Patrick's VFX Blog

Here are some tests between the two wide-angle conversion lens I now own: The Fujiyama 0.45x and Vitacom 0.25x conversion lens. Taken with Fujiyama 0.42x wide-angle conversion lens on Canon 18-55mm kit lens Taken with Vitacom 0.25x Ultra super wide-angle conversion lens on Canon 18-55mm kit lens  Taken with Vitacom 0.25x Ultra super wide-angle conversion lens on Tamron 18-270mm zoom lens These two pictures were taken from the same spot. The images have been resized down to 800x800. First 2 images were taken with the Canon kit lens, the first was Fujiyama 0.42x conversion lens and the second was Vitacom 0.25x conversion lens.  I would say that the angle has been increased by quite a bit, judging from how much more of the table can be seen from the bottom right hand side in the image.  The other thing I notice, is how much the image quality of the Vitacom 0.25x deteriorates at the edges of the image. It is apparent even ...

Giving in to a sudden splurging urge, I went into a camera store at Peninsular Plaza and bought the following: - an 18mm-270mm Tamron B008E zoom lens (F/3.5-6.3) - a 0.25x Vitacom Ultra Super Wide-angle auxiliary conversion lens with Macro (52mm in diameter) (cuts light by 1 stop) - a lens cleaning kit - a uv filter for 62mm (for the Tamron zoom lens) - an "i Case" dry box (with attached Hygrometer) All that cost me $1130. The shop was called Photocam. I was originally going to Cathay Photo to check out prices. But strangely it was closed on Sundays. Across the shop was a small shop but lined with equipment. So I went in. The story is, I already have a Fujiyama wide-angle conversion lens, which does 0.42x of the original zoom. I got it in Hongkong during my honeymoon. It had a very filmsy rubber cap that came off so easily, I came close to losing it in a few occasions since I had it in April 2011. So the reason I went to the photo shop was to buy me a lens cap for the wide...

2 June 2011 Thursday There was an announcement today that I would be one of 5 people from Double Negative Singapore that have been chosen to go over to Double Negative London for some creature fx / crowd simulation work. This would be a 3 months period for us to be working there. A week before Bertrand (head of 3D) has asked how interested I would be, to go over. He also asked if I have done particles before. I told him I did. He also asked if I knew any form of scripting languages like MEL. I told him I know MEL and Python for maya, and beginning to tackle PyMel as well. That night I went and uploaded some personal tests I did on particles and fluids simulation. Those are the videos that I've put up a few posts ago .  The next day gave Bertrand the links to my works to let him get a better understanding of the kinds of things I've been messing around with. At the same time, I asked him to give some comments on my work.  So Thursday, Bertrand made the announcement that 5 ...

I had some time these few days to go back to a bit of scripting. Skeel has strongly suggested that I go towards PyQt for user interface stuff, and from the last couple of articles, I sucessfully installed it on my machine. Now Skeel has given me a bigger challenge. I'm now teaching myself Object Oriented Programming (OOP) in order to use PyQt efficiently. I'm reading around and asking Skeel now and then when I run into problems. On the subject of OOP, Skeel has also recommended that I use PyMel to write my scripts because its much more object oriented in its approach. PyMel is "Python in Maya done right". PyMel is a module that writes on top of Maya's existing Python architecture that dramatically changes the way Python is implemented in Maya. It's object oriented using classes and methods, making it easier to make sense of commands which are more in context of each object instead of having a huge heap of commands piled in Maya's python documentat...

Here's an excellent page that contains costumes and props from Hollywood movies. Sean Teo gave it to me. Cheers Sean! http://hollywoodmoviecostumesandprops.blogspot.com/ (you can see Sean's modelling works here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/52917659/SeanTeo-WorkflowBreakdowns )

Sometime late last year a friend working in a post production house brought my attention to the process of working in linear colour space. She was trying to learn all she could about it. That sparked my interest as well. I understand the importance and the need to work with device independant colour space, but I've never attempted to incorporate that in my personal work. So I did a bit of research and found the Vimeo links below. Today Francis (a colleague in Double Negative) gave me another link related to linear workflow. I intend to read it soon. I'm posting it here so I don't forget the link :) http://www.sjbrown.co.uk/2004/05/14/gamma-correct-rendering/ So here it is, an excellent 4-part explanation of linear workflow by Zeth Willie on Vimeo.com. Maya/Mental Ray: Linear Workflow Part 1 from zeth willie on Vimeo . Maya/Mental Ray: Linear Workflow Part 2 from zeth willie on Vimeo . Maya/Mental Ray: Linear Workflow Part 3 from zeth willie on Vime...

I just posted a few more personal works I was doing in my spare time. All are particles / dynamics related 20100718 test Particles Goal Weight_v01_fish from Patrick Woo on Vimeo . 20100726 nParticles Fluids Flame Thrower 02 from Patrick Woo on Vimeo . 20100720 Test Fluids Big Burn_v01_2 from Patrick Woo on Vimeo . 20100922 Polar Grass Jelly from Patrick Woo on Vimeo . This Grass Jelly drink tv commercial is a joint effort with YC Lam. More details on the actual vimeo page. 20101213 Ground Explosion from Patrick Woo on Vimeo . 20100128 Particles GoalUV from Patrick Woo on Vimeo . 20090801 Particles Animated Instances from Patrick Woo on Vimeo . 20100108 Particles Instances Rotation Offset Test from Patrick Woo on Vimeo .