This was a fun night ;)
And the first set…
Abstract Doodle
Messing around with some concepts from a class I am working on.
Basketball still life
Here is the finished render from the sim below that was glitching out. Houdini vellum and Redshift render.
Houdini Vellum, random pins in simulation
Ran into a little bug messing around with vellum where it looks like pins are set to the cloth even though I have no pins set.
The way to fix is to go into vellum node and change “Mass: Calculate Varying” to “Mass: Unchanged”. That will unstick them.
Vellum Doodle
Just messing around with some vellum cloth sims today. Going for that cloth landscape kinda look.
Wacom Cintiq Fan is too loud.
How to turn the fan on your Cintiq down. Some new update set mine to jet airplane levels of loudness. Here is where the setting is buried.
The internet is destroying our brains, but we can't quit. It's a factory we're forced to work in without any pay.
Good write-up here on Business Insider about social media site like instagram making money of its content creators for free. It’s one of the many reasons I have left pretty much all social media. Now I just yell into the vacuum on my lonely little blog, lol!
“As culture and media theorist McKenzie Wark writes in her book "Capital is Dead: Is This Something Worse?", the internet uses our labor without us really knowing it. Unlike the broadcast era of media, during which the owners of television networks and movie studios had to at least create the content to sell to us, we now create all the content for each other, mostly without being paid.
"[Social media companies like Facebook] don't even bother to provide any entertainment," Wark writes. "We have to entertain each other, while they collect the rent, and they collect it on all social media time, public or private, work or leisure, and (if you keep your FitBit on) even when you sleep."
We produce the memes, tweets, posts, and pictures that keep us tethered to the internet, and then that content is monetized in the form of advertisements - revenue users help produce, but do not usually see a penny of. “
…
“As culture and media theorist McKenzie Wark writes in her book "Capital is Dead: Is This Something Worse?", the internet uses our labor without us really knowing it. Unlike the broadcast era of media, during which the owners of television networks and movie studios had to at least create the content to sell to us, we now create all the content for each other, mostly without being paid.
"[Social media companies like Facebook] don't even bother to provide any entertainment," Wark writes. "We have to entertain each other, while they collect the rent, and they collect it on all social media time, public or private, work or leisure, and (if you keep your FitBit on) even when you sleep."
We produce the memes, tweets, posts, and pictures that keep us tethered to the internet, and then that content is monetized in the form of advertisements - revenue users help produce, but do not usually see a penny of. “
Iryna Nalyvaiko, Back to Bed.
Really cool series by Iryna Nalyvaiko, “Back to Bed”.
There Will Come Soft Rains, by Ray Bradbury, read by Leonard Nimoy
Stumbled upon this on Sunday and it was a perfect fit with the rainy day and a beverage….
The Work-From-Home Future Is Destroying Bosses' Brains
Nice essay here for all of you who might have bosses trying to drag you back to the office.
“The reason that remote work is so threatening to a lot of corporate thinkers is that it largely devalues the middle management layer that corporate society is built on. When you’re in person, a middle manager can walk the floors, “keep an eye on people” and, in meetings, “speak for the group.” While this can happen over Zoom and Slack, it becomes significantly more apparent who actually did the work, because you can digitally evaluate where the work is coming from.”
When I left to start my own studio I was amazed at how much more productive I became out the gate. Like, easily 50-60% more got done each day without me feeling like a husk of a person.
Little Houdini Doodle
Just messing around a bit with the sweep node in Houdini.
Music Friday!
Whoot, for Friday! Might have a little something something brewing musically. Here’s a hint.
New Work in the Wild: Nike Go FlyEase
Would ya look at that, some new work of our’s just showed up in the wild, Nike Go FlyEase. Did some retouching and product swaps on this one. I’ll see if I can dig it up for the portfolio in a bit so you can see the build outs.
Epic Bought Artstation?
Wild, Epic Games just bought Artstation. I find what they are doing very interesting. Bought Megascans and Capturing Reality and now Artstation… hmmm….
And they made their learning portal free for the rest of the year.
“ArtStation Learning is free for the rest of 2021.
We’re also making ArtStation Learning free to all members for the remainder of 2021. ArtStation Learning is our streaming video service for artists. It features unlimited access to an ever-growing content library from industry professionals. Artists can expand their skills in a wide range of art topics and learn at their own pace. Head over to artstation.com/learning to get started.”
4-28-21 doodle
Just kinda wanted to riff on those tables that have resin cut out in them here. Tri-planer shader in Redshft came in handy while texturing the wood.
How Low-Rider Graphics Are Painted On Cars
This is pretty mezmerizing to watch. So many layers….
Doodle and notes and portfolio updates
I hate pinterest with the burning intensity of 10,000 suns. What a garbage site that spews out so much search engine spam on anything I search for. Good lord, try to google a CG technique and just see page after page of single linked junked with no info from pinterest. Anyways, just add this to your search to kill it.
-site:pinterest.*
The “*” is key as it kills EVERYTHING from that domain and they spew out so much crap just the “-site:pinterest” won’t clear it. Yeesh…
Two new portfolio pieces dropped on the home page as well. Some allbirds and some Nike both with CG elements.
And today’s doodle is a rehash of a older set for some EP cover art that got shot down.
Yesterday's doodles.
So I have been taking a bit of a creative hiatus / break for a bit to help with the COVID burnout and I opened Houdini for the first time since (checks blog posts) yikes, January. Was just messing around with some displacement and then the map box node to import the topo data on Mt Hood. These are the results of the stuff. I actually enjoyed the process and exploration of it again. Which was the goal of taking a break in the first place. Now I just need to update the portfolio….
Meh with a hint of Blah...
“At first, I didn’t recognize the symptoms that we all had in common. Friends mentioned that they were having trouble concentrating. Colleagues reported that even with vaccines on the horizon, they weren’t excited about 2021. A family member was staying up late to watch “National Treasure” again even though she knows the movie by heart. And instead of bouncing out of bed at 6 a.m., I was lying there until 7, playing Words with Friends.
It wasn’t burnout — we still had energy. It wasn’t depression — we didn’t feel hopeless. We just felt somewhat joyless and aimless. It turns out there’s a name for that: languishing.
Yeah, I can relate. Can’t get motivated to do diddly squat…
Files, a windows File Explorer replacment?
Windows File Explorer is kinda garbage IMO. How in the hell does it not have Tabbed browsing in 2021? Anyways, I found a program called “Files” that is a pretty solid alternative. Better looking UI, Tabbed browsing, all the usual shortcuts. Gonna use it in production all this week so I’ll see how it holds up. Looks promising though.