cesarsaez.me

Hi guys,

In case you didn't notice, this site has been moved to cesarsaez.me, there's no automagic redirection in order to not break links but all post has been migrated.

This blog will not receive any update anymore.
Sorry for the trouble.

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Why python?

Hey guys,

Yesterday night my brother (who is a 'real programmer') asked me 'why someone would use python?' and I didn't know how to answer.

I think python is awesome, an object-oriented programming language with 'batteries included', open source, great for prototyping (no boiler plate, mostly crossplatform, with a lot of convenient features and clever built-in types).... But in a broader context, well, it's a tough question.

Perhaps python's best feature is its Zen, it's the glue that holds it all together.

1. Beautiful is better than ugly.
2. Explicit is better than implicit.
3. Simple is better than complex.
4. Complex is better than complicated.
5. Flat is better than nested.
6. Sparse is better than dense.
7. Readability counts.
8. Special cases aren’t special enough to break the rules.
9. Although practicality beats purity.
10. Errors should never pass silently.
11. Unless explicitly silenced.
12. In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
13. There should be one– and preferably only one –obvious way to do it.
14. Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you’re Dutch.
15. Now is better than never.
16. Although never is often better than right now.
17. If the implementation is hard to explain, it’s a bad idea.
18. If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
19. NameSpaces are one honking great idea — let’s do more of those!

What do you think? What makes python so awesome?

Cheers!

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Animation is concentration... and organization (slides)

Hi guys,

I'll be giving a lecture this weekend at San Luis Digital (San Luis, Argentina). I'll talk about how we use agile software development methodology on the rigging department during my adventures at Kandor Graphics and some basics of pipeline in animated films.

Here is a link to the slide deck (spanish only), there're plenty of animated gifs, memes and graphics so I don't think that language is such a big deal on this one.
- LIVE (heavy on images, might take a while)
- Repo

So, if you're going to be in San Luis this weekend please join us at SLD, it'll be fun :-)
Cheers!


By the way, reveal.js rocks!

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Softimage.tv

Hi folks,

Some time ago Cristobal told me about his idea of a website showcasing the best work created with Softimage, I liked it and we started working on it until last week when we launched softimage.tv

There're a lot of amazing works done with Softimage but they are scattered all over the place, we want to fix this through a community-driven website showcasing the best works out there and making things easier for newcomers (not to mention producers, agencies and decision makers).

The community response has been HUGE (thanks guys), we have a lot of ideas to improve the site and add new stuff, but we still need your help.

If you ever created a tutorial for softimage, uploaded a test, done an amazing tool, have a showreel to show off, finished a good looking job, please help us by submitting it.

We would love to know what you guys think about it, and how we can move things forward.

Cheers!

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Time to move on

Hey folks,

Just wanted to say hello, been a long time without news here :(

Well... where to start... I came back to my hometown (Santiago, Chile) a month ago or so, my time living in Spain was AWESOME but the project is over and it's time to start moving again.

In the meantime, my father passed away a couple of weeks ago. I don't wanna talk too much about it here, but it was a hard news to swallow.

Anyway... I have to move on and start doing things again!
I have a lot of unfinished personal projects waiting for a spark of motivation and a demo reel to make in order to start a job hunting. 

Let me press the reset button and I'll get back to you with better news soon.

Cheers!

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Thoughts on editing

Just a quick tip...

When you make a tool, don't think about it as a 1-time procedure, editing will take most of the time and you should provide support for it.

I see this a lot!
Almost every autorig out there do not offer any control over the setups already created and rebuild is the only provided solution (which is not realistic in many cases).

So, think about it and make your next tool much more useful!

Cheers

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Back to work

I think I have enough sun and beach this summer and it's time to get back to work!

Unfortunatelly I can't show anything from kandor graphics (my last 4 years of work are "production locked" until next year), so the plan is start to work on a RnD reel since September until the end of this year.

But it isn't a bad thing at all, it's a great oportunity to develop some ideas and tools I have in mind since long time ago, when you're in production it's really difficult try new things and now I really wanna take that oportunity. I have a good feeling about this :)

So I hope start posting again here and on my vimeo channel like in the good old days.
RnD, there I go!

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Closing cycles

Hi folks,

Long time without any update, sorry about that :-(

As you may know i was working on Kandor's next feature film... and yes, 'I was working' because I decided to take a break on my carrer, at least for a few months, and try to find myself again.

In the last years I learn a lot as rigging supervisor, my role changed from be working on technical stuff to work with people's motivations and manage crisis on a production environment... the downside is I'm not sure if be 'a manager' is what makes me happy. I really miss the old days being the 'smart guy', looking for clever solutions to some rigging related thing or whatever... I don't know, lately I wasn't having fun with my job anymore and I felt lost.

Anyway... it's too early to make any conclusions, the only thing sure is that the last 3-4 years at Kandor have been awesome and I'm really thankful to everyone for that!

I'll miss you guys :-)


Plans for the future?
I don't know, right now I just wanna rest and take some time to think about all this... maybe in the next entry.

Cheers!

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When was the last time...

Last week we had a very interesting talk on this issue. Seems like when you're working on a project for so long, sometimes it's easy to feel lost and this question comes to the surface quite often...

So, when was the last time you felt proud of your work?

At the end, we all agreed it's all about "can't see the forest for the trees".
You have to get out of the forest to see it, because while you are in the forest, you only see the trees that comprise it; but you can't see the forest as a whole.


Yes, I know what are you thinking... really basic, right?
And I agree with you, but sometimes is good to know we're not alone and if we continue doing our best, tomorrow we'll be proud of today's work :-)

Cheers!

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Rigging lecture at UGR

Hey folks,

The last weekend I gave a lecture on rigging at UGR (Granada University), was a nice experience even though prepare the program and the class material was not as easy as I thought, but in the end everything worked fine and everyone learned something new :-)

Lately I'm really busy at Kandor (crunch time) and find some time/energy to do CG related things at my spare time is harder than ever... but I'm trying and maybe this week I finally finish/release a little tool for Softimage.

Nobody said this was going to be easy, right? ;-)
Regards

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Me and myself

Me me me me me... and myself.

Just kidding.... I'm rescuing old posts (you know, restarting the site once again) and found this interview from the guys at Eje-Zeta.com in which I share my experience as a self-taught (so far).

By the way, spanish only...

LINK

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Blog hacked, again...

Hi folks,

Yes, it happened again and I still don't get it :(

It doesn't matter... all I can say is that I'm going back to Blogger for the safety of my post, right now I'm not so motivated to write my thoughts anywhere but who knows, maybe things will change...

Cheers!

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