Open Software Days 2025 ASWF

The Academy Software Foundation (ASWF) is the driving force behind open-source software development for visual content creation, bringing together the VFX, animation, and post-production communities.

Blender is now also a member between those giants.

It is really great that the Open Software Days 2025 is online on YouTube. 

Keynote from David Morin

The full playlist

Also worth to mention that the standardization have its specification platform:

https://vfxplatform.com/

Also, free database for cameras:

https://vfxcamdb.com/

Summertime's Hot Topics In CG / VFX

Finally, I've got involved a project where there was a very smooth cooperation between the shooting crew and the VFX on set crew (myself). Yes, sometimes it happens.

It was a happy chrome-balling time.

And a couple of selfies was taken as well.

I'm planning to organize an on set VFX workshop in Budapest (travel, accommodation, sightseeing included). If you are interested, let me know on the comment section. 

Getting closer to august it is always an exciting (at least) to check what is going on in the science of computer graphics #SiggraphIsComming, #Siggraph2025

Siggraph 2025 (Vancouver)

And last but definitely not least BCON2025 aka Blender Conference 2025 is coming too.

It seems my presentation proposal is accepted.

I'm waiting for this like the second coming—can’t wait to find out exactly how it’s all going to unfold. Will there be complimentary cocktails, cocaine, and courtesans included too?

Let's investigate :)

 

The Blender Conference 2024

 I'm heading to Amsterdam next week to participate in:

Blender Conference 2024

It is the next level to be part of the community, to get know people in person. Also, not to forget the mission to extent the VFX capabilities of Blender, in connection with developing, producing my first live action feature film featuring a CG Polar Bear as the protagonist. It is made with Blender (2D painting of the briefcase in Krita).

Universal Scene Description - Moving to the Next Level

It is reminiscent to this music:

ILS - Next Level  

So USD (Universal Scene Description) has been announced long long time ago. I wrote about it 2016. Major studios pleased to Pixar that they open-sourced their technology.

I thought during that time it could standardize pipelines some level. Because the main pipeline issue is always that how to transfer/share data from one process/software to another.

Now (4 years later) it seems the topic starting to be HOT. Software development companies like Autodesk and Side Effects Software step further to make available USD for users / companies which can't afford a big investment into pipeline development.

Side Effects Software

SideFX Solaris Reveal | SIGGRAPH 2019 from SideFX Houdini on Vimeo.

Autodesk

Universal Scene Description: Open Source at Autodesk from Autodesk Media and Entertainment on Vimeo.

The Foundry

https://www.foundry.com/insights/film-tv/implementing-usd  

Blender

https://code.blender.org/2019/07/first-steps-with-universal-scene-description/  

Scott Ross went to China (might never come back)

Everybody knows Scott Ross in the VFX industry. So it might be an old story but I found these interviews recently:

VFX Career - What professionals say about it

The Autodesk Area has an iteresting article about what VFX professionals say about their early careers and share their most important lessons.

https://area.autodesk.com/life-in-3d/want-to-land-a-job-in-vfx-take-notes-from-these-5-pros/

Blender - Animation Nodes (AN)

If you heard about Blender you might hear about Animation Nodes (AN for short). Really-really awsome add-on for procedural workflows developed by an incerdibly young guy, Jacques Lucke.

You can find everything about AN here.

And here is the annual showreel of Animation Nodes (and Blender of course). I think now Blender is on the verge of spreading all over the CG/VFX industry. This clip shows with Blender you can really do anything.

You can find my name on the list of the supporters! Finally I became famous :)

Cloud VFX/CG Studio only for you

The was the major 3D stereo hype around 2010. The recent years was about VR hype based on my experience.

But there is another sign of "revolution". I tend to call it Cloud VFX Studio. There are more and more VFX/CG solutions are available online (for rent). They offer not just the softwares or tools, but also offer their pipeline and project management stuff.

Some of these cloud stuff I've encountered during the past years:

Nimble Collective
is a cloud animation platform as you can read on their site. One of the key member of the crew is Jason Schleifer who was (is) one of the greatest Maya guy ever. He recently started to use Blender because everybody who has some kind of cleverness :) recognize Blender sooner or later.

Clara IO
is an online free! 3D creation package which is developed by the Exocortex team. I don't know and see anybody who used their tool but there are bunch of tutorials on the net.

Metapipe
One of my best collegue called my attantion to Metapipe. They offer complete VFX pipeline on the cloud. Contemporary prome video: happy music, motion-graphics, what else do you need?

Elara
is a scalable VFX pipeline using the elastic power of the cloud - as they said. I watched their webinar. I looks promising, but there is no website so it hasn't lanched yet I guess.

Fabric Engine - GPU - MPC

It is a presentation from 2015 but still shocking how revolutionary what MPC developed "hand-in-hand" with Fabric Engine.

The background story is here.

State of VFX - Life after Pi

It happened just a few years ago but still with us. Digital Domain and Rhythm & Hues Studios two of the biggest VFX studios in the world bankrupted. They still exist thanks to new investments. But the bankruptcies were the symptoms of an unsustainable business model and that is still with us. Even at Digital Apes a tiny little company in Hungary we can experience the same pressure day by day that the clients want faster and would pay less money for that work with a fix bid.

For me the ultimate question is that: can everybody have similar salary around the world for the same work? Because the global competition of the VFX industry inevitable favors the cheapest labor prices. In the age of open-source movements technology and other factors will equalize in the long term.
Subsidies the other factor of course but it is a very very bad blind practice of governments to galvanize industries. What it means basically they help to make profit for investors by the local taxpayers' money. Okay but it is another topic for another blog...

So here it is the film what I would like to share:

Naming Convention 3. - Files and Folders 2.

To continue the previous chapter the starting point is the following stucture (I removed postprod folder explained later):

201401_OBP/
    010_IN/
    020_PREPROD/
    030_PROD/

    040_OUT/

When we start to create directory structure we are about to define the pipeline as well. By doing that we define concepts and create rules. Let's think about folders as a sets. We have a lot of things in the VFX production and we analyze those to define what is what. Does the particular item fit into that set or not? For example: is the current 3D model an asset or a shot. The answer is quite clear. Is that model a preprod(uction) or prod(uction) model? Not sure. To make it clear we have to create a rule like the following: there is no preprod model because preproducion is only a step its creation process ( for eg.: version 003 is more like preprod asset but version 008 is hires production model).

So right now we have to define a couple of concepts, pre-production (preprod), production, asset and shot produciton.

Pre-production
Less managed workflows like concept art, previz, animatics, storyboard. In VFX production it is usually before the shooting so it means there are no shots. Actually if we make previz or animatics we create shots but they can't be the production shots (except for full CG shots - see below).

Production
It is important to note that in VFX Point Of View there is no post-production. The whole film making process of course has post-production process. But if we use prod and post-prod folder one of them is kind of a meaningless. I hope it is not confusing.
So in my definition production for VFX is the process on the shots created by principal photography.

Asset production
Asset is a general concept in VFX. There is the concept asset production. Basically it means we create things which can be used in multiple shots, or we produce things shot independently.
Usually we are talking about sets like: characters, sets, enviroments, props.
 

Shot production
Shot is a general noun in the film industry. In a context of VFX shot production means obviously the creation of the VFX shots for the film. It can be divided to VFX shots, full CG shots and so called post FX shots (usually simple 2D effects like translate or rotate the image).

For shot production
Pre-producion can be defined like this: if we working on shots before we get shots created by principal photography it has to be the pre-production.

So asset and shot production basically a production and should below the 030_PROD folder.

201401_OBP/
    010_IN/
    020_PREPROD/
    030_PROD/
        ASSETPROD
        SHOTPROD
    040_OUT/

But can be simpler like this (to avoid deeper folder structure):

201401_OBP/
    010_IN/
    020_PREPROD/
    030_ASSETPROD
    040_SHOTPROD
    050_OUT/

You may ask: what is the logic behind using capital letters. And the answer is: fashion. There is no reason for that. So it should look like this using camelCase:

201401_OBP/
    010_in/
    020_preProd/
    030_assetProd
    040_shotProd
    050_out/


To be continued...

Breakdown / Making Of 1.

There is a lot of breakdown and making of stuff out there. A couple of my favorites below.

Development of the animation for special creatures in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

ILM raised the standards of the breakdown clips. Check this out how it looks about the movie Battleship:

Character design on the film Rise of the Guardians:

Autodesk Vision Series 2015

I think it is time to relax and let Autodesk be our entertainer. Okay, you might think I`m biased (or paid by Autodesk which is not the case unfortunately) I spend  most of my time using Maya. Of course I`m biased. I wish I had more time to do cool stuff with other softwares like Modo, Houdini, ZBrush, Dynamo, Krita and learn more about  Blender, Substance Painter and Designer, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Photoscan, PFTrack, FinalCut, Flix, Mari, Nuke, Hiero, Katana, Arnold, Renderman, OpenColorIO, ShotGun, Tactic, fTrack, USD, OSL, MU, Python, C++, JavaScript, never ending story...

Anyway, just relax and watch these videos:

Virtual production

Rendering and the cloud

The topic is Procedural Content Creation and the software is 3DS Max. I have to admit it is a bit disappointing for me because we waiting soo long ago a system like that in Maya. Okay, there is SOuP so Autodesk bosses think we don`t need proceduralism any more because we already have it.

And last but not least: Editorial

Digital Production Pipeline

Literally the best video on youtube. I think don't have to append anything to this.

Digital Pyrotechnics at Industrial Light & Magic with Plume

I always think about how big studios deal with pyrotechnic (explosion, fire and smoke, usually). Do they use Maya fluid or FumeFx, Phoenix FD, Houdini Pyro FX, or Flowline, or something else (Blender)? And the answer is something else. Of course they probably use a lot of off-the-shelf stuff as it needed but since 2010 ILM has a proprietary solution called Plume. So there is an awesome presentation on youtube.

Naming Convention 2. - Pipeline (CG / VFX)

When we are thinking about naming convention more or less thinking about pipeline. So couple of words about pipeline.

We can separate workflow and pipeline. I could write a novel about this. Just look these words up in wikipedia. Of course we are talking about VFX or CG here so the simple conclusion is the following:

Workflow
A process like modeling, riggin, texturing, etc.

Pipeline
There is now exact wikipedia article about VFX pipeline. In general it means "chain of data processing stages". In VFX it could be workflows and their connections. We can imagine some kind of flowchart like this:

The arrows can be simple data input/out put connections or data processing as well. The boxes are the workflows as you can see above. Pipeline can refer to the arrows. Personally I prefer the concept that pipeline is the whole stuff (workflows and the arrows) as you can see above.


With computers we create, modify and store data. As simple as that. So the question is how we do that?

Workflow means (most of the time) we use softwares like Maya, Nuke, Houdini, Blender, Photoshop, etc.. They have input and output data: usually files. We have to store them in a consistent manner. Naming convention refers to that consistency.

We have to separate files from each other based on the content and store information within the filename. To organize files we use folders.
So the goal to establish an organized folder and file structure ruled by the naming convention.


Files and folders are ruled by the operating system (OS) therefore we have to accommodate these rules to the naming convention.

As I wrote before there are couple of problems with of folder and file structures in general. For example:
1. Limitation of the length of the file path.
2. One file can be only in one folder.
But this would be another topic. I'm going to write about it.

Maya Functions - Removing Plug-in Nodes

To disable or unload a plug-in in maya could be tricky. I had situations when a plug-in could not be unload even if I pushed the 'Force' button on the poping window in Plug-In Manager because nodes of a certain plug-in was in use.

It seems maya can't always (or never) delete nodes that are in use. I had situations when maya crashed when I was loading a scene file which contained unknown nodes (unknown plug-in nodes). Actually I had to find out that the reason of the crashing is that a certain plug-in was not installed on my computer. Scene with Arnold nodes can produce crash when you want to load into a maya without installed Arnold plug-in.
So there is a need to delete plug-in nodes manually...or with a python script.

The main command is:

 cmds.pluginInfo("Mayatomr", q = 1, dependNode = 1)  

With argument "Mayatomr" it will list all the Mental Ray plug-in nodes. Or "mtoa" would list all Arnold specific nodes. Of course even if the plug-in is loaded this command returns something only if there is at least one node of that plug-in in the current maya scene.

Here is a function for removing plug-in specific nodes:

 def RemovePluginNodes(PlugIn = "mtoa", Verbose = 1):  
     '''  
     DESCRIPTION  
     Remove nodes of the given plug-in.  
     INPUT ARGUMENTS  
     - string - PlugIn - Name of the plug-in. You can check the exact (maya) name of the plug-in in the Maya Plug-in Manager. 
                         For eg.: Mental Ray plugin file: Mayatomr.mll -> "Mayatomr"  
     - int - Verbose - provide extra information about the process  
     RETURN  
     None  
     '''  
     plugInNodeTypeList = cmds.pluginInfo(PlugIn, q = 1, dependNode = 1)  
     for plugInNodeType in plugInNodeTypeList :  
         existingPlugInNodeList = cmds.ls(type = plugInNodeType)  
         if existingPlugInNodeList:  
             cmds.delete(existingPlugInNodeList)  
             if Verbose:  
                 print "Deleted nodes:\t%s" % existingPlugInNodeList  

I haven't tested extensively so give it a try and let me know your experience.

Recent News - Kenau

I didn't have time to write during the last couple of mouths. It was quite tricky to manage my time. After all our project in the studio where I work was finished.
Kenau is historical film take place at the time of Dutch War of Independence. So at Digital Apes we handled around 300 VFX shots. There were different type effects we did. Mainly set extensions, cg cityscapes, matte paints, clean ups. There were shots we had to add arrows (usually storm of arrows), blood on swords and on amours, fire, smoke, etc. And there were more complex shots where we add a lot of elements like crowd, explosions, demolitions. And last but not least there was the opening full cg shot which was around 1000 frame long and we had to create a cg Great Black-backed Gull and a complete cg aerial view of the city of Haarlem at the time 16th century.
Personally I was glad to work on a movie what makes sense for me. We didn't have to make giant robots or dragons or demolish whole cities. As I wrote before I like movies where the VFX don't lead the story but support it. Kenau is like that. I can't wait to see it in theater.
I was involved just a couple of VFX heavy shots directly. But I supported the whole 3D crew with technical and pipeline stuff as well.
First of all I made the animatic for the opening shot. After we had to clarify our asset pipeline. Basically it meant we had to establish a naming convention for textures, shaders and Arnold StandIns. I wrote dozens of python functions to make it simple but it turned out the issue is more complex so I didn't have time to make a tool what every 3D guy could use. The next pipeline issue was the camera. The idea was that we should use Alembic camera so all the nuke and maya users would use the same asset for their shots.
My biggest challenge was to create the rig and the animation of the seagull. It took around two month. I can't say it could not be better but I like the result very much. I'm biased :) If I have time I will write a whole post about the seagull rig. To summarize I can write only common places: to have good animation, and anatomy references was crucial. Of course we could download a lot of pictures from the net but it was almost impossible to get a good quality footage about a Great Black-backed Gull flying as the camera followed it. The other problematic thing was the skeleton. I found a lot pictures about a bird skeleton but not seagull. We talked about in the studio we should catch a real seagull and did the research for ourselves (if you know what I mean).
Other major challenges were the demolition, explosion scenes. There were 4 large scale explosion in the movie I had to create. I create maya fluid effects and particle and nCloth simulations. I have lot of things to write about this topic so I'm going to continue it (soon)...

VFX Films - Pacific Rim

FxGuide has a great interview with Industrial Light & Magic crew members.
For me it was interesting to hear that ILM just started to use Houdini as a major tool for effects like destruction. Also huge that they switched to use Arnold as a primary render solution. I think they had a couple of TD's on board.

Jargon 1. - VFX, SFX, PFX

I find myself use VFX, SFX, PFX in a special meaning. It might be because as a VFX guy I talking a lot about VFX and things like that with other VFX guys and there are some kind of unwritten definitions. But not really sure for eg. how an SFX guy is talking about SFX.

I think VFX usually used as digital visual effects nowadays.
SFX (Special Effect) can be the effect which is not digital, usually fire, smoke, dust, sparks, etc., but basically can be anything (special).
PFX (Practical Effect) can be physically created models that can be driven, moved or something like that. Because the VFX is getting more and more popular we might forget that creating a move is basically make the illusion. And this illusion if it is not digital made physically. I found recently an amazing reel about PFX or so called Animatronics.





I made this video just for fun. I think it is a good explanation of what making the illusion means.




References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vfx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practical_effect

Let me know what do you think about these abbreviations.