“They focus on their area of expertise, character animation for example, and we supply the dynamic effects,” notes Millar. Other clients of Fusion CIS have only a few shots, but very complex effects work that demands a level of expertise beyond their capacity currently. Studios who want to expand their effects capacity when awarded a large number of shots hire us to help with the work, whether they need one extra artist for something small or half a dozen artists for something bigger.” Studios like Method, Zoic, Psyop, Imaginary Forces, Blur, Digital Domain are just a few who’ve found our working model really helpful and even ILM has us on their vendor list. We’re filling that niche for a lot of VFX studios and acting as their instant ‘plug ‘n play’ effects team. “So CG fluids, fire, smoke, explosions, clouds, sand and all kinds of particle work. “We have quite a unique business model that focuses exclusively on a very niche area of visual effects dynamics,” says Millar. Stasiuk has given workshops across the US to studios such as Walt Disney Animation and Blue Sky Studios on RealFlow use. He’s currently advising Next Limit as they develop the new versions of RealFlow. His python scripting was instrumental in moving RealFlow from version 3 to 4, and he wrote the scripting guide in the RF4 user guide.
THE REALFLOW SOFTWARE
However, Fusion CI Studios now works closely with the engineers at Next Limit to improve the software and resolve production issues. Stasiuk has a great perspective on RealFlow but of course does not speak for the company nor did he write any of the core code. “I was doing a lot less flying around in helicopters and much more sitting at a desk, and so getting involved in doing cool shots on films like Poseidon was a lot more attractive than sitting around in meeting after meetings in government offices,” he recalls.īecause of Stasiuk’s international reputation as a RealFlow expert and artist, Fusion CI Studios has an accomplished record in creating a wide range of outstanding fluid and particle FX, from large-scale, multi-million particle ocean surfaces with cresting waves, foam and spray for feature films to dancing and swirling fluids in television commercials. In the end, Stasiuk decided that RealFlow was more interesting than the managerial role he had found himself promoted into with volcanic observatories and government work. maybe if I could create an animation it would really show people in these villages what it would look like if these eruptions hit them and maybe they would be easier to evacuate instead of people saying well it has never happened before!” “Anyway,” continues Stasiuk, “I was fooling around hobby-wise and teaching myself CG stuff even at that time to use software like RealFlow as a research tool, and as a visualization tool, to try and communicate what a volcanic eruption could do to your village. “When you study volcanic eruptions you inevitably get sucked into working on not only active volcanoes but working at observatories and eventually making decisions on whether you should evacuate villages or islands, and that led me to being at Monterrat.” “I eventually found myself getting more involved with the disaster side of volcanoes,” he says. He came to RealFlow as a tool to help with his field work and academic research. Stasiuk has a doctorate from Bristol University in fluid dynamics of volcanic eruptions. In fact, it got to a point that they emailed him and said, ‘Sorry but who are you, and how do you know so much about RealFlow…and, oh, would you like to beta test the next version?’ Stasiuk started using RealFlow and answering questions on the forums with such insight that RealFlow’s authors at Next Limit began noticing. Today, she is the executive producer and he the VFX supervisor at Fusion CIS. They met at a volcanic eruption in Monterrat in the late 90s.
THE REALFLOW TV
Millar is a filmmaker of 20 years’ experience, having produced or directed more than 75 TV shows, and Stasiuk holds a PhD in geophysical fluid mechanics. Mark Stasiuk and Lauren Millar are co-founders of Fusion CI Studios, a dynamic effects specialist facility that uses RealFlow extensively.
Here is a second companion piece to that original story that examines the topic via the work of Fusion CI Studios. The aim was to examine the topic via one primary approach. Last September we published a piece on fluid sims.
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