tizzdogg

The parent poster is correct though. "Disengagement rate" is the term used in the industry, and what would get you results in google searches. "Disconnect rate" is not what it's called, so it's helpful to correct that.

If all 261 unfoldings tile space, it makes me wonder if all arbitrary collections of 8 connected cubes do as well.

Is there an example of 8 cubes that are proven to not tile space?

“ Their content is so profitable that the people in charge don't really give a fuck.”

Sorry but that’s completely wrong. Almost every animation or vfx studio is barely scraping by. Margins have been reduced so much for film work it’s extremely difficult to turn a profit, which is why so much work is outsourced overseas these days. The reason software isn’t better is because they barely have the resources to improve it.

Everyone’s aware of newer tools, but things like unreal still arnt as good as traditional non-realtime pipelines in terms of flexibility and scalability.

The expression is "jump through hoops". Sorry to nitpick.

Note also the picture of her at the top of the page.

One of San Francisco's problems, from the perspective of being appealing to outsiders, is that there are a few small areas with lots of homeless and the other problems you describe. And those also happen to be the main areas visited by tourists, and people coming to the city for conferences: Civic Center, Tenderloin, Downtown, South of Market. But the vast majority of the city is more residential and much more livable. Of course it has the problems of any big city, but in my day to day life living here I manage to almost always avoid all of the problems you mention. I live on a tree-lined street a couple blocks from a park with a playground. I havnt been to fishermans wharf in basically my entire life. Locals just dont go there because we know its a terrible tourist trap. It actually can be a very pleasant city with a lot to offer. There is a reason housing in SF is so desirable and why tech companies want to be located there. I wish it could be made more obviously appealing to the casual tourist though, because we're giving ourselves a bad rep.

I think a better analogy are all the assistants and apprentices that worked in the larger Renaissance studios. They produced work in the style of the masters, or duplicated their works, but they weren't doing original work, and are mostly forgotten today. Are they doing art? Or are they just craftsmen? I dint think it's about patronage.. most professional artists today have some form of patronage. I think it's a distinction between how much freedom that patronage gives you to do what you want vs realize someone else's vision.

The digital artists at big studios that he's talking about are micromanaged precisely like this. I think concept artists maybe have more freedom for creativity, but the majority of artists in animation and film graphics are constantly being told to make shades lighter and change shapes arbitrarily. A lot of the job is learning how to be flexible to appease those who are in charge.

Good luck getting a job at Pixar or WDAS without doing a lot of contract work at smaller studios to build up your reel first.

I am a visual effects animator at one of the major VFX studios, and did not go to art school so I am one of these self-taught graphic artists. And I totally agree with what you're saying here. I don't consider what I do to be art. It is highly-skilled craft with a lot of specialized technique. But I am not personally creating meaning in any way. The filmmakers and directors who bring us projects might be artists, but I am just a cog in a large machine which produces their vision. I also work with many people who did go to art school and I can say that in general they have a better understanding of fundamentals like color theory and composition than those who did not. Also often a better approach to tackling creative problems. I frequently find myself wishing I'd hard those years of formal instruction.. It would make some things a lot easier.

I wondered about the same thing. Weird it's not remarked on more in the article.

Again, I would wager that you have seen many, many shots on TV and in movies which were fully, 100% CG already. You just didn't notice because they really were indistinguishable. We've definitely already crossed that boundary in many areas, and the main things which still stand out is just bad work.