I think the situation is quite similar in other places (all over the world). Very few Houdini seats compared to other software packages.

How long have you been using Houdini?

yup, it really take all the time compare the rest.
even i render with networking render farm dell precission workstation it still drag me for some time.

i still trap by their end result
i wonder if they can upgrade the render speed?
seem everyone is complain it.

The difference is that all major facilities have a Houdini team even though its small. And if you're really good, you'll find them beating a path to your door. No such luck over here in Malaysia.

3 years or so.

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Added on August 30, 2008, 11:20 pmAll true spectral renderers or their equivalents are the same . . . for now at least.

This post has been edited by Diazepam: Aug 30 2008, 11:20 PM

want to share some of my concept work.
this is release from NDA. so it is public visual.


This post has been edited by cymon: Sep 3 2008, 02:09 AM

Whats NDA? Non disclosure agreement?

Do you do freelance? (for concept design and modelling)

This post has been edited by mysticaldodo: Sep 3 2008, 04:49 PM

yup,

i do freelance too.

Out of curiosity, under what situation or scenario would a model/asset/ artwork be released from NDA?

after certain of time due to the agreement / the owner release due to need public attention or tease /
we ( concept designer ) apply free-off art work for certain purpose & etc..

Maxwell is good if you know what you're doing, and you're very specifically low-res.

Getting over 2k = vRay win. But below that MXW seems to win because its renders don't look "synthetic"/"vRay" (yes, the illumination is near-life but not exactly)


Migrating to Houdini. One man war. Pain.

cheer up
we can always discuss over here.
like now i facing a bit of your situation, i m working on MODO.
i even brought a few books from oversea to learn about it.

having someone teach and learn alone is lot of different.

bump in to say hi~

hi to you too.

nice thread to intro all about cg

someone hav to do it.
lot of manga, sketch and illustration in lowyat.net but no cg.

so better to hav one, where all the cg mate can come in and chat about cg stuff.
actually cg & concept is very professional career in oversea.


This post has been edited by cymon: Sep 5 2008, 04:36 PM

cool cool... used to hang around the other 3d-works thread years ago... will hang around here from now

courtroom use animation

An animated video shows a woman jogging by the side of a road - until a wayward car sends her flying into the grass. In another, a motorcycle crashes into a truck parked in the bicycle lane at twilight. In a third, the pipes in an attic tilt, causing moisture to collect and creating mold that spreads spores through the house and into the inhabitants' lungs.

You won't be seeing those cheery flicks at your local multiplex, but you might in a courtroom. Legal Art Works, based in Jacksonville, produced them to help its clients win - or stave off - multimillion-dollar litigation payouts.

Animation has long served as a powerful tool in the courtroom. What better way to explain a complex series of events to a jury? The cost, however, used to be prohibitive for all but the most high-profile firms. Now cheaper, faster computing power has led to a litigation-animation boom.

According to the American Bar Association, 25% of firms with 50 to 99 attorneys used the technology in 2007, vs. 4% in 2006. More than 20 small businesses currently provide one-stop shopping for accident reconstruction, medical illustration, and animation services. Legal Art Works charges between $5,000 and $20,000 for its videos, 25% of which is pure profit. Founded in 2003 by Jeff Davis, a former medical illustrator, the company's revenues have doubled every year, hitting $500,000 in 2007.

Today's legal animations are extraordinarily sophisticated compared with their predecessors.

"A red rectangle sliding across the screen used to represent a fire truck," says Davis, 36. The latest works feature 3-D computer graphics that rival those in Shrek (if Shrek were under indictment). Typical subjects include patent-infringement cases, medical malpractice claims, and serious highway accidents.


that is serious business in oversea..

all new trailer of The Clone Wars animated series

http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/clonewars/

The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Written by Haden Blackman
Edited by Brett Rector
Foreword by Hayden Christensen
Format: Trade Paperback, 224 pages
On Sale: August 19, 2008
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 978-1-933784-25-0 (1-933784-25-3)


ABOUT THIS BOOK
The Star Wars saga continues! The Force Unleashed: Art of the Game chronicles the four-year development of the anxiously awaited, action-packed video game (releasing April 2008) developed by LucasArts from conception to completion. The book reveals innovative game design concept and images, three-dimensional renders, and behind-the-scenes photos. The Force Unleashed game casts players as Darth Vader's "Secret Apprentice" and promises to unveil new revelations about the Star Wars galaxy. The expansive story, created under direction from George Lucas, is set during the unexplored era between Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The game re-imagines the scope and scale of the Force by taking full advantage of new technologies that will be seen and experienced for the first time, such as Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) by Pixelux Entertainment and euphoria by NaturalMotion Ltd., paired with the powerful Havok Physics ™ system. These new technologies create gameplay only possible on the new generation of consiles. DMM incorporates the physical properties of objects in the environment so that every element reacts exactly as it should--wood breaks like wood, glass shatters like glass, Felucian plants bend in their unique way, and more. Meanwhile, as a revolutionary behavioral-simulation engine, euphoria enables interactive characters to move, act, and even think like actual human beings, adapting their behavior and resulting in a different response every single time. Well before its release, The Force Unleashed game is already buzzing on blogs and gamer websites, at gamer conferences, and among Star Wars fans. LucasArts is fully backing the promotion of the game to the tens of millions of Star Wars fans around the world.




original cover art.

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Added on September 6, 2008, 10:34 amnice info
thanks for sharing.

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Added on September 7, 2008, 2:46 ami3DTutorials releases “Mastering the Art of ICE Volume I: Breaking the ICE”

i3DTutorials has announced their latest training product for SOFTIMAGE|XSI, called "Mastering the Art of ICE Volume I: Breaking the ICE ". This latest offering from the growing i3DTutorials library of SOFTIMAGE|XSI training products, teaches artists how to use one of the most stunning features of SOFTIMAGE|XSI 7, the new Interactive Creative Environment, known as ICE.

Approaching ICE from an artist’s point of view, learn to harness the power of ICE step by step. Learn about the ICE Tree, the tools and features that give the artist more power than ever before with ICE’s amazing workflow. Learn to work with nodes, compounds, simulations, caching, optimization, forces, and how to take advantage of the new volume shaders in SOFTIMAGE|XSI 7, which will take your visual effects work to a completely new level.

Upon completing your training with the fundamental techniques and tools of ICE, you will be taken through the entire process of putting all your newfound knowledge to use in an actual production scene. By taking you through the entire production process and showing you how the tools you learned apply to industry work, artists will go beyond a simple “introduction” to ICE through a more profound learning structure.

“Mastering the Art of ICE Volume I: Breaking the ICE” teaches the techniques needed to take advantage of the power of ICE and opens new possibilities to artists previously available only to programmers.



This post has been edited by cymon: Sep 7 2008, 02:46 AM

Massive $208 million petascale computer gets green light
The 200,000 processor core system known as Blue Waters got the green light recently as the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and its National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) said it has finalized the contract with IBM to build the world's first sustained petascale computational system.


Others too are building toward a petaflop generation. NASA, Intel and SGI in May said they would team up to crank up the space agency's supercomputing power, making it up to 16 times more powerful than it is today. Specifically, NASA Ames, Intel and SGI will work together on a project called Pleiades to develop a system with a capacity of one Petaflops peak performance by 2009 and a system with a peak performance of 10 Petaflops by 2012.

Might I suggest that if we post up snippets of info from other sites, we should also provide a link or state where it came from?

Don't want to get into problems later for not giving credit to the original authors.