Frederic No
Digital Artist
...been working in CG/VFX for 20 years (TV Shows, Commercials, Scenography and VideoMapping)
Thanks to Director, Teacher and Studio owner background,
my job is to lead cool Teams to accomplish cool Things, with serenity.
" The more tools you shall handle, the shortest path you will find" (Captain Igloo, 1998).
Some Work...
Presentation of the Houdini course …based on theorical examples, and their application in a global scene Covering all major chapters Classic Modeling (Retopology | UVs) Fundamentals (Groups | Attributes | Instancing | HScript | VOP | Vex) Procedural Modeling RIG (Autorig | Manual | Skin | Muscles) Animation (Takes | Layers | Groups) CHOPs (Constraints | Sop level) Heightfields (Sculpt | Layers | COPs | Instancing) Volumes (VDB | SDF | Clouds …) Particles (Emission | Forces | Collisions | Groups | Advection) RBD (Fracture | Manual Constraints | RBD Tools | Bullet Solver | Attributes) Pyro (Emission | Combustion | Forces | Sparse Solver) Vellum (Cloth | Hair | Ballon | Struts | Fracture | Dynamic Constraints) Grooming (Guides | Attributes | Simulation | Render) FLIPs & Ocean Tool (Small & Large Scale | Viscosity | Whitewater | RBD Feedback) Rendering (Attributes | Material Builder | AOVs) Assets PDG (TOPs) Crowds (Agent | Locomotion | Footlock | Terrain Adaptation | Ragdoll) USD – Solaris (Layers | Instancing | Karma) On demand examples… In this course for newbies and mid-users, we start from the very basic Houdini handling, and we cover each chapter one by one, using newly learned technology to enhance the student’s main scene. The example above is one suggestion of the main scene.
Personnal Project …with original soundtrack https://vimeo.com/314880956 Base Modeling Easy revolve and Lattice setup, and basic refining Scatter, variations, and register of their rest position on the model basic revolve and lattice scatter with orientation and variations placement Test Previous Next Petals animation Simple particle simulation with remanence petals animation Glass Dynamics FEM simulation, and replacing of the animated petals FEM and petals Dynamics Liquid & Shatter Dynamics Simple Liquid and RBD simulation liquid Simulation Final Mesh Highres VDB conversion with filters and polygon reduction (to speed up Redshift)Pedestal replacement for non-breaking shots final meshe vdbGraph Previous Next Redshift rendering Custom shaders and AOVs based on attributes Previous Next Music and soundFX Original music and soundFX
Technical Direction of a marvelous Video-Mapping Tool …the kind of toy I like ! For 6 months I have been in charge of the technical direction of a very new and advance tool, that we could describe as an all-in-one videoMapping truck, produced by the Athem compagny. It embed 6 Modulo Kinetic Servers, 4 Christie Boxer 4K30 video projectors, and Graphist toolset for responsivity and on-site performance. The result was so great that we rapidly made a second one ! Conception While the main structure conception was done before I joined the crew, I had in charge the design and installation of the main broadcast system. I choosed Modulo Kinetic for the broadcast embedded system, due to it’s capability to handle multiple synchronised players, and it’s massive realtime tweakability, allowing any kind of interactivity and on-site performance. first road test first road test an inside view during the assembly On-site Direction On-site I worked as video-projectors and Modulo Kinetic operator, and when those jobs were done I usually made an user-friendly interface, so it could be manageable by non-expert users (for shows during multiple days). The Grand Palais, Paris The Louvre, Paris Bibliotheque François Mitterrand, Paris Upgrades and Maintenance When not on-site, my job was to make the trucks always ready to go, and upgrade the system (like putting the Internet for remote control, making the two trucks synchronised, etc) I’d like to greatfully thank the Athem compagny for putting trust in me and together making this incredible project happen.
Interactive RIG for drummers. …to give the ability to control lights and Video Mapping just by playing drums https://vimeo.com/110050717 An home-made Interactive suite for drum players. The system allows to trigger stage lights, video (3D mapping, screens…), and electronic devices. As it is based on direct sound, it is expansible to others instruments… Music copyrighted by the Rolling Stones Drummer Bertrand Hennart
Fully Autonomus Analog to Digital device Up to 32 analog sensors per slaveBoard (up to 6 slaveBoards per motherBoard), automatically converted to customeable OSC signal. Designed to directly control almost any on-stage application. Previous Next The purpose of this device is to be a multi-functionnal tool, ready to handle almost immediatly most of the need for an interactive performance. Revision 2, much smaller, now natively dispatches signal directly through network, in OSC format. That make it readeable from almost every broadcast software (vvvv, TouchDesigner, Modulo Kinetic, Resolume, Ableton…) Version 1.0 (prototype) Previous Next
Blog / R&D / ...
First try on “Heightfield” module in Houdini. …with very quick and bad Photoshop compo sorry no time 😉 Main goal, more than testing the very great Houdini’s “Heightfield” tools, was to build a workflow based on Cops, so third-party renderers could easily read masks and textures generated by the Heightfield tools suite. https://vimeo.com/267026899 Terrain base Shape First starting with a lowres grid (100×100), for placing the global volumes, and tracing the river zone. First basic noise Painting of the river Smoothing and refine before carving Refining Upsampled (1000×1000) it to have the correct look and details for terrain filters like erode, noise and slump. applying large Worley noise using mask to merge with original noise, erode and distort on the second part carving river again slump near river fine-carving river Extracting Maps As the aim was to create a third-party render-friendly asset (thus I’m using Redshift), it had to be able to export “standard” type of data including maps, which are originaly based on native heightfield masks.To do this they had to be translated into Cops, which also permit more complex mask/textures generation. import legacy heightfield masks into Cop for creating complex texture masks visualizing masks with color pointclouds for vegetation Textures and Vegetation Using the maps from precedent Cop in Redshift shader nodes. import heightfield into Redshift adapted node importing embedded Cops and referencing maps using them in Redshift Shader’s blending Not that good at this time for very close shots, and water will be worked on next step… Textures and trees found on the internet.
Modeling for both HighRes and Realtime …from ZBrush to Houdini, and very soon Unreal Engine https://player.vimeo.com/video/266520538 ZBrush Modeling Modeling and retopology with ZBrush. Modeling and apart export of specifics lowres parts. base modeling base modeling retopology thruster reactor turbine Houdini rigging Import of and assembly of ZBrush elements, UV layout and rigging, with the goal to conserve a very low but subdivide friendly geometry. The array meshe parts from ZBrush had to be remade in Houdini in order to be more easily rigged, and required to be all individuals (no instances) so they all have their own UVs (and specific textures) import and reassemble for very geometric parts UV layout defining of bevel edges bevel and subdivision test Hudini rigging for moveable parts final assembly export for texturing Substance Designer Creation of the metal panel’s procedural texture. creating tileable plates pattern extracting rivets zones creating rivets assembly parameters export and test render Substance Painter Classic work of texturing via Substance Painter. Use of instance layers for red color accross parts, and anchor Layer for scratches reacting to normal details layer.Maps exported in Unreal Engine 4 preset, so can be used in both HighEnd and Realtime Renderers. base pre-created metal plattes basic painting (red pain as an instance layer) basic scratches screen same for “turbines” and reactors Final Render Back to Houdini with Redhift (PBR worlflow). …with a tip to show Redshift textures in display. houdini testing and Redshift rendering test render test render test render
Presentation of the Houdini course …based on theorical examples, and their application in a global scene Covering all major chapters Classic Modeling (Retopology | UVs) Fundamentals (Groups | Attributes | Instancing | HScript | VOP | Vex) Procedural Modeling RIG (Autorig | Manual | Skin | Muscles) Animation (Takes | Layers | Groups) CHOPs (Constraints | Sop level) Heightfields (Sculpt | Layers | COPs | Instancing) Volumes (VDB | SDF | Clouds …) Particles (Emission | Forces | Collisions | Groups | Advection) RBD (Fracture | Manual Constraints | RBD Tools | Bullet Solver | Attributes) Pyro (Emission | Combustion | Forces | Sparse Solver) Vellum (Cloth | Hair | Ballon | Struts | Fracture | Dynamic Constraints) Grooming (Guides | Attributes | Simulation | Render) FLIPs & Ocean Tool (Small & Large Scale | Viscosity | Whitewater | RBD Feedback) Rendering (Attributes | Material Builder | AOVs) Assets PDG (TOPs) Crowds (Agent | Locomotion | Footlock | Terrain Adaptation | Ragdoll) USD – Solaris (Layers | Instancing | Karma) On demand examples… In this course for newbies and mid-users, we start from the very basic Houdini handling, and we cover each chapter one by one, using newly learned technology to enhance the student’s main scene. The example above is one suggestion of the main scene.
Personnal Project …with original soundtrack https://vimeo.com/314880956 Base Modeling Easy revolve and Lattice setup, and basic refining Scatter, variations, and register of their rest position on the model basic revolve and lattice scatter with orientation and variations placement Test Previous Next Petals animation Simple particle simulation with remanence petals animation Glass Dynamics FEM simulation, and replacing of the animated petals FEM and petals Dynamics Liquid & Shatter Dynamics Simple Liquid and RBD simulation liquid Simulation Final Mesh Highres VDB conversion with filters and polygon reduction (to speed up Redshift)Pedestal replacement for non-breaking shots final meshe vdbGraph Previous Next Redshift rendering Custom shaders and AOVs based on attributes Previous Next Music and soundFX Original music and soundFX
Technical Direction of a marvelous Video-Mapping Tool …the kind of toy I like ! For 6 months I have been in charge of the technical direction of a very new and advance tool, that we could describe as an all-in-one videoMapping truck, produced by the Athem compagny. It embed 6 Modulo Kinetic Servers, 4 Christie Boxer 4K30 video projectors, and Graphist toolset for responsivity and on-site performance. The result was so great that we rapidly made a second one ! Conception While the main structure conception was done before I joined the crew, I had in charge the design and installation of the main broadcast system. I choosed Modulo Kinetic for the broadcast embedded system, due to it’s capability to handle multiple synchronised players, and it’s massive realtime tweakability, allowing any kind of interactivity and on-site performance. first road test first road test an inside view during the assembly On-site Direction On-site I worked as video-projectors and Modulo Kinetic operator, and when those jobs were done I usually made an user-friendly interface, so it could be manageable by non-expert users (for shows during multiple days). The Grand Palais, Paris The Louvre, Paris Bibliotheque François Mitterrand, Paris Upgrades and Maintenance When not on-site, my job was to make the trucks always ready to go, and upgrade the system (like putting the Internet for remote control, making the two trucks synchronised, etc) I’d like to greatfully thank the Athem compagny for putting trust in me and together making this incredible project happen.
Interactive RIG for drummers. …to give the ability to control lights and Video Mapping just by playing drums https://vimeo.com/110050717 An home-made Interactive suite for drum players. The system allows to trigger stage lights, video (3D mapping, screens…), and electronic devices. As it is based on direct sound, it is expansible to others instruments… Music copyrighted by the Rolling Stones Drummer Bertrand Hennart
Fully Autonomus Analog to Digital device Up to 32 analog sensors per slaveBoard (up to 6 slaveBoards per motherBoard), automatically converted to customeable OSC signal. Designed to directly control almost any on-stage application. Previous Next The purpose of this device is to be a multi-functionnal tool, ready to handle almost immediatly most of the need for an interactive performance. Revision 2, much smaller, now natively dispatches signal directly through network, in OSC format. That make it readeable from almost every broadcast software (vvvv, TouchDesigner, Modulo Kinetic, Resolume, Ableton…) Version 1.0 (prototype) Previous Next
First try on “Heightfield” module in Houdini. …with very quick and bad Photoshop compo sorry no time 😉 Main goal, more than testing the very great Houdini’s “Heightfield” tools, was to build a workflow based on Cops, so third-party renderers could easily read masks and textures generated by the Heightfield tools suite. https://vimeo.com/267026899 Terrain base Shape First starting with a lowres grid (100×100), for placing the global volumes, and tracing the river zone. First basic noise Painting of the river Smoothing and refine before carving Refining Upsampled (1000×1000) it to have the correct look and details for terrain filters like erode, noise and slump. applying large Worley noise using mask to merge with original noise, erode and distort on the second part carving river again slump near river fine-carving river Extracting Maps As the aim was to create a third-party render-friendly asset (thus I’m using Redshift), it had to be able to export “standard” type of data including maps, which are originaly based on native heightfield masks.To do this they had to be translated into Cops, which also permit more complex mask/textures generation. import legacy heightfield masks into Cop for creating complex texture masks visualizing masks with color pointclouds for vegetation Textures and Vegetation Using the maps from precedent Cop in Redshift shader nodes. import heightfield into Redshift adapted node importing embedded Cops and referencing maps using them in Redshift Shader’s blending Not that good at this time for very close shots, and water will be worked on next step… Textures and trees found on the internet.
Modeling for both HighRes and Realtime …from ZBrush to Houdini, and very soon Unreal Engine https://player.vimeo.com/video/266520538 ZBrush Modeling Modeling and retopology with ZBrush. Modeling and apart export of specifics lowres parts. base modeling base modeling retopology thruster reactor turbine Houdini rigging Import of and assembly of ZBrush elements, UV layout and rigging, with the goal to conserve a very low but subdivide friendly geometry. The array meshe parts from ZBrush had to be remade in Houdini in order to be more easily rigged, and required to be all individuals (no instances) so they all have their own UVs (and specific textures) import and reassemble for very geometric parts UV layout defining of bevel edges bevel and subdivision test Hudini rigging for moveable parts final assembly export for texturing Substance Designer Creation of the metal panel’s procedural texture. creating tileable plates pattern extracting rivets zones creating rivets assembly parameters export and test render Substance Painter Classic work of texturing via Substance Painter. Use of instance layers for red color accross parts, and anchor Layer for scratches reacting to normal details layer.Maps exported in Unreal Engine 4 preset, so can be used in both HighEnd and Realtime Renderers. base pre-created metal plattes basic painting (red pain as an instance layer) basic scratches screen same for “turbines” and reactors Final Render Back to Houdini with Redhift (PBR worlflow). …with a tip to show Redshift textures in display. houdini testing and Redshift rendering test render test render test render
