Interview with Matt Donlan of Mirage Graphics Studio

Mirage Graphic Studio, a rising force in computer-generated architectural illustration and product visualization, is dedicated to transforming your ideas and designs into the ultimate in conceptual expression though the careful blending of traditional artistic creativity with the power and flexibility of computer modeling.
http://www.mirage-graphics.com/

CGA: Could you introduce yourself?

My name is Matt Donlan. I’m 33 years old and I own Mirage Graphic Studio. We produce mainly 3D imagery for the architectural industry. We like to dabble in medical animation, product illustration, web design and general graphic design when our clients call for it as well.

CGA: Tell us about your background and how you originally became involved with computer graphics and the architectural industry?

I went to school in the 80’s for graphic design. I was sure I could make a bunch of money and have fun doing it as a graphic designer. Computers were just coming into their own, and I wanted to be a part of the Apple revolution. After about 5 years though, I was bored to death. If I had to do one more brochure or another newspaper, I was going to go postal. It was about that time that I saw an ad for a school offering multimedia. I signed up the next day and began my journey into 3D.
Most architectural illustrators don’t like to hear this, but I fell into the architectural field by accident. I was working for a company that created architectural illustration and animation producing, of all things, their marketing materials. The Art Director really stunk. I found myself fixing his renderings before I could use them in our marketing. After doing this for about 3 months, the owner asked me if I would like to be the Art Director. I said yes and that afternoon the old Art Director disappeared…..
That was 5 years ago. About 3 years ago, I left and started Mirage. I got tired of someone else telling me how to do my job – something we can all relate too.

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CGA: Can you tell us about Mirage Graphics Studio, how it was started, and about the people that work there?

Mirage Graphic Studio is small group of talented artists. I had big dreams of running a firm with 8 to 10 people someday. I quickly realized that running a firm with several people meant babysitting, not creating. So, over the last 3 years, I’ve spent my time keeping the company manageable and flexible, allowing me to enjoy my job and my life (my wife would argue otherwise). I’ve also found that having a reliable group of contractors was the best decision I ever made. I can keep my overhead low, but I never have to worry about turning down large projects, it’s the best of both worlds. The important thing is to bite of more than you can chew as often as possible. Always say, yes you can, and then figure out how later.

CGA: I understand that you guys have just completed a major project using Brazil r/s, can you tell us about it and tell us about how the project unfolded from start to finish?

Ah, yes. We’ve recently completed an animated fly-though and walk-through of a resort in Maui called the Westin Ka’anapali Ocean resort. The decision to use Brazil was mainly out of disgust for Max’s scanline renderer and the headaches with Lightscape. Getting the two to work together while you’re making changes and updates to the design on a daily basis proved to be too slow and too costly. Brazil allowed us to render changes just like with the scanline renderer, but with the quality we demand. So, from day one we relied on Brazil. The only drawback for us was not fully understanding the depth that Brazil offered when we began. It was a learn-as-you-go project. The great part was that Brazil was able to do everything we asked of it without all the weird workarounds we all deal with. Brazil was still in Beta when we began this project and even at that stage it outperformed the alternatives.

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CGA: With the growing number of GI/Radiosity renderers out there, what was the deciding factor for choosing Brazil? What features does it offer that have helped you to pull off this project?

We started with lightscape about 3 years ago. We loved the results but we just couldn’t use it in an industry that demanded changes be made and shots re-rendered in a matter of hours. About a year ago, we found Brazil. It was early in the Beta stage, but we knew this was the direction for us. We played with the Beta version for a few months and then made the decision to buy Brazil last December. We started using it in production in January and have never looked back. There certainly are a lot of radiosity renderers out there all of the sudden. Most of them couldn’t animate with the quality that we demand. The ones that came close took too long. Brazil is so much more than just Radiosity and GI. It has amazing materials, lights and raytrace abilities. Everyone latches on to the radiosity part of the current group of renderers. But, how many of them actually have custom shaders for carpaint, wax, velvet, chrome, accurate specular highlights (not just dots of light)? How many have custom cameras and lights that allow you to achieve a level of realism on so many more levels than just radiosity? We found out….None.

CGA: What sort of render times were you getting?

The Holy Grail of all renderers – render time. When we first started using Brazil (public version .14) our render times were calculated in days. We didn’t care, we were just playing. And we were rendering at 3000 or 4000 pixels – something no other 3D industry really worries too much about. But after Brazil became polished and we became polished, our render times plummeted.

How’s this for fast – our Maui project is an interior animation with an average of 18 lights per room (3 main rooms) and around half a million faces – with chamfers and reflections all over the place. We ran it using radiosity at broadcast quality settings. Our render times averaged 20 minutes per frame for the interior and 8 minutes a frame for the exterior. We weren’t getting any faster render times using scanline, once you turned on a few raytraced materials….But I must say, even with those render times, we didn’t have the capabilities in house to handle the 10,000 frames of finished animation. We called in the experts at e-powergate out in Hollywood, CA. Their renderfarm is equipped with dozens of brazil licenses. They tackled this project head on and were able to render the entire job in two weeks. It would’ve taken us 3 months to do it on our 6 machines.

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CGA: Can you tell us about some of the challenges that you experienced on this project?

As with all of our projects, the client is always the biggest challenge. I mean that in the nicest way. Our biggest challenge, technically speaking, was just switching from Max materials and lights to Brazil’s. We’ve spent the last 5 years creating “Fakes” and “workarounds” for so many challenges that, when Brazil came along none of the fixes worked. It turned out that Brazil handled everything accurately, we didn’t need any fixes. Because of that, we had to unlearn all of our bad habits and start treating light and material like you would in real life. It’s not as easy as it sounds. But the results speak for themselves.

CGA: Will you be using Brazil for all of your future projects?

I can’t tell you the last time we used scan line. We’ve been using Brazil exclusively since January of this year. I see no reason to ever go back. And with Brazil adding to their renderer constantly, I’m excited to see where they will take it from here. They’ve only just released version 1.0 and already it’s stronger and more flexible than the other renderers out there that have been available for years.

CGA: You have some very impressive work, is there a project that your are most proud of? What about this project makes this project stand out from the rest?

One project, huh? I don’t think there’s one project that stands
out. They all have their unique qualities to them (except for those projects we are all asked to do but would never show anyone – you know what I’m talking about). I think I’m most proud of the body of work we’ve created since switching to Brazil. The quality of our work was good before, now it’s in a whole new league. I feel that Brazil has opened a door that I never thought would be opened in our field, the ability to take our work to a level previously reserved for movie houses in LA.

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CGA: Are there any new technologies/techniques that you are looking into or new technologies that you see making inroads in the future of architectural rendering?

Unfortunately, I do. Brazil is one of those technologies. Radiosity renderers are raising the bar in this field. I think you’ll see a lot of the not-so talented illustrators disappear as these renderers make it into the hands of everyday CAD people that couldn’t compete with us even 6 months ago. The same technology that’s pushing us up the ladder is also taking away a small portion of our work because the architects can create more in house than ever before. Luckily for us, our quality is such that we don’t compete with architects, we work directly with the developers who need a presentation, not just a rendering.

CGA: Where do you see the future of architectural rendering going? Do you envision significant changes within the next five to ten years in the way this industry operates?

See above. I guess it pays to read all of the questions first?

CGA: What one strength do you see as contributing most to the success of an architectural CG firm?

Talent. My biggest gripe among the “professional” renderers out there is that they boast the “Bleeding edge technology” or the “fastest computers in town.” So what. I’ve seen incredible images create with Bryce (no offense). Although technology is crucial to our industry, it is not the deciding factor in whether or not someone is good. You can put anyone in front of a quad processor machine with Maya and it doesn’t mean they’ll create anything worth looking at. While the guy working on a 266 mhz using 3D Studio release 4 is recreating the Sistine Chapel. Talent is always first. The rest are just tools of the trade. And they change monthly.

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CGA: What tip(s) can you give our readers to improve their renderings?

Pay attention, to everything. Study materials and how they act and react under different situations. Look at lighting. Study the way a single candle can emit enough light to fill a room. And learn Photoshop. 3D is only 50% the picture. Photoshop makes it real. Remember modeling is only 1/3 of a good rendering. Materials and lighting are equally important to any good image. Also, try and create some point of interest. Accuracy and believability are two different things. I hear a lot of people say, “This software makes it very accurate.” Pick up a book on photographic lighting and look at how many extra lights and hidden reflectors they use to make a room look “accurate.” Just remember that it can look believable without being accurate.

CGA: What do you not like to see in architectural computer generated work?

My biggest pet peeve is when illustrators use photographs of people taken indoors in ourdoor renderings and visa versa (Sorry RPC). There’s no quicker give away than seeing a person inside with sunlight on half their body!! Take the time to photograph your own people under the right lighting conditions. It’s easy, buy a digital camera, have your friends pose, it’s like a party!

CGA: What is in the future for Mirage Graphics Studio?

The future of Mirage is wide open. Actually, because of Brazil, we’ve begun to branch out. We’ve just finished our first medical animation that will be seen on ABC, CNN and possibly on 60 minutes in the spring. We used Brazil’s Toon shader and got some great results with it, especially considering we didn’t even know how to use the Toon shader before we agreed to take on the animation. We’re also getting into a bit more web design, it’s everywhere so why not cash in? We’re looking into creating some animation for litigation as well as product illustration and product demonstration. That should keep us busy for awhile.

CGA: What is your favorite link to visit on the web?

I can’t say. Too many people would be offended. Just kidding. This may sound bias, but Splutterfish.com is one of my most used links. I can see what others’ are up to and it’s a great resource for tutorials and examples of the amazing work being created with Brazil.

My other favorite link is Yahoo. I know it sounds boring, but easily 20% of any job we do is research. When we started the Maui project, we needed to find 40 plants and trees that only grow in Hawaii – and they weren’t going to pay to fly me over, darn. So, we used yahoo to find all of the plants we needed. It’s completely replaced those trips to the library with those damn reference books that you couldn’t ever check out!!

CGA: Which/What web based resources that you have found the most informative?

www.Splutterfish.com

www.maxplugins.de

www.3dlinks.com

The rest I use are the same as everyone else….