Generate 24 challenge

Since I only just got my computer working again, I haven't had the time to really continue my project.  However, I have managed to install Maya 2015, so I am going to be moving over there to try some of the new features out (like the improved UV mapping), and hope the new Renderman comes out soon.  If not, I will play with another renderer this time.

In the meantime, however, I was lucky enough to get into the SCAD Generate 24 hour challenge.  While I am an alumni, and this is usually for students, they do allow Alumni to participate, so I joined the VFX (VSFX) team this year for a challenge to create 2 scenes, totaling 10 seconds in length, with a live-action element and using Houdini in some way.  I figured this would be great for me to get back into Houdini.  I was considering the animation challenge since I love the concept and the fact that Floyd County was there to judge.  I wanted to do both, but since Floyd does mostly 2D work, I figured I'd do the 3D thing, which was judged by reps from The Mill, and Eric Schmidt of Pixar.

Long story short, we made a short about a paper boat floating in water.  I did the Photography and the Lighting.  Enjoy!

SCAD Atlanta 2014 VFX Generate Challenge from Nha Ca Chau on Vimeo.

SCAD Generate 2013

Hey everyone!

So I just finished a competition for art students here at SCAD Atlanta, called Generate.  It is a 24 hour challenge where each department gets sponsored by a different company and we have 24 hours to break into teams and create an original work based on their criteria.  They often give prizes, free food, and have a lot of fun.  We had trivia (which we were surprisingly bad at), which helped lighten the mood, and waaaay too many sugary foods.

All that aside, our team was part of the Visual Effects challenge.  But why is an animation major taking the VFX challenge you ask?  Well this year the VFX department added a Technical Direction challenge which was right up my alley.  Our goal was to spend 24 hours making an environment for a character.  We didn't need to include the character, but we did have to describe the character.  We had to include an element of animation and part of our project had to use Houdini in some aspect.  Our character was a woman named Fern who lived in 1945 in Paris, France.  She has been getting lettings from her husband, a soldier in the war, and the last letter promised to meet up with her at the cafe they first met at.  Fern waits for him at Cafe Maison, but he never shows.

Sad, I know, you can blame me, I came up with the sappy details.  And I did a ton of work on this with 6 other students, all contributing their skills to the project.  Nicole and I were the two Houdini artists, so we made a billowy smoke effect for a blown out candle on the table, but she really did all the work there.  I was mainly in charge of making sure the work got divvied out and shaded most of the glass work and such.  I was also the only one who had significant experience in Nuke, so I was given the challenge of compositing the project with literally minutes till the deadline.  I had a TON of fun, and we managed to finish a rather complex scene in JUST under the wire.

While I would love to say more, for now I will leave you with a single still image of one of our two shots.  I know it isn't perfect yet, but with a little more work (and a LOT more sleep), it will look amazing!  Enjoy!

Bombs away!

So many possibilities with the name of this entry...  Duke Nuke-em, Drop the Nuke, Ground Zero, Nukes Away, To [insert enemy country here] With Love... you might notice a theme with them.

Today I want to talk briefly about Nuke, the compositing program by The Foundry.  In short, this is the program that most companies use to put all the different elements they create together.  It is also where they can add certain affects, which were impossible or unsatisfactory before this point.  For a long time, the industry mainly used Shake, owned by Apple Inc., however, it was discontinued in 2009, and while some studios still use it, it has mainly fallen to the wayside and Nuke is taking its place.

For most people, the closest thing to Nuke they will use is Adobe After Effects, which will allow you to do many of the same things as Nuke, but not nearly as robust or thoroughly.  After Effects mainly works with layers, much like Photoshop, giving the ability to place layers of effects over each other and blend them together.  However, this is actually very limited, and in the end, a Node-based network, like Nuke, is much better.  Both Nuke and Shake use node-based networks, much like Houdini as well.

The work I have been doing on Nuke is actually very fun.  I often have to go into Maya and separate a scene into passes, rendering only one portion of the image, from a specific object to a light, or even a mask, and then take these parts into Nuke, where I have to put them back together.  The advantage to this is that I can manipulate these elements in ways that are impossible or very difficult in Maya, giving me more control over my image.  These can be big changes, such as an overall hue shift for the entire scene, or something much smaller, like a tiny detail of an ambient shadow on a specific set of grapes.

Often, the node network will get rather cluttered, so it is up to the compositor to keep their work space organized, so when/if others have to work with it, they can understand with certain ease what all is happening.  I have heard horror stories about expert compositors who leave such a messy pile of spaghetti they call a node network that it literally took days to go through when handed off to someone else.  So recently, I have been working on keeping my networks organized and orderly.

Here is an example of a node network for a scene I am working on in one of my classes.  I did not make any of the scene itself, only split it into parts and composited it together again, adding ambient occlusion, color shifts, glows, etc.  While you can't see the names of the nodes at this distance, trust me when I say you can zoom in and see the names of every node easily identified.

Enjoy and keep pixellated!

Houdini -- It's magical!

So I'm a few minutes late, big deal.  I'm still awake, so it's still Wednesday to me. :P

Today I will briefly talk about Houdini, a program made by a company called SideFX.  "But David, what is Houdini" you ask?  To put it simply, it is a 3D package (program) that uses nodes and a nearly non-destructive workflow.  This means you can create a complicated scene with a variety of complex objects, and still go back to the very first shape you made and change it, without messing up anything else, and all the changes you make go down the line and affect the final outcome.  It is nearly non-destructive, because you can go back and mess with your work at any point in the history of making that object, except certain things you do WILL break your setup.  Regardless, it is a wonderful program, and it is mainly used in visual effects for things like particle effects and dynamics and the like.  It can be really complicated, and I haven't gone into all of that yet, although I have touched on particles and dynamics.
So this scene here is one I created last quarter.  It is a still life of an image I shot myself which uses a single light source.  I wanted to copy the image as closely as I could, but I feel it is still a work in progress.  Hopefully I will have an update to show everyone before too long.  So for now, enjoy my still life.