Results tagged “Viz Lab” from Rendered Speechless

It never fails: Once you finally give up on something, suddenly it taps you on the shoulder and demands your attention. While I was in Denver last weekend a recruiter from Dreamworks called. She called the old cell phone which the ex-boyfriend hadn't canceled yet. I guess that was lucky. We finally caught up with each other this week and I have to say, while it was nice to be considered, I wasn't exactly thrilled with what I heard.

It's a better deal than Sony because they hire people for about 2 to 2 1/2 years at a time. That's still a contract and it still has an end. I don't like that.

It's in Los Angeles. I don't like that either. Actually the fact that it's in California at all isn't its biggest selling point right now. It doesn't matter how bad their economy gets, I'll still have to sell more than half my stuff before I can afford to live there.

But ultimately it came down to timing. I have committed the next 12 weeks to my current employer and Dreamworks is bringing people in over the next three to four weeks.

Oh well.

But even if it were a permanent, well-paid position, there's something that's been bugging me about this industry ever since I went to SIGGRAPH and started to see how it really works. Dreamworks is recruiting for a lighting TA position, which is good because it's not a night shift render wrangler. It's a step above and it has a clear career path. The problem is the career path itself, actually ANY career path in the industry these days. It has become so incredibly specialized that it no longer has a soul. A person can spend 96 hours watching an animated curtain open and close until it looks just right. Because that's what that animator does--animate fabric. A lighter can light the same scene a hundred times until it looks right. And then the next thing she does is light another scene. And another, and another. It's become an assembly line, monotonous and exhausting. And I have a problem with that.

I discovered when I was in the Viz Lab that above all things, I'm an artist. An artist loves the process as much as the result, often the ENTIRE process, not just one little piece of it. An artist has a voice--her work has something specific and meaningful to say, and she lives to make her point, if only to herself. And an artist has to say it no matter what. It's a compulsion, maybe even a mandate from the universe that she should send her thoughts and beliefs into the world. Now take that artist and tell her that her job is to dip the number 2 sable brush into the cerulean blue paint and hand it to someone else. And when she's done with that, dip another number 2 sable brush into the cerulean blue paint and hand that to someone else. And so on and so on and so on. Before you know it, that artist's spirit has been crushed by a detailed job description, her voice silenced by boredom and exhaustion. She ceases to be an artist anymore.

That can't be me.

I don't want to go make something red or blue, I have entire ideas that need to be realized. I don't know when they will be realized, probably not in the next 12 weeks because I'm on a ridiculous project schedule until then. But after that, when I start to have a life after five, I'm going to set a few things in motion. I wish I didn't have to wait, but the good news is that the house is finally clean, half my leaves are bagged up and I have a job for the next 12 weeks. As long as I can eat and pay the rent, I can wait. What happens after that remains to be seen. I'm not worried though. Things are finally working in my life and I don't see that changing any time soon.

So screw California. I want to buy a house. And I won't be giving my keys to some untrustworthy boyfriend this time, only to have them withheld later out of spite. But that's another story.

It's been about a month since my last post, but not a lot has happened. I've had two phone interviews with ILM. I believe I did better on the first one, which was with one person, than I did on the second one, which was with three people. But these things are never perfect. I've decided I don't like phone interviews as much as the in-person kind. I feel a lot of pressure to fill dead space. They can't see me thinking. So I come off as a rambling idiot because I start answering their questions too quickly, before I've really thought it through. Bummer. Certainly not my best interview work, although I'm not calling it a disaster.

My last phone interview was last Thursday. I don't know why it seems like such an eternity since then, but it does. Probably because I want it. And because I'm out of a job at the end of December.

I was asked a question in this interview that I've never been asked before. "What kind of classes did you take for your minor in Computer Science?" Wow, do you know how long ago that was? (I didn't really want to make an issue of that either. Not that it's relevant to what I'm capable of--that's the point. It's not.) Not that it was a bad question, actually it was a good one. But once you get in the field and start using what you know, you don't think of it in terms of classes anymore. I don't feel like I answered that question well. I answered truthfully, but I was trying to access an area of my brain that's been dormant for many years. I remembered what I still use in a general sense: languages and math. After I hung up I thought, OH YEAH Assembly Language, Data Structures, Calculus... shoot me. Just shoot me.

At least I remembered that graduate level computer graphics class I took my senior year.

Obviously the Viz Lab thought I was well prepared. They gave me a fellowship to attend. Interesting how sometimes I have less confidence in myself than others do. That is, until I'm given a problem to solve. Then WATCH OUT. There's no such thing as a problem that can't be solved. Not in my hands.

Another question was more specifically related to what I did at Multigen, which was about how I approached improving the speed of our radar module. It's amazing what you can forget when you don't see the code for two years. I might have pulled that one out in the end, but in the beginning I was struggling to make sense without giving away export controlled (i.e. federal prison-getting), proprietary information, some of which I couldn't even remember that well. I can say though that I started taking calculations out of the software and moved them one by one into the hardware shaders until we achieved an acceptable balance of speed vs. accuracy. And not only that, but I rewrote the IR Sensor module--and created its sibling, vpCamera--all using object oriented design patterns. That's something I didn't learn in school, but I thank my boss at Multigen (Scott) for encouraging me to learn it and use it. Now, I can't imagine life without it. Although often I have to because of the limitations of Actionscript.

Not feeling very confident after all that, I decided to post a code sample so they could see how I solve problems. First I asked a friend back at Multigen (Presagis) if I could use an excerpt of the code I wrote there. No go. Proprietary, legal would freak, all that. I wasn't even asking for the export controlled stuff, but still I wasn't surprised. So then I started digging in my old programs I wrote for my 2d image processing class at the lab. They were so elementary (and frankly my style left a bit to be desired at the time) that I just didn't feel like it would be putting my best foot forward. So finally I opted for a recent Flash project that not only used some 2d graphics concepts but also a few different custom classes. The artwork sucked but it wasn't mine, and unfortunately I wasn't allowed to mess with it. But the code was sound. My Multigen work was absolutely the most complex and relevant work I've done, but sometimes you just have to make the best of what you have. So I built a page explaining the project, posted the files and sent a link. And now I wait, hoping I didn't just step in it by doing that.

One thing that's really been on my mind though, even more than these other rambling idiot moments, was a tangent I managed to get off on about my work history. My mom thinks I have the most intimidating (in a good way) resume she's ever seen (she was a manager for many years so that's not your basic mom compliment). I, however, am a bit concerned over how many jobs I've had. I do want a place where I can settle down and contribute long term, and by "long term" I mean at least four years, hopefully longer. I have had that a couple of times. I've also found myself in situations I didn't bargain for and couldn't find a way to solve without taking myself out of the picture entirely. When a problem arises, my first instinct is to try to solve it, not look for the door. But sometimes finding the door is really the best thing for all involved. My experience at BWC is the perfect example of that. The needs of the interactive team grew beyond my skill set, and I could not for the life of me find a way to train myself adequately while still providing the service our customers deserved. That also made it very hard for me to try to grow the department where I thought it needed to grow, because I only had a vague sense of what that meant; I did not have the experience at that time to make the right decisions to grow it properly. So what do you do in that situation? You do what I did. You exit gracefully and bring in your own replacement, who ideally is the vision of what you believe you should have been to really succeed in that position. I was very lucky that my friend Melinda was looking for a job at that time. She had the experience and the drive to make it work, and she's doing it. She's running into the same brick walls I did, but she has the tools to plow through them. I did not. So everyone involved is better off, especially BWC. And they were without a body at my desk for all of three days. No harm done.

I never wanted to move around as much as I have. I think that happens more often to those who either don't know what they want, or are avoiding what they want by doing everything BUT that. I fall into the latter category, for many reasons I would rather not get into here. And as of this year, I am actively LEAVING that category.

Frankly I'm pretty proud of how all that worked out for me, Melinda and BWC. But you can't put all that on a resume--especially one that's too long already. You hope you can get all the words out in an interview if it comes up. I wasn't able to. But I did say that when all that happened, I had to sit down and take a hard look at where I really wanted my career to go. And now I am finally in a position to no longer be a member of the "doing everything but what I really want to" group. Once I get out of that group, and I hope that's very soon, I do plan to stay out. For good.

Tomorrow it will be a week since I had my last interview. That's really not that long. Sure feels like it though.

Welcome to my project blog. I'm starting this so I can track my progress on some CG projects I want to complete in the next few weeks (optimistic). Web-based project blogging is a habit I developed at the Viz Lab and can't seem to shake. Not a bad thing though -- the process is often as interesting as the result, which is probably why I'm addicted to it. I've named this blog Rendered Speechless because of the tie to CG (rendering) and the unapologetic irony of naming a blog "speechless," which is something I rarely am, especially to those who know me. I just have to be careful to follow the rules though, because rules are there to keep everyone safe... no talking about work (that's going to be hard because I have a lot to say) and no talking about anything else that might get me in trouble (and I have things to say there too). No, nothing illegal... but if these projects serve their purpose, you'll find out what I'm talking about anyway, when the time is right.

So about me. I graduated from the Viz Lab in 2002. Yes, that was six years ago (see my Viz work here). And yes, I actually graduated, with a degree and everything. It was a blast. I found that I most enjoyed -- and excelled at -- lighting and compositing, and frankly, I miss it. Disney even tried to recruit me based on my lighting/compositing work in my second year, but I didn't bite (really wanted to finish that thesis). I miss the whole deal, even the stuff I wasn't so good at. So why didn't I immediately go out and get a job doing what I loved? Many reasons. First, I graduated right after 9/11. Creative jobs were scarce and the few that were left were contract jobs. I needed money to move, I had to start paying off loans, I hadn't had health insurance in three years... you get the point. Second, I saw many of my friends going to California and working 80 hours a week for tiny apartments they still couldn't afford and I just couldn't see myself doing that. I already had three bedrooms worth of crap and I was old enough to want a life after work, something it seemed my friends weren't getting. Sticking close to home seemed the thing to do. So I went to the software side, flight simulation programming. Lucrative, but dull as a doorknob. Nevertheless, I did it for four years, until I thought I would lose my mind if I didn't get back into creative in some way.

So I got back into creative by joining a design firm. I'm still there. That's all I'll say about that for now.

I miss CG. It's what I dreamed of doing, what I studied my brains out for, what they even gave me a fellowship to learn. I've been out of it for six years and I'm dying to get back in. But I know I have a tough road ahead of me. I've tinkered around with Maya a few times since I got out of school, the most recent attempt being the most discouraging. I was very upset at how much I had forgotten. But I've decided to stop being upset and just jump in and learn it all again, whatever it takes. I have Maya 8.5 for Mac, and while I can still use After Effects, I'd rather save some money and buy Shake so I can learn a node-based compositing package. Maybe by the time I have something to composite I can afford to add that one to my arsenal. After all, I don't just want my old skills back, I want new skills. I want it all. I can do this. I AM NOT AFRAID.

Now, all I need is an idea... and see? Speechless IS ironic.