Articles
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Visual Effects and Animation Studios
In 2009 when I started working in the Visual Effects and Animation Industry I made a page with links to studios around the world: cgart.info
Since then I haven't updated the list and many of the companies have disappeared over time. To my surprise is the site still pretty popular but it needs serious updating. It should also stay as simple as the current one. The only addition will be a sorting and maybe a search function as well as direct links to the job postings which are often done by third party websites.
Below is quick prototype. Still not sure how do deal with multiple locations for one company. Right now I'm adding multiple entries which is not the best solution. The table is sortable by pressing on any of the headers.
Everyone is welcome to contribute! Just edit the README.md file and follow the formatting style. I'll merge the changes back into this article after approval.
Here the repository: Visual Effects and Animation Studios
Company Website City Country VFX Animation Games Job Postings Industrial Light & Magic www.ilm.com San Francisco US Yes Yes ILM Job Postings Industrial Light & Magic www.ilm.com London UK Yes Yes ILM Job Postings Industrial Light & Magic www.ilm.com Vancouver CA Yes Yes ILM Job Postings Industrial Light & Magic www.ilm.com Singapore SG Yes Yes ILM Job Postings Disney Animation www.disneyanimation.com Burbank US Yes Disney Open Positions Pixar Animation www.pixar.com Emeryville US Yes Pixar Careers Weta Digital www.wetafx.co.nz Wellington NZ Yes Yes WetaFX careers Double Negative www.dneg.com Vancouver CA Yes Yes DNEG Careers Double Negative www.dneg.com Montreal CA Yes Yes DNEG Careers Double Negative www.dneg.com London UK Yes Yes DNEG Careers Double Negative www.dneg.com Mumbai IN Yes Yes DNEG Careers Framestore www.framestore.com London UK Yes Framestore Job listings Framestore www.framestore.com Pune IN Yes Framestore Job listings Framestore www.framestore.com Montreal CA Yes Framestore Job listings Sony Pictures Imageworks www.imageworks.com Vancouver CA Yes Yes Imageworks job postings DreamWorks Animation www.dreamworksanimation.com California US Yes NBCUniversal jobs Moving Picture Company www.moving-picture.com Vancouver CA Yes Yes Technicolor Vacancies Moving Picture Company www.moving-picture.com Montreal CA Yes Yes Technicolor Vacancies Moving Picture Company www.moving-picture.com London UK Yes Yes Technicolor Vacancies Moving Picture Company www.moving-picture.com Bengaluru IN Yes Yes Technicolor Vacancies The Mill www.themill.com London UK Yes Technicolor Vacancies The Mill www.themill.com Montreal CA Yes Technicolor Vacancies The Mill www.themill.com Adelaide AU Yes Technicolor Vacancies Technicolor www.technicolor.com London UK Yes Technicolor Vacancies Mikros Animation www.mikrosimage-animation.eu Paris FR Yes Technicolor Vacancies MR. X www.mrxfx.com Toronto CA Yes Technicolor Vacancies Illumination www.illumination.com Paris FR Yes illuminationmacguff careers Animal Logic www.animallogic.com Sydney AU Yes Yes Animal Logic Careers Animal Logic www.animallogic.com Vancouver CA Yes Yes Animal Logic Careers Image Engine image-engine.com Vancouver CA Yes Image Engine Jobs Cinesite www.cinesite.com London UK Yes Cinesite Jobs Cinesite www.cinesite.com Vancouver CA Yes Cinesite Jobs Cinesite www.cinesite.com Montreal CA Yes Cinesite Jobs Trixter www.trixter.de Berlin DE Yes Trixter Jobs Method www.methodstudios.com Vancouver CA Yes Method Jobs Method www.methodstudios.com Montreal CA Yes Method Jobs Method www.methodstudios.com Melbourne AU Yes Method Jobs Base FX www.base-fx.com Beijing CN Yes Base Jobs Base FX www.base-fx.com Kuala Lumpur MY Yes Base Jobs Scanline VFX www.scanlinevfx Munich DE Yes Scanline Careers Scanline VFX www.scanlinevfx Vancouver CA Yes Scanline Careers Scanline VFX www.scanlinevfx Montreal CA Yes Scanline Careers Digital Domain www.digitaldomain.com Vancouver CA Yes Digital Domain Careers Atomic Cartoons atomiccartoons.com Vancouver CA Yes Atomic Cartoons Careers Artifex Studios www.artifexstudios.com Vancouver CA Yes Artifex Jobs Encore VFX www.encorepost.com Vancouver CA Yes Zoic Studios www.zoicstudios.com Vancouver CA Yes Zoic Jobs
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Github Pages for your Website
Introduction
We go over GitHub Pages and set up a simple website to get familiar with the GitHub interface and learn how to use Git via command line to sync up your local repository of any existing page to your GitHub page.
A bit of background on the topic before we get started.
When creating your website, blog or a simple portfolio page you’ll eventually come to the point where you need to find a service to host it. Generally you have to choose between a paid service or try one of the free options that are often not reliable, slow or include ads.
There another option which is free as well, reliable and even has some features that traditional website services don’t include, GitHub Pages. You might have heard of Git and GitHub or even used it as version control system. Many companies use it in technical departments, wherever code is involved.
It also works great to host any type of static websites (More about static websites). My entire website is hosted on GitHub: cinereal.github.io
GitHub pages have the added benefit of enforced SSL encryption (HTTPS) and of course free version control.
So what’s the catch? It only works for static websites. Meaning if you are using a CMS or any script that dynamically generates pages or requires execution on a server it will not work. Anything PHP won’t work. What will work are script that are run on the client machine such as JavaScript.
Nowadays Static Site Generators are great alternatives to CMSs. You can create an entire website without a line of code if you don’t want to dive too deep into web development.
There’s projects that go even a step further, they provide a CMS to edit content, generate static site and sync your git repositories. The most popular one is netlifycms.org.
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Lens Cast Calibration in Capture One
Introduction to Capture One [Part 2]
The Lens Menu
Lens Cast Calibration (LCC)
Lens Cast Calibration as to be done specifically for a shot setup hence it’s grayed out until a preset is created and applied. Each lens, camera, setting and lighting situation requires a unique calibration.
What is Lens Cast Calibration?
In short we are trying to minimize the uneven white balance throughout the image introduced due to a various factors. In many cases we can ignore it since it’s not noticeable unless we have a side-by-side comparison. But there are cases where it’s important to have an even white balance.
One of these cases are snowy landscapes, which I’ve been shooting recently. This type of photography exposes issues in the white balance as illustrated in the photo below. See how the color shifts towards the edges into a bluish darker tone?
Wide angle lenses are impacted the most as they gather light from more directions.
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Lens Correction in Capture One
Introduction to Capture One [Part 1]
The Lens Menu
Lens Correction
Depending on your lens and camera you might get either one of the following profiles.
Manufacturer Profile: Manufacturers supply enough data in the RAW file to generate a profile.
Lens Specific Profile: Means Capture One has a profile of your lens with additional Sharpness Falloff correction.
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New Raw Editor - Capture One
New Camera, New RAW Editor
I recently upgraded my camera and thought this was a good opportunity to re-evaluate my choice of RAW editing software. In the past I tried a few open source options, RawTherapee and darktable. They are both pretty good but I was missing a few features that forced me to keep falling back on Photoshop plus Camera RAW and I never got used to the in my view slightly confusing interfaces.
Eventually I gave Phase One’s Capture One 30 days demo a go. It loads quick, the interface is super responsive and most importantly everything was just were I would expect it to be. One of my main criteria when testing a new tool is usually how far along do I get until I need to ask Google. In the case of Capture One pretty much everything is self-explanatory. I watched some tutorials to improve my workflows but that’s about it.
There’s one big drawback and that is the price. Capture One is more expensive than most of its competitors including Lightroom. That been said, as a Sony or Fujifilm user you can get a discounted version that only supports their RAW files. Since I’ve been using Sony cameras for the past 10 years I’ve decided to go with this option. There is also a free Express version which is missing layers, masking and tethering features but has most of the grading tool. So if you are just starting out with RAW editing or generally limit your editing to grading this might be your choice.
As always there’s a few features that would be nice to have such as merging different exposures and stitching panoramas inside Capture One. Hopefully plug-ins will provide solutions in the near future.
Coming Soon…
I’m about to start writing an overview of the Capture One features. It should pop up here in the coming days!
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New Website - Static Site Generators
The Challenge
A few weeks ago I decided to finally upgrade my 10+ year old website. Initially I planned to use a content management system (CMS) but eventually had to realize that this wouldn’t work with my current web-server due to technical difficulties. The PHP memory limit is set so low on the provider side that I wasn’t able to install a CMS.
The Solution - Static Site Generators (SSG)
In recent years static site generators have become more popular. And they have some benefits over a CMS which convinced me to go that route.
What is a static site generators and how does it work?
The basic idea: You create a traditional website template with HTML and CSS and put SSG variables in place of the content such as text, titles and images. Then you put the actual content in simple markdown or json files. Finally you run the SSG via command line and it automatically combines template and raw content files into static html pages.
Some of the benefits:
- Hosted anywhere. Meaning you can use GitHub to host your website for free and super reliable.
- Fast, the pages don’t have to be rendered, no database requests.
- Secure, again there’s just static pages without logins and databases
- Easy to backup and move from one place to another
Of course there are downsides with static pages but for a portfolio and blogs the benefits outweigh these.
Where to get a Static Site Generators?
There are many open source options available. The most popular one is Jekyll, written in Ruby and works great with GitHub pages. After some research I decided to use Hugo, which is written in Google’s Go Language, and seemed a bit faster, slicker and more modern than the other options. If you don’t want to get too much into the whole web development aspect, for all the SSGs there’s many free templates including example sites available. But don’t take my word and do your own research!