grinning-tiger

[grinning-tiger]

Pause Maya Viewport

Here’s a very useful python script that I use in Maya often that I have it saved as a button on my shelf.

This script pauses the Maya viewport which is helpful in reducing the time it takes to switch between render layers or speeding up caching so that Maya doesn’t have to show the whole animation while caching.

Simply run the script to pause the viewport from updating and then run it again to un-pause it. You will know if the viewport is paused by the red border around it.

import pymel.core as pm

pm.ogs(p=True)

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The Making of Coaster: Stylized Lighting and Shaders

For awhile CG had been going the way of more and more detailed and into the realm of realism. Then in 2012, Paperman was released and the subsequently in 2014 Feast was released; short films by Disney with a very stylized look that contrasted with a lot of the animated films that were happening at the time. Now we have movies and shows like Into the Spiderverse and Arcane that further pushes the style. During that period, many short film creators wanted to emulate the style and would often request it, also more so in thinking that it is simpler and will save them money on rendering. Rather, it is quite far from simple to achieve that exact style and what is really necessary in making this pulling it off successfully is needing a very strong art director and extremely capable texture painters.

For the short film Coaster, the style reference was Disney’s Feast. Other than the 2D style, one of the trademarks of Feast is its rough toothy edges around objects that I had wanted to try to emulate. I had an idea of how to do it but would require rendering out separate pieces for everything and a lot of comp work but as a small team with limited manpower I wanted to try to keep as much as possible within Maya and with simple renders. Unfortunately it was just me and without the tools and knowledge resources of all of Disney so I did what I could, my best.

Setting up the shader:

Here I am using a surface shader since I was just going for a 2 tone look and didn’t need any ambient shadows nor specular. Additionally, by using a simple surface shader any render engine can be used, and in this case we went with Arnold since it is now available in Maya by default.

Connected to the color input is a ramp texture. In this example the ramp is set up with no interpolation and with the diffuse texture map on one end (point0) and white on the other (point1) for the light. If you want a soft gradation you can turn the interpolation on. If you want additional or alternative inputs you can add connect another instance of the texture map to where the white is and adjust the color balance of that node for it to be the light. Subsequently, you can add a third point doing the same and adjust the node darker for it to be the shadow and you will have a 3 tone shader.

The important factor here to make this shader function as a toon shader if the surface luminance node. Since the ramp is a U Ramp in this instance, I connect the surfaceLuminace to the UCoord of the ramp. Whenever light hits the surface of the object will be point1 (white) of the ramp and everything else will be point0 (diffuse texture).

I’ve separated out the eyes to have their own shader as I didn’t want them to react to lighting.

The additional benefits of using this shader setup is also that the lighting becomes simpler. Using a directional light with the intensity kept at 1.0, all that matters is the direction of the light. After positioning the direction of the light of how you want, further adjustments can be made with the ramp to change how far the light wraps around.

There’s a couple options from this point. You can use it as is or what we ended up doing for Coaster was breaking out the white into a separate render layer so it is just white and black and using that resulting image as a mask to do adjustments and effects in comp.

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TV Animation and the Outsourcing Model on Fast & Furious: Spy Racers

Over the past year I had the amazing opportunity to work at DreamWorks TV Animation! Production for CG TV series has been quite different than working as an artist on specific movies or shows due to the team here at DreamWorks TV acts as a hub and uses an outsourcing model, like most TV studios, to get the work done. Most of the work is outsourced to Canada and Asia (India, Taiwan, Korea, and Thailand as a few) so the work is more akin to being a lead or a manager instead of doing specific shot work.

Unlike our big feature film counterparts, TV budgets tend to be smaller. Maybe this comes from a past history of where cartoons are thought of as shows just for children and thus doesn’t need the higher quality? Maybe it is just because TV shows go on for so long it is unsustainable for each episode to have feature quality and the budget has to last for the entirety of however long the show is first planned? Nonetheless, DreamWorks TV has started to question that notion of if TV has to be low budget and low quality forever and if it can be pushed forward. A lot of the preconceived notions of the quality of CG TV shows were that the texturing tends to be simpler, hair is just painted geometry, no subsurface, simple lighting, and subpar animation. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, while not quite at feature quality then, DreamWorks TV shows such as Madagascar, Boss Baby, Puss in Boots, and Kung Fu Village have started to go that extra step. There are actual hair curves, grass, and even skin shaders with subsurface! That was already all in the past though. After recently just turning 5 years old, DreamWorks TV wants to take the step even further and produce an even higher quality tier of shows. Thus, entering Fast & Furious: Spy Racers and later on Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous.

Working with outsourcing studios has been a very different pipeline as it is somewhat more akin to being a lead. A lead for a large group of people very far away and probably will never see. We generally don’t light shots in house and instead do a lot of front-end work such as look and feel reviews and approvals, technical reviews, and master lighting key characters, the transits, and sets. We figure out what the lighting style of the show is, such as the light angles, colors, intensities, and shadow softness for all different times of days and scenarios (day, morning, night, sunset, twilight, overcast, lights on, lights off, alarm, rave party, etc). There are a lot of episode and each episode has a lot of shots so it is not quite possible to shot light everything from scratch. Instead we build light rigs and create presets (for both Maya and Nuke) so that our overseas studios will have something to start from. When the director says a shot should have a certain time of day’s lighting, such as Day or NightLightsOn, the shot artist can pick it out from the presets saved in our tools and automatically apply the values for all the different lights to get the specific preapproved look. The presets should help take the shot to about 80% - 90% complete and the last percentages will be shot finaling and the last beautifications.

That was just the fun art part. In addition to being a lighting and compositing artist, I was also assigned to be a point person on the show, giving me more responsibilities. At DreamWorks TV, in addition to each show team, we have a HUB department that functions as a central area supporting all the shows. I’ve helped out on The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants and Dragons: Rescue Rider for example. Being a point person means being assigned to a specific show and being the liaison between the HUB department and the show’s team. We do things such as reviewing work the comes in from the overseas studios, run the reviews of internal assets with supervisors, go to model pack and tech check meetings with the other departments, and solve technical issues that come up with the oversea studios.

Here is some of the assets that I was responsible for that showed up in the first season! Lit a lot of characters, cars, and sets, and did some R&D for the hologram effect of the spy watches and build a Nuke gizmo that can be used repeatedly.

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Sonder

For years, Finn and Natalie walked the same path. But when their time together comes to an end, Finn finds himself lost in a mysterious land. Paralyzed by the fear of moving on, he is at risk of losing himself. Through self-discovery, Finn must gather the strength to forge a new way forward.

2 years ago I joined onto another short film project called Sonder and earlier this year we completed the “short” film (it’s 14 minutes long). Since then, Sonder has been in various film festivals and winning all kinds of awards. We now qualify for Oscar nominations! Last week, our film has finally been released online for all the world to see. It’s been getting a lot of views and many great reviews. I hope everyone enjoys the film!

Working on Sonder was an interesting experience in that we made it in Unity. Unity is originally built for games but we wanted to use its fast render engine to our advantage. As Unity lacked a lot of tools that we are typically used to in actual film production, a lot of tools had to be built for us to be able to create the finished images that everyone sees; shout out to Jean Moreno! I was in charge of master lighting a sequence and then I took them to shot lighting. Additionally, I did some R&D look development for dappled lighting in the forests.

Another interesting factor is that we had artists from all around the world. We uploaded our work to a SVN so that the files can be shared across and used Zoom to hold our meetings. We were heavily invested in making sure our film not only gets finished but looks amazing. There were numerous meetings throughout the week and often late at nights (due to people having to work) and lasting for many hours. This only speaks to our dedication!

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Interview with Patrick Bramley (VFX Compositor)

Let me introduce, an artist, and a friend of mine who I met back during my time at Academy of Art University, Patrick William Bramley. We first had the chance to work together on some projects such as Aria for a Cow, Crows, and Valiant. More recently I also got to work with him at Ingenuity Studios where he is now currently working as a sequence lead compositor. 

Since graduating in 2015, Patrick has worked on many major hit television series, and features such as a Series of Unfortunate Events, Jessica Jones S1, Westworld S1, Daredevil S2, Live by Night, Going in Style Nerve, and HBO’s Confirmation, just to name a few. When not freelance contracting at a studio, he works as an independent visual effects supervisor. He is currently supervising an independent feature film titled “Rightful”.

If you would like to see his compositing work, and personal portfolio. You can check out his website, and IMDB at: www.patrickbramley.com http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5716606/?ref_=nv_sr_1

      What is your story? My name is Patrick Bramley. I’m originally from Ireland and I moved to California in 2008 to visit a friend but I ended up staying longer than expected. I eventually ended up enrolling at Academy of Art University in 2011. Now in LA, I work for various production houses as a compositor and CG lighting artist in the entertainment and motion picture industry.

What are some of the comparisons of VFX studios between Europe and the US? The world is far more commutable, and digitally connected nowadays so the production of major motion pictures are more accessible now than it was 10+ years ago. Studios in the Europe can easily and efficiently connect with studios on this side of the world. Visual effects production is quite bilingual so there can be artists working on the same project at the same time in their respected time zones.

What got you into the VFX industry? I wanted to work in film in some measure so that's why I ended up enrolling at AAU. I originally was at City College SF studying graphic design in 2009 but not knowing what I really wanted to do. Since the major at AAU states “animation and visual effects” I originally thought it was all the same thing, not knowing there were many different paths and jobs to be taken within that major. I happened to choose VFX and compositing seemed like the more artistic option so I went with it. I've asked many new to senior compositors on how they themselves got into the field and they usually say the same thing, “I just fell into it”.

What excites you about working in VFX? I’m amazed how many different parts of the industry there are. Simulations, texturing, lighting, modeling, concept art, compositing, animation, production, and many more! As an artist you constantly get to explore and create. The thing I enjoy about compositing is that you get to trick the human eye and create something surreal and alien to its original environment. If you do a good job, the viewer never really knows what is original or digitally created.

As an artist what are the difficulties you face in the workforce? Working for a studio, you do have to keep an open mind. Most of the time we are being told what to do. Your supervisor and the director for the show, have a particular vision. You, as a freelance artist have to respect that and abide to those rules. After graduation you are essentially getting paid to learn so harness that knowledge and use it on your personal projects or freelance independent shows. The training you receive in an professional environment can be priceless.

What are some eye opening experiences you have had so far? While working at ShadeVFX, I got to do 3D animation for the second season of the Netflix series Daredevil. I had to animate the chain which Daredevil was using to fight the biker gang. That was a surreal experience, since not only was I compositing on the show, I got to animate also. The president of the VFX studio asked me “can you matchmove?” I said "yeah, sure," thinking in my head “I can easily do 3D tracking for this show,” but no, he meant animation. I got handed fifteen shots to be done over a weekend, as they needed them first thing Monday morning.

Where do you see the VFX industry going? Artistically, the VFX industry will constantly expand and be more diverse as the respect and reputation continues to gradually rise. While many of the actors and entertainers of our industry get most of the credit, most of their work on screen is digitally created or enhanced. VFX artists we don’t have a union, and I don’t see one developing in the immediate future. I think some artists who are stepping outside of VFX and working in other fields, such as directing, like Tim Miller (Deadpool), Gareth Edwards (Rogue One, Godzilla), and Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium), create an umbrella of gratitude and appreciation for the work the VFX industry does as most of their movies wouldn’t be achievable without VFX.

Is there something you wish to create or improve for the VFX industry? I would like to create a business, or platform, which connects artists cohesively and protectively. We could build a community where artists have more creative control over their work and futures.

Do you find VFX to be a competitive industry to be in? Yes, it can be quite competitive, sometimes it seems like compositors are a dime a dozen. Since I have been in the industry, I have potentially met over a hundred compositors in LA alone. I feel like you do need to work on other skillsets in order to have an edge in this industry. Knowing other software like Maya, Houdini, or PFTrack, can give you a broader understanding to what it is to be a VFX artist and make you more appealing to other studios upon hiring.

Do you find it difficult adapting to the culture, and industry so far from home? The grass is always greener on the other side, but home is certainly where the heart is. If you have a purpose while living so far away from home it can be easier than just living somewhere else for the sake of it. The entertainment industry is booming over here on the west coast so I feel at this moment there is no better place to be in order to get the right experience and exposure to work on projects you adore. Ireland is a magical place; I’ll be certainly be moving back there after gaining enough experience while stateside.

What’s the worst and/or funniest mistake you have made when starting out? I wouldn’t call it the worst, more like a character building experience. For many people who embark on an adventure while moving to a new major city things can get tough. Rent and cost of living can be difficult to manage at first. For myself, when I first got here I just had a suitcase and my dreams. I did have some AAU alumni friends living here but I didn’t want to be a burden on them so I lived and slept in a rental car for two months. That experience gave me time to acknowledge and appreciate some things we may take for granted, like comfort, security, and wealth. However low you may feel at that particular moment in time, things will always get better as long as you keep dreaming and believing.

What are some words of wisdom that you can share for all those young blossoming artists? Dare to be great, dream big, and don’t hold back. My mother always said “the world is your oyster”. When you're in school, the group of friends you have, the collaborative projects you are a part of, and mentors you look up to, may be just temporary. The film industry is global so you never know corner of the world you may be moving to. You most likely will constantly be looking for new mentors, collaborators, and even friends. Don’t shy away from looking for a new job if your old one gets stale, meeting new people if the ones you know haven’t got the same vision as you, searching for new mentors to help expand your skill set, or even traveling to the other side of the world for new experiences. If you're not making any mistakes you’re not trying anything new. Take a chance, and grow.

“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says I’m possible” Audrey Hepburn

[grinning-tiger]

Compositing - Beauty Fix Tutorial

"Go to a film studio", "Go do compositing", "You'll learn so much" was what one of the mentors while I was an apprentice at Disney told me one night. While I agreed since I have seen some of the amazing things that live action compositors do with all their tricks and hacks but oof, live action sounds like a lot of roto and rotopaint so I was initially averse to the idea.

I somehow did end up as a compositor for live action at Ingenuity Studios, and my previous experience was a semester of Intro to Nuke class in school. It was quite stressful since I was unsure if my work was good enough quality and working in primarily episodic TV meant that it was a far faster pace than feature film. I did learn a lot though such as how to stabilize my shot first before doing rotos and rotopaints and then matchmoving it back, 3d tracking, split screens, fluid morphs, setting up 3D scenes in Nuke, etc. One very scary amazing thing that I learned was how to do beauty fixes since this means not only can I use Photoshop to touch up photos but now I can also touch up videos, too! Never tell your friends and family!

Things that I have used this for are to get ride of various acne and blemishes, reduce eyebags, remove wrinkles, and to create soft beauty glows. This can probably even be used to add makeup such as eye shadow and blush; maybe lipstick but that would involve some heavy tracking and roto if the character is talking. Sadly beauty fix comps generally can't be shown on reels as the client doesn't want the original plate being seen.

There are two ways to do beauty fixes. One would be to just stabilize the plate, clone rotopaint, and matchmove it back. Seemingly simple and straightforward, but the downfall to this method is making sure the paint blends well with the surrounding and making sure the tracks are stable. This other method that I'm going to show instead applies the paint fix with a linear light merge operation and the benefit of this is that it doesn't matter where you are cloning from, all that is being copied is the texture and with this setup, there is just one node to adjust if the client comes back wanting the beauty fix to be decreased or increased.

First we denoise the plate and do a high pass on it. Leave the invert and the grade alone as they are the adjustments needed for the Linear Light to work properly at the end of the tree. The Gaussian Blur node is the percentage adjustment of how much of the beauty fix paint you want with 0 being none and 100 being full. Generally you'd want to have it somewhere from 20 to 30.

Next is tracking and stabilizing. At work, I had access to Mocha which I used for tracking. Without it, you may just need to manually animate a roto shape so it tracks with whatever you are tracking. I'd roto an eyebag or a cheek and let it track through and then copy out the shape data into nuke which give me a roto node.

Copy the roto shape and paste it into the first SplineWarp node and set the output to AB Morph (I've set it on default in the template to AB morph by default as a reminder but it will need to be switched to A first before pasting in the spline otherwise you get duplicate splines). Right click on your spline and choose "Duplicate in B and join". With the SplineWarp selected, hit tab and type freezeWarp (will need to install this python script), hit enter, and set the frame to your reference frame number.

Do your rotopaints. It may be hard to see what you're doing with everything gray and washed out from the high pass so feel free to disable the group of nodes in that background temporarily while you work. I have it set up with rotopaint (where you paint) > roto, with replace checked (define cut out area) > blur (soften shape) > premult (cutout). The idea of doing it straight down in a single line instead of branching out (which tends to be recommended when stereoscope is involved due to easy offsetting the roto) is that if the plate is switched to a different colorspace the paint will automatically match up properly.

Matchmove your paint fix back by duplicating your first SplineWarp, connect the B input, and reverse the the Mix and Root Warp attributes so that it is now 1 and 0 respectively. Repeat for as many paint fixes you need, ex: left eyebag, right eyebag, forehead, chin.

Now we just merge everything back together!

 Possible video walkthrough coming later?

+ Nuke template script. Copy and paste into Nuke. (click to expand)

set cut_paste_input [stack 0] version 10.0 v4 BackdropNode { inputs 0 name BackdropNode3 tile_color 0xd38d8dff label "Beauty Paint" note_font_size 42 selected true xpos 2706 ypos 699 bdwidth 300 bdheight 591 } BackdropNode { inputs 0 name High_Pass2 tile_color 0x4b4b4b01 label "High Pass" note_font_size 30 selected true xpos 3082 ypos 365 bdwidth 559 bdheight 361 } Input { inputs 0 name Plate selected true xpos 3755 ypos 51 } Dot { name Dot40 selected true xpos 3783 ypos 245 } set N6218b000 [stack 0] Dot { name Dot39 selected true xpos 3783 ypos 325 } set N6218ac00 [stack 0] push $N6218b000 Denoise2 { output Noise analysisRegion {1671 1643.5 1909 1886.5} analysisFrame 1013 needsAnalyzing false profileCurve {profile {curve x0.1000000015 0 x0.1333521456 0 x0.1778279394 0 x0.2371373773 0 x0.3162277639 0 x0.4216965139 0 x0.5623413324 0 x0.7498942018 0 x1 0}} serializeKnob "0.453965 0.640378 0.330174 0.00146132 0.00045174 0.00050087 0.00146132 0.00045174 0.00050087 0.000868511 0.000226545 0.000265541 0 0 0 0.00152308 0.00050158 0.000490358 0.00152308 0.00050158 0.000490358 0.000651655 0.000183915 0.000190092 0 0 0 0.00116549 0.000547355 0.000502862 0.00116549 0.000547355 0.000502862 0.00057804 0.000231491 0.000215478 0 0 0 0.000444892 0.000319364 0.000270761 0.000444892 0.000319364 0.000270761 0.000289052 0.000208838 0.00019106 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4172215390408232403" name Denoise3 selected true xpos 3526 ypos 241 } set N6218a800 [stack 0] Merge2 { inputs 2 operation minus name Merge14 selected true xpos 3526 ypos 327 } Dot { name Dot30 selected true xpos 3554 ypos 421 } set N6218a000 [stack 0] Blur { size 19 name Gausian_Blur2 selected true xpos 3526 ypos 488 cached true } Dot { name Dot31 selected true xpos 3554 ypos 583 } set N621bd800 [stack 0] Invert { name Invert3 selected true xpos 3300 ypos 579 } push $N6218a000 Dot { name Dot32 selected true xpos 3218 ypos 421 } Merge2 { inputs 2 operation plus name Merge15 selected true xpos 3190 ypos 585 } Grade { multiply 0.5 name Grade4 selected true xpos 3190 ypos 657 } set N621bc800 [stack 0] Dot { name Dot33 selected true xpos 2844 ypos 655 } SplineWarp3 { crop_to_format false boundary_bbox false output_enum "AB morph" curves {{{v x3f99999a} {f 0} {n {layer Root {f 0} {t x44700000 x44070000} {a pt1x 0 pt1y 0 pt2x 0 pt2y 0 pt3x 0 pt3y 0 pt4x 0 pt4y 0 ptex00 0 ptex01 0 ptex02 0 ptex03 0 ptex10 0 ptex11 0 ptex12 0 ptex13 0 ptex20 0 ptex21 0 ptex22 0 ptex23 0 ptex30 0 ptex31 0 ptex32 0 ptex33 0 ptof1x 0 ptof1y 0 ptof2x 0 ptof2y 0 ptof3x 0 ptof3y 0 ptof4x 0 ptof4y 0 pterr 0 ptrefset 0 ptmot x40800000 ptref 0}}}}} toolbar_output_a_warped false toolbar_output_ab true toolbar_output_enum AB toolbar_preview_mode "persistent preview" name SplineWarp3_1 selected true xpos 2816 ypos 795 } RotoPaint { curves {{{v x3f99999a} {f 0} {n {layer Root {f 2097152} {t x44700000 x44070000} {a pt1x 0 pt1y 0 pt2x 0 pt2y 0 pt3x 0 pt3y 0 pt4x 0 pt4y 0 ptex00 0 ptex01 0 ptex02 0 ptex03 0 ptex10 0 ptex11 0 ptex12 0 ptex13 0 ptex20 0 ptex21 0 ptex22 0 ptex23 0 ptex30 0 ptex31 0 ptex32 0 ptex33 0 ptof1x 0 ptof1y 0 ptof2x 0 ptof2y 0 ptof3x 0 ptof3y 0 ptof4x 0 ptof4y 0 pterr 0 ptrefset 0 ptmot x40800000 ptref 0}}}}} toolbox {clone { { selectAll opc 0.1 bs 78.7 src 1 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 } { createBezier str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { createBezierCusped str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { createBSpline str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { createEllipse str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { createRectangle str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { createRectangleCusped str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { brush str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { eraser src 2 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { clone opc 0.1 bs 78.7 src 1 stx -62.5 sty 41.6997 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 ltn 1013 ltm 1013 ltt 0 tt 19 } { reveal src 3 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { dodge src 1 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { burn src 1 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { blur src 1 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { sharpen src 1 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { smear src 1 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } } } toolbar_opacity 0.1000000015 toolbar_brush_size 78.69999695 toolbar_brush_hardness 0.200000003 toolbar_lifetime_start 1013 toolbar_lifetime_end 1013 toolbar_paint_source fg toolbar_source_transform_translate {-62.5 41.6996994} toolbar_source_transform_scale {1 1} toolbar_source_transform_center {960 540} colorOverlay {0 0 0 0} paint_source foreground lifetime_type "start to frame" lifetime_start 1013 lifetime_end 1013 view {} motionblur_on true brush_size 78.69999695 brush_spacing 0.05000000075 brush_hardness 0.200000003 source_black_outside true name RotoPaint6 selected true xpos 2816 ypos 908 } Roto { output alpha replace true curves {{{v x3f99999a} {f 0} {n {layer Root {f 2097152} {t x44fc0000 x44bd0000} {a pt1x 0 pt1y 0 pt2x 0 pt2y 0 pt3x 0 pt3y 0 pt4x 0 pt4y 0 ptex00 0 ptex01 0 ptex02 0 ptex03 0 ptex10 0 ptex11 0 ptex12 0 ptex13 0 ptex20 0 ptex21 0 ptex22 0 ptex23 0 ptex30 0 ptex31 0 ptex32 0 ptex33 0 ptof1x 0 ptof1y 0 ptof2x 0 ptof2y 0 ptof3x 0 ptof3y 0 ptof4x 0 ptof4y 0 pterr 0 ptrefset 0 ptmot x40800000 ptref 0}}}}} toolbox {selectAll { { selectAll str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 } { createBezier str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 tt 4 } { createBezierCusped str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { createBSpline str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { createEllipse str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { createRectangle str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { createRectangleCusped str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { brush str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { eraser src 2 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { clone src 1 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { reveal src 3 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { dodge src 1 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { burn src 1 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { blur src 1 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { sharpen src 1 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } { smear src 1 str 1 ssx 1 ssy 1 sf 1 sb 1 } } } toolbar_brush_hardness 0.200000003 toolbar_source_transform_scale {1 1} toolbar_source_transform_center {2016 1512} colorOverlay {0 0 0 0} lifetime_type "all frames" lifetime_start 1013 lifetime_end 1013 view {} motionblur_on true motionblur_shutter_offset_type centred source_black_outside true name Roto8 selected true xpos 2816 ypos 934 } Blur { channels alpha size 10 name Blur6 label "\[value size]" selected true xpos 2816 ypos 972 } Premult { name Premult4 selected true xpos 2816 ypos 1024 } push 0 SplineWarp3 { inputs 2 crop_to_format false boundary_bbox false output_enum "AB morph" mix 1 curves {{{v x3f99999a} {f 0} {n {layer Root {f 512} {t x44700000 x44070000} {a pt1x 0 pt1y 0 pt2x 0 pt2y 0 pt3x 0 pt3y 0 pt4x 0 pt4y 0 ptex00 0 ptex01 0 ptex02 0 ptex03 0 ptex10 0 ptex11 0 ptex12 0 ptex13 0 ptex20 0 ptex21 0 ptex22 0 ptex23 0 ptex30 0 ptex31 0 ptex32 0 ptex33 0 ptof1x 0 ptof1y 0 ptof2x 0 ptof2y 0 ptof3x 0 ptof3y 0 ptof4x 0 ptof4y 0 pterr 0 ptrefset 0 ptmot x40800000 ptref 0 warp 0}}}}} toolbar_output_a_warped false toolbar_output_ab true toolbar_output_enum AB toolbar_preview_mode "persistent preview" name SplineWarp3_2 selected true xpos 2816 ypos 1162 } Dot { name Dot34 selected true xpos 2844 ypos 1290 } set N62200800 [stack 0] Dot { name Dot35 selected true xpos 2844 ypos 1496 } set N62200400 [stack 0] Blur { size 30 name Blur7 label "\[value size]" selected true xpos 2816 ypos 1625 } push $N62200400 push $N6218a800 Dot { name Dot36 selected true xpos 2350 ypos 245 } Shuffle { alpha black name Shuffle3 label "\[value in]" selected true xpos 2322 ypos 275 } Dot { name Dot37 selected true xpos 2350 ypos 1406 } push $N62200800 push $N621bc800 Merge2 { inputs 2 name Merge16 selected true xpos 3191 ypos 1292 } Dot { name Dot38 selected true xpos 3219 ypos 1339 } push $N621bd800 PSDMerge { inputs 2 name PSDMerge1 note_font "Bitstream Vera Sans" selected true xpos 3527 ypos 1342 operation "linear light" sRGB false maskChannelInput none } Merge2 { inputs 2 operation plus name Merge17 selected true xpos 3527 ypos 1408 } Copy { inputs 2 from0 rgba.alpha to0 rgba.alpha name Copy4 selected true xpos 3527 ypos 1492 } Premult { name Premult5 selected true xpos 3527 ypos 1530 } GrainPro { name GrainPro1 selected true xpos 3527 ypos 1556 Sizes 1 inttt 1 softenChannels 1 Curve 0 lut {master {curve C 0.136069715 x0.4177164733 1} red {} green {} blue {} alpha {}} } push $N6218ac00 Merge2 { inputs 2 name Merge18 selected true xpos 3755 ypos 1556 } Grade { inputs 1+1 white 1.15 name Grade5 selected true xpos 3755 ypos 1638 } Output { name Output1 selected true xpos 3755 ypos 1726 }

[grinning-tiger]

Interview with Azra Alkan (VFX Compositor)

Let's do an interview!

Here we have a great person, great artist, and a friend of mine who I met back when I was a student at Academy of Art University and who I have the pleasure working with currently at Ingenuity Studios.

I hope you enjoy and if you'd like to see more, her demo reel is down belong along with being able to find her on IMDB and her personal website www.azralkan.com

-Tell me a little bit about yourself. My name is Azra Alkan, I’m a 26 year old compositor working on films, TV shows, and commercials.  I grew up in the capital of Turkey, Ankara. I graduated from Academy of Art University in December 2014 with a Bachelor's Degree in Animation and Visual Effects, majoring in compositing.  I’ve been working in the VFX industry for the last 5 years in Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

-You mentioned that you are from Turkey. What is VFX like back home? When I left Turkey, there was no visual effects houses back then. All of the VFX were being outsourced to different countries. To be quite honest there was no market for it either. It’s only blooming over the past few years with the newly founded VFX studios. They mostly work on commercials because film industry still has a hard time trusting local shops.

-Tell me of your journey that got you to where you are today. I was always infatuated with arts, particularly with storytelling, so I tried to learn that ever since I was a kid. At the same time I was very good at sciences and I was drawn to both sides. I started programming at a very early age as well as painting and writing stories. I got accepted to a visual programming major back at home and I was loving it. However I felt that the visual side of me wanted more freedom, so I applied to a school in U.S.A, convinced my parents with the scholarship they offered me, packed my stuff and moved across the world for the best art education I could get. Visual Effects was a rare industry that kept both my artistic skills and my scientific background in check. I fell in love with it ever since.

-What brought you to VFX? When I was studying cinematography I felt the need to have more creative freedom. I wanted to capture the stuff that a regular camera cannot see. Live action art was not enough to convey my insane imagination. I wanted to create worlds that only I knew how they looked. I was fascinated by the movie Avatar at the time. Seeing Avatar, I said “this is it, this is what I have got to do!”

-What inspires you? Humans, psychics, outer space, our existence, how big the universe is and nature itself are the topics I think about constantly. I really wonder about our place in the entire universe and it drives me to create futuristic effects, worlds, cities, planets in my work.

-What are some of the things that you have worked on? I was lucky enough to work on many amazing TV shows, movies and commercials for my age. I got to work on my favorite TV shows such as Gotham, Agents of Shield, Stranger Things (oh I am obsessed with that show!), Westworld, Last Man On Earth. The latest blockbuster movie I worked on was Disney's Pirates of Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

-What is something that you love about your job? I love the problem solving aspect of it. It is quite like a puzzle. As a compositor, I am at the end of the post production pipeline. I am given all the elements such as FX, CGI, image, etc., and I have to figure out a way to fit them all together to make them belong and look real. At the end of each scene I work on I still get surprised on how real it looks. I almost fool myself into thinking this is a real live action footage.

-What are some of the challenges that you have experienced? Art is very subjective and sometimes what you think is great might not be what the client wants. Unless you are working solely on your own projects (which is why I love collaborating on indie movies) you have to keep your crazy imagination in check with what the clients think will bring in more viewers. Get ready for some very personal criticism on your art work!

-What are some notable experiences that you have gained? When I was working at Studio 400A, which is a non-profit indie studio made of talented artists and their mentors, I got to lead Advantageous, which has been nominated in Sundance and many other film festivals. When I got hired to work at CoSA VFX, I got to work on Emmy nominated shows by Disney, Marvel, and Fox. Now at my current studio, Ingenuity Studios, I work as a senior artist leading a team of other talented artist for the show Fresh Off The Boat. It’s great because it is a show about immigrants and who is better than I to supervise it :)

-What do you see as the future of the VFX industry? I believe the film industry started to realize how important visual effects artists really are to the whole process. I know there are many people out there that constantly point out that we get the worst treatment out of everyone in Hollywood, and to some degree I can understand that. However, we need to trust our talent and not let negativity or speculations affect our decisions. We are the backbones of this industry and we will continue to rise with the upcoming technology.

How do you want to contribute to this future of VFX? I would like to continue working hard and continue having many irons in the fire to shine a light upon every fellow artist who are good at what they do and needs a platform/leadership to show their artwork to the world.

-What are your dreams and aspirations? I eventually want to open up my own studio, where talented fellow artist are treated right, compensated the way they deserve, and where our only limitation would be our imagination.

-The VFX industry has a history of being a “boy’s club”. What has your experience been like? Is it still an issue and has it changed? How do you think you can be a positive influence? For the most part, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by people who respected me for the skills I bring on the table, but yes, there have been situations. Some people have referred to me as the “best woman compositor” they have met or, in the past, clients have told me "Why are you behind the camera because the way you look, you should be in front of the camera”. I have been shamed for the way I dress up in studio by other women. I have been shamed for thinking about asking for the raise I sure deserve, because according to most women I should have been happy that I even have a job. Some clients chose to speak directly to the men in the room as if the women in there were just the help. It’s a sore subject for many women in the industry. Not too long ago women weren’t even allowed to become animators, we could just be corrective artists, not creative. The tradition is surely still there but people are more sneaky about it. Or sometimes they don’t even know they are engaging in sexism. How I deal with it is by setting up an example to all fellow women and men that it can be done differently. That if you are good, you should ask for your worth. You call it out as it is and do not let the opportunities get away because people think you should just be happy you are even allowed in the industry. Women can and will be in the creative, critical parts of the industry and not just in an office aiding the production.

-Time for a lighter question. Here's a favorite back from TeaTime Animation (shout out woop woop!) What’s the worst and/or funniest mistake you have made when starting out? I think the funniest thing we all think as artists when we start out is that we know everything. That we are so so good. Oh boy, was I wrong about knowing anything! It’s insane how much the industry progresses each and everyday. Now I know you are a senior artist, a veteran, if you accept you know nearly nothing and there is so much to learn still!

-What are some words of wisdom that you can share for all those young blossoming artists? Please don’t disregard the connections you make at school. I am talking about the guy who sits next to you that you never thought you would be friends with. They end up being your coworkers, the people who decide to hire you, fire you, recommend you. Also get yourself into many collaborative projects. Don’t worry about the money. Worry about making it look great. Don’t let your projects look good enough for your homework. Make it good enough to be in a feature film.

[grinning-tiger]

Game Developers Conference 2017

Another year of GDC! It's been awhile as the last time I was at GDC was in 2015. Again, I am returning as a CA (conference associate).  Once again I think that being a CA is the best way to enjoy GDC. It truly is a rewarding experience as your fellow CAs are a wide range and variety of people in the industry from all different fields and either just starting out or are long time established veterans. The networking is amazing but even better is that being a CA is being part of a family and it really feels like one. (Please help run CTN, Ian)

CA shenanigans. Kilt day! #gdc17 #gdc #gdc2017 #kilt

A post shared by Andy (@koaisatiger) on Mar 2, 2017 at 3:17pm PST

One of my favorite things about GDC is that it encompasses so much of the video game industry. It has art, engineers, programmers, sound, music, marketing, QA, localization, and so much more. Meanwhile in animation/vfx it seems that you go to CTN for art (and even that is somewhat more centered only on concept art, design, and animation) and SIGGRAPH for technology.

In all honesty, I don't really know what I go to GDC for work-wise. Mainly I go for the people, the CAs and friends I meet and to meet and network with others. I do like to keep my options open for work and possible future opportunities but I am currently still enamored to film and seeing my name up on the big screen. I have no qualms about working in games, since a lot of what we do is similar, but even then I would want to be more on the cinematics side. Really, my main goal for this year was to be able to hangout with friends as we never really had before and never get to. I did, yay!

I didn't go to a lot of talks this time. Most of the ones that I was working were way out of my field and there were other CAs who were interested so I let them monitor inside the room while I stood outside to watch the door and let late comers in. I did go to a panel talking about "The Future of Real-Time Lighting" with Ivan Pedersen (ARM/Enlighten), Remi Draincourt (Square Enix), Andrew Maximov (Naughty Dog), Neil Thompson (Bioware), Matthew Cooke (Ready at Dawn), and Yuriy ODonnel (Frostibite/EA). There were both lighting artists and engineers as part of the panel. They talked about how lighting in games has changed and evolved, and the difficulties in that process. I found it fascinating that lighting in games is evolving to be more like cinematic lighting where they want to be able to beautifully craft shape and form of the objects in the world which has been difficult as you never know where the player will be looking. It was also great to know that there are dedicated lighting artists, and that they are still needed, at companies. Most of the time it seems when I research lighting jobs in games, lighting is bundled in as part of an environment artist's job. This was also apparently the only lighting talk this year so glad that I caught it!

The Game Awards are always fun. Lots of great games for me to look in to and to catch up on. Funny thing happened at the awards ceremony; No Man's Sky actually won the Innovation Award but weren't there to accept it leaving an awkward pause on stage with Tim Schafer with the trophy. Apparently the team themselves weren't expecting to win anything so they were off elsewhere having dinner.

My favorite thing on the exhibit floor this year was Amazon's Lumberyard. Lumberyard is a whole game engine where you can create a game. It has programming, design, animation, art, and rendering. It was so cool seeing everything that it could do and how powerful the tool was! Also, they were doing a bingo type event where if you go to the different stations, listen/learn, and get 5 stamps in a row they gave you a free Echo Dot.  Also the T-Rexs from Faceware. I love those things.

Other highlights this year...I got to meet some awesome people, Dan Inoue (Square Enix localization lead) and Ray Chase (voice actor of Noctis for FFXV), go to an awesome party by Havok at The View on top of the Marriott hotel (thanks Ami!), finally getting to actually chat and hangout with Harada and Robyn, and meeting new people in general.

[grinning-tiger]

Duel

I worked on another short film! This is a short that additionally functions as the opening to CTN this year. We debuted it then and now it is also online for all to see. 

There was a few weeks after Disney and before the job that I'm currently at now where I was just sitting around at home and feeling bad about not actively doing any CG work and I was just waiting to hear back from any studios about jobs. I was sketching for Inktober and coming up with some art project ideas to do but it just felt weird not to be doing any CG after four straight years of it, even though I wanted a break. As such, I signed up for Artella and started looking through the many projects for something that would be interesting to sign up for. Duel was one of the ones that stood out to me as I had vaguely heard about it before in conjunction with CTN.

Artella is an online collaborative website that brings together artists from all over the world to create the films that are envisioned. However, it is not just a social website that brings people together but actively supports the online collaboration process by hosting project files and always retain the most updated version as to create the smoothest workflow between artists.

In total, 46 artists from across 16 countries came together to create this short film. For lighting we had about 3 weeks of production time. We were working to the very end and we had a hard deadline of getting it finished in time to be shown at CTN's opening.

One of the most difficult parts of working this way is rendering. Hah, when is rendering not difficult. There was no renderfarm so we just had to render on our own machines. We were using Arnold and cartoon OBQ shaders so it wasn't too bad with heavy reflection, SSS calculations, and such but I just have my Lenovo workstation laptop and it still took me awhile. Not quite sure why; I tried troubleshooting it and it wasn't coming from my AO, motionblur, or depth passes and was in my pure beauty pass so it might be textures or geometry. When I sent off final renders I basically couldn't do anything on my computer for a day or two. 

This was also my first time really using Arnold on a project. I have played around with the render engine before but never really used it for a full finished piece. On top of that, we were doing a stylized toon look with OBQ shaders and that was interesting, particularly in that the normal method of setting up colormattes AOVs didn't seem to work as the OBQ shaders didn't have the proper attribute field. Thus I had to create them the old fashioned way like Mental Ray where I set up individual render layers and override with red, green, blue, and black surface shaders. Unfortunately initially there seemed to be issues with some of the geometry that would accept material overrides on additional render layers and with a tight deadline I just rendered my first shot without mattes and attempted to survive with rotos and my depth map in comp. A bit later on I was able to dig in a little bit through all the referenced files and found, what I think was the issue, for some reason some of the geometry didn't have any shader assigned, not even a lambert.  I cleaned a few files up and it seemed to work fine for my later shot and I was able to actually use colormattes; it made my life so much easier.

If you are interested in knowing more about the creation of Duel, hearing from other artist, or getting to know more about working through Artella, there is a free webinar happening next week, Wednesday December 14th at 9pm PDT. That is one of my shots that is being used as the background image!

[grinning-tiger]

An Evening with Pixar

An Evening with Pixar

I’m sure many of you were disappointed that there wasn’t a Pixar movie for 2014 but now they have a lot of movies in the works and planned. More work for us! As such, Pixar will be looking for new talent that they can train and hopefully integrate. To share with us the upcoming opportunities of internships and residencies, before everyone was off for the holidays, we got a visit from Kim Diaz,…

[grinning-tiger]

So You Want to be a Pixar Intern

So You Want to be a Pixar Intern

Over the summer we had two fantastic animators, Nicole Ridgwell and Spectra Sani, get the Pixar animation internship and we got them to drop by Tea Time on November 14th to share their experiences and any tips on how others can structure their reels to match what Pixar would be looking for.

Getting into Pixar means they’re amazing right? Well just what did they do to be amazing? It’s definitely…

[grinning-tiger]

An Afternoon with Carlos Baena

An Afternoon with Carlos Baena

Apologies for the delay. Life gets a bit hectic when you somehow find yourself on 13(ish) different productions. We’ve had quite a few events and amazing people come over the past month so here is the start of catching you all up on what’s been happening!

Carlos Baena has come back from Paramount Studios to AAU to be an onsite director for his film Market Street. Through the lovely people of…

[grinning-tiger]

Checking in...

Checking in…

Hey all! It’s been super quiet which I apologize for. It’s been super hectic for me as I just decided to update my reel last minute-ish so I can apply to some amazing opportunities. For some reason I always do this. I think my reel is all good and ready to go then suddenly I get hit with inspiration and decide that I should change out so and so to make things even better. It is better but it’s…

[grinning-tiger]

Book of Life Review

Book of Life Review

Coming all the way from Texas, Reel FX brings us a new movie after Free Birds. The general consensus that I got about the movie was that the movie was good, can be a bit corny, but a good movie. Hearing that I was looking forward to Book of Life, especially seeing how pretty the Land of the Remembered is from trailers. (more…)

[grinning-tiger]

Troubleshooting Flicker in VRay

Troubleshooting Flicker in VRay

One of the more agonizing things about being a lighter is finishing a shot to render but getting back files that are unusable due to unaesthetic flicker. While the flicker can be fixed by increasing render settings globally, that method comes at the cost of increased render times. Instead, narrow down where the flicker is coming from and solve the issue at the root instead of trying to “throw…

[grinning-tiger]

The Art of Riot

The Art of Riot

A few nights ago Riot Games brought a bunch of our alumni and came to AAU to give a talk. There was Kenny Carvalho (art recruiter), Laura Deyoung (visual design director), Bo Lu (concept artist), Chengwei Pan (concept artist), Rory Alderton (senior animator), and Moby Francke (principal artist).

(more…)

[grinning-tiger]

The Boxtrolls Review

This was going to be about the Animation Show of Shows since I was planning on going to that but I had a last minute invitation to see The Boxtrolls, hosted by ASIFA, and there was a great Q&A with the directors, Graham Annable and  Anthony Stacchi, and producer/animator Travis Knight after.

Loved it! The animation was ridiculously amazing and the movie itself was deep yet with all the right…