You are currently browsing wraybowling's articles.
I got on John’s case the other day about not having more of his amazing video work online. It turned out he did have some of it online already, but then I talked him in to getting a Vimeo account. So as of yesterday, his 320 short entitled “Magic Boots” is up in 720p HD, and if you have an account yourself, and jump on the link before the 30-day period, you can download the full 1080i HD video at the bottom. (I love Vimeo!)
Beautiful baby Bird ain’t half bad either. I imagine that the future will hold even more IceHorse, and wacky-natured video backflips.
I do what I can not to write about myself because it makes me feel vain and pompous, but this time I’m proud of myself. The presentation I gave in Amsterdam last month is finally online for everyone to see. Enjoy it!
you’ll have to skip ahead to roughly the middle.
I’ve seen some crazy web tool sites in the past, but this one takes the cake. Fontstruct is everything that’s good about competitive design constraints, and none of the scary pricing which plagues most of the font world (with the exception of dafont). Let me put this in bold: Fonts have never been this exciting.
- Fonts are creative commons by default. The site is already designed for you to clone someone else’s font, make additions or changes, and resubmit it as your own.
- The font building tool is impressively good for making contemporary typefaces. Really creative people have even made contemporary twists on traditional fonts as a byproduct of the strange building tools provided with excitingly fresh results.
- Once you’re done building, FontStruct generates high-quality TrueType fonts, ready to use in any Mac or Windows application.
I’ve been thinking about putting this together for quite some time. As my job hunt drags on, I keep learning new things, and perhaps some things I wont even realize until I actually find a job, but here’s some free advice to anyone who’ll listen. Also, take this stuff with your salt shaker in hand. I’m not an expert. Really you should talk to the people at the career center, and actually make an appointment, and ask for people’s honest opinions about your work, and all that stuff. Maybe you could start thinking about these things too.
- Start looking before you graduate. Without looking, I had no idea that employers require you to have such a wide gamut of skills, nor did I fully comprehend what skills went with which profession. Get on craigslist, and see. A title might say “3D artist” and instead of listing just “maya” it will be a long list of 20 programs. Also, looking at just how many jobs there are in the city of your choice will give you some foresight in to how far you’d be willing to move. It goes without saying that newyork’s craigslist has fifty decent job listings a day, and asheville has maybe one a week. Don’t miss out on the video/film category which is separated from media/arts. Other places to look: Los Angeles, the UK (graphic artists are very respected there), or Australia.
- Search for a Junior position. (sometimes abbreviated as Jr.) Without 3 years of experience, you can’t be expected to meet the high demands of a regular media job listing; it’s flat out impossible. Junior positions are a situation where the employer wants someone who isn’t experienced so they can make you do the job the way they want you to do it. They act as a training period for lots of other tasks, and within six months you become a regular employee and get a pay raise. Volunteering and internships count as experience while you’re still in school if you want to shave down that 3-year mark.
- Unemployment for college graduates is fantastically low, and by this time next year, these numbers will cut in half. Don’t let anyone tell you the economy is bad — especially your family or yourself who always seem to get the most concerned. The economic situation looks bad for people who don’t have college degrees. You aren’t going to be one of those people, so chill out.
- Bootstrapping. Every time I tell someone this advice they correct me. “Oh, I found my job on craigslist.” That may be so, but bootstrapping takes might save you find a real job, or it might help you meet the right people. Essentially, you approach a business owner and say “I noticed the sign you have in the window, and it looks terrible” This wont insult them, because they already know it looks bad, but hoped no one would notice. “I’m a graphic artist, and I’d like to redo it for you.” Or, if you are so bold, do the work of redoing it before you even approach them and then offer revisions upon acceptance. Then charge a small fee “I’ll do it for $30″ If you don’t ask a lot, they’ll keep asking you to make things. The same method works for anything: video or flash if you notice they have a tv in the lobby, check out how bad the websites are for your favorite local businesses, and make an offer. Et cetera…
- The government is hiring. Yep. The feds need skilled multimedia artists. Search sites include USAJOBS, and AVUE.
Machinarium :: $20 / Point & Click / PC, Mac, Linux
There were 306 entries at IGF 09, and a good lot of them were unique. Independent games are on the rise, and I’m glad they are because a lot of them are 1. affordable, 2. very fun, 3. good looking. Independently produced games range from senseless to experimental to better-than-a-commercial-title-quality. Each one has it’s own quirks, usually with confusing/unconventional installations, or piggyback on some sort of existing technology to make a game engine. Machinarium (above), for example is a Flash Projector with a lot of SWFs in various folders. Similarly, Closure (down there somewhere) takes advantage of the fact that Actionscript 3 has better capabilities for image processing. My love for Indy Gaming is long-standing, so I’m a bit biased. Anywho, here are my picks from the crop!
Don't Shit Your Pants :: Free / Text-based / Flash
Closure :: Free / 2D Platformer / Flash
Enviro-Bear 2000: Operation: Hibernation :: $? / ??????? / ?
Super Meat Boy :: $? / 2D Platformer / WiiWare
Osmos :: $10 / Casual Survival / PC, Mac, Linux
Cortex Command :: $18 / 2D Platform War Strategy / PC, Mac (yeah, I’m wondering if my computer could handle this game!)
So the next time you’re at a LAN party (and there should be a time you give that a chance if you haven’t), be like me and annoy everyone with your new-found love for indy games. And even if that never happens, I put these up because it’s a small glimmer of hope for anyone who wants to start making something in their basement. Remember: Indy = no funding. Now go play the Machinarium demo! It’s so genius in it’s hot-spot-clicking simplicity… and that’s why I christen it the TRUE WINNER of the indy games festival (though it did not win. some other game called “Blueberry Garden” won, and it looked just pointless and boring)
Best. Game. Ever.
In case you aren’t aware, Gobelins is a school in France that specializes in animation. Their student work typically puts even the best production studios to shame. Yes, in some regards, I would argue that some of these shorts are better than the ones made by Pixar. There’s a lot of variety, fresh colors, and an obvious attention given to traditional media.
But the name of the game when you’re making a short is overlap. If you can learn how to do that, I think you’re golden. And keeping things short — really short — seems to help too.
It’s hardly even possible to make a best-of list. Browse around the archive. They’re all good. But here’s a few for the sake of having pictures on the page.
from the photo set "Days With My Father"
So today, I came across photographer Philip Toledano who does great work, sure, but there’s really not much you can say about really good photography. It’s like looking at a bunch of mirrors; you only really see yourself.
What a fine image you make, Mr. White…
I’m taking a trip to europe starting next week. one of the places i might go is Taunton Somerset where i have relatives. I found this delightful short film that shows off its landscape and what looks like the place where they make apple cider, or maybe beer. It’s hard to say.
I ran in to someone’s portfolio today that rocked my face off, and saw in their notes that they worked for a company called 3Deluxe. Upon further inspection, I was happy to see that this studio did the Apartment website back in the mid 90s which I was really fond of when I was young. Really out there, and cool, and high tech — not too many sites worked completely in shockwave in those days. So it’s no surprise that they’re website is bleeding edge enough that you might have to eat some cookies to bring your blood sugar levels back up. Everything about this site is perfect.
and the work they do is just downright incredible. who can say they designed an underwater hotel? i mean.. come on.
Two articles were recently put online, and they have a lot in common, so I suggest you read them both.
First up, “Science for CG” was originally a series of posts made on the cgtalk forums, and were recompiled for ease of reading by someone over at subdivisionmodeling.com. The result is a roughhousing of a lighting and optics physics textbook and a tips n’ tricks tutorial with glossy pictures. The explanation of BDRF with cubes is very cool.
Second, the shader artists who worked on the recently released Cloud With A Chance of Meatballs talk about how they’re expertise in the area of CG shading (like in the first article) combined with previous experience in photography made for a good match when it came to working in CG film.
Next post, I’ll be in Europe rubbing elbows with Blender geeks!
The Media Arts Project website got a revamp this summer (and the party was awesome by the way). It’s a good site, much like a mix between monster.com, deviantart.com, and a few other things all in one. What impresses me endlessly is that The MAP site has support for things other than still images so you can put up your audio, video, and flash.
