Can you imagine if, starting in about 1930, since film had been around for a while already, anyone who decided to write about film and try to redefine it was shouted down? Continue reading “A Word on the Tech Industry’s Oppression Culture”
Published Unity Build System
I’ve published my simple Unity Build System to help support subsequent releases. You can check it out here.
Simply put: I’ve been using it internally to develop. And now that I’m about to publish things that depend on it, I need to publish it.
Mixed Reality and the OS
I’ve been doing a lot of coding and pontificating about mixed reality over the past six months or so. And my conclusion is that we’re converging on an obvious thing: A mixed reality Operating System (OS) environment.
That may not seem like any kind of huge logical jump. It may seem obvious. Perhaps you feel I just blurted something out that’s at least a year and a half behind the times. But I’ve gone into a bit more concrete detail than that. More later. Continue reading “Mixed Reality and the OS”
HTC Vive Early Cyclops Syndrome
This is just a PSA. Because by most accounts, the HTC Vive is really picking up adoption. And troubleshooting can be difficult because it’s new, and there isn’t much information out there.
The awkwardly wrong path of digital SLR as digital cinema
Last week, Scott Squires retweeted a link to a Digital SLR (DSLR) review for Digital Cinematographers and filmmakers.
The linked article eventually gets back to its source at 4K shooters.
I sort of went off. Not at Scott. Or at least not intentionally at Scott. But rather, at the whole of the Digital SLR Cinematography movement.
My general gist being:
Continue reading “The awkwardly wrong path of digital SLR as digital cinema”
Dear New York State, Film tax credits aren’t that simple
I submitted the following open letter in response to New York State’s call for public comment on its film tax credit program. I give permission to reproduce it in part or in full, so long as it is properly attributed, and not taken grossly out of context.
Continue reading “Dear New York State, Film tax credits aren’t that simple”
Dear Hollywood, you can’t fix the biz in post.
On March 12, 2014, The Wrap published an op/ed I penned. I am grateful that they provided me the opportunity reach a wide audience for a piece that’s meant for such a wide audience. Continue reading “Dear Hollywood, you can’t fix the biz in post.”
Dear Hollywood VFX, It’s over. We lost. Prove me wrong.
Do it. Prove me wrong. If you can.
Here’s the thing though. This isn’t a mathematical proof. You can’t prove me wrong with arguments made of words, math, logic and history. You can only prove me wrong with empirical evidence. You actually have to do what I’m saying cannot or will not be done. Then, you’ll have proved me wrong. But you won’t. Continue reading “Dear Hollywood VFX, It’s over. We lost. Prove me wrong.”
How to actually put VFX and animation into your film
The Visual Effects Society (of which I am a member) recently re-tweeted this article titled: “How to put VFX and animation into your film.”
Go ahead. Read it. I’ll wait.
Done? Good. Its’ wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. If you are a filmmaker, low-budget or otherwise, don’t even start thinking in the terms suggested by that article/post.
So why am I picking on some blogger? Well firstly, Farhan has published a book and seems to feel authoritative on the subject. Second, the VFX Society is retweeting it. But we in the VFX industry are already under assault. And it’s time we started taking this all more seriously. That got me thinking.
Continue reading “How to actually put VFX and animation into your film”
Separating Shading From Texturing
Texturing and modeling are now very much intertwined. One only needs to look at zBrush or Mudbox to see the reality of high density asset generation.
The secret to good photo-real rendering is in the math and science of the shader and how it renders.
The problem, is that most of the time, the person you want doing the modeling, is not the person you want doing the shading.
It makes no sense to disqualify an extremely talented asset artist because he/she doesn’t understand the intricacies of color gamut mapping, or the proper definition of a bi-directional reflectance distribution function (BRDF).