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… ]]> tag:studiogpu.com,2010:blog/3.281 2010-04-12T16:43:53Z 2010-04-12T21:09:54Z Tony DeYoung OK - I have to admit, I am a major SciFi fan and have been eagerly awaiting the new season of ABC’s V. If you are not a V follower, the quick recap is: The Visitors (a.k.a. V) are an invading alien race of reptilian humanoids who disguise themselves to look human.  Their spaceships fill the sky over major cities and they are gradually infiltrating into human society.  The third episode of the new season airs tomorrow. 

Why am I writing about V? For this new season of V, ABC is bulking up on virtual sets, FX, and virtual locations.  Zoic Studios is one of the primary FX companies behind V with 20 artists delivering green screen and virtual sets. (In fact they won the VES Award for Outstanding Created Environment in a Broadcast Program or Commercial for creating atrium and ship interiors for the V pilot.).  With the increased VFX demands in this second season,  Zoic was looking for ways to push their workflow pipeline into hyperdrive without shooting up costs.  Enter MachStudio Pro.

This recent article that appeared on CGW explains in detail what Zoic is doing, but here is a cut-to-the-chase recap:

The Atrium virtual set for V, which appeared in 17 shots over two episodes, contained 2,589 frames, each of which was fully rendered three times for a total of 7,767 frames rendered. Initially, Zoic rendered the set in… ]]> tag:studiogpu.com,2010:blog/3.274 2010-03-29T22:02:00Z 2010-03-30T15:53:01Z Tony DeYoung About a month ago I was listening to one of my favorite tech bloggers/podcasters, Bob Cringley. In his podcast he announced the "Cringley 2010 Not in Silicon Valley Startup Tour". Bob is looking for reader nominations for the most interesting start-up companies in a variety of categories. The goal is to help some of the best and brightest start-up companies in America gain recognition, prosper and innovate further.

I immediately thought of StudioGPU and MachStudio Pro.

Voting from users is important to this process - the idea being that the most interesting start-ups percolate to the top of the nominations. From Bob's post: "Together we’ll whittle the number down to 24 then come June I will set off with my family in our RV to visit all 24. We’ll camp in the parking lot or in the driveway of the CEO and spend a couple days at each startup, learning about the company, the people, their technology and their market. I’ll take with me a small camera crew and we’ll produce what will begin with a summer of blogging and end with a 13-part TV reality series"

How to add your vote for StudioGPU

1. Go to http://cringelyslist.democrasoft.com.
2. Log-in to the site using your Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo or similar accounts.
3. Search for StudioGPU. You should find an entry from 3/29/2010 submitted by Tony DeYoung.
4. Then click on the stars in the upper right… ]]> tag:studiogpu.com,2010:blog/3.259 2010-02-12T14:47:58Z 2010-02-12T15:49:59Z Tony DeYoung MachStudio Pro has come a long way since it was first announced last fall. There have been several version updates and a lot of work by creative people pushing the software to see what it can do.

   A few weeks ago I posted an example of a photorealistic architectural rendering created in MachStudio Pro. The rendering was set up to emulate the style of the same scene as rendered in VRay.

   The results surprised many people. The V-Ray-rendered and MachStudio Pro-rendered images were both production ready and very comparable. But of course, the MachStudio Pro image rendered in only 84 sec as opposed to a typical lengthy photo-realistic render (many minutes). And you could change the materials, lighting, AO, DOF, cameras, HDR exposures on the fly.

   I've seen some other example renders that are being used in upcoming productions (which unfortunately means I can't share them yet) that are positively astounding.

   Passion & Development

   With each update, the SGPU development team adds in more refinements, and enhanced ways of rendering. It's one of the big advantage of buying software from a smaller startup - they are passionate about their work, want to constantly improve and are approachable by and responsive to users.

   So this week I want to share an image I received from the StudioGPU Labs. It's an example of work in development.

   Now if you've followed the recent Renderosity review, you know StudioGPU is… ]]> tag:studiogpu.com,2010:blog/3.220 2010-01-19T18:16:55Z 2010-01-19T19:47:56Z Tony DeYoung Continuing with the blog topic of exploring interesting work I’ve seen created in MachStudio Pro by small or one-man shops, this week I turning to a basement redesign project.

   Chad Wanstreet is a Technical Director at Speedshape Detroit, an automotive and product visualization studio.  However, his previous education (and obviously still a passion) was in architecture. This is where Machstudio comes in.  Chad used MachStudio Pro to help he and a friend visualize and define a basement renovation project.

   Below are several images from the project (more in the showcase).  What interests me most about these renderings (besides the visual) is the workflow:

   1. Model and texture iin 3ds Max
   2. Light in MachStudio Pro
   3. Render from MachStudio Pro in passes:  diffuse, reflection, AO, z-depth, and matte (render time for 1920 x 1080 images at x24 anti-aliasing was about 5 mins to produce all 5 passes)
   4. Final composite in Nuke for stills and animations

   Take a look at these sample images - they are a great example of “previs for architecture”. Quoting from Chad:

   “Machstudio provides me with a quick feedback loop for my concepts, and the ability to create animations very quickly, which I love.  Too many of the tools which designers and architects use for quick concept work focus only on volumes and materials, and miss out on light, time and the relationship of the two.” (bold is my editorial)

   “Machstudio Pro allows me… ]]> tag:studiogpu.com,2010:blog/3.219 2010-01-18T20:28:09Z 2010-01-19T01:17:10Z Tony DeYoung 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!

   ... ]]> tag:studiogpu.com,2009:blog/3.209 2009-12-17T17:18:03Z 2009-12-18T18:57:04Z Tony DeYoung 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… ]]> tag:studiogpu.com,2009:blog/3.204 2009-12-08T20:15:29Z 2009-12-08T21:13:30Z Tony DeYoung I was just cruising around on CGArena and came across a job posting for a Senior Lighting lead for a company in Toronto, Canada.  “March Entertainment is currently looking for a multi-talented, creative, passionate individual to help build and lead a lighting team for exciting, animated 3D projects in our Toronto office.”

   What caught my eye was one of the job requirements:

   “We need someone who has at least 6 yrs. experience lighting with Maya and any experience with MachStudio Pro is a bonus (but we expect some on-the-job training with this package).”

   You can check out the job posting here.

   ... ]]> tag:studiogpu.com,2009:blog/3.185 2009-11-04T18:01:43Z 2009-11-05T19:15:44Z Tony DeYoung There has been some discussion in the forums about the ability of MachStudio Pro to do photo-realistic rendering.

   I guess some of that confusion has come about because many of the examples shown in our video tutorials and showcase are from real CG animation production projects where the look and feel was intended to be stylized (PlayMobil), mech (Bionicles) or illustrated (Princess Twins), rather than photo-real renderings.

   I've read several comments in which, although artists were amazed by the performance and quality of MachStudio Pro, they were specifically searching for a solution to replace their offline photo-realistic rendering engines. A typical comment was something like: "Well V-Ray/Mental Ray/Brazil renders this architectural/automotive/product image like this. How close can MachStudio Pro get to this kind of photo-realistic render?"

   Well it was a reasonable question, so Yoni (our chief scientist) got hold of some of the architectural models people were referencing as examples and ran them through MachStudio specifically with the intent of showing photo-realism and emulating the style of V-Ray.

   Putting it to the test

   The best way to evaluate how it turned out is to take a look at a few of the renderings. (note: unlike many renderings you see, these were not doctored in PhotoShop. They are the actual final renders.)

   Click on the links for the two images and one video below. (will open in a new window)

   Modern Exterior… ]]> tag:studiogpu.com,2009:blog/3.182 2009-11-02T20:50:08Z 2009-11-02T21:35:09Z Tony DeYoung I ‘ve been working on a story about 3D work flows and I would love to get some feedback on what kind of work flows other 3D artists have set up and are using for the 3D CG animation work.

   Obviously there will be as many ways to set up a production pipeline as there are 3D artists, but from what I can tell, it boils down to only 2-3 unique variations.

   The most common work flow is to model and then hand off to one or more lighters to render “in camera” within an applications like Maya or XSI, using a 3rd party rendering solution like VRay or Mental Ray. The pluses are that it feels like one environment.  The drawbacks are that the work flow is linear so you can get way downstream, doing a lot of test renders before you see problems or come up with a good creative. Also the rendering settings can be very complex to setup and if you use multiple lighters, you can get multiple results. Getting a great result can be time consuming, especially for animation. (See 3D Workflow Seminar from Assembly 2008.)

   The second type of work flow relies much more on compositing in After Effects, Flame or similar software.  The animation scene is rendered in layers and compositors work with the rendered images in the same manner as the 3D, working with separate passes for things like specularity,… ]]> tag:studiogpu.com,2009:blog/3.180 2009-10-30T17:51:20Z 2009-11-04T17:38:21Z Tony DeYoung If you drop by the StudioGPU office in Hollywood this week, you will have encountered a great example of what 3D animators and engineers do in their spare time.  Not sure who actually carved this, but kudos!

   

   ... ]]> tag:studiogpu.com,2009:blog/3.167 2009-10-20T18:16:20Z 2009-10-29T20:19:21Z Tony DeYoung At Siggraph 2009,  John Peddie Research held their annual rendering panel discussion and StudioGPU’s Chief Scientist, Yoni Koenig talked about parallelism in the visualization workflow and his ambition for MachStudio Pro.  In the video capture below, he describes the need to make the creative process for 3D production more spontaneous, giving the computer graphics artists the same freedom of expression that artists in the real world have with their hands in the clay or their fingers wrapped around a pencil.

   To quote from the video: “So the whole idea is that light and materials become brushstrokes on the canvas of the camera, as opposed to linear methods which is more like a series of punch cards, which you create and then pass to your piano to play.”

   ... ]]> tag:studiogpu.com,2009:blog/3.148 2009-09-22T15:54:27Z 2009-09-22T22:56:28Z Tony DeYoung At Siggraph 2009,  Rick Bergman, Senior VP and General Manager of AMD, discusses how GPU-based computer graphics can enhance Hollywood productions. In particular he showcases MachStudio Pro as a critical tool for real-time creative work.
   ... ]]>