Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/30784
MachStudio Pro gives artists immediate feedback on their work. render. Th is kind of non-linear, real-time cre- ative control has the potential to dramatically improve the way 3D CG animation, architec- tural visualization, product design, and fi lm pre-visualization are created and delivered. Th e eureka moment for this type of work- fl ow came to me while working with and observing some of the incredible real-time graphics rendering with today’s most advanced game engines. It made me wonder: Why can’t we apply the same type of GPU-accelerated real-time rendering technology used in 3D gameplay to create a real-time creative 3D ani- mation workfl ow? Th is was the launching point of develop- ment for MachStudio Pro, a real-time, non- linear 3D compositing and fi nishing program. Th e idea behind MachStudio Pro is that light and materials become brushstrokes on the canvas of the camera, providing artists with immediate visual feedback. Th e approach is similar to how artists use Adobe Photoshop and Apple Final Cut Pro, but for animated 3D lighting, materials, cameras, and rendering. Processes that were previously separated in a manufacturing assembly-style workfl ow (ad- just, render, and repeat) are now available in a single work space. Basically, this allows for the consolidation of the roles of the shader techni- cal director (TD), lighter TD, and compositor into a single work space so that the artist can creatively explore and control all aspects of the images and animations together in one place. Get Rendering People often wonder how diffi cult it is to cre- ate a great render. In traditional rendering pro- grams, you spend a great deal of time setting up, previewing, modifying, re-previewing, and waiting for a fi nal render. I have been work- ing in this fi eld for more than 20 years, and I know artists who don’t even look at a scene; instead, they run a script to process and render a scene, which is hardly an artistic process. But in a non-linear, real-time 3D work space, there are no discrete setup, preview, and render steps. Th e interface is more intuitive, allowing you to move sliders and dials inter- actively, and instantly see the results. Th ere is no need to memorize “the perfect render set- tings.” In fact, you may not even need to look at the numbers. By moving the slider, you are able to see, in real time, changes to lighting or eff ects as they appear in a 3D scene, thus opening the door to experiment with new artistic treatments and set up more complex lights, fog, shadows, AO, and more through- out the creative pipeline. With a 3D workfl ow, artists can concentrate on full scenes rather than individual shots. In shot-based animation rendering pipelines, dif- ferent lighters work on diff erent shots that are cut against each other. In the best-case scenario, that means re-creating light rigs across shots. In the worst-case scenario, diff erent artistic styles lead to mismatched fi les assembled together in a 2D compositing application. However, in a non-linear 3D real-time work space, the same lighter can work on all the shots in the scene using a common set of light rigs and render passes. Th is approach helps improve consis- tency and reduce logistical errors, production time, and production costs. Which Render Style is Best? Is the quality of real-time non-linear rendering suffi cient for production use? Does every proj- ect need to be raytraced? Th is is, of course, a straw-man question. Th e real goal of any proj- ect is to choose the best techniques to produce the best quality images, with the desired look, as quickly as possible. Th e “gold standard” of fi lm rendering combines many diff erent tech- niques and rendering styles to achieve a uni- fi ed look and feel. More importantly though, with a non- linear 3D workfl ow, the image can be developed based on an artist’s instinctive reaction to a scene. Clicking a render button and getting a physics-defi ned, raytraced image doesn’t require artistic vision. Instead, artistic creativity is the ability to make a change, quickly observe the results, and fi ne-tune the image to achieve the desired look. It is this type of interactive dialog with the image that makes great 3D CG ani- mation possible. ■ Okino Revises Its Converters Ten years after releasing its fi rst prod- uct offering, Rhino/OpenNURBS .3dm fi le format support, Okino Computer Graphics announced that it is now shipping its rewrit- ten, revised, and optimized import/ export converters compatible with McNeel’s Rhinoceros V5. Now into its 23rd year of develop- ment, Okino’s PolyTrans CAD allows cross-conversion between all major MCAD, DCC/animation, and Vis/ Sim 3D fi le formats and programs. Okino’s revised .3dm import/ export converters work within the stand-alone PolyTrans and NuGraf products, as well as PolyTrans-for- 3dsMax, PolyTrans-for-Maya, Poly- Trans-for-Softimage, and within a number of third-party products. The converters provide exacting support for many core aspects of the .3dm fi le format, including full clon- ing of Rhino’s recursive instancing of block defi nitions and its nuances during import, recursive layer re- creation, trimmed NURBS surfaces, NURBS curves (single, composite, and multi-segment), polyline curves, mesh geometry (with vertex nor - mals, vertex UV texture coordinates, and vertex colors), import of child render meshes of Breps, 3D point clouds, import of 2D vector text anno- tations, viewport cameras, ambient/ spot/point/directional light sources, materials, and diffuse, bump, and environment texture maps. With V5, complex Rhino fi les with recursive “block” usage, alpha- textured objects, and full-scene attri- butes can be sent via popular export formats, such as SketchUp, Collada, and FBX, with retention of the origi- nal Rhino scene data. In the reverse direction, Okino can move data into Rhino in an error-free manner. Each pack is priced between $245 and $595, and requires the baseline PolyTrans product, which costs $395. PRODUCT: CAD April 2011 9