Interview with KUAN studio

Hello Luis!

Please let me first introduce myself a little bit – My name is Matus, I am a Slovak student of Architecture, Freelance designer and visualiser at the same time. Browsing on the web, I found a lot of links and some articles on Kuan Studio… When I visited your website for the first time, i was amazed by something “living” in your visualizations, something, what makes me to think about what’s happening in the scene, what people in there are doing, what the stories of their lives are. This feeling comes back to me everytime I see images you produce in your studio. Thank you for finding some time to respond few questions here for all our readers!

Luis Linares was born in 1979 in Montevideo, Uruguay. He is going to become an architect this year, he loves the CG world, he likes special effects from cine very much aswell. So he learned by himself how to use 3Ds Max, AutoCAD and after that how to use V-ray, then After Effects, and the list still keeps growing! In May 2009, Luis with his three friends with the same interests and the same goals for life decided to open the Kuan Studio. The simplicity of things makes life enjoyable and they always try to have fun in their work and in studio.

Can you tell us what “Kuan” means? Who originally came up with this unique name?

Hi Matus, we all in Kuan want to thank for this interview!

The word Kuan comes from the Chinese wisdom book called I Ching. Kuan mean contemplation, and it’s a great word to describe the most important part of our job, contemplate the light, the material, the feeling of the project and put all this information and feelings on the 3D image.
In our first meetings, Alejandro (one of the founders) came with this book and the idea of pick the word that we feel identified; this was a great idea and give us this nice and original name for the studio.

How many members did You have when you started years ago and how many do you count at the moment?

When we started we were four, the founders: Alejandro Aguilera, Agustín Gutierrez, Rodrigo Peña and me, Luis Linares. We founded Kuan on May of 2009, when we decided to join our talents and be an independent studio, we have less than 2 years old ;)
Alejandro left the studio at the end of 2009. Now we are the three originals and we have 2 more 3D artist to help us on the different projects.

What kind of advertising do You prefer? How do Your clients come to You?

About advertising, we have different ways to get known. Through the CG forums, mails and the best way is that the client himself talks about you, that’s the best advertisement you can get.
This year we have in our plans invest more in advertise our studio in other fields, to promote us in other countries.

What part of Your projects are Secret projects You can’t come up with? Are there any?

We have some clients that they do not allow us to show, and of course, not mention their name…We have personal projects too, but we have not enough time to work on them…so we put them on the shelves for several months…Maybe in 2011 we can show something…we hope so.

What about client’s taste?

Well, clients…they have their personal taste, and their branding image consolidated, so, we have some clients where we have to fit to their image standards, and others give us more freedom to explore their projects.

Which client was the best for you so far? Can You tell us? :)

We have some great clients, but we don’t want to have jealous clients, so we prefer to don’t give names ;) We feel lucky to know good people and good clients too, and we work hard to get good images and keep the trust with them and business!

Do You have any “Clients from hell?”

The other side of the moon…We had some difficult clients. We work for people in other countries, and sometimes is hard to communicate well, but we do all our effort to get better communication, in different levels, mail, talk, sketches, etc. But still some clients are hard, like life ;)

Simple question: PC or MAC?

Our hard work are on PC, we have some MAC laptops, but we have to say we use PC.

How powerful is Your in-house renderfarm? Do You render Your projects in-house or are online renderfarms better way to go?

We render all our projects in house, for bigger animation we prefer online renderfarms, it’s better, an extra cost, but is less stress!

About Your visualizations:

Where does Your inspiration come from? Are You also inspired by any other studios? If so, which ones?

We have education at architecture, photography and art, so we have a good background. But we inspire in great artist and studios too. Juan Altieri is from Uruguay too, and we like very much his style and quality. We like Pure Render, MIR, and Neoscape, really pro studios!

Which aspect of Your workflow do You think is the most important? Is it color/overall feeling/realish/composition or anything else?

All these aspects are important to get an overall image with good quality and the feeling that we want.
We study the project to know which view will be the best to show, and then we study the illumination with the material, the good mix give a great feeling and realism to the image. It gives life to the space we want to show.

Which part of Your workflow is more important in your pipeline? Is it 3D modeling, visualization or postproduction everytime?

We think every step is important, modeling is important to give high details in every object in the scene, the composition to bring balance. The color palette give harmony and help in the feeling of the final image.
There are three big steps (Modeling, Texturing and Illumination, and post processing) in our workflow to consider important. Every step is carefully done and well communicated to reach the best quality.

In Your pipeline, are there specific people for 3D modeling, texturing and the others for postproduction, or does everyone work on the whole pipeline process?

The three of us work on the whole pipeline sometimes, but generally Agustin and I work on modeling, texturing and illuminating, and Rodrigo works on the post production.
But when we have too much work, we have to work hard and get the job done in time, so we all work in all the different areas.

Do You have any internal competitions, or visualization battles? If so, are they only for fun, or not?

We don’t have internal competitions, when we have some free time, we do some personal projects to explore new techniques, or also we like to learn about new software and get fun making new stuff!

Do You cooperate with other studios, or are Your relations based on competitive character?

We have good relationship with some studios, we cooperate and work together, and of course we have to compete with other studios, it is our work, and we have to live like other people!

Can You define the skills people should have before applying for a job at Kuan Studio?

Well, we think is important to have imagination, and the rest you have always time to improve your skills… but imagination is really important.

Thank You very much for Your time. From all our readers I wish You all the best and many good ideas and clients.

Thanks Matus, see you.
All the best for you and the readers of this amazing site!!

You can see larger images in this gallery:

[nggallery id=7]