This internet-connected day and age opens a myriad of opportunities to connect and communicate with people nearly anywhere on the planet.   I recently provided 18 hours of mental ray training online for the new CG School to people from London to America’s heartland.  In the last few years I’ve also become involved with individuals and companies around the USA that need more focused training and consulting in shorter bursts of two to four hours at a time; training  without the commitment and personnel downtime of a multi-day training session, or the productivity delay of having to wait months for a class to become available, or the drawn-out experience of having to take a 16-week course and deal with the time, travel and delay in learning within a college course entails.

New Flexible Training Opportunities

I’m pleased to announce that my company, 4D Artists, Inc, and I are now formally providing individualized training and consulting in a flexible format designed to give you focused and timely information at a reasonable cost.  This training can be provided online via GoToWebinar/GoToTraining, live at our new facilities in Lake Villa Illinois, conveniently located just one hour from Milwaukee and O’Hare airports,  or training can be provided at your location.

mental ray Training with Jennifer

As you may know I am the author of the highly acclaimed new book “Mastering mental ray” (Wiley/Sybex April 2010 http://tinyurl.com/y94ase4) and an experienced 3ds Max Design/mental ray trainer the college level.   My courses include “3ds Max Level 1″, “3ds Max Advanced”, and “Architectural Illustration”.  All classes feature 3ds Max Design and mental ray.  My mental ray training is based on the thousands of hours devoted to the development of my book, and the tens of thousands of hours of experience gained over the past 19 years using 3D Studio/3ds Max.

Troubleshooting and Consulting

One of the best ways to get targeted training and solve your problems is with consulting on difficult projects.  There are few things as frustrating as needing to hit a deadline and to have your renderings not meet your expectations.   Working with a reseller is often expensive – over $200 an hour in many cases – and there are very few people that have the knowledge and expertise to assist with troubleshooting and training in mental ray.  Unless you pay for separate training you may not get the feedback you need to improve your work in the future.  We can take a look at your scenes (NDA is okay), work through the issues, and give you a summary and any training you desire to learn how to improve future scenes.

Revit, Inventor, Solid Works, and More

These days, whether you are unemployed or just looking to enhance your skills to help improve your value, gaining skills quickly is exceptionally important.  4D Artists can provide your connection to experienced instructors and practiced professionals that can help you to gain the skills you need.

Call Today to Schedule Time

Call 4D Artists today to schedule your training or consultation via GoTo or live.  847-546-3901 or via email at jenni@4da-inc.com

The book covers the details of using mental ray and also tackles a number of practical topics such as Gamma, Batch and Network Rendering, Lighting work flow, troubleshooting common issues, and provides numerous examples and projects to help teach concepts and hone your skills.  We are working with other firms to examine their training needs so we can address issues critical to their success.  I just completed giving mental ray training at Goettsch Partners in Chicago, and look forward to working with others on their mental ray issues.

I want to thank Mark Gerhard, 3ds Max Guru, for pitching the book to Wiley!  Mark will also be the Technical Editor on the book, and assisting in production as TE.   Ryan O’Connor of 4D Artists will be producing many of the charts and 3d models for illustrations and sample scenes.

There is no better way to learn something than to teach or write about it, and so far this has been a great process.  The book is currently at 75,000 words and growing, and has a target length of 400 full-color pages.  The book will list for $59.95, and once we have an Amazon link we’ll post it here.

For more information on the book see http://www.mastering-mentalray.com

I also enjoy sharing what I learn, and enjoy the teaching and the writing process.  That’s why I teach at the college, of course, but also why I started the Chicago 3ds Max User’s Group three years ago.  We all benefit when we share, after all, and I find that the more you give to others, the more you will get back in return.  

I once had a new member, after introducing himself at a meeting, state in a somewhat adversarial manner that he and I were competitors.  Although true,  it seemed from his tone like he was living in a zero-sum world where his gain of knowledge at the meeting was somehow my loss.  As we had just met perhaps I’m reading into it more than what was there, but you certainly go into doing a presentation knowing that someone is going to come away learning something – thats the point – and hopefully it will enhance their work.  Otherwise, there would be no point in sharing knowledge, and if everyone worried about what someone else might learn from them we would all still be living like apes in the open plains. 

Taken to an extreme, back in my Electrical Engineering/Computer Science days, I worked with a man that would literally close the door of the control room and work on troubleshooting equipment by himself, so that no one else would know how to work on the systems.  He was the guy in charge so there wasn’t much we could say, but eventually he went the way of the dodo.  Ultimately we didn’t have the advantage of his knowledgeto work on the systems ourselves after he was gone, but managed just fine in the end.    A business owner friend, a true craftman, stopped hiring trainees as they would stay with him long enough to learn the craft and then quickly became competitors, undercutting his cost.  For him there was a real cause for concern for his liveleyhood, and a remorse for the time he invested in these individuals.  This issue has probably existed as long as there were craftsment to learn from.  

 One of my favorite quotes is from “Futurama” where, after a video had played in the show, an announcer says “You’ve seen it.  You can’t un-see it!”  Sharing with others is like that.  You hope you show them something and it sticks, and once learned you certainly can’t un-learn it.  Hopefully they will then share that with others, or write a tutorial, or help a user on a web site, and add their unique take and further understanding of the subject.  We all benefit in that way.

Helping others troubleshoot problems, such as on The Area http://area.autodesk.com, helps you in honing your troubleshooting skills, and is one of the best ways of learning about the software and avoiding/solving problems yourself.  Reading the solutions to problems certainly helps me in my work, but what is more fun is looking for the questions with zero replies, as they are often the more difficult issues to solve, and the most interesting to work on.  You might not get the answer, but more than likely you will learn a lot whether you find the answer or not.  I encourage people to be involved with these sites and to at least read through the issues and learn in this way.

I also find that writing is one of the most powerful tools there are for you to learn something.  The process of putting words to paper (or blog, or in user forums) in a manner that needs to be understandable by others makes you think about the subject in a detailed and focused manner that you won’t experience otherwise.  I encourage others to write about, or at even teach, the things they are interested in learning.  That is the best path to becoming an expert, and the best way to enhance the 3d community as a whole.  

Remember – you always get back more than you give!

AAUGA meeting on May 21st at Gensler, downtown Chicago.

We have also finalized many of the plans for our “mental ray Conference” in downtown Chicago.  You can read the official announcement here:

http://www.max3ds.com/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=83#83

The event will be available live at Flashpoint Academy, and virtually via WebEx.  See the link above for details.

The training will take place over five days the weeks of March 9th and 16th, 2009.

The focus of the training will be in helping the students with the technology of lighting, rendering and mental ray, and to work on their final portfolio pieces.

http://area.autodesk.com/index.php/blogs_ken/blog_detail/announcement_3ds_max_design_2010/

I’ve been involved with the beta testing, and all I can say at this point is that it is a significant release!  Take a look at the feature list and video/images they have posted.  We’ll show the software to the User’s Group as soon as we are permitted.