The 3DCG Thread: Revenge of the NURBS

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The 3DCG Thread: Revenge of the NURBS

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

Welcome to the wonderful world of 3D Computer Graphics.

This world is occupied by a whole menagerie of nerds, geeks, neckbeards, sociopathic shut-ins and egoists, many of whom are devoid of any attractive physical or personality traits, or real artistic ability. This is precisely why there are so many of us on SA.

No, that�s not entirely fair.

***THE RULES***

This thread is intended for, primarily, critiques of work. Post pictures, videos, Programs used, and insights to the process. It�s all tops.
General discussion of schools, jobs, software/hardware, and personal experiences, are greatly welcomed.
Software/Hardware issues however, could probably be left out. There are plenty of other resources that you can find to help you in more definitive ways (many which can be found in this OP). I�ve solved 90% of my issues by just googling it, or going to CGTalk.
Anything CG related (concept artwork, compositing or cinematography for example) is good. One thing about 3D, it�s imperative to understand the other artistic disciplines that go into, or follow your 3D work. But be reasonable, and keep it valid; tie it back to your CG work.
Table breaking is very easy to avoid.

Now for the fun stuff!

To go to the FAQ, just CLICK HERE

To go to Resources, just CLICK HERE

To go to the Gallery, just CLICK HERE

So what the hell is �3DCG�?
Whatever it is, it is pretty drat huge. The easiest way to explain it, is CG is just doing all of the artistic things that have been done for the entire human existence, but with a beige-electrified-magic-machine. 3DCG is just a subset of this, meaning that we use these �mad skillz� primarily in a �3D space�.

Along with the artistic component of 3DCG, are the technical aspects. So really, 3DCG is just for people who aren�t artistic or technical enough to be a traditional artist or computer programmer.

OK. So what exactly would I be doing if I get a job?
Lets break it down into disciplines;

Disciplines
Disciplines are pretty much the tasks you will be performing on the job. A grounding in a lot (if not all) of these disciplines is almost essential to being a good 3D artist, even if you find you are specializing in one area from a very early stage in your career. Knowing the ins and outs of what is being delivered to you in the production, and what your work is going into, can only be a bonus.

(Follow the wikipedia links kids! They�ll explain things good like.)

Modeling � You don�t need to take your clothes off for this.
This is generally the first forte into the 3D world for a production. Modeling is all about the transition from 2D images (whether it be concept artwork, floor plans, etc) into a 3D object. If you want a really bad analogy, in modeling you act as an interpreter; taking the information from one person, decoding its makeup, then expressing it to another in an eloquent way, in which it will be most understood.

Ofcourse, it�s not all as simple as that. You have different systems (Polygons, SubDs, NURBS), processes (Traditional, Digital Clay), considerations (Polycounts), and packages when it comes to modeling.

Rigging � Show me your bones.
Rigging is one of the more technical aspects of CG, and is generally reserved for a character technical director. It can require a deep understanding of the 3D program and its coding languages. When you rig, you are building the deformation systems and skeletons upon which the animation and other things are performed. Characters, props, background elements, custom interfaces, and lots more, need some sort of system in place to be controlled.

Animation � Housing hyperactive, juvenile men and women since 1928
I think we all know what animation is. Some of the words bandied about when it comes to animation are things like Character (numero uno), Acting, Squash, Stretch, Weight, Anticipation, Timing, Keyframe, Dope Sheets� and so forth. If any of that sounds interesting to you, then you will like animation. The only book you'll ever need on animation (not true) is Richard Williams' The Animator's Survival Kit. It is full of advice, anecdotes and pretty pictures vital to any aspiring animator.

Lighting and Rendering � Ooohhhhhhh� shiny.
Another discipline rooted in a rich artistic history, with a twist of technical knowledge. Actually a really fun area, and is very important to the fidelity of your final piece. It�s also an incredibly huge and complicated area to explain. Here are some tasty subheadings:

Texturing: Hoo boy. Textures are pretty much any 2D representation of �what you see� on a surface. Think colour, luminosity, specularity and anything inbetween. They can be incredibly powerful in controlling the surface properties, when thought of in a mathematical sense (Black = 0, White = 1).
But how does a 2D image translate onto a 3D object? The answer is the bane of any 3D Artist. Say this line with me a few times, because you will be saying it many times over in your career;

�I loving HATE UVS AND I WANT TO DIE�
Shading: Is assigning the material properties to your objects. Making metal look all shiny and metally, wood all dull and wooden, and skin all semi-light-absorbing and skinny. Also tied closely with texturing. Different shaders come with different packages, different renderers, and can be coded from scratch.
Lighting: is putting� lights� into your� thing. There�s no way to explain it more simply. It�s happening in photographs, paintings, and even ON YOU RIGHT NOW as we speak. Good lighting design is essential to any artistic work, and motivation is the keyword to any good lighting.

As for lighting in a 3D package, each program will give you a set of 8 or so different �kinds� of lights. You only need 3. Once you know what they are; congratulations! You�re a lighter! (not true)
Rendering: In a simple term, Rendering is all about how your texturing, shading and lighting is going to be computed. Each 3D package has its own basic �renderer�. But there are also renderers that operate independent of a 3d package (and by all accounts, are the only ones used.). The four main independent renderers are;
Mental Ray
VRay
Renderman
Brasil

Beyond that, rendering (or �render wrangling�) is about getting your scene setup to render in these engines, setting render passes, fixing crashes, testing, re-rendering, and just a lot of sitting around waiting, drinking coffee.

I've kind of skimmed lightly over L&R, but if you want to get excited about being a Lighting Technical Director, there is a bloody fantastic book by Jeremy Birn called Digital Lighting and Rendering. It is �the poo poo�, and will explain all of this 10*Deeper than I have, and in a very easy to understand way.

Dynamics, Particles and Effects � Making things go boom.
Tied closely with rigging, and one of the more technical aspects of 3DCG. Dynamic simulations are required for anything from fire, smoke, water, physical collisions and crowds. This area kind of comes with experience, and we can maybe elaborate on it if there is a call for it from the thread.

Kirby fucked around with this message at 08:23 on May 25, 2009

# ¿ Jun 16, 2008 14:42

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 23:23

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

***FAQ***

Q: I totally want to get into �3DCG�, I love Computers/Games/Movies/Puppies
It helps to like those things, but it's not essential. I can't stress enough, CG is just as much (if not more) about the art, than it is the computer. You need a grounding in artistic principles if you want to produce good work.

Please don't expect to get a job with a portfolio like this or this. Sure, your work will look like that when you first start. But give it a year. Look at your work when you first started. Give it another year. Look back at the first year. It doesn't take long for all of that artistic sensibility you have developed to blossom through.
These resources will definitely help too.

Q: What 3D programs are out there?
There are a shitton of different 3D packages out there, all with their own prerogatives, nuances and workflows. Here�s a quick rundown on some of the �industry standard� ones;
CG packages
Autodesk Max
Autodesk Maya
Softimage XSI
SideFX Houdini

Sculpting
Autodesk Mudbox
Pixologic Zbrush

Dynamic Simulations
Realflow

it is handy to keep an eye on the cheaper/free alternatives to 3DCG. Their interface and workflows may suit your beginner status a little better. Here are some popular ones;
Blender
Nevercenter Silo
Google SketchUp

Beyond 3D, you may be asked at times to become familiar with compositing packages. I haven�t mentioned it much, but it is the next progression beyond your 3D work. It�s practically essential to know about compositing if you want to produce some industry level work. Keep these programs in mind;
Adobe After Effects
Apple Shake
The Foundry Nuke
Autodesk Combustion

Q: SO which program should I be using?
It depends. There isn�t a wrong answer. There most likely will be a time when you will be asked to pickup a program you have never used before in a production. Learning how to learn, and just being familiar with the kind of environment these programs have will help you a long way in being flexible. Tis will also come in handy, as many upper level Studios use proprietary software.
Learning in one of the cheaper packages can have its advantages, just as learning in one of the industry packages can. However, it is not recommended diving headfirst into a program like maya or max, it will just net you countless hours of trying to find the respective edge>splitloop tool. Fire it up, familiarize yourself with some simple navigation and common hotkeys (which should be helpfully laid out in the programs� manual), and head on over to the resources area of the OP to get your tutorial-on.
You may also want to consider what kind of field of the industry you are interested in, to help decide what program to start in.

Q: What fields are there in 3DCG?
3D is primarily, a freelance/contract based business. You will no doubt find yourself self-employed, wherever you are in the world. Don�t get into this business if you want strong job security (that being said, you can still easily be successful if you have the talent).

Generally speaking, these are the fields of CG;
(need some thread elaboration; these are just my ballpark guesses)

Architecture/Visualization
Common attributes: Architecture/Inorganic modeling, heavy lighting/rendering technical direction, FX, good place to move into other fields.
Work environment: freelance (can be done solo), tight deadlines, small studios (5-15+ people)
Common programs used: 3DS Max, Maya
Videogame Production
Common attributes: efficient usage of computing resources, specialized pipelines.
Work environment: large studios (50-150+ People), long hours during the �crunch� period.
Common programs used: 3DS Max, Maya, XSI, Mudbox, ZBrush
TV/Advert Production, ShortFilm Studio
Common attributes: �3D generalist� friendly, servicework.
Work environment: small studio (5-20+ People), contract based, tight deadlines.
Common programs used: Maya, 3DS Max, Houdini, Mudbox, Zbrush
Full CGI/Visual Effects Movie Production
Common attributes: liberal usage of computing resources, dynamic simulations, cutting edge technology, specialized pipelines, highly experienced environment.
Work environment: large studios (50-150+ People), professional.
Common programs used: Maya, XSI, Houdini, Mudbox, Zbrush

Q: How do I get a job?
By sending out examples of your work on a DVD (This is called a �showreel�), along with any extraneous crap like a CV or portfolio.

Here are 10 tips from Jeremy Birn

Q: So what makes a good reel?
Read the huge quote below by BigKOfJustice. But if you want some quick fundamental rules;

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY. This is the big one. Don�t pad out your reel because you think it is too short. Don�t include unfinished work. 10 Seconds of great work is better than 10 seconds of great work, then 90 seconds of mediocre work.
Have a focus. Include relevant work to the position you are applying for. This means you may end up with 3-4 different reels, but it�s better to spend that extra time than sending along a model heavy reel for a Lighting TD position.
Clear, quick and concise titling. Nobody likes to sit through 10 seconds of your name and email, or wait for text to trawl in above a turntable of a model.
Start with your absolute best piece. If your first impression isn�t good, they won�t bother looking at the rest.
Don�t run over 2 minutes. Nobody will kill you if you do, but it�s just a nice rule.
Don�t waste time on elaborate packaging. All you need is a marker, and an easy to read typeface.

This is just a pet peeve of mine but;
No trance/dance/death metal/hardcore. It�s nice, but not necessary, to have something to listen to when you�re watching a reel. But Mastodon doesn�t really suit when you�re watching a cute bunny slowly rotate on a turntable. If you really want something loud, fast or at all rockin�, just mix it really low so it isn�t distracting to the image.

This was posted in the last thread. It�s absolutely great advice, and comes straight from the horses mouth;

BigKOfJustice posted:

In a nut shell, to know if something is studio worthy, compare your work against the work of the studio that you are applying for. Does it compare or exceed their work in any aspect? That's how if you determine if your work is studio quality. Now with that being said, it is very unfair to compare student/entry level work to journeymen and senior artists, since chances are they will have significant work to pull demo reel material from. There is always a need for new meat for the grinder, since its cheap labor, so the good news is you won't have to compete against the guy who has Davy Jones or Sandman on his demo reel. But you will have to beat the other students, and get into the top 98 percentile of student work that is out there. I think for every guy we hire at work, we reject several hundred demo reels. The vast majority of them stink to high hell, and thats the ones which actually get filtered by HR and recruiting first. So the next question is, what do you want to focus on? Lighting? Modeling? Rigging? Animation? FX? Matte Painting? Match moving? Motion graphics? Compositing? I'd pick two semi related fields and focus your reel into showcasing your strengths. If you want to be a filmmaker/director, don't bother with cgi, go take a real film class. If you want to be a producer, go and become a production co-coordinator for a production company. If you want to become a matte painter or designer, go to a traditional design and art school to hone your craft. Now from a motion picture visual effects background, heres what students should focus on: Modeling: Most studios model all sorts of things, broken down into two categories. Hard and soft surface modeling. Hard surface includes machines, vehicles and environments, soft surface details organic models ranging from people to animals. Most studios have to create realistic models for film work, so I'd stay away from fantasy and make believe creatures and environments unless it meet or exceeds the target studios work. Like modeling vehicles and machines? Dump the giant robot and sports car / fantasy car poo poo and model something that you actually see in a movie. How about a air liner? A Military helicopter? A police car? Be specific, pick a model / year, do research and model the object dead on. Make sure your uv's are good and have your geometry broken apart in sensible sets and groups so that other departments can use the model. Bonus points if you can show that you can make multiple resolution models. That is a Lo and a High version of your machine. Soft modeling? Do a realistic character study and make sure its anatomically correct and accurate. No green demon alien things, the guy reviewing the demo reel will have no frame of reference and think that you are just lazy or lack the ability to do something more challenging. I won't know what an alien thing is supposed to look like but I do recognize a knight or a cowboy if I saw one. Really want to blow peoples socks off and start getting interviews at the big studios for a creature modeling gig? Create 2 or 3 realistic anatomically correct animals for your demo reel. Every big studio has a talking / cgi animal movie or commercial in production at any given time. Do a elephant, a large cat and a dog, and do it well. If you can do a nice dog with good bone structure and musculature, chances are you can handle doing a alien creature that the art department will toss at you. As for environmental models, team up with a tracking/fx friend and do some set extensions. Take a picture of a city block and add some more realistic buildings, or make a room much larger then it really is. Speaking about lighting, talking to a few frustrated lighting supervisors at work, all you really need for a lighting reel, on a basic level, is stills. Take photographs of various environments at different times of days and insert an object/building/character and light the sucker to match. Bring it into a compositing package to match grain/noise and to do color correction if you have to, just make it match. Putting a character on a simple background with a canned lighting rig doesn't show us that you can light. Many high end lighting pipelines tweak their lighting settings in a compositing package rather then within the animation package they are using. As for effects, that can be a tougher nut to crack. FX work can range from water splashes, sea foam, smoke, dust and explosions to mundane stuff such as blowing grass, and holdout fx objects. Ever see a cg character charge through a grass field in battle in a movie? Yeah, guess who's doing the grass/foot interaction? The FX guy. He/she can simulate foot steps in cg grass to match the film plate. FX includes some of the most difficult work, that usually doesn't get noticed if you do your job right. Sometimes you get big money shots with a cg nuke going off, or a planet blowing up, but usually you're doing dust hits or footsteps in the snow. As for software, that can be a huge toss up. Most of the top end studios use Houdini, Maya and a mix of proprietary software. If you are looking at going to a game studio, you may need to be able to do work in Max or Maya. If you want to work for Disney, Imageworks, Digital Domain, Rhythm and Hues, Laika, etc. Knowing houdini is a massive plus. If you can do some decent FX and Lighting demos in houdini you stand a good chance at scoring an entry level job at the above mentioned studios, since houdini people are very hard to come by. You can download the free version of houdini at https://www.sidefx.com. Since FX folks have to light their own elements at times, lighting, shading and fx work tend to go hand in hand. As for animation, most animators tend to do one of two things really well. Action and acting. Really good animators can do both, and the best animators can switch between cartoony and realistic motion. For a reel, I'd have some characters go through some traditional action sequences. Breaking and merging cycles is important, have a character, walk, stop, run and jump, recover and keep on running. Have character hand off objects to one another, have them throw a pitch and swing a bat. Animate a horse trotting or some animal walking, and do it well. Don't make up stuff as you go along, do research on how these animals and creatures move, base it on some form of reality. Tape some shows on the discovery channel and watch how these animals move. As for lipsync and acting goes, have multiple characters acting with each other. Don't take a funny sound clip from the internet and animate one character in an empty environment and animate to it. Have 2 or 3 characters play off each other, get mad at each other, laugh at each other. Have them react and interact. You don't need to do a short film, you're not being hired to do that. So you can plan a short film, just do 3-4 shots of that film to show off your acting ability on a character. I know schools like their students to do short films, but frankly, 90% of them stink to high hell and won't get you a job. If you are stuck in this situation, just plan a "work" reel with more relevant shots and demos that will get you hired. Just show case your best work from a film and move on with other animation. You only get a few seconds to make an impression, if you don't catch your targets eye in 10 seconds, its off to the dumpster with your reel. Theres one other aspect of animation that many schools ignore but is extremely important to most film production. Technical Animation. You may not be a good character animator, but you can do technical animation, that is animate fat jiggle, or cloth/fur simulation. Most studios seperate these tasks, you'll have one person provide the performance of the animation, and another guy to clean up deformation, and do cloth and fur simulation. You can make a complete reel targeted to cloth and fur simulation and if you do a good job, you'll be able to land work quickly at most major studios. This post is getting a bit long winded, so I'll just leave some nuggets of do's and don'ts based on some student work I've seen recently: -DO put your name and contact information on everything you give us. We have gotten dvd's in the past with just a name. I'm sure there was at one point a resume attached to the disc but it got separated. Guess what? That guy would have gotten a phone call for a job, but since he didn't have the time to write his phone number on his demo reel he never got that call. -DO credit what work you did on what shot if it's a team project. -DON'T take credit for other peoples work, this is a very small industry, and you will eventually get found out. -DON'T waste time and money doing a big fancy demo package. I found the quality of the demo reel is inversely proportional to the amount of fancy packaging it has. Keep it simple and cheap. I've seen one girl who had a spiral bound portfolio booklet, a matching custom dvd case, business cards and a nice folding portfolio that was all color co-ordinated. Her problem? She spent more time on her presentation then the content. Her class must have had a 60 second minimum limit for their final project. And it showed. She had 7 seconds of actual content, and 53 seconds of title cards. I poo poo you not. What a waste of her money. A plain text resume, and cleanly marked dvd with your name and phone number is all you need. For years all my demo reels were market with sharpies, this year I got a light scribe dvd burner and I have my name and phone number burned onto my reels, but that because the lightscribe burner was dirt cheap. -DO spend the extra few bucks on quality dvd media for your demo reel. Ensure that you dvd does play on a few different models of consumer dvd players. Keep the menus very basic, or better yet have your demo start on autoplay. -DO target your reels to the job and company you want to work for. Sending a reel full of cg animals to a company that does exclusively sports games won't get you a job. Do some research on what the company expects to see on their reels. Now I'll end off by addressing the cartoony and realistic vs fantasy material on demo reels. You can do anything you want provided its awesome. You want to do a big rear end space battle? And get a job with it? Look at war films and sci fi films, emulate what you see and like and do your best job trying to match it or blow it away. If you can't focus on what you can do well. Don't bite off more then what you can chew. Create cartoony characters that are expressive and are full of life, don't use it as a excuse to create a poorly modeled creature and claim its a style. Don't focus too much on style, your client will dictate what style you use, your employer will dictate what style you use. As such its important that you show case the fundamentals that you know. As for fantasy designs, its a fine edge between doing something awe inspiring verses something thats not. Design it well and put some serious thought into it, and give it a realistic frame of reference and you'll be fine. And finally, if there is a weakness to your ideal or reel, don't be afraid to get some help and credit them for it. I'm working on a current personal project where I'm doing rigging, modeling, fx and fur setups. I have another co-worker working on lighting tools, and another who is going to be providing us with custom shaders. I have 4 animator friends who are each taking a part and providing some nice animation to everything. In the end we'll have a short 30-40 second trailer done with production quality that we can all put on our reels along with our production work. So with that in mind team up with your fellow classmates and such. They're important, the social networking aspect of the industry is just as important if not more important for your demo reel. I got my first few jobs by knowing the right people and being at the right place at the right time. Don't be the anti social prima donna that no one wants to work with, you'll never get work.

Kirby fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Jun 17, 2008

# ¿ Jun 16, 2008 14:42

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

Please email me or post more links (we need em!), this is just my personal stash at the moment. :siren:

***RESOURCES***

***GENERAL***

LINKS

News
CGSociety
CGChannel
Highend3d
3DBuzz
Forums
CGTalk
Highend3d Forums
Strut Your Reel
CGarchitect
Blogs
Victor Navone (Pixar)
John K (Cartoonist � Ren and Stimpy Creator!)
Free Tutorials
CGTalk
3DTotal
Skymedias
3Dtutorials
CG Education
zooRender
ComputerArts Magazine
3D Palace (also has purchasable resources)
Pay Tutorials
Gnomon Workshop
Gnomonology
3DBuzz
Digital Tutors
Downloads
Highend3d Downloads
Crazy Bump

REFERENCE MATERIAL
Stock
StockVault
Stock.xchng

Random
100 Years of Photos

***APPLICATION SPECIFIC***

Autodesk Maya
Infinitee � Maya Tutorial Links
CGTalk - General Maya Tutorial Thread
Maya TWiki � General Maya Tips
Autodesk 3DS Max
CGTalk � General Max Tutorial Thread
***Shortcut List - For Max, Cinema4d, freehand, illustrator, indesign and photoshop***
SideFX Houdini
SideFX � Video/Text Tutorials

***MODELING***

LINKS

General
CGTalk � Modelling Tutorials
SudDModelling Forums - Polygon Modeling Primer
Low-Poly/Video Game
Forums
polycount
CGTalk � GameArt Links

Tutorials
poopinmymouth � General/3DSMax Game Modelling
ArtReference - Quake3 Case Study
High-Poly/Sculpting
Forums
Tweak Pro
SUBDModelling
ZBrushCentral

BOOKS

Anatomy
Artistic Anatomy by Paul Richer
Dynamic Anatomy by Byrne Hogath
Heads, by Alex Kayser
Cyclopedia Anatomicae by Gyorgy Feh�r

REFERENCE/MATERIALS
General
CGTalk � �Blueprints and Other Resources� Thread

Anatomy
deviantART - Human Body Links
Human Anatomy Online
3dsk

Buildings
New York
Stockholm

NOTES

***RIGGING/TD***

LINKS

Maya
Rigging 101
Frog CR Tutorial � By Matt Derksen
3DS Max

BOOKS

Maya/MEL
The Art of Rigging, by Kiaran Ritchie, Jake Callery, Karim Biri

REFERENCE/MATERIALS
Rigging101 - Free Character Rigs
The Andy Rig

***ANIMATION***

LINKS

Forums
GCTalk � Animation Resource Thread
Blogs
Spline Doctors

BOOKS

The Animators Survival Kit

Cartoon Animation

Stop Staring - Facial Modelling and Animation Done Right

REFERENCE/MATERIALS
Lucid Movement � High Speed Camera Footage
Principles of Animation � Toy Story Study
Body Language in Animations
ASIFA Archive � Preston Blair�s Animation (Scans)

NOTES
Requires a signup, but Shaun Kelly has released an e-book called animation tips and tricks through Animation Mentor. Worth it for Begginner/Intermediate Animators.

***LIGHTING AND RENDERING***

LINKS

Texturing
GCTalk � Texture Tutorials/Free Thread
cgTextures - Tutorials
DavidPerry Developer Forum � NormalMapping Resource Links
Lighting
Light Theory
3dRender.com
Rendering
Mental Ray
3D Buzz � Mental Ray FAQ
MyMentalRay � MR Tutorials, Wiki and Resources
Zaps Mental Ray Tips Blog

VRay
spot3D � Vray Documentation

BOOKS
Digital Lighting and Rendering by Jeremy Birn

REFERENCE/MATERIALS

Textures
cgTextures � Free Textures
Mayang � Textures
Lighting
General
3dRender � Free Scenes to Light and Render

HDRI Probes/Sky Plates
ICT Graphics
Spectralouge
Continuum3D

Kirby fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Jul 8, 2008

# ¿ Jun 16, 2008 14:43

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

***GALLERY***
Some cool rear end goon renders from the previous thread;

Hinchu

poopinmymouth

TouchToneDialing

cubicle_gangster

concerned mom

SGT.Squeaks

Pixelherder

marshmonkey

ElecHeadMatt

Some boob lovin� dude whose name I forgot to take down

nonentity

Heintje

therunningman

tuna (character model, rendering done by https://simonreeves.com)

Kirby fucked around with this message at 10:58 on Jun 17, 2008

# ¿ Jun 16, 2008 14:44

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

^ It's in the OP :c00lbert:

. Found it really useful when I started lighting.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2008 04:45

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

Not exactly the right look, but gently caress, the coding you're decribing behind the scenes is pretty fantastic. I'd love to get into some renderman stuff, but none of the studios in my area use it.

Adawait: Looks nice, that is one seriously big booty. Face needs a bit of work, she looks a bit like a dude with that shading/lighting. Hands just need some atentive posing, and the satin looks kinda too crumply. Other than that, looks sweet.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2008 04:38

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

I guess this can go here since you guys would know best :c00l:

I've been snooping around SH/SC because I'm in the market for a new rig (thank you, taxman). I'll mainly be doing things like sculpting and lighting/rendering, is it worth going for a Quad core instead of a Dual (I'm guessing an emphatic 'yes', but I need to make sure)?

pretty much looking at;

Quad/Dual Core 2 Duo
4GB Ram
8800GT (can I get away with a cheaper videocard?)

And perhaps a high quality monitor. I've been checking out the Dell Ultrasharps, but are they worth the extra $300?

Some suggestions/problems/specs you guys have would be cool. Also, if any of you australians have suggestions for good stores/sites to order from, that would be tops.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2008 11:41

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

I was actually thinking 64bit so thats all good to know.

As for the monitor, good colour range will be useful for lighting, but all the poo poo I've been working on gets professionally graded elsewhere. So I guess it's not worth the cash.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2008 00:51

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

yeah a guy at the studio I'm at just upgraded to vista x64. took him 2 days to get his wacom tablet drivers working properly. Now he's having tonnes of issues getting zBrush up and running.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2008 03:44

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

Get a wacom tablet. Way easier on the wrist, and it just makes everything a breeze when youre switching between maya/zbrush/photoshop like me.

left click on touch, right click on one pen button, middle click on the other. No wheel involved

EDIT: Ended up grabbing the Dell 2408WF after reading this review. Someone at the studio has one and it looks really nice :shobon:

Kirby fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Aug 2, 2008

# ¿ Aug 2, 2008 04:49

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

spottedfeces posted:

Could someone tell me how to get my point lights to stop flickering, please?

In Maya.

are you using glow? theres an exposure setting that is set to auto, which means it changes every frame, giving the flicker.

As for render passes, atlesast in maya, they can be dodgy. I'm working on a production of a tv series at the moment, so we had to come up with a stable, consistent workflow. It is quite stylistic, so we dont really bother with getting maximum tweakability by doing reflection, shadow passes, etc. We have a great lead compositor so he deals without em.

So weve gotten it down to;

- Lighting
- Specular
- Mattes
- Materials

as for the flow;

- I generally reference a master of the entire shot/animation, and use a combo of renderlayers and seperate files. maya can break down a little when you start to change materials between layers.

lighting
- in one file, use render passes for different light sources; ambient, sunkey, fill, lamp, etc for example.

specular
- turn off emit diffuse on the lights for a specular pass. depending on what you want, I usually get away with just the one specular layer, because I override the lights to emit either R G B and just use those channels for the different light sources.

mattes
- In a new file, have Surface shaders set to R G and B and assign to objects. say, R for the groundplane, G for characters, B for props. use these as your alphas, its way easier.

materials
- materials is something really cool. we have a shader that puts AO into the green channel, fog into the blue, and z-depth into red. Its actually online, we just customized it a bit. ill try and find it later.

then there is usually some special consideration needed for something depending on the episode, wether it be water/fur/particles etc. again, same thing, just split it into a new scene and make sure to get your light passes on it, and a matte.

but yeah, with render passes simpler is always better. sorry if its a bit scatterbrain im kind of hungover

# ¿ Aug 30, 2008 03:27

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

okay this is going to sound really convoluted and silly but here it goes.

I've got a shot where a character is looking at himself into a mirror.
but due to the cameraangle/staging/animation, it's not really ideal to have him actually standing and facing absolutely dead on into the mirror.

so what i need is to have something that is facing front on to the character that will output the image i need to fake the reflection.

So to do this in maya, im guessing I need to do some rig where I either hava another piece of geo that is reflecting and output that into the 'actual' mirror, or something like a camera projection where the camera is projecting a render of it's self.

has anyone done anything similar :shobon:

if none of the above makes sense, I guess the closest example to this i can think of is as if, say in real life, you have a camera that is on and recording while outputting onto a tv. I need to do that.

Kirby fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Oct 10, 2008

# ¿ Oct 10, 2008 05:45

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

I think it would only sit well with things like car and industrial design, if at all. they would still probably rather just a pad and pencils.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2008 04:01

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

haven't checked up on this thread in a while, good to see its humming along

has anyone checked this out?
http://www.gnomonschool.com/master/

18 online masterclasses in one week, $250 if you get in early.
Anyone taking part? I'm seriously considering this.

Hopefully I'll be able to show you guys soon what ive been working on for the last 6 months.
its p.cool :3:

# ¿ Nov 26, 2008 12:45

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

thats what i thought too, but the playback of the gnomon workshops is actually a different thing. theyre just happening in the same week.

from what i can gather from the pdf on that page, the 18 video lectures are at 90-180 minutes, and available online all week. The lecturers are available in private forums for Q&A.

the only downside i can see is that they are streaming only. no option to download. which is understandable, but i hate taking loving notes.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2008 23:28

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

tuna posted:

You can use curves and surfaces in all sorts of funky ways to drive/constrain deformers or whatever you wish. It's useful being able to drive things based on the UV coordinates of NURBS that you can't do on polygons. Usually for more complex deformation in a rig (like on a face or something complex with layers of deformations happening I.E. deformers that need to adapt and work with previous deformers), simply having a rotating bone or a movable object won't get you where you want, so you could use nurbs/curves to help drive or constrain layered controls that do things like : collision intersection, moving deformers explicitly along a complex surface, mapping object positions along a surface, etc. etc.

Were using a really cool folicle system in maya 08 on our main rigs.

basically, constrain two ends of a divided nurbs place to your joints (say, shoulder and elbow), add a hair folicle to the center of each nurbs division, then a whole lot of mess of locators and bones and heirachy poo poo.

The folicles always stay in the center of the nurbs division, meaning you can can control the portion with true elasticity and twistyness. its totally sweet.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2008 01:35

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

http://www.fahrenheitdigital.com/dvds/rigging/ - these dvds are long and slow (and slightly dated), but theyre the best to get up to speed on rigging (in maya atleast). He starts everything from scratch.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2008 04:55

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

tuna posted:

Yeah I use ribbons for spines and limbs for most character rigs, they're a really nice way of doing things. Except in XSI I can use a fast surface constraint, or a multithreaded ICE compound to do the trick instead of Maya's slow hacked up way of using follicles

** NEW TO MAYA 2010 **

- nICE
- Improved surface constraints
- FACE ROBOT
- everything else we can rip out from the Softimage catalouge
:hellyeah:

Kirby fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Dec 4, 2008

# ¿ Dec 4, 2008 09:12

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

she's quite triangular in nature. Strong wind couldn't knock her down, no way.

Anyway, anyone else sign up for the gnomon masterclass?
Some really good stuff on there, I've skimmed some and watched the Cinematic Lighting class with Jeremy Vickery.

Also the whole 'only available online! not saved or stored for later viewing!' thing is a bit of a non issue if you just check your browser cache :ssh:

i thought they would atleast try some fancy encoding or something.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2008 07:07

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

bigredbutton, how did you go about doing motion blur?

edit: oh im guessing thats what the velocity pass is?

# ¿ Dec 15, 2008 01:49

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

oh cool, im using ReelSmart too on a current production. What exactly is your method? We're pretty much doing straight colour mattes for the characters and props to fix the bleeding that can happen and control blur amounts.

I'm finding we get a good result with it, but it can cause artifacting and aliasing. did you have similar problems?

# ¿ Dec 15, 2008 04:12

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

heh, umm, were actually in maya 2008.
I'll look into it and see if theres anything equivocal thats in mental ray or the maya render.

thanks heaps for the writeup

# ¿ Dec 15, 2008 07:00

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

hmm, thats weird.

im using firefox on osx and its peachy. all of the masterclasses have been available to me since the first day
http://forums.thegnomonworkshop.com/forumdisplay.php?f=57
maybe try clearing your cache.

this is what ive been using to save trawling through my cache.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2008 04:55

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

Me on Page 15 posted:

thats what i thought too, but the playback of the gnomon workshops is actually a different thing. theyre just happening in the same week.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2008 07:23

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

Akaikami posted:

After watching a few of the Gnomon DVDs I've come to the conclusion that the majority of them suck. I was watching one on production character modeling and he basically skipped 30% of the beginning process and imported a bust and male body and traced it around to make armor and accessories that covered the whole body.

I don't have no male body and head to work off of >:[

Zbrush comes with ztools of basemeshes to work on.
Plus theres these:
http://gnomonology.com/prod/19?sort=lowestPrice&kw=

if you need a generic human male to begin your work on, why bother making one every time? "Production" character modelling is as much about speed as it is quality.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2008 23:50

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

if you're going to be using 3d apps, try to avoid the ati cards. I know people who haven't had any problems, but I personally have a 4350 and it took me a week to try and iron of the the glitches i was getting in maya/zbrush. Also a colleague has an iMac with the ati card and has problems in xsi.

Stick with an nVidia card. you may still have problems, but they seem to be less common.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2009 23:59

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

i think the scale of the props are wrong too. that seat is way way low, its almost inline with the bottom skirting. i imagine a person sitting on it and having thier knees around thier ears.

the table could stand to come up about waist high and the actual bottle in the water cooler could be about x1.5 the size

have you grabbed a human model and put it in the scene to judge everything?

i think narrowing and lengthening the hallway could help it alot too, that way if you do muck around with some cool angles it will look more interesting.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2009 07:52

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

Hinchu posted:

Also wtf's up with this line in the OP?

(I do both traditional art and computer programming.)

eh its just tongue in cheek. relax.

your trio of oz stuff looks amazing by the way.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2009 02:29

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

Useless posted:

Still more playing with lights and modeling. I really should be doing something else on a Friday night.

i think a lightsource coming up from under the walkway would be tops

# ¿ Mar 14, 2009 09:50

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

I don't know how many of you are in Australia, but the tv show I'd been working on for the last 8 months is finally airing!

I can't really show anything until I get clearance, but i do have a snazzy press release.

SAFC Article posted:

Animated series Figaro Pho will begin screening weekdays on ABC at 4.59pm from Tuesday 7 April.

Figaro Pho is a 3D Animated Series directed by South Australian Luke Jurevicius and co-funded by the SAFC. The 26 x 1minute episodes are aimed at a target audience aged from 7 to 12. Although the subject and style of Figaro Pho attracts a much broader audience.

Each of the episodes follow the adventures of Figaro, a poor soul who suffers from an entire alphabet of phobias. Whether it�s the fear of spiders, telephones, vegetables, beards, or even fear of the great mole rat, Figaro has experienced them all! In fact, we would be strapped to think of a single phobia that Figaro has not harboured, lodged or morbidly entertained.

Take a journey into the absurd and humorous world of Figaro as he reveals to us his own personal A-Z of Phobias.

Please note Figaro Pho will be available on ABC IVIEW from Wed 8 April.

The SAFC congratulate Luke as the series has been nominated for a Logie in the category Most Outstanding Children�s Program.

note: I am not Luke Jeruvicius. Thats my boss.
Also if you don't know what a Logie is, it's an Australian equivalent to an Emmy but way way less prestigious.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2009 00:49

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

I originally came on as a generalist doing modeling/texturing/rigging for backgrounds and props.

After about 6 weeks of that I was given a crack at lighting and composting one of the episodes. They liked it, so I ended up doing the lighting TD and compositing for about half of the series.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2009 01:42

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

Hinchu posted:

Kirby: That looks great. Any chance it will be online?

yeah, apparently it is going to be on ABC iView from tomorrow;
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/iview/

not sure if it has a stupid country block or not, you'll have to let me know.

given the size of the production team and the budget that was given, we're all pretty proud of how it turned out.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2009 02:38

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

dang.
I'll ask around about the possibility of youtubing an episode or something. If not, I'm sure I can post stills and breakdowns for you guys.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2009 03:06

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

episodes are 1 minute long :shobon:

# ¿ Apr 7, 2009 08:29

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

thanks guys!
luckily, there is an interactive website that's just launched, which should be international;
http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/figaropho/
all the episodes are on there at an OK quality.

here's some nice stills. when I get some free time, I'll post some comping breakdowns.

enjoy

Click here for the full 1024x576 image.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2009 01:45

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

thanks dude.

and in regard to your question about work in Adelaide;
I'd say it's definitely a smaller community here than up the east coast of Australia. But there are some major advantages to being here.
- We're pretty tight knit, so if you have talent people will recommend you, and you will always be in demand.
- Rising Sun have a studio here, so there's always that opportunity to get onto huge features if that's your thing.
- It's freaking cheap to live here.
- the South Australian Government and the South Australian Film Corp literally throw money at us. Moreso than any other state.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2009 05:28

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

Travakian posted:

What software are you compositing in?
Also, was wondering today -- if you need to relight an element, are you limited to working with the render passes they give you, or are you ever in a position in which you need to get your 3d team to re-render shots? Can you do that?

heh, we were the lighting TDs too.

The team was really quite small.. there were only three of us doing the lighting TD and Compositing. and being episodic, we didn't have to really pass our work onto each other, which afforded us the ability to go hog wild. The only limitus was clearing everything with the art director, and trying to maintain a consistent style within the series.

We really had much more control than you would usually get in a production.

In regards to re-lighting, we would render the first frame of each shot, and any other key poses/actions the character would make.

We comped in After Effects, and being timeline based, having the first frame of each shot meant we could get in there and set keys and tweak. this gave us a fair idea of what was, and wasn't working in the lighting of each shot, and we would pretty much have a close to finished comp then and there.
So we would just rinse and repeat until every shot was looking good. The directors also loved this because it gave them the ability to see what the final product was before we actually spent the cpu time to render a whole episode.

that being said, theres many ways to skin a cat, and i would probably try to streamline this pipeline a bit. The circumstances we were under doesn't always happen.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2009 16:35

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

Finally got around to putting together some figaro pho breakdowns. If anyone has any questions, I can explain in more detail when i have time :allears:

http://www.vimeo.com/4425776
http://www.vimeo.com/4425800
EDIT: Didnt realize it was so small! just watch em fullscreen if you cant read the text

also this is a pretty rad shader we made;

Kirby fucked around with this message at 09:03 on May 1, 2009

# ¿ May 1, 2009 09:00

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

Hinchu posted:

What are you using the falloff pass for exactly?

we just added it into the comp. It got established early as a 'look' thing. its subtle, but it kinda gave things a 'powdery' feel, as the art director liked to put it.

# ¿ May 2, 2009 01:51

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 23:23

Kirby: Dec 2, 2005; Low Altitude Flyer

Yeah if you want to study animation, Australia isn't exactly the place to come to.
Universities around Australia all offer courses, but they're not necessarily good.

Depending on what you decide on, There's a huge AFTRS campus in Sydney, which is more postgrad VFX/Animation. I've seen some good straight up animators come out of Griffith University in Brisbane.

there's also a bunch of private collages/academies, but from what I've seen of the work come out of those, you're paying much more for a pretty comparative education.

Kirby fucked around with this message at 03:42 on May 5, 2009

# ¿ May 5, 2009 03:40

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The 3DCG Thread: Revenge of the NURBS

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