June 15, 2010
CGI & Rendering, Compositing, Lectures, Quotes, Reports, Technology, films, on set
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On the second day we all got late to the first lecture and missed “The VFX of Iron Man” and instead enjoyed the breakfast at our value-priced hotel whose every room was kept in shape for the whole place looked like a museum of 1970′s rustic dwelling. Mrs. Zheng apologized for not having boiled eggs and I downed every bit of orange juice that was left on the buffet because I almost died of thirst the night before. Mrs. Zheng didn’t like seeing me drinking eagerly directly out of the jar but left it at a sullen glance this time. Then we drove off to the Haus der Wirtschaft once again.
Read the rest…
On the second day we all got late to the first lecture and missed "The VFX of Iron Man" and instead enjoyed the breakfast at our value-priced hotel whose every room was kept in shape for the whole place looked like a museum of 1970's rustic dwelling. Mrs. Zheng apologized for not having boiled eggs and I downed every bit of orange juice that was left on the buffet because I almost died of thirst the night before. Mrs. Zheng didn't like seeing me drinking eagerly directly out of the jar but left it at a sullen glance this time. Then we drove off to the Haus der Wirtschaft once again.
Post is Prep
My Access Pass, originally uploaded by Phil Strahl.
Still a bit drowsy I planted my ass in the front row of the König-Karl Halle and knew I wouldn't be getting up for a long time, not even for Pixar's Career Gears (they don't need compositors, I got the message last years). So at 11 a.m. "The Role of Visualization in th
May 17, 2010
Animation, CGI & Rendering, Compositing, Lectures, Quotes, Reports, Technology, films, people
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I awoke after a terrible night of too little sleep (thank you, insane entertainment-industry sleep-cycle!) and was greeted suspiciously by Mrs. Zheng, the hotel manager, on my way to the hotel’s breakfast premises where the ongoing conversations ebbed as I entered. Too much eyeliner, I thought. But I had other things on my mind. In fact, I was so excited that I ran a red light on my way to the conference.
Read the rest…
I awoke after a terrible night of too little sleep (thank you, insane entertainment-industry sleep-cycle!) and was greeted suspiciously by Mrs. Zheng, the hotel manager, on my way to the hotel's breakfast premises where the ongoing conversations ebbed as I entered. Too much eyeliner, I thought. But I had other things on my mind. In fact, I was so excited that I ran a red light on my way to the conference.
Haus der Wirtschaft, originally uploaded by Phil Strahl.
I was eager to first see The Foundry's presentations on Mari, their programming approach and a tech demonstration of the recently acquired Katana, I was so excited about last year in Sony's presentation, but had no exact clue what it really was.
Paint that dinosaur!
Once arrived I got me a seat pretty close up front and was ready for their presentations to begin. Jack Greasley, who worked at Weta Digital on King Kong and Avatar and Zoe Lord, Senior Texture Artist on Avat
November 3, 2009
CGI & Rendering
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Hey everybody! Sorry for not updating in quite a while yet again, but as you already know: When there’s not much on the blog going on, then there’s much work I’ve been doing. Amidst all the NDAs and top-secret stuff there’s something now from a current project I can show you. Read on if you’re interested in the current progress of the awesome project I am currently involved in and wanna see some eye-candy.
Read the rest…
Hey everybody! Sorry for not updating in quite a while yet again, but as you already know: When there's not much on the blog going on, then there's much work I've been doing. Amidst all the NDAs and top-secret stuff there's something now from a current project I can show you. Read on if you're interested in the current progress of the awesome project I am currently involved in and wanna see some eye-candy.
Freightliner Truck Spin from Phil Strahl on Vimeo.
Be sure to watch it in HD!
I'm not going to tell what movie this truck is from, but some of you might already know. I am rather proud of the shading and texturing which was done with simple Blinn-shaders in Maya (apart from the windows, which are a mia-Material). All modeling was done by Jonny Hennebichler by the way, who will be also responsible for the animation to come. And, boy, that's gonna be awesome!
For the dirt specs and scratches I have three custom Photoshop brushes and I used mostly photos just as references instead of textures
October 15, 2009
CGI & Rendering, Dear Diary
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Another time it’s been way too long between updates. Again much has happened, I was too busy to author a thorough blog post of general interest. And honestly, I still am. So I will give you a short run down on what I did recently. And if you want to see some shading/texturing going on, to witness the power of the almighty bump-map that still does its job well and without the annoying purple eye-cancer-causing colors of a normal map, read the rest…
Read the rest…
Another time it's been way too long between updates. Again much has happened, I was too busy to author a thorough blog post of general interest. And honestly, I still am. So I will give you a short run down on what I did recently. And if you want to see some shading/texturing going on, to witness the power of the almighty bump-map that still does its job well and without the annoying purple eye-cancer-causing colors of a normal map, read the rest...
After posting the last blog post I...
...worked on some station ID motion graphics as a compositor at Fresh FX. Lovely place!
...took a week off, hoping to get anything done with my diploma thesis.
Instead I am working on a rather secret project on lighting, shading, rendering and compositing. Oh and I got me a Canon EOS 5D Mark II. As soon as I produce something worthy I'll let you know. But I already know how much I love that black brick already.
...did an elaborate video tutorial for AEtuts+, that'll go live this week or so.
..enjoyed two week
May 10, 2009
Animation, CGI & Rendering, Lectures, Reports, Technology, games, people
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Traditionally the last day of every fmx is the games day and this year I was prepared for it: Yes, I was wearing my Half-Life² t-shirt proudly in any Electronic Arts lecture I could get in. “They save the best for last”, as AIAS president Joseph Olin put it in the beginning. Yes, there was a lot to come. As always I just wish I had slept more.
Read the rest…
Traditionally the last day of every fmx is the games day and this year I was prepared for it: Yes, I was wearing my Half-Life² t-shirt proudly in any Electronic Arts lecture I could get in. "They save the best for last", as AIAS president Joseph Olin put it in the beginning. Yes, there was a lot to come. As always I just wish I had slept more.
Pipelines of War
Greg Mitchell , originally uploaded by Phil Strahl.
The day started even louder than the fat guy jumping down the stairs above my room at 6:45am: With Gears of War 2 (GoW2) and how Epic Games thought up streamlined their production pipeline for those. Greg Mitchell a big guy, well presenter and Cinematics Director at Epic worked twelve years in television before he switched gears (pun intended) and went into the game industry. He already worked on the cinematics of the first Gears of War (GoW) but wasn't quite 100% happy with the outcome: Not all was motion captured and so
May 8, 2009
Animation, CGI & Rendering, Compositing, Lectures, Random Thoughts, Reports, Technology, filmmaking, games, people, photography, ranting, retro, video
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7:30 am and somebody walks downstairs. Good morning to me. My program for today was mostly about tracking and motion capturing and heavy duty compositing. You might have guessed: It was the day of Benjamin Button.
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7:30 am and somebody walks downstairs. Good morning to me. My program for today was mostly about tracking and motion capturing and heavy duty compositing. You might have guessed: It was the day of Benjamin Button.
After enjoying the breakfast a little too long I was rushing down Königsstraße in my car so I would make it to Pixar's RenderMan presentation. I already knew what it was going to be considering last year ("The Über-Sprite", the rocket, the fast-rendering motion blur) but Pixar is rather generous in handing out posters and presents and I wanted me to get another teapot for my collection [1. ...that consists so far of one Ratatouille-themeded teapot.]. I was too late, the room bursting with people. Obviously, word had spread that you get presents. People can be so greedy. I asked if I could make a reservation for the afternoon but it was in vain.
There I was standing, lacking a teapot and a clue of what I wanted to see instead. I headed to the biggest hall and ended up in "PhotoReal Faci
May 6, 2009
Animation, CGI & Rendering, Compositing, Computing, Lectures, Reports, Technology, films, on set, people
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I woke up early. Too early. My room is located under the stairs to the third floor so it’s needless to say that it’s noisy. The day started off rather cloudy. But it got better along the way. The last two conventions where as sunny as California in any orange-juice commercial so it was okay this year that the weather took leak a break.
Read the rest…
I woke up early. Too early. My room is located under the stairs to the third floor so it's needless to say that it's noisy. The day started off rather cloudy. But it got better along the way. The last two conventions where as sunny as California in any orange-juice commercial so it was okay this year that the weather took leak a break.
Hotel Hottmann, originally uploaded by Phil Strahl.
When roaming the Stuttgart streets again it didn't feel as nice as last year. It was cold, it was foggy and some drunk junk was shouting profanities and bugging people on the Schloßplatz. A sharp turn took me to Starbucks where a friendly caramel macchiato was waiting for me and where I decided today's program amidst men in fancy suits and a flock of girls skipping school.
I was among the first few visitors who showed up at 9:30 to view the introductory selection of short films from the Filmakademie Ludwigsburg featuring Urs, Some
December 19, 2008
CGI & Rendering, Compositing, Computing, Dear Diary, Random Thoughts, Reports
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On Wednesday it was the day I had been waiting for since August. It wasn’t a spectacular day for many other people and by god not one of the best days in Germany’s TV-film era. It was one of those days the people in Germany, Switzerland and Austria were sitting in front of their TVs, eventually watching Die Patin on RTL. What’s so special about this mediocre adaptation on a random day? Ten shots of this movie were composited by yours truly.
Read the rest…
On Wednesday it was the day I had been waiting for since August. It wasn't a spectacular day for many other people and by god not one of the best days in Germany's TV-film era. It was one of those days the people in Germany, Switzerland and Austria were sitting in front of their TVs, eventually watching Die Patin on RTL. What's so special about this mediocre adaptation on a random day? Ten shots of this movie were composited by yours truly.
I am such insanely narcissistic that I always remember the days when one of my works is unleashed in any form of mass media. I remember the day when I set up the first version of this blog (which was almost three years ago now), the day one of my songs was pressed (not burnt, suckers!) on a CD as a part of the MfG - Magazin für Gestaltung (along with some compositing works).
And that day, the 17th of December 2008, ten shots I had composited at my time at rise|fx. And, I tell ya, TV is forgiving! I suppose I could have saved at least 5 hours work on each
