Houdini show camera frustum in view port

Happy I found this little nugget when I was scattering trees on the doodle from the other day. You can turn on and leave on the camera frustum in Houdini. Frustum is a fancy way of saying field of view or to dumb it down more, what the camera can see.

RMB click on the camera and click on “Frustum Handle“ (Or click F). Then RMB Camera again and hit the check box, “Persistent”.

VFX r u ok? Why It Feels Like the End of VFX

Interesting vid about the VFX industry and how it’s kinda limping along at the moment. I kinda consider danklife VFX adjacent as it’s VFX but for stills. A lot of this pertains to my day-to-day operations for sure.

“This video has been a long time coming. A year post strikes and our industry is still struggling to recover. Many of us are struggling to find work and make sense of everything going on. We've definitely been battling a lot of career anxiety lately...

We delve into the issues the industry had for years prior, and all of the current threats to our industry like strikes, tax credit reductions, the trend of downplaying CGI (No CGI) and AI.”

The Iron Claw

Watched this the other night and by the end of it I was utterly fascinated. What a crazy real life story about the Von Erich family called, “The Iron Claw“. Starts kinda slow but well worth a watch.

ASMP Calls Out Adobe for Its ‘Shocking Dismissal of Photography’

Yeah this is pretty awful of adobe. Plus, the AI functions are pretty garbage for anything above 2k.

“At the beginning of the month, PetaPixel reported that Adobe was running advertisements for its software on various social media platforms with the tagline “skip the photoshoot.”

The ASMP felt strongly about this statement — enough to write an open letter to the Silicon Valley software giant, calling them out for attacking the very creators it relies on.

“As one of the largest professional associations representing photographers and all visual creators, and as our 6,500 members well know, creating a career in photography is harder than ever, with the average photographer having to navigate stolen images, copyright infringement, broken business promises, and now, the specter of wholesale replacement of their art and craft by AI platforms,” ASMP Chair Gabriella Marks writes.

“But while fighting these battles on these multiple fronts, photographers would not have expected to have to defend themselves from attack by the company whose products are inseparable from the current and past toolbox of the professional photographer. Put simply, why, Adobe, would you dismiss and discount all that your most fervent and loyal customers aspire to?

“And this was an attack; an attack on the creativity of the photographer, on the skill and nuance they bring to the photoshoot, and the countless hours they spend preparing for, and working after the photoshoot you are so cavalier to simply throw away.”"

U.S. Calls for Breakup of Ticketmaster Owner

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! They have gotten away with too much crap for too long. Bring em down.

“In the lawsuit, which is joined by 29 states and the District of Columbia, the government accuses Live Nation of dominating the industry by locking venues into exclusive ticketing contracts, pressuring artists to use its services and threatening its rivals with financial retribution.

Those tactics, the government argues, have resulted in higher ticket prices for consumers and have stifled innovation and competition throughout the industry.

“It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster,” Merrick Garland, the attorney general, said in a statement announcing the suit, which is being filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.”

New Work in the Wild! Specialized

Looks like some more stuff we did is coming online at Specialized. Some lifestyle, some high end product, some have renders in them as well. Check it out and buy some nice bikes ;)

Houdini Doodle

Some more water explorations going on and playing with displacement.

North American purgatory, Glen Rubsamen

Very cool photography here by Glen Rubsamen. Sorry for the insta link, it’s all I can find. Might do some CG based on these…

Was the 401(k) a Mistake?

“The first generation to be fully reliant on 401(k) plans is now starting to retire. As that happens, it is becoming clear just how broken the system is.”

The amount of jobs I have had that even offered a 401k is like 20%.

Squarespace to Go Private in $6.9B All-Cash Transaction with Permira

Ah, crap….. and this is why we can’t have nice things.

Investor statement.

Hacker News discussion on it.

Private Equity has not completely killed bandcamp yet, so maybe it will be OK. But they are gonna wanna make back that, checks notes, 6 billion? WTF?! From the Hacker News discussions:

“I hear that PE destroys products and culture to make money at all costs, but i don’t get how that can net them back the >$6 billion they paid for a company with <$300 million yearly revenue and negative profit.”