BLOG

Bobby Parker 9/10/14 Bobby Parker 9/10/14

RealCamera Motiva

Needed libraries (could be already on your system):

· DirectX9 March2o09 (or higher) Download
· Visual C++ Redist 2008 (needed) Download
· Microsoft .NET framework 3.5 (needed) Download

RealCamera Motiva is a free real-time post production tool, developed by Motiva, which mimics the behavior of real cameras and films, based on studies of the Computer Visualization Laboratory at the University of Columbia. All calculations are performed by the GPU, which ensures maximum speed. To understand its features, please watch the videos.

Did you enjoy this article? I would love to hear your thoughts, so don’t be shy and comment below! Please don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS-feed or follow my feed on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to comment, and help us spread the word! Or, if you would like, drop me an email.

Bobby Parker 9/9/14 Bobby Parker 9/9/14

All about Gamma & V-Ray

Lesson by Ciro Sannino | More about: Vray News

Contents:

VIDEO IN HD / Narrated / 28 ‘
MAX FILES to download with all V-Ray settings
Gamma output with 3ds Max 2014
Gamma uotput 1.0 and 2.2
Migrating from one configuration to another
Advantages and disadvantages
Successfully save images to 32bit
Duplicate the frame buffer with success
Batch render and render elements

Gamma and configurations

Compensating renders with gamma curve has always been a very hot topic. The reasons for this offsetting is required are already discussed in my book “Photography & Rendering with V-Ray“, so now I will focus on technical and practical details that will allow us to finally dominate all aspects related to the topic “Gamma”.

After it has started, click the “X” to view it in full screen:

GAMMA CONFIGURATION 1.0 :

Script: fileoutgamma = 1.0
Color mapping> Gamma: 2.2
Color Mapping> Mode: Color Range Mapping and Gamma
sRGB button to display preview / disabled

GAMMA CONFIGURATION 2.2 :

Script: fileoutgamma = 2.2
Color mapping> Gamma: 2.2
Color Mapping> Mode: Color Mapping only (no gamma)
sRGB button to display preview / enabled
This configuration is the default in V-Ray 2.4 and V-Ray 3

Both configurations produce the same result, with the difference that the configuration GAMMA2.2 facilitates saving images to 32bit and management of 3ds Max Frame Buffer and batch render.

FILES & TRAINING:

Download the package containing the scene set in 2 configurations:

Download Gamma Pack
Buy the book Photography & Rendering with V-Ray
Subscribe to the Online course: Learnvray and 5SRW method

Note: A “mismatch” window appears when we open a file with output gamma set differently from your system.

Bobby Parker 9/6/14 Bobby Parker 9/6/14

V-Ray Film & VFX Showreel 2014

We'd like to thank the amazing artists and studios whose work we feature here in our 2014 VFX showreel. Every year we are inspired by what artists bring to V-Ray.

Bobby Parker 9/5/14 Bobby Parker 9/5/14

3ds Max 2015 - work faster with new tools

Looking to take a deep dive into what Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2015 software has to offer? Then this session is for you.

Technical Specialist Chris Murray will show you how to get things done faster, with new layout tools, efficient scene management workflows and rendering tools, and other powerful additions in 3ds Max 2015.

Want to find out more about 3ds Max 2015 and how to get access to the latest features with Autodesk® Subscription? Check out the 3ds Max product center for more information.

Bobby Parker 9/4/14 Bobby Parker 9/4/14

Bluetooth® Multi-Device Keyboard K480

Published on Sep 3, 2014

A single keyboard allows you to type on anything! The Bluetooth® Multi-Device Keyboard K480 is a unique keyboard for your Windows, Mac or Chrome computer…that also works with your Android or iOS mobile devices. With a flick of a switch, you can change typing from one device to the next. (Bluetooth wireless device required)

Bobby Parker 9/4/14 Bobby Parker 9/4/14

The Message Teaser

Simply amazing work from from INDUSTRY VISUAL EFFECTS. The first video is the teaser and the second video is the breakdown... all computer generated!

The Message Teaser from INDUSTRY VISUAL EFFECTS on Vimeo.

Message Shot035 Breakdown from INDUSTRY VISUAL EFFECTS on Vimeo.

Bobby Parker 9/3/14 Bobby Parker 9/3/14

Norman Foster - Art Quote

“The pencil and computer are, if left to their own devices, equally dumb and only as good as the person driving them.”

— Norman Foster

Bobby Parker 8/31/14 Bobby Parker 8/31/14

iToo Software Giveaway

The 5th 2014 blog birthday giveaway is here! iToo Software will give one of you lucky followers a chance to pick between a Forest Pack or RailClone 2 License. You will also have the chance to win either one by sending a 3d render/s you made using one or both plugins to create an amazing visual. The image you’ll submit here could also work for Grant Warwick’s giveaway.

Founded in 1999 in Spain, iToo Software is a 3D software developing company, and creators of Forest Pack and Rail Clone, plugins for Autodesk® 3DS Max® and 3DS Max Design®. Their main objectives are customers´ satisfaction with their products, providing a high quality software and personalized support.

Forest Pack is a plugin for 3d Studio Max, designed to give a complete solution for creation of vast surfaces of trees, grass and plants. Forest enables you to combine billboards, high poly meshes and proxies, and using Mental Ray and V-Ray native shaders, create scenes with virtually unlimited number of objects and polygons.

Some of its features are: camera clipping, tint maps, clusters, tree editor, falloff curves, animation support, integrated library browser and much more. Working as an advanced scattering tool, Forest can be used not only for plants, but for any scene that include vast distributions of objects as: rocks, buildings or crowds.

RailClone 2 is a 3DS Max plugin for parametric modeling based on custom geometry parts, definable by the user, and a set of construction rules. This new concept of modeling lets you to build complex and realistic structures for Architectural Visualization, Civil Engineering and Interior Design.

The software includes a full library of preset models to create Fences, Railings, Barriers, Handrails or Walls. RailClone is not limited to a fixed set of primitives, you can use any geometry from the scene and define your own parametric structures.

iToo Software, are still offering a 15% discount on the purchase of Forest Pack Pro, RailClone 2 or the new Forest Pack + RailClone Bundle.

Don’t miss the chance to get one of my favorite plugins during this great deal ending on August 31st come midnight (GMT+2)!

Bobby Parker 8/30/14 Bobby Parker 8/30/14

5 Pro Editing Tips from the Master of Tight Deadlines

Working in a job that requires you to meet constant deadlines is a demanding activity. Yet, some people thrive in this sort of environment, especially when they know some of the tricks to meeting deadlines. Have you got what it takes?

Bobby Parker 8/29/14 Bobby Parker 8/29/14

19th Century Painting Rendered In 3D Is Aesthetically Awesome

Don't you love when old and new come together to create something wonderful?

Hungarian graphic artist Zsolt Ekho Farkas was on vacation with his wife when she pointed out Gyula Benczúr's painting "Budavár repossession" in a booklet and asked him if he could render it in 3D. Challenge accepted!

Watch in this video as 21st century technology is applied to the 19th century painting to create an aesthetically awesome and mesmerizing work of digital art. If you'd like to learn more about Farkas' other work, be sure to visit his website here.

Bobby Parker 8/28/14 Bobby Parker 8/28/14

Read My Interview with Houseplanology

See It & Sell It: Professional Architectural Illustration with Bobby Parker

By: The Houseplanologist

Architecture is a competitive business. There are thousands of talented designers out there, and selling your concepts, or choosing between different plans if you’re a home buyer, is a lot like other parts of life: it all starts with great presentation. That’s where architectural illustration comes in. A beautiful rendering is like great package design – it attracts attention and teases out buyer curiosity. But it’s also part of the product itself. Effective illustrations breathe life and zest into building plans, firing up the imagination and bringing depth of understanding to those of us who struggle to see an architect’s vision without additional help.

Minnesota-based architectural illustrator Bobby Parker has many years experience in architectural rendering and kindly spared a bit of time to fill us in on some of the aspects of working in this rapidly changing field:

H: HI BOBBY – CAN YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE AS AN ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATOR – HOW DID YOU GET STARTED AND IS THERE A PARTICULAR AREA THAT YOU SPECIALIZE IN?

BP: I’ve always drawn; from my earliest childhood memories, I was drawing. I remember during middle school, we did an occupational survey. We answered questions, and it told us what career path we should follow. Mine was architecture. So naturally I pursued architecture in college, but after a couple years I knew it wasn’t for me; we just didn’t draw enough! So, I became an architectural illustrator. At first it was a hobby, but since I worked in the architectural industry, my art skill was appreciated. I started off with pencil and paper and now I produce photo-real architectural renderings.

Image: ‘The House in the Woods’, Exterior Photo-Real Rendering (Bobby Parker)

H: I GUESS THE DAYS OF HAND DRAWN ILLUSTRATION ARE ALMOST GONE, WITH ALL THE TECHNOLOGY AROUND. ARE YOU 100% FOCUSED ON DIGITAL RENDERING, OR DO YOU STILL GET REQUESTS FOR HAND DRAWN WORK?

BP: I’m 100% digital, but by combining the fundamentals of art with the most current industry technology, I can now create photo-real architectural renderings. I do have a home studio that is stocked and ready to go, with pencils and paper, but I haven’t had the courage to get back to drawing.

H: WHAT KIND OF INFORMATION IS GENERALLY NEEDED TO CREATE A RENDERING?

BP: I’ve worked from napkin sketches to construction documents, so I’m flexible. I do find that the more freedom I’m given, the better my work is, and I think my clients would agree.

Image: ‘The Empire Office’, Interior Photo-Real Rendering (Bobby Parker)

H: PROFESSIONAL ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATION ALWAYS GRABS MY ATTENTION ON THE HOUSE PLAN SITES, AND I CAN IMAGINE THAT IT WOULD INCREASE THE MARKETABILITY OF A HOUSE PLAN ENORMOUSLY – WHAT KIND OF COSTS ARE INVOLVED FOR AN ARCHITECT OR DESIGNER WHO WANTS TO UTILIZE THAT KIND OF OPTION FOR THEIR WORK?

BP: We are very visual beings. Although the trained person, for the most part, can see their intent in their own minds-eye, most lay people can’t. We, as architectural illustrators, have the task of helping the lay person see what the designer sees. I think a great architectural rendering is worth its weight in gold. It would cost a homeowner more to move one window or wall than it would to acquire a well done architectural rendering. Most people only build one house in their life, and it’s usually their dream home, so it’s worth the investment. Now, to place a dollar figure on it would be difficult because each project is different.

H: WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE WHO’VE HAD A DRAFTSPERSON PREPARE PLANS FOR THEIR DREAM HOME BUT WANT TO BE ABLE TO VISUALIZE THEIR PROJECT MORE FULLY BEFORE COMMITTING – DO YOU WORK WITH THAT KIND OF CLIENTELE AS WELL?

BP: Surprisingly, I have had many homeowners over the past year contract me to create an architectural illustration because their hired architect didn’t have the talent in-house. Most firms have draftspeople, but few have artists.

Image: ‘The Red Wood Crystal Kitchen’, Interior Photo-Real Rendering (Bobby Parker)

H: IS THERE A ‘SIGNATURE STYLE’ IN YOUR WORK – PARTICULAR TECHNIQUES OR INFLUENCES YOU LIKE TO INCORPORATE?

BP: I love light and shadow, so you’ll always see a lot of contrast in my work. Generally, I use contrast to draw the viewer into my image, and ultimately to the image’s focal point.

H: AND FINALLY, ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATION IS SUCH A SPECIALIZED AREA – DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR ANYONE THINKING OF PURSUING IT AS A CAREER?

BP: Learn basic art fundamentals. Most renderings you see now are done by the office tech because it’s software after all that’s being used, but that’s a huge mistake. Study art first and learn the software afterwards. There is art science behind a good architectural rendering. Although good software is important, it’s the artist that makes the magic happen.

Image: ‘Butterfly Window Box’ (Bobby Parker)

Bobby Parker 8/27/14 Bobby Parker 8/27/14

3DS MAX on a Chromebook

Google, VMware, and NVIDIA were on hand at VMworld 2014 to show off a collaborative effort utilizing VMware Blast Performance and NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology. The result will be high performance virtual desktops and workstation-class graphics for Chromebooks.

Imagine getting hardware-accelerated graphics, and at the same time, enjoying the flexibility of a virtual environment. With the flexibility of the Chromebook, manufacturers can design complex 3D models and share them with engineers around the globe. Applications such as Adobe Illustrator CC, Autodesk AutoCAD, Microsoft Office will have no trouble running smoothly in this virtual environment.

“We are breaking down traditional barriers to adopting virtual desktops and offering new economics for the delivery of graphics-intensive applications through the power of the cloud,” said Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager, End-User Computing, VMware. “Organizations of all industries and requirements will soon be able to embrace the mobile-cloud using a solution that offers a new way to work from three proven industry leaders.”

Chromebooks featuring NVIDIA Tegra K1-processors will be among the first ones to get access to this technology. An early access program will become available in Q4 2014, but users will need to register.

What do you guys think? I think we are starting to see what Google’s vision was with the Chromebook.

Bobby Parker 8/26/14 Bobby Parker 8/26/14

Zink Render - Google Cloud Rendering

Google today announ ced that it has acquired Zync Render, a service that makes it easier for movie studios to render their visual effects in the cloud. The technology was used to render effects in movies like Star Trek: Into Darkness and Looper, for example. Google will use the technology to make it easier for studios to use its Cloud Platform infrastructure to render their creations.

Currently, ZYNC is optimized for work on Amazon’s EC2 service, but Google will now integrate it into its Cloud Platform. ZYNC says its technology has been used to produce “over a dozen” feature films and hundreds of commercials, for a total of 6.5 million core hours of rendering time.

As Google notes today, it typically takes a very powerful infrastructure to render the special effects in a movie. Most studios have their own render farms for this. Those studios would only need a cloud service to sometimes burst their capacity to finish a job faster. Others, however, don’t have access to their own servers (or don’t want to deal with them), and for them, the cloud is the only way to render their effects.

Google says it will offer studios per-minute billing, but otherwise, the company remains pretty quiet about its exact plans for this service. The ZYNC team itself notes that it believes that “the scale and reliability of Google Cloud Platform will help us offer an even better service to our customers — including more scalability, more host packages and better pricing (including per-minute billing).”

It’s worth noting that Amazon has regularly positioned its platform as a solution for rendering visual effects, too. Indeed, it currently features a case study aroundAtomic Fiction‘s work on Star Trek: Into Darkness — the same movie ZYNC also worked on. Microsoft, too, has occasionally brought up its cloud’s suitability for this kind of work.

Bobby Parker 8/23/14 Bobby Parker 8/23/14

Great Work

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

— Steve Jobs

Bobby Parker 8/23/14 Bobby Parker 8/23/14

You Can Learn Anything

We're on a mission to unlock the world's potential. Most people think their intelligence is fixed. The science says it’s not. It starts with knowing you can learn anything.

Bobby Parker 8/20/14 Bobby Parker 8/20/14

How a boy became an artist

When Jarrett J. Krosoczka was a kid, he didn’t play sports, but he loved art. He paints the funny and touching story of a little boy who pursued a simple passion: to draw and write stories. With the help of a supporting cast of family and teachers, our protagonist grew up to become the successful creator of beloved children’s book characters, and a vocal advocate for arts education. (Filmed at TEDxHampshireCollege.)

Bobby Parker 8/20/14 Bobby Parker 8/20/14

Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2015 software. Extension 1

If you are a 3ds Max customer with Autodesk® Subscription you now have exclusive access to the new tools in Extension 1 for Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2015 software. Extension 1 delivers powerful OpenSubdiv modeling workflows - the top feature request on User Voice - support for the Alembic interchange format, and enhancements to the ShaderFX visual shader editor that helps you more easily create and exchange the complex assets today’s demanding productions require.

New features

OpenSubdiv Support

Efficiently represent subdivision surfaces using OpenSubdiv libraries, open-sourced by Pixar and incorporating technology from Microsoft Research.

Visualize your model interactively without the need to render for a better WYSIWYG experience, greater productivity, and more accurate realization of creative intent.
Get faster in-viewport performance for meshes with high subdivision levels by taking advantage of both parallel CPU and GPU architectures.
Reduce the guesswork when animating models and help shorten production times, with efficient smooth surface representation.
Create complex topology in less time, by taking advantage of efficient crease modeling workflows with CreaseSet modifier and Crease Explorer.
Easily transfer your models to and from certain other packages that support OpenSubdiv using Autodesk® FBX® asset exchange technology and achieve a consistent appearance.

Alembic Support

View massive datasets in the Nitrous Viewport, and transfer them more easily through your production pipeline with new Alembic support.

Work with production-proven technology, co-developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd.
Move complex data through a pipeline in a manageable form: complex animated and simulated data is distilled into a non-procedural, application-independent set of baked geometric results.
Get more from your workstation, with highly efficient use of memory and disk space.
Enjoy faster data transfer and load times, with the ability to export and load only selected geometry.

Enhanced ShaderFX

Get more shading options and better shader interoperability between 3ds Max, Autodesk® Maya® software, and Autodesk® Maya LT TM software.

Create a wider range of procedural materials with new node patterns—wavelines, voronoi, simplex noise, and brick.
Create normal maps from 2D grayscale images with a new bump utility node.
Get faster access to the shaders you need, with a searchable node browser.

Bobby Parker 8/19/14 Bobby Parker 8/19/14

Oculus Rift Development Kit 2

The Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 is the latest development kit for the Oculus Rift with a low-persistence OLED display and low-latency positional head tracking.

Oculus Rift is a game changer for architectural visualization. The experience of walking into a design concept in virtual reality in a Rift can’t be described with words. Everyone who experiences it for the first time is totally blown away, and there’s never any doubt that this technology has far-reaching potential for visualizing buildings and cities.

Bobby Parker 8/17/14 Bobby Parker 8/17/14

Art Quote - Albert Einstein

“Creativity is contagious, pass it on”

— Albert Einstein

Bobby Parker 8/12/14 Bobby Parker 8/12/14

Serious Productivity with the Core i7 Surface Pro 3

Andrew Hill, Director of Mechanical Engineering on the Surface team shows how the power of Surface Pro 3 with a 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 processor allows Surface Pro to be designed on a Surface Pro. The team can run computationally intensive 3D modeling software on a device that is thin and light and highly portable. They use the pen and OneNote to capture images for later collaboration and are able to seamlessly go from an office setting with multiple displays to work on the go.