Professional Practice (Assignment 1)

Week 1 Tasks / Week 2 Tasks / Week 3 Tasks /

CV Research / Creating my CV / Showreel Research / Creating my Showreel /

Cover Letter Research / Creating my Cover Letter /

 


Week 1
Task 1
We were tasked with searching for different job roles within Animation, making a list, and then writing a brief reflection on the description of one of the jobs.

Animation Director
Copyrighter
Motion Graphic Designer
Sound Designer
Traditional Designer
Visual Effects Artist
3D Character Designer
3D Designer
Illustrator
Environment Artist
Concept Artist
Previs Artist
Character Animator
Environment Animator
Film and Video Editor
Flash Animator
Stop Motion Animator
Background Artist
LookDev Artist
Character Rigger
Texture Artist
UV Artist
Render Wrangler

Role Research – Look Development (LookDev) Artist

https://www.cgspectrum.com/career-pathways/look-dev-artist
https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/visual-effects-vfx/computer-generated/look-development-artist/
https://www.disneyanimation.com/process/look-development/

Along with researching the role itself, I looked at job openings for the role to see what specific skills and experience they require, and what additional skills are valued/advantageous.

LookDev artist is responsible for defining the look of computer generated creatures and objects to ensure all the art in the Film/ TV programme is consistent. All the artists in their VFX pipeline then use these looks when they create their assists, which helps ensure consistency and quality. Both in Gaming and TV/Cinema.

LookDev artists work with other artists (e.g. Texturing Artists, Lighting Artists, Technical Directors, Compositors) to help achieve the look of the world. e.g. A texture artist will create the texture for the model, but the LookDev artist will determine how this texture reacts to the world around it, e.g. raining, evening light, burns, etc. and a solid understanding of how materials realistically react to light. This can include specific manipulation of a shader/material/textures properties (metallic, diffuse, transmission, SSS properties etc) , to get it to look a certain way in the scene by how the light reacts to it.

As part of the pipeline, LookDev artists are involved in both the Pre-Production and Post-Production roles in both the preparation and final touches. Because LookDev is a fairly umbrella term, a LookDev artist can be responsible for performing a variety of roles depending on the project or what teams are available. e.g. they can be responsible for the lighting if there’s no lighting team, or working on the textures themselves.

This is a job I would have an interest in. I enjoy making things look visually appealing and logically consistent within the world they’re set in. This role doesn’t appear to be an entry-level role (unless there’s an opening for Junior LookDev Artist), and online recommends to get experience in more Junior VFX roles such as a Matchmove artist, VFX runner or Junior Artist in order to develop the skills (and arugably more importantly, experience) to progress to that role.

Over the LookDev jobs I’ve looked at, additional skills and criteria they value are real-world skills in lighting and photography/ cinematography (understandably),

Requirements for this role can involve a multitude of areas of experience such as Texturing, Lighting, Compositing, and can also need to have an understanding of being ‘energy efficient’ (regarding rendering times/ sampling rates).

Software utilised in this role can include, Maya, Blender, 3D Studio Max, Houdini, Nuke Cinema 4D, Substance Painter & Designer, and Quixel, Arnold, Redshift, and more.

Even though this isn’t an entry level role, all the work and experience that you do contributing to the ‘look’ of the project contributes to your experience within that role. E.g. doing VFX and compositing contributes to it, making specific shaders for models contributes, and doing atmospheric lighting for a scene that helps create a mood contributes. Then when you combine all of this experience and skills together, that’s what basically makes you qualified to be a LookDev Artist.


Task 2
We were tasked with looking through job sites , searching for junior, intern, or entry level positions within Animation, then write up what jobs I find and a brief reflection of one of the jobs.

Reflection on Rockstar Games job role:
As a massive fan of Rockstar Games throughout the years, this was  an interesting spot. Applying for a job seems fairly straight-forward; ensure that you have adequate skills and experience relative to the role, create a showreel that effectively demonstrates these skills and experiences (in a timely manner), and hopefully have a few accolades from personal projects. Having a University degree feels like a necessity, otherwise you’ve a better chance of being overlooked.

Task 3 – Artist Research
We were tasked with finding an artist/animator that’s currently working in a role that i’m interested in. Research their social media, how they began their career, how they got to their current position, take a look at their current and old work/showreel, and reflect on how their journey showcases what I need to do.

I decided to look at Rebecca Blair who currently works as a Junior LookDev Artist at BlueZoo. She started as a 3D Asset Artist at Flickerpix in Belfast, then a Department Assistant at MPC, and then got a job as a Junior LookDev Artist at BlueZoo. My takeaway is that I need to further develop my skills, develop a showreel to showcase them, and any additional jobs I get along the way add to my value and experience.

 


Week 2

Job Role Seminar & CV Design

Task1
For this week were tasked to look for one or two showreel examples that I think uses good use of editing and title card design;

1) Venkata Sai Sandeep Siddam – Lighting and Lookdev Showreel

I really like the edits of shots in this showreel, where he quickly wipes the multiple passes onto the footage (it’s standard practice, but most showreels i’ve seen, in my opinion, completely break the flow of the video to focus on the slow pass-wipe).

I also really like the edits around 0:22, where the character gets a racesuit painted on, then the background completely changes (while the character continues moving), and finally the camera orbits the character. Unfortunately there isn’t a breakdown pass of this this sequence, but when slowing down the footage to x0.25 it looks like he was filmed walking at the same pace with two different outfits, then the footage was rotoscoped to edit the wipes over the two outfits. I think it was filmed infront of a greenscreen with tracking makers, and the two environments were filmed separately. I think this, ‘cos, if I were to recreate that sequence, this seems like the simplest/ most-effective way to do it.

2) Rebecca Blair – Modelling, LookDev, and Production
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3om2LY

I really like the Title Card in this. It’s short, concise, contains all the relevelant information, is easy to read, and has a slight bit of animation to give it life. I like the shots were it shows rotating clips of props, I think this is very important when showcasing Modelling/Lighting/Texturing, as it lets you see it in its entirety from all angles.

 


Week 3

This week was more like an introduction in how to use Premiere Pro to do a basic edit and make a simple showreel. Alec gave us the clips from his old showreel and time in class to make a showreel.

This is a ‘General’ Showreel I made for myself, to send to a variety of places for work experience. The skills I wanted to demonstrate (not just limited to the ‘Animation’ field) were; Video Editing, Motion Graphics, Cinematography, Compositing, and VFX. The aim was to send it to a variety of companies ranging from, Film Studios, Video Marketing Companies, and Animation Studios (and not specifically catered to a specific one), as well as demonstrate a variety skills relative to freelance work.

Although it’s not perfect by any stretch (mostly due to not being catered to one specific role, but just ignore that for the moment).

Biggest holes I see in it are that I didn’t say explicitly what I worked on in each shot, leaving it unclear whether they were team projects or solo projects or what I had worked on; this also affects the pacing. But I do feel like it was paced a bit too fast to really showcase each individual piece of work.

I did get freelance work and experience on a film shoot from showreel, so whoop. But I do think it’s an objectively amateur showreel.

 


CV Research:

The general jist of the CV is to present your experience and skills in a way that’s neat and visually pleasing (Colours and Alignment). Since these are creative jobs, I believe visual design are very important in these CVs as it’s the first thing an employer will see before they begin reading.

We (in the West) read from left-to-right, so I think it’s important to factor this in when positioning sections of the CV with what you would want an employer to read first.

Lorena Da Silva
LookDev/ Surfacing Artist currently working at DreamWorks Animation.
Showreel: https://lorelaivfx.com/projects/v18Blx

The CV is laid out very clearly in two destinct sections. On the left side is here Experience and Education (the most important), and rthe right side has her contact info and skills; Languages, Softwares, Technical Skills, Operating Skills, Render Engines, Interpersonal Skills.

The way the CVs laid out and colours used, my eyes naturally start at the top of the left column, read downwards, then read the right column afterwards. The Format of the how everything is positioned on the page neat and evenly spaced and aligned.

In ‘Experience’ she has 2-3 bullet points in each job describing her main duties relevant to the role she’s relevant to her job role.

The colours used are roughly Analogulous (a bit darker than what I have displayed, but in the right ballpark). I like the Logo beside the name, and the role titles just underneath it. The contact info is stuck at the top-right in it’s own space and colour-bubble in-line with it

There’s no mention of personal interests, which I’ve seen on other CVs. While I do understand that this would be to make you look human, I don’t think it’s overly relevant; since Lorena does not include a section like this on her CV, I’d imagine she thinks similarly (or it wasn’t worth the room).

Nathan Vidal
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-vidal-43897219a
Lookdev artist at MPC / Character Lab

I’m honestly quite surprised by this CV, as I don’t think it’s very good. But he works at an impressive company, so maybe I’m wrong.

Name and contact info is clearly displayed at the top, and I like that there’s picture of him, as it makes me feel more like i know who I’m dealing with, as opposed to a faceless entity. I know it sounds small, but I do think that adding a photo one oneself to a CV  makes a big difference.

Underneath is a big gap of emptiness, which I don’t understand why it’s there as i think it looks bad, especially for a creative role.

Work experience: He highlights his role, but doesn’t elaborate on responsibilities or additional duties, which is odd as he’s only got two experience from two companies. Next he lists his education with the oldest and irrelevant stuff first, I do not understand the logic in this. Skills, softwares and languages are listed next, which is fair enough i guess.

Overall, i think this is an example of a bad CV and what not to do. It’s poorly laid out, and there’s so much room where he could’ve elaborated on everything. Honestly looks like it was thrown together in 10mins.

Alex (Zinan) Liu
Senior Lookdev Artist @ Industrial Light & Magic

This CV Start with a fairly busy banner, with the persons name, contact info, and (presumably) software skills over the top of it. Kinda feels like there’s a lot going on, so my eye just drifts to he next section down, which is ‘experience’ (so maybe that’s the point?)

Everything appears to be clearly laid out in this CV. Experience is basically at the top and the first thing you read. Job role is clearly listed, with company and location, and one-to-two points on the responsibilities in that role.

Next is ‘awards’, which I really like, makes me feel like he’s more prestigious. I wouldn’t have anything comparable, other than ‘notable achievements’ with my Youtube channel, but I question its relevancy to 3D. Education is listed underneath. He also has the dates in a large font at the right-hand side, so at a glance, you can basically see his activity in the industry throughout the years. Skills and software knowledge are at the bottom. Seemingly they’re the least important pieces of information.

Overall I think is a good CV. Everything’s clearly laid out and the dates at the side give me a clear sense of his activity. The only issue I have is the banner at the top, even how it’s formatted is weird as stretches to the right-side of the page, and not in-line with the rest of the document’s alignment (even though the left-side is aligned). Stuff at the bottom feels a bit squished and ‘Software knowledge is aligned different than the rest of the stuff at the right side.
Dusan Kovic
LookDev/ Texturing / Lighting / Rendering
Beta Tester for Autodesk

At first glance, this CV appears a bit bland and boring (in my opinion). Everything is very spaced out and there’s 2pages. My gut reaction when I see a two page CV is, ‘ugh, cba reading this’, so i’d imagine an employer who’s very busy would have a reaction similar.
Name and role at the top, contact information at the top right. Main thing your eye focuses on is ‘experience’ at the left-side, his experience takese up most of the page, is well spaced out, he elaborates on some parts regarding his responsibilities (but doesn’t elaborate on all).Underneath he has his education, which i think is fair enough. Then he has his skills, software knowledge, languages, and hobbies/interests at the right side.
I like the division in the CV, i think it’s visually more appealing and looks more organised. I understand that listing hobbies/ interests makes you seem like a real person, but I honestly just don’t think remotely relevant or provides any benefits, it just takes up valuable space on the page.On his 2nd page he lists his references, he lists seven references. Seemingly, these are references with very important jobs, thus validating that this person is good at their job. Perhaps seven is a bit excessive? Most I’ve seen recommended is two. And at the end of the second page he has a long list of his awards and publications.
This guy appears to be good at his job and has a lot of industry expierence, if that’s the case, I don’t understand why he has his education listed. I feel like there’s a certain point where your experience makes your educational accomplishments obsolete. I also think his references and awards/ publications is much more impressive than ‘education’, so I would’ve tried to get that on the first page.
I reckon if you formatted the first page a bit better and removed hobbies and education, you can fit almost everthing on one page. But I guess he wanted everything to be very spaced out, so to each their own?

Jan Jinda
Freelance, and former Lead Build TD at DNEG
 

This person’s CV is 3 pages. My gut reaction is is that I cba reading 3pages.

Logo at the top, name, role, and contact info all neatly displayed together. main colours are Black, Grey, and Light-Blue. Big empty grey boxes take up a lot of space on the page, I understand that they help with the formatting, but i think it’s kinda odd to look at as massive amounts of the page are just a blank grey.

Immediately starts with links to showreel and showreel breakdown, followed by career objective where he mentions he has 10years experience and that he worked on Avengers: Endgame and F&F: Hobbs and Shaw. I kinda like this, makes me feel like this guy is serious about his work and I quickly see his experience and an impressive accomplishment/project.

Next he lists his experience, which covers almost 2pages. I instinctively don’t want to read it cos it feels like an essay. His ‘career objectives’ intro thing set the bar of what I think of him, which is that he’s good. It’s neatly organised and well formatted, but in my opinion there’s just too much information. Perhaps the sheer quantity (without reading it) speaks for itself and what he can do?

Next is his education, skills, and languages. I don’t think he needs to list his highschool accomplishments when he’s got 10years industry experience and has worked on Endgame. Lastly is recommendations, where he basically writes 5 testimonials from people whilst providing them as a reference as their contact info is also supplied. I don’t see the point in testimonials as you can write pretty much anything, but i guess providing the contact info provides a way for you to validate it?

Overall, I think there sheer quantity of experience etc and the length of the CV makes me feel like he would be a safe choice to be part of my time. So i guess it works in that way, giving the employer confidence. I definitely wouldn’t have anywhere near the amount of experience to give an employer that level of confidence in me, sadly.

Rebecca Blair
Junior Look/Dev at BlueZoo


First glance we see a Orange/Blue character (complimentary colours), this colour scheme is used for the heading of the text also. At a glance I like this, as we get to see what the person can do.

Name is at the top followed by a small ‘about me’ section. My eyes start at the top left, so they go to the ‘contact’ info first which is neatly layed out with the nice colours and appropriately bold font.

The ‘work’ section which covers most of the right-side just feels like a wall of text, and it’s inconsistently formatted/aligned due to the character in the middle of the CV. There’s great elaboration of roles and responsibilities, but everything feels ‘off’ because of that character.

Primary Skills, Software Skills, and Education are all on the left column and aren’t exactly aligned together, but you probably wouldn’t notice this at a glance. I kinda feel like there’s too many words on this, like, it kinda looks like a wall of text. Really like the character though, kinda makes me feel like i get a sense of her personality.

Audrey Laureys
Texture Artist / 3D Modeling
Midsurfacing Artist at Jellyfish Pictures

At first glance this is a neatly laid out CV with a monochrome colour scheme. The background is light-grey and all the other text and lines is a darker grey, giving it a low contrast look.

Top left is the name, role, and Photo, which I really like. Left side has contact  info and software experience, and then the right side has her Education at the top, followed by her experience taking up the rest of the space. Left side info is aligned to the left, right side info is aligned to the right.

Everything is well spaced out and easy to read, under her experience she simply lists each job (and the year), the location, a point regarding her responsibilities, and what software she used. I really like the simplicity of this, it’s easy-to-read, clear, and straight to-the-point.

I really like the simplicity of this CV, and I really like the monochrome/greyscale colour scheme. The only changes I would make to it would be; I’d swap the locations of Education and Experience (as I think Experience has more value), and I’d increase the contrast just a little bit more.


Reflection

I think layout and formatting is key in making a CV be aesthetically pleasing and good to read, i feel that the simpler and more concise CVs were most effective.

Logo/Photo, name, roles, contact info should be kept together and take up as little space as possible to let the important stuff shine. Your eyes naturally go to the top-left of the page so I think it’s important to put the most important stuff there, namely, your experience.

Your experience should be easy to read cos it’s the most important, everything else plays second-fiddle.


 

Creating my CV

I made a a really early draft of a CV at the start of the project, it doesn’t look good, but it was a first draft.


I initially wanted a black background to separate it from other CVs. Although I think it does, it kinda makes everything else on the page look boring. Bulk of the writing is white to seperate it from the background, and  I tried to incorporate Blue and Orange complimentary colours, but I don’t think it worked well. I also tried to incorporate a model (inspired by Rebecca Blair) but it’s really dark, there must’ve been an issue with my monitor’s brightness or how it deals with light/dark cos it wasn’t anywhere near that dark on the screen. Overall I think it’s a bit of a poor mess.

Feedback from Henry

Main points of feedback is that I should showcase more of my experience regarding the uni projects I’ve worked on and what I did on them, rename “Work and Education” to “Experience”. Basically move a lot of stuff around to make more space to really highlight my ‘Experience’ and what I’ve done.

Put my desired roles beside my name, move the ‘contact’ info up to the top to generate more space. and he suggested removing the model image because it serves no purpose as they can see my work in the showreel. Alignment-wise ‘Software Skills’ and ‘Notable Achievements’ are not in alignment, and that looks bad.

He suggested once I add all my experience, I may not have room for ‘Notable Achievements’ or ‘Education’

Updated CV

After the CV research and feedback from Henry i think there’s a clear improvement in the CV quality. Everything’s better laid out, better formatted and aligned, better use of space.

Photo, name, roles, contact info at the top. The contact info are all hyperlinked, so you can click them to take you to the webpage/sending email page. ‘Experience’ dominates the left side, with a few points on my responsibilities on the role/project (compensating for my lack of experience). Brief ‘About Me’ and ‘Software’ skills on the right.

The Monochrome Black ‘n’ White colour scheme is obviously subjective, I like the simplicity of it after seeing it from one of the research CVs. The black triangle thing at the bottom right is purely to fill out the space in an aesthetically pleasing way, otherwise it just looks unbalanced and empty.


 

Showreel Research

I took a deeper look at other LookDev and industry showreels so I cold break them down and identify common themes/ techniques/ and generally just things that look good so I can adapt and incorporate them into my own showreel.

 

For this we start with the shot from the animation, then we see breakdowns, turnstables, etc. there’s a lot in this, totally 17secs.


Shows light rotating around the objects on the left, then a still image of materials that were made. Approx 8secs.


Moving camera shot of the props on the table (presumably part of the animation), then shows the models rotating on a turntable, then with the light rotating around the models. Approx 13secs

 


Shows scenes from an animation project, then showcases models from that project with the light rotating around them. Approx 12secs.


Still image showcasing materials, and then models with rotating light, then model rotating on a turntable with the two spheres, colour box and references displayed. 11secs.


Shows scene from animation, and then a still image of the different texture maps. Approx 10secs.


Turntable snapshop of model, and then showcase references. Approx 6secs.

 


Shows untextured environment, then wipes to show wireframes. Approx 4secs.

Ends with title card, approx 6secs.


Creating my Showreel

The main takeaways I got from researching other LookDev showreels is that it’s important to show the model within the context of the scene (e.g. in the animation), show a turntable of the model with textures so we can see how the light reacts off of the textures, and then showcase the wireframe too.

Also very import to visually note what you worked on, so there’s no confusion. Along with showing the Chrome Sphere, presumably Lambert Sphere so we can see how the environment and lighting is reacting to the two extremely contrasted materials. The colour box thing is also recommended.

Since I’m very new to 3D (I started it 11months ago) I don’t have a pool of previous work that I can add into my portfolio, I’m also not massively proud of the work I did in 1st year as it was basically my first experience with 3D.

My goal for this was to use the models I’m making for the Ancient Temple group project, because I believe they’re of a higher quality and accurately reflect my current skills.

The only issue is that I don’t have any shots of them within a CG scene (or with any nice atmospheric and environmental lighting to help create moods), so all I can do is literally showcase the models on a turntable. I’m aware that this will result in not having visual variance, but it’s kinda all I got right now.

These are some render images of what will be part of my Showreel, I may change some props depending on what I feel makes the showreel better.

Since the props were built to be placed in an ‘Ancient Temple’, I searched online for a HDRI Map that gives a somewhat similar feeling/look as an Ancient Temple might. It’s not perfect, but Cave-like HDRI Map that I used was the closest I could find out of all the ones I looked at. It has good lit and shadowed areas, and the dirty ground fits with the dirtiness of the model textures.

I used the same title card from my previois showreel and changed the role. Pretty much all shots features the Textured Model for about 4secs, then the Wireframe for about 4secs. I initially thought I wouldn’t have enough footage to get near a minute, but that wasn’t the case, and I had to remove a lot of props and only showcase what I thought were both the best props visually, and what had the most interesting model geometry.

I’m aware the showreel doesn’t have much visually variance, especially with the same background in each shot, but the models just looked better with that HDRI Map. One thing I seen in my research that  Iwanted to incorporate was have the HDRI Map rotate around the still model (so we can see how the light reacts off the materials), but when I tried it in Maya it didn’t work. A 4sec render took over 90mins, so I had to choose to scrap that idea as I wanted to have as much footage of the models as I could.

It’s not perfect, but I tried to make the best with what I have and display it.

 

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