CG talks – Details, episodes & analysis

Join us for an enlightening episode with Doug Bello, co-founder of Unsaid Studios, as we dive into the making of "Panchita," an animated short that marries storytelling with technological innovation to support social causes. In this conversation, Doug unveils the creative and technical journey behind the film, the collaboration with the charity Techo, and the global teamwork that propelled this project to success. Discover the challenges and triumphs of producing animation that not only entertains but also advocates for change, offering insights into the future of storytelling in the digital age.

Watch the short here

In this bonus episode of CG Talks, Marco is joined by Jasmine Katatikarn, co-founder of the Academy of Animated Art. Jasmine shares insights from her over 20 years of experience as a senior lighting artist at studios like Blue Sky. They discuss the nuances of 3D lighting, including shaping, directing the viewer's eye, and creating mood. Jasmine provides perspective on lighting for different scenarios like feature animation vs VFX. She also gives advice for lighting dark and overcast environments.

The conversation covers her work founding the Academy of Animated Art to fill education gaps and help students achieve industry jobs quicker. Jasmine talks about the Academy's mission to increase diversity by making animation accessible to younger generations.

Additional topics include: leveraging AI as a creative tool, being a lighting generalist with specialization, and expanding opportunities for CG artists outside entertainment. Jasmine offers thoughtful commentary on the state of the industry. Overall, an insightful look at CG lighting and education from a veteran artist's viewpoint.

This is the first part of CG Talks' (the podcast where CG Guys talk about computer graphics) conversation with Federico Biancullo - Archviz artist, founder, and creative director of The Big Picture - an archviz studio based in Bologna Italy. Federico is also a blogger and a podcaster - host of the “There’s something about archviz” podcast.

We kick off the conversation with an ever-up-to-date but even more relevant now (in the post-pandemic time) topic of mental health in the archviz industry. Federico has been advocating for that on his podcast and finds this a quite important issue especially due to the type of people that work in those kinds of jobs. We discuss some of our experiences regarding remote work and the lockdowns. In the course of the conversation, we even digress into the looming threat (or opportunity) of artificial intelligence taking over the jobs of artists. 

You’ll definitely find some healthy tips inside this part of CG Talks that we hope will lift your spirit.

Stay tuned for the next parts of this episode with Federico, where we will talk about selling points in archviz and dealing with multiple challenges as a 3d generalist.

Listen and enjoy!

And as always : ‘Happy rendering’ from GarageFarm.NET / CG Talks team

This time Marco had an opportunity to talk with a very special guest, Lucian Racovitan - an Architect turned Archviz artist who has plied his architectural chops for at least a decade in different places across the globe - Japan, Abu Dhabi, Copenhagen before he shifted to 3D visualization full-time. He is the founder of Bucharest Studio, and he and his team have been behind some absolutely stunning archviz renders! We're glad to have sat with him for a closer look into the life of Lucian as it relates to his work with Bucharest Studio, his perspective as a visualization artist, and his experience with us at GarageFarm.NET. Take a seat and listen to this great conversation about Lucian's experience path!

This time we had an opportunity to talk with Zacharias Reinhardt - a 3d Artist, tutor, YouTuber, entrepreneur and founder of CG Boost, an educational platform for 3d artists that want to boost their Blender 3d skills. If you are a 3d artist and haven’t heard of Zach yet, you probably might have stumbled upon online competitions/challenges such as weeklycgchallenge.com or SculptJanuary - Zach is the person behind these events.

Becoming an entrepreneur and running his own tutorial business was not planned by Zacharias from the beginning. It rather happened gradually through many twists and turns. Before he got to know that both doing 3d art and teaching are his superpowers, Zach tried freelancing, working in a TV company, and running a YouTube channel. We talk a bit about how parents sometimes view a 3d artist's career as something not stable or serious - luckily, this was not the case with Zach, whose parents were very supportive and believed he’ll find the right way. This ability to test himself in many fields and learn from experiences finally resulted in understanding what he really wanted to focus on and gave him confidence and courage to start CG Boost.

Zach gives us some insight into how he organizes his work - these are some powerful tips you can use too! He developed those skills throughout many years of testing what works for him. Everyone (even successful people that you think are way ahead of you) starts small and grows from there. Zach’s approach is to start with something simple and build upon that rather than struggling for something perfect. Improvement comes with time.

We also talked about how to deal with less pleasant parts of work. Zach shares how he divides those into smaller, less painful doses, and when possible he uses the great power of delegating tasks to people he trusts. This approach steadily improved his work/life balance quality so now Zach can truly enjoy a vacation without constantly worrying about the business matters.

If you doubt that following your gut feeling and earning money with free and open-source software is possible - listen to this episode and Zach’s case will prove it surely is. Zach’s business model also shows it is possible to do what you’re best at and run a successful company with the right people on board.

This time we had an opportunity to talk with Zacharias Reinhardt - a 3d Artist, tutor, YouTuber, entrepreneur and founder of CG Boost, an educational platform for 3d artists that want to boost their Blender 3d skills. If you are a 3d artist and haven’t heard of Zach yet, you probably might have stumbled upon online competitions/challenges such as weeklycgchallenge.com or SculptJanuary - Zach is the person behind these events.

We take a dive this time into the nitty-gritty of tutorial-making art. This topic is close to both Zach’s and DJ's hearts so the conversation goes deep into the subject - neither even if you’ve ever attempted making a tutorial nor plan to do it, you surely have watched both good and bad tutorials, you should listen to this convo and get some benefits from it. We try to define what makes a great one and what can destroy (or harm) the learning experience of the viewer.

We asked Zach to recall his first tutorial and reflect on all that he has learned through the years that made him one of the most successful Blender tutors around. We also discuss the inspiration coming from other tutorial makers in the community. It turns out that both DJ and Zach are huge fans of Ian Hubert’s one-minute ‘Lazy tutorials’ which are perhaps more useful for more advanced users who gladly skim through most tutorials just looking for that one nugget tip that answers a specific 3d workflow problem. However, these might be more on the entertainment side (which is of course great) Zach likes to make sure that his tutorials are extensive and easy to understand and follow - even (or perhaps especially) for beginners. He regards his Blender Launchpad course as the best he has done so far and considers it to be a great extension and thorough introduction to Blender for everyone who may have stumbled upon Andrew Price’s ‘The Donut tutorial’ and is hungry for some more in-depth training. Zach does not consider this competition, but rather a symbiosis of all the Blender tutorial creators who cater to all possible flavors and tastes of various community members. After all, 3d artists are one big family and we never stop learning.

Zach also gives us a glimpse of some future plans he has for CG Boost which include reviving the CG Boost challenge that got on hold for a short period of time.

This time we had an opportunity to talk with Zacharias Reinhardt - a 3d Artist, tutor, YouTuber, entrepreneur and founder of CG Boost, an educational platform for 3d artists that want to boost their Blender 3d skills. If you are a 3d artist and haven’t heard of Zach yet, you probably might have stumbled upon online competitions/challenges such as weeklycgchallenge.com or SculptJanuary - Zach is the person behind these events.

Zacharias describes his 3d adventure since his early high school years when he started doing fun VFX shots for homemade Sci-fi short films he made with his older brother, one of these turned out not so short - it was an hour-long! Back then he first stumbled upon Blender which he later replaced with Cinema 4d. Once Zach started to get into more serious paid 3d jobs, he was again allured to Blender due to it being free and open source and it seemed to allow for similar functionality as C4D. Zach says he never regretted that choice. His Blender adventure soon led him to create some YouTube tutorials which had some success. This encouraged him to create educational videos he then sold on DVDs - does anyone still remember those ancient times?! All of this along with impressive artistic skill growth over the years resulted in a quite bold and highly successful launch of CG Boost which encompasses all of Zach’s endeavors.

This time, DJ talked with Lucas Bazyluk - Director of Operations at GarageFarm.NET. In this convo, we went a bit outside professional life and the CGI Industry to talk about running (and it is not running scripts or animating run-cycles). Lucas has been a runner for quite a few years and he was able to achieve his dream goal of successfully running a marathon! It might have taken him a bit longer than he expected but the lessons he learned through it were sure worth the additional effort!

Though running may seem irrelevant to the daily life of a 3d artist (or at least some of them), there is more you can learn from Lucas' passion than you might think. It comes down to setting goals and meeting them in time. Lucas shares his observations on how we usually overestimate our abilities in the short term while we tend to underestimate them in the long run. Little daily habits and routines when practiced regularly until they come to us as naturally as breathing can not only make our lives easier and more orderly but also become a foundation for long-term success and efficiency.

This time, DJ talked with Lucas Bazyluk - Director of Operations at GarageFarm.NET. What does translation have to do with render farms and 3d CGI? It might not be obvious at first glance however you never know what skills might get you where in your professional career. This was the case for Lucas, who was approaching the new opportunity with an open and curious mind.

Now after working in the 3d industry for over 9 years he shares with us his insights from the perspective of an outsider who has now become an insider. Where is the CGI industry heading? Are offline renderers doomed to extinction? We hope you can get some new thoughts on these and other related topics from listening to this podcast episode.

This time, DJ talked with Lucas Bazyluk - Director of Operations at GarageFarm.NET about his unexpected journey into the world of web design. It is an inspiring story of how a practical need paired with curiosity and problem solving enabled Lucas to successfully contribute to GF’s success.

Lucas wouldn’t have imagined himself designing websites before he joined GarageFarm around 2013. He was involved in a totally different market segment and focused more on managerial tasks. In fact, he got employed as a translator at first because of his excellent knowledge of Korean, Polish, and English (a rather niche combination). The adventure with designing websites and apps began soon after that as Lucas spotted the need to improve the existing rather raw solutions that were used in those early days of the company. Quite soon these small improvements of UI (simple graphic and icon layouts) have sucked Lucas into design thinking. He shares with us what (and how) he learned along the way. Is this unexpected career twist going to lead Lucas to redesign Starcraft’s UI (Lucas’ favorite RTS game)? We shall learn that in time. As for now, enjoy listening to this inspiring story of digging into the design from scratch.