Production Workflows

We will present some tricks, tips, and advices for people to have a better organized
workflow for small or medium productions.

Olivier has been doing 3D for a decade. He is a CG generalist, interested in production aspect and workflows. Right now working for a studio in Switzerland: RGBprod.

Francesco has been creating 3D images and animations for around 5 years. His experience ranges from 3D scan data visualization to character animation. He has worked as a freelance 3D generalist in Italy, Germany and Switzerland. He is a member of the Mango Open Movie team.

Transcript

1. PRODUCTION WORKFLOWS @oenvoyage ++ @fsiddi -- Blender Conference 2012 -- Amsterdam 13/10/2012
2. Concepts for small, medium sized productions Or for people who never thought about workflow FOREWORD
3. ASSETS ORGANIZATION ๏ set up paths - relative paths ๏ good naming (more about it later) ๏ versioning? SVN is not bad
4. SPIKE STRUCTURE
5. MANGO STRUCTURE
6. FAST RESPONSE ๏ use proxies, they are very good for speed ๏ use groups, node groups can be reused. ๏ when working with groups and libraries, make sure the SCALE is correct and consistent between object... to avoid rescaling assets (spike sets examples)
7. NAMING ๏ create a folder for each Sequence or Shot. In those folder put all pass and mattes project_root/scenes/02_03/ ๏ start your file name with scene/shot numbers, then add a “descriptive description” 02_03_sword_matte 02_03_forest_bg
8. MORE NAMING ๏ numbers = versions of file: sword -> sword_bak_01, sword_bak_02, etc ๏ a,b,c,d = version of an object : sword_a, sword_b, sword_c, etc
9. in your life and your projects BE CONSISTENT
10. NAMING 2 ๏ do not use spaces, or strange accents etc... no good for unix or writing relative paths, scripting etc. ๏ Yoda : Luke never spaces you will use, no never ๏ under_scoring or CamelCase ๏ name your object according to what they do : CTRL for controller bones, DEF for deformers, GRP for groups, goes for assets as well ๏ communicate about your naming
11. NEVER BE IN A WTF CASE ๏ what's that file? ๏ where is that file ? ๏ who named that file ? ๏ why is that file here ?
12. NEVER BE IN A WTF CASE ๏ what's that file? ๏ where is that file ? ๏ who named that file ? ๏ why is that file here ?
13. is not a real filename. -- James Neale (@jamesneale) Image001_final_v02_A01_FINAL_final0012.jpg
14. RENDERING ๏ make pre render at low resolution ๏ render 10 frames at full resolution across the shot ๏ use low resolution proxies for rendering ๏ use touch and no-overwrite functions ๏ use render management system
15. render management means being able to handle multiple renders at the same time. It can be done with 1 computer. RENDER MANAGEMENT ≠ RENDER FARM
17. TEAM Try to find what each team member enjoys most and try to dispatch more of that kind of work to that person. Example: animators should do animatic, more experienced people solve complex problems, less technical do simpler or repetitive tasks.
18. TEAM Try to find what each team member enjoys most and try to dispatch more of that kind of work to that person. Example: animators should do animatic, more experienced people solve complex problems, less technical do simpler or repetitive tasks. 2 people counts as a team
19. TIME MANAGEMENT render an animatic ๏ create a tracking sheet, it will allow you to keep track of scenes/shots, and start rendering when not all scenes are finished ๏ start animating the easy shots to feel comfortable with characters ๏ try to “finish” your movie as quick a possible so that you can have an overall feeling, then tweak and make it better (Final1, Final2, etc)
20. TRACKING SHEET
23. TEARS OF SHEET
24. TEARS OF SHEET
25. TIPS & TRICKS ๏ start simple ๏ do stuff in compositing whenever you can ๏ use and reuse models ๏ don’t assume it will work (it will break) ๏ communicate with your team ๏ do it on one platform ๏ back up your data
26. and communicate about it with teammates BE CONSISTENT
27. FORGET ABOUT IT! @oenvoyage ++ @fsiddi -- Blender Conference 2012 -- Amsterdam 13/10/2012