http://eddieoffermann.com/blog The reel, resume and contact resource for Eddie Offermann, Visual Effects Scripter, CG VFX and Integration Artist Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:31:48 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Installing pyShake on the laptop today. It's every bit as painful as it was when I installed it on my old desktop machine.  Maybe a liiiiiittle bit better since at there's a configure for it now, but installing prebuilt binaries really spoils you. If you've never installed a traditional unix/linux/macosx application,  you're ... http://eddieoffermann.com/blog/2008/08/29/pain_of_pyshake/ I just read that Ubisoft bought Hybride Technologies - a large video game company buying a medium-size visual effects house.  The article had a lot of talk about the future of video games and movies and seemed to miss the point when it quoted recent reviews of "Beowulf" that said ... http://eddieoffermann.com/blog/2008/07/12/video-game-convergence/ Read this question on cgtalk tonight and thought I'd kick the question and my response out here since I've repeated much this same advice many, many times. I use Boujou for matchmoving but am tracking 640x480 camera resolution all of the time... I often have shots with handheld very shaky camera ... http://eddieoffermann.com/blog/2008/06/20/improving-trackingmatchmoving-motion-blurred-footage/ photo credit: Capture Queen ™I have a side project for iPhone that I'm working on. There's a patent filing in process, incorporation paperwork to do, all that good stuff - so I won't be doing a lot of specifics about the project until it's ready to go. ... http://eddieoffermann.com/blog/2008/06/15/crossplatform-mobile-deployment/ So I'm working on a side project that's mainly just for me, but it's so damn handy I might just make it publicly available when it's done (probably for a small monthly fee). It's basically a super quick way to run certain types of scan for stocks during the ... http://eddieoffermann.com/blog/2008/06/12/finding-screen-size-php/ and it's not even in the theater yet - but the trailer is. If you've seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in theaters this weekend, then I'm certain you've seen the first trailer for David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. You might remember seeing a ... http://eddieoffermann.com/blog/2008/05/25/critics-speaking/ So this week, the Visual Effects Society (VES) published the first ever set of guidelines for titles in the visual effects industry. They assure us that Many Very Important People have looked over the list and given it the thumbs up. "Through these collective efforts, a harmonized master list ... http://eddieoffermann.com/blog/2008/05/24/visual-effects-society-call/ I know I sound like a broken record to some, but I had this footage sitting on my workstation and didn't want it to go to waste. Since my earlier blog about normals-based relighting of rendered cg elements (something that can obviously be done in the original CG software if time ... http://eddieoffermann.com/blog/2008/05/22/interactive-relighting-practical-footage/ I was talking to a friend today about what I'm doing with regards to managing data through an animation pipeline using XML. The more I work with it and the farther I get into the project, the more flexible and powerful the whole thing seems. Of course the goal ... http://eddieoffermann.com/blog/2008/05/16/xml-python-visual-effects-pipeline/ I don't know where I read that, but it amused me and stuck in my head. Hi!  I haven't been updating the vfx blog because I've been crazy busy.  Work has me deep in MEL and Python code most of the day, writing software to manage animation data, shuttle it this ... http://eddieoffermann.com/blog/2008/05/14/xml-violence-solve-problem/