Pipeline Movies

The pipeline is always with us. Even if we don't think about it, because it is different from studio to studio, it is exciting to see how they deal with it.

Old but gold (actually, Rhythm & Hues no longer exists, which is the most depressing story of all time in the industry).

Rhythm & Hues - A Framework for Global Visual Effects Production Pipelines - SIGGRAPH 2014 from Murali Anagani on Vimeo.

Since the ShotGun Software has been renamed to ShotGrid, which is a more PC name for a production tracking system :)

Tony Barbieri and Don Parker; The Shotgun Pipeline at PSYOP from Autodesk Media and Entertainment on Vimeo.

The best pipeline presentation(s) of all time (still ancient which is a bit of a sign that nowadays there are less intersting talk on that field).

Not soo long time ago there was a discussion hosted by Side Effects Software at Siggraph.

Or I'm just getting old and only have good memories from the far past—cinesite's presentation about generalizing pipeline and implementing fTrack.

Last but not least: if we are talking about the pipeline, it's unavoidable to talk about Katana. The exciting part is that people may think that Katana is a lighting & rendering tool. Actually, it is a pipeline tool because of the nature of rendering. If you want to render anything, you must create a complex system to flow the data from DCCs (digital content creation tools) to the render engine. That's where Katana comes in. So here is a brilliant presentation about Katana deployment.

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/  

Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice

As we all now (CG and VFX guys) Siggraph has an youtube channel called Siggraph University. A month ago they released a very very handsome presentation by Naty Hoffman called Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice from 2015. So here it is:

Important is that it covers "only" the BRDF model (Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function). To see the other models jump to wikipedia.
They also released a coverage of the 2016 event with the same name. It contains 7 presentation and the first hold by Naty Hoffman again who summarize the current state of the topic.

Unfortunately some of the other presentations are not available right now because of some kind of legal issues.

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.

Visions of Autodesk - Maya

Okay, you can say it is a commercial again. I'm not paid by autodesk :) Truly. This is my commitment to the profession (I hope google translator worked on this right).

Maya Lighting & Rendering

Maya Animation

Maya Visual FX