3ds Max London User Group

3DS Max London User Group Wednesday 1st February

2012-01-25T13:11:00.000-08:00

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!

3ds London Member's Web Presence

2011-12-07T17:04:00.001-08:00

I hope everyone enjoyed last night; thanks to everyone at Hayes Davidson for hosting, all the presenters and everyone else who's come along this year and made the evenings worthwhile.

The next meeting will be on Wednesday 1st February 2012 at The Plough. Hopefully, Neil Hazzard will be able to make it! We have a number of great speakers lined up already, if you're interested in talking next year let me know.

Peter Guthrie's presentation was brilliant, as is his blog. If you have one, let me know so we can start a blogroll here on the site; leave a comment on this post, or email me directly, use Twitter or Linked In.
To get things started, here's mine. See you all next year!

Neil Hazzard & Peter Guthrie @ 3ds London, 7th December

2011-12-03T01:29:00.001-08:00

From 7pm

HayesDavidson

Studio A

21 ConduitPlace

London W21HS

Map and Directions

It’s the last 3ds London of 2011, and to wrap up theyear we have a busy event planned. If you squeezed into The Plough last month,thanks, I hope you were squashed up against someone nice. Happily, we’llhave a bit more space this month, Hayes Davidson havekindly opened their doors (figuratively, you’re going to have to knock) forus to enjoy their hospitality again. There’s going to be a couple ofshort presentations first from members whose work has been in the news recentlywhich will be great, please bring along some of your own work to show the grouptoo.

Neil Hazzard, Autodesk M&E, isour first presenter; Neil is the development lead on rendering and interactiveviewports for 3ds Max, and is coming along to discuss Nitrous and perhaps Iray,time willing. A great opportunity to discuss everyone’s favourite 3Dprogram with one of the key developers!

I’m very happy that Peter Guthrie will be the secondpresenter. A freelance visualisation artist with a background in architecture,Peter studied architecture in Edinburgh, Scotland and worked as an architectfor several years before making the switch to visualisation. Peter recently presentedat the SOA AcademyDays in Venice and enjoys sharing his findings via his blog. There’s no way youhaven’t heard of Peter if you’re involved in Arch Viz, he’stravelling a long way to make the evening so don’t miss it!

It’s going to be a brilliant evening so do come along,everyone is welcome. Remember, please bring along some of your own work to showthe group too! Next year, as usual, we’ll skip January, then back at ThePlough for February. Details posted at www.3dslondon.blogspot.com, LinkedIn and Twitter, follow @3dslondon.

Kind regards, Simon

Vray @ 3ds London on YouTube

2011-11-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

I hope you enjoyed last night if you camealong. I knew it would be busy, but I think it was the highest attendance thegroup has ever had. It certainly felt like it in that room! So if you werestuck at the back, sorry. My colleague recorded the presentation on his iphone,and it’s actually pretty good. Thanks Krish!

Next month is shaping up to be another goodevening (at Hayes Davidson's studio) so put Wednesday 7^th December in your calendar. Remember, details posted at www.3dslondon.blogspot.com and onTwitter, follow @3dslondon.

Vray @ 3ds London Wednesday 2nd November

2011-10-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

For 7pm

Upstairs at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A

map

Hi everyone,

This November Teddy Ilieva andJimmy Krastev are flying over to show us some of the latest Vray features. Itwill be a great chance to catch up with some of the Chaos Group team in theusual relaxed setting of 3ds London. Some of the areas they’ll be covering:

V-Ray® 2.0 for 3ds Max -the latest trendsetting rendering technologies by Chaos Group

1.    Memory efficiency with Render time subdivisions
2.    Displacement geometry - cool tricks
3.    Rendering heavy geometry with V-Ray Proxy
4.    V-Ray RT accelerating the shading process
5.    Creating advanced layered shaders
6.    Light Cache improvements - retrace threshold
7.    V-Ray stereoscopic rig - shade map optimizations forrendering stereoscopy
8.    Distance texture - use procedurally generated textures tocreate a wide range of effects based on the distance between various objects inthe scene
9.    Lens analysis tool - easily match the distortion of yourreal world and your virtual cameras
10.    Multi-sub texture – assign different textures based onobject ID
11.    Light select render element – extract the contribution ofeach light to the scene, change their intensity in post-production and composethem back together
12.    Adding realism to your refractive materials with lightdispersion
13.    V-Ray RT running on CPU vs. GPU

As always, please bring some of your own work to sharewith the group, and I’m looking for some short presentations for DECEMBER. Ifyou are interested or know someone who is, please email me.

Remember,details posted at www.3dslondon.blogspot.comand on Twitter, follow @3dslondon. If you’ve been along recently, you’llknow it gets busy… So get there early if you want a seat!

Kind regards, Simon

Vray at 3ds London 2nd November

2011-10-20T05:49:00.000-07:00

Chaosgroup have confirmed their presentation, further details in just a few days!

Wednesday 5th October

2011-10-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

3DS MaxLondon User Group

Wednesday 5^th October

For 7pm

Upstairsat The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A

map

Hi everyone,

This Wednesday 5^th October we’ve lined up a brilliant presentation from PeteAddington. Check out Pete’s great site first, www.lonerobot.net.Pete will be presenting Creative character systems for studios great andsmall: The presentation will highlight some of the character-focusedpipelines integrated into Impossible TV's framework over the last few years.Pete will talk about Lonerobot's modular design pattern and how this can beadapted to different types of character-based projects without modification.He’ll demo some custom tools written with dotnet and maxscript and perform areal-time demonstration of developing a character layer control system forproduction.

So a littledifferent from the past few months, I hope you’ll come along to enjoy it. As always, please bringsome of your own work to share with the group, and I’m looking for presentersfor DECEMBER. If you are interested or know someone who is, please email me.

Remember,details posted at www.3dslondon.blogspot.comand on Twitter, follow @3dslondon. If you’ve been along recently, you’llknow it gets busy… So get there early if you want a seat!

Kindregards, Simon

Factory Fifteen @3ds London Wednesday 7th September

2011-09-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

3DS Max London User Group

Wednesday 7^th September

For 7pm

Upstairs at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A

map

First up next Wednesday 7^th September, evening regular Sebastian Burdon, creative director at Urban Digital, will be showing us how he helped create an animation currently showing at Ron Arad's stunning Curtain Call at the Roundhouse.

After Sebastian, Paul Nicholls and his colleagues from Factory Fifteen are going to present their recent works, consisting of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 minute films. Factory Fifteen use both film and animation to communicate social, political, and fantastical futures. These highly experimental shorts are accompanied by 'chronographics' which visually narrate and stylistically envision their films. Paul’s presentation last year was brilliant, this year he will include a look at the making of his film Golden Age, which recently won the Best Architectural Animation Award from CG Architect in 2011.

As always, please bring some of your own work to share with the group, and remember we’re also looking for presenters for the next few months. If you are interested or know someone who is, please email me.

Remember, details posted at www.3dslondon.blogspot.com and on Twitter, follow @3dslondon. If you’ve been along recently, you’ll know it gets busy… I’ll be organizing the room a bit more ruthlessly to cope next week, so get there early if you want a seat!

3ds London 3rd August

2011-07-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

Next Wednesday we’ve got two great presentations. First, Alex York is going to talk about the amazing body of work Atelier York produced for “The House”, over 15 minutes of animation and more than forty stills over the last four years.

Jamie G from Autodesk is coming too, to talk about Motion Capture workflows, discuss the new viewports, and share some tips and give an overview of SLATE, the node-based material editor.

Remember, details posted at www.3dslondon.blogspot.com and on Twitter, follow @3dslondon. See you upstairs at The Plough, Museum Street for 7pm. Thanks!

Kind regards, Simon

Taylor James @3DSLondon Max User Group next Wednesday 6th July

2011-07-01T02:09:00.000-07:00

3DS Max London User Group

Wednesday 6^th July

For 7pm

Upstairs at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A

map

Hi everyone,

Next Wednesday Keith and Mark from Taylor James are presenting some of their recent work, including a look behind the scenes of their stunning Turkish Airlines project, above. They’re always generous sharing their experiences with the group, a benefit of having so many professional and talented members who attend regularly! I look forward to seeing everyone to enjoy their presentation and a summer drink, perhaps outside if sunny, who knows?

Kind regards, Simon

Allies & Morrison @ 3ds London Wednesday 1st June

2011-05-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

3DS Max London User Group

Wednesday 1^st June

For 7pm

Upstairs at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A

map

Thomas Horsley, head of the internal 3d studio at Allies and Morrison Architects, will be showing us their latest film produced for the Rambert Dance Company.

This recently completed project was their first requiring the integration of live actors within a CG environment and the presentation will cover their workflow, lessons learned and some tips on what not to do on your first greenscreen shoot.

As always, please bring some of your own work to share with the group, and remember we’re also looking for presenters for the next few months, if you are interested please email me. I can't make it unfortunately, so Joe Robson has kindly offered to compere for the evening.

Kind regards, Simon

Meet the Met @ 3ds London this 4th May

2011-05-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

3DS Max London User Group

Wednesday 4^th May

For 7pm

Upstairs at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A

map

On Wednesday 4^th May we have an excellent presentation; Mark DeGiovanni is a 3D modeller and Analyst at the Metropolitan Police Service Computer Aided Modelling Bureau. The small team is recognized as one of the most experienced in the world, reconstructing crime scenes as 2D plans and 3D computer models since 1992. They use a range of surveying, photogrammetry and modelling techniques to analyse geometric variables within crime scenes for use in Court Presentations. Mark will be presenting three real cases showing some of the elements of their work, and of course how the team use 3ds Max.

As always, please bring some of your own work to share with the group. I’m also looking for presenters for the next few months, if you are interested please email or speak to me on Wednesday. Thanks, see you then!

Kind regards, Simon

RIBA Viz Exhibition & CityEngine @ 3ds London this Wednesday 6th April

2011-04-04T15:38:00.000-07:00

3DS Max London User Group
Wednesday 6th April 7pm

The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A
map

Neil Clark, founder of Eyelevel, has curated Visioning The Future. An exhibition currently taking place at the RIBA, it aims to inspire visitors and highlight the role of architectural visualisation in realising great modern buildings, from epic cityscape to fine detail. Neil will be talking through how he (and other members of the 3ds London User Group) use Max to do so!

Marcel Reimer from Procedural is coming along to show the group their latest version of CityEngine, and to show us some recent projects and talk about future developments.

As always, the group always enjoys other people’s projects, so bring something along!

Kind regards, Simon

Do you want to meet with the 3ds Max/Design Development team?

2011-03-11T08:53:00.000-08:00

Autodesk’s Soho Office

Ingeni Building
15-17 Broadwick Street
London
W1F 0DE

Hi All

- Do you want to meet the 3ds Max/Design Product Manager?
- Do you have questions for the Lead Product Developers of 3ds Max/Design?

Register now to attend this exclusive free event and put your questions, ideas and suggestions directly to the 3ds Max/Design development team. Both Shane and Pierre-Felix are over from the US and Canada and want to hear what you have to say! You will even get to meet Neil, our very own UK lead developer of viewport technologies.

When: Thursday 24th March
Where: Autodesk London office
At: 7 - 9pm (6.30 arrival)
RSVP: via Jamie's Blog

The evening, organised in conjunction with the Autodesk, will be an informal gathering to help steer the future direction of 3ds Max/Design. Due to the sensitive nature of data being shared with you, a NDA (non-disclosure Agreement) may be required. Please note, priority will be given to existing London User Group members.

Everyone welcome, I look forward to seeing you all, regards, Simon

March Meeting

2011-03-03T02:50:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a great time! Sorry it was a bit squashed, we'll organize the room a little better next month, see you then.

3DS Max London User Group, Wednesday 2nd March Confirmed!

2011-02-25T03:38:00.000-08:00

3DS Max London User Group

Wednesday 2nd March
from 7PM

The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A

map

Ben Cowell is the head of 3D at Nexus. Ben’s coming along to show the group their fantastic work on the Honda Jazz advert, using Max and Krakatoa, and some of their other recent work. Of course, you’ll be bringing along some work to show everyone too, won’t you?

Please note the new venue; it was very hard to convince the landlord of a central London pub to give us a space for free. The Plough has a newly refurbished room upstairs with a large screen so I hope it works out, but we need it to be full! So do come along and catch up with everyone after the recent hiatus.

Good News / Bad News

2011-01-27T09:54:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

Please note there will be no meeting next week for February, I couldn’t arrange a venue unfortunately. Happily though, from Wednesday 2^nd March we have a new permanent home for the evenings at The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A. It’s pretty close to the old venue (The Black Horse, which has now closed) five minutes walk from Tottenham Court Road Tube.

Thanks for the encouraging emails, I’m sorry the meetings have been disrupted recently, but we should be back on track in March!

Kind regards, Simon

See you next year

2010-12-03T02:28:00.001-08:00

Thanks to all the speakers and attendees this year, see you all next February!

3dslondon October at Hays Davidson pics http://bit.ly/fdtGIm

2010-11-30T12:43:00.000-08:00

It was a great night at Hayes Davidson... check out the pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hayes_davidson/5217938787/

"There were over 70 artists there on the night and we hope you all enjoyed it, we are chuffed with all the great feedback we received, we look forward to welcoming you back to our studio soon either to one of our own events or at another 3ds London event."

3ds Max London User Group next Wednesday 1st December

2010-11-26T01:58:00.000-08:00

Autodesk’s Soho Office
Ingeni Building
15-17 Broadwick Street
London
W1F 0DE

Arrive from 6:30pm for 7pm sharp please

Hello everyone,

Next Wednesday 1st December I’m happy to say we once again enjoy the hospitality of Autodesk at their Soho offices for the last 3ds Max London User Group meeting of 2010. We also have a great speaker with a really cool project to present; Mike Merron recently worked as Technical Director at 1stAveMachine on the new Ford C-Max commercial. Mike is going to come along to show us how it was done, using 3ds Max, Vray, and Fusion amongst others. Of course, we’re always looking for other projects to watch and talk about, so bring something along!

With no meeting last month and nothing planned for January it will be great for everyone to catch-up on Wednesday (the first week of the year is hectic enough, but rest assured we have another great talk pencilled in for February 2011).

Everyone welcome, I look forward to seeing you all, regards, Simon

November

2010-11-03T03:14:00.001-07:00

Hello Everyone,

Please note there’s no User Group meeting this Wednesday 3^rd November. I’m afraid the double whammy of no confirmed speaker or venue would make it tricky! Sorry for the late notice, I was hoping to get something together at the last minute but it didn’t happen in the end. We’ve been lucky to enjoy some great venues and speakers recently, good to see the evenings have been well attended too. I’ve struggled to find a suitable venue to replace the Black Horse Pub though, whilst they have let us down a few times it does have the advantage of being central, and free. I’ve been to almost every Pub in the West End now, but if you know somewhere else suitable let me know.

Many hundreds of people know about the evening now, so some of you must be able to make a presentation at an upcoming event! It shouldn’t take too long to prepare and you’ll enjoy it, promise.

Again, sorry for the late notice, regards, Simon

New 3dslondon Twiter and facebook page

2010-10-14T09:33:00.001-07:00

We have just created facebook and twitter pages to complement our blog.

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/3dslondon/

twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/3dslondon

3ds Max London at Hayes Davidson this Wednesday 6th October

2010-10-03T16:32:00.000-07:00

3DS Max London User Group Meeting
This Wednesday 6th October

Hayes Davidson
Studio A
21 Conduit Place
London W2 1HS

Map and Directions

From 7:00pm, starting 7:30pm sharp

Hello everybody,

As mentioned at the last meeting, this month Hayes Davidson have graciously offered to host the October event at their studio in Paddington. It’s a little further west than usual, but easy to get to, and the evening will start a little later to compensate. Please check the map linked above and look out for the big wooden door! Hayes Davidson need no introduction to anyone in our group really, I know their presentation will be excellent. Please do bring along any of your recent projects to show the group as well!

Everyone welcome, see you there, Simon

2010-08-31T02:08:00.000-07:00

3ds Max London User Group Wednesday 1st September

Autodesk’s Soho Office

Ingeni Building
15-17 Broadwick Street
London
W1F 0DE

Arrive from 6:30pm for 7pm sharp please

Hello everyone,

I hope you enjoyed the change of scenery and the hospitality of Autodesk last month, we will be holding September's meeting there too. Please do bring along some work to show everyone and talk about, the evening's success always depends on everyone doing so. We have a very cool project, Royal Reformation, being presented this month by Paul Nicholls, http://pauldnicholls.com/. Paul is a freelance visualiser currently completing a Masters at the Bartlett. Definitely check out his great website and blog before coming along next week!

Any questions drop me an email, kind regards, Simon

3ds Max London User Group this Wednesday 4th August

2010-08-01T17:25:00.001-07:00

3ds Max London User Group this Wednesday 4th August

Autodesk’s Soho Office
Ingeni Building
15-17 Broadwick Street
London
W1F 0DE

Arrive from 6:30pm for 7pm sharp please

This Wednesday 4th August I’m happy to say Ryan Lintott and James Shaw from Squint/Opera and the team will be talking about their recent work. After the mix up in June and the World Cup break in July it's good to get things back on track, especially with such great presenters!
Jamie Gwilliam, Max specialist at Autodesk has kindly arranged to host the 3ds Max User Group at Autodesk’s Soho office this month. We've got a couple of great pub options for future evenings, but Jamie mentioned their new 3D projector (and beer) so I couldn't refuse! It will be nice to see everyone after two months, hope you can make it.

Any questions drop me an email, kind regards, Simon

CrystalCG, Squint/Opera & BlueGFX on Wednesday 9th June

2010-05-28T06:02:00.000-07:00

Location

The Black Horse pub in Central London,
6 Rathbone Place, London W1T 1HL
Telephone: 0207 580 7829
Click here for map

Max users group meeting agenda

Please note the next User Group will be on the second Wednesday of June, the 9th (I'm sorry for this unavoidable change). It will be a busy one though! Ximo Peris, Creative Director, and his team from the London office of Crystal CG will be presenting some of their work on 3D Stereoscopy. Ryan Lintott, Associate Director & Head of 3D at Squint/Opera will be presenting some of their impressive recent work. Finally Gareth Corbett from the BlueGFX team has also kindly
agreed to share a tech update with the group, looking at 3D app and GPU news.

In addition to the change of date in June, please note there will be no meeting in July because of the World Cup!

We look forward to seeing you on the 9 June.

Crysis 2 Trailer @3ds London this Wednesday 5th May

2010-05-04T02:05:00.000-07:00

Crysis 2 Trailer @3ds London this Wednesday
3ds Max London User Group Meeting
Next Wednesday 5th May
From 6:30pm
Upstairs at The Black Horse Pub in Central London
6 Rathbone Place, London W1T 1HL

The team from Headstrong Games are coming along to show us there work, including the trailer for Crysis 2, using CryEngine2, Sandbox3 and 3ds Max 2010. A great opportunity for everyone to find out a little more about Max in games. Come along with some of your work to share with the group! Everyone welcome, kind regards, Simon

Wednesday 7th April

2010-04-05T15:38:00.000-07:00

3ds Max London User Group Meeting
This Wednesday 7th April From 6.30pm
Upstairs at The Black Horse Pub in Central London
6 Rathbone Place, London W1T 1HL

After a quiet one last month, we have a great evening planned for this Wednesday. 3ds London regular Joe Robson kicks things off with a talk, ‘The Painted, The Unpainted and the Unpaintable; In Pursuit of Architectural Realism’. Joe is an elected council member of the Society of Architectural Illustration, he also lectures at the London School of Economics and Bath University at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as well as internationally. Currently he runs his own practice, AVR London, specialising in architectural illustration, verification and research. Joe's talk in November 2008 was fantastic so I'm pleased he's agreed to talk again.

Autodesk App Specialist Jamie Gwilliam is coming along too, this will be one of your first chances to check out all the new 3ds Max 2011 goodness. Enough said!

Hope you can make it, regards, Simon.

Wednesday 3rd March

2010-03-02T06:33:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody, this Wednesday we don't have a confirmed presentation. I do try hard to find someone every month but sometimes... it just doesn't happen! The last evening this happened was last year, and in the end everything turned out fine. BUT! That was only because people brought along something to show the group. So, and I say it every month, please do bring something along, whether you are a seasoned presenter or a nervous first timer (have a drink first). Last month was a great success, close to seventy attendees squeezed in to watch the Vyonyx presentation, standing room only! I look forward to seeing you again on Wednesday.

Hope you can make it, regards, Simon.

New Site

2010-03-02T06:32:00.000-08:00

This will be the new page to find out what's happening every month. It should be much easier to keep up to date now! The old address should redirect here. If you have any suggestions for this page let me know.