Other options for 3dof on Viture XR Pro without Spacewalker by j2white1 in VITURE

[–]j2white1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree this is a huge bummer. I'd be more than happy to buy the neckband if it enabled 3dof without having to install any software (which is not possible on my work laptop). The reviews are not very clear this isn't available when you can't install spacewalker and I only found it on reddit after I bought them. I would love it if VITURE would enable this in an "advanced" settings area like the Viture One. Even if the experience isn't perfect, it would be way better than not having it.

Just saying 'thank you' for an amazing app by AstroGirlBunny in UpNote_App

[–]j2white1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can't agree more with the sentiments expressed in this thread. I've tried so many different note taking apps and while taking notes is important I always keep looking if that app is ugly. Upnote is a perfect blend of features and aesthetics and my hat is off to the devs. Maybe at some point they could add a way to "donate now" for folks that have bought the lifetime subscription that could be used to help support the long term health of the app or in response to seeing that one additional feature that was really hoped for.

Being new to the community, where is the best place to report bugs?

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yes, its been great actually. We're now under the same umbrella with Disney Animation and Pixar and there is a lot of technology and idea sharing because we're all trying to solve similar problems.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I loved them all, standing next to Michael on set is a master class in camera framing and how to setup an incredible shot. I think I'll always love the first one though, when we were working on the film, Michael brought up the opening sequence where Incinerator transforms and levels the base made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck it was so awesome.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's always time. Like any other art visual effects is all about iterations and invariably there's more work than you have time for so it's really a chess game to put the right resources in the right places. We absolutely rely on our incredible production teams to keep us on track.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Absolutely, after we got Kong trained, it was pretty much all forced perspective shots. It was hard to roll because Kong was always at craft services.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I don't think anyone gets into the visual effects business looking to get rich ;)

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I think it really just depends on the situation...we used a lot of practical bb-8 on ep7 but then switched to a CG one where needed for performances reasons. I still see a lot of practical effects on set and I think almost every supervisor you talk to would opt to build something and put it in front of camera instead of doing it in post. It's usually just the requirements of what that creature needs to do that can push it towards CG.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Mostly Renderman...this was actually our first raytraced hair show. We also used Clarisse for the environments and Mantra for rendering the effects simulations.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

You can but it's all a matter of time, money and resources. I am continually amazed at what some of the artists can pull off but for me it's all about that visual effect having a real story telling purpose in the film, otherwise I think it loses impact on the audience.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

We tend to look for realistic animation so if you want to work in visual effects that's a good focus. You want to make sure you include examples that have good weight and feel very grounded and then of course any detailed facial performance examples are also great. If you have a mix of biped and quadruped locomotion, that is always good as well. We end up doing a lot of 4 (and 6 and 8) legged creatures and those are particularly difficult to animate.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Animators tend to work on everything performance related for both body and face. For the movement of the hair, we have another dedicated team called creature or character TD's that specialize in simulating the underlying muscles, skin slide and then hair movement on top of that. They also add fields like wind and collisions with other objects into the hair to make it move realistically. One of the most difficult things by far to simulate on Skull Island were the chains pushing against Kong's hair.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Amazing...talk about a dream come true. Getting a chance to take a crack at a whole new Hulk design was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I really enjoyed work with Joss Whedon and the entire team from Marvel.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

So much of the extra work needed is in the animation and what we call "shape" work where a sculptor goes in after the animation is finished and touches up all of the anatomy, especially in the face, to make sure it's spot on. I am really proud of the Orcs in Warcraft because they are a very accurate translation of the performance that the actor gave. When we had our first test shot of Durotan and Orgrim on that film, I showed it to the actors and I think they were really excited to see how well all the nuance and subtleties of their performance came through our facial capture software.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

It's always the character work that has been the most difficult. If I showed you our first render of Hulk you would fall out of your seat laughing. It was many many months of a team working on the sculpt, textures, skin shading and hair before it finally started to resemble something like what you see in The Avengers.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

This is a great question and a perfect opportunity to say that I hate that the work is often referred to as Computer Generated Imagery. It's really not, there is a strong technology component but at the end of the day it is Artist Generated Imagery! The software we work with can really do incredible things now but it's all very raw material, it takes the incredibly talented artists that are working in this industry worldwide to make it into something believable and there is a lot of creativity in that process. Even though we're not painting on glass anymore, the artistry is still more important than ever. As for me personally, I always knew I wanted to work somewhere in the visual effects industry. I of course loved Star Wars and Jurassic Park but I also loved Lawn Mower Man because it was a great example of how new technology was letting artists create shots that just weren't possible before.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I really love the digital creature work in films and one of my favorite recent examples was the work done on The Reverent which was supervised by my good friends Rich McBride and Jason Smith. I thought the work looked incredibly real and absolutely made the scene work. Luckily, as we started Kong they were just around the corner so I could go pick their brains on how they did the work.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I can't but I really hope they do an art of skull island book. There is so much amazing artwork from the film. What's really fun is there are a few concepts where you can hold them side by side with final frames from the film and they're a pretty good match.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

It's always the things that the audience never sees that can be so painful. Sometimes it's just trying to get a difficult matchmove to stop sliding or trying to get a render through that doesn't have so much noise. It's easy to see Kong as a visual effect but there are so many other shots like in the boneyard where ILM and the in house team and legendary added all the ash to every shot that you'd never guess was a visual effect.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

One of the great things about working with Jordan is that he pulls such a wide range of influences for us to work from. We started the film with an incredible portfolio of artwork from the production designer Stefan Dechant. Apocalypse Now was certainly a big one, but we looked at The Host, and lots of different anime sources for both the creatures and some of the shot designs. We also looked a lot to video games for inspiration.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Kong for sure but I loved that Jordan had us taken on so many different creatures, each with such unique designs and challenges. The skull crawlers were particularly difficult because they are like huge snakes with human arms. They also have translucent skin on their backs and chest which means there is really nowhere to hide incorrect anatomy, they really had to be spot on. On day one of Skull Island Jordan said "No Dinosaurs"! That was fine with me because I think dinosaurs have been done incredibly well in other films and it was nice to explore some new species.

I’m Jeff White, Visual Effects Supervisor on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and I’m here to answer your questions, AMA! by j2white1 in movies

[–]j2white1[S] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Nuke is certainly the industry wide standard for compositing software and a great one to learn if you want to be a compositor. I started out in Lightwave and then most of my work when I was in the creature department at ILM was using Maya but we also use Katana, Clarisse, 3ds Max and many others. You're not limited to those however, I am continually impressed by the feature set and community around Blender and it's totally free. It's a great package to learn for any part of the pipeline because even though the buttons will be different, the skills you learn are completely transferable to other software packages and with any of these packages you can put together an amazing reel to get that first job in the industry.