15 April 2012

It's been a week since I moved from the Clone Wars division to the company's animated feature division. Everyone's been really warm in welcoming me to the team, and I foresee a massive amount of stuff to learn. Things like Zeno and PRMan are just some things getting me all hot and bothered. My new Korean teammate to my left is insanely quiet though, I make sure I'm not chewing too loud. I also make it a point to check if he's still alive, if my peripheral vision doesn't register enough movement.

Since I spent 3 full years working on the Clone Wars, there are a whole load of people to thank during my learning journey there. Matt Robinson. Bora, Ben Huber, Ryan Smith, Roger Lee. Sonny, Eugene, Raghu, Siauyene. A grand total of 0 of these guys will probably visit here, but I am grateful to them no less. I remember when I'd just left the Navy, way back in 2008. I could hardly conceive being given a chance to work on an animated feature, using cutting edge tech and with so many skilled and experienced people. Back then, all I wanted was a decent job in cg. So to have gotten so many shots done on Clone Wars, and be where I am today, is a small miracle of sorts. Cheers to everyone out there.

27 Dec 2011

Ah finally we have come to the end of the December. The only time of the year when I can sit down and really focus on learning stuff outside of work. I've been juggling 2 things lately, learning Python and 3Delight. I usually rotate between the 2 from day to day. Python is easier to grasp, probably because I have a decent understanding MEL, and the book that I'm learning from explains the syntax pretty well. Still trying to wrap my head around the 3Delight interface, but I'm still really glad to be picking up a Renderman renderer after so many years using Mentalray. Not that I'll never do raytracing again... Will 3Delight solve my geometry artifacting/aliasing woes? Only time will tell.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.

11 Dec 2011

I recently bought myself a Canon 600D DSLR camera for shooting HDRI spheres. But I still need to buy the circular fisheye lens, which I'll probably do in the new year. I also decided to try out some lenses with wide open apertures. I rented the Canon 50mm f/1.4, and a 24mm f/1.4L lens. The rentals didn't come cheap, and I'm not exactly an expert in photography, so I only I managed to get a few shots that I liked. And I decided to buy the 50mm, just in time for my Taiwan trip. One hard lesson I did learn from this rental experience is, having a low f-stop isn't the be all and end all of photography, especially if you're trying to shoot some people who are standing a few steps apart in depth. All shots cropped and graded in Nuke.