2O17 ISSN 1433-2620 > B 43362 >> 21. Jahrgang >>> www.digitalproduction.com Deutschland € 17,70 Publiziert von DETAIL Business Information GmbH Österreich € 19,– 6 Schweiz sfr 23,– O6:17 MAGAZIN FÜR DIGITALE MEDIENPRODUKTION NOVEMBER | DEZEMBER 06:2017 Fokus: Crowd Simulation | After Effects CC 2017 Essentials | CityEngine | Houdini Schwerkraft | Fusion 9 | Zweiter Fokus: animago 2017 winners winners 2017 animago Fokus: 9 | Zweiter | Fusion Schwerkraft | Houdini | CityEngine Essentials Effects | After CC 2017 Simulation Crowd Heroes of 2017 Crowd Sim Toolbox! 06 Meet all the winners Werde zum digitalen Adobe AE 2017, Fusion 9, of the animago AWARD Herrscher der Heerscharen! CityEngine und mehr 4 194336 217709 DP1706_001-001_U1_Titel.indd 1 04.10.2017 07:23:02 AUSGABE O6:2O17 GOLAEM | USER INTERVIEW Getting into Golaem A first look into any software is always fascinating – but it’s meat and bones only show after a few months of daily use, which is why we asked user “Nixolas” a couple of questions, who shares a handful of free assets on his site and has been using Golaem in Commercials and Feature films for almost as long as the software exists. von Bela Beier e are talking to user “Nixolas” adjust to the immediate market trend, but crowd setup. This was paramount to the (www.nixolas.com) who is cur- knowing full well that we would soon have success of our new budgets and schedules, Wrently employed at OPTIX (www. to find a better solution. and we were able to quickly scoop up jobs optixlovesyou.com) and moves between at such a low rate in what was still a niche Florida and Dubai. After 2 years of studying DP: And when did you start with skill, at the time. Computer Programming at Penn State and Golaem? studying Computer Animation for 4 years Nicholas King: Crowd simulation started DP: And after this time, what is your at IADT, he received a Bache lor‘s Degree of trending to the point where budgeting and day-to-day use for Golaem? Fine Arts. See his movies, clips, and work- projecting schedules to clients were becom- Nicholas King: We get a lot of commer- shops on www.youtube.com/nixolas. ing difficult, naturally becoming more and cial work, that usually involves your typical more complicated as directors tried pushing crowd setup (stadium, populating streets, DP: How did you get into Crowd Simula- boundaries. This is where I started to run ambient crowds), but after getting so heavily tion in general? tests with Massive and found that although involved in the integration of a crowd pipe- Nicholas King: While working as a CG Su- it is an amazing piece of software, it became line with the team at Optix, I found that I pervisor for Optix, we were increasingly too tedious for our workflow, especially in was very interested in using those skills on approached by clients and agencies who the commercial industry, where we required personal projects. started pitching projects that involved more quick turnaround times and the delicacy of Lately I’ve been using the non-commer- and more crowd simulation. At the time, managing assets within our already estab- cial version of Golaem to produce funny, or Massive was a huge player in our industry, lished pipeline. This is where I discovered weird, videos for my personal pleasure on and the complexity of the scenarios that we Golaem, which was integrated directly with- my Youtube channel. Since I do get very me- needed to simulate did not require such a in Maya as a plug-in, which meant we were ticulous about details, these projects usually robust piece of software. At first, I started able to task the work between our artists take a long time to finish, especially since to develop in-house setups (using cards and at different stages and interchange assets, I’m only really working on them during the particles) so that we were able to quickly all while working simultaneously with the weekends or after hours. 15 DP1706_015-017_CrowdGolaemInterview.indd 15 04.10.2017 07:57:34 FOKUS FILM & VFX 3D & ANIMATION INTERACTIVE DIGITAL ART SCIENCE & EDUCATION SERVICE DP: When you first started, what set at a stadium and duplicate it over and over Golaem apart from other crowd tools? again to create the rest of the stands, without And how long did it take you to get your any repetitions. Simulation times for massive first sim going? amount of crowds were almost nothing. Nicholas King: Honestly, there were two players at the time when crowd plug-ins DP: Are there any additional tools or were getting popular. I had it down to Gol- plug-ins that work well with Golaem? aem and Miarmy. They both carried more or Nicholas King: When working on a crowd less the same features and system, however, simulation job with Golaem, you’ll be need- Golaem’s interface, and organization of their ing to have it involved during almost all stag- tools made me feel a lot more comfortable es of your typical 3D workflow. This means and insured that I was getting involved in that in the modelling stage you would want a solid piece of equipment that boasted to keep in mind how to organize the assets, professional quality and a well-thought-out textures, the amount of faces allowed, etc. pipeline that needed to be followed. In the animation stage, you’d want to work on the rig that will be used for your enti- DP: If you compare that to your current ties that were modelled, and all animations working time: How long would you take piped through that rig would all have to fol- now to set it up? low this. Since I am not an animator at heart, Nicholas King: I remember having to quote I found this process to be the hardest when on a job that required a stadium shot, and working on my personal projects. This is why after installing Golaem and using their ex- I want to mention the website mixamo.com. tremely helpful resource of tutorials and It’s an online database of motion captured knowledge-base, I was able to put together animations that you can have access to with a test that I could ship to the client in un- your Adobe ID. You can adapt the animations der a couple of hours. The rest of the work from their rigs to yours very simply, and I’ve really involved custom models, rendering, put a few tutorials online to reflect the work- and scene setups depending on the shot at flow on bringing them into use with Golaem. hand. I was able to jump from a couple of weeks of work and in-house development DP: What are the first things you do to around a day or two, depending on the when you start a new project including assets needed. Since Golaem comes with an crowd simulations? amazing character pack – 9 times out of 10 Nicholas King: One of the most important you have everything you need to get started rules to remember is that Golaem follows all on a basic industry standard job. of the 3D principles you’ve learned through- out your career. So when you were rigging DP: What iterations and changes have a character and are painting in your skin been recently in your workflow? weights, and you forgot to orient your joints Nicholas King: What is amazing about the before this, that will cause huge issues with team at Golaem, is they aren’t passive about Golaem (even if you try to rig the character in updating and giving us new features. Just a way where it looks fine when creating your in the past 6 months I’ve seen the plug-in animations). In the modelling phase, since change drastically with new tools that really it’s a bit of a cleaner process, the biggest make you re-think how you did things in thing you need to wrap your head around the past. For example, when they released is how you will be organizing all of the dif- the Crowd Layout tool, we were able to use ferent assets needed per entity. Will they a cached simulation in a scene, duplicate share the same textures? How will you cycle any of those entities and individually ma- through those textures. Which textures will nipulate their rotation, scale, position, offset want different hues. If the character wears timings, and even assets they were wearing. a hat, will you need to hide the hair? These This meant that we could populate a stand are only some of the questions you need to ask, but you need to know the ins and outs of the entity you’re working on, so that it can be set up right and work properly with Golaem’s Character Maker. DP: Maya has its own system that could be used for crowds – nParticles. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Golaem – and where can those two be linked sensibly together? Nicholas King: nParticles is what I first used to create crowds when Golaem wasn’t imple- 16 WWW.DIGITALPRODUCTION.COM DP1706_015-017_CrowdGolaemInterview.indd 16 04.10.2017 07:57:38 AUSGABE O6:2O17 GOLAEM | USER INTERVIEW mented in the department. It worked well for people conversing with each other, etc. You I got were the tutorials done on Golaem’s You- cards of plates that we shot on set, or very can bake these out and add them to your tube channel and online resource. However, simple interaction and “brains” for each of Simulation Cache Library.