VFX Videos

I think it is high time for me to post some VFX videos in this blog. For the moment, I have only videos I created for student exercise when I was a part-time Basic VFX instructor at CG Protege.

First, a video to demonstrate material and volume light animation:

My goal with this video was to test the students' understanding of material. Rather than just giving them a simple material exercise, I threw in volume light to get them off balance a little (which seems to happen a lot to me in production). Elements in the video:

1. Animated procedural texture,
2. Animated volume light.

The video was rendered using 3ds Max scanline renderer without any compositing. The reason being the class had not reached compositing yet.

Second, a video that combines almost all elements introduced in the class:
At the time I created this video, the students were about to go through their first project. I intended this exercise to help them prepare for the project. Here are the elements in the video:

1. A simple geometry with animated texture for the energy bullet,
2. Particle system for the debris,
3. Light pass & volume light look & timing,
4. Extra texture for the block for the hit mark.

This video was also rendered using 3ds Max scanline renderer with no compositing. The glow on the energy bullet was done using 3ds Max's render effect.

I will post more videos (hopefully from Dream Defenders) soon.

2012 Update

After more than a year of hiatus, I decided it is time to resume writing for this blog.

There are many reasons to this. Work schedule finally stabilizes so I can allocate time for my interest outside work. I had a magical holiday week with my family so I felt the urge to resume writing down my thoughts. I helped a little with a social network marketing at work (please visit the Dream Defenders blog & Facebook page). Plus, Patrick started working at CG Protege and rekindled my interest in group projects.

So, an update is in order. I am now working as a VFX (visual effects) artist at Tiny Island Productions. Last year (and a little portion of this year) I was involved in the production for a Ben 10 tv film, Destroy All Aliens (the film in turn gave me a page at IMDB). Now we are working on Tiny Island's original series, Dream Defenders. In addition, I am helping out with VFX class at CG Protege (our school next door to our production studio).

Being a class instructor gave me the opportunity to explore things outside the usual things I do during production. Even when the class is about a simulation tool I use at work (FumeFX, for example), I can try out values and parameters that I had never paid attention to before. It has that boundary feel between experimentation and repeating steps I am familiar with. Sometimes trying reveals something completely new; though most of the times it turns out less than spectacular :p

So, here I am. I plan to write my thoughts about VFX work for animation. Soon. Maybe. If we are lucky.