I'd agree, bringing artists up to speed with XSI and
proprietary tools for Happy Feet was a fairly painless
process, once you have some kind of training or mentoring
program in place. The animation department in particular
would take about 2-3 weeks to train their new hires before
they would start working on shots. After that period, on
the job training becomes very important. As long as you
have the support of management, a good pool of TD's/Lead
artists to call upon (the faculty) then artists are a
pretty intelligent lot and can pickup most things you
throw at them. We were training Maya and Max animators
over to XSI, it's pretty much the same toolset - the
Animation Mixer was a little more tricky as it doesn't
tend to be a standard work methodology for most animators.
TD's take a little longer to cross train, they will tend
not to know the software as intimately as someone with 2-3
years experience. Anyone using a piece of software over a
long period of time benefits from quickly creating
workarounds that can be used to solve limitations or bugs,
something which new users can find frustrating. This is
compounded by the fact that TD?s are developing tools ? as
opposed to using GUI tools . Having said that, I have
seen TD's from an XSI background crossover to Maya and
Maya over to XSI purely because they have good grounding
in Computer Graphic fundamentals ? which is the most
important skill an artist can have.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sofronis Efstathiou
Training Manager
Animal Logic
Tel: +61 2 9383 4935
Fax: +61 2 9383 4960
Email: sofronise(at)al.com.au
Website: www.animallogic.com
_____________________________
On Mon, 4 Sep 2006 11:44:13 +0100
"kim aldis" <kim(at)aldis.org.uk> wrote:
I think it's not so hard to get artists up to speed,
particularly if there's
already experienced help on hand. The basic principles
are pretty much the
same across the board and for the most part the tools
are well defined and
not so different from the rest. TDs though, I think you
need more time, more
help because the toolset is richer, the implications of
the differences are
more profound and you just need a more intimate and in
depth knowledge of
the software.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM
[mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On
Behalf Of Jordi Bares
Sent: 04 September 2006 11:27
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: Re: XSI Hiring
I think we should be also a bit more brave, things
happen if you make
them happen and our experience shows it takes a bit of
time but not too
much actually.
We have been training junior artists coming with
demonstrable talent
(in fact impressive work) and they managed to get up to
speed in about
4 weeks average to the point they can do quite a lot of
stuff while
being supervised closely. About 2 months they are
totally autonomous
and just require basic supervision.
So yes, there is a lack of talent, but is a matter of
building the
talent in-house I think rather than wait for them to be
"motivated" to
jump in.
The best motivation is a real project.
my 2 cents.
jb
On Mon, 2006-09-04 at 11:46 +0200, Stefan Andersson
wrote:
> That's a good question. Since students often chose
software on the
> latest movie, I think that XSI needs to get some heavy
features
behind
> it (as the core application)... but that is difficult
since few
people
> use it...
>
> catch 22
>
> And for XSI to be used more in feature film they need
(and this is my
> point of view even though I have NEVER worked on a CG
heavy film.. so
> take it with a grain of salt).
>
> 1.) Open up for renderman compliant engines
> 2.) Get their act together with particles
> 3.) Dont make the SDK docs a life long search
> 4.) Improve the IK tools
>
> But I might be wrong, perhaps the problem also lies
else where. Would
> be fun to hear what the RSP people has to say since
they used
3delight
> over mental ray.
>
> regards
> stefan andersson
>
>
> On 9/4/06, kim aldis <kim(at)aldis.org.uk> wrote:
> > So here's a question. If there were XSI trainging
courses
available,
> > would people take them and what sort of course would
they expect,
> > both in terms of content and attendability? When I
say would people
> > take them I mean is there enough interest in XSI
amongst people who
> > don't use it to make them take courses and add to
their skillset?
> >
>
>
--
Jordi Bares <jordibares(at)the-mill.com>
The Mill
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