IKinema’s popular IK solver is back with a fresh name and a smattering of new features. Gary Marshall gets in on the Action

PRICE: £890 Upgrade
PLATFORM: Windows / Mac / Linux
MAIN FEATURES:

• New stretchy IK functionalities
• Refined retargeting algorithm
• Retarget directly from motion capture markers
• Two distinct solving modes for setup and final animation

DEVELOPER: IKinema

Having reviewed the first version of IKinema back when it was the debutante at the solvers’ ball (Reviews, 3D World 142), it’s refreshing to have seen the plug-in gain widespread adoption and generally make a good name for itself.

• Don’t forget to check out this Maya 2013 review

For those unaware of the previous release, IKinema offered Maya users a package of animation tools based upon a revolutionary IK solver. Distilled from research into control armatures, the key selling points were the ability to quickly set up characters for animation with a few clicks in a tidy interface.

New stretchy IK capabilities added to IKinema Action 2 for Maya mean things like tails and tentacles are simple to rig and animate

Physical properties such as momentum and centre of mass could be dialled in for realism and, best of all, it didn’t assume that the user had major technical rigging expertise.

Once up and running, the results were pleasing for an offering at a modest price point. Since those early days the tool has been reworked and reborn under its new Action moniker, but is there more punch for your pennies under the hood?

TIME FOR ACTION

The fundamentals remain largely the same for setup – an instance of the solver is created at the root of the hierarchy in question and IKinema populates each segment with its attributes. Upon completion, a user would simply add tasks (constraints) at key solving points on the skeleton then manipulate these tasks, either directly or through control objects.

A teach frame the solver does its best to create the most believable pose while satisfying said tasks.

Tasks are tuneable in a multitude of ways, like specifying how far back up the chain its influence should extend or how much weight the solver should bias towards it. Each segment (joint) also has dynamic properties to tweak, with transform limits being the most used feature.

Creation is a little quicker now if you’re setting up multiple solvers in one hierarchy – for example, one for the body and another two for each hand. Previously this required un-parenting each chain, creating the solver and then re-parenting, whereas now simply [Shift]-selecting joints excludes them from that particular solver instance.

Retargetting feels slicker in this release, with more tools to deal with characters or differing proportions

SOLVER CHARACTERISTICS

While superficially these processes all feel unchanged, there’s a key difference to note. When testing the original version, a frustration came to light – the solver characteristics were based on a non-deterministic model, which meant that a pose at any given frame was solved based on the previous pose in a kind of layered accumulation.

This was all well and good unless you made mistakes during setting up your tasks, or scrubbed the timeline forward to see your tasks in action and decided to change something – simply hitting [Ctrl]+[Z] for a crafty undo wouldn’t do the trick.

Instead, you were likely to see your rig suddenly jump to an awkward pose having gained an amalgamated rotation from somewhere, a gripe noted in my original review.

Now there’s a neat little checkbox on the Global Solver instance – Continuously Solving. Unticking this forces the solver to provide a deterministic solution, so poses are always built based on knowledge of the initial bind pose. In the real world this means you get the same result for the entire range of your motion no matter if you scrub, playback or undo. Even if you forget, unticking the box snaps the pose into the non-continuous state and you’re free to carry on working, sanity intact.

When it’s time to finally bake your motion, the ‘continuous’ solve provides the most fluid-looking motion as an end result. This is a huge change and adds great value to the tool, while also proving that some developers really do listen to the concerns of their end-users!

As IKinema gained industry momentum, it quickly became clear that there was potential in the area of marker solving. At Framestore, we saw the opportunity to bring mocap solving into Maya – and to retire MotionBuilder’s notoriously ‘droopy shouldered’ offering. In the original version this was not possible – at least, not in a practical, production-ready state.

In IKinema Action 2 you’re now offered a solution – position tasks with offsets. The solve-enabled rig is posed within your point cloud, and clusters of markers are linked to joints.

In IKinema Action 2 you can position tasks with offsets. The solve-enabled rig is posed within your point cloud, and clusters of markers are linked to joints.

One slightly tedious element is that you have to link markers one by one and disable solving on individual segments before hookup, but any scripter worth their salt should be able to automate this process with the supplied MEL SDK. The resulting motion is fluid, nuanced and, most importantly, authentic to what was captured on stage.

This workflow is a genuine go-to for high-end character-driven VFX shows – indeed, it seems that IKinema itself is focused more on this particular distinction in the toolset than those that might appeal to keyframers or people wanting to build more traditional rigs.

STRETCHY IK FUNCTIONALITIES

That said, ‘stretchy’ IK is offered in this release as a tickable attribute on joints. Emulating this with Maya’s standard tools has always been a hassle, first needing a splineIK solver based on a curve, then setting up connections to dynamically scale bones on their twist axis. Here, no additional setup steps are required – you get the stretch attribute for free. Simply ticking it allows your joints to stretch and shrink, with limits respected if you choose to enforce them.

The motion produced for something like a whippy tail, for example, is comparable to an infinitely more complex hand-built setup. Even more interesting is the potential to simulate subtle spine stretch and compression in the marker solve pipeline, adding a further dimension to achievable realism.

DIRECT RETARGETTING

On the retargeting side, IKinema claims refinement in the internals of the retargeting engine. While there are no new offerings in how or what can be retargeted, the whole thing feels more polished. In the early version it seemed that good results could only really come from working with hierarchies of identical size and skeletal topology, or risk obvious foot slide and other motion defects.

Now scaling tasks to compensate for proportional differences works much better, while ‘reach’ tools help to maintain your limb contacts – tools that packages such as MotionBuilder have had for some time, and done a good job of.

Future releases might go even further, implementing advanced motion edit tools such as ghosting, time-warping and pose libraries. Finally, backwards compatibility doesn’t appear to be a problem, with a test scene built in version 1.1 loading without issue in version 2.

VERDICT

PROS

• Switchable solving modes give predictable motion results
• Excellent marker-solving capability
• Revamped retarget internals produce better looking animation

CONS

• Lacking some of the higher-level motion editing tools that are found in specialist software
• Some processes are long-winded
• Shelf icons can still be confusing and not easily identifiable

IKinema Action 2 addresses the major drawbacks of the first release and adds new features to keep this plug-in going from strength to strength. While it’s not a one-stop shop for all things animation, it deserves a key place in your pipeline

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gary Marshall is senior motion capture TD at Framestore London, and is currently working on Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity. He’s spent the last seven years working on motion-capture projects around the world for VFX, feature animation and games, from capturing and editing data to writing tools and building pipelines
framestore.com

Christopher Kenworthy tests this suite of visual effects, updated for increased speed and control and given a host of new presets

DETAILS

PRICE:

$1,699, Upgrade from: $499

OTHER EDITIONS: Combustion/Premiere Pro: $1,699, Final Cut Pro/Motion/Final Cut Express: $1,699, Media Composer Nitris/DX/Mojo DX/Adrenaline/Symphony Nitris/Xpress/Newscutter/DS Nitris/DS Symphony: $2,800, Nuke/Toxik/Maya Composite/Fusion/Vegas/SCRATCH: $1,699

PLATFORM: Windows/Mac OS X

MAIN FEATURES

• Over 240 resolution-independent filters
• Photorealistic blurs and distortions
• Organic lighting effects and textures
• Directly integrate After Effects masks
• 1,100 presets in visual preset browser

DEVELOPER: GenArts

Long regarded as the premiere visual effects suite, Sapphire Effects (for After Effects) has been upgraded to version 6 with some welcome improvements. The most noticeable of these is the inclusion of over 1,000 presets, which help you get to grips with the power of each filter. The presets are available through a visual browser, displaying a thumbnail of the result before it’s even applied.

Chroma aberration is now built into Rack Defocus, and After Effects masks integrate directly into the filter

A one-year subscription to FX Central is included in the price, giving you access to thousands more presets. The quality of these varies, and most users will design their own, but seeing what others have done with a filter is always instructive.

The most exciting improvement in version 6 is the redesigned Lens Flare Effect, which now comes with a Flare Designer. With your own footage as a background, or using a blank canvas, you can work from a preset or start from scratch to build a custom lens flare.

Lens flares are important to effects artists, but one problem you encounter is that they all start to look the same. The answer is provided here, with the ability to add many different types of element, and then control every aspect of that element to the smallest degree. Despite the enormous depth of the Flare Designer, it’s easy and intuitive to use. You can visualise a specific flare effect and create it within minutes.

Lens flares are now also 3D capable: Red Giant Software’s Knoll Light Factory has long been the leader in lens flare creation, but GenArts has created a filter with enough control and sophistication that it could become the flare of choice.

The Sapphire Flare Designer provides control over every element and control parameter of your lens flares

The realism of effects such as Edge Rays, EdgeFlash and Clouds have been improved slightly, with the RackDefocus given additional chroma aberration.

Added effects

Notable new filters include Caustics (for watery textures), Laserbeam and Muzzleflash. These are no more advanced than those found in other packages, but help make this feel like a complete set of tools. The Flashbulbs effect is disappointing – a less than convincing recreation of the paparazzi effect.

The new StretchFrameEdges effect is supposed to convert 4:3 footage to 16:9 by stretching the edges, but in all tests this creates nothing more than a distracting zoom effect around the image.

A welcome addition is the integration of After Effects masks directly into each effect. This saves you the step of doubling a clip, and applying the filter to only one layer. It’s a small detail, but the sort that makes using the filters more appealing.

Rendering is fast, and there are so many different ways to create lighting effects, flowing textures, glossy distortions, shimmers, glows and sparkles that just about any effect you can imagine is possible with creative application.

Some of the filters could be perceived as redundant because they’re already present in After Effects – such as Gamma and Threshold – but all are easy to use and render rapidly.

The price of these filters is high, but this is a positive thing for those who can afford them because it means they’re reserved for more professional users.

VERDICT

PROS

• Superb quality and range of effects
• Fast rendering

Adjustments give great depth

CONS

• Expensive
• Some effects are redundant
• Not a huge change from previous version

These filters provide the best way to create glassy, organic and photorealistic textures, blurs, distortions and lighting effects

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christopher Kenworthy is a writer and film-maker based in Australia, with a background in visual effects work. He’s the author of the best-selling Master Shots books.
christopherkenworthy.com

Clients often ask for 3D text transitions in a project, but they can be a fickle bunch and will ask for variation after variation.

For Cinema 4D artists there is now a way of doing this much more efficiently.

Motionworks has produced MovieType, a collection of presets for Cinema 4D, which includes a massive range of transition animations, materials that are purpose built for text, and finally, a group of animated backgrounds, also built with motion graphics in mind.

The presets are well organised and appropriately named and cover every conceivable transition – if you’re used to the presets After Effects ships with, that is.

With drag-and-drop you can add a preset to any scene and tell it what the text should say, but if you want to re-time the animation or delve deeper it’s still very simple to do.

On top of all this functionality, Motionworks has bundled a collection of 20+ video tutorials featuring MovieType creator John Dickinson, who walks you through each preset, explaining how it can be used in a project.

Building a text animation isn’t always difficult, but it can be a time consuming chore. Movietype does away with those problems and breathes some fresh life into a mundane task.

The training is a great plus and will certainly spark some ideas.

Available from Monday at $79.

Check out the MovieType videos and previews

Price: $1,495 (xStream), $995 (Infinite) | Developer: e-on software | Platform Windows/Mac

Main features

• Relighting
• Improved terrain modelling/painting
• Parameter Publishing
• HyperBlobs
• Flicker reduction

Let’s start with some good news for Mac users: Vue 9 comes rebuilt (“from the ground up” according to e-on) as a 64-bit native Cocoa application that equals its Windows counterpart in speed and stability.

So, if you’re running Vue on Mac it seems like version 9 is a must-have upgrade regardless of other features.

But what about Windows users – how much does this update offer compared to Vue 8.5?

Firstly, Vue’s interface has been redesigned with softer grey colours, new icons and buttons, giving it a stylish, upto-date look and a comfortable feel overall.

Vue 9's redesigned interface

This is more than just a facelift though; some buttons have been re-organised in a more logical fashion. A handy Randomize button has been added to fractal terrains, materials and clouds, and the base grid is now infinitely adaptive, with a scale ruler in each window.

Also, measurements are now standardised across the board as real world units and degrees, making work in
Vue more coherent.

Surprisingly, a few rather archaic aspects of the interface have been left unchanged. The numerics tab, for
instance, still displays rotation as pitch, yaw and roll, and the colour editor remains modal, which can be a problem when using the new relighting tool.

Self publishing

Parameter publishing - you can creat your own control panels

By far the most significant new interface feature in Vue 9 is the ability to pull out (or ‘publish’) any parameter from the function editor and create your own customisable control panels in the terrain and material editors.

Without the need to jump back and forth between the function editor and other windows, editing complex procedural terrains and materials becomes much more fast and fluid.

Published material parameters have their own animation curves, which allows for much more precise material animation.

The last couple of versions brought substantial enhancements to terrain modelling, and Vue 9 continues this trend with more features and improved workflow.

Terrain paintbrushes have been re-organised into a Photoshop-style library with the ability to modify and save your own brushes with a dedicated brush editor.

This editor includes some very useful additions such as the much-needed ability to control the subdivision resolution for image-driven brushes, and the option to control brush behaviour with environment rules.

For example, you can now paint snow where you want it while still having it appear only on flat areas.

To further facilitate terrain painting, a separate ‘freeze mask’ can be layered in at any time to protect areas from being painted, and a new Smear brush comes in handy for shifting large chunks of terrain without destroying small detail.

Terrain paint brushes organised in a Photoshop-style library

Vue 9 also comes with a new terrain algorithm, the Rocky Mountain fractal – quite possibly the most powerful and flexible terrain fractal to date.

It can be used on its own, to create sharp-ridged, highly detailed alpine mountains, or mixed with a Terrain fractal for instance, to add rocky outcrops, stones or scree.

Like other fractal algorithms, it’s not easy to master but it packs a lot of power and can generate a surprising diversity of terrains.

Another very useful addition to the Terrain Editor is the ability to extend a fractal terrain, rather than just rescaling it.

Relight and Retopologize

The new Retopologize function automatically rebuilds the mesh of standard terrains, attempting to correct bad topology that results from drastic sculpting or stretching.

The Looseness parameter lets you define the amount of mesh relaxation, but even at minimum settings there’s a considerable amount of smoothing that destroys small-scale detail.

This limits the usefulness of the Retopologize tool, especially since you cannot apply erosion and effects to
retopologised terrains.

Relighting lets you tweak the intensity and colour of multiple lights as a post-render real-time process.

Vue’s lighting paradigm has always been based on a single light source – the sun – so in order to fully use the potential of relighting, a shift from the one-light paradigm is necessary.

With the help of the Influence Editor, you can restrict the main sunlight to the sky alone, add a second sun for extra light on the clouds, a third for the actual scene, add localised and ambient lights, and then fine-tune with relighting.

Vue’s relighting is derived from the actual raytraced render. This means that tweaking a light realistically affects shadows, reflections and refractions across the scene and changing the sun’s intensity and colour immediately changes the appearance of the sky, which consequently affects the ambient light.

It all works quite beautifully, making relighting a great tool for quickly generating different looks out of a single render.

What’s currently missing is a separate slider to control the indirect lighting contribution.

HyperBlobs - remarkably suitable for creating highly complex rock formations

HyperBlobs are not an entirely new technology, but rather a marriage between the two existing Vue features of MetaBlobs and HyperTextures – albeit with enhanced controls and functionality.

It’s now possible to add displacement on top of the HyperTexture material, control the subdivision amount and cut out floating, unconnected bits.

All this makes HyperBlobs remarkably suitable for creating highly complex, resolution-independent rock formations.

However, like fractal terrains, they are not very intuitive, and take time to calculate and render. It’s not possible to export HyperBlobs or convert them into simple meshes.

While they can be a great modelling tool for large-scale features, HyperBlobs aren’t very suitable for use in EcoSystems, for example. Therefore, a preset-based SolidGrowth-style rock generator is still high on our wish list.

One of the major points of criticism toward Vue has been the flickering that often occurs in animations with dense EcoSystems.

According to e-on, flicker reduction in Vue 9 isn’t an additional feature, but rather an internal improvement
in plant rendering, so it’s not selectable or user-controlled.

Our tests showed that while flickering hasn’t completely gone, it is considerably less obvious than in Vue
8.5, without any noticeable blurring or loss of detail.

So while Vue 9 doesn’t deliver anything major such as a new plant editor or rock generator, it does offer some exciting features like relighting and the Rocky Mountain fractal that open up new creative possibilities, together with substantial workflow enhancements.

Verdict

Pros
• New terrain modelling and painting tools
• Relighting is useful
• More customisable controls
• Rewritten 64-bit OSX version

Cons
• No improvement to rock generator
• No ambient relighting control
• Limited Retopologize

A solid and very worthwhile upgrade for any serious Vue artist – and for Mac users in particular

by Eran Dinur
Eran is compositing supervisor at Brainstorm Digital and the Vue instructor at fxphd
www.cgauiw.com