customer stories side-thread

[Kerro Perro]

Moderator edit: this thread was split off from this one in a probably futile attempt to keep that one strictly about "Great Works" - HB

Hey Bellsey you might be able to help me out:

Do you know any case studies/ behind the scenes articles on a Japanese toon/npr/anime project done with Softimage? There was a good one linked on the ex-si blog about Macross F but all the links and vids in it are dead now...

[Bellsey]

There's Tekkonkinkreet, someone posted the movie linked a few posts back

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/it ... eID=123112

[Kerro Perro]

Ah same problem with that one: it's supposed to have a little flash video showing the shading process but it's gone and the links in the bottom are dead as well...

It seems these older articles are all broken...was hoping for a more recent one - or at least one that was still intact...

Ah well thanks anyway! ;)

[Bullit]

Check here they might have something:http://www.autodesk.co.jp/adsk/servlet/ ... ID=1169823

[Kerro Perro]

Thanks! That has the Macross article with all the things intact

It's good to have some input from Asia ;)

[bottleofram]

There's Tekkonkinkreet, someone posted the movie linked a few posts back

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/it ... eID=123112

Is it sad or is it funny that an article is referring to pictures and zip files that are nowhere to be found?

I realize this is not the place for another AD bash-fest, but i had to point that out. What a mess...

[Kerro Perro]

Well thinking about it this actually isn't that far off-topic: this thread is called "Great work done with Softimage" no? Well i think it's pretty damn sad that of the great work done in SI by Micheal Arias and Studio 4C in the early 2000's (Animatrix, TekkonKinkreet, Ken Ishii video) there is now hardly anything to found. Imo a missed oportunity by AD to have a usp with Softimage: it's great toon capabilities...

Oh well

[Maximus]

i think this is what you lookin for

http://area.autodesk.com/inhouse/custst ... ex_machina

http://www.renderosity.com/news.php?vie ... ni_month=3

[Kerro Perro]

Ok that's a great AREA article! That Appleseed movie definitely goes on the "Great work"-list imo. Still a shame about the Tekkonkinkreet stuff - i might email AD about that... ya never know... ;)

[Hirazi Blue]

Is it sad or is it funny that an article is referring to pictures and zip files that are nowhere to be found?

One thing people tend to forget concerning that article was that one of its main downloads (simply named "particles.zip", IIRC) was made for the "old" Particle System and wouldn't be of use to users of newer versions of the software (from SI2010 onwards). The three scenes that were on offer probably suffered the same old-particle dependency.

The fact nobody cleaned up the text to remove references to files that aren't
included with the page anymore is somewhat shoddy, however, to say the least!

I realize this is not the place for another AD bash-fest, but i had to point that out. What a mess...

As I have split these posts from their original thread...

[dwigfor]

I thought there were also some files with the Lost Planet customer story, but again they wouldn't be much use because they were old particle system.

[Kerro Perro]

Ah well for me the particle stuff wasnt interesting but i would like to see the images and videos about how they made it - especially since tekkonkinkreet had a very unique look, not your standard cel shaded stuff. (not that i dont loove cel shaded stuff ;) )

[luceric]

the movie was produced seven years ago with XSI 4.0 then 5.11. Lost planet was also from 2005. the Appleseed sequel at least was from 2009.
what's sad isn't that the links those old stories, don't work, it's that no one seems to have used XSI toon shading in years, and those that did had micheal arias, softimage employee and the author of the toon shader as part of the production. if that isnt true and someone somewhere really is using this stuff in Softimage, the Japan team should be saying who. Appleseed's got a story; they first tried to do it with a game engine, but ran into trouble. in the future, everything will probably be done with game engines, it was a little too early then bit things have changed.

[Kerro Perro]

Hmm not sure how i feel about that: i can understand from a studio perspective that if you can get the all the npr/toon quality you want in a real time renderer it would be preferable to having to deal with costly rendertimes... I might be wrong about this but it sounds like they would be using proprietary tech? Would make more sense to be able to use real time rendering inside your main 3D app.... ;)

Anyhoo i am curious about this but can't find much about the actual process, i'm assuming it's still closed shop hush hush kind of stuff? Stories like these are sure plenty vague...