Ingreme - CG Supervisor Rui Romano of Lisbon, Portugal - talks about their amazing commercials VFX
Image shows Rui Romano and his sister (top left) and some of his vfx stills.
Cebas: Please give us an update paragraph about yourself. Please also feel free to comment on the VFX activities, learning opportunities and market in your region.
Rui: First of all, I would like to thank cebas for this opportunity. My name is Rui Romano and I'm cg supervisor at Ingreme – post production – a company focused on advertising industry.
In Portugal (my country), we have a small market compared to many others. This means we have smaller teams, smaller projects, budgets, etc. But I feel the passion is the same, and after our company won the best 3D site of the world in 2005 - http://www.ingreme.com/v1/start.html (FlashForward San Francisco – USA) against huge competitions such as Coca Cola and Microsoft, my career had a little boost and I had the opportunity to work for many national and international campaigns with big brands like Nissan, Sony, Samsung, Duracell, Staples, Cheetos Chester among many others.
As a CG Generalist, I have to have multiple expertise. From animation, fur, rendering, compositing, texturing, fluids, particle systems, to modeling, and whatever it takes! It's really wonderful to work on what you love, and this last year, thinkingParticles has become one of my hot favourites!
Here are some links for VFX works that I and our team at Ingreme have created / participated in this last 13 years at ingreme and they mark milestones in my career as well:
I have shared our team's Ingreme Demo Reel (see above).
Cebas: Readers, do check out Ingreme's awesome site at Ingreme.com
Rui: Yes, everyone gives a thumbs up when they see our site Ingreme.com. The Ingreme team had a blast doing this site (and also a bunch of headaches!). It took us 3 years to make it in our free time... averaging around 12,000 interactive frames to play with!
And this next VFX reel took some time. Ingreme developed the concepts for the particles shown in this project... 10 animations of different elements consisting of 500 frames each, right down to the micro details that you almost don't see in reality, but had to use our feelings and intuition.
Making of Aqua das pedras - Particle nightmare over here (4 terabytes of them!). Made under very tight deadlines. We used so many software for this project that I almost had a collapse! I have to thank master Borislav (Bobo) Petrov for his great help on this work, since we've used krakatoa and stoke for partitioning with deadline. I've shared the solution we've made for converting low res sim to high res -
forums.thinkboxsoftware.com/viewtopic.php
And some cool logos animations that I've made recently with thinkingParticles:
Above all that, I have a beautiful family, beautiful wife, two beautiful daughters. I practice yoga, dance, tennis, calisthenics (arf arf) and live in a beautiful country! I consider myself a happy bunny!
Cebas: Yes, a family makes things much more complete. Please give cebas some interesting insights about one or two of your more recent projects that you have derived great satisfaction working on.
Rui: It's hard to choose since I work in so many projects ever year. I will choose two where I used TP and these projects were challenging in a different way:
The first one was the NOS business campaign. It was in this project that I've decided to go deeper into thinkingParticles. I spent a lot of time developing a tool that would drive particles with a specific path and where you could control everything about the system. The user could control the number of particles, particle trail length, the connections between particles (plexus style), the distance to activate that effect, all secondary particles that would gravitate around the original one's with animated geometry, etc. It took me a lot of time, but in the end, I finished with a TD tool that anyone could use in a specific shot with all the needed values exposed. Simply choose the path, define velocity, number of particles, even change shader's, etc and render it!
Rui: In the process, I also met incredible and generous people in the facebook group for thinking particles, that gave me great tips and a lot of help. From Hristo Velev, Alaa Al-nehlawi, Fabian Buckreus, Eloi Andaluz, ZO antonijevic, Sergey Movchan among others... I really have to thank them for their time and patience!
Rui: The second one was for CTBC. In this specific project I had many tasks. Underwater bubbles (31''), 3d clouds (1'07''), animation, textures, shading and render of a boat that had to be photorealistic (1'13''). Since it was in the middle of a storm, I had to make realistic foam from the boat impact with water. TP was incredibly fast for these two specific tasks (bubbles and foam) and I was very happy with the final result. Here is a little making of from the project:
As well, see the Making of the CTBC - fishing reel:
Cebas: The vfx community and followers would love to know some interesting history: How did you started with thinkingParticles? And do you also use Cebas Render plugin? Could you tell us some of your top favourite CG/VFX tools that you swear by?
Rui: I first started using thinkingParticles for small things, like a product falling in the ground and causing small impact debris with collisions. Then I tried TP for different effects, mainly for product packshots (droplets, rain, small explosions, mograph effects). But about a year ago I decided to go deeper as mentioned above and I only can say... what a ride it was! I was so overwhelmed with all the things I could do inside 3dsmax, using TP. It was amazing.
At the time I was thinking of changing to Houdini, but the community from facebook and cebas policy changes (subscription with free upgrades) made me decide to stick it out with 3dsmax and TP.
Rui: About my favorite cg/vfx tools, TP is among them for sure! I use so many tools and to be honest, they all rock in their own field... thinkingParticles for all is superb for highly complex particle works; real flow for liquids; fume fx for fire and smoke; krakatoa and stoke for partitioning and rendering millions of particles; frost for meshing them, and After Effects with a lot of plugins for mograph compositing and design.
Cebas: We have seen some of the amazing commercial vfx by yourself and the team at Ingreme Post -production. Firstly, how does vfx come into post-production work for your studio? And how long have Ingreme been using Cebas software? How did it all started :)?
Rui: Vfx is something common in post-production. When we are doing thousands of advertisement shots, there are so many different needs, that it would take around 10 pages to describe all of them. Focusing on cebas software, It all started with finalToon, where we had to make 3d animation with 2d animation look. We've used a lot of finalToon and still use it when needed! Then, with more and more complex demands, we had to have greater control over particles, and decided to go with thinkingParticles. Now we use it basically for everything... even for less complex things. The idea of having a TD tool with all the values exposed so any user can create different procedural animations with a click or two is really something!
Cebas: Were you and Ingreme ever with TP 4 or 5? If you were, tell us what were the major difference you find, compared with TP 6 in terms of power features and ease of use? Or did it become more complex?
Rui: Yes, we were. For me, TP 6 feels like a different software altogether. I felt that all the new features were awesome for our design / mograph needs. With this version, I felt that TP is no longer used only for small and big destruction sims as well as it's feature are now paying attention to another type of market. With it's new Fluid Simulation System, Camera Map Memory, Advanced VolumeBreaker, Curve 2d, implicitShape, Value to Value, etc, users can go inside 3dsmax where they couldn't go before.
Rui: In terms of complexity, I think Socratic paradox applies in here (ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat - I know that I know nothing). Basically, the more you know thinkingParticles, the less you seem to know because there is still so much to learn! But there is a great online community and a lot of tutorials out there to watch!
Cebas: a quick note here to the readers - TP 6.3 is recently released.
Ok, back to business about the effect of the ‘humming bird’ on Via Verde - give as much insights as you can to readers on how you created the metamorphosis of bird to logo - what major components in TP addresses this effect?
Rui: When you start to dig into TP, you start to understand it's power better. Basically, the Memory Operator can save everything you need (position, alignment, velocity and many other data types) to use and manipulate at any given time! So, you can create particles in one object and move them to another, using pre defined rules.
You can also use volumeBreak to fragment objects, send the fragments to a different position and bring them back together to original position later on by using simple or complex dynamics in the middle of the process. There is flexibility for me.
Cebas: Do you ever have trouble developing new markets? Would you say VFX work allows you to be international? We would love to hear more about your market in Portugal/Europe and your hopes and dreams.
Rui: It really depends on what vfx work means to you. For me, vfx can be applied in so many things, that I would answer easily that we have no trouble developing new markets and we can be international easily. Portuguese market is small when comparing to other countries. The budgets are limited and the teams, consequently, are small. There are few specialists, because the market demands generalists. That's something we're trying to change so we can go to an upper level.
In terms of dreams and hopes, I would like to see Ingreme growing even more, so we can make the natural transition from generalists to specialists. A kind of small Pixar in Portugal, heheheh. But whatever happens, I have to be creating something in 3d and hopefully with thinkingParticles!
Cebas: Could you say on a scale of 1 (uh-oh) to 10 (awesome) how did thinkingParticles 6.1 compared to other vfx software you may have used ?
Rui: I would easily say 8... Of course, it's not perfect, but it's so versatile and it has so many things going on, that I consider having tP a great bet nowadays for someone that needs to do serious vfx. Specially with the attention that cebas and it's team is giving to users' needs and all the new features and upgrades they are constantly sending out.
Cebas: Thank you Rui. An important question: could you give the new artists learning the ropes of VFX a few pointers on learning thinkingParticles. As well as perhaps, what your experience tells you are the pitfalls to avoid in pursuing a technical artist’s career in VFX.
Rui: I consider myself a new artist as well(in terms of TP and comparing to all the TP gurus I know are out there!), so this one is easy! Joe Scarr, Hristo Velev and Will Wallace videos are the “TP Bible”! I really am amazed with their generosity ... even if it's paid dvd's, they are worth every penny. Then, find some time to check in at the 'cebas thinking Particles' facebook group and meet more exceptional people that are willing to share and help you whenever they can..
After seeing such generosity, I felt obligated to do the same and started to create basic tutorials - https://vimeo.com/channels/tptuts. Since the feedback has been quite positive, I'll continue to make them now, when all my family goes to sleep, hehehe! So, search for tp tutorials on the net... there are so many incredible one's out there!
Top, photo of Rui while giving a session on CG at his daughter's school.
Rui: And finally, one of the best tip's I had came from Fabian Buckreus: make sure you open the files that comes with thinkingParticles! I've done that (and still am doing it!) and there are so many precious info in each file, that you should never miss this step!
In terms of pitfalls to avoid in this area... don't think it will be easy. It's super demanding and super competitive. So, in my oppinion, you have to really love what you're doing and invest / sacrifice your time to study a lot of different software. The other thing I really consider important is to understand what you want to become and where you live (or want to live). You should pick the software(s) that is(are) more used in your specific area(s) of expertise and in the country/city you're in (or want to go).
Cebas: here is an off or on - topic question (depending how you view life..), we heard you're an awesome daddy, Rui, so tell us how you manage those tight production deadlines with family life
Rui: If you know, tell me how! Hehehe! On a more serious note, this area is so demanding in terms of studying, beeing updated, meeting deadlines and so on, that this is really something hard to acomplish. I have a great carreer and position and am still strugling with it!
My best advice is to not forget to live. Work is not everything and with the stress associated with this demanding area, we tend to forget it, and in the mid/long-term, health problems will come. Stress is one of the worst problems of our century. That's why I've started to practice Yoga and that made me change a lot. So I strongly recomend to have physical activity to somehow compensate the time you are sitted in front of the computer and to have quality time with your family and friends in a daily basis.
Cebas: I think this work-family lifestyle balance is very elusive in the world of Commercials and VFX, so Rui, you have more to say?
Rui: Well, I'm not such an example on this, since I still have moments when I don't sleep to meet impossible deadlines, work at the weekends and so on (those times when you have to become an evil machine that forgets the world to finish the job!). But when this happens, I always have to have time to recover. The main goal is (and should always be!) to make these moments the exception and not the rule!
Cebas: Come back now Rui Romano :) In your view, what is your wish for cebas software to achieve that is not currently doing for you?
Rui: First of all, cebas is doing a great job, so this is a tough question. Of course, I could say I want the best from houdini, cinema4d, krakatoa, fumefx and stoke inside thinkingParticles, but talking more seriously, I would love to have a collection of new nodes with forces inside tP. Like turbulence fields in Houdini. Adding to this nodes, I would love to be able to combine them (by percentage for example) with other operators like 'bring to', 'path follow', etc... that would be something for mastering mograph fx in thinkingParticles!
In terms of the TP manual, I would like to have more examples showing what specific operators can do when combined with others. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words and could speed up the learning process a lot! :)
Cebas: What projects can we expect from you in the future (if you're able to tell us)?
Rui: I feel really lucky in this respect, since I really love (almost!) everything in 3D. Since we work in advertisment VFX, we can go from character animation, then some animal with fur or feathers, going to mograph logo design fx, destroying something and finishing with some liquid simulation. Future will tell, …. but thinkingParticles with all of it's new features, will be there with us for sure!
A big thank you to Rui Romano and to Ingreme for giving us some amazing insights into the world of VFX commercials from Lisbon! May 2016 be an even more exciting year for all of you!