Lectures
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May 06, 2009
FMX 09, Day One
Posted in Animation, CGI & Rendering, Compositing, Computing, Films, Lectures, People, Reports, Technology
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 leaka break. -
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Apr 26, 2009
After Effects freezes at startup?
Posted in Compositing, Tutorial
I got this problem occasionally on different machines running Vista when firing up After Effects CS3. When it said “Initializing User Interface” it froze. Sometimes it would start after 15 minutes but, seriously, that’s not how I like to work, although I use any delay to excuse a round trip to my espresso machine. I didn’t find anything about it on the beloved internet so I had to figure it out myself. And here’s what you can do: -
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Oct 23, 2008
Wired
Posted in Compositing, Reports, Tutorial
I am sitting here in my new favorite café/restaurant in Berlin, the Rebellion des Zimtsterns 1 and wait for the dish of the day. I really need a break from the inconvenient truth I have learned a few minutes ago. If you read on there’s also a short tutorial on a possible wire removal workflow. Skip it, if you already know it.
EDIT: Of course I couldn’t finish this lengthy post in one lunch break so I posted it the next morning.
Read the rest…- translates to The Rebellion of the Cinnamon Star ↩
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May 09, 2008
FMX 08, Day Four
Posted in Computing, Games, Lectures
Somehow I’ve all made it through many hours of very interesting presentations — still my spirits weakened: Four hours of sleep a day just isn’t enough for conventions like the FMX where one should be as sharply focused as a Pong-player in order not to miss anything: Today it was everything about games mostly. -
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May 09, 2008
FMX 08, Day Three
Posted in CGI & Rendering, Compositing, Films, Lectures, People, Reports, Technology
Today I was eager for a new Pixar poster. Who would’ve thought that I spent nearly one and half hour talking with the guys and gals from Pixar? -
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May 07, 2008
FMX 08, Day Two
Posted in CGI & Rendering, Compositing, Lectures, People, Rants, Reports, Technology
Recruiting day for me! Yesterday I was too tired and lacked of motivation getting some of my demo reels to the important representatives of Some Great Company. And I even shook hands with one of the people who got me into VFX at all. -
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Mar 13, 2008
ShirtPress
Posted in CGI & Rendering, Reports, Tutorial
I am more of a satisfyzer (yes, just I made that word up) than a maximizer but I am not up for any compromises when it comes to t-shirts: If I have an idea about a certain print I want then I won’t settle for anything less than exactly that. Yes, I was looking for that perfect, one and only DeLorean-logo shirt! -
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Dec 02, 2007
The Source of all Good
Posted in Computing, Games, Tutorial, Video
Call me flip-floppy but today I like Steam better than the day before. Because it works again and likes to display my custom models. Like the one out of three airplanes I modeled for S&P Simulations some months ago. -
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Jun 21, 2007
Campus at Night
Posted in Photography, Reports, Tutorial
Some of you might have seen me two days ago roaming around the endless corridors of the campus: Black shirt, shorts, worn flip-flops and a large black camera on a tripod on my shoulder. But why would I take pictures of the boring campus in medium format? Well… why not? -
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Mar 06, 2006
Photoshop Tutorial – Equalizing Levels
Posted in Photography, Tutorial

Sometimes a scanned negative looks just like the one in the picture: Although there’s an area, like the snow, that should have a coherent tone, it’s sometimes darker and sometimes brighter – there’s even vignetting on the right side. In the darkroom this means to dodge and burn until you get away with it but this takes usually a lot of time. But in Photoshop everything’s a little easier.