As a hardware and software cost, Redshift biased rendering is the fastest,
most efficient render option for Outpost VFX, not just economically but also
in terms of their biggest cost, artist hours.
Redshift Ramps up Render Speed & Efficiency at Outpost VFXThe page you are looking is not published |
Outpost VFX is a UK visual effects vendor that works from a studio on the south coast of England in the beach town of Bournemouth, instead of the post production hub of Soho in London. Outpost’s directorDuncan McWilliam said, “The benefits are partly related to the easier lifestyle here, but a large part of the decision was financial. We can actually run a larger team on lower overheads, making the company more flexible when bidding on projects.” |
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Artist Time“As a combined hardware and software cost, the Redshift biased rendering system turned out to be the most affordable option for us, not just in monetary terms but also in terms of our biggest cost, artist hours,” Duncan said. “Artist time is always a huge factor when working on render intensive projects and in this regard, Redshift made a significant difference.” |
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In this way, a chance to appropriately adjust the various sampling parameters can produce cleaner results across a scene in less time than on renderers that don’t allow the same kind of control, even taking the time spent on adjustments or trial-and-error into consideration. Jaguar JamAs an example, Duncan chose a recent commercial project they completed for the Jaguar FPace SUV. In it, the audience sees vehicle parts fly in from across the neon-bright nighttime cityscape to elegantly assemble the car piece by piece, straight onto the motorway as it speeds its way through the night. |
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Outpost built, textured and lit the CG components of the car, and created the dramatic animation as the vehicle constructs itself. “As with any shoot, on the day, conditions can dictate the feel of the piece and demand some extra flexibility. In this case, the heavens opened shortly before the shoot, adding a layer of unanticipated complexity into the VFX work because now we had to build reflections into almost every shot,” Duncan said. |
Balancing the Pipeline |
According to Duncan, a competitive VFX facility works toward three considerations – quality, time and price. Quality is the key factor, and speed of render is directly linked to this – if their artists can output 20 iterations of their lighting set-up an hour on the GPU as opposed to five or six on the CPU, then they can trial more ideas in less time and reach a more creative result. As well as speed, Redshift’s power has made further positive changes at Outpost VFX. Duncan said, “One example is the on-going issue we have withdepth of field and motion blur as a 2D process. For years we had to compromise between depth passes and motion vectors, and the results were never truly satisfying. Consequently, for the hero shots we would have to create all such effects in-camera and then wait an extremely long time for the render. But on the Jaguar project, we could set up a motion blur shot, balance the lighting and do test renders at 6 seconds per frame - and then apply motion blur and DOF for the final, before hitting render.” |
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“This kind of capability is significant when it comes to making a production pipeline work. The speed of Redshift, along with power and reliability, meant that we could create all of the challenging shots for Jaguar with a compact team in under four weeks, from start to finish. In the end, the project stayed true to the brief, delivered ahead of schedule, and earned an excellent reception from the Jaguar team.” www.redshift3d.com |