Animal Logic Academy: Choosing Your Specialisation

[00:00]
Okay, everyone. Well, thank you very much for joining our online webinar tonight. My name's Alex Weight. I'm joined by Byron. I'm the Creative Lead here at the Academy, and Byron is one of our fantastic students from last year, who is now working in industry, and it's always great to get some firsthand experience from a new student who's now working versus kind of just, you know, people have been in the industry for a long time. So this webinar tonight is called Choosing Your Specialization. We're going to talk about what the different departments are, what they do, how to apply for them. This also applies for getting a job and what to use for your portfolio, and so we'll go through them tonight. There's quite a lot to go through tonight, by the way, and so we're going to move pretty quickly. But at the end, I'm going to show you a slide where you can download an info pack of everything that we've gone over tonight. So if you're madly taking notes, don't worry. You can go online and download an info pack and go through it at your own leisure. So we're all storytellers here. We do a lot of work with Indigenous group here at UTS as well, and including some past projects. We like to be involved with story, and in doing so, we like to acknowledge the original storytellers of this nation, the Eora nation, on whose land UTS currently now stands. So that's me creatively. Byron Boyd Morgan is a lighting TA, not at ILM. We've just discovered at Netflix, and Byron actually came and joined us last year to work on the project last year in the modeling department. Is that right Byron? Yes, modeling department. Fantastic. I mean, we'll talk about how that happened in a bit, I think. So who are we? We're a collaboration between UTS and Netflix Animation Studios, previously Animal Logic Studios. And what we try to do is address the gap between education and industry, because a lot of juniors out there who finish education find it difficult to get a job in industry, or if they get a job in industry, they struggle because there's all these unspoken rules about what to do and how to do it when you get a job. And we can all learn to do the tools and use the software, but applying that in a professional environment is a very different skill set, and it was discovered that no one's actually teaching what that skill set is, so that's what we do. And we do that by teaching a one year immersive master's degree. We call it immersive because what we do is we teach by doing. So we run our course like it's industry by giving us students a studio experience. So there's no classes, no lectures, no homework. It's basically like a job. So you learn by being part of the pipeline and, you know, working basically like a professional artist. So we do that by, that's exactly what I just said here. We put students in an industry immersive studio environment. And then we run through two high end films throughout the year.

[03:15]
So I just got to the next one. I just found that actually. So the two films we do, one is an animated, runs in an animated feature pipeline. And the other one is a VFX component in the middle of the year, because we've heard from industry that there's quite a lot of VFX studios here in Sydney, and a lot of them want students with VFX experience. So we've pivoted our studio to the middle of the year studio to be a VFX component. All of our leads, myself included, and Rowan and Raph and the other people who work here come from industry. That's a big part of what makes this course unique is that you're taught by industry professionals. These are some of the projects we've worked on in the past, and we bring this experience and these contacts to the course experience. Throughout the year, we get industry speakers to come and talk to the students.

[04:06]
Generally around 40 to 44 per year, it's pretty fun. And they come in and do master classes and talks about pretty much every department and part of the process throughout the whole year. So we maintain that connection with industry is great for recruitment drives. It's great for making connections. It's a really fun part of the whole course. So just a quick note of how we last year, you know, talking ourselves up, we did very well production excellence and visual effects and best production excellence at the rookies. Alone, a big project went on to show at 20, I think a bit more, actually 20 festivals around the world. Skate big VFX show one gold at the AEAF, sorry, and Oniko won silver at the same awards as well. It was pretty good. And every year we try and get our films out there in order to get them seen and shown by, you know, by other studios.

[05:01]
So I'm going to play our show reel, but unfortunately it seems like the audio isn't coming through. So I can talk about a few things as a plays. Enjoy. What I love about these, about these projects is that when our students finish the year and they have some of these shots and they reel, the reel looks like a, you know, they've got sort of professional looking high-end shots on the reel, which kind of gets them to stand above and beyond the other juniors out there in industry because, you know, some of these pieces of work look absolutely fantastic. And it can really make their reels look like a professional, professional production. Each one of these projects, these films generally goes for about five minutes or so. We keep it that length so we can increase the quality of the work. The VFX shorts are generally shorter, but the animator features shorts are in that sort of five-minute mark. Okay, so we break our year up into three trimesters.

[06:21]
We call them studios. Studio one, two, and three. Basically, studio one is pre-production on the main film. Studio two is the VFX short film, which goes for 10 weeks. And studio three is production on the main film. We finish the production and get that done. So our year is broken up like that. There's a two-week gap in between each studio and it's a pretty intense year. I mean Byron, what was last year was occupational hazard, right? You worked on it? Yeah, occupational hazard and Oniko. And Oniko, I think this one, I've got that right here. Here we go. They were the two projects last year. And did you do modeling on both projects? Yeah, I did modeling on both. And I think correct me on Oniko, you mostly did environment modeling, is that right?

[07:09]
Yeah, environment modeling on Oniko. And I think I did a lot of layout for both films as well. That's right. You did too. You did too. Yeah. Or assembly, right? Or layout. Assembly, sorry. Yeah. Combat of both. Fantastic. Yeah, they're both great projects. You can see both of them online, by the way, everyone. If you go to our socials, you can see both projects on our YouTube. So, Byron, you studied at AIE. Yep. And but you came in to join us in modeling. Did you specialize in modeling at AIE or did you kind of have a bit more of a generalist sort of background? I think when I did AIE, the first year was generalist. And then the second year, they asked you to focus on something, but you still like to do a lot of everything because the it was a lot smaller. Like it wasn't a full suite of everyone can do every one specific department. Well, like how UTS is, it was more like had to do modeling and surfacing and a little bit of rigging and a little bit of comp and a little bit of like just to help out. Yeah, great.

[08:22]
Right. And then you, you also knew some Houdini as well, is that right? Yeah, I did on the self learning Fridays that we do here. I started picking up Houdini because I hadn't done Houdini before. So I use, yeah, the Fridays to learn it. And how much do you think Houdini helped you in the whole modeling process, retrospectively? What do you reckon? I don't think I got to use it at UTS very much. I got to practice with it, but I didn't get to apply it to the film. It was mostly just my art. Yeah, mostly just my art, sure thing. And then you're now employed at Netflix, not ILM and Netflix is a lighting TA. How did that happen?

[09:08]
How did that go from, you know, you use specializing modeling to ending up in lighting? So I like to think I was a bit of a, yes, man, when I was at UTS, like, you'd ask me to do something. And even if it wasn't modeling, I was like, yep, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. And ended up Ross got reached out to about Netflix having lighting TAs. Ross was one of the teachers here last year. And he said, you're a pretty good problem solver. You should apply. So I was like, all right, I'll give it a go. And then I got the job. So we're done. We're done. That's awesome. And do you enjoy it? You like it? Yeah, no, it's great. I'm definitely like a problem solving is one of the things I enjoy. That's why I liked learning Houdini on the side, why I liked doing all the other stuff that I did at UTS. It's just like a lot more of that, like trial and error, going through documentation, reading up how our pipeline works, and then figuring out how to fix holes while on in lighting. Well done. That's great. I mean, we had a, we actually got a request a year ago from a supervisor at ILM for a student. And we asked what department did they want the student in? And they said they don't care. They just wanted a problem solver. So being good at solving problems is like a very hireable skill, I'd say. Just a quick note to everyone out there.

[10:40]
You can ask questions in the chat. We do have some staff members. The cameras are off, but they're available. They can answer questions for you in the chat. Or at the end of this presentation, I'll have a Q&A part where I'll go through some of the questions as well. All right. So what we're going to do is talk about the departments, what they are, what they specialize in, how they work. And we're going to be sort of looking at a lot at Oniko, our last year's project at demonstrating each one of these departments. Last for Oniko, we had 36 students and 30 weeks of production. It's pretty amazing what we ended up with at the end. So these are our departments. Art, previous layout, modeling, rigging, surfacing, two rigging, for some reason, animation, effects, lighting, comp, production, and TDs. So we'll go through each one of them because there are actually more departments than that in the industry. But these are the sort of main ones and the entry points for juniors generally. So how are you going to choose one of these specialization? So when you come and join us, when you join our course, you have to choose one of them. You have to apply for our course in one of those departments. You can't just apply for our course and say, I'll move into one of the other when I get there. That's not how it works. It's like a job.

[12:00]
You have to apply for a position in a department and tell us what you want to specialize in. So how do you choose it? After tonight, we've gone through the details. Maybe you can kind of go through this as well, but maybe you already know. But it helps if you ask yourself these three questions. What are you good at? Or do I have foundational knowledge in that area? Do I have a passion for that area? I think that's really important because industry and us will take attitude, overability, quite a lot of the time, because that can be the tools and the software can be taught, but good attitude can't. And your career, think to yourself, what role do you see yourself in industry? If you want to be sort of like a CG soup and you're going down a different path, then maybe you should consider which path you want to go down to first at the beginning.

[12:50]
Then make sure your application portfolio matches your chosen specialization. Please, if you're applying to be in animation, 3D animation, don't just send us a modeling reel. Make sure you're showing us things that apply for the department of specialization you're applying for. And of course, info pack at the end has all that information. So we're going to start with production. So production is a fun department in that it is more about the people communication than it is about any technical or creative skills. This generally suits people who work people people who like helping people who like supporting people who like being a part of the industry who love film, love animation, but maybe aren't sort of artistic or aren't kind of technically proficient enough to go into other areas or they simply like being a part of the whole lot, the whole big picture. The fun thing about production is that it kind of carries into every part of the industry from BFX to animation to TBCs and so on. So there's different areas that you can go into production. And there's almost no ceiling for production either. It's an endless kind of progression into becoming sort of like producers on big films or showrunners and so on.

[14:04]
But for our case, what we need are people who are adapt at communication, who have a good positive attitude and who are good sort of organizers, who have a good ability at managing time and managing notes and skills. So really, it's people who want to be who are interested in helping people is really what we're looking for. What production is not is the boss. We often know people who want to go into production because they want to tell people what to do or how to do things that is not what production is. It's about helping people achieve their goals. It's a great department, a lot of fun, but you have to want to kind of help people and organize people as well. So for your portfolio, a lot of it really comes down to the interview, but just show us anything that you have done in the past and maybe any sort of volunteer work you've done or any organizational work, maybe a job with you've been a manager somewhere, have you worked at another place where you've kind of worked with people, collaborated with people, all that kind of stuff really helps a lot. Now, production does do a lot of note-taking. Don't get me wrong, it's managing, it's sitting in meetings, sitting in reviews, taking notes, helping artists. This lovely messy kind of detailed thing you see in front of you is called Shock Grid or now it's called Flow, Flow Production Tracking, and it is the industry standard for tracking notes and assets and shots within industry. So production works primarily in here to make sure things are going, passing in between departments well and tracking the notes as well. So a lot of these notes happen against every asset you can see, and so the artists at every time and every day can see what they're supposed to be working on and what the notes are that they've worked on as well. And if you don't like Excel or Google Sheets, then maybe production isn't for you either, but it does help those people who love to be organised. It works beautifully for me, I love it. If you've got a brain for it, it's great. If you don't, then you can just get lost in this kind of stuff, but I think it's fantastic. So people who love being neat and organised and like kind of working with people, productions for you.

[16:22]
Art departments. I'm sure most of you know what art department does, but in industry, there's quite a few other areas that art department cover. We'll go over them in a second, but first of all, if you want to apply for art department for us, what do you include? It's always great to see any traditional art you've done. If you come from a fine arts degree, that's great. Now in the past, pretty much everyone in art department came from a fine arts degree, and nowadays we have more of a sort of digital upbringing. So not many people have gone through that sort of traditional art process, which means they have to catch up on the fundamentals. So it's great to see if you do have an understanding of form, of life drawing, of anatomy, of contrast, of colour theory, those kind of things, two and three point perspective. That's great. But if you don't, that's okay, but you would have a lot to catch up on. So what I want to see is any traditional art you've done, any character art, any environment art, props, life drawing, and storyboard. So what's good to see really is variety. We often get a lot of portfolios of people who can do one thing really well, and then they fall apart if they have to draw a background or a chair. So it's great to see a lot of different artistic styles. Please, if you're doing characters, it has to be beyond anime manga style because that is very easily templated. It's great to see characters that are in different body shapes and different styles, something that's very stylized, something that's very realistic.

[17:58]
I just don't want to see a whole bunch of sort of anime characters pasted into a portfolio. So here's some examples. Storyboards, good to see. Here's some character work. These are other things that Art Department does for the modeling department. So you've got Byron, when you were working on Oniko, I'm just going to go to this one here, you did a lot of these environments here. Is that right? Like these buildings? Yeah, I did a lot of the buildings. And so these were provided by who, Nia did these, I think, right? Yeah, I know Nia did a lot of them. Yeah. I'm not sure if she did all of them, but I definitely got a lot of art from now. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're great. So really these drawings are provided for Art Department so they know what to model, how to model them from all different angles. They're called orthographics.

[18:49]
It's a big part of what Art Department does. They also do color keys, layout, mud maps, we call them texture and surfacing reference, doing everything for props as well. Again, orthographics for every prop needs to be drawn up and every element you see on screen has to have a design for it. So the modeling department knows what to model, what material it's made of as well and so on. Previous and layout. I love these departments. It's a lot of fun. Previs is probably what I would say is the most generalized department in the animated feature pipeline because you need to do a bit of everything in previous. For those who don't know what previs is, it's like a basic 3D animatic of the storyboards. The characters often move very simply or what we call chess piecing or they just slide around the scene. And it's a way of seeing, will the edit work in 3D and giving us a sense of space and timing of the set and the assets as well. So we can push a camera through a 3D environment and start blocking things in really simply. So maybe a cube is a desk or a chair, a cylinder is a tree, but when it's that simple, we can move things around until we know where things are placed and then we can start replacing them with proper modeling assets.

[20:03]
So if you're interested in previous, it really suits people who love storytelling. It suits people who like working fast and a bit messy. And it also suits people who like being sort of directed. So you get involved in the story a bit, you get to sculpt and shape the film a bit in previous. You've got quite a lot of freedom in previous, which is a lot of fun. The other part of previs is another department called layout. Now layout has many different meanings in different companies, but what I'm going to use for today is the traditional 3D animated feature definition of layout, which is basically digital cinematography. So while previs is sculpting the basic form with the film and it's messy and it's a bit of everything, it's a lot of fun. People are throwing in sort of lights and everything layout only does camera. So the layout department will work later on in the pipeline and they will lens per shot, not per scene, but per shot and just do the camera and the lensing. It suits people like photography, suits people like cinematography. There is a bit of storytelling and direction in there, but really that happens more in the previs stage, but it's a beautiful part of the process because you can really sculpt and shape the film through the lens. So if you're interested in previous layout, what I'd love to see is a bit of everything that you can do. It is in Maya. That is the industry standard. So please show me what you can do in Maya. So a bit of modeling, maybe a bit of animation, and if you really want to push it, maybe copy a couple of shots from a film in 3D. It doesn't have to be good assets, but just mimicking what you can see in terms of what the camera is doing. Just three or four shots.

[21:42]
That's always great fun to do as a practice. So here's what previous does. Previous would build a set very simply like this, just so we've got some basic geometry down so we can start scouting the environment. Then you can see these assets here. They all look very simple and very blocky. So the one above here is previous, the one below is layout, previous to layout, previous to layout, previous to layout. So you can see how simple these shots are, but they still match exactly to the layout shots afterwards once we've replaced them with the real assets. So here's an example of a previous shot. As you can see, the characters are just sliding along the ground. We've got our monster sliding jumping after them. This was a fun sequence, actually.

[22:33]
This was from a Fool's Gold project we did two years ago. So really this is telling us how big we need this environment to be, how fast we need the characters to go, what we need to model, and so on. We realized very quickly that we're showing too much of the ceiling, so we toured the camera down once we went into layout. So here's the layout of that last shot, following the same type of sequence. So now we've got some handheld effect in there. Our lens is longer, so we're not showing so much the ceiling or the background, and we're focusing a lot more on the main characters. So the only thing that layout did in this sequence is just the camera, nothing else. This is another layout shot from Oniko from last year as well.

[23:23]
Okay, modeling. Modeling, I'm sure you all know what, modeling does, modeling is done primarily in Maya. Once again, it's okay if you want to do work in Blender or ZBrush, but just know that the final product has to be in Maya. One thing to know that in modeling in industry, especially for the animator feature industry, is that all models need to be sub-deed. So that means, for those of you know, if you create a cube and you hit three on your keyboard in Maya, or you smooth it, it becomes a ball, a sphere. So what we have to do is make sure that objects retain their shape when they get smooth, because everything that passes through the pipeline generally, if it's a katana or a render man, it gets smoothed automatically, so we have to add those extra edge loops to the corners and shapes edges so they maintain that shape. So Byron, do you remember what you included on your portfolio when you applied for modeling?

[24:25]
Yeah, I had, I don't think I had any characters because I didn't want to be a character model but I know I had a lot of problems. I think I had a motorbike on there, I had some environments on there that I made, and I think I had a handful of props. That's right, that's right. I think the motorbike you presented was fantastic. That pretty much kind of got you in, one hard surface object. And yeah, so if anyone wants to apply for modeling, you know, again, what we'd like to see is variety. So if you can do a hard surface object like a motorbike or a chair, and then an organic thing, or just something, a few different things is grace. But here's the important thing to remember, and by the way, this applies for if you want to get a job in industry, the same rule applies, don't worry too much about servicing, lighting, rendering it. Okay, that's not really what we care about, so what industry cares about, what we care about is the topology. That's really what it comes down to. So a screenshot of your model with wireframe turned on is perfect. So let me show you some examples. So here are some models from Oniko from last year.

[25:43]
They turned out really well. Hey, Byron, these models. They just did a such a good something. Yeah, no, they're just beautiful. And these are smooth by the way, everyone. So they are subdued. So here's an example. Generally in industry, yes, again, you get the image on the left, my department, do a basic model. But what we want to see is this one on the right, the topology, okay, we want to see how you've laid out your topology, how clean is it isn't going to cause any rendered issues, again, showing us a variety of what you can do is good. But again, this is what we want to see, okay? So, you know, if it is this dance like the, like the one in the bottom middle get in a bit closer, but like this pillar on the far left, that's perfect because it shows us that you understand topology, you understand keeping it clean where it needs to be clean, and also maintaining shapes. So it works for a sub D as well. This is really the most important thing when, when sort of showing stuff or modeling is to show us the topology. If you do want to also include surfacing on your reel, because you want to do modeling and surfacing, that's fine. Those two kind of plans to work well together. But please make sure you're showing us top out as well.

[26:56]
Actually, just don't that by any other tips on modeling stuff, because you mostly did you wanted to, you did environmental modeling a lot, didn't you? Yeah, I wanted to do hard surface and environments. So I think that's what I applied with in my reel as well. I had a little hard surface like the motorbike, but then I think I had like some swords and like a radio, something like that. And then I think I had two environments. That's right. And were they all in mile? Or did you have any blender stuff there as well? I think everything I showed was in mile, but I was learning blender at the same time as well. Okay, okay. Great. I mean, look, we're happy to see stuff in blender as well, everyone, but just please make sure that you can still work in in my reel as well, because that is what you'll be using in industry. So, okay, to have different software there, because the skills are transferable, and you will need to move in my reel. Topology will be the same in both.

[27:53]
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay, surfacing leads right on. We do like to have our modelers do some surfacing and our surfaces to do know a bit about modeling simply because those two departments work so closely together. If you're a modeler, you really know how to need to know how to lay out good UVs. And if you're you're being an asset, it's good to know what's broken and what doesn't work well, so you can request request that from the modeling department. Did you end up doing any surfacing on Oniko? I did a little bit at the very end, but no, I think I surfaced maybe like three or four things, but it's mostly on modeling. I mean, that's that's all you need. We just want to make sure everyone's touched it a bit. Just so I mean, it helps, right? I understand how to layer UVs and everything. It's good. So, if surfacing, surfacing is taking those gray-shaded models, these ones here, and putting color on them. So, they look like they live in, they live and exist in our real world. They're not just gray. What to include in your portfolio is surfacing from any software. It doesn't matter. Again, hard surface or organic objects realized, realistic or stylized, a mix of object types. It can be on Murray, it can be on substance.

[29:09]
That doesn't matter blender even as well, or basic kind of my surfacing. What we're going to be looking at is your ability and skill to convey your intent. So, is the object old? Is it new? Is it worn? Is it following? Is the scale correct? Is there a difference in roughness across the object? Is it shiny in some areas and matte in other areas and so on? Because there's a lot that happens with the object when it goes through surfacing that is called environmental storytelling. Being able to do that within surfacing is a really good skill, and you're not just sort of applying one classic shader to the object and moving on. There needs to be some storytelling in there as well. So, we can teach you the software, but we do just want to see your skill set in what you can do. Again, don't worry too much about sort of the environment and doing some big crazy thing, showing individual objects doing a simple turntable is easier and more than enough. So, in industry as well, you will be given some texture reference from our department. Then you're given this lovely graciated model and then it's up to the artist to then transfer that and make create that onto the 3D model. Actually, I think was this substance.

[30:26]
I think we did this and substance. Oh, you wouldn't know, would you? Yeah, this was a substance. Oh, it wasn't on that one. Yeah, yeah. Here's some of our assets from Oniko. Again, it's great to see these nice and clear. If you are showing surfacing assets, it's good also to see some at night time, some at daytime different lighting situations to see how the light plays on the object and getting a turntable is good because then we can see how light plays across the object if there's any differences in roughness. For example, here's a character from the other year and you can see as the character rotates, there are different areas that are rough and smooth and picking up different parts of the light as well, which tells us a lot about how the object was surfaced. Here's some other assets too. All props, everything in the film goes through this part of the process. We had a lot of fun in this project because we wanted to have everything get a little bit of a hand-painted feel. So these two assets especially have that in the roughness parts. It turned out really well. Some more assets as well. Oniko, we pushed that even further. So Fusco was kind of like a test bed for that and oniko, we really pushed the hand the painterly feel for it. Rigging is taking the 3D objects from modeling and putting controllers on them so the animation department can animate. This is done in Maya. Maya is still the industry standard for rigging and animation. I'm happy to see rigging in different software but really it's very important for this department that you can rig in Maya because that is what we'll be doing and we hit the ground running. Rigging is a nice mix between creative and technical effects as well.

[32:26]
I think it's got a good mix of the both. It suits people who like problem solving. There is a lot of problem solving and rigging because there's 100 different ways to rig any asset and doing it in a way that's intuitive. That doesn't need an explanation book in order to teach animators how to use it as a real trick and animators will break everything you give them. So doing creating rig that is as unbreakable as possible is also another trick as well and it's a lot of fun to go through this process. It's also really fun for anyone who's rigging characters to understand anatomy and muscles and how they move and affect each other. Being an observer of the real world is also important for rigging having an understanding of weight and physics as well as animation. It's a really fun creative technical part of the process. If you want to apply as a rigor, yes it has to be in Maya but you can give us a body rig, a face rig, a hand or a foot leg or a prop. Something simple even just showing a hand that can deform and bend with simple clean controls is great. It doesn't have to be a full human with every asset and part of it rigged up because that can take a lot of time.

[33:44]
It's quite complex. By just showing you've got a basic understanding of ICANN, FK, maybe a couple of landscapes and deforming skinning nicely that would be great. There are sort of different parts of the rigging pipeline. You have the deform rig which is the bones that sit inside the model, that deform and do the muscles and then you have the control rig which are the kind of the nerves curves on the outside of the rig that the animators use to animate to. So include anything you've rigged a leg rig as well like I said a leg or a hand rig is easy and you can send us a movie file of that rig moving or you can send us the Maya file as well if you want. Don't worry we don't share it with anyone. So here's an example of a combo of blend shapes and a muscle rig. These are the control rigs I was talking about, all of these kind of brightly covered curves and squares what the animators were used to model to animate to and these curves drive the deform rig underneath.

[34:45]
So as long as these controls maintain the same position and name throughout the project, what they drive underneath can change which is a really kind of fun part of the process because you can keep updating making it better, changing the skinning, adding muscle systems and so on as you go. Rigging also helps out with previous. We get simple rigs done for previous at the beginning of the project so we can get through the previous process. This is usually done really roughly a really hacky kind of rig but you know another fun part of rigging is being in that pre-production process so we can test things. It's often a way of testing whether or not a character's arms or shoulders in the right spot, do we need to adjust things and getting a quick rig on that character as quickly as possible helps us a lot. Rigging also gets involved in mocap so our Studio 2 project more often than not is mocap because it's a sprint, it's a 10-week sprint so learning how to use and apply mocap on a mocap rig to a mire character is a big part of it. It's something we do here every year, it's a lot of fun and we use the data ran out the road as well for the mocap and we get the rigors involved with that too. There's also some components of the characters say char effects that we get that rigging has to be across as well because not everything can be passed off to effects, we need the rig to be able to be adaptable too. Animation. Okay, are we going for time? No, we're going good. Okay, so animation you get it, it's just making things move, it's bringing life to the characters. What do I want to see for an animated portfolio? Just the basics please, again it doesn't have to be lit, doesn't have to be surfaced, I'm happy with the playblast from mire. That's all it needs to be. It's often sometimes hard to see animation if the camera's flying about the place and you're giving me your beautiful amazing award-winning film which I'm sure is fantastic but the animation sometimes is hidden in that. So do your film but then please get another camera that's a bit further back so I can see your animation all it's blurry and it shows off what you can do. So it can be as simple as a walk cycle or a quad walk cycle, a bouncing ball and a performance animation and that's it. I've hired people on projects for less work than that and they've done them very very well. A walk cycle pretty much is one of the hardest things to do in animation. It's hardest things to do well because it uses so many of the principles of animation.

[37:18]
Just something to be aware of, this happens every year but we do not do 2D animation. We are a 3D animation pipeline. That means it is only in my, it's only 3D. Sometimes there are some 2D elements happen in our department but we do not do 2D animation in this course. There's a lot of great free characters online. There's free biopic characters, there's free kind of quadripleg characters, ball rigs, all that kind of stuff that you can use and there's so much available out there. It doesn't have to be lit, it doesn't have to be rendered or surfaced. It can just be a grayscale playlist. So here's some example, you know a simple screw rig during a bounce, a ball drop, a performance piece, performance piece can just be 3 or 4 seconds.

[38:07]
It doesn't again just have to be a whole short film. Just simple things to show what you can do and that your intent is getting across. At the beginning of the project we do these fun things called performance tests. It's a way of getting a sense of how the character is going to act and move. It's a lot of fun. If you do get an animation and you get a chance to be in pre-production, go for it because it's a super fun part of the process. So here's an example of blocking. So blocking is very simple poses. We're just doing the key poses for the shot. Maybe five or six poses just to get the intent and the timing and a big part of animation is being able to convey and communicate your intent very quickly because then after blocking comes animation and then some or the secondary, the overlap, the follow through comes through in the anim. And again, animation is generally grayscale. It's done very simply just so we can get across the intent of the shot. Anim in Studio 2 also works with the mocap. Animators love to get dressed up in the suit because they are frustrated actors generally because we get them filming themselves to do the performance pieces. It's a lot of fun. Doing cleanup on mocap is a big part of the process too but there'll always be animation to go over the top of it so it's never just cleanup. It's always animating over the top of mocap as well.

[39:37]
And reference, being able to follow reference, we had the guys from the UTS Kendo Association last year come in and demonstrate how to do correct fighting with a katana. It was a lot of fun because our first pass on animating the fight circle for Aniko was terrible so we had to get some professional help. All right, I'm going to keep moving quickly because we've got a few more departments to get through. Then I want to be able to answer your questions. Next is effects. Or VFX, the difference between effects and VFX is the live action plate. So when you've got an explosion and everything on the screen is digital, it's effects and basically the simplest kind of definition is if you take that explosion, you put it over the top of a live action plate, it becomes VFX. I don't know the history of that. Maybe we can find that online but that's generally the industry vernacular. What to include in your portfolio? Any procedural modeling that you've done is always great. Any particle simulations, rigid body, fluid sims and character effects.

[40:36]
Back in the day, effects used to just be sort of sims, explosions, dust, water, fire. That kind of stuff. Nowadays, effects has kind of always become changes name to the Houdini department because it can do so much. It's environment design, environment modeling, char effects. What else cloth and hair and explosions of course as well but there's so much now that effects does and covers even lighting is now done in lighting and surfacing can be done in Houdini as well. So it's a really, really big part of the process. This is one area where you have to know the software. We will teach a bit of the software, the advanced parts of it but knowing this software is in teg water being in the effects department which is Houdini. Hey Byron, are you still doing Houdini by the way? You're still doing that on the side? I am not doing it on the side but I have to look at it often as a TA. Oh you do? Okay. I don't like touch it very often but as the lighting TA a lot of the problems come from Houdini and it's about finding out how it's broken or who broke it and then telling them to look at their script and fix it. Okay, okay that's cool.

[41:53]
But we're actually this year for the first time ever because we've got our fantastic lead Rowan has joined us and he comes from an amazing background of VFX. We're rendering both projects this year in Solaris so we're in Houdini all the way through the pipeline. It's a super fun part of the process but as you can imagine Byron we might need someone with your skills because we're breaking a lot of stuff as well as we go through it. I think we do a lot of surfs and comes out of Houdini as well. Oh great. Wow it's really just moving across to that. It's just becoming the master software isn't it? Yeah it does everything. It does everything. I mean animation we still have animation. Well I've seen it really. Houdini might be coming for Adam too. I've seen it. I don't believe it yet. You're going to have to really convince me for that one. So some examples, some particle dust, other kind of particle systems always good to see cloth systems as well. Houdini covers you know Charofex and cloth and muscle soon.

[43:10]
Here's a great breakdown of some Houdini effects on Oniko from last year. Snow was a big big part of the show and so was this star-lives kind of smoke that we did because we wanted to have that real sort of star-lives blue-eyed samurai kind of look or that everything was done in 3D. There was a lot of work in to make it look like it was 2D. Oh this was cool that lightning effect was awesome. Yeah water is a big one as well but then having water that looks like it's 2D blood effects as well. Yeah it was really like the first part of everything because doing sort of realistic looking water and smoke is actually you know easier in Houdini than it is to do this kind of star-lives look. So it took a lot of a lot of work to push into that direction. I'm just going to get to the part. I think there's a part here where yeah this was super fun to do this kind of pineapple effect of the breaking up the breaking up stone was great. Super cool. All right which brings us to lighting. So lighting is where we bring together all of these assets everything from every department the camera from layout the animation from animation the surfacing the layout the modeling the set from modeling and assemblies all built and it all comes together for the first time in lighting. So lighting brings together all these all these assets they are colored but there's no lights there and they bring the show to life by adding light texture emotion mood to the film and this is where it's rendered and this is where we see the film rendered and lit for the first time. So once again what to include here is showing us what you can do so it's about intent it's showing us your lighting skills but software does not matter. Okay this is one area where we can again we can see your lighting skills in blender, Maya, Unreal if you like. It doesn't have to be Katana, Renderroom and Solaris Houdini. It can be any other software because we can teach you the software knowing a bit of of Renderman or Houdini does help a lot mind you but that is something that we can teach you when you're here it's more important to see that you have an eye for lighting lighting suits people again you like photography you like cinematography and film you understand the mood and tone of a show and how light can really change that quite dramatically actually.

[46:01]
So seeing what you can do with an asset or a room or environment a day or night or natural showing us something that stylize or something that's moody or realistic really goes a long way but yeah the software again whatever you're familiar with it's more important that we see your intent rather than showing us something that isn't lit that well because you've just tried to do a tutorial. If you have done a tutorial by the way this also goes for the effects team something that I know that leads here really kind of hammer on about is if you are showing providing us with something you've made from a tutorial please make it your right please do something a bit different add to it change something just to just show us that you can go above and beyond what's just been fed to you. So here are some examples. Art department will create what's called a color key which is a rough version of the light and the mood and the tone of the shot so we can go through a few iterations of this where it's effectively cheap it's fast.

[47:01]
Once that's done lighting department is given a surfaced environment and then they create what you see here on the bottom right hand corner their version of what the what the color key was. It's a really really fun part of the process. Again it you know it's for the people who are you know creative and a bit technical as well but there's so much storytelling that can happen in the lighting process. It's it's really a lot of fun. Here are some lighting shots from from Oniko last year we really wanted to push the lighting in this because it was at night time but then we needed moments where it was warm night cool light dark night we had this red lightning so even though it was all happening at the sort of effectively at the same time we needed to change the tone and the mood of the environment to suit what was happening at the same so much fun yeah it was great. Understanding the basics the basics of light really does help again you know I know Rowan here will teach everyone everything about it but understanding what you know the different key lights do rim light bounce light feel light and so on is a big help you know having at least a cursory glance at some of the books or out there like the five seasons cinematography I think there's another one called the lightest friend or something Rowan if you can hear me if you can just type some examples or books in the chat that would be great but just having an understanding of the basics will go a long way. There's some more shots from lighting as well and again you can see how much the mood changes in the shot in the scene depending on the tone of the light is it cool is it cold is it warm and so on. The light is also of course do a light in the studio 2 project but lighting for VFX is very different than lighting for CG so in CG here in animal feature we get complete 100% control of the environment the tone of the color but in the effects you are at the mercy of what was shot on the day so you have to match the assets to the light that's in the environment which is a whole separate skill set again a lot of fun again you've got some creative control but matching that light there is a different part of the industry is a few more from our CDO 2 project and comp so comp is effectively the end of the pipeline this is where all those layers from lighting come together and are grated and laid up together to give us to make everything really look beautiful basically if you imagine those of you who know how to use Photoshop imagine with layers on top of each other imagine Photoshop with a timeline is generally compositing the industry standard for comp is nuke right so yes there are courses out there and there was ways of transferring after effects skills into nuke if you can only use after effects that's absolutely fine show us what you can do it would be great to see any full CG shots you've comped or any assets over a live action shot that you've comped as well it can be an after effects but ideally it would be great if you can do this in nuke if you are doing a tutorial on nuke again show us if you can do something a little bit different maybe shoot your own stuff and provide a asset CG asset over the top of it and then it'd be also good to see something that's you know fully digital as well so any map painting setups you've done any digital set replacement that you can do background replacement and so on any of that kind of motion graphics stuff it's great so if you can show us a breakdown of layering in your shots you know go through the different layers there foreground background so it gives us an insight in how you plan your compositing as well and then yes we use nuke but again any other software fusion Natron, Blender after effects as well can be used just again like like we said for surfacing just show us your intent so we understand that you've got an understanding and idea of of how comp works and show us a bit of your creative eye as well so here's some examples from Oniko as you can see we started off very this was part of the process was that us exploring how light was going to work in the show how flat it was going to be how much depth there was there's a really really big part of the exploration process actually I'm just going to go back here hey Byron when you can you give us an example I guess what you think's possible like what are you what are you covering or what do you see as a lighting TA what what sort of areas are you working on I'm mainly looking at like issues of like when parts are broken or I'd say sometimes we look at comp as a lighting TA I've done I have been asked to do paint fixes as a TA because not always can we just send something back sometimes is enough time so it's good if you for comp if you know how to do like paint fixes and stuff like that as well yeah yeah okay that's cool and are you what software are you mostly working in I mostly look at nuke and filament or filament for lighting and then nuke for comp okay great I think filament is naz's home proprietary yeah you're still using you're still using you're still using nuke for the main part yeah yeah or all our comping and light is done in Nuke yeah our lighters do do a lot of comp as well okay great yeah generally in animated feature everyone lighters will comp their own shots in VFX comp is a separate department so it's good to know that if you are going into a company like Netflix Netflix as a lighter you'll be comping your own shots here's an example of how these kind of layers will layer up in nuke and some other things that you can do in you know in comp as well less distortion glow lens flares depth of field all these things add together to make these shots look beautiful that phrase fix it in comp is therefore a reason because a lot can be done but we don't want them to do everything we try and help them out as much as possible same thing goes for cleanup on raw plates adding digital separate placement cleaning up elements that are in the way of the show there's a so many areas comp can work in and again it transfers between animator feature VFX and commercials now I'm just going to have to go through because we've got about five or six minutes left and I want to get to some questions if anyone has any the last department here are TDs there is a desperate need for TDs in industry if you know if you have done a comp side degree please please come and join us and let us know or if you know anyone who has done one and they don't want to go into being in IT there's a huge need for TDs in industry they might not know that they can have a career working on movies instead of working in a bank what we need the industry standard here again is Python but knowing a bit of C++ helps a lot as well what we need to see is basically a github repository of your work any examples any tools you've written TDs work with pretty much every department from pipeline through to department TDs writing tools for say this one here for animation where a tool is written to help us do an automatic role on the wheels of the character which is super cool there's another one here about renaming modeling assets doing recours writing tools doing a camera shaped script as well all these really fun things that can happen that artists need to not need on the floor a department TD will write for them script saw them on the fly there's another geometry a merge object merge tool here was it I think occurring with that one was but it was a tool that was just really needed in Houdini that the TDA is created for them so if you love programming and but you want to be still part of the animated pipeline there's a big big need at the moment for TDs I think I think TDs are probably our most hired department out there yeah I remember Eric out TD from last year's everyone else had to apply for jobs but like five companies reached out to him okay absolutely absolutely okay so everyone questions there are I'm just going to see if I can see the chat window for questions I'm not sure if that's a Q&A box Q&A box I'm not seeing a Q&A box unfortunately why is that not showing up for me hold on one second everyone because I know there's a few questions out there and we will get to it not chat check more click more click more okay here we go thank you very much Sarah subtitle settings camera not screen why is this all hidden sorry everyone this is not working for me at all subtitle settings bottom camera hey Byron can you see can you see the Q&A box funny chance yeah yeah I had the chat up I didn't realize the QA box was okay would you yeah but it asked me could you ask me questions that you've seen any at the top that are unanswered and I can ask them for everyone here we've got a couple of minutes we can do we can do some Q&A's for actually sorry Sarah's forwarded them through me through now so I'll get these two and let me know if there's any other others I've missed so here's one I wanted to ask you for what's still be eligible for the master's program if I'm currently in my final semester studying communications at UTS for the production coordinator stream specifically for the masters I love animation my career goal would be to be in production fantastic especially during a communications degree is an excellent excellent background for production I do know a few people in production who went through communications it's a great way to get into this part of the industry look you are eligible as long as you're finished we are a master's degree New South Wales or Australian education rules changed quite recently in that in order to study the masters you have to have done a BA beforehand if you have done a diploma or an advanced diploma you can enter our course into to do the graduate certificate the graduate certificate is basically studio one of our course there are ways of articulating up into our masters after the grad third and you can see a little bit more about that online but generally yes you're applicable but you need to have done that degree if you want any more information about that you can always reach out and ask us okay does Animal Logic Academy provide career support or help graduates connect with studios and find jobs in the vfx animation of games industries great great question and yes we do just to be clear we don't have a placement program okay so we're not offering there's no sort of automatic roll through to Netflix even though Byron here got a job in Netflix he was amazing and did well but if you're amazing and do well as well you'll get a job what we do though is in studio three we go through a very very stringent process of helping all of our students with all the parts of applying for a job so we work with them on getting their LinkedIn ready their cover letter their CV their portfolio they're real make sure we tailor them to what industry standard is because believe it or not a lot of people fail at that part of the process they might apply for a job and it doesn't even get seen by the leader supervisors because they're not hitting the sort of standards that are needed for industry in those areas once that's done we get people from ILAM animal law Netflix flying buck other studios from HR artist management and production to come and talk to our students about what they're looking for how to apply we take our students through a test interview process as well so they can relax and understand what's going to happen on the day when they do get an interview in the future and then throughout the end of the year we have lots of recruitment sessions where we get industry to come in to speak to our students come and see what they're working on and then there's the end of your showcase where we get about a hundred people from industry come to see the students work at the end of the students then there's a socializing component networking component where they can speak to the people who've come and show them they're real as well so that's really a big part of what we bring to is because we have such a strong connection with industry industry absolutely loves our graduates and so they really kind of get in here as quickly as possible because they want to get the pick of the students as soon as they can okay so here we go hi guys from Addison from Russ Addison Russ hi guys was previously a member of the 2024 cohort but had to leave for personal reasons I remember but was looking at potentially playing again was wondering if the level of competition for applications has increased or stayed mostly the same for various departments look I would like to say is say the same but we're getting some pretty good you know pretty good applicants at the moment but I remember your work I think you'll be more than more than good enough to apply again with what you had but I tell you what would be good to see it'd be good to see what you've done in the meantime so you know it's always for anyone who's applying it's always great to see that you know if someone has a gap in their work or gap since I haven't studied in two years you know it's nice to see that people are still working on their skills when they have downtime because you kind of if you're not swimming you're sinking right so people have to keep maintaining keep seeing what's out there nowadays that there's advances in technology almost every week so show us what you've been doing in the meantime additionally we'll AI tools that AI assisted workflows be taught or incorporated into the master's program particularly for servicing texturing or modeling look AI that's a really big one and just so you know yes we we we're looking at AI constantly here it's a big part of what we do but so far no one's lost their job that that line still holds true that you're not going to lose your job to AI you're going to lose your job to someone who knows how to use AI AI is simply a tool we still need all of these departments there still needs to be a modeling department there still needs to be an animation department there still needs to be a surfacing department and so on but there are tools now emerging that are helping those people do the boring part of their job the big example that we can point to in modeling is retopology there's some great retopology tools so you know a modeling artist might want to kind of create a sculpt and then use some retopology tools to do the retopo that used to have to be done manually but even then none of the tools can match the proper edge flow that's needed for for industry especially for face animation or deformations so there's tools there that can help people get part of the way through it but it can't finish and it can't be directed the same way so yes we're constantly looking at AI but there are people out there who are spending millions on this and still no one's losing their job so so far it's helping people to the boring parts of their job faster but yes we will be looking at that constantly and through the future and making sure that our students are up to speed and adept at using AI in these projects are they most of the time silent films instead of Oniko which has voice acting generally yes and that is not a creative choice it's a technical choice because if you have dialogue on a film you have to record the dialogue first before animation starts you then also need a face rig that is good enough for lip sync and so on so we have to get a lot of the story process happens on the fly during storyboard and previous being getting getting dialogue recorded before that can often be a difficult part of the process so we do this to make things work faster and also if it's silent or if there's just ADR grunts and laughs it makes our films more international as well and easy to you know simple visual storytelling is actually quite hard to do and when it's done well it's it's magic and the last one here is the new Animal Logic Academy intro to Houdini courses sufficient level of skill with Houdini to apply to the masters yes it is absolutely if you've done the intro to Houdini course you will know and more than enough in order to get up to speed because what we do in studio one for the effects artists is start sort of prototyping and testing the effects that we know that we're going to need for the film so for example in Oniko we knew up front that we needed soli snow we needed soli smoke we needed explosions when it is in blood effects so these were the kind of things that the effects department explored in studio one with raff and it was you know a big part of learning the tools and the software as well oh no there's a few more all right  sera do we have time i'm hoping so all right i'm just going to get through a few more questions here okay are there any community events that you encourage people to go to regarding 3d animation effects there's quite a few actually roan if you're still there if you can type in some of them but there's the the animation one i'm blanking on them because i'm on the spot but they're basically there are quite a lot of industry open industry events available to the public or interests of people or juniors that are aimed at helping people network with industry professionals more often than not because there's not much money behind them they're happening at Parvison's stuff around Sydney but if you kind of like two searches for them out there you'll find them and look it's a great way to to get to meet people and to get to see what's happening in the industry i highly recommend looking for these on LinkedIn just a general note for everyone LinkedIn is not social media please please make sure you're touching lightly on LinkedIn and you're maintaining a professional work profile on LinkedIn but if you join some of the these sort of places on LinkedIn that they post you know community events and industry events on them all the time if the sign in between honors or masters UTS what are the main differences outcomes trying to figure out what is best look they're different they're very much they're both fantastic both the honors and the masters will provide you with a path towards towards doing what you want in the industry i would say that we're we're might be a little bit more process driven into in terms of aiming our aiming our students to get jobs at the sort of at the bigger studios the honors might be a little bit more towards becoming an orter having more creative control over your vision and the story and so on but there is definitely crossover between those two i suggest downloading the info pack for both of them and getting a bit more detail than i can give in now in terms of seeing what might be suits your direction and your career path is it okay to apply to an entry level animation TA position with just 3D animation i did that recently but i did mention in my resume i'm learning Python coding yeah look there's there's animate anim TAs in different places do have different skill sets and different needs i know Flying Bark recently is asking for people anim TAs and basically an anim TA needs to have a good decent understanding of basic animation but also technical skills too because they could be covering covering everything from applying char effects to helping assemble a shot to fixing animation glitches and so on so yes having basic animation skills as an anim TA is is more than enough okay i think i hit i hit all the questions awesome thank you very much everyone i'm just going to jump to the next slide because here is the info pack so like i said earlier on if you do want to download this info pack it is there for you online  while get someone Sarah could you please post that link to the chat so they've got people can copy and paste that there's more there of what i've spoken about today for everyone if you want to go through it in a bit more detail on how to apply also you can book a consultation call if you're worried about what you're doing you're unsure what department to get into you unsure whether or not you've got the right skills portfolio software and you need a little bit more help there you can book an online one-on-one call with one of us it's like a 15 minute chat over zoom if you do want to do that please send an email to the email address here and we can organize that for you Sarah i'm guessing is posting that to the chat as well so you've got access to that online all right so follow us on our socials you can find our website there but we're on LinkedIn that we post a lot of stuff to youtube as well all our past projects are on the youtube if you want to see what our students have been doing in the past but everything is there and you know you can stay in touch with us through all that as well and thank you very much everyone for joining us if you do have any other questions please reach out and it's been a pleasure talking to you all tonight all the best and hopefully see some or a lot of you here next year. Cheers