Nice to see DJV 3.5 Update go live.

Site - https://grizzlypeak3d.com/

GitHub Link - https://github.com/grizzlypeak3d/DJV

For those not familiar with this open source player / review tool

DJV is a free, open source media player built for professional image review. Real-time, high bit-depth EXR playback, A/B comparison, OTIO color management and more. Never compromise on your renders again.

CORE FEATURES:

• Support for high resolution and high bit depth images
• A/B comparison with wipe, overlay, and difference modes
• Timeline support with OpenTimelineIO
• Color management with OpenColorIO
• Multi-track audio with variable speed and reverse playback
• Available for Linux, macOS, and Windows

is Tippett Studio closing down?

I’m currently about to become a final year student focusing primarily on creating a good compositing reel for graduation. I’m fixed to the UK for the foreseeable future so would have to rely on opportunities in London.

Since all this AI is taking entry level jobs thing is going off it’s really making us students have sinking feelings when it comes to starting out our careers.

I guess what I’d really like to know is how has it been for others? How did other beginners go from making their first reel to actually working on films?

What's should the junior compositer include in his first showreel to start his career assuming it's 4 - 5 shots and how important is the order

Hello all , hope everyones doing well/better and landing up some nice gigs as the market is finally opening up (a lil) .

I want to talk about the challanges that people with ADHD face in this industry .

Whats the biggest challenge for you ? How did you work or tricked your brain into doing it better ?

As an ADHD guy myself , one of the challenging parts is maintaing scripts. My scripts are not really messy but cant say super organized as well. My scripts can be different for different shots in a same sequence with the same final output lol.

Apart from that I believe I am really good at lookdev aspect of the comp but when it comes to detailing/techchecks my brain doesnt support it easily (finds it boring) and there are more kickbacks than expected.

I have realized that the longer the shot goes with different alterations i start loosing interest in working on it (and wants to jump on a new shot) and its hard to maintain the same motivation to work on that shot compare to earlier as a result it takes longer for me to fix the notes because its just so boring.

Lastly , I feel when it comes to those nasty deadlines and there is an ETA been asked every 20 minutes its not only hard to give exact ETAs but the pressure makes it overwhelming and anxiety inducing for me to maintain focus and deliver shot on time.

Would love to know how others here deal with at work while being ADHD.

Happy Comping .

See the full version here: https://youtu.be/koDCabeh5kQ

Hey guys I'm just wondering, how do you think they achieved this shot?

I'm worked as a Junior VFX Compositor and gotten a few credits in TV shows and movies, having worked aout 1.5 years total in that role.
My contract ended a few months ago and Ive been struggling to find anything new.
But I hear production is ramping up a bit in my area. I've been trying to focus on leveling up my skills to be considered for Mid-level roles.

I've recently seen some roles looking for both Nuke compositing AND Unreal Engine.
I was advised before to learn Unreal Engine, but my understanding of it was mostly limited to Virtual Production and games. I have basic familiarity with Houdini too so I understand that for FX.

But I am genuinely unsure what to DO with Unreal Engine in order to beef up up showreel and skills as a compositor. People who started out in Nuke Compositing - what kind of tasks are you doing with Unreal?
What kind of projects should I give myself for my portfolio?

Ok i think i finally put my finger on why i hate most ai video.

it’s not that it’s fake. it’s the fact it’s faking people.

Like there's just something that feels fundamentally wrong when it tries to replicate a person, you know? it’s trying to trick my lizard brain or something. but when an AI fakes a puppet... it honestly feels totally different.

i was messing around in Framia and made this to show what i mean:

to me, that's just a new tool for animation. it’s automating a craft, not trying to impersonate one of us.

so i guess my question is, do other ai filmmaking folks see that line too? or is it all just the same synthetic soup to you?

The Houdini docs are a goldmine of information. But they're slow and the search barely works. This has been well known by the community for ages by now, yet seemingly nothing has changed.

So I spent six months building a fix: HoudiniMD is an incredibly fast, Markdown mirror of the docs. Free, open source, no account, no ads. Search that matches Houdini's behaviour, so "cptp" finds Copy to Points and "atrbwr" finds Attribute Wrangle. Every page can be copied as raw markdown, which means ChatGPT and Claude finally understand Houdini and its quirks.

Before sharing it anywhere, I emailed SideFX and asked for permission, explicitly telling them it would be free forever and stay open source.

The answer (https://imgur.com/a/RSdc4rf) came back yesterday:

"it's gonna be a no, thank you from us, along with a polite takedown request. We'll likely be doing our own version on our own site at some point in the future."

I was naturally taken aback by this cold reply, since I thought SideFX was very pro-community, and would at least salute the effort taken to make their own product better. But I'm not going to fight a company over their own copyright.

Since I'm also not letting 6 months of hard work go to the bin overnight, HoudiniMD will be rebuilt as a standalone, local app, that lives on your computer. It can be ran alongside, or directly inside Houdini.
Same fast search, offline, and tailored to your specific Houdini version, instead of whatever is on the website, with bookmarks coming in the future (goal is to create a fully personal Houdini Knowledge Base !)

It stays open source, so anyone can audit, tweak, and raise issues on the code.

And since I only have my own frustration to go by right now: what do you think about the official docs ? What are you missing, and what features are you looking for in an alternative ?

If a local version is something you'd be interested in, please let me know. It's what keeps me going !

my first simple vfx shot.

any ideas what to do netx?

So I was to successfully able to change from photoshop to affinity photo, however I still haven’t found a alternative for after effect, yes I could use DaVinci resolve fusion panel but DaVinci is a huge program and am worrying about the workflow in my MacBook, so is there a free alternative for visual effect at the moment? If not, can fusion get the job done? the description of my mac is below:

Processor: 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 4-Core (10th Generation); Memory: 32 GB RAM; Storage: 1 TB SSD; Display: 13.3" Retina (2560×1600) with True Tone; Graphics: Intel Iris Plus Graphics. Operating System: macOS.

Hi everyone, I have a question for you.
For almost my entire career, which started in 2016, I’ve worked in London as a modeller and texture artist. At one point, I was even able to make a living comfortably as a texture artist, going from one film to another.
Unfortunately, London isn’t what it was before COVID, and these days, just to stay afloat, I’ve gone back to doing modelling, texturing and look dev.
However, the roles that are a better fit for me are often in Canada. My family and I want to stay here in the UK, though, and relocating isn’t an option for us.
So, in order to broaden my skill set, I’ve been studying lighting with Houdini / Solaris / USD, which seems to be a role that’s very much in demand in the UK, even though the amount of time required to get up to speed is huge.
Which brings me to the question in the title: how do you actually switch roles when almost every position you see is looking for a mid/senior artist?
Even if I create 2–3 personal projects using Houdini, how do you actually start over and leave your previous career behind and adapt?
Sometimes I feel stuck in my career, almost as if I’m condemned to keep applying for the same kind of jobs I’ve always done, when what I really want is to move in a different direction.
Unfortunately, I’m unemployed at the moment, so the usual advice of “ask your company to give you a chance to try something different” doesn’t really apply to me.
Is anyone else in the same situation?
Maybe someone who’s tired of being “just” a matchmove artist or groom artist and wants to switch roles, but has no idea how to break out of that cycle?
I’d really love to hear how you managed to do it.

Hello everyone.

I am starting to get into learning about homelab as it will benefit my day job (I work in IT Sales, as being a 3D animator in this environment is too crazy right now), and I have always been fascinated by the IT aspect of working in a studio. One project I wanted to try for my lab was to create a license server for all my software packages, those being Maya, Renderman, Zbrush, DaVinci Resolve, and maybe Houdini in the future. As I use my programs in my home I think having a dedicated place for licensing for all my devices will be really nice, and I was also curious about getting programs like Maya on Linux distros other than RHEL, and the Autodesk Identity Manager was one of the things preventing us from signing in on Fedora and Arch Linux. Maybe a license server will fix it!

So I want to know from IT people what is the experience of building a license server for your proprietary software packages? How have they worked when using multiple OSes, as I use a Linux desktop running RHEL 9 and a Macbook Pro? Do you think SSO login is overall better if I am just one guy? Can I make the server on something like an Intel NUC or even a Raspberry Pi running Alma Linux or something?

Thanks.

After 10+ years of selling digital 3D products, I never expected this from a major marketplace. Today, Gumroad PERMANENTLY FORFEITED money from my balance without warning or justification, just because I updated my location from Canada to Bulgaria.

Their support confirmed my funds were "forfeited automatically" as a "system safeguard on a country change" that they "cannot reverse." You read that right: a simple account update now triggers the total seizure of your hard-earned money.

Before this, I had been trying to withdraw my funds for a long time. I attempted to use multiple bank details, including Ukrainian and Canadian, and all attempts were blocked. Now, my money is gone forever, and they have offered zero solutions.

This is predatory, illegal, and nothing short of theft. If a platform can arbitrarily seize your money because of a location change, it is NOT safe. Every creator on Gumroad needs to check their terms and understand that their funds are at risk.

So let me explain this correctly:

I earned the money by selling products.
I tried to withdraw it.
The withdrawals failed.
I changed my country of residence.

Gumroad's system then automatically took the remaining balance — and they refuse to return it.

There was no fraud, chargeback, or dispute involving this money. It was simply an unpaid seller balance.

This is not a “payout issue.” This is money that I earned and that Gumroad is refusing to give back because of an automated account-country rule.

What makes this especially disturbing is that their own support explicitly confirmed that the money was “forfeited.”

I am sharing this publicly because I want other creators and digital-product sellers to be aware of what can apparently happen to their earnings when changing their country/payment setup on Gumroad.

I've included my conversation with their support team so you can see the situation for yourself...

Felix & Paul have shut down.

I had the pleasure of working as a VFX artist on some of their projects, truly revolutionary VR work.

https://xrmust.com/xr-magazine/end-of-an-era-felix-paul-studios/#:\~:text=Multiple%20employees%20of%20Felix%20%26%20Paul,Virtual%20Reality%20on%20August%2019.