|
| |
 |
|
 |
| |
 |
|
| • |
Born: January 17th 1976, in Pointe Claire, Quebec,
Canada |
|
|
| • |
Education: Pure & Applied Science (2 years), Computer
Science (1 year), BFA in Design Art (3 years) |
|
|
| • |
Job
History: Animator at Blur
Studio 1999 - 2002, Technical Director at
Pixar 2002 - present |
|
|
| • |
Neil
Likes: Monsters, Scifi and Fantasy
Movies, Death Metal, Quake 3, Playing Guitar and
Drums, Drawing & Painting, Museums, Swimming
and Hiking . |
|
|
| • |
Favorite TV: Babylon 5, Dr Katz, Samurai Jack, The
Howard Stern Show, The Simpsons, 60 Minutes,
SouthPark, Whose Line Is It Anyways? |
|
|
| • |
Favorite
Movies: Bulworth, The Crow, Drunken
Master 2, Fight Club, The Matrix, Ninja Scroll,
Robocop, Starship Troopers |
|
|
| • |
Favorite
Artists: H.R. Giger, Heidi Taillefer,
Zdzislaw Beksinski, Luis Royo, Dave McKean,
Ashley Wood, Dale Keown, Marc Silvestri, Michael
Turner, JMW Turner, Paul Klee |
|
|
| • |
Home
Computer: Dual Opteron 248 with 2 Gigs
of RAM |
|
|
| • |
Main
Software: 3DStudio MAX, Brazil r/s,
Photoshop |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
| Our
questions to Neil about Power Solids. |
|
|
| • |
How Long have
you been working with Power Solids? |
| |
I've been using
power solids for a little over 2 years
now. |
| • |
What has been your
experience with the Power Solids learning curve
and how long did it take you to start
incorporating Power Solids into your modeling
workflow? |
| |
The initial learning curve was pretty
straight forward since power solids follows the
max paradigm quite well, if you know max, you'll
figure out power solids quite quickly. There was
a bit of a learning curve with respect to what
you can and cannot turn into a powersolid, or
what types of meshes don't boolean well. Like
really complex mesh objects are less likely to
make a good power solid. But I learned pretty
quickly how to rebuild many complex shapes
entirely with Power solids itself, and now
rarely have problems. Also, over the past 2
years, you guys have done a great job improving
the software, so now the chance of having an
invalid object is very rare. |
| • |
What are your thoughts on the
effectiveness of the Power Solids integration
with 3ds Max. |
| |
They're really well
integrated. |
| • |
What are some of the reasons
that you make Power Solids a part of your
modeling arsenal? |
| |
Well, booleans that work is a big one. Back
when I was using povray 15 years ago, I could do
booleans left and right. Then when I came to
3dstudio dos (and later max), there was no csg,
only mesh objects, so booleans were more hit and
miss (performing a boolean on a mesh object is
mathematically way harder than with csg). It's
wonderful to be able to use them again without
constantly worrying whether they'll work or not.
Also, I love fillets. Rounded corners add
realism to a mesh, and doing the same thing with
subdivs takes a lot of extra work setting up
extra edges and such. With power solids, you can
automatically fillet all the edges of your mesh
with one checkbox, or choose an edge and give it
a radius, which I just love. |
| • |
Is there any one tool or
function of Power Solids you particularly like? |
| |
I primarily
use the extrude / boolean / join tools, and of
course the fillet options all over the
place. |
| • |
Could you please tell us how
you feel about our technical and customer
support? |
| |
They've been very helpful, I've probably
passed on a few dozen bugs over the years, and
each one of them got looked at and resolved
within days or weeks. Talk about fast
turnaround. |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
The images below are some of my personal
favorites of Neils non nPower work. |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
