 Hello, everyone. Thanks for attending this presentation about using Blender in motorcycle and powerboat design My name is Rainer. I am team leader of the CD team of Kiska, which means that within the company I'm probably one of the most boring people and one of the most nerdy ones, so sorry for that But I'm here to talk today about how we are using the tool how we came to use Blender Actually, because initially we were using Maya to do the stuff which we are using which we are doing now using Blender First a few words about Kiska. We are an international design company based in Austria nearby Salzburg We are currently around 180 employees and from 31 nations and see ourselves as an Full-service provider meaning that we do design from every possible aspect From graphic design to automotive design to product design to brand design and things like that If you look inside the studio That's actually the view which made me join the company. There are no walls inside So if you look at this on the right hand side You've got the model making team in the middle. You've got some open space and on the left hand side You've got the CD modelers the design people the project coordinators the finance people all of that in one room It's everything is shared within the company, of course outside of the walls. Everything's secret Now let's have a look at the software pipeline that we are dealing with back in 2013 We were using Maya for basically concept modeling like sketching geometry in and getting an idea of what we want Autodesk alias. Hope the ceiling doesn't come off this year to do the a-class modeling and then everything is passed on to one or the other Engineering software like PTC Creo which is our main tool all solid works or Katia Three years later. We are using blender to do the concept modeling and the visualization Which is entirely new in our company and Maya still is there, but it only acts as kind of a data bridge That's all we do with it So back in 2013 if we look at how many poly modelers we actively have and how many of them are using blender That's the figure zero out of five and Then came this project the KTM rally was to be redesigned based on an existing frame and we were looking into Doing all kinds of our standard process, which I'm going to explain now So we started off with a kickoff workshop. We invited Mark Koma who was the number one rider at that time of KTM To to get some some ideas from him some feedback. How is riding actually? What do you do on the bike? How do you? race in rally Dakar We already had some sketches in the background as you can see so some idea We already were able to discuss with him After that there was a design phase that follow as usual and then we went into Maya mock-up modeling So we import the engineering package that we received by KTM Put it together with a Maya mock-up model and devalue at that in 3d on the screen first After that we go to the milling machine and mill that stuff in clay We need to see the stuff for real and not only see it, but also feel it So we invite the KTM engineers you can see two of them on this picture To lead engineers and they do ergonomics checks They do evaluations of tank volume with the data that we've sent them see if they can fit regulations engineering concepts are thought out and They also check the visibility of the instrument. So we put some basic stuff just as blocks Inside to see if we are on the right track and main question as I said before how does the bike feel like this? You cannot evaluate in 3d While that happened we found out that there could be potentially an issue with the windscreen in terms of aerodynamics so We had a let's say a plan how to fix this And the plan was to 3d scan the geometry of the clay which was currently worked on retopologize the windshield Retopologize a 3d scanned rider which KTM provided to us put him on the bike in various positions Then involve a CFD calculation specialist. So for computational fluid dynamics Wind tunnel simulation basically to get an idea of what the current statuses alter the shape and CID and Then rerun the CFD calculation with that until it's fine and then came the most important step Print it out and test it for real if this works or not So I fired up Maya and I got this I Knew that I had five licenses in the company and I had no idea why this would happen to me And I went to the IT and they told me listen mate. There is six uses One of them in product design started and I didn't know about it So I went to him talked to him and he told me listen mate. I'm working on client project. I have a tight deadline I cannot close it And then I thought well, I was watching this DVD from that strange guy of Christmas Let's give it a shot and that's when we started with blender So what you can see here is the is the 3d package imported to blender plus the 3d scan Retapologizing that is easy as you know poly modeling fast and rather efficient put that on the bike Rigged it for some basic simulations of like how far do we put the fender in does it crash anywhere? Do we have collisions? And then also retopology as a rider and do a very very basic rig for that one the idea of that is to put this guy in the See if these calculation and also test him Because the worst thing in terms of aerodynamics on a bike is the one riding it. It's not the bike So this kind of stuff we fed into a simulation and that's what KTM came back with So what you can see here in terms of colors is the wind speed Which they Which they calculated and you can see that up on the on this area. That was our main issue We also had area an area on the on the hand grip Bar, but that was not so critical But we were feeling that too much of the helmet of the rider was exposed to wind And that could be an issue because really high forces imposing into that I cannot show the final result because Kind of that is is secret But in the end we found a solution to do that Brought that back into alias and started the a-class resurfacing which you see here on the screen and The result of that after you know engineering the parts putting it together testing it building it for real was That Mark Koma wanted a car twice in a row with this bike Another example of using blender was when we did the first Husqvarna show bike That was the sketch that the designer had so far Regarding it and I saw it in a Monday status, and I didn't think much of it not in terms of It looked like anything easy to do as usual, but what he was drawing was that stuff And I thought it was just a 2d graphics printed on it But no he wanted this as a 3d embossed thing which he gave me as a briefing So special shoe bike we want to show that when the rider is moving on the bike There is separate zones which would give you some security and that's what he wanted to communicate So the CD modelers at cool. So what do they look like? Designers that I don't know. I Have to see it first then I can tell you if it's good or not So we did some samples and we used engineering software as we would traditionally approach this and Put a small patch together cut the logo out Printed this fun 3d and gave it to him and said is this fine or not and he said in general Yes, but it would like to have this changed and that changed and this changed So what we figured is that this approach would be too slow. So we are losing tons of time Because the software the way that we are doing it would not be flexible enough to really fit these wishes Another issue was that Every time the body changes and that one wasn't fine lit. We would have to build all the ribs again and Another one what was we had no idea how to them from the side to the top So when the body is finished we estimated that there would be probably a day left To really complete the final model and send it to a 3d printing This is the status or one of the different states of the Maya model that we had so far and What we decided then is give blender a shot and use the modifier system to get the job done So first create a simple fan of these rips on the side view Drink wrap them using axis projection apply the modifier delete faces add another shrink wrap and so on and so forth You know this process I guess but The thing is doing it by hand still gave the designer the opportunity to really influence every single one And that's what he wanted. So when you look at the ribs when they are finally constructed you came out with something like this So basically a geometry which is a volume that sticks into the rest of the body But we still had one more issue. He also wanted a fade out effect. So it's not just a Pattern applied on top of it. It's a pattern that this should disappear in certain areas And the solution to that was astonishingly simple We basically used the 3d model that was provided at that time and used some lattices and hooks and That's the final result. So I'm going to switch backwards and forwards and you can see There's really a small difference just in the main body and that creates the effect that we wanted So the ribs should disappear in these zones on a very long on a very long way After that the job was actually easy. So we imported the final geometry. We put the logo on We cut the ribs in we did the insert stuff. That's a view of the assembly that we had later on in trio That's a photo of your bike of the detail of the seat a Last chance to have a look at it before we send it to EICMA And that was the bike on the show So what were the milestones in blender development that made us fully jump into it and Which made it a serious Competitor cycles render engine. That was an easy one The viewport got faster Mat caps appeared The compositor had some speed-ups and most important pie menus Designers wanted to learn poly modeling and blender was an easy way of doing that and the number of poly modeling tasks as a total kept increasing and increasing So why pie menus? this screenshot here illustrates that in In some way on the right hand side you see alias on the middle Maya and on the left blender Not sure if you can read it But the general idea is that if you use the same keystroke you spawn this menu in alias this one in Maya and this one in blender So a user which would jump from one software to the other would feel at home and That made it so that made the people convert to it We also did as probably any studio tries to in one or the other way at that blender to our needs and write our own add-ons and stuff and To put that together That enabled us to to really fully jump into it. So I gave some classes internally at Kiska and After a certain amount of time people started to adapt and got the feedback of blender and then fully adapted to it The KTM adventure is here as an example for a 3d visualization project It was the first one that we did and now there's the new version of the adventure out since a week So the iteration came again and what you see here is a basically took a screenshot of the website of KTM if you go there and The image here is fully rendered in cycles There's a little bit of compositing done in Photoshop, but it comes out of the render engine pretty much like this If you go to the website you also can scroll over the image and you see some detail views and you can see how Let's say detailed a bike really is the problem is there's little fairing and a lot of engineering so you cannot hide as hide stuff you need to show literally everything and If a render is good or not You get when you read the feedback that the client sends back to you So if he tells you okay the colors are off then your render is bad if it tells you it looks a bit CG Your render is bad If it tells you like in this case that there is not enough brake fluid in the reservoir bottle the render is good The same data we used to do the online configurators They've been around now for two years I would say and this is the first one which was done by Joe the 3d visualizer who also did the renderings That you saw before and by the way, it's his birthday today is sitting here in the audience So that really was a game changer for us Now to the boat stuff In this example that I showed today We merely used the cycles render engine to show what the different stages of of the design was in Other boat projects were also used it for modeling in the same process as you have seen before but here we had a lot of different exterior designs for the frau schademon which Needed to be evaluated in one or the other way So we wanted to see that in 3d spin around and poly modeling is perfect for this so you can just spin around in in In a very short amount of time you have the exterior knocked in and can start to shape and change detail And that's really the the flexibility it offers. It's like sketching in 3d and to some extent So we did a comparison of the different versions and that's already a render of the chosen design Also done in cycles presented to the client like this Some detail on the deck started to appear started to be finalized Then it was brought to alias again this procedure you've heard already and then we Reimported the alias geometry to blender to do nice renderings And we did this one the resolution which is printed here is not a mistake The purpose of this was to plot it out in full scale and stick it on the studio wall This boat is fourteen point two meters long and To have a decent view on it We needed to render it in that resolution and it came out in less than two hours. That was a really amazing performance that we saw there Another view in the same thing you can see it starts to get really detailed the hinges around and all that stuff On this project we also did the construction work So we also engineered the molds which would be sent to the supplier to mill the thing and Then we had a call from from a newspaper. They wanted to visit us and write about this boat and the design of it and At the same time the life linto came up with the spherical stereo patch and that was just the perfect Way or a perfect example to show them what it looks like inside the boat because it hasn't been built at that time yet It was in the middle of the construction So we rendered a VR stereoscopic image and gave them an Oculus Rift and had a look and It was really amazing for for them to see this experience That's a few shots of the building site The lead engineer of Russia is checking the mold and checking what he got from the milling company and Most of it I like them image on the right. It really shows the size of this object. So in the middle of 2015 five of six models I had on the team had converted over to Blender. There was one guy missing an Italian one of course Then the Blender conference 2015 came and Matilde gave a presentation Regarding automotive design at Tata Motors But this is cool, you know, it's finally somebody who is talking about CD in automotive design not about design itself And I posted that video on the internet the next day when I came in we had this That's the status of today so currently more than 10 Blender users that includes the designers and I have another 15 on the watch list who want to convert to it. So it really starts to pick up Some personal stories that I collected on the way before I came here So very easy to nail down design a valid proportion The modifier system was mentioned more than one time because it really helps you It has been an essential tool to us no turning back now I Didn't like it in the beginning. I like it now guess who and Also, the community was mentioned. So the way that The thing that the community reacts so quickly on feedback is totally new to someone who has been used to purchase software so to speak And finally the flexibility for design changes. That's what we need Now I also have a wish list with me, of course would be too boring without The main thing actually goes back to the first slide that I showed you about the plan Maya is still the data bridge And we would like to change that so I've linked the presentation which is basically a It was a university student writing in his master thesis about subdivision surfaces and The linkage to nerbs. Maybe it helps one or the other to find a solution to convert polygon data over To real NERP surfaces because that's what we do. That's what we need The layer manager was the second most mentioned thing believe it or not So having unlimited layers and be able to name then is a huge thing for us because we are having really scenes The viewport speed that's 2.8. Okay settled and the compositor memory management Cycle shadow catcher, please Please put it into master It's working great already. The denoising would be a nice to have and one thing regarding the documentation actually is There is all kinds of information about color management It's a bit cluttered everywhere. There is an information of the new Documentation on the old one. There's something on stack exchange There's a lot of things going on and some start to contradict each other It would be really nice to have a solid guideline. How do I set this thing up? So it works for photo real rendering And finally a make a nice design button. Thanks for joining today