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FX Workshop + Fume FX 2 Auto Sim Script

Fume FX 2.0 Auto Script v1.0

So this is more a 5 minute thing I wrote for my own uses, however I posted this on a few forums and a lot of people have gone crazy for it. So I’m releasing it publically for anyone who needs it. It’s written ‘as is’ but I find it useful for production.

Basically set up your container with all the correct settings you need (I have had one or two people run the script right after making their grid expecting it to do something magical for them, so keep in mind you SET UP YOUR CONTAINER and then once you have everything how you want it, ie. simulation, wavelet, retiming and rendering all set up. You can run the script, and it will initially simulate your container, and then run the wavelet and retiming sims and then render it. Which means rather than hitting sim several times at each phase, you can run the script and it will simulate each phase for you and then render it once it’s done. Which means you can go get that beer at the pub that you’ve been craving all day. (or focus on other shots without needing to baby sit this one).

Download AutoScript v1.0 here

Get Hollywood Live Action Workshop

So in the past two months both CG Society and I both have had a LOT of traffic requesting the Hollywood Live Action Workshop which I designed last year run at least another time.

So for those of you who don’t know, this workshop focuses over 8 weeks hands on with me, on simulating a real production environment, conceptualizing your effects, building all your hold out geometry and matching your camera. Building the effects and projecting footage etc. and compositing elements to make your final shot. Essentially replicating what you do in the real world day to day. This is one of my favorite workshops as I think this is real world knowledge that really does train you for working on high end films, and so far we’ve had a great amount of people both experts in the field and some more budding artists all attending, and some of the bigger names too such as Mir Vadim (creator of Rayfire) and various other guys from Ubisoft and other studios all doing the workshop.

The workshop focuses on Fume FX, Afterburn, Fracturing, Scripting tools, Compositing, painting concept art, camera matching, dynamics, rayfire and a heck of a lot more

So we’ve just announced the workshop today -a lot of spots are already taken because of the general interest leading up to it. But if you want to attend the workshop go over to CG Society and sign up! This will be a really exciting workshop and I gaurauntee all of you will take a lot away from this!

Hollywood Live Action FX Workshop

Now serving Los Angeles

After almost a year of living in San Francisco while I was working on The Last Airbender, and Priest at ILM and Spypost. I will now be officially relocating and setting up permently in Los Angeles. This has been a long term plan that is finally coming together, with plans for later this year to move Catastrophic FX and a lot of my resources over to LA as well.

This to me is a very exciting time, as I will be shifting all of my resources together and setting up a small studio to collectively build a team of solid FX artist and compositors to push through high level production work and work as a support system for other visual effects facilities throughout their productions.

There will be a formal announcement coming in the later months, but I did want to share this news, as now I will be based in LA and I will be looking to pull together 3D resources and also help with other vfx studios if there need be any VFX or supervisional work!

For the remainder of the year I while setting everything up, I will be focusing solely on freelance work, so anyone needing FX drop me an email

Any questions or need for vfx services feel free to contact me at amckay@allanmckay.com

Teaser Trailer for Priest!

So one of the recent films I completed, Priest – has now got a teaser trailer available. This film, I think by far is my best work yet! Obviously once the film’s out I’ll be excited to cover more indepth the work I created for this, however in the meantime check out the new teaser trailer located here!

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Want some Fume FX 2.0 lovin?

Fume FX 2.0 Fluids Feature Overview video

Below is a link to a 30 minute video I put together just discussing some of Fume FX 2.0’s new features, as well as walking through how some of them work. feel free to click on ‘like’ if you like it!

Also on a separate note, I will soon be updating this website with high resolution downloadable versions of all of my tutorials, as well as ipod versions if you want to watch them while you’re on your way to work each morning! So keep an eye out for this!

Fume FX 2.0 – Fluids Feature Overview from Allan McKay on Vimeo.

Join Facebook Public Page so you can share knowledge, win prizes and find other VFX artists!

I now have a public page you can join, the idea is to build a great community of visual effects enthusiasts

With so many talented and creative people visiting this page, I wanted to find a way to pull everyone together in a way that we can all share information and knowledge, as well as post information related to visual effects and the film industry. It will be the most up to date way to find out about new tutorials and information, as well as contests being held to win prizes such as personal tutoring and training DVD’s amongst other great stuff! So when you get a chance, join my facebook page!

Allan McKay to judge VFX Wars!

So not major news, however I thought it would be worthwhile mentioning I am going to judge this coming VFX Wars challenge.This should be fun! Read more on VFX Wars here…

Want to win Advanced Visual FX 3 DVD?

Although this is jumping the gun a bit, I thought it would be a great way to announce the new Visual FX DVD I have been working on the past 6 months! More information will be coming on it soon, but if you’re interested in winning a free copy to download, I thought it might be fun to put up a thread on my Facebook page, just discussing some of your favorite all time FX movie sequences. Already there are dozens of posts about this, and it’s been great to interact with so many people and see their insights into what makes a great FX movie! I will be randomly picking one of the contributors on September 15 to receive a free downloadable DVD of Advanced Visual FX 3! Check it out here!!

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SIGGRAPH + ILM Fluids Talk + Updates

Update + SIGGRAPH 2010 – Los Angeles, CA
So recently I have wrapped on a new film project ‘Priest’ which is out next year. Also M Night Shyamalan’s new film The Last Airbender is out, so take a look at all the amazing work Industrial Light + Magic did on this, I was initially working on the wave sequence a the end of the film as well as a couple of water shots.

I will be in LA attending SIGGRAPH this year Monday through to Friday, anyone with interest in meeting up to discuss possible work or training, consultation etc. while you’re in town please let me know, my schedule is fairly full however it is a great time of year to meet with people while everyone is all town.

My email address is amckay@allanmckay.com if you need to get a hold of me.

I will also be attending the Autodesk drinks Monday night.

Allan McKay – Industrial Light + Magic – Fume FX Class
This talk is a little old but I thought I might release it, it’s based on a class I held at Industrial Light + Magic earlier this year, it’s more a quick overview of Fume FX and it’s capabilities. I pretty much put the talk together the night before but never the less it’s a pretty interesting talk and covers a lot of useful information on fire and also an insight into cross platforming max with other packages etc.
CG Society Artist Profile : Allan McKay
So recently I did an interview with CG Society on a lot of my background and the work I’ve done, insights into the industry etc. You can view the article here
Digital Pyrotechnics Workshop soon to be announced
So what have I been up to the last 2 months? Most of my time has been spent on developing a new workshop for CG Society for Fume FX 2.0 that is soley focused on creating the most realistic fire possible, and explosions and all things pyrotechnic. I hope this will be the holy grail of workshops, and over 8 weeks I will privately train and mentor the students on creating realistic explosions and other visual effects. This is going to be a really exciting workshop and should be announced in the coming weeks!

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Update, Interview & Final Real Flow Workshop!!

Interview with McKay at CG SWOT


I recently did an interview with CG SWOT on some of the current things I’ve been up to, you can check it out here:

Or direct download link here which goes for roughly an hour just discussing some of the recent things I’ve been doing as well as some of the things I’ve been doing in the past, enjoy!

Last Real Flow Workshop for the year!! SIGN UP NOW!

Just announced this week, and commencing July 1st, this will be the last Real Flow Workshop for some time, this workshop has been a major success, and due to the popular interest from many people, as well as the now released Real Flow 5, I wanted to run this workshop one last time so this class will fill up very quickly, so get in fast!
The workshop covers many great subjects associated with Real Flow, primarily used as a way to get people working in a film production pipeline on Real Flow fast. The work coming out of artists after completing this workshop has been very impressive and I’m very keen to see participate in this workshop with all of the upcoming students!
Sign up now for July 1st Real Flow CG Society Workshop! CHECK IT OUT HERE

Quick update
So this has been an extremely busy past 3 months, after wrapping at ILM I’ve been working on Priest alongside a lot of ex ILM, Pixar and Orphange folk in San Francisco on what looks to be a really impressive film. I’m in the middle of wrapping up on the final sequence of the film, after which I plan to take some time off until August to focus purely on training and a couple of new business ventures.
So part of this will be to focus on expanding this website with loads of new Real Flow, Thinking Particles, Maya, Houdini and Rayfire tutorials. There is a lot coming, and my focus will be 100% on doing this and running CG Society CGWORKSHOPS for the coming months. So stay tuned, and thanks for your patience!

So big things to come! For all of those who have emailed me over the past couple of months and not received a response, please be patient I will get back to you the first chance I get, once this film has wrapped and I’ve recovered from one hell of a big wrap party!

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Tutorials! Fracturing! Afterburn! New Workshop! Box 2!

Hollywood Live Action Workshop announced!

hollywood live action workshopHollywood live action workshop
Hollywood live action workshop

Just announced last week, the Hollywood Live Action workshop is currently accepting enrollments! This workshop has been a huge success in the past, primarily focusing on getting people up to speed quickly with all current FX tools such as rayfire, Afterburn, Fume FX, Digital Fusion, Scripting etc. as well as being the only CG Society workshop that focuses on creating visual effects for live action shots, so we cover a lot on matching cameras to shots and creating the visual effects and destruction, rendering passes out and compositing these shots, simulating a real life production environment. Enroll now before it sells out!

ENROLL NOW AT CG SOCIETY

Fracture Tutorial

A new tutorial today just on quickly discussing fracturing geometry but more importantly getting your fractured geometry into Particle Flow. This is pretty general knowledge I’ve covered before but at least not directly on the topic of fracturing, so I thought it would be well worth while putting something up.

New Tutorials!

Keep your eye out for later this week there will be two new tutorials one on Box Set 2 and one on Afterburn. In addition, later in the month expect loads of material on Rayfire and Krakatoa and other cool announcements!

Particle Flow and Fracturing Geometry from Allan McKay on Vimeo.

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Procedural Maps & Modeling Talk

Here you can find a tutorial for 3d studio max on procedural mapping and modeling

I’m currently in San Francisco working on a new film after just returning from Los Angeles last week where I worked on a new game cinematic with a few ex Blur Studio guys which was a lot of fun

I’ve put together another quick tutorial just discussing layering procedural maps together and piping into geometry etc. You cand find it below

I have a lot of new stuff I will be putting up soon, most of the tutorials I’ve been putting together lately are more technical exercises on using features inside of max, and on scripting etc. However I will be doing a lot of practical exercises, stuff like blowing things up in max, and using rayfire, krakatoa, box 2, thinking particles etc. Loads of stuff to come, but again any ideas for specific things you want to see please go ahead an email me – I have been getting a lot of great emails about great ideas for FX topics, and yes Rayfire is definitely a big one!

Procedural Maps & Modeling Talk 1 from Allan McKay on Vimeo.

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Particle Tutorial and new Real Flow Workshop

Emitting from 3D Texture Volumes Tutorial

New 3D Studio Max Tutorial on Particle Flow, discussing emitting particles to 3D procedural textures to build volumetric patterns for your initial particle emission

Real Flow Workshop #2

NEW REAL FLOW WORKSHOP – SIGN UP NOW!

CG Society’s Real Flow Workshop just finished this week, and it was a huge success! Thanks again for everyone who participated! A lot of old faces from previous workshops had signed up, as well as a lot of new people too, and the results were amazing!

The next workshop is about to run in the coming weeks, so if you’re interested in kicking ass with Real Flow, then sign up here. Keep in mind that the last workshop sold out within the first couple of days, so it might be a good idea to get in quickly!

VFX POLLS + VFX BOOTCAMP

Thanks everyone who has emailed me showing interest in the VFX Bootcamp, I had no idea there would be so many people as excited about this idea as I am! At this stage I just wanted to gauge general interest, I’ve been sent a lot of emails asking to run it in multiple cities rather than one, as it’s an inconvenience for anyone who isn’t in LA. I’ll keep everyone in the loop about this. Perhaps doing it online might be also an option, but I liked the idea of face to face hands on training over 3 intense days!

I’ve wrapped at ILM & currently in Los Angeles for the coming weeks, after which I will be flying back to San Francisco for a new feature film project. Max 2011 is soon to be released, so some exciting announcements tied to this

Until then – Happy St Patty’s day, and enjoy your hangovers!

Allan McKay

- Los Angeles USA

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