Hi,

I've checked the gallery and around the net. Are there any characters (people) renders out there from Mantra, or people mostly render out fluids and compose the shoot, or just export it with FBX?


cheers

well im constantly working with Houdini to get SSS working. It is possible. But i think Houdini 11 will provide the shader im desperately craving.



Here is the latest test render. Just some basic SSS on the eyes, which is also being refracted. It's subtle but its enough.

oh and there arent any textures on the iris or the sclera and the model isnt finished. But like i said, it is possible.

<shameless plug> all of our stuff for the last few years is pure mantra

check out our site - theres a fair bit of character work:

killzone 2 intro (the end shot of Visari looks best): http://www.axisanimation.com/index.php?id=998&loc=GAMES [axisanimation.com]

singularity trailer: http://www.axisanimation.com/index.php?id=1016&loc=GAMES [axisanimation.com]

brink trailer: http://www.axisanimation.com/index.php?id=1002&loc=Work [axisanimation.com]

Pirates of the Carribean E3 Trailer: http://www.axisanimation.com/index.php?id=1017&loc=GAMES [axisanimation.com]

Stu Aitken
axis animation

phrenzy84
well im constantly working with Houdini to get SSS working. It is possible. But i think Houdini 11 will provide the shader im desperately craving.

have you tried the axisSSS shader on houdini exchange?

that was written in-house by Serge one of our lead TD's, primarily for doing skin and is what we use - though its rolled into our inhouse ubershader, and you have to watch how it interacts with light and scene sampling if you want render times to be reasonable

(not sure the one on the exchange is 100% up to date though…)

Stu

stelvis
<shameless plug> all of our stuff for the last few years is pure mantra

Hey Stu! What's up! Are you saying it's all mantra? I had this impression, that some parts of your work are rendered with modo actually. Nice work as usual!

I must say we had a hard time here with SSS in Mantra (hadn't tried axis stuff as we couldn't use ray tracing in that case). Productions scenes tend to disillusion preliminary results. The only ‘quite’ workable way we found was some crazy volume based sss. Nice look and fast render, but generating volumes for dense animated geometry is far from productive task.

We're very happy with H11 arrangements in that department though. Couple of weeks more…

Hi there

we occasionally use modo for rendering previews during asset builds if someone has gotten round to creating HDA's or shaders in Houdini yet but the final output is pretty much 100% mantra (via digital fusion)

we used to use Lightwave for rendering (I still have a soft spot) up until about 2005/06, then we tried going PRMan for a bit with the new plugin version, but the fact it piggybacked onto maya negated much of the advantage.. enter houdini and mantra - pretty much all of the advantages none of the disadvantages (and being frank that mainly meant the hideous costs for full blown PRman on the render farm)

if you ever fancy a job in scotland give us a shout :twisted:

thank you all for the reply.
This all look really promissing to say the least.

Houdini 11 will provide the necessary shaders you say? Can't wait.


cheers

This is great stuff- why don't we see more of your work in the Houdini Demo Reels?

Was it just lit and rendered in Houdini/Mantra, or was the character rigging and animation (besides mo-cap, of course) done in Houdini also?

-Craig Hoffman
Microsoft Games
FX Lead

craiglhoffman
This is great stuff- why don't we see more of your work in the Houdini Demo Reels?

Was it just lit and rendered in Houdini/Mantra, or was the character rigging and animation (besides mo-cap, of course) done in Houdini also?

-Craig Hoffman
Microsoft Games
FX Lead

you'd have to ask sideFX the first question - we do send them it AFAIK

currently our animation pipe is pretty much 100% maya - we have proprietary pipeline stuff to go from maya to houdini but its not any different from what most people would do I guess - ie vertex cached geo and so on

the biggest issue with Houdini is finding people with experience (especially in scotland!) and for animation that becomes nigh on impossible