X3 Studios Blog

Matte paintings are used to create “virtual sets” and “digital backlots”. They can be used to create entire sets, or to extend portions of an existing set. (Wikipedia)

The image from above, a digital matte painting, created by our colleague and Art Director Sorin Bechira, is the result of a challenge launched on CGTalk, one of the biggest digital graphics community. The work was well appreciated and ended up quickly on Spotlight on mattepainting.org in the 5^th edition of CG Chosen Magazine, and the people who received our 2008 Calendar can also see it being featured for the month of October.

Usually we can only see such images in their final stage, the question that still remains being: “How did he/she do it?” Fortunately enough for all of us Sorin also wrote a very comprehensive tutorial for 3DM3.com where he explains all the steps he took to create the work.

The tutorial has three steps:

• plate restoration
• plate extension
• digimatte

If you liked this work you can download it as wallpaper from cgwallpapers.com.

Congratulations , Sorin!

Unirii Square is the oldest square from Timişoara. Lately the square became the favorite meeting place of young people. Together with the guys from D’arc, we added on www.darc.ro a live webcam from the Square.

Time is one of the most common resources for everybody. As any other resource, it is limited and in most cases poorly managed. In any person’s activity, time stands for a variable in the equation. Most of us loose around three hours a day, without realizing how those hours were spent. This “loss” is not intended or conscious. If it were like that, it would be easy to correct it. The time loses are due, in most cases, to unhealthy habits. For example, it’s almost a rule that easy tasks are solved first and more difficult tasks are left for the end of the day. Or you start working on something, you are interrupted, forget what it was all about and start with something else, this way risking not to finish anything in due time.

Continue reading

After Epica (Calin), Charlotte (Andreea) and Bumblebee (Catalin), it was time for Sorin to receive his car, named Rudolph (don’t ask). And to blow the horn a bit: all these cars are part of the benefits program offered by X3, and they will eventually become private property of each of the guys. . And here are the pictures from the event.

This ain’t no disco, it’s where we work

“This Ain’t No Disco is a portfolio of some of the best agency interiors in the world.
Try not to drool too much.”

Period.

With a bit of delay, here is the second part of the article…

2005

I think this year is the most important one so far in the entire X3 history (short history, to be honest). The beginning of the year was marked by some new arrivals in the design team, Sorin being one of them. And slowly but surely something happened that I hoped would avoid us as a team: cliques - I believe it’s the right term to be used here. We had enough work to keep us going without much pressure, but it wasn’t enough to keep everybody occupied at all times - one of the reasons some discussions emerged, I think.

Continue reading

The star of this post is the new X3 Studios office, opened on April 14, 2007 during his journey from a not a friendly space la “über-office” that it is now.