Finally 3dsMax 2011 is out and We have our own copy to put hands on 🙂 The most exciting improvement is QuickSilver Hardware Renderer, I had great expectations about it and yes, it works enought. I’m satisfacted of it at 70%. In my opinion for my work that will not be so much important: when creating a scene I don’t need to continuously render it to see the results. I know a lot the various parameters and with 3 or 4 quick renders at the end of the production I can manage some fine tuning. But there is a thing not clear for me: Why is not possible to use QuickSilver with ActiveShade?! ActiveShade was something inserted in 3ds max but never used and announced (or developed) with the proper importance. ActiveShade is a sort of semi-realtime renderer that could be inserted inside a viewport and use like Vray-RT, fPrime, Modo preview and so on. Now in 2011 they have QuickSilver, a semi-realtime (hibrid) renderer and ActiveShade, but the weird thing is that is not possible to use QuickSilver as ActiveShade.
DMRB in action! (the video is quite boring, we’ll create a new one soon)
This means we’ll put hands again in one of our most famous plugins for 3ds Max: DMRB. It was born as an experiment, and now is a professional tool, absolutely integrated in 3ds max, efficient, stable , bla bla… We will manage to release a pubblic version of DMRB 3.0 soon, so everyone will be able to merge it’s flexibility to QuickSilver 🙂
Last week I went at Metropolia University, one of the most famous and probably the best school in the entire Finland. They have lot of interesting courses and I went there to visit the Media Design course, especially the one connected to 3d graphic, digital animation and, of course, videogame development. The first person I met was Pasi Kaarto, the head of 3D animation & visualisation studies, and mostly important a pioneer of computer graphic. I introduced my self as “the italian”, always speaking about something, leaving no empty space in our conversation 🙂 He was really polite and introduced me to the 3rd year class; they were/are working on an animation project that is really impressive as number of animated characters, joints, bones, vertex and so on. The animation is supervised by Jaana Wahlfors, an experienced director and Markus Elo, a really creative guy. At that moment of production they had a little pre-rendered sequences to verify the animations, but the most impressive thing, as said, were the number of animations they were doing. I was really surprised about the student’s interest in the subject, and the passion they put in that project. Everyone had his own computer and every student worked actively in the main pipeline, using Lightwave/3ds max for modelling (maybe UV mapping too, I didn’t asked), Photoshop for texturing, Maya for rigging and mentalRay for materials and render. I really would like my students will have the same motivation and the same hardware support…this made me a bit depressed about it. I see the same passion in my student’s eyes, but I know the possibilities given to them are a bit different. The trip was only at the beginning! we went to see the 1st class portfolio and what to say? Students already prepared for working experience. I think they don’t have so many things to learn regarding the technical aspects of 3D computer graphic. They had interiors, microphones, guitars, animated logos, tables with dishes, characters and animated things. The teacher asked them to animate some stuff without bones, so they invented accessible solutions to do this task. One of them created a mechanical tank with an incredible animation: detailed, expressive, dynamical and funny. I was also surprised by the work of another guy that created everything in Blender; he looked really interested in speed, showing me a speed-modelling exercise in which he crafted a car in about 15 minutes (if I don’t remember wrong).
This class was tutored by Lauri Huikuri, one of the most skilled lecturers. He was extremely prepared on all the aspects of 3D and visualization; it was so great speaking with people with the same passion…here at home sometime I feel a bit lonely.
We had a quick break at the 4th floor with Elina Vaeroe, the responsible of metropolia’s international affairs. We spoke about “secret” affairs and I discovered Metropolia’s fine arts and conservation courses worked in Naples with a local group for the reconstruction of a “Domus Pompeiana”. They gave me a book and reading it I discovered that Finish people are studying Pompei since a log time, around the beginning of the last century…interesting. After this meeting we went to Helsinki centre to have lunch in a really cool restaurant. Time ago Berlusconi said that he coundn’t live in Finland because of food (one of his world famous bad jokes ;p), I think he didn’t tried good dishes. In this restaurant we met Peke Huuhtanen a visiting lecturer in Metropolia. He is actually a skilled animator employed at AnimaVitae Ltd. We spoke a lot about some subjects: Life in Finland vs life in Italy, schools and work in Helsinki vs schools and work in Milano, differences between our institutes, way to think, how to approach to work, football, weather, food, animation, UDK, renderer, realtime, and of course Alan Wake. I didn’t knew this game was a Finnish production and that inside the development team there are some Metropolia ex students. This is a proof of what I said at the beginning: Metropolia rocks!
After lunch they led me at the airport and after some troubles with planes I came back in Milano. Nice trip, see you again in October!
A special thanks for this meeting goes to Mona Anniina Taponen that made it possible and to Pamela De Lorenzi that organized my travel.
Finalmente, dopo tre giorni di duro e rumoroso lavoro, si è conclusa la 17a edizione di Cartoomics e Ludica, i saloni italiani del gioco, videogioco e fumetto. Ovviamente PlaySys non poteva rimanere in disparte e già da Novembre 2009 ci siamo aggiudicati lo stand C20, in cui abbiamo esposto alcuni aggiornamenti dei nostri lavori. Il primo giorno ci siamo sentiti un po’ fuori dal coro, circondati da rivenditori di fumetti, manga , illustrazioni, stampe e altro materiale a tema, poi sabato e domenica siamo stati bombarati di domande tecniche e varie richieste pertinenti al nostro ambito di ricerca e sviluppo.
Beatrice e Luca
Ancora una volta ci è stato propoto di spostare la sede di PlaySys da Milano a Toronto e la cosa sta iniziando a diventare più seria di quanto previsto: “il mercato italiano è morto” è stato affermato da più di una persona, ed in effetti il panorama economico, burocratico e politico che stiamo vivendo nel notro Bel Paese non è dei migliori.
Siamo entrati in contatto con realtà commerciali e produttive interessate ad avvicinarsi alle nostre tecnologie o ai nostri risultati nella ricerca, e questo era il nostro target principale.
Abbiamo conosciuto professionisti che sono entrati in contatto con la nostra realtà…e sicuramente la cosa potrà portare interessanti vantaggi reciproci.
Mona e Luca
Per quanto riguarda i giovani talenti, molte persone si sono avvicinate, attratte dalle nostre realizzazioni 3D, ed hanno scoperto di cosa ci occupiamo. Molti sono rimasti sorpresi nel trovare una delle pochissime software house italiane che si occupa di ricerca in ambito videoludico. Ovviamente non abbiamo parlato solo di videogiochi e 3D, ma abbiamo mostrato i nostri prodotti editoriali, le nostre partecipazioni e collaborazioni in ambito musicale e altro ancora. Sempre a riguardo di giovani talenti, posso annunciare il ritorno a gonfie vele di D3vStudio, che si occuperà proprio di talent recruitment in ambito videoludico.
L’argomento che in assoluto ha avuto più successo, oltre allo sviluppo di videogames, è stata la notizia di Play-Institute, ossia l’istituto di formazione che avvieremo entro la fine del 2010. Si tratterà di un istituto di computer grafica, pre-produzione, programmazione e sound design, interamente orientato al mercato dei videogames. La differenza con gli altri istituti è sostanzialmente questa: noi offriremo conoscenze e insegneremo agli studenti come inserirsi praticamente nel mercato del lavoro. Play-Institute sarà una scuola per offrire istruzione, non per generare un guadagno ai suoi proprietari.
Martinelli e Crimì
Insomma, l’impressione sull’evento è stata più che positiva, dall’organizzazione alla partecipazione dei visitatori. Al nostro stad hanno partecipato alcuni professionisti, miei studenti presso Naba Milano e amici, generando così un dibattito continuo sulle nuove tecnologie e sul loro impiego in tutti i campi di cartoomics e Ludica.
Grazie a tutti quelli che hanno partecipato all’evento e che sono venuti a trovarci!!!
Molly *grafica rubata durante il disallestimento 🙁
Finnally!
These are the shots we did at the photographic studio, with the help of Sara and Pamela. I just told about the shooting session in another post, so here follow the pictures.
These images represent some publishing works we did at PlaySys*: Sprea’s Seven Magazine, Spera’s 3D World and my book for Hoepli, 3ds Max Design e Architettura.
*please don’t give importance to PlaySys webpage, it’s a mess and we are
working on it.
Ci siamo!
Dopo due settimane d’attesa ecco le foto scattate durante la sessione di shooting presso lo studio fotografico, con l’aiuto di Sara e Pamela. Ho già parlato di questa sessione in un post precedente.
Let me introduce a plugin I wrote for 3ds Max during our last big-as-size render. It is called P.S.R. (PlaySys Split Render) and is a great tool to render images with amazing size. The idea behing is really simple and partially used by some renderers like Mental Ray, final Render or V-ray: it splits the entire render in sub-pieces and then processes them as single images (subdivided again by the buckets of the renderer in use).
We had to render some images with a size of 7500×5000 for a total of 37.500.000 pixels (37,5 Megapixels) and this saves the entire production…next script I must write has to convert pixels in €! 🙂
HOW IT WORKS
The script’s user interface will detect automatically the renderer and the size you have to process. The first parameter to setup is the fraction of the image, in the picture it is 3, so it means 3X and 3Y so 9 sub-images.
Automatically, based on the render size and the fractions, the script will calculate the size of the sub-image:213×160.
By default I use a tolerance of 25 percent of the image. This tolerance is a little overlap of the sub-images, and is really important to obtain a seamless connection beetween sub-images.
Always depending on the fraction number, you’ll have a number of buttons called Matrix#, theese buttons can show you a preview of the rendered sub-image and, checking the Auto flag, when you press a Matrix# button, it fires up the renderer.
Like lot of my scripts, this can look a little unuseful, but if you have to manage an entire workflow with human-electronic resources, this can save time and money…expecially because avoid crash of big scenes.
…oh, and it integrates with Maxwell~Render 😉
I have yet a list of improvements to do:
First in the image area you see in the middle you will have the entire image, so I will render in a VFB and keep the full quality image in that area. You will have the possibility to reopen it, execute a new sub-image or save the image in a layered PSD Photoshop file;
I want to add a “Batch” command that executes all the renders in sequence;
I have to design a new User Interface that let the team use an N fraction, not only 1, 2^2 or 3^2 sub-images (yeah, I have to remove the 1^2 size ;))
I have to insert instructions and maybe I will append a rollout with a lite version of DMRB, my previous semi-realtime renderer;
We will use this tool internally at PlaySys, but I have not to exclude the idea to share it in future. Before of that, I will speak about it and other pipeline and workflow improvement strategies in my next book.
Yes, it’s official!
I’m writing a new book that deeply explains all the steps behind the making of a videogame. As technical figure, I will concentrate on technical aspects like pipeline and workflow management, plugins and software production, research and development impact, commercial 3D packages Vs custom one, game engine and other interesting subjects.
For thoose who doesn’t know, I just wrote a book about 3ds Max Design and Architecture, in wich I explain in 400 pages all the tricks behind offline rendering. HERE is the link of the pubblisher and HERE is a post about it.
We finished a new Autodesk‘s 3ds Max script that allow us to batch create textures, assign materials, hide objects, set properties, renders scene, add channels , and save in RPF file (plus .png).
it could appear unuseful if you have to render 3 or 4 times in a day, but for some projects we should need to create lot of renders (in the current one about 58.000) and it would become a mess without this script.
So, I’m glad to introduce our new friend: PLAYSYS | B.M.R.
The workflow is really simple:
– prepare your 3D models in the scene
– prepare the texture you’ll need to apply
– select the render settings
– press the “Create” button
the utility will do the remaining things, mixing 3ds Max possibilities with BMR’s functions. After a little you will find all your renders ready to be used. The utility will name the images with: $filename_$object_$texture_#progressivenumber.extension
As you can see the shader is quite complex, so start exploring this simple one and take time to understand how parameters works.
Here is a schematic description of the maps I used
The next one i a new scheme that can give better results. At the moment I’m still working on this structure. I have to prepare new textures for the Subdermal and Epidermal channels, but I will do them for a new model I’m working on.
Enjoy
Here is the material I used. You’ll have to substitute the two required textures with your own, btw, theese are only for displacement and bump. Feel free to use it and share.
DACS is the acronym for “D3v Anti Crash Saver” and is a little utility I wrote on 23th December 2005 (I always have a log inside my project folders ;)) and that prevents the common damage of scenes, caused by a crash of Autodesk 3ds Max.
Who uses this 3D package for knows for sure how frustrating it is to re-work on a scene because a crash deleted it. In fact, while 3ds Max crashes, the scene is damaged and the file will contain a little chunk of the entire work; this happens about 1 time on 10 crashes.
After this, when you try to reopen your file, 3ds Max says that it is corrupted and the data are completely lost.
There are 3 solutions to this problem:
– Do a frequent backup of your folder and files
– Increment your scene version with a progressive number
– Use my DACS 😉
The utility consists on a simple script of 3 Kb and it is loaded in the common way from the MAXScript menu. You can use the StartupScript folder too. In the previous image you can see how it appears when loaded.
As you can see, it automatically finds the file name and the path of your project. This script was written before that Autodesk introduces the new folder structure, similar to the one adopted in the old versions of Maya. This means that DACS saves the files in the same folder of the project (this is yet in my TODO list).
At this point you can start working safely: my script will inform you about the time from the latest save and when you press the button “Save Files” it will save your file plus two additional files, completely identical.
If your system crashes or the light goes away or the operative system gets stuck, DACS will maintain the integrity of the scenes, at least one of them 😉
Many thanks to Giorgia Foresta that spent time correcting my terrible english!
DMRB means D3v Multi Render Basket and is a little script I wrote about 3 years ago.
The idea behind comes from Lightwave’s fPrime, a quick semi-realtime renderer that is fully integrable in the 3D package and permits to render with almost anything doable inside it.
DMRB uses the default renderer to compute the image so, if you are working with mentalRay you can benefit of all it’s features such as Sub Surface Scattering, Final Gather, Global Illumination, Caustics, and so on.
Of course if you use other internal third party renderers (Scanline, VRay, FinalRender, Brazil) it still works fine!
In the video below you can see it with a very simple scene, that permits me to show it’s usefullness.
Note that it is very different than the ActiveShade because DMRB shows the entire result, without optimizations (btw, some can be enabled on the panel) and again, it works with all the major renderer.
