SPONSORED BY: SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION

SPECIAL REPORT:
VISUALISATION
FOR DESIGN &
ENGINEERING
SPONSORED BY:
PHOTO CREDIT: SKULLCANDY

INCLUDING:

ANATOMY OF A INSIDE SKULLCANDY LEARN FROM THE THE FUTURE OF

SCENE: WHAT’S DESIGN: HOW VIZ PROS: TIPS AND TRICKS VISUALISATION:
NEEDED TO ACHIEVE IS CENTRAL TO ITS FROM DESIGN VIZ WHAT’S COMING NEXT
TRUE REALISM PROCESS SPECIALISTS IN IMMERSIVE VR
SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION - DEVELOP3D.COM - JUNE 2015 V1
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Integration,
application,
configuration.

lightworks iray+ brings world- Iray+ can be integrated into all

class visualisation to companies
working across design, manufacture
and entertainment. More than just
an image creation tool, Iray+ can be
used to easily change and review
materials, lighting and designs in
real-world environments; combine
interactivity, photorealism and
physically based rendering with this
comprehensive visualisation tool.
workflows or used to create
end-user applications; we
created Iray+ for 3ds Max
using our Iray+ SDK.
For more information on how we
can help you integrate Iray+ into
your workflow, create an end-user
design application or build a custom
configurator, contact us today.

for iray+ sdk

www.lightworks-iray.com

for iray+ services

www.lightworkdesign.com iray@lightworkdesign.com | 0114 266 8404
V2 JUNE 2015 - DEVELOP3D.COM - SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION
SPONSORED BY: SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION

RENDER MONKEYS UNITE!

W
04 MARKET ROUND UP: WHAT’S HOT?
You’ve nailed your 3D product model. Now you want to show it off
— to your boss, your team, your clients. But where next? We look at
the rendering market today.
06 RENDERING HARDWARE
DEVELOP3D’s hardware guru, Greg Corke, looks at what’s happening
in rendering hardware to help you get from idea to final images in
the quickest time possible.
08 BACK TO BASICS: ANATOMY OF A RENDER
Photorealism is a curious beast. Part science, part art, part black
magic. We highlight some of the key factors and options that give
you truly stunning imagery.
10 MATERIALS: THE NEXT FRONTIER
Dave Coldron of Lightworks walks us through some of the advances
in materials development for physically-based rendering systems,
including Iray+.
14 VISUALISATION & VIRTUAL REALITY
With Virtual Reality rising from the technology grave, are those of
us in the professional space missing a trick for a more immersive
experience of our visualisation assets?
18 INSIDE SKULLCANDY
We talk to the advanced concept design team at audio equipment
leader, Skullcandy, about how it uses visualisation throughout its
development process and into all areas of its business.
22 MINDOVEREYE & INFINITI
MindOverEye’s Director of VFX, Sean Hooper, walks us through a
recent project for Infiniti that saw the team bring its knowledge to
combine the real and the digital.
24 TECHNICAL DETAILS: TECHNOMOT
Large-bore, heavy-duty engine development consultancy,
Technomot, talks about how visualisation has become central to
many of its working practices: it’s not just about a pretty picture.
hen we started DEVELOP3D, back in 2008, we asked our nascent
community about how they used visualisation. Even then the
answer surprised us. Rendering and photorealistic visualisation
had spread way beyond the traditional stamping grounds of
industrial design and automotive styling and had truly started to become
part of mainstream design and engineering.
Now, seven years later the market has changed. We’ve seen the rise of
the physically-based and progressive renderer, which offers a ‘point and
click’ approach to rendering by accurately simulating materials and lights.
This has been driven by both smart software developers and the wealth of
computation hardware that is now readily available.
Physically-based rendering takes much of the pain out of rendering setup.
You load up a high-fidelity 3D CAD model, add materials, throw in a HDR
image as a lighting source, and almost immediately see the end result. It’s
incredibly empowering for designers and engineers and has meant that
rendering is now more deeply embedded within the product development
process than ever before.
Now, we’re on the cusp of another sea-change. The physically-based
renderer is evolving. The cloud (as well as specialist computation devices)
has the potential to further accelerate computation. New technologies are
coming on stream that allow us to have more accurate materials.
This report looks at where design visualisation is at, as well as exploring
what will be happening in the near future. We also talk to a number of
organisations that are using visualisation techniques in interesting ways —
from communicating manufacturing requirements on large bore engines, to
mixing it with real world footage (and wild animals) for the advertising world.
We also talk to the designers at one of the world’s leaders in audio
equipment about how rendering has become
vital to almost every area of its business
operations.
Enjoy reading!

26 VISUALISATION CHALLENGES & POTENTIAL

We talk to four leaders in the visualisation sector about the barriers
to mainstream adoption and where they think the industry is
heading next.

28 THE FUTURE OF DESIGN VIZ

Al Dean dusts off the crystal ball and takes a peep into the future
of visualisation. With rapidly advancing computation technology,
mobile devices and the cloud, what does it hold?

Al Dean
Editor-in-Chief
DEVELOP3D Magazine
@alistardean

© 2015 X3DMedia Ltd

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RENDERING
MARKET OVERVIEW
You’ve nailed your 3D product model. Now you want to show it off — to your boss,
your team, your clients. But where next? We look at the rendering market today

» There are more options than ever before » Materials are easier to define » Physically based renderers dominate
» Most 3D design tools include rendering » Unless you go cloud, you need horsepower » Workflow is everything for the non expert

THE BASICS : Rendering has come a long
way, baby. Ten years ago, it was seen as the
sole preserve of the industrial design and
automotive crowd. Expert driven, it was an
arcane and mystical process to take the raw
geometry from a 3D design system and
create photorealistic images and animations.
Today, the reality could not be further
from this. Many in traditional design and
engineering have adopted visualisation as
a means of communicating their product’s
form and function. Whether for design
review, for pre-manufacture marketing or
sales promotion.
THE OPTIONS : Whether you’re looking to
keep your rendering inside your CAD system
with an integrated solution or to spin things
out to a separate system that allows you to
farm out the work and the computation,
there are many options.
The rise of the physically-based renderer
has meant that we’re now used to a more
drag and drop approach to material
definition. HDR images are making lighting
much easier. That said, there are tips and
tricks to taking your imagery to the next level
and these apply to the majority of systems
and tools available.
THE FUTURE : The increase in core count
on both your CPU and GPU (for the growing
number of renderers that support GPUs)
is going to make rendering more and
more efficient. For those that don’t want to
invest in hardware or have extremely heavy
computational requirements, the cloud is
also set play an increasingly important role.
There are also plenty of new developments
in materials definition, in the portability
of materials between systems, in low cost
immersive VR with consumer headsets
and much more. The future of design
visualisation has never looked so exciting.

3D CAD integrated Standalone renderers Plug-in render engines

Rendering has been part of most 3D design and
engineering systems for a good few years. We can’t
think of a vendor that doesn’t offer anything at all.
While some are kept bang up to date, others lag
behind (often the vendor’s fault rather than the
rendering engine per se).
What you gain in data associativity, you often lose
in an overly complex workflow to set-up the scene,
materials and lighting — but many of the CAD
integrated systems are getting better.
With the rise of the CAD-integrated rendering
system, the standalone renderer looked like it was on
its last legs. Then KeyShot (or before it, HyperShot)
came onto the market and it all changed. This
revitalised an industry segment and many saw the
attraction of separating 3D CAD from rendering.
Combine that with today’s prevalence of physically-
based renderers, better data associativity with many
of the leading CAD tools and you have a market that
continues to grow.
The use of general purpose rendering and animation
systems — such as 3ds Max, Maya and Modo — in the
design and engineering world saw many rendering
software developers plug their render engines into
these systems. The benefits to the end user typically
include greater material control, easier workflows or
simply better results.
While there aren’t too many plug-ins for mainstream
design and engineering systems, there are a few
(Maxwell for SolidWorks being one example).

Pros: Instant data associativity (as you’re working
on native geometry design change updates are free).
Pros vs Cons
Cons: Biggest downside is that rendering often ties up
your workstation while calculating.
Pros: An interface that’s built for visualisation, not
Pros: You can choose the renderer that best suits your
design and engineering. More efficient workflows.
requirements and use the toolset you’re used to.
Cons: It’s a separate licence cost and learning curve.
Cons: Separate licence cost. More learning required.
Workflow better with some CAD tools more than others.

Almost every 3D CAD vendor includes some form of
Vendors
rendering tool, often part of a premium bundling.
Luxion KeyShot, Bunkspeed HyperShot, Autodesk Chaos Group V-RAY, V-RAY RT. Next Limit Maxwell,
Showcase, VRED, 3ds Max, Optis Theia-RT, Cinema4D, OTOY Octane, Nvidia Iray, Lightworks Iray+,
Blender, RTT Deltagen, Mental Ray. AMD FireRender.

V4 JUNE 2015 - DEVELOP3D.COM - SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION

 SPONSORED BY:
KEYSHOT 6: SNEAK PEEK AT WHAT’S
IN STORE FOR THE NEXT RELEASE
L H
uxion is releasing details of its
up coming KeyShot 6 release.
Due for launch just as this
report goes to press, KeyShot 6 looks
to bring a wide range of updates, new
tools and more functionality.
It looks like the heavy focus is on
building out the capabilities to develop
more complex materials, specifically
with new tools to build up layered
materials using a node-based editor.
Elsewhere on the materials front,
labels looks to get a boost with the
ability to apply materials over labels.
Finally for materials, you’ll be able
to add animation characteristics to
materials as well.
When it comes to geometry
wrangling, there looks to be a new
set of tools to help split up geometry
into different portions, saving you
Real-time renderers
The real-time renderer often combines elements of
other system types we’ve discussed, but does some
clever things to assist with performance and removing
the need to calculate each scene.
Both Showcase and VRED from Autodesk let you bake
textures, shadows and lighting conditions into your
scene, then manipulate on screen. This is perfect
for high-quality display systems in a design review
environment.
Pros: Lightning fast display (once you’ve done the
heavy computation).
Cons: Experimentation with materials is limited
without a recompute.
Autodesk Showcase and Autodesk VRED.
having to do the work in your 3D
design system before moving to the
rendering stage.
The new interior lighting mode
will be a boon for those working at
the architectural scale looking to take
advantage of HDRi environments but
focussing on interior shots. There’s
also been some work done to support
other architectural workflows, such
as a new Len Shift control as well
as panorama animation from the
camera.
Finally (and we’re sure there’s more
to come), you’ve now got the ability to
perform a region render. Rather than
computing an entire frame, you’ll be
able to select a region from the UI
and have the system focus all of its
computation power on that area.
■ keyshot.com
Cloud & Web-based Renderers
You’ve always been able to hook your renderer up to a
local cluster - now the cloud gives you the same ability
without the heavy investment costs. We’ve yet to see
too much action on the cloud-based rendering front,
but it’s coming.
Lagoa made a big splash, then went quiet. Autodesk
has implemented it across much of its portfolio and
others should follow. If they don’t, there’s always third
party render farms for the big projects.
Pros: Quicker calculation of heavy projects.
Cons: Cost per frame could quickly rack up.
Lagoa, Autodesk, OTOY Octane + many third party
render farms will give you many of the benefits.
SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION - DEVELOP3D.COM - JUNE 2015 V5
SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION
HDR LIGHT STUDIO 5: MORE
POWER, MORE FLEXIBILITY
DR image-based lighting has revolutionised
the rendering world, giving us realistic
and controllable lighting conditions in a
snap. For those that want to push things further,
Lightmap’s HDR Light Studio gives you all the tools
you need to adapt stock images, create lighting
environments from scratch and to dial in those
highlights and reflections.
The 5.0 release brings a new full screen UI,
integrated live previews of both the standard preview
and your own models and much more. You can also
adapt lighting in the UI without having to re-render
the whole scene. There’s also been work done on
handling presets, making them more flexible and
much easier to both create and reuse.
There are integrations to all the usual suspects, such
as 3ds Max, Maya, Rhino, VRED and Modo, giving
you much tighter control over your workflow. Failing
that, more systems than ever are adding HDR image
support, which gives you an extra level of control.
■ lightmap.co.uk
OCTANEVR - OTOY LAUNCHES
VR APP & COMPETITION
O
toy, developer of the Octane rendering engine,
has launched OctaneVR, specially developed to
help create assets for today’s growing range of VR
headsets. rfix, the oldest UK manufacturer of scale plastic
model kits, has been using reality capture for the first time
in the development of key models in the 2015 range.
The company celebrated the launch by announcing
a competition with more $75,000 of prizes for the
best rendering use of its technology. Judges for
the competition include Oculus CTO and games
development legend, John Carmack.
■ otoy.com
SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION SPONSORED BY:

RENDERING HARDFrom laptop to desktop, render node to render farm, Greg Corke
gives a back to basics guide to buying hardware for rendering

» Rendering loves CPU cores. More = better » For workstations GHz is also important » Intel Hyper-threading boosts performance
» Desktop workstations go up to 72 cores » ECC memory protects against crashes » Distributed rendering for fastest results

THE BASICS : Rendering absolutely
hammers the processor so the CPU is
arguably the most important component
when choosing rendering hardware.
Each CPU features multiple processors
(called cores). The more cores you have,
the faster the render. As a rule of thumb,
doubling the number of cores halves the
rendering time.
The GHz of the CPU is also important.
To get a rough idea of comparative
performance of chips from the same family
of CPUs, multiply the GHz by the number
of cores. However, when choosing a CPU
for a workstation, don’t forget a high GHz
processor is essential for general system
performance (Operating System, CAD and
3D graphics). Therefore, it is important to
find the right balance i.e. do not choose a
CPU with lots of cores but a very low GHz.
Most (but not all) workstation-class CPUs
feature Intel Hyper-threading (HT), a virtual
core technology that turns each physical CPU
core into two virtual cores. So a quad core
processor with HT actually has eight virtual
cores (or threads). HT can boost rendering
performance by up to 15% so it’s an important
consideration when choosing a CPU.
Memory is also critical. Go for ECC
memory to protect against crashes (you don’t
want your overnight renders to fail). N.B. ECC
is only available on Intel Xeon, not Intel Core.
Adding more GB won’t make your render
go faster. Instead, just ensure you have
enough to handle complex scenes. If you
run out of memory, rendering data will need
to be moved in and out of hard drive swap
space, which can be slow. Use fast Solid State
Drives (SSDs) to move data quickly.
The GPU is only used for interactive
3D graphics in most rendering software.
However, a growing number can use the
GPU for rendering (e.g. V-Ray RT, Nvidia Iray,
Lightworks Iray+ and AMD FireRender).
THE OPTIONS : You can render on pretty
much any type of laptop or desktop computer
but choose a workstation-class machine as
the components and cooling are designed
specifically for compute intensive workloads.
Laptops typically peak at 4 CPU cores and
32GB RAM so are best suited to entry-level
rendering.
Those serious about rendering will need a
desktop workstation. These come with one or
two CPUs, each with multiple CPU cores.
Single CPU workstations feature anywhere
from 2 to 18 cores and up to 256GB RAM.
Dual CPU workstations have anywhere
from 8 to 36 cores and up to 1TB RAM.
For hardcore users, distributed rendering
takes rendering to a whole new level. It
shares render jobs across multiple networked
computers. This can be an ad hoc network
of workstations or a dedicated render farm
with 10s or 100s of render nodes, each with
dozens of CPU cores.

WAYS Mobile workstations Single CPU desktop workstations Dual CPU desktop workstations

TO
Mobile workstations are fine for occasional renders,
but if you hammer your machine for hours a day you
will probably be better served by a desktop.
Most machines feature mobile CPUs — Intel Core i5 or
Core i7 with 2 or 4 cores. Some support Intel Hyper-
threading, others do not, so read the specs carefully.
Eurocom does specialist laptops with desktop Intel
Single processor workstations come with a massive
choice of CPUs from 2 to 18 cores, but most machines
only go up to 8. These include the Intel Core i5 and
Core i7 (which are also found in desktop PCs) as well
as the more workstation-focused Intel Xeon.
Unlike the Tier One workstation manufacturers some
of the smaller specialist firms overclock their Core i7
chips. CPUs with up to 8 cores run at a clocks speeds
With support for up to 36 cores (72 threads) in total
and buckets of RAM, dual processor workstations are
for those who take their design visualisation seriously.
Everything centres on the Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3
series CPUs, but don’t get obsessed with maxing out
the cores. The top-end 18 core Xeon chip only runs
at 2.30 GHz whereas the 10, 12, or 14 core chips go
significantly higher, which is important for general

RENDER
Xeon CPUs (up to 12 cores), but these hefty machines up to 4.5GHz. This can be a compelling combination system performance. The high-end chips are also
are not particularly mobile. for design viz with performance to rival some entry- eye wateringly expensive so check out some of the
level to mid range dual CPU machines. lower end models and find a happy medium.

(Entry) Intel Core i7 4790K (4C) (overclocked to 4.4GHz)

(Entry) Intel Core i7 4710MQ (4C) (2.5GHz-3.5GHz)
Recommended
(Mid-range) Intel Core i7 4910MQ (4C) (2.9GHz-3.9GHz)
components
(High-end) Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 (12C) (2.7GHz-3.5GHz)
(Entry) Intel Xeon E5-2640 v3 (8C) (2.6GHz-3.4GHz)
(Mid-range) Intel Xeon E5-1680 v3 (8C) (3.2GHz-3.8GHz)
(Mid-range) Intel Xeon E5-2687W v3 (10C) (3.1GHz-3.5GHz)
or Intel Core i7 5960X (8C) (overclocked to 4.2GHz)
(High-end) Intel Xeon E5-2697 v3 (14C) (2.6GHz-3.6GHz)
(High-end) Xeon E5-2697 v3 (14C) (2.6GHz-3.6GHz)

Lenovo ThinkStation P500, Dell Precision T5810, HP Z440, Dell Precision T7810 & T7910, HP Z640 & Z840,
HP ZBook 15, HP ZBook 17, Dell Precision M4800,
Recommended Fujitsu Celsius M740, Workstation Specialists WS-X180, Lenovo ThinkStation P700 & P900, Fujitsu CELSIUS
Dell Precision M6800, Lenovo ThinkPad W541,
machines Scan 3XS GW-HT10 and 3XS GW-HT20, R940, Armari Magnetar X36H-AW1275H4, Workstation
Fujitsu CELSIUS H730, EUROCOM Panther 5D. Specialists WS-E2180, InterPro E200HWE.
Overclockers RENDA M-H7F, BOXX APEXX 2 3402.

V6 JUNE 2015 - DEVELOP3D.COM - SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION

 SPONSORED BY: SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION

DWARE GPU RENDERING

AN ALTERNATIVE TO CPUs

Most renderers rely on the CPU to do the number crunching.

RENDERING PERFORMANCE While this is unlikely to change any time soon, momentum is

HOW DIFFERENT PROCESSORS STACK UP
Time taken to render scene in 3ds Max in a variety of desktop and mobile workstations tested in
DEVELOP3D from 2012 to 2015. Comparisons are of workstations and on different releases of
3ds Max, but should give a good indication of relative performance of CPUs.
Read the full reviews at develop3d.com/workstations
54 2 x Xeon E5-2698 v3 (16C, 32T) (2.3GHz-3.6GHz) InterPro E200HWE Oct-14
65 2 x Xeon E5-2667 v3 (8C, 16T) (3.2GHz-3.6GHz) HP Z620 Jan-15
66 2 x Xeon E5-2687W v3 (10C, 20T) (3.1GHz-3.5GHz) Lenovo Thinkstation P900 Feb-15
79 2 x Xeon E5-2687W (8C, 16T) (3.1GHz-3.8GHz) Dell Precision T7600 Oct-12
108 2 x Xeon E5-2667 (6C, 12T) (2.9GHz-3.5GHz) HP Z820 Jul-13
111 Core i7 5960X (8C, 16T) (overclocked 4.2GHz) Scan 3XS GW-HT20 Feb-15
129 2 x Xeon E5-2640 (6C, 12T) (2.5GHz-3.0GHz) Lenovo ThinkStation C30 Jan-13
148 Core i7 3930K (6C, 12T) (overclocked 4.4GHz) Scan 3XS Feb-12
214 Core i7-3720QM (4C, 8T) (2.6GHz-3.6GHz) Lenovo ThinkPad W530 May-13
growing for physically-based rendering technologies that use the
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) instead of the CPU.
Not surprisingly, most of the developments in this space are being
driven by the GPU manufacturers: Nvidia and AMD.
By the end of the year Nvidia Iray or Iray+ (developed by Lightworks)
will be available for a broad range of applications including: Catia,
SolidWorks Industrial Designer, Bunkspeed Shot, Maya, 3ds Max, Rhino,
Cinema 4D, and Siemens NX.
The progressive rendering technology uses Nvidia CUDA and runs on
Nvidia GPUs (Quadro, GeForce or Tesla). It scales well across multiple
CPUs (the more CUDA cores, the better). High-end workstations typically
host up to three high-end Nvidia GPUs.
Iray can be distributed across networked machines using Iray Server.
A number of hardware manufacturers make rackmounted GPU servers
which can be turned into GPU render farms. Nvidia has its own GPU render
farm — the Quadro Visual Computing Appliance (VCA) — that features eight
high-end Quadro GPUs. Multiple VCAs can be combined together.
Meanwhile, AMD FireRender is a new GPU renderer optimised for AMD
FirePro cards (although it can run on most GPUs and CPUs as it uses the
OpenCL platform). It is currently in alpha stage of development. Initial
integration will be for 3ds Max with other applications to follow.
AMD FirePro Ultra Workstations feature up to four high-end FirePro
GPUs. AMD FirePro S-Series GPUs are found in a wide range of rackmount
servers, blade servers and PCIe expansion chassis from vendors including
HP, Tyan, Supermicro, Asus and Gigabyte.
■ nvidia.com/iray ■ lightworks-iray.com ■ fireprographics.com

215 Core i5 4670K (4C, 4T) (overlocked 4.2GHz) Scan 3XS GW-MT15 Jul-13

233 Xeon E5-1630 v3 (4C, 8T) (3.7GHz-3.8GHz) Lenovo ThinkStation P500 Feb-15

244 Core i7-4800MQ (4C, 8T) (2.7GHz-3.7GHz) Dell Precision M6800 Mar-14

299 Core i7 4702HQ (4C, 8T) (2.2GHz-3.2GHz) Dell Precision M3800 Mar-14

309 Core i5-4570 (4C, 4T) (3.2GHz-3.6GHz) Fujitsu Celsius W530 Dec-13

316 Xeon E3-1225v2 (4C, 4T) (3.2GHz-3.6GHz) HP Z220 Jan-13

551 Core i7 4600U (2C, 4T) (2.1GHz-3.3GHz) HP ZBook 14 Mar-14

Supermicro GPU workstation

RENDER IN THE CLOUD

Distributed / network rendering
Rendering is computationally intensive and it can take
hours to render a scene on a single machine. Distributed
rendering can help get results back faster by sharing
rendering jobs with multiple machines on a network.
Typically, users submit jobs to a ‘master’, which
breaks up the rendering job into portions and sends
each part to ‘slaves’ on the network to be processed.
Distributed rendering is often done out of hours,
when machines are sat idle, but ‘slaves’ can also be
configured for ‘low priority’ so they remain responsive
to the end user. It is best suited to large jobs.
Network rendering requires specialist software to
manage the render jobs. It is only available for certain
renderers. You will also need a fast network.
Examples of apps that support network rendering:
Luxion KeyShot; Autodesk 3ds Max (Backburner);
The Foundry Modo; Chaos Group V-Ray; SolidWorks
PhotoView 360, Maxwell Render, Cinema 4D.
Render farms / clusters
Render farms are typically for firms that are serious
about rendering. They consist of a dedicated
cluster of networked computers designed for the
sole purpose of rendering complex scenes. Each
computer in the render farm is called a node and
there can be hundreds of nodes.
Render farms are typically built from rackmounted
servers or desktop ‘towers’. Workstation Specialists
and BOXX also offer small form factor deskside
render nodes that sit on top of a workstation.
Multiple units can be stacked on top of each other.
(Entry) 1 deskside render node (2 x Intel Xeon)
(Mid-range) Rack servers. 8 nodes total (16 x Intel Xeon)
(High-end) Rack servers. 32 nodes total (64 x Intel Xeon)
Render node manufacturers:
BOXX, Workstation Specialists, Fujitsu, Dell, HP,
InterPro, Lenovo, Boston, Armari, SuperMicro, Tyan,
Asus, Gigabyte.
With cloud rendering you don’t have to pay for expensive
rendering hardware up front. You simply rent time on a render farm
in the cloud. The pay-per-use model suits firms that only render
occasionally or whose rendering demands are huge or come in peaks
and troughs (i.e. when project deadlines are looming).
Cloud rendering services typically have 1,000s of CPU cores behind
them so can be very quick. This makes them particularly attractive
for rendering multi-frame animations. A fast Internet connection is a
must as uploading rendering assets to the cloud can take time. Some
services allow you to store assets permanently in the cloud so you
don’t need to re-upload materials every time you submit a render.
Jobs can be submitted directly from the app (with a plug-in) FTP or
via a file sharing service like dropbox.
There are a whole host of cloud rendering services available. For
CAD, the best known is probably Cloud Rendering in Autodesk A360,
which works with a variety of Autodesk products.
There are plenty to choose from for V-Ray, Maxwell, mental ray,
Cinema 4D and 3ds Max, while KeyShot users have 3d-off-the-page
(3dotp.com). There are also a handful of GPU-accelerated cloud
render services for Iray. rentrender.com has a comprehensive list.
Cloud rendering is unlikely to spell the end for rendering on
workstations any time soon, but there is a trend to make the transition
more seamless. Fujitsu, for example, is in the process of introducing a
‘burst out’ capability for its workstation customers that will give them
access to High Performance Computing (HPC) hardware on demand.

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ANATOMY OF A
RENDER
Photorealism is readily achievable with most software solutions.
All it needs is an understanding of the core components

HDRI
High Dynamic Range images
(HDRi) capture a greater
spectrum of light than standard
images — enabling the intensity
of that light to be reused in
rendering. They’ll also give you
excellent starting points for
adding context. They’re widely
available from a variety of
sources too.

DEPTH OF REFLECTIONS SHADOWS

FIELD
Depth of Field is a long used
photography method of focusing
on the details you want to
highlight. Out of focus items
that appear blurred also add an
extra layer of realism.
& HIGHLIGHTS
One of the advantages of using
High Dynamic Range images as the
lighting and environment source for
your scenes is that you’ll get realistic
reflections that match your lighting
conditions, for free.
MAKE IT
The combination of lighting and
the resultant shadows can make
or break a rendering. Getting the
lighting right creates the correct
shadows and the two stitch the
whole thing together nicely.

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EMISSIVE
MATERIALS
Given today’s wealth of electronic
components, emissive materials
are one of the key factors in getting
your renders correct. Rather than
trying to bodge a light in place, these
give you greater control over form,
strength/luminance and
colour as they are applied
to geometry directly.

BLOOM
Often found in your render
settings, bloom produces
fringes of light extending from
the borders of bright areas in
an image, contributing to the
illusion of an extremely bright
light overwhelming the camera
or eye capturing the scene.

DECALS & SHARP EDGE

LABELS ROUNDING
While materials and textures A lot of renderers now give you
give your parts their holistic a sharp edge rounding option.
look, decals and labels are the This will soften hard edges
method of adding those extra to make them appear more
details that really make your realistic as they mimic how light
image pop and add context. bounces off these forms in the
real world.

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Ford Focus interior created using

the physically based real-world
materials available in Iray+

MATERIAL GAINS
Dave Coldron of Lightworks presents the latest trends in materials and
shaders for physically-based renderers, including Iray+

P
hysically-based rendering is a hot
topic in product development.
Unlike the biased renderers used
for Hollywood special effects,
physically-based renderers are very easy to
use. This makes them perfect for designers
and engineers who want a simple way to
accurately visualise how a product will look
in the real world.
Materials play a critical role. The big
advantage is that, as you can define them to
be physically accurate, there’s no eyeballing,
there’s no fiddling with controls. You create
a material, say brushed aluminium, and, as
long as it is set-up correctly, you don’t have to
edit it at all, unless you want a very specific
effect, such as an oxidisation layer on top.
In many cases the manufacturers of the
physical materials also produce accurate
rendering materials for designers to use.
So rather than trying to make your own steel
material, you specify the type of material
you’re using, then download it off the
manufacturer’s website — or at least the
data you’d need to create it.
MEASURED MATERIALS
The interesting thing here is that it can
extend beyond the visual properties of
the material. You can encode all kinds of
information into the material that CAD
and PLM systems can reuse, such as tensile
strength — all those non-optical properties.
You can also link it to finishing processes
in the manufacturing stage so you could
start with an aluminium with measured
data, then specify the brushed finish, a clear
coat — and represent that in the material
as both an instruction to manufacturing as
well as visualisation. It’s an interesting area,
but it’s one that’s not been addressed yet.
I do think this will happen, but it needs
to be driven by two sides. The first is that
the manufacturer has to be willing to give
out that data. The second, is that the CAD
systems need to support it by being able to
read these descriptions.
In Nvidia’s Iray and our own physically-
based rendering technology, Iray+ (which is
built on Nvidia’s Iray) you’ve got materials
that can represent the whole of the lighting
equation in terms of properties. You can
encode and create a material that looks
exactly like it would in the real world.
The other approach is to measure the
materials. Companies like X-rite, which
produce huge machines that cost more than

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SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION - DEVELOP3D.COM - JUNE 2015 V11
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a semi detached house in Sheffield,

measure the optical properties in full.
You can then take that data and use it
to generate your materials.
It’s an area we’re exploring at
Lightworks as it gives you a highly
accurate representation of reflectance
properties so there’s absolutely no
need for you to change the material
at all.
The downside is that there is no
standard at the moment for encoding
that data, so each company that has
a measurement machine to sell will
have a proprietary format. They
don’t see it being in their interest to
have a standard, as the data would be
interchangeable between systems and
they’d lose their exclusivity.
Iray+ can take data from X-rite 1
and represent it to give you a superb
representation. At present there are
not many people using this method.
They are mostly car manufacturers
and they’ll use this for automotive
interiors, so they can see exactly how
much light is reflected inside the
vehicle. They’ll also use it for paint
finishes so they have that absolute
representation for design review.

THE INEVITABLE CAVEATS

There are some caveats to these
technologies. The measurement
machines are prone to errors. They
measure the materials in a 180
degree arc, they shine a light on it,
and measure the light reflected at
each angle in that arc. The problem
is that when you get to very shallow
angles (one or two degrees) or at 90
2
degrees, you may get errors, and have
to correct the recorded values. None of reflectance characteristics. So you for material creation. ●1 Measured material -

of that has been standardised yet, but
it’s going to be a big growth area.
To create an easy to use API in Iray+
we’ve added a layer on top of the Iray
API and simplified a lot of standard
things you need to make integration
easy for software vendors.
The other big area is how materials
are defined. We use MDL (Material
Definition Language) from Nvidia.
It is open and it’s an abstraction
layer, so you define the material and
the graphic system interprets it how
it needs to — the idea being that
you could use it in any system that
supported it.
A number of key applications have
already provided support for MDL
and I think others will follow.
At Lightworks we’ve taken a novel
approach to material editing. We
have created a set of components that
are standard and reusable blobs of
MDL that represent different types
can take a standard MDL component
to create a glossy surface, sub
surface scattering, a matt or steel for
instance.
To give this some context, generally
with graphics systems, developers
provide huge shaders requiring
an unwieldy interface, which has
everything, including the kitchen
sink.
The user simply ticks on the bit
he or she wants, say an anisotropic
reflection, where you get elongated
highlights (such as brushed metal)
and adds on some sub-surface
scattering.
For Iray+ we’ve made things
simple. You build up a material with
components, rather than picking
effects from a monolithic list. We’ve
defined our components in terms of
classes; geometry, base, coating and
surface. The idea is to present the
user with a real world mental model
To create a car paint material for
example, you might start off with a
metal surface, add an undercoat layer,
then a paint layer with perhaps some
flake, then a clear coat layer on top.
You can then go in and add
additional layers such as dust and dirt
if you want to. So, instead of getting
involved in huge shaders that use
arcane language, you’re actually just
building materials up as you would in
the real world.
With designers and engineers
primarily being in the business of
designing and engineering, we see
this as critical.
Visualisation should be a simple
process from start to finish and
by making it easy to work with
materials, physically-based
rendering can become even more
tightly integrated into the product
development workflow.
■ lightworks-iray.com
car paint - in Iray+
●2 The additional
Fresnel layer creates
the reflections in this
version
About the author: As
the Lightworks’ Product
Director, Dave has specific
responsibility for the
development of Iray+ and
its use in applications and
plug-ins. With over 20 years’
experience in developing
integrated systems for the
computer graphics industry
Dave knows how to create
applications that support the
design workflow; focusing on
the use of compelling digital
content, interactive design
and the user experience.

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DESIGN VIZ & VR/AR

THE NEXT FRONTIER?
Virtual Reality in the design and engineering realm has traditionally been seen as
the preserve of the large multinationals. Will today’s consumer VR devices bring it
to the masses in the professional space? Al Dean explores the potential

W
ith almost anyone
with even the most
cursory knowledge
of rendering and
visualisation able to
create high quality
images and animations, the barriers to
photorealism have broken down.
However, we’re still pretty much stuck
with same display technology that we
had back at the dawn of the computing
revolution. Yes, the CRT tubes have gone,
replaced with sleeker, larger and higher-res
LCD or LED displays, but we’re still seeing
everything in two dimensions. And that
kind of sucks.
Enter Virtual Reality. Those with
memories long enough will remember
the days when VR and immersive headsets
1
promised the world — Lawnmower Man,
anyone? It came and it went in the late 90s. And the costs are affordable. $300 will The process is far from simple. The data
VR has remained in the higher echelons get you a decent headset which then be from your CAD system is typically way
of the engineering sector, where OEMs in plugged into a high-powered graphics too heavy to be used, so there are a lot of
automotive and aerospace design use it for workstation. The problem is the design intermediary steps that need to be taken
advanced design review. After all, who else visualisation software isn’t quite there yet. that require skill and experience.
has quarter of a million quid to spend on a At present, we’ve only come across a
fully immersive CAVE with motion tracking VENDOR LAG IS THE BARRIER handful of vendors that are building a
and stereographic display units? As mainstream immersive display VR display capability directly into their
This is all changing now. Driven by the technology is so new, most design visualisation tools.
consumer market, specifically Web-based 3D model hosting
games and augmented reality  service, SketchFab (sketchfab.
(which combines 3D display The most important factor is that any com) recently introduced a display
with the real world), there mode that allows you to turn the
has been a huge resurgence technologies used have highly effective display into Oculus mode. Strap
of interest and activity in the and robust software that is seamlessly on a pair of goggles, add a suffix to
subject. embedded into the work flow practice to the URL and away you go.
Whether you take a look “What SketchFab offers is
at the new products from
improve accuracy and solve a business basically a virtual scene in
Microsoft (the HoloLens) problem. Stuart Hetherington, Holovis which you can put anything,
or the Oculus Rift (a start
up acquired by Facebook
 and this scene can be embedded
anywhere,” explains SketchFab’s
for a whopping $100 million) or Google’s visualisation software developers don’t CEO, Alban Denoyel. “We added a VR
Cardboard project, there is a lot of activity readily support it. mode so that every upload on SketchFab
around immersive display devices. So There are several ways to get your data can be consumed in VR, by simply walking
shouldn’t we be taking advantage of them? from your visualisation tools into a format through this web-hosted scene with a VR
The short answer is yes. There is huge ready for VR but many of them centre on device. Being able to visit them in VR adds
potential take these consumer focused exporting the data and using the games a tonne of value compared to simply playing
devices and use them to visualise your platform development tool, Unity, to create with it with your mouse on a web page.
product concepts in full, immersive 3D. the app to run. “We are now working on animation

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VR & AR: FOUR DEVICES THAT COULD CHANGE VISUALISATION

OCULUS RIFT: While they’re still at the
development stage, the Oculus VR headsets
are available and a development kit can be
picked up pretty reasonably at around 300
quid. Let’s see what happens post Facebook.
MICROSOFT HOLOLENS: Just announced,
but the HoloLens is already creating a
buzz. The idea that you could have OS level
integration of augmented reality along with
3D display is getting a lot of folks fired up.
GOOGLE CARDBOARD: Say whatever you
like about the company, Google does things
interestingly. The Cardboard project is an
ultra lost cost way to strap a smart phone to
your head and get immersive.
FIREFLY VR: There’s a range of devices that
turn your smartphone into a VR viewer (such
as the Google Cardboard to the left). The
FireFly VR device does the same — without
the cardboard

high-end rendering system, VRED, same way we do with our larger

gained Oculus support with the scale VR systems,” he says. “Having
2015 release and this has been said that, it doesn’t mean that there
improved on for the forthcoming isn’t a place for VR headsets in
2016 release. (Note: Only the Pro certain industries. These systems
variant supports Oculus). See the provide a highly cost effective and
box out below to see how to get it up easily portable approach to data
and running. visualisation when managed and
With both Oculus and Microsoft used in the right way.
HoloLens shipping official products “At the moment it is the
2 soon, application support is sure multinational corporations that are
to grow in the next 12 months, leading the way with investment
●1 Microsoft’s vision support to let you publish even possibly in the workhorse tools we and adoption of the larger-scale
for the HoloLens’ use more advanced VR scenes and use each day. However, just because immersive systems, however as
in the professional
experiments,” adds Denoyel. VR technology is set to hit the technology evolves, the challenges
space. Augmented
reality a go go SketchFab is integrated with a mainstream, it is important not to over scale, immersion and the
●2 SketchFab range of 3D creation tools including get ahead of ourselves. Using VR human factors will be resolved
introduced Oculus (3ds Max, Photoshop, Blender, 3D effectively in design and engineering to deliver viable solutions at
support recently. Add scanning applications and game is far more involved than simply an achievable price point. The
“/embed?oculus=2”
to the model’s URL to engines like Unity). According to viewing a design model with an most important factor is that any
switch it on Denoyel, this makes it one of the immersive headset. technologies used have highly
easiest and most straightforward Stuart Heatherington at one of effective and robust software that is
ways to publish VR content. the UK’s leading VR specialists, seamlessly embedded into the work
Autodesk is also investing in this HoloVis (holovis.com), offers a flow practice to improve accuracy
space. The company has a wealth little perspective, “With the re- and solve a business problem.
of knowledge in the game and CGI immergence of VR headsets, we “In all situations end users need
market and some of that is now don’t see these devices as giving the to look at the use cases and be clear
trickling down to its industrial- same flexibility in data manipulation about what they are trying to do and
focused applications. The company’s and group decision making in the what they want to achieve.”

WORKFLOW: GETTING OCULUS RIFT DK2 RUNNING IN VRED PRO

●1 While it’s still at the development stage, ●2 Once your hardware is set-up (it's a case ● 3 The next step is to set up VRED for the ●4 Strap the device on your head and marvel
the Oculus VR headsets are available and of plugging it in, and connecting a HDMI cable display. Get your scene ready, textured and at how simple that was. That’s probably 15
a development kit can be picked up pretty and USB lead to your machine), get your scene lit. Then find the Oculus VR setting from the grand’s worth of consulting 10 years ago. And
reasonably on ebay — it’s pretty plug and play. reading in VRED (you'll need the Pro version). View/Display/Oculus Rift menu option. you did it in minutes.

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CRUNCHING
SKULLS

The Skullcandy Grind

headphone with a low
profile, classic design

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Skullcandy is one of the market leaders in audio equipment.

Dave Vogt and Seth Richardson from the firm’s Advanced
Concept Design Studio share the secrets behind its viz process

A
t Skullcandy we work in such a fast paced
market, so 3D rendering and visualisation
is the only answer when it comes to
generating quick and accurate imagery for
new product launches, rotating colour-
ways, and custom SKUs.
Being able to prep and align all our departments, from
marketing to packaging to digital to retail, is key to a
successful product launch, and being able to produce
product visuals months before actually having physical
samples in hand is one of the keys to this alignment.
Working through product updates is also a massive
benefit of generating visuals on a digital platform.
Anyone in product development knows that last minute
changes (whether it be in engineering or manufacturing)
can sometimes completely change the accuracy of
previously generated visuals and assets.
If it’s new part geometry, or changing the
materialisation and finish of a component… being able to
open a 3D file and modify within minutes is a countless
time saver vs. any combination of photography or post
production modification.
Aside from static assets, 3D animation and motion
graphics adds another level of product and brand
representation that you just can’t physically do via
standard photography and videography.
Currently we use renders from top to bottom
throughout the company’s infrastructure. Our Industrial
Design team uses 3D visuals to pitch new concepts and
functionality, including but not limited to photorealistic
imagery, computer animations, and even motion
graphics. Our Mechanical Engineering team uses some
lightweight 3D rendering to help communicate design
issues with both the internal Product Development
team, as well as the factory and supplier teams. But then
it spreads out to other departments that aren’t directly
related to the product development process.
Our Creative team of graphic designers uses these
assets for all branding imagery for print, web, and
electronic distribution. Our Packaging team uses the
images on all retail boxes to showcase the product, as well
as educate the consumer on specific product features and
SKDY tech in each model.
When it comes to marketing, our images are used
on pretty much any advertisements we generate.
High-resolution generation is great for larger assets
like banners, billboards, or vinyl wraps on vehicles
and buildings. The same imagery is also used in the
Skullcandy web-store, as well as by online retailers and
resellers. The same can be said for social media and
these images are used for product promotion, as well as
education around new product launches or collaborations

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with industry partners. name for the product colour, then added to someone needs imagery. 
Finally, our rendered assets are used to help a pass group. By using pass groups we can This can be time consuming as needs are
our training team showcase new product then duplicate the original materials for always different for resolution and format.
to our in-store retail associates and product the next product variation and add it to a We pitch a lot of different combinations
reps all around the world and of course, used separate pass.  of physical product, combined with
on all point of purchase displays (POP) and The result is a very readable system. Even countless colours, patterns, graphics, and
video assets played on listening stations. if someone else opens the file they will easily materialisations.
be able to navigate it and figure out what Being able to quickly, and accurately, mock
GETTING THE JOB DONE they are doing. We will also start doing up the endless options helps us as a group
We use Modo for rendering and the starting UV mapping at this point for anything that narrow down the directions we want to pursue
point involves importing the CAD data into needs something more robust than standard in the product lineup. This significantly cuts
Modo. From there, clean-up is done to fix any mappings. down sampling time and development, and
problems with the CAD after conversion. In allows us to externally validate colour-way
most cases all soft areas such as ear pads, and RENDERING FOR DESIGN REVIEW development with test markets before we
any other cushions are remodelled by hand For review and initial presentation we use commit to physical products.
in Modo to give it an organic feeling that a preview render from Modo that takes
you just don’t get in CAD. We also add all seconds to get a good image for reviewing. CHALLENGES OF BIG PRODUCT RANGES
stitching by hand as well. This way, if there are any changes that need We have around 40 different products and
This gives us a lot of flexibility in getting to be made, no time was wasted rendering each product generally will have anywhere
the look we want from the fabric areas. out a full resolution image. from 3 to 5 views associated with it. For
Tension on the headband is also corrected. This allows us to dial in the exact view example, Crusher has 24 variations each
Generally the ear pads are touching when and look we want for each product quickly. requiring 5 views to be rendered for a total of
we receive the CAD and they receive a This is especially important for specialty 120 rendered shots.
4 degree bend in each direction to give views where creative has a vision and we are It’s not uncommon that we do final renders
clearance for the ear pads. working together to reach it. for a product and all its variations, only to
At this point once modelling is done, the have something change on the engineering
lighting is created, using a combination of RENDERING FOR DOWNSTREAM side and have to create a revision.
chrome and black plastic materials combined For packaging needs we render out all views Some products go through several revisions
with HDR Light Studio to get a lighting and colours for the specific product and do before we are happy with them. Grind for
setup. A custom colour checker has also been any corrections in post that are needed.  example was a product that went through
developed to ensure that the colours being These then get passed on to packaging many render revisions. For that product
rendered aren’t too bright or too dark, much as 16-bit TIFs in their high res formats. alone we have done probably 200 + renders.
like you would in photography. For a large part of our online assets and Everything from a CAD change, to a colour
After that we switch over to Illustrator and advertising, we use an internal system that change needs to be rendered over as we try to
grab our different product colour layouts and dynamically resizes images allowing for keep the render as true to life as possible.
start creating the textures needed for use in other departments to use them where they We also get requests from other
Modo. For the most part, this just entails need to. departments for specialty views that exist
grabbing images from the guide creative These are also sent to them as high res outside the standard views. We get those
made and saving them out as a PNG. 16-bit TIFs so that each department has high often for big product launches and flagship
From there, we create a base setup for the res imagery if needed. Having this system products. These specialty views can range
materials, look at all our colours for the on the backend greatly reduces the amount from close ups to detail shots of certain
product then start assigning materials to of work we have to do after rendering as we features we really want to showcase.
each part. This then gets grouped using a no longer have to hand deliver whenever ■ skullcandy.com ■ lightmap.com ■ thefoundry.co.uk

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PRO TIPS: KEEPING YOUR

VISUALISATION GAME STRONG
DAVE VOGT, MANAGER, ADVANCED CONCEPT DESIGN:
I keep things fresh by always building my own texture/spec/
bump map assets. Even if it’s something I can easily pull from
online libraries, it keeps my 2D skills sharp, and it allows for
easy adjustment and manipulation should you need it down
the road.
As far as tips and tricks go… always fillet every edge! No
matter how small, rounding every line helps with edge
definition and really pops parting lines and material transitions.
Especially in those tricky close up detail shots. Fillets!!


No matter how small, rounding
every line helps with edge definition
and really pops parting lines and
material transitions


SETH RICHARDSON, ADVANCED
CONCEPT DESIGN: For creating
photo-real images you need photo-
real assets. Whenever we get
samples in, whether it be leather
or fabric, I take it straight to our
high res scanner and use it as a
base image to create a high quality
tillable image map at 4k.
Another trick I use to make sure
my renders are as realistic as
possible is I will photograph the
product in a light tent then view
it on my system. This gives you a
much different look at what photo
real actually is. It lets you see
details you might miss looking at
something in your hand. Everything
from small imperfections to little
distortions on painted surfaces.
These are all important in a final
shot as they add up to creating
something that looks realistic.
Never use the same light setup
across products, each one is
unique and has areas that react to
light better (Chrome, for example).
You want to make your images pop
and catch the eye. A trick I like to
use for this if I am reusing an HDRi
asset is to create black strips of
geometry to block light, creating
the look I want on the reflections.
Do your research. What are the
physical values of a plastic material
what is its IOR (Index of Refraction),
what does its fresnel falloff look like?
These need to be recreated faithfully.
The benefit of software today is
you only have to do it once. Create
the material then save a preset for
it that you can simply use later in all
your projects. For all my materials
I look up every detail. All the way
down to each waveform for RGB to
ensure I am as accurate as possible.
Layering your materials is also
a huge part of photorealism. No
material is just simply a colour
with a reflection. They are often
composed of several layers.
Take a brushed steel as an
example. The imperfections
(brushing) in the metal creates a
wide blurry reflection that is often
stretched creating an anisotropic
effect. Then on top of that exists
another layer which gives sharper
reflections back, a clear coating.
Lastly, invest in a high quality
display. You also need to be sure
its colour calibrated. I calibrate
monthly in SRGB to ensure that the
colours I am viewing are as correct
as possible.
This is critical. If your monitor is
too dark or too bright you end up
adjusting based on what you see
which will give you a bad image
especially when someone views
it on a device that is correctly
displaying the render.

SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION - DEVELOP3D.COM - JUNE 2015 V21

SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION
MIND OVER MATTER
Sean Hooper of MindOverEye walks through the creation of a recent project
for Inifiniti that saw the ‘digital’ combined with the ‘real’ in order to tell the story
V
isualisation is one of the areas
that we specialise in here
at MindOverEye. When a
client has a product, whether
it’s a consumer electronic
or the latest automotive
offering from a manufacturer, we’re able
to visualise their pre-production data for
use in marketing and PR. This allows
the manufacturer to create a marketing
campaign prior to production models
coming off the line.
THE BRIEF FROM INFINITI
In the case of the Infiniti Beast Within,
Infiniti had a concept car they wanted to show
to the world in a story driven anthem piece.
The story begins with a couple returning
home in the dusk hours. After their Infiniti
Q50s is left for the night in the driveway,
the blood moon causes it to transform into
the Eau Rouge, a 560hp beast. The idea
is that in every Q50s lurks the Eau Rouge.
There was one hitch to the production, only
2 Eau Rouges existed in the world. Neither
of them could be used on set as one was
mechanically an Eau Rouge, but didn’t have
picture car finish, and the other had the
V22 JUNE 2015 - DEVELOP3D.COM - SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION
picture finish, but was inoperable. The only
way we could execute on the piece was to use
a CG Eau Rouge.
The process entails three different phases:
Pre-Production, Production and Post-
Production. Pre-Production consists of
the creative development, animatic, previs,
asset preparation and shoot planning/
preparation. Production encompasses the
shoot and capture of data from set needed
for the Post-Production phase. Lastly, Post-
Production includes the edit, sound, music,
VFX, colour and finishing.
#1: PRE-PRODUCTION
The Pre-Production phase began with the
initial concepts and a storyboard. Once the
creative was locked down with the client
approval, we moved forward with creating
an animatic; taking the storyboards and
sitting with an editor to determine the shot
length utilising just the images from the
storyboards.
Once the timing was approved and an
animatic was created we moved into Previs.
Previs, short for pre-visualisation, is the
process where dummy geometry is used
in 3D to block out animation and camera
SPONSORED BY:
moves for each shot. In effect it creates the
story, angles, timing and a roadmap for
the VFX department of the entire piece.
The resulting video from Previs was then
used as a shot board for production on
set, determining the live action camera
angles and number of shots needed at each
location for the live production team to
acquire.
During the Pre-Production phase our
Asset Preparation team went through the
Eau Rouge CAD data and corrected any
issues that would lead to less than perfect
renders. Any objects that had issues were re-
topologised, UV texture coordinates created
for parts with the carbon fibre texture and
V-Ray materials assigned to the vehicle.
Senior lighting artists use a standard
lighting rig to dial in the materials to
a photo real finish. By using V-Ray, a
physically accurate renderer, we can dial
in materials using a High Dynamic Range
Image (HDRi) of our Photo Studio.
In addition to the HDRi, we use physically
accurate V-Ray lights to mimic our onset
Keno Lights. This rig allows us to create the
practical photo studio lighting in 3ds max,
giving us a real life comparison in 3D.
SPONSORED BY:
#2: PRODUCTION
The next step in the process is the
Production. During the production a
mule car was used in place of the Eau
Rouge to achieve the proper framing
and focus of the action. A mule car
is a vehicle used as a stand in for a
CG vehicle. Since the wheel base and
primary design of the Q50s and the
Eau Rouge are so similar we were
able to use a Q50s as the mule car.
Tracking markers were attached
to the mule car to help the
matchmoving/tracking process. In
addition to tracking markers the
onset VFX supervisor captured
HDRIs of each of the lighting setups,
measurements of each location,
texture reference and camera data,
all of which are needed for the Post
Production phase.
#3: POST-PRODUCTION
After the live production shoot, the
Post-Production phase begins. The
footage is ingested and cut into the
edit. At this point, any disparities
between the previs video and the
shots captured are worked into the
edit. The disparities are usually due to is finished then the 3D files are
adaptations needed in the production rendered on a farm of machines
on set to compensate for a multitude
of unknown variables such as location, creating the 2D images from the 3D
lighting, and performances.
Once the edit is approved, VFX,
colour, sound design and music can
all begin. The first step for VFX is the
breaking out and prepping of VFX
shots from the edit. At the same time off to the Colourist to final the visual
the Colourist begins work on creating look of the piece. The editor then
SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION
uniformity across all the shots and
then creating a look for the piece.
The VFX department works in the
RAW camera colour space so that any
adjustments the Colourist makes to
the raw footage will transfer over to
finished VFX shots.
This process allows the Colourist
a great deal of flexibility to adjust
the look of the piece all the way up
3
through delivery. The footage is then
sent through a process of tracking
and matchmoving.
During this process the 3D Eau
Rouge is matched to the movement of
the mule car captured in the footage.
In addition, 3D cameras that match
the live production camera angles are
generated.
The combination of matchmoving
and tracking allows us to place the 4
Eau Rouge in the same physical
space as the mule car that was shot
on set. combines the final audio and visual ●
1 The Infiniti Q50s
From there, any secondary pieces together into a finished piece. reveals the beast
within — the Eau
animation or effects work begins. Rouge, 560 bhp
Lighting artists begin the process A RESULT TO BE PROUD OF ●
2 The Eau Rouge
of matching the car in 3D to each In the end, the Infiniti Beast Within meets its wild
location and shot. Once the lighting anthem piece consisted of 56 visual counterpart on the
road
effects shots that utilised six software
packages, 24 artists, two producers, ●
3 Behind the scenes
during the meeting
designed solely for the purpose of three production coordinators, with of the two beasts
a runtime of 2 mins 44 secs and all ●
4 Matchmoving
files. Compositors take the rendered completed within eight weeks. It wireframe overlayed
on the footage to
images and integrate them into the was the constitution of our crew that ensure the accuracy of
live action shots. pushed through the 14-hour days, 7 the track
Once the VFX has integrated the days a week to ensure that we created
CG into the footage, it’s then handed a piece that we would all be proud of
showcasing.
■ mindovereye.com ■ chaosgroup.com
SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION - DEVELOP3D.COM - JUNE 2015 V23
SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION SPONSORED BY:

TECHNICAL DETAILS
Technomot specialises in large-bore, heavy-duty engines and the firm is gaining
competitive advantage from photorealistic rendering. Its Principal Design
Engineer, Norman Hadley, talks us through the path to using visualisation

L
ike most companies,
Technomot started off
taking the obvious view that
rendering and photorealistic
visualisation are marketing
tools and we did all the usual
things; posters for the wall, a big banner for
our reception area, redesigned our website.
Then we realised that this technology
is not just a marketing tool — it’s a
communication tool.
This led us to using renderings for
internal design reviews. Rather than
looking at the Fisher-Price world of Pro/
Engineer and Creo, where it’s blocky and
fairly crude, we found that if you look at the
same components rendered in Keyshot with
realistic materials, you spot things that you
wouldn’t have previously. Some issues don’t
leap off the screen in CAD, but rendering
brings them to the fore.
For example, if you can show a component
with a cast finish, show where it’s milled or
turned, you immediately spot where there
will be machining issues. We’ve used it in
that sense for some time — for checking
components and assemblies.
We then realised that if we can do this
internally, why not do the same externally?
We’ve created several 360 VRs, that allow
you to spin a rendered model on a tablet or a
phone, and presented these to suppliers or
machinists.
We can show them an interactive 360
degree photorealistic render of a part,
they can work out where the casting forms
are, where machining is needed, where
clamping is needed and the number of
set-ups.
If you gave someone a sheaf of drawings,
they might need two weeks to sort through
them and get a handle on the job at hand
before giving you a quote.
With VR technology, you can be in a
meeting, work through the issues over the
table and get a machining strategy agreed
on the day.
It is communication at a much more
visual, human level. Even if the person
you’re talking to isn’t trained in interpreting
drawings, a photorealistic rendering allows
them to immediately see what it is you’re
trying to achieve.
In our world, we’re dealing with very large
engines. If you imagine a 1.5 litre engine in
a Volkswagen Golf, we’re looking at up to
1,500 litres displacement.
You can imagine the component and
tooling costs involved in, say, a crankcase.
These castings can take a week or two to
cool down at the foundry — they’re huge.
Now imagine the sums of money someone
is going to have to invest before they get a
product they can sell. Giving them an early
appreciation of the product so they can
grasp what it is they’re going to get: that’s
invaluable.
■ technomot.com
■ keyshot.com

Crankcase for a V12

industrial diesel engine,
designed by Technomot

V24 JUNE 2015 - DEVELOP3D.COM - SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION

SPONSORED BY: SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION

Cutaway of a large-bore gas

engine capable of delivering
3,500 horsepower

SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION - DEVELOP3D.COM - JUNE 2015 V25

SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION SPONSORED BY:

VISUALISATION
CHALLENGES & THE FUTURE
HENRIK WANN JENSEN
CHIEF SCIENTIST
LUXION
visuals using their 3D data, the
taste for quality and realism
is there and its importance
increasing. Once they were
satisfied with a flat-shaded,
blocky screenshot of the model.
Now, when that model can
just as quickly have physically
accurate materials applied,
lighting dropped in and all
parameters adjusted in real-time,
there’s the expectation of the
creator to provide realism. It’s not
DAVE HUTCHINSON
COO & CEO
LIGHTWORK DESIGN
every aspect of the design and
creative process. Companies are
often surprised at the cost of
high-end visualisation and may
have to balance their aspirations
against budget constraints; if
money is no object then the
technology is available.
Moving forward the challenge
shifts from enhancing the
consumer experience to
making sure companies
have access to high-quality

W 3
hen we first started, isolated to an executive or client D visualisation is visualisation at any point
it was certainly an who is outside of the process. widespread and apparent within their workflow and this
interesting time These are the creators in nearly every aspect means integrating the same
in development of different themselves who want it integrated of our lives; television, film, visualisation technology across
architectures and physically into their process. So, this shows games, product design, their toolset. This will improve
accurate lighting simulation. us directly how important speed architecture, manufacturing design-review timescales,
Real-time rendering was new and accuracy is to them and and sales and marketing. Most save money and remove the
though and Luxion was at the how important it is to deliver users, and consumers, aren’t dependency on costly third
forefront of developing a new way the tools that complement their aware and moreover don’t party bureauxs.
to experience this technology. workflow throughout the design, care whether the visuals they There is a growing trend
We were fortunate to both have development and manufacturing interact with are photographs or towards manufacturers, and
funds for investigating advanced process. computer generated so long as agencies, bringing visualisation
rendering algorithms on future Of course, with this increased they meet their expectations. in-house, enabling their
hardware architectures and to be awareness, seeing how powerful In addition, they’re often workflows with technology that
working closely with Intel and KeyShot is and realising how unaware of the enormous combine real-time interactivity
AMD to ensure we were achieving important visuals can be, creative undertaking and with high-end photoreal
optimal performance on their designers, engineers and 3D design resource that’s visualisation.
new chips. We were focused on professionals require the ability required to generate even the No matter what industry,
the challenges that face the users to deal with massive assemblies, most simple visual. This is the main requirement is the
and those challenges are our multiple configurations and where the challenge lies for combination of interactivity,
challenges to this day. incompatible data sets with the visualisation industry — scalability and material
Many companies realise the speed and accuracy within their meeting the growing demand workflow, which saves time,
importance of visualisation more existing workflow or company- for quick, cheap, easily created money and inevitably enhances
and more, but many are not wide processes, processes from high-quality visuals. the final experience.
aware of what’s possible. A recent 3D printing to PLM and digital Consumers’ expectations have What the leading companies are
report captured that only 37% mock-ups to sales and marketing. changed. They now want top doing now will be mainstream
are familiar with advanced real- All of this encapsulates the of the range visuals in every in years to come, we’re looking
time rendering and a mere 15% challenges we are addressing, aspect of their purchasing and forward to being part of the
currently use a rendering solution and when you include both entertainment experience — evolving visualisation story.
in house, but with an expected the hardware and software this cost must be factored into ■ lightworkdesign.com
10% rise over the next five years. aspects there are a lot of details
That’s a lot of companies realising to the product design workflow 
what role visualisation will play that need to be nailed down, Moving forward, the challenge shifts from
for them in the future. everything needs to work
So, first and foremost we have together and, most importantly, enhancing the consumer experience to
the great opportunity to introduce be that indispensable part of the making sure companies have access to high-
what is possible and how simple user’s workflow that makes the quality visualisation at any point within
it can be to create photographic experience more enjoyable and
quality visuals of their products. provides the results they need.
their workflow
For those who currently create ■ luxion.com 
V26 JUNE 2015 - DEVELOP3D.COM - SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION
SPONSORED BY:
We asked four industry thought leaders what are the biggest challenges
facing the visualisation industry and what is getting them excited for the future?
COREY RUBADUE
DIRECTOR & PRODUCT
MANAGER, CHAOS GROUP
cloud solutions like Google and
Amazon.
Shooting the short film
CONSTRUCT has been a
successful testing ground for
massively parallel computing on
hundreds of thousands of cores
simultaneously — basically
using the cloud as a super
computer. Designers will be
able to see and test iterations in
real time.
One thing we think will be
F A
or us, this is a very very important for design on
exciting time. Access many levels is reality capture.
to technology has Consistent, reliable, and
grown considerably by way of accurate results are a challenge,
advancements in hardware, and can be vital for effectively
refinement of the cloud, and the communicating a design.
continued momentum of virtual Chaos Group is introducing
reality (VR). something related to this in the
We’re actively engaged in near future that addresses this
pushing the limits of hardware issue specifically.
and the cloud and I believe Virtual reality has opened up a
these developments will benefit lot of possibilities and is a huge
visualisation and design, opportunity.
especially when it comes to Last year we partnered with
ideation and feedback. Already Nurulize for their work in VR
today’s visualisation and technology, and today we’re
results are converging with looking into virtual prototypes
the manufactured product and that will allow a designer to
built work. interact in a more meaningful
With this democratisation and visceral way.
of technology there will be Realism has become a given in
greater need to define accessible rendering, and ease-of-use will
workflows that culminate in democratise the process even
dependable and physically further.
accurate results. I think this will To put rendering in the hands
enable better communication of of more people, you have to cut
design and an opportunity for out the areas that are difficult
more points of view within the for users and enable them
industry. to plug in anywhere they’re
For a while we’ve researched designing.
how best we can utilise the This is why we’ve remained
cloud, something more than invested in CPU and GPU in the
uploading assets and waiting for cloud, in addition to virtual and
results. augmented reality.
The V-Ray Cloud platform I think we’ll see a major
is a fully-customisable OEM explosion on the demands of
solution that can utilise GPU rendering as it becomes more
or CPU calculations, and is readily available and transparent
flexible for in-house private to the design process.”
networks and larger public ■ chaosgroup.com
SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION - DEVELOP3D.COM - JUNE 2015 V27
SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION
YAZAN MALKOSH
HEAD OF DESIGN
THE FOUNDRY
s product creation
accelerates in our world,
so does the need to have
instant visualisations supporting
those products, both pre and
post design. Traditionally, early
visualisation was done by hand.
Now that we have everything
living in the digital realm, you’d
think it’s an easy button labelled
“visualise.” It’s not.
We still face multiple obstacles,
including data reuse across any

Now that we have everything living in the
digital realm, you’d think it’s an easy button
labelled “visualise.” It’s not.

design process, localisation,
personalisation challenges,
variation control and finally,
ease of use for the actual process
of visualising your data in
meaningful ways.
One of these challenges?
Taking data created during the
design process and outputting
visualisation content. And I don’t
mean just rendering.
I mean the ability to output
to realtime 3D engines or
interactive environments.
Unfortunately, as most data
comes from CAD, it’s still pretty
heavy and requires a ton of work
before it’s ready for primetime.
Therefore, we need to have this
part of the process streamlined
and automated, which I hope will
happen soon. Certainly some
of the steps have started taking
place but we are not there yet.
Another key challenge?
Personalisation of visualisation.
We can personalise design for
you, why not visualisation?
Why can’t I see the garment on
my body? Or the watch on my
hand?
I believe companies want to
take this next step, creating
an emotional, 1:1 visual link
between the consumer and the
product. This isn’t without its
challenges.
As an industry, we need to
solve the previous data issue
first and then move to providing
technology that utilises that
personal data in a meaningful
and secure way.
Things like personal avatars,
3D scans and live projection will
become increasingly critical to
the product sale experience. To
achieve this, the industry must
build technologies supporting
these elements.
Visualisation will only grow
in importance. As our world
gets consumed with tons more
products and drowned in the
visual media behind it, the
consumer will look to see things
that speak to them in a more
attractive and interactive manner.
This will require new methods
of data presentation, which
means visual creation tools need
to evolve to handle these new age
requirements.
■ thefoundry.com
SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION SPONSORED BY:

THE FUTURE OF
DESIGN VIZ
Developments that have already started will not only make our workflows more
efficient but the visualisation experience much more engaging, writes Al Dean

I
t has been an interesting few
A glimpse of the future?
years for visualisation in the Microsoft HoloLens in
design and engineering market. product development
As someone that has been
working in the field for 20 years
(I remember the days of 3D
Studio running on DOS) I find it
truly amazing to see how far we’ve come.
Back in the day, the whole process was
fraught with inefficiencies, highly manual
processes to define even the most simple
and basic of materials. And lighting
scenes. Don’t get me started on that
particular subject. I thank the Gods for
HDR image-based lighting and the time it
has saved us.
Today, physically-based renderers,
that progressively stream render data to
our screens, rule supreme in product
development. The are easy to use, making
them accessible to non-experts, and are
continually taking advantage of new
technological advancements. truly compelling solution when deadlines real time in the true sense of the word.
Material definition in these systems, are looming or you want a truly interactive Viewing these scenes on a 4K or 5K screen
whether fine-tuning presets, creating them design review session. Moving between is impressive, and while resolutions will
from scratch or using measured materials, local and cloud processing, as and when continue to rise in the coming years the
is advancing at an incredible rate. workflows dictate, will be seamless. most exciting developments are happening
Computational power in even the most While real time ray tracing on the desktop in virtual reality and augmented reality.
average of computing devices is now way is still some way away an increasing number The new consumer headsets coming
beyond what we had a decade on stream are high quality, head
ago. What used to take hours, tracking devices that give you a
even days, can now be done  much more immersive experience
in a matter of minutes. The ability to combine real world data and that a simple two dimensional
Throw enough processing overlay a photorealistic CGI of a virtual display. The ability to combine
power at a problem, as we
saw with Nvidia’s Honda
component, can benefit us in ways we can’t real world data and overlay a
photorealistic CGI of a virtual
demo at GTC 2014 (tinyurl. even imagine component, can benefit us in ways
com/NV-honda), and real
time ray tracing has already
 we can’t even imagine.
And it will only get better. And
become a reality. cheaper. And (most importantly)
Of course, investing in a cool $1m of of rendering software developers are also easier to use. With many of these
rendering hardware is completely out of the taking advantage of the latest advances in technologies aimed at the consumer,
question for most design and engineering OpenGL and high performance graphics immersive visualisation will be within
firms, which is why the cloud is set to play cards to deliver fully interactive visualisation reach of any design or engineering firm.
an increasingly important role. It will in the viewport. It may lack the physical There will be no huge need for costly
allow anyone to have access to real time perfection of a ray traced image, but the consulting. Plug it in and it’ll work. And
ray tracing on demand, which makes for a quality is superb, and most importantly, it is that is truly exciting.

V28 JUNE 2015 - DEVELOP3D.COM - SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION

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SPECIAL REPORT: VISUALISATION - DEVELOP3D.COM - JUNE 2015 V29

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