Free Gnomon Fluid FX DVD's*

Free if you live in LA and want to pick them up at DD, ro arrange to make it ubber easy for me to ship them to you. I have 2 sets of 3 DVD's Fundamentals, Particle Integration, and Pyrotechnics (that I made years ago but still hold up for the most part) I also have a RigidBody Simulations for Visual Effects from the Kolektiv from 2002, that also has some neat tricks and worth a watch, hah considering those RBD's are still there in maya! Email me if you want them. Thats sort of a trick, whats my email? Not too hard to figure out, or you can find it for sure. Find it, guess it, email me and ask for them, (or linkedin message me) I'll update this post when they're gone.

Update: Gone.

CG Jobs are Hard :`(

This article is part of a growing sentiment in the vocal disgruntled CG artists, whom I want to give a general “fuck off” to. Pardon my French. http://goo.gl/BSWvJ and http://goo.gl/ralvJ
A lot of people come into this industry, with false/unrealistic expectations. They think they are going to be making explosions and animating lead characters, and having fun, yaaay! People are going to know their names and see them in the credits! Then it turns out to be hard work and competitive. Guys work hard but not enough work smart. They work tons of hours and a lot of people don’t get compensated for it, or rather didn’t in the early days. Companies pushed them for more and they just fold like a deck of cards then get mad that they got taken advantage of. They lash out by saying how hard this industry is and how many shit jobs there are. There are no shit jobs, just shit attitudes. I loved roto, and did it better than 99% of roto guys, why? b/c I studied the frames and found key frames in action to make the least number of keys in my rotos. Matchmover, I enjoyed that too, b/c I tried to get good, matchmove what others cannot, make clean plates that are next to impossible, use my artistic skill and push myself to be even better, faster. 3d Model clean up, I figured out how to write MEL that would automate what I could, tried to make tricks to clean up geo faster, researched other applications that can re-topo... its all what you make of it. Render rangler is one of the best jobs, you learn one of the most important things, how to trouble shoot render issues. Everything needs to be rendered, and you then become an expert at it, very valuable easy to move into other positions.
Long hours? sure. We had deadlines. I work my best at everything I was asked to do. When asked to do OT w/o pay I said I’m not available to work w/o OT pay. They said but we really need to get this done! I said yeah we do...(pause) they say, “ok fine!” then I’m like, “great lets do it!” Thats an example of push-pushback that everyone in every job needs to have. Don’t get pushed around, or when you see how you are being pushed around push back or quit. If you work hard and smart constantly trying, then you have real job security. Places you worked before will want you back, b/c you bring real value to the company. They make money off your talent = real job security.
I did and still do, go home at night and continue to test and push my FX and other CG knowledge further. Its never enough, there is no end, this is not a marathon! Its running from the “nothing” (never-ending story reference). All these people who bitch about how hard it is can go cry me a river. Work your ass off, and that’s not enough, but FUCK, you’re getting paid $100,000+/- fucking be worth it!!! Don’t cry, make your life better, work smarter, think and rethink how and what you are doing with your time. Or alternatively, leave this industry b/c its not for you (btw “games” is not another industry it’s just another format).
There are too many people already who don’t know what the hell their doing. It doesn’t take long to figure out who’s good and who’s a button pusher. Know how? It’s not 2 kinds of people, talent and button pushers, its people who never stop trying and people who do*

} //End Rant

* with the exception of super talented people who never need to try, I’m looking at you Ben Neall

Pulled the Trigger on Sandy Bridge

Upgrade time. Well time b/c my computer died, and the RMA process on a mother board is long and painful. Basically started buying new parts (geforce gtx465) to test if it was in fact the mobo that died, until I was like screw it. The Sandy Bridge, Core i7 2600k went on sale today. The K being the unlocked multiplier, but even still looks like a 20-25% gain on the core i7 920 I had/have. Not as exciting as if I'd waited until 3Q of this year but whatevs, need the new parts so got it.
If only it were that easy, get a new mobo and chip! Argh, I have 12 gigs of triple channel RAM, well guess what, triple channel isn't supported on the P67 platform, yaaaay. I guess the benefits were never shown for triple channel in real life tests.... aaanywho if you've even read this far I'm boring myself. So I got 16 gigs of DDR3 1600 dual channel RAM, and a 120gig SSD for the OS and apps. So all in all about 1.5 years later from my last computer build I spend another $1100 on my desktop. All on the hope that the power supply isn't the bad thing, oh god if it is I'll cry, then buy a new power supply.
I looked into a Dell but they are all, as expected, old PSU's and seem over priced. I do wish I had their support on my computer now but just can't bring myself to go that route. I'll probably go Mac... I keep saying that, if only for resale value, but never want to drop the actual initial money. Funny I hate spending a lot of money on that which I most.