Render Me This, Batman

F3 Visual Effects at FSU - Week 5

This week I moved on to my first animated show of the cycle, "Yeti In Paradise" directed by Lauren Hammond.  I was really excited for the opportunity to work on some animated shows because, while I don't personally have an interest in animating, I definitely can see myself working as an artist on animated films in the future.  I also might like the opportunity of directing one some day should the opportunity arise, but I'm not sure yet.  It's something I definitely need more experience in, which is why I was excited that Lauren was happy to let me jump on her show as a lighting artist.

I've been working hard over the past couple of days on helping Lauren to set up her render pipeline.  She has also helped me learn more about the general animation workflow working with reference files and repeating files when transferring storage volumes.  These are things I was aware of and understood conceptually, but had never actually had to do.  Getting that practical experience was great.

I also have been working on lighting the third shot in Lauren's film, during which her protagonist, Clark the Yeti, walks into a travel agency to buy some tickets only to be rejected and thrown out of the building.  Poor guy :(  We ran into some aesthetic issues with this shot.  We realized after the first day of working on the shot that the space was too flat to achieve the kind of long-shadowed look Lauren wanted.  So we reworked the shot today to achieve a new look that we were both happy with. I think this collaborative experience has been really valuable for both of us and I think we covered a lot of ground on Monday and Tuesday (in regards to rendering) that will end up saving Lauren a lot of time in the long run.  It makes me feel good to know that my contributions will still be helping out the show even after I leave it.

In other news, this morning I worked on cutting together some breakdown reals to present to FSU President John Thrasher, the College of Motion Picture Arts Dean Frank Patterson, and the associate/acting Dean Reb Braddock.  This was a really cool experience for me.  It was awesome to show my work to to them and to represent our college and class.  Seeing how impressed they were were the work our entire class was a huge morale boost for me, and I hope that my classmates feel the same way.  I was particularly happy to see Dean Patterson.  I don't know him well, only having met him a couple of times, but he remembered me well and showed a huge genuine interest in my work even though he's currently on leave.  That is huge to me and means so much.  It's clear that he cares about his students and his school.

This whole cycle has been getting me really hyped to move on to thesis.  I can't wait to continue for all of us to become better artists and to see what we can create.