettin' a hand out!!"..from the right wing assholes in congress, and you get: "No hand outs to big corporations in Hollywood."..from the left wing assholes.  So what you have to do in that case is assume you will be working overtime and pad that into your salary requirements, good luck doing that if you are relatively new to the industry. Acc-Risk posted:
How long was she there? Is this in Colorado? If she's good she needs to get out of Colorado and near a major game development hub. Ie. Texas or California. You want lots of options for work with multiple game developers in the area [competition for labor]. You work one job for a bit, then leave when it's done and move onto a different company and repeat until you reach a salary level that's decent. The studios [like Netdevil] that open up studios in the middle of nowhere pull the sirens song of "lower cost of living away from the big city" which translates to "We ain't paying you poo poo". Or "Our states labor laws amount to slavery" In my best Arnold impression.. I say  I had a studio in Texas pull that crap when they wanted me to move from LA , and I laughed at them. "But but but.. the cost of living is lower" Yes, but factoring in how much *LESS* I"m getting paid, it's a wash or I'm still making less money.  /went a little crazy with emoticons but what the hey... Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Jun 6, 2009 |
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Jun 6, 2009 16:38
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DefMech posted:I don't really keep up with CG communities anymore because of that kinda stuff. All of the work at those dark-background-light-text forums, while technically very good, is so devoid of imagination and originality. They all reference the same sci-fi looks, the same creature designs, the same action movies, the same fantasy artists... Instead, I've started reading the blogs of cartoonists and illustrators and Pixar designers for inspiration. If I lived closer to Stuart Ng Books, I'd probably spend days browsing there and disregard the internet entirely. I can't see how the guys find time to do this stuff on the side. I'm too busy getting work done and when I get home it's like.. I have no time to start some big grand personal project. And it's not exactly like I can take a big character from one of my jobs and stick it on a personal site either.
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Jun 15, 2009 07:15
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-A n i m 8- posted:Welp, they turning Imageworks in to 'rows of desks' sweatshop kinda like DD and R+H. Was fun while it lasted... That's the norm pretty much everywhere. With the current Sony leadership, Imageworks is expected to turn a profit now [  ]. Other than that, i find it's the kiss of death if the studio space is too posh [I've worked at a few places where I had a great office, but the company went out of business pretty quickly].If you're at R+H or any of those places long enough you do get your own office. R+H is moving to a new business campus [high rise style modern office complex] at the year end so they'll have more space soon. Could always be worse, I had a houdini TD friend who had his desk between the restroom and cleaning supplies cabinet at an old job. His area smelt like poo poo and lysol all day. Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Jul 8, 2009 |
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Jul 8, 2009 00:46
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Ratmann posted:Isn't this what happened at ESC too, what with everyone gets hydraulic desk and Aeron chairs, oh and we're only going to use MentalRay exclusively! woop woop Yeah, I was going to mention ESC for an example with a company with an awesome workplace but went out of business. Oddly enough 80-90% of the expense of a VFX shop is wages/manhours, but a few percent used for equipment/furniture/rent can tip the scales to bankruptcy I guess. A studio in Canada were I worked had a neat workspace, a 100+ year old brewery/warehouse. Instead of rows of desks, they had these curved desks which combined into rings, so you had rings and rings of desks here and there instead of straight lines, I thought it was a neat layout. Best way to outfit a studio is to buy desks and chairs from places that went out of business. I think many LA studios got their Aeron chairs when most of the dot-com firms imploded a few years back, you had 1000's of chairs being up for sale for fairly cheap. From a business perspective, I can understand renting a cheap warehouse in an Industrial Park, throwing together a bunch of plywood desks and cram a bunch of td's in a tight spot. People think clients would be impressed with fancy leather sofas, and nice big workspaces, but that can often backfire as the clients think they're not getting good value for the money they're spending if they're blowing it on nice studio space vs "hey we're getting our moneys worth out of these guys working out of a loading dock" Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Jul 8, 2009 |
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Jul 8, 2009 01:54
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HOB V2.0 posted:Advice on future projects would be welcomed. No more guns* unless there's characters involved. Seriously, Half the modelling reels out there are guys who are working on video game mods and they all look the same. Spinning gun #1, spinning gun #2, some studios lean a bit left and might think you are gun nut. On the other hand if you model and rig a bunch of swat guys or something, that's different. *- guns should be added to the sports car/ chrome robot / anime chick demo reel stereotype
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Jul 27, 2009 16:09
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sigma 6 posted:
Sigh. I was going to use stronger language but I'll refrain. This is the biggest complaint I've heard from other departments in regards to displacement modelers. Guys who want to knock out super dense models but don't want to spend the half a day to a day required to clean up and make a clean topology of their work after the fact. That's like a rigger who just wants to set up a skeleton and then leave the deformation setup to another guy. Unless you're a big shot hired for concept art, someone say like Arron Sims, you're going to be able to make your models useful if you want to keep your job and not piss off all the guys behind you on the pipeline. The cheaper/junior artist is going to be more expensive to hire than just paying the pro a half day to days labor to do it himself. If you don't clean up the topology after the fact your awesome zbrush model is going to move like a man in a rubber suit. Some of these zbrush guys wonder why they aren't full time hires at a major studio.
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Jul 30, 2009 20:55
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ceebee posted:You guys forget a lot of sculptors aren't coming from max/maya heavy workflows. Some of them are coming from being concept artists and forced to learn displacement sculpture because it's a quick way to come up with concepts. They'll get eaten alive by guys who can do both. I work with guys who do amazing sculptures and can redo topology. I mean, that's the old animator argument that most of the best animators come from a 2d background and never had to work on a computer. There's a transition period where you can get away with doing things a certain way [passing it off] but then if you don't adapt, your job gets replaced by someone who can do both. There's going to be exceptions to the rule of course, but some of these guys don't have a ton of production experience under their belt and they're not at the point where their vision is at a level where a client will just hire them for a look. That's like guys going to school to become "concept artists". That's a position you reach after you work in the trenches for a bit. Big K of Justice fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Jul 31, 2009 |
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Jul 31, 2009 04:21
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Sigma-X posted:
You need to make it chrome and put an anime chick on top of it. Set it to blade runner music. Instant demo reel 
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Aug 7, 2009 19:21
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Ratmann posted:I wouldn't recommend getting the new xeons, you'd be wasting hundreds of dollars on the second proc, special mobo and not to mention the ram for it is extremely expensive, I highly doubt you're going to be needing more than an i7 920. I agree. Xeons for blade racks for render farms, nothing else, especially for a home system. The only way I'd blow a ton of money on a xeon setup for rendering is for a quick-cash turnaround job if it paid really well.
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Aug 17, 2009 04:13
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I think I'm going to pick up zbrush to mess around with at home. Mudbox is more expensive than it, even though it seems to be a split in both packages use in the industry. I still hate the interface. Using Wavefront / lightwave / maya / houdini / misc custom 3d packages at various places, nothing felt more backward than using zbrush in terms of navigation. I'll get over with it, I need to rig a kick rear end creature at home this fall. Things may be a bit slow this fall, so I may be able to bring in my setup and use works prelight/look dev tools and render some mocap studies.
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Aug 18, 2009 01:45
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Ratmann posted:Think it's gonna be slow in LA this Fall? Maybe, the UK production tax credit is sucking a lot of vfx work to the UK. It's crazy. It'll probably pick up in Janurary when studios hit the "Oh poo poo we need to get work done in 3-4 months" mode.
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Aug 18, 2009 06:06
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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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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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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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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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Ratmann posted: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" "Make it look more mysterious..." *3 Months Later* "You know the one.. the one you did 3 months ago? Let's just go with that instead"
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Aug 29, 2009 00:45
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ACanofPepsi posted:I work in Toronto, I know there are studios here, they just all seem very small, and I don't think my skill set is even high enough to get an internship right now. I'm a graphic designer, so I work with some guys who know 3D, but I'm learning Max right now at home, and they use Maya at work. I don't know why I picked Max up so easily, but I just can't get into Maya. Toronto & Vancouver are the 2 big VFX Hubs in Canada. I'd say Montreal but after Meteor / discovery meltdown, I'm not sure who's still in Montreal for big vfx work. Lot's of games work in Montreal though. I mean, I started in Newfoundland, which got me work in Toronto, which got me work in Los Angeles. So yes, you should be in a major media hub if you want to go anywhere in the industry. Right now, London, UK is booming for high profile film VFX work with the permanent film tax credit which is killing business in California at the moment.
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Aug 29, 2009 00:52
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mashed_penguin posted:Which is fine in California. Hello overtime and double time.
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Aug 29, 2009 06:19
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