Welcome to CG Record, Vyonyx ltd , is an architectural and visualization company that has been highlighted several times in reputed CGI maga...
Welcome to CG Record, Vyonyx ltd, is an architectural and visualization company that has been highlighted several times in reputed CGI magazines for their distinguished inspirational works, they also have been chosen by professionals in Top Ten Architectural Visualization Companies in the industry. They have been kind enough to chat with us and answer some of our questions.
Tell us about Vyonyx, Who started it, How many people work there? What are their roles? and how long has it been around?
Vyonyx is a young company that was started end of 2007 by four friends- Nikolay Salutski, Deyan Minchev, Christian Flores-Nunez and me, Vladin Petrov. Later Viktor Vrecko joined in as a fifth partner. We are all involved in production and we do not employ superfluous marketing people. Someone compared us to a rock band- we are very individualistic with all our little outbursts of emotions and passions, which propagates into our work in a good sense, but as long as we enjoy what we do, you'll be seeing us around. Currently, we are a 15-people strong team.
Vyonyx architecture and visualizations, What is the primary focus?
I would say, there's no primary focus and that's the beauty of it! Things in this world are somehow interconnected and we try to look at the bigger picture- architecture and visualisations are not isolated from each other, from other creative disciplines and society in general. You need to beg, borrow and steal from sources outside your industry to create something new.
We are interested in architecture not only in terms of its outer appearances (i.e. images) but as well in concepts and programs and we do love designing stuff ourselves and developing ideas. For the last year or so we won an architectural competition and got shortlisted on another one.
We do not like being involved in projects that celebrate what Koolhaas calls "junk space", be it by visualising it or by designing it. There are moral borders we don't want to cross. As long as we're having our creative freedom in either of the disciplines, there's no dilemma for us which way to go. We'd rather stay in them both!
To quote Peter Eisenmann who gives an example on Palladio's work, saying that, "oftentimes the drawing of architecture is more of an original than the work of architecture: as when Palladio redraws all of his buildings as they were designed to be, rather than as they were built." Drawing of architecture is architecture!
Visualisations are the "packaging" that sells an architectural project these days and with the time and the experience that follows it, you develop this handy skill to look beyond the shiny "candy box" and see what's behind the glamorous images. You come to learn all too well the tricks of the trade - how architects and developers, just like in that old fairy tale, are trying hard to bewitch and seduce their clients offering them a shiny red, but poisonous apple. Bernard Tschumi was right saying, that "today there is an enormous hunger for images, which needs to be fed faster than architects can provide actual buildings." Images have become the fast food of architecture!
What sets Vyonyx apart from the rest of the archvis companies; and how could you balance artistic and commercial aspect or your work?
We'd love to think of ourselves as of artists creating pieces of art but reality is different. As the eighteenth century philosopher Kant claimed, an object can be a piece of art only if it is devoid of any purpose. You see, our images cannot be called exactly art as they serve a very pragmatic purpose- selling high-value commercial products. In our images we do use approaches and techniques that we borrow from classical and modern art, but abstract art in general and architectural abstractions in particular are more unpopular and inapprehensible today more than ever before. And, of course, original art is more difficult to produce as there's creative thinking involved.
These days, everything in life is more "in-your-face", more direct and meant to bring instant satisfaction. True art is captivating because it engages the beholder without revealing everything, leaving some gaps to be filled in by viewer's imagination. Only then there is a dialogue, a communication between the artist and the viewer. We like to visualise ideas, not ideals. Perfectly finished images down to the bubbles in the champagne bottle do not really interest us much.
Oftentimes, our images end up having two versions- one for the client and another for us to show around, a kind of "artist's cut".
Please tell us a little about the team work at Vyonyx and how projects are divided amongst team members?
When an inquiry comes in we usually sit down together and decide whether anyone of us feels excited by the project and would like to run it and in the end, if no one volunteers, then it's definitely a no-goer. Sometimes, we do take on board boring commercial jobs for monetary reasons and for the sake of expanding our clients base and our influence- why not, but more often than not, we regret it in the end. We do not use production lines in our office, we all are universal soldiers with strong camaraderie bonds. We all produce images and help each other out when necessary.
Who have/has influenced your renderings the most?
We admire the freedom of expression that concept artists have and I know, grass is always greener on the other side, but somehow people who commission that type of work seem to understand the power of imagination and emotions better that property developers. Most of concept art is not "commercially optimistic" in contrast to archvis where everything must be sparkly and new, and that's another aspect of concept art we admire- this moodiness, this drama.
Apart from the old baroque and modernist masters, like Tintoretto or Braque for example, we admire and study contemporary digital painters like Craig Mullins, Nicolas Bouvier or Daniel Dociu. From the archvis industry the companies worth mentioning are Luxigon, Labtop and MIR.
You have lots of starchitects-famous designers in your client list, is it a good thing? is it more fun to work with big names or to work with younger companies? how do you convince your clients to go for artistic impression images rather than pure realistic?
Yes, indeed , we do work for some well-established architects but it is difficult to generalise and pigeon-hole them based on their size. Sometimes big corporations can be fun to work with, as they are build up of smaller teams or even sub-companies and some of them can be really forward thinking. Sometimes they can be arrogant as well. You see, it is all a matter of interpersonal relationships and the level of trust you can get to. The best clients are the ones that trust and respect your judgement and opinion and the reason they come (back) to you is because they are already bought in by your previous achievements.
I think, we might be also eye witnessing a widening generations gap - young architects lack the broader view of previous generations of architects-they are not as versatile, they are narrowly specialised, growing up in a hyper-real virtual 4G world and everything that is not well-defined they find alien and disturbing. People do not open books with written texts anymore and they do not understand the power of abstraction.
What software do you currently use and why have you chosen those particular applications?
In our work we use 3ds max, Lightwave, Rhino3D, Vue and a lot of Photoshop.
Photoshop suits us best, as is does not have a render button (yet). The software is just a tool, you know...
What projects are your favourite and why? Can you tell us what was the client's brief and walk us through the process from start to finish?
Projects most valuable to us are those where we are given the freedom to improvise. Improvising, basically, is what means to be truly artistic. Projects where we are given a very loose brief and even a looser 3D model are our element! Less information equals more freedom to us. Clients feel somehow guilty for providing us with so little information, and we love to abuse this situation doing the stuff our ways.
There's this story about the famous Venetian painter Tintoretto. Some Dutch painters came all the way down to Italy to visit him in his studio and showed him their work they were very proud of - they had spend months meticulously rendering human figures and wanted to impress the master with their great achievements. And you know what Tintoretto did? He took a brush, dipped it in ink and with a few strokes painted a human figure. "That's how we do it here in Venice" is apparently what he told them. Tintoretto was the master of improvisation.
Our society is more global and fluid than ever. As visual artists and architects we need to be more flexible than ever and be able to adapt and to respond to changes in the quickest possible way. Changes of design, changes of brief, of client's mood. The only way to do this and still be in business is by improvising. Do not spend time on unnecessary details, look at the bigger picture!
What challenges are you facing at current situation?
I would say, our main challenge is not to fall too deep into commercialism and what I mean by that is, we try to avoid work that contradicts our creative principles and moral values; work that negates our artistic freedom. As architect and designers we carry a great responsibility of how we shape our cities, because, remember, then they shape us.
We see ourselves more in the role of external consultants to other architectural firms and as an extension to their teams, rather than as mere CGI-operators.
You have introduced the platinum-gold- silver category in your services, can you explain them?
Clients are different and their needs are even more diverse. So, we felt that some categorisation of CGI, based on camera/view position and level of detail is needed ( and there's a relation to the number of hours spend to complete the image ), so we dress it up in a more commercially comprehensive form, aimed at clients who do not have much understanding of the process of work. Recently, we introduced "quicksilver images" which is, in a way, our branded equivalent to concept art and speed painting. It is best suited for tight competition deadlines and on a tight budget.
What is the most disturbing thing you’ve seen in the architectural visualization field in the last year or two?
Lack of innovation. And by that I do not mean the modernisation of rendering technology towards ever escalating photo-realism. What I mean is the standardisation and unification of presentation techniques used in architectural visualisations. Mass-customisation is slowly making its way into architectural and automotive designs, but it is already steadily rooted into the archvis industry- all these pre-fabricated 3D furniture models, lighting setups and parametrics can speed up dramatically image production, no doubt, but it makes images barely distinguishable for one another.
Speed and production costs are always crucial, I agree, and as visualisation software were primarily geared to suit the film industry, it is only natural that at one point it became easier to simulate buildings rather than to "dissimulate" them, i.e. to make them look less realistic, less matter-of-fact and more inspiring. There will always be an opposition between experience and concept.
You would expect to see a plethora of archvis styles but you seldom see memorable images. So many technicians and so little artists in this industry!
Another aspect of the disappearance of art is what Jean Baudrillard calls "hegemonic visibility" and "the dictatorship of the transparent in which everything must be visible and legible". Some things are better left undefined, in darkness, blurred, unspoken.
Where do you see the future of architectural visualizations and how will new rendering technologies affect the future of Vyonyx or the industry?
Asimov's second law of Robotics states that " a robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law." I think the law applies to a great extend to CGI as well- whatever the future may bring, we should do not be slaves to the latest rendering engine on the market. Remember, you control the machines; do not let machines take control over your creativity!
I am not sure how the viz industry will develop in the future, apart from the obvious- becoming more interactive but I what I would like to see is architecture becoming dynamic, responsive and interactive. There are still materiality and technological hurdles there but if we can make one day buildings respond and react to our needs and wishes that would be a truly radical shift in human habitation.
Most of your team are trained architects, What would be your advice to architectural students or fresh graduates who are interested in architectural visualizations, but wants to be also more involved in design, it is a difficult challenge.
Apart from the usual advice, like being polite to elderly people, and by that I mean respect the achievements of previous generations of artists, I would add this- don't follow leaders- find your own way through the jungle of life! See where the industry is headed to and...go the opposite way! Easier said than done, I know, but if you manage to stand up on your tip-toes, even just slightly above the crowd you would notice the awful repetitiveness of designs and the repetitiveness of the way these designs are being visualised...they all seem to follow the same pattern- dupe a photo or die!
Be radical! Raimund Abraham once said, that "radical means that you honestly pursue your own limits and the limits of the discipline you are trying to express...what is not radical goes with the fashion, goes with the trend."
What do you not like to see in computer generated architectural work?
Sugar glazing disturbs me most- fireworks, laser beams, lens flares, chromatic aberrations, sparkles and the like MSG's (flavour enhancers). It causes me artistic diabetes.
All this happiness and glossiness I see around me is bit too much for me. As one of the characters in "Blade Runner" points out: "more human than human' is our motto." This world is much more diverse and it is not only cloudless skies and skinny supermodels. Life can be amorphous, life can be irregular and asymmetrical. Let's stay human!
Clients often prefer burgers to refined French cuisine and there's not much we can do about it, I guess, but it is always worth the try.
What type of project are you looking forward to working on? What projects are you working on now?
Right now, we are working on a 4 minutes animation for a big international company and a lot of quick interesting competition jobs in the short breaks. It is a job that needs to be done.
Our strengths and focus of interest are conceptual competition images and big aerial master plan vistas. The latter are interesting to us because of the matte painting approach we use, as quite often this is only one step away from what's been done for high-budget film productions. Quite often we are supplied with a mere box model and out of this we have to make a highly-detailed realistic-looking city vista. This is creative, this is fun! We'd love to expand more into concept design for games and film.
What about the plan for Vyonyx? Are you guys trying to get bigger? Do you like where you are now?
We don't think big is beautiful, at least not in our case. The moment you start getting too big, there is a urging need to devoir more and more junk projects to sustain this oversized body and, inevitably, quality goes south.
Can you give our readers some tips to improve their architectural renderings?
" You know what I would like to do: make a film with actors standing in empty space so that the spectator would have to imagine the background of the characters." This quote by Michelangelo Antonioni sums it all up for me- avoid literality and unnecessary descriptiveness in your artwork, let the viewer's imagination add the missing bits and she'll pay you back ten times for the honour!
Thank you so much for your time and I encourage our readers to check out Vyonyx tutorials and download section for their amazing and high quality free stuff and thanks to their generosity!
it's been our pleasure! We think, sharing knowledge and ideas with the community is beneficial for everyone- that's how we ourselves managed to get to where we are now! Keep up the good work with the portal, guys !
Related links:
vyonyx.com
very interesting,
ReplyDeleteI often think how close to matte painting for film & tv ,archvis can be - glad they talked about that! And I really liked their display of traditional artists' knowledge!. It's great to read other disciplines talking about their approaches.
Keep well!
Felicity
really entertaining, enjoyed this interview so much!
ReplyDeletetoo many quotes though =P .. LOL J/K, i love this, I am a man who loves quotes anyways.
if Vyonyx team is going to be reading this, i love your idea about machines not being able to control us and that we should control them and use our creativity, but don't you think you need to really master the tools first?
I mean sometimes i get a great concept/image in my head but to get it out just as I imagined it, I never succeeded in that till now, that's why I think I need to remove all my boundaries of not knowing how to do it before being able to be completely creative or free.