2010 CG Whiz Winner Geeks Out on Video Composting, Houdini and Weta

Last year’s CG Whiz winner Stu Schwartz will be the first to tell you that winning this competition changed the direction of his career in a big way. After completing his training at Escape Studios during the summer, Stu’s skill level, approach and attitude towards his craft has changed: 

“I learned a lot this last summer at Escape Studios as a student and intern but one of the most important things I want to make sure students and aspiring artists know is that I found out how important networking can be. The more you get out there and meet people, the more opportunities will present themselves. Escape is located right near the heart of countless studios and is always putting on events and connecting with other studios and industry professionals. It's been a great environment for meeting other artists and potential employers. So keep that in mind as you move forward in your careers.”

In part two of our ‘life since winning CG Whiz’ interview with Stu, we asked him to geek out with us on his favorite techniques, artists and inspirations.

1. What program do you use for your compositing work and why? 
For compositing I use NUKE because it's pretty much the industry standard now. If you know how to use NUKE, as a compositor, you can start work sooner and spend less time training.

2. What program do you do the majority of your work in, and why?
When I first started visual effects classes I used Maya primarily. Maya is a very solid 3D program and it's used all through out the industry. I found learning the basics of Maya to be very straight forward for the most part. As of lately I have been using Houdini almost exclusively. Houdini is much more robust and node based. I like Houdini because it can handle much heavier scenes and Python's implementation into it is really well done which allows for much greater proceduralism. Also, I have written countless scripts for Maya in order to create certain functionality; when I transitioned to Houdini I found that the majority of the functionality I was looking for in Maya, already existed in Houdini. 

3. What are your biggest CG and VFX influences? What artists have inspired and influenced you a lot? What about other media such as music and movies?
In all of my work I always strive for hyper-realism, I love the idea of having every detail imaginable, recreated in 3D. Having said that, my biggest inspirations and influences would be Alex Roman and Dirk Dzimirsky. Alex Roman's work on The Third and the Seventh still re-inspires me every time I watch it. If I'm ever feeling worn out or exhausted from a project, I just watch The Third and The Seventh again and it motivates me to push my work further. Dirk Dzimirsky equally inspires me. He is an artist based out of Germany who creates Hyper-realistic drawings of people. When I first discovered his work it blew my mind. The people he draws usually have every bit of detail a photograph might capture, all the way down to individual pores. It's really inspiring work, and it motivates me to push both the level of detail and the look development of my work.

4. What film (or series of films) do you think had the best visual effects work?
The best Visual Effects work?... I would have to say, anything that comes from Weta. This summer I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes with Joe Kelly, and when I left the theatres my jaw was very near the floor. The same was true when I saw Avatar for the first time. Weta is continually creating work that doesn't just meet the standard, but sets a new one. Tintin has not come out yet but I'm sure that it will be nothing short of a visual gem as well.

5. Who is on your wish list of directors or other CG masters you'd love to work with one day?
I'm not sure if there is anyone specific who I would be dying to work with, but I hope to be able to work with people who are always pushing the limits, in both technical aspects as well as look development. I want to work with people who are never content with their skill level and are always looking for new things to learn. To me that's essential for any working environment, when people are really pushing themselves everyday it creates a lot of positive energy and that rubs off on everyone else around them.

Check out Stu’s reel at the top of this page to see his latest accomplishments:

The Piano is one of Stu’s current projects where everything is being modeled using Maya, textured and displaced in Mudbox, and Shaded, animated in Houdini and rendered in Mantra. Stu tells us the most interesting and challenging aspect to the project is that the piano will ultimately be played entirely procedurally through the use of a python script which reads in a MIDI file. The script will set key frames, according to the input data, for the press and release of the Keys, hammers, dampers, and even the vibrating of the string. So essentially we could input any MIDI file and the piano will play that song accurately.