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SideFX Houdini - Procedural Road Creation : Building Powerful Assets



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SideFX Houdini - Procedural Road Creation Stage II: The Crash Barrier



These videos are available today at the cmiVFX store.
cmiVFX Video Player Online Store http://cmivfx.com/store/Browse.aspx?Category=11

About the Author:
Kim Goossens is a 38 years old belgian CG-artist who is working as a freelancer and CG-instructor with a long history in CG-graphics starting back at 1989 He became quite known for his creation of the GIRL later adopted by DAZ3D. He is currently teaching Houdini procedural modeling for games at the IGAD program at the NHTV University of Applied Sciences. While working on various game projects and commercials both as Art-director and technical artist, he gained a profound knowledge of tools such as Maya, Max, Zbrush, Modo, shake and Houdini. His biggest passion has always been to research strategies to increase production and quality, which has led him to research procedural modeling and naturally, be hired by cmiVFX.*

About cmiVFX
cmiVFX is the leader in High Definition Video Training for the Visual Effects Community. To test drive the new cmiVFX TVOD © system, visit http://www.cmivfx.com/cmi_vod.html For additional information about cmiVFX, visit www.cmivfx.com.
© 2009 cmiVFX | cmiStudios. *All rights reserved.

[cmiVFX]

cmiVFX Launches Houdini - Empowering Digital Assets with Python
Watch High Definition Training Videos For The Visual Effects Industry Instantly From Anywhere In The World.

Curitiba, PR, Brazil December 22th, 2009 — cmiVFX | cmiStudios launches a brand new Houdini called Empowering Digital Assets with Python. We have dedicated ourselves to completing training for one of the most flexible workflows in Houdini. Python! Rigging a rubiks cube is a challenge by itself and our goal, is to get a playable animatable rubiks cube rig using the power of Python as the core of our asset.. It takes experience to do either one of those things, and we showcase our experience to you here with this fantastic release. This video is available today at the cmiVFX store. cmiVFX Video Player Online Store http://cmivfx.com/store/Browse.aspx?Category=11

Houdini - Empowering Digital Assets with Python
http://cmivfx.com/SideFX_Houdini_Tra...s/default.aspx

BUILDING THE SCENE WITH PYTHON
Python scripting could be of a great help, especially when it comes to redundant things, that if done manually would take ages. In this part you are going to learn how to use python, inside the python shell, to automate the creation of the rubik's cube, and all the necessary nodes, from scratch. by the end of this part you will have built, using python, the geometry of the rubik's cube with the materials attached to it, and with nulls parented to the cubes, that will serve later in the code.

INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL ASSETS
Digital assets are a very important brick in any workflow built around or using houdini. in this part you will be introduced to digital assets and you will learn, by transforming the rubik's cube into one, how to transform a bunch of existing nodes into a digital asset.

PYTHON INSIDE THE DIGITAL ASSET
Since digital assets are entities that can live by themselves, it is crucial to be able to include the scripts they use inside them. there are many methods to do that, and in this part you are going to learn one of those methods, by creating a simple python function inside the rubik's cube digital asset. and then adding a button also to the digital asset to be able to call this function.

RUBIK`S RIG CORE CODE
All is ready now to begin building the core code of the rubik's cube rig. in this part you are going to go deeper into the python code that will drive the behaviour of the rig. you are going to learn about the functions and how to pass parameters from the buttons to these functions, to be able to drive a multitude of conditions that will determine what cubes belong to which faces, which faces will rotate, how they are going to rotate ... etc

KEYING AND ANIMATION
Up until now all the work done so far, allows only to play with the rubik's cube, no keys were set, and therefore no animation. to bring the cube to life, in this part, you are going to learn how to create the code that will allow to set keyframes on the rotations to get an animation!

CUSTOM GEOMETRY
What if the user needs to use custom geometry instead of the default cubes. in this part you are going to see how to make this possible, and how to allow the user to define a custom geometry or not, in which case the default cubes will be used.

FINISHING TOUCHES
Resetting the cube to its initial state is important, because not everyone knows how to solve it ! In this part a reset button will be created, as well as making the rotate function more flexible by allowing it to take the angle in as a parameter.

About the Author:
Georges Nakhle is 25 years old, Lebanese, and has a masters degree in mechanical engineering. He began his art steps with traditional painting and sculpting then gained a diploma in dramatic monologue (acting -singing), he has worked as a writer and performer in radio and TV. Combining arts and science led him to CG, so he mastered many tools including Maya and Houdini among others, Georges is also a programmer, so he's currently working for Dassault Systemes in Paris-France. He had also worked in combination with Dassault-Systemes and Mental Images, the makers of mental-ray.

About cmiVFX
cmiVFX is the leader in High Definition Video Training for the Visual Effects Community. To test drive the new cmiVFX TVOD © system, visit http://www.cmivfx.com/cmi_vod.html For additional information about cmiVFX, visit www.cmivfx.com.
© 2009 cmiVFX | cmiStudios. *All rights reserved.

[cmiVFX]

cmiVFX Launches New Blender Training Video for the New cmiDirect
Watch High Definition Training Videos For The Visual Effects Industry Instantly From Anywhere In The World.

Curitiba, PR, Brazil January 10th, 2010 — cmiVFX | cmiStudios launches a brand new way of delivering videos for its fast growing user base. This new series of training videos is called cmiDirect. Why "direct"? The videos are DIRECT to the point and focus on one topic at the time. This will enable artists all over the world to have access to the information they need immediately without sorting through longer feature length videos. These videos explain all the information you need in depth and direct to the topic. Bundled video packages will be available in the near future for continuing education at affordable prices. When it comes to high end CG and VFX training, there is only once choice... cmiVFX!

V-Ray Introduction: The Blender Connection
http://www.cmivfx.com/Blender3D_Trai...n/default.aspx

The days of excuses are over! If the lack of a production-tested Global-Illumination-Renderer kept you from using Blender, the wait is over! Blender-Users have been utilizing other Apps like Max or C4D that have the V-Ray-Renderer-Plug-in. Where is the good news for you? Now that the V-Ray for Maya Standalone version is out, you can use an elegant and surprisingly good working exporter-script to render your Blender scenes with the V-Ray for Maya Standalone. Yes, you heard right, rendering with V-Ray from directly within Blender has become possible! Use your favorite tools and your beloved Blender-workflows, and produce stunning and superfast renderings with one of the most used and favored renderers out there! And not only that, when you finished rendering use the Blender Äôs built-in compositor to do color-correction, effects and compositing. The possibilities are endless! Need a fast; reliable, easy to setup, high-quality renderer, then V-Ray is for you.

INSTALLING V-Ray
This tutorial will show you how to install the V-Ray for Maya Standalone version, how to setup the license-server and how to use the exporter-script. After a brief overview over the different sections of the script and its interface, learn the basic setups for Irradiance-Map and Light cache. Although there are a couple of other rendering methods in V-Ray, the combination of Irradiance-Map and Light cache is the most common one and gives blazingly fast and good results. Both methods provide lots of possibilities to tweak render-settings and to find the best compromise between speed and quality. Light cache is perfect to get an idea of the final look of your scene in just seconds. This tutorial uses very simple example scenes, so you can quickly and easily reproduce the test-renderings of this video.

SETTINGS
The V-Ray/Blender exporter-script allows you to use Blender interface to control the basic light-settings, material-setups, mirror / transparency settings and world-backgrounds. You will barely notice that you are working with a script. If there is the need to add special settings to objects, lamps or world-settings that cannot be accessed in Blender, there is an extra section in the script where you can do just that. As an example, you will learn how to use HDRI Maps to add reflections and light your scene as well as how to eliminate noise in the renderings by adjusting the lamp-settings.

MATERIALS
After the basic introduction the tutorial shows a basic workflow for how an architectural rendering could look like. Assign materials, unwrap the mesh and apply textures in Blender, similar to the Blender Internal renderer. Use Blender Äôs sun-lamp for fast and easily changes to the mood of your image completely by simulating the times of day with the V-Ray-Sun and V-Ray-Sky. During the tutorial learn some important tips and tricks for some special extras, like dynamic linking of V-Ray-renderings to Blender Äôs built-in compositor or region-rendering for super-fast previews of your scene.

WILL IT BLEND?
Of course only test-renderings and simple demo scenes are a bit boring, so we decided to add the blend file from the title image as a special little bonus to the tutorial. Because what could be better as an example-scene for a Blender-tutorial than a Blender? The last chapter gives an overview on the scene-setup, the materials and the render settings. Check out the settings for glass material, smooth plastic with blurry reflections and translucent materials. This introduction for Blender-to-V-Ray-connection keeps you and your CPUs busy until we come up with the next, advanced tutorial for V-Ray and Blender.

This video is available today at the cmiVFX store.
cmiVFX Video Player Online Store
http://cmivfx.com/store/Browse.aspx?Category=6

About the Author:
Sebastian König is a German 3D-artist who is working as a freelancer and CG-instructor for several years now. During his studies for Education of Art he discovered the joy of modeling and creating 3D-Animations with Blender and hasn't stopped since. Being a passionate Blender-User he has been teaching Blender at the University of Art and Design Halle/Germany.* He has been working for various studios and companies as a 3D-Artist and freelancer. During the dozens of projects and jobs he completed with Blender he got a profound knowledge of almost every aspect of this great Open-Source 3D-application.

About cmiVFX
cmiVFX is the leader in High Definition Video Training for the Visual Effects Community. To test drive the new cmiVFX TVOD © system, visit http://www.cmivfx.com/cmi_vod.html For additional information about cmiVFX, visit www.cmivfx.com.
© 2010 cmiVFX | cmiStudios. *All rights reserved.

[cmiVFX]

cmiVFX Launches New Automotive Rendering Techniques Video for the New cmiDirect
Watch High Definition Training Videos For The Visual Effects Industry Instantly From Anywhere In The World.

Curitiba, PR, Brazil January 10th, 2010 — cmiVFX | cmiStudios launches a brand new way of delivering videos for its fast growing user base. This new series of training videos is called cmiDirect. Why "direct"? The videos are DIRECT to the point and focus on one topic at the time. This will enable artists all over the world to have access to the information they need immediately without sorting through longer feature length videos. These videos explain all the information you need in depth and direct to the topic. Bundled video packages will be available in the near future for continuing education at affordable prices. When it comes to high end CG and VFX training, there is only once choice... cmiVFX!

Automotive Rendering Techniques
http://cmivfx.com/adobe/auto_render_tech/default.aspx

3D Mockup in Maya
Starting off in Maya we will quickly show a very rough car model that will be the foundation for the design. The car is done with traditional polygon techniques which are not covered in this tutorial. The car was modeled in just a few hours and is very rough, but serves the overall purpose of a sketch model.

By toggling between a standard polygon mesh and a smooth mesh preview you will get an instant preview of the final surfaces. This technique is very useful when making sketch models. Sketch models are important in the process as it allows for easy straight-on modeling and evaluation. Using a polygon modeler like Maya makes the process both faster but also more flexible then it would be with Nurbs.

Rendering in Hyper Shot
Export the entire model to an .OBJ file and then import into Hyper Shot. Learn how to apply materials, change the environment, set up the camera for a successful rendering. Hyper Shot is indeed a great application for fast renderings and this section aims to reveal how it can be used in a slightly more advanced way and efficient way.

Different camera angles are evaluated and once the camera is locked down. Multiple renderings can be created using the same exact camera. Different materials and environments are tried out and this material will later be composited together in Photoshop.

Image Assembly and Color Correction in Photoshop
The renderings are now brought into Photoshop for assembly and initial color corrections. Bits and pieces from different renderings are put together using layers and blend modes. Some initial color correction can be made to make sure that the overall palette is consistent and coherent. By using adjustment layers it is possible to work in a non-destructive manner and really tune the levels and colors.

Learn how to work with the path-tool to create sharp and accurate design element such as cut-lines, vents and body creases. Utilizing a set of brushes in combination with selections created with the path-tool a painted look is achieved. This technique allows for both precision rendering as well as for a more painterly style.

Details
Utilizing the path-tool, details and color trims are created in a fast and creative manner. The front is given some extra attention as well as a number of other key elements. Headlamps and splitters are designed and painted in using different tools.

Final Touches
Learn to fine tune the project by continuing the work all over the rendering, adding details and sharpness, paying extra attention to textures. Utilizing a variety of techniques, learn to add sharpness, key lines and highlights to accentuate.

The final step before completion is the introduction of overlay textures that really make the project come alive. By using a variety of textures, the original colors are mixed and blended in a very artistic manner. This technique is somewhat of a signature to the artist and really takes the rendering to a whole new level.

This video is available today at the cmiVFX store. cmiVFX Video Player Online Store
http://cmivfx.com/store/Browse.aspx?Category=32

About the Author:
Mikael Lugnegård is a Swedish 3D-artist who has worked as a freelancer and CG-instructor for many years now. He attended Umea Institute of Design in Sweden where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Design. Mikael is proficient in Model Making, Graphic Arts, Photo Editing, High End Product Rendering, Project Management and more. He is passionate about the arts and education as well as photography, downhill skiing and is a snowboarding instructor. Mikael is currently a consultant and design for Red Digital Cinema and runs his own company Lugnegård Designs in Sweden.

About cmiVFX
cmiVFX is the leader in High Definition Video Training for the Visual Effects Community. To test drive the new cmiVFX TVOD © system, visit http://www.cmivfx.com/cmi_vod.html For additional information about cmiVFX, visit www.cmivfx.com.
© 2010 cmiVFX | cmiStudios. *All rights reserved.