NOVEDGE blog

The Edge: Ilan Gabai's Epic Animation

Novedge: Tell us about yourself and what you do.

Ilan Gabai: Hello! My name is Ilan Gabai, and I am an effects animator (technical director) located in NYC. I earned my BFA in digital arts in 2007, and have since worked in the entertainment industry. I began my career working on TV shows and live action film, but over time shifted towards feature animation. Today I work as a full time effects artist at Blue Sky Studios/20th Century Fox. I have previously worked on projects such as Ice Age 4, Rio, Fast & Furious, Lost, Fringe, Rescue Me and more. I like to teach in my spare time, I have lectured and taught courses at Gnomon, SVA & Pratt. I gave my first SIGGRAPH presentation last year in L.A.

As an effects artist I am responsible for developing techniques and creating appealing visuals to support the story. My favorite part of the job is that I am involved with both development and animation of my effects work. Some examples of effects work include Oceans, water splashes, smoke, fire, dust, magic, explosions, destruction, etc.

Ilan Gabai - 2012 FX Reel from Ilan Gabai on Vimeo.

Novedge: You have worked on TV projects, films and animated features. How similar and how different is to work in these different fields?

Ilan Gabai: Short answer: The amount of time you have to deliver your work.

More elaborate answer: While the goals and type of work may be similar, there are quite a number of differences between the project types. They are all pretty demanding in their own unique way. Working in episodic television can definitely take a few years off of your life span. Other than pilot shows and season premieres, you have on average 2 weeks to complete all of the visual effects for an episode. Your studio is generally hired as a visual effects vendor for a larger production company. There really is no room for screwing up. So you look for the least time consuming, most aesthetically pleasing solution. Because you have very little (if any) time to develop ideas, it is best that you rely on prior experiences that have proven results. In episodic television, your development time is during the pilots and premiers which generally have longer deadlines.

I find live action films to be closer in nature to episodic television pilots, with higher aesthetic demands. So you generally have more time to work on a shot, but you are expected to create a visual effect at the highest level of realism. You are still hired as a vendor to work on a larger production. Visual effects for films usually get distributed over a number of studios simultaneously. So there are a number of vfx vendors completing work on different sequences for a larger production studio. Also, as many of the readers are probably familiar with this, the vfx industry is going through a serious struggle right now. The flat rate bids definitely add pressure to the work environment when your employer is trying to stay within budget. Artists are frequently forced to relocate in order to stay employed. These pressures create a more challenging work environment, which made my decision to shift towards feature animation an easier one.

Working at Blue Sky Studios has been a great experience for me. It has been a breath of fresh air. The studio is family oriented, and a pretty fun place to work. Like all work places, we have deadlines and crunch times; but somehow they feel much easier to meet here. Most likely because we have a good recipe for making film production work. Unlike in live action, here at Blue Sky we make our own films. Everybody gets credited for their work here, including babies that were born to artists during production. I think that the fact that our movies are made in house also makes us feel more attached to them. We take the success or failure (but mostly success) of our work very personally. Another big difference between working in feature animation vs live action is our ability to create more stylized visuals. While we do have art direction, artists are given plenty of opportunities to share their ideas and creativity. We usually have time dedicated to developing new ideas and techniques between films or at the beginning of a new production.

Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on? 

Ilan Gabai: I just completed my work for the upcoming film Epic, and am currently working on Rio 2.

I can only share what has already been publicly announced about Epic. The film is based off the children's book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs by William Joyce. and is directed by Chris Wedge (Ice Age, Robots). The story is described on Wikipedia as a "battle deep in the forest between the forces of good and evil, and tells a story of a teenage girl who finds herself in a secret world, where she must help a team of fun and whimsical characters to save their world, which also saves the real world."

Back to my opinion: visually, the movie is amazing! Everyone here at the studio really pushed themselves artistically and technically to the next level. You can get a bit of a taste of that by viewing our trailer, but most of the exciting work won't be seen until the film is released. And we are all very excited to share this with the the world this coming May.

 

Novedge: What software do you use? 

Ilan Gabai: I work with a variety of software packages. My main software for effects work is Houdini. I use Houdini for its procedural and non-destructive workflow. While other software packages are slowly catching up, Houdini has been the first to go fully procedural, and is designed from the ground up to work in that way. We maintain a close relationship with the developers at Side Effects Software, and work closely with them to figure out ways to tackle new challenges. The level of support that sidefx has shown us during our productions has been second to none in my experience.

For liquid simulations I sometimes use RealFlow. RealFlow is a great stand alone liquid simulation package. It does actually offer more than just that, but liquids are what they have become known for. After creating your simulation in RealFlow, you can easily export your results to any major 3D package. The company that created RealFlow, Next Limit, is a small and friendly company located in Spain. They are very personable, and work closely with their clientele. For me it is always a huge plus to see that a company goes out of its way to make user experience a high priority.

For general 3D usage, I work with Maya. Maya is the 3D package that I was taught to use in college. It also seemed to be the most wide spread package of choice amongst the US based studios that I have worked for in the past. So until I arrived at Blue Sky, Maya was the main software package at the studios I worked for. It is a strong general package for all contexts of the 3D pipeline such as modeling, texturing, animation, effects and lighting ( with the help of external plugins).

Novedge: What would you say to young people who want to work in the visual effects field? What skills, both technical and personal, are in demand in the industry?

Ilan Gabai: This is a very competitive field of work, which requires an artistic eye and a certain degree of technical know how (it varies depending on the area of specialty).

With technology rapidly improving, it is important that you stay on top of things. I personally read, and practice a lot in my spare time. The industry is filled with extremely passionate people, so it is hard to compete against them if you are less dedicated than they are. For those of you currently earning a degree in the field, just holding a degree isn't enough. You really need to go the extra mile on your own and gain a professional level of knowledge these days. For effects work specifically, it's important to have an eye for detail, a creative thought process and a technical mind set. Finding an artist that excels in all of those areas is sometimes a challenging task.

With all that aside, it really is a rewarding field of work. It doesn't feel like a job when you enjoy what you are doing. I still get excited every time I start a new film, or even a sequence of a film. Also, for me, my work environment is a big plus. We enjoy lots of little perks, game room, film screenings, guest speakers, studio parties, etc. It definitely beats a 9-5 office job!

 

Would you like to see more of Ilan's work? Check out his Vimeo channel.

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And don't forget that Epic opens in US theaters on May 24th!

The Edge: Headless Animation

Novedge: Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do

Headless: We are three directors/creators from Spain: Adrian Garcia, Alfredo Torres and Victor Maldonado. We´ve been working in animation for many years and five years ago we decided to get independent and create our own studio, Headless.

Headless is a very small studio specialized mainly on design and the production of very small animation pieces. We work for other companies (Dreamworks, Nickelodeon, Disney…) while we keep developing our own ideas and projects. Currently we´re trying to finance a 2D European animation feature that hopefully will see start of production during this year.

HEADLESS DEMO REEL 2011 from Headless Productions on Vimeo.

Novedge: How important is team work in your field?

Headless: I think it's essential. It's very difficult (with few exceptions) to imagine animation without team work. I guess we're the living proof of that as all the work we produce is made by the three of us. We have a very organic way of working that consists on sharing and working together all through the different stages of production. For instance, when we are trying to find the style of a project or designing the characters we take each other's work and rework, change it over and modify it in order to improve the result. There's no problems with ego as we know that's the way to achieve a great result.

Novedge: You have a very distinctive style. How did you develop it and why?

Headless: I think it's been a matter of years and years working the three of us together. Separately we have different styles but when we work together we use the strengths of each other in order to create what you might call Headless's style. Also the fact that we have similar taste in animation and art in general makes it easy to create a coherent style. We are obviously drawn to a very stylized sense of design, we like our work to be cheerful and happy and we pay special attention to color and light…

Having said all that, it took time, effort and getting to know each other to reach a solid style. Needless to say, we still have a long way to go, of course!

"MY FAMILY AND THE WOLF" teaser from Headless Productions on Vimeo.

Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on? 

Headless: The last project was this little promo called Strange Oaks. It´s something we did on spec just for the pleasure of developing our CGI skills. It´s a fake commercial for witches.

"STRANGE OAKS" from Headless Productions on Vimeo.

Although the piece is a separate thing that we made for fun to promote the studio, there's a story in the world that we're developing. The premise is simple: Strange Oaks is this little town where they've gotten used to every night protect their kids from the attack of relentless witches.

At the same time we're developing what we want to be our first official Headless short film. It´s a story called Kingdom of NO that will be traditionally animated. It’s a project quite ambitious for a short film and so we´re preparing a Kickstarter campaign in order to finance it. I guess in the upcoming month you'll know more about it. We´re very excited with this, because we believe it will be something very special and cool.

Novedge: What software do you use? Why?

Headless: Strange Oaks was made very traditionally in terms of CGI. We are no experts so we needed guidance from a CG artist, and Javi Verdugo helped us through the process. The piece was made with XSI, the render is with Arnold and then we took care of the post production in After Effects.

The reason of using this software is 100% practical. These are the software titles we had available and we know how to use.

When we do traditionally animated pieces (most of them, really) that we animate on a Wacom tablet with a software called TVPaint, a very simple but great software that mimics the way you'd animate on regular paper. Then we paint the animations on the same software and compose the scenes in After Effects. Again, a very basic, normal way of doing things.

Novedge: What are some of the rewards and challenges of owning your own business?

Headless: The reward obviously is you are the one deciding the direction that you want to take your business, your studio. Having the power to decide what you do and what you don't, when to focus more on certain area and less on some others. Ultimately you're the one responsible for the image of the company and that's really great.

The challenge I think is pretty obvious… surviving, keeping the studio alive. These are definitively very hard times and work never comes easy, even if you have some reputation. We are in a peculiar situation as we are officially a studio but we don´t work as other studios, meaning we offer very little services and we are very picky about the jobs we accept.

Novedge: What advice do you have for young people who would like to work in animation? 

Headless: I don´t think we can give much advice, particularly in CGI, as we don't have much experience in that field. We can talk about animation in general. What we always tell people is to be very open-minded and try to develop their own personality, world, style (call it what you will) at the same time as they develop their technical skills. Some people get really obsessed on the technical stuff and forget that what will make the difference at the end of the day is their personality.

Also, try to absorb as much as possible from all types of artistic disciplines, be open minded about cinema in general, art, sculpture, literature… that´s only going to help you being a better and more complete artist.

 

Would you like to see more? Check Headless work online, on their website, Vimeo channel and blog.

 

 

The Edge: Chris Waner's Principle Creative

Novedge: Tell us about yourself and what you do.
Chris Waner: First, I wanted to say thank you for putting the time and energy into creating a forum for showcasing and inspiring students and professionals. I know how much work goes into that.

It wasn't so long ago that I would have said that I was a 3D visual effects artist. But over the last couple of years I've been forced to abandon that description because if I honestly assess what I do, I have to admit that the term 3D visual effects is too narrow. Nowadays I find that I'm called upon to design--design for anything and everything; design for print, web, interactive, packaging, do style frames for commercials, write copy, even compose music or do a costume design. Of course I still do visual effects; I still love visual effects, but quite honestly it has simply become another tool for enhancing a broader creative endeavor. Because I work for agencies, studios, and direct-to-client, I'm forced to view what I'm creating in light of the client's larger and more generalized brand trajectory. I call this kind of work principle creative, and quite honestly it took me a while to figure out that this is the kind of work I wanted.

Ballerina - Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts Grand Opening from claudia chagüi on Vimeo.

I've always been in the arts in some way, but somewhere along the road I decided to follow after other goals; I received a degree in English Literature and Secondary Education, taught for a while, and left because the politics of education were more than I wanted to deal with. And after a five year hiatus I came back to design. I started doing personal projects to get a small portfolio together, did some free work for people I knew, and used that work to become a junior graphic designer at a print house in Tulsa, OK. I then leveraged that work into a freelance children's book illustration job. Then took that portfolio to NYC, received my MFA in digital media, and became a visual effects artist.

Now I help people move their businesses forward in beautiful ways, and I love it.

Demo Reel - 2013 from Chris Waner on Vimeo.

Novedge: How do you find inspiration to stay ahead of the curve?
Chris Waner: As cliche' as it might sound, inspiration is everywhere. I was inspired by a kiwi fruit at lunch today; I had some fun looking at a shadow on the wall that resembled Kermit the Frog. On a more pragmatic level I've always considered staying up-to-date in design, color, technology, and cultural trends a part of my job. I unapologetically spend at least an hour a day looking at others' work, new technology, industry news, design blogs, etc. Ultimately, I'd have to say that what inspires me to stay ahead of the curve is the desire to create great work more efficiently. From a technological point of view, I want tools that are fast, efficient, and flexible; from the art/design side I see the work of others as iron sharpening iron, taking unrefined edges off my own sensibility. There's an efficiency that comes with refinement.

Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on? Feel free to talk about more than one project!
Chris Waner: Certainly one of the most interesting and unusual projects that I've done was for Stark Collective, a start-up agency in Kansas City. On the surface the project was pretty straightforward, a launch video that spoke to the agency's intellectual ideals. However, the project was novel for a couple of reasons. In the first place the typical internal brand identity for agencies is white, graphic, and minimal. Stark, whom I would find as time went on to be breakthrough in a number of areas, had chosen a look that was black, raster, and active. In the second place, and perhaps even more astonishing, Stark did not want anything even remotely didactic but, rather, something abstract, even esoteric.

Stark Collective - Launch Video (Director's Cut) from Chris Waner on Vimeo.

Unlike many launch videos where the plain communication of core values is sufficient, Stark wanted a visual piece that spoke symbolically and even emotionally to those values; and especially visually they wanted to avoid a concrete or literal exposition. This, I think, is a powerful way to work, a resonant method of communicating ideas, and a very modern, forward-thinking approach to design. As it would happen one of the reasons I was asked to work on the Stark launch video was because of a piece that I co-directed and executed with Claudia Chagui, a brilliant creative located in Chicago. The piece was for a Kansas City organization called CinemaKC, who is dedicated to providing a forum for local film makers. In that piece we told the story of an idea that grows, blooms, takes flight, and finally finds an audience in the land of CinemaKC.

CinemaKC Show Open from claudia chagüi on Vimeo.

This symbolic storytelling caught Stark's attention, and I was brought on to design and execute a piece that encapsulated their creative philosophy. I did a few style frames, and to my amazement they just said, "Okay, go crazy."






That level of trust is utterly uncharacteristic of, well, really any client I've ever had, and that this client was an agency really kind of blew my mind. The one challenge thrown into the mix was that the piece needed to be a minute and a half long, and after the boards were complete I only had a little over four weeks to create it. Thanks to Bazillion Pictures in Kansas City who provide some much needed support in production, manpower, and infrastructure, we completed on time and on budget. The response to the launch video has been great, and Stark, mostly due to its own talent and perspective, is thriving with a host of new clients, in spite of the fact that as of the writing of this, they are only a little over a month old.

CinemaKC Show Package from claudia chagüi on Vimeo.

Novedge: What software do you use? Why?
Chris Waner: I've found that different software applications approach the same problem from different points of view. I recommend downloading free trials of everything, and see what feels right. Adobe has really cornered the market for suite based workflow and is an industry standard. For me the folks at Alias|Wavefront just spoke my language back in 2002-2003 when I started on Maya 4.5. Maya is still my app of choice because it strikes a nice balance between a procedural and artist-driven workflow (yes, artists drive procedural processes too). In the near future I see Houdini making a real in-road in the middle range commercial market; it's procedural tools are second to none, and I can see real possibilities because it has all the pieces in place to solve one of the major hurdles in commercial work, rapid iterations--turning versions on a theme around quickly for approval. I'm hoping to dive into Houdini in the near future. Finally, I can't leave out RealFlow. Although very few of my projects start out needing fluids, I find that I often end up there; I'll be in Maya thinking, "Hmm...how should I make this effect," and I'll realize that RealFlow has a tool to get me there.

Novedge: What are the rewards and challenges of working freelance?
Chris Waner: I think anyone considering going down the freelance road should remember that freelancing is not one job but ten. As a freelancer it is challenging enough just completing projects, keeping track of hours, billing, keeping and organizing receipts, dealing with clients, etc., but people who are successful at it must also keep pounding the pavement, so to speak, looking for new work, meeting new people, making new connections, keeping up with existing clients, promoting recently released work, and many other things. I think in many ways freelancing is much more similar to running a small business than being a visual effects artist, illustrator, designer, or whatever; you are CEO, CFO, CMO, and the grunt labor in many cases.

Apple Tree - McDonalds from Kompost on Vimeo.

The market makes a big difference too. The market in NY or LA is very different than it is in KC, for example. One market might let you specialize where another market might demand that you generalize. In my market in Kansas City, I will go from being an Art Director or a Creative Director, to a motion graphics artist or visual effects TD, to an interface designer or print designer within a month or two. Freelancers need to know their market in order maximize their offerings.

That might seem like a whole lot of trouble, but freelancing has it's perks too. Quite often it carries with it a lot of creative freedom. If you work from home, your commute is shorter. Many costs are reduced like transportation, food, and there are many tax benefits if you are organized and researched on how to take advantage of that. Quite often freelancing carries with it a higher money-to-time-spent-ratio than a traditional staff position. You rarely have to deal with the same difficult personalities for very long; often I can work when I want to in the day, I sometimes get to work when I want to in the week (i.e. a day off now and again), and on rare occasions I can just turn down a job that seems, well, torturous. You can't tell your boss at work that you're not going to do that job because it looks boring...unless you're wanting to become a freelancer really soon.

MLB 2012 All-Star Game Graphics from Chris Waner on Vimeo.

Novedge: What would you say to young people who want to work in the visual effects field?
Chris Waner: After graduating with an MFA from Pratt in NYC, I went on to teach courses in visual effects to undergraduate and graduate students. I have a real heart for those who are learning and a desire to help them make the jump from academia to the workforce. I say that because it's true and because I'm about to dodge this question. This industry is changing so much and so fast that it is almost impossible to answer this question without feeling that I might have led someone astray. The only comments I can really give young people starting out in this industry is to first, be self-reflective about what you want and why you want it. The design/visual effects industry needs people who are serious about their art and/or science, are willing to work hard, and are also level-headed enough to know when they are being abused. And second, I might get some emails about this one, don't feel like you have to do the NY or LA thing to have a happy and rewarding career. I started in NY, worked on some big jobs with big clients and agencies on their terms, but I left after six years because there's more to life than that. Now three years later I'm starting to work with bigger clients and agencies from NY and LA again, but this time I work my own way. Some of my favorite projects, and the best projects, were for clients that most people would call "small." There are some local business people out there with great vision and also some brave people who will follow you in your great vision for them. The world is a big place, don't settle for a small box.

 

See more of Cris Waner's work on his website and Vimeo channel.

Interested in Maya and RealFlow? Check them out on our website. And don't forget to connect on Twitter and Facebook.

The Edge: Gavin Goulden, The Game Master.

Today we we talk to Gavin Goulden, the author of our March Book of the Month, about his work and inspiration.

Novedge: Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do.

Gavin Goulden: My name is Gavin Goulden, I am the lead character artist on Bioshock Infinite and have contributed art assets in the past to titles such as Dead Rising 2, The Bigs 2, Dragon Age: Origins, F.E.A.R. 2 and Damnation.  My main focus is on character art (modelling, texturing and rigging) for games on current generation platforms. I also have a keen interest in creating art pipelines, teaching character art, and toy sculpting. On top of the the game projects that I have been a part of, I have contributed dozens of articles to 3DArtist and 3DCreative magazine as well as authoring The Swordmaster.

Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on?

Gavin Goulden: Throughout my career, I have been involved with nearly a dozen titles ranging from “kids games” to first person shooters. As part of that, three big projects stick out to me. My most recent project, which should be on store shelves soon, was BioShock Infinite. While on BI, I created many of the general population seen in the game as well as enemies you encounter during combat scenarios. During this project I also entered a lead role which required me to start managing schedules, maintaining best practices, and conversing with other departments about their needs and what our team could do for them. This is, by far, the biggest project I have been apart of – though I can't go into too much detail about it – it was certainly rewarding.

Before joining the team, I was working with Capcom on Dead Rising 2. While on DR2, I took care of many “psychopath” characters, player outfits, and weapons seen in game. Definitely a fun project given the genre – Who doesn't like zombies?

Before Dead Rising 2, I was working with Blue Castle Games (which later became Capcom Vancouver) on 2K Games' The Bigs 2. While I am not a sports fan, this project taught me so much in the way of structuring a team, managing schedules, working within a pipeline, etc. that previous projects did not. So, while not exactly a game that I would play on my own, the entire experience helped lay down a foundation of lessons that I still practice today.

Novedge: What software do you use? Why?

Gavin Goulden: On a day to day basis I use 3ds Max, Zbrush, and Photoshop. I generally supplement these programs with more specialized apps like CrazyBump, xNormal, and Wings 3D. For the most part, I'm just a creature of habit. The work flow for game assets, especially characters, generally requires the same exporting point, or at least a common ground so that problems are not introduced for other departments. So, for that, we are all required to use the same software as a project standard. 3ds Max has generally been the accepted program for the studios I've been with, along with Maya which I previously used for the same reasons. Zbrush and Photoshop, for pretty much the same reasons, they are industry standards.

For the more specialized programs, I tend to use them because they are just quicker and/or more efficient than what is out of the box when it comes to major applications. Like the baking speed (and the need to not have to load models into a viewport for baking) within xNormal saves hours of work, Wings takes less time to unwrap objects, CrazyBump produces nice cavity maps in seconds – it's just quicker and easier.

Novedge: Your book, 3D Masterclass: The Swordmaster in 3ds Max and ZBrush, is our March Book of the Month. Can you talk about how it came about?

Gavin Goulden: The Swordmaster was a long running series for 3DCreative. I was originally approached by the magazine to do a few short articles covering the process of current generation character art. Once I was approached, I jumped on the opportunity. I had written a bunch of smaller articles in the past, and tutorials roughly covering my process in a few pages – but this time I really wanted to go in depth. And I did. Eventually, we realized that we were producing A TON of content which would make a great book. So, we added even more information, created a set of new renders, bonus material, and brought all of the pieces together.

Novedge: How do you find inspiration to stay ahead of the curve? 

Gavin Goulden: I think there's a few different things going on here. Where I find “inspiration” is the same place I found it as a kid doodling poor renditions of imps from DOOM, and Spider-Man. There are things that I nerded out over which have shaped my personal tastes that still have some degree of influence over the choices I make now. As a kid, I wanted to be the guy who created these characters, that was the dream and, in a way, I still am that person – it's just that now I get to do it as my career. What “motivates” me to do that and to stay where I am within my industry is that I am extremely competitive. I always want to stay relevant, I don't want to fall behind. I've worked incredibly hard to be where I am now, so, if I didn't pay attention to the next great thing – I would be doing a disservice to myself.

Novedge: What are some of the rewards and challenges of working as Lead Character Artist?

Gavin Goulden: My goal is to make life easier for everyone. By establishing and maintaining a process that empowers artists but also encourages quicker turnaround times and easier iteration, everyone can walk away happy – and that's a good feeling. One of the challenges I face, personally, is that eventually you will have to say, “No” which can be tough. Sometimes, there just isn't enough time or resources to do everything you had hoped to do – which is common on all projects.

Novedge: What is the best advice you have ever received?

Gavin Goulden: While I don't think I've ever had a heart to heart conversation with someone and received a solid life lesson, I do think that the collected advice regarding portfolios from the game art community has been incredibly valuable and is a mindset that I try to share with people breaking into the industry. Simple things that, to an industry veteran, may seem obvious but may be slightly shocking to students. The biggest point that stands out to me is that you are not competing with your classmates and the ones in your immediate circle of artist friends. You need to consider yourself in the same market as the ones you idolize, like the people in your reference folder could be looking for the same job as you. While it's one thing to be the top of your class, there are other people out there who have years of work under their belt applying for the same job opening. You need to wow potential employers. You need to learn to self edit and really compare yourself to heavy hitters. Rather than having an expansive portfolio full of school projects, life drawing, and works in progress , you need a handful of solid pieces that are relate-able to the projects you want to be a part of and better than artists in the industry that currently have the job you want. Not a lot of schools will tell you that, and it can be a little demotivating – but it is a competitive industry where you need to stand out of the crowd.

 

Learn more about Gavin's work on his website and blog and don't forget to connect with him on Twitter.

Gavin's 3D Masterclass: The Swordmaster in 3ds Max and ZBrush comes out in June. Read about it here.

Looking for your own copy of ZBrush, Maya and 3ds Max? Get them from Novedge: Tools to Design the Future. And don't forget to join us on Facebook.

The Edge: Vincent Gault's Avatar

Vincent Gault is not only a talented artist, but has a great sense of humor. Here he is eating "angrily" a cricket candy!

Novedge: Tell us about yourself and what you do.

 Vincent Gault: Hey, my name is Vincent Gault, I am (now) an Art Technical Director  and (sometimes) a game designer at UBISOFT. I was lucky enough to start my career at UBISOFT Montreal five years ago, and I have now been part of the Barcelona studio team for one year.

Basically, my job is to make sure that the artists I work with can unleash their talent, within the reality of real-time constrains. Thus, it is a collaboration with the art team to define what we want to achieve, and how we can do it.

Novedge: Ubisoft is known for working with new technologies. How do you find inspiration and stay ahead of the curve?

Vincent Gault: There are two aspects to this.
From a technical point of view, we indeed have to stay up to date with the evolution of different technologies, and how it can be relevant for us, or if it can fit with actual hardware capabilities.
Artwise, it's easy to find an infinite amount of inspiration nowadays. I am trying not to focus only on videogames or CG art : photography, classic art,movies,  sculpture, etc... There so much to look at !
Of course the other games, and all the indie game community, are a great source of inspiration as well.

Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on?

Vincent Gault: I had the opportunity to work on Far Cry 2, James Cameron's Avatar, Just Dance 3,  and more recently on Sports Connection.

Novedge: What software do you use?

Vincent Gault: With the engineering team, I mostly use 3ds Max, ZBrush and Photoshop.
They are really powerful and well known softwares.
3ds Max is used at lot at UBISOFT. I like the fact that the scripting language is really powerful, and that it allows me to build interesting tools for the artists.
While I don't consider myself as a good artist, I just love ZBrush and I do some scripting in it as well: this software has no limit, except the imagination of the artists. I am lucky enough to be in close contact with the Pixologic team, as I was one of the tech beta tester of the 4th version.

Novedge: How many people do you usually coordinate? What are the rewards and challenges of leading a team?

Vincent Gault: I don't directly lead people, but rather, the tech side of their job. It can vary from 3 to 10 people. I think the reward comes from the mutual respect you can build with a team: in order for people to follow my guidelines, and sometimes to accept making some concessions on their work, they have to trust me and to be sure that if I ask for these concessions, it's because the result will be better in the end.
There is no real leadership, without a relationship based on mutual trust and respect.

Novedge: What innovations do you see in your field?

Vincent Gault: A lot! Optimizing the production pipeline, so the artist can focus on art rather than anything else is the final goal.
Also, real time lighting and rendering, will be one field that will greatly improve in the coming years.

Novedge: What would you say to young people who want to work in the video game industry?

Vincent Gault: Be passionate about what you do, but stay open to any kind of art. Mastering your art is more important than the tools you are using. 
Go on the net and look at the best artists you can find. Train a lot, post your work online to receive feedback: it can be hard sometimes, but it's one of the best way to improve.
Don't put only Orcs and Space Marines in your portfolio ;-) 
Show that you have your own style, but also that you are able to adapt to different kinds of art directions.
Participate in a small game project: it may be one of the best and most relevant experiences for your portfolio. Between the indie and mobile market, it's now easier than never.

 

You can read Vincent's writing on his blog, in French, or follow him on Twitter and Google+.

To find out more about 3ds Max, ZBrush and Photoshop, check out Novedge: Tools to Design the Futurefor great prices, users' reviews and advice.

Novedge Webinar #65: ZBrush Q&A with Paul Gaboury

Last week's webinar with Paul Gaboury on ZBrush was awesome! We got so many questions, though, that Paul and his team couldn't answer them all during the live recording. Here are the questions they couldn't get to.

Q: How do you add or remove points on the curve?

A: Simply click on a point, and drag it up to the top of the menu or outside of the menu window until it is removed. This works similarly in the Photoshop curve editor.

Q: Also can you keep UVs with IMM brushes?

A: At this time UVs can not be kept when using the IMM brushes.

Q: How do you snapshot?

A: Shift + S

Q: UVs with IMM brushes? Is it possible to keep them?

A: There is no way to keep the UVs while enabling the mesh to be an insert mesh.

Q: Can ZBrush be saved in stl format for 3D printing?

A: Yes it can.:) This is done through a ZBrush plugin that is shipped with ZBrush called "3D Print Exporter"

Q: Please provide some links to the workflow with lower cost 3D apps like Rhino 3D for real world fabrication with tolerances for manufacturing... converting these assets into 3d solids.

A: Not sure if you are looking for this but here are some links of items being created for the real world through ZBrush. Don’t have a ton of stuff for Rhino but I know the forums for Rhino has a lot. We are working on putting more examples together.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?173664-From-a-ZBrush-model-to-a-wood-sculpture&p=987009&viewfull=1#post987009

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?61205-T-S-Wittelsbach-s-Jewelry-Sketchbook/page25

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?56489&p=759970&viewfull=1#post759970

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?162584-Carver-s-Sketchbook-%28tutorial-added-Pg-4%29&p=982015&viewfull=1#post982015

 http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?135212-Mouse-Jeweller-s-Work-Bench

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?166374-du-Rose-Gallery

Q: How to get the ring back into Rhino as a NURB surface with accurate scale...

A: ZBrush does not export or import NURB surfaces. Would have to export a STL or OBJ then use Rhino to convert that back into a NURB surface.

Q: Hardware question: On a Windows based PC, what is a FAST system that runs Z-Brush/PS/Premiere, just wanting to get a realistic baseline not minimum spec system hardware.

A: ZBrush requires less system power than both of those applications. When working with all three simultaneously however, it would be better to use around 8 GB RAM or higher.

Q: Will Z-brush take advantage of an Nvidia Quadro Graphics card? I am an Industrial Designer by training and have loved the organic nature of ZBrush but have not found a good demonstration of how to workflow for taking the 3D assets into, say, Rhino 3D for working these models into real world 3D printed assets for molds etc.

A: ZBrush does not use the video card at all so there will be no advantages of using the Nvidia Quadro card for ZBrush. We are currently working on videos showing the workflow between ZBrush and applications like Rhino.

Q: Any dvd/movies/tutorials that cover this process in detail would be SUPER appreciated. Thank you Paul, you are an awesome instructor!

Q: Do you offer any video tutorials on ZBRUSH for production, or could refer ANY videos?

A: What specific type of videos are you looking for? How to get out your displacement and normal maps to render somewhere else or are you looking for videos on what type of topology flow you should have for production? We have some free videos on ZClassroom that show some of this but the The Gnomon Workshop is a good place for this type of videos. I would like to recommend certain ones but I need to know more specifics.

Q: I find it really difficult to get very high-res with DynaMesh!

A: This could be because the object itself may not be scaled/sized properly within ZBrush. Try to do a "unify" in the Deformation palette and redynamesh at high rez. If you do unify keep in mind that the physical size of the sculpt will be changed. It could just be the resolution is not turned up high enough.

Q: I'd like to know the specs of Paul's PC!! I feel like mine does not manage so well undo timeline and sometimes doesn't allow DynaMeshing... :-(

A: I’m using a 4 year old MACBook Pro notebook with 8GIGs of RAM and a core Two Duo processor at 2.66GHz. Not too strong. If you are on Windows XP that may be the issue with DynaMesh. We no longer support WindowsXP.

Q: Is it better to increase DynaMesh resolution or dividing the dynameshed mesh when going high definition?

A: I would actually come out of DynaMesh and begin to use Subdivision Levels to get my detail. This way I have lower levels to make big changes.

Q: How do you keep the mask from going through the model?

A: If the mask is going through the mesh, inside the "Brush Palette" down in the "automasking" subpalette you will find the option to turn on "BackFaceMasking" which will solve that issue if needed. If you are using the MaskRect, MaskLasso, MaskCircle, or MaskCurve brushes you have to hide the back portion of the mesh and then complete the masking.

Q: Is there a source for all the keyboard shortcuts?

A: Yes you can download them here.   

Q: I see that decimation master often leaves open holes when I try to verify the mesh in a different package like Rhino...are there any settings that allow this to be guarenteed watertight for printing?

A: Once you have completed a decimation you can run the Close Hole algorithm that is in the Tool>Geometry>Modify Topology menu

Q: Is there any chance to control what edge loops you get while using decimation master?

A: No, not at this point 

Q: Would dropping the undo history improve performance?

A: It will just make your file sizes smaller and when ZBrush AutoSaves it will not take as long.

Q: Not really a question, but I'm a jeweller and I just want to tell you how much I love Zbrush. I used to use Rhino and ZBrush but since the last updates I've switched to only using ZBrush for all jewellery, including stonesetting and sizeing and exporting for printing. Love it, thanks alot, it feels like you listen alot to your users. Great job.

A: Thank you! I will pass along that information to the team:) Thank you.

Q: That's great for stonesetting :D

Q: Is there a lasso tool for that or only a box?

A: Only a box, there is no lasso tool to select the image.

Q: Are there any plans to work more closely with the T-Splines plug in in Rhino?

A: Could not say at this time, sorry.

Q: Where were the algorythms for smoothing the pulled polys? And do those algorythms not change the poly levels for the more simple parts of the panels?

A: I am not sure if you are asking for the Polish by Feature here... it is found in the Tool>Deformation sub-palette.

Q: When do you want to use a dynamesh vs a polymesh?

A: One of the most effective uses is to start as a conceptual phase. This is because it gives you the freedom to work without worrying about the base topology of the mesh. There are many other uses of DynaMesh as the resolution can go very high and retain high quality surfaces, including hard surfaces.

Q: Why would you not want to work in that format all the time?

A: That would be a personal preference to you the artist. For example, if you are working with meshes that are needed for animation and have been prebuilt for rigging purposes you obviously wouldn't want to DyanMesh as that will essentially remesh the object.

Q: What is the advantage of the dynamesh?

A: For the purposes of scultping, there is a huge advantage to essentially free sculpting while dynamesh will redistribute topology. For example the way that I just pulled out the ears and did a "re-DynaMeshed" to get more topology in that area for sculpting.

Q: I have a question about the Memory Stress test in the perforance panel. Is that a way to optimize your system for ZBrush?

A: No that is to test the system when you are having issues with ZBrush. Our support team will use that information to help you.

Q: Should you turn to the Topology Brush only when qRemesher or only-fashioned remeshing produce inadequate results?

A: I would turn to the Topology brush when I want to be more precise how the topology will be following the surface.

Q: Any way to import a precise curve for the profile initialize feature for the profile primitive?

A: You can only import profile curves that were saved from ZBrush.

Q: Fast way to repair holes?

A: Either use DynaMesh or run the Close Holes algorithm in the Tool>Geometry>Modify Topology menu.

Q: Has anyone worked with scan data and polyloops in order to clean up the scan?

A: Yes, there are quite a few people using ZBrush with scan data. I myself scan items and bring them into ZBrush. I actually cover this in my book ZBrush Professional Tips and Techniques.

Q: When do you use qremesh, dynamesh, remesh?

A: In most workflows, DynaMesh/Remesh would be the conceptual sculpting stage, and QRemesher would be the finessing of topology phase or "cleanup phase" for control of where the edgeloops are placed for completion.

Q: Can you touch on how you use the wacom for those of us without it?

A: What are you using if not wacom? ZBrush is a pressure sensitive application so it gives the user a great benefit when using the Wacom product. The user will be able to use pressure to sculpt and paint. 

Q: coming from Photoshop, ZBrush's selection tools are a bit hard to use/get used to. Are there plans to improve them?

A: There are no plans to change the way these tools are working at this point. You could submit this into the ZClassroom Feedback section in ZClassroom.com :)

Q: Is there a way to align a ZBrush object to an arbitrarily-angled photo? Not orthographic x, y or z view.

A: You could use the Deformation Palette controls, which would be more precise, and allow you to type in values to get the angle of the 3D object. Use the sliders "offset" "rotate" "size" etc.

 

Do you love webinars? Check the upcoming webinars in the Novedge Webinar Series here.

To order your copy of ZBrush, click here.

To connect with other ZBrush and Rhino users, join our Rhino Jungle community and ZBrush Central.

 

Meet Christy Lee of CLO: "Our technology has tremendous potential to improve upon the fashion industry’s traditional workflow."

Kevin Luu, our Marketing Associate (congratulations Kevin on your promotion!), recently travelled to South Korea and took the opportunity to visit the headquarters of CLO and meet with Christy Lee. CLO Virtual Fashion makes MarvelousDesigner and CLO3D, two 3D softwares for fashion designers.

Kevin Luu: Can you tell me a little about who you are and what you do?

Christy Lee: My name is Christy and I am the Global Marketing Manager at CLO.

I am in charge of online marketing through our website. I occasionally reach out to our clients at CG conferences, and publish articles as well as news about our work here at CLO. 

Kevin Luu: How did Marvelous Designer come about?

Christy Lee: The story of our product goes back to our founder’s childhood, Jaden Seungwoo Oh. Growing up and seeing his mother’s work as a tailor, Jaden saw firsthand the limitations on creativity when it comes to working with real world cloths and fabrics. While pursuing his master’s degree in Engineering in Kaist, South Korea, he became inspired by positive feedback to turn his cloth simulation project into something more practical for real world application. From that moment on, Jaden, now our CTO, made a decision to continue towards his PhD, at the same time developing the first version of MarvelousDesigner.  

Kevin Luu: What is the difference between Marvelous Designer and CLO3D?

Christy Lee: MarvelousDesigner and CLO3D are separate, yet distinct software.
MarvelousDesigner is a tool for Computer Graphic artists and CLO3D is meant for specialists in the fashion industry.

CLO3D includes additional features like avatar sizing and dxf export format options. Depending on your design needs, you will find our products to be a more than capable addition to your toolkit.

Created by Zahaoha

Kevin Luu: What's in store for the latest version of Marvelous Designer 3?

Christy Lee: Based on feedback from the community, we are aware of anticipation for the Quad Mesh feature specifically. We’ve been working tirelessly to develop the Quad Mesh to run smoothly for Mac and Windows versions of MarvelousDesigner 2. With a new user interface and new features like 3D Pattern Editing and the Symmetric Pattern editing tool, and so on, MD 3 will be a vastly more powerful software for CG artists. Furthermore, we are looking into the possible inclusion of a Rigid Body Simulation tool and a FBX or Alembic loader. 

Kevin Luu: What innovations do you see in your field, now or in the future?

Christy Lee: So far we've gotten a lot of positive feedback from game developers to artists working in the computer graphics industry.

Outside of the CG industry, we believe our technology has tremendous potential to improve upon the fashion industry’s traditional workflow. We’d like to see ourselves as the pioneers who innovated a new ecosystem for the 3D virtual fashion market.

 

MarvelousDesigner is available from Novedge.

You can read more about CLO on their website.

 

Interview with Kaleb Lechowski, the Creator of R'ha: from Film Student to Viral Sensation

Just a few weeks ago, Kaleb Lechowski woke up to find that his first animated 3D short film, R'ha, had just reached 90,000 views on Vimeo. By January 19th, R'ha had been viewed a million times.

I asked Kaleb to share with us a bit about himself and what he is doing.

 

Kaleb Lechowski: I´m Kaleb Lechowski from Germany. I´m 22 years old and I study Digital Film Design at Mediadesign Hochschule in Berlin. I do a lot of different art like painting and creating creatures even, but lately I´ve been very much into computer animation.

Novedge: Where do you find inspiration?

Kaleb Lechowski: A lot of different things inspire me. I like insects and lobsters. Because of how they move and how they look. I found that if an animal appears not to be aesthetically appealing, you haven´t studied it enough.

A lot of sci-fi inspired me, like The Matrix, Terminator and computer games like Half-Life, but also anything that really transports you into their world. Also I´m a big fan of Christopher Nolan's work. He created a bunch of great movies! 

Novedge: Can you tell us about the work behind R'ha? Are you currently working on another project?

Kaleb Lechowski: With R´ha I aimed for about 4 minutes of film and I wanted to try some new stuff like the Maya muscle system. Also I contacted David Masterson to help me out with the voice acting and later Hartmut Zeller to create the sound for it.

Since it was a solo project I could decide everything, so I went for Science-Fiction, with aliens and machines [this is Kaleb's 2nd big school assignment]. Only after writing the story for two months straight, I started producing the alien character.

In total I´ve been working on the project for seven intense months, including around the time of my own wedding in September. There are times when I worked over 10 hours a day and slept at the university about every two days, for two weeks. Although I think I worked really fast, I wasn´t always able to deliver at the right time. In the end I think I should have just taken my time finishing the movie after I had presented it to the professors.

Right now I am working on the story for R'ha as a feature film.

 

   

Novedge: R'ha is a huge success online. What surprised you the most about its popularity? Do you have tips for other artists looking to leveraging social media to promote their work?

Kaleb Lechowski: I didn´t expect that someone like Scott Glassgold would find the trailer so quickly and offer me such an opportunity to go further with this project. Once I uploaded the complete short film, he helped me get the impact it had, I think. I guess using Vimeo, Youtube, etc. is a good thing in itself, because people all over the world can see it and it can spread in a short amount of time, but I am really not sure if I can give any solid advice on how to create such an impact like R'ha had.

Novedge: What software do you use?

Kaleb Lechowski: I used Maya for a lot of things, since it was the first of the commercial programs I started learning. But I did a lot of modeling in Blender, because I've been using it for about 8 years and it is really fast when you know all the shortcuts. Besides that, it also provides the possibility to sort of sketch a model directly in 3D by just extruding model vertices and building free edge lines I can connect later on. So, the city was rendered and modeled using Blender. 

For sculpting very high detail and for a lot of painting I relied on ZBrush which is really fast and easy to learn, in my opinion. Most of the compositing was done in Nuke, except for some layering in After Effects.

I really struggled with displacement maps and any kind of post production blur. Displacement just always appeared to be hard shaded in mental ray. I needed to create a subsurf approximation to get it smooth again, yet still a displacement nearly never looks like the sculpt in ZBrush.

Motion blur has a couple of problems, at least with Nuke's vector blur. If let´s say the head is moving fast before the torso, it has a blurry edge to the background, but it still has the sharp edge where there is the torso (see image below).

Also my depth renderpass always appeared to have cut off edges at least one pixel wide, so the blur thought parts of the character are from the background and need to be blurred a lot, so it got a glow around the alien. I ended up faking this by eroding the alpha and the depth to get the right edge, but it´s really not how I wanted to work.

For the head I really wanted these fine wrinkles, but since stress maps to drive bump or displacement seemed not possible in this short time, I decided to cut off the head and give it a much higher mesh resolution, so that all the wrinkles are actually 3D modeled blendshapes. ZBrush made it possible. 

Unfortunately, since this was my second Maya character rig, I made a mistake not allowing me to turn the character upside down, which I wanted to do in the shot where the chair is rotated. Eventually I rotated the room instead of the alien. But I think it worked fine.

Novedge: So what now, what are your next steps?

Kaleb Lechowski: Next is R'ha as a feature film. On Saturday (February 2nd) I will go to LA to pitch my ideas to producers and studios. Stay tuned on that! :) 

To read more about Kaleb Lechowski and his work on R'ha, check out the FAQ page on his blog, R'ha's Facebook Page and R'ha on Vimeo.  

And don't forget to register for our live webinar on ZBrush with Paul Gaboury, Pixologic's 3D Application Engineer, on February 20th.

Novedge Bunkspeed Pro Webinar: Q&A with David Randle

Did you miss yesterday's webinar with Brian Hillner on Bunkspeed Pro? Don't worry, you can still watch it on our YouTube Channel. All our webinars are always available online and free of charge.

 

The questions from the audience were so many that David Randle from the Bunkspeed team took some time to answer those we couldn't fit in our live broadcast. Here they are.

Q: What hardware is the demo being run on?

A: Brian [Hillner, the webinar presenter] is using a machine with 2 Fermi based GPU's (1x Quadro 6000 and 1x Tesla C2070) and is running at a resolution of 2560x1600px. It is a single CPU, 12GB RAM configuration.

Q: How significant is the performance between Fermi and Kepler architecture?

A: As of right now, performance on Kepler is only fractionally better than Fermi. iRay (the renderer we use) is still undergoing improvements to leverage the massive hardware performance gain of the Kepler architecture. Also, keep in mind that although Kepler is only fractionally faster than Fermi, the Kepler cards consume 30 - 40% less power so they are much more efficient.

Q: What are the options for sending Pro/E geometry to Bunkspeed?

A: We have a free plugin available here that allows you to push your geometry directly from Pro/E or Creo into our products. We have a version going live soon that also supports Creo2.

Q: Please explain the functionality of Powerboost...

A: PowerBoost is a separate product which gets installed on a dedicated “rendering” machine. When installed, it allows users within a workgroup to send their renders (via queue) to the dedicated PowerBoost machine to render. This allows users to keep working on their desktops and never have to wait for a render on their own machine. As a note, PowerBoost connectivity is only available in our Pro and Drive products

Q: Is there a limit on how many GPUs Bunkspeed can use?

A: Pro is licensed for up to 2 GPUs but it can be configured to use up to 8 in a single machine. More info about how to do this can be obtained from your Novedge sales contact who can work with us to get you what you need.

Q: How come queue doesn't work?

A: Queue should function just fine. If it isn't, I would suggest approaching support@bunkspeed.com so we can make sure it is working for you. Common issues are the result of port conflicts with Anti-Virus software or licensing when using a floating version of Pro/Drive, as Queue Service checks out a license and if that license isn't checked back in (by stopping the Queue Service), then other users can't check out Pro/Drive or Queue on another machine.

Q: Is it possible to export the object and camera?

A: It is possible to export your object as an OBJ or FBX right now via File > Export. We are currently working on also exporting the camera data via FBX. This should make it into our next release. In addition, we also support importing of animated FBX files...

Q: Did Bunkspeed intend to use a live plugin for HDR Light Studio?

A: We currently have a way to "live update" modification you make to an HDR in HDR Light Studio using our auto-update feature. HDR Light Studio has been busy working on their API to support our dev environment and we are looking to have a tighter integration with their product as soon as their work is ready.

 

Interested in Bunkspeed? Find out the details here.

Do you love webinars? Check the upcoming webinars in the Novedge Webinar Series here.

 

Interview with Important Looking Pirates (ILP), VFX for Academy Awards Nominated Film Kon-Tiki

We are excited to feature our interview with ILP today on our blog, a vfx firm from Sweden who has worked on many projects, from commercials to video games, and is now expanding to movies. Niklas Jacobson, the co founder of the company, answered our questions.

 

Novedge: Tell us about yourself and Important Looking Pirates

 

ILP: We are a visual effects / post production company based in Stockholm, Sweden. ILP was founded by me (Niklas Jacobson) and Yafei Wu in October 2007 with the vision of one day be able to compete with the best international studios. Since we come from an artist background, our focus has always been about the quality of our work, together with an inspiring and creative work environment to accomplish it.

Today we are 20 full time employees which we believe are among the most passionate artists, producers and support personnel in the industry. 

 

 

Our core business has always been visual effects for commercials, but in the last couple of years the way we consume media has changed quite a bit, with the internet and other technologies. So now we see ourselves more as content providers for all kinds of platforms like television, web, game industry. We recently finished the visual effects work on our first feature film Kon-Tiki which was a fantastic project to work on. And we are definitely looking forward to more film work as well!

 

Novedge: What or who inspires you? 

 

ILP: We take inspiration in lots of things. There are plenty of "nerds" in the office so there is obviously a lot of discussion around art, movies and games. But what drives us the most is the passion for what we do, the competition in seeing what other people and companies manage to achieve. I think it is very important to take pride in what you do, while remaining humble. There is so much we are constantly learning from each other, and from others outside of ILP, we all feel equal within our team.  There is a never ending journey of self improvement. This is a very fast paced and evolving industry and so you need to keep looking forward and not get stuck on old merits. 

 

Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on?

 

ILP: We have recently finished about 60 very visual effects intensive shots for the upcoming Norwegian feature film Kon-Tiki directed by Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg. The film is about the legendary explorer Thor Heyerdal’s epic journey crossing the Pacific on a balsa wood raft in 1947.

The movie has been very well received and has just received a nomination to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

 

 
This was an extremely fun and challenging project to work on. We worked on a sequence featuring digital white sharks and a digital parrot.

 

 

One exciting thing with this kind of work is that you often get to do some pretty in depth studies on very random subjects. For this project we spent a lot of time watching documentaries like "Life" and "Planet Earth" We studied the movement of sharks and the look of underwater footage. 

 

One of the greatest challenges with our work was that it had to look 100% believable. We are cutting between live action scenes and completely digitally created scenes which puts incredible high demands on everything, from models, textures, lighting and animation to compositing and integration of the computer generated elements. 

 

Kon-Tiki Making of from Important Looking Pirates on Vimeo.

Novedge: What software do you use? Tell us why.

ILP: Before we founded ILP, Yafei and I spent a few years working abroad in London and Los Angeles. We were very inspired by how well developed the industry was at that time compared to Sweden. A lot of the companies were developing proprietary tools and pipeline workflows which in a lot of cases gave them an edge in creating really stunning visual effects or in their workflow. We have embraced that at ILP and are not afraid of putting a lot of resources into research and development and pipeline work. Among our tools we have developed a proprietary volumetric render to meet our needs for speed while rendering effects like smoke and fire. 

Among the "off the shelves" software that we use, Maya is our main 3D software. Maya feels like industry standard in our field and is a powerful tool that many 3D artists know and like. We use The Foundry's Nuke for compositing for more or less the same reason. We sometimes use Adobe After Effects for more motion graphics work. We use both ZBrush and Mudbox for sculpting when you need that extra detail in your models. In case we have to finishing work directly with the client we have Smoke for quick playback and last minute tweaks but more often we work remotely and review work over the internet especially with international clients. For FX work and heavy simulations we use Houdini and Naiad. We render our images using V-Ray. We switched to V-Ray about 1.5 years ago and are really happy about that. It makes the look development process extremely efficient and V-Ray has a lot of ways to get very fast feedback while still keeping all the fancy features like GI. You can get a quick read on how your lighting will look and when satisfied you can increase the settings with very predictable results. Two other good reasons to use V-Ray is the pricing and the excellent support.

 

Novedge: What innovations do you see in your field, now or in the future?

ILP: There are lots of great things already happening on the software side of things. Things are becoming more accessible and new features are being implemented to make our work easier. However, the expectations are increasing as well. Higher resolution, frame rates and stereo production have been  introduced and make for a continuous struggle to keep your head above the water. The thing I personally look forward the most for ILP is the fact that we just started using Shotgun in our pipeline as a production management tool. I think the key to survive in a business with continuously increasing demands is making sure the work you do is made as efficiently as possible. And a huge part of that is production management. 

 

To see more of ILP's work, check out their website.

To learn more about specific software, take a look at Novedge Best of the Best Webinar Series.