CG Garage

Latest Episodes:

Episode 306 - Babak Bina - Senior 3D Generalist, Director and Instructor Dec 21, 2020

Show notes

Babak Bina has carved out an illustrious career in VFX — and now he's passing his knowledge onto a new generation. Originally hailing from Iran, the band Tool's visuals inspired Babak to pursue graphic design in Toronto. He's gone on to work for visual effects studios Double Negative, Method Studios and Scanline VFX on movies and TV shows, including Game of Thrones, Black Panther and Wonder Woman.

This year, Babak has also started teaching how to create weird and wonderful creatures at The Gnomon Workshop. He tells Chris what it's like to teach students he's never seen and the tools he uses to create believable characters. Babak also discusses his new role as co-director of short movie, "The Seahorse Trainer."

Episode 305 - Dwayne Burgess, concept artist — "Fargo" and "American Ninja Warrior" Dec 14, 2020

Show notes

CGI obviously has a big role in post-production, but in this podcast, Chris talks to concept artist Dwayne Burgess about how it's used before filming. Dwayne was inspired by theatrical design to pursue his career path, and after a fortuitous meeting on a B-movie, he worked his way up to art director at NBC Universal.

Today, Dwayne is a freelance concept artist, creating renders for TV shows including Fargo and American Ninja Warrior. He explains what his role is in a production, how he interacts with set designers and directors of photography, plus how V-Ray for SketchUp has improved his workflow.

Episode 304 - Shannon Wiggins - Director of Placement & Alumni Relations, Gnomon School of Visual Effects Dec 07, 2020

Show notes

With over 20 years' experience in the industry, Shannon Wiggins knows how to get employed at the biggest VFX and games studios. Shannon's early brushes with behind-the-scenes effects from Star Wars influenced her to learn Softimage and Nuke, and work in roto and paint for companies including Digital Domain, ILM and Dreamworks. Today, she heads up placement and alumni relations at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects.

In this podcast, Shannon shares how Gnomon achieves an incredible 97% employment rate for its students, and offers indispensable advice on preparing a winning reel and being ready for the interview process. She also talks about some of the big changes she's seen over her 10 years at Gnomon — and the skills students need for the VFX of the future.

Episode 303 - Al Quattrocchi - Creative Director & Principal at Tornado Creative LA/Salty Fly Fisherman Nov 30, 2020

Show notes

Al Quattrocchi is a man of passion and talent. From a young age, he's honed his artistic skills via typesetting, movie posters and Grammy-winning album packaging. Along the way, he's been taught by Jim Blinn of Blinn-Phong shading fame, worked with poster artist Drew Struzan and shaken hands with musical legend Art Garfunkel.

At the same time, Al has indulged his love for fly fishing, which grew from exploring the waters near New York. He tells Chris about what makes fly fishing so attractive to artists, his book about catching the elusive California corbina and how he gets involved with the fly-fishing community. Al's Italian-American inflection and gift for storytelling make for an engrossing podcast.

Episode 302 - Yining Karl Li - Senior Software Engineer, Walt Disney Animation Studios Nov 23, 2020

Show notes

Versatile and talented software engineer Yining Karl Li has taken an unconventional but successful approach to his career. He sideloaded a graphics degree onto his business degree and he was inspired to create his own renderer, Takua, by Alex Roman's "The Third and The Seventh" and V-Ray's rendering quality.

He's also made leaps and bounds with the development of Disney's in-house renderer, Hyperion. Used to deliver large-scale environments for Big Hero 6, Moana, Zootopia and the upcoming Raya and the Last Dragon, Hyperion sets itself apart with a breadth-first rendering approach, similar to the techniques used by V-Ray GPU. Karl discusses the intricacies of production rendering on increasingly powerful hardware, as well as the future of real-time and ray-traced rendering.

Episode 301 - Mike Campau - Digital Artist Nov 16, 2020

Show notes

You've probably seen Mike Campau's work without realizing it. Over the past 20 years, this digital artist has honed his style and techniques to produce eye-catching imagery for brands including Under Armour, Chevy and Specialized, and characterful portraits of Tracy Morgan, John C. Reilly and Dave Grohl. He also creates personal work to experiment with new techniques or skewer social media and politics.

In this podcast, Mike tells Chris how he's grown from usual inspiration as a three-year-old, to learning from car campaigns, to the tools and collaborations that make his work possible today. If you've ever wanted to make the jump to becoming a successful freelance artist, Mike has solid advice on how to get established and manage your work-life balance.

Episode 300 - Gary Yost - 3ds Max Development Team Leader & WisdomVR Project Founder Nov 09, 2020

Show notes

CG Garage's 300th podcast features a true superstar of CG: 3D Studio and 3ds Max team leader Gary Yost. After working for an Atari magazine, in the mid 1980s, Gary became involved in software, eventually overseeing the development of 3D Studio from its early days as a DOS package to its limelight-stealing Windows release as 3D Studio MAX 1.0. He talks about how his five-person team (including one barely out of his teens) worked from home in the early-90s to create this pioneering, game-changing 3D software.

Today, Gary is returning to his artistic instincts with a high-tech short film about the COVID-19 pandemic, using superpowered 360-degree cameras, 3ds Max, V-Ray and Chaos Cloud to produce an immersive experience. It's fascinating to hear about Gary's experiences in computing and entertainment over the past few decades. He's a rare character who can combine creative energy and technical know-how with a knack for choosing the right people for the right roles.

Episode 299 - Lou Pecora - VFX Supervisor Nov 02, 2020

Show notes

Returning podcast guest Lou Pecora was inspired by the Haunted Mansion ride, Star Wars, Sinbad and his love of taking things apart to pursue a career in VFX. His first work was creating morphs for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and he's gone on to work on big-budget movies and TV shows at Digital Domain and now Zoic.

In this epic discussion, Lou breaks down some of the challenges that he's faced recently, from transforming a straitjacket into a man for Legion to a nightmare-inducing shot for Lucy in the Sky and COVID-19 shutting down production on Fargo. He also talks about how his career is progressing, how he's stayed upbeat and kept himself busy during the lockdown, and he delves into the pros and cons of real-time production methods.

Episode 298 - Scott Meadows - Head of Visualization and Virtual Production, Digital Domain Oct 26, 2020

Show notes

This week's podcast guest, Scott Meadows, is the crown prince of previz. After graduating in architecture from Texas A&M University, Scott found his way into VFX as part of a two-man team working on the previz of Michael Bay's Bad Boys II in 2002 — and he's now Head of Visualization and Virtual Production at Digital Domain.

In this fascinating interview, Scott shares tales and tips from previz on movies including The Chronicles of Narnia series, Tron: Legacy, Ender's Game, Black Panther, Ready Player One and the upcoming West Side Story. He talks about how he works with directors such as Steven Spielberg and Joe Kosinski, what post-viz is, and how real-time is revolutionizing the way movies are made — via Xbox controllers and iPhones.

Episode 297 - Shuzo Shiota - President/CEO, Polygon Pictures Oct 19, 2020

Show notes

If you're a big Japan-fan, you'll love this podcast. Joining Chris is Shuzo Shiota, CEO of Polygon Pictures, the long-lived and prolific Tokyo-based digital animation studio behind movies and TV series including Godzilla, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Transformers: Prime and Big Hero 6: The Series.

Shuzo and Chris discuss the impact of Japanese art on the west, from its breakthrough at a Parisian exposition in the 1800s, to movies such as Akira, Manga graphic novels and now Netflix's vast array of anime titles. Shuzo also talks about Polygon Pictures' origins, why it can be hard to create authentic anime in 3D, and the future of cinema, gaming and subscription-based services.

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