DavePreciado.com
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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Grappling for Gary seminar
Dec 04
by Dave in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu 0 comments tags: BJJ, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Carlson Gracie, fight, fight club, Gracie, jiu jitsu, martial arts, mma, new zealand, purple belt, Rey Diogo, submission, Vanderson

8 1/2 years later…

I received my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu purple belt from Professor Vanderson Pires at Combat Room, New Zealand on November 28th, 2015.  Why is that a big deal? Let’s start with a general statistic – most people quit training after blue belt.  Only 25% of people who begin BJJ make it to purple belt.   I think it’s something like 8-10% make it to black belt.  I’ve been a blue belt for 7 years. When I still lived in Los Angeles, there was a period of about a year that my training was inconsistent – almost non existent.  Life demanded other priorities, so I had to give up training to save some money.  Other than that dark time, I’ve been training a lot. Never in my life had I intended to be a martial artist until one day at the gym, I ran into a very large and scary looking individual who invited me to come down to his gym.  To begin my BJJ days, I had the privilege to train 5 1/2 years in Los Angeles with a legendary Carlson Gracie black belt, my friend Rey Diogo. In 2009 I got to go to Brazil with Rey and train at the […]
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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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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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