When the M3DS Academy (where i finished my academical year for 3D) announced month earlier, that they will be the hosts of the first ever M3Conference held at the Youth Cultural Center in Skopje, Macedonia from 22nd till 24th of March, i knew my weekend was booked because it was too good to miss it!
During those three days a group of people were brought together, group of some of the best people in the Gaming and Filming industry, speaking of the Digital Arts.
Heap of meetings, screenings, demo presentations and exhibits were excellent opportunity for both personal and professional growth, served by distinguished guests of the fields of 3D animation, Gaming, VFX, Computer graphics, VR and AR who are merging digital and real life.
The M3-Con was opened by Erik Smitt, the Director of Photography at Pixar. His speech was mouth-dropping once he entered the little details of Incredibles 2, of how light is used for drama and emotion, with great effect! One of the most important people from Pixar who did one of the most favorite animated movies of mine was in front of me speaking about the camera angle & it’s importance, the scene and composition as whole…which as he said sometimes was changed in the last moments. All those little secrets that happen behind the scenes that normal person doesn’t get to see, that make their films so good, was just brilliant to hear.
When i thought the best for Day 1 has past, then came Goran Kocov who is the Lead Layout artist at Lucasfilm ltd. If you didn’t knew, founded by the great George Lucas in 1971, Lucasfilm is among the world’s leading service companies, pioneers in visual effects and sound and the home of Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. Goran Kocov went on to do a complete breakdown of highly complex movie scenes and how the most normal things inspired them to make something so unique and great, and it was really inspiring.
The second day began with Misho Ristov who is Pipeline R&D at Cylindo. Listening him speaking with his vast knowledge on VFX onset & photography learned lot more about the capturing data!
He was followed by the great The Micho, a real guru and an advanced illustrator at Lynx Animations which i am very sorry that i couldn’t attend and missed it. As little tribute to him, click on his name and checkout the masterpieces of art that he does!
Luckily i got back on time and didn’t miss Nikola Damjanov first speech. He was about to have another two on the very next and last day. All-together Nikola Damjanov is probably, one the best texture artist there is. He has created over thousands of ready texture maps for artists like me to use, for which we (the CG/3D artists) will be always grateful. He did a breakdown of their Unite demo working as Lead Game Artist (Substance Designer) at Nordeus. It was really great to hear about his experiences and techniques while working on with big group of people from remote places.
Third speaker for the day was Jesse Cornwell, Director of Training at Dreamworks Animations. It was really a pleasure to listen & learn from him about his very valuable practices, career choices and how neurosplaticity actually works. I certainly won’t forget the two very creative and simple tests he did on us, the audience, to prove two very important things.
Last but not least for the day we had Joshua Beveridge, the Lead Animator at Sony-Picture Imageworks. He carried us behind the scenes of the oscar winner for best animated movie Spiderman: Into the spider verse. He took us through the film’s electic and ambitions constantly shifting visuals which range from deliberately cartoony to abstract and psychedelic and what drove those decisions and creativity choices they made and how that resulted in unique and thrilling cartoon looking animated movie that looked so gorgeous, which is very likely that it will inspire a whole new generation of animators!
The third day, after the double speech of Nikola Damjanov, we saw the penultimate speaker step on the stage and take the mic. For the next three hours we were genuinely entertained by the super-cool award winning and VFX supervisor Hugo Guerra, who previously worked at The Mill, now CEO of his own company Hugo’s Desk while on the side is doing very much admired & appreciated tutorials for NUKE – exactly what his presentation looked alike. Speaking about his experiences and having equal passion in the filming industry between movies, commercials and games almost as if he led a double life being involved in multiple roles (point where i recognized myself) his presentation was full of humor yet super valuable. He looked like a man doing what he really loves. Isn’t what we are all looking for? He was really inspiring before he went into the real tricky stuff of their work on the cinematics of Warhammer Vermintide 2 that hardly anyone understood, which is why he left us all in awe.
The last speaker was Ran Manolov, character artist and VFX Supervisor ad WWFX
He came in quietly and left quietly, although his work was not quiet the least. His level of details was, nothing short of stunning! He has created the draperry of Da Vinci , in his own words “while being on pause while at work, for fun” what some would need months proably he did in matter of minutes. That’s how good he is. As he went on we realized it was the man who created the stunning reptile in the latest Jurassic Park movie, sitting in front of us. Ran struck me as someone very calm, very quiet and patient person, who works something that often tests those characteristics! It seems like he never failed. We all learned a lot from him.
All in all it was a priceless weekend for which i am really glad that i was part of. I felt honored and privileged to be right there sitting in the same room with these honored and distinguished guests, best of the best in what they do, working for some of the biggest gaming and filming companies in it’s respective industries. People who 99% of the cases either worked with someone or directly on games, game cinematics and trailers, commercials and movies that we have all seen somewhere sometimes. People who were part of my favorite movies while i was growing up. Listening to them talk about their dream jobs and how they got there, the experience along the path each of them had, in all differences they all had one thing in common – passion for what they do.
Having said all of that, you will understand why i was really proud when on my surprise the M3DS Academy, which was the host of this whole event, has shown one of my works among one of the best 10/15 things that came out of the academy in the past 4 years, in front of everyone. To add, among over 300 students and probably over another 3000 models to chose from, it really meant a lot.
Priceless experience. Till next time…