Join Olivier Archer on CGCast as he delves into a captivating conversation with Robert "Lunatic" Chang, a renowned figure in animation and art circles, particularly known for his presence on CGTalk. This episode explores the rich tapestry of Japanese
animation and manga, their evolution, and impact on creativity. Robert shares his journey from Taiwan to the United States and eventually to China, reflecting on how cultural influences shaped his artistic sensibilities. The discussion touches on
the golden age of anime storytelling, critiques the current manga boom in the U.S., and recommends seminal works like "Grave of the Firefly" and Miyazaki's films for their profound storytelling. They debate the integration of 3D animation techniques
with traditional anime styles, questioning the future of hybrid approaches and the balance between artistic integrity and commercial viability. Robert also offers insights into fostering creativity, emphasizing the importance of personal conviction
and emotional resonance in art, alongside practical tips for achieving mood and storytelling in visual media. The episode concludes with reflections on life goals, balancing passion with personal fulfillment, and the enduring value of living a life
without regrets.
This episode offers a rich blend of artistic insight, practical advice, and personal philosophy, making it a valuable listen for anyone interested in animation, creativity, and the broader artistic landscape.
Welcome everybody to the 7th episode of CGCast. Today is
the 15th of October. My name is Olivia Archer and today I
have Robert Chang or Lunatic.
You may know him on various forums such as CGTalk and etc.
Today we have a mini interview with him.
So let's go ahead and discuss about art and stuff like that
. So Robert, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Okay, let's see. I'm 32. I was born in Taiwan in 1972 and
then moved to the States when I was 11, which was 1984. And
I pretty much grew up in the States. And then about four
years ago, I came to China. I didn't mean to stay, but I
ended up meeting someone here. I got married.
So I stayed in order to keep her company.
So when she gets her immigration visa, she could go back to
the States with me.
So I've been in China for four years now.
And she did get her visa just recently.
So we're in the middle of planning on going back.
So I should be back in the States soon.
Well, I grew up with Japanese animation and manga because
in Taiwan, they have very close ties to Japan.
So, you know, all the kids in Taiwan, they watch anime and
manga ever since they were born.
So I think that's a pretty important influence because
Japanese animation and comics are highly imaginative.
And at that age, that sort of influence stays with you.
I'm pretty sure that kids who grew up with something like
manga and anime versus kids, for example, in another
country that didn't grow up with that exposure.
I'm pretty sure the average level of creativity between the
two groups would be very different.
What's your opinion on the explosion of manga in the United
States? It's become a big craze.
I have mixed feelings. One part of me is happy because when
I was into it, it wasn't mainstream and you couldn't find
it anywhere. And you had to go to a place like Japantown in
San Francisco or go to Japan. So it wasn't available and
there weren't a lot of fans. You have to seek them out from
conventions, especially trying to find subtitle versions of
the stuff that's coming out.
It was very hard because everything was fenced up.
But now you have more titles than you could shake a stick
at.
The negative side is that a lot of crap gets put out
because once you start a line,
you know, there are always so many good titles out there,
but you have to keep the company going.
So you have to keep getting the rights to titles that are
not as good just to sustain business, I guess.
So we see a lot of crap these days.
And I think the level of storytelling in anime in general
for the past, I guess, 10 years or so has gone downhill a
lot.
Because I grew up with this stuff in the 70s, the 80s, and
the early 90s.
And to me, that was like the golden age.
What do you recommend?
What movies do you recommend that people should see so they
can get a good idea of the original storytelling?
There are so many different genres of story in Japanese
animation.
I guess you sort of have to sample each genre.
But if I had to name some for people to, let's say for
someone who's never seen any Japanese animation before, I
think the first thing they should see, just to sort of hit
them over the head with the example of how powerful
animation can be, is for them to watch Grave of the Firefly
.
I think that one, and not just in Japanese animation, but
in the medium of animation period, is probably the one
feature film that I think transcends genre and medium and
style or whatever.
Because it's a very human story and it's very profound. It
's very moving.
It's something that you really can't say is a piece of art,
whereas you can't say that about a lot of other animation.
Gravely the Fly is definitely one of them.
And then, of course, you have to see some of Miyazaki's
films.
I mean, pick any. None of them are bad.
But my personal favorite is probably Chiki's.
Not because it's his best film, but simply because I like
it more on the first Chiki's.
Yeah, what is it about?
It's about a Chila the witch, and it's about her journey of
self-discovery
and sort of finding her place in the world.
It's sort of a story of growing up, I guess,
because in the beginning of the film,
she sets out to live her own life, to be independent,
but she doesn't know what she really wants to do,
and there's all these uncertainties.
I think I'll check it out.
Yeah, it's really good.
It's very charming.
That's why I like it.
I mean, of course, Nezaki's other films,
a lot of them probably have a tighter storyline
or superior technical production values.
But Cheeky, it's got a special place in my heart
because it's probably the most charming of his films.
Sounds interesting.
Yeah, so, I mean, so, Grave of Firefly,
one of the Miyazaki films, doesn't matter which one.
And I think some of the old classics,
stuff like Galaxy Express 999, let's see, what else?
The Macross movie, Macross Do You Remember Love?
Of course, the newer classics like Akira, Ghost in the
Shell.
I didn't really like Ghost in the Shell.
I found it rather drawn out and boring.
Well, that's the director's style.
Because if you've seen his previous directorial works, like
the Pat Labor stuff, that's just his style.
He likes sort of the somber, deeper philosophical side of
storytelling with a little bit of a psychedelic feel.
That's sort of his signature style.
He's always done that.
That's Mamoru Oshi for you.
What do you think about the mixing between anime and 3D,
like in the Appleseed movie?
Personally, me, I wasn't really feeling it.
Well, I went into the Appleseed movie experience with a bit
of a prior experience because the director...
I mean, I know a lot of the CG kids these days don't know
much about classic anime,
but the director is the guy that directed the Bubble Gum
Crisis series,
And that was a major classic in the 80s.
And it was a sort of a cyberpunk classic.
So for him to direct this, I thought it was perfect.
As far as the cell animation goes, the cell shading is sort
of hit or miss.
Because cell shading doesn't convey various materials very
well.
You know, you get stuff that's either too shiny or too
matte.
And you can't really control the aesthetics of where the
shadows fall as easily.
But I thought the action scenes were awesome.
The storyline, a lot of people complained about it.
I didn't think it was that bad, especially from the point
of view of someone who is a huge fan of the original Apples
eed graphic novel.
Like, yeah, I started reading Appleseed when I was like 14,
when it first came out in the 80s.
So I know the Appleseed universe intimately, and I thought
the film version was pretty refreshing.
There's a subtle difference, even for the personalities of
the characters.
Like Dunan in the graphic novel, she's not exactly that
feminine or emotional as she was in the film.
And I thought that was a good touch.
It showed her more like someone you can relate to
instead of someone who's really, really tough.
What do you see?
What do you think will be the future?
You think they'll try more mixing the 3D with the anime?
I think it's really about the style of the art direction.
Because if you mix it right,
you can get very unique looks that no one has ever done.
One really good example is one of the segments for Animat
rix.
It's the one about the haunted house.
See that one?
Yeah.
See, what's great about it is the way they mapped the
traditional background painting that you see from Japanese
animation onto 3D environments.
I guess they were camera mapped.
And what you get is this strange illusion of seeing a
painted surface actually with depth.
And you have different layers of movement and perspective.
And it's something that's, I think, highly unique.
And I hope we get to see more of that stuff.
And that's just one of the uses of combining traditional 2D
and 3D in a unique way that's never been done before.
I really hope they do because that one was my favorite of
all the animatrix.
The style, the story was very cool.
Yeah, it had a sort of ethereal feel.
And as you know from my website, my website is called Eth
ereality.
So that was right up my alley.
Another thing that I've been trying to look into, but with
no success, is doing 3D renderings that has got the spont
aneity and the artistic feel of oil paintings or just any
painting in general.
I think the next step beyond photorealism in 3D rendering
is to get into artistic, non-photorealistic rendering.
So you can have, let's say, an entire feature film rendered
in the style of oil painting, but it's consistent.
You know, it doesn't flicker. It doesn't look bad.
I mean, we have a lot of people in the academic area of 3D
that has done experiments and research into it.
And I know some people have successfully done it, maybe not
to the complexity of oil painting,
but whatever technology they came up with,
they're not sharing it
because they want to keep it in the academic realm.
They don't want it to go commercial.
I've always wanted to do a movie like that.
At one time, I wanted to make a short
and make it look like a painting
because to me, doing photorealistic 3D character animation
is very pointless.
If you have real people, just use real people.
If you take it to the level of the Final Fantasy movie,
then it's pushing it too far
because I think it's a waste of a good chance to display
great art direction
because everything in 3D is completely fabricated.
There's no serendipity involved.
Like every single frame, every single element in 3D
production,
everything's fabricated.
So here you have a chance to completely design a visual
style,
an entire universe that's highly unique,
yet you choose to replicate reality.
and I think it's just pointless.
Yeah, well, I mean, I understand why they did it
because they wanted to have this benchmark
of how far they could push things.
One thing they did succeed is that they will go down in
history,
in 3D history, as the first to have done it,
to take it to that level.
And maybe no one will ever do it again
because they saw how pointless it was.
But at least they've gone down in the history of 3D, right?
Yeah, it's true.
But the Final Fantasy VII, the characters weren't so bad
because they were like a bit stylized and anime-ish.
That's not so bad.
I prefer that a lot more.
Yeah, because the motions will never look right.
It's just too hard.
Full-length 3D movie with photorealistic characters,
it's just not worth it.
Yeah.
One thing I've noticed on CG Talk is that,
I mean, we have a lot of hobbyists
and a lot of younger CG enthusiasts and teenagers.
And a lot of them,
because they haven't had a lot of experience in life
or they don't know the 3D industry very well.
So they're sort of blindly optimistic
and they're blindly pro-CG, fanatical about CG.
And I think that's a, I mean, I can understand
when you're really passionate about a hobby
or a certain creative endeavor,
but if it blinds you to the bigger picture,
then it becomes a handicap.
Most of them could really get a dose of reality
and just turn off their computer, experience the world,
Go watch some real films, good films.
I'm not talking about Hollywood blockbuster productions.
I'm talking about, you know, go look at the arthouse films.
Go look at the classics, you know, films with substance.
And a lot of people on CG Talk, they're so enthusiastic.
They're saying, well, one day CG characters are going to
replace real actors.
You know, we could do everything virtually, blah, blah,
blah.
You know, that to me, it sounds more like uninformed
opinion.
Because if you study real films and you study actors and
the complexity of the human biology
and even the science of the facial expressions that humans
are capable of expressing,
then you'll come to the realization that CG characters
could never replace human actors
because acting itself, a lot of times, that's a very
spontaneous thing.
And if you try to replicate that, then it becomes overly
contrived.
You're imitating human spontaneity, but the act of anim
ating itself is anything but spontaneous.
It's highly calculated.
Yeah, that's why, let's say if you listen to some of the
best jazz recordings, you know, you listen to Coltrane or
someone,
the most brilliant jazz solos are improvised on the spot.
You know, it's not pre-calculated.
They don't sit there and compose each line, each note of
that solo, you know.
So if you're trying to mimic and imitate that spontaneity,
it just won't feel the same.
There's no point in trying.
All right.
Let's move on to another subject.
What do you think is a bad fad in CG right now?
A bad fad?
Yeah, something besides the orcs.
Well, the thing about CG is that there are many different
fields.
Okay, for example, when you say CG, what comes into your
mind for me?
What is CG to you?
Like art.
The reason I got into CG was to make art, like nice
pictures.
So you're talking about static images, right?
Yeah.
You're talking about a highly rendered static image.
No, like an image that evokes something that says, wow, I'm
trying to get out my message.
See, CG, if you really look at the entire spectrum of CG,
static images is really just one of them.
Of course, you have animation, right?
You have product visualization.
You have architectural visualization.
You have medical visualization.
You have people that are doing personal images.
I guess it's the 3D equivalent of paintings.
They're telling their own stories.
They're expressing their own ideas.
So there are different industries of CG.
So when you ask me what's a bad fad, that's really hard to
say because you can't lump them all together.
But if you're talking specifically about this kind of stuff
that we see on CG Talk, I will probably say that in general
, most people that are doing images aren't expressing
themselves that much.
We don't have a lot of storytellers, people who have
something to say with their images.
Of course, we see the ones that get plugged on the front
page or in the CG Choice Gallery.
That's the cream of the crop.
But they are the minority.
If you look at the majority of the stuff that's posted in
the galleries, a lot of them don't have a lot of thought
gone into the idea behind the images.
A lot of people, I guess if you ask them point blank, okay,
what is it that you were trying to express with this image?
They probably couldn't tell you beyond, well, it's cool,
you know.
But you got to break down cool into more than just cool.
What's beyond cool?
You know, how many orcs can we have, right?
How many spaceships?
How many orcs can we have before it's just too much?
And I do believe that we all have something to say with our
images.
And I think just a lot of people, they aren't tapping into
it
because they grew up with science fiction and fantasy.
They grew up with CG, with animation.
And a part of their creativity hasn't been switched on.
So they're at the point where they're still mimicking their
influences.
But I think as you get older, that part of you, it does get
switched on.
And you begin asking your questions.
Okay, why am I doing this piece?
What does it actually accomplish besides putting more orcs
on the internet?
You know?
It's like, okay, we populated the internet with a huge army
, a huge orc army already.
I mean, that army is so powerful that it would just pulver
ize any opposing force.
So we don't need any more orcs.
You know, give us something different.
Goblins.
Right.
But, you know, I think you could just ask yourself,
is there anything that I want to say that's beyond just a
cool image?
And I'm not saying it has to be something artsy-fartsy
because you can certainly do something that's still within
the realm of sci-fi and fantasy
but inject something personal into it.
If you have personal beliefs, you know, your disposition
about some of the things that are going on in society
or in your personal life?
How do you feel about love?
How do you feel about betrayal?
How do you feel about your relationship
with friends or family into these things?
But is there like anything you can do
to make your image evoke emotion?
Is there anything that helps it evoke emotion?
Well, I think the first thing to do
is to ask yourself what moves me as a person
because I don't believe in contriving something
to totally for the sake of others
because you have to answer to yourself first, right?
So if I'm doing this thing that I don't feel any emotions
about,
but I'm pretty sure it might or will evoke emotions in
other people,
I'm not going to do it because I have to feel it first.
I mean, this is exactly why a lot of Hollywood movies that,
you know, they're the result of huge boardroom meetings by
executives
who thinks they know what's going to make the public tick.
And then they end up, you know, giving us piles of crap.
That's the case of you not feeling it, but you think other
people are going to feel it.
You have to feel it yourself.
So, you know, ask yourself what moves you as a person.
That's awesome.
But for example, let's say someone who's got, who's extra
sensitive to the issues of morality.
You know, some people are more afraid of dying than others,
right?
Some people are obsessed about it.
So if that specific topic, you know, does something for you
, then you explore it.
Ask yourself, what are the things, let's say, in your moral
standard, you know, the things that jump out at you, the
things that you're concerned about, the things that you're
actually, you know, maybe marching a demonstration about,
you know, that's what makes you tick in those areas.
Then you explore those themes.
You changed my perspective today.
So to get good art, you have to satisfy yourself.
You have to evoke yourself before you can evoke other
people.
That's what you're saying?
Yeah, because if you're not moved,
then how do you expect to move someone else?
Because I'll tell you something that I don't know if it's
true for everyone else,
but I know for a fact that some writers,
and I'm one of them who is that way,
is that when you write a passage that's especially moving,
whether it's a conversation between characters
or you're talking about something that happened to the
character,
if it's intense enough, you will cry while you're typing
out the passage.
This is what I mean by if you can't move yourself,
how are you going to move someone else?
Okay, I got you.
I enjoy writing.
When I write, I write something, like a story that I would
enjoy myself,
but I never go deep into the emotions of actually crying
while typing it.
My stories are more lighthearted in not taking themselves
too seriously.
Yeah. Well, then, you know, if it's lighthearted, if it's a
comedy or something that, you know, I hope that you do
laugh when you're typing out the funny parts.
Yeah, I enjoy it. That's why, like, sometimes, like, I can
't sleep at night.
It's like, oh, I need to finish the story and I'm like up
all night long just writing away.
I think there's also another third layer to your question,
because once you identify what is it that you are moved by,
what's important to you as a person,
Then there's also the matter of taste, because even someone
who's true to their own creative visions and they do work
as completely honest to themselves, it could be all in bad
taste.
I'll give you an example.
I don't mean any disrespect to Boris Vallejo, but a lot of
people are not fans of Boris Vallejo, despite the fact that
, you know, he's got really amazing rendering technique, you
know, with his oil paintings.
And it's a matter of taste because his taste to most people
who, I guess, you know, have more refined taste.
But then again, this is subjective.
So, you know, you don't want to be snotty and, you know,
say that, OK, we got better taste than Boris Vallejo.
But it is so widely accepted that Boris Vallejo has bad taste
because he paints these naked women and, you know, almost
naked barbarians with shiny big muscles.
And everyone is posing like or posing for muscle magazine.
And this is why his work will never reach the status of
Frank Frazetta because Frank Frazetta is raw.
When he depicts these intense battles between barbarians
and the apes or whatever, there's a sense of savageness.
Yeah, I love it.
There's a sense of spontaneity, savageness.
There is a violence that you can feel.
But with Boris Vallejo, it's opposed.
It's very clean.
It's kind of trite and kind of cheesy.
It's calculated.
Yeah, and it's sort of done in bad taste.
So that's what I'm saying is that even being true to
yourself, you have to, I don't know, taste is something
that's acquired.
because no one is born with good taste, right?
It comes with your experience in life,
the education that you've received,
the amount of self-growth that you've done on your own.
And this is not to say that, you know,
even if you have a PhD in fine arts,
you could still have bad taste
because if you go look at the museums
and some of the museum curators here,
you got to wonder about their taste.
So like I said, it's a highly subjective thing.
And, you know, you please yourself first.
And I guess it also depends on how much you care about the
opinion of the public.
Let's say you're doing things that you really love, right?
You're expressing yourself and you do things that you
really dig.
But majority of your audience is responding negatively.
They're telling you that, dude, if you have bad taste, you
know, this stuff is just cheesy and stupid.
If it doesn't bother you, then, you know, keep doing your
thing because that's what makes you happy.
But if it does bother you, you might want to look into why
people feel that your stuff is crap and then sort of
investigate further into what else is available out there.
You know, maybe you won't change your mind after you
studied art history and you've looked at all the different
styles of artwork out there.
Maybe even after all that, you still believe in what you do
and you think what you do is what, you know, it's true to
yourself.
You haven't been influenced by all these things that you've
been exposed to.
But it also could turn the other way where the more
different stuff you're exposed to, the more you see the
shortcomings of what you've done.
And you incorporate these new influences.
And this is how you refine your taste by being exposed to
as many things as possible.
You know, be it a highbrow or lowbrow art.
It doesn't matter.
Just, you know, look at everything and don't just look at
it.
But, you know, ask yourself questions when you look at it.
Learn about what makes it interesting.
Speaking of taste, did you see the renders that the
Japanese guy did with the girl being like mutilated?
Oh, yeah. The controversial one.
Yeah. People were saying that it wasn't art, but I think it
is because it got such a reaction.
I think like the point of art is to get a reaction and it
got one hell of a reaction.
I didn't mind them, but a lot of people are like attacking
them.
But the one with the girl sewing her eye clothes, I think
that was pretty cool.
But the one when she was dangling with the piano wire, that
was horrible.
Well, the thing about this guy's work or other works like
it is that the first thing that you notice,
and I think anyone noticed when you look at his collection,
his body of work, is that he's got conviction.
He believes in what he's doing, right?
because his work, all his stuff, they follow a direction
that's highly unique, that's definitely
personal. And if an artist has conviction, that's a great
thing because a lot of the stuff you look
at out there, you don't feel that sense of conviction. So
when you have that, and you can
also assume that when someone's got conviction, they also
have passion. And with the number of
pieces that he's done, he's also got dedication. And if you
look at the subject matter, it's
certainly not right. It's not something that you see a lot.
And it's not something you could just
pass off as disposable art that when you look at it, you
can try, but you probably won't be able
to walk away unaffected by it. It's done its job. It's done
something to you. It made you feel
emotions. It made you question morality. So how can you say
it's not art?
Exactly. That's like, I hope my images in the future have
effects like that.
And I think like before we started recording, you were
saying that you have a certain distaste for abstract art.
And if you compare this guy's work to, let's say, abstract
art, it's a lot easier to look at a piece of abstract art.
Well, I'm sort of generalizing, but, you know, if you look
at splatters of paint or, you know, little squares of
different colors or smudges of different colors or things
like that,
or even, you know, something a little bit more concrete,
like, you know, cubism or whatever.
the entire spectrum of modern art, right?
You can actually walk away from most of relatively intact,
your sanity, your, you know,
you won't be questioning your moral standard
or asking the more, I guess, morbid or touchy
or sensitive questions as you would with this guy's work.
So in a way, this guy's controversial 3D works
evokes far more than most, you know,
highly prized modern art out there
because it's something that you can't resist responding to,
right?
It's cool. It's in your face.
And you can't even fight it.
You know, you will walk away feeling something, questioning
something.
And that's why it generated so much discussion.
But to get those reactions, do I need to have a subject
matter like that?
Or do you think it's possible?
No, I don't think it has to be extreme or it has to be
morally questionable.
I mean, look at the response that Linda Bergkvist, you know,
her stuff is just pure beauty.
You know, I mean, she's got a little bit of that gothy
thing going on, but it's fairly subtle.
But, you know, people walk away from her work just, you
know, stunned by the sheer beauty of it.
Right?
Right.
And that's a very different reaction.
But it's not any less potent.
So, yeah.
I mean, you don't have to have something morbid.
But like, yeah, it's okay.
Okay.
It's a good point.
But what else do you think could influence people to make
better art?
Not everybody can have the privilege of traveling the world
and getting influenced.
And TV is not that original.
But what else do you think people could do to get more
inspired, to do more original things?
Well, I think there are mainly two elements.
One is outside influences and one is what's inside of you.
Because if you think about it, a lot of the images that
comes up in your dreams,
that's some great material right there.
because you're in a state of mind where you're not
controlling things.
So it's like your mind unleashed and it does its own thing.
So you can't get that when you're awake
because you have too much control when you're awake.
So make a habit of remembering your dreams when you wake up
.
Write them down.
What I do is that I'll just sketch it out.
I have a series of images that's directly from my dreams.
And they tend to be kind of, I don't know how to describe
them.
they're not really abstract because they're concrete images
, but they're things that I
probably wouldn't have come up with. For example, in one of
my dreams, I was walking across this
really long pathway and it's got water surrounding it, but
the whole thing is enclosed in this,
what it looks like a gigantic water tank. And the enclosure
is circular, it's round,
and the walls are really, really, really tall. If you look
up, you can see the sky. This thing's
probably like 20 floors tall it's a huge uh probably the
size of like a football field but
it's round it's circular so it's a path that's uh cutting
through the water straight in the middle
and you can see the sky up above and the circular wall it's
got murals painted on it so you know
that's not something i would have come up with awake but it
was in my dream and so i sketched
it down i mean the sketch is not very detailed it just you
know sketchy lines indicating where
it really is. But that thing is there if I want to go back
and actually, you know, finish it as
a painting. So dreams are very good resources for
creativity. And, you know, like I said,
outside influences, you don't have to really travel the
world. I mean, we're in the 21st
century with broadband connection. You can't see it just
about anything on the internet these days.
Of course, the reproduction sucks. JPEG compression, small
size. I mean, you look at
John Singer Sargent on the internet, it is nothing like
looking at a real piece of John
Singer Sargent painting in front of you. Even in really
well printed books, I mean, I collect
John Singer Sargent's books. I have like a huge stack of
just about every single book I've ever
published about him. And even in the best reproductions, I
remember in 2001, I went to
see a Sargent show in Seattle, and there was a painting I
've seen before many times in print.
But, you know, it really didn't do anything for me.
I would never say that's one of my favorite Sargent pieces.
It's like, oh, I don't know.
It's an okay piece.
But when I saw it in person, I hardly recognized it's the
same painting.
And I did a double take, and I was amazed.
The sense of majesty.
It was this rock formation.
On a print of paint, it just looked like a bunch of rocks.
But in front of you, this thing shimmered.
I mean, you were there standing in this majestic rock
formation
with the sun shining down on it and the glistening of the
moisture on the rocks.
And it was just incredible.
That's what I realized.
You have to see the actual painting.
You know, you can't just look at prints.
They don't do the paintings justice.
But even if you don't get to see the original paintings,
you get exposed to different ideas.
So use the internet.
It's like, you know, your fingertips can walk around this
world.
And a lot of people are not using that resource.
I think it's actually kind of sad because you're given this
incredible gift.
I mean, if I had an internet when I was younger, maybe my
life would be different now.
It's like a huge virtual encyclopedia of everything that
you really want to know.
And it's all there for you.
Why not use it?
It's true.
But for like a cool site I know where you can search for
photos is corbis.com.
I've searched.
I've used it to search for like images around the world.
And it's pretty good.
But sometimes images, a photo doesn't really capture it.
But like sometimes I go outside, look around, look at the
sunset and that just like blows me away.
But I think people should like go outside more instead of
staying in front of their computers to get their ideas.
Yeah, especially photography, photos in themselves, they
don't have a lot of dynamic range.
There are quite a few stops lower than the human vision
spectrum.
So when you look at photos, you're getting a compressed
range of dynamics and you're not getting the whole picture.
So this is why, for example, when you take photos, you must
have enough light.
If you don't, then you're underexposed or your shutter
speed is too long.
Photography is like a series of compromises and you got to
jump through these hoops to get the images that you want.
So when you look at photo references, you're looking at a
distorted reality.
It's not real.
I mean, it is real, but it's compressed.
It's like looking at, you know, a high resolution tip file
or a highly compressed JPEG.
That even in that in itself, that's a huge difference.
And then you compare that to reality where, you know, that
's the vision.
Yeah, I mean, our human vision, the dynamic range is so
much wider.
You can see all the nuances, the subtleties that would get
lost when translated to photographs.
So observing reality is a huge deal.
Even like one of the favorite pastimes for serious artists
or even non-artists, a lot of my friends were not artists,
but they love people watching.
They love just sitting at a restaurant or a cafe or, you
know, on a bench at a mall or in a park.
And they just, they could watch people for hours because,
you know, people are fascinating.
I mean, they're certainly more fascinating than pictures on
the internet, I think.
Yeah, I'm guilty of that.
I've watched people and noticed their characteristics, what
they do.
It gives me ideas for stuff, like images or characters in a
story.
I've normally done the people-watching, but consciously.
I've never noticed that people would do it consciously to
get ideas.
That's cool. I think I want to do it more often.
You've got to be careful because they think you're a psycho
killer.
Especially in the States.
The other thing, you're doing animation for these children
characters, right?
So you go to the park and, you know, you're studying like
the little kids running around
and the parents are looking at you like, oh man, this guy
must be like a sex offender.
I used to do it in class.
Like when the teachers weren't around, I would just like
look around and see what everybody's doing.
Notice that one person does this.
And I like started noticing a lot of different things about
people.
Like, if I could, like, when I close my eyes, I would just,
like, focus listening and you could hear.
Like, if you just close your eyes and just listen, you can
hear a lot of different things.
But, like, if, like, you really focus on what?
On looking, I think you can get, like, the same effect.
I guess what you could do is that you can cut out your
hearing, you know, like, cover your ears and then, you know
, just concentrate on the visuals.
Maybe you get the same effect.
Like, they say blind people have really sharp hearing.
it's because that's all they have to navigate the world so
it's highly developed because they're
sharpened every day that's what it used so maybe you could
sort of try the same thing by covering
your ears so there's no sound and just look or even try
this like um take a a digital cam a video
camera and uh just take footages of you know go to go go to
the streets take footages of people
everyday people but watch it without the sound just look at
the movements right yeah i want to
try that yeah try it i'll tell you how it works out um okay
um another thing that's important
in art is the mood like getting the right mood is sometimes
not very easy like one time i was
trying to make a creature uh i had a knight and i wanted to
make him look scary but he kept looking
very heroic and I could not capture the right mood. Do you
have any ideas how to capture the
right mood? Well, first, I think this has to do with having
a strong foundation in the basics of
art. And that's actually the main reason why I created the
Art Techniques and Theories Forum
at CG Talk was because I noticed that there's a lack of
that foundation for most people that are
into cg see i mean i hang out at a lot of forums you know
from like music to photography to art
and all that and the other art forms i go to that problem
isn't as obvious it's not as severe because
you know you go to cg or concept art or ipu or you know one
of those you know people generally
have a strong foundation in the basics of art because that
's their thing but a cg a 3d website
where the emphasis is on 3D,
then that's a huge difference
where the people,
most of them don't really have a clue
about the basics of art.
They got into CG
because they're fascinated by special effects,
by video games or 3D animation.
And they just sort of tackle
the 3D side of everything
and they're not prepared.
Artistic side.
Yeah.
And a lot of them are not even interested in it.
I mean, the fact that you see people
posting questions all the time saying, does drawing really
help 3D?
You know, that just shows you, you know, that lack of
understanding of the relationship
between the discipline of visual art, period, how it
relates to 3D.
I mean, 3D is still visual art and people are not making
that connection.
That's, I don't know, it's sort of like someone asking,
well, does grammar really
help me write silly jokes?
You know, the two are directly related.
But they're not art.
Yeah, so I think the problem that you had with making the
knight look scary,
but instead he was looking heroic, might be a number of
things.
So everything about visual art can be broken down to the
foundations.
We have composition, we have color, various color
temperatures.
We have perspective, we have various rendering styles.
You can render something really tight and detailed and
polished,
or you could do it very impressionistic, very rough.
And then you have the more technical side of stuff
like anatomy, this and that.
Then you have values, you have lighting.
All these things contribute to mood.
So if you think about it, let's say,
because I mean, I haven't seen that image
you're talking about.
Like if you could like shoot me over a file,
if I could look at it, I'm sure I could tell you more.
But here's some tricks that you can do.
For example, use perspective to evoke a sense
of like oppression or larger than life.
You know, you just warm's eye where the angle is that you
're looking up at something that's
towering over you that creates a sense of oppressive
presence.
And then also with color temperature, colder colors tend to
be eerie, you know, your blues
and greens and purples and, you know, things like that,
where warm colors tend to be more
inviting.
And also another thing is that contrast and value, if you
have strong contrast with dark, dark shadows and very harsh
lighting,
and, you know, especially, for example, like the human face
.
If you have shadows casting over the features that are
vital for expressing emotions,
then it creates a sense of mystery because these features
are veiled in shadows that you can't read the expression.
Therefore, if you compound that with really cold colors and
really harsh lighting and oppressive perspective, then, you
know, you're definitely going to get a scary looking thing.
Okay, my problem was mostly the color. I was using a red to
add the back of the lighting. I should have used the blue.
So, I mean, even if your image has a lot of red in it, you
could still use the other elements like, you know,
composition and perspective and values, contrast.
You could still use those and you could still get the
effect that you're after because simply changing the color
is not going to do it.
Okay.
You know, it has to be all these different things working
together.
It's like, okay, it's like a level of degrees.
For example, are you into music?
Yes.
Okay, I'll use a musical example.
Like for the people that are listening that are into music
or do music,
I think they'll understand what I mean.
Let's say you take a song, right?
You have a song and let's say currently the song is playing
the style of rock.
You know, the drummer, the guitarist, the bassist, maybe
the keyboardist.
They're playing the style of rock.
They're playing in like a pentonic scale.
That's like a five-note scale where a lot of rock music is
written in that.
You know, maybe something a little bit bluesy with a blues
scale.
But let's say you start taking the drummer and you go and
you make him shuffle more.
And, you know, maybe you make him use the brush instead of
the drumstick.
Now you have one element that's starting to shift toward
jazz, right?
But because of the other, the guitarist, the bassist, and
the keyboard, they're still playing the style of rock and
blues.
So that's only one element.
It's not going to completely shift the entire feel of the
song into jazz.
So what happens is that you got to get the keyboardist to
start playing on jazz riffs.
maybe some major minor seventh chords or something like
that.
Maybe improvise a little bit and get the guitarist to strum
and play in
octaves.
And maybe you get the bassist to,
you know,
Hey,
switch out his,
his vendor bass with a upright bass and start playing a jaz
zy bass line.
So you're,
you have to sort of look at the degrees of each element as
a thing thing with
art.
So,
you know,
these different instruments are like composition and
perspective and color
and,
you know,
whatever they all have degrees.
So if you start shifting enough of them so that the
majority starts to shift into another
move, then you're starting to get the effect that you want.
So they have to sort of work in conjunction together.
I'm getting what you're saying.
All the elements have to come together to get the right
effect.
Exactly.
So simply changing one element is not enough to switch the
mood over.
Okay, I'm getting it.
I think I'm getting it.
I'm sorry.
I know I was wrong with my image.
It wasn't looking heroic.
I got it past the heroic, but it wasn't looking that scary.
But I sent you a link to it so you can check it out in the
chat
and see sure I know what's going on.
Okay, I just clicked on it, and it's connecting right now.
Let's see what we can see.
Okay.
Okay, it's a 3D piece.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay, I can see the piece now.
You got this cloud of fog sort of emanating.
It was supposed to be like armor.
Okay.
Okay.
I think you should probably post this on CG Talk so that
when people listen to this CG cast, they can look at the
image.
They could see what I'm describing and talking about.
So I guess we'll do a little troubleshooting with this
piece.
All right.
So this is just based on my perspective.
Maybe another artist will have a totally different take.
But I can only talk about things from my perspective.
And it's not by any means correct.
So I think for one thing, this cloud of steam you have
coming out of the armor, it looks like steam and for smoke.
It doesn't look like a phantom or a ghost.
What you could do is give a color, give a glow, maybe a
greenish glow or bluish glow or something.
And also your lighting right now, I think it's probably too
plain and direct.
It doesn't have enough directional lighting.
For example, oh yeah, the glow, let's say it's his helmet,
right?
Why not have a glow for where his eyes are?
I mean, anyone whose eyes glow will look airy.
If you look at photos of people at parties,
if they got that red glowing eye that look like demons,
so give him glowing eyes.
Could be red, could be green, could be purple.
So I will probably do a harsh lighting.
You could do it from above, from below, from like a rim
lighting from sort of towards the back, a little bit to the
side.
And also the pose itself, it's not very scary.
He's just holding his sword.
Now, you could have him face the camera, do like a sort of
a more iconic type of composition where he's looking at you
, but he's towering above you.
So you're sort of looking up at him.
And, you know, he looks like he could just fall on you or
crush you kind of a perspective.
And then you see that glow from the inside his helmet.
And then you have that ghostly glow of, you know, the phant
oms emanating from his armor.
Then you have this, you know, maybe like a backlighting.
So you see a silhouette of him, but you have a darker
ambient light.
So you can still see enough of him in the front.
That's, you know, so that you don't get the completely
black silhouette.
So all these things are things that you could do.
the pose itself like you know he could be facing the camera
but you could have him maybe holding
the sword above his head or maybe he's pointing the sword
directly at your nose between your eyes
or something and then you get that foreshortening the blade
you know when it when it's close to you
it's like this huge blade so that foreshortening effect
could also work so i mean there are a
number of things you can do with this image to give it that
scary feel that you're after
some very
helpful things
I want to try
and change it up
and do exactly
what you said
and we'll see
the results
thanks
make sure you
post it on CG Talk
so people can see it
I will
I think that's
about it
for today
we've got about
one hour
of talk
really?
yeah time flies
I just want to say
thank you
for coming on the show
and I would love
if you could come
again in the future
sometime
but the time zones
are kind of hard
but we can find out
maybe
in the future can come again and share your wisdom.
Sure.
All right.
I don't know if I'd call it wisdom.
It's just my perspective of what I've learned so far.
And, you know, I mean, like I said,
someone else could have a completely different set of ideas
and they might disagree with a lot of things I've said.
And I'm by no means an authority on anything I've said.
It's just my perspective.
And the thing is, I'm learning myself too.
I definitely, you know, not, I mean, I have my heroes.
I look up to and compared to them, I'm like, you know, I
want to kill myself.
When I look at some of my heroes works, I just think I'm
worthless.
You know, why am I even doing this?
Why don't I go be a farmer?
You know, it's like, forget this.
You know, there are these creative geniuses out there.
You know, who the hell am I?
You know, what business do I have doing any of these things
?
I mean, sometimes that's the way I feel.
you know but if you really love it it doesn't matter
because you're doing it because it makes
you feel alive because you don't you don't know a better
way to live a happier life this is what
makes you happy so you do it so you know I know there are
people out there who don't like my work
you know or maybe they don't even like my personality but
you know this is just the way
I am this is who I am and you can't yeah so yeah exactly so
like I said you know a lot of things
I said, you know.
Not you have experience.
That counts for something.
Yeah, but someone else
could have a completely different set of experience.
And, you know, they might come on the show
and contradict everything I've said and say,
well, you know, I don't think Rob
knows what he's talking about.
You know, everything he said is,
it's all totally subjective.
There's nothing objective about what he said.
And, you know, and I have more experience than him.
So listen to me, don't listen to Rob.
So, yeah, you know,
don't take what I said as like, you know,
the answer because it's not it's in my perspective you know
there are people out there that's more
talented than i am i have more experience that are probably
smarter so but you know my what i said
it's just a point of reference you can refer to it if it
helps you but don't take it as you know
i mean i'm sure a lot of people won't because you know
everyone's got their own perspective
on how things are done and we have plenty of really
talented artists on cg talk and there
are also a lot of people who's got decades of experience
working in the CG field. So yeah,
but I'm sure that some of the things I've said could be
helpful for the novices and the people
that are still learning, because some of the things I said
are sort of widely accepted as
universal truths in art. Like, for example, when I talk
about the foundations of art,
that's widely accepted by anyone who knows anything about
art or perhaps certain about
experience so those things are not that subjective you know
i guess you could call it objective
things but anyways i had a good time and uh and i'll have
to be happy to come on the show again
thanks again we're supposed to have two other people
joining us but they couldn't make it so
this show was kind of done on the fly but do you have any
final comments anything you'd like to
say oh final comments well i guess there's one thing that i
mean it's it's just uh you know
it's just something about me that I think that people might
or might not want to know is that
even though I'm on CG Talk and even though I'm highly
involved behind the things at CG Talk and
I'm very active and I'm also part of the CG industry. I've
worked in video games. I worked
in CG animation and I've been an art director and animation
director and all that stuff. But
my real passion is in storytelling. You know, I'm mostly a
storyteller. I write screenplays. I write
novels and i also have like other passions that like my
first love is music you know i've loved
music ever since i was a kid so you know i composed music
that's like my first love and i also take
photography i write and you know i'm involved in filmmaking
and all that other stuff so a lot of
times on cg talk it might seem like i'm sort of anti-cg but
i'm not it's just that i come from a
different perspective where i think cg is just the tool for
people to realize their creative visions
but too many people dwell on the tools and on the technical
aspects of CG and they're losing sight
of the creative vision and that's why sometimes I might go
out of my way to try to debate people
and I'll make comments that things like I don't like CG but
that's not true it's just a different
perspective that's all I get what you're saying don't focus
too much on the tool it's the artist
not the tool yeah well then again you know for people that
are actually production artists
working in studios that is their life and for example like
leigh leigh uh she is it leigh leigh
Leigh is Leigh yeah um for example she's said many times on the
forum that she's one of those people
that doesn't get off on you know being all artsy fartsy and
you know creative vision and all that
stuff she she enjoys being a production artist that's what
she likes and that's fine because
without these production artists you know the storytellers
would have no story to tell on the
screen you know like what are you going to do i'm going to
go animate an entire feature film by
yourself no you're not so and that's that's valid as well
because that's what makes them happy but
i also know that Leigh is a huge music fanatic so you know
she's got like passions outside of cg as
well um so for the production oriented people you know they
they will focus more on the tools and
the techniques and you know less on the the creative side
and that's fine because that is
their career that's their job so like i said it's you know
it's a different perspective yeah it
depends on people on the people um yeah one more question i
forgot to add this will be the last
question what's your goal in life what do you want to do
what do you want to make sure you do before
you die well if you're talking about like more concrete
stuff like actual goals yeah you know i
I would love to, you know, just direct feature films.
And I don't even care about, like, you know, commercial
success.
I just want critical acclaim because I think that's a lot
more important.
You know, even though the films lose money, I don't care,
you know,
because I need to please myself.
I need to do something that I can be proud of.
And I love feature films.
So that's one.
And, of course, I'm passionate about music.
But, you know, I don't care about critical, I mean, like,
you know,
winning awards or anything.
I just want to just keep on making music because the act of
composing and arranging and recording music makes me happy.
When I'm doing it, I'm in a different universe.
So I just want to keep on doing that.
I want to have more free time to do it because right now I
'm so busy.
I don't have time.
I just want to keep on doing all the things I enjoy doing,
you know, like writing music, photography, art.
And like, I would love to have my novels published.
And the same thing.
I don't want commercial success.
I just want critical acclaim.
I want people to like what I do.
And another perspective of what I want out of life is that
even if I never accomplish any of these goals,
let's say if I never create anything again, I live a normal
life.
But as long as when I'm in my deathbed and I'm ready to die
,
I just want to be able to be completely honest with myself
and say that I have lived a life without regrets.
I have felt all the things I want to feel I've done, the
things I wanted to do.
I've had a full life you know I've loved people I've been
loved by people you know I've done
things that I'm proud of you know the person that I am I
feel like I'm a good person I have no
regrets and I could die happy and I think that's probably
more important than any goal because a
lot of times you have this goal this dream and you try to
strive for it but along the way you
might have made sacrifices, lost things that you'll never
get back again.
But while you're doing it, you don't see it.
It's only until you've reached your goal, you've done what
you wanted to do, then you
look back and go, oh my God, I have lost so much along the
way.
And these things are actually more precious than this goal
of mine.
So ambition is good and all that, but make sure that you
don't lose out and miss out
on a lot of the precious moments in life or that dream of
yours, because it may or may
not be worth it wow so it's extremely deep well i i don't
know if it's deep but it's just you know
i mean who wouldn't want to die without regrets right why
why would you choose to die with regrets
right so make sure that you don't have a whole lot of
regrets you know pay attention to what's
going on in your life you know your relationship with
family and friends and your own personal
health and your own personal growth you know like for
example a lot of cg kids they just want to
work in video games. That's like their dream. They don't
care if they get paid crap. They don't care
if they work long hours. They don't care if they have no
life. They just want to be involved in
their video games because that's their passion. But a lot
of people who's gotten there and they
ended up having a family, got married, and they've gotten
older, then they start to realize,
uh-oh, you know, this is not gelling well with what's
happened to me and my personal growth.
I need personal time.
I need personal time to be a person,
not just a production guy for a game company.
Then, you know, there's conflict of interest.
So for a lot of the younger people,
have your goals, but you got to keep a good balance.
You can't, you know, don't screw up your health.
Don't screw up your personal life
because in the end, it might not be worth it.
You know, you're going to be this lonely guy
who sits in front of the monitor,
to glow totally in the dark, moving UV mapping coordinates
and, you know, doing the, you know,
the 100 render pass on something. And you have no one to go
home to. You have no one to talk to,
no one to care about you if you catch a cold and get sick
and you can't come to work.
You're just going to be home miserable, you know, sniffling
and you have a headache and you're
laying in bed with a fever. No one's going to come here,
come to you and care for you.
So, you know, balance out your life.
Live a full life.
You know, have your dreams, but live a full life.
So, yeah, there you go.
That's awesome.
The one hour that we've been talking, one hour, 12 minutes
we've been talking,
you've given me a new perspective on a lot of things.
I just want to say thanks.
Well, you're welcome.
And see you guys on the forum.
Okay.
See you on the forum, sir.
