Long time no updates

It's been a long time since I made a blog post, I promise that I will update with new work when I can. And hopefully I will have a new reel in mid may, maybe earlier. I have been hard at work for the past year. I was a Render/Production technician at SPI on Green Lantern, and am now working as an Associate Lighting TD on Men In Black III.

The future is now.

Swing from Nicholas Hoyt on Vimeo.

Here is a look at the future

The HD revolution...

You know ever since I got my HD tv I have been on the HD revolution bandwagon. This changed literally yesterday when I saw my first Bluray on a super HD tv in Best Buy. I was in the Magnolia center when I saw King Kong on one of the TVs. Lets first establish I am not a fan of this movie, but I am a fan of the visual effects. They are gorgeous... Until I saw them in HD. In SD the artifacting of the medium gives the effects a nice soft edge, and actually cleans them up to the point where they work well with the surroundings. In HD the effects were so harsh that it didn't make sense. The compositing was obvious, and the Occlusion on the shadows was not dark enough to create a convincing shadow under the models. Granted the only scene I got to watch was the fight in the jungle between the trexes and kong, but in SD it looks so much more impressive than it did in HD. Not to mention that in HD the effects strobe as a result of the sharpening filter that is present. I also caught a glimpse of Chicken Little in a different room. When I went to look at that I was not happy with the result. It had somewhat of the same problem the shadows were not dark enough, but the texture were also a problem. They were not detailed enough for HD, and it created a somewhat bland scene. Granted ILM uses overly large textures for their effects. It was rumored in TF that they used 16k and 32k textures. Those are gigantic but given how insanely compact the UVs had to have been it is fairly warranted. But chicken little was made before the advent of HD and unfortunately it seems fairly obvious.

Dumb words in common nomenclature

This has been gnawing at me for a while now. Words like deplane which means to disembark an aircraft is one of the stupidest words I have ever heard. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary though the word itself has a foundation from 1923. I honestly cannot believe that since the word has only been in common usage in the past few years. The word itself makes no sense, and there are no other intransitive verbs for any other craft. Deboat, or decar for example. Because they sound dumb that's why. "for those of you who will be deboating at the port today please have your passports ready." Deplane sounds just as dumb, its just yet another shortcut around using multiple words. Disembark the aircraft sounds better, and does not make the flight attendant sound like a complete moron. Instead we have to listen to Tattoo tell us of all "de planes" around us in the airport.

Google Wave a new product for Trolls

Google has finally done it. They have taken something that is a wonderful idea and given it to the trolls. The first public threads on wave that I came across were posts asking for images of "teh Sexie Womens" and trolls waiting for a response so that they can tell you how stupid you are. And then refer you to Wikipedia so that you can do some "RAFO" what ever the hell that means. I looked up RAFO, but I really don't think that the Royal Airforce of Oman has anything to do with anything. I'm guessing it has something to do with being uninformed. Not everyone is a Wikipedia Nazi Troll so get over yourselves. No one really cares anyway. Pro-tip it took you guys 48 hours to find Steven Colberts edits, and he did them on national TV. Don't worry though no one is counting except you.

Anyway Wave is really great to use, Its uses are endless, but I can totally see 4chan invading it when it goes public. When that happens it will basically become useless. Granted they may have a little fear because anon will no longer be anon. When the trolling really starts I have a feeling google will be powerless to stop it so enjoy the minor trolling while it lasts.

Draw With Me

Ok so I came across this video, its rather depressing, but touching at the same time. The story is really simple, but packs a rather hard punch.

Batmobile Concept

Here is a Batmobile Concept that I have been working on in my very sparse spare time. I recently took up drafting of a sort. I find the use on french curves, and the anal retentive nature of the drafting process in general very soothing.
The design is obviously not perfect, and needs a significant amount of work and detail in its current state, but its coming along nicely from where it originally started out. Sorry for the messy drawing, I'm currently too lazy to use PS to clean things up. Partly not really worth it.

weee blend test

Times of day

Finally finished this despite everything else that is going on.

Animation and Modeling: Beavan Blocker