Teach, You might Learn Something

One of my best moves was taking the seat right next to the FrameThrower when I started at Pacific Title And Art Studio. I could look over there shoulders and listen to what was being said. I also got to watch senior artists present there work. How they handled notes and which questions I needed to ask to get the answers they needed to get the shots done. I could also go lever to the senior artist and ask how they did something. The senior artists at Pactitle were and still are helpful to me. They always had time to show me a technique or at least tell me the shot number so I could open the Shake script and have a look at how it was done. I also was asked a lot "what do you think?" or "do you see anything wrong with this?" As I gained more experience I could share my ideas and techniques.

You might be asking what's my point? Learning and teaching is so important to a post production environment. Closed minds and the thought that this is your technique is crazy and really not helpful. I have heard requiters say over and over again "You also need people skills." It's in every job post on the Internet. "Must work well in a team as well as on your own."

Be a teacher to the juniors, also learn from them. Pass knowledge around and speak up if you think you might have a solution to the problem an artist is having.

Here's to the The Foundry →

Dave Johnston:

@TheFoundryTeam thanks for continuing development and pushing the boundaries of what's possible. Here's to nuke 9 and ocula 5!

I can see huge improvements coming in Nuke. Each release has been making Nuke better and better. From getting faster to just simple workflow improvements.

Stickit →

Mads:

Thanks again for the overwhelming support on the StickIt project. I expect a alpha release ready within the next few weeks.

Can't wait.

Particle Smash →

Mads:

In the example shown above the left dragon, and right dragon render is 100% identical however the the dragon on the left takes x15 times longer to render due to each particle containing 15 instances.

Mads has been killing it as of late. If you're working with particles and geo, have a look. Thanks for sharing Mads.

Fix it in Post →

Graham Edwards:

Say “visual effects” to the average person in the street, and what will they think about? Enormous monsters? Even more enormous spaceships? Superheroes performing enormously impossible stunts?

I think my mom is just starting to grasp what I do.

The Serkis Is Back In Town →

Vfx Soldier:

One piece of advice that I learned in my VFX experience was that perfecting your craft is one thing, but learning intimately about the craft you are delivering assets to is just as valuable. If you’re a Character TD you should know how animators work to deliver high quality assets to them. The same goes for Animators to CFX and FX departments, CFX/FX to lighting, lighting to compositing, etc.

When that happens, you have more people knowing the pitfalls and not having an ill-conceived notion of how VFX works like Mr. Serkis. Also, it’s worth noting as I mentioned in my previous piece that we bare some responsibility for this by not respecting our craft the way others do in the industry.

So who will learn first the visual effects industry or Mr. Serkis. I'm going to bet on the visual effects industy. If you are not asking questions and learning and teaching your craft your not doing something right. If your the smartest artist in the room your in the wrong room. Teach and be taught. Nothing bugs me more than a artist that isn't willing to teach or learn. If you know everything all ready your in the wrong field.

ParticleToImage →

Mads writing for hagbarth.net:

Nuke 8 secretly introduced a undocumented node called ParticleToImage. This node can be used to turn a particle system into raw image data, containing XYZ positions, Scale, and Color data.

I assume the node was introduced to bridge the gab between 3D scenes and the new BlinkScript node.

The Blinkscript Node is going to be huge. The ParticleLights Gizmo isn't bad either. Have a look.

OpenSpline

Remember when you would use the wire removal tool to make mattes of ropes and cabling. Then remember when the Foundry changed it. They came to Pactitle to disscuss new features and all I wanted was my old WireRemoval tool back.

So far very cool. Have a look here for the download.

Open is always better →

Mark Titchener:

Hi all, We're pleased to announce a public beta of Nuke 8.0v5 is now available. This includes the long-awaited RotoPaint Open Splines feature (details below).

You won't use it everyday, but when you need it it's there.