Cory Petkovsek
Forum Replies Created
-
[John Grote, Jr]My problem is that as an editor and creative person all my knowledge of the equipment/tools that I use have been OTJ.
Maybe it is instead your lack of consideration of their perspective. Do you know what an NLE is? What about AAC, MP4, MP3, 4:2:2? Of course you know because you’re an expert in the field. The job postings are written either by an HR person or a hiring manager, neither of which is an expert in the field. They are grasping for straws and making listings based on guesses. They need you to show them why your experience is what they are looking for. They have identified where they are at.
Rather then get upset about it, which will only eliminate you from the job market, change your attitude and help them find a great person to fulfill their immediate need of a pro editor. Write in your cover letter that you are happy to demonstrate how your experience will meet their needs more effectively than having a degree. Be prepared with your client list and portfolio.
Cory
—
Cory Petkovsek
Corporate Video
http://www.CorporateVideoSD.com -
[Scott Sheriff] You don’t have to incorporate in your home state. You might want to look at Nevada.
If you incorporate out of state, California will still require you to register as a foreign corporation and you’re still charged the minimum $800/yr franchise tax. Nevada won’t charge you state tax, but now you have two states to file documents with. Many corps are formed in Delaware because they have sophisticated corporation laws. Many corps file in Nevada because they hope to evade taxes/privacy or other issues. There are advantages and disadvantages. I decided to file only in california because what I’m doing with my corp wasn’t sophisticated enough to warrant the advantages of the other states. When I have a larger business and am investing through multiple corporations, I’ll address this again for myself. Research!
Cory -
Softer edges of reflections – there is a reflection blur option that is slow to render. You can also play with the mix strength and adding the fresnel shader to adjust the look of the reflections.
HDR as sky element for reflection is blaring – it shouldn’t. Turn off all the lights, put the hdr in the color channel on the sky object and turn on global illumination. If it’s still too bright, turn down the brightness and mix strength.
Resolution of sphere – the default sphere primitive is not a polygon, it is a procedural object and will render a perfect sphere. If you converted it to a polygon in order to extend the bottom out, then you should have increased the number of segments 2-3 times what you were at before converting it to a polygon.
Cory
—
Cory Petkovsek
Corporate Video
http://www.CorporateVideoSD.com -
There is nothing wrong with a dba. It just is not anything. It’s a ficticious business name. It just allows you or a corp to legally do business under another name. My scorp has a dba, as I’m in two markets doing different types of business with two different business names, but I only want one legal/accounting/tax structure.
I know Michael from San Diego Corporate Law https://www.sdcorporatelaw.com. However if that is too far for you, I’m sure he can refer someone in LA. He is not the person I originally went to for my corp, that was before I met Michael.
Cory
-
Overall, it looks cool. Here are some suggestions on how to make it better.
The glass and base look like plastic, most probably because of the reflections as Adam noted. More pointy specular would be good, but fresnel reflections are better.
When Adam referred to objects in the scene, he was saying put lights in the scene; light them like a photographer. That means using a key, fill and rim light for a traditional 3-point lighting setup.
Another thing that will help are shadows at the base. It looks like it is floating. Indeed, look at the first shot, you’ll see there is a line of light around the base! Life doesn’t do that. Notice that there is a vertical line of light on the front face of the base, on the left side. Life does do that. Our eyes pick up on those subtle cues automatically, you should learn to see those consciously. Take a drawing or painting class to improve this.
You’re probably using shadow maps which is terrible at the base of objects. Try going up to 1000×1000 resolution on the maps, but the next two things are better. Using an HDR on a sky object and turning on GI will automatically add shadows. However if you use a 3-point setup (I would), have they key light use area shadows with high enough quality to reduce shadow noise. Have the other lights use or not use shadows as needed for a realistic look. Sometimes I’ll use shadow maps for a fill or other light because it’s filling it out correctly; rely on your trained eye, not the software; and train your eye so it is reliable! A photography class (from a good teacher) will help you with lighting, and help train your eye fastest.
I’m seeing some banding in the background on my display. You can add very subtle noise, or film grain in post for your final render to reduce this.
You could also make it more interesting by adjusting the composition. Focus on keeping the object on 1/3rd of the screen, rather than always in the middle. Play with the direction it faces and the empty space created. In the first shot it faces right. If it were a static shot, you’d want to have it be on the left 1/3rd so it is in balance. In a moving shot it can be on the right 1/3rd as it will be unbalanced in that direction and with the camera moving in that direction you’ll bring it in to balance. Then it would end on the right 1/3rd, facing left. A drawing or painting class will help with this, but photography is ALL about lighting and composition. Your 10 thought out drawings will help, but your 100 thought out b&w film pictures, or your 1000 digital pictures will give you more experience with composition.
I’d also increase the resolution of the sphere as it looks very chunky. And put a tiny fillet on the edges of the other objects so they’re not impossibly sharp.
Cory
—
Cory Petkovsek
Corporate Video
http://www.CorporateVideoSD.com -
Yeah, call a few local tv stations or cable companies and ask them to send you their broadcast spec sheet. You’ll see right away that they’re all different! Screen aspect ratio should be pretty consistent for hd content (16:9), however video and audio codecs, hd/sd, container, physical/digital media… No standards!
Cory
-
Scorp, llc, or llc w/ scorp tax status are all fine to give you a corporation as noted by others. No need to do a full C corp. These will give you liability protection, IF and only if you perform the proper documentation and execution of the corporation. Your friend’s corporation isn’t going to be shut down because he hasn’t filed minutes. No one checks for those. However if he is sued and he doesn’t have the proper documentation for his corp, such as minutes, it’s possible the suing attorney has a case that his corp isn’t really valid and the judge may allow them to pierce the corporate vale and extend liability to him personally. However if his previous years minutes just happen to appear and are filed in his binder, assuming they had been lost and are now found, he should be good.
A dba is not a corporation. You can however get a dba from your county, and get a federal employer ID number (EIN) or a taxpayer ID number (TIN) online from the irs in about a day. Whether or not that will satisfy your clients I have no way to know.
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98350,00.html
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=96696,00.htmlThere are tax and legal benefits and caveats to all entity and non-entity business arrangements. It behooves you to study them first, then go talk to a couple professionals about them (cpa and a lawyer) before deciding. I have an S-corp. I went that route so in the future I could use it as a holding corporation for LLCs. You can’t do that in reverse.
In california you’ll pay $800 a year in minimum tax just for having an scorp or llc. You’ll file two tax returns with an scorp (not sure about llc), corporate due 3/15, personal due 4/15. You’ll pay at least $100 in filing fees to set it up. If you pay a lawyer to setup your corp for you, they’ll do it right, but you may pay several hundred to a couple thousand. I paid $1500, which I think was steep. If you’re getting an scorp or llc for liability protection it would be wise to have an attorney set it up for you correctly; at least for your first one. Now that I’ve done it once and I have the documentation to mimic, I do my own minutes following the template from my attorney.
Cory
-
Lots of ways to do it. But you have different issues.
How to make the unit – You could go the character route with bones, joints, etc. In R12 you could make motors and hinges, etc. You could go with all rigid subcomponents. It may be easiest to simply parent subcomponents to systems and keyframe their motion with a little restriction of movement with xpresso (when arm position changes, unit position changes; if arm rotation changes, unit rotation doesn’t, until it reaches a certain limit, then it rotates; etc).
How to make the unit move – In R12 you could put a motor on it, but just keyframing it along a spline is probably cheaper than upgrading.
How to make the unit move along the ground – As long as you’re moving along a spline you could adjust it so it’s always above the ground in appearance. Or you could put rigid tags on the ground and object.
Whichever way you go, you’re in for a lot of experimentation. It doesn’t need to be a full physics simulation like it would if it was a video game. If you’re only making an animation, than cut corners and bake it in so it looks real without needing to design the laws of physics.
Cory
—
Cory Petkovsek
Corporate Video
http://www.CorporateVideoSD.com -
New issue == new thread!
I just did it in 11.5; it worked perfectly. It gave me sunshine, shadows, sunset and even stars. I didn’t even need to render and it changed in the viewport.
Did you use military time? 21:00 hours for 9pm?
Do you have global illumination turned on, as required for the sky shader object?
You should be able to render single frames and see the sun or stars. You should also see it in your viewport if you’re in one of the shaded modes.
Cory
-
PNG is 24-bit lossless (or 32-bit w/ alpha). It’s a good option similar to lagarith but it’s file sizes are 20% larger. However it is one format that works on both windows and mac.
Cory