60minuteswiththegeeks

Interview with Gbenga Ajayi

Gbenga Ajayi is the ceo of “Morph infinite“, a company that specializes in architectural visualization, light engineering design, building information modeling (BIM) consulting and interactive multimedia creation.

Let’s get to meet you.
I am a civil engineer (OAU) and with passion for architecture since my sophomore. Sometime when people see what I do they ask me if I were an architect, cos I do architectural work a lot.

I’m a man that chooses his words carefully and always read between the lines.
I’m a very big fan of technology and believe in solving my problems with it.
Always on the look out for something new.

Tell us about your PC

Yeah, I like to refer to my machine as workstation. A hp pavilion DV6500 with Core2duo 2.2 Ghz, 2GB ram, nVidia 8400GS 256MB discrete gfx card and 160GB hard drive with external 250GB drive (to satisfy my insatiable demand for space).Not bragging guys, I’ve only seen one laptop that out-performs this machine. As a 3D guy this machine is a joke, because when the work starts this so-called workstation cries out for help. I’ll be replacing this my machine before the end of the year with a real workstation that can really cut it, core 2 Quad Q9450 @ 2.66GHz 1333FSB 12MB L2 Cache, 8GB ram and NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 1GB.

You are into 3d art, how did you get started and how long has it been?

The first demonstration of 3d I can say I noticed was in Titanic. When one of the treasure hunter was explaining to Rose what happened to titanic. It made me wonder how it was made, but I won’t see any evident 3d work until 1999, when the matrix came out I was totally fascinated by the visual effect of the movie and wished I can achieve something like that. Of course the major obstacle was a computer and the necessary software. Back in those days finding a system was difficult let alone getting one to use with a 3D application installed on it. I had to wait another 4 years to have access to anything that resembles 3D and that was my brother’s system with AutoCAD installed on it.

I browsed the internet for all the available material I can find on AutoCAD. I started using this app like nobody since it was the only thing I have access to I tried to model anything I can think off, mostly complex mechanical parts, then buildings. Then sooner I realized that I can’t generate the realistic looking images I have always wanted. Then I looked for something else. Then I met 3ds max v3, we dated for couple of months and separated because she wasn’t anything like AutoCAD and was really intimidating. So I had to continue dating AutoCAD for another 1 year till I met beautiful Revit (what a wonderful day). Then I started doing building models in revit, easy to learn and use. But still won’t give me the realistic looking images I wanted. So I had no other option but to reconcile with 3ds max, now 3ds max v6 and we have been married ever since. It delivers on every project I’ve worked on.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

My inspirations come from the work of great 3d artists from every corner of the world, people like Brian Smith of 3DAS, icube3d, neoscape and phrenic. There are so many other artists that aren’t so popular, in fact I have not even heard their names before, but have done beautiful works that really challenged me.

Any other 3D artist out there that you admire their works? Any role models?

If you’re saying was there 3D artist in this country as my role model, my answer will be “no”. Not that there are no good guys, just that I haven’t seen any work that matches what is the average over there. So you’ll understand, because am still regarding myself as an amateur.

Company like neoscape has been my business model, starting from garage to a 50-person shop that handles multi-million dollar projects.

Ok now when you get down to work, what are the tools you use?

Well when there is work to be done, I analyze the requirements to know the tools to use and how to go about it. One tool is for shizzle: 3ds max. Other tools I use to get the project out of the door quickly
are photoshop, AutoCAD, revit, combustion, after effect and illustrator. But my 3ds max is not the kind you get out of the box, I have installed loadz of plugs for it to extend the functionality and to simplify some operations in 3ds max. plugs like vray, final render, illustrate, polyboost, super materials etc.

What area do you specialize in? Architectural visualization? Animation? Product Visualization? Landscape visualization?

Well I can say I do pretty much of all you mentioned above except for character animation (if that was what you mean by animation, but if you were talking about walkthrough I do that too)

What is your typical workflow? How do you get your models out?

Just like any other business you and your client go into agreement, where what he/she requires is written, how many renderings and most importantly where the shots are going to be taken. All these are what I use in my modeling because if the camera is not going to see particular area of your scene then no point in modeling it or you might just put dummy object to create illusion.

My pipeline starts with autoCAD in a situation where am doing architectural visualization or I was given autoCAD files, where I do clean up of the lines before laying out the views in 3ds max. I like to do all my modeling in 3ds max because of the flexibility, but in a situation where the project requires remodeling and producing detail drawing, I do the modeling and detailing in revit then export to 3ds max without having to model again in 3ds max (it kills me doing this though, but saves times). After finishing the renderings in 3ds max I have to use photoshop to do the clean up and remove any imperfection. Sometimes the client wants multimedia presentation, this has to be outsourced because I don’t do flash.

When it comes to open-source 3D tools, how would you rate them against closed-source tools?

Well the closest to “open-source 3D tool” I know is google sketchup and I will prefer to regard to it as free trial version because you can’t export from this version. So I don’t want to consider open-source 3d apps, because the developer won’t put the stuffs in, if you know what I mean. I don’t know why any serious 3D artist will consider open-source 3D apps anyway, because if you really look at this tools they are not that expensive like 3ds max design 2009 it’s just $3500 (about N400,000) which one project can pay for in about 2 wks. Just like operating systems, if you look at the big picture open-source 3D apps won’t cut it.

What do you think of the recent 3d craze in Nigeria?

I’ll say “father forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing”. Just like any other craze in this country they rush out as quickly as they rush in because the passion is not there and these people that are crazy about 3d don’t know anything about the application of 3d. They think 3d is just creating visual presentation at the end of project design, whereas this is not. I have been following 3d application for some years now and been to some big companies to know that they are still not leveraging 3d tools in every step of their workflow. That is where my company comes in to be their consultant and help them reduce overhead when changing designs during construction and coordinate these changes across the board, which will allow everybody to be on the same page.

What opportunities are there in 3D? Especially in the Nigerian Context? Can I make money out of it?

The opportunities are endless in this country because it’s done by few; the market is far from saturated. Cisco CEO talked about it last month that, that is where revenue is going to be generated for companies into the stuff in the coming years, because people are using 3d like second life these days, from high-end visual presentation for civil works to detail reenactment of crime scenes. 3d takes out the guess work and gives life to architects, designers and engineers idea. It’s just a matter of time before Nigeria catches up.

What are, if any, are the things impeding the growth of 3d artistry in Nigeria?

I won’t say anything is impeding 3d growth in this country, in fact the only thing impeding the growth is the few number of people doing it, and the very very old generation at the top calling the shots.

What do you recommend for people starting out, especially on a shoestring budget?

Well, the first thing is, you going to have passion for what you do, learn all the things you should learn before starting out and never stop learning because new tools come out everyday that will make you chores simpler or improve your work.

Do you have any Last words for us?

The best is yet to come? Watchout!