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**Candelero** · 09-12-2005, 02:27 AM

Sorry, wrong section. I will forward this thread in the OFF 5.

Best regards,
nikki Candelero

**Seraph135** · 09-12-2005, 03:19 AM

Originally posted by paulison

How do you guys keep pushing the quality of your work to improve?. Originally I spent a lot of time on projects while learning how to use vray but as more projects come in, we produce them quicker and seem to spend less and less time worrying about quality. As such I havnt posted any recent work partly due to almost being embarrased that they are not of a good enough standard.

I think everyones situation is probably different. For myself personally it all comes down to having a real desire to improve my work and a thirst for knowledge. I check the latest posts on about 6 CG forums twice a day to see what new information might be out there. I think that if you really want to improve the quality of your work then you won't mind putting in the time to do it, reguardless of wheather that time is on the clock or not.

Do you have to put your price up in order to allow more time for that little bit of extra time that finishes an image off?

Again I'd say everyones situation is different. If its up to you to set the price on a project then, possibly yes...If its not your call to adjust the budget then that extra time may be your own. You might suggest to your team that you have a regular meeting to discuss new ideas or techiques so that everyones quality of work on your team improves. You can learn a lot from the people around you.

Do you have to rigidly stick to a set number of hours training and research?

In my experience no...Training is non-existant at my job. R&D is usually the job of a supervisor and is done as seen necessary, but any good supervisor should be open to listening to the ideas of his/her team. Either convince your supervisors that time is necessary for R&D, or spend that time on your own and later show your supervisor new tricks/workflows you've come up with that improve speed/quality.

I've got a set of parameters i use for lighting and materials that hasnt changed much for months. It works resonably well, but how much time would you dedicate to working on constantly evolving this stuff?

If its not broke don't fix it...Well...maybe thats not an appropriate answer all the time. Every shot is different, and thus every lighting tweak or material adjustment could be specific to that shot. You have to find a good balance of time for evolving your work. I've always found that a few test renders here and there never affected my daily schedule that much, and I've learned and improved many things that way. Either spend your free time pushing things, or convince someone that its worth your time to do so.

Im just curious how you guys keep pushing the boundaries in order to stay ahead of the pack. I've been doing images of about the same standard (medium quality?) for possibly a year now but it seems really hard to improve...

I've been on two different sides of this...I've been on the architecture side of production, and I've been on the FX/entertainment side as well. They are very different worlds. I will give my respect to all Arch Viz folks...I know how difficult it can be on those HUGE projects with 100's of acres of homes/buildings to make it look good without bringing your entire renderfarm to its knees. Both industries are hard to produce good work for, but usually for different reasons. To the point though...Its been my experience that your team mates have a lot to do with this...If pushing the limits is encouraged, then you will always magically find a way to do it...If not then your quality level won't change much.

im guessing the best artists here are a bit obsessive and think about 3d in their spare time as well but when its a full time job i just cant do this!

I'm guessing your right

I'll bet that they not only think about 3d in their spare time, but give much of their free time towards working on their skills as well. I'll also bet that the BEST artists don't really see the place they drive to and work at everyday as just a "job" either. I think that if you want to improve your work you will, and if you want to just collect your paycheck without changing your normal routine...well...Its up to you which option to choose.

I hope something in this post is helpfull for you.

Tim J

**ShaunDon** · 09-12-2005, 10:15 AM

In our office we have pretty regular sit downs to go over recent work and talk about what we've gained and what's been lost in our images compared to previous works. And as time passes the jobs keep getting larger in scope, to the point where it takes R&D just to figure out how to accomplish them, nevermind make them better than previous works.

But the gem is in the people you work with, absolutely. I'm fortunate enough to have a team that is as obsessive as I am about pushing their quality and finding better and faster ways to get their work done all the time. I'm reminded frequently what a blessing this is whenever we pull in contractors for support. The contrast between a cohesive motivated team mate and someone who's merely looking to make some bank off your project is nuts.

As to work invading spare time, yerright. The line gets blurred pretty bad sometimes. I think I fell asleep last night while working through the number of composite layers I need for the animation I'm producing. But I love it. It's a puzzle and an enormous challenge.

Shaun

**Da_elf** · 09-12-2005, 10:22 AM

well its just me working here so i have to do my own research. i usually spend about 1 or 2 hours every morning on the forums. and whenever i do a test or something needs to calculate i roll over to the internet computer and surf the forum some more.

im guessing the best artists here are a bit obsessive and think about 3d in their spare time as well but when its a full time job i just cant do this!

well. im not the best but more or less i think about 3d alot. recently ive been doing lots of R&D on bubbles for an upcomming project. just like the big ones seen near the end of the flowline demo reel. after 1 week of research on bubbles guess what i came up with....that bubbles are a pain in the a$$. i still cant get it right. why oh why cant scanline release a beta that does nothing but bubbles. pleeeeease.!!! hehe

**jacksc02** · 11-12-2005, 04:09 PM

oh poor da elf!!!!

got a clouds file for ya, will send it soon

**Clifton Santiago** · 11-12-2005, 04:19 PM

Spare time? What?

I recently dreamed all night about the perfect UVW mapping that made every bitmap texture perfectly seamless and random, with no perceptible repetition/tiling...

**jacksc02** · 11-12-2005, 04:20 PM

i think you need a break clifton!

**Clifton Santiago** · 11-12-2005, 05:04 PM

Yeah, or I need to get a life. I'm here at the office on Sunday night at midnight working on renderings that I don't even have a deadline for.
Trouble is, I don't have anything else to do...

**jacksc02** · 11-12-2005, 05:09 PM

sad dude, go home and watch some shit tv

**zoranm** · 11-12-2005, 05:18 PM

DA_elf

Vlado did some great bubbles couple of years ago. You might be able to find them through archive.

Zoran

**Da_elf** · 11-12-2005, 05:42 PM

same sort of formation as in the flowline demo? or just a good bubble shader? shame we cant search inside the archive

**paulison** · 11-12-2005, 09:53 PM

Hey Tim thanks for the really great advice there and the time you spent replying to that. I'm sure many people on the forum can benefit from it.

Thanks to the other people who replied also, its good to see how other people approach the R&D side of things.

We originally had set times for training and a list of things to work through that we wanted to learn. This didnt work out very well though because the allocated time was never enough to adequatly address the issue. I think from now we will learn as we go and as required by specific projects but continue research to be aware of the starting points in learning new skills.

I think half of the time when something is requested and we dont know how to do it, a lot of time is wasted trying to find out where to start. What plugin to use or what method in terms of materials and lighting etc etc. So i think continuous research, and keeping a record of where to start for the varied tasks is a good way of minimising the wasted time at the start of any challenge. Having a starting point in response to any task that looks to be a bit of a challenge is what im talking about.

I think its interesting that in a big office, there is a supervisor in charge of R&D and that everyone presents there ideas to this one person to be researched or implemented as required. In a small office most people do this research themselves but if there is doubling up on training between various people, it almost seems to waste time so they should really have been working together while training.

from everyones responses though, it seems that the only way to really improve is to be obsessive and hang around the forums in your own time

**lukx** · 12-12-2005, 01:39 AM

price, quality, speed.

you can choose only two. and as life shows people prefer to choose price and speed. Personal work is for quality, commercial is ... commercial.

**zoranm** · 12-12-2005, 02:56 PM

same sort of formation as in the flowline demo? or just a good bubble shader? shame we cant search inside the archive

It was a shader. I think that it was even animated ( I'm at the age when you can't trast your memory any more). But I remember that there wasn't any "trick" involved. It was all in the "wrist" of reflections: double sided reflected HDRI environment + some woble via noise modifier and it look really nice.

Maybe Vlado still have it somwhere saved?

Zoran

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