It has a great up-to-date section for clients looking for freelancers for projects. Then visa-versa, freelancers advertise themselves for clients to seek out.
Freelance Switch
I bought a book a few months ago called Rockstar Freelancer. It is a cheesy title but I thought it was a good book to introduce me into freelancing. Although I have not completed it I have read a lot of good advice and tips so far. The book was written by a group of people from an online community called FreelanceSwitch. This seems to be a good base for finding work and promoting yourself.
It has a great up-to-date section for clients looking for freelancers for projects. Then visa-versa, freelancers advertise themselves for clients to seek out.
It has a great up-to-date section for clients looking for freelancers for projects. Then visa-versa, freelancers advertise themselves for clients to seek out.
Promotionals
The big question every graduate asks when stepping into freelancing is 'how do I promote myself?' I have been looking at my favourite artist's blog and he shows how he promotes himself. His latest promo takes place as an audio-visual including a large space projection of his work and and sometimes a dj accompanying it. Here is a sample of his visuals.
I think this is a part of his Cameo Gallery exhibit in Brooklyn. He will be accompanied by a dj musician Com Truse. Here is the post Scott Hansen (ISO50) made for the event.
I also found this video from Scott's Vimeo channel. It's a part of his lecture he did for some pre-graduates in graphic design.
I agree that the ending quote from Richard Feynman, 'They're just people, there's no talent, no special ability to understand quantum mechanics without practise, reading and learning and study. So if you say you take a person who is willing to devote a great deal of time to study and work and thinking and mathematics and physics then you get a scientist."
Although some people seem to have a nack for some things more than others.
Sebastian
I think this is a part of his Cameo Gallery exhibit in Brooklyn. He will be accompanied by a dj musician Com Truse. Here is the post Scott Hansen (ISO50) made for the event.
I love the way Scott has used negative space in this poster design.
If ever I wanted to promote my creative work it'll be great to collaborate with musicians or other artists and have an audio-visual event. Events bring more of an atmosphere or emotional vibrancy to the work.
I also found this video from Scott's Vimeo channel. It's a part of his lecture he did for some pre-graduates in graphic design.
I agree that the ending quote from Richard Feynman, 'They're just people, there's no talent, no special ability to understand quantum mechanics without practise, reading and learning and study. So if you say you take a person who is willing to devote a great deal of time to study and work and thinking and mathematics and physics then you get a scientist."
Although some people seem to have a nack for some things more than others.
Sebastian
Sitcom Soldiers
This is a music video of my friend's band. I knew them from work and college and now they are doing really well with two albums and I am proud to say they are my local band. This music video is pretty good because it really captures the mood of the band.
The music video production team is called Sitcom Soldiers. I have checked out their website and some of their other works look good. Here is their 2009 showreel.
The reason I have looked at this team is because I am having a conflict within me about what I want to do after I graduate. Do I go ahead and do commercial work like websites and advertisement or do I go creative and do something like music video production? I would love to do video production instead of commercial because I get to work with my imagination fully.
I would of course be using my skills in 3D to composite with video footage. Here are a few good examples:
By the time I graduate I would not think my skills would be as good as they would need to be to get straight into video production. After some time I could approach a music video production team.
Sebastian
The music video production team is called Sitcom Soldiers. I have checked out their website and some of their other works look good. Here is their 2009 showreel.
The reason I have looked at this team is because I am having a conflict within me about what I want to do after I graduate. Do I go ahead and do commercial work like websites and advertisement or do I go creative and do something like music video production? I would love to do video production instead of commercial because I get to work with my imagination fully.
I would of course be using my skills in 3D to composite with video footage. Here are a few good examples:
By the time I graduate I would not think my skills would be as good as they would need to be to get straight into video production. After some time I could approach a music video production team.
Sebastian
Workflow and Pipline
In the CG industry the the words 'workflow' and 'pipeline' often come to use.
Workflow is sequence of connected steps. In other words, it's the process from start to finish on big and small projects. For example, I draw my design, I scan it in, add colour, crop and adjust it then print it out. That is a very simple workflow that varies massively depending on the project size and pipeline.
Pipeline is the chain of tools used in the workflow. A pipeline is usually used in the context of software. For examples I would use a program like Zbrush to create a model.
Workflow is sequence of connected steps. In other words, it's the process from start to finish on big and small projects. For example, I draw my design, I scan it in, add colour, crop and adjust it then print it out. That is a very simple workflow that varies massively depending on the project size and pipeline.
Pipeline is the chain of tools used in the workflow. A pipeline is usually used in the context of software. For examples I would use a program like Zbrush to create a model.
Then for example you would bring that model into the main 3D application and create a scene with lights, materials and effects. You can also render with this application.
You could skip the main 3D application and go straight to rendering. There are external renderers like Octane for example.
You could either bring your renders from the main application into Photoshop for retouching or you can bring your renders from the external renderer for compositing and retouching. Photoshop seems to be the most popular.
Students who have limiting budgets have to be careful of which pipeline works best for their workflow. If you are a character designer the chances are you might just need Zbrush. If you are a 3D artist you might want full resources and obtain 4-5 programs. Some applications are trying to optimize artist's workflow and pipeline by integrating all tools needed into one package. Modo is a good example of this.
Sebastian
Matrix breakdown
I stumbled across this video where a developer talks about the CG versions of the characters agent Smith and Neo.
It's amazing to see how realistic they can get not only the look of the person but the character of the face. James Cameron was bigging the realism of the characters in Avatar when the truth is that Matrix had accomplish the realism years before... without boasting.
Getting things to look realistic is an accomplishment enough and to get an animated face looking realistic, that's awesome.
Sebastian
GlueGFX expo
When speaking to a software reseller he mentioned to me that there is an expo in London for CG artists.
"Bringing Media & Entertainment vendors and customers together in one showcase event."
The best part about it is that it is free! It is on the 12th May - the day after my EMP hand in. This could be a great opportunity to make connections with other artists.
Workflow and Pipeline
I have been doing some research on what software to use in my pipeline. As a 3d generalist this is a typical (non-animated) workflow:
1 - conception and planning
2 - modelling
3 - texturing and shading
4 - lighting/illumination
5 - rendering
6 - post production
I have been keeping myself somewhat up to date on my favourite CG website - CGSociety. I have found from the featured work posted on the forums that the most successful work uses this pipeline:
Zbrush (modelling)
Secondly you need an application that will set the scene up with all the models/objects you created in Zbrush. Along with this, this application will usually supply animations and physic simulations. The most popular are:
Maya
3DS Max
Lightwave
Cinema 4D
...and the open source Blender 3D
Finally you need a renderer that deals with the materials and lighting. This is the key alternative factor. There is a new renderer that works external to the main 3d application.
You import the 3d scene from the main 3d application and work with the materials and lighting in real-time rendering. In comparison to Vray which can take hours to render a decent image, Octane renders the same quality of image in minutes. Octane is up to 50 times faster than Vray or any other CPU biased renderers. This means that after you have modelled and set up the scene you can now fully interact with it and always see the final image without having to wait. Here is a video demo:
This example was used on an ok GPU (GTX285) and you still get these results.
I also like this video. This is a turntable animation of a small scene. Each frame took 20 seconds to render.... awesome.
Octane will change the market place in terms of what renderer to use and it will increase sales on Nvidia's GPUs because Octane only works on Nvidia's CUDA enabled cards.
If you are doing something like character development or product or architectural visualization you can go straight from modelling to Octane. The speed of Octane will reduce the need for trial and error rendering because you will see the changed results instantly.
Although the CG industry favours Maya/Max users along with Vray users only the people who have time to work alternatively can discover newer, better and faster workflows. I believe I am one of those people.
Sebastian
1 - conception and planning
2 - modelling
3 - texturing and shading
4 - lighting/illumination
5 - rendering
6 - post production
I have been keeping myself somewhat up to date on my favourite CG website - CGSociety. I have found from the featured work posted on the forums that the most successful work uses this pipeline:
Zbrush (modelling)
3ds Max (main 3d application)
Vray (rendering)
This pipeline seems to be the most contemporary and popular.
After some research into what pipeline I will be using I have discovered a newer alternative pipeline that will increase speed and efficiency significantly.
Firstly Zbrush is always best for organic modelling. For non-organic modelling any other application will do although Modo seems to have the leading edge with modelling tools.
Maya
3DS Max
Lightwave
Cinema 4D
...and the open source Blender 3D
Finally you need a renderer that deals with the materials and lighting. This is the key alternative factor. There is a new renderer that works external to the main 3d application.
You import the 3d scene from the main 3d application and work with the materials and lighting in real-time rendering. In comparison to Vray which can take hours to render a decent image, Octane renders the same quality of image in minutes. Octane is up to 50 times faster than Vray or any other CPU biased renderers. This means that after you have modelled and set up the scene you can now fully interact with it and always see the final image without having to wait. Here is a video demo:
This example was used on an ok GPU (GTX285) and you still get these results.
I also like this video. This is a turntable animation of a small scene. Each frame took 20 seconds to render.... awesome.
Octane will change the market place in terms of what renderer to use and it will increase sales on Nvidia's GPUs because Octane only works on Nvidia's CUDA enabled cards.
If you are doing something like character development or product or architectural visualization you can go straight from modelling to Octane. The speed of Octane will reduce the need for trial and error rendering because you will see the changed results instantly.
Although the CG industry favours Maya/Max users along with Vray users only the people who have time to work alternatively can discover newer, better and faster workflows. I believe I am one of those people.
Sebastian
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