Client: Pavco

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Draise
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Client: Pavco

Post by Draise »

I've been quiet in these forums lately - but have been working A LOT. I've had 4 contracts rolling in and out and have hired 2-3 people. I even did a recording with Jason and his crew! Great chaps. In total I've done maybe around 10 different videos this year already..

But I'm tired today.. and just wanted to share my client work with Pavco (I have no NDA with them, so all good).

I started in Softimage, rendering in Machstudio Pro2 - but now I migrated some of the projects to Bforartists and Unreal Engine so I could work with others a bit easier (no-one knows Softimage, Blender yes). We build and animate most of the things in BFA, then export to Unreal Engine to render.
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Draise
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Re: Client: Pavco

Post by Draise »

Here is a little update. These clients are slow on feedback which drags things out...
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Emmanuel
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Re: Client: Pavco

Post by Emmanuel »

Nice models ! Thanks for sharing your work.
I like the city ground cut out very much. Did you made the excavation by hand (I mean polygonal deformation), or did you make use of some special tool ?
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Re: Client: Pavco

Post by Draise »

Hey buddy, man, what a late response!
The city ditch in fact was a bunch of free models I hacked together and modified for what I needed. Sculpting in BFA/Blender is easy to modify and push/pull what you need from pre-existing models.

Finally, last fixes for the last 10 videos for a new client. What a journey! Ups, downs, new tech, workflow transitions, repetitions and… more than double the hours estimated to deliver. Lots learned.

Interesting Facts:
-It took a sum of nearly 380 hours to produce nearly 9 minutes of animation.
-Software started in Softimage/Mach Studio Pro2 workflow and transitioned to a Bforartists/Unreal Engine workflow
-Project took a duration total of 5 months
-4 people worked on the project, with 2 doing more than 75%
-More than 160 gigs of data were produced.
-A new multi-project management system was created by need halfway through to facilitate future work.
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Finis
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Re: Client: Pavco

Post by Finis »

Sounds like you are learning a lot while expanding your business.

It is good to learn what to do in business. In my business I've found much value in learning what to NOT do. What to avoid. Things that reduce or eliminate profit, waste time, make the job harder, etc. What have you learned to not do in yours?
Mice die in traps because they don't know why the cheese is free. -- seen on a bumper sticker
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Re: Client: Pavco

Post by Draise »

Oh a bunch of things. This project was more about things "NOT" to do too. I hear you.

-Don't start work without a contract
-Don't export FBX rigs with animation, first export mesh/rig then rig/animation. This is x5 to x10 times more efficient on processors
-UV before export
-Don't apply SDS before export, the FBX export can apply it automatically
-If an Actor dissappears in UE4 when getting close, increase it's bounding box multiplier
-If you need to fix an animation, reexport clips and apply to same Actor in UE4
-Clip animation before exporting, or else you won't have a library
-When working by contract, define time
-Multiply production estimates by 300% to live comfortably
-Kanbans are good when motivation is down
-Measure hours between projects instead of taking on all projects as if you have all the hours in the world
-Take breaks often
-Fresh ground coffee is nice
-Proxy rig animation is fastest with heavy meshes. Apply animation later to highdensity meshes.
-Spirals in Blender are hard
-Soft shadows in UE4 are hard
-Build or have a Material Library with presets before you begin, you'll save work
-Define videos and revision fixes with client before you begin
-Budget for time used, time costs a studio - not just labour hours.
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RAYMAN
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Re: Client: Pavco

Post by RAYMAN »

Sounds like a lot of mileage!!!!😑
Think you can improve your workflow!
I dont think that the workflow is optimal!
For these kinds of jobs cad software to model in is better! Tubing takes to long in blender! Much to long! Plus hopping from Blender to Mach or Unreal makes things more complicated!
Start off in cad! Something that is easier with tubing! Spirals are simple!!!
Move to Blender and render out in realtime render engines....! There are a bunch of them for Blender!
That way you avoid the export problems! Cad soft doesnt have sds issues!
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Re: Client: Pavco

Post by Draise »

Out of 45 hours a video only 5 to 10 is modeling. And subcontracting modelers is not complicated and cheap. Many models are online free too. That's the easy part. The bottleneck has been animation/rigging and exporting to render.

I've fixed the export bottleneck and optimized the animation work flow. For next time! Hopefully this client will hire another 10 videos.

Out of the competition they were quoting we were in fact the fastest. Mainly due to Softimage. I did the crazy thing of migrating work flows halfway midproduction. Now I won't have to haha

I'll also be optimizing the materials bottleneck with my own library for the future too.

I technically do work in Blender now. With Bforartists, same architecture. My render engines have always been realtime. The compositing bottleneck in BFA could be optimized so I'll be testing Natron.
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