Update: Reservist and Work

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It is my second day back at work. Before this I was called back for reservist, where I helped with content creation for airforce workplan. This took up 3 weeks and I was working around the clock, from camp as well as from home.

I was tasked to produce 3D models and animation of several aircrafts. These include a fighter jet, a passenger plane and a helicopter. I used 3D Studio Max from Autodesk for the first one, just to make sure I still have my skills for 3DS Max. I modified and added stuff through modelling and texturing, so it looks like the one from the Airforce. I animated and rendered the animation also in Max, using V-Ray by Chaos Group.

For the next 2 aircrafts, I modelled from scratch in Maya. I was given only photographs. However I managed to find some low resolution blueprints for those crafts. Then I textured and animated them in Maya as well, using the Mental Ray renderer.

In the end, I managed to deliver. However, the content must get approval before they can tell me if my models and animation are acceptable.

At the work front. There's quite a bit of rush as I returned to Double Negative Singapore. Just after the Chinese New Year, my peers who have only very recently been doing matchmove, have started to do TD work for environment modelling, texturing and lighting. My reservist set me back 3 weeks. Now I am back, I have a lot to catch up, learning new software (including UV unwrapping and sculpting / painting software) and new workflows.

We had introduction to lighting in Renderman by Sonny, a friend of mine that has just recently joined our company as our lead in lighting. It was a great introduction to renderman and fundamental lighting principles.

Double Negative won an Oscar award for Visual Effects on the work she did on Inception, so it was all very exciting for us at today's Beer and Pizza. It turned into Champagne and Pizza, with finger food, to celebrate the joyous occasion.

More info on Inception here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/

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