September 16th, 2005
Wow, nearly a year since the last update. Actually, the last update in the News page. Other pages like sripts and shaders have been in constant updates. Still, lots of things to say.
A well deserved
break
After I came back from Marseille, I took two months off. I have to confess
that it was a very weird time off. As opposed to previous times off, this
time I had several offers for jobs, most of them very interesting. I had to
turn most of them down, because after two years of non-stop work (without
a single week of vacation), I was completely burnt out.
Meteor Studios
Then I took a short contract at Meteor
Studios, in Montreal, as a lighting artist. I worked on Fantastic Four.
That was my first Hollywood block-buster experience, not to mention my first
experience as lighting for integration with live footage. That was a very
interesting job, where I learnt few things about Maya and Renderman (both
of them I had no experience with). But it was also quite tough, lots of stuff
to take care off and LOTS of over time. That said, seeing my shots (about
20 of them) on the big screen, and especially my name on the generic, made
me euphoric and very proud.
Big Bang
Immediately I started at Big Bang
Digital Studios (aka Big Bang Animation and Big Bang VFX), and have been
working there since then. This is my first permanent job since January 2002,
this is great. I work as a lighting and rendering TD (XSI-mental ray), although
I do a lot of pipeline stuff as well. As I write this I'm developing tools
to exchange XSI data via XML files. I have to admit that I love my job, it's
the first time I can honestly say that since spring 2004 (when I lit the first
bunch of sets for Tripping the Rift at CinéGroupe). My work environment
is cool and I do exactly what I wanted to do.
PST2
Lastly, I can now announce that I have finished the production of Production
Solutions and Tips 2, the sequel to Production
Solutions and Tips, wich I did for 3dtutorial.com.
It took me a year and half, that is, roughly 300 hours of free time. The tutorial
is more or less 45 long!!!! Right now the project in Joe Saltzman's hands
(the 3dtutorial boss), I don't know when it will go on sales.
Articles
I have published an article
about using Python in XSI to handle some rendering-related tasks, in issue
#3 of a magazine called HDRI3D. This
is a highly Lightwave-oriented magazine, but with Raf (the XSI Base founder)
as the XSI editor, no chance in getting XSI out of the game :-)
Also I have published my first article on XSI-Blog.
The Montreal
XSI user group
Will Mendez, who started the Montreal XSI user group, appointed me to be the
president of the user group. Will is still in the organization, but lacked
the time necessary to take of it. Hopefully I'll do a good job.
Site news
Lots of new scripts and plugins. Check out the scripts page.
Also, in order to better document my scripts, I have put online a MediaWiki
page. However it's not available to the public right now, as I did not manage
to organize it, due to lack of time!
I have posted an updated resume.
I'm considering more and more to take down the galleries pages. Why? Because
I have not made any update in ages. In fact I don't remember when I did updates.
I added the Giger-like orgue, an artwork, and that's pretty much it, in the
last two years. Either I will take these sections down, or I will try to squeeze
some time to put new images and hopefully animations there.
Personal news
This year has been a big one: I have bought a condominium, in a Montreal area
called Anjou. Given the pricing of condos these days, this is quite a giant
investment for me. I had my "inaugural" party recently, to celebrate
my 30th anniversary I held a wine and cheese evening. That was awesome!
Btw, since January, I lost about 30 pounds!
November 11th, 2004
Back from Marseille
November 1st, 2004, I came back from Marseille, France, where I spent 8 months
working as a rendering technical director for Action Synthèse. It was
for a movie called The Magic Roundabout, and it will air in England on February
2nd, 2005. In North America it should be out by the end of 2005. The movie
was done with XSI and mental ray.
I have to say that was quite a ride. I faced my biggest professional challenge,
and for the first two months, every day I considered going back to Montreal.
That said, the result is just fantastic. Check it out here.
While in France I had the chance to visit lots of different places, including: Paris, Berlin, Zurich, London (my favorite), and the south of France (wich I keep my most beautiful souvenirs). That was an awesome journey. I took about 2000 pictures, but unfortunately these pictures will not be showcased on my site, except for these few:
Here I am in a staircase sculpted directly in the rock. This place is Fort-de-Buoux, a prehistoic site the Luberon (an area of Provence, south of France), where there are prehistoric and medieval constructions.
Here I am in Berlin (formely the west side), in a downtown place that would remind Montrealers of Ste-Catherine/McGill College. The church was bombed during World War II.
Here I stand downtown Zurich under the banner of a store that has a great name. Is it me orI look super fat?
On this one I am in the
Effeil Tower, in Paris. I look like a bully, too bad my glasses broke since
then.
Update on September 2005: this summer I got new glasses, wich are meaner than
these. Everything is back to normal now.
Here I stand above Moustier-Sainte-Marie, a little town in Verdon (another area of Provence), along my friend Fabrice. We are actually in a little church built on top of cliffs. I can honestly say that was one of the greatest days of my life, the weather and the sights were just too fantastic.
Here I am in London, in an authentic Austrian restaurent. As you can see, I was quite in shock when I saw those 1 litre beer glasses (they hold two pints each).
Still in the Austrian restaurent, I included this one because it is a unique shot. I am with Raffael (left) and Alan (center). Raffael is my friend in Zurich, he is the founder of XSI Base, the forum I moderate along with Alan (an Aussie!). So basically I am a Quebecer working in France, in a Austrian restaurant in London, along with a Zurich guy and an Anstralian one (living in far UK now). In that trip to London, I also hung out with Swedish and Greek people. Talk about multi-culturalism. That said, please disregard the red tint of my face.
In case you wonder, during November and December 2004 I'm taking some time off. I have worked like crazy for the past two years (with no vacations) and I'm burnt out. I will do artistical stuff like drawing and sculpting, and complete my second series of online XSI training (XSI Production Solutions And Tips 2).
Lots of new scripts
I have published lots of scripts, 99% of them being in Python. The majority
are XSI scripts, but few are for the Python command line shell. Check out
the script section.
Also check out the shaders section, there are a few new things.
Tidbits
I have also updated my resume, check out the About Me section to download
it (now only available in pdf format).
April 25, 2004: Marseille!!
Sorry for the late update, but things have been moving very fast lately. My contract at CinéGroupe ended on the last February 28th, and 5 days laters I was on the plane, heading to Marseille, France. I'm working as a rendering technical director, at Action Synthèse. The project is called "The Magic Roundabout", it's a full 3D feature film. It's based on a 70s show that used puppets. The movie is about the adventures of a bunch of characters (sorry but because of NDA, can't disclose more).
June First, 2003: XSI Production Solutions & Tips
In October 2002 I recorded
XSI training lessons. These lessons are now available on 3dtutorial.com
for 49.99$.
I have put a lot of efforts in these lessons, that is, two months, and I'm
proud of the result.
Read all the XSI Production Solutions & Tips here,
and read here
the interview with me on the 3dtutorial.com site.
May 20th, 2003: Bits of news
Today my site is featured
in a ezine called Vocanson Multimédia!
http://www.vocanson.com/A1_actualites.htm
April 14th, 2003: Job and site news
My current employement status at CinéGroupe has been extended until October 10th, 2003. Plus, I am now the lead lighting artist on the project Tripping The Rift.
You have noticed the new design of the site. I launched the new version in early April. All my animations are now available, and my 3D images are now available in full size.
I created new tutorials recently, check out the tutorials section.
February 15th, 2003: Lots of news
New images
You can see some late images I created in the 3D images section. I created these pictures, the black car and the fantasy orgue, for monthly contest on XSI Base. The car was shown on the Softimage gallery during January 2003.
Employment condition
Since October 2002, I
am working at CinéGroupe. I
work as an intermediate texture artist on an upcoming TV serie, Tripping the
Rift. This serie features the adventures of a bunch of alien creatures and
robots travelling the universe while all kinds of unconceivable things happen.
I may do lighting too. My contract is set to expire on April 18th.
XSI Montreal User Group
Will Mendez, a good friend
that lives in Ottawa (but coming from New-York City) started a user group
for the XSI users in Montreal on December 2002. It was a shame that Montreal
didn't its own Softimage user group, as Montreal is a stronghold for Softimage.
Will asked me to be vice-president, wich I accepted. We now run the user group
and hold events every two months. Our first two were very successful!!
Check out our website.
September 10th, 2002: New XSI resources on the site
New mental ray shaders:
- Metal_Brushed
- Metal_Chrome (Blinne version)
- Metal_Chrome (Phong version)
- Metal_Gold (Blinn version)
New tutorial: Cubic Mapping (how to map a cube)
August 19th, 2002: Site on Softimage.com
My site was added to the Softimage weblinks section; more, on top of the list! Thanks to Pierre Tousignant of Softimage.
http://www.softimage.com/Community/XSI/Weblinks/
April 29th, 2002: Site condition, employment, the Sorcerer Project
Site condition
Many many things, condensed
here:
- The tone has changed. Now I will speak at the first person, it sounds more
personal.
- The French section has been removed. Too much work for a simple personal
site.
- New navigation. The site kept the same design, but I simplified and harmonized
the site. Popup windows are now only for images.
- 3 new sections: XSI Shaders, XSI Scripts and Tutorials.
- New content: lots of animation added, 3D images added, one new artwork,
one XSI script (made by me!), 3 tutorials, and lots of links. Also, many things
have been updated.
- Due to financial limitations (see below), I decided to keep the Sorcerer
Project on this site.
Employment
I should say unemployment. At the very end of January 2002 Twistimage released me, because of lack of job. As you might know these days in Montreal are very bad for 3D artists.
So now I'm unemployed and seeking work. If anyone who read those line knows about an available position for a junior 3D artist please let me know.
In the meantime, I completed a very short contract for Dromadère Média. I did rotoscopy and tracking for a TV serie pilot in 3ds max.
The Sorcerer Project
I decided to take another approach, again. But I think this time it's final. If you look in the 3D images section you'll see that the images for the Sorcerer Project are coming soon. I intend to show this new approach, as well as the previous ones.
Novembre 25th, 2001: Site condition , employment, Ikon Eon, the Sorcerer Project
Site condition
Greetings to all! There is a lot of new stuff, but updates are late. Bernard projects to rebuild a important part of the site interface. He wants to uniformize the different sections, he considers the pop-ups to be ill-assorted. He will add new images in the 3D images section, as well as animations. Up to come, when time allows.
More, Bernard will remove some 3D images from the site. He believes that the projects made with Bryce and Poser are no relevant.
Employment at Twistimage
Bernard currently works as a 3D artist at Twistimage. Twist is a small studio who specialises in interactive internet sites (Flash), TV advertising (Adrien Gagnon is among its clients), and presentation videos during corporate exhibitions.
Bernard, specefically, works as a 3D artist with Softimage|3D. He works at Twist since 2001, and wishes to stay long.
Ikon Eon
This strange name is the one of a music band for whom Bernard did a cd booklet during August and September 2001. The booklet's style is what we call digital art. Digital art consist of an image created in Photoshop, with a very futuristic design. The album is set to be released in January 2002. Images of the artwork will be added in the graphic design section. Ikon Eon
The Sorcerer Project
In a close future the whole content of the Sorcerer Project section shall move to another site. The site will be entirely dedicated to the Project. Bernard wishes to add much more content for this project, and to keep everything on the Forbidden Grimoire would not grant justice to the Project's scale. More, since the story of the Sorcerer Project is part of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, he does not wish that his players finds the truth while browsing his site.
Mai 15th, 2001: Important site update.
o Adding of a new section: "What's new". This section resumes changes and news of interest concerning Bernard;
o Interface improvements in the animation section. Frame implementation, so easier navigation and updates;
o Adding of Bernard's demo reel, finally! This the demo he uses since October 2000 (since the end of his animation course, at ICARI school);
o Major changes in the 3D images section. Inteface improvements, identically to the animation section;
o Adding of images in the 3D images section (in the new Sorcerer Project and Various projects sub-sections);
o The 3D images, graphic works and artwork sections new have a short text under each image, resuming the project's nature ans the employed mediums, similarly to the animations section;
o Major changes in the About me… section. Important changes in the text. The fomer was in a selling style, as the new one is in a biographic style;
o Again in the About
me… section, the new resume of Bernard is now available;
May 8th, 2001: Apparition in search engines
Bernard notices that is web site is beginning to show in some search engines. It's about time! In fact, he indexed his site into search engine in November 2000… it took 6 months! Later is better than never…
May 7th, 2001: An article and a handbook about design
Near the end of March 2001, followinf his MIMI award for the Kralizec cd book, Bernard is approached by Mathieu Gervais to cowrite an article covering cd booklet design. Mathieu Gervais is the webmaster of a huge site, MetalMania, dedicated almost only to the metal scene of Quebec province.
Bernard relates Mathieu his experience with what was the Kralizec Project, the creation of a booklet made like a binded book. Mathieu collects Bernard's testimony to encourage the self-producing local bands to do nice booklets. The article Mathieu writes is quite technical, the proceeds to realize a nice booklet is the main topic. Moreover, Bernard decides to write a 40-pages handbook on cd booklet realization, inteneded to people who does not have a digital design background.
The article and the handbook
are published May 7th, at the following address:
http://www.metalmania.qc.ca/fr/articles/art_0010.html
May 1st, 2001: The contract is completed!
Finally, despite winds and storms, Bernard complete his contract at Multivet Média. During six weeks he works on a huge 3D animation project. His tasks consist of designing realistic landscapes. To do so, he uses Animatek World Builder and 3ds max.
The client is QIT, a mining company. This company wishes to exploit a region in Madagascar, and to do so it must gain approuval from the British and Malgache governments. QIT then calls Multivet Média, and orders a corporate video to explain the project.
The work consist of producing a corporate video with 3D animations in it. These animation show the mineral extraction processes then its transformation, the rewooding, and the infrastructures created by the company (roads, port, etc). World Builder, a landscape generator, is at first interesting, but limited and bugged. It crashes frequently and causes headaches to the 3D animators. The use of World Builder is the harmful aspect of the project.
Ultimately the deadline
is matched, and everyone is happy.
March 4th, 2001: Bernard wins an award!
Evening of March 4, 2001,
Bernard wins the MIMI award (Initiative Musicale Internationale de Montréal)
in the cathegory CD Booklet of the Year. The cd booklet he made for Kralizec
is thus rewarded. The prize is given in front of big names of the Quebec musical
industry. The MIMI prizes are intended to promote Montreal underground music.
January 2001: The Sorcerer Project begins
At dawn of January 2001, Bernard finally attacks the Sorcerer Project, wich he dreams of since at least six months. This is an ambitious projects that will needs years to complete. He will display samples of his progress in the 3D images section. To be continued...