DavePreciado.com
Oct 12
by Dave in Work 0 comments tags: animation, Batman, cg, DC, film, JusticeLeague, mocap, MotionEdit, VFX, WonderWoman

Justice League trailer @justiceleaguewb @GalGadot @BenAffleck @PrideofGypsies #Film #VFX #Mocap

I worked on this one for a couple months.  Lots and lots of battles!  Looks like it will be a fun one 😉 #JusticeLeague #DC #Film #Mocap #MotionEdit #Animation #VFX #CG #3D #Batman #WonderWoman
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Apr 30
by Dave in Uncategorized 0 comments tags: animation, art institute, art school, Battle of the Five Armies, cg, film, Giant, maya, motion capture, Motionbuilder, movie, new zealand, Nuance, Peter Jackson, technical animation, The Hobbit, VFX, virtual production

An old interview from my 1st Art School I attended…19 years ago…

Dave Preciado Q&A: “Hobbit” Motion Editor By: Rachel Handel Filed under: Animation & Effects December 16, 2014 Share This: The Art institutes: What work did you do on The Hobbit Films? What are the steps involved? Dave: I worked on the last two Hobbit films – “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” (THB2) and “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (THB3). “For THB2, I was on the for the entire post duration of the film, roughly 6 months, and the same on THB3. I’ve worked as a motion editor—basically an animator/technical animator who works with performance capture data, using Giant Studio’s motion editing software called Nuance instead of Maya—on both films. On [THB2] I did get to work on stage with the director, Peter Jackson, during the final month of shooting virtual cameras. Motion edit and animation are essentially the same thing when it comes to working with mocap (motion capture) data, so we work most closely with the animation department. Both animation and motion edit fall under the “Motion” department at Weta Digital. As a motion editor, I do a variety of jobs on the film. I clean up motion capture data, solve the performers data onto […]
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Jul 06
by Dave in CG, Film Maker 0 comments tags: 3d, animation, BFG, cg, Disney, film, mocap, motion capture, Motion Edit, Steven Spielberg, technical animation, TheBFG, VFX, Weta Digital

The BFG

It’s been a while since my last post due to an immense amount of work that has fallen into my lap these past few months, including an epic battle between me and the dark corners of the internet. After finishing up the the Gallipoli project for Peter Jackson, ANZ, and the New Zealand Government (http://www.wellingtonnz.com/discover/things-to-do/events/the-great-war-exhibition/) I went back to work for Weta Digital on Steven Spielberg’s feature film:  The Big Friendly Giant (The BFG by Roald Dahl). I’ve worked on many great projects in my career, but The BFG was the absolute most fun film I’ve ever done.  I had a lot of artistic freedom on this show, and much of my work on body animation was left untouched and sent straight to Final Motion.  You’ll find much of my work were close ups on BFG’s hands – a fully animated shot of BFG placing labels inside a chest – animated, not simmed – by me 😉 and perhaps a tight shot of BFG closing/locking a dream in a jar.  Hands are tough, but seemed to be my speciality on this show. There are few films the come along every generation that define a persons childhood – I think The BFG […]
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Nov 13
by Dave in CG 0 comments tags: animation, cg, Compositing, Massey, maya, mocap, motion builder, motion capture, music, music video, new zealand, nuke, NZ, Pacific Heights, VFX, virtual production

Pacific Heights – Airborne

Here it is!  I’ve been working on this in my spare time since the beginning of May 2015.  Working on a feature film while doing a music video…oy!  We finished a week ago and it premiered today, Friday November 13th! I’ll post a more thorough update soon – stay tuned!  
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Jul 07
by Dave in CG 0 comments tags: 3d, animation, cg, Disney, keyframe, practice, reference, Tangled

Mike vs the Zombies – Tangled reference animation test

Been ages since I’ve done any keyframe animation. Brushing out the cob webs – using a scene from Tangled as reference for some animation practice. Start to finish this was about a 1 1/2 weeks of full time work broken up over 2 months while I was at my day job. Used the Mike free rig on CreativeCrash and the free Maya World Zombination Character Rig by Proletariat Inc.. Looking at reference is something animators have been doing since the 9 Old Men days – Disney’s Snow White is a perfect example.  What I do in the performance capture world is no different.  We look at reference footage of what the actor did, and make our timing and pose adjustments accordingly.   Keeping close eye on arcs, pops, etc – no different than adjusting your base layer animation. For this keyframe example, I took the Tangled reference and got my key poses down first.  Adjusted keys in the graph editor for timing, then did all the in between fixes so I got cleaner arcs.  This isn’t perfect, but for not doing any pure keyframe in several years it’s not too bad.
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May 17
by Dave in CG 0 comments tags: 3d, 3Delight, cg, HDR, HDR shop, IBL, maya, panoramic, VFX

New light probe **Updated**

Here’s my new light probe for on set light ref.  I ordered a 10″ gazing globe from Amazon.  With shipping, the cost was about $80NZD.  I went down to a place in town called Metalworx to have the ball drilled and threaded.  Everything was custom milled.  I had them make a removable dowel as well.  A custom spud handle locks onto the dowel with a screw and can easily be removed and clamped onto a c-stand or a tripod or inserted into a long piece of pipe.  This custom milling cost around $230NZD but is well worth it.   This seemed to be the most robust way to shoot light probes on set.  You can have someone stand behind the ball and shoot your brackets, rotate 90 degrees and bracket again.  If you have more time, then obviously you can set up a c-stand and shoot your 10-12 exposures for a complete and ideal HDR light probe.   Optically, the 10″ ball isn’t the greatest.  There are some bumps on the surface and the weld between the 2 hemispheres is visible, but through the camera is on the edge of the ball.  I snapped a few photos of it and […]
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Feb 10
by Dave in Get Out 0 comments tags: 3d, animation, cg, character, dog, maya, mudbox, sculpt, turntable

Mugs model, UVsets, & sculpt

Once I had Mugs’ design finalized, he was ready to model in Maya.  Using image planes for my model reference, I was able to shape my character to look exactly like my design.  I started with a low poly version, and used this as my base for everything.  At this stage if was easiest to lay out the UV’s.    I’m not using ptex just yet as some applications I may be using are not ptex friendly.  I do love the idea of not having to fuss with UV’s but I’m a bit old school in that area at the moment.  I added a collar with a buckle, similar to the one my dog had.  After some tweaks and a smoothing pass, Mugs was ready to go into Mudbox for some sculpting.     In Mudbox, I tried my best to sculpt out muscle groups and shapes according to canine anatomy.  Since Mugs is heavily characterized, and I still want him to be cartoony, this was a delicate exercise.  At the end I felt I had accomplished a nice balance of believable muscles, but still feeling toon like.  I also painted some color as his base texture in Mudbox.    Exporting maps from […]
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Feb 08
by Dave in Get Out 0 comments tags: animation, cg, concept, ideas, short, sketch, thumb nail

Early thumbnails

When I initially started milling out ideas for my characters last year, I started with some thumbnails in my sketchbook.  Very loose, rough and ugly, but I began to find the shapes I wanted my characters to consist of.  I tried out different poses I thought I may find them in and mainly focused on silhouettes.  This was basically stream of consciousness sketching after those late nights working on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and The Hobbit. I used a PITT artist pen from Faber-Castell.  These pens have a brush-like action to them, but are still felt tipped.  Really great for thumb nailing or outlining.
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Feb 07
by Dave in Uncategorized 0 comments tags: animation, art, blog, cg, cintiq, new zealand, photography, welcome, workspace, workstation

3 1/2 months

Last November I finished working on The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies for Weta Digital.  It was my 3rd film at Weta, the 1st two being The Hobbit:  Desolation of Smaug and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.  I’ve lived in New Zealand for over a year and a half and am now making NZ my home. Since then I’ve most certainly been keeping busy.  In December I put together a 240 page photography book for my daughters Xmas gift.  It was a hard bound coffee table book that detailed our 6 week adventure in the Southern Hemisphere last summer.  It took 100+ hours to put it all together, but turned out light years better than what I expected.  If any of you want to make one yourself, I suggest using Adobe Lightroom 5.5’s “Book” feature.  Adobe has partnered up with   who I’ve found their books and paper to be the best quality and design.  And no, I’m not getting kickbacks from either of these companies, I just really like how easy and clean both applications are.  Really cool addition to Lightroom! When I returned from my Xmas holiday, I continued to work on my short and decided […]
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