BlogBloghttp://www.robzeigler.com/blog/2010-11-02T20:27:12ZSquarespace"Fixation" Trailer Postedhttp://www.robzeigler.com/blog/2010/10/31/fixation-trailer-posted.htmlRob2010-11-01T03:55:51Z2010-11-01T03:55:51Z 

 

I just added some information and a link to a trailer that I finished editing with the team at FSO. Check it out in the Video section!

 

]]>Shotgun: A Production Toolhttp://www.robzeigler.com/blog/2010/10/10/shotgun-a-production-tool.htmlRob2010-10-11T03:00:38Z2010-10-11T03:00:38Z 

 

A recent opportunity led me to Digital Domain Park in Port St. Lucie, FL this weekend. First of all, I must say that the stadium was more massive than I had thought it would be, but after sitting inside the stadium and looking out across the field, I was reminded that this was where the Mets go for Spring Training. It all made sense from there. I also enjoyed catching up with a lot of familiar faces who were already inside!

Getting back on track - this opportunity led me to research a particular piece of production software called Shotgun. Shotgun was developed by industry staff, for industry staff. If you take a look at some of the tutorial videos, as I have, you'll see the immense role it can play in making sure that everyone is involved in the production. It's not just a tool for production staff - even creative staff can leave comments on notes and get notifications when something they've been included on has been replied to. It really looks like a killer way to run a production, and the developers seem to be on point with maintenance releases and support. If you look at the list of studios that use Shotgun, it's like a roll call of all-star industry talent. Very impressive!

While I'm talking about tutorial videos, I also want to point out The Foundry's training site for Nuke. I absolutely am in love with the fact that technology has recently given us the ability to produce this multitude of high quality training and resource videos for applications like Nuke. They even link to a site called Nukepedia that has a four-part Shake To Nuke transition guide for people like me who haven't quite finished the leap yet - hey...maybe I like to shake my nodes to disconnect them from the tree, ok? ;) Full disclosure: I do often find myself trying to shake nodes in Nuke to disconnect them.

 

]]>Digital Domain...in Florida!http://www.robzeigler.com/blog/2010/10/7/digital-domainin-florida.htmlRob2010-10-07T22:58:53Z2010-10-07T22:58:53Z 

Yes, it's true. Digital Domain (THE Digital Domain!), undoubtedly one of the industry's best visual effects studios, is setting up shop in Port St. Lucie, FL. The goal of this east coast studio is to focus on CG features, games and the simulation industry. I've done recruiting work with a lot of simulation companies in Florida and along the east coast and I definitely see how Digital Domain could benefit from this new location, especially for that type of work.

Their official studio will be finished at the end of 2011, and right now they're hiring for some more immediate work out of temporary facilities. I'm definitely keeping this amazing company on my radar.

 

]]>Dynamic Facial Colorhttp://www.robzeigler.com/blog/2010/10/7/dynamic-facial-color.htmlRob2010-10-07T22:47:59Z2010-10-07T22:47:59ZI ran across a recent paper called "A Practical Appearance Model for Dynamic Facial Color". I was absolutely fascinated with the idea that someone figured out how to make the color of a digital model's face change by simulating constriction of blood vessels. In short, the emotion of the character affects the digital skin's hemogoblin distribution - a really mad character gets red in the face, whereas a terrified character gets ghostly white in fear. The example image below is a frame from a video that plays in real-time at 53fps with all heads moving! That's some fast calculation.

 

The team that worked on this has some really amazing stuff on their site that's definitely worth a look. They note rendering issues with small pores and wrinkles, but I'm sure they'll work out those kinks (literally) as technology progresses.

]]>New site is up!http://www.robzeigler.com/blog/2010/10/6/new-site-is-up.htmlRob2010-10-06T23:56:09Z2010-10-06T23:56:09ZThe new site is up! Brand spanking new CSS glory and a spiffy clean new design. Kudos to the Squarespace team for creating a great CMS.

There's a bit of work left to be done to the sidebar but for all intents and purposes, it's live. Standby for some more blog posts either tonight or tomorrow regarding an awesome tech paper from SIGGRAPH that I somehow missed and news about one of the industry's best visual effects studios setting up shop right here in Florida.

 

 

 

 

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