Houdin used in the Sci Fi Movie Contact

[gfxfr33k]

I was watching the Extra Behind the scenes in the making of the Sci-Fi movie Contact with Jody Foster.

I was curious as to why they used Linux (unix) machines and used Houdini, maya and Softimage XSI along with Renderman and some of their own tools.

I did notice they they had to save time and I saw that they used a 128 processor machine to do all the rendering.

So using a linux OS or Mac OS vs Windows XP is more efficient in rendering your projects?

Rendering for a couple of simple objects in Cinema 4D or even Bryce takes a while about 30 seconds for a simple Terrain, light source and sky background. Of course that includes the alaising time as well.

Anyhow any one familiar with Houdini, maya and Softimage XSI and why they chose to use those applications instead of 3D studio max or Cinema 4D or any of the other equivalent 3d animation software in Windows instead?

My last question is does Windows XP 3D animation software run more efficiently in Windows and Linux versus Mac OSX? That question might be redundant sorry. This might have something to do with OpenGL maybe being more supported in Linux and windows not sure? I know the rendering times are speed up with Multi Core Multi Processor systems and linux seems to handle them better than any OS as far as I know?

Sorry about all the questions but this particular forum seems to be one of the largest visited so I wanted to post my question here.

Last question, what chance is there in a OSX version of Houdini? If its made for Linux , I don't understand the reason why an OSX version cannot be coded for?

Also which version currently is more efficient the linux or Windows version? Render times and stability.

Edited March 24, 2008 by gfxfr33k

[symek]

O man, are you sure you want to talk about this? .

Just to clarify things, I'm really not sure there are answers for most of your questions. I think you miss concept something here.

1) Check the date of "Contact" creation. I suspect there were no Cinema4d, Brice, or 3DSMax for Windows yet (3dsmax for DOS more likely). None of them were also created for a purpose of film industry, even if - after many years of development and computers speed ups - some of them reached the possibility of creating and rendering high resolution, antialiased, motion blured, heavy textured pictures.

2) The applications are chosen not because of the OS they work on! Operating systems are chosen by developers for a matter of its capabilities. Most professional applications in that industry were developed for Irix SGI since these were the only machines capable handing 3d work +20 years ago.

3) Yes, Linux is more stable and faster in most applications. It's also better OS for a big facilities creating motion graphics for a number of reason:

- it's cheap

- it can be striped out of many redundant services

- it's very flexible and much easier to customize

- it's much, much better for administrating (specially remote administrating)

- it posses very capable and reach development environment (gcc) helpful in creation of many important extensions.

- ...

4) We are expecting OSX public beta build in days:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com...9&start=225

5) Please, don't cross post here and on SESI. This has begun to be a bad habit of newbies here (and there). Choose the place, wait a while, if no answer satisfies you, post again on second one. Most people visit both places. Starting double conversation doesn't help.

Cheers,

sy.

Edited March 24, 2008 by SYmek

[Andz]

1) Check the date of "Contact" creation. I suspect there were no Cinema4d, Brice, or 3DSMax for Windows yet (3dsmax for DOS more likely). None of them were also created for a purpose of film industry, even if - after many years of development and computers speed ups - some of them reached the possibility of creating and rendering high resolution, antialiased, motion blured, heavy textured pictures.

1) Well, there actually was 3dsmax (NT) and bryce back then. Mental Ray was not available for max at that time, nor Brazil or Vray. My problem with max is the ammount of geomatry it can handle on viewport, I know some people have used much more, but I could only work with about 500k polys on viewport back then. Ehm... about Bryce... I don't think that it can render anything really usable for film. Terragen and Vue are better for this in my humble opinion, but I don't think they were available at the time.

Any one remembers VistaPro :-) ?

VistaPro Review

VistaPro gallery

[photex]

Any one remembers VistaPro :-) ?

VistaPro Review

VistaPro gallery

VistaPro rock(s/ed)! I would set a high quality render on my pentium 75 and go to sleep, then wake up and go to school, then it would be done by the time I got home. Hooray for a moutain in the shape of my ear! heheh.

anyway sorry to hi-jack the thread.

[old school]

My gosh the dark ages of CG!

I like to think that each major CG film presents a quantum leap. That means at least two leaps a year minimum. Over ten years, that's minimum 20x. HUGE change over that time.

Circa 1995-1996 when Contact was in production at SONY:

- WindowsNT was "just" becoming viable as an Operating System period. OpenGL graphics cards were very expensive, very large and not very common. I know personally from supporting Houdini on WindowsNT early days.

- AutoDesk was still busy writing 3DS Max on Windows.

- SGI Hardware ruled the CG world with IRIX OS and GL support (was it OpenGL by 1995 or still in transition...). SGI was costly to buy and maintain but it was rock solid. IRIX and SGI were WAY AHEAD of everyone else. 64 bit operating systems, huge addressible memory, multiple graphics heads per machine and most importantly everything was parallel supporting multiple processors and scaling SGI hardware was very well implemented. To this day PC hardware still isn't there with regards to the scaling technology SGI has/had. All in the '90's.

Contact was done with Houdini1.1 and Render Man. Very early days indeed. Linux was not even an option back in 1995-96 when the movie was in production at SONY.

I believe that the opening shot on Contact still holds the record to this day as the longest continuous CG shot on Feature Film. An astounding feat given the time that the work was done. Kudos to the artists at SONY at the time.

[gfxfr33k]

Thanks for the information and sorry about the thread in houdini'd forum. I thought these two forums were entirely different.

Ok so can I ask a few more questions. If I want to make a film like BeoWolf or a fim that has more Video cam footage with 3D animation layered or composited on it what tools would I need.

On MAC OSX. Here is a list of applications I have and I am willing to purchase whatever else I need to get the job done. Hopefully in the quickest time as far as rendering the projects and somewhat eas of use of 3D animation software. But also the look and feel of realism. Maybe what I mean by realism is hi definition so the film has a clean crisp look. I noticed some Terrain and World builder (planet) software tneds to be grainy looking.

That said here is what I have for OSX:

1) Final Cut studio v2. It has Motion

2) Terragen 1 and 2 ( not happy with the resolution of the images)

3) Shake

4) Boris Red v4.1

5) Discreet Combustion

6) Vue Infinite ( would eventually purchase Xtream so I can bring the application right into other #D software but heard its messy right now)

7) Daz Studio, Bryce ,Maya and Cinema 4D ( I am good at using Cinema 4D. I am still learning Maya)

Now once Houdini is available for OSX I can switch over.

SO will Houdini take the place of any of those applications I mentioned? Will I be able to create Terrians and Planets Surreal like the ones you can in Bryce and MojoWorld?

Anyhow I want to get my hands on Fusion for Film Composting but can you achieve this in Houdini? Fusion is not available for Linux or mac osx.

Will Apple Shake Boris Red or Combustion suffice in film composting? Can Houdini replace any of these or will I still need one of them for compositing film? Which is the one you would use?

So if you were to make a list of software to use knowing you can onlu use Linux or OSX what would you recommend.

Once Houdini is availalbe for OSX I am going to purchase it. What software I listed above would I be able to eliminate. I hate porting over too many software. If I can reduce the software it will be easier.

O man, are you sure you want to talk about this? .

Just to clarify things, I'm really not sure there are answers for most of your questions. I think you miss concept something here.

1) Check the date of "Contact" creation. I suspect there were no Cinema4d, Brice, or 3DSMax for Windows yet (3dsmax for DOS more likely). None of them were also created for a purpose of film industry, even if - after many years of development and computers speed ups - some of them reached the possibility of creating and rendering high resolution, antialiased, motion blured, heavy textured pictures.

2) The applications are chosen not because of the OS they work on! Operating systems are chosen by developers for a matter of its capabilities. Most professional applications in that industry were developed for Irix SGI since these were the only machines capable handing 3d work +20 years ago.

3) Yes, Linux is more stable and faster in most applications. It's also better OS for a big facilities creating motion graphics for a number of reason:

- it's cheap

- it can be striped out of many redundant services

- it's very flexible and much easier to customize

- it's much, much better for administrating (specially remote administrating)

- it posses very capable and reach development environment (gcc) helpful in creation of many important extensions.

- ...

4) We are expecting OSX public beta build in days:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com...9&start=225

5) Please, don't cross post here and on SESI. This has begun to be a bad habit of newbies here (and there). Choose the place, wait a while, if no answer satisfies you, post again on second one. Most people visit both places. Starting double conversation doesn't help.

Cheers,

sy.

[symek]

Nice one. I really wish you all the best in upcoming years long epopei . Hope you get there satisfied with how you spent these long months.

Seriously creating personal movie by one / or a few persons in realistic convention is pretty hard challenge. As to mine opinion combination of Shake/Linux (or OSX probably) and Houdini Apprentice HD + Mantra would be the best possible choice because its possibilities and budget.

Both of them were created purely in film industry in mind and can handle photo-real, high resolution imaginary pretty well - sorry but this is simply not true for Cinema4d, Brice or Combustion etc. Because of a number of unrelated reasons happened recently, Shake, Houdini and Mantra will cost you about 600$ - 3 years ago it would be up to 30,000$

cheers,

sy.

PS Fusion is available for Linux, but I don't know any single reason for choosing it over shake (except font/typography support )

Edited March 24, 2008 by SYmek

[gfxfr33k]

Thanks again and you are right the cost of what I listed is outrageous.

WHat is wrong with Cinema 4D for 3D animation for film?

FUsion seems to be an incredible application after reviewing it it can go beyond what the other compositors can do. It has its own Dynamic Particle engine or plugin and can do multiple nodes layers upon layers. I knwo Houdini can do this but not with Film. Moving frames or what have you.

Enough of fusion.

Trying to find Mantra is that the correct spelling? What is that application used for? What do you think about Blender 3D? I know its open source.

Nice one. I really wish you all the best in upcoming years long epopei . Hope you get there satisfied with how you spent these long months.

Seriously creating personal movie by one / or a few persons in realistic convention is pretty hard challenge. As to mine opinion combination of Shake/Linux (or OSX probably) and Houdini Apprentice HD + Mantra would be the best possible choice because its possibilities and budget.

Both of them were created purely in film industry in mind and can handle photo-real, high resolution imaginary pretty well - sorry but this is simply not true for Cinema4d, Brice or Combustion etc. Because of a number of unrelated reasons happened recently, Shake, Houdini and Mantra will cost you about 600$ - 3 years ago it would be up to 30,000$

cheers,

sy.

PS Fusion is available for Linux, but I don't know any single reason for choosing it over shake (except font/typography support )

[symek]

Thanks again and you are right the cost of what I listed is outrageous.

WHat is wrong with Cinema 4D for 3D animation for film?

FUsion seems to be an incredible application after reviewing it it can go beyond what the other compositors can do. It has its own Dynamic Particle engine or plugin and can do multiple nodes layers upon layers. I knwo Houdini can do this but not with Film. Moving frames or what have you.

Enough of fusion.

Trying to find Mantra is that the correct spelling? What is that application used for? What do you think about Blender 3D? I know its open source.

1) Fusion: I don't want to bash into anything, but things do not always look like they seem at the first glance. Fusion is mature, reach and fully featured application, but it's not even in half as good as Shake or Nuke for films work. Please, don't except from a professional application that it can handle all duties like high resolution compositing and particles simulation in one. I prefer to have a rock solid and fast compositor without particles engine then crappy app. fully of features that simply don't work as excepted. Your choice. I know number of people using Fusion but I would never-ever jump into it in a tough task.

And no, Houdini compositor (Halo) is not what you want. It meant to be a 3d artist aid tool, not a film compositor. It's fully capable to work with film though! It just a not a master in that.

2) I can't get into details with Cinema4d. This is general purpose, freelance tool for many artists. Good for handling task as long as you perfectly know how to accomplish it. The very nature of film production and VFX is that every shot discovers new land. You need an open and flexible tool like Maya or Houdini to tackle down all these things that weren't considered by software's developers. That's why Maya, Houdini or PRMan along with Linux are used in this business. They are open and flexible. It's just that Maya needs three MEL coders in charge .

But hey! You like Cinema, stay with Cinema!

3) Mantra is a Houdini native renderer. It comes with Houdini and it's pretty neat! It's direct competitor with mental ray or renderman's family. It was used in many film productions. It simply rocks if you know how to use it.

4) Don't know too much about Blender. It is apparently capable to make animations, right? What about render engine for that...? You want to render a movie with Yavray!?

HTH,.

sy.

Edited March 24, 2008 by SYmek

[gfxfr33k]

Thanks again. This is very good information. It will help me move in the correct direction now before it too late. I can adapt myself to other applications. I only got use to Cinema 4D just to learn how to create for now and use a 3D application.

Not sure what I can use though if I want to do some really kewl Surreal Terrains and Planets liek you see From Bryce and MojoWorld. I don't think its possible to export the project into a usable format for Maya nor Houdini.

I'll take you advice from an earlier post and look at Terragen again. I also can use Vue Infinite but its not really a Terrain and World creator application.

Great Information!!

1) Fusion: I don't want to bash into anything, but things do not always look like they seem at the first glance. Fusion is mature, reach and fully featured application, but it's not even in half as good as Shake or Nuke for films work. Please, don't except from a professional application that it can handle all duties like high resolution compositing and particles simulation in one. I prefer to have a rock solid and fast compositor without particles engine then crappy app. fully of features that simply don't work as excepted. Your choice. I know number of people using Fusion but I would never-ever jump into it in a tough task.

And no, Houdini compositor (Halo) is not what you want. It meant to be a 3d artist aid tool, not a film compositor. It's fully capable to work with film though! It just a not a master in that.

2) I can't get into details with Cinema4d. This is general purpose, freelance tool for many artists. Good for handling task as long as you perfectly know how to accomplish it. The very nature of film production and VFX is that every shot discovers new land. You need an open and flexible tool like Maya or Houdini to tackle down all these things that weren't considered by software's developers. That's why Maya, Houdini or PRMan along with Linux are used in this business. They are open and flexible. It's just that Maya needs three MEL coders in charge .

But hey! You like Cinema, stay with Cinema!

3) Mantra is a Houdini native renderer. It comes with Houdini and it's pretty neat! It's direct competitor with mental ray or renderman's family. It was used in many film productions. It simply rocks if you know how to use it.

4) Don't know too much about Blender. It is apparently capable to make animations, right? What about render engine for that...? You want to render a movie with Yavray!?

HTH,.

sy.

[Andz]

Not sure what I can use though if I want to do some really kewl Surreal Terrains and Planets liek you see From Bryce and MojoWorld. I don't think its possible to export the project into a usable format for Maya nor Houdini.

I'll take you advice from an earlier post and look at Terragen again. I also can use Vue Infinite but its not really a Terrain and World creator application.

Great Information!!

The "problem" with these kind of world creating softs is that most of the terrain details, tree and rocks instancing and fractal textures are created on-the-fly at render time, so they never look the same (as good) if the mesh is exported to another program. Vue was used in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 , but rendered inside Vue, and the images where used in compositing later.

3D worlds "can" be created in any 3d software, maybe not as easy as in a world creating soft.

[gfxfr33k]

The "problem" with these kind of world creating softs is that most of the terrain details, tree and rocks instancing and fractal textures are created on-the-fly at render time, so they never look the same (as good) if the mesh is exported to another program. Vue was used in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 , but rendered inside Vue, and the images where used in compositing later.

3D worlds "can" be created in any 3d software, maybe not as easy as in a world creating soft.

I see. Thats where I get kinda confused is the entire process in making a Professional or even a ameture film with special affects. If you have a Home made video and want to spice it up, there are so many ways to do this I know. But it all comes down to the composting and finishing it up in A video editor like Adobe Premier or in my case Fnal Cut Studio.

My question is will Apple SHake be more than what I need to bring in my Home Video and composite it with my 3D animation work from like Maya or Vue? Will entite process of layering these models onto the Film be a major task or be as much work as it took to create the 3D modeling itself.

Never really knew how complex the entire procedure was until now.

Thanks

P.S.

SO can I create a Model from scratch in Maya, Houdini or Vue and have they Surreal look as in Bryce, Terragen and Mojoworld? Is there another application I can use to make these terrains and planets more easily and import them into Maya or Houdini and not loose all the elements and textruing as in the original? I can only import the mesh or wireframe? If so that is very limited. To bad that that the companies don't follow a standard like film standards and Audio standards as they do for 3D animation.

Edited March 25, 2008 by gfxfr33k

[michael]

film standards and Audio standards

no such thing...

just ask anyone who does broadcast work...

it sounds to me like you want to do something pretty major...but if you're not sure about the tools/techniques you'll need then this a bad sign...I don't want to discourage you, but I think you should do much more research about film/VFX/animation...

there are a few books that might help :

most bookstores will let you sit all day and read so don't feel you have to buy a book...

http://www.amazon.com/Inspired-3D-Short-Fi...n/dp/1592001173

http://www.amazon.com/Inspired-3D-Lighting...g/dp/1931841497

Hope that helps...