Toucan Showreel 2013

[tooves]

Hi people.

Our company had a rebrand recently so we made a new showreel as part of the launch.
There is a mix of mining/architecture/engineering work in it.
Everything is made using 3ds max/V-Ray/AE

If you get a chance, let me know what you think.

Thanks for looking!

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

Love the mining site parts!!! Those are absolutelly awesome!!

[Vladislav Vulchev]

Marvelous. Love the scene with the excavators

[tooves]

Thanks for the kind words.

A large chunk of our work is servicing the mining industry, which brings with it a host of technical and creative challenges.
Making mine pits and processing plants sexy can be difficult so we have to throw as many tricks as possible at those kinds of shots.

Cheers.

[Vladislav Vulchev]

It looks like those "mining" projects are big deal. What is the average time and human resources for completing one of those ?

[Donald2B]

Loved the reel! It was nice to see more mechanical / engineering style animation! That's the type of work we are typically doing a lot more of lately.

[tooves]

It looks like those "mining" projects are big deal. What is the average time and human resources for completing one of those ?

Hi Vladislav
Most mining projects run from anywhere between 2 - 6 weeks, and we usually have a couple in production at a time. The good thing about mining projects is that we usually receive a lot of the 3D models from clients so we can focus more on the materials, look and finish, though importing and cleanup of engineering models and GIS/geological data is a whole other challenge.

There are two of us in the office. We are both generalists so do everything in production as well as running the business side of things.
Luckily the CG tools available now allow us to put out this kind of work with a small team.

It was nice to see more mechanical / engineering style animation! That's the type of work we are typically doing a lot more of lately.

Hi Donald
Yeah I have mostly been involved in property marketing animations up until the last few years but since starting our company we have been getting mostly technical work, which is great as I was getting a little burned out on arch-viz. Now when I get to do architectural stuff it is a pleasure again.

Thanks for your kind words and comments. The work in the chaosgroup galleries is so good that it is quite intimidating showing off our hacky stuff. It is heartening to get positive feedback.

[Donald2B]

That's exactly what we were doing, mostly Arch-Viz and now more mechanical. Dealing with CAD data is "interesting", to say the least. I wish we had the ability to show more work, buried by NDAs.

For two people that is pretty impressive. Again, great work!

[tooves]

haha yeah NDAs aren't fun. Some of my proudest work can only be seen by a handful of people on the other side of the world

[Donald2B]

ROFL! Same here! Only about 4 years worth of work! Kind of difficult to put a portfolio together when you have nothing newer than 2009. Ugh.

[Morne]

ROFL! Same here! Only about 4 years worth of work! Kind of difficult to put a portfolio together when you have nothing newer than 2009. Ugh.

You can say that again

[m_hinks]

Really like the mining sections, you using Forest pro for all those trees, or another scatterer? Whats the best terrain mod you use, I cant stand the default max one, I have seem a couple of free/paid for ones receently, have you tried?

Mark

[tooves]

you using Forest pro for all those trees, or another scatterer? Whats the best terrain mod you use, I cant stand the default max one, I have seem a couple of free/paid for ones receently, have you tried?

Hi Mark
Yep Forest Pro for trees.

As for terrain, we usually receive terrain data from client as mesh (we request it that way), and fill out the surrounds with DEM data.

For the (rare) times I have received contour splines I have found Terrain compound object works OK for my needs if I do a bit of clean-up beforehand.
A quick workflow that gets decent results (Apologies if this is obvious/common knowledge):

• Weld vertices on the base spline as much as possible
• Apply Normalize Spline mod, play with segment length until the distances between vertices and contour splines are equidistant. Obj. properties "show vertex ticks" helps you figure it out pretty quickly (hopefully I am making sense here)
• Apply Edit Spline mod for any further clean-up
• Apply Terrain compound object. If you figured out a good segment length on the Normalize Spline mod you shouldn't have too many long polygons
• Apply Subdivide Mod for any long polygons
• Put heaps of trees and junk on top to hide any issues with mesh
• Profit.

This seems to work OK for the rare occasion we get contour splines, and is pretty quick. But obviously it depends on the quality and amount of contours you are dealing with!
I've seen a few tools around for 3ds max that handle contours, but haven't felt the need to invest in any yet.

Thanks for looking.

[m_hinks]

Hi,

Thanks for the info, very interesting. I've been trying to get Forest Pro to cover large areas but have found it hard to get that level of planting density. Did you have any issues, or do you use multiple scatter etc?

I guess it looks like you used satalite photos for the landscape textures, maybe the distance blends with a gradient linked to camera Z between different LOD textures?

Mark

[tooves]

Thanks for the info, very interesting. I've been trying to get Forest Pro to cover large areas but have found it hard to get that level of planting density. Did you have any issues, or do you use multiple scatter etc?

Hi Mark
Haven't really had any issues with getting the density we need. We sometimes use the camera distance falloff for really wide aerial shots, so the trees just fade off at a certain point which is barely noticeable.

I guess it looks like you used satalite photos for the landscape textures, maybe the distance blends with a gradient linked to camera Z between different LOD textures?

Its really nothing fancy, just maps at different LODs masked over the top of each other.
Thanks for the questions and for taking an interest!