I has been almost 4 years since my last post on this blog. Although I have been away from public CG activity, I'm still rockin' hard on the backstage.
It's almost time for me to celebrate 30 years of involvement in Computer Graphics production. From the most artistic end to the other extreme of scientific visualization. Swapping from one end to another kept me motivated whenever I felt tired or lost during different stages of my life all these years.
In these last 4 years that I have not updated anything on this blog, I had the chance to spend some more time abroad. And all the extra activities involved into living in foreign countries besides the new workplace kept me so busy that I just did not have the time to keep it up.
After finish my work for Andrew Price at Blender Guru's Architectural Academy, I moved to Vienna, the capital of Austria, to work on the production of a CG animated series called Talking Tom and Friends. A really cool (and successful) production that is up to the third season by now and with some episodes achieving more than 30 million views. It started out as an YouTube only show but eventually it made to some TV stations and currently is being shown in Netflix but I'm not sure if it is world wide.
In this production I acted as the Lead Lighting and Rendering Artists, where I was responsible for:
- supervising other artists on my department;
- preparing lighting keys following guides from art directors and concept artists;
- lighting and rendering sequences;
- negotiating workflows and deliveries with other departments and directors.
The main production tool in our department was SideFX Houdini and Mantra, its internal renderer. We received our scenes data from the Animation department as Alembic files.
From our department, we would send the rendered images as multi-layered EXR files to the Compositing team together with a slap comps for their reference.
I had the opportunity to meet many new artists, old colleagues, and CG veteran legends like Ron Thornton. Vienna is an amazing city that just breathes art on every little corner. And it is of an inclusive type, where just like the Habsburg ideal where it should be accessible for all, from the royalty to the peasants, there was not a single day on that city where you could not get in contact and live its artistic spirit.
To visit Vienna one day was one of my dreams and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity that I had to live in this city for almost two years.
From our department, we would send the rendered images as multi-layered EXR files to the Compositing team together with a slap comps for their reference.
I had the opportunity to meet many new artists, old colleagues, and CG veteran legends like Ron Thornton. Vienna is an amazing city that just breathes art on every little corner. And it is of an inclusive type, where just like the Habsburg ideal where it should be accessible for all, from the royalty to the peasants, there was not a single day on that city where you could not get in contact and live its artistic spirit.
To visit Vienna one day was one of my dreams and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity that I had to live in this city for almost two years.
