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Unity Weta Tools

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Re: Unity Weta Tools

#21

Post by kaveh808 »

Pathogen-David wrote: post #11
CreepGin wrote: post #6

Had to read the youtube comments to understand a little what this is about. So it seems to be a suite of tools (Ziva, Speedtree, SyncSketch, Parsec, Eddy, Deep Comp) that's separate from the Unity Editor and aimed towards (film?) artists. I don't know how accessible or useful these will be to most game devs using Unity (apart from maybe Speedtree).

They aren't really targeting gamedevs here. Both Unity and Unreal have been trying to win over Hollywood for a while now.

I think there is an opportunity to rethink a system for computer animation. Existing DCC packages are stuck in the late-80's mindset of animation consisting of interpolated values between keyframes. I wrote two such systems in that timeframe: Neo-Visuals and Softimage.

As far as I've seen, neither Unity nor Unreal have moved in this direction. Their "sequencer" solutions are IMHO unwieldy kludges that don't take advantage of new higher levels of abstraction for producing computer animation.

Re: Unity Weta Tools

#22

Post by berkut »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #20
kelsolaar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unreal is used by all the major VFX vendors whether it be for virtual production, previz or final frame rendering.

Where are you getting this information? Not only have I never heard of this, "the major VFX vendors" don't really do 'virtual production' or previz, with the exception of the ILM stagecraft stuff. I haven't heard of anyone using unreal for final frame rendering in film.

I think they're overselling it, but Unreal is fairly heavily being used in the early parts of pipelines at various studios, certainly more than Unity engine itself...

i.e. MPC had significant use of Unreal on set for mocap, Framestore has Unreal setup for previs and mocap (they hired some ex-games devs with Unreal experience to work on it)

ILM stagecraft is the 'hero' example (and as mentioned, they've got Helios now), but various studios are experimenting with it in various departments.

Disclaimer: I work for Weta, and above doesn't reflect anything about Weta (Gazebo, etc), it's all from friends/ex-colleagues at other studios...

Re: Unity Weta Tools

#23

Post by forrestthewoods »

kaveh808 wrote: post #21
Pathogen-David wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't really targeting gamedevs here. Both Unity and Unreal have been trying to win over Hollywood for a while now.

I think there is an opportunity to rethink a system for computer animation. Existing DCC packages are stuck in the late-80's mindset of animation consisting of interpolated values between keyframes. I wrote two such systems in that timeframe: Neo-Visuals and Softimage. As far as I've seen, neither Unity nor Unreal have moved in this direction. Their "sequencer" solutions are IMHO unwieldy kludges that don't take adva…

What do you think is the future beyond interpolated key frames?

Re: Unity Weta Tools

#24

Post by readyplayernull »

kaveh808 wrote: post #21
Pathogen-David wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't really targeting gamedevs here. Both Unity and Unreal have been trying to win over Hollywood for a while now.

I think there is an opportunity to rethink a system for computer animation. Existing DCC packages are stuck in the late-80's mindset of animation consisting of interpolated values between keyframes. I wrote two such systems in that timeframe: Neo-Visuals and Softimage. As far as I've seen, neither Unity nor Unreal have moved in this direction. Their "sequencer" solutions are IMHO unwieldy kludges that don't take adva…

> I wrote two such systems in that timeframe: Neo-Visuals and Softimage.

Interested in knowing more :)

Re: Unity Weta Tools

#25

Post by totetsu »

kelsolaar wrote: post #18
CyberDildonics wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where has unreal take vfx by storm? If you are talking about the live on set screens, that is a very tiny and exotic use case.

Unreal is used by all the major VFX vendors whether it be for virtual production, previz or final frame rendering.

I always found the King Kong did extras very educational. There was a lot about previz https://youtu.be/GhOVR8DTULc

Re: Unity Weta Tools

#26

Post by peteforde »

I'm a long-term hobbyist Unity user, and I do not understand what I'm looking at. While I get that I'm not the intended audience, I'm coming from a "please start by explaining in clear terms why this is important, instead of assuming that if we're here, we already know" place.

Re: Unity Weta Tools

#27

Post by squeaky-clean »

peteforde wrote: post #26

I'm a long-term hobbyist Unity user, and I do not understand what I'm looking at. While I get that I'm not the intended audience, I'm coming from a "please start by explaining in clear terms why this is important, instead of assuming that if we're here, we already know" place.

This isn't really meant for current Unity users to use for additional features. This is to bring people into Unity who normally use 3dsMax, Houdini, After-effects, etc when making films and digital art.

From the sign-up page, this also doesn't seem to be a general access sort of thing. They want early adopters who already know a lot about this field of technology in order to give feedback and detailed bug reports.

Re: Unity Weta Tools

#28

Post by CyberDildonics »

all2 wrote: post #13
CyberDildonics wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where has unreal take vfx by storm? If you are talking about the live on set screens, that is a very tiny and exotic use case.

Search YouTube for "Unreal" film previews. There are so many out there that were all realized with the Unreal engine. Maybe it's the algorithm, but all I see is stuff done in Unreal and I haven't seen anything done in Unity.

I searched for that and 'unreal engine film preview'. There were a few cinematics that have been made, but there was nothing that had to do with major vfx studios or even upcoming mainstream films.

Re: Unity Weta Tools

#29

Post by shortrounddev2 »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #27
peteforde wrote: post #26

I'm a long-term hobbyist Unity user, and I do not understand what I'm looking at. While I get that I'm not the intended audience, I'm coming from a "please start by explaining in clear terms why this is important, instead of assuming that if we're here, we already know" place.

This isn't really meant for current Unity users to use for additional features. This is to bring people into Unity who normally use 3dsMax, Houdini, After-effects, etc when making films and digital art. From the sign-up page, this also doesn't seem to be a general access sort of thing. They want early adopters who already know a lot about this field of technology in order to give feedback and detailed bug reports.

I know a lot of film studios actually use Unreal for animation and simulation these days, so I wonder if this is Unity trying to get in on that

Re: Unity Weta Tools

#30

Post by shortrounddev2 »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #9
thrillgore wrote: post #7

Given how quickly Unreal has taken the (already taxed) VFX space by storm, they are desperately trying to catch up.

Where has unreal take vfx by storm? If you are talking about the live on set screens, that is a very tiny and exotic use case.

Some animation studios use Unreal. Watching the credits of some anime, I sometimes see credits for "Unreal Engine Developers"
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