Wacom – Pioneers of Now

Wacom – Pioneers of Now

i took part at the "Wacom - Pioneers of Now"-Challenge on behance last week. will probably not win, since there are a lot of good entrys, but at least i had the reason / motivation to work on a personal 3d still. you can find the behance project here and a lot more images (hi res) after the break.
"Pioneer of now" is a quite intimidating topic. When I am thinking about the pioneers of my industry, people like Ray Harryhausen, the Nine Old Men, Jim Blinn, Ed Catmull, Paul Debevec or John Lasseter are coming to my mind. People that changed a lot and paved the way for so many great artists, movies and techniques. And then I see myself, a 25yr old guy, who is doing 3d for around 10yrs (3yrs as professional artist) and have to create a self portrait with this topic in my mind. I had real problems finding the right image. But in the end, I decided to create something honest. Just a guy (compared to "my pioneers", even just a child) sitting in his room the whole night and doing what he loves, trying to improve and contribute something. Having the chance to earn my money with my biggest passion is a great fortunate, but its also a tough challenge to keep the fire alive. So its even more important to have dreams, curiosity and a thick skin. I am not (yet) a Ray Harryhausen or Ed Catmull, but I know, that i am "myself" and I know that I am trying to cross (my) borders, even after throwbacks and that is even more important for a pioneer then being well known.
Be your own pioneer!
0 2013/08/19

Scene Reconstruction from High Spatio-Angular Resolution Light Fields

the first papers for the siggraph 2013 are appearing online.
this one from disney loooks promising, the result in the video is probably then any implemented version later on…but hey, its a demo and they are trying to sell the product..and that works.
cant wait to use this technique

0 2013/07/22

The Great Gatsby VFX

I haven’t watched the movie or worked on it or something like that.
but i just saw this reel from Chris Godfrey on Vimeo…and..its just awesome :)

0 2013/06/28

Siggraph 2013 Tech Preview

seams like a lot of good papers at the next Siggraph, especially the Hair-Stuff looks impressiv..

0 2013/05/24

R.I.P. Ray Harryhausen

I am probably too young to talk about the amazing and pioneering work of Ray Harryhausen.. but.. damn it will never forget the moment when i saw the Sceleton-Sequence from "Jason and the Argonauts" as a small boy for the first time. It was just astonishing. It was probably around '93 when a saw Jason for the first time and even back then, most people werent able to explain this technique... so Ray Harryhausen was a true magician, someone who just changed a lot and paved the way for so many things in the movie/vfx industry. Thanks Mr Harryhausen.
0 2013/05/08
VFX on set DataSheet

VFX on set DataSheet

the next freebie took longer then planned. i am currently a little bit busy with the planning of  a music video i am going to shot with some friends in 2 weeks.
i am going to write some more about it, inclusive a detailed making of, when the project is done.

for now you can download my Vfx Data sheet. I am using it on set to write down all necessary data for VFX Shots and keep track of the assets, like hdris, i created on set.

i Hope that it will be useful for you and i am open for any suggestions and feedback.

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0 0 2013/04/23

BASSAWARDS – Bronze – “A Thing Called Love”

Dyrdee just recived the Bronze Bassaward for their Channel Ident of Viva called "Thing Called Love".

"These days every teenager should know how propagation works. But for those who are still clueless we tell the story of birds and bees in a totally different way. Large airplanes turn the laws of physics upside down by acting like small insects, making out heavily with a group of big winged windmills. As the sun sets the technical orgy climaxes in a cloud of metal seeds flying into the sunset. The footage was shot on a red epic and stuffed with state of the art CG VFX to achieve the stylized retro realism."

I worked on this project as a freelancer and was responsible for the whole 3d pipline and the on-set vfx supervision. It was a really short and challenging project, around 2 weeks for postproduction, but was a good experience and the work with Jochen Weidner was a pleasure (as usual). He did all the 2d work.
0 2013/03/11
Vray Set reflectionSamples

Vray Set reflectionSamples

here we go with the first free download. a script for Maya and Vray to controll the Reflection Samples.

a lot of people know this problem, the deadline is near, the renderings are slow and the 2d-people are using the whole farm (because they are more important). so first step, reduce the rendertime. and the struggle to keep the balance between noise free and fast is always hard to find with vray. i mean, its odd that increasing some samples can speed up the whole render process. samples like the reflection samples. that’s why i wrote this small script.  when i am setting up my materials, i am often just using the default samples and then tweak it for the final scene. so all this small script does  is changing the amount of reflectionSamples for multiple vray Materials depending on the glossiness.

you can download it here or visit creative crash for some more information.

will post a small tutorial/ collection of informations about sampling in vray soon. stay alert

0 1 2013/02/26

“An Open Letter to Ang Lee”

just a repost, but its so important. Its time to change somethings, its always sad to say realy brilliant companys closing, talented artists loosing their jobs and nobody caring or reading the names of all the vfx artists after catering and drivers in the credits. true vfx is just a "tool" its not making a movie on its own, but this tool is necessary to tell a few storys (like benjamin button or life of pi)... so its time to stand up for a change. a big thank you to Phillip Brostel and the guy behind VFX SoldierReposted with permission: "Dear Mr. Lee, When asked about the bankruptcy of Rhythm + Hues, the visual effects house largely responsible for making your film “life of Pi” as incredible as it was, you said: “I would like it to be cheaper and not a tough business [for VFX vendors]. It’s easy for me to say, but it’s very tough. It’s very hard for them to make money. The research and development is so expensive; that is a big burden for every house. They all have good times and hard times, and in the tough times, some may not [survive].”
0 2013/02/25