Ten Commandments of the CG World by Dave Throssell www.mill.co.uk Thou shalt have no other interests or life before CGI, and thou shalt make no other plans whatsoever. When asked to thy best friend's wedding six months hence, thou shalt say, "Hmm...November might be tricky." Thou shalt think of nothing but CGI and, when asked by thy scantily-clad partner on thy honeymoon, "Of what are thee thinking?", thou shalt answer, "Render trees." Thou shalt take the name of the Lord in vain. Profusely, in many languages, loudly, in company, but only at thy computer when it thou crash the moment before thou savest four hours' work. And thou shalt use "Mother puss- buckets" in preference to "Darn!" at all times. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth that looks like crap. For poor lighting and bad animation is an abomination in the eyes of all thy colleagues, and lack of time and budget is no excuse...And thou shalt remember the law of St.Adrian that the amount of airtime is inversely proportional to the pride thou hast in thy project, and the duff ones will be seen by all, especially thy mother, who wilt disown thee. Remember the Sabbeth day, for thou can get extra eight hours' work and sixteen hours of rendering in before Monday morning. Honour thy father and thy mother. For they are the only people who ever see anything that thou does, as all thy mates are too busy working or down the pub to watch telly or go to the movies or play games. And try to get their birthday cards to them only a week late, having been reminded by thy sister. Thou shalt not kill clients, for they know not what they ask. Thou shalt not commit adultery and shall remain faithful to thy first software, and if forced to use a different software thou shalt wittle on about the first, constantly saying unto thy supervisor how it would be much easier to do this in Cinema 4D as it doth have a special plugin. Thou shalt not steal, unless thou art a freelancer, in which case thou should avail thyself of all manner of textures, plug-ins, models, scripts and MP3s that thou can blag from thy current workplace. Thou shalt bear false witness for thine neighbor. And thou shalt say, "I think it looks brilliant!" when asked thy opinion by anyone who has been up four nights solid, animating a dancing toliet. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's CPU, nor thy neighbor's wife's motherboard, nor his printer, nor especially his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's. Basically, no coveting at all under any circumstances, even though his machine is newer than thine and has more memory-for that way lies madness and the forking out of huge wads of cash on optical mice.