The thing with 3ds Max is that regular expressions are foreign to MAXScripters and they don’t usually use them. I too am more used to regex in Python or IronPython than MAXScript. However, since we do have access to .NET in MAXScript, we can use its Regex class inside MAXScript.

Why I’m mentioning this and why could it be useful to you? I bumped into a little issue with my pipeline’s handling of rendered files. They assume to be exactly the same as I set them up in 3ds Max, which is logical and correct. However, since I started using Deadline’s SMTD script for submitting my files to the render farm, which takes care of handling the path remapping and storing, it also accidentally took care of letter casing. So, in the end, my render files were being saved all upper cased: “\\SERVER\PROJECT\RENDERS\ABC.EXR” instead of what I set in the Render Dialog: “\\SERVER\Project\Renders\ABC.exr”. The reason was simple, I used simple MAXScript substituteString() method to re-map my local paths to my server, UNC, paths and I converted everything to upper case just in case I got a mismatch:

substituteString (toUpper srcPath) @"D:" @"\\RAMMSTEIN\__UNMANAGED_PROJECTS__"

This wouldn’t be such an issue in a Windows environment, however, when you start dealing with path and file names in Python and you start mixing up casing, you can easily get burnt.

So, the only option left in Python would be to use the re module and search or replace strings based on regular expression matching. In MAXScript, however, we don’t natively have a re module and its methods, but luckily for us, we can use .NET, so that the previous method written in MAXScript using regex would look like this:

regex = dotNetClass "System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex"
regex.Replace srcPath @"^(D[:])" @"\\RAMMSTEIN\__UNMANAGED_PROJECTS__"

This replaces the capital letter D in the source path srcPath with the UNC server path exactly the same way as the substituteString method above. However, since this is a regular expression engine you’re using, you can modify the search in order to match any casing, should that be your choice.

There are two ways of doing that. The ultimate way I chose in the end was to modify the search pattern to @”^([D|d][:])”, which matches both “D:” and “d:” in the source path and then replaces it with the UNC path at the end.

The other option you can use, should you choose to, is the RegexOptions Enumeration argument at the very end of the method call. If you want to ignore casing, just use this:

regex = dotNetClass "System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex"
regexOpt = dotNetClass "System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions"
regex.Replace @"d:\testProject\projFolder\something.exr" @"^(D[:])"
@"\\MyServer\__myProjects__" regexOpt.IgnoreCase

Tadaaa! It’s as simple as that. No path splitting, no case testing, just a single line of a regular expression call (not counting the class call) and you’re done. Besides you can use this at a much greater scale with far more complex regex search strings for anything you like directly inside MAXScript.

Note that I’m replacing a D: drive letter in the source paths since that is my projects local drive. You can use whatever you want, hell, you can replace any and all drive letters in one regex call, if you want:

@"^([A-Z|a-z][:])"

I’ve been looking for the perfect phone since my good old Nokia 7650 I had in high school. It was a great phone, back then. Had a very comfy portrait keypad and a large screen. Since then I had a few more Nokias until finally switching to HTC phones. My first HTC was TyTN II, what a beast! Then, after the iPhone introduction, some more touch only or touch + type HTC phones. My last one was HD2. I loved and hated the phone equally.

You see, the problem wasn’t the hardware, which is still one of the best even today. The problem was software. TyTN II with Windows Mobile 5 at least had a stylus and wasn’t that much about touch interface (remember, this was a pre-iPhone era). It was cool. Very expensive, but pretty cool. Then Windows Mobile 6 came around with a touch “skin” made by HTC. It was OK, but far, really far, from being smooth, deeply integrated or polished as iPhone’s was.

I ditched Windows Mobile over a year ago in favor of Android (still on my HD2). It was great! I fell in love with Android very, very fast and love it even today. The problem was, again, the smoothness. It just wasn’t at par with the holy grail, in this regard, the iPhone.

Finally I took a blind leap in Windows Phone 7 direction not very long ago. About two months? I bought a HTC 7 Pro, mainly because I was afraid the touch-type experience was going to be mediocre again, so I wanted to be safe with the full hardware qwerty keyboard on board. Man was I surprised! The user interface is as polished and smooth as it gets! I’m loving my phone again. Even typing short e-mails or SMSes on the software qwerty is a joy!

I love the form factor, I love the size, I love the user experience. I am honestly, deeply impressed with Windows Phone 7 and I wish it succeeds in the mobile OS war.

It still doesn’t have the developer base as it should, so, there certainly are fewer apps than for Android or iOS, but it’s getting there and honestly, everything I personally need is there.

As for sideloading, I’ve purchased a ChevronWP7 Pass (for about $9 USD) and officially unlocked my device, so I can sideload any app I wish! The tools for doing so are freely available directly from Microsoft. And once IronPython makes it to the platform, oh man will I be all over the developer side!

Sweet times ahead. So if you haven’t checked Windows Phones out yet, give them a good hard look, they’re awesome!

I’d test driven RV a few months ago to see what all the fuss was about. I was kind of satisfied with RV at that time, but didn’t really have a strong reason to switch from my beloved FrameCycler. Now, however, I needed a strong platform for conforming, ingesting and generally managing my review and delivery pipeline. My two immediate options were MetaRender and RVIO.

First of all, I am not a big fan of acquisitions. I admit it’s sometimes to the better for all of the parties involved, but sometimes, for the worse. I personally don’t see Adobe investing too much (at least not in the begining) to FrameCycler and MetaRender. They admitted they were more interested in the color grading suites. Secondly, RVIO provides a bit more robust framework for transcoding etc… and seems overall more powerful.

So, that’s the reason right there, I’m slowly switching to RV mainly thanks to RVIO. I wish FrameCycler all the very best, I certainly don’t want to see it go and it most likely won’t go anywhere, but, I think there are more interesting things happening on the RV side.

I’ve been really lucky to have been able to use Shotgun as a developer for some time now (getting to know the API, integrating it into 3ds Max pipelines, etc…).

Now, for the first time, I’ve actually tried to use it on a production we’re working on here at duber studio. The reason is the sheer amount of shots needed to be done, even though they are not very complicated.

We’re currently working on a number of animated shots for a portable devices app to be released soon, first locally, then globally. It’s an app aimed at helping people with their fitness excercises. So, we have to animate a ton of shots of a main character doing various different excercises.

Again, it’s not very complicated, but since I’m working with a collegue of mine on this project I also need a tool to manage the production. It actually surprised me how useful Shotgun is even for a team of just two people! It’s incredible how much time and effort you save when you don’t have to hassle around with Excel sheets and tons of e-mails.

Further on, I’m currently integrating certain actions into Deadline, so that I can automate a ton of tasks on the production. For example, I’ve setup Deadline so that when we submit the 3ds Max scene files, they get rendered, when they finish, Nuke automatically picks up with a pre-made automated comp (visually approved by the client) and then after that Deadline will process the frames again and will generate QuickTimes, delivery masters and preview JPEGs. While all these steps will get annotated in Shotgun.

Pretty exciting stuff for a geeky TD, right? Anyways, I’m currently just looking into best ways of doing this effectively and as open as possible, so I can share the stuff with others as well.

All in all, Shotgun seems to be one of the tools that you really need all the time, but you know you found the answer only after you’ve fully discovered its possibilities and potential. I highly recommend talking to the Shotgun dev guys in regards to a demo or trial. You won’t regret it. I certainly didn’t!

Let me get this straight. Photoshop is not a compositing tool. Period.

I certainly am not a compositing artist, however, I have a, rather, deep technical knowledge of compositing principles and compositing software packages (such as Nuke) and thus I get asked from time to time by fellow CG artists about some compositing issues they have etc. The worst thing is when I find out they’re comping their still image in Photoshop saved as a PNG file! Blasphemy!

There are so many attributes that make a good compositing program that you cannot even start considering Photoshop for the duty. Even After Effects fall flat facing some more serious compositing tasks (mainly true 32bit float comps, or 3D space comps etc…). Why, you may ask. Let’s start with the essentials. One of them is color management. It truly startles me that Photoshop, the mecca of digital image manipulation tools, doesn’t have this feature! I mean, of course you have color management in Photoshop, but that’s more to have with calibration to printing standards, CMYK color space etc… but you don’t have a chance loading up a custom LUT, or, hell, even something as essential as an sRGB LUT. So, working with true linear renders is a huge pain in Photoshop.

Then there is color depth. Photoshop is pretty good at handling 8bit integer formats, it’s even very good at handling 16bit integer formats, but as soon as you start thinking of comping with true full-float (32bit) or half-float (16bit) formats, you’re out of luck. Most of the tools simply don’t support these formats and you’ll have hard times even trying to figure out the colors, exposure etc…

Another techincal problem is the Alpha channel support and handling. There is nothing you could use for unpremultiplication or premultiplication. So, you’re pretty much stuck with cutting out “holes” into your layers and tweaking the mask with Levels, Curves etc… That’s just wrong.

The last thing I’d like to point out in this regard is Photoshop’s linear design (nothing to have with LWF!). You have layers, perhaps even Smart Layers, but that’s it. You can’t branch your comps, you cannot apply filters or your edits nondestructively. It’s just paint-touch-up-bake-done.

You can argue that Photoshop wasn’t made for compositing and also that it’s being used by compositors, matte painters and what not. That’s all true, but my argument here is: Photoshop is not a compositing tool! You should not use it for compositing (of course, if you have an alternative) and you should not advise anyone to use Photoshop for these kinds of tasks.

I personally comp everything in Nuke. Including static images. I just can’t imagine dealing with color profiles (though, admittedly, I am not a DI artist either, by far!), alphas, render layers and elements etc… in Photoshop. I use Photoshop for very quick mock-ups, matte paints and touch-ups or general copy-paste-crop-save tasks. Though with the purchase of Mari, I touch-up my shots, mattepaint and texture more and more in Mari than Photoshop.

Still, Photoshop is an indispensable tool in every digital artist’s toolset and it’s going nowhere, at least in the near future, even if Mari’s on board. But, let me say that again, Photoshop is not a compositing tool!

I think I jizzed in my pants…

Go see this VFX miracle. It’s the holy grail for VFX enthusiasts and artists.

I’m actually scared by the fact that even 24GB of RAM isn’t enough for a high-end workstation these days. And I’m talking about projects up to a maximum of full HD resolution! I don’t even consider 2K or, hell, 4K projects at the moment as I primarily work on TV commercials etc…

This is very interesting as I remember every time I upgraded the amount of RAM of my workstation, I was very pleased with the performance and the amounts of available memory every time I worked on something. But then, not long after, I started to reach the limits of the system’s resources.

The thing is, when you reach the cap of your CPU, or GPU for that matter, your renders just take a bit longer to finish. But as soon as you reach the RAM limit, your apps start crashing and the entire system becomes unstable! So, it is a bit of a problem.

I started reaching the limits not long ago when I had tons of apps open at the same time. Especially Nuke, Max, VMWare Workstation and Photoshop. But on recent projects I started reaching the cap with Nuke and Photoshop alone! It’s terrifying as it suggests that no matter how much RAM I put in the system, it will never be enough!

So, it seems that my next workstation upgrade will, indeed, be a RAM boost. Not sure I’ll be able to buy the full 96GB of ECC RAM at once, but, I’m certain I’ll get there very soon.

I’ve tried Microsoft’s Hyper-V technology at first as it seemed like the easiest path, but I couldn’t have achieved what I’ve wanted from the setup:

• Startup of the render nodes
• Have all the render nodes boot up to a centralized virtual OS
• Render tasks
• Shutdown

I’ve even tried the SCVMM, but it was way too complex and complicated so I didn’t actually spend too much time fiddling with it.

I’m currently looking at my #2 option (mainly due to added cost and software layers), VMWare. Especially the VMWare View and vSphere products.

So, no virtualization tips from me right now, all is still one big work in progress, but I’ll be posting updates as soon as I have them.

The “data center” is still currently offline (except for the license server), so, I’ve been thinking of how to improve upon my previous setup with the future in mind. With a semi-constant grow of my render farm, the management, upgrades, installations and maintenance of the individual machines from the software point of view is becoming more and more problematic. I’ve written a few tools to help me automate the process, but still, managing the actual OS, the actual installed applications, the updates, hotfixes and service packs etc… is a hassle. I currently only have nine nodes in my farm, but being able to abstract from any number of physical machines and be able to easily manage my nodes from a one-person point of view (yeah, I am the only TD/IT guy here ) would be a bless!

So, there are a couple of options I could go for. Since my studio is primarily Windows based, there is the Hyper-V route. It seems to be the easiest way for me, currently, to upgrade to form the current, “old-school” infrastructure setup, to the virtualized environment.

There are, of course, a number of open-source options as well. Such as the Xen (recommended by Michal), which would require some Linux mumbo-jubmo, which is a little unknown to me, to say the least. I have a very limited experience with Linux, pretty much just one year on high technical school I went to, so, this is not my favourite option.

Then there’s VMWare, which I have a very good experience with (VMWare Workstation). I still don’t really have my way around their product portfolio (seems to be extremely chaotic), but from what I understand, I’ll be looking into their VMWare vSphere product line. And, of course, the Hypervisor.

Hyper-V seems to be the most obvious choice, right now. Though I’m still not sure what exactly will be needed in order to transform my entire render farm into a “cloud-like” infrastructure. Xen is intriguing since it’s free (it’s just a hypervisor, though, but there are also free virtualization services and servers available, of course). And VMWare is VMWare. I just like their products, they’re fast, reliable and robust.

It seems that I’ll be deciding between Microsoft and VMWare in the end. The price of their virtualization platforms will be comparable in my case, though, I already own several Windows Server licenses, which speaks in favor to Microsoft.

I’ll definitely write some more on this topic in the near future, incl. my decisions and final deployment in the end, so, stay tuned!

In case you’ve never played the original Portal mini-game from Valve (included with the Orange Box combo), you should definitely go and check it out.

The original Portal game was a mini-game bundled with the Orange Box games released back in late 2007. After finishing Half-Life I started the game and was immediately hooked in. The story was rather simple, but still interesting to keep playing. You were a test subject trapped in a synthetic testing environment controlled by a psychotic AI mainframe. Spoiler alert! You escape the testing chambers and kill the psychotic robot in the end. Now, the game was a first-person 3D action puzzle game. A very strange and rare combination, but extremely fun and addictive. You solve puzzles primarily using a device called Portal Gun which creates one entry and one exit portal anywhere you attach these to appropriate surfaces (you can’t do that on all types of surfaces, though).

Fast forward to 2011 and we have here a sequel to the very popular mini-game. This time in an AAA title of its own. To say that this game rocks is a huge understatement. So, basically, to not spoil anything and to keep this short and simple, if you liked the first Portal, you’re gonna love the second one! If you didn’t play the first Portal game, go grab it on Steam and then get to solving Portal 2.

Also worth mentioning is the (nowdays hugely overlooked) co-op mode, which is almost another campaign on its own! Get a friend and play the co-op together. It’s tons of brain twisting fun!

Portal 2 is one of the very rare games I had to finish in one go. I sat down to the game at about 9pm, fell asleep at about 4am and continued playing the next day when I woke up until I finished it! Same for co-op. We played the game for good solid 4-5 hours straight with my brother. It was absolutely amazing and very refreshing from all the FPS titles available nowdays.

Simply put: go buy this game NOW!