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We are proud sponsors of FlyignArchitecture's new contest, Architecture Unchained. To participate, you have to upload your work in progress of an architectural structure free from the constraint of gravity. Franco Folini, Novedge's President and Co Founder, is one of the judges and we are keeping a close eye on the competition.
So, why not start by learning a bit more about FlyingArchitecture's founder, Matus Nedecky?
Novedge: Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do
Matus Nedecky: Hi all! So first of all, let me thank Aurora Meneghello for giving me
this opportunity to be interviewed by Novedge. It's an honor!
My name is Matus Nedecky, I am originally from the small Slovak village of
Zelenec. When I finished my high school in a nearby city, I started to
attend the BUT - Faculty of Architecture in the Czech Republic. After gaining experience in three architecture firms (full-time during my studies), I
decided to go my own way and become an architectural visualizer. There's
still a long way to go, even if I have reached some milestones already,
which can be seen on our studio's website.
Novedge: How did Flying Architecture start? And how has it evolved?
Matus Nedecky: FlyingArchitecture
started as a simple blog back in summer 2009. As I started to work in
Rhinoceros 4, and I was working on some basic commercial visualizations,
I needed to use the same 3D assets over and over again. Unfortunately,
there was no website dedicated to Rhino assets at that time, the only
package you could get was McNeel's Savanna3D... and I thought I could do better. So I started producing my work. First I
created fifty 3D models in Rhinoceros and then I published the website on
social media. Leo Bonilla, a great guy from
Colombia, and Rendy Himawan, a designer from Jakarta, contacted me right away. These two (and
many others afterwards) gave me great support, they shared my passion for this
project and they also shared some of their 3D
models. And this is where it all started :)
Then many people from all over
the world started to share their own 3D models, and FlyingArchitecture
grew rapidly.
I believe if one does something with passion, he will undoubtedly do a great job. And I can proudly say I loved doing this! It
was and still is such a great feeling seeing all our own models and our fan's in visualizations all over the world (I have seen some models in
visualizations by BIG)... it's an honor to serve thousands of people
and to offer them something they need.
Well, free 3D models were just the beginning... since 2009 I also added other features, like the forum, materials and tutorials. Besides the
website itself, I also work on architectural visualizations for
commercial clients.
Then on December 28, 2009 everything changed. That's when I first
talked to Veronika Nedecka, when she was an interior design student (now my wife and the mother of our child) - since we
knew each other, we also started to work together, so our professional
services went much more pro! Thanks to our images, which were getting
better and better, we were offered to teach a workshop on architectural
visualization in Barcelona, Spain, and we accepted.
Since then, we led workshops in Barcelona, Vienna, Rome
and some personal courses in Bratislava. Now we're are planning some
more events, so if you are interested... stay tuned! :)
I can't forget to mention that our new online store with 3D models is the first marketplace where Rhinoceros users can get truly realistic, high quality, 3D models ready for use in their 3D
scenes. Take a look here.
Novedge: What are the rewards and challenges of having your own business?
Matus Nedecky: It's
not really a walk in the park.... But of course it has many more pros than
cons. However you are responsible for everything - you have to care
of PR, marketing, the job itself, bookkeeping, etc. There is so
much to think about, that it may
sometimes seem unbearable. Just don't give up! Even if you think it's not worthwhile
and sometimes it is a struggle, there are always better days coming :)
For me, better days came with Veronika and my co-workers, Lukas [Filip, interviewed here]
and Fabio.
The biggest challenge is time management: it's extremely hard
to balance it all - work, family, free time, eventually school and also
other projects.
The biggest reward for me since I started
to work alone has been the lack of stress. I have to admit, I work longer
hours than before, but I do not have someone standing behind my back
checking what I am doing. Oh and also as an artist I have
the opportunity to express myself, my own style and feelings, not just the opinions
and style of my team leader... That's the biggest satisfaction!
Novedge: What surprised you the most?
Matus Nedecky: Well, I'd say it's the
positive feedback! I started working on the FlyingArchitecture website just
for fun, and to create something that I needed. You should see
the mass of positive feedback I received, it's such a great feeling to receive hundreds of emails that say "Thank you"... That was the
best award I could ever get :) So Thank You all, who supported me and
who said Thank You... You gave me new energy to continue.
Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on?
Recently at the
FlyingArchitecture studio we are working on tens of residential/commercial
buildings for our clients... mostly new buildings for commerce or flat
units. From time to time we also have a great opportunity to work on
something very specific, like museum designs, firemen stations, hotels
and so on.
What I appreciate the most are personal projects. At the moment, I
am running about 5 of them, but I can show you some I finished
recently. It is very important for me to take a break from commercial work
(for most of them we sign an NDA, so they cannot be published)
and to create something in my own style with a touch of artistic
feeling.
This is the Norwegian house, design and visualizations by FlyingArchitecture:
Aluminium house, some romantic idea of where I'd love to live:
FlyingArchitecture, our future office design. We jut have to wait a bit for the technology to catch up :)
Novedge: What software do you use?
Matus Nedecky: Haha, that's a long and painful story... At university, they taught
us how to use 3ds Max, but I gave a try to Cinema 4D, Blender, Modo, SketchUp and
Rhino. I have to say that polygons just aren't my blood type. That's why
I was so amazed by the NURBS technology in Rhinoceros, which I chose as my
primary 3D software.
Since then, I use it on a daily basis. It worked great in college
for all architectural drawings and also for 3D modeling and rendering.
Its stability and extraordinary user-friendliness just amaze me. And
that's why I stick with it :)
Besides Rhinoceros, I use V-Ray for Rhino and Photoshop. The combination of these software solutions give us extreme
flexibility to finish all daily tasks in a very effective way and within reasonable time.
Novedge: What makes a good render extraordinary?
Matus Nedecky: The most
important thing is to be original. That's why I try to keep Rhino as our primary
3D software in FlyingArchitecture. The worst thing that can happen is that somebody starts to take shortcuts and just mindlessly copy and
paste assets to their 3D scenes. There are tons of CGI artists working
like this these days... So the direction we are taking is to use custom
3D models and our own photos for exterior postproduction, so we stay
original all the time.
Generally speaking, it's always up to the artist, everybody has a different point of view. There is an artist in all of us, we just have to
release him :) Don't just copy... create!
Novedge: What are your plans for the future?
Matus Nedecky: I always have big plans! I would need several lifetimes to
accomplish them all... Of course, there are some
particular plans for FlyingArchitecture, mostly regarding the website
itself, so we can get bigger and better with our free 3D models
database. I'll have more news soon, so stay tuned! And of course,
we are doing our best to offer better visualizations to our clients
every day. You can check our current visualization portfolio here.
Want to see more? Check out FlyingArchitecture's website.
Ready to share your Architecture Unchained? Read all about the contest here.
And don't forget to get in touch with us on Twitter and Facebook!
Our 69th Webinar, Working with Shaders in Artlantis 4.1, left us all wanting for more! Here Chris Stringer answers all the questions he couldn't get to during our live Q&A session.
Q 01: Can a render from Artlantis be used as a Postcard?
A: No. A Postcard is a specialized type of low-resolution (400x300 pixel) JPEG rendering with additional information about the scene's materials embedded into it, created in Artlantis using the menu/command Tools/Create Postcard. By contrast, a regular Artlantis rendering created using the menu/command Inspector/Render does not contain this type of information...See also Q 2, Q 12 and Q 24.
Q 02: Can Postcards be moved from one PC to another? Must the Shaders be shared on both rigs?
A: Yes, Postcards can be moved, shared, emailed, etc. Yes, the original Shaders that existed on the computer/project where that Postcard was created must also exist on any other computer where that Postcard is going to be used, if it is to work properly. To ensure that Shaders and other media files used in a specific project travel safely with the project when it is being sent from one computer to another, always remember to save the project using menu/command File/Export as Archive… See also Q 1, Q 12, and Q 24.
Q 03: When you re-assign materials, will it be saved that way when the document is reopened?
A: Yes. Those settings are retained in that Artlantis file. See also Q 9.
Q 04: What are the limitations in Artlantis if a texture is pulled from the web? Do you lose any feature rich operations if you apply your own texture?
A: The limitations really depend on the quality of the texture and the set of accompanying image maps, because your goal in Artlantis shouldn’t be just to use good textures…it should be to use good Shaders. So,what’s the difference? A texture is a single bitmap image that defines one aspect of a material’s appearance. They can get assigned to the material in the 3D modeler or later in Artlantis. The most common type of texture used isa color (diffuse) image map, which are typically made by photographing a real-world material and often digitally altering them to create seamless edges. A material that only has a single texture map assigned to it is going to appear “flat” and less realistic…i.e. more computer-generated. A Shader is a combination of one or more separate texture files(typically all based on the same color image map as a starting point) that work in combination to define a material’s appearance in ways that cannot be accomplished with the use of a single color image map alone. Shaders typically make use of additional supporting image maps to add effects such as bump, reflection, shininess, normals, etc. These maps interact with the scene’s light and reflections to add life-like qualities to the materials. In Artlantis, it is possible to create a custom Shader that has all of the advanced settings of the high quality default Shaders in Artlantis, since they are offered to you within the menu/command Tools/Create Shader From... But, you either need the skill to create the supporting image maps for the shader (if they don’t already exist), or you need to find someone who already has those skills and has created those image maps. You can learn a lot by using the Create Shader From command to examine some of the existing Shaders’ settings and their accompanying image maps.
Q 05: Is there a specific relationship between values of the bump to the normal maps?
A: The bump and normal maps are both typically derived from the same starting point: the diffuse (color) image map. Both can be used to create the illusion of enhanced depth or relief in a Shader by affecting the way light interacts with the underlying color map, however, the normal map can be used to accomplish more than what is possible to achieve with the bump map. The grayscale information in the bump map can only scatter light in the direction of one axis: the Z axis.The normal map is a more advanced type of bump map, using the RGB color information it contains to scatter light in the X, Y, and Z axes. As an example, when creating a slate floor tile Shader, you might start with an 8 x 8 tile grid for the color map.
Giving it a Reflection of .7 and Shininess of 700 would create the following appearance:
You might use a bump map to simulate the depth of the grout lines and provide a rough textured quality to the slate surface. The lighter areas in the bump map will result in that area of the diffuse map appearing raised while the darker areas will appear to be recessed.
The normal map could have some of those same qualities as the bump map. It could have the same basic texture, accentuating the rough texture of the slate surface (below top). However, it could instead be created to scatter light in a simpler, profoundly different way…to make the individual tiles appear as if none of them were laid completely level (below bottom), so that the reflections of the background do not line up perfectly on each tile.
The combination of the bump and the normal maps could be used to both enhance the natural texture of the material and create more of a random appearance to the reflections in the tiles.
Q 06: Chris, can you show us how to use light on interior at night views? Thank you.
Q 07: How can we make realistic renders like those in 3D Studio Max using Sketchup with Artlantis?
A: The built-in Artlantis radiosity engine strikes an excellent balance between quality and speed. However, if you need something that goes beyond the capabilities of the Artlantis radiosity engine, check out the Maxwell Render engine for Artlantis. By default, it is installed with Artlantis 4.1 in a 30-day demo mode (can be activated with the purchase of a separate serial number) and is accessible from the menu/command Artlantis/License/Maxwell Render Engine (on Mac) or Help/Edit License/Maxwell Render Engine (on Windows). Licensed from Next Limit Technologies, the developers of the standalone version of Maxwell Render, the engine is an optional product that excels at creating hyper realistic renderings with physically accurate lighting behavior. The renderings take significantly longer to produce, but if that level of quality is needed, it is possible to do so without having to leave the familiar and extremely easy-to-use Artlantis work environment. That’s a powerful combination! Normally,you’ll want to use Artlantis for your preliminary renderings (and most of your final renderings, for that matter), then use the Maxwell Render Engine when is has to be perfect. You’ll note that there is a dedicated family of Maxwell Render Shaders in the Catalog of mostly reflective and refractive surfaces. You’ll want to apply those in a different version of your Artlantis project before doing a Maxwell rendering.
Artlantis Radiosity Engine:
Maxwell Render Engine:
Q 08: I had difficulties customizing interior views using white walls in Artlantis. I use the "china", "basic" shader, but never got the realistic view as you can see in this if it's possible.
A: If you want to achieve brighter whites, here’s what to do. In our example here, we’ll be changing the walls. First, you’ll want to have probably either the Basic or Expert Shader applied to your surface. The color doesn’t matter, but just to keep things simple, make it white. Locate the blanc.jpg in the Catalog/Images and drag it onto the surface (the walls, for example) in the 3D Preview window. In the ShadersInspector/Material list, select the blank.jpg texture. In the settings for that texture, mark the Rep. checkboxes so that it tiles horizontally and vertically. At this point, you probably won’t notice any visible changes in the 3D Preview window yet.
With the blank.jpg texture still selected in the Shaders Inspector/Material list, adjust the Ambient slider to the right to maybe around 0.20 or so. You should see the white areas of the walls brighten considerably. If you take the Ambient slider all the way up 1.00, it will increase the white to a very unnatural looking pure white, which you wouldn’t normally do. Note that the ceiling in the next image next has not been changed, thus becoming a point of reference compared to the brightened walls.
Q 09: Is it possible to apply a shader texture in just one face of the imported model? Or do we need to import another model with that face in a different shader?
A: Yes, you can apply a Shader to just one face using the re-assign material command. There is no need to import another model. First, select the face by activating the selection tool in above the material list.
Change the selection method to single face.
Click on the desired face in the 3D Preview window to select it. The selected element will temporarily be highlighted. Then, click on the Apply Material icon, in the Shaders Inspector palette.
A dialogue will appear. In this case, you will want to apply a copy of the currently selected material to the surface. Give the new material an appropriate name.
The final result is a new material definition for that surface, which now operates completely independent of the other elements in the scene that shared its previous material. You can then apply Shaders to this surface as you normally would in Artlantis…just drag and drop a Shader directly onto the surface in the 3D Preview Window.
See also Q 03.
Q 10: How can we use HDRI files to get shaders affected within the environment?
A: While it is true that HDRI does affect the appearance of Shaders in the scene, that’s a lighting/background topic really best left for a future webinar. In the meantime, you can watch this video available on the Artlantis YouTube channel: Artlantis 4.1 - Adding HDRI Background.
Q 11: When we render the "white" shader from native Artlantis there's always a little bit of gray aspect. How can we control this shader to put it more with and apply to interior walls?
A: See Q 8.
Q 12: Since the Postcards are just jpegs, do they have to be generated from Artlantis?
A: Yes, they must be generated from Artlantis, because they are not “just” jpegs, they are specialized jpegs with additional information embedded into them. See also Q 1, Q 2 and Q 24.
Q 13: Can you do paint on the surface, like graffiti effect?
A: Yes. While there is no paint brush tool in Artlantis, this can be easily achieved if you add an alpha channel to an image in Photoshop to mask out its background. In the alpha channel, dark areas will mask the image and light areas will remain visible. Export as a TIF or PNG, then drag and drop that image file directly into the Artlantis 3D Preview window. Scale, reposition, and check the Use Alpha Channel checkbox.
Q 14: I have problems with 3D plants from version 1.2 looking very rough when rendered in 4.0. Do you know why that would be?
A: That would be a question for the Artlantis technical support team. We would need to know what plant files you’re using, a few things about your system and setup, and might possibly need an archived project file to diagnose the cause and offer a solution. To submit a support ticket on artlantis.com, use this link.
Q 15: Is there an easy way to use alpha channels in Artlantis, so you can make realistic looking grass for example?
A: Yes, but Shaders might not be the best option. The problem with many grass textures (and even high quality grass Shaders) is that from a far distance, they appear too repetitive, while from a close distance, they appear too flat. You could start with a grass Shader, and drop one or more subsequent grass textures onto it (with various bits masked out using an alpha channel to show the other underlying grass texture) to create a more randomized appearance to the grass texture, but this does nothing to resolve the problem that in real life, unless you’re on a golf course, grass normally doesn’t look like low-pile carpet.
Grass 1 with alpha (goes on top)
Grass 2 (goes underneath)
Grass textures 1 and 2 combined. The blend creates more randomnessthan using one texture alone, however it still looks pretty flat.
Grass is a material that is really difficult to simulate through just a texture and some bump and normal maps, because in reality it is a highly volumetric type of surface. Yes, you’ve got to put some kind of ground material in your project, but rather than taking great pains to create a Shader to simulate grass or using a high-poly 3D grass object, you could instead make a composite for your final image. Artlantis provides the option to save out a rendering as a Photoshop file. The resulting file contains 5 separate, very useful layers: MODEL_FRONT (the foreground elements), BACKGROUND (the background elements), MATERIAL (a materials map, differentiating the materials in the scene by unique colors), OBJECT (like the materials map, only for objects),and ZBUFFER (a grayscale depth map of the scene). The first 2 layers combine to create the finished rendering, but it’s the last 3 layers that can be very useful for post-process editing.
If you don’t already own Photoshop, stop what you’re doing and order it now. If there’s one other tool you need to create great renderings, it’s Photoshop. We can open this rendering in Photoshop and quickly use the magic wand to select the ground plane in either the OBJECT or MATERIAL layers. We create a grayscale mask from this, then apply a glass distortion filter to it to give it more of a rough edge.
Next step is to combine the rendering with a real image of the site or a photograph of a neatly manicured lawn (via a quick trip to a stockphoto website). I located 2 suitable images, used the content-aware fill to extend and touch up some areas, blended them by setting one of them at 50% opacity, then brightened the result with an overlay layer. Grass is brightened by adding a new solid green layer, set to overlay at 28% opacity
The final result of the new grass added into the overall composition is pictured below. Much more convincing! Since this is a tutorial about adding grass textures, I won’t discuss the additional compositional elements, cropping, and other adjustments that could be done to this image in Photoshop to make it a fully realized architectural rendering.
Q 16: What is a good practice to make good use of those different mapsto make better looking gaps or displacement?
A: See Q 5.
Q 17: We've had a lot of problems with swimming pools in particular. If in the modeler the solid element (slab) for the water actually touches the walls around it then Artlantis shows a black surface when rendered. We've been doing a work around which is leaving the water short of the walls and floors of the pool by about 1 cm inorder to not have the black surface. Any suggestions?
A: Sometimes, a simple work around is the best solution! You might also try just using a flat plane for the water. I once talked to a person who was rendering an interior and was puzzled by the way that the exterior looked wrong through the windows, even though everything was oriented properly and set up correctly. As it turned out, she was using the “glass” refraction option in her windows’ glass Shader settings, which was warping the view of the exterior like a magnifying glass. This was quickly and easily resolved by simply changing the glass refraction option to “air.” Your issue might be related to something like this…some weird refraction happening at the water’s edge. If you think this is a bug, you should create a support ticket with the Artlantis technical support team. They would probably need an archived project file to diagnose the cause and offer a solution. To submit a support ticket on artlantis.com, use this link. Another option might be to try posting in the Artlantis forum.
Q 18: Good afternoon, in my experience with Artlantis I have a problem with exterior renders. In general, is there a simple way to make the default shader to look more natural, I mean imperfect, weary or grayed out?
A: See Q 13 and Q 15 (first half)…stacking alpha channel images on to materials. The repetitiveness of the brick wall in the example from Q13 is definitely broken up by the graffiti, but in your case, you will probably be using a more subtle pattern (maybe a light layer of patchy dirt/grime that is applied across the surface), with maybe a few additional one-off textures applied here or there to resemble pockmarks or imperfections. You can apply as many textures as you want over top of a material, and you can opt to have them simply operate as one instance, or repeat to tile across the surface. Also, keep in mind that when a texture is applied to a material, that texture can then be set to be 100% transparent and used as some other kind of map (such as a Bump map) by adjusting the relevant slider (such as the Bump slider). So, you can really stack up or layer a whole series of graphic effects onto a material to achieve just about anything you want for imperfections or weathering.
Q 19: Can you render the pool image we're looking at?
A: Here’s another look. Sorry, the high resolution version stays with me!
Q 20: Are Artlantis 4 and Artlantis Studio separate applications that need to be purchased separately?
A: That depends on what you need. Artlantis 4 is available in two separate packages: Render and Studio. Render creates still images only, while Studio creates still images plus dynamic content like animations, VR object movies, and iVisit 3D panoramic VR presentations. You can start with Render, and if you ever need to create any of the dynamic presentation content, you can upgrade to Studio for very close to the difference in cost between the two applications. Incidentally, they both use the same file format interchangeably, so an office team could easily use both Render and Studio on the same project files.
Q 21: Can ImageCels be incorporated in Artlantis?
A: Yes. According to the imagecels.com FAQ, their “images (people,trees, etc.) are 2D in the 32 bit .TIF (LZW compressed) file format with embedded alpha channel masks. They are placed against a 0,0,0 black background. Textures are 24 bit .TIF (LZW compressed),seamless and tileable.” TIF is one of the many file formats that Artlantis supports, including support for embedded alpha channels.
Q 22: What are good websites to get HQ textures?
A: There really are a ton of them. Our store, objectsonline.com, sells 6different volumes of Artlantis Shaders, but we do not carry any stand alone texture files. Marlin Studios is one old favorite. Another is TurboSquid. But, even with a site as huge as TurboSquid, I will often start my search by using Google image search, and then happen upon professional texture websites along the way, once I find the best example of a texture for whatever specific material I’m trying to create.
Q 23: I was an Artlantis user for many years and missed the latestupgrade path. In 4.1 can we re use all the shaders that we have for the past versions? (vol 1-10)
A: Artlantis has been around since the days of big hair and spandex (although being a French product, I’m not sure what was popular in Paris back then). When Artlantis was completely recoded and released in 2005, Abvent reset the version numbering to 1.0 and split the product into Render and Studio. Users of the legacy version, which had reached v.4.5, had a period of several years during which they could upgrade at a discount. Currently, users on Render or Studio v1.0 or later are eligible for a discounted upgrade to Render or Studio v4.1. Regarding the legacy Shaders, if the disc they came on is copyrighted year 2000 or later, there is still a chance they might work. Backwards compatibility was available for the legacy Artlantis Shaders volumes1-10, if they were released on or after year 2000. Although many of them still might work, they are not officially supported anymore. I’m not sure if yours will still work for you, but you could test that out by downloading the Artlantis 4.1 demo version, which runs without a serial number for 30 days. You would just need to copy your legacy Shaders into your programs folder…Artlantis/Media/Shaders/.
Q 24: Are postcards embedded in the project file, or do we need to transfer postcards to other computers where the project file is being worked on?
A: Postcards are separate JPEG files that are created in a project, but are saved outside of and operate independently of that project. Do not rename or edit them! They should normally be stored in your program's folder…Artlantis/Media/Postcards/. You will want to keep copies of the Postcards on any computer where you may later want to access them.You should also ensure that any Shaders referenced in a postcard also travel with the Postcard. See also Q 1, Q 2, and Q 12.
Q 25: What is the difference between reflection and fresnel settings?
A: The Reflection setting of a Shader controls one aspect of the Shader’s appearance: its ability to reflect light. The Fresnel Transition can, in effect, dynamically override or exaggerate the Transparency and Reflection settings of the Shader. In order for Fresnel to have any noticeable impact, there must be at least some level of transparency and/or reflectivity assigned to the material in the Shader settings. Fresnel will increase a material’s apparent reflection/opacity as a surface is oriented more obliquely, angled to face away from the observer. Conversely, a material’s apparent reflection/opacity is reduced as a surface is oriented more tangentially, angled to face toward the observer. When a material is assigned a low Fresnel Transition value, the apparent differences between the material’s reflection/opacity, when viewed at different angles, are exaggerated. When a high Fresnel Transition value is used, the differences are minimized. The following images illustrate these differences.
High Fresnel setting viewed at different angles…minimal differences
Novedge: Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do.
Ryan Swanson: My life began in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where I went to high school for architecture. I then moved to Tampa about 7 years ago to attend The University of South Florida School of Architecture and Community Design where I will soon receive my Masters in Architecture. I'm an aspiring architect, designer and creator. I like to make things and make things for a reason. I hate making something that has no back story or reasoning for its existence. I try to live by this quote from Jim Henson - "When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world. My hope is to leave the world a little better for having been there.” It's kind of cliché but I believe if I'm alive I might as well make it worth it.
What do I do... Well I try to dip my hand in just about anything I find interesting. I coach and play volleyball, dj on my spare time, and pretty much just try to live life as much as possible. Which is a hard task to do while in Architecture School. I recently have really gotten into emergent technologies and how they can be used in a large scale realm to push urban activation. So I spend a lot of time learning and designing. I never want to stop learning.
Novedge: How did you become interested in architecture and the public space?
Ryan Swanson: I think my interest in architecture kind of came about when I was young and asked my mom what I could do that involved math and art and she was like "architecture." That started me down this crazy wild path to where I am today. I didn't really get into public spaces until I went to Europe about two years ago. Me and some friends backpacked around for 5 weeks going to about 7 different countries. I began to see what a real public space was and actually be a part of their activeness. It's one thing to read about how a space is in a book than to actually experience it. I saw how people began to come together and interact with one another through the space. It was something that I never really saw in Fort Lauderdale or Tampa in the urban environment.
When I came back to the States I had just actually moved close to downtown Tampa and began to ride my bike there quite often into downtown. Before I never had a reason to drive the 20 min to downtown because there was never anything going on. I began to ask myself why Tampa was unsuccessful when it came to public spaces. It had some of the same parks, spaces, and open areas that I experienced in Europe. I began to realize people just either didn't know that the spaces existed or that it was ok to hangout in an empty grass lot. Or, it was just that there was nothing going on for them to want to hang out there. If you look at any big city you can walk down a street and feel like you are alive. Something is always happening or about to happen. I wanted to make this happen in downtown Tampa. I felt it had the potential and wanted to begin to create a change in the social interaction downtown. Public spaces are a way for people to escape and with the way our world is looking these days people need any way they can get to escape the harsh realities of life and come together.
Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on?
Ryan Swanson: I'm actually working on a couple of different projects right now. One is this interactive projection installation I call Projecting Fun. The idea for the projection installation is that it is something that can be easy to transport and it can be as big as you want it. The installation is done using the xbox kinect and processing, an open source code driven software. Right now I have a simple script that reads movements of the body and allows one to dance and play and see themselves projected at a large scale doing it. The idea of this installation is to promote interactive activity in inactive spaces. It draws people in but also makes people begin to appreciate and notice the space they are occupying. My goal is to give people a good time and break up their typical route, but also make them appreciate the space they are in. I have done this installation in two locations, one on the side of an old facade and the other under an overpass. So this is something I have done but I am still working on making it different and more playful.
The next thing is a prototype for this thing I call the Space Manipulator. The idea is that it's this cube that is placed within an inactive space and it can be broken down to a multitude of spatial arrangements for people to interact with. The idea is to get people to begin to play and work together on something and to create this idea of public interaction. The whole concept is to get people to come together in a space that isn't regularly used but is an interesting public space that should be activated. So when bringing this installation in I hope to not only give people something they can hang out on and move, but something they can begin to discuss and figure out. Public spaces are about bringing people together and creating a place for people to be interactive and become a part of the space. It's about creating a conversation between the human body and the space around them. The Urban Conga is working on a bunch of different projects right now and they can be seen on our website. But something that has recently fell into our arms is helping design, create, and run a Fab Lab in South Tampa. Essentially we are working to create a place for learning and collaboration. The idea is that the house is always developing projects done by people coming to the Lab to learn and create. We hope to set up a studio in the Lab and begin to collaborate on a lot more public installations with creators from the Tampa area.
Novedge: What software do you use?
Ryan Swanson: Software is something I told myself I want to have a vast knowledge in. It's like being a painter; you don't want to paint with just one color. Through architecture school and 3d modeling I have become really familiar with 3ds Max, SketchUp, V-Ray, AutoCAD, and Photoshop. I use these programs for prototyping ideas and mostly for rendering and setting up files to be laser cut or CNC routed. 3ds Max is also good for animations for showing how interactive installations work or for getting accurate prototypes to pitch ideas. When showing people what you plan to do it's all about making it as pretty as possible and 3ds Max can do that for you. Rhino, with the Grasshopper plug-in, is probably the program I use the most for modeling and designing ideas. Rhino is great for parametric modeling and also it has an endless supply of plug-ins and can do a multitude of functions. Grasshopper is a generative modeling tool for Rhino that uses algorithms to create form. It also can be interconnected to Arduino which is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. The two can be used together to create real world interactions and create a digital model from that interaction. Another program I use for interactive projection installations is Processing. It is another interactive open-source software that runs off of Java. The great thing about Arduino and Processing is that everything is open source, so everyone is willing to share ideas, code, and help. The idea is to keep pushing the limits and for an idea to keep growing. So if you make something maybe someone else can make something cooler with the thing you created and then so on. I believe technology is important to keep up with the ever growing society we are in. So I keep trying to find new software that I can learn to make things better and bigger with.
Novedge: What is the Urban Conga?
Ryan Swanson:The Urban Conga is a collective group of creators activating urban spaces through interactive installations. We stimulate urban spaces through exploration, activation, and above all interaction. The objective is to spark a conversation between the public realm and the human body through interactive installations. Our mission is to start The Conga Line! We want to collaborate with other creators and begin to start a movement in inactive areas.
We are not a group of artists that create static public art to make a dollar. Our philosophy is to inject care into local communities by accentuating and enhancing the beauty of the current urban conditions! With like-minded passions to better communities, we are turning unused and overlooked urban spaces into interactive places to live, learn, and love your city. The Conga started in September 2012 when I and a couple of other students at the University of South Florida School of Architecture realized we were interested in solving the problem that our downtown is having with activation. So in doing my thesis I tried to incorporate my research into The Urban Conga in how to interact with people and what they best respond to in order to begin to activate these unused spaces. Our goal is to start a movement! We hope there will begin to be an Urban Conga group everywhere just giving people something to do and interact with and have fun. Our whole motto is "Come out and play!"
Novedge: What are the rewards and challenges of being part of a collective, such as the Urban Conga?
Ryan Swanson: Everyone works in groups in school and hate it. I feel this gives a false reputation on collaborations or working in a collective effort. In the working world this is something a majority of people have to learn to accept and deal with. I think working with other people is how to make something better. If you lock yourself in a room you are only getting one perspective on the thing you are doing and that is your own. When you put together a bunch of people that have different skill sets something amazing happens. IDEO is a design consulting firm that solely believes on creations through a collaborative effort. They are one of the top design consulting firms in the nation due to this mind set. If you look at any online open sourced software, people collaborate everywhere. Someone puts up some code that does a basic function and someone else takes that basic function and makes it fly a rocket ship. Maybe that's a bit extreme but my point is that things grow from a collective effort, every time being pushed to be better and different. At the same time you do run into problems with communication and people not being on the same page, but I feel in the end the rewards out way the some time bickering and arguments over how things should happen. The way the Urban Conga is set up is anyone can come to us with an idea and the motivation to make the idea happen. What we want to do is make that idea for an interactive installation happen. Either through helping that person with funding or just helping them build and design it. Ever since we started this collaborative group so many artists, performers and creators have reached out to us to make stuff happen. People need something that is actually out, doing stuff that they can sort of latch onto. Collaborating with these people just helps me learn more of their specific skill set.
Novedge: What advice would you give to people looking into going to college to study architecture?
Ryan Swanson: If you want to study architecture in college make sure it is something you are truly passionate about because it takes over your life!!! Keep your mindset open when it comes to what design and architecture are when starting. You will realize that the knowledge you learn in architecture school can be used in so many different ways of design not just in building buildings. Also architecture school is all about teaching the art side of things and not the real side of architecture so make sure you study how things functionally work and about coding and all that jazz as well as the fun stuff. Architecture school becomes a part of your life you kind of begin to realize no one outside of architecture school really understands what you are going through. It makes you feel sort of like an elitist in the college world but also excluded. Learn to love the studio and make it your home. Working in the studio is the most important part of architecture school. It goes back to the whole idea of putting different skill sets into one room and learning from one another. The main thing is just to hold on for the wild ride architecture school will bring you!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Brian Benton delivered a great webinar on AutoCAD Sheets for Project Management and many of you had questions for him. Here are his answers to those questions that couldn't be answered during the live Q&A session.
Q: How do you add a sheet to the Sheet Set? A: With the Sheet Set open, click, hold, and drag a Paper Space Tab for the file you want to add and drop it into the Sheet Set you want to add it to. You have to have the file opened and it must be current. The Sheet Set you want it in must be opened and current. A second method is right-click on the current sheet set and click on the Insert Sheet option. Browse to the file and select the paper space tab you want to insert.
Q: What is the difference between the sheet view tab and model view tab? A: Both tabs reference saved named views in files. You can save a named view in a file and list it here. Clicking on the saved view in the Sheet Set Manager will open that file and zoom to that view. Model Views are for views in model space. Sheet Views are for views in Paper Space.
Q: Can you import excel data into sheet set? A: No. You have to enter Sheet Set data manually.
Q: Do sheet sets work with AutoCAD WS, ADT, and MEP? A: They work the same way in all AutoCAD Verticals. AutoCAD WS cannot handle Sheet Sets, but if you upload your file (that was using Sheet Sets) to AutoCAD WS it will bring the current Sheet Set data with it in the mobile platform.
Q: Is there a way to automate the updating of the Sheet Index after it's generated and new sheets are added, or they are rearranged, renumbered, etc.? Currently, the only way I know is to select the Index, rt-click and select to update the data links. A: Yes. The command is "datalinkupdate". Add it to your acad.lsp or acaddoc.lsp file like this:
(COMMAND "datalinkupdate" "u" "k")
When AutoCAD opens a file it will run this script and will automatically update the data links.
Q: Does Sheet Set only work for Paperspace? Will it also work for model space? A: It only works for Paper Space and you can only assign a tab to one Sheet Set file at a time. A Tab can not belong to more than one Sheet Set. If you have a model space file that you want to add to your Sheet Set (I do this with area base files) create a paper space tab for it anyway and add that tab to the sheet set.
Q: Can we use SSM with a file document manager where we check drawings in and out? When checking in files they are removed from our local drives. A: I do not know about third party Document Managers, but it will work with Autodesk Vault.
Q: Will renaming the Path to the drawings mean destroying the link in Sheet Set? A: Yes. Sheet Sets are path dependent. If the path or file name changes you can repath the drawing by right-clicking it in the SSM and changing the path that is saved in the properties option.
Q: Can I export Data-information from Sheet Set to an Excel document ? A: No. If you have created a Sheet List Table it can be extracted to a spread sheet.
Q: What about a link between Data-information of Sheet Set and BIM database? A: No. Sheet Sets can’t link to other data bases.
Q: Looks like Sheet Set acts similarly to Autodesk Inventor project files or are they different? How? A: They are similar but are limited to simple data and file references.
Q: re: SheetSetPlaceholder and ViewportScale placeholder type -- I can automatically display the viewport scale within a View Label block, but cannot control the format. AutoCAD has 7 built in formats for viewportScale, but none are the one I need. I also tried copy/pasting the field expression into the "formula" field, but the block then returns "####". Is there any way to customize the viewport Scale format? Is there a "trick" to getting the formula field to work? Thanks. A: I have also struggled to get the formula field to work in a block. I have also had little luck with place holders. I have set up my template file (.DWT) and the Sheet Set file I use as a template Sheet Set file to work. My DWT file looks at my default DST file. I don’t use placeholders. This tends to work more often than not for me.
Q: Please note that dragging a layout tab into the SSM does not work if the SSM is docked. A: I learned something from this. I did not know that but I tested it and you are correct. It will not drag and drop the drawing unless the SSM is undocked. I typically don’t dock my SSM so I have never run into this issue. Autodesk, please fix this.
Q: I recommend SSM Properties Editor by JTB World for extra SSM editing power. A:JTB World produces quality products and is one of my favorite CAD based websites. I have not tried this product myself but it has been recommended to me several times.
Q: What is the limit of sheets you can have in a sheet? A: I do not know if there is a limit. I have not reached it yet. Right now I have a Sheet Set open that has about 50 drawings and 7 subsets. So it will handle at least 50. I apologize for not having a more definite answer.
Q: When two people are using two different sheets in the same sheet set and one is xref'd into the other, how do they affect each other? A: They affect each other no differently than if they were not in a Sheet Set. The rules of xref’s govern their behavior.
Q: Can you have custom fields in subsets? A: No but that would be a great idea. Autodesk please make this happen.
Looking for more webinars? Check the complete series on our website.
And don't forget to visit Brian Benton's CAD-a-Blog and to get his full training program.
Dave Schultze: I am an industrial designer focusing on a dynamic range of products, most of which have a technology component. In the last few years, I have designed robots, computers, cell phones, science and educational products, housewares, furniture, and lighting. I even designed a musical tooth brush for Hasbro called “Tooth Tunes”, which became the number one-selling toothbrush on the market when it launched in 2007.
Novedge: You have a Design Manifesto. What is it and how did it come about?
Dave Schultze: Funny story! The manifesto is not even complete yet, but somehow people have noticed it on my website and starting asking about it. It was initially inspired when I tried to build my own 3D workstation computer. I never found a PC case that was even remotely attractive as an Apple product, which really surprised me, since so many companies are prolific copycats of Apple. Out of this frustration, I started sketching a retro-inspired computer that ended up becoming the Philco PC. The goal of the design was to create something that was both new and familiar, but above all, had a unique and compelling personality with a touch of humor.
By contrast, if you look at the current lineup of smart phones; they are all black, shiny slabs that are indistinguishable from each other! I wanted my design to have more of an emotional connection and allow easy upgrades for sustainability purposes. Above all, I wanted to make a commodity computer less of a commodity and inspire people to hang on to it long term. As the Philco PC design neared completion, a competition came up from V-Ray, makers of the popular rendering plug-in. I entered the computer renderings and won Top Three honors. I then decided to share the news and wrote a press release, sent it to a few of my favorite websites and that is when the coverage exploded. The design was featured in the New York Times, on the front page of Engadget and Gizmodo, and ultimately in 25 magazines, including one cover.
Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on?
Dave Schultze: A recent project that is just hitting the shelves is Nancy B’s Science Club. It is a line of educational / science products aimed at younger girls and designed for Educational Insights of California.
The force behind the line is Nancy Balter, a former science teacher with an MA in Education whose mission is to spread the joys of science to kids everywhere. For this line, she observed that both boys and girls have equal aptitude for science at a younger age, but somehow the girls end up getting pink microscopes and they deserved better. Five products later, we have a full line and the sales are going great!
Novedge: What software do you use?
Dave Schultze: My primary 3D & design software is Rhino and I’m loving the new version 5.0 that just came out. Since compelling visuals can make or break selling you design, we couldn’t work without the V-Ray plug-in for rendering. The other mandatory plug-in is T-Splines, a brilliant set of tools that handles organic modeling beautifully. Of course, we have the entire Master Collection of the Adobe products to prepare and present the work. My favorite is After Effects, which we use to create all of our videos. I found After Effects so incredibly useful and just plain FUN, that I added it to the curriculum where I teach at Otis College of Art and Design. In the series of 3DVisualization classes that I teach, it’s the students favorite thing to do.
Novedge: What keeps you inspired?
Dave Schultze: Fortunately (or unfortunately), I am inspired by almost anything that captures my attention, which can get very distracting. I love great design of any kind, but I’m also inspired by architecture, movies, books, photography, museums, and now my latest hobby, paragliding.
Novedge: What are some of the rewards and challenges of owning your own business?
Dave Schultze: The reward is having total freedom with my schedule, but that is also a challenge since I frequently have the ‘freedom’ to work seven days a week. But, the freedom does allow me to work on one design research project or competition per year. Our most publicized design research project was the Philco PC, but the first one was a cell phone I designed for an LG Design Competition in 2008. My ‘Roto Retro’ cell phone design came in first place amongst a total submission of over 500 entries. It was extremely cool to win, but it also told me I was on to something with a re-thinking of current design aesthetics.
Novedge: If you could go back in time, what would you say to your younger self before embarking in your current career?
Dave Schultze: I might suggest not working so hard, but then again, I enjoy what I do too much to slow down. So, to answer the question, “nothing different.”
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: 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+.
Did you watch this week's Novedge Webinar? Michael Gunther-Geffer introduced us to high-end surface modeling in Rhino with VSR Shape Modeling. You can watch the entire live recording on our YouTube and Vimeo Channels.
A few of your questions went unanswered because of time constraints, so we sent them to Michael, who provided us with the answers.
Q: Can you do curvature analysis on the mesh? In Alias I use this to layout my primary surfaces.
A: We have e.g. a section command with curvature analysis on top, but the result is not smoothed, and therefore probably useless on meshes.
Q: Is there a function similar to the detach command in Alias?
A: As far as we can judge, the Rhino Split function covers this functionality, therefore we don't see a need for a VSR function doing that.
Q: Can you work with meshes resp. scan data?
A: We have several functions allowing the creation of curves and surfaces on top of meshes. You can sketch curves on meshes, modify curves or surfaces on top of a mesh, create surfaces on a mesh and so on. We can also select areas of a mesh (curvature based), and trim, split or create a new mesh from this area.
Q: These values are indicative of the level of tangent or curvature different from CATIA values or Alias. In other words, the curvature of the value of 0.1 in the VSR, corresponds to 0.1 in the Alias and CATIA?
A: For Position and Tangency we use the same result values as you know from ICEM or ALIAS. For curvature we use a bit of a different numerical result display. You can have a look into our online manual coming with the plug-in, there you will find a detailed explanation. In general you can say, 0.0 is perfect, other values are showing the relation of the curvature on both sides to each other. But we have also other analysis for this, e.g. you can cut radial sections with a curvature graph on top between both edges.
Q: Is it appropriate to discuss the use of the "Adopt" option in the "Surface Align" tool?
A: The "Adopt" option takes over the parametrization from the reference surface on this edge. It therefore aligns the control point distribution of the surface to match to the control point distribution of the reference, often leading to a better matching result.
Q: And is there some way to change color of section on mesh and surface ? I use very often in icem. And smooth?
A: Smooth command is already developed, and will be in the next Shape Modeling major release (3.0) in Q4 this year. We created an enhancement request for different colors for sections on meshes and other geometry. Meanwhile you could create two section analysis, selecting the meshes for one, and the rest of the geometry for the other analysis, defining two different colors for them.
Q: Is there in VSR something to extrapolate? A: Yes, in the control point modeling there is an option "Extrapolate", allowing dynamic extrapolation of a curve or surface.
Q: Hello there, which is the "best" density of triangles for a scanned mesh from a 3D scanner, in order to work later creating surfaces? I am using a NextEngine scanner. A: Sorry, unfortunately there is no general answer for this question. It depends on the shape of the object, and the needed quality for the reverse engineering.
Q: Can you get a color map of the deviation between the surface and the mesh vs section lines? A: Color mapped deviation will come with Shape Modeling 3.0 in Q4/2013.
Q: Can you make a surface from points only? A: No, we need a triangulated mesh. But for Rhino 5 there are some free plugins available to triangulate a point cloud to a mesh.
Q: Can we become a beta user of the new release? A: Of course, customers and people giving valuable feedback on our plug-ins are always welcome as beta testers.
Q: I need smooth surface from the points but as close to the points as possible. A: This is exactly what our smooth function will do. It is always a compromise, though, and depends heavily on the quality of the points. If the quality of the points is poor the surface may not become smooth, when the deviation is very low.
Q: In Catia you can match a surface projected on top of another without trimming. Basic matching on top of a surface instead of the edges. The question is are you guys planning a tool like that? A: This is already implemented and will be available in Shape Modeling 3.0 in Q4 2013.
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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.
3D printing is finally entering the consumers market, so I asked Miranda Bastijns, the Business Director of Units at i.materialise and .MGX to talk about her company and 3D printing.
The team at i.materialise
Novedge: Tell us about
yourself and your company.
Miranda Bastijns:Materialise
is one of the pioneers of 3D printing. For over 20 years, our company
has been making 3D prints and developing 3D print related software
for the industrial and medical markets. All over the world hospitals
and research institutes use our 3D printed models as customized drill
and cutting guides, and anatomical models for surgery preparation
and/or educational purposes. They also use our software in order to
conduct research with virtual 3D models as well as in the creation of
3D models using their own printers. Also, a range of industrial
sectors from aviation over automotive to consumer electronics are
using the 3D prints of Materialise. It will be hard to find a type of
car that Materialise has not supplied a prototyped part for. In 2003
Materialise expanded its range of services towards the consumer. For
the first time in history, 3D printed design products became
available on the market. This was the .MGX design collection, a range
of high-end lamps and decorative elements straight from the 3D
printer.
At the end of
2009 we recognized a growing interest from the consumers to make
their own designs. This was the start for i.materialise, the on-line
3D printing service for consumers. This implied that the over 80
printers of Materialise became available to everybody who wanted to
make something. I think the name i.materialise is quite self
explicative: “Materialise” should be seen as a verb, while the i
is in fact I, me, myself, I materialise.
I
have been with Materialise for 15 years. When I started, the company
employed 40 people, now we are close to 1000. For years I have been
responsible for the marketing. Not so easy to be in a commercial role
in a company with mainly engineers. For a while I combined my role as
marketing manager with the set-up of i.materialise, but very soon it
was clear that i.materialise was growing too fast to combine it with
another job. So now I am managing this fantastically interesting
business unit full time.
Miranda Bastijns: If
you really want to know who is inspiring in the 3D printing world, I
am surrounded by so many inspiring figures at work that it is hard to
think of any inspirations externally. Materialise has always been at
the forefront of the 3D printing wave, trying out new things
and going places where no other company had gone before. Many of my
colleagues inspire me, for example, our CEO Fried – and many in the
industry agree with me about what an inspiration he is. He was voted
the most influential person in the industry
in fact. Of course, looking beyond 3D printing there are numerous
management books where we find inspiration. But also, just
looking around and seeing what our customers do inspire us to do
great things together with them, whether it is an inspiring design
they come up with, or improving a clever software tool together with
them…even going as far as developing life saving implants.
Novedge: What is a
recent project that you worked on with i.materialise?
Miranda Bastijns: A
very nice project is the recent launch of Twikit.
Twikit is a start-up company that specializes in creating unique,
customizable trophies. They developed an easy-to-use software tool by
which people can make their own trophy, meaning every trophy is
unique, which of course makes 3D printing the preferred method of
production. Together with the people of Twikit, our engineering and
customer support team looked into the best possible way to prepare
the designs for 3D printing. And now that the product has been
launched we are almost as proud of it as the Twikit boys. On top of
the production, i.materialise also takes care of the logistic
handling, including assembly, white labeling and shipment to
customers. We have several of these kinds of start-ups that we
collaborate with. And, each time one goes live, it’s quite exiting.
Almost as exciting as starting your own business.
But
of course, we are also touched by nice, one-off prints. It’s
difficult to pick one as a favourite. Every day brings new beauties.
I really like my job as I am on the forefront of many new and
beautiful objects and projects that enter the world.
Novedge: What software
do you use at i.materialise?
Miranda Bastijns: Every
3D print starts by designing something in a software package or
software tool. No file, no print. People uploading files at
i.materialise use numerous design software packages, but many files
are not immediately suitable for 3D printing. There are a multitude of
software packages that can be used to design or model something for 3D
printing, ranging from very high end CAD packages to relatively
simple ones. Depending on your skills and what you want to make, you
use the one or the other. For beginners there are Autodesk123D, Tinkercad, 3DTin and SketchUp.We use Magics, a
software package developed in-house at Materialise in order to check
and fix files. Then our own Streamics software takes care of
the back end and of course we have Materialise’s hundreds of
software developers doing whatever is needed to ensure that our web
service run smoothly.
Novedge: What
innovations do you see in your field?
Miranda Bastijns: More
materials, more materials, and more materials. Thousands of new design tools to make your own something special. More
user friendly and better home printers. And,
for sure, many more medical applications of 3D printing.
To learn more about Materialise, visit their website.
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