IanHubert posts
Posts: 303
Files: 339
Bizarrely Powerful Trick for Cinematic Compositions
Been using this one all the time lately! Huge thanks to Johnny Valencia for really driving home the importance of "into the light" cinematography during the boat shoot! I love being able to steal his secrets into the Digital Realm of 3d renderingRelated Videos:Volumetric LightingHow to Cheat Light Rays in CyclesHyperbole Cinematography Breakdown
Quick Chat about Brainstorming
Just for fun! Been going hard on VFX the last few weeks, so I wanted to give myself a chance to talk about the less technical part of the process :D Most of these thoughts are obviously just from my own experience, and probably aren't applicable to everyone, but maybe there's some useful stuff in there!
Powerful, Flexible, Sloppy modeling with Remesh Modifier
Hey yeah so! Been using this technique for a few things lately, so I wanted to make a tutorial! It's great if you need to create certain complicated shapes, but don't know how to model them particularly cleanly. Also- pretty happy with how this image (full res) turned out; it uses the technique a good bit.
Asset: Mud Environment Assets
Kind of a mixed bag, but here are a bunch of the scanned assets I made for the sequence I just wrapped up- this muddy clear-cut scenario!DOWNLOAD:Blender FileFBX (simplified shaders)
Asset: Albums and Crates
Always wanted to do a record shop kind of thing! Been messing around with these assets way too much the last couple weeks :DDOWNLOAD:Blender File (updated to work pre 3.4)FBXs (crates only)The shader is flexible, so you can make your own covers and stick any grid of images in there and specify how many rows and columns there are, and it'll auto-randomize from that grid:Also here's the album texture I made- there are a few others floating around on the internet, but I wasn't sure about the licensing so I made this one (based on the w...
Making Tarps!
Gonna cover absolutely everything with tarps now.
Digital Extensions without Greenscreen
Post explaining Nathan's Eat-The-Future color tools Camera Projection Node Group Generator
Starmaps in Blender (two methods)
Cool Nasa Stuff, and Procedural! Sort of a continuation of the "Lighting in Space" video from last month! Here's the blend file of the procedural version I made in the video, if anyone wants to use it for anything! Here's the "scrolling signs" tutorial I mentioned for the gauges (a lot of good stuff in that one!). And here's the NASA star maps!
Boat Shoot Final Thoughts
Had an amazing time, and got two whole episodes filmed (mostly)! Thank you all of you!! Wanted to talk a while about what it was like, and what I think I learned from the experience for the future!
Boat Shoot Day 1- summary!
Day 1!!! Absolutely incredible. Writing this post is almost literally my first time doing anything but actively working on the shoot in a couple weeks, and that's only because the first day went so good I feel I can relax a little bit (also this is the longest period between wrap times and call times :P)The images above don't capture it, but they're the best I have at the moment (I keep trying to document and make short videos, but jumping from task-to-task means I can't get enough to get anything sensible- we have two great BTS...
The Boat Shoot! Introduction/Backstory
Ludicrously excited. We're doing a big shoot next week, filming two Dynamo Dream episodes in five days! Trying to see if we can do things faster without sacrificing details/worldbuilding/any of that. Anyways- if you ever wanted to hear me talk a lot, here we go!
Lighting a Space Scene (and other things)
Talking about lots of things (realistic lighting, cheated lighting, animation) that go into making a space scene; they can be surprisingly tricky! Thanks to The Fringe team for letting me light their model, created by Sam & Dan.
Introduction to the Asset Browser
With an emphasis on supporting kitbashy workflow. A few folks have said they wouldn't mind this video, so here we go! The Asset Browser is a huge time saver, and it's something I've been missing since using Bryce3d 20 years ago :P
Making a Blinking Light Asset
Wow! Feels good to be feeling a bit more like myself again. What it says in the title! I got tired of hand-animating half-assed blinking lights, so today I'm creating a more flexible asset I can use instead. Related Videos:A Deeper Dive into RandomizationOptimizing Cycles RendersDOWNLOAD:Blinking Light Asset
Talking about Landing Gear and Linkages
I drug my heels learning basic rigging for so long, but it really is the gateway to making some really cool stuff, and it's actually not all that complicated! I've talked about some of this stuff in the past, but in this one I'm trying to figure out how to solve some specific challenges. If you ever want to be inspired, just type "mechanisms" into YouTube; people have figured out SO MANY clever ways to transform motion :DIf you want to hear me blab more about designing vehicles, check out Designing the Phaeton. If you want t...
Modeling an Airport Waiting Room
Probably nothing you haven't seen before, but here we go! Lot of new footage to work with these days :D I'm going to be making a new video showing my new (slightly more)proper/linearized/keyed/tracked workflow pretty quick here! And the Optimizing Cycles video I mention:https://www.patreon.com/posts/optimizing-66223950
Making Lots of Quick Stuff with Photoscans
Can't really think of a good title for this one! I've been having to finish a *lot* of shots lately, which in my case means implementing a bunch of photoscan. This is pretty representative of a lot of the work I did over the past month (though I'll be honest- in the next few months, I'm excited to be able to hyper-focus on singular shots instead of having to blast out a lot of them (lot of green screen stuff coming up)).Here we go!
Quick Rigging for Scans (animating a little vignette)
A few techniques in this video, but the big one is rigging up a photoscanned character. This is something I've been doing a ton lately to quickly add a little life to characters in a scene. It's nice because you don't have to start with a T-pose or anything like that, and letting IK run the show means you don't have to animate a ton of bones. Here's the chess playing character, if you'd like to try it on your end! A few related videos:Rigging a skater boy"Getting Into Mechanical Rigging" (probably a better intro ...
Asset: Building Sprawl
Download HereFor bringing it into your scene, either append the "Homes" collection (for individual buildings), or the "#BigCity" object (if you want the entire "city chunk"). Also highly recommend hooking up an HDRI!ANOTHER NOTE: This works in both cycles and eevee, but the randomization is better in cycles (I'm able to randomize the window's/tarps/etc. on a "per item" basis, whereas in eevee it's "per object" (that is, in Eevee, ALL the windows in the house will be on, and in cycles, the wind...
Freeway Pirate Breakdowns: tire rigging, hot metal, and shockwaves
Hah! So! Still in that always-longer-than-expected period of "just about wrapped up" on the Pete episode, but here are some breakdowns of some shots I've been working on, and a couple mini tuts on hot glowing metal and basic tire rigging. Animating vehicles with wiggle bones:https://www.patreon.com/posts/making-flying-pt-47774565Blenderesse's Cool Geometry Nodes Car Rig:https://blenderesse.gumroad.com/Nathan's Color Tools for Linearization (I gotta make a follow up video soon):https://www.patreon.com/posts/alpha-release-cg-6...
Animating Huge Things and Little Things in Blender
Finished the last shot (first pass, anyways) of the Pete episode today! Very exciting! And okay- from watching other folk's animations, I'm not the only one who has trouble with this; just some quick thoughts on animating big and little stuff!
Making a Shot Start-To-Finish (Cave Explorers)
A little bit of everything in this one! Keying, some tracking, photoscan clean-up, animation, lighting- a decent microcosm of what's been keeping me busy this past month! The Light Streak tutorial by David I mentionedSpotlight Texture
Automatic Face Tracking (new tool release!)
HAHA! Very excited about this!! Nathan just put together a python script to get google's mediapipe face-tracking data into blender![quick edit- to help with any troubleshooting, if you're posting about having a problem, including your OS, whether you had problems installing python/the libraries, and a screenshot of the command terminal (both what you put in, and what it said), very much increases the odds we can help you :) ]It's not useful for everything, but for some things, it's an absolute life saver.Get the Face Tracker Pyt...
Asset: Scanned Sci-fi Backpacks
Another gift from the Prospect (2018) art team! I did a gig for them a few months back, and part of the deal was that I could share any resulting assets with you all here :D A couple of these might already look familiar.They're pretty easy to attach to an animated character if you parent them to a bone on the upper spine.DOWNLOAD:Blend FileFBX VersionAlso- quick note: I get nervous uploading assets now, since sometimes I'll download the file and it's just blank! It has something to do with the blender version, and I test my uploads ...
Compositing Josh in Cockpits
A breakdown of 15 years of sticking Josh in sci-fi vehicles! Also a quick-n-dirty tutorial towards the end. This one talks about a fusion/resolve/blender workflow, but if you want to stay Blender-centric, this video is still pretty relevant. Oh and here's the Fusion cleaned-edge-color tutorial I mentioned finding useful (also hah!! Forgot it used Tears of Steel footage :P)
Cheating Volumetric Light Rays in Cycles
Just a quick follow up to the "Optimizing Cycles" post a couple days ago! Folks may already know it, but it's been really useful lately so I wanted to talk about it just in case!
Optimizing Cycles Renders
Let's get shorter render times! Talking about how to remove fireflies, but mostly how to avoid them in the first place. I'm sure there's a lot more that could be said about this topic, but I think this could be a great starting point if you haven't already gone on a dive into the workings of path tracers :DHere's the refraction tutorial, if you want more information on that! https://www.patreon.com/posts/refraction-tut-57007748
Asset: Three Space Rocks
Just a quickie!Some times you need space rocks!! My grandfather had a rather impressive rock collection, so I raided some of the particularly volcanic specimens, scanned them, and I think they work pretty well! Actually- I think one might be petrified coral? Or regular coral? Also, one of these is an inch and a half across, so it's fun to see it as a big space rock :PAbove is a test I did yesterday- I think it works alright; I like the way the ship looks in the sunlight (although lots of animation stuff I need to tweak). Some of the rocks a...
BTS: Designing the Phaeton
This video goes alllll over the place! Mostly talking about the design of the spaceship for the scene I've been working on, though! And I think I've posted it before, but here's the seam image I use a lot, if you want to use it for anything (assembled it from a lot of Photobash.org images)Additional search terms: spaceship design dynamo vehicle
