Here is another take on those VDB clouds. This time I went for a bit more abstract, odd angular shape on them. Kinda like if it was, “At the Mountains of Madness” vibe.
Just got back from the Oregon Coast and I am shockingly exhausted for some reason. Wanna work on some of my photos from there but just kinda staring blankly at Bridge.
Was playing around with the cloud and cloud noise nodes yesterday in a attempt to make a abstract cloudscape. Here are the results of that. Today I might get away from round shapes and see how they behave when I use angular shapes for the base. Possibly grids scattered like broken shards? Dunno. The Amplitude and Element Size settings in the cloud noise node can really change things up. Rendered in Redshift because Octane in Houdini hates me.
In my efforts to get off social media I am searching out blogs and other sites that allow me to escape the “walled garden” of insta, facebook etc… Go back to the day when the web was more based on people and not giant hoses draining all content, lol. Anyways, Wil Wheaton wrote a nice piece the other day and I thought I’d link it here. I can fall asleep on a dime, but I’ll wake up around 2-3 for a few hours with this crap spinning away in my nogging.
“It’s tough to fall asleep for me, because that’s when my anxiety does its most aggressive work expressing itself. Before I even hit the pillow, my brain is replaying everything I’m pretty sure I did wrong that day, taking occasional breaks to worry about, well, everything. My brain will work itself up so much it actually makes my heart speed up. When I’m supposed to be relaxing.
It’s not great, Dan.
But I started doing something that’s been incredibly helpful, and I thought I’d share it.
Every night as I’m getting ready for bed, I focus on a list of things for which I am grateful. I call it “doing my gratitudes”. I just start somewhere, like “I am grateful that I am going to sleep in a warm, safe bed. I am grateful that I get to share this bed with Anne. I am grateful I have enough food.” Stuff like that. I remind myself that there is so much that is good in my life, and by thinking about those things, recognizing those things, and making space to feel grateful for them, I do not give my anxiety an opportunity to grab hold of anything and go to work on me.”
Write up in the NYT about his new work, “An Eclipse of Moths”
“The section of Pittsfield where he staged his pictures is near a General Electric transformer plant that poisoned the environment with PCBs but also employed most of the town. Ms. Hiam, who was born in Pittsfield, said, “My parents worked for GE. Everyone I knew had parents who came here for GE.” Pittsfield was devastated in 1987 by the closing of the factory, which now looms over the landscape like a ruined castle in a European village.”
VIA, This Isn’t Happiness.
I went out and picked up the newest version of the x100, the x100 v the other day and just started doing some testing comparing it to the original. Right off the bat, the sharpness of the lens is so much better it’s kinda shocking. Also, with the camera I got a free version of Luminar and I am pretty surprised with that as well. Does a lot of interesting one-click solutions that don’t seem to straight-up break the images. It’s a bit chewy, but I’m hitting it pretty hard with some bad exposures and getting decent enough results for the average consumer.
At some point, I wanna write something up about me leaving instagram, but I just don’t have the focus or mental fortitude to dig up all the links on the evil crap Facebook is pulling. Suffice to say that they are stealing all your biometrics, actively promoting Trump in has tags over Biden and straight-up promoting Conservative views. That’s just for starters and all from the past month. Yeah, no shit. So they can eat a bag, I’m done. Need to just put something on there to explain it and point to the blog. Instagone.
Just tinkering around a bit with a landscape study done in Manzanita, Or.
Kinda feel like everyone could use a little Moon Hooch in their life right now. And it’s Friday so Fuck It.
i have been working mostly in Houdini and Redshift for a good bit of time but I started to feel that it’s just a bit too much for what I want to do. It’s taking a sledge hammer to kill a fly. I really enjoyed the challenge of it and all the stuff there is to learn but at the end of the day, was I making what I wanted to make? I kinda realized that, nope, I wasn’t. So with that in mind I decided to go back to playing around with Cinema 4d and Octane for a change of pace. It’s kinda silly how much easier stuff is to do. So here was something I was working on yesterday.
Went out to Yachats, Oregon for some much needed decompression time a little bit ago and here are some snaps from my phone that I took while wandering around. Really beautiful place.
Turns out this is a real thing and just not me losing my shit. But I can say that since last Friday I stopped taking in any news, no devices are allowed in the bedroom, and I am severely limiting my internet time. It’s a harder habit to break then stopping smoking for me. It’s kinda insane. Anyways, here the article.
“So many of us do it: You get into bed, turn off the lights, and look at your phone to check Twitter one more time.
You see that coronavirus infections are up. Maybe your kids can't go back to school. The economy is cratering.
Still, you incessantly scroll though bottomless doom-and-gloom news for hours as you sink into a pool of despair.
This self-destructive behavior has become so common that a new word for it has entered our lexicon: "doomscrolling."
The recent onslaught of dystopian stories related to the coronavirus pandemic, combined with stay-at-home orders, have enabled our penchant for binging on bad news. But the habit is eroding our mental health, experts say.”
Was messing around with some mirror balls last week in Houdini. Playing with flip sims and dynamics.
Was messing around with flip sims and impossible camera settings and came up with this piece that I quite enjoy.
Good old fashioned break down of some things discussed in our virtual happy hour.
Here is the full video that John Oliver used at the closing of his show. He ends with the last minute or so.
On Saturday May 30th filmmaker and photographer David Jones of David Jones Media felt compelled to go out and serve the community in some way. He decided to ...
Here is something a bit more entertaining. The Queen is Not Amused tumblr page.
Behind the Bastards podcast. The one on Elon Musk is what I listened to first. Joe will probably love this.
FCC approves 100% foreign ownership of US broadcast stations. Why, hello Sputnik News!
Here is the DC Bishop’s response to Trumps stupid photo op.
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington criticized the manner of President Donald Trump's visit to St. John's Episcopal Church amid...
Here is a cop beating up a cameraman that has Australia wants investigated. Second view from a different angle at 1:25.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has demanded an investigation into the assault of an Australian journalist and cameraman at the hands of US police. 7NEWS U.S. ...
Lastly, a link for Mark. I looked up screen sharing on the PS4 and it’s something we can do now. Never did it, but could be fun to have a beer and try it out one night.
https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/get-help/help-library/apps---features/playstation-apps---features/share-play-on-ps4-and-how-it-works/
Holy crap, just stumbled onto a podcast done by Roger Freaking Deakins.
“Team Deakins podcast is a conversation between acclaimed cinematographer Roger Deakins and his collaborator, James Deakins. We start from a submitted question and end .... who knows where! We are joined on some episodes by friends and colleagues. Matt Wyman, friend and aspiring cinematographer, has been invaluable in working on this podcast series with us and joins in with some really good questions!”
Just wanted to mess a bit with Redshift in C4d and see how it’s behaving now a days. Used the RS Matrix to clone these out and the viewport was nice and snappy without any issues. Slightly burnt out on Housini ATM. Just kinda fired in general, but I don’t seem to have the brain power to dig into it. So, C4d it was today.
May you live in interesting times, I believe the saying goes? Here is a round up of some videos that hopefully will put some of this in perspective for people out there.
Trevor Noah.
Killer Mike in Atlanta.
Such Luck posted a new animation they created. Great stuff!
I do wish they would up their blogging game though….
Fun write up on the history of the inventor of the Theremin, Lev Sergeyevich Termen.
“While living in America, the gap between Theremin’s two lives grew more dramatic. While he cavorted in New York with the likes of Albert Einstein, taught the theremin virtuoso Clara Rockmore and entered into a controversial marriage with the African-American prima ballerina Lavinia Williams, his espionage mission continued. This double life wouldn’t last long. The lead-up to World War II made Theremin increasingly nervous that his activities would be discovered, and in September of 1938 he fled the USA without even informing his wife of his planned departure.”
“Though the theremin’s influence continued to grow in the US, it had no effect on the life of its creator, who after his return to the USSR was caught up in Stalin’s purges and sent to a Siberian gulag. Theremin was lucky – unlike the millions who died in these labor camps, he was released after three months, as the Soviet war effort ramped up and the government realized they might actually need some of the scientists they’d banished. So officials rounded up Theremin and others and sent them to a sharashka, a prison where scientists from a variety of fields were forced to invent and research for the Soviet regime.”
I was thinking about ways to run wires over stuff and here is a little exploration on a way to make that work. Houdini and Redshift render.
Today’s little doodle I call “Drifted”. When I go to the coast I really enjoy taking abstract pictures of all the drift wood on the beach. I took this images and brought it into CG with some interesting results.
Working more with BG plates today. I’ll call this one, “Off the Coast”. Used a photo I took this past summer.
