All images from Inspired 3D Lighting and Compositing by David Parrish, series edited by Kyle Clark and Michael Ford. Reprinted with permission.

This is the latest in a number of adaptations from the new Inspired series published by Premier Press. Comprised of four titles and edited by Kyle Clark and Michael Ford, these books are designed to provide animators and curious moviegoers with tips and tricks from Hollywood veterans. The following is excerpted from Lighting and Compositing.

A Brief Introduction
Jim Berney is currently a visual effects supervisor working with Sony Pictures Imageworks in Culver City, California. Jim holds two undergraduate degrees in computer science and economics from the University of California, Irvine, focusing on artificial intelligence research funded by NASA. He then completed his master s degree in computer science from California Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo, with studies centering on the research and development of a new global illumination paradigm. Jim also spent one year at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, studying computer architectures. He then spent three years working for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) as an ADA programmer for a large software engineering consortium.

In making the move to visual effects, Jim worked as a part of the software development team with MetroLight Studios. While at MetroLight, Jim authored flocking software as well as procedural natural phenomenon lighting software. In 1996, Jim joined Imageworks and served an integral role in developing the costuming technology, versioning and publishing and lighting and rendering tools for the production pipeline. Jim’s film credits include Batman Forever, Under Siege 2, Mortal Kombat, Anaconda, Starship Troopers, Contact, Godzilla, Stuart Little and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. When Jim is not creating stunning visual effects or working on a new global illumination paradigm, he enjoys motocross racing.

David Parrish: Can you tell me a little bit about how you got started in the computer graphics industry?

Jim Berney.

Jim Berney: I did my undergraduate studies in computer science, with my emphasis in artificial intelligence. When I graduated, I started doing research with a software engineering consortium called Arcadia that was funded by DARPA. I was basically writing code that would analyze large-scale code, for metric gathering and such, so it was incredibly boring and dry. I did that for a couple of years, and it was nice because I was actually on the UCI (University of California, Irvine) campus. It really wasn’t the real world, even though I was getting paid. One day I was at a book fair and I was just walking by a table. There was a book on the table about ray tracing and it was one of the standard references at the time. I bought it. It was a $70 hardback on sale for $20. I thought, “This stuff’s really cool. This looks fun.” I started looking at doing my master’s and I looked at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where there was a professor, Chris Buckalew, who was doing really interesting stuff on global illumination paradigms. I ended up going there and getting my master’s with an emphasis in computer graphics. My thesis was actually developing a whole new paradigm on global illumination. While I was there, I still didn’t know what I would do for a living. I didn’t know how to make money with this knowledge. At the time, I looked at getting out of computers and being a baker. I actually apprenticed as a baker for a while because I was just so tired of computers. One day I was talking to an undergrad who shared the same advisor as me. He had done an internship at MetroLight, and he was talking about this whole industry that was a complete unknown to me. I understood the underlying theories of animation and computer graphics and rendering, but nothing really about compositing. I remember at the time watching television, seeing a commercial, and still having no idea how that got onto the screen. This kid had already done all the footwork, though. He gave me his list of all the companies and their addresses, so all I had to do was just write a resumé and send it to these people. I did that and of course no one really got back to me. A couple of people asked if I had a demo reel and my response was “What’s that?” I had no reel and the only people who really gave me a chance were MetroLight Studios. I was hired there as what they call an RTD. That’s a research technical director and the position kind of straddles software and the artist pool. They gave me a shot and my first gig there was writing flocking software for Batman Forever. I wrote some really cool flocking software for that movie, and then I actually implemented it within the shots. I remember seeing the film for the first time and finding out then that my shots were cut from the movie and my name was cut from the credits. I thought to myself, “Oh this is great.” To top it off, my truck got stolen that week as well. So that was my welcome to L.A. MetroLight was a small group, and they only had a couple of people that were really experts at RenderMan. One of them left right when we started doing Under Siege 2, so I really quickly ramped up on shader writing in RenderMan. I started rendering and lighting shots for Under Siege 2, and then I did some work for Mortal Kombat. We were doing some commercial stuff as well, but those were the two movies. I was there only a year before I moved here to Sony Imageworks.