This article originally appeared in DP 03 : 2019.

Houdini 17 “Codename Banshee” has been equipped with new tools that should make the creation of predetermined breaking points and the simulation of breaking objects much easier and visually more convincing than previous versions. Olaf Finkbeiner has already published an initial overview in DP issue 01:19, which will be discussed in more detail below in the RBD section. The focus is on three major innovations in the areas of destruction and RBD simulations: the material-based destruction principle, soft body relationship constraints and a process called convex decomposition for generating optimal proxy geometry. The functions behind these powerful expressions and what users need to be prepared for are explained below using an example project.

Houdini is sometimes known for the creation of impressive destruction of all kinds of objects, from a small statue that falls to the ground and shatters due to an earthquake to entire cities that are pulverised by a comet shower. The structure of such destruction is subdivided into different areas. The first area is pre-fracturing. This is the idea of equipping the objects to be destroyed with predetermined breaking points before the actual simulation. This is usually done at SOP level within a geo node and allows users to artistically prepare the type and shape of the fragments instead of determining fragments using purist user interfaces and scientific parameters. This allows directors and supervisors to adapt specifications and ideas on the fly.

Simpler predetermined breaking points

The creation of predetermined breaking points – called fragments in the following – is based on a relatively simple concept. Take a geometry at SOP level and distribute points on the surface or within the geometry by using a scatter node, for example. If points are to be distributed in the geometry, the geometry must first be converted into a volume, as the scatter node can also distribute points in the volume. The points serve as the basis for predetermined breaking points, which are created using a Voronoi Fracture Node. The first major update in version 17 already took place at this point.

The Voronoi Fracture Node is advertised as the Voronoi 2.0 Node. According to the changelog, the node has been completely overhauled under the bonnet and equipped with an optimised user interface. For users, this means that the node’s inputs are still the same. The geometry to be broken must be connected on the left and the points based on the previously mentioned scatter node must be connected on the right. However, in order to be able to assign different colour nuances to the individual fragments for visualisation, the pin symbol next to the name of the fragments must be activated. The fragments are then assigned different shades of colour based on their name – the “Name” attribute. The “Colorize Individual Fragments” function with its flag has disappeared.

In order to retain the colour nuances for further processing according to the generally overhauled and optimised Voronoi Fracture Node, you have to use your own means. The simplest solution would be a colour node that reads the name attribute of the primitives and executes Random from Attribute as the colour type. In this way, the random colours can be transferred to the DOP level as a Cd attribute. However, this was not the last trick the Houdini developers played on the Voronoi Fracture Node – an entire field seems to have disappeared.

We are talking about the Interior Detail to add geometric detail to the fragments at the inner fracture edges. If users want to add additional detail to the inner surfaces, the path leads to the RBD selection menu within the tool list – the tool menu. This contains the RBD Interior Detail node. The settings have been excluded, packed into a separate node and allow users to create different levels of detail.

By default, the Interior Detail node accepts the name of the interior surfaces. In short: the Inside attribute. The Voronoi Fracture Node outputs attributes for the outer and inner surfaces, while RBD Interior Detail looks specifically for the inner sides. Users can also enter their own attribute. Several detail levels can therefore be mixed together. An additional level for interior details is introduced in the pre-facturing node tree.

The fragments can now be prepared for transport to the Dynamics Operator Network – or DOP network for short – using a pack node. If constraints such as glue constraints are to be used, an attribute must first be created.

The fragments are simulated in the DOP network. As a rule, the fragments do not fall freely to the ground according to the set gravity – onto the static ground plane. Instead, the path leads through a glue constraint network based on a glue constraint relationship node, which serves as the second input of a constraint network node. For the sake of simplicity, the ground plane can be integrated into the scene via the collision shelf tool of the same name. A static solver and plane object are generated automatically. To glue the individual fragments together, there is the option of creating an object with the RBD Glued Objects Tool in the Rigid Bodies Shelf or setting up the individual nodes manually. Regardless of which method is chosen, a node tree with a glue constraint relationship node is required for the constraints in the DOP network. For a quick test, the glue node can be replaced by a bullet soft constraint relationship node, which is a new addition in Houdini 17. With an existing glue network, it is important to adjust the name attribute of the fragments. As a rule, the name “Glue” is stored in the glue network. This must be entered in the soft constraint in order to access the fragments – or an additional attribute can be integrated at SOP level for the soft constraints. The glue constraint is no longer effective after the change, the soft constraint is active and behaves like a kind of metal spring in the simulation.

Instead of the fragments flying in all directions according to the centre of the impact and the energy transferred, the soft constraint network acts like a rubber mesh that snaps back into its original shape with a jelly-like effect – depending on how high the stiffness parameter is set. A similar effect is known from the spring relationship, which can also be found in the constraint nodes, although the soft body constraint worked much more stably in the tests. The true potential of the soft body constraint in a simulation unfolds in conjunction with the glue constraint and the use of a glue adjacent node. The Glue Constraint Network holds the individual fragments together up to a certain point in the simulation, at which point the constraints break because the force of the impact is too great. At this point, the Glue Adjacent Node can be integrated in order to assign a selected number of fragments to specific objects. For example, imagine a tower made of concrete with recesses for doors and windows, where the outer fragments of the window and door frames are glued to the adjacent fragments of the concrete in the recesses. This allows anchors to be created or fragments to be simulated more plausibly, especially if the glass and wooden struts shatter when the window is hit, but the wooden frame is still partially stuck in the inlet.

Building on this, the bullet soft constraint relationship can now be integrated. As a rule, the different fragments of constraint nodes are equipped with several attributes – constraint name and constraint type. Previously, we talked about a primitive attribute of the type String (Constraint Name), which was created at SOP level with a string called Glue. For the Bullet Soft Body Constraint Relationship, a separate primitive string attribute (Followup Constraint Name) must be created with the string named Soft. The idea behind this is that if the glue constraint should break within the simulation, then the attribute named Constraint name should be changed to the new attribute followup constraint name so that the bullet soft constraint can take effect.

Another effect that still needs to be created is the breaking of the bullet soft constraints so that the snap-back is cancelled out. Imagine a concrete wall breaking apart like polystyrene or a waffle. An effect far removed from reality, so an adapted break apart is desirable, which is now on the way to preliminary completion – except for the finishing touches, which are not covered in detail. If an automatic constraint network has been created by using the RBD-Glued-PiecesShelf tool, for example, then another node can already be found in the constraint network within the DOPs, which is called remove_broken – an SOP solver. Basically a node that brings further attributes from the SOP level into the DOP level.

The added attributes now include Torque, Force, Impact and Strength. One attribute that is ideally suited to fractures is torque, the torque of the fragments. Fragments that are subject to torque must be grouped in the first step. In the second step, the fragments must be checked for a specific torque and deleted from the constraint network once the limit value has been reached. They are then completely subject to the RBD simulation without stopping at other parts. The work steps can be carried out in Houdini-style by inserting additional nodes or using Vex code.

In this way, far more plausible-looking simulations can be generated by using the first innovations. The soft body constraint can also be used for deformations and is not only used for objects that are broken down into their individual parts. In the official video for Houdini 17, SideFX shows a car crashing into a street lamp and being severely deformed. However, no matter what kind of effect you want to create, it requires considerable effort and expertise – especially for newcomers to Houdini.

Wood at the touch of a button

The newly prepared Voronoi Node in conjunction with the Bullet Soft Constraint Relationship allows users to equip their own simulations with a variety of detail levels to create complex effects. It is obvious that the node networks required for this grow in size very quickly and the complexity increases at lightning speed.

It seems that SideFX wants to address this fact and make the work easier. The result is the RBD Material Fracture Node, which was advertised in the demonstration videos as part of material-based fracturing. This is the principle of material-based destruction. The word material does not explicitly refer to the shader or the material, where users can control the structure of the fragments with textures.

Rather, the node is intended to allow users to select a material type from a list of types and for the fragments of the desired material to be created directly. If the user wants to simulate a wooden bridge in which the individual steps are damp and break through when they occur, the required material properties and predetermined breaking points are created and can be customised using a carefully considered menu.

There is one small fly in the ointment. As the node is one of the new features in Houdini 17, the materials are briefly marked out.

There are three different material types that users can choose from during the test period. These include concrete, glass and wood. Three materials that couldn’t be more different and can be partially adjusted so that users can also imitate other materials that are not available in the selection – at least not yet.

The positive thing about the RBD Material Fracture Node is that the numerous work steps mentioned above, which are part of a functioning destruction simulation, do not have to be repeated over and over again by the user. The RBD Material Fracture Node creates the glue constraint itself and takes care of the pre-fracturing. For the sake of simplicity, the node can be regarded as a high-level destruction node. The basic and time-consuming work steps are summarised in a node. But what if you want to go a little further and require more detailed work?

Under the bonnet

There is a whole series of nodes that are located within the RBD Material Fracture Node. Houdini connoisseurs know that black boxes are a foreign word for Houdini and that users have insight into every node. The Material Fracture Node contains the optimised Voronoi Fracture Node mentioned at the beginning. It also contains the Boolean Fracture Node and Exploded View, another very powerful node for creating realistic-looking fragments. Voronoi fracturing is ideal for rock fragments, and yet the Voronoi cells have their very own visual character that seasoned TDs will recognise immediately. Just like the use of a procedural generator for noise, which is often used for displacement and creates characteristic patterns if there is too little mixing of different generators.

As the name of the Boolean Fracture Node suggests, different objects can be used to generate fragments using a Boolean operation, which have significantly coarser edges than Voronoi cells and allow for more realism. In addition to the three mid-level nodes, there are also low-level nodes within the RBD Material Fracture Nodes: for example Voronoi Split, Voronoi Fracture Points, Assemble and Connect Adjacent Pieces. These are all tools for creating complex fragments, summarised in a node. As complex as the node is structured, SideFX has managed to conceal complexity with a well thought-out user interface.

If the RBD Material Fracture Node takes care of the individual, sometimes time-consuming work steps, this leaves more time free for creative work. Even if the new wonder node creates material-specific fragments in the pre-fracturing area, SideFX has also taken care of the simplified precision work. The place where the RBD material node is located within the tool menu is home to a whole series of other RBD nodes. The nodes contained in it alongside the Interior Detail Node enable support for the Material Fracture Node. One indication of this is the largely identical input and output connectors – apart from the occasional specific connector.

In the standard workflow without RBD material fracturing, the object must be filled with black using a colour node before the scatter node. A paint node – ideally with white – must then be used to paint areas where the density of the dots should increase significantly. The Cd attribute must be read into the scatter node for the placement of the dots. To prevent the creation of numerous additional nodes, SideFX has stored an RBD paint node in the RBD menu.

The new Paint Node is the merger of the Colour and Standard Paint Nodes and allows you to enter your own attribute name for the areas to be created, which in turn can be read out in the Material Fracture Node – provided that the Attribute selection and the correct attribute name are entered in the Cell field under Scatter from. In this way, users can relatively quickly mark out areas for impacts or porous surfaces and add further detail in the RBD Material Node.

However, the RBD Paint Node is not the only way in which material fracturing can be supported. Of course, the Interior Detail Node can also be used to visually refine the inner surfaces of the fragments. Another exciting feature is the RBD Cluster Node, which accepts the existing fragments and creates clusters from them. In other words, a group of fragments that forms a larger fragment. Clusters can also be formed using a noise function along with customisation options. If clusters already exist before the cluster node is used, the clusters can be retained if desired. The work with constraints has also been made much easier. A constraint network including glue and bullet soft constraint was previously listed with the integration of further attributes for a customised simulation.

Firstly, it should be mentioned that the RBD material fracture node has its own field for the constraints in each material selection and users can choose at the touch of a button whether only a glue constraint should be used or whether the glue constraint should be converted into a bullet soft body constraint without having to set up long node networks and create numerous attributes manually.

However, there is also a further aid for more sophisticated effects within the constraints. There is an RBD Constraint Properties Node within the RBD menu. This node can be used to adjust the properties of the glue or soft constraints separately and independently of the material fracture node. Here you can see a similarity to the SOP solver from the example given at the beginning. Additional attributes are applied to the constraints, so to speak, which benefit the respective constraint type and significantly simplify customisation.

There is also an RBD Pack and Unpack Node, the purpose of which is to combine the geometry (high and proxy) of a simulation together with constraints into one object in order to make the structure of larger simulations clearer. If an intervention is necessary, the individual objects can be accessed using RBD Unpack.

Even if the simulation is now set up more quickly and can be customised more easily, as the most important components are stored in one place, the question still remains as to how the objects involved in the simulation collide? And how can a workflow be set up that generates the optimum collision geometry, which can also be used as a proxy in the RBD SOP workflow?

The answer to this question can be found at SOP level, through the use of the Convex Decomposition SOP Node. The node receives the input geometry and generates convex geometry as accurately as possible around distinctive details on the main geometry. Numerous settings allow the accuracy to be adjusted during the generation of the convex objects.

Not too much promised

The aforementioned innovations in the area of RBD simulations could be described as a blessing. The large VFX box of wonders has been equipped with more high-level nodes in order to divide complex meshes of nodes into easy-to-understand building blocks. Redundant steps are reduced, time is saved and order is kept in view. Seasoned Houdini users will breathe a sigh of relief, and newcomers will have an easier start. And who knows, maybe in the future users will be able to choose what exactly they want to create after the start, and the nodes will be combined into high-level nodes accordingly, or the existing high-level nodes will be visible on their own to significantly shorten the search for tools.

The post Houdini-style predetermined breaking points first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

Flame Painter is a painting programme with a difference. The main feature of the software is vivid brushstrokes that are controlled by various particle systems. This makes it possible to create fascinating effects that can hardly be realised with normal software – at least not without effort. Anyone trying out the software for the first time will easily understand how the programme got its name.

The tool invites you to experiment with a wide variety of brushes and different particle systems – with almost limitless possibilities.

A short but fiery introduction

The operation of the programme is similar to that of conventional painting programmes. You can get started without having to study the software too much: In principle, after creating a new file and selecting a brush, you can start painting straight away. In most cases, the results are astonishing – at least in most cases hardly predictable.

Below the standard menu bar (File, Edit, Layer …) there is a drawing area (canvas), arranged on the left, a tools palette, an options window and the brushes library. On the right-hand side there is a navigator window, a colour palette and a layers panel. The user interface can be customised to suit individual requirements by scaling and positioning the work windows. In the current version, the “Reset Layout to Default” option is available under the “Window” menu item. This allows you to restore order to the screen after a restart. A brush and a pen tool are available for drawing. There is also an eraser, a fill tool and an eyedropper. A symmetry and mirror option can be switched on for the brush tool. Flame Painter has various selection tools (rectangle, circle, polygon, freehand, magic wall) with Boolean functions to combine selections. With a crop tool, the creations can be brought into shape by cropping the canvas (absolutely similar to the crop tool in Photoshop) or the image size can be changed by dragging handles. At the top right is a navigator for quicker orientation in large documents, below this is the window with the colour palette.

At the bottom right, the Layers window is reminiscent of the layer window in Photoshop. A special feature are the vector layers, which allow strokes to be edited afterwards (both curve points and parameters of the particle system). Only one stroke at a time is possible on a vector layer. If the painting stroke is interrupted and restarted, the previous stroke is deleted. A separate vector layer must therefore be created for each stroke.

It is precisely these vector layers that elevate Flame Painter from a hobby tool to a real tool, because this is the only way to achieve a certain degree of control over the living brushes. It is also possible to import SVG graphics, for example. Any brushes can subsequently be assigned to paths.

Flame Painter imports Photoshop files as well as PNG, JPG, BMP and TIF formats. Images can also be dragged directly from an Internet browser into Flame Painter.
The complex features of Flame Painter are the particle systems, the painting modes of Flame Painter. These are standard:

• Flame – the classic painting mode, in which the brushstroke follows the cursor with different oscillations depending on the speed, creating the most bizarre colour patterns of varying brightness.
• Follow – here the brushstroke follows the cursor more precisely.
• Ribbon – the manual calls this painting mode “Loop”.

Various parameters can be set for each of these particle systems, all of which influence each other. Hundreds of brush effects (settings) are available to create seemingly infinite variations of strokes.

Newly burnt in Flame Painter 4

• The particle systems have been expanded to include the additional “Liner”, “Elastic” and “Fuzzy”. Around 250 prepared brushes (brush presets) are waiting to be downloaded from the Escape Motions page (this online collection can also be accessed via a button in the Flame Painter library, where there is also a button for uploading your own creations).
• The Brush Creator expands the setting options of the brushes enormously with new variables. You can easily create your own brushes by varying existing brushes. The Symmetry tool with Mirror option creates symmetrical graphics, which is particularly helpful for maps.
• Palette Panel – The palette window has been revised and expanded. It is now possible to choose between different colour models (HSV, HSL, HSLuv and RGB). In addition to the colour selection, the colour gradient and image library can also be called up here. Gradients are still only available as linear gradients. Angle settings are also not yet possible. The matching colour selection tool allows you to pick up colours from the active or all layers, whereby the tool shows the current colour of the palette and the respective colour under the cursor for comparison.
• In addition to the Blur, Glow – the name says it all – and Tile Layer filters for creating endless tileable patterns, there are 9 new filters for adjusting brightness, colour and contrast, among other things. White or black can be made transparent using filters or coloured layers can be converted to shades of grey using various options (Desaturate).
• With the Photoshop plug-in “Flame Painter Connect”, layers can be exchanged directly between Flame Painter and Photoshop
  can be exchanged. However, Flame Painter Connect for Flame Painter 4 is only compatible with Photoshop CC 2015 and higher.

Conclusion

What started out as a small, experimental tool has now become an application that is not only fun to use, but also fulfils professional requirements.

Flame Painter is still a fun programme that invites you to experiment (almost) endlessly. But this tool should also offer professional users interesting possibilities for quickly creating a wide variety of unusual effects, e.g. for backgrounds, textures, as additional image effects, etc. New particle systems, lots of new, customisable brushes, an editor for creating your own brushes, editable vector layers to which hundreds of brushes can now be assigned with a single click, import of SVG graphics and improved exchange with Photoshop CC are all reasons to update to the latest version.

It’s a bit of a shame that the personal edition is no longer available. On the other hand, the large version that is now available has really grown up. With the latest innovations, the creative boundaries have been pushed further and Peter BlaškoviČ’s vision that anyone can be an artist if they only have the inspiring tools to hand has become more tangible.

The post Flambé pictures – Flame Painter 4 first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Ralf Gliffe.

With Color Grab, colours can be collected without having to resort to photos. You point your mobile phone camera at the colour area and with two clicks it is added to the palette. Of course, colours can also be collected from photos or a photo can be analysed automatically. It is a pity that the analysis always analyses the entire photo and not the previously selected area.

If you want to do this, you must first crop the photo in another app. The analysed colour map then shows in percentages which colours are present in the photo. You can then select which of the colours should be transferred to the palette.

Certainly a mobile phone cannot replace an X-Rite colour scanner, but Color Grab at least offers a white balance function, colours can be mixed and palettes can be generated with a number of colour harmony rules. In addition, a number of colour models such as RGB, HEX, HSV, LAB and many more are supported. Unfortunately, only RAL is available as a colour reference, as Pantone (X-Rite) is certainly not freely available like this app.

The highlight of Color Grab, however, is the export function. The following are supported: Photoshop and Illustrator, CorelDraw and Paint, Gimp, Inkscape, AutoCAD, Krita and Cinepaint. In addition, CSV, text and a preview image as PNG are also supported.

The post Color Grab – Everything is so colourful here first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Olaf Finkbeiner.

In the animation community around the animation school The Animation Workshop in Viborg, which includes the animation studio Tumblehead Animation Studio, there are always interesting projects in the air. Tumblehead produced the Martin Luther short film on behalf of the city of Viborg, for which the project is very important because Viborg was the first city in Denmark to be reformed. The animated scenes are part of a series of live-action films in which they act as a flashback. The storyline for the film was provided by historians, as the historical accuracy of the content was very important. In total, three people worked on the animated scenes for three months. “Once the project was finished, we asked for permission to turn the animations into a short film and got the green light,” recalls Peter Smith, producer at Tumblehead.

The idea of telling the Luther story in this amusing way and visualising it in a comic book look arose from the Tumblehead team’s desire to approach 3D animation like 2D, creating silhouettes. The old style of the well-known animation studio UPA (United Productions of America) seemed particularly suitable to the artists. The city of Viborg gave Tumblehead complete creative freedom during production, allowing the team to further develop this style during the course of production. However, the decision in favour of a 2D and 3D mix was also determined by the budget. 3D animator Mette Tange explains what the workflow looked like: “We cut parts out of the storyboard and animated them in Flash. This gave us a bit of freedom to focus on some appealing 3D shots.” What became 2D and what became 3D was determined by the physical or metaphysical properties of an object. For example, the artists modelled Luther in 3D to make him look more physical, while everything going on in the sky is 2D.

A rig for everyone with plenty of flexibility

There was no real pre-vis phase because the movements in the film are kept simple and in such a small team it was possible to decide on a daily basis what should happen in each shot. The artists started the modelling in ZBrush and finalised the topology in Maya if necessary. “For this project, the characters all have the same base mesh and rig. Props and sets were blocked in Maya and then moulded in ZBrush. Most of the textures were created in Photoshop, but we also used Polypaint in ZBrush and some Substance Painter,” explains Technical Director Magnus Møller. The characters were the biggest challenge in the project: It took many iterations before the base mesh worked with all the different character designs. The artists quickly discovered that facial expressions had to be tested during the modelling phase. The artists also created the animation with Maya. They used filmed footage of themselves as a movement reference so that different approaches were available.

“In rigging, we always aim for the greatest possible flexibility for the characters. With this kind of setup, as an animator you almost have to imagine the whole thing as being in 2D, because this process allows you to really model the keyframes,” says Tange.

Rain and light

The rain in the first scene was created using Maya’s particle generation system nParticles. “To be honest, it was extremely tedious to work with, which is why we have relied on Houdini for such tasks ever since,” says Møller. The rain scene was also the most interesting in the process for the artists because it combines many different elements such as characters, props, lighting, rain and more. “In terms of look development, it was the most fun for us to work on this shot.”

The artists lit the outdoor scenes with a directional light with soft shadows in front of the sun and an HDRI dome. In the interior scenes, the team mainly used area lights for a softer look. The artists created the candle flame using animated geometry combined with an emissive shader, to which a soft glow was added in compositing.

Redshift and a machine

In general, the biggest challenge for the team on this project was the short time frame in which numerous animated characters and sets had to be created.

Due to this restriction, the team rendered the project on a single computer. “This was only possible because we had GPU rendering and a machine with multiple graphics cards at our disposal,” says Smith. The average render time with Redshift was between 30 seconds and 2 minutes per frame.

Redshift is used for all projects at Tumblehead. “And I never tire of recommending it, that’s how enthusiastic I am about its features,” adds the TD.

The team realised the compositing with After Effects and the Magic Bullet Looks add-on. “As the look comes directly from the rendering, there were no special features to achieve the final look. In the end, it was mainly colour grading, darkening the elements in the foreground and many other small details that had to be done.”

News from Tumblehead in a rapidly growing industry

Tumblehead is currently finalising its new short film “Tales from the Multiverse”. In this story, God is a single parent and hobby programmer. He works on the “Earth” project, but never seems to get a break from the kids. But one day he makes a breakthrough. The film will be touring festivals this year.
According to Peter Smith’s observations, the animation industry in Denmark has developed rapidly in recent years. From

“The Animation Workshop” has given rise to many new talents, resulting in many productions of increasingly high quality:

“I’m impressed by how much the scene has changed in the last few years and how quickly the animation business in Denmark is growing at the moment.”

The post Communicating knowledge with fun: The Story of Martin Luther first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Mirja Fürst.

You can see an overview of InstaLOD’s complete feature set in DP 03:19. In this issue, we look in particular at how InstaLOD can automate the workflow from CAD data from a PLM system to a real-time-ready VR model.

by Calvin Bacon

Computer Aided Design (CAD) data from engineering consists of nurbs curves and surfaces and cannot be rendered by most renderers. Until now, there were two options for preparing them for real-time rendering. Either a manual retopo, i.e. building the asset from scratch as a 3D mesh, or tessellation.

Manual retopo is a process that can take days or weeks per scene – depending on the complexity of the models. The other option is automatic tessellation. However, since CAD data is parametric (has infinite accuracy), automatic tessellation achieves an extremely high polycount, which is practically useless for real-time rendering, and if a low tessellation is aimed for, details are often missing, curvatures are poorly modelled or get broken normals.

If the CAD object is then tessellated with sufficient accuracy, the polycount must be reduced, again by automatic optimisation or manual retopo. Finally, UVs have to be designed and textures baked so that the model can be viewed in the VR scene with sufficient fps. And even then, there are long-term problems with both manual preparation methods if a different renderer is to be used or if the initial CAD data changes.

Huge material libraries are currently being created, but these are only customised for a single renderer. Whether VRED, Arnold, V-Ray etc., the problem is the same. If you want to switch to a different engine in the future, every material from the library has to be completely rebuilt as a shader.

Another major problem with a product lifecycle management (PLM) system is that CAD data in it is constantly being modified by engineers, which means that all of the above steps often have to be carried out from scratch on a weekly basis. This workflow can be completely automated with InstaLOD’s CAD Live Link and Scene Import Rules.

By the way: Each feature can be executed as a batch process operator. All settings that are set up in a profile, including Scene Import Rules, can be saved externally as a JSON file. These can be used as presets or, if the CAD object changes again next week, the user loads the profile that has already been set up, applies it and achieves the same result again: an object that works for VR without manual intervention.

Loading CAD data with CAD Live Link

But what is the CAD Live Link and how do you use it? When loading a CAD file, you are first greeted with an import window in which you can select which parts or sub-assemblies are to be imported. InstaLOD supports a variety of CAD formats including Catia, Solidworks, Rhino, JT, NX, STEP and many more. Since the CAD Live Link still maintains the connection to the original CAD parts, we can still selectively retessell the parts.

Tessellation is influenced by three settings:

Maximum Deviation – uses a tolerance specified by the user to determine how much InstaLOD may deviate from the original CAD surface. This feature originally comes from InstaLOD’s optimiser, but was so popular that it was also integrated into CAD Live Link.

Maximum Edge Length – Specifies the maximum length of the edges.

Maximum Angle – Specifies the maximum angle between two polygons. If the angle is exceeded, the area is subdivided again until the specified angle is achieved.

The maximum angle is mainly used in other tessellation programmes, but is often not the ideal solution. The reason for this is that small parts – such as screws – can very quickly become very strongly tessellated within large assemblies. Normally, you don’t want to have a single screw with 50,000 polygons. Maximum deviation is therefore the ideal solution. This tessellates the objects to the quality tolerance that is specified, but does not subdivide the object unnecessarily.

Getting the splits ..

Another problem that often occurs with CAD data is surface inaccuracies, which can lead to shading problems. One such problem is shading splits – as shown in the images on the right. By default, a 3D operator has to manually repair these splits piece by piece, which is a lengthy process. With InstaLOD’s CAD Live Link, these can be repaired quickly and easily using the shading settings. In many cases, recalculating the normals is sufficient. In our case, however, a lot of shading information is stored within the CAD metadata, which would be lost by recalculation.

We therefore use InstaLOD’s Shading Magic, which automatically localises and repairs the problematic areas. After the tessellation has been performed and any shading problems have been repaired, the rim is not really usable yet, as all materials would have to be set up again for a render. There are also no UVs yet, so textures could not be added, and finally we have 80,000 polygons in the current state. If you were to scale these to a complete car, you would quickly have several million polygons, which is not compatible with a VR application.

So the next step is to make the rim VR-ready in a few steps. Firstly, we go to the mesh operation settings and start with a UV unwrap. Here we use the Hard Surface Axial algorithm, which creates a clean unwrap for the surfaces facing the axles.

Material Merge

After the UV unwrap, we perform a material merge operation. The reason for this is that we have three objects with three materials in this scene. If we scale this scene to a complete car, we quickly have thousands of objects with thousands of materials. Firstly, this is a lot of work for manually setting up the materials for a render, and secondly, this is also a huge amount of draw calls for a real-time application. We therefore use the material merge, which combines all materials and textures into a single material with a texture atlas.

Here we also merge the material parameters of metalness and roughness into a texture. This saves time later on when setting up the individual materials, but also saves a lot of draw calls and texture memory. To make it even easier to set up the materials, we combine the objects by using “Combine Meshes” in the Mesh Tool Kit (MTK). We now have an object with a material and a draw call. This object can now be exported and imported into any renderer, as we have the UVs and textures to render the materials exactly as initially set up – completely independent of the renderer.

Away with the polygons

Now the number of polygons must be reduced. To do this, we use InstaLOD’s Remesher, which performs a complete reconstruction of the rim within a very short time, simultaneously building UVs and baking textures. The result is an incredible reduction of over 90 %. We had already done all these steps manually, which begs the question: Why didn’t we use Remeshing directly on the original object? The reason for this is the workflow that we want to set up. What we can do now is to take our timeline with all the entries of UVs, Material Merge, Combine Meshes and Remesh – and convert all that into a new profile.

Outlook and application

Now you really realise how powerful InstaLOD’s workflows are – we can test multiple mesh operations, and if we’d rather try something else, we can just jump back in the timeline and test other operations until we’re happy. Then we can turn the workflow into a profile and scale it to hundreds or thousands of objects by exporting the profile as a JSON file and running it through the command line as a batch process. Or we can run the profile directly within InstaLOD Studio XL with InstaLOD Pipeline.

Profiles (which contain all settings) can be saved and used again at a later time. This is how presets etc. are set up if this ensures a better workflow. Experience has shown that you should first test the profile on one or two objects to see whether the profile has been set up correctly. Then nothing stands in the way of making your work easier – or of complete automation.

Scene import rules

When batch processing the CAD file, you logically have no manual control over the first steps that we have applied to the rim. This includes changing the tessellation and materials and often also changing the object hierarchies that you want to change or delete, as you don’t need them for the visualisation (see image above left “Organise outside” and “Organise inside”). With the Scene Import Rules, all this is possible with little effort. Simply specify which objects are affected and what should happen to them.

To set up a rule, you need to add a new entry in the “Scene Import Rules” window and give it a name. You then need to specify an attribute. Everything from the object name to the path can be specified here. The nice thing here is that basically any available attribute can be used within the metadata. You can see exactly which ones are available in the “Selected Object Information” window.

If you use “Name” as an attribute, for example, you must enter the name of the object in the “Match RegEx” field below so that it is processed by the rule. In the Predicate, you can specify how important this rule is, which is helpful if there are many rules, so that you can specify which rule is processed earlier or later in the list.

The predicate determines what the rules should perform on the objects. Available options are operations such as “Material Assignment”, “Tessellate”, “Delete” and many more. (top left image “Scene Import Rules”). Customised predicates can also be added using a C plug-in. These plug-ins are automatically compatible with the complete InstaLOD system. With these plug-ins you can customise InstaLOD to what you need for your own pipeline.

Conclusion: Automation rocks!

Now we come back to the PLM system that was briefly mentioned earlier. Once you have set up a set of rules, including the subsequent mesh operations, it is no longer a problem to update the CAD objects on a weekly basis. Simply load the finished profile and run a batch process in which the objects are automatically prepared using the rules (including materials, tessellation, organisation, etc.) and finally reduced by the mesh operations.

At the end, you get the finished, updated scene at the touch of a button, without having to manually intervene in the process. This means that large assemblies can be continuously extracted from a PLM system and made VR-ready within a very short time. By the way: If you want to try this out for yourself, you can get a trial version by filling in the form on our website InstaLOD.com and try out the described workflow and all the other features and processes that InstaLOD makes possible on your own assets.

The post InstaLOD: From CAD to VR? first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Alexandra Kaschny.

As is usual for Xi-Machines, the Animate X2 Advanced was delivered extremely well protected against transport damage. The actual packaging of the workstation is very securely padded in another large cardboard box with a huge number of small polystyrene elements. However, unpacking and collecting the numerous polystyrene elements, especially with a statically charged fleece jumper, elicited a curse or two from the author. Alternatively, you could also use bubble wrap, which is easier to unpack and repack.

Even when unpacking, the numerous labels on each side of the packaging were noticeable, indicating further transport protection for the CPU and graphics card inside the workstation case.

Case

The case is the midi tower version of the standard workstation case from Xi-Machines made from elegant-looking, black brushed aluminium with chrome-plated feet. Two USB 3.0 ports as well as a headphone and microphone socket are hidden under a small hinged lid on the top, with the power switch and reset button right next to it. There are two empty 5¼-inch slots on the front of the housing in case an optical drive or multi-card slot reader needs to be retrofitted.

After removing the transport lock for the CPU and graphics card, the inside of the case looks very tidy: one usable PCIe x4 and PCIe x16 slot each are still free, and three hot-swap bays are still available in the neighbouring HDD cage. As you would expect from Xi-Machines, the cable management is flawless, with only one really visible cable running from the powerful and quiet power supply unit to the graphics card.

Features

Xi-Machines has equipped the Animate X2 with an Intel Xeon W-2155 CPU with ten cores and 64 Gbytes of registered ECC RAM system memory. The RAM memory is divided into four 16 Gbyte modules. This leaves four RAM slots free. In total, the memory can be expanded to a maximum of 512 Gbytes.

When it comes to mass storage, Xi-Machines has opted for so-called Enterprise Edition drives. Enterprise Edition is not a special edition for Star Trek fans, but means that these mass storage devices have a significantly higher operational reliability and service life than the normally available consumer/desktop models. The Meantime Between Failure (MTBF) is significantly higher for the Enterprise Edition models, and so is the price.

Three different mass storage devices were installed: a 480 Gbyte SSD for the operating system, a 480 Gbyte M.2 SSD as a scratch disc and a 3.2 Tbyte (!) PCIe SSD module with crazy transfer rates for project data. The graphics card is the Ti version of the current Geforce RTX 2080 with 11 Gbytes of RAM. In addition, the Animate X2 Advanced offers almost all currently relevant interfaces at the rear of the housing.
The scope of delivery also includes a mouse and a keyboard of acceptable quality, extra cables for the power supply unit, a small box with screws and an anti-static wrist strap with a clamp for earthing.

Performance

In the Cinebench 20 CPU test, the Animate X2 Advanced came out on top of the test field with 5,258 points, as expected. In the older Cinebench 15 test, it was also at the top with 2,200 points and the Geforce RTX 2080Ti achieved 159 points in the OpenGL test. In the V-Ray render test for CPU and GPU, the good results of the Cinebench tests were confirmed with a computing time of just 1 minute and 1 second for the CPU test and just 46 seconds for the GPU test.

When rendering the classroom scene in Blender, the Geforce RTX was able to show what it can do. The ten CPU cores of the Xeon W-2155 calculated a brisk 8 minutes and 49 seconds, while the Geforce RTX 2080 Ti took just a quarter of the time at 2 minutes and 12 seconds. The unofficial Octane-Bench beta test also showed what the RTX cards have over their predecessors: 302 points without RTX and a whopping 895 with.

Xi-Machines has gone all out when it comes to mass storage: the 3.2 Tbyte PCIe SSD Enterprise Edition module achieved write rates of 2,035 Mbytes and read rates of 4,407 Mbytes per second in the Aja system test and delivered a sustained transfer rate of 4,400 Mbytes per second. However, with limitations, not with the mass storage, but with the benchmarks. According to Xi-Machines, the SSD is capable of reading data at up to 6,170 Mbytes per second – unfortunately, we were unable to measure this. The 500 Gbyte capacity SSD intended as a scratch disc also achieved similarly high write rates of 2,012 Mbytes per second as the large PCIe SSD, but with read rates of 2,729 Mbytes per second it did not come close to their values. The smaller system SSD wrote data at 362 and read it out again at 513 Mbytes per second – completely sufficient for the operating system. With a maximum DPC latency of 442 microseconds, the Animate X2 Advanced was in the midfield of the test candidates. This is fine for the traditional application area of 3D, rendering and HD video. In addition, Windows 10 Pro is configured in such a way that users can get started straight away without having to activate Windows, update drivers or prevent questionable optimisation tools from working.

The cooling concept of the Animate X2 Advanced works well, because even under simultaneous synthetic full utilisation of all components with the Aida 64 stress test, the temperature values of the CPU, the mainboard and the mass storage remained within the normal range.

Only the Nvidia Geforce RTX 2080 Ti reached a slightly higher value of 81°C, although this is unlikely to be reached under realistic load scenarios in practice. And under all the load and stress, hardly a murmur could be heard from the Animate X2 Advanced, only the graphics card stood out a little when the fans started up, but everything was absolutely bearable.

Conclusion

At 9,875 euros, the Xi-Machines Animate X2 Advanced is certainly no bargain, but calling it expensive is not justified either. Of course, in comparison with the other test candidates, none of which offer selected and tested Enterprise Edition devices of 3.2 Tbyte size and a 5-year warranty, the price seems quite high.

However, if you consider the costs incurred and the loss of image for the customer if a workstation fails unexpectedly in the middle of a large project, then the price is put into perspective and the attribute expensive can very quickly turn into inexpensive.

The Xi-Machines Animate X2 Advanced is unquestionably fast in all areas, offers excellent hardware components and processing and extensive options for increasing the capacities of mass storage and RAM memory. In terms of operational safety and reliability: If I had to buy a computer for a nuclear power plant, I would probably order it from Xi-Machines.

The post Xi-Machines Animate X2 Advanced im Test first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Björn Eichelbaum.

Nuendo 10 is in fact the tenth version of the audio post-production software. The offset to the Cubase version numbers is due to the fact that Cubase has always had a .0 and a paid .5 release, but Nuendo only appeared once as a .5 version with version 6.5. Apparently, user feedback was responsible for the fact that the .5 versions of Nuendo were abolished and it now appears with the correct version number.

Doppler effect

The new effects Doppler Effect, Voice Designer, Distroyer and the revised Channel Strip are ideal for use in a post-production context. The Doppler effect simulates the shifting of the pitch of audio objects that move towards or away from the listener. We are all familiar with this effect from everyday life, for example when an ambulance drives past you quickly.

Nuendo’s Doppler effect plug-in offers an automatic and a manual mode, which quickly and clearly achieve acoustically convincing results with a manageable number of parameters. In manual and automatic mode, the parameters L-R Distance, Pitch, Transition and Depth are available. In manual mode, the progression of the effect is simply controlled by hand via a fader running from left to right directly to the current image. In automatic mode, the start, transition and end points of the Doppler effect are defined and the rest is done automatically. Convincing results are quickly achieved with both modes, which can be adjusted using two additional panorama sliders in the stereo image.

Voice Designer

Steinberg has added the Voice Designer to Nuendo 10 for distorting voices and other audio signals. The design of the user interface and the adjustment of the parameter values for the pitch shifter, format shift, morph generator, frequency modulation, robot module and delay effects is, in my opinion, very well done. The Voice Designer enables even absolute amateurs to manipulate voices or other audio signals in a targeted manner in the area of electronic and organic sounds with just a few simple steps. You can get an impression of what this sounds like in the accompanying video on our YouTube channel.

Channel Strip

Nuendo’s Channel Strip has been redesigned in terms of appearance and functionality. It is now possible to change the signal flow of the Gate, Compressor, EQ, De-Esser / Envelope Shaper, Saturation and Limiter modules simply by dragging and dropping. In addition, the metering displays have been integrated into the Channel Strip views so that all important information is visible at a glance.

Functions

Among the more than 40 new features, there are also some interesting functions that will make life easier, especially for larger post-production projects, and will cost the odd intern their job. For example, the Loudness Normalize function, with which all audio files in a selection can be normalised not only to a specific level, but also to a specific loudness in accordance with EBU R 128. This function is particularly useful for level adjustments in larger projects with many audio objects.

Video Cut Detection

The same applies to Video Cut Detection, which analyses a video file, detects image cuts and automatically sets edit or cut markers based on the default settings, which can then be displayed on a separate marker track. This is an interesting function not only for classic post-production tasks such as Foley, sound design and mixing, but also for composers of film music, as the distances between the individual markers on the marker track make it easier to determine tempos and time signatures that match the editing rhythm of the video.

Audio Alignment

With the Audio Alignment Panel, Steinberg has integrated a tool in Nuendo 10 for automatically adjusting the timing of an audio file to a reference file, which works in a similar way to the VocAlign plug-in or Revoice Pro from third-party provider Synchro Arts.

Whether it’s a matter of aligning a synchronised voice take to the original, bringing several choir voices into time or matching drum takes to each other, with the Audio Alignment Panel this works automatically, quickly and reliably in the vast majority of cases.

Field Recorder Import

The new Field Recorder Audio Import function also alleviates one of the most tedious and time-consuming tasks in the audio sector, namely searching for and assigning field recorder audio files to specific events within a project. This is because you often have to search for a better recording of the scene among tens of files and hundreds of poorly documented takes – by hand, in winter, alone and in the darkness of the Edit Suite. With the special user interface of Field Recorder Audio Import, this is now largely automatic, clear and fast. Thank you very much!

DearVR

Some things you just have to see. For the interested sound engineer, this includes a presentation of the DearVR workflow with Nuendo or the DAW Reaper. This is because the DearVR support included in Nuendo 10 enables the creation and mixing of 3D audio content directly in the VR environment of DearVR Spatial Connect.

This means that Nuendo’s transport control, mixing console and editing functions are available directly in the virtual environment of the VR animation or game and can be operated directly and without delay via the two hand controllers of the VR headset.

Operation via the headset’s hand controllers appears to be intuitive and sufficiently precise to enable accurate adjustment of faders and pan positions. You will find out more about this later this year when we have tested the DearVR support in Nuendo 10.

Workflow & More

In addition to the new effects and functions, Steinberg has made numerous improvements to the workflow. For example, the colouring of tracks and objects has been simplified, the display options in windows such as export and automation have been expanded and the user interface has been improved on high-resolution displays.

The new options for direct offline processing should be of particular interest to sound designers. It is now possible to convert the insert effect chain of a channel into a Direct Offline Processing preset with just one click. In addition, direct offline effects can be calculated simply by selecting audio files and no longer require CPU power.

For mixes with Dolby Atmos, Nuendo version 10 is now able to import ADM (Audio Definition Model) BWF files. These wave files contain the metadata for object-based automation. This means that Dolby Atmos mixes can be imported and the automation can be further processed in Nuendo 10.

The larger the project, the greater the risk of getting lost in the mix. With the Mix Console’s snapshots, up to ten snapshots of the mixer status can be saved regardless of the save status of the project file. The user can decide for himself which parameters and channels are included in the snapshots. This function is a kind of partial insurance for less experienced mixers and a great way for experienced mixers to compare different options quickly and easily.

Other new features include the display of the latencies occurring in the respective channel, improvements when creating side-chain inputs, the select-spacer-between-selected-events function and many other small life-savers.

Musical

Nuendo 10 has the same musical capabilities as its sister program, MIDI sequencer veteran and quasi-standard Cubase 10, allowing for an extremely effective and musical way of editing audio with Vari Audio 3, similar to MIDI notes, and coming close to the capabilities of the highly specialised third-party software Melodyne from Celemony. Explaining the musical capabilities of Cubase is beyond the scope of this article. To put it briefly, Cubase / Nuendo can do everything you could possibly need in current music production, and a whole lot more. In addition, there are sound generators of the finest quality, sound libraries and masses of VST sound presets.

To be continued

Steinberg has already announced further new functions and options for the upcoming updates, such as the integration of the ARA plug-in interface, which should particularly benefit users in the music sector. Unlike the usual dumb plug-in interfaces, ARA knows how many bars the project has and where the current playback position is in the project. Especially with plug-ins such as Melodyne, the ARA integration really makes work easier, as all copy-and-paste and move actions can now be carried out directly on the audio files in the Arrange window rather than in the plug-in.

Also announced for a later update is Video Rendering for exporting video content or a complete audio/video project directly from Nuendo 10, as well as the Cue Sheet Export function, which creates a report of all music elements or clips of a speaker that appear in the project.

Conclusion

Nuendo 10 is currently the benchmark in audio post-production for film/TV, game audio and VR audio. No other DAW currently offers such a range of functions at this price, which is favourable considering the integrated possibilities. You can’t even rent Pro Tools at a comparable level for a year. The possibilities of DearVR integration look impressive, but how well they work in practice remains to be seen.

Small improvements and new functions in the Nuendo workflow may not sound particularly spectacular, but they are much more noticeable in day-to-day work than the new super plug-in that you use once a month, as they save the user an enormous amount of time in some cases. The powerful software tools and functions that have to be purchased separately from competing products at a high price, such as an ADR taker system, audio alignment, VR audio / Ambisonics integration, Doppler effect, Voice Designer or the musical capabilities of the industry standard Cubase, are already integrated in Nuendo 10.

The post Audio post-production software: Nuendo 10 first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Björn Eichelbaum.

The idea of using a gaming notebook as a workstation is actually obvious due to the similar hardware requirements. This is because the demands on the CPU, GPU, RAM and mass storage are high in gaming as well as in the areas of 3D, HD video and media content creation. If you take a look at the hardware equipment of the Alienware m15, you would be forgiven for believing it could be used as a workstation. The notebook was delivered in a sturdy shipping box, which keeps the device well padded on the inside.

Case

The housing of the m15 appears stable and accurately finished. All plastic parts are clean and flush, the display hinges are secure and run smoothly and evenly. The 15.6-inch UHD display with 4K resolution delivers good, high-contrast images even at less than ideal viewing angles and has enough brightness reserves to work outdoors on a summer’s day.
We were positively impressed by the keyboard, which, in addition to good keys and a generous surface area, even offers a full alpha-num pad, which makes it much easier to operate 3D, audio and video programmes. The track pad with two mouse buttons can also be controlled safely and precisely.

On the left side of the Alienware m15 is a USBA 3.1 port and the Gigabit LAN socket, with two more USBA 3.1 ports on the right. On the rear, Dell has accommodated the HDMI 2.0, a mini display port, Thunderbolt 3 and the Alienware Graphics Amplifier port.

Equipment

When selecting the CPU and graphics card for the Alienware m15, the maxim “a lot helps a lot” obviously applied. Dell has packed an Intel i9-8950HK CPU with six cores and the Nvidia Geforce GTX 2080 Max Q, one of the currently most powerful mobile graphics cards with 8 Gbytes of RAM, into the m15 and additionally garnished it with 32 Gbytes of RAM memory. This should be sufficient for most workstation tasks such as HD video editing or 3D modelling. However, the capacity of the internal NVME SSD could be a little tight, as only 256 Gbyte for programmes, one or two libraries and project data will quickly become cramped. However, it is then possible to connect a lot of fast mass storage via one of the available high-speed interfaces.

Performance

With the Intel Core i9-8950HK processor, the Alienware m15 achieved an impressive 2,546 points in the Cinebench 20 CPU benchmark, 1,221 points in the older Cinebench 15 and 117 frames per second in its OpenGL test for the Nvidia Geforce 2080 Max Q. The Alienware m15 also performed well in the V-Ray benchmark for CPU and GPU:
1 minute and 52 seconds of computing time for the CPU test and 1 minute and 43 seconds for the GPU test.
In the Blender 2.7 render test of the classroom scene, the i9 8950 HK needed 23 minutes and 44 seconds. With version 2.8, the same scene calculated on the CPU then only took 18 minutes and 6 seconds and just 4 minutes and 37 seconds on the GPU of the Geforce RTX. The unofficial Octane-Bench beta render test resulted in 151 points without and a whopping 445 points with RTX support.
With the default preset “4K Full”, the 256 Gbyte NVME SSD achieved 650 Mbytes per second when writing and 2,409 Mbytes per second when reading data with a continuous transfer rate of at least 1,182 Mbytes per second in the Aja system test. This is a little low for writing, but the Alienware m15 will probably not be used for 8K capturing.

The Dell Alienware m15 achieved the second-highest DPC latency value of 734 microseconds, traditionally caused by a Dell driver. This is a pity, because apart from this singular peak value, the latencies were in significantly lower ranges, which makes the Alienware m15 appear worse in this area than it actually is.
An Intel i9-8950HK CPU and an RTX 2080 are very fast, but they also have to be cooled somehow, which is always a bit difficult in notebooks due to the limited space available. If you then consider that the case is quite flat for the hardware power it contains, a thermal disaster seems inevitable. Even when idling, the Alienware’s fans repeatedly started up audibly. At around 20 to 30% load, the fans then ran continuously in the lower speed range.
During the test runs with the benchmarks, the fans then started up audibly to loudly and the underside of the case became noticeably warm after a few minutes. Under synthetic load with the Aida 64 stress test, in which the CPU, GPU, memory and all mass storage devices ran simultaneously at full capacity, the temperature of the CPU initially rose to 100°C and that of the GPU to 92°C. This led to the CPU clock frequency being reduced by 10 to 20% to protect the CPU from overheating. Normally, a notebook does not recover from such a heavy thermal load and continues to run at a slower pace under load. Not so the Alienware m15, which heroically picked itself up after about two to three minutes of thermal throttling of the CPU with audible fan noise and from then on continued to calculate unchecked with CPU temperatures of 92°C and GPU temperatures of around 80°C – permanently and without fluctuations. Although this is close to the limit, it is okay considering the form factor and performance. A warning for all male readers who have the idea of using the Alienware m15 under full load as a classic laptop on their lap: This could lead to thermal sterilisation in the long run.

Conclusion

The idea of misusing the Alienware m15, which was actually designed for gaming, as a workstation is not so far-fetched. There are a few points that will irritate professional workstation users, such as the many pre-installed software helpers and assistants that interrupt your work at the most inopportune moments and have to be deactivated manually. Or the relatively high fan noise under partial and full load, the low SSD storage space and the brief thermal throttling. In return, the user gets a computer with a huge variety of configuration options, a good display and casing and more than enough CPU and GPU performance to be able to work decently on the move without having to spend a fortune. And you can also use it for gaming.

The post Notebook Alienware m15 tested first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Björn Eichelbaum.

To test Binwees, I want to invite a short trailer from the end-time troupe Rotten Raptors to write an off-text for it. Thanks at this point to Timo Stermula from Mediapioneers for the filming. To create a new project, click on the menu button. In addition to the load and save dialogue and access to the autosave files, this window also contains some important settings. Here you can set the start timecode, select the video or audio file and vary the speaker speed.

Several projects can be opened, which then appear as tabs at the top of the text field so that texts and text fields can be copied from one project to another. The video window can be positioned at the top and sides or hidden completely using the buttons at the top right of the menu bar. Next to it is the slider for setting the size of the text boxes. Of course, the tool can also be used for text only, without loading a video. The frame rate of the video is recognised automatically. The length and timecode are displayed in hours, minutes and seconds at the top right.

To ensure that the video runs synchronised with the timecodes in the text blocks, the context play button next to the speaker symbol must now be activated.

Text

Before the first text block appears, there is a music intro of 8 seconds. So I write “Music intro” in the first text box and mark the text with a yellow background for the sake of clarity. The text colour, background colour, font and text style can be set via the menu bar. As you can export the project as a PDF, Word or Open Office document for the speaker at the end, you have the option of creating a certain clarity. There is also a comment box for each text module, although this is not visible in the PDF output. I put a scene description in this box, as I want to use this information later to adapt the trailer to the text. The tool is also ideal for this.

Next, I enter the length of 8 seconds in the corresponding field. Then I write “Music” in the category field at the bottom. The categories are saved in the project and can then be selected directly using the arrow button.

With the plus symbol on the right under the text frame, I now create another 5 text modules. As they all still have a length of zero, the new boxes now contain an initial time code of 8 seconds. Now I could start writing texts. But instead I will paste my already prepared text blocks into the frames. The green bars at the front immediately turn red, and the estimated lengths of the copied voiceover texts appear below the text frames. I can then enter these in the corresponding field. The bar then turns green again. If the length is only just under the assumed speaker text length, it turns orange, signalling that the speaker needs to speak a little faster here.

Unfortunately, the coloured bars are not transferred to the exported text documents.
After I have copied in all the texts and adjusted the lengths, I now start the film with the keyboard command Ctrl-Space. This somewhat strange-looking key combination is necessary because, while the film is running, I want to use the Tab key and the arrow keys to jump to different fields and adjust the values or texts there. This works surprisingly well. The active text module is always highlighted in dark grey, and if I use the arrow keys to jump up and down between the fields, the video player also follows with astonishing performance in fractions of a second. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 to jump to the beginning of the text module with the corresponding preroll seconds.

Ripple Edit

But now we come to the actual purpose of the software. For example, if I want to place the vehicle descriptions in text modules 5 and 6 after the first one, I click on the up/down arrow symbol for both and then click on the plus symbol where I want them to be – i.e. under text module 1. All timecodes are updated immediately. With the minus symbol I can delete one or more blocks and with Ctrl Z I can of course undo the last steps. In this way, I can adapt the text blocks to a changed cut version or, as in my case, adjust the cut to the text using the time codes.

Optimisation suggestions

It would save a lot of time if there was a menu tick that automatically enters the estimated length of the texts in the corresponding field. A keyboard command that creates a new text module at the current timecode of the film would also be desirable. With this feature, the tool would also be well suited for transcribing interviews. And, of course, the option of shuttling through the film using keyboard commands – perhaps simply the standard JKL control in conjunction with the Ctrl key? Otherwise you would write JKL in the text box.

Free version

With the free version, you can open all projects, change texts and comments, but you cannot create a new project, insert text modules or change time codes. But you do have the advantage of linking text and images.

Prices and licences

The current trial version can be used without restriction until 15 July. After that there is a subscription model, which can be found on the website. At the moment it says 90 euros for an annual licence. This may seem expensive, but you have to consider how many hours of work have gone into this tool and how many hours of work you can save by using it. Anyone who has ever had to adapt the time codes and the sequence in the text for a film that has been edited will agree with me. Anyone who has to deal with voiceover texts should use the time to try out the tool at their leisure.

The post Binwees – a non-linear text editor first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Nils Calles.