I couldn't resist. I had to post this for future reference. Alberto not only shows mad VFX and Compositing skills, but what I like the most, is his presentation and design sense.
He's got a sensitive touch to his typographic presentation, something that we should all keep in mind as we prepare to show our work to professionals.
Like many of these VFS Demo Reels, we appreciate the breakdowns. See if you can count how may passes he has for Shot III.
This is a pretty nice presentation of some well executed compositing, and as always, we appreciate the breakdowns. The "Lego" theme is also very thoughtful, creative and lots of fun. I'm posting this because it serves as good inspiration for my Painter class this week, where they will be exploring special effects in the program. Its not After Effects by any means, most of the effects will be frame by frame, but its fun and his breakdowns show the layers he used to create the effects.
Videobox is a script which enables you to show videos in your page as an overlay. It was inspired the Lightbox portfolio, which became popular with many portfolio students once we figured out to install and activate it. The presentation was nice, clean and beautiful.
Videobox works in much the same way and is actually much simpler to set up and activate. What's cool is that it plays videos or demo reels from sites like Vimeo in order to save server space, it also loads very quickly. This works much better than linking to an actual quicktime file hosted on your site.
The only problem is that a Vimeo embedded file lose their fullscreen feature once its integrated into Videobox. Otherwise, the presentation looks good. For those of you wanting to use this for your demo reels, you have to decide if the fullscreen Vimeo option is worth it. In my opinion, it is very important and so therefore, you're better off linking to a standard HTML page with your Vimeo video embedded into it. Feel free to use Videobox for your other videos.
UPDATE: 5/13/08
Found out tonight that Videobox doesn't work well in IE6, so I'm going to hold off before using it permanently on my site. I'll keep an eye out for a fix. The black overlay doesn't extend, but the player animates and plays fine.
Adam's demo reel is exceptional. It shows awesome compositing, animation and rigging work. On top of all of all this, its pretty darn entertaining. One of the great things I like about the model turnaround of the robot, is that it looks at us as it spins...a nice touch that I appreciate and would like for students to remember. Keep up the great work Adam, thanks for posting your reel.
Okay, this site is amazing. Its called Kuler. As an art and design instructor, one of the most difficult things to teach is color. After you've done the traditional color wheel (by hand), the goal is to develop a personalized color sense. This means using color combinations that not only look good together (which is infinite), but that express who you are as an artist. This takes time and experimentation.
The site below can help speed up the process for you. If you ever need a quick recommendation for a particular color strategy, this is worth a try. I've also attached an image that I'm creating for a DJ friend, using the "watermelon" palette. The black line work and colors were executed in Painter
Here are a few of the demonstration pieces created in the Painter class this week on matte painting. I'll see if I can work up a quick video tutorial on this stuff in the near future, its a lot of fun.
Be sure when you do your matte painting, that you keep atmospheric perspective in mind and that you have an idea of your composition. This means establishing your focal point. Case in point, just because the glow brush makes things look cool, doesn't mean that you add it everywhere. Be judicious and selective in where it is used.
If everything on a painting is shouting with glows, the viewer will not know where to look. Show some restraint, this is where your power resides.
Francisco sports another great VFS Demo Reel. I love this concept for its simplicity. His modeling, lighting, texturing and motion capture work together to make a believable and entertaining piece. For those of you who like sushi and animation, this one's for you. Thanks for sharing Francisco, let us know what you are up to next.
Hey guys, I close friend shared a link to animationpodcast.com. Its run by Disney Animation Supervisor Clay Kaytis. This is so informative and inspiring. Its great to listen to while you work or drive on the freeway.
In his podcasts, Clay interviews top animators in the field (you name them, he's interviewed them). You get to hear and learn about animation techniques, animation lessons on the job, news about the animation industry, but what I like the most is its focus on the craft of animation itself (old skool style).
For those of you hardcore 2D Animators, its definitely worth checking. Listen to it so you become more powerful.
Here is today's demo on matching color on the computer. In order to improve your color memory, its essential that you take time to look at color combinations from artists you like, and see if you can apply the same colors to your own piece.
When matching colors I follow this method:
Match Hue Match Value Match Saturation or Intensity
Work from the background to the foreground. Block in the basic shapes. Add atmospheric perspective by adding haze or blurring portions of your painting.
Created in Painter iX, using the charcoal, and fx shattered brushes. The piece also demonstrated the pickout technique, where you apply a transparent midtone over the entire image, then upon it, you add darks, lights, then highlights to complete the image.
We viewed this animation in one of my modeling classes. Like many of my students, I'm a big fan of Advent Children. The lighting, texturing, modeling, character and set design, timing, staging and voice acting work well together. It wasn't unusual to watch this piece more than once.
I took a while to locate this piece. Once I did, I figured I'd put it on my blog so I can refer to it in the future. So here it goes.
Went to the Doctor to have the leg checked. It has been 12 weeks (about 4 months) since the surgery where I had a metal plate screwed into the lower part of my fibula. Its now official, the doc told me that I could officially ditch the crutches...woohooo!
My job now, is to start putting more weight on the leg,and as much as possible, try to walk without limping in order to stimulate bone growth. I come back in another 4 weeks, and if I still have problems walking straight, then they would recommend physical therapy to improve my gate and stride.
Walking without limping is difficult and tiring. I can't do it for very long. So, I continue to walk slow wherever I go. I actually enjoy it, walking slow relieves a lot of undo stress for wanting to get someplace. It definitely takes a lot of planning on my part so I arrive to places on time, but its all good.
One thing I started doing this week, was working out in the gym, which felt great. I rode the bike for twenty minutes, worked out my upper body, stretched and did some leg extensions. My recovering leg is so weak. This may have been a bad idea, because since I had not worked out for over 6 months, my body was extremely sore the next day, especially, my arms. My arms could not bend and so my wife had to help me put on my socks and shirt so I could go to work. It was also a challenge to shampoo, and brush the teeth.
So not only was I limping, I couldn't move my upper body either, I was bad shape. Nobody said recovery was easy.
I got into Blender about a year ago and had to put it aside in order to finish up with school. I'm still pretty impressed with what it can do. Blender is an open source 3D software that can do just about anything. The best part about it is that its free. The only cost however, is the learning curve. How much time would you like to invest into getting to know it?
I saw this demo reel and was inspired. I particularly liked the node based editing screen, where one can see the image in the background being adjusted. The project is by Andy Goralcyzk, and there's no word yet as to when he's completed it or not. You can check out high rez pictures of the project by clicking here.
I was involved with graduation portfolio reviews this week and had noticed a couple of things that I think any animation/design graduate should know about.
1) Include music in your demo reel to make it interesting. Music makes the presentation go quickly, without it, it seems to drag. These are industry professionals in the room and they have things to do. Therefore, adding music not only makes the time go by faster (for someone busy), but its also more interesting and engaging. The demo reel featured on this blog is by Jason Findkey, his demo reel is exceptional ways in which I will explain below. His music selection added to the look and feel of his presentation.
2) Only show your best work. I'd rather see a few fantastic examples (like 2 - 5), rather than 11 - 20 mediocre ones. If you use only a few excellent samples, be strategic in their placement, by showing them off well, and by putting some thought into the presentation design. How do you do this?
3) Watch more demo reels. There are lots of outstanding demo reels that you can learn from. You can start by clicking the demo reel on this blog. Click it and see what else comes up on the side. When you watch them, look at how long they are, what they show and how they show it, timing, pacing, music selection and polish. One of the reasons why I like Jason's reel, is because it feels like a movie. He gradually draws us into his work through the music, logo intro and Hellboy silhouette which piques our interest from the beginning. Hey Jason, if you read this, nice work!
4) Know your audience. In our geographical area, its not unusual for gaming companies to sit in on these portfolio reviews, so early in your school career, you should see if you could create graphics that these gaming companies could use. Does it man you do graphic images of fruits or money? Maybe, but if you look at the variety of imagery these companies use, you'll see that subject matter range from characters (cartoon to realistic), typography, 3D and 2D vector based graphics. In all of these, a good sense of design is essential. How can they tell you have good design skills?
5) Have a working website. Your site represents your design sensitivity and the type of work you are interested in. Many of the gaming companies present were not receptive to 3D modeling and texturing work, but were impressed with the graduate's website. Its a nice a little added touch that makes you look really good (provided that it works). If the site doesn't work, or isn't designed well, it will hurt you. So, be sure to test your site by having people you trust to test and comment on your site, and fix things before your site goes live.
6) Plan B. Have a contingency plan, a "Plan B" just in case your demo reel doesn't play. One thing you could do, is point people to your site. Be sure to test your site to see if your demo reels load. In using Quicktimes, I've noticed a slight delay. You may want to upload your video to Vimeo.com, get an embed code for your video and place this embed code on to an HTML page. This loads much faster, and you have the option to view your demo reels / videos in full screen.
7) Be Prepared. Before you leave the room, or before the meeting starts, check to see everything works. This means, if you are going to show your site, that you open your website in the browser window that is being projected at the front of the room.
8) "Damn" When I show the Jason Findkey demo reel to my classes, it is met with silence and often, I hear someone quietly say "Damn". One word says it all right? "This guys is really really good", his work is so outstanding, that we're left speechless. The scary party, is that this was his work coming right out of school. His work is interesting on many levels and the best part, is that he doesn't really show that much. So what are you gonna do when you apply for the same job as he does? Seems like an unfair question, but it happens all the time. Better yet, what if you were both hired, and both of you work on the same project?
What I want for you, is that when people see your work, that they are so impressed, it would be foolish to not hire you. You don't do this in 2 weeks. You have to keep working at it (whatever you do) and you have to get feedback. Following the tips above should prepare you to do battle in the field.
That's all for now. I'll add things to this as things come up as I feel it could help others.
I couldn't resist. I had to post this for future reference. Alberto not only shows mad VFX and Compositing skills, but what I like the most, is his presentation and design sense. 
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