studioNEST snShatter tool - coming soon

studioNEST Shatter Early Preview from helge mathee on Vimeo.

To quote the original page: "This is a quick demo of the fracturing operator from studioNEST, called snShatter. The implementation of this operator for Autodesk Softimage will be released as opensource, like the other tools from studioNEST."

UPDATE:


studioNEST Bullet Early Preview from helge mathee on Vimeo.

Making Metagun

Just came across this little gem - Making Metagun. Showing the development of a whole game in 7mins of time-lapse video.

It's not the only video of this type. There's several of note using Unity too:

Softimage 2011 SAP to include both Lagoa Multiphysics & emPolygonizer

It's official.
The Softimage 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack will include both Lagoa Multiphysics and emPolygonizer 1.721. Nice!
Source: http://twitter.com/luceric/statuses/21944883703

Let's hope all the SI2011 bugs/usage issues have all been squashed too.

MATERIALS Tutorials by Philip Klevestav

Posted up on Game Artists recently is a fantastic set of tutorials on how to create specific materials for Game art.
http://www.philipk.net/tutorials/materials/materials.html

METAL

As with all materials, there are a lot of different types of metal. In this tutorial I go through howto create a pretty standard matte metal wall with a sci-fi touch and I tried to make it something inbetween clean and worn.

ROUGH AND COARSE STONE

Stone cliffs and rocks usually have a lot of direction of some type in them. In this tutorial I go through how I go about sculpting such a material in Zbrush and the process from there.

This tutorial will guide you through the creation of a rough stone surface, this could be combined with something more similar to the cliff wall tutorial above to create various types of rock surfaces.

Cracked stones can look very different depending on what materials is underneath the surface, what type of damage has been done and how long ago the damage was made. Here I go through some steps to create a broken up ground piece. Ingame something like this could be masked out and used as a decal as well.

SMOOTH AND SEMI SMOOTH STONE

Marble can be another tricky surface to create. Here I created a clean polished marble surface that is highly reflective. It is all about subtle details on these kind of clean materials, especially when it comes to the normal map.

Clean concrete blocks are usually pretty smooth, but there are details and small subtle variations is such surfaces that you can really play around with. In this tutorial I go through some steps you can do using Photoshop only.

BRICKS AND BLOCKS

Older or larger tiles may benefit from being sculpted in a program like Zbrush first. Here I go through some steps to sculpt such pieces and how much you can build with just a couple of sculpted stones if placed right.

Sometimes it is not really necessary to sculpt your stones. Especially when it comes to smaller brick walls. In this tutorial I go through some steps to give your brick wall more depth than a simple photo texture would work if generated into a normal map.



EDIT: Previous tutorials by PhilipK, excellent stuff!:



PHILIPK.NET - WORKING WITH MODULAR SETS


PHILIPK.NET - WORKING WITH MODULAR ROCKS

emPolygoniser 2.0 released

emPolygonizer2 Official Release Video "go ahead, mesh my day!" from Eric Mootz on Vimeo.


emPolygonizer2 Sneak Preview 1: Tim Borgmann's Test Renderings from Eric Mootz on Vimeo.


emPolygonizer2 Sneak Preview 2: Tim Borgmann's Test Renderings from Eric Mootz on Vimeo.

emPolygonizer2 is a custom operator that allows you to create what is typically called "metaballs".
The basic technique used by this plug-in is called "polygonising a scalar field" or "marching cubes". It was invented in the mid-eighties by Lorensen and Cline.

The plug-in consists of a "DLL" file (Windows) or "so" file (Linux) for the operator (compiled C++ code for 32 bit and 64 bit versions of XSI) as well as several VB Script files.

emPolygonizer2 is well integrated into Softimage|XSI and it is used just as easily as the other custom operators.
The operator supports the following objects and components as inputs:
nulls
curves and curve lists (points, knots or curve)
polygon meshes (points or polygons, parameters can be driven by weight maps and vertex color maps)
point clouds (points and strands, parameters can be driven by point size and point color)


emPolygonizer2 Sneak Preview 3: Tim Borgmann's Test Renderings from Eric Mootz on Vimeo.

Go here to the mootzoid product page to find out more

NOTE: Softimage 2011 and 2011.5 only. Includes Lagoa Physics support (coming in Softimage v2011.5).

rray.de Softimage resources website update

Reinhard Claus of rray.de has updated his Softimage XSI resources pages. The update covers many recent plugins (and also a few old ones - like my dxf importer :) ).


Notable additions include links to many free XSI character rigs, plus studioNEST's recent plethora of plugins for rigging and ICE and Eric Thivierge's utilities plugins. 

cmivfx releases Syntheyes Complete Training

http://www.cmivfx.com/productpages/product.aspx?name=Syntheyes_Complete_Training


cmiVFX launches its latest training video for Syntheyes 3D Matchmoving software under the long format video structure plan. This video is complete training for Syntheyes utilizing several projects that overlap complex problems for the matchmoving artists. Topics include, 3D Tracking, Cleaning And Adjusting Tracks, Difficult Nodal Pans, 3D Stabilization and SO MUCH MORE!


Also, you can also get 10% off your purchase right now by using the code: VFX104 in the cmiVFX store.


Syntheyes is a 3d matchmoving software package by ssontech and has been used on many, many VFX blockbuster movies. 

Markerless Mocap Software from iPi Soft

iPi Desktop Motion Capture™ is an entry-level markerless motion capture technology that literally puts motion capture at animator's desktop. You can shoot a video right at your workplace using a webcam or inexpensive digital camera and have it converted to 3D animation on your PC. The technology is targeted at small studios, freelance animators and motion capture enthusiasts.

Features / Editions	Express	Basic	Standard
Number of cameras	1	3	4
Technology	Optical markerless	Optical markerless	Optical markerless
Single-camera mode	Included	Included	Included
Supported cameras	Any digital camera	Sony PlayStation 3 Eye	Sony PlayStation 3 Eye
Availability	Coming soon	Coming soon	Beta version available
Free 30 days trial	Coming soon	Download free 30 days trial
Technical Support	Coming soon	6 months of free email-based technical support. Additional technical tupport options coming soon.

http://www.ipisoft.com/products.php

Looks interesting.

cmiVFX Mid Summer Sale

cmiVFX Mid Summer Sale: Limited Time Only – 25% OFF ALL Training

25% OFF ALL Training Tutorials, Today through Thursday, August 12, 2010 and ramp up your training for the upcoming fall production season. 

cmiVFX brings real world directly to you with training and projects created by some of the best Visual FX creators working in the industry today.  Go to http://www.cmivfx.com today for your 25% OFF, enter Promo Code:  CMI25VFX

And if you missed this deal, you can still get 10% by using the code mentioned in my previous post.

10% off cmiVFX online training videos

Using the code VFX104 you can get 10% off of cmiVFX training videos right now by at the cmiVFX store. (Excludes subscriptions).

Softimage specific videos of interest are both by Thiago Costa and deeply investigate the potential of the ICE platform:-

Softimage ICE For Production

Softimage Scalar Data

Both tutorials can also be bought together for a $9.95 saving.

Also available are many informative tutorials for Nuke and Houdini.

Enjoy.