Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of OnDemand Asset Creation
Eric Pinkel, Product Manager, F_BOX picture shooter, Mackevision Corporation
Heiko Wenczel, President, Mackevision Corporation
AV3268
Learning Objectives
At the end of this class, you will be able to:
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Understanding how and why Automotive Manufactures are leveraging cloud rendering.
How on demand virtual photo-real images are empowering ad agency’s creative workflows.
Basic understanding of Mackevision’s Autodesk cloud visualization process pipeline.
Understanding of Mackevision cloud based virtual photography studio.
About the Speakers
Eric Pinkel is the Mackevision US product manager for F_BOX picture shooter. He is responsible for
guiding Mackevision’s US F_BOX picture shooters development, branding, customer relationships and
marketing. Eric holds a BFA in Design and has worked in the field of computer imaging for 15+ years on a
wide range of CGI productions and automotive visualization technologies.
Visit Eric‘s blog at: http://virtual-product.squarespace.com/blog/
Linkedin Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ericpinkel
Email: eric.pinkel@us.mackevision.com
Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
Table of Contents
Learning Objectives ................................................................................................................ 1
About the Speakers ................................................................................................................ 1
Introductions: ............................................................................................................................. 5
Class Introduction ............................................................................................................... 5
Personal Introduction:............................................................................................................. 5
Mackevision Introduction ........................................................................................................ 5
Show Reel Link .................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Why automotive manufactures invest in cloud based virtual vehicles ......................................... 5
What is Cloud Rendering? ...................................................................................................... 6
The Automotive Industry historical relationship with cloud computing. .................................... 6
Benefits of cloud rendering to the Automotive Industry ........................................................... 6
Scalability............................................................................................................................ 6
Speed ................................................................................................................................. 6
Cost .................................................................................................................................... 7
Accessibility ........................................................................................................................ 7
Security ............................................................................................................................... 7
The automotive industry adapts to the emergence of cloud based single source real-time
asset publishing...................................................................................................................... 7
Increasing Image Volume ................................................................................................... 8
Increasing digital advertising budgets ................................................................................. 8
More Product Variants ........................................................................................................ 8
Reduced time to market ...................................................................................................... 9
Streamlining asset production ............................................................................................. 9
Communication overhead ................................................................................................... 9
Toyota cloud based SSP Real-time Use case scenario......................................................10
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
SSP virtual vehicles use case scenario ..............................................................................10
Emerging players in the photo-real cloud rendering market. ..................................................11
RTT....................................................................................................................................11
Autodesk ............................................................................................................................11
Mackevision .......................................................................................................................11
VRED.................................................................................................................................11
Key-shot ............................................................................................................................11
Teamup .............................................................................................................................12
Bloom unit. .........................................................................................................................12
How on demand virtual photo-real images are empowering ad Agency’s creative workflows. ...12
Marketing Projects .................................................................................................................12
Empower the agency creatives ..............................................................................................12

Software in general does not solve problems; it offers a platform to work on problems.
13

With the Picture Shooter Service the idea was born that a solution is offered to very
specific everyday tasks without the need to learn software or become a specialist. ...........13
Think – Select – Create – Produce – Deliver .........................................................................13

Concept ......................................................................................................................13

Select..........................................................................................................................13

Create .........................................................................................................................13

Produce ......................................................................................................................13

Deliver ........................................................................................................................13
Important Factors for Success ...............................................................................................13

Image quality ..............................................................................................................13

Details.........................................................................................................................13

Speed to market .........................................................................................................13
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation

Final Product...............................................................................................................13
Post Production Setup for Single and Configuration Use .......................................................13
Ordering of the image for Post production ..........................................................................13
Add the Marketing Look (Studio Reflections) .....................................................................13
Photoshop Assembly and Retouching................................................................................13
Client Results .....................................................................................................................14
Understanding Mackevision cloud based virtual photography service. ......................................14
High-End 3D as a Web Service ..........................................................................................14
Creative and intuitive Scene Setup ....................................................................................14
Configurable Virtual Fleet ...................................................................................................15
Background Library ............................................................................................................15
Real Images.......................................................................................................................15
Basic understanding of Mackevision’s Autodesk cloud visualization process pipeline. ..............15
How Mackevision is repurposing CAD assets for Marketing with Autodesk tools ...................15
Max and Maya Plug-in pipelines 3daps built with customization in mind ............................15
Virtual vehicle data preparation ..........................................................................................16
Data clean up.....................................................................................................................16
Organizing Data .................................................................................................................16
Animating Product features ................................................................................................16
Managing Complexity and mass customization (COBA) ....................................................16
Photo-real lighting, materials and rendering .......................................................................16
Client approval ...................................................................................................................16
Quality assurance ..............................................................................................................16
Upload to the cloud ............................................................................................................17
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
Introductions:
Class Introduction
The emergence of cloud based computing for rendering is changing forever how we approach
creating CG images for product marketing. Today's leading product manufactures are interested
in how to take advantage of this emerging technology. Our class will explore the advantages of
using cloud rendering and successful real-world applications. Discover how our F_BOX picture
shooter team at Mackevision is using 3ds max and Maya in our CG workflow to successfully
cloud render hundreds of thousands of images for VW, Mercedes, GM, Audi and Chrysler. I will
be discussing real world client case studies, CG pipelines and successful solutions to this
radical rendering paradigm shift.
Personal Introduction:
Hello, thank you for attending our class and taking the time to read thru this lecture outline. I am
excited to share some of my automotive visualization experience. I have been working in the
field of CG product visualization for the past 15 years. Currently, I am the F_BOX picture
shooter US Product Manager for Mackevision’s cloud render service. In my role I have the
exciting opportunity to work with an amazing group of extraordinary talented and insanely
creative individuals developing, deploying and supporting the next generation of real-time cloud
centric photo-real visualization. As US Product Manager, I also have the privilege to support our
cloud rendering automotive and advertising clients listening to their needs, ensuring the highest
level of quality and service. In the past I have worked with Chrysler developing the first virtual
garage, with nPower Software developing 3ds Max CAD translation products, with Autodesk as
a 3ds Max application engineer and as a CG artist at Blur Studio.
Mackevision Introduction
Mackevision was founded in 1994 with its roots in the production of conventional advertising
films. Today, Mackevision employs more than 130 experts and is regarded as one of the world’s
market leaders in the area of 3D visualization, animation, visual effects, and post-production for
agencies, film production and industrial clients. We have offices in Detroit, Stuttgart, Munich,
London, Hamburg and Tokyo.
Why automotive manufactures invest in cloud based virtual vehicles
Large businesses are rapidly adopting new cloud enterprise solutions for finance, construction,
design, and marketing. Today more than eight in ten companies use some form of cloud
solution. Many large and medium sized businesses are moving to the cloud to reduce capital
expenditures, minimize legacy IT and reap the benefits of the mobility of global information
exchange at the granular level. The Automotive Industry, a long time enterprise level computing
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
market segment, is now considering and adopting cloud rendering to efficiently handle the
exploding demand for photo-real virtual vehicles.
What is Cloud Rendering?
Cloud rendering is a 3d visualization service operated by an offsite computing datacenter
provider. The software services of the cloud provider typically offer an interface via web services
in the form of a web page that give artists control of various aspects of the visualization process.
The cloud platforms allows businesses to easily scale processing power up or down as needed
and reduce the cost of expensive computing and networking Infrastructure .
The Automotive Industry historical relationship with cloud computing.
Due to the complex global nature of vehicle design, manufacturing, sales and service the
Automotive OEMs were some of the first businesses to adopt centralized enterprise level
computing. For example, General motors purchased Ross Perot’s Electric Data systems in
1984 for 2.5 billion dollars and in 1996 GM spun it off as an independent company and then
became its largest clients. In 2008 HP purchased EDS which became HP enterprise services,
today, now known as HP enterprise cloud solutions.
Historically, automotive manufactures have leveraged their massive parallel enterprise
computing power to store, simulate and visualize complex design and manufacturing data. This
makes it easy to understand why the automotive industry would naturally be an early adopter of
cloud visualization platforms. Today, as the manufacturing cycle shortens time to market and
the number of media channels increase the OEMs are investigating how to leverage CAD
assets and cloud based enterprise rendering solutions for CGI asset generation.
Benefits of cloud rendering to the Automotive Industry
Advances in hardware, rendering engine technology, and cloud based front end web services
have given rise to real-time interactive photo real rendering over the web. This new technology
wave provides the automotive industry multiple advantages of over existing CGI pipelines
including; scalability, improved speed, reduced costs, global stakeholder accessibility and
increased security.
Scalability
The cloud based on demand IT infrastructure allows OEMS to scale photo-real visualization
needs to react faster to the demands of business while driving greater operational efficiencies.
Many OEMS are researching how the scalability of cloud based real-time rendering affects the
product life cycle including design, engineering, manufacturing and marketing.
Speed
Creating photorealistic CGI rendering of complex manufacturing data has until recently been a
very time and compute consuming process. However, with the advent of grid computing and
now cloud computing the same image that took hours can now take seconds. New GPU
architectures and High performance computing coprocessors are now finding their way into
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
cloud server infrastructures and are defining a new platform for high performance visualization.
Automotive manufactures are taking advantage of this revolution and adopting it to produce on
demand real-time CGI assets for internal and external stakeholders. One recent example of this
is Toyota Europe. Leveraging Fujitsu’s new NVidia Tesla enhanced Celsius c620 cloud server
blade and RTT’s Power House real-time render, Toyota is streamlining their CGI visualization
process to meet the growing content demand in its 32 unique European markets.
Cost
One of the main cost advantages of on-demand cloud based CGI rendering is that it allows
automotive OEM’s to invest in computing power for rendering when they need it and reduces
the necessity to purchase expensive computing infrastructure to meet fluxing visualization
demands. In addition, Photo-real virtual vehicles drastically reduce long costly product approval
loops between product design, legal and marketing departments.
Accessibility
The cloud provides manufactures a new avenue to connect with its global marketing
stakeholders. Today with on demand visualization solutions approved global users at ad
agencies can log-in via the web and instantly experience, interact and create images with the
Brands approved fully rendered and lit photo-real virtual product.
Security
One question on everyone minds is the security of the cloud? Automotive manufactures go to
great length to ensure that their data is safe. Most OEM’s CAD data is shared internally within
the design, engineering and manufacturing groups. To keep the manufacturing information
safeguarded the vehicle data is exported out of the main system as a polygonal model to a
marketing virtual garage. When an approved marketing agency needs a virtual vehicle for a
marketing campaign they are given access to the external virtual vehicle database to download
the model offsite. The OEM currently monitors the vendor’s vehicle download activity but, once
it is out of the garage the virtual vehicle usage is impossible to track. Leveraging the emerging
cloud security features OEMS can now track and control virtual asset usage at the user level. In
addition, providing the ability to create images of the virtual vehicle via the web eliminates the
need to physically download vehicle data.
The automotive industry adapts to the emergence of cloud based single source
real-time asset publishing.
Today, single source publishing is emerging as a universal platform for creating a standard to
deliver global CGI assets. Centralized fully configured and certified CGI vehicle assets are
ideally suited to solve OEMS virtual fleet management keeping creation effort low and quality
consistent.
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
Increasing Image Volume
With an ever increasing quantity of CGI assets automotive manufactures are always looking for
ways of managing quality and accuracy throughout the virtual fleet. Single source publishing is
an effective strategy that allows the automotive industry to create each photo-real vehicle once
maintained in a central location but, can be used and distributed as often as required for
different regions and publishing formats.
Increasing digital advertising budgets
The explosion of automotive spending in advertising to reach customers thru emerging digital
channels is rapidly increasing the need for photo-real vehicle assets. Borrel and associates
forcast that the automotive industry will spend 30.8 billion dollars for advertising in 2012, a rise
of nearly 14% over last year. 11.9 billion dollars is earmarked for online a 39% increase over
2011. By the end of 2012, almost 40 cents of every auto ad dollar will be spent on digital media.
This incredible growth has increased the demand for CGI assets and is part due to the growth of
the 3D animation market. The research firm Tech Navio estimates that by 2014 the global 3D
animation market will surpass $1.5 billion dollars. Also, Freelance dot com indicates that 3d is
the second fastest growing job in the top 50 growing 64% from 2011 to 2012.
As the Automotive industry increases its need for CGI content, on demand render scalability
and low barriers to entry make Cloud based visualization more and a commodity necessary for
success.
More Product Variants
Vehicles are one of the most complex customizable products on the market. Countless body
styles, colors, wheels and mechanical specifications and trim levels allow manufacturers to
target the same car model to different market segments. OEM’s are quickly adopting mass
customization which is emerging as a new frontier in business for the manufacturing sector. The
economics of the tremendous increase in variety and customization with a low increase in cost
make a significant impact on the automotive industry’s bottom line.
In an attempt to communicate the variety of options to customers almost all automotive
companies provide an interactive configuration system that allows potential buyers to customize
and order their own vehicle build. These vehicle configurators are available to the public at the
showroom, web and on their mobile devices. These types of systems require tens of thousands
of images. The massive number of images required for productions of this magnitude is not
achievable thru traditional photography but, instead require a new content creation
methodology. The expandability and on demand scalability of cloud rendering is a perfect match
for the content demand of web configurators. An example of this can be seen on the VW Online
configurator. In June of 2011 VW of America was faced with the task of generating a 360
degree fly around animation of every combination of every vehicle in the US VW fleet. Using
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
Mackevision F_BOX picture shooter online render service the marketing team was able to log-in
and quickly produce over 40,000 images for their configurator project.
Reduced time to market
To compound the situation the explosive demand for content is being squeezed into a smaller
and smaller timeframe. In an effort to increase sales lead time product manufactures now
require marketing and sales content to be produced much earlier in the products life cycle. In
many cases the vehicles have not even reached the manufacturing phase so few if any physical
vehicles are available for photography. Single source virtual fleets provide the automotive OEM
the ability to instantly globally distribute customizable vehicle content imagery for aggressively
timed local marketing campaigns.
Streamlining asset production
Diverse CGI technologies and the varied marketing requirements of different stakeholders
require organizations to communicate in multiple ways. To date, maintaining the same virtual
vehicle in multiple files is inefficient, expensive, and error-prone. The configuration embedded in
each vehicle file to control the way information is displayed is complex and typically and not
easily repurposed. A different CGI expert with specialized 3d knowledge is often needed by the
OEMS agency’s to prepare each variation.
Communication overhead
On demand virtual assets also reduce costs associated with lengthy product approval cycles by
drastically reducing communication cycles between the internal and external stakeholders.
Making sure that each CGI rendering is product approved is currently one of the most frustrating
time consuming components of using CGI for marketing. Currently there are three types of
automotive visualization that happen within the OEM during the life cycle of the product design,
engineering and marketing. Until recently design and engineering have shared the virtual
vehicle throughout the manufacturing process. Now, as OEMS repurpose CAD data for
marketing new processes have been implemented to ensure the accuracy of each CGI image at
the granular level. Since much of the marketing CGI is being created so early in the product life
many parts of the vehicles configuration are still not approved by the brand and product
manager causing costly delays in the marketing effort. The two slides below contrast the
current CGI approval workflow and the emerging single point publishing model.
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
As you can see the single source publishing methodology streamlines time to market by
introducing a Sign off on the virtual model at the early on and instant updates to all stakeholders
significantly reduces costs and time to market.
Toyota cloud based SSP Real-time Use case scenario
In a presentation in May of this year Toyotas senior Manager of European asset management
and Publications Karen Peeters and Senior Project manager CGI Data & process Timo
Winkelbach showed clear evidence that confirmed that a well communicated sign off process on
the real-time virtual model provided significant contributions to improved time to market when
compared to traditional CGI process in the amount of 3 to 4 weeks per vehicle. In addition, they
concluded that a real-time single source publishing unified asset workflow delivered an average
20% cost savings over Toyotas existing CGI asset development pipeline.
SSP virtual vehicles use case scenario
In June 2011 BBDO UK was hired to produce multiple Mercedes-Benz ads for press
publications. In order to keep costs low and maintain high quality BBDO opted to access the
Mercedes Photo-real virtual fleet thru Mackevision’s F_BOX picture shooter. BBDO Artists and
compositors were able to log-into visualization system configure the vehicles for the local
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
market, upload local background images, position the vehicle and camera and create high
quality marketing and sales assets with little or no 3d knowledge.
Emerging players in the photo-real cloud rendering market.
The growing need for single source CGI publishing has created a handful of companies that are
developing and implementing on demand real-time photo-real cloud rendering platforms.
RTT
A longtime leader in automotive visualization RTT recently announced its Power House realtime server. Powered by the Iray render this high-end 3d service currently offers Toyota and
Nissan on demand CGI vehicle resources for the European market.
Autodesk
Last year Autodesk released Its Autodesk 360 cloud rendering service. Based on a new
rendering engine optimized for AEC workflows Autodesk 360 is providing Revit and AutoCAD
users with a new high quality web based rendering service.
Mackevision
Mackevision a global leader in product visualization released it F_BOX picture shooter cloud
rendering service almost 5 years ago. Running on the Vray render engine the Mackevision realtime photo-real web rendering service is the most robust and experienced virtual vehicle
platform on the market. The system is host to multiple automotive fleets including, Mercedes,
VW, BMW and Chrysler and has the proven output of millions of high quality CGI image assets.
VRED
An emerging VR and visualization software development company VRED recently released
Vserver its real-time photo-real online product configurator. Rendering with its proprietary realtime rendering engine VRED offers a high quality virtual product solution.
Key-shot
Keyshot, The developers of the Luxion render engine, recently announced the launch of LuST
it’s real-time rendering web service. Built on a scalable cloud render server model, LuSt is
providing Manufactures designers and ad agency’s creatives an on demand high-quality CGI
images from virtual products.
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
Teamup
Another emerging real-time rendering cloud platform provider is Teamup. Using its new MultiOptics rendering technology, Teamup is providing a web enabled multi-platform collaborative
real-time cloud service that is designed to create and share amazing virtual CGI product assets.
Bloom unit.
Bloom unit recently announced its sketch up AEC real-time collaborative rendering service. Built
on the foundation of the Mental Images Reality Server Bloom unit provides a proven cloud
enabled platform capable of creating and distributing interactive high–quality photo-real
architectural images to collaborating Architects and interior designers.
How on demand virtual photo-real images are empowering ad Agency’s
creative workflows.
To create assets in very short production times, as well as, having several locations working
unconnected to each other but still producing the same quality, all parts of the process need to
be predefined.
Set correctly even untrained partners could produce within that pipeline. When the goal shifts
from single images to configuration content and then to motion configuration content, the
pipeline needs to be as modular and solid as possible.
Marketing Projects
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short time lines: 2 weeks to 3 month
last minute changes of product up until delivery
creative planning and flexibility in a constant changing environment
product info and data not easily available
high amount of unknowns at project start
very defined perspective of quality
Empower the agency creatives
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation

Software in general does not solve problems; it offers a platform to work on
problems.

With the Picture Shooter Service the idea was born that a solution is offered to very
specific everyday tasks without the need to learn software or become a specialist.
Think – Select – Create – Produce – Deliver

Concept

Select

Create

Produce

Deliver
Important Factors for Success

Image quality

Details

Speed to market

Final Product
Post Production Setup for Single and Configuration Use
Ordering of the image for Post production
To get the image in the final resolution and image quality, enter the order dialog and chose the
current perspective. In the option chose the size (2K) according to your image resolution. Also
order all additional retouching layers you might need to create the final look: alpha, shadow,
reflection, refraction, etc…
Add the Marketing Look (Studio Reflections)
To highlight the shape of the car it is useful to order additional renderings in studio
environments. In this case we will add white room reflections and a mirror image for the
reflective ground. Choose the white room grey and the dark floor environment to order the same
perspective in these settings.
Photoshop Assembly and Retouching
Use the mask layers and the exposure control to boost details like the headlights or rims. Also
use the mask layers for color corrections and to add the additional highlights of the secondary
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
renders. Add the reflection from the dark floor environment. From here it is the usual process
according to art direction and retouching to achieve the final look
Client Results
Understanding Mackevision cloud based virtual photography service.
F_BOX picture shooter Virtual Photography Service provides the ultimate synergy between
creatives and manufacturers, seamlessly integrating next-generation CGI content creation tools
with a centrally controlled, cost effective global CGI product management solution.
F_BOX picture shooter’s secure cloud CGI rendering service empowers manufacturers with a
systematic, high-volume, single-source publishing approach to control and distribute renderready CGI assets. It connects business with an experienced strategic visualization partner to
ensure current global product accuracy and exceptional visual standards across all product
lines. The system’s innovative methodology is constructed to improve CGI time to market,
radically reduce cost per image and provide a solid foundation for predictable budget controls
over CGI asset production.
The web-based Picture Shooter Virtual Photography Studio provides the secure creative bridge
between product management teams and creative teams. It’s easy-to-use interface is the
optimum CGI content creation collaborative environment; requiring neither special training nor
equipment to create high-quality, photo-real product images. Mackevision’s partnership with the
world’s leading CGI photographic libraries ensures that clients have instant access to wide
range of background location content for virtually any CGI asset. Picture Shooter Virtual Studio
empowers users with the unparalleled creative freedom to interactively art direct a product’s
visual style from any web-enabled device, anywhere in the world, allowing creative teams to go
from concept to accurate professional CGI product image in less than 24 hours.
High-End 3D as a Web Service
Mackevison F_BOX picture shooter is a cloud enabled single point publishing product
visualization platform that provides manufactures and creative global 24/7 availability to scalable
photo-real on demand product asset creation.
Creative and intuitive Scene Setup
The simplicity of the Picture Shooter interface combined with its real-time feedback is intended
to accelerate 3d visual communication and decisions of creative users with limited CGI
experience enabling them to quickly produce high-quality product image assets. The low barrier
of entry allows users to easily select the desired virtual vehicle, connect with the real-time
engine and interactively position cameras and products on the virtual set. The addition of
professional features like lens control, Lighting control, savable user sessions and animation
provide OEMS the creative control they need for content creation.
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
Configurable Virtual Fleet
The single source publishing frame work provides automotive OEMS internal and external
stakeholders an on demand pre-launch product approved configurable virtual fleet that includes
all colors, trims rims and accessions. The Picture Shooter visualization platform provides OEMS
with automated mass production of all product variants providing the maximum flexibility to
produce any global version of the vehicle for any local markets web print configurator or, Point
of sale.
Background Library
F_BOX Picture Shooter provides thousands of instantly available HDRI backgrounds provided
from the world’s best photography partners. This enables our customers to quickly search our
database find the right image for their needs and load it directly into the virtual vehicle scene to
start composing their final image. It also allows them to easily compare how different
backgrounds affect the product in the virtual scene. The Picture Shooter platform also allows the
user to upload their own image content for a complete customized final product.
Real Images
OEMS require the highest level of photo-realistic content quality available. Picture Shooters
real-time frontend provides the user the feedback they need for their creative workflow while the
offline backend is designed to handle 100 gig pixel ultra-high res images up to 10k and
hundreds of thousands to photo-real animated frames. The platform is intended to give the
OEMS and their creative agencies full access to a complete feature set for digital content
creation including Image resolution, image file types, and professional multi-layer image assets
for 2d post process compositing.
Basic understanding of Mackevision’s Autodesk cloud visualization
process pipeline.
How Mackevision is repurposing CAD assets for Marketing with Autodesk
tools
The initial part of our challenge at Mackevison is capturing the CAD data directly from OEM
PLM system and migrate it to 3ds MAX or Maya. Each OEM has their own unique internal
process that establishes how we begin the migration. One typical workflow is to translate the
NURBS and solids information to a polygon format with Autodesk or an Autodesk partners CAD
translator. This tessellated data is then imported into either Autodesk 3ds Max or Maya.
Max and Maya Plug-in pipelines 3daps built with customization in mind
Autodesk 3ds Max and Maya both provide the rich environment of tools that our visualization
engineers and CGI artist to prepare Photo-real assets for the cloud. Aside from the great price,
invested community and extensive 3d modeling, lighting, animation and rendering features, one
of the most compelling reasons to adopt these applications for our pipeline is programmable
customization. Like many CGI studios Mackevison started out very early writing customized
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
features to extend the functionality of both applications. Our experienced developers have
written hundreds of scripts and tens of thousands of lines of code that help streamline our
production pipeline and that lay the foundation for a successful cloud based virtual product.
Virtual vehicle data preparation
Data clean up
Our Picture Shooter visualization engineers start by using our custom tools in 3ds Max and
Maya to automate any cleanup of the imported vehicle data. Our studio tools like the Kracken
and Normal police preform the heavy lifting of the critical but mind numbing repetitive task
associated with ultra-complex automotive CAD data preparation.
Organizing Data
Once surface normals, vertex operations and duplicate geometry issues have been dealt with
our artist’s position the vehicles in the scene and begin the process of tagging and organizing
the data into a usable hierarchical structure.
Animating Product features
After the part assembly has been arranges and tags we import standardized rigs for product
animation. The artists use custom tools to create controllable animated product parts like wheel
turns linking product parts to the rig then animating the product features.
Managing Complexity and mass customization (COBA)
Next using the product information from the OEM we configure the vehicles options using COBA
our custom programmable logic controller. COBA is at the heart of our database organization
pipeline. COBA is integrated directly into both max and Maya and allows artists to interactively
load and unload materials, Geo, lights, shaders and animations in and out of the scene.
Photo-real lighting, materials and rendering
Once the geo is configured our artists load preconfigured HDRI environments and lighting rigs
and use our custom material exchange script to replace the CAD shaders with product OEM
approved photo--real shaders and materials. The shaders, lights and envvirometns are then
imported into COBA and the artis then configurs the vehicle using a mixture of real-time
rendering and offline rendering to fine tune the multitude photo-real scene elements
Client approval
To streamline the approval process we use scripted cameras and automated process to
generate image portofolios of every major vehicle option for product approval and quality
assurance
Quality assurance
The file is then sent to our lead quality assurance Picture Shooter team where every item of the
vehicle is thoroughly inspected and tested for product authenticity and configurability.
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Virtual Reality in the Cloud: The Business of On-Demand Asset Creation
Upload to the cloud
After QA approves the vehicle and environment the virtual vehicle is exported from Max or Maya
to a non-Autodesk product neutral format then uploaded along with the COBA logic to the
centralized cloud server where it can be immediately accessed by authorized OEM users.
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