Well, thank you very much for coming and welcome. So today, we are going to be talking about the design of an open source modular 5G capable container-based scientific data capture multicopter. Quite the mouthful of a title, but yeah. My name is Mauro Barajero. I'm from South Africa. I'm doing my master's degree in engineering, and this is essentially my master's project. So yeah, let's get into it. So just a shorter title that's a little bit easier to say, and yeah, that's what we call it. The land is in Yali Hexacquad. And it's supposed to be a solution for scientists and for researchers. So let's kind of just dive into it. A little bit of an agenda of today, what we're going to be looking at, what we're going to be talking about. So just kind of diving into the uses of drones and everything and what there is available to people. We're going to talk about a problem identification, seeing what the issue is and how it relates to researchers. Then we're going to talk about our proposed hexacquad. Go through a little bit of a design breakdown, give you some insight into what we were thinking about around our design and why we made our decisions. Talk about some performance that we have so far and then of course some future work and then contributing and the documentation around it too. So without a further due, let's just kind of get right into it. So the uses of drones that become really, really big in our world today and essentially they're these masterful tools that you can really do anything you want with them. It's really limited by what you actually attach to them. So just as some examples over here, we have them for those last mile delivery kind of services, delivering medical supplies and also you have it in smart farming applications where farmers are now kind of using drones to instead of applying a single blanket solution across a crop, you kind of now having localized solutions being like, okay, we only really need fertilizer over here. There's pests over here. How can we deal with that kind of thing? And then you get these more customized drones which researchers are using. So there's kind of picture in the bottom left over there where they're touching a whole array of different kinds of sensors onto it and then performing a whole bunch of different kind of geological studies and everything. Yeah, so just kind of a brief overview of what drones essentially kind of give us and how they benefit us is obviously the applications are far reaching kind of really dependent on what you attach to it, but significantly that high spatial and temporal resolution. So what researchers were working with years ago in terms of working with satellites and low flying aircraft is now becoming more accessible to the individual researcher. It's not, you don't have to be part of these massive research groups anymore like NASA or anything. And then of course, sensors are also becoming a lot more compact and the form factor is decreasing. So you don't need a helicopter to carry your sensor array or everything like that. And then of course, another fantastic thing is transferring risk from people to drones and getting them out of those dangerous situations essentially, so yeah, effectively what drones can provide people with is that high frequency going whenever you like, high quality, and then of course low cost data. You don't need to have a massive budget to do it anymore. So yeah, so let's just talk about some more interaction quickly here. So I just wanted to see just by a show of hands if anybody's actually worked with drones before or used them in their work or anything like that. Okay, cool. And then, yeah, just in terms of that, during your experience, I'm not too sure what you were doing with it, but if you had to modify it or you had to attach something to it, it was kind of quick and simple and easy or a little bit frustrating and yeah, not so good. So frustrating, yes, no? Frustrating, okay. So essentially what the idea kind of ends up around is if you're working with something that's really not designed to be tweaked with, it ends up looking like something like this. So you can see somebody's gone and modified and hacked the whole thing and taken it off and essentially duplicated a whole bunch of hardware just to try and get their function to work, right? So I mean, that works if you know your way around drones and you know everything around that, but if you're, I don't know, for example, a biologist who's been working in the field for however many years to kind of do this is that's where the difficulty comes in, right? So let's just talk about the problem, right? So the problem really lies in and around what you can actually get and what's available to you. So if you're working with something that people are doing in industry already, it's really easy and you've got these fantastic, really, really amazing world-class solutions like those DJIs, especially for farming applications and filming and everything like that. They have an array of sensors which are top-notch and quite form factor has gone really down. But then the other kind of option, if you don't have that access, then you have to look at something else. So you want these massive custom drones.  So this really, really caters towards people who are working in industry and have kind of a defined solution essentially and it's really easy for them to access.  So that's essentially what we're looking at and that's kind of the problem that's essentially limiting people around the world today. So this is just a brief of what's kind of the problem.  How are you gonna be quite exact? How's somebody else gonna do the same thing as you? It's not that easy. There's no, yeah, it's a bit of a hack so it doesn't really work. And then of course, there's limited access to contextual information. So fantastic, you find a way to attach your CO2 sensor to the drone but now you need that other information. So it's fantastic, you have readings but what height, what temperature, what everything else? So that's where you have to get into that duplication. So integration takes a lot of work and expertise going back to that example of simply like a biologist. Maybe they don't have that expertise and it's difficult to integrate, right? So again, it's thinking like, how can you, how are you gonna power it? Where are you gonna store your data? How are you gonna transmit your data? Do you need to add extra equipment on? And then also practically drones crash a lot especially when you're developing them for yourselves and I just have a quick video here just to show you. This was the first time we went flying with my supervisor and I was like, oh, we're not gonna crash. Let's see how it goes. And this was one video.  So that was just a drone we were working with and used for, I was using to kind of learn, get around them essentially. So yeah, all right. So what do we propose? We are proposing some kind of modular customizable multi-copter which is intended for researchers to use. It's supposed to be user friendly for them as well. Kind of, it must be accessible for them. I mean, if you have some kind of solution that's really complicated or really difficult to integrate to, it's gonna be, they're not gonna use it anyway either. So let's just talk about some key requirements essentially for us to achieve this kind of goal and get people using drones. So we wanted it to be a simplistic design. Kind of thinking about a flat pack kind of thing. If you get that, anybody can kind of get the components, put it together and it's easy to work with, right? You don't wanna have these fantastically complicated things where you need an engineer or somebody else to go and put it together for you, it's just not practical. We wanted it to be quick to manufacture and acquire parts. So I mean, an example that my supervisor generally talks about is you've gone to some kind of startup drone company or anything like that and they have these fantastic drones and complicated manufacturing processes but what happens when they disappear? If the parts are easy to acquire and you go through these crashes like you saw in the previous video, it's you lose that equipment and you need to then go and explore another solution. So it's impractical. Of course, we wanted to use open source software and we wanted people to be able to integrate and access however they want. We allow them to change things and work with it however they like, right? And of course, user-friendly, fully documented. We're talking about getting people who haven't worked with the drones before to get into working with drones and allow them to use it. So it needs to be fully documented and needs to be really well built essentially so that they can follow along, kind of a Lego follow along style. Here's this piece, this goes there, how do we attach it, everything like that. And then of course, number one, easy to integrate the sensors, all done you. We don't want you to just be using these novel CO2 sensors if you wanna use a camera. Go for it, you need to be able to use it too. And then it all boils down to convenience. If something's not convenient, I can bet you you're not gonna use it. So that's essentially kind of our whole idea and what we wanna go for. Cool. Now designing the Eniala Hexa Quad. So again, just have a couple of things that we're gonna talk about. I'm just gonna try and give you a little bit of insight into the thinking that we went into and behind these different aspects. So yeah, we'll just jump into that quickly now. Okay, so key number one is the structural frame. Okay, sorry, we're gonna talk about specifications first. So when we were talking about this, we were kind of many looking at providing a heavy lift kind of option as well. So we didn't wanna limit it to the small payloads kind of thing. So if you wanna work with a bigger payloads, you have that access to do it. So we're looking at around five kilograms of payload. We yet to test exactly how far we're gonna go with that, but that was just kind of a baseline kind of figure. We thought about having it both a hex and a quad because that gives access to different kinds of people. So if you need that payload with a hex, you get it. But if you only have the budget for a quad, you can have that too. Simple connection methods, we really wanted it to be, like I said, easy to put together again and not have to have these complicated methods. And then expect a fly time 15 to 25 minutes with the payload on. So that's, we feel a bit more of a useful time. If it's no good, you can have five kilogram payload, but you're gonna fly for 10 minutes, right? So moving on. Okay, our frame design, obviously key structural part of the entire drone, everything kind of connects on you and that's, if you're without a structural integrity drone, it's not gonna really work. So we kind of broke this down into three main parts. A central hub, the landing gear, and then the rotor booms or arms. So we're gonna dive into that kind of now. So talking about the central hub, this was an interesting problem to solve because yeah, we went through a whole design iterative process essentially kind of considering how do we want people to interact with this? How do we want them to access it and all that kind of thing? So it started out with this cake tin kind of design in the bottom here where we thought, okay, you can put things in the middle and you can protect them and weather seal it and all that kind of thing. But then that was difficult to reconfigure. If you wanted to change it to a quad or get back into that middle, it's really like, ugh, a bit of a pain, right? So then we kind of shifted towards a modular chassis kind of unit and that was a little bit easier to kind of, if you wanted to be a hex, cool. If you wanted to change it to a quad, a little bit easier to change. Easier to have those cutouts and everything for your quad configuration compared to your hex configuration. So that, yeah, that's kind of developed and it's pushed us toward a modular chassis unit. So this was kind of our first area that we looked at and that's essentially developed and evolved into what our current central hub is today. Just some kind of considerations in what we thought about in the design of this central hub is, of course, weight, strength, shape, surface area, and then mounting strategy. So when it comes to drones, especially multi copters where you are providing the lift with propellers, there's a limited weight budget. You don't want to be contributing a lot of your performance to lifting your frame because then you're losing that on lifting your payloads. And then, of course, strength. Like I said, the central hub basically holds everything else together. If it's too flexible or not rigid enough, things are gonna move and it's gonna be the control systems are gonna get a bit crazy and not work so well. Shape as well, shape was an interesting one. Do we go for a regular hexagon kind of shape? We wanted a bit more elongated because then you can just have these simple box kind of things that somebody can design and attach onto it a little bit easier to attach. And then, of course, surface area as well. Like how do we optimize the surface area? Is it better to be long? Is it better to be round? All those kinds of things. And, of course, using that plate as well for people to mount things onto. So this was kind of guided with some simulations as you can see in the image. So we're doing some stress calculations, checking the regular forces and everything that we'd expect to be applied. And then there was also things that weren't quite straightforward as well. So thinking about is there enough space to hustle the components actually? And is there enough, do our holes even collide or something like that? So it's things that don't come immediately apparent when you're in the initial design but you need to consider it because otherwise you get to cutting and be like, oh, we've made a mistake. So it's the kind of idea of measure twice, cut once, essentially. So yeah, essentially when it came to designing this was kind of balancing all these considerations to have something as practical but also works within our weight and strength kind of budgets. So what we ended up with is a three part kind of central hub. So you can see them divided here where we have a top plate, a bottom plate and then a battery plate. Top plate kind of housing your key components and everything like that. Something that you really need to access a lot of the time. And then within the middle you could have kind of our power distribution essentially something that you need to be able to access but you don't need to have to access it every single time. And then of course a battery payload bay. Those things take up a lot of space. So we needed to have something that's also easy for you to swap a battery in and out of. It mustn't be a mission to get in and out of that bay. Cool, moving on to landing gear. So landing gear was a bit of an interesting kind of problem. Again, also iterative and I mean there are many different kind of existing designs out there. So as you can see on the left hand side here I just kind of had a bit of a sketch idea of what's out there and what people are using and all that kind of thing and kind of evaluating okay what's the pros and cons of each kind of design and everything like that. So we ended up going for something that looks a little bit more like this and that's mainly from experience and from those crashes essentially. So I think the typical thing everybody thinks about when they think about drones is that T-shape kind of design and every single time you crash we break a leg. Every single time, crash, break a leg. So we essentially kind of went for something more like this also backed by some simulations and everything like that to say okay this is what we think is a bit easier, a lot simpler in design and less likely to break as well. Moving on to the rotor arm. So this was a bit of an interesting design problem because it's heavily reliant on the propeller sizes as well. So there's a whole bunch of optimizations again that needed to go into these kind of things. Especially because the rotor booms are part of the drone that your full force of essentially your power system is being applied through, right? So there was again interesting design into shape, dimensions, length and of course strength. So in the next picture here what we have is we, just to show you, we gave a thought into, okay do we go for a square cross section of a tube or a round cross section of a tube? Each having their kind of different benefits. So these graphs were on the left hand side comparing strength to length of the two different cross sections and then on this right hand side was also again which, how they displaced essentially. So for a different length how much would it displace if you applied a singular load at the end of the pole? And that kind of guided us into choosing, okay what would be the optimal solution? What would be the best weight saving with give us the best performance? And then again another interesting thing that we saw is, so our rotor boom arms are a little bit longer than they need to be and the whole idea is because there was a study done by two papers here where the closer the propellers are to each other they more they influence each other. So I'm not too sure if anybody is a Formula One fan but they generally talk about kind of things like aerodynamic things especially like to work in clean linear flowing air. As soon as things become turbulent then they're not so efficient anymore. So that's what's kind of happening in the graph over here where you can see the motor propellers next to each other the closer they are to each other the more they interact and the less efficient they come. So that's kind of guided us to say, okay let's try find an optimal length away where they don't interact too much and they get that better performance. So these are just all bunch of different kinds of considerations that have gone into our design and our length and all that kind of thing. So but there's a very unique part that's missing from the central hub and the frame design and that's kind of these complicated plots that plugs them all together, right? And so you say how do we get rid of or beyond these complex manufacturing techniques from CNC and all that stuff and it's pretty simple actually of printing of course. So there's actually, I think there's about 47 different individual components on the drone and 32 of them are 3D printed. And again that's accessibility. The drones crash a lot. So being able to change those parts is really, really key and you don't wanna have to go and wait a month or two for a manufacturer to get back to you but here's your fancy carbon fiber part or your fancy aluminum machine part kind of thing. And of course 3D prints they give us that versatility. They allow us to create these complex parts in a short amount of time but they also can be functionally loaded which is fantastic. They also allow us to have fast iterations so I went through a couple of different iterations of the motor design. Tweaking things here and there that you don't think of initially and it's a really easy process to follow when you can have that fast iteration. So just to give you a little bit more insight into how they break and everything and how we can design our 3D printed parts is we can design them to be broken as well. So essentially we have these complicated expensive parts in the central hub which are made of carbon fiber and it's expensive. We don't wanna be breaking that and we don't wanna have to be buying more and more. So what we can do is we can design 3D printed parts to act like crumple zones in cars. So we actually had an example of this. We had a motor, the leads came disconnected for some reason and we were, oh, debugging was a bit of a nightmare but what ended up happening was it fell from 20 meters in the sky and it crashed and landed and the landing gear went straight into the ground but what happened is the landing gear sheared and so that's what it's supposed to look like at the top there but you can see they're all kind of, oops, got cut off. And what ended up happening is we didn't actually break anything else not a propeller, not a carbon fiber tube, not a carbon fiber plate, just some 3D printed prints. So 16 hours later we have our prints backing up and ready to go flying again. So that's really quite key, especially if you're thinking you're going out into the field and you're trying to do flight tests, you've been planning this for months, you get there, flying for a week, first crash, first flight you crash and it's just what do you do now? So I mean you could take a printer out with you to do that kind of thing but also if you think about people working in remote areas and Arctic base in the middle of Africa or something like that, if you have something that breaks it's easy to re-manufacture because you have the components there. Cool. Power train, another complicated thing and this is probably the biggest barrier to entry for people who don't know how to build drones essentially. So there's a key components that you need to consider and these all need to agree with each other for you to get the performance that you desire out of the drone. So again, consists of propellers, electric motors, speed controllers and then of course batteries. So the key decision making or design task that you have to do is again propeller and motor matching. So propellers are designed to work at different speeds and provide different kinds of thrust and if that speed does not match the optimal output speed of your motor you can have poor performance. So again, it was a nice iterative design, went through looking at different motors with different propeller sizes, kind of got a ballpark figure from looking at manufacturer data and as well as kind of the theory of propellers. So we were guided here with a bit of simulations but again, this whole process was there's no single way to do it. There's no kind of like plug in here, get out the answer over there. It's really much, very much an iterative process. Yeah, and then of course another big thing that we're looking at as well at the moment is battery considerations. So batteries are the biggest contributor to weight on drones and we really wanna optimize around that and there's two kind of chemistries that we're actually looking at and I'll try and explain why. So we have a lithium ion batteries and we have lithium polymer batteries and both of these have different benefits and kind of performances. So your lithium ion batteries, they've got quite a high energy density. So what that means is you have a high capacity for a lower kind of weight but they don't discharge as much currents. So they don't have that punchy kind of very fast agile movement. It's more of a leisurely kind of endurance flying, essentially, but whereas your polymer, lithium polymer batteries, so they've got a lower energy density, so capacity with more weight, but they give you that nice punchy current allowing you to have that agile, super fast kind of movement in every operation. However, it's a consideration. If you don't need to be racing and flying around, do you need that capacity? So it's again a kind of an optimization deciding what you need.  So just to give you some insight into what we're using, we decided to go with cube pilots orange cube. It's a fantastic autopilot system. It's got triple redundancies in terms of its IMUs and gyros inside there and a compass as well. And it's also partially open hardware. But most importantly, it's versatile and easy to reconfigure and everything like that to integrate into. So on that cube as well, we're using a autopilot system called RGPilot. There's different versions of RGPilot, so you can use it for rovers, you can use it for submarines, you can use it for fixed wing drones as well. And also really it's open source and it's got a really good community backing it as well. So really easy to integrate and pretty straightforward to follow as well, which is key for what we wanna do. Sensor mounting strategy. So this has been something that we are working on and looking to continue developing. So obviously there's various different types of sensors out there and it's difficult to give you a solution for every single kind of design. So this is just a bit of an insight into what we're kind of thinking. So we're trying to create these simple little mounts essentially and that are easy for people to go and manipulate as well. So all these kind of mounts essentially, so it's particularly the two on the left, are blank kind of mounts essentially, which kind of just fasten onto with an M3 screw. But you can manipulate it and integrate it however you kind of prefer. On the right hand side, we're kind of developing a little bit more of a quick snap on kind of mount as well for ease of clicking on, clicking off, and then we can kind of develop a little bit more. But key to what we're trying to do in the sense of mounting strategy is provide as many different surfaces and options to connect to the drone as possible. So giving you, you can connect to the landing gear, the rotor booms, those tubes are the same kind of diameter. You can connect to the gimbal rails on the top and the bottom, also same diameter, trying to keep things consistent, but as well as trying to connect onto a surface plate as well. So if you, yeah, essentially just trying to give you as many different ways to connect as you possibly can. Cool. And then of course, 5G capable communications. So we're trying to integrate it with a 5G, with a, sorry, a Pi with a 5G hat that's using open interface. And what it's gonna try and do essentially is to port that communication over a regular radio frequency to a 5G mobile network, allowing you to pass over your command and control to that network, as well as being able to do high bandwidth things such as HD, video streaming, all on a single kind of link. So if you do want to know more about that, my colleague gave a talk earlier in the week and it was also at OSS, so I definitely recommend you to go check that out. It's a lot more in detail of what's going on and how we're gonna integrate it as well. Cool, performance. So we're still undergoing performance. I actually kind of started just before I came over here. So we've been having supply chain issues and everything trying to get components to us, but let's give you a brief outline of what we're trying to do and what our tests are gonna look like. So I think you're doing some range testing with telemetry links. So that's gonna do for both the radio link and 5G telemetry link. Active and static kind of endurance. So what I mean by that is hovering versus flying in a grid, for example. And then of course, how are we gonna have endurance with a current drawing sensors as well? So there's no good in being able to say these fantastic numbers with the payload, but you not actually have a sensor that's drawing any current or contributing there. We wanna compare those two batteries as well, like I said, just see what's actually better for our use and of course, doing some kind of payload limiting tests. So what is our actual payload? We know we designed kind of a five kilograms, but what's our max essentially? And then of course, as well with that rotor boom length influence. So is it worthwhile having those longer rotor booms or should we just save on the weight and put them closer to each other? So here's a little bit of a snapshot into what performance we have so far. So it's kind of the simulated results compared to what we've had recorded. Like I said, we haven't really got into it enough, but just to give you a snapshot there, for our simulated flight with a quad configuration, we had about 16.6 minutes of expected flight time, but we're actually achieving 23 and a half minutes with some old batteries. So hopefully when we get some new ones, we're gonna have a lot more, a bigger improvement as well and then get a little bit more comprehensive kind of performance idea. Cool, and then I just wanted to give you a brief view into how we're also looking at performance. So we're using logs to kind of allow us to compare flights here. So in the graph here, what is being compared is two different kinds of propellers. So we can clearly see a nice performance improvement with more expensive propellers compared to cheap propellers. So how that's being displayed there is a lower current use, which essentially will mean we'll be able to fly for longer. So yeah, cool. And then also just to give you a cost overview, because I mean, there's no point in having this if it's way more expensive than the options that they are really available. So for the quad configurations, it's costing around about $2,300. That's for all the components, cuttings and remotes as well. And for the Hex, it's about 27 for everything. And the expense comes in from adding those extra power units. So your propellers, motors and your electric speed controllers, that's where the expense comes from. But just to also give you a bit of perspective on something like the DJI in the video, in the picture earlier, that costs around about 5,950 euros. So I checked earlier today, it's about one to one for dollars. It's about twice as much as we can do. So yeah. And then some future work. So of course, we wanted to continue with our flight testing, get that out and do a detailed review of how we actually gonna perform. And we wanna achieve a reliable kind of hex and quad tune. So what that means is we'll go and tune it, make sure it's flying well. And then it's as simply, as simple as applying those parameters to the same flight controller and getting it to perform as we expect it to perform. Complete that integration again with a 5G and 4G communication. Get it working reliably and see how we can do with that. And then of course, completing our documentation. So I am busy with that at the moment, kind of getting everything documented as well as some processes. We'll get into that now. And then something that's also quite big and important is to be able to get this drone to be fully qualified under FAA. So people can use it for commercial use. It's no good having a drone and you can't really use it for people's work essentially. Contribution and docs. So like I said, we have documentation going at the moment. So it's all hosted off Github and everything like that. And it's incorporating how to guides for people to actually build it. How to kind of insert 3D nuts into prints as well because that's how we, yeah. And then of course, step by step instructions as well. So that's accessible and it's already up and everything like that. And we work on it. But also everything is on Github as well. All our CAD files and everything are there for people to go and change and do whatever they would like with them. And of course, like we love for people to be able to contribute as well and get involved and submit Github issues. So feel free and go explore it and see if you like it and let us know what you think. Yeah. And then of course, licensing as well. So we've talked about going under a certain open hardware license. It's fully permissible, permissive, sorry. And if you'd like to read nor about that license go, it's ready. It's available there. So essentially that's, it brings us to a summary of the Njalehqquad. So yeah, we've developed it kind of through iterative design and it's purposed for researchers essentially trying to get them the perspective that wasn't ready available to them before. And yeah, of course, being accessible and affordable, easy to use no matter where you are, really kind of thing and user-friendly, fully documented. It needs to be convenient for people to use. Hopefully we'll get this performance tested by the end of the year and have the first prototype out and ready for people to try and explore I suppose. But yeah, essentially the whole idea is trying to just give that individual researcher that access to that high quality, high frequency and low cost data essentially. So yeah, essentially that's the end of it. Just want to have some acknowledgments and give a big thanks to the Sloan Foundation for kind of providing us with funding to do this work. The people at Notre Dame University as well for all their help and everything, especially Linux for bringing us out here to talk about this as well. It's quite a cool experience to come out here and actually show people your work. It's quite fun. So yeah, and there's a little contact me. But thank you very much for listening to my speech. If you have anything or any questions you'd like to talk about, let's get into it and we can, yeah, I'm not too sure how long we have. I think we have a little time a little bit. Yeah, thank you. Cool. Yeah. So the question was, do we have other people already working with it or trying to use it and stuff like that. So the first person we actually have working with it is also at the University of Cape Town. They've just started ordering parts and trying to get it to work and everything like that. And so just to give you a bit of insight into what they're trying to do, they're trying to do wireless charging on drones. So they are taking it, our base design and they just change it slightly. But yeah, so that's essentially the main person that we've got working with and we're gonna see how they perform with it. So nobody else is really working with it just yet because we haven't got everything finalized in terms of he has a completely well tuned everything. Yeah, but getting there eventually. So it's still literally just coming out essentially. But yeah. Yeah. Any other questions? We're okay. Yeah. Those are my thanks for a very nice talk. Thank you. Appreciate it. Mm-hmm. Have you also been using open source tools in the design? Like what have you been using for the mechanical drawings and for the simulation? Okay, so that's one snag that I've been using and that's because of what I have access to at the University. So I've been using a proprietary software. It's SOLIDWORKS and it's fantastic for design. It's something that I've learned and used. But what I'm trying to do is I'm going to make sure that those files are also in a format that is usable on open source CAD software as well. So have been using SOLIDWORKS but that's what I've had access to and everything like that. But yeah, essentially. So what will end up happening is we'll have, I suppose three different kinds of files. Have the SOLIDWORKS files that are on there have simple SDL files. And then, yeah, another format that should be able to port between SOLIDWORKS and other CAD softwares as well. Yeah. So for the simulations, we've been just guided by SOLIDWORKS actually has a simulator within it. And it's just a given indication of performance as opposed to you do get these other, they called finite element or analysis tools which give you that stress analysis that kind of blue looking graph. But yeah, essentially just been using the ones integrated into SOLIDWORKS. Yeah. No, no worries. Cool. All right, I think. Is there any questions online or not really? All right, cool. Well, that's I suppose that's it. Yeah. If you have any questions or you wanna talk to me afterwards, I'll be here. But anyway, thanks very much for coming. I really appreciate it. Hope you guys enjoy the last day of OSS. Awesome. Thank you.


Welcome to a strategy at work 2019. I want to start by saying ideas are fantastic, but what it takes to transform ideas into reality? You don't know exactly how the future is going to be, but the ability to adapt when that future comes and confronts you and to make a success of it, I think is key. So it means an open mind, strong analytical skills, and the ability to change. I remember when I took over 3M back 20 years ago, and the company wasn't performing, but they thought they were performing. And in this case, I had to confront the leadership team with the reality of our performance that they didn't want to believe was happening, which wasn't very good. And so this was sort of a one conference room at a time effort. Today what we're finding is you need to have an operating environment where people are more empowered on the front line. Because if all an organization is, is a collection of people, you empower them, you develop them, you reward them, they'll lead the company in the right direction for the future. The critical component in driving successful transformation through leaders is to have all leaders own the transformation and then have each leader within each function understand what they need to commit to and execute against to make that successful. And at the same time, what they also need to do is they realize what got them here would not get them to the next level. They need to go through their own personal transformation. We've never really been taught how to fail, you know, or make the wrong decision. So failure has to be willing to be had by the leaders. Leadership needs to stand up and say, we thought this was the right decision or this was the right product launch or this was the right market to go into or the right customer segment to pursue. And we weren't right. And so if a leader stands up and does that, it's showing that, oh, it's okay. And I can be honest and a little vulnerable and transparent and be sort of emotionally available to we didn't get it right, but we're going to pivot. And so then everybody feels like, look, I'm going to try this.  My executive is saying we didn't get it right. One of the biggest obstacles that companies face when they're in transformation is the people. It's always the people. What you want to do is recognize that every time you're trying to do something new, you're saying to all the people who work for you, let's go climb that mountain. But right now it's not their mountain, it's only yours. And so one of the ways you get that buy-in is help them see that mountain over there in such a way that the people who work with you are saying, you know what, that's not your mountain. That's my mountain too. Let's go climb it together.


Get more views to your videos using a very simple tip to get this effect. You see that spike? I'll tell you how he did it in this episode of the George show Repeat after me. I will refer to my previous episode in every episode. That's it You refer to your previous episode by saying something like hey look at this Awesome box from YouTube. Do you want to know what's inside? Well, we already know what's inside if you watched yesterday's episode and if you missed it Simply go click that I up there in the corner to watch that episode from yesterday That's it. Link your episodes using YouTube cards. Those are those little eyes That will let your audience see your previous episode if they missed it. Now. What is the effect? Ten percent more views. Here's what I mean So you see this spike here. This is the real-time YouTube analytics view every channel has this And I'm going to look at yesterday's episode which is this gift the one I just asked you to watch with that little eye Now this is still yesterday So the video was launched just over an hour ago and it got a thousand views In the first hour now in this video I referred to the previous video so Here is yesterday's video and here is the video before that Now look at the real-time analytics for that video It has a spike Guess why that spike happened because I referred to my previous video in that video And how did I do that? So you see these 82 estimated views? The previous one had a thousand views and I got an extra 82 views Just from referring to it. Okay. How did I do that? So let's take a look Oops, I'm clicking the wrong things So in the video YouTube sent us a gift I'll play it now At one minute and 32 seconds Which is right about Here I say hey, if you want to know what where george was in the land of spam click here And you can see that I appeared right there And if you click that Then you will get a link to the previous video and when people do that Almost 10 of them did I got an extra set of views Do you do that to your videos? If not, why not all you need to do is click this little button here cards And then you simply put in Cards to your previous video. So see this one. Where was george land of spam? That was the one minute and 32 seconds That 10 of you almost clicked almost 10 of you clicked in the first hour that this video was launched So simple way to get more views. Do you do that? Tell me in the comments below what your percentage of extra views is And If you have other tips Tell me in the comments below so we can all learn from each other and grow together As a family the freedom family because that's what we are. We help each other grow together so Tell me your tips and I hope you enjoyed this one Till next time guys. Who am I? I am george ceo and founder of freedom And you've been watching the george show a quick tip and there's one more thing I want to show you Right next to that box Is this What is it? It's a Reuters cop Why is that important? Because we are the only mcn and all mcn's that have a deal with Reuters That allow you all of you freedom family you to use Reuters world news footage in your videos For free and all you have to do is shine in sign in to your shiny freedom dashboard And then you'll be able to access it Let me show you Just go to freedom.tm. Click the partner with us even if you're already partnered Sign in with your YouTube channel and then Head on over to world news. Oh, where did it go world news? And if you click on world news you have access to all of the Reuters world news Stock footage that you can use to create videos about current events tentpole events to help you get more views Uh, ha So i'm assuming this will soon show up my internet is a little slow here But on your side, it should show up fairly quickly So I hope you enjoy that tip. Would you like me to tell you more about the Reuters deal? Tell me in the comments below and i'll make an episode specially for that Take care guys Oh, and if you click that i up there, it'll take you to the Reuters world news announcement video So you'll see how we launched this relationship with Reuters Uh many months ago. Okay. Take care. Bye. Bye


Hello and Happy Halloween and is October 31st, and here's our special frightfully forgotten Halloween special We're not gonna review a movie or anything today We just want to wish you all a happy Halloween safe trick-or-treating if you're taking your kids out What are you gonna be watching tonight? Halloween 3, for sure, the thing Definitely, I think the Christopher Lee horror of Dracula Yeah, probably gonna do like I'm start off with hilarious. So it's a frightened stunning. Yeah, get get going a little bit And then some of the Halloween sequels for sure Maybe the later ones They should watch the later ones because I watched the other ones earlier in the month, right? I'll watch the shitty ones on Halloween Buster rhymes. Yeah, not that not going that far maybe 245 Five would be it. Yeah. Yeah for we want you guys to let us know what you're gonna be watching tonight What you're up to if you're going trick-or-treating if we're just gonna stay hand or whatnot and to remind you that we actually have Two years worth of Halloween specials if you have nothing else to watch tonight You got a couple of minutes to spare you can check out our Halloween specials from last year Mm-hmm and the year before this year We ran out of a Halloween movie things to do. So we thought let's talk about something different We've settled on the universal monsters.


Poor dad got himself covered in shite for nothing so I'm gonna get three courses in over there because I don't want to put too many in because that's still a lot access in for the MOT and all that when we get on to this so there we have it that is the bottom of the on Tuesday Wednesday first of June and there's our little updates for today yesterday we got all the trenching got our corners up didn't put our draining yet but we're gonna knock a hole through there for the drain but the drains we're gonna come through this way we're gonna go there then you're gonna go there then they're going back there so they're definitely going this side now so they're gonna come around there and back through there anyway that's not today we're all loaded mix is in Alex you just put last trench in a half in the end there which we didn't have last yesterday brought them from home so profiles are up don't use these as often as used to so they're ready to go corners up for the internal this is the height for the internal this is the slab that is underside of insulation so once we get set the doors out which are four and a half brick each side and the rest of its door we're gonna set the doors out and then this is gonna be the height in the doorway does that make sense so yes we're ready to go everything's corned up and everything so no more corning now profiles are just follow up and we'll get cracking so this is day five day the dig was an extra day and obviously the this is an extra day for the up to DPC because it's deep it's the same as a house two trench two block and a brick on the inside two trenches seven face on the outside so it's a lot more too than you think so hopefully we'll get this leveled up today ready to start getting that inside prepped which we can do tomorrow which is bank holiday well we have tomorrow you're off to release my wife you know and you van seventh few of the seventh it's only the second tomorrow it's a week tomorrow we'll have to day after because we can't our next job after this is concrete so in fact we need to ring the concrete company up and but get it booked in so we can have it prep ready because we need it the first day back after the man called the weekend and then we're away then what's that slabs in same same as always once the slabs in with quids in got a nice big area to work on so that's enough waffling let's get some breakwork done and there's them course of lock and break set in and that is going to be the bottom of the door so the door's gonna be sitting on top of that there we go but and we've marked out here I've got our mark over there that's where the door that's where the door starts so we've got that marked up we're gonna wait to the bricks going first because obviously that needs to be a return so once the bricks and we can get that returning properly then that will be set out and yeah so in the meantime I'm gonna make a start over there you can just see I've got a new stack of brick ready so I'm gonna get three courses in over there because I don't want to put too many in because that's still a lot access in for the MOT and all that when we get on to this so I'm gonna get a few bricks and block laid out down there and dad's gonna make a start getting this sorted out he's gonna get this chopped down a little bit make some room for the pipes to go through and we should be sailing so that's a little update so far I don't want to jinx it because it looks very grey but it's stopped greener for now but face it back up right I've had a quick break and started raining again Alex he's just done that side he's traced the bond through and it works break done now works break lovely which is good because that's going high up that with a pike on it so he's just gone that side fettling about what I get this piping this is an ideal but with it's been surface it's all we can do and the goal is got to go here because you've got to connect on to that so that's going to connect into it that downspout there which used to come across the door there into the old Gully which is here so we put this in here that connects into there and then Rob is going to bring his downspout either down here and round or round and down yeah very good there's another roof there so gutter here yeah they're pointing it round and down there anyway that's for rubbish sort out so I'm just getting this in now so that's going to go in the corner there I've just marked my piece here I think it's same I'll double check it mark measure twice cut once because I've got what mentioned to us it was 990 that's that little hiccup done another hiccup but it's just to stop brickwork to get it done so we cut through there a bit yeah cut through the wall that block where self-supporting there's enough block work over the top of it that's going to push through a bit more it's all going to fall on it and I've just put a whole bucket of water down in the leaks so I'm happy with that so now we can start getting the brickwork back in here now and get cracking because we've got seven course to go in here today so yeah all we've done with that is we've just moved the gully from where it was here out to here in the corner and it's been taking that downspout of the back of the extension so that's it I'll leave you for now and we'll carry on the brickwork 5-3 and that's it that's we're up to profiles coming off because we've got a good load on there and we can get the profile out the mud get that backfield nice and level I'm going to backfill along here so it's nice and level because it's a bit rough underfoot and we're going to we've got hour and a half we're going to be away from here from our four today we're going to be late today yes Kenobi tonight so we're going to start yeah Alex you just finished off the door returns inside as you can see the brick there you can see the commons is a hardcore level so the flags out hardcore in I've got to say I'm going to have about two tum left over what we'll do is we'll fill the cavity up as well with stone now if we've got any left yeah that's it so we're going to we're going to get into this slab now tidy up and then get ready for prepping the slab let's see we'll have to ring up so we can get some concrete for anyway so yeah so you can see a little bit from my perspective now with a really poor good dint in it today obviously as I'm sure as dad said that's staying down so we can get our stuff through and then we can get that up once the once it's ready for concrete until then we're going to keep it down so we can ramp in but what I want to show you well what dad want to show you you go this has been blocked you see why so we've exposed the gully dance by go straight into it so we're going to clean this all off see if we can reuse it I'm pretty sure we can I think it's only leaking because it was full such as overflows and comes over and then we're going to take these back until we find a decent pipe because we turns in turns in about there well you listen that does a turn there so we'll just keep taking these back until we get a good pipe and it's female first so we'll see how we get on even if we can't cut it and put a band seal over we've got two band seals we'll get one of the pushing fittings like we did the other day getting a little screw fix and just do pushing which is probably easier anyway so yeah well Alex is smashing things over there I'm trying to find trying to get this thing repaired today hopefully then we can backfill and everything got somewhere nice to work a bit wider to get in and out of all I'll be back filled it's going to be great come back filled right up to the so yeah that's it for now I might just put on time-lapse we should put push me time-lapse everything yeah yeah and that's us for today and that's just a sponging up some unfortunate news the gully itself was broke so poor dad got himself covered in shite for nothing but well I suppose at the same time it's a good job he did that we wouldn't have known it was broken but the actual return part in the gully was broke so just means we're gonna have to get another one from screw fix and then get another popping connector so it's one of things isn't it at least we know but at least you've made some progress tomorrow then is gonna be all about getting that pile of crap moved all the flags out all the MOT in get the sand in the Viscreen you know the song and dance so we'll get that finished off and we'll think a concrete's booked for Tuesday so we've got plenty of time to get all this prepped in okay so possibly Monday but either way that gives us a good bit of time to get this sorted so so next time you see us it'll be tomorrow so catch you then


My own career, I wanted to have a good job after doing this degree and this was the inspiration that brought me to Australia. I think they make me know more about myself and they make me realize that I'm not alone. We have to create better work by connecting with different cultures. The belief that at the end of the course, at the end of the studies, I'll have the doors opened for more opportunities for work, more worldwide opportunities like I can work everywhere. In my country there's a lot of need in developing and improving the environment so I would like to be an agent of change. It's an inspiration to my children. I think the need that my country has and the knowledge gap. I must keep going because there is a community that I have to work with. There are a lot of young women that I have to work with.


For years now, Valorant players have debated who is the best Yorua mate. They constantly leave comments saying it's this guy or that guy, but today it's time to end the debate. So, I asked my team to gather the best Yorua clips on the internet, and today we react. Clip number 21 may end the argument once and for all. Alright, first clip is zip tie. Oh, 1v1 with ult it's over. And he has two TP's? No, this is over. This round is done. Unholds. What was he looking at? Wait, what was the cypher even looking at? Alright, we got red. The Yoru go. Bro, red walks so all of us Yormans could run. Honestly. What a clip. Oh, I- Oh my god.  What dude? And the jumping headshot at the end. Oh my god. But probably the reason GTA is so low is that light. Oh no, the Ray's ult. Good bait. Kind of. There's no way that worked, bro. There's just no way. Dude, there's no way. That's insane. Bro, that's like- Bro, that's like one in a million men. Bro, Xer's so stable with his aim, bro. Like, it's so steady. Makes me want to use the phantom. You're doing. No way he aces this, bro. Oh my god, that no scope. Barrel stumped him. It's over. Nice, man. Dude, I don't know how to explain it, but Xer's aim is like- What is that picture of Jonas? Get him, Ty. No. Dude, I don't know what it is, but like, fake cl- Bro, how? How? Dude, I don't know what it is, but Ty's fake clones just work better than everybody else's. 1v4, 10-10. Good flash. Oh my god, jet through. Is this cod zombies? Why are they pushing them one by one? The mute is. Like, bro. Dude, there's just no way. Like, dude, is he playing in iron lobbies? How do they pull for this? Dude, there's just no way, man. I refuse to believe it. Yeah, perfect flash. Oh, that's- I like that. Oh, this is the invisible flash, right? Yeah, they actually patched this out. You dropped smokes? That was massive, your old diff. Bro, Ekstra makes me want to use the phantom, man. Dude, is he a phantom main? Bro, I gotta use the phantom, man. We might be like, try the phantom more today. Perfect flash. Nice. Oh, he's so low. Oh, this is the footsteps. This is old Yoru. Oh my god, that's great transfer. He's different. Bro, Ekstra's aim isn't- I think Ekstra definitely has like the best aim out of all Yoru maids. Like, his aim is just insane. The head tracking? Yeah. Did Ekstra play CS? Yeah, the- no, I- Unreal, dude. CS main? Dude, all these kids make me want to play, man. I'm excited to play. This is kind of a tricky spot. Perfect flash. Nice, man. 3 HP as well. I whiffed to every- I made it look so ugly! Yeah, and that was like- That was so ugly, though. I was just talking about his aim, and that was like the worst aim clips. Oh my god, that right click, though. Is she just running at him with her knife? Like, bro, what are these clips? What a play. This is a go, man. Oh, he's gonna catch Sova, too. I thought that was my other philosophy. Crazy. That's what my clips look like, man. That is exactly what my clips look like. Crazy, dude. Oh my god. Hey, clone. Before we end the video, I want to put the job of deciding the best you'll remain in your hands. Comment your answer below, and whoever has the most votes in 24 hours wins. So be sure to subscribe and see the results on my community tab. And if you enjoyed, watch this video next.


And the first year in the under 20 division, as we look at the heat number three, British Virgin Islands, Amaya Todman, she goes there, as you see in lane two, Ringuette, Jessica Ringuette of French Ghana, lane three, Shona Niles Barbados, lane four, Symphony Patrick, Trinidad and Tobago, lane five, Geolena Dowdy and Tiga and Barbuda, lane six, Saran Abbati, March Neek, lane seven, and Camisha Dominique, the hometown girl from Grenada, in lane eight. Geolena Dowdy of Antigua and Barbuda was fourth in the final last year, but listen to this Terry, 2023 Geolena Dowdy, fourth in the Carifter under 20 final, fourth in the final of the NACAC under 18 championships, fourth in the final of the Commonwealth Youth Games. She's in lane six hoping not to be fourth, but a position much higher come the final. She has to get there first though, the Antigua goes in six. She's seen those medals. Off they go. Patrick got up well, Niles of Barbados is running brilliantly, Dowdy has work to do, Kishona Niles steps away from the field, battle is on for second, Dowdy gets there, 11-57 for Kishona Niles, now at the University of Technology in Jamaica where the outstanding legendary coach Stephen Francis has guided so many world-class talent and Kishona Niles running into form at the right time and delivers 11.61 in her semifinal race and if you know anything about a Stephen Francis program, it's that he knows how to get his athletes to peak and Kishona Niles I'm sure is at peak form for the 100 meters here at Carifter. Niles looking very unbothered, she doesn't get necessarily the best of stars in this race but she overcomes that well once she gets into her stride, she picks up easily, stays relaxed, stays easy and comes across easing past the Trinidadian as well as the Antigua, Patrick and Dowdy. 11-82 for Symphony Patrick, she will get into the final, that means her teammate Alexi Henry is out, Dowdy back in a final here, 11-74 with Niles winning at 11-61, negative 1.7 meters per second, the wind speed and so the non-automatic qualifiers, Saraya Doreska of Haiti from the first semifinal and now Symphony Patrick of Trinidad and Tobago from this third semifinal all.


Hello, everyone. Hi Hello, my name is Corrado Piscitelli. I am the technical director of my entertainment a studio animation studio based in Naples, Italy This is the making of our third animated feature film. Yeah, and Lenny the walking Liberty and this year in particular marks the 10 years anniversary of our using blender for making our movies and our cartoons and our Feature films as you can see here. We have Many projects that we and even more there are some projects that were done in the last two years But mainly I would like to point your attention to the art of happiness Cinderella the cat and yeah, and Lenny the walking Liberty. There are our three feature films They were mainly done with the the same team and so it is a natural flow of our image of our narration and Whatever we're trying to Narrate in this world What this panel would be about well, it would be about some general pipeline stuff because This was the first movie that I have Been in charge of the technical direction I started with the art of happiness where I was mainly in charge of everything 3d about that movie That since it's a 2d movie. You might understand that is very little Then I worked on gattas and rent or it's Cinderella the cat that was mainly more massively 3d in its use and More massively blender in its use and I was and I and I made most of the grant work of the 3d stuff and so I had a particular experience in this because This is even my 10 years in using blender with our feeder films. So what happened it happened that I have Particularly Many know how about how we do we did all our movies So I'm trying to talk to you about some pipeline stuff of how we do it What is our method and what can be done better? there is something about some rig pipeline stuff because we use heavily rigify for our feeder films and We found more ways to streamline and use it We're talking about working with legacy Blender plus and cons because This movie was made in Blender 2.79 B not 2.80 and I'm going on about it in a second and How we upgraded our feature workflow. I would like to show you a trailer Most of the Thank you. I hope you liked it This is our team. It is all the the group that work on that movie and I would like to show you a little bit of a Montage about our working unit. Thank you again This panel is going to be mainly about my personal experience in doing this movie and since as I said before this is the first feeder film in which I was called in a Technical direction position. So I had to plan everything All things That I didn't have to personally do on our previous feature film Cinderella the cat But I wanted to bring all that method all that know-how into this one and try to Have the best outcome possible so Our feature films as you can see from this handy graph that's over there Take generally around two and a half years to make and you can very broadly Divide them into three steps. The first step is the creation Step where you make all the concepts and you create all the assets And you need to use in the second step that is a truly layout phase where you put all the stuff Inside the same File and then you can animate it and it all comes down on a third step where you render and Composite everything we use for our feeder films heavy Compositing to to get our our look of distinctive look Let's look at the first step the concept and asset creation phase Here we had to Build basically a whole jungle. You might understand that What that means? It means we had to make lots lots lots of plants and Many times over because we started with the previous method. We use it on Cinderella the cat where we modeled everything using only vertex Vertex paint because that was light. It was it was really lightweight. It was really easy to to model things that had the A fresh look but that proved to be a little A little less Graphic for what we were trying to achieve because we needed something more worn out more Destroyed because this movie is set in a post apocalyptic apocalyptic world Where everything is overridden by jungle and so the civilization is no more. There is only Scraps there's only Broken stuff broken down stuff there's this Rotten thing that you have to look around but so that is so much life with The jungle as you can see here again, but still there is pretty heavy machinery going around seat and Beneath the first layer off of the ground so We have even small pockets of civilization like here where people just build houses with scraps and Fill them with whatever they could find so we had to Change our workflow to texture paint because it was much much easier to convey what we would do do then building all that stuff Was mainly the easy part because my experience comes to the Reasoning that you have to build every step knowing and planning ahead for the next step that you have to come around so For the second step 3d layout and animation. I was facing a Problem that I never faced before it was that I had to usually do all the work alone in this phase. I Nearly prepared all the 3d layouts for Cinderella the cat and I couldn't do it for this movie because if I only did that and it was massive because a Whole movie is still 85 minutes. It's more than 50 scenes and more than 300 shots So we had to Split it and I had to build some tools that could make me faster in doing my part and maybe even try to explain my workflow to someone else just to get along so Even for example our typical layout workflow is pretty simple You just have to take the set take the characters and link them into an empty file This is pretty easy. Usually it doesn't require that much explanation, but even though that is quite easy There are some recurrent layout issues if you can happen to not having named correctly your collection when you link it you might not Link your character at the word center and if you don't notice that problem Before you start animating then it is hard to extrapolate the same the same position if you didn't know Probably you won't display correctly all the armatures you the rig UI was not running It was all kinds of these issues that simply I was prepared to to face because I always did but Every every one of those means I had to lose time and every time I had to lose time the movie this time so I took a simple approach and broke down every single action I had to make to To go on in the movie and decided to Create just one button for every task. So if I have to link the characters I have to have one button that links the characters in the in the scene and controls if all those issues are already Looked upon so that I don't have to do it afterwards This comes with the bonus points that explaining to somebody to just press a button instead of How they would find the character and then important in the scene and then all many other small but For me it's simple, but not for everybody little tasks was much much better and I never code it before I'm not a developer, but still I had to to learn I try to find some Some way to understand how I could translate everything into an add-on internal for a studio and that was surprisingly Easy not because I am some special genius because I'm not I sure you're I'm not but because there is So much information aligned. There's a very big community. Thanks stock over flow. There is a very nice nice general approach to the Blinder community to just Share information on how they did something. So what I'm trying to do here is trying to share what I Found doing all this so that maybe Everyone can benefit from it So what I learned from this is that everyone can code because if I did it everybody can But not Anyone should do it because inside the production you have to pick correctly who ever chooses your your tasks so since we talked about the Linking phase with the 3d layout phase. We have to we can move along and talk about the rigging phase and I Would like to quote the director Alexander Rack of this movie that Told me I want to make a movie with just two characters lost in the jungle and nobody else. It was a Nice Information having a whole movie in which you have to just create two rigs It's quite it's quite a good news Then the story evolved and you might judge for yourself with this little Little montage I made if that's what happened if you can see you have two characters But then it happens There's another one because you cannot have just two characters inside a jungle that Interact with each other and then a whole bunch a lot of people and There are animals. I didn't think about animals because inside the jungle that cannot be just people they have to be Populated with something and so our Character count goes up it goes up and up and up If I remember correctly in the Cinderella cat we had roughly Consuming all the variants 200 and should show the 250 characters Here I can give you some numbers, but we went way overboard with it We started we do Characters and obviously the director lied to me and now we have 12 base Main characters of which we have 43 variants 90 secondary characters with 46 variants because there are many per se and 62 different animals with The exact same number of variants so this puts the total to more than 300 rigs and I was Basically alone in rigging because it was only me who's going to take charge of that so I had to even in this phase think again and Confirm myself with the fact that I couldn't do everything. So I had to break down the rigging phase. I had to Get all the people that would Wanted to help me in doing this and try to break down the phases in something that would comprehensible for them so that way they could actually do What was useful for me and for the movie because let's face it nobody likes rigging but anyone can help as Long as nothing breaks up and that that's the hard part because everything breaks up when you break it I never done a rig that works at the first try. So What we tried to do we tried to simplify this We had one body as I said here one body to roll them all But it is a lie because they're basically five bodies because It's harder to do it, but it sounded more cool with one. So I went with one We had one body to For every body type. So we had a fat fat person thin person tall person short person the men women and that came to around to five type five different types where the The character modelers could just pick one body and then start to model it Without changing the topology. This is the first important thing. I made just the first rig with the all the vetx weights and all the The best as I could do at the time Rig that I could make and by modeling without changing the topology you can see I picked five random characters We two of them are the are some of the protagonists and the other three are general the one in the center is Is just somebody on the on the background and the the last two ones are some secondary characters As you can see they all have the same topology That meant that I could recycle UVs if I use them for the characters. I could recycle vertex weights for the most part and That was a very simple operation that the 3d modelers could do without having to worry about About too too much stuff Then after modeling without changing topology, we made a first rig with basic metric both position. That means we just moved around the basic metric bones and generated the rig and that was already kind of ready to To make some lead 3d layouts Then at the last part We make a second pass where the rig is refined and enclosed correctly This means that we have way less operations overall It is so easy that anybody can learn how to do it It is animation ready at more early in an earlier stage than what we had to to understand before and I get to be involved only once that is the most important aspect of this because every time I get involved in this the movie gets lower so I had to add a little note a little footnote that's most of the times because I learned that However, you plan you may plan everything you want but still something might Not go the way you planned, but still it's good So I'm still trying to make you look at numbers I know hate me all you want, but I wanted to point out all the animals we made because doing animals is A really interesting part because if you have a used rigify rigify has some Pre-compiled metrics that you can use to build your personal rig It has some animal variants, but during the movie we had to make Many many more as you can see here. We had quadrupeds that mainly covered by rigify already birds That's hopefully covered by rigify many exapods or more And this is at all not covered by rigify some primates, but that's basically humans and some water creatures and we have only sharks I think in rigify actually right now and that is Not the same thing as a chetashian because if you know the Back fin goes different way so we made some Metrics that are in the process of getting adapted to the new rigify because Something changed along the way as you might have grasped from the 2.79 b and 2.80 Rigify changed a lot between these versions and it changed a lot again in the 2.9 and how in 3 and 3.3 so I had to We're in the process of Maybe updating these metrics so that they can be added in the next rigify distro so I have to talk right now about this What happened why we used 2.79 b while there was 2.80? To have this I have to give you some time of reference We started pre-production in july 2018 We had our Major workflow definition is if this presentation was the real time I would be nearly At this time talking to you because we had all our rigs defined. We had all our models. We had our Our workflow was predefined and we Start will start animation around february 2020 and Blender 2.8 is out on july 2019 It was almost a year after we started and that's That was pretty hard because There was all these magical fantastical stuff happening in blender 2.8. I wanted to implement everything I wanted everything then 2.8 could give me so I tried to make a little bit of screening I tried to To bring everything I did on the for the for workflow in blender 2.8 But I'm going about it in a minute on what I learned and what I what I see what I saw Just for reference. I had the this production end because we finished on july 2021 You might notice we took a bit more than was In the 2.5 years Time reference I gave you at the start. That's mainly because cobit then So I had this new fantastic 2.8 version And I wanted to use it It had a new collection system. There was grease pencil more useful than ever ev I I loved a tool like ev I will really want to use it There were new constraints new to viewport updated cycles overrides better performance overall It was all I could ask So why didn't why didn't I use it? that's because every one of these pros comes with a With account So our scripts heavily relied on display layers instead of that on collections and With great power comes great responsibility and collections are basically Display layers on steroids. So I could not change my scripts relatively easy We had already defined our workflow. So change it was Not so much in In the box for us We had to convert all our bundle render materials as much as I loved ev It was not compatible with blender random materials that we use for pre-visualization So I had to change everything We had to rewrite most scripts because The internal blender structure changed. I don't know if you If that is clear how much 2.8 was a complete game changer for the whole structural blender And that means even for people The for example, I'm just Giving a simple example the change from right click select to left. It was something that I had to Explain to every team member and not everybody is always Ready to these kind of changes you go my muscular memory you go by many Habits and I know you could switch again to right click select But it was such a major and important change that I thought it was Still better to keep Blender default settings 2.79 b was a two years old release. We'd already finished fixed major bugs. This is the most important On of the things I had to consider because 2.80 was stable. It was fantastic, but We didn't know what bugs it could come with using it while 2.79 b we used it for even for Cinderella the cat. So it was quite known for us what what to expect And as for overrides proxies seemed to be still more stable and I as I saw in the last version of blender I can finally use them, but up until 2.993 it wasn't they weren't that stable and Finally there was no going back option By going to 2.8 every file we saved in 2.8 was wasn't going to come back to 2.79 if something didn't work so it was Actually pretty hurtful for me. I had to choose why serve in heaven when I could just rule in hell and I'm not talking better. You blender 2.79 b.  You were anything please So the importance of an lts version from a studio perspective I like to look at this in three Kind of perspectives Looking at it from up from the past you can experiment with new features Knowing you're not going to left behind if you're not ready if you have to change If you see that a new version doesn't support what you did until now you can Just stay in your long-term support version You can you can more easily find tools for your lts version since it's going to be stable for two years This is for whoever uses external add-ons the Everyone who writes an add-on has to maintain it and knowing that you can write an add-on and keep it for two years is it is actually More easier from a managing standpoint. So for a studio that needs to use those add-ons It is actually really really important knowing that you can You can afford to use that add-on and it is supported at least for Two years for your version of blender and you can plan on developing your own tools If you're a studio and you need to develop something you will know that it will be used For example, I had to develop many tools that are not any more compatible with blender 2.8 But we're going about it so With this third movie with blender 2.80 out of the question we had to Look at ourselves and think how can we Go on. How can we better our distinctive 2d look? What changed during these years we started with the art of happiness That is a full 2d theater film with 3d elements in it I was in I worked on every 3d element you see in the in that movie that it's not what we're talking about now but It is mainly 2d characters. That is the most important part that you have to to understand for the difference Those were hand-drawn characters moving in a 2d space But we used 3d elements here and there for example in this image of the little kid You can see the the grass on the front and The tree on the back are both 3d elements while the kid and the the sky are not In Cinderella the cat we had 3d characters layered on 2d paintovers because we try to keep our post-processing process that we used for the art of happiness and brought it in Cinderella the cat Where we used our 2d characters like in disney's vertical camera and but we used the 3d backgrounds To let the 3d characters interact in a 3d space And then we rendered those 3d backgrounds and had our background artists paint over them to have a 2d layer to use in the compositor In Jaya and Lenny the work in liberty. It is full 3d CGI. We have Not made this paintover effect. So everything you see was painted over but in form of a texture on the On the background and then used in post-production to get our distinctive look I'll make some example here as you can see in the art of happiness. We have Even I like to point there's even more of a change in our stories because in the art of happiness it is the story of Sergio Taxi driver Naples and so the whole movie is basically Two or three guys inside a taxi. Everybody is seated down You have very For the most part the same Same shots inside this Taxi there was a 3d taxi where we painted over but the characters are 2d and aside from the the background The movie background that is 3d and some elements like the steering wheel. It's all 2d Then we moved on to Cinderella the cat where everything you see here Is a 3d model that was exported in layers and then painted over This is A really big change from the look of the previous film. I think everybody can see it But the big change for us was that now we had 3d characters We had to make them interact with real things. We cannot use hand drum anymore So they had to be moved inside a 3d space and That was the main The main use we had for Our 2d backgrounds You can see here all the characters have this rim light on them. That's Not 3d generated it is It is used without the process of composing that gives it a more of a 2d look Here in Jaria Lenny you can see everything is 3d, but we are heavy compositing and Post-processing everything still has this 2d look about it All the rim lights you see here are used with the same technique from Cinderella the cat so that we can keep that The same feeling even though now it's everything on in 3d Okay Just to make you understand I made this little Video that makes Pretty clear it is just a visualization. It's not actually stacked like this But you can see the the characters are on two separate layers And the background is generally divided into even more layers Just so that you can in post-processing then layer them one on top of each other and have With using various passes this final result that you see here so uh, our way of doing this is like splitting the atom so you have to take the The final frame and understand that that final frame is the result of combining Many of these layers. This is just another visualization of what you've seen before But it is important to understand that I had to prepare A system that took into account that we had to export everything separated like this And it should not hamper the animators work while we try to make all this system And we didn't have a fixed amount of characters on screen. We had To create this system having to take into consideration even more than two characters because as I said before The director lied to me. There were not just two people in the jungle So I made this in the this system that takes up to six characters And every single one of these layers, for example, I I took here the the background layer Is uh, split up in different render render passes that are then used inside the compositor So there's a color pass. There's a dark light pass There's a the ambient occlusion. These are the faked 2d rim light and a mist pass Um, there is Basically all the lighting we had done Is just in the direct light pass As you can see we use, uh, 3d lights just to get the general direction of light so that the Composer could just Use it as a reference to make their fake 2d lights Using the mist pass so that they that we use it basically as um A depth pass because we use the z depth In the previous productions, but the the problem we have With that is that it is parametric So it changes the the start at the in the last value In depending on what's on screen while using the mist pass We could just decide to have a gradient that goes from the start of the camera to how much far we want it to to consider And you can see here I had to be sure that all this system that breaks everything down and combines it all over again Can Doesn't break during the animation phase because we had to have a pre-visualization. There was Already Near what the director had in mind so that he could so that he could give some directions Still director or nonetheless About the light principally You can see here in this previous that goes to the final That all the highlights on the plans Are the same even in the final In the final version of the shot. That's because we had Even in pre-visualization this the power to To notice that So I had to build specific tools because as I said before I couldn't do this all on my own. I had to do it on Cinderella the cat and I But I was in a different position. So here I Would not be able to do everything alone. So I had to At least try to Make myself faster. So I built some tools. I built an old tree updater and A tool to match the lighting between blender render that we use for pre-visualization and cycles that we use to to experts some black magic I like to call them like that some black magic buttons that the Somebody else would not Understand what did but did what they needed and some internal render Submitter those are some tools I had to build so that everybody could Set up their files. I made An example here In this scene we have The ability to change the direction of light. This is the pre-visualization scene In every file there were a pre-visualization scene A character export scene a background export scene and two scenes for the Masks that we needed to output for the background and for the characters Because when you transform everything in a 2d layer you have to Mask every character with Every interaction it has if it's going to be on top with the background that is on the bottom So you can see here the animator could already change the Delighting on the scene and when that goes to render you could go even in In the character scene and isolate the Lights because sometimes when you're in the jungle Not every light comes across between the The trees so there were many instances where our characters weren't lit enough So we had to make this system To separate the lights of the characters We have many shots where the background has one direction of light and the characters have a different one But obviously compatible with that otherwise you would have noticed in a bad way And for example here you can see Someone is sending up lights and and This is I I can say I messed up the title of this slide, but it's the same Here I'm making you look at how this tool works For example, I opened this file and it was all broken because you can see there is only the character inside the An empty void and it is not actually what you have to output. So I made just The famous one task one button button that updated the file to the latest version of the Output nodes and Set up again all the background and all the levels as they should be Then you can go for the export part in the background scene I'm making you see here that what happens in the node editor, but all this This add-on was made in with the first principle that Nobody should go to the node view Just because everything every time you change something in nodes Nobody does nobody knows what happened It is too hard to go there and try again to understand that and we had more than 300 shots So it was unthinkable that you had to do this for every single shot So with that system on the left You can see I could Just switch on or off different levels of the background and so that they will get exported or not And I could set up if that was going to be Using the the same lights from the characters or not. There is even another little gimmick I made here Sometimes we had Scene square the camera was not moving at all So if the background is not moving and the characters are acting at the center when they don't don't move Don't move that much It was useless for us to export all the sequence from the background So we just exported the first frame and then layered the characters on it So we had this the this little button that could just render one frame And but it memorizes the previous duration in case somebody messes up You can see here I made the same thing for the characters, but the node view is a little bit more complex because There are as I said before Six characters so we had to take into account that every one of them had to Have their own personal output nodes and they had to be switched on or off I had to have a comprehensible interface because I I was not going to check if If a particular angle in the in the node header was on or off I needed something that was as easy to look at as this one So you can see I just want to export these two characters and I want to set up even the Fake rim light we had three presets to use as in near the camera in mid-ground and in the more far from the camera all these tools that I used were really made for for production, but As I said before I really wanted to use 2.80 So it's Even though the movie ended more than one year ago I I still think how could I do it today? How would I do it today? and First of all, I would use collections instead of display layers because those are Much more powerful as I said before with they are so powerful that it is For this particular setup It is not that good. So I have to Start to understand the way to minimize the The options because there are too many Then I would use evie for pre-visualization and masks and cycles for rendering This is Pretty big catch because evie for pre-visualization is much much more faster than blender render So it would have been much better if we could use it I would make it all asset manager compatible because building a whole jungle was big they had to make roughly more than 70 different kinds of plants we had to make Tense Tense of different assets and so having a nice way Of looking at them with a preview and importing them the scene would have been Huge a huge way to speed up our set set process I would use geometry nodes instead of particles for vegetation because every time you saw the ground it had some particle particles for grass and having the The chance to use geometry nodes in our newest production. I will totally use them round instead of particles And risk pencil for special effects As I said before we have Really heavily oriented on compositing production but risk pencil offers the the chance to use All this all this stuff directly inside the shot and it is huge for us because Everything that gets Moved on through the production line is just something that you have to lose more time over it Going on so all the things you can do Before they become a problem are perfect so Thank you for watching I hope it was entertaining and I don't know how much time I have So I'm gonna look at it It's nearly five minutes. So if you have some questions, I'm here If you don't so say Yes Thank you for that question. It is As I said before in the past we use the z pass to the the z depth pass to to make it it is actually A pretty crude You just take the the z pass and overlap it with itself and tilt shift it with Two or three pixels and then you just you have to do more than that But this is the the core process as I said before here we use the mist pass instead of the z pass because we had every time to set the start and the end of that Z depth pass To have an effective rim light And the bonus point is that you don't have to put lights Around the scene to have the correct rim light, but you can just export it We tended to export two rim lights one for always without even having the Without taking into account the lighting on the scene We always exported one from one side and one from the other side And since it is a 2d effect If the camera was tilted it was still going to go Like the the image so that's basically the the gist of it, okay If nobody else needs to know anything


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