Max Film Credits?

[lsebo]

Let me add Pitch Black, and Pluto Nash (Eddie Murphy) also

Laszlo Sebo

[c_rowland]

What films has maxed been used in besides driven? (used extensively) <

Well, it's only been used "extensively" on 3 A-list feature films, AFAIK. I include 3d Studio for Dos since the renderer was essentially the same. Those would be "Johnny Mnemonic" 1995, "Virtuosity" 1995, and "Lost in Space" (1997?). Since or in-between there's been lots of piece meal usage of it but I wouldn't call them extensive. They are just small portions of the effects farmed out to small studios because of over-spill from bigger places.

It seems like not that many - there is no film section on discreets site. <

Discreet don't actively market nor pursue the film industry, that's why. Highly placed Discreet management have told me it would cost too much money to do so and with little chance of success. The company is run by accountants basically.

Is max not used for movies because of work-flow issues? Sfx? Industry stigma? <

because there are better choices which are really focused on that industry. Sure they cost more money but you get what you pay for.

Merely, porting to Linux would not be enough to get the attention of anybody. They would also have to excel at one or more area of CG. I mean, hasn't Lightwave been on Irix for a few years and it doesn't get used much in film either.

Martin

[gene-s]

for those who already use max it

[xtrol3d]

http://mag.awn.com/index.php3?ltype=pageon...&article\_no=110

[splinegod]

1. Finally, although it's not a feature film, they used max (in replace of LW) for the last season of the Starship Troopers animated TV series, which I've never actually seen but is supposedly very realistic, kind of a low-rent Final Fantasy from the shots I've seen. Roughnecks is out on DVD now. Its not final fantasy but is incredible looking. Foundation also had nowhere near the timeframe that final fantasy had.
   Thanks!

Hey Eric,
A bit of a correction here:
Flat Earth started off the Roughnecks series in conjunction with Foundation Imaging. Foundation took over the complete production of the show. Later Rainbow studios did an episode and HyperImage did 2 episodes. The ONLY episodes done with Max were the ones done by HyperImage. Foundation did the vast majority of the work on the show and ALL of it was done using Lightwave.

Larry Shultz
3d Character Modeler
Foundation Imaging

[ozz-2005]

In reply to:
5. Finally, although it's not a feature film, they used max (in replace of LW) for the last season of the Starship Troopers animated TV series, which I've never actually seen but is supposedly very realistic, kind of a low-rent Final Fantasy from the shots I've seen. Roughnecks is out on DVD now. Its not final fantasy but is incredible looking. Foundation also had nowhere near the timeframe that final fantasy had.
Thanks!

Hey Eric,
A bit of a correction here:
Flat Earth started off the Roughnecks series in conjunction with Foundation Imaging. Foundation took over the complete production of the show. Later Rainbow studios did an episode and HyperImage did 2 episodes. The ONLY episodes done with Max were the ones done by HyperImage. Foundation did the vast majority of the work on the show and ALL of it was done using Lightwave.Larry Shultz
3d Character Modeler
Foundation Imaging

the show looks great. but the animations arent soo great..especially the facial animations.

____________
-M-K-
ambient-whisper

[earthling]

As far as waiting around for people to recognize Max's potential...

These forums are in part to promote awareness. It appears that Max has a foothold in the film industry - maybe as a bit player, but definately with a speaking role.

Web space is cheap - pr isn't I guess - it seems like a section on discreets website that showcases some of Max's success in the film industry wouldn't be too tough.

Is the idea 'we need to go all of the way or leave it alone'? - I do not see the wisdom in this - although I have been schooled before...

[gene-s]

i think max is where it is not because there was not enough promotion, but because simply it is not "good" enough. this shouldn

[bobo]

HyperImage did 2 episodes.

Larry,
Sorry for jumping in, I know I am just nitpicking, but HyperImage worked on 3 episodes:
* 1.21 IceOlation
* 1.22 Mixed Signals
* 1.31 Trackers

I might be wrong though, you are more into the story than I am... )

Bobo
VR Boboland
http://gfxcentral.com/bobo/

[louis-sica]

Don't disregard the major impact that PR and promotion plays in CGI in the film industry. Maya, in particular, has been relentless in pushing its product in the film industry, and has had a great deal of sucess, largely it seems at the expense of SI. For some reason, discreet never made that push. It did for a short time back in 1997 or so, when Lost in Space came out, but then they just gave up.

Also, don't ignore the "snob" factor. High-end effects shops were born and raised on SI and PA, which were the ultra-high end at the time, and have always looked down their noses at max, LW, and the other less expensive "upstarts." I'm not sitting in judgment of anyone here, and I don't mean to offend anyone, but come on -- you know it's true! In addition, these high-end shops face the very real business challenge of getting people to pay big money for their work. You get to justify big fees in part by using big ticket software and hardware.

You also try to justify big fees by developing custom software, shaders, and tools for a project, even if something off the rack may be just as good. Come on now, guys, how many times have you read an article on the making of the CG effects in a particular movie, and the high-end shop responsible for the work was waxing eloquent about all the custom software and tools they developed, and you said to yourself: "Why did they spend all that time and money developing a plugin to do that, when so-and-so sells a plugin for max that does esentially the same thing for a few hundred bucks?"

Eric Twiste

[bobo]

For some reason, discreet never made that push. It did for a short time back in 1997 or so, when Lost in Space came out, but then they just gave up.

Actually, we may not mix Kinetix and Discreet when it comes to this part of the business.
Kinetix was created as a division of Autodesk to market MAX. Only part of this task (if at all) involved attacking the high-end market. Thanks to the loyality of game developers, architectural offices and industrial designers, the software sold so many copies that they could happily forget about the movies. At the same time, Discreet Logic was already a most successful 2D post software developer the majority of the Hollywood studios could not live without. Obviously they were on the road of building a complete pipeline from low end to high end and acquired one company after another. (Paint & Effect, Edit and Lightscape became Discreet Logic products in those days). By chance, one SI developer who wanted to write an integration between Soft and Eddie wasn't allowed to do so, so he went to Discreet Logic over the street and wrote the same for Paint & Effect and 3D Studio Max. Once again, MAX was seen as just a puzzle piece in the whole picture. Some years later Kinetix and Discreet Logic became Discreet, and now we have MAX as a piece in the chain of low end and high end packages in the whole production pipeline. Discreet almost owns the movie effects market, so they don't need MAX to be the king of Hollywood (and seriously, it really couldn't be in its current shape) to improve their company image. Also pushing MAX down the throats of high-end IRIX users wouldn't be a simple task, and it wouldn't pay off financially anyway. At the same time Discreet is defending the old games and new web markets where MAX is pretty well positioned and is selling more packages than all ompetitors together.

This is how I see the whole, and while I am always happy to see movie effects made in MAX (many by our Forum Manager here ;o) I can understand why the package is where it is now.
Maybe Discreet will change mind and do something for the image of our beloved software someday...

Bobo
VR Boboland
http://gfxcentral.com/bobo/

[cheeko8080]

Come on now, guys, how many times have you read an article on the making of the CG effects in a particular movie, and the high-end shop responsible for the work was waxing eloquent about all the custom software and tools they developed, and you said to yourself: "Why did they spend all that time and money developing a plugin to do that, when so-and-so sells a plugin for max that does esentially the same thing for a few hundred bucks?" <<

Actually, there's a great article about the making of battlefield earth in Cinefex where a member of Computer Cafe states they used custom software for their particle effects, when in actual fact I have it on good authority that they were all done with standard max particles and particle studio.

• Neil

[louis-sica]

I agree with you, Bobo. In a way, max's domination of most of the 3D industries other than film (and to a lesser extent, TV, where LW still does well) has produced such a cash cow for discreet that they can afford to ignore the film industry. In the future, though, I see max eventually moving more and more into film, especially once the next-generation renderers for max come out, such as MR 3, Brazil, Exluna, and FinalRender.

And Brandon, I have no doubt that effects houses regularly "exaggerate" the extent to which they develop custom tools.

[gazzmills]

I`ve worked with SI3d for about 7 years, maya for about 2 years and 3dsmax for about 4 years, so I have had time to check some of the advantages and disadvantages of those 3 mentioned softwares, and I honestly think that 3ds max is much better and faster to work with in many ways, but also the other two are . Each one has its pros and cons.
I hate when people say one is better than the other, because in many ways they are just different. People tend to look at 3dsmax over the shoulder and think of it as a middle-low end package, and it certainlly isnt one. Check history, max went into market before maya existed, and the object oriented and history(operator stack ) paradigm wasnt found in power animator nor softimage 3d, now maya and xsi have it but max had it first. Of course they didnt invented it because prisms and houdini were object oriented before max, but kinetix sure owns some respect and credit.
One thing that IMHO makes people in large studios overlook max is that it was born from a lowend package (3ds DOS).
Again IMHO one of autodesks worst errors was not to give 3ds max a name absolluttly different , and of course, as many of you have stated allready, make a port to sgi.
I have a couple of friends in california based studios and they say they dont like max, and that the renderer isnt good enough, and bla,bla,bla, but they have never worked with max, and as we all know you cannot KNOW an App from sitting a couple of hours in it.
The first time i saw houdini It just didnt fit my idea of a decent user interface, but a friend of mine proficient with it demoed it for me and even though i didnt have enough time to fool around with it i had to agree with him in how robust was the object oriented paradigm in it. And it really is not fare to qualify a 3d app for its default renderer because really few movies ( to keep on topic) use the default renderer of the used app. Neither maya nor Si3d or xsi have as many antialiasing types or shading models as does the default max renderer. And you could never make SI 3d objects be lit only in their specular omponents or only their ambient or diffuse componets by selected lights, and max has had that option since its early stages, just to mention one example of shading issues.
Prman or mentalray can also be used in max, as well as many other rendering plugins, not to mention the upcoming arnold renderer that has outstanding global ilummination and faster rendering times than mental ray. I hope not to bother you guys with this long post, but lets all try to be objective and fair. I hope that with the discreet logo stamped in each box of 3ds max many people will stop being "ashamed" of admitting they use ( and love in many cases) 3ds max .
I just hope again, they change the name, by the way MAGMA, was such a better one, shame it was just a code name.

[earthling]

The only thing I see as troubling about 'magma' as a premiere film package is this robustness issue.

('Alias' and 'Discreet' are the two names in the biz I always liked - xaos.. Electric Image - max is so late 80s - to the max man - maya???)

I understand that you need a better renderer to deal with film quality image size and big poly scenes - (which is available)

but isn't there more to this - Max not being stable I mean?? plugins not communicating well? Is this tough to fix?

I don't buy the workflow arguements that much - everything is so customizable -

rigging? Looks like it is there - modelling? - maybe I am just not seeing its short comings. (BTW is it just me or are subd surfaces way easier than nurbs? I know do a search...)

The material editor seems to get alot of praise.

[foolio]

There are also 2 other feature-length 3d films wrapping up at the moment using Max - Axis (Chamin), and the Icarus Tree (from a small swat team in the hills outside of LA). Max was also used in Swordfish. And Cats and Dogs.

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.welcome to the ®evolution.