The Total Chaos conference hits Bulgaria mid-May.
Chaos Group – the makers of V-Ray, Phoenix and VRscans – has its own dedicated conference in Sofia, Bulgaria that brings together artists and developers from around the world. It’s called Total Chaos and it’s happening very soon.
befores & afters will be there for the May 16 -18 event, so we thought we’d preview five of the killer computer graphics and VFX presentations (from more than 50 on offer).
1. Crossing the uncanny valley: The art of creating digital portraits
Ian Spriggs, 3D character artist
It’s hard not to recommend any talk by Ian Spriggs. He’s been generating insanely detailed photorealistic CG portraits of his friends and family for the past few years (and rendering them in V-Ray) that are simply stunning. Even better are his presentations, like this one, that will break down the process.
2. Creating superheroes the V-Ray way
Deke Kincaid, Digital Domain
With Thanos and a host of other CG characters, Digital Domain has been setting the standard for the synthetic performances of late, partly because of their tried and tested pipeline for capturing, modeling, rigging, animating, texturing and rendering characters. Pipeline supervisor Deke Kincaid will reveal how the VFX studio does it.
3. Superhugo! From fanart to Marvel covers
Victor Hugo, freelance 3D artist
Spend just a few minutes on Artstation and you’re likely come across someone fawning over the 3D rendered characters by Victor Hugo. His distinctive style has propelled him to jobs at Walt Disney Animation Studios and Blur Studio, and made him an inspiration for many other aspiring artists. Here he’s going to talk about his journey from making fan art to being the first artist to ever produce a 3D-illustrated cover for Marvel.
4. Creating worlds with V-Ray: Technical and aesthetic challenges
David Wortley and Falk Boje, ILM
ILM tends to use a myriad renderers for its projects, and in this session senior pipeline technical director David Wortley and lead generalist artist Falk Boje will detail where V-Ray fits into their world building.
5. Agile VFX with V-Ray for Houdini
Grant Miller, Ingenuity Studios
Ingenuity Studios produces VFX for a lot of TV series, commercials and music videos (including some stunners for Taylor Swift), often with elaborate effects simulations handled in Houdini. Partner and visual effects supervisor Grant Miller will outline the studio’s use of V-Ray for Houdini in its pipeline.
Coming to the Chaos
I’ve really only scratched the surface of what’s on offer at Total Chaos – another major side of the event will be hearing directly from company reps, such as co-founder and CTO Vladimir Koylazov, about what’s next from Chaos Group and V-Ray in particular.
Having the time to meet others from the industry in a relaxed atmosphere, and opportunities to learn more about areas such as animation, VFX, post and arch-viz, are also key components of Total Chaos.
The main Total Chaos conference takes place on May 17 — 18, 2019, at Sofia Tech Park. There’s also a Pre-conference on May 16. You can buy tickets here.
Hope to see you there!
