William Dorais

POSTREBEL.BLOGSPOT HAS MOVED!

2008-10-26T14:35:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,

I have transferred this blog to my personal domain and I will no longer be posted at this location.

Please find the new and improved blog at http://www.billdorais.com/blog

See you there :)

West To East

2008-08-17T05:31:00.000-07:00

We've found our way back to the east coast, New York to be exact. It's good to be back but I'm sad to leave LA behind, the move almost happened too fast. Hope to be back to LA soon but I'm excited to be in NY.

Mummy & Speed Racer

2008-08-05T09:03:00.000-07:00

I've been updating my portfolio over the past few weeks. Still some more stuff to come, but most recently is some of my work on Mummy 3.

Intuition Games

2008-08-03T12:18:00.001-07:00

We just spent the weekend in Omaha Nebraska and had the opportunity to meet with some of the gang from Intuition Games who drove out from Iowa to meet us. Intuition is finishing up the major undertaking of Dinowaurs which is to be released on the popular online game website Kongregate. They gave us a tour of their beta and it's (in my opinion) one best flash games out there. It's sure to be a hit with it's complex physics engine, multi-player gameplay, quirky and fun extras, and of course configurable Dino avatars with fun accessories and weapons.

Interview: Matt Hartle

2008-07-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

For Mymentalray I interviewed Matt Hartle. Check out the article here.

3LL: Working

2008-06-30T07:41:00.000-07:00

I'm now freelancing with the fellas at Three Legged Legs. A great group of artists w/ a great project.

Digital Domain: Mummy 3

2008-06-15T09:35:00.001-07:00

I finished working on Mummy: Tomb of the Emperor Dragon this last Friday. I had a great time on the project and learned a lot. I can't wait to see the movie as I'm a big fan of the first two. It feels good to contribute to a movie as a fan.
I'm currently trying to catch up as everything always seems to slip when these projects go into six or seven day weeks near the end but this recovery won't be too bad. I just updated my portfolio with an improved layout with better navigation...at least I think so. I also added an "Interviews"page which links to my work for mymentalray.com.

Mummy: New Trailer

2008-05-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

Hey the new Mummy trailer has been released! Check it out here:
http://www.robcohenthemummy.com/video.php I don't know about you guys but I think this looks pretty awesome.

Speed Racer to Mummy

2008-04-16T08:04:00.000-07:00

So Speed Racer has finished and I'm really glad I got the chance to work on the film. I Met a lot of great people on the show and now after a two week break I'm back at DD working on the Mummy 3. The show has a really strong pipeline and the VFX are going to be fun. It's great to meet all the new people on the Mummy show...and there are a lot of familiar faces from Racer working on Mummy which is nice.

Speed Racer: New Trailer

2008-03-09T10:07:00.001-07:00

New American Speed Racer trailer.
Also check out the new European Speed Racer trailer. This movie is going to be awesome.

rockitdontstopit

2008-03-01T08:38:00.001-08:00

Oh My! My good friend Sheima has compiled her work at rockitdontstopit.com. Sheima's sense of style and design has always been a real inspiration to me. Ranging from mograph, collage, film and everything in between she never fails at defining and branding her personal flavor into every project...also check out her blog!

Interview: Christian Bloch

2008-02-10T10:56:00.000-08:00

For Mymentalray I interviewed Christian Bloch. Check out the article here.

Interview: Joep Van Der Steen

2008-02-10T10:49:00.000-08:00

For Mymentalray I interviewed Joep Van Der Steen. Check out the article here.

My Mental Ray 2.0 Launches

2008-02-06T13:43:00.000-08:00

I'm excited to see that My Mental Ray 2.0 has launched!! Woohooo! The site looks really great and I know it will continue to grow into a great resource for all of us lighter/shader people out there.
Check out all the new site features here!

DD

2008-02-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

Today marks my first day working at Digital Domain. I'm excited with the opportunity and feel lucky to get to work on Speed Racer!

Good bye Buck!

2008-02-01T16:55:00.001-08:00

Today is my last day as a full time dude at Buck. It's been blast and I'll miss being around everyone all the time. I wish everybody the best and hope to work with them all again soon.

MYMR: 2.0 to launch soon!

2008-01-29T12:03:00.001-08:00

I've been lucky enough to help with some of the interviews that are going to be released with the new My Mental Ray site. Keep a close eye out for an amazing new website and resource.

Buck: Fuel spots

2008-01-11T18:10:00.000-08:00

We just recently finished two more Fuel ID spots!

The Sakrifice spot was really enjoyable to work on.... a fun combination of 3D and 2d. My first time doing frame by frame cell stuff in Photoshop in CS3.

Also on motionographer!! Woohoo.

View a high rez version on my portfolio.

New Design Section

2007-12-29T12:55:00.000-08:00

I've added a new design section to my portfolio. As time goes on I find myself spending more and more time on design so and I hope to include these works in my portfolio now.
I've started off by featuring our game Kleek. We are getting very close to it's public beta release which we plan on doing early January 08'. The project has officially been under development for over a year now and each day it gets more and more exciting.

My Portfolio Re-Design

2007-11-01T08:57:00.001-07:00

I've updated my portfolio....not all the links are working yet but I just felt like releasing because I'll be updating it for many days to come.

Saturday and Amazing

2007-10-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday morning and amazing. After a grueling 3 month project the clouds have seemed to have lifted and I'm sitting at home drinking my coffee and listening to the birds chirp without a worry of failed renders...paradise..mostly. The project that we have finished is still secret but hopefully it will soon be released to the public.
Last night I got a chance to meet up with my old bosses from Iceland, Mark and Claudia. They've pretty much been globe trotting working on VFX for various upcoming films and now working on the VFX for another Clint Eastwood film. Sounds like fun. We ate at this place in the Hollywood Hills called Yamashiro which has great food and a view unlike any other of Hollywood/LA Basin. So on the docket this weekend...tonight and engagement party and tomorrow a bowling party... hooray for work free weekends!

Master Zaps Hair tips

2007-10-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

Master Zap explains how to render fur related scenes well here.

I'm an Uncle

2007-10-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my wife's sister gave birth to a baby boy Maxwell!

Shave and Haircut: Shadows (Mental Ray Hair Primitives)

2007-09-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

Wow Mental Ray Hair Primitives. What a change of pace. Wish I would have learned this 3 months ago. My new friend Doug (who is a master cg artist) spent a few days testing shave and haircut and has completely changed my outlook on how fur needs to be rendered...it's with hair primitives! Here are the major technical points are your shave globals, your light's shadow settings, and your mental ray globals:

Render Globals:
Change renderer to mental ray. Use Rapid Hair adjust the anti alasing settings down to get faster render time

Shave Globals:
Once you've switched to the mental ray renderer in the shave globals you will now have the option to change to "hair primitives" this essentially switches your hair to geometry at render time. I assumed this would make for really high render times but has massivly improved render times, though you have to pay closer attention to your light's shadow settings.

Light Attributes:

I only light hair primitives with spot lights. Once you've made your light, go to your attributes -> Shadows, check use depth map shadows. Scroll down down and expand the area that says "mental ray" here you will see attributes that deal with shadow maps. Enable shadow maps. I believe this overides your depth map shadow settings so you have to set a new shadow resolution (256 or 512 will give you soft shadows, 2048 4096 will give you sharp shadows). I've worked with shadows samples between 1 and 4 (I up the samples if I am getting bands), and I work with softness levels between .001 and .01 (this seems very sensitive).

This is a quick rundown, I'll flesh this out further once I have more accurate results. Though using primitives has taken what was once a 3 + hour render down to about 23 minutes with very similar (even better) results.

Shave and Haircut: Shadows (Mental Ray Buffer)

2007-09-04T07:45:00.000-07:00

Ok probably the most important thing I've learned over time is about Shave shadows. Much of this is probably really obvious...but here's a quick rundown for Shave and Haircut Shadows using the buffer:

Geo Shadow - The geometry that the hair is attached to is casting shadows on the hair if this feature is turned all the way up. For some reason for quite some time I always thought this attribute affected how the hair casted shadow on to the geo under it...I was very wrong. So if you want to create a rim light pass for the fur, you would want to put a light behind your geo and hair and turn geo shadow all the way up.

Self Shadow - Hairs casting shadows upon themselves, that one is pretty straight forward.

How to avoid a major flickering problem when rendering with the buffer - If your throw a light into the scene (without properly setting up the shave shadow attributes) and animate the hair moving around you are most likely going to get a flicker/jitter/shimmer render. I've typically been working with a spot light as my key light. After creating my light with a scene that already has hair, I select the light then go to the shave menu ->Shadow -> Add selected lights. This will create a new attribute in your spot light. If you enter 1500 into the resolution and 30 into fuzz this will give you a good starting point to avoid those flickers. Joe Alter suggested those numbers himself and they've been working great for me.

Getting Hitched!

2007-08-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

Tonight Laurie and I are heading out to the East Coast to get ready for our big day on August 18th. Looking forward to taking some time off and seeing old family and friends. There won't be too many graphics updates in the near future but there will be a monster on the not too distant future...so stay tuned and stay in touch.

All the best -

Bill....

BUCK: Beast

2007-08-01T22:45:00.000-07:00

Chris Lee in action here designed this fun piece for a fuel spot at Buck. Not too much 3D in this piece but I did get to help transform Chris' designs over to the 3D character. Toon shading again in maya with thin clean outlines. Enjoy

Buck: Gravity

2007-07-29T12:31:00.001-07:00

We recently finished this piece Damn Gravity for fuel tv. I personally really liked it because of it's unique graphic style and character animation. The character, skate ramp and props were done with maya's toon shader and outlines, all rendered on separate passes. I rendered out the outline pass when the character was un-smoothed to give it a rigid offset feel....the toon shading was rendered with the characters smoothed.
Actually not too much 3D rendering work here, a lot of great design, and hand drawn stuff.

Shave and Haircut- Part 4 (Mental Ray or Maya)

2007-07-18T15:22:00.000-07:00

Shave and Haircut for Mental Ray...coming soon.

Shave and Hair Cut - Part 3 (Procedure?)

2007-07-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

Working with hair I have found that I can spend hours and hours adjusting maps and test rendering. I have found that it is extremely important to have some sort of procedure when attacking a project or else you can get lost for hours if not days fine tuning maps trying to get your look only to come to a dead end and start from scratch. Here is a work in progress of the steps I have begun to take when first starting:
1. Roughing out scale and root width is probably the best way to start. Keep the hair count down for quick renders until you start getting a good sense
2. Determining UV Sets or apply an additional fur set to faces can help you allocate denser hair where needed. See the UV section.
3. Determine how close you are actually going to get to your character. If your getting close to the face it's important that you allocate a lot of time to render. The closer you get....the longer the render. As you pull back you'll find that your root width doesn't need to be as fine thus by using thicker hair you can use less....decreasing that render time.

(more detail to come)

Shave and Hair Cut - Part 2 (Uv Maps - UV Sets)

2007-07-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

UVs are really important even though shave does a nice job of distributing hairs no matter what they may be, so if your uv's aren't equally distributed the hairs won't group in unwanted places which is great. I have found recently that it is really important to create more than one shave hair set on a surface. By selecting faces on the geometry and creating new hair this can really pack hair in places and put less hair in others.

For example the hair on a animals face is typically very fine and short. This requires one to up the hair count to fill in places that require fine fibers of hair. If you Create a UV set for the head and one for the body, you can pack more hair into the head shave node and avoid this unnecessary hair count for the body.

If you are using UV sets you can assign them to these faces which is nice. I did think this was a good option for a while but then I had to start paint too many mattes and it was difficult to keep a handle on everything. (I have found that it is best to work with one nicely laid out uv set...anything more than that is too stressful :)

Note: Try not to include uv's into a uv set that don't contain any fur (like the inside of an animals mouth). If this fur has zero density you might as well not include it so what would be essentially invisible fur is now allocated somewhere more useful.

Note (2): If you are using two uv sets I have found that sometimes it is hard to match the look of to two hair sets at it's seams. Make one of your two uv sets include both of your areas, then use the density map for each hair system to "blend" at the seam. I am still working at this technique but it seems to be a good solution for now.

Shave and Haircut - Part 1 (Scale)

2007-07-02T18:24:00.000-07:00

I am deep in the throws of a project requiring Shave and Haircut for Maya. I have been using this software on and off for the past year or so. Slowly and progressively learning how to manage time and get good results. I have posted many questions on the forums hoping to get a response, but there don't seem to be too many folks forging the threads for shave and haircut topics.

Anyway the first thing that I want to talk about is:

Geo Scale:
First things first, the scale of your object and the scale of your hair is very important. If the scale of your object changes, (for example your animal gets referenced into a scene and the animator scales him up) this will mess up how you originally intended the hair to look. So make sure your model's scale is fixed and that in no way in the future will his scale change before starting to work with Shave.

Hair Scale:
By scaling up and down or using mattes to scale your hair, this can affect the integrity of your clumping down the road. I have found that it is best to create your hair, and then use the scale brush tool (make the brush big, zoom out and scale all the hair down to the approximate length). I hear this is much better than attenuate because attenuation can cut your hairs too short and you'll be popping and fixing hairs rather than having control right off the bat (A great tip by Chris Chrisman). From there, I will minimally affect the hair using black and white maps until I have it right, or I will cut the hair, (this is an assumption but this seems to reinitialize the hair's scale to a default setting rather than globally affecting all of it attributes).

Eli Wins Portugal

2007-06-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

One of my good friend's Eli Rarey just won the Portugal Film Festival. Word on the street he is opening a production company so he can create more films and win more awards. Watch out for Eli Rarey and his films!

More details later.

My old roomies are rock stars!!

2007-06-15T17:42:00.000-07:00

There's no shame in acknowledging that the devil wants you on his team. Check out their write up in Denver's westwared. Second from the LEFT is my sister's fiance'!
List to their music HERE.

Contractopia

2007-06-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

Check out our latest spot at Buck....Contractopia.
This was a really fun piece that we did about four weeks.

George Fuentes

2007-06-01T08:18:00.001-07:00

As you can see George Fuentes is pretty awesome. I just met him the other day and got to watch him paint. He's fast! Check out his site here!

vcdave and okdork

2007-05-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

Two blogs I've recently found very interesting: vcdave and okdork are two websites dedicated to ecommerce. I particularly found this jackpot tool really cool.

Also while on this tangent check out this traffic estimate site.

My Friend Scruggs Is Famous

2007-05-17T16:13:00.000-07:00

Patrick Scruggs is viewed on motionographer again. He's awesome and deserves the recognition. Check out his work here.

Chris Lee's New Toy & Event

2007-05-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

Check out the release of Chris Lee's new toy!

New Friend Ken

2007-05-11T07:37:00.000-07:00

Ken and I became friends though intense conversations about television shows. He has some awesome work here. Also check out his mad remixing skills.

terrible

2007-05-01T15:29:00.000-07:00

i am a terrible blogger. this whole business makes me feel bad because I usually only blog when I acomplish something and lately there haven't been many blogs at all which I suppose means I haven't been acomplishing much. I actually have been acomplishing a lot just haven't found my blogging groove. Happy May, may it be a good one.

We are interviewed by MyMentalRay

2007-04-10T17:59:00.003-07:00

Check us out.
My Mental Ray is a community site for mental ray users run by a great 3D artist Julian Sarmiento. Julian was gracious enough to give us an interview!
Check out his site here.

Yay for us!

2007-04-08T16:27:00.000-07:00

We are in Stash 31. Check it!

April no fool me day.

2007-04-01T18:18:00.000-07:00

It's April 1st. and I haven't been fooled ha HA. Man this LA weather is nice. Today we walked to the tar pits...that joint is hurt up! then to the farmers market where I have a mint chocolate chip ice cream. I need to treat myself to icecream more often. I also watched the movie Rize, by David LaChapelle, that was great. If I had to choose between krumping and clowning I think I'd be a Krumper. Only because I can't deal with facial paint.
Anyway, happy April, spring is abound for those of you who aren't in sunny California...hang in there.

Flickr Tag Search Thingie

2007-03-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

Check it!

HDR Photography

2007-03-19T11:50:00.001-07:00

Tokyo Nightscape
Originally uploaded by /\ltus.

HDR Photography this technique is awesome. I would love to learn how this is done. Check out more of this guys work.

Buck Spring Reel

2007-03-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

Buck's new spring reel...really goes.

Tower of Grantville takes top 3

2007-03-08T19:22:00.000-08:00

Tower of Grantville takes top 3 at adcritic.

Tower of Grantville Stills

2007-03-06T20:18:00.000-08:00

Here are some stills from the tower of Grantville created at Buck. Please view the quicktime here.

three months in

2007-03-05T20:02:00.000-08:00

Ok, it's now March...already into the third month of this year. My life is busy and great, I've been working on a lot of projects and the quality of work on all fronts is continuously improving. I'm getting married in almost five months, this is amazing. Time is just blowing by with tremendous speed. All is well I will post some still of our latest piece soon.

Interview: Buck

2007-03-02T17:06:00.000-08:00

Check out the interview I helped with with between MYMR and Buck here.

Tower of Grantville Completed

2007-02-15T20:58:00.000-08:00

Today marks the day that Tower of Grantville has completed. It's defiantly the most creative project that I've worked on and I'm really glad to have been a part of it. The animation will premiere on big screens before movies so keep a look out for a tattered bunny rabbit, a man with a cardboard head, and screaming furry animals you won't be disappointed.

February

2007-02-09T22:22:00.000-08:00

Already this far into February, wow.
Our first week of production has finished with Clique Online, it looks as though the graphics are coming along and they are working on the chat mechanics of the game. We seem to be narrowing down a "look" for the characters, it's exciting to see the thing come into existance. Other things to note, I'm watch the first season of Battle Star Galactica on my Ipod while on the bus to and from work, I must look a bit crazy not taking my eyes off the screen for the entire ride...though I'm beginning to realize crazy is nothing new to the LA metro system.
Both Lazytown and It's a Big Big world were nominated for Emmy's feels good to be a small part of that, cross your fingers for a win.

2007-02-04T09:44:00.000-08:00

Normality & Reality

"Normality and Reality are a set of powerful plug-ins that allow CG Artists to light their 3D objects and scenes directly within the familiar Adobe After Effects environment.

The software is production proven and has been used on several high-end projects, including the Paraworld and Frontlines..."

Buck:Comcast: Mech

2007-02-02T08:02:00.000-08:00

Here's a piece that I helped with the lighting/shading/comping. Mental Ray's car paint shader, and L_glass are the special shaders here.
Everything was broken out into separate passes at render time. Turned out pretty nice.

adventures in january

2007-01-31T19:40:00.000-08:00

if adventures could happen digitally my life this year would be a wild ride.
so pretty much after returning from Christmas break I have been working non-stop, thus the lack of posts. Right now it's day 17 in a row. I'm actually feeling pretty good because we are working on a really challenging piece that is going to turn heads, probably one of the strangest yet one of the most exciting projects I've been on to date, I'll actually be sad to see it finish because I've grown to really like the characters.
Also happening in tandem (after work hours) is the production of our game Clique which is beginning full production Feb. 5th. We've got some great programmers involved at a company called Metaversal Studios in Boston. We are so excited to see our 8+months of dreaming and brainstorming become a reality. I have a lot of faith in the project and I think that a lot of people who see our prototype in a few months will also.
Other than that I haven't really seen any spots online that have knocked my socks off. There is a lot of good stuff out there but my mind is so saturated with media I have a hard time appreciating anything anymore. Hopefully Buck's latest release will swim to the surface and spark some inspiration into the field.

CG Art

2007-01-14T20:44:00.000-08:00

I recently found a new cg resource, CG Art. The scrolling windows are kind of annoying but I've found some nice things here that I haven't seen elsewhere.

The Beast is Back

2007-01-13T11:15:00.000-08:00

I recently met the talented illustrator/designer extraordinaire Chris Lee, if you haven't already seen his work check it out here. He has also done a great tutorial about adding dimension to your characters.

Public Transportation Patterns

2007-01-12T07:50:00.001-08:00

Bakerloo Line train. London Underground
Originally uploaded by ludd.

Textures on flickr. They look unique! Nice patterns from different public transportation systems. View Ludwig's Flickr Set here! I found another public contriubtion flickr set here that also has patterns of this nature.

and we're back

2007-01-05T07:52:00.000-08:00

Christmas vacation was a blast. We're back in LA, ready to take 2007 by the horns. Lots of big things happening this year!

Lazytown Post Production Crew

2006-12-22T12:01:00.001-08:00

DSC_0128
Originally uploaded by wa_bash.

I've been browsing through old photos and found one. This was the orignal post-production crew of Lazytown Season 1. I find this very nostalgic, we are sitting/standing on the set of Sporticus' Airship.

Holidays

2006-12-19T21:37:00.000-08:00

Oh the holidays are always a busy time and my blog has surely suffered from it. I'm still working at Buck looking forward to a nice Christmas Vacation in Colorado. Last weekend I was in New York with Lauire, we hit the streets and I got to see the madness downtown first hand...a really great time to be in the city!
Hope you all have a great Holiday!!! Much more blogging to come in 2007!

2006-12-14T07:43:00.000-08:00

A great music video site found via motionographer.

donkey cake...works of art

2006-12-06T16:33:00.000-08:00

Creativity never stops with Jeremy....even when the server goes down.

postrebel update

2006-12-03T19:26:00.000-08:00

Nothing too flashy but a bit of a layout/navigation change. I'll be working on the reel and links to high-rez renders of renders, updating the models section, the photo section and the experimental section....but not now, for that matter not soon.

UNIKFREK

2006-12-01T23:01:00.000-08:00

It is with my greatest pleasure to post content created by inspiring friends very dear to me. Expect to see more work from unikfrek, and check out her blog.....now.

antiquated textures

2006-12-01T10:02:00.000-08:00

Check out this site. Some really nice 'old' world wall paper textures.

Buck: Budwieser: Pitch

2006-11-21T08:30:00.000-08:00

My love for glass began with L_glass.

My Mental Ray

2006-11-20T17:31:00.000-08:00

A resource that is going to be great. My Mental Ray is a site dedicated to Mental Ray enthusiasts. The site includes links to custom shaders, tutorials, forums, and a gallery. My favorite custom mental ray shader by the way is Lobber's Glass!

mk12

2006-11-19T08:27:00.000-08:00

I know all of the usual sites posted on Mk12's recent reveal of their new trailer and site update. I'm not really worried about that. I just wanted to say keep your eyes on this company, I think they deserve a lot of viewer support....for good reason.

The Mill and SkyTV

2006-11-10T13:45:00.000-08:00

I know this came out a while ago, I watched this piece again today and couldn't help but posting on it.

Buck & TV Land

2006-11-10T11:02:00.000-08:00

Buck finished 3 spots for TVLand. I especially like the afro - to - icecream cone transition!

Marc Brunet

2006-11-07T17:43:00.000-08:00

I was browsing CG portfolio's and Marc Brunet has some impressive digital paintings.

Petra Stefankova

2006-10-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

I thought this artwork looked really cool, kind of like a modern take on Picasso. Perta Stefankova seems to really have control over lighting and texturing in 3d.

Project Squirrel

2006-10-22T08:48:00.000-07:00

I'm currently working to create a photo-realistic squirrel. I'm tracking the progress from the beginning to end on my forum. I'm hoping to achieve realistic anatomy, hair and lighting as my primary goals.

As you can see my experience with hair is limited! Though with inexperience sometimes you can create radical squirrel haircuts! I'm using a plugin called shave and haircut, which...as I've read was used for kong's hair.

Cingular ads find their way to Motionographer

2006-10-14T12:51:00.001-07:00

It's exciting to see that Buck's two new spots for Cingular made their way to Motionographer. Check out the spots if you haven't already seen them. Two 30 second spots in 4 weeks...not too bad! Go Buck. Go BBDO.

Creepy Stalker

2006-10-12T22:24:00.000-07:00

Check out the freaky phone message my girlfriend got a while back from a guy she met once! You'll never think about a "protein shake" the same way again.

Still kickin

2006-10-08T11:29:00.000-07:00

I've put up a new banner for my little forum, I found a design a few months ago and really like the colors and shapes and made my own version of it. Oh I've also been building my flickr page, check it out!

Jeremy's Reel

2006-09-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

Donkey Cake is Jeremy's reel, (animation director at Buck). Some fun and funky stuff. Jeremy is on of the most talented and fun persons I've worked with.

colors/textures

2006-09-25T18:47:00.000-07:00

I was recently introduced to a few helpful sites. One being Mayang Textures and the other being Getty Images. Thanks Thomas and Shannon.

Espaun...not stoppin'

2006-09-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

Working at Buck I've been able to meet a few great designers. One of which is 21 year old Tomas Pena. Tomas comes from Spain, he is incredibly talented both creatively and technically, check out his work. He has also introduced me to another Spanish designer which you can see here.

Buck

2006-09-09T18:30:00.000-07:00

Today I started working at Buck!!!

So long RTT thanks for all the photo-realistic memories

2006-09-07T13:55:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow marks my last day working at RTT. It has been an absolute pleasure meeting and working with everyone in the LA office. In case some of your out there didn't know....RTT is one of the leading forces on the planet in photo-realistic renderings. Their technical wizardry combined with an overall genuine kindness makes for a great place to grow as an artist, work on high-end projects and meet an international crew.

Thank you! I will be in touch.

Labor Day in NY

2006-09-06T07:21:00.000-07:00

Friday I got a chance to visit The Mill in Manhattan! This place takes their interior design really seriously! I think it's really cool to see high-end computers combined with high-end interior design. With their continued success it seems like spending a little extra cash on mod red couches and chrome orb lighting fixtures, (and panoramic views of the city) isn't a problem. Along with the high-end look of the place, the dress code seemed to follow suite, this new computer-nerd/fashionista look is pretty cool. Oh yah, and just being being in a place that is considered number 1 in the world in vfx/design is pretty inspiring.

After the city it was out to the beach and that...is the rest of the story.

postrebel - forum

2006-08-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

This month's new banner for the postrebel forum!

Method Studios

2006-08-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard of Method Studios you've at least seen one if not twenty to thirty of their high profile commercials. Located in Santa Monica the heart of Los Angles' VFX houses, Method Stuios employees an eclectic group of people from around the world working with high-end hardware and software. Their work is just plain cool and sometimes very humerous projects. Yesterday I was lucky enough too meet Tonie and Laurent who are both extremly nice and interesting people, similar to the work Method creates.

The Evolution of Machinima

2006-08-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

After reading blogs concerning the release of Coke's latest ad created by Nexus studios in the UK, I wanted to talk about Machinima and it's future impact on the media. Made popular by gamers controling characters in Halo and clipping together scenes to make mini movies and eventually a series Red vs Blue the word Machinima beacame more and more familar with the gamer/filmmaker community.
With the creation of such televison shows Disney's Book of Pooh, Nickelodeon's Lazytown and PBSKids' It's A Big Big World. We can see that Machinima is not just a low-tech form for of creating contect with real-time virtual set engines.
New gaming engines such as the offset engine for the PC are uping the resolution and realtime features such as (realtime depth of field, realtime soft shadows, realtime particles casting shadows, realtime global illumination...the list goes on). All of these features are currently being used as 3d animation studios creating high-end films. With the adavancement of realtime technologies we are going to see and increase in quality and thus production value in machinima. With the merging of media's the next-gen realtime virtual set television shows are going to increase in popularity, their visuals are going to greatly improve, and the cost large 3d post production teams could start disappearing.

Flash animation extravaganza

2006-08-15T15:12:00.000-07:00

If you have ever attempted animating in flash, or at least working in it. You might like this video.

The Getty Center

2006-08-14T07:21:00.000-07:00

Best view of Los Angeles you can get, at least if your not a Hollywood Hill homeowner. Parking was chaos but once acomplished a very nice walk up the hill to the center was perfect for a Sunday afternoon. Skimmed the art collection, getting a bit lost in each exhibit. The architecture is massive and beautiful. Noticed that outside a demographic ranging in age from 3 years old to 70 years old were having an equal amount of a good time. This says a lot for how the place is designed and what it has to offer to everyone.
I am really out of the loop when it comes to fine art, which doesn't mean I don't appreciate it...but I found the view of Los Angeles from the center equally engaging.

Harold Belker

2006-08-10T22:28:00.000-07:00

Tonight we went down to Culver City to the MODAA to see Harold Belker. Harold is a concept artist from Germany with work in fields ranging from furniture design, automotive concepts to concept creation for feature films. Harold does all of his designs in 2D (pencil/pen, or photoshop) and his finished sketches turn out looking like renderings from a 3D rendering engine.

I went up to Harold and introduced myself, and rambled something that you might expect along the lines of inspiration, and adoration...never-the-less it was good to meet him.
It was cool to see his designs like furniture, bike designs, matchbox cars, set up with his renderings. I always have a hard time looking at digital large prints because the pixelation and color saturation never does the product created on the computer justice. I think mediums like digital art need to be shown on calibrated LCD monitors to really show the colors and details that the artist originally intended. Relying on ink, and a printer can be scary.

I look forward to seeing more creations from Harold Belker, maybe someday I can convice him to let me take one of his sketches and create some 3D renderings for him.

TMNT

2006-08-10T07:53:00.000-07:00

Looks like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is going to be made into a feature animation. This was bar-none one of my favorite cartoons growing up. I had nearly every single action figure. My friends used to meet up with our ninja turtles and we would spend hours...more like days fighting evil doers like Shredder and his foot soilders.
Looks like Warner Brothers is producing this flick along side the Weinstein Company. An animation house called Amagi in Hong Kong is doing the CG work for it. I saw the trailer and the 3D work looked rather 2D, perhaps holding to a 2D/3D hybrid look that we see in some recent Japanamai hits. Though it does indeed look like the characters are CG while the backdrops look matte painted. (As opposed to 2D characters and 3D backdrops). I think 2D matte paintings in the background is a good way to go, especially with a story that takes place in New York. Better to paint in the details of the geometry rather than model the entire city.
I think it is also good that a foreign animation house is creating the work for an American produced feature animation. Final Fantasy, created by square pictures (a japaneese owned company) hit the American market and did not do very well at all...though it did show ground breaking realism and what is truely possible it the feild of animated features. I'd like to see Eastern companies like Amagi show the CG the western culture something new as well. I see all of these great American features coming out, technically they look great....but still look the same no?

1st Ave Machine

2006-08-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

1st Ave Machine is a company in New York that comes up with photo-unreal organic creations. I love the work that they do because much of the 3D community today is focusing a lot of energy towards photo-realism. These guys look like that have that figured out and are taking their work to the next level. Click on the image above to view their website.

Birddy Nam Nam & Jackson and his computer Band

2006-08-01T23:10:00.000-07:00

Two other electronic bands that were introduced to me by my good friend Api. Like the Four Tet they are European, Birdy Nam Nam being French. Fun and enjoyable to listen to, some tracks would be ideal for a funky demo reel. These bands also seem to have a nice sense of design from their websites. Click the images above to view their websites.

four tet

2006-07-31T23:09:00.000-07:00

I happened to be thinking about The Four Tet. This is a solo electronic trubador who is really amazing to see live. He also has a cool design sense. He has a few of his tracks on his myspace account.....myspace, gag. I'm getting really sick of it. Anyway give a listen here.
The website is here.

takagimasakatsu

2006-07-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

I was browsing one of my favorite sites Motionographer and i followed a link to takagimasakatsu. Some really amazing experimental motion graphics! Stan Brackage eat your heart out.

postREBEL

2006-07-29T18:52:00.000-07:00

monument valley

2006-07-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

I thought I might open a flickr account and to start by showing one of my favorite panoramas. Laurie snapped off these shots on our way to California and I stitched them together in phothsop.
The gateway to the west.

scope boy

2006-07-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

new design in progress

2006-07-22T17:13:00.000-07:00

I have created a new design for my blog, it mostly consists of stealing source code from other blogs I fancy, so I can't take credit for the layout. A few of my blogs were lost in the transfer, I started deleting things that shouldn't have been deleted. My blog about annoying helicopters was lost and perhaps a few others that weren't too interesting. With the onset of a better design I'm going to try to follow suite with better topics directed towards motion graphics, design, 3d animation and film!!

Still in Progress....getting Closer though!

testing testing

2006-07-22T10:36:00.000-07:00

does this work?