Actually this isn’t exactly correct. We use Brazil’s skylight for ambient passes on characters, but don’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 JI love your shorts! (that came out wrong…: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.
As you said, it’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 it’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 creature’s mesh that we were using as a matte object. To fix that problem we should had setup some deflectors, but since we didn’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 
Aah yes, defineatly interesting read. Thanks for your time, im looking forward to whatever your next creations may be.
Cheers
Your dog also looks alot better than you do, Flappy! 
Just wanted to hassle you, heh. And yes, Wilson is a rail whore. I haven’t played quake since moving on. It’s just not the same without Miller screaming out “Taste it!”. Heh
I miss you all a bunch. Keep kicking arse. Good things are gonna roll out for you guys, I can feel it!
-k
oyu guys rock (as if you have’nt heard that one) I’m stunned atthe levelof detail you pump out… great!
I’min Zimbabwe and i dowloaded a couple of your fliks and i’m inspired!
Yes, about the fur and hair. It would be interesting to know a bit about your methods 
Also, how do you face up motion blur(exporting always a velocity pass and doing it in postpro?)
Thx!
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?
I’ve watched the Warhammer featurette and you guys show lots of different passes to achieve the final effect and it was pretty amazing, so well… 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
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 max’s image motion blur. Its rendered in each pass and not composited. In some cases (usually for particle effects) we’ll use object motion blur.
Tim J
Thank you!
For the records: The WH40K game so damn fun, took me back to the old Westwood’s C&Cs
Been awhile since I spent money for a game that was worth it!
(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
Drooling at how cool would be having a squad of Space Marines break into a space hulk full of Tyranids, old-style stuff yo… made by Blur, would be awesome :bounce:
Well I couldn’t resist after my friend sinaris posted…
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"…I can understand that for a showreel, but a website is different… i think of it like a diary of images, showing your progress…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 doodles…if u are looking for work, then actively do so, don’t wait until somebody stumbles on your site… 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, i’ve noticed it at work, there are these two great guys (they come from 2d fantasy art world). since I’ve met them my artwork has made leaps, I started noticing stuff i didn’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 couldn’t draw, now fall on my head. and we 're talking about small stuff like: “hmm, that shoulder is crap” or “bliah! that’s not a face” or “stick to 3d, hahaha”, but i like it, cos i’m pushing myself… so i’m now not only trying to be a better 3d artist, but i’m developing my forgotten 2d skills and i’ve started sculpting.
now they say: “leave 3d and continue with sculpting, no seriously”
what i’m trying to say is that some times u need a nudge towards the right direction and u guys out there don’t give up cos u think u don’t have “raw talent”, 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 shouldn’t even try cos they don’t have raw talent is just “snobish” 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)…
i wrote this cos i thought there is a bit of discouragement in the air…
now my questions are:
do u have strict deadlines for shorts, or do u stop working on them if a big project comes in?
what is the make of the mo-cap system u use? (if u can’t specify, give some pointers:like is it wireless, for how many people etc)
i’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)
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)
i’ve covered all my cloth simulation issues with cloth extensions, but i would like to know what u use…(by the way awesome cloth sims with cloth extensions, characters can handle clothing , i mean really handle it, my tests have left me blinking)
and finally how many people work on a project (if it varies, just give me a range)
i don’t know if some of them have been answered, if they have don’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
Hi all,
Let’s finish off this Q&A session. If you have any more questions, please ask them now. We’ll close this session at the end of 31 May.
Thanks,
Leonard
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.
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.
Is there ever going to be a time when you give out or sell the inhouse maxscripts you use in the studio?
If not, do you plan on updating the BlurBeta site?
Have you or will ever hired someone who hasn’t gone to College or had any real previous studio work?
Do you plan to have any internships for College students as well as High School Students?
Is College necessary to get into the industry?
Can you check out my website(www.artbycg.com) and tell me what I could work on to make it Blur Worthy :)?
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.
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 i’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!
[b]http://academy.smc.edu/[/b]
What do you think about this school for animation?
I know you’d preferr CalArts Alumni, but I keep seeing people that teach at CalArts also teach at the Academy…You’re in Venice, the school is in Santa Monica…I was hoping you would have some insight.
Basically I’m just repeating myself, but I’ve been researching the people that teach there:
http://academy.smc.edu/people/faculty.html
If you’re not familiar with the school, are you familiar with the faculty?
Seems impressive to me…This is my last chance. Thought I’d give it one more shot.
Thanks!
Paul Hassett
Hi
First off all, congrats with the great movies you’ve made and thanks for your plug-ins on the Blur Beta page.
Most of my questions have been answered already, so I only have one question left.
How did you create the terrain in Rockfish/Warhammer? You know, the desert-like with rocks scattered everywhere. I’m especially interested in the modelling, although I’d like to know about the texturing too if that’s possible.