3D renders of your favorite VST plugin interface!

[aMUSEd]

I always liked the U-he Modular renders. There was a fab close up of ace at one point that I can no longer find.

I was looking for one of ACE

Any of Zebra etc?

[Vertion]

I thought I'd have a quick try at a knob using only 2D techniques (no 3d programs, no triangles). This was my first go to generate out something, and it was quite simple and easy. I might have to look into making skins.

quickKnob.jpg

[audiosabre]

All this talk of female body parts and plugin GUIs. Now the circle is complete:

SPL surely knew how to make predominantly male engineers lust after a rack unit

Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow.

[Vertion]

Anyways, here is another quick try at generating tuning knobs with 2D only graphics.. this was quick, it took me five minutes to design and implement. I could use a program that allows me to create the graphical skin for many audio plugins at the same time (a common GUI language), I already have a way to implement all animation into a vertical or horizontal layout, or a grid layout.

IceColdGUIKnob.jpg

[Phil Sonic Academy]

Anyways, here is another quick try at generating tuning knobs with 2D only graphics.. this was quick, it took me five minutes to design and implement. I could use a program that allows me to create the graphical skin for many audio plugins at the same time (a common GUI language), I already have a way to implement all animation into a vertical or horizontal layout, or a grid layout.

IceColdGUIKnob.jpg

Very unique.

Are you using knobman? Pretty cool program... Defo check out cinema 4d trial and have a play around... it’s quite simple once you figure out the basics.

[Vertion]

Very unique.

Are you using knobman? Pretty cool program... Defo check out cinema 4d trial and have a play around... it’s quite simple once you figure out the basics.

No, I realized that due to parallel projection over perspective projection issues and the relatively fixed size of pixel-wide bevels, it's actually better to stay fully 2D given the proper generative tools.Seeing so many GUIs in perspective projection shows a lack of GUI design knowledge, and drops the quality even to the unknowing. However, I forgot that I graduated into dsp from image processing, I could use this skill to help provide for family, so I might as well see if I can offer a few free skins for various plugins developers while I design my own. Also there are so many algorithms DSP devs are not utilizing by borrowing from other representational topologies and domains of knowledge such as image processing.

At some point the music and the interface should be completely synergized.

If I might ask 2 relevant questions:

What is the absolute best '3d' or 'most aesthetic' GUI around town? I currently place it with Thorn.

Who is the nicest plugin developer around whom requires a GUI overhaul?

I would like the put those 2 together to practice, and work to hammer out the best raster skins on this side of the keyboard (and in Good spirit).

[Phil Sonic Academy]

Cinema 4d has a parallel camera... the top camer defaults to it.

For me if I’m looking to do a skeuomorphic design cinema 4d and photoshop is the best workflow I’ve found. Cinema for backgrounds and knobs and photoshop for txt or other pixel accurate stuff. I tend to use photoshop for shadows to unless the knobs aren’t round... then you can use a c4d plugin: shadow catcher.

For flat designs it’s best to just build it with JUCE (if that’s what the plugin is being built in).

[ThomasHelzle]

I always liked the U-he Modular renders. There was a fab close up of ace at one point that I can no longer find.

Ha, that Bazille-Prototype one was actually done by me - feels like ages ago
Huge rendering for the u-he Musikmesse booth 2013, printed on canvas - 20,000 pixels wide...
I created and rendered it in Lightwave 3D at the time...
Today I would probably do it in Houdini which is my tool of choice these days.

Cheers,

Tom

[Phil Sonic Academy]

I always liked the U-he Modular renders. There was a fab close up of ace at one point that I can no longer find.

Ha, that Bazille-Prototype one was actually done by me - feels like ages ago
Huge rendering for the u-he Musikmesse booth 2013, printed on canvas - 20,000 pixels wide...
I created and rendered it in Lightwave 3D at the time...
Today I would probably do it in Houdini which is my tool of choice these days.

Cheers,

Tom

Did this 3D work get used for the actual GUI or is it just for design / marketing stuff?

Lighting looks great... can never seem to get a nice daylight vibe like that with cinema. Not sure if it’s my setup or materials.

[ThomasHelzle]

Did this 3D work get used for the actual GUI or is it just for design / marketing stuff?

Lighting looks great... can never seem to get a nice daylight vibe like that with cinema. Not sure if it’s my setup or materials.

After scripting and designing the Uhbik-Reason-Rack-Extension GUIs für u-he, I worked on the Bazille GUI for a while, which at the time was in a rather ugly alpha state. My main contribution was, that I found it important to visualise the signal routing in the GUI (something I found severely missing in ACE) and make it clear what in- and outputs belong together right away (which wasn't the case in the alpha GUI). Some of those concepts remain to this day, but the overall GUI was later created by Basti, u-hes then new and brilliant inhouse GUI designer.
So the image above was mostly created for the Musikmesse booth, but some of the concepts we developed together went into the actual GUI.

I no longer use Cinema (started out with it 20 years ago when it first came out for PC ) but it has a rather good renderer these days from what I've seen.
HDRI environments can help with natural light, especially with the reflections, but it depends on what you're after. Usually it's a combination of Lighting, Materials and GI that makes it look good.

Cheers,

Tom

[Examigan]

LuSH-101 is one of my favorites.

LuSH-101-GUI-3d-Synth-RGB.jpg

[elassi]

Those prices of C4D or Houdini are ... uhm... priceless. Think you must have a good reason (or respective skills to gather paid jobs) to invest in those programs.

While I'm a it: Greg Zaal, known to the Blender-scene, has recently changed his HDRI-portfolio to CC0 (public domain). Check it out: https://hdrihaven.com/

@Thomas
Awesome work. Congrats.

[ThomasHelzle]

Those prices of C4D or Houdini are ... uhm... priceless. Think you must have a good reason (or respective skills to gather paid jobs) to invest in those programs.

While I'm a it: Greg Zaal, known to the Blender-scene, has recently changed his HDRI-portfolio to CC0 (public domain). Check it out: https://hdrihaven.com/

@Thomas
Awesome work. Congrats.

Thanks!

Well, there is Houdini Indie which you can use if you make less than 100.000$ a year (some other limitation apply as well), it's 200$ a year and can do almost everything the big FX-version (selling for 6000-7000$) can. Highly recommended if this kind of thinking (everything is nodes, procedural, generative) is yours.
For learning there is the free Apprentice version.
It's an amazing piece of software, pretty much the top of what there is. Took me quite a while to finally arrive there after C4D, Lightwave, Softimage XSI, Rhino/Grasshopper and some others on the way.
The price is justified, it's what the big studios use in pretty much every major movie, especially for SFX.
If you are good with Houdini, there are very good jobs to be had in the industry.
Freelancers are highly sought after.
I use the medium "Core" version in the meantime, but also started with Indie.

But Blender is awesome too if you can get over the still horrible GUI and strange structure.
It's abilities are up there with the best in the meantime.

Greg Zaal is great, but there also is http://hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html and many others. Tons of options these days (not like in the beginning when there were only a handful of HDRIs from a guy at a university that everybody was using - Lightwave 6 had the first HDRI implementation IIRC around 1999/2000).

Cheers,

Tom

[Vertion]

I love this GUI graphics stuff, I forgot how fun it was...

kvrStar.jpg

[V0RT3X]

As much as I love 3D stuff, I'd love to see an actual physical recreation of a plugin GUI that is animated via stop-motion or whatever.

A developer could rent a 100MP Hasselblad camera and capture a fairly future proof (Resolution wise) set of pictures to use for the GUI.

It would be unique!