Patrick's VFX Blog

  http://www.no-spec.com/faq/ From a post on Facebook by Alvin Yap, my former-mentor in CG Protege, I came to know about this no-spec website. Speculative work (or spec-work) is a "test" set up by a prospective employer or client, that promises to secure a particular job or project, if the quality of your work that is representative of your skills is "chosen" amongst many other that are "bidding" for that job or to clinch the project, all of them doing the same "test". The prospective clients / employers think they can get more choices, having many people present many alternatives so they can select the best artist to get the job done. Sometimes it is an ongoing job on their end, and by doing those "tests" the freelancers and artists unknowingly completes part of the project, or even worse, the whole project for the prospective clients / employers. If the project involves creativity, the prospective employers could sometimes...

8 July 2011, Monday Life in London - Take Two - Arrival of my Dell XPS 15 Laptop My Dell Laptop arrived at the security downstairs at Shaftesbury Avenue. Security signed for it and Raymond informed me that security has it. Interestingly, there was another Mr Patrick Woo from the Bank of China which shares the space with Double Negative. Security contacted him and he told them he was not expecting a laptop. ;) I went down to collect it. It was a pretty big box, enough to hold the 15" laptop. I put it with YC until the end of the day. After work, YC took it to the lobby on the second floor, and I opened it up. Me, proudly holding the l5" Dell XPS This little guy's configuration consists an Intel i7 processor, 6GB RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, 517GB Hard disk, Nvidia GeForce GT540M display AND an Intel HD Graphics 3000 graphics processor on board. It has a JBL subwoofer built into the body and a more sophisticated audio control panel driving the audio chip by Rea...

7 July 2011, Monday I ordered a Huey Pro display calibrator from Pantone. It arrived today. :) It was selling on Amazon UK for about £60+. There was a pro version and a regular version. It arrived in a bubble-wrapped  package. This is my second visit to the runners office two days in a  row. (Yesterday was hard disk collection). After work I went home and unwrapped the package. Only after I opened it pack and read the front of the box, I realise that the regular version was only for CRT displays, and the Pro version can be applied on LCD displays as well. :) I used it on YC's laptop, and my own Asus netbook. It works very well. There's a continual ambient light monitoring mode, where you leave the colourmeter beside your display, so it reads samples the ambient light, and adjusts your display so the colours stay the same even when the environmental lighting changes. You can also configure how often the colourmeter samples the environment light. The cheap...

6 July 2011, Monday Today Janson told me he finished his matchmove shot for a trailer that was due to be out.  It wasn't an easy shot. Motion blurred plate all the way, and he only had 2-3 days to do it, and had to stay back 2 of the days. He told me he was relieved and satisfied that he was able to do it. He also thanked me for my align-object-to-camera tool. He told me for a good part he depended on that to get his camera into the right place. The other parts were many tweaks on the graph editor and manual nudging of the camera. It means a lot to me that people actually appreciate my work, and stop to thank me for it. Also gives me a sense of accomplishment, that my script is useful enough to help people speed up their work. Here's a link to show what my "align to camera" mel script does.

Its week 2 in London, and I've managed to part with some money. I've bought a compact camera on week 2. Its a Samsung PL201, 15 megapixels with 7x Optical zoom and a dual image stabilisation function (optical IS + digital IS). Got it from Argos for £99. Here's the documented process of opening the packaging for my camera: The box does make the camera look a bit cheap, but I'd rather they spend more money to make the camera better than on the packaging :) I realised that working with a DSLR isn't the most convenient thing most of the time. For everyday photography needs, something that can be tucked into a pocket is definitely better than having a DSLR hanging from the neck. I realised I was missing out on a lot of nice pictures that could have been taken when commuting to and from work. This PL201 camera has a great latitude (or dynamic range). It can take quite a wide range of constrasting brightness values. Here's a sample shot showing almost wh...

We've recently had a chance to test and experience the workflow of creating HDRI. I haven't gone through the entire process to the end product yet. I've done this before on a personal project setting. With a hand-held digital compact camera, Canon Tx-1, I shot a 'chrome ball' which is actually a cheap garden ornament. Of course it had little scratches and slightly uneven surfaces, but the results turned out ok. This time round, I was using my Canon 500D DSLR, and my colleague Sonny thought of a way to mark the tripods so the rotation of each set of photos for multiple exposure can adequately cover the whole environment. With my new wide-angle lens attachment, it would result in lesser sets of exposures to take because each set has a larger area of coverage. With my Canon 500D, and going through some guidelines on the settings to use when shooting the scene at multiple exposures, I learnt new things. I was supposed to set up a fixed ISO, and then vary my shutte...

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 ...