Jason Bickerstaff

When engineering operates at the highest levels of precision, traditional media falls short of capturing the true innovation under the hood. Custom 3D animation bridges that gap, translating complex mechanics and proprietary technology into clear, impactful visual narratives. Here is a look at how I brought a heavy-industry purification system to life—maximizing clarity without losing the technical depth.

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Happy to release a video guide for installing the GUI component of nk2dl (aka Nuke to Deadline). In this video: - How to install nk2dl-gui. - How metadata can be used to override submission settings. - A high level overview of the submission panel. - A demonstration of time savings of nk2dl over the default submitter. Quick submission times to the farm is less about the overall-time-savings and more about removing a blocker that allows artists to stay in a creative flow. But if overall-time-savings is an important metric to you: by our calculations our artists would spend 40 hours per year, on average, waiting for jobs to get from their Nuke sessions to Deadline were they to use the default submitter. Link in the comments.

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1 Minute With Myth: Episode 1 Grace Ruyin and Ira Spiridonova share sneak peek of the process that combines 3D workflows with 2D background art. In our first episode, Ira and Grace talk about how they created this spectacular Mount Fuji shot from Forever Young. #animation #2d #3d #illustration #backgroundartist

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Prompt in 📥 Asset out 📤 Wonder 3D in Flow Studio transforms text into workable 3D—from props and costume assets like zombie earrings to scene elements, ready to refine in Maya or your DCC tool of choice. What should we prompt next?

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ATTENTION OPTICAL BASED MOTION CAPTURE STUDIOS!! Do you rely on external support for your data character solving needs?? If so, let me help you!! 🤙 I can offer custom character solving in Autodesk MotionBuilder on clean optical data for $1.50 (CAD) per character second (plus character setup fee), and can handle upwards of 10,000 seconds per week. With over 20 years character solving experience, I guarantee you won't find the same quality work for the price anywhere else. 🙏 #MotionCapture #optical #Mocap #CharacterAnimation

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Mark Langen's plug-in lets you create repeated geometry in Roblox Studio by dragging handles, similar to how a 3D modeling array modifier works. Get Redupe here: https://lnkd.in/eaz_gawy #roblox #3d #gamedev #gamedevelopment

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When artists integrate AI into their workflow, they can either use Additive or Subtractive AI workflows. With Subtractive AI workflows you create a large swathe of different content. And curate it down to the few items that most closely represent what you may have been going for. With Additive AI, you start from some piece of media, be it a storyboard, concept art, photography or something else that already has a large amount of intentionality behind it. And iterate upwards from there. In my view, both are valid. But Additive workflows are the best for total creative control, resulting in media that is precisely what the artist intended. This is an example of an Additive AI workflow. I start with a clear idea of my character. He's a half Maori head of a security firm. Battle hardened, but from a sophisticated social class. I start by drawing and describing the character and his backstory. I then enhance this drawing in the storyboard mode to speed up the rest of this workflow (optional) And then in Cinematography mode, I bring the character up to a final character sheet. Along the way there were many iterations - over 30 paint overs and modifications, but I'm happy with the result and ready to start filming. Filming itself is done using an AR camera in real or virtual environments, and directed using natural language. Eg. "Mate, can you give it a little more intensity? There's more at stake". You can also use a real actor to drive these performances. This was done in LiveMind Aperture. I'll share more workflows soon.

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Recently I built a small performance HUD overlay for Houdini that shows CPU, RAM and VRAM usage directly in the viewport. The idea is simple: instead of opening profiling tools, you always have a bit of performance telemetry visible while you work. The HUD runs outside the Houdini GUI thread, so it keeps updating in real time even while Houdini is busy cooking and the interface is blocked. That turns out to be surprisingly useful during longer cooks, because you can still see what the current Houdini instance is actually doing. While working recently I noticed something unusual during a Delta Mush cook just by glancing at the overlay, as shown in the video. That led me to investigate further, and I ended up finding a simple workaround that made the operation dramatically faster and reduced memory usage. Sometimes just having the right information visible at the right moment is enough to reveal things you would otherwise miss. This HUD will be part of Houdini Supercharged extension.

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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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Here's the Rive rig overview from my last post. I don't know why that post blew up (The engagement from that post isn't earth-shattering, but almost 2k reactions are already a lot for me 😅) Maybe there's something about the solution, or the output is nice to look at, or a bit of both. A lot of people have asked for a tutorial (by a lot, I mean about 4 😂), so here's a quick breakdown. It's not a full-blown tutorial, but it's the quickest one I can compile. I'll probably make a detailed tutorial in the future. Honestly, I was surprised by the solution's output. And the solution is really simple and obvious, now that I think of it, I just haven't thought of it until now. I have worked with many rigs before (in After Effects), but Rive's built-in joystick and the ability to select a target for the handle are so intuitive and flexible that they enable solutions like this.

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How to get sculpt-level 3D assets from AI without pulling your pipeline apart. Regardless of how much ease AI has brought to production systems, there still tends to be a tad of inconsistency throughout it all ⚔️ And because of that, producers do a full rerun and break their pipelines in pieces. Tencent has removed a vital ‘excuse’ for mediocre 3D AI workflows by releasingHY 3D Studio 1.2, and it is now in public beta. PartGen 1.5 pushes component partitioning to 1536³ (up from 1024³) ♻️ → Brush based control means you can finally edit components with surgical precision. → Shape adherence is far better, so intricate models actually hold their structure. → Texture fidelity and colour accuracy are dramatically improved, and input views doubled from 4 to 8, which stabilises reconstruction. The real question is: How do you use tools like this without creating yet another isolated experiment that never becomes a system 🤔 Here is how you can implement this in a real pipeline: 1️⃣ Anchor HY 3D Studio to asset classes: Ideal teams attach tools to specific, named asset classes, such as E-commerce hero models, high value game props, or modular environment kit. For each class, define an explicit acceptance criteria: → Geometry quality threshold (where 1536³ actually matters) → Texture realism levels (what “good enough” means in your context) → Tolerance for manual clean up time per asset Then your operators know exactly when HY 3D Studio is a fit and when it is not. 2️⃣ Decouple ‘control’ from ‘craft’ in your workflow: PartGen 1.5 is control: brush based partitioning, better shape adherence, clear component boundaries. Treat that control as its own layer in your pipeline: One step is purely about structure → Use PartGen to define clean components, enforce naming, and lock how assets are segmented. Another step is about look and feel → Use the improved texture fidelity and 8 view reconstruction to match brand materials and lighting references. This is how you start moving from cool demo to reusable asset infrastructure. 3️⃣ Turn HY 3D Studio into a repeatable node in your system: this can become a powerful node inside that system if you treat it like this: Standardise multi view capture → 8 view input is only useful if your team always knows which 8 angles to feed for each asset class. Create preset profiles per use case → Partition settings, brush rules, texture expectations for “retail product”, “cinematic hero prop”, “mid distance environment piece”. Log before / after data → Asset type, time to first usable output, manual clean up minutes, issues found downstream in engine or DCC tools. Over a few projects, this builds a data spine around your 3D production: You know where HY 3D saves time, where it creates risk, and which combinations of inputs ship production ready results That is the real unlock. Your production system decides whether it becomes the competitive advantage 🔓

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Dragonling - MRS Rig Update Workflow Quick preview in what I do to a rig when a MRS build is complete 1-Open built rig 2-Import in membrane via Scene 3-Get the module joints I want via Builder's query 4-Skin in extra bits (membrane in this case) 5-Run post build script (set up my sdks and other bits) and parent a few things 6-Replace current rig I've been testing via Scene 7-Open a test anim to verify via Scene Got fix the anim a bit. Been doing iterative builds.

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Anyone else feel like lookdev takes longer deciding than actually doing? I keep running into this loop: tweak → render → wait → forget what I was testing → tweak again. I’ve been messing with the Live Render node in Houdini 21 to see if it helps reduce how often I break flow during lookdev, especially when dialing materials and lighting together. It’s not a magic switch, but it does change the iteration rhythm inside Solaris. I ended up recording a breakdown of how I’m using it in a simple setup. Link’s in the comments if you’re curious. Curious how others are handling lookdev iteration right now.

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🚨 Latest Industry Updates 🚨 Theory Accelerated releases Axiom 4.0 for Houdini ⚡ What’s New: Better collisions → smoke & fire now interact with objects more accurately, preserving volume & energy. Streamlined workflow → redesigned sourcing + improved Output tab for more control. Performance boost → 5–15% faster, with Intel TBB for CPU fallback. 🔥 Why it matters: Axiom continues to be a faster, GPU-driven alternative to Houdini’s Sparse Pyro solver, enabling real-time previews and high-res sims in minutes. #latestupdates #houdini #editor #animator #animationnews

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🙌 Geometry doesn't have to be your roadblock anymore! 🤫 Unlock the secrets of projections without the constraints of geometry. Download our captivating article and dive into the world of Linear Algebra for practical VFX Compositing. 🤓 Comp Lair's Founder, Pedro Andrade will guide you through his research and thinking process, demystify the hierarchy of linear transformations, and show you how to effortlessly transform PWorld Space to PObject/Pref Space, as well as how to achieve Projections in Nuke without geometry. Get your FREE copy now! ➡️ Get it here: https://lnkd.in/eVYNPwQv

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Foundry's pitch for Griptape: an orchestration layer that wires together tools, agents, and pipelines, AI or otherwise. The interesting move is pushing that plumbing directly into Nuke so artists can actually reach it. Pipeline tech that doesn't stay locked to the pipeline team.

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𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜’𝗺 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗺𝘆 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗼. Creative Skeletons: a procedural skeleton planning and building tool for Maya. It represents how I’m approaching skeleton creation and rig building as part of a larger, scalable rigging system. Current features: • Custom locators (cLocator) for clearer visual feedback. • Skeleton structure setup using locator relationships and aiming. • Plan orientation, the spacing, and the hierarchy before joints exist. • Programmatic joint generation based on that intent. As my asset moves into the controller rig creation and setup, it made sense to refactor the controller shape library from my Smiley Tools package into this new toolset, with a slight name change: Flexible Shapes Library -> Creative Shapes. That refactor now includes: • Controller placement directly from selected joints. • The same shape saver and reusable controller library. • Integration that can be called straight from the skeleton builder workflow. Everything is being built as one connected system. Rather than being locked into specific rig types like bipeds, this acts as a complementary system that supports building any skeleton while keeping rig design choices explicit and flexible. The code is available on GitHub for anyone curious to explore it, with the first official release now live: https://lnkd.in/gKwqwfFY Happy to chat about rigging systems, Maya tooling, or Python driven workflows. Feel free to DM me. #rigging #technicalartist #maya #python #gamedev #vfx #pipeline #tools

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It’s been a while since I posted anything, so here’s a simple tool for overriding rotation on a joint without using KineFX.

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🧮 De-mystifying the Pixel Processor in Substance Designer Chapter 2: Grid Generation Recreating a grid like the Tile Generator can do inside the Pixel Processor is a great practice to understand fundamentals of image processing. By scaling your UVs and taking the fractional part, you repeat a pattern across the surface. Then, by centering and stepping the result, you get a clean, evenly spaced grid, fully controllable in both X and Y. 🧱 Horizontal? Vertical? Brick layout? No problem. However how to get there with different shapes is going to be a different chapter. #madewithsubstance #substance3d #substancedesigner #pixelprocessor

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