"Royale has been kind enough to agree to share the system out to the community, through Leonard, some time after the final project wraps"
bravo! I dont think Royale are a maya only studio anymore after this and congrats to thier team for embracing pretty radical changes to an existing pipeline. hopefully other studios will see the swift & advantageous moves of Softimage joining the party. Its a really good idea giving this stuff out afterwards as a) someone could come up with something even more creative with it b) it forces you to evolve the next level as everyone has the same capabilities now :) in my opinion, strands and threading effects are enjoying a bit of a 'lens flare' or 'morph' stage right now and seem pretty popular in advertising gimmick. but I also think that Softimage strands implementation have (thus far) only just scratched the surface of what is possible visually, we are only let down by the so called advertising *creatives* imagination.. so yes, am looking forward to seeing the rest of the spots and seeing how the LKfabric turned out and how this latest fad will evolve. cue Rhythim Is Rhythim's 'Strings of Life' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiCEGXGm-z0 have a great weekend y'all On 2 August 2013 19:10, Meng-Yang Lu <[email protected]> wrote: > Nice one Andy! > > I really do feel Soft's strengths are these type of jobs requiring creative > ways to build various objects. Just wanted to point out the mark of a great > supe is one who graciously credits the team for their hard work. Again, > pretty stellar work considering the time and the budget. > > -Lu > > > On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 9:05 PM, Andy Moorer <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Hi gang. I wanted to give a shout out to the folks who worked on Nike >> Evolution, it just posted. Those who weren't involved, this is a pretty nice >> story... >> >> A young studio, Royale, got interested in this ICE buzz and invited a >> number of us from the list to visit the studio and work on a commercial. >> Their designers had been watching cool stuff on ICE for a while, admiring >> Tim Borgmanns work and the tools Eric was writing, and had tried Exocortex's >> tools for maya. They decided this was pretty neat and when they got a chance >> to reach out, they took it. >> >> The brief was to take what Digital Domain had accomplished (about a year >> ago?) with "Biomorph" and introduce a new product with an effect similar to >> the Biomorph knitting sequence... But with a small team, for a very short >> produvtion duration and a fraction of the budget. >> >> Oh and three commercials, not 1. >> >> These are the times we live in. >> >> Given this challenge, Royale turned to the ICE community they had been >> eyeing... names were passed around and folks talked to and consulted. In the >> end I wound up CG sup, leaning heavily on Ciaran Moloney as lighting lead >> and Leonard Kotch as a tool builder. Steven Caron took a short break from >> Whiskytree to lend a hand with some pipeline tools and general expertise, >> Billy Morrison dove in with me on VFX, and aside from that we had the help >> and assistance of Royale's maya artists and designers. And not a few of you >> on the list helped by offering the studio names and advice when contacted. >> >> So the job was greenlit and we started the clock - about three weeks, from >> installing Softimage to delivery. >> >> http://youtu.be/932FiLPe4kc >> >> We rented a farm and populated it with 25 Arnold nodes, the folks at >> SolidAngle were awesome, plugged everything in and made the spot. Our >> principal tool was ICE, specifically a very cool and robust system Leonard >> Kotch put many hard hours in to create which we called "LKFabric" and >> inspired by the example Psyop's Jonah Froedman has set earlier, Anto's "knit >> the strands," and earlier work Polynoid did with their "carbon" spot. >> >> Leonard went all the way with LKFabric... it let us manage some of the >> complexity of trying to get the major components of the shoe to weave >> themselves procedurally, from fibers, to threads, to cloth. Because the next >> spot, which we're wrapping up right now, required us to get in on individual >> fibers in extreme macro shots, Leonard built the system in an abstracted out >> manner, unsimulated, and supporting motion blur etc. I would send him pages >> and pages of feedback and requests, and he chewed away at it like a trouper. >> Pretty outstanding Leonard, I owe you many beers. >> >> Royale has been kind enough to agree to share the system out to the >> community, through Leonard, some time after the final project wraps. >> >> Ciaran, Billy and Steven worked similarly hard and with the same good >> cheer we see so often here on the list. This is why I like Softimage so >> much, it attracts artists of this calibre and can do mindset. I should add >> that emTools, emTopo and polygonizer were used as well, though largely in >> the design phase and for an effect that was later cut (no fault of the tools >> lol the idea just didn't gel with the client.) Thanks Eric! >> >> It's very rare for a small studio with literally no staff using Softimage >> to get excited over ICE and have the courage to jump in with it no hold >> barred, for multiple spots, like Royale did. I can't express more admiration >> for their willingness to try something new and embrace ICE the way they did >> for these jobs. >> >> The results may not be earth shattering but the client and the studio are >> happy and the other ice-heavy spot is looking cool too. In a time where we >> are all concerned with where Softimage may be headed it was really >> gratifying having a maya studio step out of their comfort zone and place all >> their chips on Softimage with one of their major clients like that. >> >> So I wanted to take a minute to share the story and thank the people on >> this list who contributed, both those of us who worked on the project >> directly and the guys who extended advice and friendship to the studio >> willing to take a chance on softimage like Todd Akita, Rob Chapman, the gang >> over at Whiskytree and many others. Thanks guys. > >
