Life comes in waves...

As I have noted in the past personally, life and all that it brings with it tends to come in waves.  Sometimes literally.

I will not say that I have had the worst time, or even a really bad time, but I have had better.  And all these not so great things (and the great as well) have just taken time away from what I have been wanting to do: 3D art.  So a (really) quick run down of all I've been doing and all that's happened.

I went to SIGGRAPH as a volunteer in Vancouver last August.  Great fun, lots of cool people, worth the trip, but I hurt my foot pretty bad.  Then, I freelanced for a while and did the whole "looking for work" thing.  I wanted to keep working on the current file on this blog, but I was waiting for the new free Renderman to come out so I waited and worked on other things.  I will post some of it in a little while.

After a while, the freelancing ended up getting put on hold as my wife and I decided it was time to move to save money.  After all, student loans are starting to come in.  So the moving process started, and we ended up with a new place just down the road that will save us a pretty bundle every month.  I started working on a new demo reel you can find on my website, and went to the SCAD career fair in Savannah, where hurt my foot... again.

There, I got to talk with some really awesome people from Floyd County, Method, Primal Screen, Turner, and more.  Despite my foot, I had a great time and got some leads out of it.  As a result, I started to learn 3DS Max as was recommended to me.  Maya isn't the only 3D software package out there, and several companies use 3DS Max instead.

As I'm doing this, my actual move takes place.  Stressful.  Things get lost/broken/whatever as always happens during a move.  About two weeks later, I finally get my computer running again but didn't have the time to keep learning things.  Finally, Renderman comes out, I manage to download it, but got too busy with unpacking and setting things up that I didn't have time to play with it yet.

That brings me to this month.  Let's see, I volunteered for the Atlanta Film Festival, and while I had a great time, one of the patrons outright stole my jacket (the only one I have that isn't falling apart), my sunglasses (the only ones I have that weren't stolen or lost), my earphones, my car keys, my copy of my wife's car keys, my apartment key, and my mailbox key.  About $700 of replacement in all, right after the move which cost more than we planned for.  So as I am recovering from the theft, we decide to plan a house-warming party to help give us incentive to finish unpacking so we can get back to job hunting/freelancing/artwork.  We buy some new Ikea furniture for the unpacking just as I come down with a cold.  Immediately after that, I hurt my foot again.  Immediately after that... the wave literally hits.  My upstairs neighbor decides to flood her apartment, my apartment, and the apartment beneath mine.  Things are still being worked out, walls and ceiling being torn down, carpets being dried and replaced... but the real torrent of water poured like an ice-bucket challenge from a garbage bin onto my entire entertainment set up.  TV and all.  So now I've been dealing with that.  Another $5,000 bill.  Still have to work things out with her insurance.

However, I am getting fed up with all these distractions, intentional or not, major or minor.  I need to get back into things, and so I am going to make myself work on both this Renderman file (the Starbucks scene) AND learning 3DS Max (which could lead to a job).  I am going to stop letting things get in my way, and just do it!

So like I said, busy, bad luck, but not the worst by far, just distracting and time consuming.  I will be back!

Returned from SIGGRAPH 2014

In order to keep everyone up-to-date, SIGGRAPH 2014 was a BLAST!  Vancouver is an amazing and beautiful city, and I must say dealing with Canadian airline security and customs was easier than dealing with USA security and customs.  (Also Canadian money is so pretty and colorful.)

Behold my fellow SVs!

While I was at SIGGRAPH, I helped out a lot with Studio, which is where cutting-edge applicable technology is showed off.  This is stuff like 3D printers, auto-stereoscopic (3D without glasses) displays, and various other technologies.  They had some really cool stuff this year, including a printer than could essentially print a relief on a 3D object.  Imagine printing a texture, like a snake skin or pattern, on the back of your phone cover, with a full color image.  That was the station I worked at, where the Roland printers could print on just about anything.  I ended up staying with them for several days helping them print on phone covers and more, and I even managed to get my own business card holder printed on with a texture.  It looks (and feels) great!

Definitely a technology I can see hitting it big in the near future.

When I wasn't helping out at SIGGRAPH, I managed to do a little site-seeing, and I've got to say Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities around.  I loved the view with the shore line, the water with the planes and cruise ships, the ocean liners in the distance, the beach and city beyond that, and the cloud-covered mountains in the back.  Not to mention the local sights, like the Steam Clock and Chinatown.  It was a blast.

Steam clock in the middle of Steamtown.

The one draw back to the week was an old foot injury started to act up, so if anyone saw a Student Volunteer walking around with a crutch, that was me.  Luckily it cleared up and I was able to walk, crutch-free, for the last 2 days.  I even managed to go on a studio crawl where I got to check out the actual studios for Sony Imageworks, Motion Picture Company (MPC), United Front Games, and East Side Games.  It was a great experience, and I got to talk to a lot of talented people.  I just wish it could have gone on longer.

Inside the convention center, the world was waiting.

Because of my injury, I didn't have the time to post more on this site, and I also noticed some of the posts I did make accidentally were posted on a different blog I run.  So I will re-post those, and apologize that I wasn't able to keep up with more posts during the week.

Every day was like this!

Luckily for me, the powers that be at SIGGRAPH have been working on ways people like me who have graduated and no longer able to be student volunteers will be able to continue to volunteer in the future.  I have to look into this and see what how it works, and I'll post anything I find out, but it is one of those things that only a select few will even be eligible for.  We'll see how it turns out.  Next year in L.A.!

Sweet Dream roomie...

I was also fortunate enough to be able to have several portfolio reviews with amazingly talented people from Dreamworks, Disney, and Blue Sky.  These guys were great, and I got some top-notch feedback for my portfolio.  I want to thank Josh Staub, Eldar Cholich, and Frankie Liu again for all the work they did to help us volunteers, and all of those who dedicated time, money, and talent (and anything else).

And on that note, I am currently working on a new series of projects.  These are going to be photographs (and possibly paintings) brought to life in 3D.  I am going to try to create everything from scratch, with a focus on the texturing and lighting.  I really want to push myself and learn some new stuff, and if I can, I hope to add some camera animation and possibly some particles and/or fluids for fun.  I will be starting this tomorrow, and I will be attempting to keep a DAILY BLOG on here (at least 4 times a week if not more) posting all my Work in Progress (WIP).  I will be starting this ASAP, and I want to push myself to see how fast and how detailed I can make these things.  I will really need to build an audience here as well to force myself to keep up with the work, as a way to help me with motivation.  I am eager to get started, and can't wait!  In the meantime, I have also been working on a new short film, called "H2O No!", but production is still early and slow, so I need these shorter faster projects to help me out now while we get the ball rolling on H2O No!.  I will also be posting work on my portfolio site, HixonArt, as well as other sites like CGSociety.

So stay tuned and tell your friends!  Let's get dangerous!

SIGGRAPH

Hi everyone!
It's been a little while, I know.  The long and the short of it is, I graduated Magna Cum Laude from SCAD Atlanta with a BFA in Animation and a minor in Technical Direction!  It feels great, but now I need to start getting out there and find a job!  Honestly, getting the degree was the easy part, getting the job is going to be hard.
One step I am taking toward my goal of working in the film or television industry is to attend SIGGRAPH this year, as I did last year.  Again, I was chosen to be a Student Volunteer, and I am very excited to have this chance.  I will chronicle my time in Vancouver at the conference here, as well as on my twitter account.
Other than that, I am starting a new film project.  Right now it is still in story development and preproduction, but the plan is to enter into production by the end of the summer.  The current working title is "H2O No!" (formerly Snack Attack).

I will be posting more on that project as things progress, and luckily we are getting support from SCAD to use their facilities.  There should be a blog set up soon for it.  I look forward to seeing everyone at SIGGRAPH, and please feel free to drop me a message.

New Year!

Hey all!  This will be a short post.
First, I wanted to say Happy New Year!  Also, This is my last year at SCAD, as I graduate in the spring quarter (if all goes well).  Now that it is getting down to it, it is time for me to get an internship, apprenticeship, and/or job out in the real world.  So I am going to be preparing a new portfolio site, and putting together the best work I can to show.  I am also going to be attending the various career fairs and other events.  I will also be attending SIGGRAPH this year.  I just submitted my application for a Team Leader position, so here's hoping it gets accepted!
This quarter is supposed to be easier on me, but helping so many other people with their films is proving to make up for the easier class-load and I am already staying up late on assignments and deadlines.  Oh well, back to the grindstone.
Check out my latest update on my senior film blog, Last Light.  Got some cool new stuff up there.  Sorry about having to password protect my animatic, from here on out it is going to be getting too close to the final and I need to keep it from the public so I can prepare for film festivals.
So stay tuned for more work!  I'll leave you with a Sub Surface Scattering test I just finished that I think came out pretty good.  Still needs work on the highlight and bump, but it is a good first step.

No SSS (sub-surface scatter), lambert.

Adjusted SSS

SIGGRAPH 2013, SV Dat 1, night

Well the first day is over, for volunteers that is.  For me, I had an early shift, which lasted several hours and involved lots of bag-stuffing, but I got to meet a lot of cool people, mostly fellow volunteers.  Later in the day, we had orientation and a tour.  Finally we had a special treat, where we got to listen to the stories of several industry professionals who told us about how they made it intothe industry   themselves.  It was really a great pep talk not just for the conference, but for our futures.  They talked about several topics I really care about, such as older students entering the field, and tips on networking, among other things.  A few lucky students walked away from the presentation with some cool prizes, like a computer and awesome graphics cards, but for me to hear the presentation and get their stories really excited me more than any graphics card would (although they were pretty sweet).  After that, we all posed for a group photo, even though it was starting to get dark out, and had free pizza and drinks afterwards.

But the best thing about today was getting to meet with and talk to so many talented and interesting people, all with similar passions.  Even though they aren't professionals yet, every one of these student volunteers could become a friend, a partner, a boss, or an important asset for networking.

For now, I'm off to bed.  I get the day off tomorrow and I don't want to miss anything the conference has to offer!