Project Insanity

No art of picture this blog I'm afraid. Mainly as what I'm working on at the moment is for a project that's a long term one, and while I could show you, I'd rather wait till it's done. So what is this mystery 'project' a few of you will have seen me reference in a very vague way on twitter and Facebook? What I'll get out of the way straight out of the gate is I am not going to tell you everything as I do what things to be a surprise, if everyone knows exactly what to expect a lot of the potential 'wow' factor may disappear.

Myself and my good friend Rob Angol have started work on a very complex (and some would say very stupid' ..and they may well be right) project, that is a short film. Now what makes this a bit different is a few things, one its scale and scope is the stuff normally only attempted by a large studio (and hence not two guys) on a budget of zero (and I do mean zero, there will be no hiring or money paid out for anything, only our time and expertise in software we already own.) Plus we'll be doing this in our free time and fitting it around our jobs and freelance work.

Every single shot in this short is a very complex one and there's not one shot that only contains a single model, but a vast array of them of just about every type you can imagine. We are to be blunt aiming for movie quality, anything less is unacceptable. Are we reaching too far for what 2 guys can do on a zero budget in 2-3 month of free time? It may well be possible that we are, but as with a lot of things in life, there's only one way to find out.

So why are we doing it? There are a few reasons, firstly it a great way to show what we can both do when we pull out all the stops on a single project. Secondly it means we get to try in a production environment a few new ways of doing stuff that's well outside of the norm without screwing up existing pipelines, thirdly it'll also act as a far more entertaining 'demo reel' than anything that would normally be put together it we want it to. Fourthly, its something we've talked about for over a year now and I suppose its either do the damn project or shut up about it lol.

So far I've done a lot of typing and told you sod all about it. What I will say that while I am off to do quite a lot of shoots for some back plates, that this short will not have a single frame that doesn't have bloody complex amount of models , added mattes, come shot siht complete CGI enviroments and god alone knows what else. A conservative model count would probably be about 50-70 bare minimum, but probably the final model count will be far more than that (and that's not counting any instancing we do). Shot composition is king and nothing will be put in just for shits and giggles, overall as well as being something nice for 3d people to spend a little while looking at once done, it will also hopefully keep non 3d peoples attention and show what can be done with some hard work. (Although I would be the first to admit that the plot will not win any awards, mainly as a certain amount of paranoia means that as every character will be photoreal CGI..and yes that included humans. So I don't really want to push it too far from a performance angle and hit a massive uncanny valley.)

We have been worried about one very big deal...the actual rendering as we're not talking stuff that's going to be possible on a desktop machine. We did think that we may have to scale its scope back due to that, which would have been a shame and have basically pissed on the whole reason for doing it. Luckily a friend of mine Francesco Faranna who owns German FX firm Breitbild vfx offered out of the blue to lend us some of their render farm for this. This means we don't have to do pulling in mates and families pc's to render this damn thing once done. Will this have a story? yes. Will it have photoreal characters, complex environments and animation...yes. Will it have a shit load of other stuff that no two sane person would try and do for 'fun...yes. It allows us to push the envelope and also to show a few skills that maybe people don't realise we have. But its main reason above all else....because we think it's fun to do.

Now of course, it is possible that something real life gets in the way or some other crazy shit mean we are going to have to put it to one side. But fingers crossed we can get it both done, rendered and out by our deadline which the end of June this year. By far the biggest problem is some places we have to film would normally require permits so Wayney boy here is going to have to do some serious guerrilla film shooting, let's just hope I don't end up getting into shit while I film lol. I have booked my nervous breakdown for july as a result :)

Are we certifiable? Probably

Will we get this done on time? Probably

Will it look nice and be entertaining? Yeah we're pretty sure that ones a yes ;)

Daily Warm up / Warm down sculpt

Todays warm up (and actually warm down) sculpt. I redid it for the warm down as I didnlt like how the warm up version turned out...yes it is cheating a little but I dont care lol.






I've also stuck a breakdown (vastly simplified) of my creation process for stuff like this to hopefully illustrate the importance of nailing your forms early. (Best viewed full size obviously by clicking on it).

For those intersted done using mudbox 2012 (as have most of my recent stuff thats not been on vid.)

Out with the Old / A Deleting spree!

For a seemingly intelligent man, sometimes I can be really, really bloody thick.... Chances are that if your reading this blog you've seen at lest 1 vid of mine somewhere (with a million hits on youtube and another 1.8 mill on vimeo its a fairly good bet as the 3d industry isn't that fucking big lol.) I've been upping videos, turntables and timelapses for bloody years, and up till tonight there were all still online. That didn't occur to me as stupid or wrong.

I just realised earlier today that this is a bit of a 'problemo' as it means more often than not peoples first (and maybe only) encounter with one of my models is probably going to be by the law of averages one of the ones I consider what is technically known as 'complete and utter shit'. Now, I can't take all the crap ones down as some of them are videos and timelapses that people rely on to learn not just mudbox but right back to the zbrush days as well.

So what was I to do? It wasn't as simple as deleting 99% of them and just keep the best ones up, as that would hurt those starting out that want to use them to learn from. So what I've done is to delete any dodgy turntables (otherwise known as 'turdtables') or animation's that I consider total shit and kept the vids people seem to like for learning purposes. Any old models regardless of software used to make it (as thats not an intention either, vids from both mud and zb have been deleted BTW) has gone the way of the dodo.

I would hope that people view the models in the existing tut vids and timelapses for what they are ...very,very old vids and models not up to the quality I put out now. Chances are all my old vids on veoh will get deleted tonight as wellas those were the very very early days and I dont want that stuff still haning around if I can help it.

So whats the motivation behind it? Simply put as a freelancer I cannot afford to have bloody old crap models of mine all over the damn net. Yes we all have them but I do seem to have thousands upon thousands of them covering over 10 years lol. If there is the slightest chance it may cost me a freealnce gig then they had to go.

So are the remaining timelapes and tuts safe? The jury is still out, as long as people seem to realise they are old vids I'll leave them up, but the moment it affects my income....down they go. Some will be getting deleted pretty soon as they are now no longer relevant (or in some cases due to application updated versions), technically correct. Some I may remake in modern version of the apps , some will be lost forever. But that depends on a lot.

There some changes coming for me this year, some obvious some not so obvious so its going to be an 'interesting' few months thats for certain.

What Price 3D?

Now let me just clear up this isn't about how much to charge or how much you'll get paid but rather the thing that often gets glossed over. The affect on 'us' our health and friendships. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so these 2 should be worth at least 2000 lol.

A photo of me from 2005 2 days before the birth of my 1st child (I look so young!)

Photo taken This morning (complete with new beard)

Thats a pretty drastic difference you'll have to admit. So whats it down to ? A wicked lifestyle? Having Kids? A caffine intake the sized of a small country every day? Or could it be the life we lead as a result of doing our work?

I admit that over a decade of a minimum of 18 hours every day apart from birthdays and xmas is not the way you should live a life as a 3D Artist. Neither is it normally considered healthy to drink 30-40 strong coffees a day. But I'm not the only one who lives a life like this, so do a lot of artists. Art is not just a job, it should also be your passion. It certainly is with me and so you wont here me moan on about how its made me look like a grey haired old codger before my time as to me the cost has been worth every line , wrinkle and grey hair.

I teach a lot of young 3d artists just starting out in my free time and this year I've been on sort of a mini drive to bust a few myths about 3d and what a 'life as a 3d artist' is. (Such as the old "I'm not working for any firm unless its Blur, ILM, Weta" ... To which my reply is "well son in that case you wont be working as no one has ILM as their first ever job" lol). I try to point out the positives as well as the negatives that often get glossed over and ask them to make damn sure that this life is for them. It wont make you rich or more attractive to women. It wont make heads turn when you enter a room (unless its a 3d convention and your lucky or overly drunk lol).

3D Like many careers, has a cost and it can cost you things ranging from minor (and major) health niggles, losing freinds as your always working or improving your skills to the fact that there is no 'OK I know everything now' point like in some other occupations.

But ok you may be saying..... how do we know that your not a drunk or that having kids isn't to blame? Well I drink occasionally (95% of the year I am teatotal), and while kids can be stressful at times they more than make up for it with the pride and joy they bring.

So my message to those starting out is this. Make sure the cost is one your prepared to pay, not just now but in the future and that your very sure that its not just to 'be a cool 3d artist'. Do it because you love it and MUST do it, not as simply a career choice like being a lawyer or accountant.

The first 5-7 years I did of long hours, too much caffine etc didn't cause any issues, it was the ones after that when your no longer single and can't just say 'sod it I'm staying in bed till dinnertime'. But would I change it all if I could wind back time? No way, as I said I dont do this as a career choice (as there are far simpler ways to make a lot more money than you'll ever earn as an artist), I do it because I 'MUST' do it, and it comes from that drive from within that most artists share. It is the drive that keeps you going when times are tough, when you are stuck in the project from hell or have a boss who makes hitler look like he's a nice guy. Its the drive thats also your enemy making you pull longer hours than you need and often working unpaid in pursuit of the 'perfection' that is always unatainable.

Respect your artistic drive, but also fear it as when let loose it can be a monster all of its own. Reign it in and its your friend, let it run free and the cost can be high. But either way make sure like me that the cost is to your liking.


Oh and by the way, mudbox 2012's feature set has just been annouced here: LINK

A Test animation (done only to show the blend shapes /morph targets in action and nothing else)




..and a turntable of the cross I did shown in the last post. Oh and you may want to head over to www.FilterFoundry.com as theres another shed load of hours of videos of mine up now brining it up to about 8 hours of in depth mudbox tutorials for total beginners. You have to join (for free) but hey your getting the equiv of 1-2 dvd's worth of tuts for nothing! These videos effectivly replace my Wave 1 DVD (as filter foundry paid me enough to make sure that they could be put them out for free for you).

Death, parts and animated lions

A good friend of my family died last week that I'd known since I was a small child, while its a very sad story I'll hold off on the details out of respect for everyone who is still greiving. Suffice it to say that Hilda helped me when my life was at its lowest back when I was homeless and was a really amazing woman. She was in her 80's when she died, but she probably had more vitality than most 16 year olds!

As she was cremated today and wouldn't be getting a headstone , I thought I'd make her a virtual one as I'm a big beliver that you give back to people with what skills you have.

The videos are still coming on Filter Foundry (in fact that reminds me I still have the rest to upload lol, I must start them away once this is done), and I trust your enjoying them. I have been asked to do some more so I'll definately try to when I have time, a bit more advanced this time, and maybe on software other than mudbox and othe than sculpting software for a change.

Also I had a quick mess around with a single 2k diffuse and normal map for a building parts kit (to stick in my models folder and be used to create anyone of a number of buildings and to be dragged out when needed), ignore the more obvious problems as this was only a way to warm up and fill an hour or two. The 'Mad in the Med' TV series starring Danny John-Jules that I've been working on the CGI for has been put back a month, so I'll give you a heads up on that one when the time comes. ( There's a full animated lion in there myself and Rob Angol who I brought in to handle the body rig did. I aslo recommended Sparkle media to handle the editing on the series.)

So next up will be a TV series that's already started on Sky that I can't name until just before the episode I worked on airs. If you have kept an eye on new TV series though you may have narrowed down the list a bit lol. This is something gory and photoreal I did.

As I type I'm just comping an anaimtion 'for me' with an old-ish model and its looking pretty nice so far.

New Site design live for www.DashDotSlash.net

Well this is it, no turning back now, chances are that if your reading this there's a very good chance that you got here via DashDotSlash.net (my main 'work' and portfolio sites) new redesign. The old design needed replacing as it had become less about the art and more about selling you stuff. I suppose I knew the time had came for a big change when I stuck the art t-shirts on the front of my site (as a joke by the way nothing more), alas people took it all a wee bit too seriously and more importantly some had got so caught up with looking at stuff to buy that they totally bypassed its entire reason to exist....the art.

Now that's not good, in fact as my sons favourite TV show (Charlie and Lola's Lola character) would say 'it's very extremely not at all good'. So something had to be done ...and sharpish

I had planned on rolling this new design out a bit sooner but alas I got caught up on models for 2 different TV shows, the teaching videos I was asked to do for FilterFoundry.com and various other stuff for Project 2813 games. Alas there are only so many hours in the day and sometimes you have to prioritise a bit. I should be able to show stuff and outline about the TV shows in about a month once the second one has been broadcast.

On a side note I've been doing a bit more programming (Yes I know I said I was going to stop as it simply takes up no time for very little financial return, but this was a paid gig and I try not to turn down decent money lol). More of that once it's out as its for a non Autodesk company.

Also I knocked up in my dinner hour from programming the aforementioned 'thing' a new Mudbox plug-in called MudTidy. Now I warn you it's not going to rock your world, as it's a utility plug-in that creates in the same directory as your Mudbox scene file a set of folders for everything from maps, or reference images to FBX files to Maya and 3Dmax and Softimage folders etc. Basically it's to help keep things tidy and organised so you don't lose valuable assets at any stage. It was knocked out in about 40 mins and I may add a few things to it as I have time. You can get it for Mudbox 2011 (both vanilla and subscription advantage pack versions) for 64 bit only on PC HERE.

I stopped supporting 32 bit versions of Mudbox a while back as to be blunt using a 32 bit version of Mudbox is like putting a Skoda engine in a Ferrari lol. Plus every version I support, its yet another version of the SDK to have on my machine, and that's without getting into Mac and Linux versions. I may well do compiles for both those OS's at some point, but like all things it depends vastly on time.

Test Post

This is a test post as I've decided to move my hard coded blog on my site www.DashDotSlash.net to a one pulled from this data.