Following the closure of Hewitts studio Tyler set out on obtaining a BFA in illustration; opting for two computer electives in Maya v1.0 and advanced After Effects Techniques. To further develop his skills he also undertook a series of classes exploring the history of film and animation and discovered pioneers of experimental animation such as Zbig Rybczynski, The Bros. Quay, Oskar Fischinger and Harry Smith. Although finding Maya to be an impressive tool he was interested in exploring a less expensive 3D package that could be operated at home. This led him to InfiniD, a program he found satisfying but limited in its scope, it also “rendered slower than molasses in winter”, jokes Tyler. So upon hearing of MAXON CINEMA 4D’s legendary rendering speed he wasted no time in purchasing the software and hasn’t looked back since. Surprisingly, upon viewing Tyler’s reel people often assume all of the three dimensional work was done in Maya. “It’s because either they’ve never heard of CINEMA 4D or they don’t realize it’s very capable of creating high end imagery and animations”, he explains. Tyler suggests that industry professionals too often associate high end work with one software package, be it two or three dimensional. Where as the output is mostly dependent on the artists visual and technical skills. He believes the software an artist chooses should be a matter of preference based on “application stability, work habits, product support and usable features”, rather than an assumption that the cost of a particular package will have any relevance on the standard of the work that it is able to produce. His preference for CINEMA 4D stems from its stability, a huge priority when working to deadlines, and its ability to handle a large volume of 3D animation.

Species III

Tyler’s ‘approach’ to working in 3D is unconventional to say the least. “It stems from my background in slight of hand, experience in painting, and total lack of patience when it comes to render time”, he explains. His childhood experiences with magic have provided him with an understanding of how the human eye and brain perceive motion, and how this transpires to timing. Whilst his familiarity with art has taught him that a two dimensional object has the ability to appear three dimensional and vice versa. For Tyler, his enjoyment comes from working with textures, light and motion rather than with highly detailed models.. “It’s just a personal preference”, he explains, “not unlike my fondness for impressionistic painting styles rather than technical draftsmanship.” Instead, his focus is primarily on making fairly low polygon models onto which complex textures and lighting techniques can be applied. “You could say textures are my models”, Tyler says, “this approach saves a lot of time which would have been spent modeling and it yields amazingly fast render turnaround”. CINEMA 4D’s non-destructive working environment is perfectly suited to this ‘texture as models’ approach. “Often in my work, models, textures, lights, and camera, all become very contingent upon one another”, Tyler explains, “and CINEMA 4D’s workflow perfectly accommodates this non-linear style of working”. Using this software Tyler is able to model, texture, light and animate his work in any order. He is especially fond of the software’s ease of use when it comes to texturing, and most notably in applying QuickTime movies as textures. “There’s some really insane stuff one can do using movies as textures”, says Tyler, “It sounds clichéd, but the possibilities really are limitless”.

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