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Monday, October 20th, 2008
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3:00 am - the problem with being an aetheist
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is not only having nobody to blame for your problems, but having nobody to thank for your good fortunes. i guess all you can do is try to share the experience. so everyone, if you know your instincts are good, and everyone appears to you to be marching off a cliff, by all means dont follow them! then you will be experiencing the almost unbearable wave of schadenfreude that i am at the moment.
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| Sunday, June 29th, 2008
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5:59 pm - wall-e
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saw wall-e along with the rest. i guess this is another rave review too.
the first 3/4ths was some of the most dystopian social satire the unwitting public was duped into swallowing since at leas the matrix, possibly brazil, or thx 1138. being a pixar kiddie movie they have to pull all the punches at the end but the setup is so genuinely dark that it makes the pulled punches an honest releif.
and of course its perfectly animated and art directed and all the tie ins to apple product design were quite funny. there was even a bit of a spoof of apples own trend to computer-as-applience leading to less flexibility in end uses, vs the more UNIX like wall-e bot. see pixar is owned by apple. if anybody doesnt know that. hope im not being insulting to spell it out.
but of course since te mac shit runs on the unix kernel and has a standard CPU the wall e robot was able to hack the ipod drone just as real ipods and iphones are hacked. all this stuff happened wirelessly of course and they didn even attempt to translate it to english, thank god for that, so it reads as a silent movie. but at least the plot was rationalizable due to the holes they left in it.
if you really want to make shit up you can even cause the plot to make a LOT of sense, like the wall-e bots had to operate autonomously on eearth and gather random junk thus needed to be more than an appliance, wheeras the ipod drone was just sent to do a specific task and thus the ipod is a good way to do that. the computer science behind it seemed needlessly savvy but then thats why pixar is the best! they do more than they really have to. and it pays off. its not easy and thats why not everyone else can copy it.
they convert that computer science into a human style character interaction, its well done. like the mac vs pc ads with people in them you know? they even explain the cute name "wall-e" and you get to see a "wall-a wall-b and wall-c", i mean that kind of thought pays off for me in my enjoyment bigtime, vs something thats just putting images on a screen.
tho for the record i was also quite disturbed by the "beyond the ending" conclusion that the only survivors of the pending apocalypse will be 99% moneyed white people, even if they do make a lot of jokes at said peoples expense during the screen time. not just jokes but dead on and mean satire even. but still, they are all that survive. i mean i think its very honest about where its coming from and i think its stronger art for not diluting that vision. there aint no chinese majority in this future. its a critique of america by and for americans, focussed on the topic of the environment. they dont try to broaden it to include related topics and it shows a lot of restraint and skill in constructing a world where what they show is all that matters and serves fine to imply all the rest. like blade runner or something.
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| Thursday, September 13th, 2007
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8:00 pm - bad karma... (?)
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i killed a spider today. i feel bad, but i wish the spiders would just hide where i cant see them instead of building a web right in the sink. what, am i supposed to fucking relocate them so i can wash the dishes? ah well. sorry spider, better luck next life.
first i tried to just wash it down the drain with the vegetable sprayer, but it was right on the ledge and it crawled up and got stuck in the puddle of water. it stayed really still for like a minute and i thought maybe it just drowned? so i was looking for something to sweep it into the sink with, instead of spraying it more with the sprayer and making a bigger mess on the counter in addition to wasting more water, like its not bad enough that im KILLING something.. with the source of life itself, in overabundance.. the agony and irony, oh man. and then it started thrashing around like when the scary music suddenly comes on!!
so i reflexively squashed it with one of those somewhat stiff paper insert things that come in magazines and newspapers, about the size of a postcard. i never even look at what they are for, the function they are intended to fulfill is a mystery, its just something that falls on the floor unexpectedly when you pick up a paper and is usually immediately tossed. it was just the closest thing at hand which in a snap judgement seemed like it was disposable and suited to the task of squashing a wet spider. so thats a bit ironic, i guess i should thank the advertisers but its balled up in the trash with a dead spider in it so its gonna remain a mystery.
and all because i wanted to be responsible and wash the dishes. the road to hell really is paved with good intentions. so i'm not sure if that means the road to heaven is paved with bad intentions but our religious figureheads would seem to think so at least..
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| Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
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4:07 pm - the sky is failing!! the sky is failing!!
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does anybody remember what it was like to fly in the 1990s? you show up at the airport with no ticket, say can i get on the next plane, pay the same price you would had you booked 2 months in advance, and fucking went wherever with a minimum of hassle. maybe you didnt get the first flight so you'd get the next flight.
now i realize you were always SUPPOSED to show up early and shit, but other than for international flights i flew for YEARS showing up at the last second and not arranging anything in advance, with ZERO problems and tons of time saved. perhaps amazing luck but it seemed like really it was easiest that way. however, since this war-in-error bullshit and the new acronyms for airport security, you really DO have to show up at LEAST 2 hours before the flight and have everything super by the book and in order or you are just not going to get where you are going.
and even if you DO all that shit, they cancel your flight with no fucking reason given! WHAT THE FUCCCK. enemies of freedom, be they erroris or the powers behind the elected officials, have collectively KICKED OUR FUCKING ASSES. and i have no idea what to do about it other than bitch, which i really hate doing. any suggestions?
i've tried voting btw, it doesnt seem to be helping. i really cant recall being asked to vote for a single fucking stupid bullshit fake security measure that currently makes air travel a far inferior experience to what it was 5-10 years ago. nor do i really beleive it would have foiled the 9-11 plot had the measures been in place at the time, assuming that the plot was not an inside job, which is an assumption im on the fence about, in which case it DEFINITELY wouldnt have helped.
the erroris i beleive in would be smart enough to assume western aliases and not wear turbans, given the current climate of paranoia, if they decide they want to do something again. alternately security must have been almost unbeleivably bad before if the current humorously stupid measures are actually preventing further errori activity.
by the by i am altering a certain word in this post due to government screening procedures. i dont want to get on any more lists than i already am on! but i know they arent gonna actually read this shit. any human of average intelligence will know exactly what i mean.
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| Sunday, December 3rd, 2006
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3:59 am - another brilliant idea for someone else to implement
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religion is a set of laws, in practice, regardless of their excuses for them. so if you look at it that way its easy to say which of these laws would seem likely to result in good things (dont steal or whatever) vs. which of those are idiotic, like its ok to kill anyone and take their land if they dont go to our church..
then you could put the whole bible (koran, torah, etc.) in a spread sheet and see if the good really does outweigh the bad. the best religion could be decided on once and for all, numbers dont lie!!
that would actually be an extremely interesting project if one was bored enough. if anyone undertakes it, please just let me know the results..
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| Saturday, October 28th, 2006
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6:53 pm - i saw jandek!!
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i saw jandek last night! it was suprisingly accessible, and to me at least made total sense. the whole set was one story told through several sonngs in classic rock concept album fashion. the story was basically guy goes on a business trip or something and meets a new girl, leaves the old girl. my girlfriend said this is totally wrong though so its up for interpretation. anyways i thought the music was actually quite good, while keeping that jandeky flavor he definitely pulled it far back from his most punishing atonality. the bass player in particular, although i thought was a bit too loud in the mix sometimes, just laid down some solid funky grooves on a consistent beat, pretty much regardless of what anyone else was doing, which helped hold it all together well imo.
also there were not one but TWO girl singers who sang like the girl in the jandek "greatest hit" nancy sings, which is to say actually well and not at all outsider, except sometimes when they seemed to be doing bad jandek imitations but that was funny. they both had kind of a similar look but seemed cast for their parts in the drama, a slightly older and more worried looking one left back home, and a younger naughty-innocent one who does the stealing, on stage right, separated by the band. both girls had spotlights that would come on them when they were singing.. it was a tight, thought out show, in a very subtle way.. very theatrical and it made sense as the venue was actually normally a stage play theater. apparently its all new material at every show, honestly the jandek recordings are so many that i would unlikely know if it wasnt new material. but it seemed tailored very much around these 2 girls, to me at least.
also. ive never heard this before myself but maybe hes done it before, his guitar had that super reverb echo thing going on, as commonly heard in "surf rock" renditions of blue moon.. but off course all weird an off key and he wasnt playing anything like surf rock. i loved that sound. sometimes just one note would make me laugh out loud, it was so wrong.
anyways suprisingly good show, i didnt know what to expect but it was way more listenable than i thought it would be. jandek might be the devil also, watching how he strummed the guitar gave me the creepys 4 real. and i'm a creepy person by most standards so you know it was unsettling.
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| Friday, April 14th, 2006
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9:35 pm - lattice of coincidence part a zillion
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context, i'm going to new york next week, i'm bored, i go for a walk. i saw a guy wearing an i love NY t-shirt and a car stereo playing loudly enough that i could clearly hear the words "old school brooklyn shit is still the best", and i dont know if this is life affirming or not but this somewhat cracked out seeming guy on the street walked up to me and basically echoed my own life philosophy to me in more cracked out terms.. i thought he wanted to steal my camera but he turned out to be real cool. im taking a picture of a funny poster and he's walking by, stops, he was sort of a big black guy, yknow, and hes like IS THAT A DIGITAL CAMERA. i'm off the side street, theres nobody around. and i recently had my phone stolen by one of these guys, but i'm like, uhhh.. yeah? and he was like COOL YOU CAN POST THAT TO YOUR BLOG and went off on this rant about interconnectedness and how this is it, its really happening NOW, BECAUSE OF THE INTERNET, its happening TO US NOW. and i think he's right, its one of my own pet theories that the internet is a karmic vector which will allow shit to reach critical mass in some way that has not been previously an option in our history as a species and cause.. something.. to happen.. and i think its kinda nifty i happen to be here right now while its happening..
so to me it actually made sense although he had that crazy vibe. its a bit scary if crazy people start really making sense, like, why are you the smartest person i've talked to in months, and you are homeless.. but the experts all agree, its for real.
then on the way back home about 34 more amazing and inconsequential little things happened.. THE GUY IS RIGHT.
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| Thursday, April 6th, 2006
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10:47 pm - i need these
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| Thursday, March 23rd, 2006
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9:52 pm - metaphor
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i finally thought of a good metaphor to explain my situation.. i've been trying to come up with one for like a month.
so imagine for whatever reason you feel compelled to start walking out on this tightrope that stretches into infinite blackness, over an equally black void. you think you are a pretty good tightrope walker and it seems like fun, so you let some people know you are gonna head off and do this, and off you go.. people fly up on hover platforms to bring you food and you maintain a livejournal with your wearable computer. (this is in the future or some shit). after about 20 years of doing this somebody hovers up next to you and asks you how you are doing. you stand there on this tightrope and say.. well, i guess i'm doing pretty good because i havent fallen off this tightrope yet, and my live 24/7 tightrope webcam gets enough hits for the advertising traffic to pay for mylackey to bring me food and clean clothes on these new hover platforms theye came out with in 2020, but on the other hand, i've gone way too far to go back and theres still no end in sight and i have to balance on this fucking tightrope 24/7. but on the other hand i'm basically used to it.
i bet theres some term to explain this condition that wise philosophers thought of. im not feeling creative enough to make on up right now.. but, the state of living in an extremely difficult situation, but its routine. like being on a space station for a year. it is a condition of being thats kind of its own thing.. blah. anyways at least i got a metaphor now.
so there ya go.
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| Friday, March 17th, 2006
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8:12 pm - todays lesson in applied karma
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so i had just run out of (benign illegal substance), and my employer at my telecommuting gig was not online to get feedback on my latest animation masterpiece. i'd already masturbated and had basically nothing i had to do, so i figured i should go for a walk, as almost any sort of action almost invariably causes something else to happen.
so i'm out for a walk, about halfway to wherever it is i'm going, i decide to take a left and head into the hood and look for some lunch, instead of going to the hipster capitol hill side i would normally head towards..i start seeing some sketchy people that remind me of baltimore. just then my drug dealer calls to let me know he's home so i decide to head back to my car and drive over there, also he wants to do some tests on his green screen, independantly of buying drugs we are working on a music video for his band involving some green screen shooting and all the materials have finally arrived so we can do our first test shoot.. the day is coming together.
i decide to try to make a game out of avoiding any sketchy person or scary loose pit bulls i see on the streets ahead of me, while heading in the direction of home. so i wind up making a number of unusual turns and find myself walking down an alley a few blocks from my house. i like the alleys in my neighborhood a lot but i've never gone down this particular one before.
as i'm walking down this alley, i see an attractive girl, not actually my type per se but the sort of person anybody would say is good looking, in typical capitol hill hipster attire, but not too over the top, you know, like they could be a real person, taking a photo of something against a dumpster. as i get closer i see its a photo of a toy shark eating a mannequin, a pretty funny picture.
for whatever reason it seems like a good idea to ask if i can take her picture taking a picture of the other picture, since i have my camera with me.i'm not the sort of person who usually talks to strangers, also i'm intimidated by hot girls, if i dont already know them from the internet first, so its sort of a wacky thing for me to do. but, i think just the nature of the image, suggests that she's the sort of person who would be open to a person like myself talking to her about what she is doing. also its a pretty small alley and theres nobody else around, basically no way i can walk past and not acknowledge what she is doing without just being totally lame in a way that i'd rather not be..
anyways we have some sort of conversation and she seems pretty friendly, aparently the pictures are for some sort of theme party where people have to give presentations about some sort of topic, and her topic is a fake product pitch for a gun that can shoot household flies and spiders, and as part of the intro will be a slide show featuring shots of various dangerous animals. makes sense. we notice that we are both wearing hipster retro kangaroo sneakers and some sort of artistically frayed hoodies under our jackets. i pose for a couple shots as a terrified person running away from a scary thing, its fun and sort of straight out of a cheesy indie romantic comedy meet-cute.. she asks how long i've been in the area, and we begin to converse in more general terms, although i have a hard time reading people, or a hard time trusting my read on people, it seems like we are getting along pretty well, ya know? the issue of whether either of us is in a relationship hasnt come up, but.. you know. if i was single i'd be pretty excited.
so i start to feel a little bit uncomfortable and make a bit of a lame exit, cleverly dont actually ask where the party is or give her any info whereby she could contact me.. really, i have a girlfriend, why do i need to talk to anyone else, its just asking for trouble.
but, i do have the picture of her taking a picture, and it was more interesting than just staying at home doing nothing would have been. so yay. and more importantly than feeling like a pretty girl wasnt repulsed by me and getting a funny picture, was the damn green screen is finally here and i got some great test footage of a guy that happened to be over at the dude's place for other reasons playing some sweet acoustic guitar music against the screen that i can play with for weeks to come.. so action brings good fortune once again.
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| Thursday, March 2nd, 2006
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4:21 pm - work and life are the same thing part 2
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this is crossposted from a cg graphics forum that i frequent, which is full of knowledgeable people who work at all sorts of big studios, as well as hobbyists, students, and lesser pros like myself. i recently posted there about the experience of quitting a project, because restrictions which were not in the original spec were progressively introduced, causing extensive revisions that i felt would have been avoided had i been properly breifed, and ultimately causing the final quality desired for the project to be so low, i frankly did not have interest in creating it.
there was quite an unexpected, to me, backlash on the forum. basically people were like, suck it up, and its unprofessional to talk about stuff like this in the forum, you are stupid for quitting and leaving the money, were the common responses.. so this was my response. i dont know if you need that context, in fact it may be better without it. but there you have it.
well, i got an extremely nice, and considerate email from the client, explaining that the project manager had been so impressed by the quality of the original animations i turned in, far exceeding what they had been envisioning, that they re did their code to remove the arbitrary limits i had been running up against, and that we could go back to my original proposed specification for the render. they even included a screen shot of the engine running with the original footage to prove to me it worked, and said they appreciated the work i had done so far and that they still wanted me to stay on the project. i am honestly touched. so, i guess i am back on the job. maybe the moral is sometimes you have to play hard ball. i mean i didnt tell the guy to **** off or anything, i tried to explain things as clearly and dispassionately as i could. in fact i sent a similar diagram to the one that i had posted here previously as part of my resignation letter, but with the actual art for the project, as a visual aid illustrating exactly why i had a problem with how the project had unfolded. so maybe that was actually helpfull and was a factor in their decision..
its pretty interesting that the actual client in this situation was way nicer to me than totally random people on cg talk who you'd think are in the same boat as i am being production artists that get jerked around in this sort of fashion that lead to my initially quitting this job, apparently as a matter of course from many of the replies. does everyone just want to look good for any potential employers that may be browsing the threads, look really obedient? theres nothing you can possibly do about it, so just smile? i guess thats one way of looking at it..
but you know, i looked at it differently. *cue the patriotic music* i actually stood up for the quality of work and put what little artistic integrity i have ahead of a paycheck, i said to myself, self, i might have low standards, i might be working on a contract for a casual web game for a tiny company nobodys heard of, even if i did mention it by name, which i still have not out of professionalism. for $4000 bucks, which is not that much money in the first place, especially since its over a months work that i'll be doing all myself, and with the way these guys run the project its not going to finish in the original schedule and i will never get any more money even if it takes all year, and when you freelance you have to pay all your own bills, insurance, etc...
yeah i said to myself, i might be doing this little gig instead of working at pixar on the best and most beloved computer animated entertainment properties of all time, at presumably a stable upper middle class salaried income with benefits, and the best resources in the world trying to make the art look as good as possible. no , i understand thats not how life is going to work out for me, i already had my post-college round of interviews with all the big effects houses, including pixar and ILM, (is digital domain still kicking?), and didnt make the cut, probably i was just too weird, and i was too vocal about being interested in a wide variety of roles and getting bored having to do the same thing over and over and over.. so maybe its for the best that i'm not working in that sort of shop after all cause thats the truth... and certainly none of the work i have done since then is the sort of thing that would get that door open again on pure star quality, like say meats meier.. and.. who else.. haha. there must be someone..
so anyways if i said to myself, if i seriously want to make a living at 3d graphics, didnt make it into the film biz, am not personally famous, cannot stand the thought of working full time in a game assembly line any longer, and feel guilty about ripping off talentless saps at a diploma mill "cg school" who beleive a lot of hype about job placement and bet their life savings on an expensive school and have no hope of getting a job but cant be told that or they will quit and the school looses a customer, my options are limited to smaller low paying low profile jobs random jobs, contracts on tv commercials, independant music videos, web games, and that kind of thing.
the point is its not exactly state of the art graphics that are the envy of all the world, the stuff of modern mythology, etc, even though i work just as hard in my own smaller productions as any individual at pixar does, and i like to think i'm almost as talented as the worst person at pixar in any given discipline, theres only so much one person can hope to accomplish and learn about the vast field of cg, and no one person will never be able to produce imagery on any scale which will top the efforts of huge teams of badass ninjas, even if that person is themselves moderately talented.. and im ok with that. i will not stop doing cg as my life's work because of this fact, i told myself.
and (i continued on) not only can i not create the utmost quality results on my own, its extremely unlikely that i could ever get the resources of a pixar at my own disposal to create my ideas. so even in my own eyes my work will be substandard in execution versus my goal for it, which is the ultimate possible quality, simply due to the fact that i dont have time or talent to utterly master every single little facet that goes into creating a final rendered animation of the quality of the top hollywood teams, and for that matter i dont think its humanly possible to do so even if it was asked of me and i was given a trillion dollars to get me excited about the project. but, i will still keep doing what i can, i can live with this, its no reason to quit the game. might be in the minor leagues but i can still swing a bat, its cool. still feels good to hit a home run.
and i said to myself, yeah, i understand i'm lucky to get any work i can considering the circumstances, the fact that i've worked steadily for over 2 years now as a freelancer is apparently dumb luck since i dont know the first thing about how to conduct myself professionally, as is the previous 8 years of work i did full time doing 3d graphics in the game industry, print, and TV advertising. because for one thing i never worked on a hollywood feature film, so i clearly am not all that, and for another thing i did from time to time during this entire period voice my opinion as to the negative attributes of factors pertaining to me creating the art as well as i could and as effectively as possible within a fixed time and budget, issues such as technical constraints or cumbersome pipelines which were beyond my personal control as the production artist but which placed unwanted restrictions on that task, and thats apparently a huge faux pas. well, i dont think thats enough to stop me either.
the fact that i have only been fired from one job, which i hated and directly asked to be fired from as opposed to quitting so that i could collect unemployment, and they just happen to fire me right before a huge milestone was due and couldnt find anyone else who could do it on their schedule (part of why i quit), so they hired me back as a contractor at 3 times as much money as i'd made on salary to finish the project, which was then immediately cancelled leading to the closure of the company (another part of why i quit, i saw that coming a little bit in advance and decided not to ride the roller coaster all the way till they were reposessing the office furniture), then i got to collect unemployment for a year for being fired, was a devastating setback to me, i do regret having been fired from any job, especially since its so hard to get fired once you are on staff. but one little setback like 3 years of work, unpaid overtime and endless crunch times re doing the same work over and over caused by endlessly revising schedules and technologies, all of it being totally wasted in the end on product that would have been mediocre at best even if it had shipped due to the design, art direction, and engine limits.. but certainly its no reason to give up the whole 3d thing. you have to be tough.. even mohammad ali lost a fight sometimes. you cant be a quitter. dont whine, suck it up. be a man.
and i said to myself, self, be honest about this point especially because its not a pretty one, and we have to be brave. often the quality i am looking to deliver is far greater than what these clients even care about, least of all have any interest in paying for, and they dont really appreciate all the work i put into it or how much i do beyond whats expected. they would be happy with some total crap at a cut rate price and they have to be convinced that by hiring you its worth the bit extra they pay vs. some kid right out of a diploma mill. so i often make jobs far harder than they have to be, just so i can personally feel i did my best, do that little extra that wasnt asked for but i just know they client will love... yet often that effort is downright disrespected if for some other reason that i was often never told about in the first place, the client feels its not what they wanted.
thats all fine. as everyone keeps saying, thats life in the biz, it always has been that way, it probably will continue on. get tough or get out. thats fine. i think i'm pretty tough, at least as much as a willingness to create art in all sorts of circumstances for all sorts of clients and making them all happy with the work at the end of the day can make one tough and able to put aside matters of personal taste when working professionally.
but i said to my self, there is a line of quality i will not go below any more, even if requested to. its not something i want to have in my life any more. and this project just crossed that line. i will not make art that i dont think can possibly possibly look halfway decent. just cant do it any more. i'd rather just work on my own projects and not get paid and be happy with myself as a person and an artist. if i absolutely have to i will find some other source of income to make ends meet while i do this, because i add more value to myself by creating good art that i willl have forever, than creating bad art that i get paid a bit for now. although doing CG is the only job i've yet had, and has financed my entire life, and theres nothing else i have any interest in, i'll rake leaves or something if i have to. its an investment in myself that i have to justify, if my art isnt worth taking my own time to make, how can i hope for anything to come of it. if my time isnt worth enough to myself to not spend it, and creative energy, working around arbitrary limits that mean i cant possibly make a result i would be proud of, i realized thas a problem, that means i have no self respect. but i do!
and i thought it would be hard for the client to understand all this, if they couldnt see how much the quality of the art was being killed by all these new requirements. so i made that diagram. and i said to the client, no, i thougth about it, this goes below a line i will not cross, here is the line, here is a very clear visual aid...
and i won? they just fixed all their shit cause they liked my art so much? i'll beleive it tomorrow. i thought this only happened in the movies. the old movies.
*partriotic music swells to a crescendo, then comes to a screeching halt*
on the downside, i really feel like the cg talk community is not a friendly shoulder to turn to in times of cg-related distress! yes, to be honest i was hoping for a bit of sympathy, maybe somebody else saying, yeah, i feel your pain man, thats tough. sorry if any sign of human weakness cannot be tolerated in this dog eat dog "professional" atmosphere. toilbot 900 reporting for duty sir. reduce the quality again? how much sir. you dont know how much? no sir, i am not being impudent. i forgot about the no questions rule, i'll get right to work on it.
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9:28 am - my life as a dog
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long time no update, but heres my life story as an artist.
Projects that were successses- i.e. Accomplished goals, released to the public, shipped.
Listed in order of magnitude:
all personal work is a success. Especially asa nisi masa. The new theory of everything project is shaping up nicely as well :) call me arrogant but even if it sucked i have learned somethnig from everything i did, and any time i put pen to paper of my own volition i have usually had an idea that i was pleased to see the actual result of.
asheron's call 1 1996-1999. crazy ambitious garage startup makes good, ships after 5 years, wins numerous game of the year awards, spawns a sequel and a hit game company now making dungeons and dragons AND lord of the rings games, goes from us paying for rent for an apartment to use as an office to paying for my first (and so far only) porsche 911. Nuff said. Only problem is its a nerdy role playing game and i think most of the people who get addicted to it are even creepier than i am. And then i have to work on the sequel. 5 more years of cribbing designs from d&d manual reference provided by the “game designers”. no. ironically turbine is now making an actually D & D licensed game.
Bonbon project 2003- in vietnam. This was an in house project that did not live up to its original scope. But it did make the quality bar, which i felt was more important, as the only point of the project was to establish that fanantic could do high quality short form work, not long mediocre work. The project helped launch the company, which is still in business today 2 years later as of this writing, and taught me many invaluable lessons about high end 3d character production in addition to being a proud addition to my portfolio. Living in vietnam was also an amazing experience that i am profoundly gratefull my ability as a 3d animator has afforded me, and in return my ability is much greater as a result of this project. This put me on the road to feeling competent with rendered 3d again after years of realtime games work. I got in way over my head out of ignorance, and managed not to drown, pretty much every single thing in the project aside from the character animation keyframing, was a new process i taught myself during production, with very few resources available besides the cgtalk forums. I remembered that i am a fucking ninja, and regained the fire of working very hard on a project, in a way that i had not since asa nisi masa. the project itself was a fairly random and disconnected snipped that isnt very compelling, unfortunately, although it looks pretty and serves as a good demo of mastery of 3d technique. pay was shit by US standards but very good locally. costs of living in VN are very different so its hard to compare exactly.
tv commercials/projects at toan viet and fanatic 2003. These all went well but ultimately i find them boring, not the sort of thing anybody including me would want to watch. I did learn a lot about high end rendering techniques, compositing, etc, and in that sense it was an excellent experience. Most of what i worked on was used. The quality was high, however I did not get to do as much interesting modelling, animation, etc, as i wanted to, after the nth flying logo it was too much. The pace of work requested was inhuman, and r and d was scheduled as paralell with production, even when that was actually impossible and caused me to work many long nights re doing stuff that should have been figured out in advance, under schedules that were tight to begin with. That was very frustrating and stressfull. I would up getting very ill from the stress at one point, and having to go to the hospital, which aturned out to be way nicer than most american hospitals, and almost as expensive. also although my boss and i both had higher standards than the market itself, it began to affect my asthetics as an artist in ways i did not think were good. I was also getting homesick for the states by this time and i had fallen in love with my current girlfriend, on the internet and was eager to meet her. Paid mediocre, and did not pay for housing or my plane ticket for vacation to america, which cost a months salary, also i fell in love with my girlfriend again in real life and have found freelancing work in the US, so i never went back.
Puma messenger intro 2004- another project that didnt meet the original scope, but still came out well. However, all we got done was one shot out of 5 proposed, and 3 we did serious work on, not that great. That shot is pretty cool though. A product that was released to the public, won some awards, but very low visibility niche (bicycle short film). Living in new york during the production sucked shit but made for great stories i can tell my grand kids. Hospitals in ny are way worse than vietnam, i can unfortunately say from experience.
Artmachine 2005 renders- these were used prominently in game packaging. Client was only marginally annoying, but ultimately tried to cut me out of the loop and go directly to my cowerker. No more work forthcoming yet but i would work with these guys again. Easy and satisfying work, ultimately inconsequential, and they take 5 months to pay mediocrely.
Truemax. 2003 Taugh a maya class. Learned that for profit non accredited maya schools are a scam and that i am not a good teacher for poor students, but i am a good teacher for good students. Got do do some good work as a class example and helped at least one student get a good job in the 3d field and caused at least one bad student to quit and save their money for something they wouldnt waste it on. Lived in denmark which was a very cool life experience. Pay was good by vietnamese standards, poor by US. i had to bring in legal action and contact the US consulate to get paid.
Dentsu 2003 job- this was pretty funny and it was fun to work with bobo, the TVC aired and paid very well, but i dont actually have a copy of it which sucks. Got hugely overpaid by local standards immediately in a huge wad of cash. ($2000 in vietnamese money is .. a LOT. The biggest bill is worth about $4..)
klingon honor guard 1997 (this was a lame game but it shipped and absolutely all of the art i made for the project was included in the shipped game, which is the only time thats happened.). Got paid well by my standards at the time, it was cool to work on a shipped game at 19 yrs old while at school and i was able to afford a car in college, which i would not have without money from this job, which made life a lot nicer in general. Also the experience helped me get in with turbine games and helped turbine games immensely as i was the only source of first hand game development knowledge and practices for the first year or so, at the time you couldnt simply buy a book about it on amazon.
Every little thing video 2004- came out, apparently the band is moderately succesfull. horrible pay but good exposure. I like the idea of it, but the actual art i am not proud of. Due to the art direciton and a very rushed schedule.
casual games 2003- candy crisis, inspector parker. These shipped and i made most of the art for them with minimal revision. Managed to create concepts that pleased a client and audience well out of my “comfort zone”, i am proud of that. On the other hand they were small and inconsequential projects that i learned nothing from as an artist except that i dont like making icons, REALLY, and how drunk i can be and still make icons. My first experience with telecommuting, i learned i have the work ethic required to make myself do a job i hate, and do it well, even in my own home with nobody standing over my shoulder. I learned i dont want to do that any more than i have to, either. paid well, plenty to live on.
Ac2. 1999 I did a lot of work on pre production for this game, but not much of that work made it into the game. However the pre production work helped turbine get the deal to make the game, which was not a fore gone conclusion by any means. The game shipped and did mediocre, but i was not involved in the actual production. By this time turbine was a large and well funded, if not 100% set for the future, company, i realized how bored i was doing a sequel, and that i had a steady gig at turbine making assets for fantasy style role playing games that i would be able to keep for the rest of my life, but that i would probably not be given permission to be the art director of the studio due to politics, no matter how long i worked there. we were all getting paid real salaries, and I was making money faster than i could spend it on my flashy car that i got to drive once a week and spending most of my time in meetings and i hated it. So i learned i am more interested in startups or small companies, and in gigs which dont place me in a position of managerial responsibility or writing a lot of documents. Which i confirmed at my next job.
Turbine demo 1998- tied in to the ac2 work but not directly for that project, we made a standalone demo which helped get the ac2, d&d, and lotr deals. In that sense it was a success but its not a product that was released to the public. I proved to myself how productive a small team of very good people can be if managed properly. I hired bobo do, ron winter, and sean koriakin, to work directly for me on this project as interns, instead of using the turbine staff artists, who i was very dissatisfied with, and the 4 of us made a better project with more art assets in a month than the entire 10 personan art team including me working under direction from someone else, had accomplished in several months. In that sense the project was a great success, and i am still friends with bobo, ron, and sean, they are all still professional 3d artists, and we continue to work together on freelancing projects when we get the chance. Also through bobo i went to vietnam and had many life experiences that have been amazing besides that.
Pillsbury doughboy/olive jar studios work 1998. None of this work was on projects that came out, but they did get a pillsbury ad from a spec test that i did. I learned that i dont like softimage or SGIs (all gone now), and it gave me experience with the world of TV advertising and high end compositing, which later lead to my decision to go to vietnam and work for fanatic, so in that sense it was good. Pay was terrible, deadlines impossible. Olive jar stayed in business by hiring new students from RISD every year very cheaply and working them to exhaustion. The guys running the studio were driving new BMWs however. after getting a few commercials done everyone i knew from school who was working along side me like the 13th grade left for other jobs. I had the option open to return to a now well paying and relatively unsterssfull games job at turbine so i did as well. They are out of business now and they were evil. The good thing is you got a lot of work done fast and if you had skill and drive to learn and work at the same time, you could learn some. Also the work itself looked ok.
Phil steinmeyer game preproduction. I didnt do any work on the production of the game itself, but the project taught me some about team management and i managed to make some decent art despite the nature of the game. Art i supervised was used as the concept direction for the final game, he hired a cheaper artist to copy the design. Smart business. By this point i realized i hate making icon art anyways, so i didnt cry much.
Happypcorp project- these came out, but are for a weird specialty audience nobody really cares about. The work is very high end and i learned a lot about dealing with high res and large files, but happycorp was very difficult to work with and i feel a lot of time, energy, and work i put into the project was completely wasted. What work was finished is ok but very boring to watch, the designs dont interest me at all, just the challenge. Pay was prompt and would have been fair if the work contracted had been the work delivered after client requests, which it wasnt at all. Learned a lot about ways freelancing can suck just as bad as full time jobs, when the client does not really care about the deadline but does care about the budget and stretches what seemed like a promising gig into months and months of revisions for reasons they should have told me in the first place. Made me hate life while i was working on it, but i think it looks very professional and i learned a lot about 3d which i've applied to personal work.
Failures: in order of magnitude, greatest first again.
Escape factory- the entire experience was a huge failure in every way but financial. I learned that working on proects i dont believe in leads to mediocrity in my own work, and that no amount of money is enough to make me be happy when i am forced to work as hard on something i think sucks and will fail, as i would on something i enjoyed. The job combined the worst aspects of both a startup and a large stuffy beuracracy such as microsoft. I worked for 2 years, on 3 projects, in a very highly involved lead capacity. All the projects flopped and the company went out of business after i quit. It did pay really well and finannce a year long vacation where i lived out a lot of fantasies, so that was cool, but it soured my attitude on commercial work and burned me out on the game industry in ways that still remain. I learned that money cant buy me love or make me happy if i have to spend all my time working on something i know is a waste of time anyways, now if i have more than the minimum i need to survive and the free time to enjoy it i am happy, so thats a good break through i think, although it hurt to learn it. Learned i like seattle, as a place to live. I learned that you can survive after failing and live to try again another day, that its not the end of the world. That sometimes its better to run away then to hold em. Lot of stuff like that.
3d battletech game. The first project i ever worked on, got cancelled. Maybe i should have taken it as a sign. I only interned for a summer doing texture maps. First game job, started me on professional 3d art, yay, but in the game industry, boo. This might have ruined my life. :) i learned i have a capacity to whore myself out creatively and please clients, that i had not explored previously as an artist, and that there was good money in 3d.
outland- sega mmp game. I was sort of lead artist on this, it got cancelled for technical reasons with the dreamcast, but honestly i dont think the art direction was compelling enough to the target audience to make people fight for the project, in retrospect. Still, had the tech gone smoothly, the project would have shipped. I learned i am not good at convincing people of my side of an argument. I learned that working with your girlfriend is not a good idea.
Frontier- sci fi mmp concept. This was the brainchild of the art director, never found a publisher, and development was cancelled on it after he quit. I worked very hard and put a lot of myself into both ouland and frontier, as far as trying to be involved in and learn about the entire dev process and how to manage an art team, work with programmers to develop engines, also in terms of making art, and have very little i deem suitable to even show for it, as most of it was very dating looking game art that i often thought was not a great art direction to start with, or writing specs, some test for an engine feature that was never for a real project in the first place, etc. on the other hand turbine is still in business.
zensoft studios- stupid stillborn game that was never going to come out, but since i knew that from the beginning i did the minimum possible and had very low stress. Mediocre pay but good considering. Didnt get to make very good art for it but i will re use the assets if possible. The art style itself was pseudo japanese, which i like, and can do easily, so that further minimized the stress and was even kind of fun.
Us army sim- made assets for the us army. Nuff said. Project shipped. Paid amazing. Dirty dirty money, i spent it all on drugs.
Fanatic- the over all project i came over to do did not come out at all, although i did finish a little bit of it to very high quality. My boss got fired and it got put on hold forever after that. I worked on another very low end tvc that i hated after that, although it came out, and started on an even worse one. i realized i had to get out of there and the dentsu gig came through so i took it.
Neutral- things that were neither a loss nor a win. most student work. Work done for assignments in art classes, that is to say, not all the work i did WHILE a student, which was often personal or for money as well. I learned from it but it was usually some weird exercise a teacher thought of, and thus in a sense like commercial work. In that sense i learned about working with clients as well. The work itself is mostly silly student exercises i dont really havea use for or strong feelings about.
Some of my more lame personal work i guess, stuff i throw away. Heh.
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| Saturday, October 29th, 2005
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2:17 am - and then there are those people i just feel sorry for
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if you think blaming me for the problems you are having now, is really going to help those problems, you have way bigger problems then the problems you are aware of. while i might have been a brick in the wall, i was hardly the foundation, or the last straw. for my part, i am sorry, but trying to pin all your troubles on me, is insane, especially in light of other events that happened which i had absolutely nothing to do with and could in no conceivable way be connected to. you know who you are and what i am talking about. sorry about that. if it makes you happy, you messed up my nice evening at home with my gf :) :) and seriously i wish you guys the best of luck, i hope you all get happy so you stop blaming me for your own bullshit. while i might well have introduced your fiancee to the drugs she got addicted to, by way of mentioning that they exist, i never encouraged her to take them, i dont take them myself, i've never had anything to do with them. its not exactly a secret, they are sold over the counter.
if anybody was ever critical of her obsession with trying to lose weight, it was me. it was one of the things i found really frustrating about her, that an actual guy, could be standing right there, telling her how hot she was, and she'd just be all "i'm so fat". i mean, that doesnt make it seem like my opinion counts for much, so how could it be so influential in the other direction, that just by mentioning the existence of something, i could be blamed for someone going on to abuse them? totally without me knowing anything about it untill right now by the way, its not as if i was egging her on, and in fact its kind of a shock and i'm very sorry to hear about it. if you are reading this- don't do that shit. i never said it was a good idea.
as to the issue that if my car being stored at her parents house, where i gather she still lives, and you plan to move in once you get married, is going to be the make-or-break to you guys having a succesfull relationship- i think the absurdity of that statement needs no rejoinder. its christine!! some serious advice: i would make the first priority to be to find a place for you guys to live, away from her parents. no offense to her parents, but i dont think its a very good place to be living, nobody could be blamed for being unhappy about things in that situation. then the issue of where my car is stored would be moot!
her father, who i beleive owns the place, likes the car, and likes having it there. last time i talked to him he said he actually wanted to buy it, although he couldnt afford to at the moment, so i sort of thought i was doing him a favor by letting him hang onto it, because if i did not have his place to store it i would be forced to sell it on the open market as operating or paying for storage for it is a luxury i can't afford currently. its a fairly large plot of land in a rural area and the car could in no way be said to be taking up valuable space. if you don't like where it's parked by all means move it, just try not to run into anything. its kind of a boat and its easy to get into fender benders. i could actually really use the money, so if frank is no longer interested in buying it he can tell me that himself, and then i'll put it up on ebay with a $5,000 reserve.
also, if you are interested in clearing the land out, you may want to get rid of that junked honda CRX in the garage. if you do, i want to buy the sunroof. i've tried to get in touch with frank about it a number of times but he never got back to me.
they say love is blind, and it seems like you are very much in love... really, i hope it works out, if only so that i never hear from you again. but if it doesnt, please don't blame me.
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| Wednesday, October 19th, 2005
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7:10 am - who'd have known you could be so predictable
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hey, someone stole my phone outside of the 7-11. sometimes i just do things to see what will happen- i mean, i figured this guy would just steal my phone if i let him use it- big scary stereotypical sketchy black guy outside the 7-11, who seems to be on some sort of fairly strong drugs, "asking" to use my phone, something about mumble mumble- but i was just curious what would happen and it seemed easier than further agitating him to let him use it, since the phone company will just replace it with a newer one anyways, the phone came with the plan. but i hadnt considered what a fucking pain its going to be to lose all my numbers. yay. next time i'll write them all down someplace else. anyways long story short, it quickly became apparent that he was using the phone to do some sort of deal involving crack, not calling for a cab. however, he offered to share a bit of his that he had on him, while he was doing this, being a stand up kind of guy, so i tried just a little crack (didnt really inhale, no serious), at least i think it was crack, from this hella ghetto pipe made from like a piece of tube steel with very minimal modification, umm, and at that point it became pretty clear that things were going the direction we all thought they would from the beginning. after a little more inconsequential babble, and rejecting my 1,000 yen notes (the only other money i had one me besides $2, fortunately, or i probably would have gotten really ripped off), then tearing up one of the dollar bills and giving it back to me (thanks!), the dude just ran off with the phone, straight up. the end. shame on you, maurice. god was watching that, we all know the score.
now, i dont feel like chasing somebody bigger than me and on crack through town at night for a cel phone, so although i suppose theres a small chance i could have kept up, its not as if i was going to wrestle it away from him, so i just called the cops and filed a report. it seemed like the thing to do in that sort of situation. a cop came and took my statement, he was like the central casting of a nice neighborhood cop, philip seymour hoffman looking guy. weird interacting with the cops from a perspective of them actually being there to help me and all. and the cop being so nice. it felt so cliched.. yeah this big black dude.. no really...
anyways.. if you get any really weird text messages or calls from some black guy, from my phone number, about a crack deal, thats what its about.
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| Tuesday, October 18th, 2005
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11:16 pm - everything
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| Monday, May 16th, 2005
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3:06 am - u;aux;uex
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areas of exploration-
1.karmic interconnectedness philosophically and in life, and how it paralells hyper linked multimedia as a media unto itself.
2. hmm
3. relation between digital and physical,
4.4. planning vs. realization.
5.5. everything.
In the commercial art world, an artistic concept, such as a character or story idea, is called an “intellectual property”. An “intellectual property” is inherently without any physical existence, and therefore can be manifest into any medium. think of every star wars related product that has been made. any copy of any piece of star wars related merchandise is equivalent in value to any other copy of the same piece, which also includes copies of digital assets that don't have an original physical prototype even in theory, such as games, and software piracy is a crime punishable by jail time remember. i'm sure glad i'm using a free open source browser to write this.
sooo therefore from now on we will regard a digital asset such as an image or animation or sound file as functionally equivalent to their real equivalent such as a DVD or CD or photograph. That is what time warner and disney want me to do so i will play along ;)
During the commercial art production process followed on a typical large budget american game or movie, a huge amount of art work is created that is not directly used in the finished project. conceptual art it is called. By the standard we just established, each of these is a complete art object in and of itself. and in fact if a movie gets big enough like star wars or lord of the rings they will sell books with copies of the concept art drawings and behind the scenes images of the making of etc etc.
soo Therefore, as part of the conception of this art project, i will display all of these collateral assets as finished pieces within a multimedia presentation of the overall body of work, said presentation being the ultimate "art piece". and allow myself to subject them to further explotation from a standpoint of them being a complete piece. The developments at this stage do not necessarily further evolution towards one single image, but rather become new art pieces in their own right and follow their own tangents and internal logic, though eventually i will have to reign myself in and return to the main body. Thus The art generated in the process of working towards a “finished” image becomes perhaps a larger part of the project than the finished image it is in theory working towards.
current progress:
http://www.yenvalmar.com/nonprofit/theory/index.htm
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| Friday, May 13th, 2005
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3:48 pm
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video kills
its killed before and itll kill again
it killed the radio star
and its gonna kill you next
how many fetuses do i have to sacrifice
before i can get resolution of my customer service complaint?
its a dull dull ache but it feels like it could go on for quite awhile
you better get away from here before noon time
you better get away from here
hoogeldy doogeldy hoogeldy doogeldy
i have 10 genital warts in a row on my neck
i ate 8 pieces of pie
i have 7 fingers on each of my toes
and my guitar has no strings
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| Thursday, April 28th, 2005
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1:42 pm - please sir
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yenvalmar: dick licker
barelyregal: nahg
barelyregal: nah
yenvalmar: amputee tipper
yenvalmar: candle folder
yenvalmar: you are a sick pervert
yenvalmar: pasta burglar
barelyregal: hmm
yenvalmar: pimple waxer
yenvalmar: lurking in vestibules
barelyregal: I hope I don't get fired from this job after a week.
yenvalmar: you got the job?
barelyregal: yeah... no doubt now.
barelyregal: my first day is scheduled and all.
barelyregal: just have to finish the paperwork for the contract vendor
yenvalmar: well, just keep the pimple waxing to a minimum till they are suitably subdued by your vestibule lurking
yenvalmar: then its peanutbutter jellytime
barelyregal: yeah.
barelyregal: I think you're right.
yenvalmar: yeahhhhh buoy
yenvalmar: put her there
yenvalmar: now put her over there
yenvalmar: now throw her away and get another one and paint it red
yenvalmar: hup
barelyregal: are you mad?
yenvalmar: *COCKLES MANIACALLY*
barelyregal: how much coffee today?
yenvalmar: none, i think that is the problem
yenvalmar: i should get some coffee
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| Wednesday, April 27th, 2005
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9:03 am - the way we get by
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its become so staggeringly obvious in light of world events that i simply do not occupy even vaguely the same reality as the vast majority of people in this planet. and frankly, i think my reality is better. there aren't religious people and wars happening in it. so fuck em.
recently over on ol pro tempore, someone posted about a really annoying person in a newsgroup they read (we have now referred to 3 different online communities in the same comment, ooh. maybe this whole thing should be a chat log? well..)
" This is the same guy who claimed repeatedly and aggressively that cold syrup is 98% alcohol. That was relatively easily refutable, but it still took days to get him to concede."
to which i replied
which is more foolish, someone who thinks cough syrup is 98% alcohol, or the person who takes time to correct such an obvious moron, when apparently they have a pattern of moronism that makes it seem, from tiki's portrayal, that they are simply a hopeless case who should be ignored.
but i am posting this in my live journal, and whoever read the whole thing is the biggest fool of all :)
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| Wednesday, April 6th, 2005
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5:50 pm - somebody else had a dream about me
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for the purposes of this dream i am referred to as "aj"
Last night, I dreamed that AJ was living with his dad, a diminutive cranky old man. Actually, his dad made him sleep on the front porch, and AJ had rigged up a sort of sarcophagus-nest made of an old sofa, and parts from two other sofas which he had inverted clamshell-style over the one he was laying on. In addition, he had a beautiful four-breasted girlfriend, but this middle-aged Mexican woman kept coming over and trying to get into his pants. One afternoon, the Mexican woman came over to hit on him, but he had his sofa-shell all closed up to avoid her and was sleeping, so she went inside and realized that she was really in love with his father, who was taking a long shower. Unfortunately, the four-breasted girlfriend was about to come in through the back door when she heard the Mexican woman's voice, and she realized that the Mexican woman had been after AJ, which made her feel instantly inadequate and self-conscious about her four breasts. Instead of staying and trying to get into AJ's sofa-shell, she decided to go swimming.
I was at the pool, which was two large underground concrete rooms adjoined by an archway. I was in the shallow pool, because the deep pool had no water in it, and there four preteen girls and Mark Prescott were watching with earnest admiration as I swam from one corner to the other underwater. Mark Prescott intended to get into my pants.
The four-breasted girl wanted to use the deep room, but I explained to her that it was empty; just then, a horn sounded, which meant that it was about to start filling. There were several people in the deep room, all excited and eager for the water to come in, and then it started pouring down from these holes really high up in the walls. I decided to leave and have sex with Mark Prescott because he said his girlfriend wouldn't mind, and the four-breasted girl stayed to swim. The end.
yay!
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