Speaking of cars....

[John Bigboote]

Since people are getting more and more interested in 3D cars...a little show-and-tell.

 

I work in Detroit for 'DivisionX', which is a 3D/graphics department of Grace & Wild, a major post-production house. DivisionX is a small group of Maya artists who have come up with a 'formula-approach' for recreating photorealistic cars and have successfully captured a peice of that blooming market. I am not a 'sheetmetal guy', so I handle the day to day graphics and do character animation for the group and facility... so I am 'loosely' a part of the group.

 

This summer, while toying around with Maya, I tried to export a vehicle to A:M to see how A:M would handle the task, and this is what I came-up with:

 

I found the density of the polygonal models ( the cars are grid-taped and scanned, as opposed to using CAD data, which is far denser and holds much unneeded data) needed to be loaded 'peicemeal' (glass, metal, trim, interior...etc) and even then took quite a long time to open in A:M (each group taking up to an hour to load, during which time A:M appeared to be 'locked') Once it was a mesh in A:M, it was somewhat tactile in zooming and turning, pretty easy to work with. Some creasing occurs, which is hard to fix, and if left be would not stand-up to close inspection. The render time was not too bad either, maybe a min or two if memory serves.

 

Overall, with maya being able to 'snap' a model open, whereas A:M needed to peicemeal it in a day, my experiments were backburnered.

 

Here, I'll post a jpeg and a .mov of some of what I did looked like...(the lighting is not what I am showing...so keep your pinkies down...)

 

And in my next posting I will show some of DivisionX's work, to give folks a good idea of some 'high end' automotive 3D.

 

I hope you find this informative.

NissanTitantest.mov

[Gerry]

John - So these renders are in AM with the imported Maya models? Pretty nice! I'm also not sure I understand what you say about rendering. Did you mean the renders just take a minute? You must be working with a farm, right? Surely these stills aren't rendering in a minute on one cpu.

 

Looking forward to additional posts.

 

Gerry

[John Bigboote]

AND- Here is a small sample of DivisionX's work.

 

Traditionally, if an auto-manufacturer wanted to generate turntable footage for it's model-year advertising, it would bring it's entire line (Ford Motor Company's 'line' of products is some 24-30 vehicles) to studio to be placed on a turntable and filmed, a slow spin taking almost a minute. Then, if they needed alphas, they would spend months in a paintbox or Flint/Flame...rotoscoping mattes.

 

TODAY, the 3D computer animation process has been good news to animators- bad news for photographers, retouchers and cinematographers. Small things, like an flawless alpha channel ---Or the ability to let an agency art director place the virtual camera 'exactly' where he wants it--- or the fact that images can be rendered at any resolution (DivisionX recently put an truck advert on 1 side of the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, viewable from passing airplanes) ANOTHER example of a BIG cost cutting advantage is that due to union stipulations test drivers in car commercials must be paid residuals each time a spot airs, which can add up. With 3DCG, the car is virtual...so there IS no driver...

 

Here are couple of images: Feel free to critique, but understand that each image has been considerably art-directed by 'trained professionals', appeared in many TV spots/magazines, and some of these images are over 5 years old. A web site has been in the works and will launch in a week.

 

There are many other companies doing this sort of work and each offers a unique approach. Since I am sort of 'behind the scenes' here at DivisionX I thought I would show-and-tell with my A:M community, which I owe a debt of graditude.

 

Enjoy.

 

 

ALSO: DivisionX is hiring! Must be Maya savvy, 5 years experience in photorealsim, renderman and MEL experience, work out of Detroit, MI...which aint all THAT bad! Contact me.

[John Bigboote]

Gerry- I forget how long those images took, but I remember being pleasanlty surprised. I just use my 2 local processors...I'd open the project and render some frames...but it takes a LONG time to open the file.

 

DivisionX has a very large, very fast render farm. I have not been able to sell the idea of installing NetRender for various reasons... some of which are:

 

-DivisionX cranks out hours of 3D footage weekly, for very high budgets, so the farm, being topsy-turvy, is dedicated to Smedge.

 

-NetRender, though highly capable, does not encourage very well or make an effort to sell itself to my engineers...who upon researching it and reading some stuff here recommend putting it off. Durn!

 

-Most of my animations are 5- 30 seconds long, perfect for an overnight or weekend render.

 

EDIT- Thats a minute or two per frame...at D1 res...

[ddustin]

Gerry- I forget how long those images took, but I remember being pleasanlty surprised. I just use my 2 local processors...I'd open the project and render some frames...but it takes a LONG time to open the file.

 

DivisionX has a very large, very fast render farm. I have not been able to sell the idea of installing NetRender for various reasons... some of which are:

 

-DivisionX cranks out hours of 3D footage weekly, for very high budgets, so the farm, being topsy-turvy, is dedicated to Smedge.

 

-NetRender, though highly capable, does not encourage very well or make an effort to sell itself to my engineers...who upon researching it and reading some stuff here recommend putting it off. Durn!

 

-Most of my animations are 5- 30 seconds long, perfect for an overnight or weekend render.

 

EDIT- Thats a minute or two per frame...at D1 res...

 

John,

That's outstanding!!

Can you explain the technology of "grid taping and scanning"?

It would be awesome if a technology existed for scanning an object, and converting it to a mesh AM could use.

 

David

[R Reynolds]

What sort of device/software combination do they use to convert the marks taped to the car to points in 3D space and how long does the process take?

 

I'd also like to see a wireframe of the imported model.

 

Thanks.

[John Bigboote]

A good scan is hard to do, and best left to the highly skilled. DivisionX outsources this part of the job to a partner company.

 

A car is grid-taped using 1/8" tape, with the grid as large as 2 inches in some places and 1/4" in others for finer detail. Half the car is scanned, naturally. The scanner is a large arm type, so someone has to go from gridpoint to gridpoint touching the scanner tip to the tape. A car can be taped and scanned within a day. Finer details, such as the inner plastics of a blinker assembly or a badge are left to us to scan with our 3 foot scanner arm.

 

Another BIG advantage I missed is that from model-year to model year there can be minimal changes to a vehicle, such as headlights or trim. Once the car is fully prepped on harddisc changes like these are nominal.

[Gene]

Hi John,

 

Would it be possible to see the AM mesh for any of these images?

 

Cheers,

 

Eugene

[John Bigboote]

I'll post mesh early this week. Remember, ONLY the top posting was converted to A:M (the Toyota Titan Pickup truck) The images in the lower (3rd) posting were all Maya.

[John Bigboote]

Wireframes from the choreography...

[martin]

20 minutes to open that? I think your opening that in a Model window, which would do a poly to spline conversion (and take 20 minutes), instead of opening it in a Choreography window as Prop, which would treat it just like a poly model (and be fast).

 

If you thought you were forced to open it in a Model window because you needed to add the wheels separate, then what you should do is create a rig that consists of "chasis," "tire1," "tire2,"... then constraint the Props to the appropriate Bones.

 

If you are opening this as a Prop, and it takes 20 minutes, then file an Error Report, son.

 

Interesting experimentation.

[John Bigboote]

No...nonono. It opened quite quickly when I opened it today to make these grabs. (Quickly meaning about half a minute) As you suspected, it was when I initially imported the partial models and A:M had to translate them into 'spline-land' that was when it was time consuming (half hour to an hour-ish)

 

Thanks for checking in Mr. PooBaa!

[ddustin]

No...nonono. It opened quite quickly when I opened it today to make these grabs. (Quickly meaning about half a minute) As you suspected, it was when I initially imported the partial models and A:M had to translate them into 'spline-land' that was when it was time consuming (half hour to an hour-ish)

 

Thanks for checking in Mr. PooBaa!

 

John,

Out of curiosity:

 

1. What is the patch count on the titan?

2. How tactile is tactile (you mentioned it was tactile while moving it around). Really what I mean is what type of system is it "tactile" on?

3. What does your company do with the old models they no longer have need of?

4. Would they consider letting you import them into AM and offer them for sale (I'm sure the answer is no, and even if it were yes the price would be prohibitive for most of us).

 

Thank you very much for allowing us this glimpse into Mecca.

 

David Dustin