My Story
Welcome, I’m Gerard Pasqual Gill and I want to tell you my little story. I’m from Vic, Barcelona, Catalonia. When I was a child I wasn’t a very good student. The teachers commented to my father and me that my future would be gray. Throughout my childhood people told me “You’re not worth it” with their looks and smile. Luckily life hasn’t turned out like they expected.
When I was 18 and passed the baccalaureate, I started studying for a degree in 3D called Animation 3D, Games, and Interactive Environments at the Universitat de Vic [TEKNÓS] for two years. I have always had a great passion for movies and videogames and I couldn’t imagine how artists were able to accomplish effects. There I met my teacher and professional partner, Elf Pla. He taught me the basic concepts of 3D and Blender. Here are some of the projects that I did at TEKNÓS.
I started to love what they were teaching me. My grades were starting to change! There I met one of my best friends and artist, Sergi Camprubí. We created projects together when we had free time. I learned a lot in these two years but not enough to join the world of work.
Then I got into FX Animation for three years in Barcelona and that changed my life. After my first year in the school I got a teaching job in La Salle as a Blender instructor. That helped me pay for the FX Artist course with Houdini because my parents couldn’t afford it. In this same year I met my girlfriend Tatiana, which has been a very important factor in the realization of all my projects.
I’m currently employed as Technical Director of Effects and with a ticket in my hands to go to Canada to work for Technicolor VFX.
I would like to point out that all the projects in my Show Reel have a touch of Blender and with this awesome software you can reach job in the big industry.
Long Trip
Before starting any scene I need to find a protagonist. It doesn't matter what protagonist you choose, the important part is what you want the people to feel when they look at your scene. In this case the protagonist is a car. I normally find my inspiration when I travel or from looking at ArtStation; in this case, my reference was clear. The inspiration of my artwork is from Iwo Pilc. I did this scene to make with my students at La Salle Barceloneta just to create a complete scene: Modeling, Shading, Lighting, Composition and Rendering.
To realize this scene I used Blender, Substance Painter, and Nuke.
I modeled everything with Blender. I helped myself with a plugin called HardOps, which is really useful for work with Hard Surfaces. To create the terrain I used a displacement modifier, playing with textures from Blender to achieve the desired shape.
Then I used Substance Painter to texture everything on the scene. The lighting took a lot of care because I was looking for an illumination like my reference. For me, the light in the scene is the most important part because if your light is bad, it doesn't matter whether your model is awesome—it’s never going to look good. When you have the right lighting is where you will see whether the shading on your model is correct. I always set up the lights with HDRIs from HDRI Haven and I choose an HDRI related to my scene. It is important to use nodes, to move your HDRI and find the best lighting possible, and to play with Hue/Saturation too.
I want to talk about my renders in Blender. I love playing with Depth Of Field in Blender. I prefer to use the limit to know exactly what I am focusing on, but sometimes I use an object for focus. Also, I like to play with Focus Length and the size of the camera to give another perspective to the scene.
So, If you analyze my final render you will see on the edges of the render a little blurring of the road.
I play with Color Management but normally always use the Filmic filter because I don’t want to force the colors. There is always time to force colors in the composition.
When my render is finished, I attach everything in Nuke, where I do a color correction. I usually like to lower the saturation a bit, raise the gamma, contrast and highlights. When this is ready I attach a volumetric fake because making volumetrics in render is too expensive, so I prefer to make them in composition. And for the finishing touch, I love to add particles of dust.
Thank you for reading this and helping me to grow up step-by-step in this world.
Final Render
About the Author
Gerard Pasqual Gill, grow up step-by-step, and your dreams come true.
