George Maestri

As a freelance rigger, I need to make sure my builds have a lot of flexibility. So I've recently reworked my lid modules to add variable joint counts. By utilizing a curve-based output I can changed the amount of joints used based on the needs of the project. Higher joint counts for fidelity and control, lower counts for simplicity and optimization. Or I can test and iterate to find a happy middle ground. So animators using my rigs on film or game projects can enjoy the same features, such as: - Automated lid follow with eye movement - Main controls to position the lids through translation and sculpt the curvature with rotation/scale  - Secondary controls for finer detail (If there are enough joints to support it) - Manual or automated blinking. Animate controls, or activate the automated meet point between your posed lids for a perfect seal I've been using iterations of this system over my last few projects, both commercials and games. The core elements of this system have been floating around in my head since 2018, so it's been great to finally put it to the test. 

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Following on from the doc on creating displacement maps, here is a walkthrough on setting up a PBR Metal/Roughness shader on the CAVE Academy Wiki.   https://lnkd.in/gwzZBVPU   As always, if anyone has any extra tips or info on how they'd approach things differently, it would be great to hear your thoughts.   #visualeffects #caveacademy #learning #wiki #education #vfx #surfacing #animation #games

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Weekly Houdini Tip #3 - Whitewater rendering with Karma XPU For many years, the standard way of rendering whitewater in Houdini has been using the traditional Mantra renderer. Mantra is capable of producing a highly accurate, volumetric "wet" look that closely resembles real whitewater. However, Mantra is now becoming outdated and is being replaced because of its slow performance. As a result, it's important to explore alternative methods for rendering whitewater using Houdini’s modern, fast, and efficient built-in renderer, which is Karma XPU. While Karma XPU cannot interpret the legacy Whitewater shader from the Material Palette (since that shader is built with VEX nodes, which Karma XPU does not support), there are still several viable approaches to achieving a visually acceptable whitewater look using MaterialX-based workflows. 1. Rendering Whitewater points as particles - Adjust the pscale of your whitewater points to keep them small enough for rendering. - Apply a MaterialX Standard Surface shader to the WW points, they will be rendered as small spheres by default - Set Specular Roughness to a low value for a wet, shiny look. - Optionally tweak Transmission, Opacity or add color (you can use the Cd attribute from your points with the "MtlX Geometry Property Value" node) - This is the fastest method - on my machine, a full HD frame rendered in under 1 minute using Karma XPU. 2. Rendering Whitewater as a volume - Convert your whitewater points to a volume using nodes like "Volume Rasterize Particles", "Volume Rasterize Attributes", "VDB from Particles" - Apply a "Karma Uniform Volume" or "Karma Pyro material" and adjust Density and Shadow Density - This method takes longer to render, about 5 minutes per frame in my tests, but gives a softer, more mist-like result. 3. Combining Particle and Volume renders in comp - Volume rendering alone lacks specular highlights, so it can appear flat or dry. - To restore wetness, render the whitewater both as A) Volume for body/mist, and as B) Particles for specular highlights. - In compositing, layer the speculars from the particle pass over the volume pass. This blended result can closely match the look of the classic Mantra whitewater shader. It would be great if future Houdini releases include a ready-made Whitewater material using MaterialX nodes, that will be fully compatible with Karma XPU. If you’re aware of a better method for rendering whitewater with Karma XPU, or if I missed something, let me know in the comments. . . . #houdini #karma #sidefx #whitewater #sidefxhoudini #fx #fxartist #simualtion #flip #fluids #water #materialx #xpu #rnd #vfx #flipsimulation #tutorial #particles #volume #solaris #lops

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🎉 Two New Career Resources Just Landed on Our Community Site - With Huge Thanks to Scott Millard and Tim Cullings! https://lnkd.in/d3z__2sV If you’ve ever wanted to understand how video game publishing actually works - not the surface-level stuff, but real, on-the-ground global strategy - you now have one of the best free guides in the world, permanently, thanks to Scott Millard. Scott is a veteran industry leader, best known for his time as Managing Director of Bandai Namco Southeast Asia and Korea. He helped launch Tekken, Dragon Ball Z, and even brought Skyrim to market in the region. His publishing knowledge spans regions, formats, and decades - and he’s gifted our community his Guide to Video Game Publishing for all to access at Amir Satvat's Games Community. Also, I’m thrilled to welcome Tim Cullings as a contributor - someone I’ve admired for years. You may know Tim from his leadership at Global Game Jam, Seattle Indies, or his earlier work with Oculus VR and in engineering. He’s kicked things off by sharing a curated list of top game dev events and jams - something many have requested. But this is just an amuse bouche. Tim has big ideas, and we’re excited to build this space with him and for him. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear - you want more Tim in the community, and so do we. 🔹 In sharing these, I also want to recognize the 20 amazing individual contributors behind the career resources on our site, in addition to our Discord moderators and 2,400+ community coaches. I’m proud to say that 10 of the 20 are female - 50%, which is double industry gender representation. And we’re equally proud of the diversity across many other dimensions, which we take seriously in every aspect of our work. Here they are - please join me in thanking them: • Sarah Thomson (Mentorship Guide) • Alex Gombos (Interview Guide) • Jasmine Coppin (Art Portfolio Review Guide) • Hailey Rojas (#OpenToNetwork) • Mayank Grover (New Games Roles Partnership) • Eva Tucker (Support Your Indies) • Alexander Rehm (MVP Resources) • Johnathan Vance (Indie Marketing Guide) • Aïda Figuerola (Early Career Guide Lead) • Ali Farha (Early Career Guide Lead) • Chris Mayne (Games Art Resources) • Seth S. (Guide To Games Startups) • Corey Neuman (Homelessness Resources) • Michelle Fuzari (Mental Health Resources) • Jessica Lindl (Career Resources Suite) • Renee Gittins (Game Dev Foundry - External Resource Partnership) • Lex Parisi (Ask Lex Career Questions) • Tim W. (LinkedIn Premium Trials Resource Ownership) • Tim Cullings (Events And Jams; And More To Come) • Scott Millard (Guide To Video Game Publishing) • Thank you also to Fitzgerald Lewis, Tim Wood, Will Morgan, Max Bowser, Alex Gombos, and Michelle Voillot for their contributions to the Early Career Guide 💙 Never forget - this is a total team project of 10,000+ lifetime contributors. "We Help Gamers Get Hired. Zero Profit, Infinite Caring."

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Need unique liquid splatter effects? Simulate them in real-time with LiquiGen & generate variations in seconds, including render passes, 3D mesh and particle exports. This particular setup takes about 5 seconds per variant on an RTX 4090 (so hundreds could be created in less than an hour).

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Incidents like this are a strong reminder of how essential real, human QC is — even on rush jobs. A proper review on both sides would have caught this instantly. But in an age of automation and AI-driven workflows, mistakes like these can slip right through and derail all the hard work that should be the focus. Instead of celebrating the restoration or the quality of the show, everyone ends up talking about what should never have been visible in the first place. https://lnkd.in/gkX9SaPf

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There is no magic bullet for rendering in Unreal Engine... Can I get a 🙌?? If you've ever rendered anything out of Unreal Engine, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. That's why today's episode is a deep dive into the tricky, sometimes hair-pulling process of rendering cinematics out of Unreal, with some bonus tips for best practices and pitfalls to avoid. Check out the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/eEgMTrb7

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Creative Freedom: The Career Essential for Sound Professionals. 💚 Insights from Dallas Taylor, founder of Twenty Thousand Hertz and Defacto Sound. 💚 In the latest episode of Pro Audio Secrets, Dallas shares why maintaining an independent creative outlet—completely free from client input—is crucial for longevity in our industry. 💚 We also explore how strategic social media usage has evolved beyond simple self-promotion into a powerful networking tool that connects sound professionals with previously inaccessible opportunities. 💚 Dallas's journey from sound designer to podcast creator and studio owner offers a masterclass in career diversification within audio. 💚 Experience the full conversation in our latest Pro Audio Secrets episode. Follow Dallas Taylor to continue learning from one of our industry's most innovative voices. 💚 #AudioProduction #SoundDesign #PodcastProduction #CreativeEntrepreneurship #AudioIndustry

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For my connections focused on #motioncapture and/or #metahumans, I thought I’d share a “sneak peak” at what appears to be some major enhancements to #unrealengine’s performance capture and digital human pipelines in UE 5.6.  Looks like the MetaHuman Creator system is not only moving into an in-engine tool, but also adding highly customizable body sizing controls and other major advances. The performance capture pipeline also appears to be retooled to be designed around the goal of centralizing live capture workflow, including custom performer->character mapping, session/slate pre-planning and session management. All of this is based on what I’m inferring from the public source code version of #urealengine5.6. The primary source of the best information on all of this will be the talks and developers at #unrealfest in Orlando next month. If you’re going, keep an eye out for me. I’ll be in the audience of all the MetaHuman and performance capture sessions can get into other than when I’m presenting my own lab session on the Motion Design toolset. Hope to see you in Orlando! https://lnkd.in/eaND2wJr

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Character consistency in VEO3 I2V? The trick? The same start-frame for all clips and: "Instantly jump/cut on frame 1 to [describe the new scene loosely]. [Add a more detailed description of the new scene]. The song is "I'll Understand" by Roza, from http://Artlist.io. If your start frame has a chroma key background, VEO is more likely to quickly do the jump to the new scene you describe, while retaining the key elements from the start frame if you describe them loosely. It's not 100% but I still find it very useful when I'm creating clips. This trick works for other things than characters too..! :-) #Veo #genai

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What will happen to Sound Post-Production in the age of Artificial Intelligence? Not long ago, Ben Wilkins shared a job posting: “Train an AI to do sound editing – $8/hour.” He joked: “Why wait to be replaced? Go ahead and train your replacement yourself!” That post hit me. I’ve been watching many of my friends in voice acting struggle with contracts that now include clauses to replicate their voices with AI. In other creative fields like graphic design, people are already losing work and moving to other professions. So, will sound post-production face the same fate? Will a “machine” one day mix a film or design soundscapes on its own? The truth is: AI is already part of our workflow. Dialogue editors and mixers use tools like dxRevive and Hush Pro every single day. There are platforms where you type a prompt and generate sound effects (like ElevenLabs Sound Effects Beta). Others compose music in seconds based on a single mood like Suno. But does that mean the sound post professionals will vanish? Some believe yes. Others argue no machine can replicate what is inherently human: intuition, lived experience, subjectivity, taste. Richard King once told me he doesn’t fear AI at all, because storytelling in sound depends on those very qualities. Maybe he’s right. Or maybe only people at his level of mastery will remain “safe.” The truth is, it’s not just about technology. It’s about how the industry thinks. The Hollywood strikes made that very clear: the fear is not irrational. Outside cinema, think about chess: Magnus Carlsen, the greatest player alive, openly admits no human can beat Stockfish, the strongest chess engine. Yet millions still follow Carlsen, not Stockfish. Why? Because people want to see humans. If that’s true in chess – which is partly math – why wouldn’t it be true in film, which is entirely art? Audiences want human touch. They want stories. They want feeling, choice, opinion, perspective. And sound is storytelling at its core – it’s the voice between the lines of a script. If a day ever comes when people prefer watching robots play soccer or AI making movies, then yes, we’ve lost something bigger: our humanism. At that point, making art wouldn’t make sense anymore. Thankfully, I don’t believe that day will come. Until then, we’ll keep coloring the world with sound.

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When a client asks for character animation, most beginners start keyframing every limb manually. But pros? They rig. In this tutorial, I broke down the process of using Duik Angela—a free tool inside After Effects—to build a custom skeleton and automate complex character movement using Inverse Kinematics (IK). What I covered: • What is Rigging? Creating a skeleton system that lets one body part influence the others—for example, when you move the arm, the hand follows naturally. • Planning the Character: I designed a custom character (“Karubhuddhi Lal Bhaiya in an MJ jacket”), broken into layers—arms, legs, torso, hands, etc.—to prep for rigging. • Setting up Duik Angela: Built a full bone structure using custom joints, linked everything together, and created a fully controllable puppet. • Animating with Ease: Used controllers to animate the dance sequence, with smooth movement and minimal manual keyframing. 

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