Meet the Artist: Christopher Nichols

#69

Actually feature films is the slowest to adapt GI lighting. There is a “don’t rock the boat” feeling. You will see GI used nearly exclusively in archviz, and you are starting to see it more and more in broadcast stuff such as commercials. Ironically, in terms of features, more GI is used in full feature an animations like Shreck and The Incredibles.

One of the reasons that GI is not used to much in features is that the industry is in tied to renderman which is not geared towards GI lighting.

But to answer your other question. There is no reason why GI can’t be used. There are several tricks to make it work, including baking of lighting with point samples or textures, adaptive sampling, etc…

As far as compositing, a rendering engine like Vray breaks out the lighting nicely so that it can be recomposed:

Diagram_01.jpg754x445

#70

Hello Christopher,

I would like to ask which books and other learning materials would you recommend to beginners in order to learn general fundamentals of lighting (how the light behaves, how to light various scenes, …) ~ whether for purpose of traditional painting or matte painting, lighting in 3D CG etc.

I am also interested what do you think about miniatures? How big do you think is the role of miniatures vs. digital sets these days in Effects world?
Thanks a lot for your time.

  • excuse my English -
#71

I always think it is good to look at non-CG books over CG books about lighting, as traditional artist have been doing it for a lot longer. In order to pick the right kind, think about the type of lighting you like to do. If you do non-GI lighting, the best type of books to read about is books on painting, as they teach you how to balance key to fills, etc. If you plan on doing more GI lighting, I would recommend to add books on photography and cinematoraphy. GI allows you use bounce cards, reflected surfaces, etc…

#72

Hi Christopher,

One of the main reasons why GI is extensively used in ArchViz is because most architectural animations do not require animation of elements in a scene, making it the ideal situation for keeping and loading irradiance maps.

In a case in which GI and animated elements are required (considering that this elements should receive and generate GI to/from the scene), which, in your opinion would be the best/most efficient approach to lighting?

Thank you for your time!
Zeoyn

#73

What people from the VFX&CG scene do you admire? :slight_smile:

#74

Well there is there is a brute force approach, but Vlado, the creator of Vray, outlined an approach to rendering the envionment and the objects seperatly and compositing back together again. That way the envionment can take advantage of the Irradiance maps, the the brute force approach is limited to the object and the environment that is next to it. It is a very unique idea IMHO:

http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/VRayHelp150beta/tutorials_anim.htm

#75

Hi Christopher,

The gamma compensation you use in your lighting technique was a revelation to me.
Could you please explain why there is a curve deviation in our perception in relation to linear light space? Does it have to do with the fact that the iris of our eye opens in darker light situations and closes with brighter light?

Sorry if I am saying something dum here, but I am really curious about this :slight_smile:

Zeoyn

#76

Hy Christopher !

First of all thank's for sharing your time & knowledge with us.

I’m a student in CG & i would like to know if you can give us some great reference book or tips for beeing a good lighter …

- i know jeremy birns great book, but is there other one that help you a lot ?
- Do you study classic european painters like Rembrandt, Durer, Turner etc ?
- Do you read lot of book about Photography ?

My last question is about renderman ! Does SPI use the new renderman for Maya Plug’ins or Does they still work with the Renderman artist Tool at 100% ?

Thanks a lot for your lights & good luck for your futur projects !
#77

Pretty kool 3D Nichols.:thumbsup:

RorrKonn
http://www.atomic-3d.com
TS 6, LW 7, C4D 9, zBrush 2.

#78

hey chris,

i’m in the archviz field myself, kinda fell into it due to my geography (where i live there is no film industry but a heckuva lot of building and development so if you want a job as a digital artist, thats the sector you work in).

eventually i would like to get into a VFX role so i am curious how exactly you went about it. was it your hard surface/architectural modeling skills that got you in the door at DD? once ‘in’, was it easy to switch over into the lighting department?

was your portfolio purely archviz up to that point?

i have a quite a few big archviz projects behind me so am curious if a VFX employer would even consider someone with my background.

cheers!

#79

This is a hard one to answer… When I was in architecture I admired several peoples works (still do). In VFX, I admire some great artists, but not in the same way. I am not in awe with people, that is mainly because it takes a whole team of people to make something. So, I am in awe of that team. I am in awe of the NYC team, and the fur lighting team on King Kong for example.

Don’t know if that makes any sense. If you want names of people, I can talk about architects if you want…

#80

As you may know, what your eyes see, and what the data is very different. I have found that this is one of the most difficult things to explain. The person that explained it the best is Dan Lemmon, who is now a sup at Weta… but he had cool charts and diagrams that makes so much sense.

Basically, in an oversimplified way, visually, half the light is not equal to have the value. But when dealing in linear space, you make it so that half the light IS half the light IS half the value so that everything gets added correctly, then add that curve back to it so that you can see it correctly.

#81

Actually I focus mainly on photography and cinematography. My interest in GI push me that way. I like books such as this one:

SPI uses their own interface for renderman. This have their own package that they have used for many many years. As far as the Renderman for Maya… I don’t think that large sudios would use it that much as it is not as customizable as RAT.

#82

Thanks for your answer chris !

#83

I too was doing archviz in a place that had a lot of building and no VFX: Houston, Texas. I left there because I thought the sense of design that was being build at the time was… well pretty dull. I moved to LA hoping that I could get exposed to a higher sense of design. It also ended up being a good place to be around VFX and I met a lot of people that did it.

As far as convincing people that I could do it, I got lucky there. Two of the people that were involved in me getting hired were ex-architects. The one that recommended me, and the one that hired me. You will see that there are many ex-architects in VFX. They can quickly tell if the person is ready for VFX or not.

Oh and one last thing… If you have been in archviz for a while and make a good living going into VFX is a big risky jump. Your first job may not pay as well as you think, and you have to live with the fact that you will probably get laid off the moment the job is over (3 to 9 months for feature films). You just have to be OK with that and realize that your second job will be a LOT easier to find once you have your first one under your belt

#84

Sup Chris!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and answer some good q’s.
Inspiring!

For some time now I have been learning alot about rendering and so on [XSI]. It kills to render using GI FG and all those killer options. I dont work in a studio were theres render farms or anything so its pricey to view good renders or try out new options to get good results. What do you suggest to learn at great speeds. I have been looking to get a new machine as well. Id like to hear some ideas on how to climb the latter as fast as i can or maybe you can recomend a graphic card and so on.

Thanks!

#85

Oh you know… I don’t really deal with computers at work, and my home computer is pretty old. It is a 3 year old dual AMD 2600+… More important than the speed of the computer is the efficiency of the artists an the rendering engine. For example, that rendering under the freeway overpass was a pretty quick rendering all things considered. At 800x600 that took around 8 mins to render on my old computer… and that is without baking the lighting.

#86

Hi Chris

My girlfriend is an interior designer student and is a huge fan of Zaha Hadid … she was wondering what you thought of her work.
And who is your favourite architectural designer … designers.
Love your renders awesome stuff !

#87

The DVD is great - well structured, giving a good overview!

thx

How do you think will rendering evolve in the next 10 years
and what is your fav architect and building?

keep them bouncing

#88

Zaha’s work is great. I love her bold style. I got to meet her once. Interesting woman… I hear she is really hard to work for.

I have always liked some of the paper architects of the last 30 years. Architects like Lebbeus Woods and John Hejduk and Lars Lerup and Steven Holl. I love good design too, but I think I love some of the stories that are behind these amazing designs that never get built. Zaha has some of that too. It is a lot more interesting to think of architecture in that way than it is to think about spec office buildings and strip malls.

For those of you that don’t know who I am talking about… this is an example of Lebbeus Woods’ work:

As far as my favorite building, that is a harder one to answer. But I visited the Salk Institute not to long ago, and it has been a long time since a building inside the united states moved me like that. The Salk Institute is designed by Louis Kahn, arguably in my mind, the greatest american architect. I also never miss a chance to see the Arab Institute when I am in Paris designed by John Nouvel.