Search Results for: free
Internet Archive – a non-profit digital library
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
Python for beginners
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/python-code-examples-simple-python-program-example/
If the text does not load well, please download the pdf locally to your machine.
The pdf plugin may not work well under Linux os.
Animation/VFX/Game Industry JOB POSTINGS by Chris Mayne
Chris is now using Google’s Looker Studio (this may better help those that aren’t able to use the filters on the spreadsheet):
https://lookerstudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/2f39b56e-7393-4aa2-9fd5-bf8bf615c95f/page/5koHB
Older format: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eR2oAXOuflr8CZeGoz3JTrsgNj3KuefbdXJOmNtjEVM/edit#gid=0
For any studios that would like to add positions to this, please feel free to use the following form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeXziY3GQ8N7bxM-GxwDoZ7AimguHru0105PLVQtNYygswIlw/viewform
The True Costs of Working from Home
www.awn.com/blog/true-costs-working-home
“…what are the long-term negative ramifications of working from home…
As entertainment industry freelancers, we know how to deal with these extra costs. When we supply our own equipment for a job, we charge a “kit fee.” A Kit Fee is billed as a daily expense, on top of our working fee, to cover our hard and soft costs such as supplies, software and computers.”
Google Blocky educational visual programming for Python, Javascript, PHP, LUA, Dart
Blockly is a client-side library for the programming language JavaScript for creating block-based visual programming languages (VPLs) and editors. It is a project of Google and is free and open-source software released under the Apache License 2.0.
developers.google.com/blockly/guides/overview
9 Key Machine Learning Algorithms Explained in Plain English
www.freecodecamp.org/news/a-no-code-intro-to-the-9-most-important-machine-learning-algorithms-today/
Recommendation Systems
Linear Regression
Logistic Regression
K-Nearest Neighbors
Decision Trees and Random Forests
Support Vector Machines
K-Means Clustering
Principal Component Analysis
Raspberry Pi – introduction and basic projects
Connect through SSH on windows
https://www.putty.org/
Connect through Desktop
Remote Desktop
Common commands
> sudo raspi-config
> sudo apt-get update
> sudo apt-get upgrade
> ifconfig
> nano test.py
> wget https://path.to.image.png
> sudo apt-get install git
> git clone https://REPOSITORY
> sudo reboot
> suto shutdown -r now (reboot after shutdown)
> cat /etc/os-release
Starting kits:
Best Photoshop Plugins for Photographers 2020
Photo editing
skylum.com/luminar
Photo editing
photolemur.com/
Photo editing
https://skylum.com/aurorahdr
Noise reduction
https://skylum.com/noiseless
Noise reduction
https://www.picturecode.com/showcase/noise.php
Noise reduction
https://topazlabs.com/denoise-ai/
Noise reduction
https://ni.neatvideo.com/examples#kingfisher
Color picker/editor
www.ricoholmes.com/cc-hover-color-picker.html
Texturing
digitalanarchy.com/demos/textureanarchy.html
Photo enhancer
cc-extensions.com/products/alce/
Photo sharpner
https://topazlabs.com/sharpen-ai/
Custom guides
guideguide.me/
Photo editor
www.on1.com/products/effects/
Image scaler
exposure.software/blowup/
Particle support
www.painterartist.com/en/product/particleshop/
Edge enhancer
fixelalgorithms.co/products/edgehancer3/
Jpeg to Raw
https://topazlabs.com/jpeg-to-raw-ai/
Animation editor
https://exchange.adobe.com/creativecloud.details.100950.powtoon-extension-for-photoshop.html
Best free Actions collection
https://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/freebies/12-free-cinematic-photo-effect-actions-adobe-photoshop
Add-ons collection
https://www.the-orange-box.com/photoshop-add-ons/
colorhunt.co
Color Hunt is a free and open platform for color inspiration with thousands of trendy hand-picked color palettes.
The modern phenomenon of the two days weekend break
www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200117-the-modern-phenomenon-of-the-weekend
“The idea of reducing the working week from an average of five days to four is gaining traction around the world.
“There are a number of parallels between debates today and those that took place in the 19th century when the weekend as we now know it was first introduced. Having Saturdays as well as Sundays off work is actually a relatively modern phenomenon.
“the weekend did not simply arise from government legislation – it was shaped by a combination of campaigns
“Religious bodies argued that a break on Saturday would improve working class “mental and moral culture”…. and greater attendance at church on Sundays.
“In 1842 a campaign group called the Early Closing Association was formed. It lobbied government to keep Saturday afternoon free for worker leisure in return for a full day’s work on (Saint) Monday.
“a burgeoning leisure industry saw the new half-day Saturday as a business opportunity… Perhaps the most influential leisure activity to help forge the modern week was the decision to stage football matches on Saturday afternoon.
“The adoption of the modern weekend was neither swift nor uniform as, ultimately, the decision for a factory to adopt the half-day Saturday rested with the manufacturer. Campaigns for an established weekend had begun in the 1840s but it did not gain widespread adoption for another 50 years…. it was embraced by employers who found that the full Saturday and Sunday break reduced absenteeism and improved efficiency.
MDL – NVidia Material Definition Language
www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/technologies/material-definition-language/
THE NVIDIA MATERIAL DEFINITION LANGUAGE (MDL) gives you the freedom to share physically based materials and lights between supporting applications.
For example, create an MDL material in an application like Allegorithmic Substance Designer, save it to your library, then use it in NVIDIA® Iray® or Chaos Group’s V-Ray, or any other supporting application.
Unlike a shading language that produces programs for a particular renderer, MDL materials define the behavior of light at a high level. Different renderers and tools interpret the light behavior and create the best possible image.
Photography basics: Color Temperature and White Balance
Color Temperature of a light source describes the spectrum of light which is radiated from a theoretical “blackbody” (an ideal physical body that absorbs all radiation and incident light – neither reflecting it nor allowing it to pass through) with a given surface temperature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature
Or. Most simply it is a method of describing the color characteristics of light through a numerical value that corresponds to the color emitted by a light source, measured in degrees of Kelvin (K) on a scale from 1,000 to 10,000.
More accurately. The color temperature of a light source is the temperature of an ideal backbody that radiates light of comparable hue to that of the light source.
As such, the color temperature of a light source is a numerical measurement of its color appearance. It is based on the principle that any object will emit light if it is heated to a high enough temperature, and that the color of that light will shift in a predictable manner as the temperature is increased. The system is based on the color changes of a theoretical “blackbody radiator” as it is heated from a cold black to a white hot state.
So, why do we measure the hue of the light as a “temperature”? This was started in the late 1800s, when the British physicist William Kelvin heated a block of carbon. It glowed in the heat, producing a range of different colors at different temperatures. The black cube first produced a dim red light, increasing to a brighter yellow as the temperature went up, and eventually produced a bright blue-white glow at the highest temperatures. In his honor, Color Temperatures are measured in degrees Kelvin, which are a variation on Centigrade degrees. Instead of starting at the temperature water freezes, the Kelvin scale starts at “absolute zero,” which is -273 Centigrade.
More about black bodies here: http://www.pixelsham.com/2013/03/14/black-body-color
The Sun closely approximates a black-body radiator. The effective temperature, defined by the total radiative power per square unit, is about 5780 K. The color temperature of sunlight above the atmosphere is about 5900 K. Time of the day and atmospheric conditions bias the purity of the light that reaches us from the sun.
Some think that the Sun’s output in visible light peaks in the yellow. However, the Sun’s visible output peaks in the green:
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/SID/activities/GreenSun.html
Independently, we refer to the sun as a pure white light source. And we use its spectrum as a reference for other light sources.
Because the sun’s spectrum can change depending on so many factors (including pollution), a standard called D65 was defined (by the International Commission on Illumination) to represent what is considered as the average spectrum of the sun in average conditions.
This in reality tends to bias towards an overcast day of 6500K. And while it is implemented at different temperatures by different manufacturers, it is still considered a more common standard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminant_D65
https://www.scratchapixel.com/lessons/digital-imaging/colors
In this context, the White Point of a light defines the neutral color of its given color space.
https://chrisbrejon.com/cg-cinematography/chapter-1-color-management/#Colorspace
D65 corresponds to what the spectrum of the sun would typically look like on a midday sun somewhere in Western/Northern Europe (figure 9). This D65 which is also called the daylight illuminant is not a spectrum which we can exactly reproduce with a light source but rather a reference against which we can compare the spectrum of existing lights.
Another rough analogue of blackbody radiation in our day to day experience might be in heating a metal or stone: these are said to become “red hot” when they attain one temperature, and then “white hot” for even higher temperatures.
Similarly, black bodies at different temperatures also have varying color temperatures of “white light.” Despite its name, light which may appear white does not necessarily contain an even distribution of colors across the visible spectrum.
The Kelvin Color Temperature scale imagines a black body object— (such as a lamp filament) being heated. At some point the object will get hot enough to begin to glow. As it gets hotter its glowing color will shift, moving from deep reds, such as a low burning fire would give, to oranges & yellows, all the way up to white hot.
Color temperatures over 5,000K are called cool colors (bluish white), while lower color temperatures (2,700–3,000 K) are called warm colors (yellowish white through red)
Our eyes are very good at judging what is white under different light sources, but digital cameras often have great difficulty with auto white balance (AWB) — and can create unsightly blue, orange, or even green color casts. Understanding digital white balance can help you avoid these color casts, thereby improving your photos under a wider range of lighting conditions.
White balance (WB) is the process of removing these color casts from captured media, so that objects which appear white in perception (or expected) are rendered white in your medium.
This color cast is due to the way light itself is formed and spread.
What a white balancing procedure does is it identifies what is white in your footage. It doesn’t know what white is until you tell it what it is.
You can often do this with AWB (Automatic White Balance), but the results are not always desirable. That is why you may choose to manually change your white balance.
When you white balance you are telling your camera to treat any object with similar chrominance and luminance as white.
Different type of light sources generate different color casts.
As such, camera white balance has to take into account this “color temperature” of a light source, which mostly refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light.
Matching the temperature value of an indoor/outdoor cast makes for a white balance.
The two color temperatures you’ll hear most often discussed are outdoor lighting which is often ball parked at 5600K and indoor (tungsten) lighting which is generally ball parked at 3200K. These are the two numbers you’ll hear over and over again. Higher color temperatures (over 5000K) are considered “cool” (i.e. Blue’ish). Lower color temperatures (under 5000K) are considered “warm” (i.e. orange’ish).
Therefore if you are shooting indoors under tungsten lighting at 3200K you will set your white balance for indoor shooting at this color temperature. In this case, your camera will correct your camera’s settings to ensure that white appears white. Your camera will either have an indoor 3200K auto option (even the most basic camera’s have this option) or you can choose to set it manually.
Things get complicated if you’re filming indoors during the day under tungsten lighting while the outdoor light is coming through a window. Now what we have is a mixing of color temperatures. What you need to understand in this situation is that there is no perfect white balance setting in a mixed color temperature setting. You will need to make a compromise on one end of the spectrum or the other. If you set your white balance to tungsten 3200K the daylight colors will appear very blue. If you set your white balance to optimize for daylight 5600K then your tungsten lighting will appear very orange.
Where to use which light:
For lighting building interiors, it is often important to take into account the color temperature of illumination. A warmer (i.e., a lower color temperature) light is often used in public areas to promote relaxation, while a cooler (higher color temperature) light is used to enhance concentration, for example in schools and offices.
REFERENCES
How to Convert Temperature (K) to RGB: Algorithm and Sample Code
https://tannerhelland.com/2012/09/18/convert-temperature-rgb-algorithm-code.html
http://www.vendian.org/mncharity/dir3/blackbody/UnstableURLs/bbr_color.html
http://riverfarenh.com/light-bulb-color-chart/
https://www.lightsfilmschool.com/blog/filmmaking-white-balance-and-color-temperature
https://astro-canada.ca/le_spectre_electromagnetique-the_electromagnetic_spectrum-eng
http://www.3drender.com/glossary/colortemp.htm
http://pernime.info/light-kelvin-scale/
http://lowel.tiffen.com/edu/color_temperature_and_rendering_demystified.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature
How to Convert Temperature (K) to RGB:
http://www.tannerhelland.com/4435/convert-temperature-rgb-algorithm-code/
https://help.autodesk.com/view/ARNOL/ENU/?guid=arnold_for_cinema_4d_ci_Lights_html
11 The Nine Situations | The Art of War by Sun Tzu
https://tweakyourbiz.com/global/the-art-of-war
– Being prepared at what you do can be the difference between success and failure when things go wrong
– Your king is your own customers. If you care for them, they will care for your project. Anticipate their needs, desires, wants and fulfill them with an unbiased mind.
– Understand and respect the scope, ownerships and accountabilities of the project you work on.
– Be subtle and diplomatic. You can only learn when you listen. But always be prepared to answer and follow up.
– Share efforts with other people in the project by offering free help, as that will come back as an investement.
– Focus on key elements of a production which are the least organized or efficient.
– Validate and qualify your resources before taking on a plan.
– Invest into a plan only if you are sure it can be completed successfully.
– Value a project’s requirements and its users’ experience before the technology development itself.
– Motivate your teams by the gains in specific production investments.
– Organize tasks and teams based on their strenghts and self efficiency.
– Analyze the project’s requirements and resources. Then prioritize them accordingly.
– Observe and resolve bottlenecks, opportunities and users’ needs
– Detail a plan B as soon as you striclty commit to a detailed plan A.
– Dedicate some time and small teams to research efficient alternatives.
– Build only and always on top of stable and known cycles.
– Focus on the big items if they can resolve a lot of small ones.
– If something worked before is still worth to think out of the box.
– Combine all your team strengths into a unified collaborative effort.
The Public Domain Is Working Again — No Thanks To Disney
www.cartoonbrew.com/law/the-public-domain-is-working-again-no-thanks-to-disney-169658.html
The law protects new works from unauthorized copying while allowing artists free rein on older works.
The Copyright Act of 1909 used to govern copyrights. Under that law, a creator had a copyright on his creation for 28 years from “publication,” which could then be renewed for another 28 years. Thus, after 56 years, a work would enter the public domain.
However, the Congress passed the Copyright Act of 1976, extending copyright protection for works made for hire to 75 years from publication.
Then again, in 1998, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (derided as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” by some observers due to the Walt Disney Company’s intensive lobbying efforts), which added another twenty years to the term of copyright.
it is because Snow White was in the public domain that it was chosen to be Disney’s first animated feature.
Ironically, much of Disney’s legislative lobbying over the last several decades has been focused on preventing this same opportunity to other artists and filmmakers.
The battle in the coming years will be to prevent further extensions to copyright law that benefit corporations at the expense of creators and society as a whole.
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Blender cheat sheet and shorcuts
https://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/useful-keyboard-shortcuts.php
https://quickref.me/blender.html
Blender 3.3
Blender 3.0
Blender 2.82
Composition – cinematography Cheat Sheet
Where is our eye attracted first? Why?
Size. Focus. Lighting. Color.
Size. Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) on the right.
Focus. He’s one of the two objects in focus.
Lighting. Mr. White is large and in focus and Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) is highlighted by
a shaft of light.
Color. Both are black and white but the read on Mr. White’s shirt now really stands out.
What type of lighting?
-> High key lighting.
Features bright, even illumination and few conspicuous shadows. This lighting key is often used in musicals and comedies.
Low key lighting
Features diffused shadows and atmospheric pools of light. This lighting key is often used in mysteries and thrillers.
High contrast lighting
Features harsh shafts of lights and dramatic streaks of blackness. This type of lighting is often used in tragedies and melodramas.
What type of shot?
Extreme long shot
Taken from a great distance, showing much of the locale. Ifpeople are included in these shots, they usually appear as mere specks
-> Long shot
Corresponds to the space between the audience and the stage in a live theater. The long shots show the characters and some of the locale.
Full shot
Range with just enough space to contain the human body in full. The full shot shows the character and a minimal amount of the locale.
Medium shot
Shows the human figure from the knees or waist up.
Close-Up
Concentrates on a relatively small object and show very little if any locale.
Extreme close-up
Focuses on an unnaturally small portion of an object, giving that part great detail and symbolic significance.
What angle?
Bird’s-eye view.
The shot is photographed directly from above. This type of shot can be disorienting, and the people photographed seem insignificant.
High angle.
This angle reduces the size of the objects photographed. A person photographed from this angle seems harmless and insignificant, but to a lesser extent than with the bird’s-eye view.
-> Eye-level shot.
The clearest view of an object, but seldom intrinsically dramatic, because it tends to be the norm.
Low angle.
This angle increases high and a sense of verticality, heightening the importance of the object photographed. A person shot from this angle is given a sense of power and respect.
Oblique angle.
For this angle, the camera is tilted laterally, giving the image a slanted appearance. Oblique angles suggest tension, transition, a impending movement. They are also called canted or dutch angles.
What is the dominant color?
The use of color in this shot is symbolic. The scene is set in warehouse. Both the set and characters are blues, blacks and whites.
This was intentional allowing for the scenes and shots with blood to have a great level of contrast.
What is the Lens/Filter/Stock?
Telephoto lens.
A lens that draws objects closer but also diminishes the illusion of depth.
Wide-angle lens.
A lens that takes in a broad area and increases the illusion of depth but sometimes distorts the edges of the image.
Fast film stock.
Highly sensitive to light, it can register an image with little illumination. However, the final product tends to be grainy.
Slow film stock.
Relatively insensitive to light, it requires a great deal of illumination. The final product tends to look polished.
The lens is not wide-angle because there isn’t a great sense of depth, nor are several planes in focus. The lens is probably long but not necessarily a telephoto lens because the depth isn’t inordinately compressed.
The stock is fast because of the grainy quality of the image.
Subsidiary Contrast; where does the eye go next?
The two guns.
How much visual information is packed into the image? Is the texture stark, moderate, or highly detailed?
Minimalist clutter in the warehouse allows a focus on a character driven thriller.
What is the Composition?
Horizontal.
Compositions based on horizontal lines seem visually at rest and suggest placidity or peacefulness.
Vertical.
Compositions based on vertical lines seem visually at rest and suggest strength.
-> Diagonal.
Compositions based on diagonal, or oblique, lines seem dynamic and suggest tension or anxiety.
-> Binary. Binary structures emphasize parallelism.
Triangle.
Triadic compositions stress the dynamic interplay among three main
Circle.
Circular compositions suggest security and enclosure.
Is the form open or closed? Does the image suggest a window that arbitrarily isolates a fragment of the scene? Or a proscenium arch, in which the visual elements are carefully arranged and held in balance?
The most nebulous of all the categories of mise en scene, the type of form is determined by how consciously structured the mise en scene is. Open forms stress apparently simple techniques, because with these unself-conscious methods the filmmaker is able to emphasize the immediate, the familiar, the intimate aspects of reality. In open-form images, the frame tends to be deemphasized. In closed form images, all the necessary information is carefully structured within the confines of the frame. Space seems enclosed and self-contained rather than continuous.
Could argue this is a proscenium arch because this is such a classic shot with parallels and juxtapositions.
Is the framing tight or loose? Do the character have no room to move around, or can they move freely without impediments?
Shots where the characters are placed at the edges of the frame and have little room to move around within the frame are considered tight.
Longer shots, in which characters have room to move around within the frame, are considered loose and tend to suggest freedom.
Center-framed giving us the entire scene showing isolation, place and struggle.
Depth of Field. On how many planes is the image composed (how many are in focus)? Does the background or foreground comment in any way on the mid-ground?
Standard DOF, one background and clearly defined foreground.
Which way do the characters look vis-a-vis the camera?
An actor can be photographed in any of five basic positions, each conveying different psychological overtones.
Full-front (facing the camera):
the position with the most intimacy. The character is looking in our direction, inviting our complicity.
Quarter Turn:
the favored position of most filmmakers. This position offers a high degree of intimacy but with less emotional involvement than the full-front.
-> Profile (looking of the frame left or right):
More remote than the quarter turn, the character in profile seems unaware of being observed, lost in his or her own thoughts.
Three-quarter Turn:
More anonymous than the profile, this position is useful for conveying a character’s unfriendly or antisocial feelings, for in effect, the character is partially turning his or her back on us, rejecting our interest.
Back to Camera:
The most anonymous of all positions, this position is often used to suggest a character’s alienation from the world. When a character has his or her back to the camera, we can only guess what’s taking place internally, conveying a sense of concealment, or mystery.
How much space is there between the characters?
Extremely close, for a gunfight.
The way people use space can be divided into four proxemic patterns.
Intimate distances.
The intimate distance ranges from skin contact to about eighteen inches away. This is the distance of physical involvement–of love, comfort, and tenderness between individuals.
-> Personal distances.
The personal distance ranges roughly from eighteen inches away to about four feet away. These distances tend to be reserved for friends and acquaintances. Personal distances preserve the privacy between individuals, yet these rages don’t necessarily suggest exclusion, as intimate distances often do.
Social distances.
The social distance rages from four feet to about twelve feet. These distances are usually reserved for impersonal business and casual social gatherings. It’s a friendly range in most cases, yet somewhat more formal than the personal distance.
Public distances.
The public distance extends from twelve feet to twenty-five feet or more. This range tends to be formal and rather detached.
Daniele Tosti Interview for the magazine InCG, Taiwan, Issue 28, 201609
Interview for the magazine InCG, Taiwan, Issue 28, 201609
————————————————————-
– First of all can you introduce yourself to our audience, who you are, how you join this part of industry? Can you talk about your past experience as VFX artist?
My career started on a late Christmas night in the middle of the 1980s. I remember waking up to the soundtrack of Ghostbusters playing off from a new Commodore 64 console. My older brother, Claudio, left the console in my room, as a gift. And I was hooked.
Since that moment I spent any free time available to play with computer technology and in particular computer graphic. Eventually this evolved into a passion that pushed me to learn the basic techniques and the art of all related to computer graphic. In a time when computer graphic at consumer level was still in its infancy.
My place would be filled with any computer graphic magazine I could put my hands on. As well as the first few books. A collection that at some point grew to around 300 books. From the making-of movie books. To reference books. To animation books. And so on. My first girlfriends were not too thrilled about sharing the space in that room.
This passion, as well as the initial few side jobs creating small animated videos and logos for local companies, eventually gave me enough confidence in my abilities and led me into my first professional job. As a computer graphic technician, driving lead and credit titles for one of the first few private national TV stations in Italy. Not necessarily a striking but a well paid job.
The fact that I could make money through what I loved the most was an eye opener in my young life. It gave me fuel to invest even more of my time in the art and it did set the fundamentals for a very long career than has spanned over 20 years, across TV productions, commercials, video games and more recently feature movies.
————————————————————-
– Can you introduce us about your current company?
After leaving Italy I started working for some of the most recognized Studios around the world, and eventually for facilities such as Disney Features, Sony Imageworks, Moving Picture Company. During that period I had the fortune to serve along world level talents and supervisors, who helped me refine both my technical and artistic skills. This while also investing my time into learning about management and training cycles.
I started sharing some of this personal knowledge and production experience throughout the world with ReelMatters Ltd.
But eventually those extra skills allowed me to reach my dream in 2008, when I joined the team at Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand, to help on James Cameron’s Avatar.
Weta has since been my family and the source of my pride. The level of expertise, passion and vision among the crew at Weta is inspirational and clearly visible in any project we work on. We all tend to thrive on perfection here and continuously pushing quality well beyond standards. One of the reasons why Weta is still at the forefront of the VFX industry nowadays.
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– What sort of movie had you participated before? Out of all movies what was the most challenging that you had encountered?
Due to my early, self thought, home training, it became easier for me to be involved with CG animation productions first. On that front, my best memories are working on Sony Imageworks’ “Surf’s Up” as well as on Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s “The Adventure Of Tintin”. Movies which both raised the bar for CG environments and character animation.
Most recently I have seen myself more involved with live action features, such as: “Avatar”, “Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes” and “Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes”, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” and “The Hobbit: The Battle Of Armies”, “Iron Man Three”. All the way to Jon Favreau’s Walt Disney production: “The Jungle Book”.
Each production has its own level of complexity and it is hard to make comparisons. Having some basic training has been fundamental for me to be able to see these features to delivery, while being flexible enough in sorting out those unique daily trials.
Feature production overall is an unique challenge itself. You do need a solid understanding of both technology and human nature to be able to find solutions which are applicable to a constantly moving target, across the life of a project. Often under a commercially driven, delivery pressure. And while working along a multitude of different unique talents.
It is quite a life changing experience, worth the pages of a best selling book. Where each chapter has its own plot.
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– How do you co-operate with other special effect artist in order to create realistic effect?
While there is an incredible amount of high class talent in the feature production business, no production is ever done by just an individual. It’s always the product of a constant collaboration that flows from the brain of visionary directors to the hands of skillful visual artist, and back.
Providing the perfect backdrop for this collaboration is what usually makes some productions more successful than others.
In that context. Creativity is the true fusion of the best ideas shared by this pool of minds, independently from which level of production you are at.
Management’s job is to feed and support this fusion, not to drive it.
And the working environment is one that allows trust and respect between all parties, while avoiding mechanical routines.
In other words. No piece of hardware or software will make a visually pleasant picture by itself unless someone infuses it with a soul. As George Sand once said “ The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.”.
And to paraphrase Arthur C. Clark, I believe that a true collaboration between visionaries and artists is what makes “any sufficiently advanced (CG) technology indistinguishable from magic”.
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– What does it mean to you to create a good quality effect?
Any good CG effect that you would call as such is an effect that live for its purpose. Which most of the time is to support the action or the plot at hand.
In a live action feature, I tend to be in awe when the effect is helping experiencing that perfect Suspension Of Disbelief. Which is, the willingness to suspend logic and criticism for the sake of enjoying the unbelievable.
As soon as any effect breaks from its purpose or it is not up to the task at hand, your brain will tend to over analyze the visuals and, as such, take you away from the overall experience.
It is interesting to see that movies such as Jurassic Park are still holding their ground nowadays. Where more modern vfx productions tend to look dated very quickly. From that point of view, it appears to me that a quite a common mistake today is to overcompensate visuals with camera work, digital grading and computer generated work for the sake of the effect, more than to serve the story and the truth of the moment.
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– If it is possible for you to share tips about creating good quality effect?
1- The generalist at heart.
One question that I get quite often during my seminars is what should new vfx artists focus on. Is it specializing on a tool? Or learning a discipline? Or mastering a specific skill?
It is a fact that higher level Studios tend to hire people with well defined talents that fit in specific operational labels. In this way it is easier for them to fulfill recruitment numbers and satisfy production’s immediate needs.
What happens after wards, when you start working as a VFX artist, is not always as well defined. The flexible nature of feature production cycles and delivery deadlines is often a catalyst for a multitude of variations in an artist’s work life. Especially on the post-production side of a digital pipeline. For that reason, I notice that people with more generic skills, with an ability to adapt to new processes and a genuinely open nature tend to fit in better and last longer throughout various projects.
The exception here being artists with dedicated PHDs and/or masters of a very specific domain, which makes them highly specialized in the VFX crowd and able to have a niche of their own.
Looking at the software or hardware side of things, technology is still progressing on a daily basis. And will continue doing so. To this extent, many facilities rely on proprietary technology. Thus specializing on a single tool, without learning the CG art’s basics, is also a dangerous game to play. You may end up being obsolete along the program you have learned. Or, in the best case, having a very limited number of facilities you can apply to.
What I suggest as a general rule to young VFX artists is to focus their energies in learning all that constitutes the basis of a successful career in computer graphic, along with improving their natural talent. So. From understanding modeling. To lighting and color. From rigging to animation. From procedural cycles to FX mechanism.
Doing so, building the knowledge necessary not only to satisfy a possible recruitment position, but also to be able to interact with people with different talents in a large facility. And as such, have enough confidence to quickly help and fit it in the bigger picture, which often forms these complex production pipelines.
On that note, competition for very few spots in a large studio is also a challenge when combined with trying to win the attention of a busy HR office or of a busy VFX Supervisor.
When applying for a VFX position, it is quite beneficial to have a very clear introduction letter, which simply states in one line the discipline you are applying for. That being for example: modeling, animation, texturing, shading, … But never indicating more than one discipline at the time. Then in the body of the introduction letter describe that, if need arises, you could also help covering other positions which fit along your skills.
Finally, supporting your application with a very short demo reel (one minute top, possibly less) that shows and clearly labels your very best work in the main discipline you are applying for and clarifies your side skills, wherever those are applicable. To this extent, if you are interested in multiple disciplines, it is highly recommended to prepare multiple introduction letters and related demo reels to satisfy each separate application.
2-What constitute the best production pipeline.
There is always a lot of pride in winning accolades in the VFX industry. And deservedly so. The amount of energy, investments, time and talent required to achieve such a task is, to say the least, overwhelming. Very few Studios and individuals have the sensibility,
experience and organization to pull that feat.
In support of these cycles, there is also a lot of new technology and specialized tools which continuously push the boundaries of what is achievable in computer graphic on a daily basis. To the point that I am confident the majority of senior VFX people in the industry would agree that we are still at the beginning of this exploration, in many ways.
Where a painter is looking for an intimate inspiration to fill in his lonely blank canvas, with a brush and a small collection of colors at his disposal. CG is often the product of a perfect balance between a crowd of ambitions, thousands of frames, a multitude of digital gadgets and a variety of complex mediums.
The combination of new visions and new science is also what makes organizing these complex VFX tasks an expensive challenge in itself, worth the efforts of the most influential CTOs and producers around the world.
A challenge well described in a white-paper about The Status Of Visual Effects written by Renee Dunlop, Paul Malcolm, Eric Roth for the Visual Effects Society in July 2008.
Between the pages, the writers detail a few of the biggest obstacles currently affecting production:
– The difficulty to determine who is in charge of certain creative decisions.
– Directors and Producers’ mixed approach to pre and post visualization.
– The lack of consistency and resources between pre, mid and post production.
– A lack of consistency throughout pipelines, mainly due to the impact of new technologies.
Most of the time, this translates into a very costly, “brute-force” solution workflow. Which, in its own, destabilize any reasonable software production schemes that Studios are willing to invest into.
While a collection of good stable software it’s a fair base for any visual effects venture, I firmly believe that to defy these challenges the core of any VFX pipeline should be a software agnostic one.
All CG elements should be able to be translated effortlessly across tools, independently from their original disciplines’ unique requirements.
And, more than the compartmentalized organization used in other markets, the key structure of this pipeline should focus on the flow of data and the quality of the inventory.
The rest is important, but not essential.
By achieving such a system, the work environment would prove to:
. Be flexible enough to maintain integrity across platforms and departments.
. Allow modifications to the software infrastructure without affecting deliverables.
. Accept various in house and external content.
. And deliver quality without jeopardizing speed.
Overall and independently from the approach, the support of flow of data and of inventory quality is for me a critical element that would help any production survive under the majority of modern, commercial delivery stress requirements.
This framework would help maintaining productivity stable even with continuous changes in a feature’s vision and objectives.
Finally, it would help training the modern VFX artist not to rely on those unique tools or solutions which are software centric and bound to expiry when new technology arises. Thus keeping skills and talent always applicable to the task at hand, to the long lasting benefit of the production studio.
To support such a mechanism, facilities should consider researching and investing into :
. A stable, software independent, browser based, asset and shot manager.
. A solid look development structure.
. A software independent, script based, rendering management solution.
And an asset living in this environment should sport basic qualities such as:
. being version-able
. being hash-able
. being track-able
. being verbose
. being software and hierarchic relation agnostic
. being self-contained
. supporting expandable qualities
. supporting temporally and shading stable procedural decimation
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– Can you give a word of inspiration to those who wish to participate as VFX artist
If anyone is willing to notice it or not, the vast majority of top grossing movies coming out every year are now filled with special effects created by a new wave of craftsmen who share their talent all around the world.
We are living in a period where the new DaVincis, Botticellis and Galileos live their life, comfortably seating in front of a computer. Creating a new art form which converts ones and zeros into a visually pleasing virtual reality. All this while offering their artistry away from language, race and belief barriers.
The knowledge required to achieve such a task is still a mix of an incredible amount of disciplines.
From biology and zoology, to physics and mathematics. From sculpting to painting. From astronomy to molecular chemistry.
It is an incredible opportunity to have a working career, learning about all aspects of life, while creating a new Suspension Of Disbelief
Processing – a flexible software sketchbook
Processing is a flexible software sketchbook and a language for learning how to code within the context of the visual arts. Since 2001, Processing has promoted software literacy within the visual arts and visual literacy within technology. There are tens of thousands of students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists who use Processing for learning and prototyping.
» Free to download and open source
» Interactive programs with 2D, 3D or PDF output
» OpenGL integration for accelerated 2D and 3D
» For GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Android, and ARM
» Over 100 libraries extend the core software
11 Hints for Resolving Relationship Irritations
http://psychcentral.com/lib/11-hints-for-resolving-relationship-irritations/
1. Get to the real issue. it boils down to “unmet needs
2. Consider if it really bothers you. Try to let it go and see how that goes
3. Don’t dismiss a key issue for you. If “you’re dreaming about it, and you’re thinking about it, you’ll have to talk about it,”
4. Use the softened startup.
5. Be patient.
6. Push through the avoidance. staying conflict-free isn’t a marker of a happy relationship
7. Listen, don’t fix. Before you talk about the solutions, make sure you both understand each other and your core concerns.
8. Collaborate on a solution.
9. Don’t focus on the fiery feelings. “Anger, frustration or irritation may be there, but those are not the most important feelings. The more important feelings will be something softer and more vulnerable like anxiety, fear, hurt or sadness.”
10. Set up some structure.
11. Get help.
The Easiest Infinity Mirror Build
Autotracer
Autotracer is a free online image vectorizer. It can convert raster images like JPEGs, GIFs and PNGs to scalable vector graphics (EPS, SVG, AI and PDF). No registration or email required.
8 Great Philosophical Questions That We will Never Solve
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5945801/8-philosophical-questions-that-well-never-solve
1. Why is there something rather than nothing?
2. Is our universe real?
3. Do we have free will?
4. Does God exist?
5. Is there life after death?
6. Can you really experience anything objectively?
7. What is the best moral system?
8. What are numbers?
QR / bar code generators
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code
What size should it be?
Minimum QR Code Size = Scanning Distance / 10
Minimum QR Code Size = (Scanning Distance / Distance Factor) * Data Density Factor
https://blog.qrstuff.com/2011/01/18/what-size-should-a-qr-code-be
Dynamic QR codes allow to change the pointer from the QR code at any time. Most the time for a fee.
Static QR codes are always pointing to the same location.
Pictorial AR Tag with Hidden Multi-Level Bar-Code and Its Potential Applications
http://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/1/3/20/htm
Multiple options. Plus. Free Logos
https://www.qrcode-monkey.com/
Some logo ideas
http://blog.visualead.com/qr-code/
Various formats available here. Adds a logo for a fee.
https://www.qrstuff.com/
This website comes with a free QR software, and it also allows for creating QR codes for events, contacts, wifi, business cards, phone, text messages, …
http://barcode.tec-it.com/en
http://zxing.appspot.com/generator/
https://www.barcodesinc.com/generator/index.php
https://www.tec-it.com/en/download/free-software/qrcode-studio/Download.aspx
Paid service for logos:
http://en.qrcode-pro.com
GitHub software for procedural R code generation:
https://github.com/jeromeetienne/jquery-qrcode
Life advice upon turning age 30 from the president of YCombinator
http://qz.com/394713/life-advice-upon-turning-age-30-from-the-president-of-y-combinator/
Short version:
1) Never put your family, friends, or significant other low on your priority list.
2) Life is not a dress rehearsal—this is probably it.
3) How to succeed: pick the right thing to do
4) On work: it’s difficult to do a great job on work you don’t care about.
5) On money: Whether or not money can buy happiness, it can buy freedom, and that’s a big deal.
6) Talk to people more.
7) Don’t waste time.
8) Don’t let yourself get pushed around.
9) Have clear goals for yourself every day, every year, and every decade.
10) However, as valuable as planning is, if a great opportunity comes along you should take it.
11) Go out of your way to be around smart, interesting, ambitious people.
12) Minimize your own cognitive load from distracting things that don’t really matter.
13) Keep your personal burn rate low.
14) Summers are the best.
15) Don’t worry so much.
16) Ask for what you want.
17) If you think you’re going to regret not doing something, you should probably do it.
18) Exercise. Eat well. Sleep.
19) Go out of your way to help people.
20) Youth is a really great thing.
21) Tell your parents you love them more often.
22) This too shall pass.
23) Learn voraciously.
24) Do new things often.
25) Remember how intensely you loved your boyfriend/girlfriend when you were a teenager? Love him/her that intensely now.
26) Don’t screw people and don’t burn bridges.
27) Forgive people.
28) Don’t chase status.
29) Most things are ok in moderation.
30) Existential angst is part of life.
31) Be grateful and keep problems in perspective.
32) Be a doer, not a talker.
33) Given enough time, it is possible to adjust to almost anything, good or bad.
34) Think for a few seconds before you act. Think for a few minutes if you’re angry.
35) Don’t judge other people too quickly.
36) The days are long but the decades are short.
What I Learned About Leadership When I Interviewed The Biggest Drug Dealer In History
TRY TO GET THE PEOPLE WORKING FOR YOU TO BE MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN YOU
HONESTY
BE VERY LOW KEY
ONLY DO THE ESSENTIAL
DON’T MAKE IT ABOUT THE MONEY
REDUCE CONFRONTATIONS
FREEMIUM
ASSUME THE WORST
