Living the dream

SilverApples · 1 month

I'm not sure sure he knew that, I've been working my way through his Exegesis and that was written by a cat who def believed he had his radio tuned to planet X.

TexasFight · 2 months

from your lips to god's ears, brother :P

TexasFight · 2 months

Totally, I've looked at Blenders feature list and it is really impressive. I use Maya in my day job but I'm not impressed. After using max for over a decade I find there is just so much you either can't do (or can't do easily) in Maya or it just takes way longer. Also, it just isn't fun to use, which is important to me. I love doing CG but Maya fights you so much it gets annoying to work with.

TexasFight · 2 months

Oh man, yeah, I love love love the pirate ship ad they did. I can't see too many outfits going to Maxwell, the render times are just too long for film.

If you have to turn around a revision for dailies with the director the next morning and you're looking at 30 hours a frame... you'd get eaten for lunch. The results are gorgeous but there really isn't anything I see there that an experienced lighting and shading TD couldn't get in a different renderer in way less time.

TexasFight · 2 months

never used it, and I don't know of anyone doing film VFX in it but it's only a matter of time till it is used I think. Seen some great work done in Blender, Big Buck Bunny looked gorgeous for example.

TexasFight · 2 months

Great writeup! And yes, Nuke is amazing. I'm lucky in that I get to comp all my shots at my current gig and as a 3D guy being able to learn Nuke and use it in production is so much fun.

The maya=film, max=games thing used to be mostly true, but is really no longer valid. Large sequences in 2012 were done in max including all the wave sequences, whitehouse destruction and the limo portion of the LA destruction sequence (which included my shots), pixomondo and scanline are film shops and are going strong in LA and they are max houses. We did a chunk of Alice In Wonderland in Max and Vray at CafeFX and the same team and supes went on to do the bulk of Hugo in Max, for which they just won the oscar for best VFX.

Vray is making big inroads as well, DD used it for Tron, and quite a few shops in LA and NYC have or are in the process of converting. I work for a maya shop now that converted last year and it's been a great boon for us, much easier to get photoreal work out of it.

BTW, blurtools are a must-have for me and have been for a decade now. I loves me some Supernoise. They're (so far) recompiled for each new release of Max but no new dev has been done on them for a long time.

TexasFight · 2 months

I do VFX for film and TV. The biggies are Maya, 3DSMax, Nuke and Houndini. Mentalray, PRman and vray for rendering. Realflow or Naiad for fluids, waves, Massive for crowdsims, Zbrush or Mudbox for character dev work.

granolasmoke · 2 months

My girlfriend dragged me to yoga for the first time, telling me there are always other guys in the class. Turned out I was the only guy in the room in an upper east side gym in manhattan, just 6'3 of me and a room full of some of the most attractive girls I've ever seen and all of them in yoga pants.

I'm shy at the best of times and with the mirrors on every wall this on-paper "wonderful situation" was actually my worst nightmare. Everywhere you looked were firm bottoms and long legs and oh god just stare at the ceiling stare at the ceiling argh I'm falling over.

Have to say though, once we got rolling I had to focus so much on my poses and the fact I was sweating and really exhausted by the pace that the world shrunk to just me and my yoga mat and by the end of the session I was totally relaxed and happy and my girlfriend was beaming at me.

And that's how I came to love yoga :)

guitars4life6267 · 2 months

Perfect! You'll do great when the time comes. Freelance at first when you get to New York, lot of different studios in town and it's a great way to network.

You already know photoshop so I'd suggest cross training yourself in After Effects as well (and then Nuke if you really want to have super strong kung-fu), gives you way more options and there's a good demand for motion graphics peeps and compositors here.

Good luck and don't forget to join /r/NYC when you get here!

guitars4life6267 · 2 months

Can't help you with the $100k but just wanted to say your dream is totally possible. I moved to NYC on my last dollar two years ago, I have a job now at a studio as a designer doing TV commercials. Didn't happen overnight, in fact it took a lot of years of hard to work to get to this point, but it was totally fucking worth it. I am stupid-happy now.

Take a step, just do something each day towards that goal no matter how small, never compare yourself to others and don't let yourself get discouraged. You really can do it, start as an intern somewhere, anywhere no matter how small that does graphic design to get your foot in the door and take it from there. It took me a few years to work this out but, basically, the way to get the dream you want is to aim for it and start walking towards it.

ArthurQ · 2 months

I'm a bit late here, but I've been there too, dude. If you have a spare 6 minutes, take a listen to this lecture on the cosmos by Alan Watts, an englishman who became a zen buddhist back in the 50's and took up lecturing on the subject. Explains the concept behind zen in such a beautiful, elegant way. I listen to him whenever I let things get to me and it helps a lot.

the_codfather · 2 months

I love this, very very true. Thank you!

earslap · 2 months

absolutely love this! Bought the ipad app. Thank you!

barbieninja · 3 months

you have no idea how much this story brightened my day. Thanks!

superunhappyfuntime · 3 months

42 is the meaning of life according to the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy of course :D

Take a look at this project, they've observed something like what you've seen but over a global scale.

Friskyinthenight · 3 months

Would love to hear the other weird things too if you don't mind. You should also take a look at this subreddit for talking about experiences like yours.

whaddagoodgirl · 3 months

Could be Heart and Souls, there was a trolley/bus crash that was central to the plot.

take a look at these clips and see if it rings any bells

ScottishDerp · 3 months

There's a lot of cases of exactly this happening, here is a great documentary about one famous case - Documentary about a boy who remembers his past life

ScottishDerp · 3 months

One or two funny stories you can dismiss as exuberance. Many observations, as you have here, and there is now something in need of explanation! Cynicism becomes no longer scientific in the face of data.

Well said!

ScottishDerp · 3 months

there's plenty of evidence actually. Some of it quite stunning. There have been documented cases of children leading researchers to locations from their previous lives and even meeting people they knew and being able to tell them details they could not have known.

What blew my mind is that Carl Sagan himself, in his last book said - cautiously - that there is enough evidence in his mind to warrant further investigation into two fields of "paranormal" research. Namely the idea that human consciousness can influence the ability of computers to select purely random numbers, and that a serious study should be undertaken into the reality of reincarnation, calling them “examples of contentions that might be true."

*Edit: this is great too

OuterWorldly · 3 months

okay, I am down with the sentiment but spamming threads with this information (which is very nicely collected BTW) just turns people off to it and has the exact opposite effect to what you are intending.

superunhappyfuntime · 3 months

oh, she thought they were playing some kind of prank on her, she was very very weirded out by the whole thing and kind of lost it at that point

letjag · 3 months

Not to me, but to a friend of mine. He's in his 70's now. He's had a wildly varying life, done all sorts of things, and he gets pleasure from helping others. He's incredibly kind and wise, a truly good person. He's also tough as shit and hilarious and he passed through my life, or I passed through his, right when I needed help to get me through a rough patch after I'd manged to fuck up most of my life.

He sat up with me and we smoked hash and talked shit out, and he made a good case for me not being the evil piece of shit I had convinced myself I was.

I forget how it came up but he had helped someone out maybe 40 years ago, had said a kind word to a man starting out on his path towards being a musician. Decades later this guy had found success in his field, and gone on to do great things. He tracked my friend down and sent him a letter thanking him and told him that his encouragement had been the difference between him following his dream or not.

As he read the letter to me he broke down crying, it made him so happy and yet humbled him to know his act of kindness, so casual at the time could have made such a difference to someone.

The lesson was not lost on me and I have had more luck in my life since then than I deserve, so I pay if forward whenever I can.

sog_man · 3 months

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"*

*Affidavits and other on-record statements from witnesses such as former US presidents, military officers and enlisted men from all around the world, Astronauts who have walked on the moon, pilots, radar tapes, physical traces recovered from landing sites and the bodies of weirdly drained and mutilated cattle will not be accepted. Now please look into the pen I am holding up, citizen.

npoetsch · 3 months

understood, thanks for answering. Can I ask how recently it was discovered?

The thought of it, an entire colony breathing in perfect unison is quite awe-inspiring for some reason.

superunhappyfuntime

TROPHY CASE

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