Paul Orlando Caggegi

It feels as tho it’s been non-stop for me since about July this year. A good thing? Well, in some respects, yeah, but on the downside, the stress can be immense in this feast-or-famine life-style.

I’d like to draw attention to some recent work I’ve been involved in lately. An Icelandic company – midstraeti – contacted me to rig some characters for a series of ads. I’ve rigged two frogs, and several human characters in Blender. The ads have been for Vodafone, and an insurance company. I’m currently making changes to a few rigs which will appear in their latest efforts, but the current ads are front-and-center of their homepage, so go check it out!

In Process Diary news, I’m putting the finishing touches on the October WIP video this week. I’m still experimenting with compression settings, but I think I’m reaching a nice compromise in size-vs-quality, tho! This month’s WIP is another mixed-basket of techniques, but all with a relevant purpose: creating a scene from a library of assets. Workflow is vital to a good project. Whether tackling something solo, or working in a team, you need to set ground rules and systems which everyone can follow. Changes will always need to be made, but having a system which can accommodate and foresee the types of changes that are likely will put you in good stead, and will minimize wasted hours.

One nice part of the tutorial was inspired by Kris Wittig – a process diary listener, who I did some work for recently. He showed me a neat little camera rig he’d created, and I asked if it would be ok to showcase it.

The WIP video for October 2009 should be available via the blog and podcast feed on the 30th.

The Process Diary is back from Hiatus. I kick off this month by talking to Steve Ogden – creator of the moon-town web comic. I will be shifting focus over the coming months, further away from the creation of Character Development and more towards what the listeners and fans of the podcast are after: more blender tutorials, more artist conversations, and more brainstorming sessions.

I’ve been encouraged by the amount of feedback I’ve gotten on this podcast, and I’ve even scored a job or two from listeners – just more proof of the way that new media is helping artists like me connect to people who require my services. It is because of such feedback that I have chosen to alter this format.

It was always going to head in that direction, but I had expected that Character Development would be done and dusted by then.

As a bonus, I will now be able to host higher resolution media here on this site for people to download, as well as example files shown in some of the WIP videos.

I will be slowly migrating all the content, and eventually setting up a new feed for archived episodes (the feed is currently generated by feedburner, so it has a size limit; once it is exceeded, it only publishes the most recent episodes on the feed). This way, you can go back and grab older episodes, videos, and interviews from months past. As I do this, some posts will be migrated over to this blog, and eventually, the blogspot address will simply become a repository for show notes and links, rather than incorporating full-blown blog posts to go along with the podcast.

So head on over to the blog now, if you’re not already subscribed. I’ve got quite a few readers – almost 300 from present count. If there is anyone you think would gain valuable knowledge from the content there, direct them to the process diary blog, or search it out in iTunes (or your favorite podcatching website). iTunes users: please take a moment to leave me a rating and/or a review. Feedback helps me produce a better show, and provide more relevant content for you.

Cheers, folks!

Paul C