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Senior Visual effects artist here. Hi! 20+ years in the industry, worked on movies from Final Fantasy The Spirits Withing to Disney's Enchanted and a whole mess

Senior Visual effects artist here. Hi! 20+ years in the industry, worked on movies from Final Fantasy The Spirits Withing to Disney's Enchanted and a whole mess of forgettable cinema and TV shows. My axe is SideFx's Houdini. I've been in love with it since I first set eyes on it in 1998, but didn't use it in work until 2010. Until then I was using Maya. Yuck. It's now off my resume and I've left studios that made me use it. It makes my hands clench up in pain. I've also used Shake and Nuke, After Effects, Photoshop, etc... But Houdini is really my jam. And it keeps getting better all the time. Best damn customer support in the industry, bar none! Any questions? My opinion on Blender is: Sure, if it fits your needs. It seems kinda quirky, but the community looks good.

high_byte 5y ago
interesting. I haven't used maya I wonder why you think that. I only touched houdini (donut tutorial) and it seemed amazing at the time, but blender had what I needed and now has geometry nodes so I don't see the reason. and I've been considering branching to 2D, photo/video editing, post production stuff. just out of interest but other than that I just don't have a reason to learn even more stuff if I end up not using it.
- kleer001 5y ago
  > I haven't used maya I wonder why you think that. Because Maya is all high level tools with only partial and buggy procedurality. It's history stream is a joke. Because when I use Maya I feel like I'm fighting the will of each and every programmer for everything I want to do. Like each and every finger of every programmer is on my hand telling me how to do what I want to do. However, in Houdini it's more like the programmers have left a pile of low level tools and let me do what I need to do however I want to do it. In Maya, once you're done you have a final product. In Houdini, once you're done you have not only the final product, but also the process that created that product.
Dracophoenix 5y ago
Questions: Do you know whether SGIs, Alphas, or SPARC machines were used for rendering for Spirits Within? How much custom software was used vs off-the-shelf for design, rendering, etc. ? Were you working directly under Sakaguchi/Squaresoft or as a contractor/freelancer? I just wanted to say I really enjoyed watching Spirits Within as a teen, even if the story wasn't very well-executed. And I certainly thank you for your part in it. The CGI and brilliant colors were mindblowing at the time and it still holds up somewhat today.
- kleer001 5y ago
  Keep in mind how long ago this all was. Also my position was non-technical. So, none of this would hold up in court as expert testimony. >Do you know whether SGIs, Alphas, or SPARC machines were used for rendering for Spirits Within? I want to say all SGI machines. At least that's what we artists had. Near the end of production they had to rebuild the top floor of the building to hold all the computing power. So, could have been anything up there. > How much custom software was used vs off-the-shelf for design, rendering, etc. ? I think all the pipeline was custom. The main thing I used was Maya. As it was brand new and we were such a large production we had someone from Alias in-house. That was AMAZING. Nothing like having software support down the hallways. And then I think we had a Renderman clone for rendering. > Were you working directly under Sakaguchi/Squaresoft or as a contractor/freelancer? "The Guch" was in the office and made frequent rounds. :-) Really nice guy from the limited interactions I had. FFTSW was in the same building as the production for FFXIII (I think) so he worked on that too. > I just wanted to say I really enjoyed watching Spirits Within as a teen, even if the story wasn't very well-executed. And I certainly thank you for your part in it. The CGI and brilliant colors were mindblowing at the time and it still holds up somewhat today. Thanks buddy! I remember in 2002/3 being at a Rave in Los Angeles and seeing video from FFTSW on on screens and getting all full of warm pride, even for the little bits that I did.
redis_mlc 5y ago
I know some instrumental musicians who want to do original game or film soundtracks. Let me know of any suggestions or contacts.
germinalphrase 5y ago
I am a former Local 600 guy that burned out and who now teaches high school English. I’ve been slowly developing a fiction project centered on ubiquitous AR. As part of my research, I stumbled upon demo from Universal Everything[0]. Are you able to recommend any websites, blogs, resources to discover similar simulations/etc? [0]https://vimeo.com/429924982?ref=em-share https://vimeo.com/429924982?ref=em-share Thanks!
- kleer001 5y ago
  > similar simulations/etc? I'm not sure I understand what you're looking for. What I saw in that video was a walk cycle that used as the basis for a bunch of different effects animations. So, basically an Art project. It doesn't look like it has anything to do with AR. That's more live generation, isn't it? What makes that unique for you among art projects? Can you be more specific?
  - germinalphrase 5y ago
    Apologies. I understand it is disconnected from AR, and I am not asking about AR content or tech. I am really just looking for avenues for discovering novel visual effects, interesting showreels, advanced demos, etc.
    - kleer001 5y ago
      Ah, that makes sense. SIGGRAPH is a great resource. http://www.siggraph.org/ http://www.siggraph.org/ They're super nerdy too. I used to go to the conference when I could, before the pandemic. Cinefx is a classic print magazine: https://cinefex.com/ https://cinefex.com/ A bit light on technique, but goes into a little depth about huge productions. search for "visual effects magazine" and you'll find tons. On reddit there is: /r/simulated - people post simulations they’ve made or seen (that vary kind of wildly in quality) /r/cinematography - not exactly vfx but closely related and there is occasional discussion of vfx /r/computergraphics - good for innovations in computer graphics for more technical vfx artists /r/Houdini - decent if you’re a houdini user /r/vfx - general vfx discussion ranging from tutorials people post to examples people like in film Then there's always the 3rd party forums for any particular software. Those are pretty easy to find and explore. Enjoy!
dr_kiszonka 5y ago
Do you interact with Houdini via its Python API? If yes, would you mind sharing your set-up (IDE, etc.)? For a while now, I have been wanting to learn how to use Houdini or Blender for 1) data viz, e.g., animations of very large amounts of data points and 2) making short animations that I could embed into my presentations.
- high_byte 5y ago
  I can strongly recommend both. I have only had a taste of houdini but can surely attest to it, and with blender I have used extensively including python api. regarding ide it's pretty much notepad or blender itself, which is a major drawback but luckily it's such an amazing tool, any python operation code can be copied from the ui (which is with it art within itself)
- kleer001 5y ago
  Sadly for my hacking-nerd-cred I do not. I'm a more visual get-it-done kinda artist. And for that I even eschew sims if I can do it all in SOPs. If I had to I'd likely do whatever I could to use Emacs (spacemacs) for my daily driver.
uxcolumbo 5y ago
What do you think about Adobe locking ppl in with subscriptions… do you see the industry moving to tools like Davinci Resolve or Affinity apps? Can Davinci Resolve Fusion replace After Effects?
- kleer001 5y ago
  > What do you think about Adobe locking ppl in with subscriptions… I'm old school, I think it's evil and predatory. But also I grew up using pirated versions of Photoshop, I understand their motivation and the advantages to the customer. So, nothing new to add to the discussison. > do you see the industry moving to I have no idea. I don't do 2D stuff. I see studios moving towards cloud providers of software and hardware. But slowly. It's all business. So, if it becomes profitable to do so then everyone will jump on board. Already there's Deadline and a frothing market of cloud providers for turnkey 3D digital studios. Time will tell. > Can Davinci Resolve Fusion replace After Effects? They're different tools. So, no.

high_byte 5y ago

interesting. I haven't used maya I wonder why you think that. I only touched houdini (donut tutorial) and it seemed amazing at the time, but blender had what I needed and now has geometry nodes so I don't see the reason. and I've been considering branching to 2D, photo/video editing, post production stuff. just out of interest but other than that I just don't have a reason to learn even more stuff if I end up not using it.

kleer001 5y ago
> I haven't used maya I wonder why you think that. Because Maya is all high level tools with only partial and buggy procedurality. It's history stream is a joke. Because when I use Maya I feel like I'm fighting the will of each and every programmer for everything I want to do. Like each and every finger of every programmer is on my hand telling me how to do what I want to do. However, in Houdini it's more like the programmers have left a pile of low level tools and let me do what I need to do however I want to do it. In Maya, once you're done you have a final product. In Houdini, once you're done you have not only the final product, but also the process that created that product.

Dracophoenix 5y ago

Questions: Do you know whether SGIs, Alphas, or SPARC machines were used for rendering for Spirits Within? How much custom software was used vs off-the-shelf for design, rendering, etc. ? Were you working directly under Sakaguchi/Squaresoft or as a contractor/freelancer? I just wanted to say I really enjoyed watching Spirits Within as a teen, even if the story wasn't very well-executed. And I certainly thank you for your part in it. The CGI and brilliant colors were mindblowing at the time and it still holds up somewhat today.

kleer001 5y ago
Keep in mind how long ago this all was. Also my position was non-technical. So, none of this would hold up in court as expert testimony. >Do you know whether SGIs, Alphas, or SPARC machines were used for rendering for Spirits Within? I want to say all SGI machines. At least that's what we artists had. Near the end of production they had to rebuild the top floor of the building to hold all the computing power. So, could have been anything up there. > How much custom software was used vs off-the-shelf for design, rendering, etc. ? I think all the pipeline was custom. The main thing I used was Maya. As it was brand new and we were such a large production we had someone from Alias in-house. That was AMAZING. Nothing like having software support down the hallways. And then I think we had a Renderman clone for rendering. > Were you working directly under Sakaguchi/Squaresoft or as a contractor/freelancer? "The Guch" was in the office and made frequent rounds. :-) Really nice guy from the limited interactions I had. FFTSW was in the same building as the production for FFXIII (I think) so he worked on that too. > I just wanted to say I really enjoyed watching Spirits Within as a teen, even if the story wasn't very well-executed. And I certainly thank you for your part in it. The CGI and brilliant colors were mindblowing at the time and it still holds up somewhat today. Thanks buddy! I remember in 2002/3 being at a Rave in Los Angeles and seeing video from FFTSW on on screens and getting all full of warm pride, even for the little bits that I did.

redis_mlc 5y ago

I know some instrumental musicians who want to do original game or film soundtracks. Let me know of any suggestions or contacts.

germinalphrase 5y ago

I am a former Local 600 guy that burned out and who now teaches high school English. I’ve been slowly developing a fiction project centered on ubiquitous AR. As part of my research, I stumbled upon demo from Universal Everything[0]. Are you able to recommend any websites, blogs, resources to discover similar simulations/etc? [0]https://vimeo.com/429924982?ref=em-share https://vimeo.com/429924982?ref=em-share Thanks!

kleer001 5y ago
> similar simulations/etc? I'm not sure I understand what you're looking for. What I saw in that video was a walk cycle that used as the basis for a bunch of different effects animations. So, basically an Art project. It doesn't look like it has anything to do with AR. That's more live generation, isn't it? What makes that unique for you among art projects? Can you be more specific?
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  Apologies. I understand it is disconnected from AR, and I am not asking about AR content or tech. I am really just looking for avenues for discovering novel visual effects, interesting showreels, advanced demos, etc.
  - kleer001 5y ago
    Ah, that makes sense. SIGGRAPH is a great resource. http://www.siggraph.org/ http://www.siggraph.org/ They're super nerdy too. I used to go to the conference when I could, before the pandemic. Cinefx is a classic print magazine: https://cinefex.com/ https://cinefex.com/ A bit light on technique, but goes into a little depth about huge productions. search for "visual effects magazine" and you'll find tons. On reddit there is: /r/simulated - people post simulations they’ve made or seen (that vary kind of wildly in quality) /r/cinematography - not exactly vfx but closely related and there is occasional discussion of vfx /r/computergraphics - good for innovations in computer graphics for more technical vfx artists /r/Houdini - decent if you’re a houdini user /r/vfx - general vfx discussion ranging from tutorials people post to examples people like in film Then there's always the 3rd party forums for any particular software. Those are pretty easy to find and explore. Enjoy!

dr_kiszonka 5y ago

Do you interact with Houdini via its Python API? If yes, would you mind sharing your set-up (IDE, etc.)? For a while now, I have been wanting to learn how to use Houdini or Blender for 1) data viz, e.g., animations of very large amounts of data points and 2) making short animations that I could embed into my presentations.

high_byte 5y ago
I can strongly recommend both. I have only had a taste of houdini but can surely attest to it, and with blender I have used extensively including python api. regarding ide it's pretty much notepad or blender itself, which is a major drawback but luckily it's such an amazing tool, any python operation code can be copied from the ui (which is with it art within itself)
kleer001 5y ago
Sadly for my hacking-nerd-cred I do not. I'm a more visual get-it-done kinda artist. And for that I even eschew sims if I can do it all in SOPs. If I had to I'd likely do whatever I could to use Emacs (spacemacs) for my daily driver.

uxcolumbo 5y ago

What do you think about Adobe locking ppl in with subscriptions… do you see the industry moving to tools like Davinci Resolve or Affinity apps? Can Davinci Resolve Fusion replace After Effects?

kleer001 5y ago
> What do you think about Adobe locking ppl in with subscriptions… I'm old school, I think it's evil and predatory. But also I grew up using pirated versions of Photoshop, I understand their motivation and the advantages to the customer. So, nothing new to add to the discussison. > do you see the industry moving to I have no idea. I don't do 2D stuff. I see studios moving towards cloud providers of software and hardware. But slowly. It's all business. So, if it becomes profitable to do so then everyone will jump on board. Already there's Deadline and a frothing market of cloud providers for turnkey 3D digital studios. Time will tell. > Can Davinci Resolve Fusion replace After Effects? They're different tools. So, no.