production

MakeSomeNoise

3D Graphics / By

MakeSomeNoise v1.1.2 is Released

 

What’s MakeSomeNoise?

MakeSomeNoise is a free tool I built for generating procedural noise textures, texture atlas (sprite sheets), and image sequences. It’s a standalone Windows app, just download and run.

What does it do?

  • Mix two layers of noise using common weighted blending modes.
  • 6 different kinds of noise (for now, more are coming).
  • Explore the 3d noise space and preview the noise animating through Z slice at user-defined speed and frame numbers.
  • Export the result as a single frame, atlas or image sequence with clean naming for your use.

Built-in Learning Guide

I added a complete “Guide To Noise” right in the app. Click the help button and you get detailed explanations for every noise algorithm—the history, how it works, when to use it, and pro tips. I wanted to make this tool educational, not just functional. Whether you’re learning about noise for the first time or just need a quick refresher on how these noise functions work it’s all there.

Export Previews & Animation Playback 

You can now preview before export. Want to see what that 16-frame atlas will look like? Preview it. Need to check your animation sequence? Play it back at any FPS from 1-60. There’s also a handy right-click menu for copying the preview to clipboard or jumping straight to your export folder.

Smarter File Management

The app now automatically manages file versions for you (_v00, _v01, etc.), so you’ll never accidentally overwrite that perfect noise pattern you made. Export paths are now fully visible prior to export.

Cleaner, Smoother Experience

I’ve been squashing bugs and polishing the UI. Better tooltips everywhere, improved thread management (no more crashes when you spam sliders), and generally just a more responsive app.

The Licensing Thing

Quick note: The app itself is free to use for anything, including commercial projects. You just can’t sell the app or bundle it for profit without asking me first. But anything you generate with it (textures, images, animations) is completely yours under CC0. Use them commercially, sell them, whatever. No attribution needed (though it’s always appreciated 😊).

Download It!

Ready to make some noise? Head over to the GitHub Release Page and grab the executable. It’s a single 120MB file—download, double-click, and you’re good to go.

First run might take a few seconds while Windows Defender does its thing, but after that it’s smooth sailing.

If you’ve got ideas or feature requests, hit me up on GitHub!

Download: MakeSomeNoise v1.1.2 on GitHub

Happy noise-making! 🎨

– Andy

Update: It’s all about AI these Days

2D Graphics, 3D Graphics, AI, Creative Work / By

Ok, it’s been some time since I last posted. That is due in part to the fact that much of the work I’m doing for Meta Reality Labs is NDA’d and even the work I do in my personal time often touches on what I’m focusing on at work. I wish I could show off some of the stuff I’ve gotten into recently, it’s pretty amazing.

Here are a few thoughts. The world which has emerged is one of increasing rate of change. For Game Devs, VFX professionals and Technical Artists this change is almost overwhelming. AI is capable of generating astounding visuals in seconds from a simple prompt, as well as models, code, and even entire games. I see this generating a lot of angst 

and fear, and it certainly has changed the recruiting and hiring side of things.

But this kind of change has happened before. The emergence of CGI transformed filmmaking. Computer networks transformed all of

 society. The emergence of digital tools for artists decimated the once huge numbers of “draftsmen” working in architecture, construction and a host of other fields. In recent decades we have seen a LOT of change. Video killed the radio star, and then video on demand killed television, at least to the extent of replacing those media from their seemingly (at the time) unassailable positions as king of the hill.

Today influencers vie with A-listers for viewership, movie box office releases and television series compete for consumer attention with on-demand series, game titles, and social media.

Change is scary and disruptive.

But it can also be astoundingly beneficial. Artists of all kinds shouldn’t fear AI directly. Sure we will have to face uncertainty as job markets change and seek different skills. And that can be incredibly frustrating and challenging. But if you are a skilled professional you absolutely have the insights and talents necessary to thrive in a new world filled with AI. The ability to discern visual quality is still essential. The ability to organize and guide an effort to success is still relevant. “Production sense”, “vision”, an “artist’s eye”, and “creativity” all have as much value as they ever did.

Creative tools have changed and enabled the most unskilled an astounding degree of capability to produce impressive creative works. But that’s good, and doesn’t change the fact that those of us who have spent entire careers focusing on creating such imagery have gained a myriad of skills needed more than ever in assessing and learning to fully exploit these astounding new technologies and tools.

The key to relevancy today as a technical artist or professional creative in general is to ride this wave at it’s cutting edge. Our role in times like this is to identify the new creative opportunities inherent in these changes. Explore new mediums. Guide the engineers towards enabling better quality content as opposed to releasing a societal spam storm of mediocre content. Identify the new bar of quality and use AI and new methods such as gaussian splatting, realtime engines, spatial computing, code and asset generation, image and video generation in new ways. Creative ways.

We aren’t facing a disaster for creatives. It’s just change, filled with disruption of plans to be sure, but also filled with opportunity to be the ones who create entire new media, new forms of artistic expression, and creative content better than anything we dreamed possible in our lifetimes.

Surf this wave of change. Have fun with it. The core of what makes us creatives – vision, insight, keen minds and practical experience – is not at all devalued. Our use cases have just been reset, the canvas wiped clean. Now is the time to make your masterpiece.

CG Supervisor for 3 Nike Spots

3D Graphics, Creative Work / By

Two of 3 spots. “Evolution” was a small team, 3 weeks, lighting and effects with Softimage and Arnold.

I love small but intense projects like this.

“Run” was primarily Maya/Vray with a touch of ICE. The studio (Royale) is only 6 years old but advancing fast, and it’s been a real pleasure working with them. For their first exploration of ICE, Royale invited in some familiar SI friends – Ciaran Moloney, Steven Caron, Leonard Kotch, Billy Morrison and yours truly doing a first gig start to finish as a CG sup (which with guys like this mostly involved saying “go for it.”)

Like the Psyop “Telstra” spot, this commercial essentially required us to create a system for knitting cloth from massive numbers of strands. Leonard Kotch wrote a system which performs many of the same tasks as the Psyop “Entwiner” tool, but he took a slightly different direction, it was fascinating to compare how the two diverged. The progressive animation required for these two shots resulted in a pretty flexible and broad system, which we are currently using for the last of the three spots, which will wrap in production soon.

strandlayoutb_s40_062613 NikeEvo_shoe_comp_v001 NIKE_evolution_shot40

Royale has been an enthusiastic and fun group to work with and it’s been great getting to show a studio as strong as they are in design some of the possibilities ICE can bring to jobs like this. Expect to see some version of Leonard’s “LKFabric” system gifted to the community before long – very cool Royale, thanks! (They also throw good parties, their 6’th birthday celebration was impressive and… unusual.)

 

 

Progression of a shot

2D Graphics, 3D Graphics / By

I had nothing to do with the making of Tangled, but it’s a great Disney film which blew me away, and I always like “making of” breakdowns. So I took a look at this, and felt it did such a good job of showing how a successful final result comes from a steady progression of improvements. Whether you’re making a fully animated film or a live action sequence, the best results come from a back-and-forth iterative process of test images to build up the final product.

In today’s “faster/cheaper” production mentality there is often significant pressure to reduce iterations and the time spent making a shot – if you watch through this sequence and imagine cutting out a lot of the improvements you see which are made over time you can get a feel for how the extra time and effort makes all of the difference. The flip side of this, of course, is that without good artistry and good direction all the time in the world won’t make a difference.

Too many great ideas are killed by a rush to minimize costs and get stuff out fast. This may make profits for those who deal with high-volume-low-quality kinds of projects, but I note that the giants with some of the most incredible work (and full coffers) tend to follow a mentality where extra time, effort and resources are spent to make a final product which is clearly of superior quality.

In the end, quality pays, and its the result of investing in talent, tools, and organization.

In this sequence we see a lot of things being done right…

  • Time taken for previsualization.
  • Tools available to allow communication via painting on frames, showing thought and investment in pipeline.
  • An area set aside for the artist to make reference, showing insight into artistry and the willingness to spend money to enable it.
  • Many iterations, showing time was spent to get the shot right, and the production was organized with regular milestones in place (and time set aside to achieve them).

The final result, a great film which not only was a creative success but one which did well financially ($590 mil box office revenue and a new and lasting Disney heroine providing decades of continuing income.)

Garman posts some thoughts about dailies

3D Graphics, Creative Work / By

Garman Herigstad once gave me a slew of advice years ago, and every bit of it has proven useful to me over the years. So when he voices an opinion, I listen. Such is the case in his most recent blog post where he discusses dailies.

Dalies are at the heart of VFX. It’s where artists get feedback and develop their eye. It’s where production is kept on track. It’s also where seniors develop opinions on their artists, where directors evaluate their teams, and where critical choices are made.

My best advice for artists attending dailies for the first time is to be quiet and pay full attention. Take notes, as Garman suggests. Keep your mouth shut unless your input is needed or asked for. Never lie, never try to spin anything, never be defensive or explanatory – just listen to the instructions that are given, ask questions if anything is unclear, and be professional.

20120107-100501.jpgThe people evaluating the work are almost always aware of issues or concerns an individual artist is not exposed to – a VFX sup may be thinking about continuity with other shots, upcoming changes, or criteria passed down from a director. The leadership attending or running the dailies may also not have much time, or the viewing theatre may have other teams waiting, so the general rule is to let the person(s) making decisions quickly and accurately evaluate what they are being shown, make a decision, and convey that decision as directives for action.

And always, always as an artist address the notes you are given. The people giving notes remember what they ask for, and nothing infuriates a director or VFX sup more than to give the same notes over and over. If you are dialing in towards a result, ie if the notes are on the order of “more” or “less,” that’s ok. But if the notes keep coming back as “where’s the fix?” then you are probably pissing someone off.

Anyway, it’s a good read, on an important subject, from a knowledgable source worth listening to.