Jamie's Jewels

Shw mae? Any 3ds Max users in South Wales?

OK, so that’s a stupid question. Of course there is, in fact there is quite a hub of 3ds Max users in South Wales, particularly in the lovely City of Cardiff. The main job-role of users in Cardiff tend to be design focused, which is why Colin Hanford recently contacted me about starting up a 3ds Max community event.

Following the success of User groups, (like those found in London and Amsterdam, as well as the emerging group in Antwerp), Colin wants to organise a regular gathering of 3ds Max users to share knowledge, inspiration, tips ‘n’ tricks, as well as a few beers!

Therefore, if your reading this, your near to or in the South Wales vicinity, and want to help build this community then please read on and hear what Colin has to say….

 

”…I’m looking to gauge interest in organising an Autodesk 3ds Max User Group for South Wales. The idea being we have monthly or bi-monthly meetings where we can share ideas and experiences with 3ds Max and visualisation in general, get some good presentations going on, socialise, etc. Where we meet up, be it Cardiff, Swansea, or somewhere else I guess is dependent on the location of those interested in coming along. Maybe the location could jump between Cardiff and Swansea every few months, who knows.

So if interested, please drop me an email (Click here.) with your name and preference for meeting location (if you have one) and hopefully we can get an interesting and educational user group off the ground.

Cheers…..“

                                                Generic 3ds Max image created by Colin.

I hope to see you at the first user group in the next few months. Please help spread this information, and remember any 3ds Max user is welcome to the group…..

Happy Max’ing and Hwyl am nawr!

An explosive 3.5hr free tutorial

Today is time for a special blog post from a guest writer; Anselm v. Seherr - Thoß. Anselm is based in New Orleans, Louisiana and has created numerous publications on the PFlow Toolbox.

Anselm is an award winning Visual Effects Technical Director and VES (Visual Effects Society) member with emphasis on particle based effects as well as Fluid Simulations, Shading and Post Production. He has worked on numerous high-profile movies like James Cameron's "Avatar", G.I. Joe-Rise of Cobra, The A-Team, 21JumpStreet, Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood", Priest, SuckerPunch, Dragonball: Evolution, Tree of Life, Clash of the Titans(3D conversion), Niko & The Way to the Stars, "Loewenzahn", Angel Camouflaged, The Big Year, and "Il sogno del Maratoneta(Day of the Race)" as well as numerous commercials and music videos. He has also been consulted vfx on movies like Gulliver's Travel, Skyline, Moving Day (Shortfilm).

Needless to say he is an authority on ‘explosions’ and he kindly agreed to supply a “short” tutorial for this blog on creating explosions, focusing on using FumeFX within 3ds Max. This “short” tutorial turned out to be something special, as it was in 2 parts, with over 3.5 hours of content.

So let’s not waste anymore time but dive straight into the videos:

 

As an added benefit You can download the 3ds Max 2010 scene files here. (as a .ZIP) and follow along whilst creating your own explosive scenes.

Make sure you visit his website here and portfolio on Vimeo here.

Also please, take the opportunity to send him a “thank you” email. I can speak from experience when I say that sometimes it feels as though, no-one reads or looks at your online content, and this simple “thanks” will always brighten up a day…

(Email him here: mail@incendii.com)

Once again a giant thank you to Anselm for taking the time to share his knowledge with the community.

Happy Max’ing.

3ds Max goodies – Thanks to those who entered

You may remember a blog post at the beginning of the year where I gave you the chance to earn some free 3ds Max ‘goodies’ by sending me an email of a 3ds Max related item. (Full details here.) Today that chance ended, and everyone who was successful should have now received an email.

These people were randomly chosen by the Autodesk Twitter (and all things social media related) superstar called @AutodeskEMEA. Who is also more commonly known as the lovely Jackie Hewitt. Jackie has been at Autodesk for over 4 years and currently works in the Channel Marketing team.  She’s the author of many a fine (and random) tweet for Autodesk in Europe, Middle East and Africa (hence EMEA.)  When not tweeting Jackie can be found riding her motorbike or trying to perfect her rocky road recipe, though not at the same time…(Not that she has ever shared a rocky road with me…tut tut.)

Anyway, I received a huge amount of fascinating entries. For me they were interesting to see the wide and varied amount of 3ds Max related books and T-shirts which exist. (Some of which I had never seen before!)  It was also great to see how many of you have kept the boxes from past versions.

Thank you to everyone who took the time from your workload to send in a picture. Below are a sample of the entries received. There’s version 1 content in there! (Click to enlarge)…….

 

 

 

Thanks once again to everyone.

Happy Max’ing

Jamie.

An Evening with North Kingdom - 1.5hr Event Video Recordings

Near the end of last year, Autodesk invited North Kingdom to speak about how they utilise 3ds Max to create rich and engaging content for mobile, web and installations. This event provided a fascinating insight into some of the amazing projects that North Kingdom create.

The great news is that the London event was thankfully recorded, so you can view the presentation in its entirety below. The video has been split into four main parts for your ease;

1. North Kingdom Intro and Projects Overview >> 25 minutes
2. 3ds Max workflow Overview Part 1 – using NK assets >> 18 minutes
3. 3ds Max workflow Overview Part 2 – using NK asses >> 17 minutes
4. North Kingdom Projects Overview and Summary >> 33 minutes

During the 1.5 hours of videos you will get a glimpse at some of the projects crafted by the Swedish company and also at some inproduct workflows and tools that are commonly overlooked by other users. David Eriksson from North Kingdom guides you through their creative projects, with myself presenting the 3ds Max workflows.

North Kingdom state on their blog that “3D and motion graphic has been one of our five core competences since the start and is an important tool for us in our work in creating immersive storytelling for our clients.”

So let’s have a look at the videos:

Part 1 – North Kingdom, Setup and Organisation

Part 2 – 3ds Max workflows using North Kingdom Assets

Part 3 – 3ds Max workflows using North Kingdom Assets

Part 4 – North Kingdom, Projects

 

You can view more of their projects and work on this link.

 

Also, don’t forget that if you wish to share some projects with us, that utilise 3ds Max or Maya for rich media, then you can do so via this Facebook site, or using the tag #mediadesign in Twitter. (You can follow me on twitter here.)

Finally here’s another video showcasing North Kingdom’s work with our tools.

I hope you enjoyed all the recordings, from what proved to be a great evening. Keep an eye out for future events in your area.

Happy Max’ing

How people use 3ds Max – An Infographic

You’ve probably all heard of Infographic’s, but have you heard of Autodesk’s Customer Involvement Program? When you install 3ds Max for the first time, it will ask if you wish to help make the product better by sharing your usage information with Autodesk. Most people I speak to say no, even though you have the option to do this anonymously. This information is incredibly important by helping to steer the application and tools.

Below is an example of the type of information this provides. This image can be publicly found, along with other Autodesk applications on Visual.ly here. (Including Inventor, Revit and AutoCAD.)

The below image is a command usage arc diagram. (Containing over 60 million commands.) The bar size is proportionate to the tools usage for users involved with the ‘CIP’ initiative. The Arc between the bars, then represents which tool is likely to follow.

You can find a full legend for the infographic below, explaining the arc diagram.

Here is the arc diagram, which I am sure you will find interesting: (Click image to enlarge.)

So why not participate in the Customer Involvement Program and become more involved with 3ds Max. You can still participate by activating this option found directly within 3ds Max.

Navigate to your ‘Help’ Menu in 3ds Max’s main menu bar, and then selecting ‘Customer involvement Program.’ This will load the below window. From here you can choose to participate with your email address or anonymously. You also have the chance to see how your machine to compares to other 3ds Max users, by selecting the link above the “OK” button. (Preview my CIP data link)

I hope you find this information as fascinating as I do. Please help share this information with your work colleagues, and other 3ds Max users you know to help shape 3ds Max even further.

Happy Max’ing.

Autodesk 2011 Design Visualisation Showreel

Sit back and enjoy the latest Autodesk Design Visualisation Showreel featuring some great work from our talented users. (Recommend viewing full screen – 1080p)

 

Happy Max’ing

Project Pandora, Project Geppetto, some Nitrous Research and a splash of AutoCAD info

Morning All

Below you will find a link to some research and projects that Ken and Shane presented at December’s Autodesk University in Las Vegas.

Rather than duplicating the content, please follow this link to see the three videos which show what’s been keeping everyone bust at Autodesk recently.

This is also a good opportunity to make sure your aware that the AutoCAD to 3ds Max Quick Send Technology Preview I mentioned in a previous blog post has now been updated.

The new update allows you to install the English version on the following versions of AutoCAD 2012.

• Czech
• English
• French
• German
• Hungarian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Simplified Chinese
• Spanish
• Traditional Chinese

Download AutoCAD Quick Send to 3ds Max (32 + 64-bit installers)

Your feedback is always important with our tools. Don’t forget you can email us about the Quick Send technology preview to labs.acad.quicksend@autodesk.com or on the discussion forum. At the time of writing this it’s current user rating is 4.8 out of 5.

A Known limitation is Unicode characters are not currently supported. Support for Unicode characters is being considered for a future update of the technology preview.

Don’t forget you can follow me on Twitter here or by searching for @3dsjamiesjewels, for immediate ad-hoc 3ds Max news.

Happy Max’ing

My most prized 3ds Max possession…

Time for a very random and short blog post today.

There has been an impressive collection of 3ds Max photos coming into my inbox recently. This is as a result of the free 3ds Max and Autodesk branded giveaways I’m offering. (More info here – there’s still time to enter). This got me thinking about what my most prized 3ds Max item was. Over the years I’ve managed to accumulate some fantastic memorabilia, and I know from the emails, that you have also received more than just the obligatory notepad and pen! Well mine has to be the below. This was given to me about 4 years ago from Daniel at our Swedish distributor, and has been lovingly protected ever since…(It’s waterproof, but i don’t think it will ever see any liquid.)

Before you ask, No, there’s no chance of this ever making it’s way into a competition – sorry!

At many of our product launch and roadshow events we always aim to have some giveaways to say thanks to the attendees for taking time out of their busy schedule’s. So keep an eye out for future events, as you never know what you might be taking home, in addition to the knowledge you pick up on the day…

Happy Max’ing

Optimizing 3ds Max With System Resources Video Tutorial

Hi All

A quick reminder that CGschool currently have two free 3ds Max video tutorials for your viewing pleasure.

• Optimising 3ds Max with system resources
• Onyx vegetation

These new recorded webinars from Brian Smith last for approx. 1.5 hours.  3ds Max System Resources will help you learn to manage your file sizes, manage RAM consumption, object optimization, and which components have a greater impact on rendering. The Onyx Trees webinar recording covers the latest version of the 3ds Max plugin OnyxTREE STORM, Onyx2Max and OnyxGRASS.

For more information on viewing these videos, click here.

If your new to Cgschool then they are a training center in Miami, FL, USA. Dedicated to professional architectural visualization training.

                           

Happy Max’ing

3ds Max wins 2011 Frontline Best Art Tool award

What better way to start the year than with the news that 3ds Max 2012 has taken home the 2011 Game Developer Magazine Frontline award for Best Art Tool. I am sure you will agree this is great news, but is enhanced by the tough competition it faced, and knowing that two other Autodesk gameware products were nominated in the middleware category, Kynapse and Scaleform.

This year marked the 14th annual awards “honoring excellence and innovation in tools for game development.”

 

You can see the full list of nominees by clicking here. The  other categories included Art, Audio, Middleware, Game engines as well as Network and Programming / Production tools.

A special thanks to all of the Game Developer Magazine and Gamasutra readers who voted for 3ds Max. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.

If your new to Game Developer Magazine then you can view a free sample (Feb 2011) issue here and follow them on Twitter here.

Happy Max’ing