Matteo Migliorini | FX TD Artist | FAQs PAGE
..."Less is more"... - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
..."you can't climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets"... - Arnold Schwarzenegger
Welcome in my FAQs (=Frequently Asked Questions) Page
1 - "Can you talk about you?"
2 - "Can you show your last reel?"
3 - "Why do you leave a permanent and solid contract in Italy?"
4 - "Can you talk about you education?"
5 - "Why do you have a html web-site?"
6 - "Can you work on site?"
7 - "Are you more technical or artist?"
8 - "Are you more strong in?"
9 - "Why inside your reel is there a lot of smoke/pyro fx/simulation?"
10 - "What is the difference you see between animation and live-action?"
11 - "What do you mean by "work for me is a passion"?"
12 - "What kind of software you use usually?"
13 - "Can you learn a new software/workflow quickly?"
14 - "What else?"
If you have any question you can contact me - here info (at) mmigliorini (dot) com.
1 - "Can you talk about you?"
I’m Matteo Migliorini FX Artist (with a huge background as a 3D Generalist). After over 10 years (from 2003 to 2017) of working in the Architectural/Design/Engineering fields, I decided to leave a toxic environment/studios and change carriers path, for that 2017 I was
dismissed from my permanent job with a contract as a supervisor and accepted the position as an intern (4-months) in Ghost VFX, in Copenhagen, like FX Artist in Houdini. Then I came back to Italy and started my freelance career in VFX and working with a few little agencies and big ones (such as Union Visual Effects, Lola-post, Dupe VFX, MARZ -Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies VFX-, Shortcut, Colorado Films, Kosmos, M74 Post, Augustus Color, and Rainbow CGI Animation Studio). You can check my resume (you should have one) or my LinkedIn profile. .
my "bad face" without glass! in Summer style!
2 - "Can you show your last reel?"
I decided to split my reel into more categories, that can help you to check all. Obviously, I have more of video I can show you in the another time. My reel is on my homepage .
3 - "Why do you leave a permanent and solid contract in Italy?"
Because the environment and people became very toxic, I need to change and I'm not happy in that situation. After 10 years of collaboration and a permanent contract (high salary) with one company (the supplier for "BakerHuge Ge and Oil Company" ), I was very frustrated every day so I accepted the offer from GhostVFX and restarted from the bottom (at 35 years old with a salary like an internship). Time has proven me right.
some of my architectural rendering in early 2000 (around 2006)
4 - "Can you talk about your education?"
I'm a "dropout"! I started at the Industrial Design University in Florence and moved into the Industrial Design and Visual University of Sassari in Alghero, but after a very long time I lost my interest in it and I leave from them (I studying and working in the same period and more of my ex-college/teammate of university time do/did the same works I did without any degree... so... I decided to open my VAT number/company).
I'm for an 80% self-through in all of my skills... read a lot of books, watched tutorials, and tested a lot night-by-night.
From 2006 to 2008 (I worked as a teacher for Sole Costa Studio ATC/McNeel/Adobe center in Florence) I did some certification and update courses on McNeel Rhinoceros and Autodesk 3DS Max.
The other 20% was online courses I follow with the mentors. In late 2014 I started to consider some courses because I need to do a "step forward" in my life so...
(*) In the Autumn of 2014 I attended the CG Workshop Houdini Pyro FX in Film Production of Allan McKay (completed by Ruben Mayor because McKay have some health problems) - but it was too many advanced for me without any fundamentals in Houdini -
(*) In early 2015 I joined the first class of Allan McKay's course on FXTD (FX technical transformation course). He did all courses on 3DS Max and I try to translate them into Houdini.
(*) In late 2015 I did a subscription to CMIvfx and Digital Tutors (Pluralsight now) to increase my fundamental in Houdini
(*) In mid 2016 I joined the Live Action Searies of Allan McKay's course
5 - "Why do you have an HTML website?"
Short answer: Because I'm not a web designer and I love "easy" and "clear" websites.
Long answer: There are a lot of templates with a lot of "prepackaged" web-site, but in more cases, you can see a great presentation without good works. I prefer to create something of mine (I did my website with HTML coding) without not more "WOW! Design". I'm looking to have good stuff.I have 2 websites; this and art2upz.com. The second one was made in 2002 with Macromedia (yes! Macromedia)... Macromedia Flash MX, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, and Adobe Photoshop 5, it was my first approach to computer and the graphics/internet world. Art2upz since like an "art gallery" for my canvas and graffiti I did from mid '90 to early 2000 (2008 exactelly). Art2upz is still alive and it's a copy of it.
parts of my old graffiti/drawing
6 - "Can you work on site?"
Yes, but more depending on the offer and period, but we can talk about it without any problem.
memories from my travels
7 - "Are you more technical or an artist?"
50 and 50... I love making the shots, but I love also creating tools, templates, setups, and RnD for other artists (inside Houdini create HDA, and digital assets with a few VEX/Scripting, not more in Phyton for now). I always found a solution smart and easy if needed for finalized the tasks assigned.
8 - "Are you more strong in?"
Particles, Volumes (fire, clouds, smokes, etc...etc..), Flip Fluid (water), creating a template, digital asset, working on procedural workflow, grains, scripting. The next goal I want to improve more on Vellum (I did something in the past), crowd, grooming, muscles
9 - "Why inside your reel is there a lot of smoke/pyro fx/simulation?"
Firstly... I can do also another kind of FX! Why inside your reel is there a lot of smoke/pyro fx/simulation? Because usually some companies call me to do a specific task or call me to fix some shots and see my previous works and think "ok! You can help us with the plume smoke, we have the same FX in our project" and so... for that reason, I have the more smoke FX... In the last years (early 2022) when I jump into a new production/studio I try to do a different FX (and try to avoid all effects with smoke -e.g. chimney smoke, plume smoke, dust, fog, flame, steam vapor, explosion) BUT if I should/must do it I do!
10 - "What is the difference you see between animation and live-action?"
Timeline and frame rate! for me, it's the same as working on animation or live-action, or other kinds of projects. Work is work and in my case work is a passion.
11 - "What do you mean by "work for me is a passion?"
I mean "I'm a lucky man!" because I love this field and this job, for me it's not a way to pay the bills... “Choose a job you love, and you will never work a day in your life.” it's true! I wake up with a smile every day if I can work on VFX shots, and not create any kind of frustration (eh, one moment sometimes is stressful, but not too much kill me or hate it) and I'm glad every day to do this job because learning something of new all day. Not like more people who "it's a way to pay bills, life, food, stuff" and come in the office only to "mark the card" For me is a passion, not a job. Do you understand what I mean? if YES, I'm very happy for you!
12 - "What kind of software you use usually?"
Short answer: Houdini, Nuke, Mantra, Karma, Arnold.
Long answer: I love Houdini and I switched to it totally in 2018 (I hate spending a lot of money for plugins or additional stuff). I used Nuke (in the companies where I work) and at home, I have my license of DaVinci Resolve / Fusion. For many years (2006 to 2018) I have and used 3DS Max as additional software for modeling, rendering (with V-Ray or Mental Ray for example) also 3DS Max is a standard in Archviz/visualization fields so for that I used it for long time. I know also Rhinoceros, Autocad, some engineering software (e.g.: Pro-E, NX/Unigraphic) RealFlow, Adobe suite (Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Audition) a bit of Maya, and a lot of plugins like FumeFX, Krakatoa, Deadline...I used it a few times also Softimage XSI, but not gone more into the deep because not been used in the previous industrial (archviz), and in Italy there are maybe only 5-10 people used it in the past. I have still installed and sometimes I open it for some tests... #longlifetosoftimage
some dvds and books in my library
13 - "Can you learn a new software/workflow quickly?"
yes, I learning alone some very crazy software like Pro-E and all of the software you can see in my list... I think I'm not an idiot :) ps.: I'm self-taught also in English
14 - "What else?"
Short answer: I'm old school guy!
Long answer: I started my career in CGI when the best CPU was a singol core (it's still alive at the home of my mom!) I bought in early 2000 my first PC (for work, because my father bought a IBM 486x, but I never use it) was a Pentium 4 3.00 GHz, Ati Radeon x600 series 256 Mb, 1 GB of ram (paid around 900 €) with a 17" monitor CRT (not flat or lcd, paid around 50-80 €, but I upgrade with a 2 monitor LCD with 17" -no brand paied around 110 €- and 21" - Dell paid around 450 €- ) and I used it for 7 years. I moved on quadcore almost in the 2009 (Q9400 2.66 Ghz GeForce 9800 GT - 512 MB, 4GB of Ram, Nvidia GT9800 -changed to GTX 256 more years later-) and a laptop with dual-core (Intel CPU T2300 @ 1.66 Ghz, 1GB of ram and intel integrated GPU) I used it until 2015 when I decided the time to change. I bought a new AMD CPU (it wasn't a good deal - AMD FX-8350 @ 4.00GHz, 32 GB Ram, Nvidia GTX 970 4 GB) for help me with the course of Allan McKay. When I moved to Denmark to join GhostVFX I bought a laptop of MSI (I7-7700, 16 Gb of Ram and GTX 1060 6Gb) and I keep it and did also some FX for some features films or TV-Show with it until September 2021 when I bought a new workstation with AMD 5950x - 128 GB of Ram and Nvidia 1080 (update it with 3070ti 1 years leater).
For optimized my workstation I used and testing also different operating systems such as Linux Mint, PopOS!, RedHat (I love it), Alma Linux, Centos, and Ubuntu... in other words... I know how to optimize my work because I was working with a limitation power for many years, not unlike a young FX Artist who started with a very cool PC with a lot of RGB Led sponsored by the parents... I did it all with my money and with my sacrifice.
"you can't climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets" - Arnold Schwarzenegger
here some pictures of my old desk and hardware
Computer Graphics and Services made in Italy
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