Berlin again — at last! It’s been nearly a year since my first visit to this amazing city and hence I am working as an intern at rise|fx I am about to stay much longer than last year which is great. I’ve been here only a couple of days now but I really like this city full of textures and shaders, not only for its textural qualities but also for the new way of living and working here.
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Working on bigger projects with people in remote places always is a hassle. Today I received the long anticipated hard disk with the blue screen shots I should be working on. I popped it into the USB port but Windows thought the device was damaged and suggested to replace it. Luckily I remembered that the person who sent me the disk was a Mac user so I tried connecting the device on some Mac and it worked. Then my data-odyssey began…
While I was spending the night cleaning up and UV layouting a scene in Maya I felt a the urge to check my mail. So I logged on Yahoo! to check whether I got some more r*0*l*e*x and v14gr4 spam mails to get rid off, usually no more than 2 or 4. but today it was different. When you have suddenly 68 new emails from one day to another in your inbox then either something great or something terrible has happened to you.
Another convention report, my apologies! I haven’t thought that I would be on so many (= two) conventions in the field of digital film in such a short span of time. But attending the Digitale Cinematographie convention this Thursday in Munich was something way out of the ordinary because a little dream never dreamed came true: Seeing my work on the grandeur of a real IMAX theater silver screen.
Somehow I’ve all made it through many hours of very interesting presentations — still my spirits weakened: Four hours of sleep a day just isn’t enough for conventions like the FMX where one should be as sharply focused as a Pong-player in order not to miss anything: Today it was everything about games mostly.
Today I was eager for a new Pixar poster. Who would’ve thought that I spent nearly one and half hour talking with the guys and gals from Pixar?
Recruiting day for me! Yesterday I was too tired and lacked of motivation getting some of my demo reels to the important representatives of Some Great Company. And I even shook hands with one of the people who got me into VFX at all.
At 4:30am my cell phone tried to wake me, without success, but it succeeded ten minutes later shortly before I stuffed in some clothes, my ten portfolio DVDs and my bag of hygiene products. Then I tried giving Martina, who was one of my two passengers, the ordered wake-up call, unanswered twice. The third time she picked it up and sounded not even as sleepy as me. Donsch, my other passenger, was waiting outside the campus building patiently for me to arrive, 18 minutes late for I forgot to print out the addresses of the convention center and my hotel which really saved my ass.
Currently the fmx, the Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Digital Media, resides for the 13th time in Stuttgart. Big woo because this year I’m among the participants. But my trip actually started on Sunday when I was getting ready, also mentally, for my upcoming days of celebrated geekdom.
Ever played Audiosurf? That addictive little fucker! I’ve downloaded the demo because I was a little bit curious as I always am when there’s some hype ebbing away and I feel “underground” enough to give it a try myself. But what is Audiosurf anyway? It creates from a song of your choice a unique race track resembling the tempo, intensity and dynamic of that song. Nothing really new. But the community connection via Steam evokes some Trackmania United atmosphere: If there’s somebody who’s played the same song as you then the game automatically compares your scores and performance. As a competitive grunting male I am prone to scoreboards… If you already know what it is about please refer to the last paragraphs — there’s a challenge for you…
