Tips 'n Techniques when setting up a (small) production

[druitre]

Hi,

I'm setting up a short film and would like to discuss some generally used techniques , as in what's commonly done?

I'm mainly thinking of a Master scene - referenced models workflow, where I'd be able to make changes to characters and backgrounds while at the same time roughing out animations per shot, going back and forth, refining as I go along, adding or removing stuff and seeing changes reflected in every shot.

Also, are there problematic areas I should be aware of?

thanks, Jasper

[Rork]

One big one: Don't use referenced material libraries. They're flaky at best, and never got them to work properly in a project.
It can be a bit of a pain though when working with multiple scenes containing the assets, as you might have to create similar shaders multiple times.

And when using particles/FX, cache it out via ICE, and re-import the cache into the main scene. But splitting up all the various parts into models is a good way to work, and can result in quick changes across scenes.

rob

[angus_davidson]

Just to add not so much workflow as a few thoughts

If your doing stuff as a one man band try and do the following to save a lot of time

1) Lock off you camera's asap.
2) try and arrange your comp if possible that a lot of static stuff only needs to have one frame rendered.
3) try to get environments rendered early. That way in crunch time your only rendering characters .

[druitre]

Thanks Rob, Angus

One big one: Don't use referenced material libraries. They're flaky at best, and never got them to work properly in a project.

Good one, I just accidentally stumbled upon this thread, I guess that would work as well.

1) Lock off you camera's asap.

Most definitely, rule nr 1 to good filmmaking

3) try to get environments rendered early. That way in crunch time your only rendering characters .

Good tip! Not always easy to do since I move my camera a lot, but FG/MG/BG separation could be a big timesaver at re-rendertime

Testing now referenced models that reference each other - a character's body separate from it's clothes, for instance. Some of it works better than expected (ref'd envelopes see deformers in other ref'd models, as long as the names are kept), other stuff doesn't (constraints don't hold across ref'd models).

Also trying to find a way to transfer animation from a model to a ref'd model's delta. No luck so far, besides transferring item by item.

[mattmos]

I'd stay away from nested reference models, always had issues when using 2 or more ref models within another, as the deltas end up confused/corrupt.

You can constrain one ref model to another ok, though I've had the most reliable success by using a spacer null underneath one ref model such as parented under a hand bone, to match srt of the object you want constrained, so that it has no offset.

Animation transfer works well with actions, plot from the model and import to the ref model and apply.

Naming conventions are the big one, for example materials that you set up on your characters should have a reference to that character in the material name.

Load times can balloon if you're using ref models (particularly if you're not keeping them clean and housekeeping whenever possible) but also the scene playback can grind to a halt with multiple characters, which is painful when you're into the lighting stage. Pointcaching can drastically improve scene handling. Also if you're planning on simulating parts of the character, you might be better off looking at a pointcache workflow using crate or pc2.

[Pooby]

I'd say ICE cache animation to your render scene.

By having an ICE tree with the file reference folder as a string attribute, every object references this one attribute, so you just change this one bit of text to a different folder and all the objects reference and thus, point to it and update in one go.

Its like magic.

Also.. ICE caches can pass any data you need in your render scene, so its great if you wish to drive deformations with per point attributes etc. This all comes across from your rig scene through the cache making it far more flexible/useful than just a regular point cache like mdd.

[druitre]

You can constrain one ref model to another ok

Especially if you use ICE constraints I discovered - ICE keeps references across models perfectly intact. In fact it keeps everything intact as long as the names are kept. Big help this in simulating clothes and hair, I can do that in separate scenes if I want to, using ref'd models.

Animation transfer works well with actions, plot from the model and import to the ref model and apply.

Brilliant, thanks a lot for this! Somehow it escaped my attention/memory that an action can be (or needs be) exported/imported as well as stored/applied and that the two are not the same.

By having an ICE tree with the file reference folder as a string attribute, every object references this one attribute, so you just change this one bit of text to a different folder and all the objects reference and thus, point to it and update in one go.

Going to try this out, you mean this way it's easy to switch all the caches per shot, right?
Also, to clarify, what would the workflow re. characters be? When you say 'ICEcache animation' do you mean cache the hires meshes, or cache the rig?

And thanks for the tips!