• AnimationXpress.com interviews Daniele Tosti for TheCgCareer.com channel

    ,

     https://www.animationxpress.com/vfx/meet-daniele-tosti-a-senior-cg-artist-who-is-on-a-mission-to-inspire-the-next-generation-of-artists/

    You’ve been in the VFX Industry for over a decade. Tell us about your journey.

    It all started with my older brother giving me a Commodore64 personal computer as a gift back in the late 80′. I realised then I could create something directly from my imagination using this new digital media format. And, eventually, make a living in the process.
    That led me to start my professional career in 1990. From live TV to games to animation. All the way to live action VFX in the recent years.

    I really never stopped to crave to create art since those early days. And I have been incredibly fortunate to work with really great talent along the way, which made my journey so much more effective.

     

    What inspired you to pursue VFX as a career?

    An incredible combination of opportunities, really. The opportunity to express myself as an artist and earn money in the process. The opportunity to learn about how the world around us works and how best solve problems. The opportunity to share my time with other talented people with similar passions. The opportunity to grow and adapt to new challenges. The opportunity to develop something that was never done before. A perfect storm of creativity that fed my continuous curiosity about life and genuinely drove my inspiration.

     

    Tell us about the projects you’ve particularly enjoyed working on in your career

    (more…)
  • Guide to Prompt Engineering

    ,

    The 10 most powerful techniques:

    1. Communicate the Why
    2. Explain the context (strategy, data)
    3. Clearly state your objectives
    4. Specify the key results (desired outcomes)
    5. Provide an example or template
    6. Define roles and use the thinking hats
    7. Set constraints and limitations
    8. Provide step-by-step instructions (CoT)
    9. Ask to reverse-engineer the result to get a prompt
    10. Use markdown or XML to clearly separate sections (e.g., examples)

    Top 10 high-ROI use cases for PMs:

    1. Get new product ideas
    2. Identify hidden assumptions
    3. Plan the right experiments
    4. Summarize a customer interview
    5. Summarize a meeting
    6. Social listening (sentiment analysis)
    7. Write user stories
    8. Generate SQL queries for data analysis
    9. Get help with PRD and other templates
    10. Analyze your competitors


    Quick prompting scheme:
    1- pass an image to JoyCaption
    https://www.pixelsham.com/2024/12/23/joy-caption-alpha-two-free-automatic-caption-of-images/

    2- tune the caption with ChatGPT as suggested by Pixaroma:
    Craft detailed prompts for Al (image/video) generation, avoiding quotation marks. When I provide a description or image, translate it into a prompt that captures a cinematic, movie-like quality, focusing on elements like scene, style, mood, lighting, and specific visual details. Ensure that the prompt evokes a rich, immersive atmosphere, emphasizing textures, depth, and realism. Always incorporate (static/slow) camera or cinematic movement to enhance the feeling of fluidity and visual storytelling. Keep the wording precise yet descriptive, directly usable, and designed to achieve a high-quality, film-inspired result.


    https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/139mxi3/chatgpt_created_this_guide_to_prompt_engineering/




    1. Use the 80/20 principle to learn faster
    Prompt: “I want to learn about [insert topic]. Identify and share the most important 20% of learnings from this topic that will help me understand 80% of it.”

    2. Learn and develop any new skill
    Prompt: “I want to learn/get better at [insert desired skill]. I am a complete beginner. Create a 30-day learning plan that will help a beginner like me learn and improve this skill.”

    3. Summarize long documents and articles
    Prompt: “Summarize the text below and give me a list of bullet points with key insights and the most important facts.” [Insert text]

    4. Train ChatGPT to generate prompts for you
    Prompt: “You are an AI designed to help [insert profession]. Generate a list of the 10 best prompts for yourself. The prompts should be about [insert topic].”

    5. Master any new skill
    Prompt: “I have 3 free days a week and 2 months. Design a crash study plan to master [insert desired skill].”

    6. Simplify complex information
    Prompt: “Break down [insert topic] into smaller, easier-to-understand parts. Use analogies and real-life examples to simplify the concept and make it more relatable.”


     More suggestions under the post…

    (more…)