Why higher pixel count does not mean better pictures.
When we moved from standard definition to HD, I was very happy. There was a noticeable improvement in image quality. With SD, pixels were sometimes visible and images were soft. HD provided far better resolution. When we moved to 4K, I was a little confused...
Make Bad Art – Guest Blog by William Vaughan
“All art is an intensely vulnerable gesture, and it is made with no small amounts of risk, and fear.” – Steven Erikson I was recently working with a large group of designers with years of traditional and digital illustration experience that were extremely new to 3D...
No. I Won’t do your VFX for Free.
As our reputation for vfx training grows, we get more and more calls from various people asking us to do complex visual effects and animation for free. After all, students don’t expect to be paid. They need experience, right? And what do they do in the evenings when...
One of my favorite things about Houdini
Enough of rants and raves for now. Let's talk about something great. One of my favorite things about Houdini is the diagnostic tool used to identify missing images in a render. When your average render engine goes to do a job, it begins by loading referenced geometry,...
Decision Making in VFX Production: What is “correct”?
Recently I was part of an interesting discussion about doing things the “correct” way in a VFX production pipeline. Specifically, we were talking about scene scale and relative object scale. In general it is a good idea to build geometry to “correct” scale and to...
Contact Shadows & Cast Shadows: A myth
I have worked with hundreds of digital artists over the years, many of whom distinguish between what they call “Contact Shadows” and what they call “Cast Shadows”. Cast shadows, we are told, are the sharp shadows you can see cast by an object that is lit by a light...
Major labor shortage: B.C. VFX artists & animators in demand!
What an incredible time to be a VFX artist or animator in digital media in Vancouver. This region has established itself as the largest visual effects hub in North America. Tax credits and the lower Canadian dollar initially attracted investment in our industry. Hard...
University-itis: Why it is so hard to train university graduates.
Smart people tend to come to CG Masters for visual effects training. Often these smart people will already have a credential from another institution, usually an accredited university. Sometimes they have completed a visual effects training program at a university....
Do You Want Your Animation & Visual Effects Business to Thrive?
1. Don’t buy into the culture of crisis. The culture of animation and visual effects today embraces the concept that the production line must be in constant crisis which forces us to work insane hours to do impossible things. It repeats again and again that there is...
If you don’t like your VFX job, quit. Seriously.
Below are excerpts from an article, the full text of which can be found here: http://m.broadcastnow.co.uk/5073081.article In the article, addressing an investigation into poor VFX working conditions, The Mill chief creative officer Pat Joseph said that although the...