Mostly working on the animation lately, still hoping to get all the animation done this month. But when I am not on this I can render any shot and get some fixes in. I have also being working on the grade, and these shots have the grade on them. I have got to animating and rendering some shots with the octos in them. Was pretty excited to be getting that in. They are looking good, the rendering is not too complicated( thankfully) Nice to render something on this project that does not have fur on it. Fur is a challenge, some shots have just never wanted to render. I have tried to different renderers, dmaps resolutions, anti-aliasing settings blah blah blah. At the moment I am using all of. Can depend on the amount of light that the fur is recieving, size in frame. Crazy, but worth it of course. I have added a dynamic scarf to the kid, it looks great but takes some time to get right, so I am having a internal debate about putting in or not. Dont really want to be adding stuff late in the piece, but can be hard to ignore a good idea.
Little bit about myself.In a previous life I was a chef. I was lucky to work with great people and learnt how to cook.I however it was my not great love, and after many years in hot kitchens it was time to change. I went to animation school at Media Design School in Auckland in 2001 worked hard and managed to graduate with Distinction and an industry award for Modeling. I was then lucky enough to be picked from an international search to be the intern for the Art Department at National Geographic Magazine in Washington D.C. I was working with the art directors. It was a fantastic time.
I then taught 3D for awhile until I was hired at Binary Star, a start up game development studio as Lead 3D. This was a great year and with a top team we won Best Startup Studio and Best unsigned game at the Austrailan GDC.
After this I was drawn into the world of TVCs. I went to Yukfoo in Auckland as Lead 3D and am lucky to work with a great and talented bunch of people.
After this I went to Weta Digital as a Assistant Technical Director in the shots department working on Avatar. This was amazing, and culminated in running 3 shots for Avatar as Lighting TD.