woot, very nice! also, hello everybody. great to see that this is taking off!
awesome, i’ve followed the visuals board for long time and its great to see VFX getting its own board.
That and welcome to all the newly joined VFX artists hopefully soon to flood it with amazing things.
When I was learning Maya, we were specifically directed not to even try the particle tools because “it was a waste of time”. (This actually meant that there wasn’t time to teach us more than basics, and the teachers were tired of seeing demo reels full of spaceships with terrible cheap lasers and smoke). So I never thought about FX until I started tinkering with our tools just to see how they worked, and my boss started giving all of the tech artists some exercises and now we kind of all do pretty good FX work.
It’ll be awesome to point at various spells and monster effects and say “I did that!”. It’s really hard to do that with rigging. No matter how much I tell people that I build all of the control structures for all of the characters, they never seem to be impressed…
I’m excited to see this develop. It feels good to know that everyone here will have similar experiences to help frame our perspectives for conversation.
Really glad to see this forum up. I’ve been coming here for a while, but I’ve always felt a bit out of place since my role is with our FX team, not our animation team. I’m definitely looking forward to visiting more often and being able to contribute to topics that I actually have a clue about. 
Whoa, there’s others out there?
Hi - found this place via TCE.
I’m a graphics coder, negligible artistic talent 
Hi Kat!
heya 
Hello from Sussex!
[QUOTE=jgriffith;14913]Yay! No more trawling through polycount for the one vfx post out of 500…[/QUOTE]
hey now, there are a few of us (Lee3dee) on polycount who post vfx stuff 
mods: can we also get a show and tell section / pimping and previews
Hey Guys!
Awesome to see VFX artists having a place to communicate and share ideas! I had the privilege to attend GDC this year and to sit at the VFX roundtables which were inspiring to say the least. Currently a student at Ringling College of Art and Design focusing on VFX and I hope to post ideas and learn from others out there!
[QUOTE=Gizmosan;15274]mods: can we also get a show and tell section / pimping and previews[/QUOTE]
Great idea - we’ll set one up!
Hey Drew,
I’ve been getting a number of students coming through my blog with questions on how to break into VFX. I was planning to post a commonly asked questions entry on the blog since I’ve been asked a few times, but I wonder what everyone would say on the subject.
Hey Fred - sounds like a fascinating topic, and it’s super cool that you have traffic from students asking those types of questions. I suppose that’s the first step to getting actual classes and some structure for people who want to head this direction. Maybe we should set up a new thread or even forum section on the topic? Or at the very least we could link to your blog. What do you think would be the best first step? I’m sure (or I hope) there are lots of people with those types of questions…
Hello Drew,
Thanks for the response, its cool that everyone here is so open to ideas. Its freaking great!
I’ll work up my blog post this weekend and post the commonly asked questions I’ve gotten from students. They range from what questions like: what kind of programs do I need to learn, Do I need to know xx scripting language, what do I need to put in my reel, thanks for posting that one technique can you do this with blah, how do I break into VFX for games, can you look at my reel, stuff like that. If I can re-post it here, that would be cool, then we can have the group sound off.
As far as classes, there are some schools that have a curriculum for VFX, but its geared toward film, and the real time VFX isn’t represented well unless its part of a game designer program and one of the group decided to try out the particle stuff.
As far as how they found me, I have no idea! :?: I’ve just starting posting basic VFX stuff (non video) on my blogger with the intent of building more and more complexity into it, and I started getting questions. I may graduate to video soon, but I can’t stand to hear myself on a recording. :laugh: I’m working on some scenes and an effects set, so I’ll be posting more of that soon.
So, yeah, I’ll post up the questions and go from there.
Being a lot more involved in vfx work recently than I traditionally have been as a TA, I love having this subforum here. I can’t believe how much inspiring stuff I’ve seen!
[QUOTE=Rob Galanakis;15403]Being a lot more involved in vfx work recently than I traditionally have been as a TA, I love having this subforum here. I can’t believe how much inspiring stuff I’ve seen![/QUOTE]
Glad you are enjoying it as well, thanks a lot for setting this up again. Really enjoying it!
Hey Fred
A thread or a blog post about how to break into the game industry for VFX would be invaluable information! As a student myself I often find myself combing the internet for any (if any) information on questions that I may have. Thank you for posting a frequently asked questions post on your blog.
Drew, I think it would be awesome if there was a student thread or forum section! So glad that people are thinking of students.
hello,
I’ve posted the student FAQ on my blog, and mailed Drew on if we should have a separate section or thread for this discussion:
Thanks Fred! That was a good read