Meet the Studio: Blur Studio

#177

Hi, im using max mostly myself. And, i must say, your doing a great job using it, your really realising its full potential ;), big creds to you for that. As am I ofcourse, tryin to make most of the application and all.

My question is what plugins you are using to complement the application aside from your homecreated plugins ? Personally im using Hair FX/Fur Fx for hair and fur and Brazil for most rendering, and most recently been tryin different cloth simulatorsā€¦ Do you have any good advice on what plugins are good for any of these areas that you use yourselves ?

Also, is there any other application commonly in your work pipeline like Zbrush or other painting applications then Photoshop like Painter or other ?

Almost forgotā€¦ How do you handle glowing things like Lava or the markings on those kickass armor from Hellgate London trailer ?

Last but not least, I watched the Hellgate London trailer just recently. And im really wondering how you pulled off the fire on the beast made of fire. I see its particles and alot of texture work, but more indepth would be awesome to hear ? I was also very blow away by the athomsphere of the video, on the other hand, I think, the action can be improved upon some, maybe timing some things with the fastpaced music music had enhanced the overall feel.

Keep it up Blur! Your doin some awesome videos!

#178

Actually this isnā€™t exactly correct. We use Brazilā€™s skylight for ambient passes on characters, but donā€™t turn on indirect lighting. So its not really GI. Rendertimes for this are usually quite fast.

Glows are always done in the compositing stage. The armor reflections from Hellgate were rendered with HDRI maps created from the environments we built for the project. We also used HDRI for the ambient light pass on the characters.

 Tim J
#179

I love your shorts! (that came out wrongā€¦:D)

My question is: How is the work distributed at Blur - do the artists specialize in one field and do only that sort of work (e.g. modeling, animation), or do they know a bit in each field and exercise all of their skills (e.g. rigger/animators, modeler/texturers)? Which way do you think is more productive?

Thanks.

#180

As you said, itā€™s a combination of animated textures, particles and some post-production.
The textures were animated and rendered as an independent pass so they could be processed with glow in digital fusion.

For the particles, Thinking Particles 2 was used, since the fire was only emitting from some parts of the mesh, and itā€™s Matterwaves allows particle creation by texture. To get a nice distribution, we had to duplicate the mesh with an optimize to reduce the number of poligons and speed the calculations, using black and white textures representing the zones the particles were emitted. We used those particles in digital fusion as a distortion and difusse layer. The scenes assemblers, specially Corey Butler and Laurent Pierlot helped a lot merging the basic setups in all the shots. Then they had to be finetuned individually.

One of the problems that happened and might be interesting to comment is that the particle motion was driven by some motion inheritance and a array of winds for the turbulence, and a lot of particles were getting into the own creatureā€™s mesh that we were using as a matte object. To fix that problem we should had setup some deflectors, but since we didnā€™t have enought time for that and the original mesh (even optimized) was way too heavy, we solved it placing a wind that made the particles go to the camera.

I hope this was interesting :stuck_out_tongue:

#181

Aah yes, defineatly interesting read. Thanks for your time, im looking forward to whatever your next creations may be.

Cheers

#182

Your dog also looks alot better than you do, Flappy! :smiley:

Just wanted to hassle you, heh. And yes, Wilson is a rail whore. I havenā€™t played quake since moving on. Itā€™s just not the same without Miller screaming out ā€œTaste it!ā€. Heh
I miss you all a bunch. Keep kicking arse. Good things are gonna roll out for you guys, I can feel it!

-k

#183

oyu guys rock (as if you haveā€™nt heard that one) Iā€™m stunned atthe levelof detail you pump outā€¦ great!

Iā€™min Zimbabwe and i dowloaded a couple of your fliks and iā€™m inspired!

#184

Yes, about the fur and hair. It would be interesting to know a bit about your methods :slight_smile:
Also, how do you face up motion blur(exporting always a velocity pass and doing it in postpro?)
Thx!

#185

Hi Tim, great suggestion you got here, I always render one time only and using indirect illumination, I never tried any compositing, could you give me some help on how you usually split your renders and how you composite them?

Iā€™ve watched the Warhammer featurette and you guys show lots of different passes to achieve the final effect and it was pretty amazing, so wellā€¦ once you render without indirect illumination what you do in order to give it an extra realism?
Do you render other layers and composite 'em with the no-indirect one?

I wish I could learn how to do it, makes me think its quite fast to change small things in compositing without having to render it all from the beginning

#186

Dave Wilson goes into some detail about this in this interview about Warhammer. His breakdown of how Warhammer was split up in passes is pretty common from project to project.

http://www.cgnetworks.com/story_custom.php?story_id=2538&page=1

We use maxā€™s image motion blur. Its rendered in each pass and not composited. In some cases (usually for particle effects) weā€™ll use object motion blur.

Tim J

#187

Thank you!

For the records: The WH40K game so damn fun, took me back to the old Westwoodā€™s C&Cs
Been awhile since I spent money for a game that was worth it!

#188

(The emperor commans tim miller and his space marines to make the winter assault cinematic now.)

lol sorry guys i just had to say that please make another warhammer 40k cinematic.
please
please
please

#189

Drooling at how cool would be having a squad of Space Marines break into a space hulk full of Tyranids, old-style stuff yoā€¦ made by Blur, would be awesome :bounce:

#190

Well I couldnā€™t resist after my friend sinaris postedā€¦

Hi guys good job on all of your shorts (Warhammer 40K intro my fave)

Somebody (working in Blur) said earlier that: u" should put only your best work on your site"ā€¦I can understand that for a showreel, but a website is differentā€¦ i think of it like a diary of images, showing your progressā€¦what u learned how to make great images in one day?.. i think not, so why give the wrong impression? plus if talent is so obvious, then it will be apparent in all the little experimental doodlesā€¦if u are looking for work, then actively do so, donā€™t wait until somebody stumbles on your siteā€¦ anyways

ANother thing: i think u can teach people to become better artists, raw talent needs guidance. If somebody helps u, u make great leaps in a short space of time, iā€™ve noticed it at work, there are these two great guys (they come from 2d fantasy art world). since Iā€™ve met them my artwork has made leaps, I started noticing stuff i didnā€™t see before, i tried to maximize the impact of my images. my ego got bashed again and again. things i could get away with cos my friends couldnā€™t draw, now fall on my head. and we 're talking about small stuff like: ā€œhmm, that shoulder is crapā€ or ā€œbliah! thatā€™s not a faceā€ or ā€œstick to 3d, hahahaā€, but i like it, cos iā€™m pushing myselfā€¦ so iā€™m now not only trying to be a better 3d artist, but iā€™m developing my forgotten 2d skills and iā€™ve started sculpting.
now they say: ā€œleave 3d and continue with sculpting, no seriouslyā€
what iā€™m trying to say is that some times u need a nudge towards the right direction and u guys out there donā€™t give up cos u think u donā€™t have ā€œraw talentā€, it may not be in 3d character faces, but u might be able to make the coolest armour ever and u should deffinetely try zbrush (all those dots and crude lines u sketched can now be easily palced on your 3d model and there is now stupid dispacement mapping involved, long live normal maps).

i still have a long way to go to becoming a great artist, but saying that people shouldnā€™t even try cos they donā€™t have raw talent is just ā€œsnobishā€ to me

plus i saw a (3d animated) movie called running away, that had some lame character models, but had action, a superb sence of directing and montage, great music, i watch it again and again and gets my hairs standing on end (more than the WoW cinematic from Blizzard and more than WH 40K)ā€¦

i wrote this cos i thought there is a bit of discouragement in the airā€¦

now my questions are:

  1. do u have strict deadlines for shorts, or do u stop working on them if a big project comes in?

  2. what is the make of the mo-cap system u use? (if u canā€™t specify, give some pointers:like is it wireless, for how many people etc)

  3. iā€™d like to repeat the question about the hair system (i was struglling with hairfx, mainly due to lack of experience. ended up compositting all the time)

  4. i read u use max 5 and your custom tools, do u find it more stable, or is the upgrade not worth it (i use max 7, but i would like to know the reason u still use max5)

  5. iā€™ve covered all my cloth simulation issues with cloth extensions, but i would like to know what u useā€¦(by the way awesome cloth sims with cloth extensions, characters can handle clothing , i mean really handle it, my tests have left me blinking)

  6. and finally how many people work on a project (if it varies, just give me a range)

i donā€™t know if some of them have been answered, if they have donā€™t bother answering them, I re-reading the whole thread anyway (other questions have already been answered,concerning rendering and setups)

PS sorry for my spelling mistakes

#191

Hi all,

Letā€™s finish off this Q&A session. If you have any more questions, please ask them now. Weā€™ll close this session at the end of 31 May.

Thanks,

Leonard

#192

Hello blur studios. thanx for taking time to answer questions here at cg talk.com

well i recently started to do a search for studios to apply for a job in my area. I attached samples of my work that i would send out to apply for a concept artist position. Just wanted some feed back from one of the studios in my area.

Also for the current concept artist working at blur what is the time frame and work amount required in a given period of time. To be honest just trying to find out if i have what it takes to become a conceptual artist. Thanx for taking a look at my work.

#193

Hi Blur, its an honor to have you guys come and answer our questions. Your one of my favorite studios. I have a few quick questions. Sorry if they were asked already.

  1. Is there ever going to be a time when you give out or sell the inhouse maxscripts you use in the studio?

  2. If not, do you plan on updating the BlurBeta site?

  3. Have you or will ever hired someone who hasnā€™t gone to College or had any real previous studio work?

  4. Do you plan to have any internships for College students as well as High School Students?

  5. Is College necessary to get into the industry?

  6. Can you check out my website(www.artbycg.com) and tell me what I could work on to make it Blur Worthy :)?

  7. Do any of you have a messenger tag that I can get to chat with you? You can PM me that if you dont want EVERYone to know it. Or you can add me.

THanks for taking the time to look over and answer my questions. Maybe in a couple of years, I can answer tsome questions as a Blur employee. :smiley:

#194

does gopherā€™s fur show up in refractions and reflections?

#195

You guys are the greatest! Love your work, used your too, love your work some more! :bounce:

My question is about your beta site! you mentioned earlier about reopeming it with more and updated plugins.Thanks alot for that coz it helps us save cash getting expensive ones.Just want to know if it includes raymarching, fluid simulations, hair and more of your fantastic shaders!?

Second question:You guys have the most wicked texturing iā€™ve ever seen! Is it possible to make a tutorial well more like a full project training of texturing one of you character(maybe one from hellgate london)?

3rd:Must all CG artists you employ have the knowledge of maxscript!?

Thank you verymuch for your time.You guys rock!:buttrock:

Had posted earlier but got it removed coz i forgot to read the rule,too busy learning CG!:wink:

#196

[b]http://academy.smc.edu/[/b]
What do you think about this school for animation?
I know youā€™d preferr CalArts Alumni, but I keep seeing people that teach at CalArts also teach at the Academyā€¦Youā€™re in Venice, the school is in Santa Monicaā€¦I was hoping you would have some insight.

Basically Iā€™m just repeating myself, but Iā€™ve been researching the people that teach there:
http://academy.smc.edu/people/faculty.html

If youā€™re not familiar with the school, are you familiar with the faculty?
Seems impressive to meā€¦This is my last chance. Thought Iā€™d give it one more shot.

Thanks!

Paul Hassett