Since adobe bought out Substance Designer I have been messing around with Mixer occasionally. I use Bridge and Megascans all the time but have not really dug too deep into the integration and customizing you can do with Mixer. The new 2021 update seems to add a lot more functionality though that has me more interested in messing around more. The siren song of real-time rendering with Unreal is growing stronger as well….
New work in the Wild
I did some album artwork for local Portland band “Hawks Do Not Share” that will be on vinyl and CD. The imagery is also featured on the website, will be a shirt and did a looping animation for a lyric video. Pretty fun project. When I get the product here I’ll probably update the portfolio with it all proper.
Some Digi Painting from the Oregon Coast.
Was messing around with Procreate on the iPad while at the coast and started to get some interesting results.
Houdini Labs Updates
I dunno how I missed this video, but it’s the Side-Fx folks going over some new stuff in Labs. Lots of cool new nodes to play with. Just kinda messed around with this ugly thing to try out the new rope and edge wear nodes. I also finally updated to the newest Houdini and Redshift so I can start working with ACES colorspace more which is pretty interesting. Textures seem better without as much tweaking now, check out that floor.
I’ll probably be posting more Houdini links in the future so I can use the blog as a reference. My bookmark folder is a mess….
LIke all of 30 seconds went into this lovely image.
More teasers
Just some more teaser images for some stuff coming out soon.
Random Bevel in Houdini
Some things in Houdini are just stupid simple to do, this 1-minute tut from Simon Houdini is just pure gold. His whole channel is pure gold FWIW.
I never knew about the “Exclusions > Ignore Flat Edges” option in the PolyBevel node…. yeesh!
Teaser
Screen shot teaser image from a flip book of a animation I have been working on for a music video. I think it comes out in early September?
Doodles!
Some bends, vdbs and other such things in Houdini.
And for something a little different...
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.