Such a great discussion. As a beginning VFX artist myself, lots of things I already knew (which is reassuring) but also lots of things I didn't (which is reassuring).

Note on non-commercial Nuke: you can write stuff but no bigger than 2K. Some nodes are disabled as well.

Yeah, good stuff. Lots of other scenes you could do as well

I'd like to answer Boter's question. It's a bit long but after writing it, I realize that it's some kind of catharsis for a train of thought I've had for the last few months.

Tricky. The skill that comes to my mind instantly is the piano, because that's something I can't imagine not being able to play at some point in my life, and it really feels like the next step for me to become a better musician.

But that would imply giving up a skillset I've worked hard at, which would either be VFX (which is my job, so I won't be giving that up for now) or photography (which is my passion and is to become more and more present in my life). There's also the guitar but giving it up would imply trading an instrument for another which is a no-no because I've always tended to be a Jack of all trades, master of none, and as a result I see myself in the future as a multi-instrumentalist. Boter's question doesn't forbid from learning again, but jeez.

There's nothing I'd really give up. Photography is the most important to me because it's how I want to communicate artistically. But the fact that I never gave up on my guitar and even started playing drums although I've never been in a band or found any other real use for these skills proves that it could also be a way for me to communicate.

In the next few years, I'd like to make movies about nature, and I've come to really like the idea of composing my own soundtrack for them. It would bring all said skills together.

I do need to start composing stuff, though. Which brings the piano to the table again, because it'd be the best medium for it.

tl;dr: I wouldn't, because all skills I have now I couldn't do without. I'll learn stuff the old way.

I don't have a clever question to trade for this one, let's keep Eddie's.

Ethan Siegel. This dude.

From dark matter to global warming and asking "Does George Clooney floating away in Gravity makes sense physically?", each article he writes is clear and fascinating. Great read. We need more guys like him in astrophysics.

https://medium.com/@startswithabang

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Also you all know this already but SpaceX succeeded in landing a reusable Falcon 9 booster for the first time. This is so freakin' cool. I'm in wonder.

I don't care much for Finn. I can buy into his desertion as discussed above, but aside from that he's a generic whacky guy who makes boyfriend jokes. I really don't buy that someone who was indoctrinated and spent all his life in an imperial environment could be this way. I'm not feeling a tangible character when I see him on screen.

This is gonna be the most uninteresting piece of news for the whole month, but I watched Contact for the very first time last night. Like, if you had written this 24 hours ago, I wouldn't have gotten the reference.

Crazy, crazy world.

Damn, Invid. I'm so sorry. Hang in there.

We're just a bunch of strangers on the Internet, but I'll be damned if we won't help you in any way we can. Just let us know.

Everything Darth Praxus said. You, sir, warm my heart.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

We've had a doozy of a day!

Hilarious movie that completely turns the cabin-in-the-wood type flick upside down. Obvious setup shots purposely let you know a mile ahead what's gonna happen and you're still laughing out loud because of the sheer absurd nature of the premise. Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk as hillbillies are incredibly fun to watch.

I've been listening to the OST for a few days. It actually has many memorable themes that probably aren't as obvious as Rey's on the first viewing. Partly because the film probably puts too much emphasis on the forgettable action parts of the soundtracl, but also because there's little re-use of the themes in different atmospheres - which, as Clemmensen pointed out, Williams has always been insanely good at. Or maybe that as Alex said, they're more phrases than themes.

Still, I was pleasantly surprised that listening to it changed my mind a lot. I especially love the opening track and its suspenseful violins/high trumpet blares associated with the First Order attacking. It's a very different treatment than the Empire's and feels new. Not even talking about The Jedi Steps, which effortlessly carries incredible drama and meaning with just a few notes. I think it easily enters my favourite SW melodies.

Taken as a whole, it's certainly not as memorable as the OT's, but there are great themes (or phr... yeah you get the idea) to be found in it. What it's not is "crazy forgettable and lame", at least to me.

PS: I'll admit I don't care much for Snoke's theme, though; it feels like a rehash of Palpatine's theme but without its greatness.

Depressing, and yet so enlightening. Thank you so much, Alex.

Pimp My Nerf

One thing that is likely to break out at any moment at my work is a good Nerf fight. So a few weeks ago I went and bought the Episode VII Stormtrooper Nerf.  It works just fine, but I decided to give it a more realistic look, just for shits and giggles.

The original toy. Colorful, isn't it?

The whole thing taken apart. It's quite a lot of pieces, actually, and at the time of the picture I hadn't realized there were even more things I could take apart (the toy is basically springs everywhere).

After that point I kinda forgot to take WIP pictures. Mostly it was applying several layers of acrylic paint (badly) and then drybrushing with silver paint to give it that good old weathered look.

The result. Note that I went for the original all-black look, not the white and black one from Episode VII. I also added small weights inside to give it a heavier feel.

Yeah, I had fun with a red headlamp. The red-and-black First Order look is just so damn cool, I can't help it.

I'd never done this before, so I'm really happy with the result, although I did the weathering really quickly. The main problem is that the black paint doesn't hold at all where there's friction, so some white and orange bits are already appearing. Really, I'm just happy I managed to get it back together correctly (it still fires, I checked, thankfully).

It was fun.