When character TD Iker J de los Mozos saw some videos showing touch-based iPad interfaces for mixing music, he quickly saw the potential for a similar setup to help in his own work.

The demo system he’s created relies on 3ds Max’s ability to accept controller signals via the MIDI interface, widely used by musicians to connect synthesisers to PCs.

De los Mozos used hexler.net’s TouchOSC as the controller on his iPad, using its customisable interface to lay out a face rigging system. He told us more about the process when we interviewed him.

3D World: What’s your job role and company at the moment?

Iker J de los Mozos: At the moment I’m working as a freelancer back in Spain, after having worked in UK for one and a half years in commercials (Nexus Productions, The Mill) as Character TD. Most of my time is focused on teaching ‘rigging’ at Animum3D, under their LiveOnLine courses which allows me to follow the work of my students remotely. I’m planning to go back to animated features soon and my eyes are looking at the United States, so I hope in some months I will be able to cross the ocean to work there.

3D World: Can you briefly describe how this rigging system works? I know TouchOSC is a MIDI communication app: what does the iPad running connect to? Is there a MIDI interface on your PC, and how does the information get through to 3ds Max?

IJDLM: The system itself is pretty basic. I came up with it after stumbling on some videos that showed these kind of interfaces to drive software for mixing music and controlling synthesizers. For setting the whole thing up on a PC I had to use a couple of additional tools to be able to get the MIDI signal from the iPad.

MIDI signals are sent from the iPad using TouchOSC, an app which is running the interface. TouchOSC Editor was used to design and build both the interface and the behaviour of each control (MIDI Channel, signals, etc.). A small program called rtpMIDI, written by Tobias Erichsen, was the key for my computer to get those MIDI signals through my local wireless network. I also needed to use loopMIDI, written by Tobias too, in order for 3DSMAX to read the MIDI data. However, after trying recently I realised that this program was only necessary because I had a MIDI piano attached to my computer at that time, so it is not strictly necessary. I have a very rough knowledge about how MIDI works, but knowing what I wanted to achieve led me to try every single combination I could find until luckily everything seemed to work.

3DSMAX has a built-in animation controller that allows the user to hook MIDI devices, keyboards or mouse. So the final step is to tie the joystick and the sliders that drive the facial shapes with this controller. And then the magic happens!

After I released the video where I demo this system, I found that I could use OSC messages and PureData, which is a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video and graphical process, to get more advanced behaviours on the iPad sliders. For example, to create a button that resets the value of one single slider or the whole rack, which is essential to an animator, or for loading predefined facial expressions for a character. I also started to try to send MIDI data to Maya and Softimage, but that needed a bit more time since I needed to write some additional Python code. So I decided to put the project on hold for a while.

3D World: Once you got it to work, how did you like using it? Did you find it easier to set subtle expressions?

IJDLM: I love puppetry. It’s not just the person bringing life to a character but that human-object interaction. Take that concept, throw some technology at it and you have the possibility to drive in real-time digital assets with something that you can touch with your fingers. When I built the interface I thought more about this kind of interaction rather than a traditional way of animating a character. This could be an animatronic but without having to deal with cables, servos and screws (which I believe is fun but I have null skills on it).

3D World: Has this been used in production, or does it remain a proof of concept? Are you looking to develop the idea so that it could be used in production?

IJDLM: I never had the opportunity to try this in production, mainly because it might need some development time and I’m not sure it would be that useful for an animator. I always thought of this as a toy. I like to take ideas from here and there (always giving credit to the original authors!) and try to combine them to make something new. Some of these ideas or tools have been used in production (fRigBuilder, MorphConnector, …), but most of them stay as small sketches that I use to keep learning.

You can find out more information by following Iker’s blog.

The GDC demo of Project Skyline shows the game trace view, where individual animation clips can be seen on the timeline

Without a vision, the people perish. It’s a situation that can even affect digital media creation software companies like Autodesk; or perhaps that should be, especially affect companies like Autodesk.

As a giant of the industry, the company has been acquiring major rivals such as Alias and Softimage over the last few years, resulting in a more tempered product management approach to the major 3D applications.

But the big fish of the pond is running out of water to swim in. Where does Autodesk’s vision lie?

Game development tools

The market for game development tools is huge, and while many developers provide game engines, physics, networking and artificial intelligence, Autodesk, has almost no experience in real-time technology.

This is one reason why Autodesk has been buying up middleware companies such as Kynogon and Scaleform. (See The Scaleform Factor)

With the character running in the game window, a new animation is added to the Project Skyline blend tree

Yet Autodesk is bridging the gap between content creation and runtime engines that is the main prize, offering massive potential both in terms of productivity gains for game makers as well as commercially for the tools supplier. Ah. Now there’s a vision.

In this context, it’s significant that Mathieu Mazerolle, the project manager of Autodesk’s Project Skyline initiative, has come to the company, following stints at game publisher Ubisoft and special effects house Digital Domain.

Just as Skyline, which was first publicly shown in an animation demo at the Game Developer Conference, is an attempt to bridge that gap, so his career has been spent working across it.

“Based on my experience working on Assassin’s Creed, the artist makes these lovely character animation clips, which need to be assembled into blend trees and combined with physics and IK,” says Mazerolle, explaining
how animation works in the traditional game development process.

The finger of blame “By the time the programmer has stitched everything together and the artist gets a chance to see the integration in the game engine…” He pauses. “This is where we start what I call ‘pointing the finger of blame’.”

Not only can this phenomenon be detrimental to team morale, it’s also a key obstacle to the final quality – not to mention production efficiency – and hence a drain in terms of overall cost and timeframe.

“The challenge is providing transparency in terms of how different elements work together,” Mazerolle says.

“The artist doesn’t have visibility of how the programmer is

ing his animations, and the programmer doesn’t have visibility of the artistic intention.

With Skyline, we want to bridge this situation so the artist can see changes instantaneously, but also to create feedback that enables the game engine to talk back to our tools.

Demonstrating the power of real-time interaction, this screen shows the ability to modify a source animation in the left-hand window while the game is live; the results immediately show in the right-hand window

Being able to see what’s going on within the runtime environment, the interaction with elements such as game logic and AI that the content creation tool doesn’t create, is the key innovation for Skyline. It’s a really powerful type of workflow.”

As with many technological innovations, it’s this point of intersection and interaction between two previously separate areas that could change everything; and a sweet spot Autodesk feels it’s uniquely placed to solve.

While the GDC demo only dealt with animation, Project Skyline’s ultimate goal is to handle all elements of the development process.

“This is an issue that people in the games industry are familiar with on a day-to-day level, but they don’t have a lot of time to solve it,” Mazerolle suggests.

“But it is logical for Autodesk. If we were lazy, we would go on making tools for artists and not worry about the programmers and level designers, but the reality is we care about game development as a holistic process, and one that involves people who don’t [only] create polygons.”

The underlying framework to Skyline is a node-based visual programming environment, codename Amino.

It’s influenced by Softimage’s ICE (Interactive Creative Environment) technology, although that influence is described as being more of a brain trust than actual code.

“We were able to retain a lot of the workflow and user interface, and recoup a lot of work at the conceptual level, which is why we’re been able to move really quickly on this project,” Mazerolle says of ICE.

“The lessons you learn building a system such as ICE are lessons you learn about how people work with visual programming in general.”

That Vision thing

Project Skyline hopes to replace the iterative asset creation process with a closed loop system

It was a similar situation in terms of choosing a game engine to integrate into. Autodesk could have built its own, which would have been easier in terms of creating dedicated hooks, but instead it took German provider Trinigy’s cross-platform Vision engine.

The point to prove was that the technology would work with any off-the-shelf engine. “It was a harder road,” says Mazerolle. “We used Vision as a black box solution, without any modifications, which wasn’t always easy.

“But the reason we held ourselves to that decision was to test our approach. Over 80 per cent of our customers use custom-built engines, so you have to ensure you provide the right pieces, and that you don’t have too many wires sticking out.”

Running Skyline in Maya was another pragmatic choice to get up and running quickly. “We needed a UI, viewports and tools that we were familiar with. Maya is the most open platform. It’s not an anti-Max thing,” he says.

Yet for all the excitement following the GDC unveiling, Mazerolle is keen to point out that Project Skyline is in its earliest stages.

“The level of excitement took me by surprise, and when people get excited, the first thing they want to know is ‘When can I have it?’.”

“We’re not at that stage yet,” he admits. “We want to make sure we’re doing the right thing first. Our product development process is very deliberate. We take it in small stages and make it transparent, and get people to kick the tyres, but we’re currently at step one.”

Indeed, Mazerolle expects plenty of changes, perhaps even fundamental ones, before Project Skyline loses its prototype status and, presumably, its codename.

“You shouldn’t have any sacred cows when you’re trying to build a good architecture,” Mazerolle says. “The ultimate test is always the customer.

“No matter how well you build the foundations – and we’ve built strong foundations – I think once this gets into the hands of users, we’re bound to change our assumptions. We’re prepared for that.”

The road ahead

Still, at this stage of the process, it’s not the technology that’s the important thing: it’s that vision thing.

“Part of showing Skyline was to fire people’s imagination,” Mazerolle enthuses. “That’s what’s really exciting for me.

“Speculation about where it will be going after animation is good in terms of our next step, although it might be years off. It’s good to stir the beehive sometimes, and scaling to deal with bigger problems is where Skyline becomes more than a little project.

“If we’re on the right track, it’s something Autodesk can have faith in.”

A run down of Autodesk’s Scaleform acquisition is provided on the next page

01 Do it for free

Nick Kaloterakis, Kollected: “Volunteering in a studio or acquiring some work experience while studying will expose you to people in the industry and shed some light on the reality of working in 3D.

“Beginning your career in a studio lets you experience so many facets of the industry and develop the skills you may need in the future.”

02 Price yourself correctly

Freelancers should consider joining the Association of Illustrators (in the UK) or the Graphic Artists Guild (in the USA).

Adam Benton, Kromekat Digital Media Design: “You’ll get accurate market rates for similar commissions. Don’t be tempted to take less for a commission just to get published. It’ll cost you in the long run.”

03 Get to know your potential employer

Keith Jeffery, Taylor James: “If you’re interested in joining a studio, look at their work and style, and then customise your reel and CV to show off your best and most relevant work.

“If you don’t have examples that are suited to the area the studio works in, it’s difficult to see how you’ll fit. And be honest about the skills you do have and those you want to improve.”

04 Learn the basics

More than any other 3D field, digital illustration requires strong traditional skills.

Chris Morris, CGI director at Giannini Creative Imaging: “Whenever I hire a new intern, I always ask to see their non-computer artwork. I want to see who they are as a creative person first.

“Learn the new technology but don’t tie yourself to it. Software and hardware will change, but a strong base of artistic skills will last a lifetime.”

05 Get ahead with advertising

Given that advertising is a key market for digital illustration, it’s surprising how many artists forget that they need to promote themselves properly. Good networking and use of the web are key.

Andrew Kerr, Dotnamestudios: “Sign up with all the ifreelance-type sites and start posting your work. Try to think where you’d look if you needed an artist, and then promote yourself accordingly.”

06 Invest in hardware

The size and relative complexity of digital illustrations can make them surprisingly processor intensive, so don’t be tempted to skimp on kit.

Adam Benton: “Get the most powerful hardware you can afford. When you do finally upgrade, keep the old machine as a render node or a fallback machine. And don’t forget about additional hard disks for regular backups!”

These expert tips first appeared as a longer article on digital illustration in 3D World issue 140. Click the link to find where you can buy the mag to learn more about the world of digital illustration, and how to get started.

Click the thumbnail to find out more and to buy issue 140 of 3D World magazine

Autodesk's Media & Entertainment HQ in Montreal, Quebec

Towards the end of February, 3D World paid a visit to the Autodesk Media & Entertainment headquarters in Montreal.

To start the visit, Autodesk’s Marc Petit gave a presentation that covered some of the events of the past year – which, he said, had been relatively hard on the games industry, but incredibly positive for animation.

Petit spoke of the demand for quality outpacing budgets – something that was built on during a presentation of the 2012 digital entertainment creation range later in the day. The new product line that was being announced had a clear focus on interoperability between software.

But the current demand-over-budget issue is a problem that has hit the games industry hard. EA and THQ are in the red, while Activision has engaged in deep restructuring and cancelled waning franchises such as Guitar Hero.

At the moment, these aren’t huge concerns for Autodesk. It’s worked to create a range of products that work alongside each other to be able to produce the content demanded, for less.

But if the animation and VFX industry continue to outsell games, could the complexity of game development leave the industry behind?

Those at Autodesk don’t think so. At GDC this week, the company has been showcasing a future technology known as ‘Project Skyline’.

Project Skyline

Project Skyline technology’s game trace view, showing which animations are being combined as the game is played

“Our vision is of a Maya-centric game authoring environment,” says Petit. “To create a game, you have a runtime component, but each comes with an editor. At the moment, each editor is different. So through Skyline, Maya will be able to speak the language of the game.

“It allows Maya to become an editing tool for many things: UI editing, pre-processing light maps, etc.”

Project Skyline is in direct response to the increasing complexity in game projects, but Autodesk plans to reuse technology by pairing Maya and Project Skyline.

When 3D World was given a run-through of the technology, we were told that Autodesk acknowledges a lot of extra cost comes from gluing parts of the pipeline together. The problem with traditional game workflow, the theory goes, is that there’s no connection between authored data and runtime data. By creating a live timeline in which you can go back and see what went wrong and what led to it, animators will be empowered. They will be able to isolate the issue, double-click to open the rig, assets and everything in Maya so it can be fixed.

“The cost of training should go down if it’s in Maya,” says Petit. “It doesn’t take anything from runtime, and it helps the editing part and bridges game authoring with content creation”.

What about 3ds Max?

More Project Skyline. Here, a source animation is being modified as the game is running. Modifications to the source animation are picked up immediately by the running game engine

Despite some great updates announced for 3ds Max 2012, it was Maya and Softimage that stole the show during presentations from the Autodesk team.

However, Petit considers Max a solid part of the family. “Max is an amazing product: it’s the Swiss Army knife of content creation. It’s a very good business for us, and it’ll keep playing a key role in games. You can also use Project Skyline and Max to deal with content.”

Petit considers 3ds Max the key suite for content creation, and it can be used for the new projects, however, it’s the pairing of Maya and Softimage technology that is causing the most excitement in game authoring.

“We’re expanding the Maya pipeline with Softimage technology,” he says. “It’s the Softimage team that are working on Project Skyline. We chose Maya because it’s the most flexible, but you can have a Max pipeline and use Skyline.”

Autodesk and mobile gaming

However, Project Skyline is only a part of Autodesk’s future in software for games. The day before 3D World arrived at the Autodesk offices, the company had announced its intention to acquire the middleware provider Scaleform.

Petit noted that Autodesk wants to take the tools of Scaleform, largely used for 2D work, and help it move forward into 3D. He also mentioned a greater opportunity: “Scaleform allows Autodesk ready-made tools to break into the mobile market.”

Petit went on to explain more about Scaleform’s current position: “What’s interesting is that some people use it as a way to do 2D UI component display in games, and some others use it to make mini games or Android games. So right now it’s a 2D engine; the authoring tool is Flash. The evolution is to scale it into 3D and hook it up not to Flash, but to something like Maya.”

So how will Autodesk help Scaleform technology fit alongside current tools? “You can make the connection with Maya,” says Petit. “The visual programming paradigm you’ve seen is something we want to expand. It needs sophisticated animation capabilities. What good games need is rigging. Trying to do rigging in Flash won’t have all the capabilities you need. It makes sense for the runtime of Scaleform to hook up with the animation of Maya.”

Autodesk has recently completed the acquisition of Scaleform, so it’s likely that it will be a while before any software integration.

As for Skyline, timing is even more uncertain. It is staying in the project phase for the time being, but its possibilities are huge. Autodesk is currently receiving feedback on the project, which it hopes will help it evolve, ready for release.

This contest entry boosted 3D artist Maximilian-Gordon Vogt’s CV. “The exposure I got helped me a lot: companies started noticing me”

The student ethos of getting up late, cutting classes and hoping that a last-minute burst of cramming will see you through your exams is so ingrained that it’s easy to forget that Advanced Beer Drinking is not a compulsory module in most degrees.

The worse news is that it simply won’t cut it in 3D.

“Degree-level education is good, but we’re looking for potential. There are so many decent courses out there, it doesn’t determine who we hire,” says Ben Owen, crew manager at Framestore.

In other words, simply graduating isn’t enough to guarantee a job – you have to go that extra mile.

But the good news is that the resources you need to take control of your education are available to anyone with an internet connection.

In this article, recruiters, educators and successful recent graduates reveal the ten things every student should do to maximise their chances of employment.

It will take hard work, but becoming a rounded artist is also about making contacts – and networking starts with your peer group.

Perhaps there is time for a quick drink after all…

Read on to page 2 for your first step to getting that killer job in 3D…

There was a time when just working on an animated film of your own could make you a media darling, renowned as some sort of garage Pixar. But these days, everybody and his dog is making and posting films online. Your work has to compete for exposure with a stupendous number of films.

Simply releasing your prized production without a promotion plan would be like throwing a stone onto a pebble beach. So how can you make your brand-new film stand out – and earn you the new job, scholarship or award you want?

Read on for our 25 tips for selling an animated short…

How high are you aiming? Chris Landreth won an Academy Award in 2004 for his short animated documentary Ryan

01 KNOW WHAT YOU WANT

Know what you are promoting and what you hope to get out of it. Are you trying to get a job? Are you promoting your studio? Your approach will be different if you are trying to win an Oscar or a Bafta than if you’re just getting your reel out there.
COST Free
TIME TAKEN: None, if you’re sure you know what you want

02 CREATE A PROFESSIONAL-LOOKING DEVELOPMENT WEBSITE

Get your own URL. After all, www.myshortfilm.com looks more professional and is easier to remember than www.userweb.myhost.com/~Ogden335/myshortfilm, isn’t it? Don’t treat your website as an afterthought. It’s your first ambassador: visitors will judge your film based on the look, feel and professionalism of your website. Update it frequently.
COST: Domains cost less than $10 per year. Hosting plans vary.
TIME TAKEN: Two weeks

03 MAKE YOUR SITE EASY TO USE

Include a well-written, one-paragraph film synopsis, low and high-resolution images, easy-to-find contact info and a one or two-paragraph bio on the key people involved. Also find a space for any news that raises your profile. For example, have you won an award? Done anything for charity or been on TV? Let people know about it. Finally, and most importantly, make the film or trailer easy to find. That’s what most people are there to see.
COST: Free
TIME TAKEN: A couple of hours

The pitching process is a vital step in the production process for animators and artists in every key sectors of the 3D industry.

Pitching a project is also something that is often misunderstood, mishandled or underappreciated by the creatives, directors and producers whose very success depends on it.

#1: Understand who you are pitching to

James Estill from talent development and mentoring agency Not From Concentrate: “My experience in the world of pitching has been very varied, and sometimes downright amusing to be honest.”

“People often have great ideas but no understanding of the science of pitching. The key is to understand who you’re pitching to. If you’re pitching to a broadcaster, for example, then you need to know their audience and to consider whether your pitch will actually work within their production slate and schedule.”

While there are do’s and don’ts common to all types of project pitching, the role of the pitching process does vary from one 3D sector to another, and sometimes even from project to project.

#2: Pay attention to the brief

In the commercials field it tends to require a quick, dirty and highly collaborative approach, where pitching follows in response to an initial callout via a Request For Proposal (RFP) from an ad agency.

The agency fields pitches from several studios before awarding the contract to one.

Michael Adamo, executive producer, Passion Pictures: “The agency will usually have been working with a client for several months and already sold them an idea that they now need to develop creatively.”

“Every job is different: they might have a script, some basic concepts, or ideas for key characters. So our first step will be to have a creative chat with the agency.”

Adamo says the simplest yet most often ignored tricks to making a successful ad pitch is simply to listen to what the agency creatives have to say.

“When you’re handed the initial brief from an agency the answers are usually all in there, so the more you pay attention to what is being communicated the better informed your pitch will be.”

#3: Pitching your style, approach, and people

It’s a similar story in architectural visualisation, where greater competition means design and construction firms are increasingly using the pitching process to award visualisation work.

Rob MacLeod, president of Neoscape: “Where long-standing relationships exist then it’s not so important, but otherwise clients are increasingly using the pitch process to look for new ideas that will wow them prior to giving out a job.”

“And for more complex projects, especially those that feature a story of some sort, pitching becomes critical. In many ways it’s not dissimilar to the way architectural firms take on competition assignments.”

As with ads, pitches are created in response to an architectural client’s RFP, but in this field the focus is less on finding a way to develop and implement the client’s concept and more on finding the best way to present an architectural ‘product’.

“When we go into a pitch it’s about more than delivering an asset,” says MacLeod.

“We’re pitching our style, our approach, and our people – a complete holistic solution. Clients will often a predetermined notion of how best to tell their story or sell their project, which isn’t always the ideal solution, so part of a pitch might involve demonstrating better options for presentation and interaction, sensitively informing clients in a way that doesn’t make them feel ignorant.”

#4: Evaluate the reward to risk ratio

By their very nature, pitches involving video games, short films, long form animation, or series for broadcast, are a different beast.

Here, the pitching is generally the first step in the selling process, an opportunity to generated excitement and interested about a project with a potential investor or production company.

Rather than responding to a brief, pitching here tends to be a once-only opportunity to make a positive first impression.

Given that pitches are generally produced without any payment, one key issue is relating time and manpower in the pitch to that of the potential project.

Simon Cornish, owner, Itchy Pictures: “I think you have to evaluate the reward to risk ratio.”

“If you’re pitching for a project worth a good few thousand then it’s probably worth spending at least a week putting the pitch together.

“If you think you only have an outside chance of winning then it might at least be worth spending a day on something. The resulting pitch might look sketchy, but the people you’re pitching to might just love the idea regardless.”

#5: Be less complex: shorter is better

Perhaps the trickiest judgement call of all is deciding exactly what materials to include in a pitch. It can be difficult for those intimately involved with a project to know exactly what information to include, what to leave out, and how best to summarise a project in a way that will generate excitement and commercial interest.

Shelley Page, European representative for DreamWorks suggests focusing on character designs and perhaps a few rough environment sketches to give a sense of place, together with a brief synopsis, and a more detailed treatment for longer form projects: “The presentations that always make the least impact with me are those with very complex story outlines, especially those that focus on the universe rather than the protagonists.”

“A movie pitch that begins ‘It’s about a guy…’ are the ones that grab your attention, yet you’d be amazed how many people put emphasis on the environment art design rather than character work. If the characters are strong then good environments can follow later.”

Blur Studio co-founder Tim Miller says pitches should be more about ‘show’ than ‘tell’: “Concept art and sample images go a long way to selling a story. One of the biggest mistakes people tend to make, especially if they don’t generally do a lot of writing, is to over-explain everything.

“Shorter is almost always better. It reduces any chance of boredom and lets people fill in the gaps with their imagination. It’s worth noting that all the winning pitches submitted for our own shorts featured simple outlines rather than scripts.”

#6: For an existing concept, show the client your work on other, similar projects

When it comes to selecting materials for a pitch created in response to a client’s concept, as with architectural visualisation and ad work, the Request For Proposal will often outline what’s required, as too will the nature of the project.

Rob MacLeod: “Sometimes we’ll have thumbnail ideas, occasionally we’ll do some rendering or include renderings from other projects that are similar to the project,”

“We’re usually dealing with the higher level concepts, rather than working to a shot list. With visualisation work, the initial aim is to let the client know we understand their needs, so it’s often more of a conversation rather than creating a straightforward presentation.”

Heather Wright, head of commercials, Aardman: “What we provide for a pitch varies hugely according to the size of the job, who the client is, and creatively what we need to communicate.”

“We will almost always do character sketches and very often a finished up Photoshop visual showing the world. We have been known to do animation tests or produce 3D sculpts, if there’s time.”

#7: Believe in your idea

When it comes to deciding whether to focus on just one treatment or to pitch several ideas, there are no hard and fast rules. Michael Adamo at Passion says they’ll sometimes have several directors develop alternative takes from the client’s initial brief.

Adam Jenns, managing director, Mainframe, believes that it’s best to put all efforts into developing one idea, or two at the most: “Presenting three or four routes might give you better odds, but doesn’t say much about your belief in the ideas.”

#8: When pitching rendered material…

For animation: While some studios tend to include some element of rendered material in their pitches, there are a surprising number of people who believe it’s not only unnecessary, but sometimes inadvisable.

Michael Adamo: “With animation there’s generally an expectation of a style frame that shows, as much as possible, what the eventual job will look like.”

“That’s obviously difficult to achieve in the time with any level of photorealism or complexity, so often we’ll use matte painting rather than creating full CG images.”

Tim Miller: “Doing full 3D renders is such a big hairy deal that to do it to a level that impresses would take 15-20 days, a modeller and a rigger, and then you’d still need an environment.”

“Sometimes potential clients do ask to see that kind of pitch material, but I kind of look on it with disdain. They can look at our showreel and see how that quality of finish will translate.”

For videogames: Pitching these mean conveying playability as well as artistic look and feel. The ‘less is more approach’ favoured elsewhere isn’t quite so applicable here.

Phil Gaskell, senior producer of external development, Sony Computer Entertainment Liverpool Studios: “Typically we would ask for as many visual materials as the developer can supply in order to get a feel for the game they want to make, including screenshots mocked up to look like final game, or even rendered movies.”

“Of course the ultimate is a playable demo that proves the game is fun and achievable, but all these things cost money and not all developers can afford to invest in their ideas to such a stage.

“This is why we ask developers to include financial breakdowns in their pitches that cover not just the cost to make the final game, and when they think they can have it ready, but also costs and timescales to create a prototype or vertical slice demo. If we really like an idea then that’s always the next stage for us.”

For commercials: Adam Jenns says commercials also often require both a schedule and budget during the initial round of pitching. “If not then a schedule is done at the start of the job with key sign off and delivery dates.”

“If you’ve drafted a budget citing a certain amount of 3D artists you’ll need to have all the people you promised actually working on the project or face the wrath of the agency producer.”

#9: Pitch your key players

By stressing the achievements of key players, confidence from publishers or investors can be massively increased, and fears about inability to deliver on what is actually being pitched assuaged.

“If you plan to make a beat-em-up better than Street Fighter, you better be able to explain what your company or team members have done in the past that will make the publisher confident you can pull it off,” says Phil Gaskell.

#10: Keep a paper trail

While the whole point of a pitch is to communicate a fresh and original concept, one understandable concern at the pitching stage is that commercially sensitive material is being shown before any kind of contract has been signed.

Remember that, while ideas aren’t copyrightable, images and materials that document the development are.

By keeping a record of the people you speak to and retaining a paper or email trail of communication, there is at least some backup to show in a court of law if absolutely necessary.

Bonus tips:

Shelley Page: “Pitching from a script is a definite no-no. It has to be all in the head, so that the enthusiasm and knowledge comes across without prompting. Ultimately, whatever it is you’re pitching, the real trick is to be in love with the idea yourself. It’s that passion for your project that will sell it every time.”

Case study: Animate Projects – co-director Gary Thomas explains the pitching process used by the artist commissioning scheme

What is the The Wow Factor about and what does it cover?

The Wow Factor is an in depth guide to the node editor – based around a series of tutorials that cover its various features. It covers several ‘pro-effects’ that take your renders from flat boring renders to engaging insightful images.

Why did you write a book about the node editor, rather than on the basics of Blender first?

I figured beginners are less likely to want to buy a training series or e-book because they chose Blender as it’s a free alternative to all the other software out there.

Also, a lot of my user base is fairly advanced, so I started with The Wow Factor because I knew that the node editor confused a load of people out there.

Will we be seeing any changes to the BlenderGuru website now that Blender 2.5 has been released?

I’m thinking of doing a complete redesign of the site; at the moment it’s based on a pre-made WordPress theme.

I’ll be customising it a bit more, possibly implementing a forum and things like that.

Another Blender forum – aren’t there enough already?

I’ve been avoiding it! I’ve never been a fan of forums dedicated to someone’s blog, but people keep asking for it, so yeah.

Do you know Video Copilot (tutorial and product website for VFX artists)? They have a forum and it’s pretty active so I thought, it can’t be so bad if they have one.

What’s next for BlenderGuru?

I’d like to take on other tutors – I’ve posted a call for guest tutors on the site. I’m also currently working on a nature series as a follow up to The Wow Factor.

It’s a follow on from a weather series I did last month, but a lot more involved. It’s going to cover everything to do with nature.

I’m currently going around my neighbourhood collecting textures of leaves and things like that.

I’m also going to make a short film out of everything in the nature series to show what can be done with it.

Can we expect another eBook soon?

I don’t think I want to do another eBook. I’ll keep up with the people on the mailing list and do the odd PDF, but the thing about eBooks is that when they first came out a lot of people made really crap ones and if they tried to get it published by a professional publisher it would have just gotten rejected.

After people bought those, the perceived value of eBooks was a lot less as a result.

How about a published book?

Not books, DVDs first. I’m also thinking of opening a membership website, with lots more tutorials, and some pro-classes, and ‘how to’ articles for Blender.

Are we going to see more simulation based work using all the new physics?

I was planning to but simulations like smoke are still under heavy development at the moment and there won’t be an official release [of Blender] for another 3-5 months.

If I started writing tutorials for it now and in 5 months something changes then I’ll have to do it all again.

I’m doing nature at the moment because they won’t be doing much to the poly-modelling.

Finally, would you consider a ‘basics’ series in the future?

Yes. One thing I’ve seen on Video Copilot is that there are 10 tutorials for beginners. That’s something a lot of people have asked about.

—

Interview by Tj Armstrong

Tj Armstrong is a freelance journalist and 3D artist.

His recent portfolio is largely focused on challenging new rendering methods that are being implemented within the LuxRays(SLG) OpenCL Test Bed for LuxRender.

Specialising in physically accurate modelling, Tj produces perfect models of anything from light bulbs to complete architectural visualisations and walkthroughs.

by Mark Ramshaw

Apple has rarely, if ever, had it so good. Since co-founder Steve Jobs returned in 1997, the company has made waves in the music and mobile phone markets, while releasing a series of elegant workstations and laptops that many believe are the best available blend of style, user-friendliness and power.

But it’s been a different story in the 3D industry, where Apple has traditionally been given short thrift by artists who deem its hardware too pricey, too slow and too rigidly specced.

That perception has been slowly changing, however, not least since the launch in 2006 of a range of Intel-based Macs and Boot Camp, the system that enables the Windows operating system to be installed alongside the native Mac OS X.

One of the biggest factors governing the Mac’s acceptance in the 3D industry is inertia.

With the strong historical ties to Windows in some areas of the industry, it takes compelling arguments to trigger a sea change. Nowhere is this more applicable than in the architectural and visualisation sectors, where Windows-only programs like 3ds Max and AutoCAD have been the tools of choice.

Now, though, some are starting to take advantage of the ability to run Windows software on Mac hardware, while others are embracing dual-platform software such as form.Z and Cinema 4D. “We chose Cinema 4D rather than 3ds Max because we came from the point of view of architects bolting our 3D output to an existing service, rather than from a visualisation standpoint,” says Pete Coombes, director at Polished Designs, part of Assael Architecture.

“I think there’s a lot of inertia and ignorance, with people believing that they need a PC and 3ds Max to do good 3D work.”

Darling of the print design industry

Less surprising than the strides being made in visualisation is the support for the Mac by graphics and branding companies: the Mac has been the darling of the print design industry since its launch in 1984. “Desktop publishing essentially came about with the invention of the Mac and PostScript,” says Chris Morris, CGI director at Giannini Creative Imaging.

“It wasn’t until later that Windows introduced a graphical user interface. By that time, the Mac was well established.”

With infrastructure and knowledge based around the Mac, design houses have understandably proven far more likely to stick with the platform as the work has evolved to embrace 3D rendering for print, motion graphics and the web.

Now early adopters of Mac-based 3D solutions, such as Giannini Creative, are reaping the benefits. “We did take a performance hit by staying with the Mac when we first started doing 3D,” says Morris. “But since Apple switched over to Intel, everything has worked like a dream.”

“We were already using the Mac for 2D, and then the Intel Mac made any regrets about using it for 3D disappear,” agrees Jeffrey Kovel, founder of Skylab Design Group, another studio that has embraced the dual-OS opportunities afforded by Boot Camp.

“We now run form.Z, Rhino and SketchUp on the Mac OS, and run 3ds Max and V-Ray on Windows.”

The situation is more complex in the animation and visual effects fields, where studios tend to rely on 3D apps and plugins that aren’t available for Mac OS X (such as Houdini and 3ds Max). Yet even here, the Mac is finding customers.

Taking the plunge

Pixar famously began changing over to Mac workstations in 2003, launching its lauded RenderMan for the Mac shortly after.

Tippett Studio also took the plunge, primarily for performance and reliability. “Though we still use custom Linux-based hardware for the majority of our render farm needs.” says Brennan Doyle, Tippett’s head of creative operations.

There are now 175 Mac Pros on the floor at Tippett, with most running Maya and RenderMan through Linux.

“We have proprietary plugins and tools that keep us tied to a Linux platform, but given time, it’s quite feasible we will have artists using primarily Mac OS X,” says Doyle.

“Many of us have been die-hard Mac evangelists for years, so it’s exciting to see Apple come full circle. The tool that used to be the best available for individual artists to get their work done is now also the tool that large groups of people can look to as a scalable solution.”

It’s easier, of course, for small studios to change midstream. That was certainly the case for Luma Pictures, which has since grown to become one of the VFX industry’s most vocal supporters of the Mac. “Luma made the switch from a primarily Windows-based facility to a Mac OS X facility just after the first Underworld in 2003,” says Chris Sage, vice president of operations at the studio.

“We were still a young company, with a minimal pipeline and a relatively small render farm.”

Sage says the switch was actually partly driven by the decision to adopt Shake as Luma’s primary compositing tool. “PC and Linux nodes were quite pricey; and since Maya, our primary choice for 3D, was already available on the Mac, it seemed like the most practical choice.”

The changeover had a huge impact on the studio, says Sage, proving crucial to developing the pipeline for much larger-scale productions. “To build Luma into a top-notch company, we needed to focus on developing tools and methods that would allow the artist to focus on their creative responsibilities.

“We quickly discovered that the Unix-based Mac OS X was perfect for this. We had all of the ability to script and write tools at the OS level, as was available in the more difficult flavours of Linux, along with easy-to-use tools such as AppleScript.”

Hardware costs

For studios weighing up the relative merits of Windows and Mac-based solutions, the two key considerations are inevitably performance and cost.

One person who believes the Mac wins hands-down is Andrew Bishop, director of London studio Darkside Animation. “We’d been PC-based for almost 15 years before changing over to Intel Macs,” he says.

“It felt like a huge gamble, but we’ve never looked back. They’re the best computers we’ve ever bought. Thanks to Boot Camp, you’re effectively getting two machines for the price of one.”

While the Mac Pro clearly represents great value, Apple’s Xserve rackmount systems have at times been deemed less than cost-effective. The solution for many smaller studios has been to use workstations instead. “We did a lot of price shopping, and found that the best bang for buck when it came to rendering was simply to use stripped-down eight-core Mac Pros,” says Chris Morris.

“The Intel Mac Pro is first and foremost a workstation, but if these computers double-duty as render nodes, it becomes cost-effective,” says Tolga Yildiz, senior designer at New York design studio Trollbäck + Company.

“If you use a render farm solution that charges licences per computer instead of per CPU, you can even call the eight-core Mac cheap.”

Maintenance costs

Beyond initial hardware investment, maintenance costs and stability issues must also be factored in.

The fact that Apple controls every aspect of hardware production clearly contrasts with the multi-manufacturer, multi-configuration world of the PC. “The most expensive thing in this business is time, so for us the most important thing is stability,” says Rene Mastrup, founder of Denmark’s Sunday Animation Studio.

“Wasting hours dealing with hardware and software problems is what costs money, but we’ve had no problems at all with these machines.”

“The problem child in terms of stability used to be Maya,” adds Yildiz. “But since the switch to Intel processors, our 3D artists cannot cite a difference in Maya’s performance and stability between the two platforms.”

“Macs can be set up and in use in less than 15 minutes, and then require little maintenance throughout their service,” adds Sage.

“There are support issues that arise from time to time, but notably less so than their Windows/Linux counterparts, which allows us to spend more of our resources on the work.”

A hardware and potential OS changeover might be expected to incur training costs or cause problems when recruiting, but none of the studios interviewed for this article believed it to be an issue.

“There was a good deal of initial resistance to the choice by some of the artists, due largely to their comfort with the Windows environment, but once people realised that the applications they were using were using were pretty much the same, they acclimatised quickly,” says Sage.

The Mac OS shouldn’t even be a stumbling block for technical directors and other coders, he explains. “The perception that the Mac is a strange OS that nobody understands is a bit of a mystery: at its core, Mac OS X is Unix-based. And almost every 3D/2D program has its own internal scripting language, such as Maya’s MEL.”

Room for improvement

Apple’s complete control over its hardware does pose some problems, not least due to its stance on graphics cards. Because Apple has always enjoyed greatest success with 2D design and compositing professionals, there’s been a tendency for Macs to lag behind when it comes to 3D work.

“The one Achilles heel with the Mac lies with the graphics cards,” says Bishop.

“The 3D drivers simply aren’t as good as for Windows, and then there’s the fact that Mac Pro users have had to choose from just three cards.”

The newly launched Mac Pros do at least provide support for more up-to-date technology from ATI and Nvidia, although there are still limited configurations to choose from. Frustratingly, there’s no backwards compatibility, so owners of the first generation of Mac Pros need to buy new workstations to gain access to the newer cards.

While PC owners are able to continually upgrade their machines as more powerful graphics technology become available, Apple users will doubtless find their GPU choices locked down with these new machines, too.

There’s also a price to be paid for the fact Mac OS X still has less than 10 per cent market share. Alongside the absence of 3ds Max, Houdini and several specialist tools, plug-in developers also tend to initially focus on the larger user base. “In terms of plug-ins and applications, Windows does get the new ones first,” says Yildiz.

“But if there’s a plug-in that we cannot live without, there’s always the option to have Mac OS X and Windows on the same machine.”

Not everybody agrees that the Boot Camp option is the most efficient solution for accessing Windows-only applications and plug-ins, but it does at least offer a safety net for future-proofing. And as the Mac continues to make inroads, so developer support is improving. “The initial stages of our switch were somewhat hindered by lack of plug-ins, but as our range of needs expanded, so has the availability of the tools for the Mac platform,” says Sage.

“Developers such as Autodesk, Pixologic, The Pixel Farm, Next Limit, mental images and The Foundry increasingly seem to be releasing Mac software alongside or close to other OS versions.”

For 3D companies at the larger end of the scale, the time and money required to switch over the Mac is likely to be prohibitive, although again the Boot Camp option can ease the passage by removing the need for an immediate OS change.

“Most of the larger studios have a great deal of time and effort invested in proprietary tools that are sometimes intimately tied to operating systems. Switching hardware is therefore frequently an easier thing to do than switching operating systems,” says Brennan Doyle.

“When more of the primary off-the-shelf tools switch from Linux or Windows over to Mac OS X, you’ll find more studios switching over too.”

Things could change more rapidly at smaller companies, though, where hardware and pipeline configurations tend to be more fluid, and changes are more cost-effective. “For a company of up to 20 people, I’d say switching would give a huge advantage,” says Mastrup.

And for those starting from scratch, the reasons for opting to build a studio around Mac rather than PC hardware are clearly more compelling than ever. “For studios making an initial investment, I’d recommend a Mac and Boot Camp setup every time,” says Bishop.

“It would be a huge mistake if people didn’t start taking the Mac very seriously. What I think people don’t realise is that they’re now the best-value PCs you can buy, too.”