Hello everyone, just a quick update on some changes that I’m in the process of making with the site.

If you notice some rather strange and unusual things on the site over the next little while, it’s (most likely) just me introducing the first of a series of changes that will be hitting the site in the (nearish) future.

For the vfx fans, all of the tutorials will stay intact, but I plan to add other key areas of the site as soon as I get the time to do so, as well as a new template/theme. Regular visitors may have noticed that I recently altered the layout and theme of the site – this is just temporary whilst I transition in the new content.

So i thought i’d let people know that rhys-works.com will soon ™ be taking on a new look. I’ve decided to re-angle the site into something a little more fashionable with the web 2.0 movement and social networking era, as i’ve changed directions slightly with what i originally intended for the site.


The site will be (and is) a visual effects and technology blog (don’t worry, the tutorials aren’t going anywhere and there *will* be more). I also intend to maintain the idea of the occasional guest speaker, but hopefully in future i will be able to make more general posts than large sweeping updates.


To start the ball rolling i’ll be hangin’ on twitter and will be keeping the world up to date with any progress on the site via tweets, and will also be throwing out any other “cool stuff” i come across.


Also, we’re in the After Effects CS4 Help. Touch me.


Or Follow Me





Hey guys. I thought i’d drop in with an update with how things are here. As you can see, i managed to get some work done on the firefly model over Christmas, and the ultimate goal will be to drop it into a nice little animation that i’ll be able to put up here and show you. It better be good, because it’s taken around a year.



I also came up with a cool little effect in AE recently for making some interesting intro titles, so as soon as i retrieve the project files for that i seem to have mislaid and my new mic turns up, i’ll hopefully be able to tutorialise that.



Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year’s, now get back to work! (Also, check out Daniel Broadway’s blog for a cool tip on compositing fog in After Effects)

Hi guys. Thought i’d just pop in here and mention that we got to the one million hits milestone recently. I’m not entirely too sure from when i started counting (it’s not since the start of rhys-works.com, as i’ve since swapped hitcounters) so it might have happened a lot sooner, but regardless, i feel at least it’s worth mentioning. Woo.



I also must apologise for the lack of updates here. I really must get some new content – i had anticipated the lack of time to make new tutorials in this period and arranged for a few guest pieces, but for largely similar reasons to my own, none have yet materialised. I shall however, persevere. I’m still working on releasing my secret project website for you guys. And the Firefly is coming along, too.



I don’t believe i mentioned the work i had used in Hollywood at Universal Studios for the CA Border Governors conference over the summer, hosted by Arnie Schwarzenegger, which was cool, too.

Hi guys, i share a forum with the gents from Aurellia.net who have set up a site in a similar vein to my own to bring you guys even more video tutorials. There’s some tutorials already available and more sure to come, so add it to your vfx video tutorial bookmarks and check it out.

Speaking of tutorials, there should be a new one here before very long, so look out for that too.

First off, for the aspiring visual effects artist there was a great live podcast of geekza this week featuring Teague ‘Fig’ Chrystie (of Zoic) and Ryan Wieber (of Stargate Digital) which you can check out the recording of at Geekza.com. Yours truly was in the chat room, as was upcoming guest speaker Nate Caauwe (TBA), and good times was had by all. This is a really interesting episode i highly recommend you guys go check it out; it contains all sorts of goodies about getting into the industry, vfx, payment, freelance work and so on.



Secondly, sorry about the lack of posting for a while, i’ve been working hard on new and upcoming projects. If you happen to be at Universal Studios in Hollywood in the coming days, you might just stumble upon my Rain Over Water animation. I’ve got some guest speakers lined up for the site which should be really interesting, and a surprise guest tutorialist (yes, that is a word) with something you guys will definitely like.



Myself i’ve been working on a new site which will hopefully launch in a couple of months that you guys will be hearing all about, and also working on some really cool 3D stuff. I’m still thinking of ways i can turn some of this stuff into tutorials, but mostly i’m holding back at the moment because i’d rather make sure i’ve covered all the ground i can before i dive in and try and tell you guys how to do it.

And now for the java version. My personal favourite (since i’ve worked so hard on the damned thing to get it where it is). Unfortunately, it’s quickly becoming apparent that this will be unviable for my future plans (or at least, what i’d planned it for). Which is a shame since it’s got great potential, especially to build upon. So check it out, you’ll need java installed, but apart from that it’ll load slow the first time as the initial openGL libs are downloaded. Subsequent loads should be faster, and you can follow the on-screen instructions for how to use.


As you can see, this is a lot more versatile and dynamic, so it’s pretty unfortunate i’ll probably not be able to employ it in what it was originally designed for. Although, it actually has a hand in the process of creating the quicktime version, so it’s always going to be useful. Anyway, check them out and tell me your thoughts – which is better; did it work; did it not work; did it blow up your computer, etc.

Hello party people. Today i’m releasing a look into two sides of one coin that i’ve been working hard on for a while now. First up, we’re taking a look at a quicktime virtual reality of part of the Firefly model i’m working on that you guys can check out. You’ll need the quicktime plugin installed to view this, so click on the image and let me know what you think. You can click and drag to rotate around.


This isn’t as dynamic as the Java version, but it’s a lot more portable since the Java requires getting non-standard openGL libraries to your computer on the fly which is tricky, and it’s also fairly clunky. Unfortunately the QTVR approach is limited and this particular VR only lets you pan horizontally – i could have rendered out some more pictures for vertical pan, but not on this occasion. Anyways, let me know what you think of it. I’ll probably be employing this in a new site i’m working on which i’ve been hinting about for a few months now.

The TFn LCCV6 results are online and available for downloading and voting. For those who don’t know, every so often at theforce.net a choreography competition is held and this year’s competition has just past the hand-in stage and into the voting stage, so check it out. Personally, my favourites lie with Ryan Wieber/Brandon Flyte’s entry and Whiteley’s.