Exclusive Insights from Hammer Chen, Senior Designer at Al Jazeera Media Network, on his work with thinkingParticles
(Hammer Chen has since left the Al Jazeera Media Network. Cebas will maintain this interview since it is mainly about Hammer's artistic work. He was not politically-motivated. If you have any related questions, please email info@cebas.com)
Hammer Chen Demo Reel 2015 from Hammer Chen on Vimeo.
Cebas: Please give us an update paragraph about yourself and your career path. Please also feel free to comment on the VFX activities, learning opportunities and market in your region of Qatar environs.
Hammer: I was a Neuroscientist. My specialty is in molecular biology of astrocytes. During my academic years, I published four scientific papers. After my third year as a doctoral student, one day I was watching a 3D movie and that inspired me to change my career vision. My first job was with Germhorn Inc. (an Autodesk local reseller) as a Technical Director. During that time, I had the chance to get to know the VFX industry. Also, I was learning new 3D software. Soon I became a speaker and instructor for major events talking about Autodesk 3ds Max, V-Ray, Realflow and thinkingParticles.
In 2010, I was working in a Game company as a Technical Artist (Unreal Engine). And just before coming to Qatar, I had worked for a TV Station in Taiwan. They have their own team and a workflow that was able to generate animation in a very short time.
In my spare time, I wrote articles on the Internet and Al Jazeera offered me a position after finding my Blog. My first training on thinkingParticles began with Hristo Velev’s ‘Eat3D’ video tutorials. Nowadays, you can find free video tutorials online and I would like to add that I did learn thinkingParticles mostly by watching tutorials all night long!
The film industry in Qatar is still growing, so it is quite easy to find VFX work for TV commercial.
Cebas: What is your current position? Please give us some interesting insights about one or two of your more recent Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN) projects that you have derived great satisfaction working on. Please do tell us how the creative idea originated and your role in the project.
Hammer: My job title at Al Jazeera Media Network is Senior Designer. Our team is under the Branding Department. With Network Creative Director: Ramzan Alnoimi, Brand Manager: Oliver Huxter, Executive producer: Mohammad Malak & Compositing lead: Mena Basseli. Our projects that we would like to showcase for the Cebas Insights Interview,
a) “World War First: Through Arab eyes”
Creative Director: Helio Vega| VFX Artist: Hammer Chen| Compositor: Mena Baselli | Sound Design: Mhd. Malak
One of my recent projects is the “WWI - Through Arab eyes”. One of the shots I would like to show everyone is the ‘old photograph (dating back to WW1) covered with sand and pebbles’ remade scene. The sand and pebbles are 3D. Usually such a large scale of particles with geometry mesh would cause some performance disaster. In the end, our team decided to create two layers of sand. One layer : the smaller grain of sand as a base and the second layer the larger ‘pebbles’. We have three types of ‘stones’ as geometry instance - highly optimized model - with realistic texture. In the end, we were able to create a convincing sand effect with thinkingParticles that our viewers and ourselves were satisfied with.
b) AJ Plus
Creative Director: Tavo | FX Artist: Hammer Chen| Sound Design: Mhd. Malak
AJ Plus is a social media version for Al Jazeera. The style caters to the younger generation and mostly plays on Facebook, usually less than one minute short videos. In this promo that I am showing here…a TP vfx scene containing lots of procedural animation and motion graphics: ‘exchanging balls’, ‘boxes’…etc. Because those balls have to be dynamically moving, it is not possible to create animation by key-framing. With TP and its new bulletPhysics, it is relatively easy to setup this procedural animation. A simplified version of scene file can be seen here.
When I am wiring my thinkingParticles operators, I always keep it as simple as possible. As long as it generates the effect I am after, it doesn’t matter if I have to repeat the same boring wiring many times.
c) Social Media
Creative Director: Helio Vega | VFX Artist: Hammer Chen | Compositor: Mena Baselli
In this project, we wanted to use any video footage and based on its color, procedurally convert particles to pixel. In short, visualize a digitalization of a live news event. Combine with MatterWaves + Texmap color operators, I can easily create this effect dynamically. I found that thinkingParticles provide every tool you need in this case.
d) City ruins
Creative Director: Mhd. Malak | FX Artist: Hammer Chen
This project we had to show a 3D model of ‘city ruins’. So I made four types of generic 3D buildings. Then a destruction tool was created.
Basically with this TP tool you can control which parts of the building needed to be ruined. And then using Export operator we can export all debris to mesh. tP's volumeBreaker is very powerful, we can control how dense the fragment by another set of particles. The intersection of debris can be set to different material ID. Here you can download my scene file or the link to the tutorial:
drive.google.com/open
hammerbchen.blogspot.qa/2014/09/building-demolition-with-tp.html
e) Today’s issue
Creative Director: Helio Vega | VFX Artist: Hammer Chen| 3D Artist: Mohannad. Khamra |Sound Design: Mhd. Malak
In this project we have a Rhombus shape forming from debris. Since this shot has to be beautiful and graceful, we can’t do it by reversing an explosion. Instead we break it with volumeBreak operator, then apply a twist force, then scale down its size overtime. And play backward from the cache.
Usually this kind of thing (rock fracture) can be easily done by Rayfire. But from an aesthetic point of view, only procedural animation like thinkingParticles can handle this in a relatively easy way.
f) Human Side
Idea: Lina Mansour|Art direction, motion design: Mahmoud Ahmed | FX Artist: Hammer Chen
This promo was done for the Syrian children. Again, this kind of effect can be easily done with AfterEffects plugin. But plugins cannot give you a solid and deep look and feel at times, and the only way to achieve this is to make every golden dust a solid mesh. With thinkingParticles it is a piece of cake. First, we block the position of the boy and the foreground object, then we made ‘golden dust’ in star animation towards the camera.
This is a great example for particle effect. VFX is hard because of the surreal effects, and a good balance is required between realism and fantasy. That is the hardest part.
g) 65 years of war
Creative Director: Mhd. Malak | FX Artist : Hammer Chen
This project is about the 65 years of war between Palestine and Israel. Trees decomposing symbolize the land of Palestine being destroyed. In the end the land reassembles and we see a national flag wrapping its motherland. Although the concept is very straightforward, each shots involved lots of fracturing. Thanks to thinkingParticles robust geometry caching, I can create this FX the way it should appear
Cebas: What was the most fun or rewarding part of a project for you?
Hammer: Although most of the effect is about fracture, explosion…particles transform from A to B. In fact, I found that every project is different and presents a unique challenge to me. I learned a lot by doing each projects. This is the most rewarding part.
Cebas: The vfx community and followers would love to know more about the vfx work you do in Al Jazeera - some interesting history: how did you came to be in Qatar from Taiwan? Did you undergo a tough selection-interview process?
Hammer: I have a blog called “CG Taiwaner”. Through the blog I often received emails asking about my interest in freelance work. One day, Mohamed Malak of Al Jazeera chanced upon my work and he called me immediately to come and work with him team. There was actually no formal interview. They were looking for a VFX Artist who knows Fluid Simulation (Realflow). The first 3 months, I began as a freelancer for them. They tested me with the most challenging project for a freelancer: rebranding of Al Jazeera Arabic channel. And as they say, the rest is history.
Cebas: Tell us about how you build up your VFX toolbox and why you like thinkingParticles? Were there a lot of 3ds Max/TP users in the part of the world you’re in? In terms of the artistic field of learning?
Hammer: First, I watched a lot of Vimeo and YouTube videos to update myself on any new reels from artists who creates using tP tools, and often I would focus on creative vfx that are similar or close to what I am doing. Then based on that, I would start building my own tools. After a while, I have created many scene files as my database. When new project comes in, I can just use old scenes and modify them.
During the RnD process, I normally start with a small amount of particles, and then I scale up the number to hundreds of thousands gradually without fearing a crash. Although particle flow is easy to learn, and can create awesome effect but it is not scalable like TP.
Sometimes, I would like to work closely with tP experts in Qatar, but for now my style is to use internet, social media and tutorials to contact other experts so I am able to fix and improve my work and knowledge.
Cebas: I understand that the culture is much different in the Middle-East but every culture adores art and its many expressions. Is there a dearth of training for young VFX artists in the region? Is story-telling a part of the Islamic culture as well?
Hammer: We have excellent compositors, matte painters, concept artists and motion graphic designers. But VFX artists are still a rare breeze for now. We are trying to show to the people here how VFX is part of the creative process, but it is a long ride.
From my point of view, the key elements of Arabic culture are the gold, the water, the moon, and geometric patterns. So, visually if you have at least one of these elements in your scene, it will bring up the feeling of Islamic culture. Pearl divers are the most authentic profession in Qatar, that’s why you can see the opening animation for Al Jazeera is a beautiful pearl dropping into the sea, covered by gold and forming the logo with the same material.
Cebas: Al Jazeera is a news channel and reports some of the most complicated political stories, especially of the Middle-East, how did you find inspiration in doing creative work in a serious, even sombre (considering it is about people’s life and death) mood of presentation?
Hammer: We have an editorial department dealing with the footage, who shares those images with the Concept/Storyboard artist. I don't need to worry about it. Because the nature of News channel, we are not focus too much on fashion, food or technology. So we mostly work with content related to wars and political issues in Middle East and around the globe. But we just launch AJ Plus, a social media version of Al Jazeera, which is targeting younger audience with less serious content.
Cebas: In the same vein, would it be valid to say that using visual effects sometimes allow for greater abstraction in expression of a story in art form?
Hammer: Procedural animation is perfect during story development stage. Because with particles you can literally create anything you want in procedural way. During early stage of production, we don’t want to put too much time and energy. Without help of procedural modeling or animation, you end up with position elements or keyframing manually which takes up too much time.
In this example, we wanted some decoration showing the hall of the new Al Jazeera building. For the project, we had to create the Al Jazeera logo inside of the globe, all made with string of pearls hanging from the roof. Since this is in an early stage, all we did was a quick prototype as we could not afford spending all those time aligning particles. To expedite, I used TP volumePosition operator / Raster, which I controlled my pearl size; total number of pearls and the overall shape of the Al Jazeera logo. So this procedural modeling helps a lot. The flexibility gives us power to visualize the look in a very interactive way.
Cebas: What are some of the features in thinkingParticles that you feel are unbeatable - in enhancing a creative output for your promo vfx?
Hammer:
• Much better performance compare with Particle Flow.
• Relatively easy learning curve than Houdini
• Operators like “Object to Particle”, “volumeBreak” are one of the most unbeatable features
• Good playback rate, easy to export.
• “Group as object” so I can apply material or hide particle by group
• Good integration with other third party plugin, FumeFX, Realflow
Cebas: What do you find… usually are the most difficult aspects of 3d/ FX design work - is it technology or artistic creativity? - is there available vfx software that resolves all your technology-to-art needs? Any missing nodes?
Hammer: finding a good balance in realism and abstract is a perpetual challenge. A case in point, I was working with Helio in a project about smoke forming human shapes. So it’s something between realism and fantasy. If the smoke forming looks 100% like human forming, it won’t look as natural. If 100% of what is seen is smoke, again it’s relatively easy but doesn’t relate to human live and loses the meaning. It is not always easy to materialize in VFX what is desired by the creative director. The Creative Director imagine things from an art sense and with no boundaries. We will always need some form of Technical Directorship as the bridge between imagination and what is technically achievable.
This human pile above was for RnD and not use in the final production, but in the early stage we were able to visualize tons of thousands of people falling down, reminiscent of a war torn situation.
Smoke forming human bodies in a particulate way.
Hammer: Creating with CG tools can be either hard to learn or easy to learn but a low performance software makes it more difficult. ThinkingParticles has a good balance for technical art.
Missing nodes that I hope TP will improve on:
• More realistic cloth / softbody simulation
• More realistic fracture like Rayfire
• Export operator that supports deforming mesh
Cebas: Okay, we will keep this in mind! And Rayfire does fractures, but it is not a particle system, so that’s one critical difference there. How did cebas software integrate into the Al Jazeera production pipeline? How straightforward was it for the promo vfx? What would be the challenges?
Hammer: For each project, it normally involves mainly 3 team members: Concept, 3D artist and Compositor. Most of our projects are completed by one staff, doing almost everything. If there is any promo or Main ID or stings or program openings involving FX, I can easily export to Alembic (ABC) Files or Export mesh, and give the file to the 3D guy, very straightforward with tP. It is only when the concept is not concreate, such as unclear camera movements, shots length, that it becomes troublesome. And also for super complex geometry (like model import from Mudbox), super large scale fractures, caching the simulation sometimes can be challenging.
Cebas: In your view, what is your wish for cebas software to achieve that is not currently doing for you?
Hammer:
• An Online help so I can check information anytime anywhere.
• Scalable solutions for cloth simulation / softbody
• Production-ready smoke simulation and shading
Cebas: Okay Hammer, Cebas does have 1) online living manual that is shipped with your purchase :-) read the downloads 2) as a user, you can access support@cebas.com or post at our cebas.com user forum as well as our cebas.com FAQ sections. You can also reach out to the rest of the TP community on facebook, ‘cebas thinking particles’.
For the mandarin-speaking population who wants to access Hammer Chen's resources on thinkingParticles: http://hammerbchen.blogspot.ca/
Cebas: What projects can we expect from you in the future (if you're able to tell us).
Hammer: At al jazeera creative hub , we're working on some pretty awesome projects, using new thinkingParticles 6.2 technology – BTSoftBody (for flying papers and leaf) and Smoke operators (golden dust).
Awesome work Hammer!
Thank you so much for giving us this exclusive insight to your vfx work at Al Jazeera.
We look forward to some more amazing FX effects from you!