studioGPU

Maya - MachStudio Pro - PhotoShop Workflow using ATI Eyefinity on FirePro V8800

At the ATI Professional Graphics preview event back in early April pre-announcing the FirePro V8800, StudioGPU was asked to participate and demonstrate a complete production workflow using MachStudio Pro. In particular: how would the workflow benefit by taking advantage of multiple displays (all driven by the single FirePro video card using ATI Eyefinity technology).

The following video capture shows the very smooth integration between Maya, MachStudio Pro and PhotoShop in a real production workflow.  The PhotoShop integration including editable layers for the render passes is especially interesting.

How will GPU tools affect the individual and small 3D computer graphics studio?

One of the staff from StudioGPU had written up a response to a post on a 3D discussion board. The question was: How will the upcoming IRay and GPU's affect the individual and small 3D computer graphics studio?

I found this topic to be so interesting, that I wanted to re-purpose his responses and intermix it with my own views (so apologies in advance if it sounds like two people).

How will the upcoming IRay and GPU's affect the individual and small 3D computer graphics studio?

In my mind this question is actually three separate questions.

1. How will iRay affect my hardware needs?
2. How will iRay affect my pipeline?
3. How will iRay affect my workflow?

Hardware

First thing to consider is; iRay is a platform, not an application. It's a way of harnessing the power of multiple GPUs over a network (including over the net). This means that from the hardware standpoint, you don't necessarily have to invest in new hardware. Application developers will either provide the computing power over the web as a SaaS solution (and hopefully be able to give good throughput), or you will subcontract the hardware portion to render farms which have multiple Nvidia GPUs. Of course you will be able to deploy your own cluster of Nvidia GPUs if you want to.

Pipeline

From the pipeline perspective, this really has to do with who will port their tools - or design new ones - to iRay. The current available applications which use iRay are pretty much limited to mental ray and still images. Basic things like changing light direction or camera position can be done with very fast visual feedback using progressive rendering, but the ability to truly author the content by accessing the entire gamut of visual parameters is currently unavailable via the iRay platform. We still need to see tools that can do more than provide fast navigation to understand how iRay will affect the pipeline and how will tools that use it, will replace existing ones.

Workflow

The workflow is of course the most important piece of the puzzle. However, it's too early to understand how it will change as there are no tools yet, which harness iRay for complete 3D visual authoring. But we can in general understand how GPUs affect the way we create CGI by looking at the wider GPU visual computing arena. Tools like Octane Render, Furry Ball and of course, MachStudio Pro are already changing the workflow landscape by harnessing the power of local GPUs to author visual content in real-time and near real-time.

Octane is in the early stages, with limited features and control. It is designed for creating still images rather than animations and relies on progressive rendering for speed. For even modestly complex scenes, you degrade the image sampling quality. I'm not a fan of progressive rendering in general. How strange would it be if you were a painter and as you applied paint to a canvas, you saw a grainy approximation of your work as you painted. The more complex your painting, the longer it would take after each brush stroke to see the actual image. That is to me, progressive rendering. Better than nothing, but still the technology is getting in the way of the creative process.

Furry Ball, as an add on to Maya, is actually more interesting and I look forward to seeing where this software goes. From the double-speed videos I have seen, it looks promising. But since it is Maya dependent, you manipulate lighting in a separate window from the image, which again separates the artist from the canvas. Moving back in forth between different modes is cumbersome and adds extra steps and extra time to your workflow. Fortunately the software does not succumb to the progressive rendering approach that feels so removed from direct interaction with the final scene.

In contrast to the other GPU tools, in MachStudio Pro, the workflow is akin to "painting with light". In fact, the ability to author visual content in real time creates a "digitally tactile" sense of working with paints on a canvas. This puts the emphasis back on the artistic skills of the user; and less on the technical software expertise.

With MachStudio Pro you can make a scene look any which way you want. So the question becomes, how do you want to make it look?. This question can be answered through imagination, or experimentation. The point is that having the tools which help you imagine, and experiment, are among your most valuable tools as an artist. The tools which empower you to be an artist, are the tools which will ultimately affect your workflow.

Getting the technology out of the way of the artist

The idea that a sotfware package will someday offer a magic "Make Art" button which will produce meaningful, photo-realistic images in one click, is simply misleading. A push button render with technically correct global illumination, is good for rendering colored spheres or stemware on a table, but generally not so good for rendering an image or scene intended to convey creativity, meaning or feeling.

With tools like MachStudio Pro, the quality of an image can evolve based on the artists reflexive reaction to the scene. Clicking a render button and getting a physics-defined, ray-traced image is not much of a creative process. Creativity is about being able make a decision, quickly observe the result, and then further evolve the image. It is this dialog with the image, this interactivity, that makes a good artist and good 3D CG animation.

As the field of CG is developing we are being handed better and better tools to express ourselves. The tools which will change the workflow-landscape will be those which empower and inspire us to express ourselves in most natural and direct ways.

Will you be submitting to CGSociety’s B-Movie CG Challenge?

I’m a huge fan of B-movies.  I love watching zombies, monsters, bug-eyed aliens and of course the werewolves of B-movie fame.  So I was delighted to see CGSociety’s: “Attack of the 50ft CGChallenge” running today, through April 19, 2010.

Basically CG artists are asked to create their own version of B-movie or resurrect creatures from an existing movie. The emotive impact and implication of “the story behind the imagery” is the aspect that is most important.  But as we all know, good story can be strongly enhanced by powerful lighting and FX.  Since there is not a lot of time (nor budget) to produce these B-movies, the ability to do quick creative treatments and changes (essentially previs for animation) can be critical - i.e. MachStudio Pro.

Check out the StudioGPU CG animation showcase to see some inspirational examples (not of B-movies content, but of animation content). The Princess Twins, New Guys (each video produced in only a week), and Secret of Skull island, all make clear what you can do with good story telling and real-time lighting workflows.

You can enter as individuals or as teams so this might be a great opportunity to search for colleagues in our forums.  If you do plan to enter the contest, add a comment here or in the forums so we can follow your work!

Producing a broadcast commercial a month using MachStudio Pro

MachStudio Pro has been out on the market for less than 6 months, but already I've seen examples of some impressive production work. Last week there was a press release about the PlayMobil DVD for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and no doubt there will be other high visibility releases.

But I wanted to do some informal callouts in this blog of some of the interesting work I've seen, running from small productions, to experiments, to high visibility projects. What got me thinking about this, was the recent "Natal" video I received from FX, lda, a Mozambican post production studio for TV. FX, Ida is using MachStudio Pro to produce one commercial each month for the Arroz Leao brand of rice.

Nildo Essa is the principal behind FX, Ida. He began as a one man shop but has recently expanded to add in a second modeler for background scenes, and a story writer. Nildo himself does all animation, rendering, lighting and character modeling.

Natal (a punk jingle bells holiday commercial) is the second commercial in the series created with MachStudio Pro (see his other video in the showcase)

The workflow for Natal

For the "Natal" Commercial, Nildo motion captures all moves of the 3 characters in his very small but workable mocap studio (Nildo is the actor!). He imports this data into Max, cleans it up, and then maps into onto the final characters which are already modeled and textured.

With the camera work done he moves all assets into MachStudio Pro. For Natal he rendered the foreground elements separately from the background and then used After Effects for compositing and motion blur. In Premiere Pro he adds the final touches and special FX.

Now the kicker: Each commercial averages about 1 week of actual production from audio recording to the final piece and showing to the client. Impressive to say the least.

If you have an example of work you have done in MachStudio Pro, or impressions/critiques about the productions I feature in this blog, submit a comment.