CGFocus Inerviews Raffael Dickreuter of XSIBase
bt Wes Beckwith

CGF – Tell us a little bit about yourself, where were you born?  When did you become interested in art or computers?
I am 25 years old and besides movies, visual effects and CG I like playing electric guitar and hockey. Traveling, Philosophy, Psychology and Art in general also interest me.

I was born in Switzerland and grew up near Bern, the capital. As a kid I loved to draw, but also started quickly to enjoy movies and animated cartoons. When I was a teenager I became passionate about filmmaking and everything that had to do with it. I started to shoot live action shorts with friends and had the ambition to become a Cameraman. I was able to join an independent TV production company and was learning a lot about cameras and editing. A highlight for me was being a stage cameraman at a large concert. I had the job to film the lead singer which was one of the most well known Swiss rock stars (Polo Hofer) and kept doing so when he stepped to the side. So eventually he got pissed and started yelling at me I should cover the other guys instead of him, at the same time the director yelled via the headset "keep on filming him!!".

My ambition was to work on films and maybe become a Cameraman or director, although many people in my surroundings told me that I shouldn't do it as it was not considered a safe or a real job. While looking around if there would be a way when I would finish high school I kept on doing short films. I was always fascinated by the 20th Century Fox logo and wondered how that was done. Once I had found out that 3d software is the key I got hold of a copy of LightWave 3D and started playing around with it. I was hooked and started to spend a lot of time learning it. While I still was focused on a life action film career it made way to 3d and visual effects. After talking to Swiss filmmakers it turned out you either have to be very lucky to do that kind of job in Switzerland or you would have to go abroad and study at an expensive film school. At the age of 18 with not much money this seemed unrealistic, but I didn't give up on it, but rather changed my focus towards 3d and saw a chance to work in visual effects.

CGF – Tell us a little bit about your background in 3D?
I started with LightWave 3D and used it for two years before I started to look around what other software was out there. I liked that LightWave had a clean interface and no icons. Softimage 3D was considered king of the hill back then and as I became more interested in characters and I started learning it. This later lead to me switching to XSI.  What always fascinated me is that you can look at your environments form every angle a freedom you do not have as a traditional filmmaker. A passion for characters lead to learning more about rigging, modeling and animation. In 3d there are many interesting areas, some that are more technical and some that are more about the artistic side. This combination made it very attractive to me and still fascinats me.