New Work in the Wild: Nike The Cosmic Unity

Some retouching/compositing work we did last year surfaced in a press release today. Check it out. Maybe I’ll build a before and after for the portfolio, but I’ll post the finals for sure. Pretty cool project.

“Fresh from announcing its hands-free GO FlyEase, Nike (NYSE:NKE -0.82%) has now officially revealed a new sneaker as part of its “Move to Zero” sustainability initiative. The Cosmic Unity — which has leaked previously — the shoe is the first performance silhouette under the project, and mixes responsible materials with court-ready technology.”

Naturalistic lighting from Andrew Wyeth in CG

These two did another project where they figure out the lighting of an artist in CG. This one is on Andrew Wyeth. My big take away was to start using modifiers on my lights. Kind of a forehead-slapping moment.

When I light stuff in the studio the first thing I do is decide what kinda modifier I am gonna put on the light. Strip box with a grid? Projector with a grid? Beauty dish? Well, in CG I just grab a naked light and start aiming it like a scrub. It will be interesting to mess around with diffusion and more modifiers.

Still Life Study

Way back in September, I talked about doing a lighting study on some of Niall McDiarmid images. Well I finally got around to one of them! Took me long enough….

Built it out in Houdini with a quick Vellum sim for the napkin and towel thingy. The new vellum brush tool is quite handy to use. Lots of fun as well. I did learn how bad Redshifts Sub Surface Scatter is though trying to get the ketchup, mustard bottles and bread to look like anything other then plaster. It took a mix of roughness settings and coating to get it looking close to how I wanted. Using both the Sub-Surface and SS Multiple Scattering was not getting it there. Adding detail like the lipstick and coffee stains was super easy though.

Made a simple markup of the lights as well. Nothing too fancy. The super narrow spotlight for caustics is the only little trick in there. The light in back of the bottles was originally just there to help me work on the SSS, but I liked how it made that highlight on the table. Kinda looks like a window or something.

'Artists, Weirdos, Hellriders And Homies:' Thrasher Magazine Turns 40

OK, I can put “Thrasher Mag having a part on NPR” on my list of things I would not have thought I would see.

“Playboy.

Glamour.

O.

Teen Vogue.

All these magazines have something in common.

They're no longer in print.

While these — and many other — publications have shifted to digital only in recent years, there's a print magazine bucking the trends and still going strong: Thrasher magazine. Created by skateboarders for skateboarders, Thrasher celebrates its 40th anniversary this month.

Founded in 1981 by Eric Swenson and Fausto Vitello, the San Francisco based publication has been busting out new issues every month for decades. Thrasher captures the gnarly antics of skaters as they shred pools, bomb hills and hurl themselves down rails and staircases.”

Reaper

So I dabble in recording stuff, because, hey, why not? But with COVID, not being able to record new stuff, and all of that I have been pretty burned out. Also, I have been using Pro Tools for the last few years and it has gotten really stale. Just opening the program is depressing somehow. They are like the Maya or Photoshop of DAWs. Don’t like it? Screw you.

But recently one of my friends has started to track stuff at their place and wanted me to lay down drums on it. I think I recommended Reaper to him as an affordable way to record years ago, but not too sure about that. But after working with his files a bit I figured to make sending the project back and forth smoother I would give Reaper a try.

Man, it so far has been way nicer to use than Pro Tools. I took the entire project from Protools to Reaper without even have to google anything. The UI is just that easy to follow and find stuff. If anyone else is looking to escape the Pro Tools nightmare of dongles, license crap, crashes (oh my god the crashes!), I highly suggest giving Reaper a shot.

Folder instead of busses are just so simple and awesome to use. Guitar bus? Just make a blank track and drag them in. Done. Super clean and customizable interface. So far the only real hitch is that the free plug-ins that ship with it are downright ugly, lol! The 7 band EQ is pretty slick and has some nice functionality but it just looks like something from 98. Also, I can’t get my Sound Toys plugs in to load which is a bummer. But FET compressor and pretty much all my other ones load no problem. Get FET now. It’s so worth it.

The next step is to install it on my recording rig and get all the mics configured and try out some tracking with it. In Pro Tools I have been having a lot of crashes that when I am playing and it locks, it just starts screaming in your ear. So bad….

Sedition. Full Stop.

“Trump has forfeited the public trust. For that reason, he cannot remain the commander in chief. He has shown himself to be mentally unstable, and for that reason he cannot remain in charge of an apocalyptically huge nuclear arsenal. He has demonstrated a clearly criminal approach to the Constitution, and for that reason he cannot be allowed to hold high office for the next two weeks in the run-up to the transition of power. He is, in short, a clear and present danger to the constitutional order, to the country, and to the world. Congress will fail in its duties if, after confirming Biden’s election win, it doesn’t continue on, in quick order, to forcibly remove Donald J. Trump, traitor, from the White House.”

“The top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer called for President Donald Trump’s removal Thursday a day after a mob spurred by the president overran the Capitol as lawmakers tallied President-elect Joe Biden’s presidential win.

“The quickest and most effective way - it can be done today - to remove this president from office would be for the Vice President to immediately invoke the 25th amendment,” he continued. “If the Vice President and the Cabinet refuse to stand up, Congress should reconvene to impeach the president.”"

“Members of the House Judiciary Committee have announced articles of impeachment for President Donald Trump, alleging he will “remain a threat to national security, democracy and the Constitution” if he is allowed to remain in office for two more weeks.

The announcement comes after Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the majority leader, said in a statement that the president should be “immediately” removed from office, either by the 25th amendment or articles of impeachment.

Reps. David Cicilline (D-RI), Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) have authored the articles, according to two individuals familiar with the matter.

Cicilline and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) later tweeted the articles. “[S]o proud of everyone co-leading this effort with us,” Omar wrote. “We need to move quickly to remove this President from office.”

"And my god, if these insurrectionists were Muslim, they would have been sniped from the top of buildings," Scarborough continued. "So I wanna know from the Capitol Hill police, what is it? Is it just white people?

"Or is it Donald Trump supporters? Why do you scream at people walking across the street three blocks away from the Capitol?" he added, referring to when BLM protesters were hit with tear gas and rubber bullets to clear the way for President Donald Trump's infamous June photo-op in front of St. John's Church.

Scarborough then turned his rant up a notch with some profanity on-air.

"Why are you not as bad asses around the Capitol, but then Trump supporters come in, and you open the f---ing doors for 'em!" Scarborough said.

One of the show's panelists was heard muttering "Oh my god" when Scarborough dropped the F-bomb on live TV.

"You opened the doors for 'em!" Scarborough went on. "And let them breach the people's house. What is wrong with you?"

Learning Caravaggio Lighting Techniques

This is pretty cool to watch. A CG artist and a Director of Photography do a zoom call and go through lighting a scene in Caravaggio’s style. It’s in C4d and Corona, but it translates to pretty much anything. It’s interesting how the DP calls out real world lights and flags and where to put them. It’s not anything crazy new, but the discussion and the iterations they have going on is what I found the most interesting.

They do a series on them as well. Rembrandt and Hopper so far.

More Album Artwork

The band that I did the Shatter Bust artwork for liked that one so much they asked for something for a Single. So I blew up a disco ball, as one does.

Houdini Abstract Study

Messing around with the “Connect Adjacent Pieces” SOP in Houdini.

Yeah, pretty much sums it up.

Yup.

Everyone agrees: the year 2020 could not have been worse. So, we decided to give it the send-off it deserves. Instead of giving corporate gifts this year, we...

Revisiting some album artwork

A band I did some album artwork awhile back asked me to rework it recently so I took a project that was originally in C4d using the default render engine into Houdini and Redshift. Quite happy with the results. Did a proper glass shatter sim instead of just a Voronoi fracture as well. Here are the Houdini results with the C4d being last.

A little hope shiing in this dark void?

“Facebook hit with massive antitrust lawsuit from 46 states”

“A huge collection of states filed an antitrust lawsuit Wednesday accusing Facebook of suppressing its competition through monopolistic business practices. Forty-eight attorneys general across 46 states, the territory of Guam and the District of Columbia are behind the lawsuit, with only South Dakota, South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia declining to join.

The lawsuit, which looks at Facebook’s actions throughout the company’s history, alleges that the company bought competitors “illegally” and in a “predatory manner” in order to grow and preserve its market power. The suit cites Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp as prominent examples.”

Oh man, this would be so awesome.

Hot Keys, Notes and More! Oh My!

Crazy resource here for all sorts of hotkeys, tips, tips for Houdini, Capture One, Photoshop and more. Easily searchable and pretty awesome for my day to day work. Hopefully, you find it useful as well.

“Over the years, I accumulated a lot of notes in text files. This page parses the TXT files and serves them as HTML. Browser search rocks!!” - Kristian Jungk

Here is one for Redshift in Houdini:

    display redshift material preview in viewport
        add RS Material builder 
            inside add a RS Material and TextureSampler
            connect them to surface
       
        right click on Vopnet -> Parameters and Channels -> Edit...
            add folder
                name it "See Tex"

            add toggle
                name it "Use diffuse"
                click Build-in Tags
                find Use Diffuse Map #

            add file image
                name it "diffuse map"
                click Build-in Tags
                find Texture #

"I want to post my photographs to Instagram, but my ethics are getting in the way."

Interesting Reddit thread here where people are discussing the ethics of using Instagram with all the information that has come to light about Facebook’s data harvesting/manipulation. A good read with a lot of interesting opinions. As I have mentioned here before, I am very anti-social media.

“As I'm sure many of us have been, I have been using my pandemic induced free time to do some intensive organizing and editing of my photography archives.

I now find myself with an ethical dilemma: I want to post my pictures to Instagram, a Facebook CompanyTM

I quit Facebook some 7-8 years ago and Insta some 3-4 years ago due to the many scandals Facebook has been implicated in over the years - from massive data breaches, to major privacy concerns, to anti-trust issues, to willfully illicit use of user data to manipulate elections and public sentiments around the world:

CNET, NBC News, CNBC, NPR / WBUR, Wikipedia Mega List, etc, etc, etc

Sometimes it seems like a silly stand to take / hill to die on-- I am, after all, an infinitesimally small cog in the machine-- but that hasn't stopped my conscience from shouting at me every time I think about giving the 'gram another shot.

What are your thoughts on this? Am I being ridiculous? How ridiculous? How do you navigate the ethical/moral challenges involved with social media platforms?

​I'm curious to see what this community's take is :)”

Is it possible to play music together over the internet?

Here is something my friend Steve sent my way that I have yet to test out, but it looks like it might work? The Windows client is in Beta though which could be troublesome. If I get the time to run some tests, I’ll post the results here. Musicians Together Apart.

The hardest number to hit for most people will be the ping which from the Network Testing page needs to be under 50ms, best if under 30ms. All the other stats seem very doable with most broadband.



Apple M1 new info.

I have been on Windows for a few years here now, but I recently started following the Apple M1 chip info that is coming out and it’s pretty interesting. New update today from Bloomberg talks about a MAc Pro possibly next year.

" Apple’s M1 chip was unveiled in a new entry-level MacBook Pro laptop, a refreshed Mac mini desktop and across the MacBook Air range. The company’s next series of chips, planned for release as early as the spring and later in the fall, are destined to be placed across upgraded versions of the MacBook Pro, both entry-level and high-end iMac desktops, and later a new Mac Pro workstation, the people said."