tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-133297882024-12-19T04:25:49.112+01:00All about the world of Visual Effects, film making and my creative hobbies.Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-67978685911337122102016-04-19T23:32:00.000+02:002018-11-24T08:40:23.382+01:00

Having young kids I got interested in stop motion animation so I could make some short entertaining video's with their own toys, in particular their Lego Duplo sets. I got most equipment anyway and I only had to invest in some white paper and card board which is needed for the background. So 10 € later could set up a mini studio. Results can be seen on my Legobrick Parade YouTube channel. I

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-41050960709201900162014-09-19T16:56:00.000+02:002018-11-24T08:40:01.141+01:00

RMS 19 is around the corner and will be released this fall. The new RIS engine works different than the RMS 18 reyes and ray tracer hiders but these old hiders will still be available. So why not write an article on how to get decent quality images out and how to streamline your workflow. Some of the workflow tips will still be useful in RMS 19. What are my render options while

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-87748658362267766182014-08-30T14:36:00.000+02:002018-11-24T08:39:34.910+01:00

PRMan price drop It is a great time in RenderMan land. Pixar will release RMS 19 with the new RIS render technology this fall. That is great news but the real whopper is Pixar's decision to dramatically lower the price of all this sweet candy. That's right, instead of thousands of dollars it has gone down to $495 per license. And the great thing is that there is no 

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-34140237687121295942014-04-23T13:48:00.000+02:002018-11-24T08:39:12.636+01:00

Maya 2015 came out last week and for once I was quite excited with the new release. Maya now ships with Bifröst, a water simulation tool derived from Naiad. There are of course other features which also peaked my interest so here is a quick overview on what I like about the new Maya 2015. The new stuff Let me start with the simulation and dynamics updates. Bifröst is by far the coolest

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-23689906154428218292013-11-06T15:41:00.001+01:002018-11-24T08:38:51.427+01:00

I have always been a fan of remote controlled devices. When I came across the DJI Phantom I was immediately sold. This not too expensive quadcopter can carry a GoPro camera and has built in GPS to make sure your camera returns safely back to you. I already own a GoPro Hero 2 and in combination with the Phantom you can shoot really cool footage. Assembled Phantom and the rest of the box

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-57147366662994246532013-06-14T23:46:00.000+02:002018-11-24T08:38:06.490+01:00

Apple sneak previews the new Mac Pro on the first day of  WWDC 2013 On the 10th of June Phil Schiller, the senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple Inc., presented the new Mac Pro. This new machine looks nothing like the previous model. In fact, the whole thing is redesigned from the bottom up. The internals of the new Mac Pro. You can see two memory slots at either

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-13443621977454322982013-02-24T22:58:00.000+01:002019-11-19T14:34:50.110+01:00

Image Based Lighting, also known as IBL, has been around for a while now and is a great solution for lighting and integrating your VFX scene into shot footage. In this article I like to show you how I create the photograph needed for this technique. Low Dynamic range example of an equirectangular image also known as a Lat/long environment map. Keep reading if you like to know how I make

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-53473281513135125972013-01-23T10:44:00.001+01:002018-11-24T08:37:34.226+01:00

I talked about DSLR microphones in the past (check this link) and how they add extra quality to your video. We can take this a notch further and use a separate sound recorder instead of using the recorded audio from the camera. We have a Tascam DR-40 to our disposal so why not give it a quick review. We made a video about it so check that out first and then continue to read the article

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-37522582330011607432012-11-22T13:01:00.000+01:002018-11-24T08:37:08.096+01:00

I get more and more filming jobs than real VFX work lately which in a way is a pitty but I also see it as an opportunity to learn new things. For one of my latest clients we needed a high speed camera. Luckily for us Sony released the NEX FS700, an affordable 1080p camera with amazing frame rates. Not a Review First of all I like to say this is not really a review but merely

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-22697372072957760622012-10-11T12:25:00.000+02:002018-11-24T08:36:32.390+01:00

Last week Pixar released their latest instalment of RenderMan Studio and RenderMan Pro Server. This is quite exciting news so a good reason to write something about it. Versions and Pricing for RenderMan Studio 4 Pixar used to have two product lines. The cheaper RenderMan for Maya which was a limited plug-in but with an embedded render license and the more expensive RenderMan Studio

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-43212024517683760652012-09-25T06:55:00.000+02:002018-11-24T08:35:56.690+01:00

Every now and then I get the question on how to get into the VFX business. In this post I'll give some pointers which can help you to get on your way. I have to warn you though. It is not an easy business to get into and a tough one to stay in. The competition can be quite stiff. Although I do not encourage working many extra hours you probably will at some point as you have to

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-30408741463789895372012-08-18T11:46:00.003+02:002018-11-24T08:35:32.624+01:00

I recently put my old graduation animation online (which you can watch on youtube: A Plug's Life). It was made back in 2001 and it was my first big project working with Maya and Pixar's RenderMan. The other day I was asked in the video comments if I could write some tutorials on the use of RenderMan. That sounds like a great idea but before I want to come up with some hands on tutorials

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-47231345338598327662012-08-06T09:51:00.001+02:002018-11-24T08:34:52.721+01:00

Because I am a bit of a techie I often get the question what kind of workstation people should get to do their post production and CGI work on. In this article I look into what is useful and what is merely fluff. Since hardware specifications change regularly I will try to be as general as possible so hopefully this article will still be valid in years to come. The machine Any computer can

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-32200558698670579952012-07-18T13:24:00.000+02:002018-11-24T08:34:23.996+01:00

Projects range from small one person achievements to huge VFX productions where hundreds of artists contribute to the result. The thing they have in common is that they need computational power to finish certain steps in the process. Rendering is the first one that comes to mind but simulations and compositing take up their own share of CPU cycles. It is possible to let your workstation

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-76199132725822436382012-07-10T17:05:00.003+02:002018-11-24T08:33:46.965+01:00

Sound is 50% of a movie. Most people stop watching your movie when the sound is badly recorded. With the whole revolution of shooting on DSLRs, new types of microphones have been designed. Rode has come up with the Videomic Pro and the Stereo Videomic Pro. We have those microphones available to us so what is better than making a blog post about it? That's right, a video on our bbrevisited

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-86897930429295673552012-06-19T11:56:00.000+02:002018-11-24T08:33:19.688+01:00

Toilet Run is Belgian Boomsticks' second production. The idea Queueing for a public toilet is something which happens to all of us now and then but is never pleasant when you need to go urgently. It gets worse when it is out of order and you need to find another one. What happens when it becomes a race to get there first but the path to it is full of obstacles? Since all obstacles

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-13610250025555082922012-06-09T01:53:00.001+02:002018-11-24T08:32:53.430+01:00

This is part of a series on the basic elements of Visual Effects. Each post will talk about a certain element which is one of the basic bricks used for building VFX shots. In this eighth and final post in the Back to Basics Series I will talk about compositing. A CGI image with a split trough the middle which shows color channels in the top part and the alpha channel in the bottom

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-77698295418460273142012-05-25T12:06:00.001+02:002018-11-24T08:32:24.224+01:00

This is part of a series on the basic elements of Visual Effects. Each post will talk about a certain element which is one of the basic bricks used for building VFX shots. In this seventh post I will talk about matte painting. So far in this series I have used images and photos to illustrate what I am writing. These have been always made or photographed by myself. Although to me

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-10159458747342483552012-05-09T15:51:00.000+02:002018-11-24T08:32:00.310+01:00

The GoPro camera's are immensely popular. These low cost, tiny and robust camera's are quite unique and since I use one of them for my hobby projects I have decided to give it a review.  There are three editions available for the GoPro HD HERO2 which are the Outdoor, motorsports and surf edition. I purchased the motorsports one as it comes with a suction cup to fix it to windows and

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-30496981863549631592012-04-27T09:29:00.000+02:002018-11-24T08:31:36.415+01:00

This is part of a series on the basic elements of Visual Effects. Each post will talk about a certain element which is one of the basic bricks used for building VFX shots. In this sixth post I will talk about lighting and rendering. A ray traced image with a directional light and a sky dome which is used for the image based lighting. The reason why lighting and rendering usually goes

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-52691273368746206162012-04-12T09:23:00.000+02:002018-11-24T08:31:05.392+01:00

Jef-Aram Van Gorp and I joined forces as the Belgian Boomsticks and we produced our first YouTube short. In this post I explain the how we made it all happen. The Idea Jef-Aram and I are fans of shorts like the ones made by Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch. They are low budget, have decent enough effects and have often great stories.  Since making shorts is fun we decided

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-17814556510434001962012-03-29T11:27:00.001+02:002018-11-24T08:30:29.360+01:00

This is part of a series on the basic elements of Visual Effects. Each post will talk about a certain element which is one of the basic bricks used for building VFX shots. In this fifth post I will talk about shading and texturing. In the previous posts I talked about 3d modeling and 3d animation. It is great to have cool animated models but without color they do look dull. Moreover,

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-74179937584021110922012-03-16T13:53:00.000+01:002018-11-24T08:30:05.208+01:00

This is part of a series on the basic elements of Visual Effects. Each post will talk about a certain element which is one of the basic bricks used for building VFX shots. In this fourth post I will talk about 3D animation. Although it is difficult to demonstrate this by still images, I will use them to show certain principles. A simple humanoid skeleton. In one of the previous

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-22490388067696358722012-02-28T09:26:00.000+01:002018-11-24T08:27:45.457+01:00

There is an update to this post on the hinge issue of the pocket rig. You can read it by clicking here. The Edelkrone Pocket Rig. Although this is a VFX blog I also like to talk about film equipment. Especially when it is the cheaper kind for the Indie film makers. Edelkrone is a Turkish company and has come out with some nice new rigs and the Pocket Rig is definitely a new concept in the

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13329788.post-55167677983180727482012-02-14T10:03:00.002+01:002018-11-24T08:27:01.248+01:00

This is part of a series on the basic elements of Visual Effects. Each post will talk about a certain element which is one of the basic bricks used for building VFX shots. In this third post I will talk about tracking and match moving. some of the tracking markers which I use on set. Eric Alba designed these markers. We can divide tracking into two categories. There is

Frederichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10727935454507897167noreply@blogger.com0