| Gallery of 3D.com Profile - Richard Rosenman |
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| Artist's Name: |
Richard Rosenman |
| Email Address: |
[email protected] |
| Website Address: |
http://www.richardrosenman.com |
| 3D Status: |
Professional |
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| Question 1: How did you get into the Industry? |
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| Richard Rosenman: I was brought up in a creatively-oriented family, with my mother and father both being architects and artists, so it was inevitable I would end up working in the arts. I was never sure of which arts exactly until saw a film in 1985 called "Young Sherlock Holmes" and was for the first time exposed to the capabilities of computer graphics, specifically in an effect in which a stained glass window takes human form and walks around. I couldn't believe what I had just seen had been created with a computer. Soon after, I came across 3D Studio DOS beta 1 in early high school and was instantly amazed by the creative power I had at my fingertips which could allow me create similar, albeit more basic effects.
My admiration for computer graphics was further re-enforced when I first saw "Jurassic Park" in 1993 and "The Mask" in 1994, and I was amazed by how realistic these computer-generated images could look, especially when properly integrated with live action. Through most of my high school I focused more and more on computer graphics, particularly 3D graphics, and eventually even began coding simple graphics applications such as a fully functional 2-player game and a rudimentary 3D sphere shading program, complete with animateable lights and textures. This was a very important phase in my life because it forced me to learn the basic mathematics behind 3D software thus giving me a much better understanding of how computers actually translate numbers into images. Having realised the potential of this medium, when it came time to graduate I knew I wanted to become a digital animator. I researched which schools offered this course and quickly learned that Sheridan College was one of the most recommended. I enrolled in the 3 year traditional animation program at Sheridan and the rest, as they say, is history. |
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| Question 2: What are you currently working on, if not hush hush? |
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| Richard Rosenman: We have recently completed work on the "Toyota Matrix" spot for Canadian and American cinema/broadcast, which has received phenomenal attention: http://www.richardrosenman.com/toyota.htm In addition, we have also just finished several Advil spots which are currently on air in Canada. http://www.richardrosenman.com/whitehall.htm At this time, we are working on several new projects which should be completed by the end of the summer. |
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| Question 3: Which piece of your work is your favourite and why? |
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| Richard Rosenman: "Alkaseltzer Termite" is my favourite as well as the most challenging spot I've worked on to date for several reasons. The first was the amount of rigging involved in the shoot for the live-action and digital character integration. The first few shots involve a termite cutting across a wooden table which then splits in two. In figuring out how to achieve this, it occurred to me to pre-cut the table into the two pieces, separate them by an inch, tape a window mesh along the cut under the table, fill the cut with sawdust, and finally spray an air compressor from underneath thus spraying out the sawdust. In post, we would remove the cut line and do an animated matte to reveal it over time. Since this seemed somewhat complicated, I conducted an in-studio test for myself to see if it would work. We set it up exactly like I described above using two flat pieces of wood, hit 'record' on the video camera, and I got under the table with an air compressor and started spraying. The test worked out beautifully! We showed it to the live-action house and they had a professional rigging studio re-create our system on the real tables which we used for the shoot. "Termite" was also complicated because of the character. I particularly like cartoony CG characters and I was very concerned that my drawing style would not come through in the CG. If you've ever tried to model a character from a drawing you know how different it can turn out in the end. In order to make sure it would resemble the drawing as closely as possible, I tried to create a professional model sheet explicitly detailing many features of the character, ranging from the type of toes to the sharpness of the teeth. The modelsheet helped substantially, and the drawings were also scanned and used in Softimage as a template for the character modelling. Finally, at the time of this spot, global illumination was just beginning to appear in the consumer 3D market and I was very adamant about using it in the render for "Termite" due to it's beautiful photorealistic quality. The only problem was that none of us had ever played with GI before, and very few other renderers supported it which left us completely in the darkness as to where to begin. Basically, we began conducting GI tests with Mental Ray's Final Gathering feature and after much tinkering, we began to produce good looking results. At this point, however, our render times had substantially increased and we now had to optimise the GI renderer, again something which none of us had any experience doing before. Eventually, after many, MANY headaches, we got a good looking and relatively fast rendering image produced with our 8-machine render farm. There are very few jobs I have worked on which ever go perfectly smoothly. No matter how simple a job may seem, some serious issue (creative or technical) always manages to arise which, when finally resolved, serves as a good lesson for the next job. |
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| Question 4: Which other 3D artists have impressed you and how? |
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| Richard Rosenman: There are so many fantastic pieces I see every day on the Internet by both amateur and professional CG artists that naming them would take forever! However, among the many, MANY talents, several will always stick out in my mind. These are: Pascal Blanche, since his work I find to be near perfection in every possible way an image could be. Daniel Martinez Lara for his spectacular, yet simple character designs and lively animation. Victor Navone for his priceless contribution to the CG industry, "Alien Song". Bonk Pictures for "Los Gringos", featuring once again fantastic character designs. Keith Lango for his really snappy animation style (a fantastic animator in my mind!). I could go on and on... |
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| Question 5: What 3D ambitions do you hold? |
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| Richard Rosenman: Pixar. |
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| All Artwork Copyright of Richard Rosenman unless stated otherwise. |
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| Alkaseltzer Termite Alkaseltzer "Termite" was modeled and animated with Softimage 3.9, and rendered with Mental Ray's global illumination feature. It was composited with Discreet's Inferno.
http://www.richardrosenman.com/bayer.htm |
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| Berol "Berol" was modeled and animated with 3D Studio Max 3.1 and rendered with Mental Ray's Final Gathering global illumination feature. It was composited with After Effects 4.1. http://www.richardrosenman.com/berol.htm |
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Advil Vice Advil "Vice" was modeled and animated with 3D Studio Max 4.2 and rendered with Vray's global illumination feature. It was composited with Combustion. All animation was produced by animating the clutch which, in turn, was rigged to every single movable part via expressions, thus making animation extremely light and flexible. http://www.richardrosenman.com/whitehall.htm |
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| Toyota Matrix "Toyota Matrix" was modeled, animated and rendered with 3D Studio Max 4.2 (+Simcloth) and composited with Combustion. It was a combination of numerous different treatments achieved with USAnimation, Flash, After Effects, hand masks, etc. It was originally produced for cinema and was later cut down for Canadian and American broadcast. http://www.richardrosenman.com/toyota.htm |
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| Click here to see more Artwork by Richard Rosenman. |
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