Alexander Kucera

I don’t have my own camera kit specifically for VFX yet. Usually when I am on set, I either rent or get equipment from the production that is hiring me. Now I am about to build my own camera kit and to stay halfway reasonable I want to stay around €6000, though I can go over that amount to get a better kit if need be. And it looks like I might have to.

Please go into your iOS device’s Settings.app and check your iCloud settings. Do it now. With a shock I just noticed that all my backups and syncing options were turned off on my iPad mini. And that without me purposefully disabling anything. So do yourself a favor and check those settings every now and then. Otherwise you might end up with no or too old of a backup when you need it.

I got access to my copy of Shadowrun Returns right on release, July 25th, and immediately ended up playing it of about five hours. Probably your first clue that I liked it. It has been described as Neverwinter Nights meets XCOM by its creators and that description is pretty accurate. I’d add that it at times also has a little point and click adventure feel to it. On A Budget Harebrained Software got $1.

Today,29.05.2013, was the official premiere of Prisoners of the Sun, the movie I was VFX producer for and that crashed and burned in 2008 due to a licensing issue. Luxx Studios bought the rights a while back and finished it. It turned out to be a modestly solid B-movie with 3D effects that looked very game-y, which is very sad, because we all—the former production crew—knew what it could have been.

I planned to write about it, but the presentation was just blowing all our minds and I got sucked into simply watching to not miss anything. What can I say? I’m sorry. You should have been there. Subtitle: Talk by Guy Williams (Weta), Aaron Gilman (Weta)

Do not add tangible rewards below $60! Shipping and manufacturing is simply too expensive. You might not make any money for your actual goal otherwise. Make the first minute of the info video count! People turn off the video after that time on average. I’m going to also post a whole array of slides or rephrase them. At least that’s the plan. But first. Sleep and family time. Subtitle: Talk by Kai Bodensiek (Brehm & v.

Phil Tippett had a dream. “Mad God” a film that he wanted to make, but for a variety of reasons got put on hold around the time of Jurassic Park. The Problem Lack of money. Simple as that. To get it you used to ask friends, family and people foolish enough to invest In your little project. That lead to a lot of concession being made. Giving the rights to creative input away to investors, having investors kids in the movie, etc.

We startend the session with a quick history of subdivision surfaces. Invented by Pixar and first used in the short Gerry’s Game they made away with the constraints of both polygonal modeling as well as Nurbs modeling. What’s wrong with Nurbs? Nurbs surfaces are based on control vertices or hull points through which a b-spline is calculated. This leads to smooth curvature and inherent UVs. Both are good. However, Nurbs modeling relies on adding a multitude of Nurbs patches together to form you final surface.

This talk was very theory heavy with lots of formulas and photos of curves that summarize pretty badly. I still gave it a try here. The session started with the history of camera tech. From the first wooden boxes with a hand crank. A hand cranked camera had severe restrictions in that it obviously only could film where a human operator could go and there wasn’t even adjustable focus. Since then we have come a long way.

Not too much to record for this one. It was mostly company heads trying to weasel their way out of loaded questions by the audience and discussion chair Eric Roth. Things like “Do you think a VFX union is a solution to the problems?” “…” It was interesting to see the panel stammer around the issue. But mostly it was sad that they still don’t see that they are a part of the issue.