August 2008 Archives

So I took last week off. I can't call it much of a rest though, my mom was here through last Wednesday and then my dad came to visit on Friday and left Sunday. If I'm not going to rest, believe me that's the best way to do it because I don't see them enough as it is. But despite very little time to myself since the conference it's time to get back to work. And to that end, tonight I posted a fixed bug ship to the reel and stills pages on the main site.

It took me a couple of days to figure out what happened but it's really pretty simple. At first I thought I had lost the link to the texture but that wasn't the case. Actually it had to do with two things. First, when I set up this project years ago, I didn't do the specular pass right. I used it solely for the sharp highlights on the windows and tentacles and left the sheen on the rest of the ship in the diffuse pass. Second, that came back to bite me when I turned off the specular component of the lights in my diffuse pass this time around. That wasn't an option in Maya 2 and 3, but it is now, and usually that makes a spec pass a lot easier to do. But when I turned it off, I lost that shiny surface as well as the sharp highlights. I'd like to think that if I had been getting more sleep a few weeks ago I would have caught it in time but who knows. The important thing is, I caught it and I fixed it. It's not on the DVDs--I figure I'll get rid of the ones I have before I make new ones, unless something drastic happens--but it is on the site.

The next thing I want to accomplish before working on anything new is posting the entire hippo animation on the site in addition to the excerpt that's in my reel. I'll have it as a separate link on the reel page for anyone who's interested. This is going to be a little more difficult though. There are a lot of intermediate QuickTime movies that have to be recreated just right to work in my Final Cut project from a few years ago, and I'm not sure that's going to happen so easily. I might be facing an editing nightmare. In fact, I really should re-edit the thing anyway because it doesn't necessarily need to be that long. I don't know. I guess I'll make that decision when I see how long it's taking me to do it.

So that's it for now. I'm going to start rendering the frames I was missing in LA and then go to bed. Oh yeah, I'm getting somewhat decent sleep now. I like it. Perhaps I shouldn't get used to it.

I've never been so tired. And I'm starting to sleep a little more regularly now but suddenly I can sleep pretty much anywhere, anytime. For instance, I fell asleep on the plane. I don't do that, I can't sleep sitting up. I've never been able to do it in my entire life. Tonight I fell asleep on the couch for over two hours and I'm actually ready to go to sleep again. You know how sometimes just as you're falling asleep you jump and it wakes you up? I actually did that while I was watching TV with my eyes open and everything. I was falling asleep so fast I didn't even know it. I really want to get on a more normal schedule and start feeling better. I just can't do months of all-nighters like I used to.

It's easy to sleep these days but hard to relax. I need some ideas for 2D work that will show off some creative lighting and I'm impatient. Right now my reel only shows realistic lighting and you can't tell by looking at it that I can do anything but copy the real world. I want to start with 2D work and then maybe duplicate it in 3D while I'm waiting for that job to come along... I'll add to my reel as I can and just keep working until it gets me where I want to go. But I can't help wanting it done right now so I can keep my name in the minds of those I met in LA. I don't want to disappear for six months and then try to reconnect with everyone; however, if that's the way it has to be to get the quality I'm after, then so be it. The fact that my current gig is over at the end of the year is another issue I'll have to tackle later.

I don't feel like the same person I was before I went to LA. I guess I went out there and saw what I had been missing all these years, what I had given up to stay in Texas. Things are good out there, people are hiring. I heard nothing about contract work or layoffs after the movies were completed like I was hearing six years ago. Business is booming out there. And my friends are out there. Last week I finally felt like I was right where I belonged, probably for the first time in years, instead of trying to fit in like a square peg in a round hole. I'm going to get some sleep, get some good ideas and keep working. And keep an open mind about the future.

I already have some vague images in my mind that I might work with, but I need some time and space to let them develop into concrete ideas. My dad is coming to visit this weekend and we're going to hit the museums in Ft. Worth. Maybe all that painted light will spark something I can use. And I still need to fix the problems with the bug and the hippo. I guess I'll do that first when I can bring myself to clean up the office and actually open Maya again. Right now it sounds a little painful, but I have a feeling once I open it and start working I'll feel right at home.

I always hated the last day of SIGGRAPH. It's such a let down when everything is over, there's nothing more to see or do, your friends start flying home and you don't have any job offers. None of this is a surprise to me, and I guess it's worse this time around because I was actually here for more than just fun. But I had no illusions about the quality of my reel when I got here. I didn't expect a miracle, I just knew I needed to get my name out there, meet people and show them what I have. So the next time they hear from me they'll say oh, I remember her... and of course SIGGRAPH is never the end of the process, it's only the beginning. They take all the reels home and look at them and call in a couple of weeks if they're interested. But the last day is still a bummer. It's like the day after Christmas. All the presents have been opened and there are no more surprises. There's just no way around it.

I'll bet they go through the same thing at the Olympics. It's been really interesting to go to the hotel room at night and turn on the games, watching swimming or gymnastics and seeing that for all of us, no matter how hard you work, there's always an element of luck involved. SIGGRAPH is its own Olympics in a way, a mecca for intellectual and artistic overachievers rather than athletic ones. You work and work for months, even years, and you get your animation in or you don't. You get a job offer or you don't. You never know for sure if your effort will be rewarded, and no matter how much sleep you lose or how rejected you feel or even how successful you might have been, when you go home you start all over again. You have no choice. It's what keeps you alive.

I really have little to be disappointed about. I've been out of this world for six years and just jumped back into it four months ago. I met people who were genuinely interested in hiring me, even if it's as a pipeline programmer. And a couple of small miracles happened yesterday as well. I went to a round table discussion on lighting that included the lighting lead on Wall-E and a guy from Dreamworks, among others. The Pixar guy gave the best, most informative presentation of all of them and it was like the light bulb came on for me (no pun intended) in so many areas I didn't really understand before. I had a flash of inspiration and thought, I should go down there and talk to him when this is over. Then I thought, I probably won't do it. I'm a relatively shy person and I often have big ideas like this that when confronted with the opportunity, evaporate inside my own fear of looking stupid. And yet when the talk was over, I found myself going down the stairs to the front while everyone else was going up and out the door, and before I knew it I was talking to the guy.

I introduced myself and told him that I wanted to be a lighting TD more than anything. And I thanked him for his presentation because it was the best information I had gotten in or out of school about how they do things in the real world. He seemed to appreciate that, saying he was afraid he had been rambling too much. No way. In fact, he had said that on demo reels they like to see a lot of personal work, and they like to see that you can light something, even if it's in a photo or a painting. I told him that was really encouraging to hear because since I'm not in the industry, personal work is all I have, and I even threw some photos on my site the other day when Keith had mentioned the same thing. I told him that I had a backpack full of reels knowing full well that they represent a work in progress and as a result of his talk, I knew what my next steps had to be. He encouraged me to apply and send in my stuff, and so I offered him my card and he took it, checking to make sure my URL was on there. Given where my work stands right now I don't expect anything beyond that, but it was a small personal triumph. And he was a really nice guy. A lot of people have been talking here about Pixar's "elitist" attitude, how it stinks that they're not taking reels, etc. I didn't get that feeling at all from him. Not at all. As usual, it all depends on who you talk to.

Last night SIGGRAPH had their welcome reception at Dodger Stadium where we got tons of free food and watched the Dodgers play the Phillies. I've never been a baseball fan, in fact I always thought it was slow and boring. But I think after last night I understand it a little better. At least from my point of view, it's less about the game and more about the comradery among audience members. I think we were all bored. And after a while, someone started the wave and it went around three times. That felt like an accomplishment. A ball flew into our stands and someone caught it. During the 7th inning stretch everyone stood up and sang Take Me Out to the Ball Game. And there's a real person there playing a real organ! After a while it was just really cool. I took some shots on my camera phone. Maybe I can find a way to get them off there soon.

But I digress a bit. Because last night at the game I saw someone I hadn't seen in a long time. His name is David and I used to work with him at Multigen until he quit and went to Link in Arlington. As far as I knew he was still there, until Margaret started asking him if he knew people from the lab... this person, that person... I couldn't figure out why she was asking that until I looked at his badge. He's working at ILM and has been for a year and a half! And he gave me his card and said that I should go to their web site and if I see a job I like, let him know because recommendations from employees are taken very seriously over there. Wow. That's definitely on my to do list now. And the interesting thing is, my reel shows more realistic than creative lighting, which is more of an ILM skill than a Pixar skill. I may have more of a Pixar personality but I can do that kind of stuff on my own time. Seriously, who would complain about having to work on Star Wars? Not me.

So despite being a bit down today I have a pretty clear path ahead of me, even if it is a long one. I have a few online applications to make and some changes to my existing reel (basically fixing problems that shouldn't have happened in the first place). I need to do some artistic projects, paintings or otherwise, that show a very creative use of light. Then I need to start on the next project. I don't know what it is yet but I have time to think it through this time. It may be that 617 project I never finished, because I do really like the story. Or it may be something new. I don't know yet. All I know is I'm over the potato. It was a great way to learn Maya again but I can do much better than that. As I see it, I have three hours tomorrow on the plane to figure it out. And then I'm off and running again.

I had considered bringing the laptop even before I knew I would be working on my reel on the plane. Since I arrived I've made corrections to my reel, burned DVDs, updated my site, updated my resume, added a shot list, and emailed my resume to a recruiter. This thing is killing my neck and shoulders as I carry it mile after mile in my backpack, but I don't know what I would have done without it. I learn something every day about how I can improve my site and/or my reel and if I hadn't been able to act on those things immediately it would have driven me nuts.

So the job fair wraps up tomorrow and it's been kind of a weird experience. Yesterday I went from booth to booth leaving reels for those who would take them and gathering information from the rest. Of course Pixar's not taking reels, they say "apply online." Yeah, right. I left a reel at Digital Domain (The Mummy), dropped one off at Blue Sky (Horton Hears a Who), left one at O-mation (they do some stuff for Nickelodeon), and then actually sat down with someone at Nickelodeon who looked at my reel right then and there. They're looking for lighters. He liked my lighting and wants his lighting guy to look at my reel, but he's in India for 2 weeks so I have to apply online and then he'll flag my application for this other guy to look at. That's the most encouraging thing that happened on the first day, and it happened early so that pretty much gave me the confidence to go on.

I had two discussions yesterday that were kind of interesting. I went by Rhythm & Hues (Incredible Hulk) and told them what I was looking for and what my experience was. I'm in a weird position because since I'm out of school I can't get an internship, but at the same time I don't have experience doing actual shot work and most of them will only hire an intern or someone with industry experience. So this guy at R&H tells me I would be a good fit for their apprenticeship program. They pay for your travel out there, they pay you while you're there and they pay room and board while you're there. A lighting apprenticeship lasts about four weeks and they hire 50%-75% of their apprentices. Sounded like something worth looking at.

I had another interesting conversation with a girl at Sony Imageworks (Monster House) who said I would start there in the render pipeline, especially with my programming experience, and then work my way out into lighting. She said that's a common path for lighters and it really didn't surprise me at all since I don't even have so much as an internship under my belt. Apparently Sony hires directly from its own render department all the time, you just have to get in there, get to know people and make a name for yourself. I can do that.

So I figured that was it for yesterday until I was walking to the animation festival and saw a booth in the lobby all by itself. It had a giant panda next to it. It was Dreamworks (Kung Fu Panda) and I asked them why they were out there all alone. They told me they were just directing people to their recruiting suite upstairs and if you had a reel they encouraged you to go up there. So I did. Man, they had a setup. Life-size graphics from the movies they've done, couches, even a receptionist. I gave them my stuff and they told me they'd be looking at it during the week and then contacting people for interviews in the next couple of days. Wow, ok, I'll give that a shot for sure.

So last night ReelFx and the Viz Lab had a joint happy hour in the parking lot across from the convention center. This is what I was really looking forward to, and Margaret had told me she would introduce me to David Parrish, who is a former Vizzer and was looking for people. I'm not sure what Margaret's title is exactly but she's basically the glue that holds the lab together. She organizes everything, she knows the recruiters, she knows it all. So she introduced me and I gave him my reel and he said, "Have I seen this before?" So I said, "Maybe, I gave one to Tim a few months ago at a Short Guys meeting." He then told me that they don't have any openings for lighters so they might not be able to squeeze me in this week. Huh. Ok. That was a bust.

So Margaret's telling me how great I look and I tell her that I was dressed up to do the job fair thing. She says, oh don't do that anymore. We have contacts, I'll introduce you. So I caught her at the A&M exhibit this morning and she took me around. We went to Pixar first, where she introduced me to a guy who came through the lab after me and is now a shader writer. Then Keith comes by. Keith and I were there at the same time. This is all looking encouraging for about a minute until they tell me that they hire interns or people with industry experience and that's it, period. But oh yeah, I'm doing the right thing working on my own and I should keep doing it. Really? Because it doesn't sound like it's going to make a difference because I can't be an intern and I still don't have experience. But at least I got some confirmation that I was on the right track, and I still believe one of these days it's going to pay off. I have to believe that. Besides the fact that I'm happier now than I've been in years, too many things have magically fallen into place since I made the decision to go back into cg. That's not a coincidence. And the visit wasn't exactly a bust, I found out something from Keith that I didn't know before, and Margaret said she had never heard it either. They like to see work other than cg on a lighting reel, such as photography. I couldn't get to my laptop fast enough after he said that. I just happened to have the digital photos I took in Cisco a few years ago and they're the best examples of creative lighting I have anywhere. I had those posted on my site within a couple of hours.

So then Margaret takes me back by the Rhythm & Hues booth and introduces me to Ruth. I like Ruth. Ruth is very cool. She knows the company I used to work for doing flight sim and she knows what kind of work I was doing. She says, you would be great in the render pipeline. So here's that pipeline thing again. It's still not a surprising response to me, I know plenty of people who had to pay their dues there. And once again, it's a common starting point for lighters. But she loves that I have all that programming experience and seems really excited about looking at my resume and my work. So I tell her I dropped it off the day before and they marked it for an apprenticeship. She gets this look on her face. "Ok, it's going to get sorted wrong. I'm going to take you out of there. Can you email me tonight?" Yes. So she writes down her info and tells me to send her my resume. I had it to her after lunch. You know why? BECAUSE I BROUGHT THE LAPTOP.

I started to wander around after that and found the ILM booth. They were taking reels. Interesting... Pixar and Imageworks weren't taking them (can you imagine how many DVDs they'd be hauling back to their hotel rooms?), but just as many people want to work on Star Wars and Lucasfilm is actually taking reels and looking at them. How nice of them. So I left them one. And that was the end of my job search for today.

Originally I had followed the SIGGRAPH job fair path, which took you through creating a CreativeHeads.net profile and looking at job postings through that system. And that system said who was going to be at the job fair and who wouldn't. Well forget that, it's only a small slice of what's really happening here. The big studios had booths in the exhibition already and they handed out recruiting info and those who were interested collected reels. They don't have to go through CreativeHeads.net, they have their own systems, they don't need the help of a job search site. This is something I thought might be a possibility in the beginning but wasn't sure, so that's why I burned so many DVDs. Glad I did. Because the big ones are definitely here and I'm glad I didn't rely completely on what SIGGRAPH was telling me.

I have to say that overall I've been pleasantly surprised with the response I've been getting. No one has said, "You can't do this." Even Pixar said basically I may have to do something else first, maybe work somewhere else first, but they didn't just say no, you missed your window. What's really encouraging is that they all seem to be actively hiring. And the biggest surprise of all to me is the fact that all that boring military work I did for four years just might be my ticket in the door. I knew it would help, but I didn't know it would help that much. So we'll see over the next couple of weeks if I hear from anyone.

You know what scares me? Los Angeles.

Ok, I'm here in LA. While I'm waiting for Ed Catmull to start his talk I thought this would be a good time to post an update. However, I'm writing this in TextEdit because although I'm in a place called the Geek Bar, the internet connection sucks and I don't want my blog to cut me off while I'm writing. Ironic.

What a freakin' mess this has become. The ambient pass on my hippo animation was bad so I had to rerender it, which took until about 6am on Sunday morning. In the meantime, I made changes to my bug ship and rendered that out in After Effects on the laptop. I also put together a short sequence with the potato still while I waited. I had all my resumes printed full bleed on 11x17 so I had to cut those out with an xacto, and I had to do the same for my DVD case inserts. So given that I had all these other things to do, I was ok with the fact that I had a 14 hour render going on the main computer. Except that when things started to go bad, they didn't stop.

First, I sliced my left index finger with the xacto. I mean SLICED. (I have to take the band-aid off to type and unfortunately my spares are in the hotel room so hopefully my finger will hold itself together for a few hours.) Then, knowing that the render would take too long for me to finish my work at home, I had to start loading software onto my laptop. Let me just say that Adobe has really screwed things up royally with their installer and given the amount of information posted on the subject I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. I didn't get CS3 loaded until almost 8 Saturday night. Then I had to load Final Cut Studio so I could make DVDs in my hotel room. That was easy. I decided not to load Maya because 1. I wasn't convinced a second copy would work, 2. I was running out of disk space and 3. I was pretty sure I wouldn't need it at this point. So I put together the bug and the potato in After Effects and went to bed at about 3 on Sunday morning. Then my alarm went off at 7:30 and just as I was trying to get my eyes open enough to get up, I fell asleep again. I had no time for this. My mom was showing up at 8:30, I had to color correct the hippo on the main computer where I had a decent monitor to look at, and then I had to copy all my files over to the laptop and be on my way. At least I had done most of my packing the night before but when I finally opened my eyes again at 8:30 I knew it was going to be a rough day. I just didn't know how rough.

We got out of the house by 9:30 and I got to the airport in plenty of time, so while I waited for the plane I got out the laptop and started compositing my hippo frames. About five minutes before we were to start boarding I realized that I was missing about 60 frames from my ambient pass. CRAP!!! I went over the options in my mind and decided to call Mom (who's at my house cat-sitting) and walk her through editing my render script and running it. Now she has no experience at all on a Mac but she's a smart person and I thought if I explained in enough detail that we might get it to work before I was on the plane and forced to hang up. There was just one obstacle I hadn't taken into account. She had no experience dealing with a small mouse pad and a 23" screen. She couldn't control the mouse pointer. Whenever she would highlight something in a list of files she would lose it and wouldn't know how to get back. And then there's the issue of whenever you click on the desktop, you're no longer in your application. And the menus don't look all that different from each other. By the time it was over I think she even had Maya open but didn't know how she got there or how to get out.

I managed to get her into TextEdit and get the render script open, but the plane was starting to leave the gate and the flight attendent came by and said, "You need to hang up RIGHT NOW." That was that. No productive rendering during my 3-hour flight. After I stopped bitching under my breath I decided to continue working with the frames I did have and then come up with another plan when I got to LA.

Then I realized I wasn't missing 60 frames. I was missing 120. There was no way I could talk Mom through that one, including zipping up all the files and uploading them to my web site. I was screwed.

I stewed for a while (it was a 3-hour flight, I had time) but then decided that since I was going to use just an excerpt anyway, I would check the most interesting shots and see if they were ok. They were. I edited together the last 30 seconds of the animation knowing I would have to get creative with the sound later because the sound of the golf ball hitting the hippo had to be synched, but there was music over it and if you cut it wrong, it would sound like crap. I didn't have the individual sound effects, it was all put together on one sound track. But I would worry about that in LA.

Except for one thing. I hadn't thought to bring headphones, and I couldn't fathom trying to deal with sound editing using laptop speakers. Great. I would have to find headphones when I got to LA, having no car and no idea where I was or what was around me. But hey, even earbuds would work. I'd take anything. I'd find something.

After an hour long tour of the worst parts of LA (or maybe that's all there is), the shuttle finally dropped me off at my hotel at almost 3. Good news, there's a McDonalds across the street and a row of shops. Maybe there are headphones somewhere in there. I take off with my backpack and start walking down Wilshire. And I only go one block and there it is, Radio Shack. Perfect. Even if I run out of DVDs I'm ok.

So after I went to the convention center and back for my registration I finally started working on my reel again at about 5. I had brought DVDs, jewel cases, a label applicator, and all the crap you could ever need to build and assemble. I felt good about my 30-second hippo plan, and I was looking forward to getting it edited in Final Cut so I could start burning. I started to assemble the bug ship animation. And then...

WHERE IS MY SPECULAR MAP????
(Why didn't I load Maya????)

I don't know what happened or where or when, but the original animation years ago had this nice sheen on the ship. This version did not have it. There was nothing I could do. Anyone who wasn't familiar with the animation wouldn't know the difference, but I did and I knew that was the final, crowning touch that made it so freakin' beautiful. I was PISSED. I WAS FURIOUS!!! This is what happens when you go on no sleep for 2 months, everything comes out half-assed, no matter what your intentions.

I had to make peace with this or there wasn't going to be a reel at all. I'm still getting over it, telling myself that I'll fix it and update the site as soon as I get home. But I'm still pissed. I only got one still out of the whole potato project, I lost half of the hippo and probably the best part of the bug ship. For what? Is anything going to come out of this at all? Is it worth all the blank DVDs I brought with me and all the labels I had printed? GRRRRRR......  I know what the quality can be and I know what the quality is, and I'm having a hard time reconciling the two right now. But it is what it is and it's better that I work with something than nothing. So we'll see.

I still haven't had any decent sleep. After the reel was put together last night I still had to update my site, and that put me in bed at about 3 LA time (5 Texas time). I got 4 hours, tonight I'll get more. And maybe things will look better once I do.

I know for the last few days I've owed various people emails and phone calls and you name it, but that final push basically pushed me off the face of the earth. And given how it all went down, I'm not quite ready to reappear yet. But I'm here, the show is cool, and I'm going to make as much out of this opportunity as I can with what I have. And hope people laugh at the potato for all the right reasons, if they see it at all.

At least three pages are up. I like the home page. I did a different light setup for the potato so he would show up better on a white background. I really need to render the room just by itself because it's the only interior I've ever lit and it needs to be seen. At the same time, I need to re-render my bug ship, composite it and edit it, then dig up the hippo and tweak the shadow color and re-render that, then edit all this into a DVD as well as something that will work on the site, then gather some compositing stills to go on the site, and don't forget the potato in his environment... still stressed. Four more days. Stressed. Sure is nice to go to bed before 4:30 though.

This is as far as it goes. I'll be spending the rest of the week getting my site together and polishing my old compositing projects to put up there with this shot. This was a good lighting and shading project but not so good for compositing, so by the end of the week I should have a good range of work to show off once I fix some problems on the old stuff. I have the files, only one won't open but I don't think it's a disaster yet. I'll know for sure soon enough. I guess I won't be sleeping until tomorrow night. Or I guess that's tonight, it's just 4am now and the two hours ahead of me aren't going to help much. But I'll take what I can get. I think lunch tomorrow (today) will be nap time.