The 3ds Max London User Group meets on the first Wednesday of every month at Truckles, opposite the British Museum. Started in 2007, the group enjoys a great number of professional members from London's advertising, architectural and animation industries. We meet to discuss ideas, methods and projects in a friendly, relaxed setting.

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Wednesday 5th December

For 7pm
Upstairs at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A

Hello everyone,
This Wednesday 5th December- 3ds London Christmas Social! We don't have any speakers planned, but it's good to go. If you'd like to bring along a project to share with everyone, go for it! It'd be nice to see something, but the plan is to enjoy a few drinks with friends for the evening.

I've lined up some great speakers for the begining of 2013, starting Wednesday 6th February. Remember, no event in January, so see you next week to catch up before the holidays.
 
Full details posted at www.3dslondon.co.uk and on Twitter, follow @3dslondon. If your contact email for the 3ds London evenings is simon at civicart dot com, you need to change it to 3dslondon at gmail dot com. I start a new job next week so I'll only have access to the old address for a few weeks.

See you on Wednesday,
Simon

Thursday 1 November 2012

Wednesday 7th November

from 6:30pm @

HayesDavidson
Studio A
21 Conduit Place
London W2 1HS
Map and Directions

Hello everyone,

I'm happy to tell you that next week Hayes Davidson are once again hosting the User Group. If you came along last year (or the year before) you'll know it's a great space with great hosts! David Bullock's told me they'll be showing the group some recent work- mainly to show off their new AV system! Of course, it's going to be a great place to share some of your work too- bring some along.

3ds London regulars Sol Rogers and Matt Allen from RewindFX are presenting too- their first one I believe, so don't miss it! Check out their site, they've had some great projects this year so it's going to be good.
Details posted at www.3dslondon.co.uk LinkedIn and Twitter, follow @3dslondon.

Everyone welcome, see you there, Simon

Monday 1 October 2012

3ds London Wed 3rd October

For 7pm
Upstairs at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A


Hello everyone,
Next Wednesday Michal Konicek from Vertex Modelling is going to get things started, they have an amazing 3D model of London you can chech out on their website. Michal's going to give us an overview of their work- very accurate 3D captured from high res imagery, and how you can use it.
We've had two months in a row of very technical presentations, so next week, please, bring in a project or two to share! After Michal, the evening is free for you guys to show off some work, so bring it along on USB. The rest of the year's schedule is looking pretty busy, so this is your best chance to strut some 3D stuff. If you'd like to give me a heads up, drop me an email ASAP. Come on everyone!
Remember, details posted at www.3dslondon.co.uk and on Twitter, follow @3dslondon.

See you there, Simon

Wednesday 29 August 2012

Thinkbox Software at 3ds London Wed 5th Sept

For 7pm
Upstairs at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A

Hello everyone,

Next Wednesday David Lance is going to get things started- His brilliant (-ly disturbing) short The Future Forms Of Life has had fantastic coverage this summer. David's kindly put together a making of to show the group all the hard work involved. Get there on time!

I'm also very happy to tell you that Thinkbox Software will be coming over from the States to demonstrate the latest versions of some of their software, including Krakatoa, Deadline6 and Genome. They've lined up some great speakers too- user group regular Mike Owen is making his second appearance this year to talk about Deadline6, and Maxscript Legend Bobo Petrov will be giving us a holistic overview of all their other applications and how they work together. 

Remember, details posted at www.3dslondon.co.uk and on Twitter, follow @3dslondon. Make sure you come along next week to catch up with everyone after the summer break!
 
See you there, Simon

Tuesday 3 July 2012

Konstantin's Camera Path Workflow for V-Ray

Konstantin from Chaos Group has kindly sent a written summary of the excellent camera path workflow he showed the group last month, I hope you find it useful:

1. Hide all the animated geometries (if it is fly-through animation without moving objects skip this step).
2. Use "Irradiance map" and "Light cache or Brute force" (depending on the case) for primary and secondary bounces.
3. Activate the "Use camera path" option for both (if BF is the secondary bounce engine leave it with the default settings and activate the option only for the IM). Also I will recommend using high settings for the IM since you will calculate it only once. The same goes for the light cache.
4. Render the image out and save the IM on the hard-drive. You can set it to auto save if you decide to and not render the final image. It will work the same way after that.
5. Set the IM to "From file" mode and load the file. Set the secondary bounce engine to none. At the moment you have GI precalculated for the whole camera path (except for the hidden objects) and if you are doing fly-through animations this will be the last step.
6. Unhide the moving object and in its material turn off the option called "Use irradiance map" (In the Options section).
Now, the moving object will appear dark if rendered because only one "brute force GI" bounce is calculated. Its subdivisions are controlled by the subdivisions of the IM (otherwise useless, since we are using IM from file!). This means that if the IM subdivs are set to "50", you are doing one bounce of light only for the torus with 50 hemispheric subdivisions (brute force subdivs).
But you will need some kind of secondary bounces also in order to create accurate illumination for the animated geometries. And there are a couple of different things that you can do:
1. Set secondary bounces to "Brute force" and only for the torus V-Ray will calculate BF-BF GI (which tends to be slow but accurate). In an interior you will have to up the "secondary bounces" of the brute force.
2. You can set the secondary bounces to "Light cache". Turn off "use camera path" (this is optional, you can leave it on).
This way the LC will be recalculated for each frame for the whole image but will be used only for the object that is moving (as secondary bounce information while the first bounce is still BF).
This is quite a fast method and I tend to use it a lot. It is also the most accurate one because of all the bounces that the LC can make.

Sunday 1 July 2012

The Neighbourhood and Pixomondo on 4th July

Wednesday 4th July
For 7pm
Upstairs at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A
map 



It's a good one... On Wednesday 4th July, we've got three great presentations lined up. Last month Simon Donaghy showed me a very cool animation, so to start the evening he's kindly agreed to talk a little about the plug-ins he used, FumeFX, Krakatoa, Thinking Particles etc and how he went about rigging the animation. Check out Simon's site, there are some great resources on there

The Neighbourhood are back, as promised a couple of months ago! They will be showcasing their 'Like a Kid in a Sweetshop' project for Heston Blumenthal. Creative Director Jon Humphreys will be discussing the creative development of the project and 3D artist Stuart Dearnaley will be sharing some behind the scenes technical knowledge. Again, check out their site to whet your appetite. 

I'm also happy to tell you Pixomondo are coming along to tell everyone about their London studio, and show us how they used 3ds Max for some of the visual effects in Red Tails, just one of the fantastic projects they've been involved with this last year. 

Remember, details posted at www.3dslondon.co.uk and on Twitter, follow @3dslondon. There will no event in August, so make sure you come along next week to catch up with everyone. See you there, Simon

Thursday 31 May 2012

Chaos Group and Burrows at 3ds London

Wednesday 6th June
For 7pm
Upstairs at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A

map
 

On Wednesday 6th June, Master V-Ray Trainer Konstantin Gaytandzhiev will be discussing the latest improvements in V-Ray for 3ds Max. Check out the topics that he's prepared and make sure you stop by and ask your questions:
  • Latest developments in V-Ray RT
  • Motion blur in V-Ray RT
  • VRayPtex - a new texture capable of loading Ptex files
  • Fur and hair rendering and the V-Ray hair material
  • Dispersion and lens effects
  • Distance texture
  • Stereoscopic helper and the shade-map
  • Heavy scenes rendering

3ds London regular Mike Owen from Burrows CGI has some great new work to share with the group, yes, using V-Ray! The last presentation Chaos Group made was heaving- make sure you come along early for a great evening, and bring along some work to show everyone, especially if you used V-Ray.

Remember, details posted at www.3dslondon.co.uk and on Twitter, follow @3dslondon. Everyone welcome, see you there, Simon

Sunday 29 April 2012

Wednesday 2nd May @ The Plough

Hi everyone,

There's a meeting this Wednesday as scheduled, but I can't confirm the speaker right now I'm afraid, looks like he might be rained off due to flooding where he lives!

The guys from The Neighbourhood are coming down though, to give the group a quick look at some of their recent work (but they'll hopefully be making a longer presentation later in the year).

Matthew Kennett had a great idea last month, a Q&A session for everyone, so if you've got a problem perhaps someone else can help? I think this will be an informal thing afterwards, we'll see how it works... Strictly no personal problems, 3ds Max related only please.

So it will be great to see everyone as usual, we've had a great run of speakers for a long time now. But this month we need people to bring along some work to show the group! If you haven't wanted to do a long presentation before, this is your opportunity to do something shorter.

See you there, regards, Simon


Friday 30 March 2012

Factory Fifteen at 3ds London

Wednesday 4th April
For 7pm
Upstairs at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A


map


Hi everyone,

I hope you enjoyed last month's presentations at The Doodle Bar, a great evening so we'll be back! Next Wednesday, 4th April, 3ds London returns to The Plough. Factory Fifteen are kicking things off for us; Have you seen their latest film, Gamma? I'm hoping for a sneak peek at some of the work for their new film Jonah, which looks amazing on their blog...

As always, please bring some of your own work to share with the group. We need a presentation for May, if you're interested or know someone who is, please email me.

Remember, details posted at www.3dslondon.co.uk and on Twitter, follow @3dslondon. I'm using a dedicated gmail account to send this invitation out from now on; If you no longer wish to receive these messages or there is some other problem, let me know.

Everyone welcome, see you there, Simon

Wednesday 29 February 2012

3ds Max London User Group March


3DS Max London User Group
Wednesday 7th March

For 7:30pm
The Doodle Bar
33 Parkgate Road
London, SW11 4NP

020 7223 7115




Hi everyone,

Next Wednesday 7th March 3ds London is at The Doodle Bar, hosted by Squint Opera and Vyonyx. Neither firm needs a long introduction, both are regular attendees and have presented their excellent work before, you know it'll be a great evening! Note the later start time, The Doodle Bar is a great venue but a little further south than usual!
As always, please bring some of your own work to share with the group, and remember I’m always looking for presenters. If you are interested or know someone who is, please email me.

Remember, details posted at www.3dslondon.co.uk and on Twitter, follow @3dslondon. I'm using a dedicated gmail account to send this invitation out from now on; If you no longer wish to receive these messages or there is some other problem, let me know.

Everyone welcome, don't miss this great evening, see you there!

Regards, Simon

Wednesday 25 January 2012

3DS Max London User Group Wednesday 1st February

For 7pm, Upstairs at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A  map

Hi everyone, 

I hope you've had a good start to 2012! We've got two speakers lined up for next Wednesday 1st February so far. First up is Andrew Hickinbottom, a talented character artist who's going to show us his work and give us an insight into his creative process, using 3ds Max of course. I'm sure many of you will recognise his distinctive style, check out his gallery first!
 

Neil Hazzard, Autodesk M&E, had some bad luck travelling down to London for the last meeting but the delay will be worthwhile. Neil is the development lead on rendering and interactive viewports for 3ds Max, and is coming along to discuss Nitrous and perhaps Iray, time willing. A great opportunity to discuss everyone’s favourite 3D program with one of the key developers!
 

As always, please bring some of your own work to share with the group, I’m looking for presenters for 2012. If you are interested or know someone who is, please email me.

Remember, details posted at www.3dslondon.co.uk and on Twitter, follow @3dslondon. Make sure you come along to catch up with everybody and all their latest news after the break… Everyone welcome, see you there!