Well, it's been several months since I last made any updates to my portfolio. This is largely because the work I do is conceptual and pre-launch. So unless it sees the light of day on a shelf, or the NDA expires I can't share it. I still have others that I need to keep under wraps, and at times I'm nearly busting at the seams by not sharing it. ...But such is the nature of my work.

I'm still working at Comp24 - the head of the in-house CG dept. And we've expanded our pipeline to now include Modo... and I gotta say that I am quickly becoming and A-1 Modo fanboy! Not only is modeling incredibly intuitive (and fun), but last week I turned out an 18"x24" 300dpi radiosity render with 3 bounces in under 2 hours on a 3GHz MacPro Dual Core. That would be unheard of in Lightwave.

So what's been going on in my life? In a word: "A Lot." ...yeah, I know - that was two words. Work has been getting extremely busy - to the point where I need to start hiring to fill my department. As it is I've been leaning on some of my friends in the CG community (nods to you Andy! ) to help out when crunch time hits and I have more in-house than I can handle. ...which seems to be more often than not these days. Not that this is a bad thing - quite the contrary. I relish being busy.

Aside from work there is the growing family. My wife and I are expecting our second son next week. Next Wednesday (June 4) to be exact. She's having a planned c-section (provided she doesn't go into labor first ). So I've been busy at home and at the office. At home I've been remodeling and prepping the baby's room. By the way... a little word of advice: if you aren't that familiar with electrical work hire some one! ...That's all I'm going to say on that one.

I had been hoping to make regular additions to my blog, but my plans to go full-time freelance were squashed when I was offered a job to start-up, and head, an in-house CG dept. for Comp24 - a comp house in New York City. So from June on I've been keeping pretty busy with getting things up and running, helping sell the department's services, and producing work. ...Who knew that running a dept could be so much work? ...But I love it.

Our pipeline consists of Lightwave, Modo, After Effects, and Photoshop. Sadly, I haven't been able to post much of what I've been doing since its largely pre-launch, or conceptual product design. But as I'm able I will share what I've been up to. I have a few personal projects I've been working on, but they've been sitting idle since June. ...I was able to start up on one a few nights ago, so I'm hoping ot have some original material to share soon as well.

Ocassionally you get the opportunity to meet someone and briefly experience the world through their eyes. You get to see and understand their perspective - and in the end you feel that you have a broader view of life and work.

Interviewing Angel Nieves was one such occassion. Angel is a talented modeler, texture artsit, and lighting artist. He's worked in film, TV, games, and print... most notablly as the author of the "Lightwave v9 Texturing" published by Wordware Publishing, Inc. And I recently got to sit down and speak with him on behalf of SpinQuad.

Stop by and read about Angel in his own words.

Afterwards check out his website and CG Society Portfolio.

Thanks, Angel - For all that you've given back to the community.

Tom Bosschaert, founder of Except.nl, has created a guide to help clarify Lightwave 9.2's antialiasing system.

He breaks it down to the point that it makes you scratch your head and think: "So, what was I so confused about?"

Great job, Tom!

Swing by and check it out - you'll be glad you did.

Some fellow Lightwave users have created some icons to help differentiate LW 9.2 from LW 9.0.

The first are a set of PNG files as created by Jeffery Gugick. These are great for Mac users - just open in Photoshop, copy, Get Info on the app. and paste the image over the existing icon. Great job, Jeff.







The second set is designed for Windows users (download it here), and were created by Ken Nign. The set includes .ico files as well as a .dll.

Many thanks guys for offering these to the community!

You can visit Jeff's site here, and Ken's here. And check out Ken's LW3D Icon Config (it's the third file on the page.)