Join us for episode 20 of CGCast as we celebrate a milestone with an engaging interview featuring Peter Draper, a Vision Effects Director at Lightworks in Bristol, UK. Known for his expertise in 3D modeling and scripting, Peter shares his journey from
early inspirations like "Star Wars" and "The Last Starfighter" to his current work on the sci-fi comedy series "Star Hike." He discusses the challenges and rewards of working in visual effects, the intricacies of rendering techniques, and the balance
between freelancing and studio work. Peter also offers insights into optimizing software like 3DS Max, the importance of pass rendering in efficient workflow, and his thoughts on industry trends like dual-core processors and software updates. With
candid anecdotes about industry life, including the role of coffee and beer in long hours, this episode promises to be both informative and entertaining for aspiring and seasoned CG professionals alike.
Welcome everybody to the 20th episode of CGCast. It's
actually a milestone.
Anyways, today we have Peter Draper, we're going to be
interviewing him,
and we still have Chris left over and Simon, so it should
be a fun episode.
So Peter, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Yeah, I'm a visual effects director for a company called
Lightworks.
We're based in Bristol in the Southwest UK.
do uh visual effects for tv film uh documentary stuff
that kind of thing so
uh blowing stuff up for a living on computers it's great
yeah that's awesome uh i'm also
the uh what's the word uh resident as they call me um 3ds
max um guru i've been called several
times for some bizarre reason uh for 3d world magazine
which basically involves writing q and
and tutorials and that kind of thing, reviews and stuff.
I'm also the author of Deconstructing the Elements for 3ds
Max,
which is a Max tutorial book to teach how to break apart
natural real-world effects
and trying to recreate them in 3ds using no plugins.
Oh, awesome.
I tried to learn 3ds Max with using the minimum of plugins,
and your tutorials have been very, very helpful with that.
Oh, cheers.
Cool.
Drive it gladly out.
Yeah, that's why I asked you for the interview
because I love your tutorials.
Oh, cheers.
Anything that's on the site
and anything that normally originates
from computer arts or 3D World magazine.
So if anyone's been on the site
and downloaded the tutorials,
buy the magazines.
There's the plug for you.
Just in case anyone 3D War is listening,
there's the plug.
But how do you find them?
Pay me in beer now.
How do you find them if you're...
How do you find that magazine if you're not living in an
English-speaking country?
I think you can either get it via subscription,
which you can get via the standard future-coveraging site,
which I think is future.net.uk,
or go to the 3D World site, which is 3DWorldMag.com,
and I think you can order it online.
Failing that, you can go to any magazine stand and just get
them to order it.
It normally takes, I mean, if you're in America,
it takes, I think, an extra month or something like that,
or if you further afield
then it might take
a little bit longer
so like the latest issue
is going to be like about
you know
you won't get it
for about a month or two
I can't think
so
how much is it?
James?
how much does it cost?
how much is it?
I've got one here
it's somewhere around there
£6.99 in England
I think
what's that?
£6.99
to be a dick
oh it's not
yeah latest one
£6.99
I think it started out
something like £40
or something like that
about
I think it was about
2001 or something like that
it came out first
it's obviously
gone up a little bit due to a rate of
inflation or something or publishers
putting the price up or something, I don't know.
I only write for them, I don't know
their full accounts.
I don't know if all the details will be around it.
So they're a cool
bunch of guys who have been, you know,
got the finger on the pulse
every month from what I've heard, so it's
really good guys to work with. Cool, I'll check out the
magazine if I can find it here in Switzerland.
Yeah, you should be
able to get it.
I mean, I know for a fact they can get it in
like uh denmark and norway so i definitely be able to get
in switzerland all right cool i'll
check out my new stand um so how did you get into cg
um bit of a long longish story i'll try
and keep it as brief as possible um it started out with i
think it was one of the many birthday
parties that i've had in my in my years on this world um
one standing back for about the mid 80s
there was a film out called The Last Starfighter,
which kind of not necessarily inspired me,
but made me think about how these type of effects were
actually done.
So obviously you could tell they weren't done by models and
everything,
but that kind of took a back seat when I was finishing
scoring one of you.
But there was a TV program on a UK terrestrial channel
called BBC Two.
There was a program called Liquid Television.
And on that, the first short that they showed, it was about
animation.
The first short that they showed was a little short by
these guys at MIT called Green Evil Death.
Believe it or not, yeah.
It was really, right about that time, the only type of
animation, CG animation that you saw publicly
were these animation shorts that people did for special
interest groups and animation tests, that kind of thing.
So you see little cameras dancing around, that kind of
thing.
But this one was an actual design short.
It was actually a proper short that involved this amalg
amation of 2D and 3D.
It was one of the first ones out there.
And what it was, this large alien boat crash lands into
this city and starts playing havoc and what have you.
and this little kid who's this little 2D cell-drawn kid
finds this ring inside a box of cereal
and transforms into this superhero and starts battling this
bug.
And it was really, really good.
And that just kind of made me think,
wow, how the hell did they do that?
At university, I did absolutely nothing to do what I do now
,
but I actually staggered upon a CAD lab
when I was slightly inebriated one night,
went into the Cadillac the following day
and asked them if I could actually use the equipment.
They said no.
There's a small machine in the corner
that's got a copy of 3D Studio DOS,
a version, I think it was 2 or 3 or something,
and I just used that.
I basically just scraped through the rest of my degree
just so I could actually stay on and use this equipment
and use this software.
got myself a reel together by the end of the university
course they had nothing to do what
i did at uni uh and then got a job you know pretty much
when i left i mean this was like
back in like the mid 90s so um you wouldn't be with the
stuff that i came out with then you
would be able to get a job now back then you could animate
a box you get a job you got nothing the
bar is just so high these days it really really is so i i
envy the people who are at university
now the amount of facilities and the amount of knowledge
that's thrown at them but i don't you
know i don't envy them in the way that the the the amount
of jobs that are there are few and far
between so they do have to stand out yeah it's true because
if you just look on cg talk now
the work that they're showing is amazing oh yeah definitely
definitely there's some i mean you you
see some uh artists out there you think they've been
actually you know they've been working on
this stuff for like years and years and years and some of
these guys have just been doing it for a
few months and it's like
bloody hell
I'm going to be out of a job soon of course
So
what are you doing right now in CG?
You're working at a studio right?
Yeah and luckily I'm
the visual effects director for an animation
and production company
in Bristol
we've just finished a
pilot episode of a show
called Starhyke which is a
sci-fi comedy so basically
if you imagine an
emulgation of like a load of sci-fi genres you know uh trek
b5 uh farScape Red Dwarf you know
all the different types of uh styles and uh comedy aspects
are kind of all thrown together
into this big mixed part and i'll go into the full details
of the thing but the actual uh the actual
uh website which is starhyke.com um kind of explains
everything about the uh the backstory
way behind it to all the breakdown of the episodes and who
's in it and so on and so on but it's the
it's it was a fun shoot to work on this it was it was a
challenging um pilot to work on basically
because of the sheer amount of uh effects in the first
pilot episode that we came that we did we
uh mustafa another guy chris and one of the guys chris
animal uh we basically worked our backsides
off to get uh i forget how many shots there were but there
was something like about 640x480 or 800x600
something like that shot in a space of about um two months
something like that and that was the
full gamut of everything so it just it just covered every
single aspect anything that we
didn't cover i think was um character animation so
everything else comp work tracking green screen
work the entire lot was just you know all sorts of that
within two months and it was a lot of late
nights uh a lot of stress a lot of hard work which is you
which which is what you get in this
industry you really really have to love being in this
industry to actually be able to survive it
because you do tend to burn out a lot so now they're
expecting better work in less time
as a whole yeah not not with us but like as a whole in the
industry yeah i mean um
the uh it's i forget who mentioned it i think it was um
this guy tom sito mentioned recently that
the i forget what it was now it's uh the eight hour day was
only recently well not recently as
far as you know recent years and everything but uh the
eight hour day um came to pass about you
know 50 60 70 whatever it was years ago uh but that's
completely unheard of in in in the visual
effects industry you don't have an eight hour day there's
no such thing as an eight hour day
you're working for like 10, 12, anything up to 16 hours a
day,
depending on what the project's like, how hard it is,
what the timescales are like, what the budget's like, and
so on.
You're not just working from 9 to 5.
It's very, very tough.
It's not physically tough, but it's very, very tough
mentally.
So you are a lot of times R&D and bug fixing,
pulling your hair out of way,
and bloody your face doesn't work off the triumphs.
Screamingly bloody murder at the computer.
Why don't you work for God's sakes?
I've had no...
You don't even have to work in the industry to have those
feelings.
Oh, yeah.
You get it at all levels, believe me.
Whether you've been in this game for as long as I have
or people who are just starting out.
It's like, why the crap won't you work for the love of God?
At the end of the day, it's all down to experience.
I mean, further down the line,
you will understand that problems that you encountered in
the past,
you will be able to solve in an instant
because you know how to mix and match features around
and to get a certain effect just the way you want it.
But you're always still trying to push the envelope
with the type of effects that you want to do.
Like, for example, if you're trying to recreate fluids
just with standard particles or even with fluid systems,
you're always trying to make it just that little bit,
add these extra little bits in
just to make it look that little bit more real,
to make it stand out a bit more.
And you're always trying to make things look better
because you've either come across a new tool
or you've developed something yourself.
You always end up with the same render times.
You always end up with the same amount of work for timesc
ales.
It never sits still.
I mean, it's one of the reasons why I'm in this lock.
I mean, if I found it boring, I wouldn't do it.
It's one of these jobs which challenges you daily.
if you're just doing the same thing
day in day out for like god knows
how long I'd just get bored
and I'd say a lot of people
out there would feel the same way
you said that there's
a lot of hours is it possible
to be in CG and also have
a social life
I've heard a myth
about that I can't really put
yeah yeah you can't
it all depends on
what company you work
for if you're a freelancer what the uh what the pay is like
what the hours like it you know it
swings in roundabouts you can uh you can work for a good
company you can work for a great company
you can work for a cheating company i mean it all depends
on what the job's like um for example
you know when the deadline is what the budget's like if
they can pull on more people uh to ease
the workload of the overall team um what your staff are
like if you stay you know if you're
supervising if your staff are any good if you're going to
have to jump on board and help out or td
stuff to actually get the job done um it is how long you
know how the question could also be how
long is a piece of string it's it all depends on you know
what what uh what the job's like at the
end of the day i mean i've i think the last time i actually
went out and got drunk purposely was
how many minutes ago
pretty much
no
I wish
no
it was about
oh god
okay
yeah
three
four
no
about a month ago
a month or so ago now
and that was
that was basically
because I was
virtually kicked out my door
by my fiancée
in order to go
like go and
go and relax
and get drunk with my friends
because I
I simply was like
you know
working myself to the ground
you have an
awesome fiancée
I'll tell you
you said that
nah
it's good
as I say
it's a good laugh
in awhile
we've got some
we've got some
cool people
I work with
you know
everyone in the industry
understands
you know
each other
in the way that
you know
I've got this job
blah blah blah
everyone's
you know
permanently stressed
in this game
everyone
everyone's
always stressed
in this game
it's alright
you know
you can't
you can't live with it
but you tend to lose your hair
I mean
if you've ever seen
a recent picture of me
I've got virtually no...
Well, I exaggerate a little bit.
It's always this side,
this receding part, this side,
and this receding part, this side.
Don't meet up in the middle, I'm cool.
As soon as they do, I sit, giving it up,
and we head back to lifeguarding some equally boring job.
No disrespect to any lifeguards out there.
Even though it is the most boring job
known to man, they've all done it.
It's horrible.
Have you done freelancing before?
Yeah, I did it for about
two to three years.
Which do you prefer?
Working freelance or
in a studio?
Both really.
I mean the company that I'm working for at the moment
I've got
the good
what's the word
I've got a good deal in the way that
a lot of the time I work from
home but the company knows
that if I do work from home they know
that they're going to get a lot more out of me working from
home than i do you know if i was in the studio if i was in
the studio i'd basically you know
get in about nine o'clock and leave at roughly around about
six seven if i'm working from home
i'll basically start working on the clock and i might not
finish till about 11 12 maybe three in
the morning depending on you know what the job is i mean
the last the last two weeks i've been
working from home for the extent of this um excuse me um
long project that we've just had on um
and that has been you know every night has been roughly on
about two three o'clock in the morning
so if if i basically did if i did it from work i wouldn't
get half as much done as i did working
from home so it's it's kind of again it's it's it's 50 50 i
mean the i'm sorry my computer's
just gonna nope everyone's still there computer just went
blank screen over in it um it's
freelancing is good because you are your own boss but it's
bad in the way that you constantly have
to look for work even if you've got a really really big
project on that's going to last you
say for example two to three months um you've still got to
look at what's going to happen as
soon as those two three months are up so you've constantly
got to you know tout for work sell
yourself put yourself out there that kind of thing uh
working for a studio it's it's you know not
not necessarily the case you've got like a regular income
um you're working in a team of people
you know i mean some some freelancers you know work at
large studios i mean a lot of studios
actually just hiring freelancers um some of the you know
the big name uh soho studios do
uh they have you know a few core staff and then they the
rest of the time when they hit crunch
they bring in um a load of freelancers who are dedicated
for specific jobs i know several guys
who basically who are constantly re-employed and re-employ
ed by a specific studio so technically
they'd be working full time but they've got you know the
studio's got the option to uh
not bring them on if it needs to be if if the job doesn't
require it but it's it's good freelancing
is good you are your own boss you can take days off when
you don't you when you when you want to
um you don't need to work if you don't want to if you've
got the money but personally it's it's um
it's it's good but you your social life just take a bit of
a nosedive because you are constantly
having to look for work and you you're worried that if you
pass by on a certain job you might
not get anything back from that particular client or like
you know if you go to that specific you
know gathering with your friends you might not get the job
done so on and so on and so on so there
is there is there is some worry there that you know that
might just be my personal experience
other people other other people may if i had like better
experience with it i mean i i enjoyed it
don't get me wrong it was it was good it was fun would i do
it again in the future yeah quite
possibly you know i never never say never i don't you know
whatever the future holds at the end of
the day i mean the main reason i did go freelance at the
end of the day was because um after i left
i left um the last company i was at full time uh to do some
freelance work for uh a few people that
i knew and after that dried up there was basically nothing
else in the area where i currently live
so it was a case of luck and it was a necessary evil to
start with but after after about a few
months it kind of um it kind of started paying off yeah
cool so it was pretty good speaking of
the future what do you what what do you see in your future
um early retirement and death i think
i mean i'm i'm not a spring ticket by you know anyone's
standards now i mean i'm 30
I forget now
I'm older
shit
and 31
that's it
yeah 31 now
so I've been
called a veteran
which is kind of
nice
and also
slightly depressing
at the same time
so
I can't really say no
I mean
I'm taking these
days at a time
I mean
or each project
at a time at least
I mean
we're waiting to see
I mean
if this show
gets picked up
and apparently
it has been
by a certain channel um who it is i can't obviously say but
at the end of the day if as and when that
gets signed up then that's basically at least five years
worth of work because the uh these certain
channels actually pick up like the show for this for for an
actual duration for the full like for
the full uh story art which there is you know five seasons
of the thing four or five seasons of the
things so it's just a case of you know seeing what seeing
what happens from one day to the next i
I mean, I'm, you know, we're kind of quite happy where we
are.
And someone has just sent me a message.
Oh, no.
So I said, it's you guys.
I was like, what?
Who's been doing that?
What?
No, Simon got hacked.
Oh, he's hacked.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's just.
I also stole.
You break it up, dude.
Come here.
I guess they're hacking his computer.
So what's trying to hack his computer?
I don't know.
Why is there so much problems today?
I blamed Chris.
Yeah.
It's me.
Well, you've got a hat.
It's like a seatbelt keys way through us.
Some people are trying to hack you on Skype or something.
Chris got a bunch of messages,
and then Simon says his site is being hacked.
Oh, wrong.
All that mess is actually caused by me, though.
I'm just deleting what they tried to enter.
Yeah.
That sucks.
It's great, though.
Today is not a good day at all.
Oh, well.
Yeah, but it's a great interview.
It's a day in and a while.
Oh, it's a day in and a while.
That's why.
Hey, Dave, bro.
Oh, well.
Then let's continue the interview.
Okay.
So, Chris, do you have any questions for Peter?
I've been on your site a long time ago.
I think it was something about optimizing Max.
Oh, I know.
Oh, that was years ago.
That was, I think I was for Max 3.
That was, Christ, that was the first ever article I wrote
for 3D World.
Have you ever done a film?
Have you ever done a film?
Did you do that, buddy?
Hey.
You didn't think I was still, did you?
No, I didn't, actually.
No, the only person that's older than me, really, I thought
was Ted Baldwin.
But no, no, it was Ata.
Ata Tanish.
And he'd sort of, he'd written the articles as if he knew
what he was talking about.
the lies
they're all made up
everything
it's all
it's all false
I mean come on
I'm like
I've just made it up
don't follow it
it's all shit
it's all shit
very humble man
I'm just making it up
like
are you
yeah
so what was the question
there wasn't
there wasn't one
it was just
it was no question
it was just
what do you call it
a comment
oh right
a comment
thanks for helping me
optimize my max 3
no fault
no problem at all
hey diddus the free folks
say it is the speed
well kind of I got paid by the magazine
and then the magazine got sold and then
I kept the article back and I
put it on the site
actually I actually had in that magazine
they published a rendering
of mine
it was brilliant
I got heaps
of fan mail I think one
email from Arabia or something
like that and for Arabia
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there was a whole spread of all sorts of renders
from people who'd sent stuff in.
And the one which got the double-page spread
was the furry teddy bear.
I think it was before Shave and Cut or something like that.
This was really Earth movie.
So my render got shoved to the back page
in the tiny little corner.
But I got a free version of the magazine.
Wow.
Mustn't go on for a while.
No, brilliant.
Brilliant.
And it's a pretty damn good magazine as well, I must say.
say um but they seem they seem to be really enamored by
furry teddy bears so oh i don't know
let me check the latest issue hang on a minute i'm sure
this i'm sure i saw some oh no that's
that's uh ice age uh hang on a minute there we just have a
quick squeeze no that's bloody
mcdonough no no offense i know yeah she's in it for some
bloody reason i've got no idea why
cheerio everest's fat bloke with a cigar uh david dickinson
why the hell is he in there
well no fairy tale
of osu! dice
silence
you can edit that out
you know
please
you can edit it
in such a way
that there's a stream
of intelligent
conversation going on
yeah
fast really
it's a brilliant program
yes I know
but it's hard work
we'll fix it in the chat
he's complaining already
I need to outsource
this to somebody
who can
edit audio
better than me
it's
out of
oyster.com
yes
yes
yes
outsourcer.com
yes
we have
free advertising
that way
you think
flash it up
on screen
oh it's an mp3
you can't
flash it up
on screen
you have to
have a webcast
flash it up
subliminally
every frame
or something
I did have
a video cast
one time
oh did it work
don't cry
did it work
I didn't do any
if I had
subliminal messages
it would be
send me your money
but I didn't.
I'm still poor.
Well, join the club.
Maybe I'll take a trip to England sometime
and do a bunch of radio casts.
We'll rip off Britain, mate.
You don't want to come here.
Everything's too bloody expensive.
I think Switzerland can beat England.
I did a workshop at Animax in February
and my entire class was taken up by a class of Norwegian
guys
who came across.
It's like completely amazing.
But apparently the beer over there is like something like
five pounds a pint,
five, six pounds a pint.
It's like, oh, Christ, I thought it was expensive over here
.
Yeah, but...
Sorry?
Then if they put alcohol in it, in England they don't have
any alcohol in the beer, so...
Well, you've been truthful.
You know, you're running up and down between the gents
trying to get rid of all the water access.
People come over here to Europe.
Yeah, from England.
They come over here and they buy a beer,
and they drink it, and they get drunk, and they're
surprised.
No.
Why have you been drinking, mate?
Gosh, I'm going to a proper post, mate.
You get a vase.
You get a vase.
What flower is it in?
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
You've been drinking Stella or something equally as filth
as...
Oh, that stuff's...
Yeah.
Yeah, well...
That's what the cool stuff is.
Cool stuff.
Oh dear.
Oli, I've insulted you.
Cool stuff.
I'm not into beer, so I can't comment much.
I haven't drunk since Christmas, so I'm sorry.
I think the last time I had some was about four or five
weeks ago.
My friend came, one of my close friends went across to
Belgium
for his girlfriend's sister's christening or something.
No, his niece, his girlfriend's niece,
came up with a load of left beer,
so we just indulged, I should say.
We should make a report
how substances like beer and stuff affect CG.
Beer and stuff.
Beer and stuff.
It's already been done.
They had this thing on the CG talk
about this guy who dropped acid.
what was it called in the old hippie days?
What was that stuff called?
LSD.
Yeah, LSD, right.
Bushrares, yeah.
Yeah, something like that.
But after about five or six pictures,
they were actually improving.
Yeah, and everybody was writing in all about the drug
experiences.
Well, that got canned incredibly quickly.
Why am I not surprised?
But with this Theodore Draper interview,
we've come to the conclusion that the thing which is
closest to the heart
of 3D people and effects people
are beer atoms. Beer.
Yeah, pretty much.
Beer and coffee, an excessive
amount of both, to be honest.
Just keep...
You can't have too much of
the former more than the latter, otherwise
you just tend to get really
apathetic and just don't care.
It's just odds of fucking my
lunking. Actually, my drug of
choice is soft drinks like Coca-Cola.
If I didn't have that, I would
have no reason to live. That stuff
your teeth right big time well how nice am i claiming yeah
yeah my uh one of my close friends
um he used to drink nothing but coke he really we used to
like you know go to god knows how many
cans a day uh went to the dentist and and got told to you
know stop drinking it because it
literally ate the entire enamel off the front of his teeth
ah that's horrible just simply just don't
don't drink that stuff if i if i do drink i don't drink the
diet stuff not because i'm a fat git but
because it's got that
no no no
it's not
I drink the full fat stuff
I don't drink the low fat stuff
because it's got
aspartame
in it
and that's
not nice
that stuff's evil
I read too much shit online
I really do
it's like more
sleeping
makes you kick in the sleep
makes you walk in the sleep
does it
does it test on people
but
the diet drinks
yeah diet drinks
because they built
let's move over to school.
That's what I'm going to do.
But it's really weird
because I don't know
if it was the winter,
but like two times
during my sleep,
it felt like something
ripped off my calf muscle
and just woke me up
in the middle of the night
and I had this horrible pain
in my leg for the rest,
for like three days.
You should stop dating sharks.
Yeah.
It's not good for you.
Don't go to bed with them.
Stop swimming,
not swimming with piranhas
or something.
No, but it's like
there was nothing
physically wrong it's just like this dream and like
somebody stab you in the middle of the night
and you just wake up you know i don't get that it's nothing
nobody got that but my you sleep
skating man that's what it is no but my i had a friend told
me that was my body getting accustomed
to winter or something since winter is kind of a new thing
for me okay you guys never had that
uh no we live in britain well i do anyway yeah yeah so it's
it's a mixed bag all the time
that's probably it it's over the same it's a bit like my
mom's custard it's over the same twice
god i hate winter but we don't really get winter you know
proper winter down here it's like
um we haven't seen snow in god knows how long and when we
do see it it's gone within about two
minutes here we have horrible winters the most painful win
ters ever i'd welcome it honestly
is to just make a break from the norm it's just every it's
just dreary and gray and there
yeah it's even in bristol though you are well i'm confused
i think gray and you live in bristol
i don't live in bristol that's the intention i don't i don
't i don't live in bristol i live in
Somerset
so I'm intentionally out of Bristol
because I'd most likely go mad
if I lived here so you're inside Bristol
it's ok
it's a nice enough place
in certain areas obviously
with any city you get
gnarly places but I've done
the big city now
and I'm getting a bit too long
in the tooth now to actually
start living within cities
again, it kind of
Drove me a little insane last time I did it.
You're afraid of the chavs.
No, chavs are okay.
They're just misunderstood.
No, we're kind of like out in the country at the moment.
Views are good on all sides.
I've got hills at the back, hills at the front,
canal at the front of the house, so on and so on.
It's a nice type of water.
We're kind of happy where we are at the moment.
So I don't really fancy going back to the city, to be
perfectly honest.
So my daily commute if I do need to go into the studio is
120 miles.
Wow.
So it's 60 miles door to door.
That's pretty.
It's only an hour, though.
It's only an hour.
It's just literally up the M5.
I just jump, you know, five minutes, I'm at the M5, up M5,
and then, you know, ring road or whatever, straight to the
studio.
literally is now
door to door
so it's okay
but the car's
starting to cry out
a little bit now
about a mile's it's done
take the train
yeah there is
there is a train
but the thing is
I was actually
contemplating biking it
but
not biking it
60 miles obviously
I'm not mental
but unfortunately
it's up Bloody Hill
all the way
in the morning
and that is something
that I can't really
be doing
with my size
my backside
no chance
I'd get about
Halfway and I've got like a hernia or something.
I was going to suggest a helicopter, but...
I don't think I have made the money.
Christ.
You'd probably end up crashing in Simon's pool.
Yeah, yeah.
Pool, I don't...
Hey, son, here I come.
Hey, look at me, I've got a pool.
Sure we've bloody paid too much, I reckon.
I've got a pool.
What do you do?
Right, let's talk...
I know it.
back to studio guys
hey come on
yes
Simon
you have to make
a 3D model
of the pool
so we can see
oh
I'll find out
where you live
so we can
you know
put
down in Devon
you don't want to
come down here
I'm only on the border
mate
I'm only on the border
I know
you're scarily close
if I saw that
out the window
I'd probably
just seeing a CG
close to the pleater
he's
he's a light wave guy
he and Peter
is Max guy so so they can't talk to each other right it's
against the law new
new tech expand you at least at least we all hate Maya
people or not hey hey
my guys talking about it's one big happy family now we've
absorbed them why did
you get the I'm gonna go so why I'm gonna guess geez I'm
gonna get some
was shit that's all you did not backtrack backtrack back
track did not mean that did
mean that it's a no i didn't no i didn't all right it's all
one big happy family everyone's fine
everyone's pipelines nasty nicely cool well right okay let
's go with that one but did you hear that
you can't do that can you no i can't shit but did you hear
that they they'll make max more towards
games and mine are more towards movies that's all a bunch
of heavy i would suck if they actually did
that it's a bunch of shit i hope that's that's that's a
load of rubbish that's a load of rubbish
so many people's pipelines are based on each individual
packaging at the end of the day
there's no point in you know trying to gear one specific
product to a specific industry
i mean they've got you know they've got it all pretty much
tied up you know with the ones as
they got at the moment i mean each each company uses the
different product for a different purpose
they'll develop their own in-house tools for a specific
purpose you know there's no point in
gearing one sport one towards games or one towards visual
effects if you're basically a
artist who's smack bang in the middle who will basically do
it for different industries
you just you know it's just biting your own face off to
spoil your head with some equal abstract analogy that i can
't think of right now
well maybe but you never know it's by your arm or whatever
and i it's it's i very very very very
much doubt they'll do that if if i'm proven wrong fair
enough i'll put my hand up to that but i'd
very very much doubt they'll do that i mean all of us
themselves have said that both products are
gonna you know um they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna
stay the course i mean the end of
the day i mean the entire you know Maya acquisition thing
is is it you know it was it was
kind of like an afterthought anyway as far as i understand
it from autodesk i mean autodesk's main
you know main concentration of the acquisition was
basically studio tools because they wanted
to get a better foothold in the automotive sector alias
made that so therefore they bought alias out
as the full package so therefore my just came along with it
i mean autodesks you know the they're
um the amount they spend on r&d as far as i know is and you
know the amount of income they get from
uh max and what have you is minuscule is in comparison with
uh autocad and you know automotive
stuff you know it's if anything they could they could
basically ditch max and maya and just you
know completely bend them and it wouldn't really you know
as far as i know i mean i might be you
know blowing smoke out of my ass but it it really wouldn't
make a great deal of hit to them to the
at the end of the day.
The majority of their income comes from AutoCAD.
It's the biggest selling product out there
as far as they're concerned.
So Maya was basically an afterthought,
and what they do with those at the end of the day
is entirely up to them.
I mean, I'd like to see, like,
in a milder mixture of the two,
I'd like to see Maya Fluids and Max.
Equally, I'd like to see particle flow within Maya.
So I do use Maya as well.
It's just, you know, again,
for the interim,
what I would basically like to see
is the pipeline between Max and Maya established and
strengthened
because it would make a lot of our lives easier.
It would make cross-platform studios a lot easier to work
in.
I've worked in so many places where they've got one
specific product
and they stick with one specific product.
And I'm more familiar with product X than product Y
within a certain feature.
And getting that information from that platform to that
platform
is a pain it's one of the most painful experiences you'll
ever come across in this industry
is trans translating stuff from one specific product to
another because the student studios
got that pipeline set up that way it's established you can
't change it so if they can strengthen that
if they can build on that and make that better then that's
just going to benefit all of us more
than actually you know amalgamating two products which are
equally as good into one super one
because that will take forever.
It will take, you know, it won't be in the next, like, year
.
It won't be in the next two years.
It will take God knows how long to do.
And they'll have to throw a shed load of money at it.
And both products are doing fine.
But there's no point in, like, closing one down
just for the sake of having another one around.
It's daft. It's not business sense.
You know, it's ridiculous.
But do you think they'll ever do the rewrite of the Macs?
A lot of stuff in Macs is basically script-based,
so you can amend it yourself.
I mean, basically, the core is running scripts or plugins,
and it's not necessarily the kernel that needs to be re
written.
It's maybe just a case of the scripts themselves
which bolt onto the kernel to speed certain things up,
like, for example, the viewport.
Yeah, which is probably slow.
sorry i i have a lot of problems with the viewport because
when you're doing like a
a mesh and you have mesh smooth on it or turbo smooth or
whatever like you don't even have to
have a lot of polys and it gets amazingly slow for no
reason um could be due to your viewport
settings your configuration no i've changed it from open gl
to direct 3d and it's a bug i know
because i know what causes the bug it's it's turbo smooth
even when you have it on zero
literations yeah it still goes in like really slowly yeah
it does yeah it does it does i mean
the best thing really if you do find bugs if you do find
issues report them if you report them then
they fix them but this is a if you don't if you don't
report them then they won't fix it i'm
pretty sure they know about it because it's pretty common
and i've seen people complaining about it
on forums also do do an official bug report if you do an
official bug report it will basically
get sorted out if you just you know if you just wax lyrical
on a forum then chances are it'll
either get overlooked if you do it if you do it through
official channels then it will get it
sorted out it will basically go on their bug report list to
get them you know to get solved
they do have a long list i know this for fact they do have
a long list of stuff that needs to be
attended to and they have different levels of priority you
know uh one being just standard
cosmetic stuff up to like five or you know highest priority
where it's totally unstable
but i'm pretty sure that that viewport thing would be very
high on the list because it makes
working so much harder yeah i mean it is again knowing what
certain things will have problems
which is all part of just you know general experience with
the software be it you know
max my a lot way for whatever i mean there are there are
issues with with with uh each individual
one of them in certain different areas you know it's it's
not just a case of um one's better than
the other because of you know this particular feature works
better in this one than that one
it's it's just a case of you know what you're strongest
with right i mean as far as that's
all like things like you know bug fixes and whatever you go
is they do get you know updates
i mean i think we're on uh for max eight i think it's
service pack two now for a version eight a
version 8, yeah. Wow, I haven't kept up
with that. I'm still on 7.
Yeah, I mean, they
normally do one service pack update
or one point release between
versions. They're on the second one, so they are
constantly,
it is constantly being developed. It's not
release a version and then sit around
for a bit and then start working on the next one.
It is constantly being developed.
Which is good.
I wonder how these things will work on Vista.
Couldn't tell you.
Couldn't tell you, but then again,
I've heard good and bad things about Vista anyway.
But apparently games are supposed to run a lot faster.
They're supposed to run like 30% faster.
I've heard the opposite because...
This is on DirectX 10 only.
Sorry?
They've locked it to DirectX 10 only, so you can't play.
No, actually they have compatibility with DirectX 9,
so everything should work fine.
I think there's been some issues with ActiveX as well.
I think they're ditching ActiveX and going over to .NET.
Well, that's good.
ActiveX is horrible.
That's what causes all the problems in IE.
But as far as actual plugin and script development goes,
a lot of them will have to be rewritten.
So I think a lot of them actually rely on some ActiveX
controls.
But then again, I might be talking out my backside here
because I'm not overly into scripting, to be honest.
So that might be complete crap.
But at the end of the day, it's something that obviously
they're looking into.
That'd be pretty cool when that comes out.
That'd be interesting to see.
Yeah, it's a lot of good stuff coming up with the dual
cores plus 64-bit.
Yeah, I mean, we recently purchased, I think it was a dual-
core notebook,
and that was just really, really good to see that,
to see Max working on that because it just outperformed my
HyperThreader 3.4 notebook.
It was just stupidly bloody quick.
unbelievable fast.
Does the scanline render or take
advantage of dual cores?
It works with hyperthreading.
Okay.
Mental Ray's works with
hyperthreading and dual cores.
I mean, what I basically mean
is like, yeah, it will
work twice
as fast. It never works
twice as fast. It may be like work
one and a half times as fast or 1.75
times as fast. But the good thing about
I have in dual processors or dual cores,
is that you can run other stuff in the background.
You could, for example, render it.
You could be rendering on one copy of Max
and on another copy, you know,
carry on modeling without having virtually any,
you know, any lags or anything.
That's good.
I mean, I used to do that on my old,
oh, I used to have a dual 800, I think it was.
But to do that, you have to set one core
specifically to the program,
or does it do it automatically?
Does it automatically?
Because if you render with V-Ray
and you have dual processors, you see the two
buckets, so if you
start another program, will you lose one
of those buckets?
No, you won't lose one of the buckets, no.
It's just
each one's for each processor or each
thread, depending on how
your system is set up.
I mean, mental array, for example,
that does like to use both
CPUs to both extents.
If you work from a scan line, you will most likely be able
to use another program in the background,
like, for example, like, say, Photoshop or something.
If you work from a metal writing, you're using it, it will
try and take up everything.
So it's more efficient, to my understanding, out of
personal experience.
Which renderer do you prefer the most?
We tend to use scan line the most.
Really?
Yeah. It's basically out of sheer speed.
So you don't use any GI?
Yeah, it's just that, it's just, you know, in GI space, GI
is all well and good if you need it.
There's no point in spending God knows how long setting up
some fancy GI solution if you don't physically need it.
If you can fake it with standard point lights or, you know,
Direct lights and what have you,
it is a lot easier and a lot faster to render at the end of
the day to set it up that way.
then it would be to do a GI solution
because you can be spending God knows how long
setting up your GI solution.
You can be spending ages getting the quality right,
making sure there's no flickering in the buckets,
make sure your adaptive subject vision is nice,
make sure your final gallery is correct,
make sure your photon casting is right,
and it can take absolutely ages.
Whereas if you just set it up with a standard system,
faking any light bounces, faking any color bleeds,
diffuse shallows so on and so on and so on by using the
standard kit you can get faster updates
faster renders you know and you get a really really quick
turnaround i mean there's one
as an example which i do in any lighting workshop that i
teach there's one specific thing which i
basically set rendering using light tracer for example set
that going and i literally build up
the exact same scene,
but one machine rendering out
the scanline thing,
I think it's something like
about 644, 808,
or just 600,
one of those razors.
And I basically build up
the scene from scratch,
sorry, light it from scratch,
I mean,
in another copy of Max.
And I can basically beat
the GI scene every single time.
Wow.
I can construct
the entire lighting system
so it looks identical
within the same,
you know,
within less time.
I think it gets to about halfway down before I finish
and render that, like, the sequence as opposed to one
single frame.
That's cool using the GI version for reference.
Sorry?
That's cool. I dare to use the GI version for reference.
No, that's not without using it.
You can use it as reference, obviously.
I mean, you can use it as reference. You can even bake it.
I mean, baking it down is another good idea
because if you've got a decent line situation
that you've already set up within a GI system,
you can literally bake that out using render texture,
and then use that in any animation.
I mean, it obviously renders that a hell of a lot faster.
Another idea is to, if you've got like some,
if you're using, for example, mental ray,
like your final solution,
render out, bake all that off,
or render out your sequence flat
without any motion blur or anything,
and then camera map the entire thing onto your geometry,
and then render it out afterwards
with a scanline motion blur.
but it's a lot easier, renders out a lot faster,
takes a fraction of a second.
It's just these little things that you tend to pick up over
time,
and it's just from, again, just experience with the product
.
I mean, you can't expect to know all these little nuances
and tips and tricks and everything as soon as you actually
start out.
I mean, you have to obviously accumulate these over the
years of practice.
It's like any other art form.
You can't expect to be an expert in gouache.
you know straight away you you have to you have to develop
your own style you have to develop
your skills methods and you know an ability to be able to
to um you know to paint to be honest
i have another question about rendering do you guys render
it out in passes or do you just always
always always what passes the easiest um depending on the
it depends on the job i mean you obviously
render out in layers, which is a given,
you always, always render out in layers.
But it depends on what type of scene it is.
I mean, if there's a specular, if there's
a specularity, you do a specular pass,
you do an environment pass,
diffuse pass, highlight
pass, any
ambient occlusion that we decided to use.
You know, it all depends on what
scene, what
it's like,
how many layers we've actually broken it down
into,
what the composite is like,
what the composite wants at the end of the day,
if they can create things,
and what the deadline is like.
I mean, if it's easier for us to actually tweak something
in the comp,
it's always easier to tweak something in the comp at the
end of the day.
You can spend ages tweaking a color in Max to make it look
right,
or tweak lighting in Max to make it look right,
whereas you can just render out the passes
and then bring in the combustion or flame or whatever
and then just tweak them in real time until you get it
right.
You can see the update straight away.
It's a lot, a lot easier.
But what about when you have to deal with transparencies
and refraction?
Doesn't that make things a little harder?
Yes, definitely.
And how do you get around that?
Again, it all depends on the scene.
If you can break it down, then it makes it a lot easier.
I mean, you can obviously render out certain layers.
layers you can render out environment reflections so you
can render for example the background is
one specific scene sorry one specific render any mid stuff
another layer the foreground stuff which
is obviously reflective or refractive and what you can
obviously stick this stick the the background
render out like a 360 dome of the entire environment state
that on a plate in the background
and then just make it invisible to camera so it's visible
to reflection and invisible to camera
It doesn't render out in the past, but it's actually
reflected in the objects.
Oh, okay.
So again, it renders it out really, really fast.
You only like refracting or reflecting either a dome or a
hemisphere or a flat plane
as opposed to every single object in the scene, which
obviously takes a lot longer.
It's just little things that you know that you accumulate
over time.
That's pretty cool.
I want to try and render out my next
short in pass is because I never did that
in the future
the pass I just did it direct
for the render and that takes ages
I mean I always
go back to one of my friends
Alan Marks where he worked on
Lost in Space
and there's
so many layers on for example
the opening space battle in that
if the director
if they rendered that in one single pass
for each frame it would have taken hours and if they just
wanted to show you the star field
slightly they'd have to render out every single thing so i
kind of took that on board and you
know every single if you could if you can break it into
layers do it because you can always color
correct and tweak layers and you know slightly you know
fake depth of field and whatever you
ever you can do all of that in the comp as opposed to doing
it within the 3d software because it
takes so long to actually render that stuff like depth of
field to make it look nice okay but there
must be some difficulties in the composition after it can't
be that perfect um in what way
what do you mean i mean there has to be something that
gives trouble or is it um there is there are
there are certain issues which you do have to you know try
and get around or paint out or whatever
you're trying to do a transition from one to the next um
specifically shots like for example if
you're uh you're tracking back or tracking forward and you
've got multiple layers that way then you
do have to work out a lot of uh you have to work out a lot
of match shots so for say for example
your entire scene is volumetric you've got for example
smoke and fire and everything going all
over it's all dust and debris lying around and you're
basically tracking back and then you've got
that you have multiple layers of the bat that you have to
comp in and you've also all like one great
big layer that you have to comp in within
multiple layers that you need to drop
in distances from camera.
That can be a pain in the back side to do.
But that's when you get really, really
good compositors on board
to actually work on shots.
Really, really tricky.
So why are you paying them good money?
That sounds pretty cool.
I will definitely check out Passes
because I wasn't really...
It is advisable.
It does save you time in the long run because
you can as opposed to having to go back into max or maya or
lightwave or whatever and re-render it
an entire scene just because one thing is slightly out i
mean there was there was one instance on the
um the show that we that we worked on i basically had i
rendered out um this background layer
of this massive planet in multiple layers and might be
multiple patterns uh for um different
diffuse passes and inflation passes and so on and
unfortunately on one particular layer i forgot to
turn off a proxy version of the space station so when i p
anned across i had this entire space
station whipping past oh no crap we're gonna have to re-
render it no but then i could just literally
just drop into combustion and just paint a mask in and just
animate a mask going back and forth
in front of frame just to occlude this um this proxy space
station render so i didn't have to go
I could fix it in about two minutes
as opposed to re-rendering the entire thing out,
which would have taken about another day.
Wow, that's cool.
So it's very, very forgiving.
You can fix things.
You can solve problems that it would take you a lot.
It may take you like five seconds to actually fix it in max
,
either by flipping on the setting or flipping off the
setting or whatever.
But then you've got to render the entire thing out.
And if you're rendering it has to say hi, Def,
you can wave goodbye to the weekends,
shoot you know but combustion is the program that's usually
used for uh compositing but how
does after effects stand up oh the the again it's it's it's
the same argument with max and maya
oh really you know it's it's horses for courses if you want
to use after effects use after effects
if you want to use combustion use combustion personally i
prefer working with combustion
basically because of the the part line between combustion
and max i can literally have combustion
doing one window art and max another one i can paint
textures in real time on my models for one
study can you explain a bit more how combustion works with
max like i'm really interested in that
um basically what you can do when you actually render
something out from max you can actually
export combustion workspace which will literally break your
entire render down into its composite
elements
like composite passes
like for example specular pass, diffusion pass
speed velocities
every single aspect if you want it
you turn on various aspects and turn off various other ones
on the flip side you can bring in a combustion map
into a material or a texture
and you can update or paint
the map in real time in combustion
and see it automatically update straight away
without having to save or anything
you just literally just doodle
for example in combustion
and you can see it occurring straight away
in your max viewport
so it's pretty cool in combustion
one window in max up in another one
you can actually rotate your viewport around in max
and then just paint away
in combustion
reposition in max
it does make life
easier when you
when you're painting stuff that way.
Obviously, you don't have the full range of painting tools
like you would do, for example, in Photoshop,
but I think CRAS, I think it was called Ghost Painter,
released a plugin which allows you to do that.
Awesome.
Just something I'd be yet to have a look at, unfortunately.
I have another question about passes.
Is there a way to make it easier to run out of passes
or do you have to set up each pass itself or is it
automated?
You can basically...
My computer's just starting to wear a red light, 1950 for
some reason.
I don't know why.
I think it's done with a Skype chat for some reason.
If I suddenly go offline, it's because my computer's blown
up.
I'm going to tell you.
So, the question was, can you actually automate the actual
pass setup?
Yes, you can.
When you basically decide to export render elements,
you can just specify which ones you want to output.
You can output all of them or just a few.
It's entirely up to you which ones you want to spit out.
Okay, so it's not that hard to do passes.
No, no, no.
It just does a single full scan in the renderer
and then just spits it all up into its composite bits
and then just spits them all out straight away.
Okay.
It doesn't have to keep going through.
If you want five elements outputting,
like a diffuse, shadow, specular, reflection, ambient occ
lusion,
you don't have to go through it five times
it basically just renders it once
and then just outputs each one
to separate files
ok that's cool
for some reason I thought that you had to
set up each scene file
no no no
not for those but if you're doing it for layers
then you'll have to set up
you'll have to set up each scene
ok
for example if you're rendering out your background
then your midground then your foreground
and then your close proximity stuff,
then yes, you will basically have to hide or unhide stuff.
The best way to do that is to do it in layers.
Okay.
The layers feature.
Some people love it, some people hate it.
Personally, I like it.
Do I?
Because it does allow you that luxury
of being able to just set up your scene ahead of time,
work out exactly what stuff's going to be in the background
,
what stuff's going to be in the foreground,
what stuff you need to hide at a certain instance,
what stuff you don't need to hide.
Same with name selections.
You can actually tell exactly what stuff
by using correct numbering and naming conventions.
You can obviously split everything up
into separate layers or separate names
so you know, okay, that's the mid-ground stuff,
that's the foreground stuff.
I don't need to see those for the background.
So you can just hide those straight away
and just render out the background pass
and vice versa and so on and so on.
So it does make life easier
so you're not having to hunt through
an entire slab by name
to actually hide off certain things that you might not have
numbered or named correctly okay
i mean they have numbered or named correctly you're a dork
there's no box one box two box three
if i ever see any work like that people would get shouted
at i i hate by i hate that i really
really do it's just it's if you're working in a team
environment if you're working in a you know
if you're passing your work, say for example
you're basically
you're working on levels
or props
you don't want to
pass all your stuff across to somebody
who's actually building the scene up
and then call everything like
box 1, box 2, box 3 because they will
literally start throwing pens at you
because it's just horrible to work with
it's in the materials
map 1, map 2, map 3, noise map 1
noise map 2, oh god no
it's horrible
it really is terrible to work with
because that person has not sat with you
when you've been developing it.
It's like coding
where you leave your thought process.
Yeah, exactly.
If you don't comment your code,
you don't know what the hell's going on.
It's the same thing with your materials.
If you don't comment your materials
by calling them exactly
what they're supposed to be called,
then how's the next person
going to know exactly what to deal with
unless they actually try
and break your scene apart
and try and find out how it ticks?
Do you reuse a lot of your materials?
Like in one scene you save them and then you reuse them?
Yeah, yeah.
Obviously, you know, there are certain...
I don't save them out to libraries as such,
but I know...
I wouldn't say instinctively,
but I'll have a good idea of exactly where a specific
material type
or similar to the one I want to produce is a base material
that I can actually play around with to get certain such,
you know,
scene looking rather safe.
For example, I did one that's got a pearlescent material
about a year or two ago.
I know it's in a certain sort of steam.
If I wanted to convert that to an iridescent one,
all I need to do is just tweak a certain sort of setting,
and it just saves me a bit of time later on down the line.
So I've got a decent metal shader that I've set up in Scene
X.
I'll just need to bring that particular material in,
tweak the maps, tweak the specularity,
tweak this, tweak that,
as opposed to going all the way back to R&D
in it. Do you also do
the same thing
with models?
Not
really. It all depends on, I mean,
I've obviously got a model library the length
of my arm.
I've been doing this
as long as I have. I've obviously, you know,
anything that I've done in the past, I've still
got from, you know, my
first ever work that I've ever done.
to like the stuff i've done you know yesterday um i've
still got so it's a case of if if i can
reuse it obviously i'll reuse it it's but it depends on
whether or not if i can if the client
wants it to be totally 110 bespoke if they want it totally
bespoke fine they'll get it bespoke
you know it's if if uh if they know that we can actually um
build on an existing model then fine
I don't know if we can do that and great um it also depends
on whether or not the previous client
the client that you know who actually paid for the work in
the first place say for example you
do the job like two years ago that you got paid for uh you
built a I don't know a car for example
like uh I don't know um an Aston Martin off the top of my
head you built an Aston Martin two years
ago um now you've basically been commissioned by another
client to have a latest version of an
and say for example going from you'd modeled out a vanquish
two years ago and they want a db9 now
you could basically tweak the vanquish model to look like a
db9 but would you get in trouble with
that other client because you're basically basing your work
on prior assets that you that the other
client has actually paid for yeah i see so chances are that
you will have to recreate it from such
you have to get permission to use these because if they
basically start they come around the circuit
we want to look at the assets from that model to that model
you're basically screwed you need to
you need to make sure that you're not getting yourself into
legal issues by you know having
to recreate sorry via using old assets that have been paid
for or bought for i mean you know by um
an additional client you can't do that you simply can't do
that yeah this is a good point i never
thought of that it's always a legal issue it's always you
know you you base your model on some
uh on something you've seen in the film you say for example
you model out a sentinel sentinel
from the matrix or you model out a terminator you're you're
going on legal issues but if you
model out the terminator won't that automatically belong to
fox uh again whole legal ballpark that
I don't really want to go into.
Well, we recorded like one hour and ten minutes,
and I think that this should be the end of the show.
But still, if you want to come again another time,
another episode, you're always welcome.
Groovy.
Yeah, sure.
Simon and Chris, you guys still alive?
Yeah, man.
Thank you, Ted, now.
And the fellow asleep with Ben, I don't know.
I just wasted my copy of the Aston Martin.
We're actually, yeah, the reason that's the minus,
kind of the forefront of the minus,
because we're actually filming with one next Friday, I
think.
So that'll be nice.
You haven't got three in the garage?
No.
Did you hear that?
Are you going to pool?
You got a pool?
No, no, I'm not.
Simon's the guy with the heated pool.
Right.
It's a heated pool also, man.
And a helicopter.
It's just showing off.
That's just showing off.
I'm sorry, but like,
That's just like, you're just waving the proverbial carrot.
Terrible, isn't it? Terrible.
Say that.
Hello, I'm a 3D artist and I've got a pool.
What? No, you're not allowed to have a pool.
You're supposed to live in Squalor, for crap's sakes.
Yeah, Simon's also studying.
It's even worse.
He's a studying 3D artist.
He lives with his mum.
That you live with his mum.
Got a pool.
Hey, Simon, has your mum got a sister?
She's the...
No, no, no.
Disclaimer.
He said that, not me.
Just in case anybody gets confused there.
That was Peter.
Damn it.
It was not.
Bloody liabilities.
Right.
I'll get my bloody balls on you.
Ouch.
Ouch, yeah.
I'd like to thank you guys.
It was very interesting to listen.
Ah, Chris.
All this brilliant advice.
And lots of claptrap in the middle.
Yeah, always claptrap.
So, Oli, you'll be editing your arse off tonight?
I think you'll have to.
I'm not sure because I still have to do my homework.
But this show is for next week.
Oh, you've got a week, man.
Yeah.
If I come home early on Wednesday, I'll try and edit it.
Cool.
Bring us through a copy so we can all say,
no, take this bit out for the love of God before you submit
it.
No, it's a crap.
I think all the acid and beer references might have to come
out or something.
No, I think it makes the show more, those references,
yeah, it makes it more into, gives it more personality.
It makes it richer.
It makes it richer because he sent you a blackmail note
with an MP3.
He says, oh, if you guys don't give me a million bucks,
then I'm going to put this on the web.
You might have a long way.
Might have a long way outside out right now.
Oh, you're saving up for your pool, aren't you, Peter?
Hey, we're peanuts right now, mate.
Of course.
We shall.
Okay, I'm going to stop recording now, so everybody say bye
-bye.
Bye-bye.
Goodbye.
