3ds Max UV Mapping - The Easy Way

AN INTERVIEW WITH Allan Mckay

What other training material is coming after Advanced Visual Effects Training DVD.

I’ve got a new DVD about to be released through turbosquid – which covers a lot more in-depth material on effects, more working as solid shots so it covers shaders, particles and handling the actual shots, and sometimes compositing them. So lots of crowd effects, liquid, procedural effects and other fun stuff, as well as scripting and advanced techniques.

I also offer consulting and on & off site training for studios and individuals, which so far seems to work quite well, as for a small fee I can usually talk with a studio and their staff before a project and devise the best approach and sometimes example scenes or scripts etc. to get them started on a job, which goes a long way in cutting down wasted production time on a project, which sometimes can be crucial.

I also plan to do a master class tour soon – and plus there’s some other stuff in the works. Basically try and give back to the community as much as I can in terms of helping others get to where they want to be as an artist & operator etc.

I have seen you’re all training videos, and those are always in Max, Afterburn. Etc. Do you favor any specific software/plug-in or do you consider all software packages almost the same.

I tend to use what gets the job done, I usually find 3D Studio Max with a few custom written scripts and plugins can go a long way, although there are a lot of jobs I also do in Maya. Both I find equal in strengths and weaknesses, so my preference really is on a job to job basis. I do like Maya’s flexibility, and I love Max’s ease of use. I’m able to do some shots in max within a couple of hours that take days to do in Maya, however I find I hit less walls with Maya as most things I can work around with a bit of scripting work, and other things Maya handles memory and larger chunks of data more efficiently.

AN INTERVIEW WITH Allan Mckay

What projects have you been working on lately, and which project you enjoying the most.

I moved back to Australia to work on set on Superman Returns at Fox Studios in Sydney since then I launched my own studio Catastrophic, which has been booming with work. Most people are finding it a great way to focus their strengths in animation etc. and pass Catastrophic the effects work and more technical areas to handle. And with the pipeline and set up that we have right now for the studio it’s allowed for very easy and painless application of effects from other studios, and a good render farm always eases the pain as well!

Recently I’ve completed two CG Feature films, both for US clients, as well as a small handful of music videos & a couple of TV Commercials, such as lots of crowds work and digital pyrotechnics. Currently I’m putting together a large count of effects shots for a Citroen commercial for a very well known director. Although a majority of the work that comes through Catastrophic/myself is game cinematic work, so lots of Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 pre rendered cinematics right now for a lot of different studios.

And now with E3 in a little over a month away I’m plowing away on some very big title game cinematics during the pre e3 crunch! All of which look to be very very cool!

To become a successful FX guy, do you find it necessary that you have knowledge of physics terms. If not, then which concepts must be clear?

AN INTERVIEW WITH Allan Mckay

Really FX and most areas of this industry benefit from being both technical as well as a creative artist. I wouldn’t have survived to this day if I were just a programmer or just an artist, so the real secret is bridging both of those strengths together to make yourself into an efficient as possible Technical Director. I tend to learn as much as I can on every subject I can, and keep myself thinking as both an artist, compositor and producer when tackling projects – as this keeps me thinking creatively as to what the client or director might want, and making sure I deliver it to the compositor in the most flexible and efficient manor so they can make the most out of every piece of work you output – and as a producer making sure everything is done as efficiently and cost effectively as possible ;) and lastly of course with as much technical knowledge as possible allows for either building tools or efficient scripts/expressions to get effects to not only work, but be easily changeable and replicatable now and on future projects.

Have you found that people in the industry commonly say…Max is for games and Maya is for movies. How much you think this is true. And if anyone is really good in max particles then that cant fit in the production house which uses only Maya?

Max and maya’s particles are verrry different. The initial concept of both were very linear, and a couple of years ago Maya’s particles had max’s beat hands down. Now with Particle Flow – and Particle Flow Tools, both which I’ve devoted as much time as I can to bettering them in whatever ways possible – they’ve really pushed max’s abilities, and it definitely makes Maya’s particles show their age. However of course Maya has a much more efficient and faster scripting language for building expressions for particles, and of course the intergration of Fluids – so both have their strengths. I believe Max can handle effects work much faster on it’s initial stages, however you’ll get much more complexity out of scripting in Maya if you are up to the workload.

Houdini on the other hand is probably a lot more similar to max’s way of thinking with particles, however is far more complex and powerful for this type of work. Either way with any application, getting to know the app isn’t too hard, and jumping between them isn’t unheard of.

AN INTERVIEW WITH Allan Mckay

In a Demo Reel related to only FX, companies mostly ask “it’s the computer doing all the work, show me what you have done. “ Have you every faced this problem and what do you say to those recruiters?

To be honest, I guess I’ve been lucky to usually work with large studios like Blur, DD and others – so usually I’ll be a fairly intelligent supervisor to talk to during the first part of the meeting process – but I really haven’t ever come across anyone who does see it as being all the computer. I believe CGI is fairly well placed and understood in most competing industries these days, so aside from the odd disgruntled traditional animator I think most people have a fairly good understanding of what’s required and the pain endured in working in this industry!

However I do get some producers who during a tight deadline – can’t understand why someone’s helicopter is taking eight or nine seconds to render a frame, and some of my K res smoke or fire might be taking forty or more minutes – as apparently it’s all the same thing to them. But that’s another story.

AN INTERVIEW WITH Allan Mckay

What are your hobbies and where do you see yourself in 5 years?

I’m still in my 0’s so pretending I live the rockstar life of drinking and partying 6-1 every night is always something I try to keep up, but to be honest there isn’t really enough time in the day/week/months/years to have many hobbies other than gym, friends/gf/family and the occasional chance to sleep. I guess I could say I do get fairly dedicated to my work, but I believe it’s important to establish good grounding right now – and catastrophic is my baby.

I’ve only really been getting people recently asking where I see myself in five years, and I haven’t the faintest clue. With Catastrophic exploding how it has, I hope that I can build it up to a fairly respected boutique effects place, for other post studios and agencies passing me work as they please. And to really expand on that realm, and just to work on more cool content. Outside of that just to make sure I maintain a balance of living life and work on a day to day basis. Owning my own island is always a pipe dream of course!

Would you like to give any message to CGArena E-Zine readers?

If you want to get your foot in the door in the 3D Industry or you have but want to push forward, it honestly does require a lot of work and dedication – however it’s all well worth it! At the same time don’t sell yourself cheap! I occasionally walk into studios where people have told their employers they’ll

AN INTERVIEW WITH Allan Mckay

work for free initially to help talk their employers into hiring them, things like this really aren’t necessary. Get your skills up and get in there! Doing it all for free (working crazy hours with no remuneration) is really only ever going to benefit your employer and not you.

The hours in this industry can sometimes be very harsh, so really only do those hours when they’re absolutely necessary. Otherwise you’re just getting ‘the man’s’ wallet fat and an early heart attack for yourself. Work to live, not live to work.

And try and be as humble as possible, it’s very easy to get a bit of an ego in this industry (geez I’ve worked with some crazy characters) and in the end everyone is working as a team. It’s much better to encourage everyone than to discourage them and talk yourself up. We’re all in it as a team.

Thanks a lot Allan for taking out sometime for us from your busy schedule.

Thank you, always glad to help!

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Your Mission

Create an image which shows Ruins. This Challenge is a Work-In-Progress Challenge -- all contestants are required to post their work-in-progress images for community to critique/comment in order to qualify.

How the Challenge will be Run

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1. Enter the Challenge by registering yourself on CGArena forum. . Submit your work in progress images in forum on a regular basis. 3. Participate in the community by critiquing other challengers works in the respective forums. 4. Submit your final entry till 0th May 006. 5. There will be 3 winners in this 3D Challenge and CGArena, Sponsers and Judges decision will be final.

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Duber Training DVD’s by Loocas Duber, covering topics such as organic modeling, pelt mapping, classic mapping, painting maps (color map, bump map, specular map, reflection map)

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Intermediate training DVDs for 3d artists!

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