Interview with Alessandro Cangelosi
Could you please tell us about yourself a bit? How did you get into the world of CG?
 Hi I'm Alessandro Cangelosi, I'm 33 years old, I live in Rome, (ITALY), so I'm an Italian 3D artist. I started doing 3D related stuffs at 14 when I was studying programming at school. At this time there was not many softwares so I started with a simple shareware 3D package similar to Pov-ray, there was no interface and you have to write your scene using a language. Then I finished school and I started to work in some multimedia companies using Autodesk 3d Studio, but my dream was visual effects so I studied and worked a lot to work on movies and commercials, and it worked for me, because in the year 2000 I started working on movies at Cinecittà Studios, the main movie studio in Italy. Now I'm a freelancer and as every freelancer, and trying to find more collaboration and to develop personal projects.
Before starting CG did you have a skill in fine arts (drawing, painting,...)?
I started to love drawing and painting when I was child. My brother was studying at the university and every afternoon I was in the same room watching him during his design session, so I started trying to emulate him, and then the passion exploded inside me. I continued to draw and I started to paint, but I discovered the computer art very soon at 14, and today I'd like to re-start drawing and painting by hand, but I've no more time due to my job and my new love, my family.
What’s your nature of job in rebelThink? From how long you are working there and how is the experience?
I founded rebelThink in 2004, developing Natural:shaders project. The company worked in development together with rebelThink.01 srl and alone in the post-production market. I was the manager and the TD/team leader also, and it was too much work for me, I managed the company, I searched for clients, I was the producer, I was the 3D artist...so I decided to stop this adventure in 2008, some months ago, some problems due to the complex and “strange” Italian market, and all the stress I had let me decide to restart again my job planning becoming a freelancer. It was my dream, it was my child, but this is the time to think about me and my family, so is better to work like I'm doing now.
Please tell us something about your R & D in Fluids (future expected developments)? Which tips and suggestions you like to give to the artists working on fluids?
I think I started doing R&D in fluids for a movie and then it become like a loop in my life. I think I've to explain it. In 2001 I received a job task on which the director needs to create some water effects as storm, water monster and something like that. So I started trying to find fast and hi-quality solution on the market, but I had no choise. There was RealFlow and RealWave but I had no time to make complex simulation and I need an artistic approach to the shot, so I decided to start developing techniques and custom shader to do it with Emiliano Morciano, and we developed the 1st release of Natural:sea Ocean System. After this job, I don't know why, in every kind of job I received there's was sea, water, storm, etc etc. So I had a lot of possibility to optimize techniques and shader. In past I decided to get part of the internal code to create Natural:shaders, but at the moment I think I'll continue development only for internal projects. At the moment I'd like to have time to work on RealFlow scripting to apply some ideas to integrate it and my custom scripts and tools, I tried something for a commercial to create dynamic bubbles very fast and it worked fine.
What software are you using for your CG work and what’s the main reason of using those?
The main software I use is Autodesk 3ds max. I use it from the 1st MS-Dos version, I become beta tester, and as you can understand for me is the choice n.1 for my productions with all its plug-in and MAXScript that give me the possibility to develop everything I need. I used Maya and Softimage|3D in past also, but I still continue prefer 3ds max for my skills. For compositing issue I use Shake and Combustion. The 1st one because this is very powerful for project in hires also, and the 2nd one because that is perfect for my pre-comp and look development stage. For the rendering I usually use Mental ray and scanline rendering, but Vray also, and when the client ask for any other rendering engine like FinalRender or Brazil R/S.
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