Meet <RedWolf, Lijie> new VFX talent from PR China game industry
Cebas: Hello, Red Wolf, please introduce yourself. Your real name and something about yourself, your career path, training and current projects.
Red Wolf: Greetings to everyone! I am a VFX artist from the People's Republic of China. My name is Lijie. My nickname is Red Wolf. I began my vfx career in 2011 and I am loving it. I did not start with any related training. Everything I know are self-taught due to my interests in doing effects. But my hard work and curiosity paid off, and I was offered vfx employment with three companies along the way. The most recent company was a major publisher for my local market and I was their Technical Director for vfx production. I am now better known in my market so I can work as a freelancer doing anything from animation, CG games, film, and movie vfx. But mostly, I specialize in game cinematics visual effects. And I am better at creating solid and fluid bodies, so this has become my focus now. This is my more current demo reel: http://goo.gl/krdMvQ (see above)
Cebas: can you show us some of your more recent projects, Red Wolf? And give us a bit of insights into what your role is? Any favourite themes?
Red Wolf: I recently had a project called 'X Heroe' for a company specializing in game commercial and marketing. Here are the links to some of my game cinematics vfx with thinkingParticles - see below. They were completed at the end of 2015. And there was also the 'Romance of the Swordsman 3'. Again, here I attach the reel in Youku. As well as the game cinematics for 'Ghost Lover 2'.
I have created different styles of VFX but I still enjoy the themes of the swordsmen era and sci-fi. Here are more of my game FX showing Thinking Particles:
Please see http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTI4MzUzNDg0OA==.html (ghost lover 2)
v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTM5MDUxODE2NA==.html (X heroes)
v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTM4OTkzMDc0OA==.html (romance of the swordsman 3)
XHeroes game FX with TP - above
game cinematics with tP - romance of the swordsman (above)
game cinematics with TP - tyrant of western Chu
Cebas: Please elaborate more on how vfx artists like yourself work in your country? Are artists mostly on freelance? Do you do remote work?
Red Wolf: Personally, I am mostly on freelance but seldom on remote work.
Cebas: what are your most useful CG tools / software? Do you find any major difference between 3dsMax and Maya?
Red Wolf: The general ones like 3ds Max, thinkingParticles, Maya, Houdini, Realflow are software that I use all the time. Both Max and Maya have their plus points. I like Max Editor the most and the Maya Embedded Language. But based on VFX, I would say I prefer Max due to the more extensive support and plugins available. I also found Max easier to learn. Maya is used as the main platform for many local companies. So how it works is which software to use will ultimately depend on what special effects is needed.
Cebas: Could you tell us how thinkingParticles was used for the cinematics, 'Ghost Lover 2 – Dunhuang chapter'?
Red Wolf: The production of game cinematics, 'Ghost Lover 2 - Dunhuang chapter' (here is the game cinematics reel link http://goo.gl/hLZI0N), was created by me in 2013 as an online game cinematics. I was involved in every sequence of the vfx shots. I used thinkingParticles for the cinematic's solid body and particle system. The fact that Thinking Particles and fumeFX work so well together in creating shattering effects, debris were a great help. This project also has some very large polygon counts but thinkingParticles could handle it, and was not affected by bugs coming through the difficulties in modelling so it was a huge success and went through the pipeline without much trouble. What I found was that TP was able to export the vfx files in FBX, XMESH, or ABC and be imported into Maya without the slightest of issues.
Cebas: what about this vfx project? Can you please elaborate on your role and the concept?
Red Wolf: The 'western chu' game is also done by me. The full name of the game is 'Tyrant of Western Chu' (see http://goo.gl/ZtFIyz The making of,.. see video below). It was also created in 2013. In this production, I had a minor VFX role, dealing with the monsters coming out of the ground. Thinking Particles gave our team what we wanted for effects. The Fragment node did it all. You can see the monster on Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/157002138. It was awesome fun!
goo.gl/ZtFIyz / Vimeo 157002138
Cebas: Red Wolf, what are some of the most useful operators, helpers, parameters in thinkingParticles that worked for your creative vfx work?
Red Wolf: I find the SC (shapeCollision) Operator especially helpful in my vfx work. It's reliable, and works amazing with volumeBreaker and the Fragment node in helping me create endless effects.
Cebas: Do you have a lot of highly qualified VFX artists in China? What does it takes to rise up to a leading position in the VFX job market of China?
Red Wolf: There isn't a lot of VFX talents in China. This is due to a lack of training as well as lack of vfx projects in the current market. In China, there are very limited professional training in VFX. So, most of us are self-taught. The other reason is there is lack of professional networking among vfx artists therefore, without the contact and social support, there is also limited accumulation of experience or the sharing of technology and knowledge in VFX. In order to stand out as a VFX expert in my country, I would need prolong periods of intense self-training, a lot of hard work and a lot of self-marketing to win projects to do, and gain experience. It's tough for me. I 'm always seeking freelance work.
Cebas: are there many awesome thinkingParticles users in China?
Red Wolf: there are several facets to this question. Myself, I love using TP but here in my country, there is very few opportunities for anyone to come into contact with thinkingParticles. Moreover, it takes time and effort to learn and without an expert to teach, few will get into it. The other thing is that Cebas is not in the market in a major way. Although several producers have had great things to say about the software, their project proposal has to be accepted at the higher management levels therefore there has to be more Max-based visual effects studio or agencies supporting locally in order to create successful proposals. It is a challenge to expand in the country.
Cebas: Can you say more about the training market in China?
Red Wolf: Thinking Particles does not have a lot of users yet in China. Relatively then, there is also fewer training opportunities. While there are some schools that have incorporated TP in their curriculum, I feel their quality needs further improvement.
Cebas: hmmm.... we heard the same challenges from our resellers in China and we wonder what are some of the more recognized art schools with some form of VFX training? And which cities are they in? Did you ever try learning by remote / online from the west?
Red Wolf: I think it must be www.hxsd.com in terms of offering some meaningful animation multimedia training. Most of my colleagues graduated from there. They are headquartered in Beijing but has branches all over the country. Personally, I had no chance to attend such awesome training. Most of my own training was via video training. So, I have no experience in formal vfx training in China. My team mates does not have much vfx knowledge either and that makes it at times difficult for me to amass much work experience in a faster way.
Cebas: yes, Cebas is working on bringing more coaches for thinkingParticles to China. It takes time and we are working on it. Let's continue with some anecdotal stories from your work place!
Red Wolf: Well, this is brand new, coming soon. A swordsmen game cinematics in the making and I am very happy to be part of it. I will showcase the TP work in here once it's completed and ready for release. Some snapshots for the time-being as shown on the still images above and the demo link on Youku (Romance of the Swordsman 3).
Cebas: Yes, tell us more about your vfx projects in China!
Red Wolf: okay, over here, is another vfx scene for my recent project: X Heroes. See the reel. http://goo.gl/iw77kf (the vfx stills are posted above). The cinematics project completed at the end of 2015. As you can see, lots of earth-shattering destruction. When I first got into this, it was a huge challenge to me. The vfx scenes were like 6 minutes long – which is consider super long for a game cinematic. It was more than 200 frames to create. The 3d environment setting was one of battleground in a modern day metropolis. The skies were suppose to be blizzardry with snow flakes. We had to create and a amazing amount of vfx shots within very tight deadlines. It was crazy. So, we turn to thinkingParticles, I create the shots as quickly as I can; submit it up for approval and once approved, the team (that did not know TP) could re-use the source files to create other related vfx shots. This important step greatly shortened our turnaround time by a lot, in order to make those gruelling deadlines.
Here you see an emphasis on a brilliant shot of laser, with thinkingParticles, I created some simple tools which assisted my Lead VFX Artist to complete the scene. Although, the tool was very rugged and not sophisticated but it worked and helped in actual vfx production, which was a huge bonus for us.
Red Wolf: in this one, I had to make a lot of fragmentation bursting at the background of the scene. Again, TP solid bodies dynamics was very quick in helping me resolve this. In the process, we also created a number of blackBoxes which helped our production team as a major resource for other similar type vfx.
Cebas is glad to have talent hunt and got to know about Lijie 'Red Wolf' VFX work with thinkingParticles. A big Thank You for the interview despite the odds.
Hope to see more awesome vfx projects, maybe more East-West collaboration!
Cebas invites more new talents and professionals from China's VFX / art and visual scene learning/using thinkingParticles to connect with Cebas and
share their VFX achievements.