hey Travis,
I'm more of a mid level artist now i think. :)
On these projects there are lots of people working in different disciplines. I think you only need a basic knowledge of stuff to get a job doing 3D.
There are 2 guys who started recently at my work and they are both 36, they have just switched over from very different careers. You are not alone!

The second kitty litter ad had me chuckling a bit. Nice work Dom!:giggle:

Ace work Dom.

To Travis, I'm 46 (going on 16). It's only too late when there's 6 foot of earth above you :)

Thanks man. I really appreciated that.

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Nice wolf :)

I second that, very impressive wolf. Great work!

When you say lighting for the wolf, does that mean that the wolf was rendered in isolation, and everything else was live action, or what? If a bunch of the other stuff was CG, why would you light the wolf on its own? And what does lookdev entail for something like this?

Thanks guys, this was a fun job actually. I worked solo on this for most of it. Only a couple of other 3D guys. I also just got to be lead artist on my first job. It aired the other day so I'll see if I can find it on YouTube. :D

I lit the wolf on the jump shots everything else was live action. They are actually hybrid wolf/dogs. So I lit the wolf to match the environment. These plates are pretty heavily graded which was a challenge when lighting.
The theory for lighting is basically create a block light rig and light to a grey shader. This will give you a light rig which you can use to do some lookdev shading. What I mean by this is building a shading network and adjusting parameters to achieve the right look. So when it comes to fur and hair you have 3 things to think about. Reflection (R), Sheen (TRT) and Transmission (TT). I work with a shader built to Marschner's hair model.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L52k8p6OMJ...er_Diagram.PNG
So basically by lookdev I mean shading - skin, fur, teeth, claws, eyes, tongue etc etc. once I have a bunch of shaders that are working, I will start doing some primary lighting. This is just lighting with fur and all the trimmings. nicer render settings 100% LOD, etc etc. Then once I get client feedback I move onto secondary lighting which is the same as primary but including the client changes.

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Nice :), the guy's very sturdy surviving a big cat attack like that, a bit stupid as well since he didn't flee into the cage :P

That's a great cheetah, funny thing just got this on my google reader;

http://mpcftw.tumblr.com/post/172083...ally-if-theyre

Nice work fur genius :) and the lead artist job looks really good as well. Someone's going places, glad to see the long hours pay off.

Nilla

:/ gees, i read that too. it's really embarrassing. I'm so not a fur guru. :P

Thanks tho! :)

So is the cheetah fake at 0:18 or real? If CG, then I'd have to say "fur genius" but if it's real, then you still did an excellent job, cause I don't know where it was real and where it was fake :)