CG Garage

We sit down with Boris Simandoff, a great developer and product manager of V-Ray Cloud and V-Ray App SDK. Since the issue of Cloud is still a bit foggy to some, we get Boris to break this down and help us understand it. From understanding what a virtual machine is, how do you pay for your time on the cloud, the cost of compute vs. storage, and, more importantly, the security of your data, Boris helps us understand it all and gives us a glimpse into our upcoming Guide to Cloud.

Corey Rubadue and Chris Nichols talk to Dominic Albanese about the diverse and creative world of 3D scanning. From architecture, VFX, Art (both in preservation and creation), to medical; 3D scanning is a very diverse field, and Direct Dimensions has been in this field for nearly 20 years.

Eric Barba sits down with Christopher Nichols and Stephen Parker to discuss his career that ultimately led him to his new position as Creative Director at ILM in Vancouver. We discuss his background at Art Center in transportation design, his nearly 20 years at Digital Domain, which included a longtime creative partnership with David Fincher and Joe Konsinksi, and an Oscar for his work on The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons.

While hanging out in Sofia, Chris decided sit down with Vlado to talk about what Chaos Group has been up to. Since we just released the VRscans service, we figured it was a good time to talk about it. We also talk about what is coming soon in the new service pack for V-Ray for Maya, as well as a host of other subjects including VR, realtime, and a video game he created in high school.

Corey Rubadue and Christopher Nichols talk to Shane Scranton about the work of VR in Architecture design. We talk about the work that is being done at IrisVR, a company that he help co-found. We also discuss how VR will change the design process and that different flavors of VR serve different needs of the design and presentation process.

Starting a new CG Garage series, Dan Thron and Christopher Nichols discuss movies. We start with an in depth look at the Star Wars saga. We discuss why we each think that Empire is the best of all present 7 movies. Daniel also tells us his version of that Episode 6 should have been and why they have been trying to correct from their "mistake" ever since. We hope to do many more of these.

Curious as to what goes on in our Baltimore office? We talk to Brian Russell, Fernando Rentas, and Ted Vitale about the many ways that V-Ray has helped the design market: from Architecture design, building information modeling (BIM), industrial and product design, and more.

We chat with Hristo Velev and Martin Naydenski from Bottleship VFX about theyir company based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Coming with a history of visual effects work, they founded the company with an expertise in FX work. They have a strong understanding of fluid dynamics which we discuss along with starting a small VFX company in Eastern Europe.

Joy and Devon are both environment artists and designers that work in the gaming industry. We talk to them about the challenges and rewards of that area of CG. We also talk about THU, being a student at Gnomon, Devon's recent Gnomon video, the challenges of being a woman in games, both as an artist as well as a gamer, as well as balancing and complimenting each others work as a couple.

Brandon Davis stops by the CG Garage to talk about his very diverse careers. Having worked in CG for nearly two decades, he also happened to be part of Special Forces in the United States Army at the same times that he was making visual effects. Having worked at major facilities like Digital Domain and Weta, he has worked on Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow, The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Godzilla, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and much much more.