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First impressions of MachStudio Pro from ‘2D Or Not 2D’ AutoCAD Architecture blog

Steve Bennet, author of the AutoCAD Architecture '2D Or Not 2D' blog and technical manager for the Architecture and Design Visualization industries for U.S. CAD, weighs in with his first impressions of MachStudio Pro.

Quick summary: "What if I told you it were possible to have instantaneous feedback on changes made to your rendering? What if individual frames could be rendered in sub-seconds instead of 20-40 minutes a piece? What if you could work with your animated content from any program and render out Beauty, AO, DOF, etc. passes for editing in post - still in sub-seconds? What if poly count was no longer something you needed to worry about and could deal with scenes in the billions of polygon range? What if I could do this all on ONE desktop computer and ditch my hoard of render farms?"

Read the rest of his post...

The need for instant gratification: confessions of a Maya user

I've been a Maya user for a long time, starting back at Pratt Institute in 2001 and then working in various studios for TV pilots and full animation projects (yes, I was one of the Disney minions). But I actually started out in fine art. I loved the ability to have an idea and instantly be able to make it take shape on canvas.

The computer proved to be both an enhancement and an impediment to creativity. Photoshop with it's instant feedback using sliders and adjustment layers lets me dynamically try out ideas. But my bread and butter work in Maya is a different story. I can model and created animated sequences quickly and fluidly. But when it comes to lighting, materials, AO, etc, the instant gratification that every artist thrives on, is just not there. You end up more technician than creative artist.

At least this was how I felt until I started working with (and training other people in) MachStudio Pro. MachStudio Pro isn't just a faster way to render final scenes, it is a change in workflow so that there is a real-time connection between what you are doing creatively and what you are see as the final result. For me as an artist, this was exactly what I was missing.

An artist does not paint several brush strokes of color that he/she can not see,then walk away and return several hours later to view the now brilliant colored strokes that they placed on the canvas!   No, painting and results are one in the same. This is the beauty of being an artist.

So why should the workflow for the 3D digital artist be different when placing light, shadow and material in their scene? This effort should have the same level of instant gratification! I want the equivalent of Photoshop or Final Cut for 3D!

And that is where MachStudio Pro comes in. It gives me, the artist, the opportunity to explore multiple options and to freely express creativity within the production time frame.

So what are the top five things I really like about MachStudio Pro?

1. Being able to scrub the time-line of an animated rendered scene!!
2. Creating an AO system in real-time
3. Adjusting light, shadow and materials in real-time (think of the layer opacity slider in Photoshop for 2D, but extend this to lighting and materials in animated 3D scenes).
4. The 'capture' in MachStudio is as fast if not faster than the 'playback' in Maya. (A playback in Maya is an animated sequence which lacks the lighting, shadow & rendered material. A capture in MachStudio is an animated sequence rendered with full lighting, materials, AO, DOF, etc.)
5. The interface (GUI) is extremely intuitive, simple yet organized. An artist could learn this software in less than a week - a Maya artist even faster.

The more I use MachStudio Pro, the more I realize that I could never go back to the traditional setup and render workflow. I've become an addict. "Hello, my name is Maya Girl and I am a 3D instant gratification-aholic."

Breaking out of the adjust-render-view loop

I’m going to date myself when I say this, but I remember the day when using desktop-based 3D and digital imaging for video and film production in Hollywood was considered a revolutionary concept. Times have obviously changed and products like Photoshop, Maya, and Final Cut Pro are routinely used in everything from pre-visualizations to final renders. Same thing goes for architectural visualization and product design.

But the desktop 3D workflow is still constrained by an “adjust-render-view” loop.  Basically for each and every change of camera position, character performance, texture and material or lighting, you have to adjust the settings, let it render (seconds for low res, minutes to hours for film res) and then view the results.  Change the position or lighting for even one object and to visualize it in context, you render again.

The ability to go at full-throttle and try new ideas in an organic way without disrupting your creative work flow, remains for most part, the exclusive domain of dedicated systems using expensive multi-processor hardware.

To be sure things have gotten much better then even a few years ago. Many programs now offer fast renderers (typically stand-alone) or use external renderers (e.g. Renderman, Mental Ray, etc.) Gelato (no longer being developed) even started using the GPU to accelerate several key aspects of rendering.  And with the fast fast cards form ATI and Nvidia, things are definitely improved.

But when you have a vision in your own mind of what a presentation or render should be, or if you just want to come up with it interactively, none of the above gives you what you really need. Once past the modeling stage, the visualization and rendering is still tedious and requires an enormous amount of patience (which I sorely lack).

StudioGPU looked at this problem and asked, not just how do we render faster, but how do we break out of the adjust-render-view loop?  That is what led to MachStudio Pro.

I learned about an early version of MachStudio Pro at Siggraph 2008. From what I saw, I was cautiously optimistic that StudioGPU was on to something—using the GPU to do pretty much everything related to setup and rendering.  It interested me so much that I actually contacted the company and said I wanted to work with them. So here I am today.

So what is MachStudio Pro - the condensed version of the story?  The goal in MachStudio Pro is that setup time and rendering time should be practically simultaneous.  The user can move the 3D models in real-time. Camera and character placement, material adjustment and lighting set-up are all elements that can be changed using the integrated GUI without having to program, setup, stop and wait to see the results.

How well it succeeds at letting you “Work at the Speed of Thought”  is best evaluated by checking out our industry showcase,  watching the video, or of course, seeing a live demo.  Work with the product yourself and let us know how well it achieves the “real-time” goal.

This blog will be both a place for us to share our thoughts and experiences as MachStudio Pro goes out “into the wild”, and also to provide tips and tricks from creative users as well as our own software engineers. We strongly encourage you to post comments, ask questions, tell us your own story, or refer us to other developments in real-time rendering.