CG Academy Releases new Proceduralism DVD

[PEN]

This looks like a good one for those comming from other packages to understand Max. Is this what you are aiming at Chris?

[kees]

oh nice work chris.

I had a small problem playing the sample videos on the page. They stop playing after about 1/3 the video length. this could totally be a problem local to my machine tho. So if nobody else is seeing this, then don't worry about it.

-Kees

[sadghost]

yep same problem I couldn't play no more then a couple of seconds before it trys to refresh the page..or what ever itis that it's doing.

[Chris Thomas]

Thanks for the heads up guys. Both of them still had an old web dev refresh in there. Its been removed now so you should be able to watch the videos all the way though ;)

[Chris Thomas]

Just a quick post over from another thread on the same topic....

Proceduralism is one of those buzzwords that can be a little confusin to people comming into the 3D industry and to be honest I think a lot of people even a few years in don't really have too strong a grasp on what its all about. Hopefully this DVD will go some way to giving people a better idea of how to approach proceduralism in 3dsmax, and I'll be producing some pretty cool examples of the things you can do with it in DVD2 in the series.

3dsmax is actually a pretty cool procedural system, and a lot more extensible than people often give it credit for. For example do you remember these animations from a few Siggraphs back, they were a big hit at the time, by a company called Animusic...

http://www.animusic.com/popups/clip-pipe-wm.html

http://www.animusic.com/images/vids/pipe-t.jpg

Well I remember at the time during the buzz around it that it was touted as being a great example of what you could do with proceduralism and Houndini, except that it was actually all produced in 3dsmax.... Anyway, have a look at that as what is possible with a procedural mindset and some inginuity ;)

[sadghost]

Well let me be the first to admit that when I first heard the word procidualizm I whas like HUHG ?:shrug: .
I think that you might want to give more examples of what it Is ,as I see alot of people have not jumped on this topic on this thread yet... and you know that when cg-academy releases something it should creats a big buzz.

[Media]

Hey, Im sorry to pull this one slightly off topic but none of the big links to the right (the Training DVDs) on your webpage work. They all have an error 404 .

That being said this DVD looks very interesting!

Cheers! :)

[Chris Thomas]

Thanks Media, your right, better get that fixed pronto. Yeah sadghost I'll give some more examples of what Proceduralism is all about in a mo...

[Chris Thomas]

Sadghost: Here is a little more information about what Proceduralism is all about...

Procedural 3D software allows us to build up complex objects from simpler components. As an example, the Stack in 3dsmax allows you to create more complex objects by using multiple layers of modifcation that evolves your object toward a certain goal.

A typical Procedural workflow is non linear, meaning you can go back to an earlier point in its construction, make changes and have those changes propogate up through the modifiers to a new final result. It does not even have to be limited to a linear passing on of information within one object, you can just as easily have objects referencing each other, sharing modifiers or controllers and so on to acheive pretty much any result you can think of.

Ok, enough of the gobbledegook, what are real world examples of Proceduralism?

Character Rigs
Well, a character rig is a Procedural entity. You can start with a cube, poly edit it into a full character, then add a modifier to constrain its verts to other scene objects (skin the verts to bones), then layer UV Mapping on top of this, then smooth the mesh and so on. There is a distinct procedure to creating a character rig, and if done well you can go in and modiffy elements of its makeup lower in the Stack. So, as you can see, a character rig makes use of a Procedural Workflow.

Particle Flow
This was a great introduction in Max 5.5 onwards. Particle Flow is a highly procedural particle system. You create particles and then use Operators (same as Modifiers but for pflow particles) to modify their data in some way. You can add new Operators into the mix, or modify existing ones to make massive or subtle changes to your particles end simulation. You can also tie in Particle Flow with other areas of 3dsmax and put together even cooler and more powerful Procedural setups.

Animusic
The Animusic animations also give a very good example of what can be done with a Procedural workflow and some off the wall thinking. Its a totally procedural system in that in their animations are fed in via a .midi file for each sequence and that file lead to a totally new animation that reacted to any changes in the musics pace or overall composition. Very cool stuff...

As you can see Proceduralism and how it defines our workflow in 3dsmax is a pretty core concept. Its something that hits on every aspect of 3D and how we put together our scenes. Its a kind of logical glue that brings together all of the various elements in 3dsmax and allows us to build more complex and "intelligent" scenes.

Does that make more sense?

[Chris Thomas]

Does my last post here make things clearer for you Sadghost?

[sadghost]

Ahh gotcha .. much clearer to me now this DVD is important to guys like me then. I tend to use max for what i need it for only FX for my motion graphic work .. I really never got into riging ect.. and alot of those other functions in the modifiers Whas strange to me..I see that a DVD like this will help me understand how max work. This is a must have then for new max users..?

[SoLiTuDe]

the real question i have is what the heck is node based then? I understand the whole procedural thing (got it when you mentioned the modifier stack) I think i get the node idea to a point, but i'm still at a loss as to fully understanding it. My limited experience with maya is all I know, so i'm kinda confused on that... And why wouldn't a non-procedural based app be able to make the animusic thing (as well)? (that does rock by the way...saw it when it first came out too)

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.