Interview Anselm v. Seherr

AN INTERVIEW WITH Anselm v. Seherr

Q. Hello Anselm, could you tell us a bit about yourself, location, employment etc. and what first inspired you to take up a career in the Arts Industry?

Hello CGArena Magazine, My name is Anselm v. Seherr – Thoß, I´m 25, born, raised and still living in good old Hannover in the center of Germany (without being there very often though, maybe that´s why I like it so much ). I´m a VFX Freelancer with strong preference on particle - and simulation FX. Vray shading is fun too sometimes but not as challenging.

Hmm, technically I was inspired by artists that gather around CGTalk or other studios. Mostly by the stuff Blur (www.blur. com) did around 2004 and 2005. I started as a shading and compositing artist at first being an intern at SoulPix (www.soulpix. de) for 6 month filling the compositing and shading gap since all otheres modeled, rigged or animated. That was the very first day I saw 3d studio max: 1st of October 2004, significant date for me . After the intern I was asked to stay. One day the TD came around the corner with Allan McKays first Advanced Visual Effects DVD and KABOOOM I knew where I belong .

Personaly I guess the root lays much deeper back. My mom, she studied arts and is an art teacher until the very day in elementary school as well as college and high school. She collects tons of art books and paints at home even today. She has an enourmous art knownledge. So I guess my fate was sealed when I was born *haha* Another big chunk goes to my first PC I got back in 1994 when I was 11. I never did artworks with it but I was already dealing with videogames and stuff at that age.

AN INTERVIEW WITH Anselm v. Seherr

Q. So, as a freelancer on which major projects you have worked on and how much easy to find a work as a freelancer?

There were so many in the last 3,5 years. I guess my personal highlights are displayed in my current showreel (www.3delicious.de/flash/gallery/3Delicious_Showreel_2008-1.mov). I really enjoy music video VFX since their production lasts for 3-6 weeks only and the director usually is not pushing it to an oscar nomination for “Best FX”. At the moment I am working as VFX and simulation artist on a movie called “Nico & The Way to the Stars”, an Ice Age kinda looking German, Irish and finish production which will hit the box office this fall (it´s a christmas movie) but I´m not authorised to give any details yet. In the evening hours I work on serveral smaller projects including a university degree short film I was asked to help out at.

Concerning the ease to find work? It´s all about self marketing and promotion ;) haha, I give away my secret Indocilis privata loqui! Don´t wanna go into too much detail here since that´s covered in depth in my article on CGArena “Freelancer´s Manifesto – A collection of advices”. You need to be recognized by recruiters and the industry then the phone will ring someday > then you start freelancing in serveral companies > then you work crazy hours and will have tons of overnighters and gain weight > then you get better and better and gather experience > then you can raise the bar on salary > then you get hired by a big studio someday and experience better working hours but a pay cut again > then you might be recognized as a pro someday and live from selling your tutorial DVDs *haha, don´t take me serious here*

Q. You are mostly known for Particle and scripting work in 3ds max? What’s the main reason of choosing this dynamic branch in 3D?

Not scripting. I use and modify scripts that are public or from friends of mine. I´m more known for particles and shading I´d say. I am good at modifying given sources to my needs especially when it comes to scripting *hehe*. I chose the particle branch which is usually closely connected with dynamics and simulation tasks because I was always interested in how “they” did that in this or that movie or cinematic. You always have to ask questions and have to be willing to

AN INTERVIEW WITH Anselm v. Seherr

learn more and more. I never learned more stuff in a shorter period of time then these days. Be like a sponge! I have a mutli-gigabyte partition on my notebook that deals only with scientific and natural phenomena like the four elements or destruction caused my mankind like explosions or impacts of all kind including super high speed camera shots. I collect high speed shots and analize them

Q. Many artists are not good in scripting, can you recommend any DVD or book to learn more about scripting? Is this necessary that artists must have some programming background?

There are great scripting DVD’s by Bobo and Lazlo Sebo at cg-academy.com eg. The need of scripting knownledge depends on the task and time frame mainly. If u can´t get away with what your 3d app can draw out of the hat or additional plugins it is nice speeding things up or creating from scratch with custom scripts or tools. If the company is big enough maybe they have a TD or even a tools dept. that is into R&D and tools development, if so go and ask them.

Q. How’s the CG industry and market in Germany? Your government helps in any way for the growth of the animation industry?

We have some really good CG companies here in Germany with lots of innovation. But the main piece of the cake goes to visualisation and image film. So for a VFX artist most of the tasks are kinda boring unfortunaltely but well paid, don’t get me wrong (especially due to the strong euro these days)! The government patronizes CG movies and TV special features with a quite okay amount of money from the German culture fund. The amount changes from district

to district though. In Lower Saxony it´s less then in Hamburg eg. We have a good film school too, the Film Academy in Ludwigsburg but I personally think it´s not the tought skills that count, it´s the experience and will the rest do internet tutorials. I never had a CG class in my life…

The German CG industry has a great potential and some really good artists but most of the cool and groundbreaking stuff is done elsewhere where it´s cheaper to produce or the knownledge is there for a long time. Most of the artists wanna go to California or Canada where the magic happens. I have job offers in the US too.

AN INTERVIEW WITH Anselm v. Seherr

Q. Which other software’s, plug-ins used for your CG work and why?

Heh, product placement time. Lately I use Mir Vadim´s RayFire (www.mirvadim.com) a lot for all kind of tasks because he wrote an amazing piece of software! It was already used in serveral next gen game cinematics. Might get a classic for Impact and destruction VFX, definitely check it out! (As you can see im a fanboy it just takes away so much pain!). Then of cause I use the legacy particles that ship with 3d studio max for all kind of things and of cause all Particle Flow addons (Toolboxes 1,2,3,Freebies,etc.) including alpha and beta stages of new magic tricks Oleg Bayborodin tought it. It´s really nice to test them in a real production environment! They support the PhysX engine now ;) but be patient until Siggraph 2008 in LA.

Then of course Afterburn and FumeFX. Which VFX artist could life without them anymore these days? Big maya houses switch parts of their long proven pipeline to max just because there is FumeFX…Autodesk should build Kresimir a temple, it´s selling max licenses. Not to forget Krakatoa from Frantic Software. Hell of a tool they pulled out of the hat there! Even useful as particle caching and management system. Wish these pieces of software would be offered as more suitable packages for one man armys like me. For rendering I use Vray sometimes but that depends on the task really. Usually I get away with faking stuff or faster components in mental ray like SSS. Further more I have the “Blur Pack” from spluttefish and a ton of scripts form scriptspot I use pretty frequently. The Haywood Tool Collection and Neil Blevin´s scrips are great too, don´t wanna miss them.

AN INTERVIEW WITH Anselm v. Seherr

Q. What do you think you can express with CG tools you can’t with traditional media and why?

Hm, do I express? My personal projects do but just from a fun perspective…since I usually work for clients I´d say I don´t “express”. I get a corporate design or script or given goal to achieve from another person or client and try to get as close as possible, that´s mostly work not really expressive art. Often it would be too dangerous or expensive to film a certain shot so philosophicly speaking I´d say “expressing the impossible”. I always say “`Doesn´t work` doesn´t work, only `too expensive` and/or `not withing the given time frame` does”.

Q. Which is your favorite movie in 2007 (from point of CG work) and according to you which movie deserved the Oscar (if any change from actual one) and why?

Hm, I thought Transformers was great but im a big fan of the toys so I guess I was preoccupied. Haven´t watched “The Golden Compass” yet so I cant really answer this question.

AN INTERVIEW WITH Anselm v. Seherr

Q. If you had a choice to work with any CG Artist who would you want to work with and why?

My thermo dynamics and fluid mechanics engineer girlfriend *haha*. There are a lot of great artists around! Not an easy one…

Ian “I´m not much of a drinker” Farnsworth, Sam “Streetfighter” Khorshid, Allan “Fotze!” McKay, Riffat “Mr. Thinking Particles” Dhagher, Johannes “Nackt!” Schloerb (again), Brandon “in the army now” Davis, Bobo Petrov, Oleg Bayborodin, Brandon Riza, Kirby Miller, my old fellas from Soulpix, Blackmountain and the Homebase², too many to name them all.

Q. As a new moderator of CGArena.com are you little excited? How do you rate CGArena ?

Heh, first time I´m a modertor really, wish I could spend even more time on the internet checking stuff of other artists out but my timetable is crazy these days :-( CGArena is really great for beginners and intermediate since the others are patient with the skill level of each and everyone. Not the case in all forums I´ve been…So if you start your career CGArena is a perfect plave covering a gallery where you can upload your artwork or reel, a forum where you receive help and critiques, participate in challenges, tons of tutorials for all kinda 3d apps and skill level, a PDF mag that might feature your artwork even, endless list really.

Q. Anything you like to add? It is your chance now to state your opinion about anything!

Opinion about anything? :-) The weather here in Hamburg sucks and I miss some great parties with my brother in my hometown Hannover while I´m here :D I could go out 5 days a week…I need social contacts and some non-CG-related life time. :-) Oh, and I just updated my website with new gallery stuff etc. so if you are curious drop by at www.3Delicious.de …

Website: www.3Delicious.de Email: psychosilence@web.de