Michael Zhang:
Schmidli first spent hours exploring Google Earth, searching for the perfect location to shoot the image. He needed a hill in the distance that would allow his subject to be framed by the moonrise. Schmidli ended up deciding on this hill:
So great.
I hope everyone is having a good weekend. If you are working have a look on the next render.
For the record Phil has run a profitable visual effects company. We may want to listen.
By Mike Seymour:
Spherical Harmonics are an invaluable tool for production rendering, and also a common device used in games, but few really understand them and how they are used.
I love when Mike goes all nerd on us.
Jennifer Wolfe:
SIGGRAPH accepted 115 technical papers (out of 480 submissions) to showcase this year representing an acceptance rate of 24 percent (one percent higher than 2012). The selected papers were chosen by a distinguished committee of academia and industry experts.
Thanks for the link Myong
I love the fact that these guys had to do something amazing and insightful to get amazing and insightful images. No greenscreens here.
Scott Squires:
Finding problems with proposals and criticizing is the easiest thing a person can do. How about people actually make suggestions of a solution?
I'll bite.
How about California enforces there own labor laws. How about the people who start there own visual effects companies follow the rules.
This really is about rules. Rules are set in place because some idiot doesn't have common sense. And the state or country has to say "sorry you can't enslave people, so here are some rules to follow".
It's easy to say what should be done after the fact. Anyone can do that. It's what we are going to do going forward.
I had a little birdy ask if we hated the studios. I said no. It's not the studios fault a vfx house agrees to the terms.
Have a look if just want the important stuff.
The thing about Pixar is that they know when to give notes and when not to.
How many times have you walked out of a review only to be given notes just because someone had to have something to say.
I have written about this before. Notes, it separates the men from the boys. It's the men that take notes and make there work better. It's the boys that get all butt hurt and storm off. But here's the flip side to that coin. Defend yourself. If there is a reason for what you did explain why. Don't just sit there and say go ok.
Shots are bid, but know body knows till your trying to key a wet great green screen, rain and lots of atmospherics. The QuickTime compression helped hide, well all of it.
You hide all kinds if things in the madness because that's what's required. Make sure it fits the scene. That means AB it. Compare color, and density. Ask yourself all the questions. Most of all review your renders. I have watched to many artists have render errors ruin a review.
Just because you can fool the eye doesn't mean you should do it badly. Remember everyone knows there is a problem, most just don't know why.