Demo reels for maya/lightwave.....making textures in photoshop?

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Originally posted by OriginalJester
Negitoro:

I suggested DVD because it is by far cheaper to produce a quality DVD as opposed to a quality VHS. It isn't at all arrogant to send a common place object like a dvd with a Dossier when 95% of the entry level places except them, and just about everyone in the industry has a DVD player easily accesible. It's obviously foolish to send it to a place that requires VHS but I've encountered very few of these traditionalist outside of big boy places like Capcom and Pixar. Even Dreamworks reviewed my DVD when I applied for an internship, they said they liked the dvd menu more than the rest of my work.

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I agree with you in that DVD is an increasingly common place standard in the creative workplace. However, my point is that, while yes, a great number of companies will provide for DVD reviewing facilities, not ALL of them do. And this fact alone should make one wary of mastering a demo reel solely on DVD.

My opinion is that, as an applicant, you should ready your reel in multiple formats, but VHS should be the "base standard" that one should adhere to. Send in a VHS first... if the work is good, an interview follows where you can more easily ask to show your work on DVD if they provide it.

This is better than say, sending a DVD to have it rejected solely on the grounds of the comapny not accepting it or having some technology problems -- DVD format incompatible with their old DVD player for instance. Another thing is if they aren't recieving a lot of DVD reels, will the reviewer have to find a different place to review the reel ? If so, will he be bothered with the inconvenience ?

My point is just if you adhere to most common standard, you are 100% guaranteed a fair and impartial review. And as such, perhaps it's better to send in the VHS.

However, a great solution would be to include both. Maybe an entire packet where you could send a DVD, a VHS, maybe even a CD with your 3D models on them for their anaylsis.

I agree with you on trying to have the most compatible demo reel, and VHS is excepted just about everywhere, my only problem with VHS is the cost. It cost me $200 dollars to rent a lab with editing stations to make 3 15 min master VHS demos that were at best half assed in comparison to the dvds I can make at home in iDVD for $5 a pop. Granted I can Dub a VHS off one of my masters but then it looks even worse, as well as having work that is 18 months old and outdated. With iDVD I can transfer the file from my workstation to my MAC and burn a Crisp clean DVD showing off my latest efforts.
My other reason for recommending DVD to Dragonmaster Dyne, was becase he said he was new at it. And being relitivly new at it myself I've found that when now that i no longer have access to my nice digital studio at school, that with buying programs at 2 thousand a piece and a decent workstation at 4 thousand, as well as allpurpose Mac at 2500, as well as paying at least 25 a month to have a decent web site hosted (which is in no way worth it), that it is expensive as hell to try and break into this Biz. Anything to cut cost is worth it to me, even if it eliminates me from a few places' hiring consideration. With this economy, and paying for all of this with a dead-end customer service job, VHS is not an option for me.

Dyne my best advice to you and i know this is old

is to find a school in your area that has a real set up for this

from my experience most schools will have a DTS reality system or DTS Velocity and theyre pretty easy to use

we had a professional Beta deck and VHS deck (things outputted to VHS on a professional VHS deck look really good for VHS)

What i would suggest is first laying everything out in After Effects all your transitions and everything else

then from After Effects out put it all as raw frames

burn those raw frames onto cd (with a good numbering system, you can set that up in after effects)

something like myreel.#######.tga (i use targas for my raw frames) the #### represent how much padding itll use

say it runs to 6,543 frames youll want a 4 or 5 padding ie .#####. that way the file names will go from say
myreel.00000.tga - myreel.06543.tga

now just bring those raw frames in the correct order into what ever out put system your using and your good to go


I highly reccomend dumping a master Beta copy also
as beta is much higher quality and lasts longer than VHS

also you can make alot of VHS dubs off one beta master
that way anytime you need more copies you just stop by the studio pop in the beta and dub to your hearts content


also i highly reccomend compressing it to be viewed online
alot of sites will allow Online applications

i have my demo reel online myself

it needs to be updated big time though



as far as going with any other format than VHS i HIGHLY against it

why, because your submission is going to be one of many, if they cant just pop it in like the rest of them and watch, its going to get thrown to the side and not paid attention to

its the truth of how the industry is working right now i cant think of any places off the top of my head that take anything then VHS or online applications almost every place ive seen and applied to has been VHS or online only

If you go to school, see if they have some media labs. If they do, then you can put it to VHS there. Everything else can be done in labs, at home, whatever.

Tell me how it goes, Dyne. I'm really interested in taking 3D animation courses, and would love some insight from a guy ahead of the game.

He still needs texturing resources, ;) (i am looking for this too)

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Originally posted by Hero

Tell me how it goes, Dyne. I'm really interested in taking 3D animation courses, and would love some insight from a guy ahead of the game.

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what do you want to know

ive been doing 3d for 4 - 5 years now

Stay away from DVD if you can. VHS is sure fire. I would even say a CD would be better. My school made us output our reels in DVD, but i ended up making VHS's anyways... DVDs are crap. This is how it is: employers HATE reviewing demo reels. They've seen it all,.. the good, the bad, the ugly. If in the first 20 seconds they don't like what they see, they stop the tape and move on. You've just had your 20 seconds. Think if they were to take DVDs. They would have to pop in the DVD (that is, if they have a DVD player where they screen), then navigate through the menus to find what they want to see, then be able to play it. This is a BIG hassle for them, and they really don't want to bother. These guys don't have 15 minutes to browse through all your things and watch a lengthy movie. If you're gonna make a reel, put your best stuff in it, and make it 1 minute or less if you can. do NOT try to do TOO much. Do NOT put all the work you've done since you were 10 in it. If you're gonna have a little story, which is good in itself, you'll find that it takes a long time to develop a story. i'd say 3 minutes or more. It used to be that people would send in 5-10 minute reels and that was OK, but now SO many people send in reels, 3 minutes is a very long reel. and like i said, they might only see 20 seconds

I think learning from the net is pretty tough. If you can afford it and are really serious about it, classes are the way to go. However, finding a good school is a hard thing to do.

I hear everyone mentioning After Effects to edit a reel. I personally would use Premier. After Effects is more of an effects package, while Premier is an editing tool. You can import your rendered stills (numbered) from Maya/Lightwave/Max/XSI etc, do all your transitions and cut it to music from MP3 format (add sound fx too).

In reality, there's a shitload to learn to do a demo reel, but that also depends on what kind of demo reel you want to make. It wont happen in a week or two. It takes months and months to learn the stuff you need to do. you also have to have a plan. if you jump right into making a reel, you're definately going to get stuck.

Yes, I went to a school.. even though I didn't think the school was very professional... I did end up learning what i needed, and I also did a lot of learning on my own afterwards. I'm happy to say i'm makin games now :) and I LOVE my job ;)