New Nin Video: Was Houdini Used?

[digitallysane]

Just read this:

http://www.vfxworld.com/?atype=news&format=rss&id=14373

The video is here:

http://nin.com/visuals/index.html

It looks pretty much like a Houdini job to me. Was Houdini used?

Dragos

[edward]

I have no idea but FYI there's a pin board tutorial here:

http://www.techimage.co.uk/products/houdin..._tutorials.html

[digitallysane]

I have no idea but FYI there's a pin board tutorial here:

I know the tutorial, that's one of the reasons I supposed the NIN video was done in Houdini.

Dragos

[Marc]

If it was DD then it was more than likely Houdini that was used. Either that or lightwave, but I'm putting my money on Houdini.

[Andz]

From Vray forum.

Ok everyone, I worked on this video for a little while before I left Digital Domain.

It's for the band NINE INCH NAILS and directed by David Fincher.

You will need to use internet explorer and windows media player for this :

http://video.msn.com

Go to "Movies - Music", then "Music: Rock", and then scroll to the next to last row.

Some of the most talented people I have worked with were on this project. Thanks to them for amazing work.

Thanks to everyone at Chaos and Discreet for their support in getting that project going.

enjoy!

i would say that 90-95% of the video is pure cg.

i personally did shading work on the pinboard, table, speakers, laptop, coffee set.

in the beginning there was talk of multiple passes for compositing, etc and the more we got into the renders the less compositing came about. I would have to ask on final stats but all the renders I was doing resulted in VERY little composite work. I would do some color corrects and edge treatments and then it was done. Very minimal. I love that.

It was an HDR for the main lighting. When I was doing the look development i added 2 vray lights and that was it. They probably added 1-2 more. It was a very simple lighting setup because vray allows for that 

the apples at the end where one falls are real. one of the few real shots in the video.

those pins are done with a 128x96 (i could be wrong on the res) image sequence/avi that was converted via a maxscript to each pin.

so yeah, each pin is it's own piece of geo that was moving where the keyframes were driven by an avi.

The post's author nick name is throb, I don

[Marc]

wow... that's interesting. I wonder if they chose that route because of vray, or another reason. Lets hope Jason can shed some light on the whole shebang when he returns.

M

P.S. throb is Rob Nederhorst.

[Guest Guest]

yep, it is because of Vray - my fellas ( VRay developers ) told me that this is the main reason.

[Jason]

yep, it is because of Vray - my fellas ( VRay developers ) told me that this is the main reason.

19528[/snapback]

Hello all,

Yup, this is correct. DD Commercials division who did this video decided that they wanted to evaluate a V-Ray pipeline and Max has a decent interface to it.

Cheers!

Jason

[peship]

yep, it is because of Vray - my fellas ( VRay developers ) told me that this is the main reason.

Heh, i just have checked this trade and noticed that i replied as anonymous, sorry about that.

[aracid]

max ?

mmmm, i hope that doesnt set a trend in the photoreal cgi market

[Marc]

I've actually noticed a trend already in the highend market. Where people seem less concerned with evangelising a piece of software and are starting to use what's needed to get the job done.

Each package has definite strengths and weaknesses, and it's good to see supervisors choosing to use something which suits the needs of the production rather than cramming the production into the inconsistencies of the package.

Having said that however, choosing to do an entire production in max merely because of it's interface to vray seems a little on the extreme side.

[michael]

I've actually noticed a trend already in the highend market. Where people seem less concerned with evangelising a piece of software and are starting to use what's needed to get the job done.

Each package has definite strengths and weaknesses, and it's good to see supervisors choosing to use something which suits the needs of the production rather than cramming the production into the inconsistencies of the package.

Having said that however, choosing to do an entire production in max merely because of it's interface to vray seems a little on the extreme side.

agreed...

although it may have been a case of resources...no one available to write an interface to VRay for lightwave/houdini etc, it would be interesting to get more information on how these kinds of decisions are made...that and how projects are organized/managed are areas that are not talked about much - but are really incredibly important no matter the scale of the job.

[Marc]

agreed...

although it may have been a case of resources...no one available to write an interface to VRay for lightwave/houdini etc, it would be interesting to get more information on how these kinds of decisions are made...that and how projects are organized/managed are areas that are not talked about much - but are really incredibly important no matter the scale of the job.

19553[/snapback]

Yeah, if it was a commercial then I doubt they had many resources at all.. in the way of money or time. It would be nice though to have a Houdini interface to vray. Lets hope someone gets around to it sometime

[peliosis]

funny, everybody spit on max (including myself) but often it appears to be the most comprehensive and full package, not to mention it has best imaginable renderers.

A few years ago awhen I quit max to feel the taste of other software (then it was maya because xsi was in early funny 1.0 stage) my actual boss told me that I can use what I want but finally I'll be back using max and lot's of his friends also were delighted about other software for a while, just to go back to max.

It's a bit frustrating to find out that whatever you are going to do, the old max is likely to be the most efficient way to do it.

Yesterday I rendered scene from pinboard tutorial...two lights with transparent shadows appeared to be overkill.

And there is no rendering choice for a freelancer in houdini. I'd love to be able to use the vulnerable MR at least.

Am I just having a bad day?

Peter

[aracid]

Each package has definite strengths and weaknesses, and it's good to see supervisors choosing to use something which suits the needs of the production rather than cramming the production into the inconsistencies of the package.

19552[/snapback]

hey hey

yeah, i agree with that, i' was just being a bit biased bout my tool of choice. u know whats its like, when u do something thats really nice and some chap comes up to u and goes, "i have a plugin that does that"

u just sit back and wonder.....

generally we are producing goods, and the cheaper we can make them the better.

all the best

aracid

[Marc]

funny, everybody spit on max (including myself) but often it appears to be the most comprehensive and full package, not to mention it has best imaginable renderers.

19556[/snapback]

I think saying that we spit on Max is a little bit of an exaggeration. I certainly think it's great at what it does, but I also think that there's a reason why no high-end film production houses use it for anything.

But maybe that's changing.

...and some chap comes up to u and goes, "i have a plugin that does that" 

u just sit back and wonder.....

19557[/snapback]

If anyone says that to you, then it's pretty much guaranteed that they don't have a plugin for that. Or, at least, they might have a plugin that does something similar, but the chances of it achieving anything worth using are pretty slim.

It's probably best not to argue with people who take pride in producing work by pushing a button. Unless of course they're proud of producing generic stuff that looks like everything else made by people who bought that same plugin. Then it's definitely not worth arguing with them .

M

[digitallysane]

It's a bit frustrating to find out that whatever you are going to do, the old max is likely to be the most efficient way to do it.

Well, in this case Max was not a very efficient way to do it, when we think at the animation side of it. It was necessary to use Max, of course, because of its interface with vray, but when I read:

those pins are done with a 128x96 (i could be wrong on the res) image sequence/avi that was converted via a maxscript to each pin.

so yeah, each pin is it's own piece of geo that was moving where the keyframes were driven by an avi.

It is funny, this thing is a piece of cake in Houdini without any scripting at all. As posted before, it's available to all in a web tutorial.

That being said, 1. I agree that Max can be a very convenient package in many situations and 2. I totally agree that Mantra could be way faster.

Dragos

[Mcronin]

Well you guys can play nice but I make no bones about the fact that I have no warm feelings for Max or Discreet for that matter, after several years of experience using their products and dealing with Autodesk/Kinetix/Discreet in production. If I had to sum up Max in a single word, "efficient " would not even come close to correct. So yeah, I spit on Max. I'm not a software zealot, I'd use just about anything, except Max. I really dislike it that much.

The video is excellent but really the work that went into it could've come from any package. I mean, really, how hard is it to build a bunch of office equipment and apply realistic shaders? The renderer was clearly the star of the show, so in this case why not use Max? They wanted Vray and clearly the rest of the job wasn't really taxing, right? I imagine it would take a bit longer to get the same results out of Mantra. Not saying Mantra isn't up to that sort of work, just that Vray and Max are full of canned solutions for exactly what you are seeing in the video. Look at the galleries out there. There are teenagers out there spitting out full CG images that look just like this video with Max and VRay.

[Jason]

The artists pulled off a LOT of consistently good work for this spot; it's not easy managing so many shots, pleasing the client(s) and in this video's relatively short time schedule. Yes, I thouroughly believe Houdini>Mantra could've pulled this off without terribly much difficulty, but then so could've a Maya>Mental Ray pipeline.

The tools were not really the issue at all, IMHO. We picked with software due to the preferences of the commercials VFX Supervisor who wished to evaluate new tools for the commercials dept. The experience is invaluable because the commercials and features depts get to see how it performs.

Take care,

Jason

[Mcronin]

The artists pulled off a LOT of consistently good work for this spot;

19564[/snapback]

BTW, I really wasn't trying to make it sound like anyone could have done this video. My point was that despite my own feelings about Max and Discreet, I have to admit that it was probably a good choice of tools for the job. The end result is great.