Friday, 14 May 2010

Personal and Professional Development Task 7

TASK 7
Developing your brand and development of your showreel/portfolio as appropriate.

You're are expected to present your brand and a range of work that will feature in your showreel or presentation. You are also to identify where you will be looking for work and if it is local, national or international and the strategy that you are going to adopt for contacting people.



I've registered with various recruitment agency's, all u.k. based for the time being, as I'd like to remain fairly local to Leeds or within a reasonable driving distance.
I'll be trying to get into a paid job upon graduating but failing this I intend to do work placements to gain a working experience in my chosen field.

The places I've set up profiles in are:

Imagine
Creative Personnel
Interactive Selection
Smooth Devil
My JobRapido
Aardvark Swift
Creative Heads
Production Base

As well as uploading my C.V where ever possible I'm going to post off my C.V to local companies.
I'll also try for a more personal approach, by making a personal visit to the more local businesses.

The local businesses I wish to send CV's to are listed below:

3D Design, Nottingham
Virtual Designs, Leeds
Atum Studios, Sheffield
Giant Robot, Leeds

my plan ultimately will be to have a digital CV containing hyperlinks to more recent works available. this will allow for me to get my brand accross to many more potential employers than a paper CV ever could. once paper CV have been sent out if I receive no response my digital CV will be sent as a followup.

I would hope that after receiving my CV's company's would be in touch however due to the volume of CV's they receive this may not be possible in which case I will proactively get back in touch with them for any constructive feedback they could give me around my portfolio


In addition I've bought the Domain Name http://dw3dmaya.co.uk/ where a website can be built and promote myself further

This is the most up to date showreel at the moment it is a work in progress I intend adding to it as well as modifying what is currently in the showreel

Personal and Professional Development Task 6

TASK 6
Developing your business cards. You are expected to present a digital proof of your business cards with all the relevant information on them. It is anticipated that the branding you use will filter through to you web presence and showreel.

My first task was to create a logo for my brand. I wanted something classy, something simple but that said everything about what I was. I'd already registered the name DW3DMaya with as many places as possible to promote myself but could do with making up a fitting logo to support my name.
Originally I wanted to work on using the 3D programme I'm proficient in (Maya) which uses a dragon as it's logo, Going with this I came up with a couple of variations



but in the end I decided I didn't like them and moved on to playing in Maya to see what I could come up with.




This was my 1st effort but I decided that it looked more like an 80's T.V Company.

I was much happier with my second attempt and stuck with that idea.
Then using Moo.co.uk a business card specialist, I sent off for 50 Business cards costing £12.99.
The front and the back of the business card designs are below:

Front


Back

Personal and Professional Development Task 5

TASK 5
LinkedIn Profile and CV
You are required to produce your web based CV using Linked in and a standard two page CV

My media presence will be initially created through the following:

I've now signed up to LinkedIn.
If any one would like to contact/network with me please click the LinkedIn Logo below.

I've begun to network and started joining as many Maya networks as possible.

As well as signing upto LinkedIn I'm also currently networking on a more more professional based Facebook account and on Twitter. Please click the logo's below to be re-directed to my relevant pages:

&

I've also purchased http://dw3dmaya.co.uk/ Web Domain Name so that I can Begin to build my site and promote myself further

I have began to clean up my exiting models with a view to uploading them to turbo squid and similar sites. These are sites that allows the sale of personal models and they take a % of that sale. this will allow for me to begin gaining an income from 3D Modeling

I have been registered for several months on the C.G. Society website.
over the past weeks I have being giving websites a closer look and have found that I'm able to bid for jobs. potential customers visit the site and leave forum posts detailing the work they require to be completed.
when time permits I will looking to undertake work of this nature and will be checking for new posts as and when they come up.

As a little money maker i've signed up to sites sutch as

where I can sell the models I've made for a small profit
I decided to take this step after various requests for models I've already built.


My up to date CV as of May 2010


Personal and Professional Development Task 4

TASK 4
Minimum of 20 blog posts that are relevant to your practice. The commentary on the posts should be critical and articulate the what,why and how it is relevant to you. This is expected to be an ongoing process and to continue beyond this date.

1.
I've just been having a look at the new Maya 2011 at the revolutionary new way to paint texture weights to skinned characters this looks 10x easier than the old way of doing things!
this is something I've still to do a lot of exploring into I've touched on it but can only make life easier in my chosen field!
I've not had the chance myself to look in depth at this but I hope the option of doing this in the way previous editions of Maya because I think that touch of interaction with the weight painting would be lost



2.
I'm taking the time to fully explore C.G. Society I've touched on it and read up on the odd article but not bothered to treat it as a serious means of research
one aspect I really like is that C.G. Society organises a Meet the Artists where it gives you the chance to chat to the people behind the special effects in movies etc via
CGTalk
this makes it so that the artists and people at the top of the game are more approachable

3. I've just found this article on the C.G. Society about the new Mental Ray 3.8 available with 3DS Max 2011 I'm presuming that this will become available for Maya but I haven't ruled out learning 3Ds Max Properly since a lot of Jobs I've seen require people to have a working knowledge of it

4. there's a good artical on Pixars new
how point-based rendering works
Renderman is a render engine I'd like to get the hang of I've had a play with a sample version but not yet had the chance to go into depths

5. Real Flow 5 now available for any of those not knowing what Realflow is, it's a program and plug in for Maya and other 3D Platforms that give one of the best fluid effect in 3D to date
I've not had any experience using Fluid effects but would love to give it a try!
the new features can be found here!

6. SneakPeek Xrayunwrap 1.5 Rc1 is a new feature for UV Texturing Currently in 3DS Max but may make the transition to Maya at the moment the Maya's way of UV texturing is very messy and time consuming, it is some what of a talent to be able to UV map well In Maya

7. My Girlfriend sent me a link to a 100 top C.G. cars and I have to say the work is amazing although my work has come on leaps and bounds I know I have a long way to go to get to the photographic quality of some of these

8.
Wacom has introduced the Cintiq 21UX
I've used Wacom Tablets in the past but not extensively but this hi-tec peace of kit could really compliment the UV texturing side of things with it's interactive Screen i'll definatally look into getting one of these when they come down in price a little

9. there's a Nice interview with
ADAM COGGIN - CG Supervisor on the up and coming C.G. Film Azureus Rising
he tells of how he started at Black Sun doing an internship and his gradual involvement into the project
this Is how I'm looking to start out in a job within C.G. being hard to come by I'll be looking at working an internship to give me the much needed experience

10. Sculprits is more of a fun application, created by
Tomas Pettersson as a non profit program it allows you to mold and sculpt then display your work on is forum it looks very much like Zbrush and could work well!
i'm not sure how or even if it's compatible with other 3D platforms

11. I'm finding more and more about how 3DS Max has been tweaked since Autodesk took over 3DS Max I'm wondering if they are trying to bring it update with Maya and then ultimately merge them? or if one will phase out the other?
or maybe they will just continue to run the 2 platforms indefinitely I guess time will tell?

12. Since discussing a lot about avatar and and the uncanny valley effect in my dissertation I can't not give it a mention here in this article it goes on to discuss the revolutionary break through Avatar made Cameron Points out that you could have actors in there seventies acting out roles as though they were younger again it's proved that C.G. alone can merge that gap flawlessness who knows Arnie might still feature in a future Predator or Terminator sequel years down the line! the article also feature a very scary looking Bart Simpson that's always worth a look!

13. here's an article and a half for 3D Modelers there has been a scanner that can not only scan colour images but can scan the texture of the surface for use in 3D modeling

14. there's a bit here about pre-done rigs for vehicles meaning that all you would have to do is fix your home built model car mesh to this rig and suspension and even camera mounts would already be set up for you!

15. another article on easier UV Mapping, lets face it it's not the easiest thing in the world to master,
Unwrella works by taking an edge loop and is able to flatten out the UV Map into a manageable surface with ease! programs like this are more than welcome in my opinion!

16. the C.G. School is to offer free Live tuition from june 7th 2010 ranging from v-ray 3DS Max advanced Modeling Mental Ray and more! registrations free too
i'll be logging in for that one!

17. here's another free open source modeling program for building complex organic models!
i'll be firing up the p.c. and giving this a shot myself!

18. Free CGI Gadget from google for your Desktop, it acts like a digital newspaper keeping you up to date with all the latest
News/Articles about 3d, animation, VFX

19.
mbFeatherTools 2.0 for Softimage (XSI) a nice little program from autodesk that simulates feathers hedgehog slines and leafs etc another handy little tool in the 3D Modeling and Animation World

20. UV MasterBrush for Zbrush another program aimed at Zbrush users in a bids to make it easier to UV Map since this is one of the platforms I intend to learn it would be good to learn about the easier ways of UV Mapping too!


21.