Getting total photo realism out of SoftImage
Darth Stone
mainly because I keep watching Episode 1 & going "Damn, that looks too
fu&$#ing real!" in regards to their creatures, Jar Jar & Co.
Is it possible to get such realistic renderings out of the 'off the shelf'
SI or does ILM's stuff look so good because of all their custom shaders &
programming, which I will never have access to?
harry "mad max"
You can do mostly anything with your program, also with lightwave, only it
will take you much much much longer to get the same effects......tools aren't
everything, your creative mind is.
Emanuele D'Arrigo
> Is it possible to get such realistic renderings out of the 'off the shelf'
> SI or does ILM's stuff look so good because of all their custom shaders &
> programming, which I will never have access to?
I vote for the first.
If you deal only with characters and "normal" objects you don't need
such human/technical resources. It will involve a lot of skill and
testing but it's possible to achieve photo realism with SI.
It becomes more difficult if not impossible if you want very special
stuff like particular properties of the materials or very specific materials.
For instance dynamic water effects, dynamic mappings related to the
movement of the models and things like those.
Ciao ciao!
Manu
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Stéphane Beaudin
with Mental Ray, it is usually easier to get photorealism in Lightwave. I
seriously doubt that ILM rendered anything in Softimage, that would be a new
twist for them, they usually farm everything out to their Rendeman nodes.
Plus I think most of the character stuff in Episode 1 was done in Maya.
<harry \ mad max" <hbo...@bart.nl>> wrote in message
news:37D23CBD...@bart.nl...
> Darth Stone wrote:
>
> > I'm considering learning SI (currently a Lightwaver)
> > mainly because I keep watching Episode 1 & going "Damn, that looks too
> > fu&$#ing real!" in regards to their creatures, Jar Jar & Co.
> >
not...@nothing.net
>
> I'm considering learning SI (currently a Lightwaver)
> mainly because I keep watching Episode 1 & going "Damn, that looks too
> fu&$#ing real!" in regards to their creatures, Jar Jar & Co.
>
Does anyone here know what kind of typewriter was used to write "The
Great Gatsby"? I read it and it's so fu&$#ing good and I want to be
able to write like that!
Also, what software did George Lucas use to write "Phantom Menace?" I
don't want to use that software because it's obviously not any good.
All that's holding me back from being a truly great writer is the tools.
Hugh Betcha
Manuel Alducin
in creating the characters. While most of the rendering is done via
Photorealistic Renderman (PRMAN) they also used propietary renderers for
must of the fur. As a side note, Mental Ray was used a little bit to render
the Queen's ship.
As far as animating a lot was done using Softimage and their in-house tools
like Cari which is used for facial animation and secondary animation. Maya was
used in character animation to control the movement of particles that was
then susbtituted with characters, mainly in the choreography of the final
Gungan vs droid battle. It was also used to create the virtual characters you
see walking around in the Pod Race arena. And of course there were other
new toys used to animate and texture clothes and Gungan ears.
The August CGW has an article on all the new tools developed for Episode 1.
Stephane Beaudin <sbea...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
: It is possible to get a limited amount of photorealism from Soft, but even
: with Mental Ray, it is usually easier to get photorealism in Lightwave. I
: seriously doubt that ILM rendered anything in Softimage, that would be a new
: twist for them, they usually farm everything out to their Rendeman nodes.
: Plus I think most of the character stuff in Episode 1 was done in Maya.
: <harry \ mad max" <hbo...@bart.nl>> wrote in message
: news:37D23CBD...@bart.nl...
:> Darth Stone wrote:
:>
:>> I'm considering learning SI (currently a Lightwaver)
:>> mainly because I keep watching Episode 1 & going "Damn, that looks too
:>> fu&$#ing real!" in regards to their creatures, Jar Jar & Co.
:>>
:>> Is it possible to get such realistic renderings out of the 'off the
: shelf'
:>> SI or does ILM's stuff look so good because of all their custom shaders
: &
:>> programming, which I will never have access to?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Manuel Alducin
mald...@acm.org
Computer Graphics
The George Washington University
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Stéphane Beaudin
inspiration and technique, in most other artforms, tools matter, you can do
beautiful drawings on low quality paper, but chances are, it won't last
because of fading, you can do great sculpture with cheap clay, but you will
spend too much effort on keeping it from cracking to deploy all your
inspiration, same is true for 3D, certainly, you can make anything in any
program, but if the workflow is bad, all the tools in the world will not
give you a flowing output for creativity (see the old Real 3D) and if tools
are missing, the work you have to do to fake their presence is just as
problematic, a good workman CAN saw with a file and file with a saw, but he
WILL saw with a saw and file with a file.
<not...@nothing.net> wrote in message news:37D3597B...@nothing.net...
> Darth Stone wrote:
> >
> > I'm considering learning SI (currently a Lightwaver)
> > mainly because I keep watching Episode 1 & going "Damn, that looks too
> > fu&$#ing real!" in regards to their creatures, Jar Jar & Co.
> >
>
Emanuele D'Arrigo
> It is possible to get a limited amount of photorealism from Soft, but even
> with Mental Ray, it is usually easier to get photorealism in Lightwave.
Considering the stuff I've been usually looking done with LW, I don't think
so. I know that LW can achieve photorealistic look under a skilled artist
control, but also the pure Softimage rendering algorhitm is, imho, more
photorealistic from a lower level compared to the LW's one.
> I seriously doubt that ILM rendered anything in Softimage, that would be a new
> twist for them, they usually farm everything out to their Rendeman nodes.
The edge between the various techniques is always very difficult trace is such
big productions. That's way you can always see the same stuff in the various
software house's showreel, Softimage, Maya, Renderman and so on.
In fact, I don't think we can really say they render everything with Renderman.
I guess they render with every software they have, considering the various
possibilities of each one. I mean, sometime you don't (and it's even more
expansive) to develop a shader for renderman. Sometime the A|W IPR rendering
and Mental Ray are enough.
> Plus I think most of the character stuff in Episode 1 was done in Maya.
I can agree with you if you talk about Modeling. I strongly disagree if
you also talk about rendering and animation. At least for the second,
if you wait the real end of the Ending title for Episode 1 you'll find
as animation software Softimage. This doesn't mean they never used
Maya as animation software, but it's well-known Softimage is still
the primary animation software in ILM.
Rob Belics
Jason Hilwell
off. The reasoning that "this software was used in a movie and the
movie looks good, therefore if I have that software I too can do good
stuff" is just plain crazy. Sure, as you point out, the tools play a
big part, but what drives the tools is your brain. Lightwave and
SoftImage are capable of equal greatness. To look at one movie and
think that the key to the success of its effects was an animation
package is nuts. There seems to be this belief that if something was
used in a movie it was easy, i.e. "If they used SI, it was because it
made it easy to do that animation." Virtually NOTHING in effects work
is easy. The reason for choosing a package has MANY factors playing
upon it besides the basic one of "can it do what we need". There's
price, politics, the preference of the animators themselves, time (if
you've got SI animators and no time to train them on Maya, for example),
etc. ILM didn't use SI because no other package could do what it did,
so to think that you NEED SI to do that kind of work shows a lack of
thought that leads me to believe that this person was wasting his time
with Lightwave and would just waste it with SI. If he can't even do the
reading necessary to know what software was used for what (and there are
plenty of places, both online and in magazines, to find it), then I
seriously doubt he's got the drive to do work of that quality or
anything even remotely approaching it.
I think the idea of the typewriter analogy was a good one: your brain
is more important than any software. If all packages have the same
basic features, which they do, then the key to great looking work is who
is moving the mouse and pressing the buttons. LW and SI are capable of
good stuff. The new version of LW coming out will address its
shortcomings for character animation (although there has still been some
good stuff done). (Plus, I remember reading here too that there's an
inexpensive plugin coming out for it which has some great tools.)
Take two pieces of marble. In front of one, put Michaelangelo. In
front of the other, put a guy who said: "what kind of marble did
Michaelangelo use? I want to be able to do great sculptures like him!"
Tell them both to make something. When they're done, how many great
sculptures will you have?
Or send the guy who started this thread a copy of all the software they
use at ILM along with a fast machine and all the manuals. Do you think
that he'd do anything that even approaches the quality of "Phantom
Menace"? (Although I'm sure he--or anyone-- could write a better
screenplay.)
The phrasing of his post also makes me wonder whether he's a legal
owner of Lightwave or if he just "has" it; and if he'd be an *owner* of
SI if he chooses to get it. Actually, I don't wonder at all; I have a
pretty good idea.
JH.
--
-=Fred=-
http://www.stationxstudios.com
-.-. --.- -.. -- --. -.--
Remove the x in the address to respond.
Emmanuel Henne
DS> I'm considering learning SI (currently a Lightwaver)
DS> mainly because I keep watching Episode 1 & going "Damn, that looks too
DS> fu&$#ing real!" in regards to their creatures, Jar Jar & Co.
DS>
DS> Is it possible to get such realistic renderings out of the 'off the shelf'
DS> SI or does ILM's stuff look so good because of all their custom shaders &
DS> programming, which I will never have access to?
Actually, 75% of "TPM" is a LOT of HARD work, STRONG determination,
a RICH imagination and yet MORE HARD work.
The best thing I could advise You is to create a demoreel and
become an intern for several months in a shop that uses
MAYA, SoftImage etc.There You can get in touch with the software and get
to meet creative professionals.
CU L8ER,
Emmanuel, Surfin` the LIGHTWAVE!
Producer of PHOENIX, http://members.tripod.de/FutureTales/
Freelance Writer "amigaOS"
__
"Hey there , I am Bobby Brown, they say that I`m the cutest
boy in town...my car is fast, my teeth are shiny, I tell all the girls
that they can kiss my Heini...."
Darth Stone
>DS> mainly because I keep watching Episode 1 & going "Damn, that looks
too
>DS> fu&$#ing real!" in regards to their creatures, Jar Jar & Co.
>DS>
>DS> Is it possible to get such realistic renderings out of the 'off the
shelf'
>DS> SI or does ILM's stuff look so good because of all their custom
shaders &
>DS> programming, which I will never have access to?
First off, I paid $1,799 for Lightwave 5.5, & am fully registered, so to
the guy who 'assumes too much', there's your answer.
Second, it seems that some of you missed the point. My question was about
SI's 'off the shelf' render quality. Automatically some people feel like
they have to jump on the "It's not the tools, it's the artist" kick.
Any other pointless observations you'd like to make, like 'Windows
crashes sometimes' ?!
There is a reason why ILM is using SI so much, & not
fucking RayDreamDesigner you dig?
Lightwave's render engine is excellent. I've seen & done alot of work with
LW that would fool anyone.
So now maybe some actual SI users can chime in about the quality of it's
own render engine. Last I checked, there wasn't a demo for download!
Diego Gutierrez Perez
> First off, I paid $1,799 for Lightwave 5.5, & am fully registered, so to
> the guy who 'assumes too much', there's your answer.
>
> Second, it seems that some of you missed the point. My question was about
> SI's 'off the shelf' render quality. Automatically some people feel like
> they have to jump on the "It's not the tools, it's the artist" kick.
> Any other pointless observations you'd like to make, like 'Windows
> crashes sometimes' ?!
>
> There is a reason why ILM is using SI so much, & not
> fucking RayDreamDesigner you dig?
>
> Lightwave's render engine is excellent. I've seen & done alot of work with
> LW that would fool anyone.
>
> So now maybe some actual SI users can chime in about the quality of it's
> own render engine. Last I checked, there wasn't a demo for download!
I'm joining in late, so sorry if I am the one that misses the point.
AFAIK, ILM uses as much as 80% of in-house soft for its productions, and they
sure use mostly renderman for rendering. The Jar-Jar of TPM is not something
you can get straight out of a SI box. There's way too many talented
programmers writing shaders and specific plug-ins at ILM to achieve that.
Softimage ships (in its Extreme version) with mentalRay, in my opinion one of
the best renderers around, BUT extremely slow. That's why lots of FX
companies rule it out as a rendering engine, it is open, extensible and
stuff, but rendering times can skyrocket to unchartered heights. Sumatra (SI
next generation product, supposed to ship Q4 99) will incorporate mentalRay
2.1, which will include global illumination (radiosity effects a raytracer
won't achieve). (BTW, max R3 will allow for mentalRay too)
2.1 is supposed to put mentalRay back in the game as one of the most powerful
rendering engines in the world. allowing for interactive partial renderings
with all the effects computed (which Maya interactive renderer does not).
In addition, it will finally be fully integrated into Sumatra's code, so the
user interface should improve too (right now us SI users find all mr options
scattered around different menus thruought the program)
Hope this helps
--
Diego Gutierrez (die...@phoebe.cps.unizar.es)
GIGA (http://giga.cps.unizar.es)
Love All. Give Blood.
Alan Boucek
>
> >DS> I'm considering learning SI (currently a Lightwaver)
> >DS> mainly because I keep watching Episode 1 & going "Damn, that looks
> too
> >DS> fu&$#ing real!" in regards to their creatures, Jar Jar & Co.
> >DS>
> >DS> Is it possible to get such realistic renderings out of the 'off the
> shelf'
> >DS> SI or does ILM's stuff look so good because of all their custom
> shaders &
> >DS> programming, which I will never have access to?
>
> the guy who 'assumes too much', there's your answer.
>
> Second, it seems that some of you missed the point. My question was about
> SI's 'off the shelf' render quality. Automatically some people feel like
> they have to jump on the "It's not the tools, it's the artist" kick.
> Any other pointless observations you'd like to make, like 'Windows
> crashes sometimes' ?!
No, I think you're missing the point. There are many reasons that large
facilities use the tools that they use, and 'off the shelf' render
quality is not at the top of that list. Higher on the list are
flexibility and reliability. Renderman is the most used renderer in the
film production world, yet requires a higher level of expertise than
most other CG renderers to get a useful result.
There are other steps in the production flow that are just as important
as renderer quality when attempting to create a photo-real result.
Compositing in particular.
If I was working in my own small studio without the support of a large
experienced crew, I probably, wouldn't use the tools that we use in big
productions. In other words, just because ILM uses X tool to get Y
result doesn't mean that if you use the same tool, you'll get anything
resembling their results.
--
- alan
Darth Stone
powerful
>rendering engines in the world. allowing for interactive partial
renderings
>with all the effects computed (which Maya interactive renderer does not).
>
>In addition, it will finally be fully integrated into Sumatra's code, so
the
>user interface should improve too (right now us SI users find all mr
options
>scattered around different menus thruought the program)
>
>Hope this helps
>
>--
>Diego Gutierrez (die...@phoebe.cps.unizar.es)
>GIGA (http://giga.cps.unizar.es)
>
Thanks for the info.