Impossible Pigeon?

Pigeon: Impossible is an animated short film by Lucas Martell created using off-the-shelf software on a tiny budget of USD5000. This 6-minute animated film tells the tale of Walter, a rookie secret agent faced with a problem seldom covered in basic training: what to do when a curious pigeon gets trapped inside your multi-million dollar, government-issued nuclear briefcase.

The project began as a solo effort by writer/director Lucas Martell, a freelance animator in Austin, Texas. During the 4 years it took to complete the film, over 100 artists, musicians and animators have contributed their time and talents to this independent effort.

Check it out at the Pigeon: Impossible website, which also includes a series of in-depth podcasts on the making of the film, and some nifty production tricks and techniques are revealed. Truly an inspiration for would-be independent CG film makers and VFX artists.

Fire For Effect

FFE is a military term I learned during National Service. The US Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms defines it as: That volume of fires delivered on a target to achieve the desired effect. In Hokkien, it means "hoot ho yi si".

But that's not the kind of fire I'll be handling in the near future. I just thought the term has a nice ring to start this post. This blog has "VFX" in the title, which means sooner or later I'll have to talk about visual effects, my new bread and butter industry.

Fire is one of the many things that can now be simulated rather convincingly using CG. Indeed, you've probably seen quite a fair bit of CG fire already if you are a fan of action movies. Continuing with the other elements, the behavior of water, earth and air can also be reproduced adequately using fluid dynamics, particle systems and other computer simulations. Coupled with modern shaders, renderers and post production techniques, very believable visual effects can be achieved digitally.

We shall explore more VFX in more depth as and when I feel like it... so stay tuned.

Armored to the Core

Right. Siggraph Asia 2008 is finally over. Vini vedi ire. Bene est. Forgive my bad latin.

Let's move on to one of my hobbies while staying in Taiwan - plamodels (short for plastic model kits in Japanese). As toys are relatively cheaper in Taiwan compared to Singapore by about 1.5 times, I managed to collect quite a bit of junk while working over there for the past 2 and a half years.

Now, Kotobukiya has a line of 1/72 scale Armored Core plamodels, and being a hardcore fan of the PlayStation game, I went out and collected almost the entire series of kits. Here is a small sample of what I mananged to assemble. Most of them are not properly painted (yet, if ever). The rest of my collection are still in their boxes, but given how busy my new job is, they'll probably not see the light of day for a long time to come.

What I've done

No, today's post is not about the Linkin Park song used for the credits of the Transformers movie, even though it is one of my favorite songs.

Today was the second day of Siggraph Asia. Some of the Emerging Technologies exhibits were pretty neat. I chanced upon Jun Fujiki (Kyushu University/JSPS) showing his nifty little optical illusion game. Something clicked in my mind, so I made a lucky guess and indeed he turned out to be the father of the Echochrome game. Some of the other exhibits, like the Optical Tone, a dynamic color light source object in the shape of a tumber which you can swing around, was also highly fun and interesting. Some of the other displays were lame, unimaginative and not quite emerging.

The Electronic Theatre was good too, one clip entitled "The Moment" was really short but really captured my attention. It showed a slow motion reaction of a lady experiencing a car crash, as the windscreen shatters and the airbag inflates, she witnesses something really unusual... The overall screening was a good 2 hours of fun and entertainment.

So, what have I done? Here's a taste of my CG art work from almost 10 years ago. I promise I will come out of hibernation and finally do something new and personal. Meanwhile, allow me to reminisce on my past glory(?). These images were created for a PS2 racing game released in Korea about 5 years back, the car in the second image was an original design.

What do you want to do?

That's probably the best question anyone can ask me. Thanks Tad. That would be Tad Leckman, Director of Training from Lucasfilm Animation. And though technically I am one of Tad's student, that question wasn't just directed at me. It was asked during his talk at Siggraph Asia 2008 entitled "Finding Your Place in Digital Production".

What do I want to do? Let's see...

I've always been doing what I enjoyed -video games, digital entertainment, work around the world, few worries... the good stuff. But I eventually discovered that I have distanced myself from the "real world", because the "real world" is full of cr*p. To avoid taking cr*p, I had paid for it through solitude and isolation. Recently however, I decided I would leave my comfort zone, come back to my home town and face "reality" in the face.

And the first blow reality dealt me was to shoulder the responsibility of designing, coordinating and generally be held accountable for a whole new course in a field not of my expertise - Visual Effects!

Not being one to back down from a challenge, I accepted it without much thought. Over the years, to the best of my knowledge, I have not had a single disappointed employer. Though my new job is not my favorite cup of tea, I'm going to do my best. After all, I switched job out of my own will.

So what if I don't have a glamorous job anymore. So what if I haven't achieved anything important in life? So what if I don't have any connections, and get treated as nobody. So what if I'm not recognized or appreciated for my efforts?

I want to teach. I want to contribute. I may not fit snugly in an educational institute or a big production house, but I do want to connect with people and make a difference. In my own time, in my own way. I'm starting from the bottom again...

More Siggraph Asia tomorrow. The emerging technologies look interesting.

Who am I?

I'm Spiderman. Well, nothing so cool I'm afraid. Some keywords to sum up my past: Paper & Pencil, Apple IIe, Amiga 2000, Amiga 1200, Deluxe Paint, Imagine, LightWave, Intel, Nvidia, Photoshop, Manga Babes, SGI, PSX, N64, XBox, PS2, PSP, Wacom, XSI, iPhone, PS3, Modo, Maya, Houdini, Paper & Pencil.

My teachers: Buddha, Bhagavad Gita, Mahatma Ghandi, Dalai Lama, Alan Watts, Deepak Chopra, Dr Wayne Dyers, Anthony Robbins, Don Miguel Ruiz, Robin Sharma, Rev Dr Michael Benard Beckwith, Eckhart Tolle, Bob Proctor, Earl Nightingale, Napoleon Hill.

Hmm... my passions don't seem to match. That could explain why, being left-handed, I use the wrong brain to control my right hand. I'm still accumulating worldy experiences and trying to see the unified field.

One day, all will be made clear. Tomorrow, I go to Siggraph Asia.

PSP VFX is launched!

To clarify, PSP are the initials of my name, not the Sony PlayStation Portable, but VFX does indeed stand for Visual FX (Effects). Why PSP VFX? Because, it's my new job description. Coming from a game development background, I've switched career and now am a full-time public servant in the education sector. I teach Visual Effects to 16-17 year olds in Singapore.

What am I going to blog about? For one, my experience in helping Singapore build up it's visual effects and video games industry. Despite being a small fish in a big pond, I do what I can, and hopefully have something to contribute to the community and local industy.

Next post, I will blog a bit more about my background. Until then, keep watching this site. Things are going to explode!