Vladimir Zhovna, an amazing self-taught FX new talent from Belarus to Digital Light Studio
November 19, 2015
Cebas Insights Interview with Vladimir Zhovna and his FX work on the S.W.A.T. 'Special Wizards Assault Team' movie with thinkingParticles 6.0
FX Showreel 2013-2014 from Vladimir Zhovna on Vimeo.
Cebas: Vladimir, thank you to you and your studio productions for considering giving cebas Visual Technology some insights and visual clips highlighting your absolutely creative work. Please give us an update paragraph about yourself. Please also feel free to comment on the VFX activities, learning opportunities and market in your region.
My name is Vladimir Zhovna. I am from Minsk, Belarus. In 2012 I felt an inspiration to learn VFX and I started learning in quite an intense fast pace manner. There are a few places in Belarus where you can learn CG, but they are not as advanced, therefore I had to learn on my own via Internet. I found lots of information regarding CG on the Internet at that time. In six months, I got my first job as an FX artist in Digital Light Studio.
We do have several small studios working with CG, but they are mostly focused on the Russian market. Also there are some studios for game development, but I have yet to fully explore that aspect.
Cebas: And you have been in VFX for 3 years plus now - how do you feel today in your line of VFX work? Are things progressing as you expected in terms of career development?
Vladimir: during the 3 years that I have been a VFX artist, I learned a lot and realized that FX is my calling. For CG, there exists a fine line where artistic expression meets its technical implementation/ representation. I personally love to rerun the special effect in my imagination over and over and then find the technical solution via help of a software program. Very often during RnD, I will find plenty of tips for my future work, the only trick is to remember at the right moment what I have learnt and apply it.
Cebas: the vfx community and followers would love to know more about your freelance / Studio work, some interesting history: Did you have many competitors? Do you use both Autodesk Max and Maya and why?
Vladimir: I have never used Maya in my work as yet and I have only browsed through it. The studio where I used to work only had myself as their FX artist, therefore it helped pushed my boundaries and made me take on more responsibilities as well as it made me find solutions on my own. I had several more projects like the ones shown in my demo reel.
In the sphere shutter FX (see video and images), I had to show the breaking of a sphere by the power field of the main character. This was done fully from the beginning to the end with thinkingParticles. I did the initial pre-fragmentation manually. The main goal was to make the breakage rule-based and controlled to the maximum via behavior of the ongoing dynamics, which is one of the strongest aspects of using TP since it allowed me to manipulate broken parts as particles for some time and only towards the end during the collision, need I changed it back to real dynamics.
Sphere Shatter FX from Vladimir Zhovna on Vimeo.
Snow Vortex RnD from Vladimir Zhovna on Vimeo.
FX on the SWAT sphere shutter scene
Vladimir: in the SWAT animation, the destruction of Golem was also fully performed in TP. The main task was to destroy the necklace only towards the very end. It consisted of about 3 millions polygon and here I used the help of particles once again. I scattered them based on the volume and created a proxy mesh-looking pretty close especially while using camera motion blur.
FX by Vladimir Zhovna @ 'Bobby' on the SWAT thinkingParticles 'Golem'.
Cebas: Why did you decide that TP was the best for this vfx creative and did our software help you achieve the desired effects without too much hiccups?
Vladimir: thinkingParticles is a highly effective solution for many of the problems that arose during my work on special effects. The best part is that TP gives me an opportunity to work with particles, rbd and now in addition, for cloth, ropes, smoke etc., simultaneously in one plugin, this helps to keep the special effect visualized as a whole in my own mind when it consists of several parts. Also, the layer system plays an important role, since it allows me to write it in cache at the early stages of the effects and later gives me possibility to make it more complex.
Cebas: what would you say, if one was a fairly new user, that some of the features in thinkingParticles are unbeatably user-friendly - such as, perhaps, help speed up and enhance a creative output for your commercial and film vfx ?
Vladimir: I think it is having SC operator, since it saves me from having a crazy hectic particle dispersion all over the monitor while particles are crossing over the pieces of geometry, like a Bullet solver for a example. It saves me much pain in such situations.
Cebas: And, what do you find… usually are the most difficult aspects of 3d/ fx design work - is it technology or artistic creativity? - is there an available vfx software that resolves all your technology-to-art needs? What is missing?
Vladimir: first of all I believe FX has to be a mix of both. I believe that the better I know the software I am working with, the better my understanding of what the results will bring (and that is very important in making fx work). For that reason, one should not only have his/her own RND but also do constant consultation and review the work of other artists.
Cebas: we noted that you / your Studio has done a lot of amazing commercial and/or film VFX. Do you have trouble developing new markets? Would you say VFX work allows you to be international? We would love to hear more about your market and your hopes and dreams.
Vladimir: I believe that VFX is a truly International Industry. Unfortunately, in my country it is a bit underdeveloped. One of the reasons for that I think is the absence or lack of demand for such work. Also the lack of good schools for VFX, when someone is looking for improvement in CG they have a tendency of leaving it to the market in the western countries.
Cebas: could you say on a scale of 1 (uh-oh) to 10 (awesome) how did thinkingParticles 6.1 compared to other vfx software you may have used (you don't have to name other products)?
Vladimir: I think in my review of TP 6.1, new opportunities are definitely there, the most important is to keep producing new things and surprise your customers. I am not going to judge the software but for me personally TP as a FX tool has been a very strong and proven and trusted with time for me. My only viewpoint is that TP is losing out a bit in viewport and in cashing of high volume of dumb particles in comparison with PF. It would be great to maximize and increase the speed of some operators, for example OP: Particle Search etc.
Cebas: how did cebas software integrate into your production pipeline? How straightforward was it for the commercial vfx?
Vladimir: ThinkingParticles works perfectly integrating in pipeline. I did not experience any problems with TP interaction with any other plug-ins.
Cebas: what was the most fun or rewarding part of a project for you?
Vladimir: It certainly was Clean Up part! When the chunk of work is already done and all I have to do are just the final steps and I get the desired results.
Cebas: in your view what is your wish for cebas software to achieve that is not currently doing for you?
Vladimir: I think you should keep developing liquid, since I had to use, in the past, other programs for such simulations. Also it would be good to put more attention on soft bodies and smoke solver -- it was exciting to see the new TP 6.2 because now it allows me to use more complex movement right inside TP instead of bringing it in from other plug-ins.
Cebas: what projects can we expect from you in the future (if you're able to tell us).
Vladimir: New things to come. I will be posting all new projects on my channel on my Vimeo.
More movie fx from Vladimir:
Breakdown of 2 shots on HERBST Film project from Vladimir Zhovna on Vimeo.