How to become an FX Technical Director (MaxScript 3DS Max 2020 Tutorial)
Hi everyone, this is Allan McKay - I wanted to put together a video tutorial on how to do scripting. I thought this would be a fun one on how to create a preview tool.
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The concept is to create our OWN custom playblast tool - where we can automatically store each preview in our own custom project directory, as well as tagged with the filename of our scene, the user/artist, and timestamp.
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This allows us to keep every single one of our previews we generate, and easily track down the file it was generated from.
The reason? Because it allows us in production to roll back to earlier versions if we want to. As well as see our progress over time. Plus, if we're ever putting together material to showcase in a 'making of' or 'behind the scenes' it will be easy to just pull in all of our original files.
During creating all of the FX for God of War for the Superbowl a few years back - I would constantly look through my previews and make sure that I was making headway. And it meant when things started to look the same in each preview - I knew I was starting to slow down and I would need to step it up.
It also meant when clients came knocking, asking to see updates. One of my artists could just pull up all of their work and we could decide what we want to show. Without needing to take time out to generate previews specifically for the client. This saved hundreds of hours!
There's lots of reasons - but the key thing is.. I want you to get more familiar with scripting. And realize it's not all that hard to do. Once you grasp the power of building your own tools - the sky is the limit to what you can do. And of course, how much time you can free up.
This is something we strongly teach inside of the FXTD Mentorship and I think all artists in 2019 and beyond should learn to code and build tools to make their life easier, and free up time to focus on what matters.. Being an artist. Rather than being bogged down with tasks that aren't necessary for a human to do.
You don't need to know math, you don't need to be 'smart' anybody can do this. Just put in the time and think about the steps you would go through, as an artist, and look for what you need to do to bring it all together.
I use this in 3DS Max but the concepts are the same in any package. And, as I show in the video - using Google it's easy to find the specifics very easily.
You can do this!
-Allan
Also check out these resources here:
Free City Destruction VFX Course (8 lessons + project files + Footage): https://www.vfxcourse.com
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