Anselm (Ansi) von Seherr-Thoss Insights into effects with thinkingParticles from his amazing Incendii LLC home office

 

 

Cebas: Thank you Anselm for taking this time to share something on thinkingParticles with our readers. Could you tell us what are some of the movies or game projects you've completed where thinkingParticles truly boosted the power of VFX simulations?

The biggest project so far where I'd used a thinkingParticles-centered pipeline was Northmen – A Viking Saga. The saga (the video above) will hit theaters in North America come March 2015 but it has been released in Europe this October. 

DayForNight GmbH in Germany contacted me very early on in the project prior to even shooting the film. I worked on the project for 13 months on and off. It was great to interact directly with the director Claudio Faeh via Skype. Getting feedback is so much faster and less complicated. I could share my screen and interactively tweak thinkingParticle settings, and play it back.

Let me give you a sneak peek into the climax of the movie: in the film there is a scene where the vikings hid inside an ancient tower that gets torched and eventually crumbles. thinkingParticles was a great FX tool to get a quick by off from the director. What I did was to animate a Cylinder and a few Helpers for the Director’s preview and upon approval, I used the very same, simple geometry to drive the high rise tower referencing the Cylinder, etc.

Animation changes were only done on the low res/previz level and everything else would fall in place due to the procedural nature of the thinkingParticles ! The tower was pre-fragmented with RayFire and re-attached together, then piped into tParticles. It was hassle-free. 

Fragments were made to activate with helpers and lights, as well as friction of big pieces grinding on each other as the pieces slowly looses it's structural integrity. I found that using helpers to trigger breaking made the whole process highly art-directed. Cracks propagated along the tower and emitted dust and debris of all sizes; wooden ceilings were also modelled and pre-fragmented so stone pieces can crush on wooden structures.

The whole thing is on fire too, embers emit, and all the good stuff... you would want in a destruction shot :) Under the hood, two resolutions of the simulation would run at any time. Lowres to be exported as collision objects for Fumefx and highres for ThinkingParticles and Krakatoa. Xmesh was used to export the simulation so the client could render it on their end with the Xmesh loaders. Groups were cached individually by type: Big clusters of stones, fragmented bits, debris, etc.

Cebas: That is truly awesome FX for the Viking Saga! Coming to the VFX for Transformer4, - age of extinction, was it a peak performance in terms of all the major projects in Hollywood that you have done? Can you tell us how you became part of this mind-blowing project?

I count myself as being fortunate to have a handful of FX shots for T4 very late into the game. If you’re a 3D artist, you’ll never tire of seeing a well-crafted animation on the big movie screen! My sequence was not really an action sequence but more of a story part where “Ratchet” gets treatment with blow torches. For this scene, thinkingParticles controlled everything in the process from emitting particles off the torches to covering the head of the Transformer in particles, to checking for temperature and eventually emit sparks if the materials were right - very rule-based and procedural. Read the how-to on the making of.. notes on YouTube: (also on Vimeo)

Noteworthy here is that the project was in stereo 3d, so everything had to work, no cheating on 3D-3d movies... Every shot had around 40 render layers, everything split up into groups that could be turned off for individual render elements. Fabian Buckreus helped me out during initial RnD as I was still delivering final shots on another movie. It was an awesome shot with main actor, Michael Wahlberg, on screen.

I have used Particle Flow Toolboxes and RayFire and the like extensively. The interface was quite hassle-free integrating well with my usual family of tools that I use :D Whatever gets the job done, really. To me, thinkingParticles have a very open and versatile approach to dynamically fragment or handle things in general. Procedural-wise,... even if the initial setup might be intimidating to new users at first, once it kicks in and you realize how you can hand objects down the entire tree of Dynamic Sets without changing anything it can do great things for you with ease. Since there is very little to absolutely no keyframes once you get a new model to creatively destroy, for example, you may just switch it out and re-run. Very flexible.


 

Cebas: Can you tell us some interesting FX work with BLUR Studio of game animation fame, like  the League of legends, Elder scrolls, Batman - Arkham, Halo 4 and many more amazing FX?

Yes, I would like to mention the time that I was with BLUR Studio, I’d used thinkingParticles a lot to create breaking columns and ground during an intense sword battle, such as the one for the League of Legends game cinematic. Here’s the Vimeo to some of the action:

 

I’d also used thinkingParticles on a few TV shows and a music video lately. The problem with TV is that the turn-around times can be pretty brutal! 2 days sometimes and that's it. Having blackboxes and thinkingParticles tools at hand is crucial here! I blew up a cargo plane for TYRANT with all the bells and whistles in a matter of days.

The whole thing is on fire too, embers emit, and all the good stuff you would want in a destruction shot :) Under the hood, two resolutions of the simulation would run at any time. Lowres to be exported as collision objects for Fumefx and highres for thinkingParticles and Krakatoa. Xmesh was used to export the simulation so the client could render it on their end with the Xmesh loaders. Groups were cached individually by type: Big clusters of stones, fragmented bits, debris, etc.

 

And I used thinkingParticles a good deal on the pirate TV show “Crossbones” for a variety of tasks as well. The tasks ranged from canon impacts into other ships and destructible village elements. Ships were exported out of Maya and prepped with shell modifiers on the hull boards that would be destructible, then piped into thinkingParticles for creative destruction. Helpers were placed where canons would fire to, and at the desired impact point, thinkingParticles would aim and fire, rule-based, if there was anything destructible in harm's way, thinkingParticles would generate a hit :) Following that, based on speed and size, debris would emit smaller debris and hits the water bringing up mist before sinking underwater slowly leaving a trail of bubbles.

Hero elements were exported out of thinkingParticles and made into cloth collision objects for rope/cloth interaction (see video below). I also used thinkingParticles for crowd simulation on the deck. Basic deck hand actions were recorded with a XBox Kinect scanner and loaded onto biped rigged sailors. This way I manage to populate the decks of ships and randomly off-set the animation cycles just with thinkingParticles alone. Sails were simulated with SimCloth and point cached, then made tearable loading them into pflow box#2 - it’s unique and very creative work, right to the point details, ultra-realistic.


Crossbones - RnD Collection from Anselm von Seherr-Thoss on Vimeo.

Cebas: Yes, cebas is very happy to know that you find thinkingParticles indispensable to great and fast VFX. I am sure  like most 3D artists, that you use a combo of animation and FX software, why did you make the choice to use cebas in most of your projects?

I run “just” thinkingParticles in my art studio at the moment. When it comes to destruction type shots using tParticles, in conjuction with RayFire and Xmesh, it is a no brainer! Particles performs superbly on large scale projects and is very versatile when it comes to changes and shots redos until the finals are delivered. Companies like Scanline, Pixomondo and others have proven that time and time again.

And I have used Particle Flow Toolboxes and RayFire and the like extensively. The interface was quite hassle-free integrating well with my usual family of tools that I use :D Whatever gets the job done, really. To me, thinkingParticles have a very open and versatile approach to dynamically fragment or handle things in general. Procedural-wise, even if the initial setup might be intimidating to new users at first, once it kicks in and you realize how you can hand objects down the entire tree of Dynamic Sets without changing anything it can do great things for you with ease. Since there is very little to absolutely no keyframes once you get a new model to creatively destroy, for example, you may just switch it out and re-run. Very flexible.

Balls to the wall... Concrete, wood and steel from Anselm von Seherr-Thoss on Vimeo

  

Cebas: What were some of the difficult aspects in FX on recent projects and how did you solve the puzzle? Did cebas software integrated smoothly with your production pipeline? 

The time frame things have to be delivered for TV can be difficult at times! 2 days tight deadline as I mentioned earlier. Not over complicating is key here. Figuring out the angle of attack is the first thing. So thinkingParticle's black box system can help immensely here.

thinkingParticle's learning curve is a bit longer than other software due to its immensely powerful multi-physics features, but of course, it comes with great power once an artist have the reins.... I only have experience with thinkingParticles but what a rewarding experience that has been :)

I rate thinkingParticles very high up in the pipeline since it can be the spine of your shot handling, and controls everything and all the dependencies. This prove to be particularly helpful for big shots where a lot of elements has to come together. Stacking caches are amazing. Being able to block out rough versions first, and then improve on top of the very same cache makes the drafting/RnD period so much easier. In case of the tower destruction (see Vimeo clips above), I could refine on top of my few key frames animated geometry.

Cebas: What was the most fun or rewarding part of an FX project for you? ? :-)

That comes after, when I see my production in the big screen, in theater or on tv. This and a healthy pay check! Jokes aside. I think seeing it all come together is very rewarding. Usually you are only a tiny part of a bigger action. You might even see your shots as slap comp or preview but it is part of a bigger sequence. The shading and lighting artists adds on their magic and compositing to polish it all, then color timing and sound. Seeing your “baby” grow over time to a phenomenal piece of artwork is rewarding.

Cebas: Any WISH LIST for cebas software that it's not currently doing for you?

I will be upgrading to thinkingParticles 6! but first, I will have to wait till my current productions are finished with previous versions. Deploying new software mid-project is not very smart :D

What I do wish that thinkingParticles might be able to do in the near future is to have G-Buffer ID per group for render elements. Currently you can add new materials after caching your particles or use Groups as Objects (which can be slow with complex setups). But being able to have that as a multi matte render element in the same pass as you render your beauty would be nice. 

Cebas: Anselm, you have a kind of following in the VFX community (other young or new VFX artists) and they would love to hear more about your VFX ideas and on tools and techniques to integrating cebas (3ds Max) with other plug-ins or software to achieve those amazing effects?

I always welcome people to visit my vimeo page (www.vimeo.com/anselmvonseherr) where I currently have around 200 videos listed. I am always very generous in sharing information about each individual project in the descriptions and comments. And the company website www.incendii.com for updates.

Thank you so much, Anselm! cebas Visual Technology can not thank you enough for all the awesome video clips of your work using thinkingParticles! We wish you evermore exciting and challenging ventures ahead with VFX art and that you will show the world what thinkingParticles can do to surmount those challenges!


Additional: Trip-FX May 2016 Interview with Ansi - good career and work tips.