Can you give us a recap of where you started in the industry and what your specific passion for cg art is?

I started over at Bee Vision in Toronto as an intern back in the year 2000. I spent about 5 months there learning Houdini, Maya, Photoshop, and getting adjusted to the studio environment. It was a small studio with only a few people in it, but that's a good thing because it allowed you to wear many hats. Back then Maya was new, and NURBS were still king. Finding a job doing poly modelling was rare. It wasn't until after I finished school that I really got my start though. I had stumbled on Mirai, Learned the demo to it's as much as I could, and landed a job with AT&T doing research type stuff. My passion in CG is learning more about the tools I use. I actually like discovering the hidden gems that programmers have hidden away for us to find; and learning how to use tools in new ways.

It's fun to create these small videos where I can demonstrate ideas. Most of my videos have been demonstrations to inspire people rather than do step-by-step learning videos. That is about to change though, starting with these Online Master Classes. I like teaching people how to do stuff. Sometimes it forces me to learn the stuff I teach a bit more thoroughly, and think up of multiple applications on the spot, which is always a good thing. About the online communities, I have been a huge supporter of them in the past, and still am to some extent, but nowadays I take a step back a bit. I lurk a lot more than before. This last half year I have been soo busy with work and beta testing that I haven't really had much time for much else.

What are some of the traits that help define a well produced environment?

This would depend on the environment. You can create a new architectural piece that is perfectly fresh or some fantasy environment, and each would have need something different to be successful. I think a few things that come up time and time again is atmosphere, some sense of history, and thinking about how its inhabitants would have affected the area. In the case of an architectural piece, its important to think of people that walk the streets, and how the building is integrated into its surroundings. Selling the piece usually requires defining a good scale comparison, a good camera angle, and lighting. For example, On Underworld 3, most of the shots looked really small until we had foreground elements, some atmosphere between the foreground elements and the background. This allowed us to set some sense of scale, and hint at distance. In another shot we added small birds, and Lycans rushing toward the fortress. These sorts of things are really important because otherwise it all ends up looking like a miniature set. Scale is very important, so defining it should never be overlooked.

"I actually like discovering the hidden gems that programmers have hidden away for us to find; and learning how to use tools in new ways."