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/

Blender - AI-T - NVIDIA - 2025

I praised the lord that I could participate at the first time on the Blender conference. I was really amazed that creative community is so creative, innovative, open-minded (and unsustainable (free Coca Cola wtf?)...but it is a different topic).

If you ever wanted to understand color management, my advice is to give up :) and just follow the best practices what Jacob Holiday showed us, for eg. Really, really powerful presentation.

If somehow you are not fulfilled after this ↑, check this: the Bible (of Color Management) aka Cinematic Color. 

Also worth to mention MagnumVD. This youngster do stuff, and I mean it.

My presentation was a little bit different and it is only for online communities.

BLENDER CONFERENCE TIKKTOKK SUMMARY

But what about NVIDIA and AI-T (artificial intelligence/information technology). I think the misconception about AI is that these stuff is for Artist. Not really. Artist enjoys creating stuff. If you want to skip the process you rather want to be startup or real estate investor. But there is this mantra: "be more and more and more efficient" but those are rather technical topics than artistic.

To contradict myself being an artist means we have craft (aka technical) skills to use tools like paint and brushes for painting. We get skills of using Blender and so on. So these are also technical topics. Since we use software (at least computer artists) that written in programming language leveraging scientific knowledge and research it really essential to at least have a grasp about the technology and science behind the tools what we are using as an artist. As the great painters hundreds of years ago, they were the masters of utilizing the chemistry of the paints and the canvas fabric and so on.

So that's where can be a major shift, or will emerge a new generation of artist who mastering the AI trainings to train the best models to create images, visuals, videos, sound, substance what cannot be done before. 

I really feel there is an interesting position of NVIDIA in that process of advancing AI technologies. Because they belong with us. NVIDIA has significantly advanced computer graphics over the past decades, and they recognize the enormous business potential in this AI field (just look at their stock market performance). However, this rapid development also challenges the value and role of being an artist in today's world.

Francesco Siddi also touched this topic on BCON however it is not really a thing.

Here we go 2025 (not to forget the energy crisis crashes the climate...turn off your computer and give up crypto-mining)

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).

Facial enchancement in Blender

 I've just run into this article in Blenderstation. Pretty awsome.

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/  

Open Source Tools - Photogrammetry with MeshRoom

I had recently an encounter with Meshroom.
https://alicevision.github.io/#meshroom
It is a free and open source software for photogrammetry. So I did not hesitate to try it out.

I took 89 photos with a Canon 750D full resloution: 6000x4000 pixel. Something like this:

Meshroom is ideal for beginners, because we don't have to adjust anything. Just hit start and wait patiently. I'm not sure how much time it took but I guess arond 4-5 hours.
So the result around 5 million poligons and 7 4K texture map. I imported the geometry (.obj file) to maya. It seems like this:

Heading toward a standard VFX pipeline - MaterialX

So as I discussed earlier open-source solutions in the VFX/CGI industry have huge impact. We can think of the OpenEXR or the Alembic formats for example.

Pixar's USD was a new level of the open sourced technologies beacause basically we can adopt a high profile pipeline solution originally developed one of the biggest 3D animation studio of the Globe.

MaterialX could be another milestone of the VFX/CGI industry however it is not clear for me how it will evolve. Quote from their description:
"MaterialX provides a schema for describing material networks, shader parameters, texture and material assignments, and color-space associations in a precise, application-independent, and customizable way."

If we look at USD in production viewpoint it is rather a tool for the 3D layout (whatever it means) and of course it is in connection with modelling, animation, fx. So it basically deals with geometries (maybe volumes as well) in a software agnostic way.

But MaterialX propesed to be a standard for look-development data transfer. So it should mean 2D (like textures) and 3D (materials/shaders) type of data in render engine agnostic way. If we think about in a long term it could means every rendering soultion would understand MaterialX data...we will see.

MaterialX was used on the feature film Star Wars Rogue one for example.

Pixar's Universal Scene Description (USD) - Generalization of Pipelines

It is time to write about it because it seems we can have it soon. Pixar Animation Studio announced its intent to release its Universal Scene Description software (USD) as an open-source project by summer 2016.

So what is USD and what we can except if it will be used by VFX/CG studios all over the world. My opinion is that there is shift in the industry which leads to the generalization of pipelines and open-source technologies have key role in it.

Commonplace is that: every pipeline is different. It might be true but the end of the day studios, managers, supervisors, artists are facing the same or very similar issues day by day. There is the need to be more efficient and the CG/VFX pipeline is more and more in focus. But there are no off-the-shelf products so every studio has to develop in-house technologies and tools to manage their work. Usually the main driving forces of the development are the projects which are generates a lot of practices (how to name things for eg.). Ideally these practises are evaluated after and before the projects and could be implemented into the pipeline. So the pipeline evolves but this evolutions is rather some thing like agile software development which is works fine for a short term. In long term the pipeline development is based on the legacy of previous works and that is why every pipeline can be different.

But we can get to the point where the pipeline won't let us to be more efficient because of the legacy. For example it won't let us (or it would be too expensive) to implement new technologies, solve bottlenecks. And that is the time when the pipeline should be re-evaluated as a whole. The process is the generalization of the problems we face day by day. On a long term (might be decades) it has to result that studio pipelines are getting more and more similar. Of course there are new technologies, hardwares and the softwares which can distract the generalization process. That is why I think open-source technologies have key role in that, because the CG/VFX community can work together on the so called "best practise".

Universal Scene Description is a promise to generalize the way we build up 3D scenes and share between different (most likely 3D) softwares like Maya, Houdini, Katana, etc. They are on their way: as the FAQ says linux version can be downloaded and windows implementation is coming soon. Extended documentation and tutorials are also there.

Gooseberry Project aka Cosmos Laundromat - First Cycle

The Blender Foundation released the first part of their open movie project called Gooseberry Project. The film title is Cosmos Laundromat. I think it is giant leap.

We can find tons of materials about this project on youtube and on the site. Via Blender Cloud we can also have access to all the source materials (blender files, textures, etc.) of the film.

A couple of videos I found usefull:

Animation progress

Victor's rig

Intresting mix of asset creation process

 

Digital Production Pipeline

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

Autodesk acquired Shotgun

Okay, it is not recenty news but for me it is because I do an extensive research on asset and project managment topic.
I found this a couple of month ago: Redcurrant. It is in connection with the Goosbery Project as I wrote before. As the open source community push forward the industry (not just CGI and VFX) it could be a viable idea to create an open source asset and project management solution. But as we know it is a tough-tough topic.
So what I expect from that acquisition? Is it all about the big fish eats the small one? Maybe. Because Autodesk provides lots of tools for VFX an CGI (but certainly not all of them) I think there is a need to establish a clear terminology for the industry. There is a global need of generalization I think. Example for that is OpenExr and Alembic.
What do I mean generalization?
There are lot of things which are the same for eg. in Maya, Houdini, etc. and whole the industry use these  concepts. Polygon, shader, render, etc. for example.
But lot of concepts are conceived at different vfx companies, universities and software developers, etc. which I think should be the same. Asset is a typical example for that. Is it a file? Or is it a set of file versions? Or it is a lot of small components which build a 3d character?
Another example is a status of a task. Task is a complex thing itself. About it statuses: there are ready to start, WIP, hold, pending, approved, completed, on feedback, daily, commented, reviewed, has revision, omitted, etc. In this list reviewed, has revision, commented basically the same. Certainly should be an exact definition for for statuses and certainly should be a clear picture how many status necessary for the project management.

There should be a standard definition for a lot of concept in connection with VFX-CGI.
I think a major player on the asset and project management field or an open source movement can affect the generalization of the industry. It might be Shotgun.

About Shotgun you can read here.
About the acquisition you can read here and here.

Open Source

I wrote about open source a bit during the past few month but that was the first time when I looked up in wikipedia. There is that nice little stop motion movie I like to share here. I think it is great :)

Blender For Feature Animation Film

Recently I have been thinking about Blender. Because I never used it I considering things as a professional who might want to learn and / or switch to Blender.
I think to get a job as a professional Blender user is not an option currently especially in my home country Hungary.
I have a lot of personal projects which involves CGI and VFX as well and I definitely don't want to spend money to buying softwares for those. So this motivation is pushing me toward open source softwares like Blender.
To compare 3D softwares and discuss about differences between them is a never ending story. I think it is a very complex thing to claim which software is better then the others (if it is possible).
I started to collect information about Blender and watched films like Big Buck Bunny and Tears Of Steel. For me these shorts prove that Blender can produce decent quality full CGI and VFX. I can't say those are cutting edge like VFX that ILM or other major facilities can do. But it is not just about the softwares they use.
Because I'm involved preproduction of a feature animation I raised the question (for myself): Can Blender be a choice for full CGI feature animation? I know there are current project around the world. At the Blender Conference 2013 "father of Blender" Ton Roosendaal mentioned few of them.
Worth to mention Blender community is now working on an open (online) feature animation project: Project Gooseberry