Omar Domenech’s Demo Reel

[Omar Domenech]

@smurfmier1985 My Canada profile is open and still valid for another year. If one day I get the invitation to apply for the immigration program… well I’d freak out really hard first and then force myself to go on with the plan. 

I’m doing it out of hope for a better future, because this here is a third world country that is showing signs that it’s probably going to get worst. But I really really really do not want to take a risk so big as to move to a totally different country, I wish I could stay here, I have all my stuff here, everyone I know is here, the sun is here, although I wish it would take a break from time to time… yet I if I want to look for a better future, it is clearly not here and neither is working in the arts; Art is not a respected field in my country, you cannot make a decent living out of it.

I haven’t started looking for a job yet, not until the demo reel is ready. Every time I think I’m doing this portfolio project to look for a job in another country, to move to another country and live there, to work in an industry that is really exploitative, my heart starts beating faster, so I try not to think to ahead of myself. I have done lots and lots of freelance stuff here, so the veil of wonderment and magic for “The Industry” has worn off for me, but lets not go into that rant. 

Canada is not the only option to consider. I chose Canada because I have uncles and cousins there and people say there are good opportunities for jobs since they have a deficit in their population. Loads of people are going to Canada lately, they are accepting a bunch of immigrants. Europe could be an option as well, I haven’t consider it because is so far away and I don’t know anyone there. The United States could be an option, but since Donald Trump and his policies, no one here is talking about the USA in a welcoming fashion anymore, so his tactics are working. Even worst, this island has been in the news lately in a very negative fashion. 

So for now I’ll continue with the Canada plan but just because is the only one I have. 

[Omar Domenech]

Made another short scene for the Heli. I felt bad that it being the main project, there was no background on it, so space… It is an All-Terrain after all. But it was way harder than it should’ve been, Blender 2.8 was not making things easy at all so I just gave up. I hope they start to fix Blender as soon as possible. 

I also wanted to make a scene with it running in car-mode, but building the environment for that is going to take a long time. Maybe at the end it there’s energy left I could tackle it. 

[smurfmier1985]

@dostovel Sorry to hear your island is not doing well… it’s hard to imagine living in the western world how it is for you living in a third world country. My little brother recently came back from a year studying abroad in Curacao (he’s learning to be a docter so he worked in a hospital there), and he told stories about how decayed the inlands are. But I never realised you are only 1 hour flying away from there and that it would probably be like that for you too. Guess I was stupid for thinking you might be able to do freelance over the internet (like Wayne does) and maybe get a parttime job on the side for a little stable income, so you can stay with your friends and family. Since your island is in trouble, I totally get you wanting to seek a better future for yourself. I admire you taking that step even though you rather not.

As for job hunting, I get that you want to wait for your demo reel. However, please don’t wait too long. It’s quite a risk for companies to take on someone from abroad, especially if it’s a person without actual work experience in the industry. It might take you a while before you find a taker… Your portfolio is solid and high quality, you are hire-worthy! You could also consider doing some freelance work / volunteer work in the mean time to get some work experience on your resume. Sitting still ain’t your style anyway, so why not do something that makes you even more hireable? Ultimately you have to decide for yourself of course 😉

No matter how you go about it, I will be rooting for you to succeed in crafting a better future for yourself!

[Kent Trammell]

@dostovel Love the earth background! My only crit is that the earth feels a little lo-res in the textures the more I look at it. When compared to the amazing detail you put everywhere else, it feels out of place.

You could spend some more time upgrading the resolution of the textures with things like tiny wavy detail in the oceans, adding additional detail to the clouds, finer city lights.

Or you could bypass that by increasing depth of field and blurring out the earth more.

Either way this is a perfect situation for a flashy lens flare 😎

[Kent Trammell]

SheepIt Render Farm Report!

I’ve spent about a week feeling out SheepIt and my opinion is: We should try it for one of your scenes @dostovel.

I really think it will be a cleaner, more automated option with far less risk for accidents: No one’s storage is eaten up, no syncing of files, no potential for accidental file deletion, no duplication of frames.

My experience:

While money isn’t valid SheepIt currency, the system is moderated by points. Everyone earns points by rendering other people’s projects and they lose points by getting their own projects rendered. More points means higher priority for getting your own projects rendered.

So there’s incentive to gain and maintain points. I submitted a single-frame project (split into 32 tiles) when I had about 60-70K points and it waited 2-3 hours in the queue before it started to render. Today I submitted a 200-frame animation when I had about 280K points and it started and finished rendering within an hour. Linux Luke would have taken 6+ hours! Check out how many people were rendering my scene at the beginning: (spoiler: 60 people!)

That makes me think points are very important for prioritizing your renders. Therefore if I’m going to get good, reliable use out of SheepIt, I need to regularly render for others. I plan to build up points by rendering 1 or 2 nights per week.

The more I use it the more I think the system is ingenious. Frankly I’m amazed that more people aren’t using it. Typically I’ve seen between 400-500 computers connected for rendering. Out of all the Blender users out there wanting/needing renders without spending money…that’s crazy to me. The number should be in the thousands.

The biggest caveat is that no one can harness the full potential of SheepIt right away. As far as I can tell you must build up significant points or the system is going to be underwhelming.

Team Rendering:

I haven’t tested this but it looks like we (people in this thread) could use SheepIt to render scenes “privately” between our computers. Like we’re doing with Google Drive but with the automated SheepIt system:

This way we could setup a “CG Cookie Team” where members could join SheepIt and anytime a member has a project that needs rendering, the CGC sheepit team gangs up on the frames for rendering. If we all got in the habit of loading the sheepit desktop applet regularly / periodically it would even happen automatically.

Omar, what do you say we try this for you next scene?

[Omar Domenech]

@theluthier  Of course, lets try it out. Beam me up Tank, hook me up to the matrix. 

Do you find the build up / spend points system balanced? meaning, do I need to spend a lot of time to build up points only to have them go out the window fast when it’s time to render my own stuff? like modern day games, grind grind, grind, grind, finally opens chest aaaand it’s a cheap item, guess i’ll have to grind some more. 

It’s already worth it if only to see other people’s usernames… beefbayonet, dopey, ffffffggggggg54, ShaggyMummy.

Regarding planet earth, I think I’ll go cheap and blurry it. It’s only a three or five seconds scene.  

[Omar Domenech]

@smurfmier1985 No it’s not stupid at all, I could do freelance over the internet like Wayne from here. Yet the goal is to take a huge chance and try to see how life is elsewhere and work where salary is certainly going to be better than working in 3D here. Words can’t begin to describe how bad working in the arts is here. Until a little while ago I did freelance here, I stopped it to work on the portfolio. I have an 8 to 5 job, plus freelance, I didn’t have free time and I was getting really burned out of doing  them both at the same time. 

It is easy to say that this country is going down the toilet, but is not that simple. The island is not so so bad as a whole. It’s complicated. The capital city where I live is fairly developed, once you start to get out you start to see the reality. Or I don’t know is we’ve just gotten used to it all. Still it is a third world country with lots and lots of corrupt politicians, lots and lots of poor people. 

[Omar Domenech]

How does this go? lets boot up that floppy, I’m ready for training. 

[Kent Trammell]

@dostovel Sweet! Looks like you have the desktop applet running. Sign up for a sheep it account and plug those credentials into the applet. I would also enable “Auto sign in” so you don’t have to login each time.

Send me you username once you’re signed up and I’ll get you involved on the team I just created.

Now we just need a bunch of people here to sign up and join the team as well. Wonder how to go about that.. 🤔

[smurfmier1985]

@theluthier You could start by asking people here, in the discord that seems to be popular (with others I’m not on it) and asking people at the end of today’s livestream right before signing of 🙂

[Omar Domenech]

@theluthier Ok I guess I’m officially sheeping it. Is this the official app? this is how you use it? in the website it looks better designed. Can I change settings in the middle of progress? say I want to change to use my GPU instead of the CPU. 

Check computer strength? it’s an ok laptop, alright Sheepit, don’t put it to shame.

It keeps jumping from project to project and every time it has to download it. I thought you stuck with one project until it was finished. Also it keeps saying “downloading renderer” why doesn’t it download it one time and holds on to it. 

Do I need to go to the .exe every time to launch the app? It seems I can’t pin it to start on Windows. 

I feel I’m doing something wrong. 

[Kent Trammell]

@dostovel Yep that’s the applet. Yes you can change settings at any time but they will update after the current frame you’re rendering. Each time you open the applet it runs that “project to check rendering capabilities”. It usually only takes 30 seconds or so to run. I think it uses that info to prioritize projects for rendering.

I believe every project your machine grabs for rendering starts by downloading the project files as a zip and also the blender version chosen by the project owner. This is nice because we don’t have to worry about maintaining any version of Blender for sheepit to run. And I guess it wipes those files clean upon exit as to not clutter our hard drives.

As far as I know yes, you have to launch the .exe every time (though I’m on linux). It’s a java app, which is a first for me. Linux let me pin it to my “start bar” after launching via terminal. I recommend googling “how to pin java app to start menu”.

I feel I’m doing something wrong.

I doubt it which is partly why SheepIt is good! It makes this process pretty easy and mistake-free for people to get involved and start rendering. Now we just need to get more CGC peeps to join our team and we can test one of your scenes.

Speaking of your scenes, you will want to zip up the “Blend Packed Files” directory as a zip and submit that for rendering (making sure only one .blend is in the root of that directory). i.e. exactly the way scene 3 is organized right now. I went ahead and zipped it and added underscores for the space. Can’t remember if that’s required but it’s always a safer bet.

You know, I think I will go ahead and submit this for rendering to anyone (not just our team) if you’re OK with it. Again I think it’s plenty secure as it password protects each project’s zip that gets distributed. Give me the green light and I’ll submit!

@smurfmier1985 Great suggestions for getting the word out. I’ll start by mentioning it at the end of today’s stream.  

[Kent Trammell]

@dostovel I forgot to say that you can install the SheepIt applet on your work machines too and log them in with your account. Your points will rack up QUICK and if you’re in that situation where you left for the weekend, you could jet launch that applet before leaving.

Also in your user profile on the sheepit website you can enable the option to “render my team’s projects first” to give them priority.

[Phil Osterbauer]

This looks really cool. The down side to seeing this now is I have to wait all day until I get home to sign up. 🙂

[Omar Domenech]

@theluthier Oh no wait, let me update scene 3 by blurring the earth a bit more on the background and change a thing or two. I’ll work on it asap and let you know once its done.

Their website can be improved. I clicked everywhere to see how I could go back to the CGC Team. It is not under “Team” on the main page, and there is no “Search” option if I wanted to look for a specific team. The team I joined is on my profile and it is written on red on a dark blue background and contrast gets lots. I thought that would be more relevant.  

And that is a good idea, to let the iMacs rendering. Is there a limit? can I download the app in all 4 computers and log my account in each one and let them render away?  

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