Paul Hormis began working with 3D while in high school. He taught himself AutoCAD and learned the application inside and out so he could submit his assignments using the software. “When 3D capabilities were introduced, the very first thing I modeled was a 35mm camera,” explains Hormis. “The second model was a Star Destroyer, to scale. I think it was great starting in AutoCAD because it required me to be more accurate while I was modeling than for 3D in animation.” By this time, Paul was hooked. He took to 3D Studio DOS and started working part-time for himself, as a modeler.
He jumped right in too. Paul Hormis first worked as a [CAD] Drafter for a Nuclear Engineering company. He learned a lot about visualizing in 3D while working on 2D drawings. “The first 3D animation I did was showing the removal of a large valve from the drywell of a nuclear reactor. I had the chance to crawl around on a nuclear reactor, … while it was off of course. Not many people can say that.” Paul’s scale modeling of this reactor gave the utility company such a good look at the valve, they saved tens of thousands of dollars in man-hours. “When working with radiation,” Hormis adds, “you are only allowed to be exposed to a small amount of Rems a year and had they cut that opening, they would have “burned” out many workers who would not be able to work for 12 more months. 3D really saved the day on that project.”
MAXScript
At first, Paul was using scripting to take any repetitive tasks out of his daily workload. He soon realized that he enjoyed the programming side of the work. “In some ways MAXScript made a lot of the work I do easier, and in some ways it would be impossible to do without it.”
Paul continues. “I started working for Autodesk as a Product Support Technician. Looking back, my entire career has been on Autodesk products. First AutoCAD, then 3d Studio DOS and now 3ds Max.” When Paul started at Autodesk, he remembers being the very first phone tech to answer calls when Max 1.0 shipped. “I had learned Max before I started and during that first week, the rest of the department was doing the tutorials. Luckily most people were calling for installation issues and trying to find things in Max that they knew in the DOS version.”
After a year of product phone support, he was moved over to collecting and creating samples that were going to ship with the next version of Max. Later as an an Application Engineer in the Los Angeles area, Paul Hormis one day did a demo at Blizzard Entertainments’ Cinematic Department. “I thought it was a pretty cool place to work and a year later I ended up doing just that,” he quips.
Blizzard
Hormis becomes more focused as the topic moves to ‘Blizzard time’. He sees this time as when he became the rigger he is now. “I was working with the best in the business,” he explains. “These guys NEVER wanted anything to get out that they did not feel was 100% true to their vision. They did their best not to compromise. Working in that environment you have no choice to be the best you can be. I also had the privilege of working with John Burnett. Anyone who is in the Max community knows what he has contributed. If I can contribute anywhere near as much as he has, then I will be happy.”
Blur Studio
“One of the best reasons to work at Blur, and I highly recommend that to anyone who wants to be a GREAT animator, is that Blur has a rock solid pipeline for all aspects of a project,” states Hormis. “I think the reason they are untouchable in what they can do, is that they know how to take a project, plan it out and execute that plan to perfection. I don’t think anyone can touch how fast they can turn around a project with the quality they can.”
Hormis was hired at Blur to develop the character pipeline. At the time, all they were using was Bones Pro and Biped. They did not have anyone that specifically did rigging. “The first character I did was the lead character for BloodRayne,” explains Hormis. “She was a very cool character to rig. Took me four days, two days first then two again to fix it. Over my time there I rigged probably 90-95% if all the characters that came through the studio. Toward the end I started training others on how to rig using Biped.” If Blizzard prepared me to be the rigger I am, Blur made me perfect every aspect of it. It also forced me to work much smarter.”
Paul Hormis was the only rigger at Blur Studio for a very long time, so he had to develop tools and strategies that could help to get the best rigs together in the shortest time. He says his personal record for rigs setup in a day was 30.
“By the time I left Blur, I could have rigged the same BloodRayne character in three hours. Goes to show what you can achieve when you learn MAXScript.
When developing a character rigging pipeline, Paul explains about the need to figure out what is being delivered from the modelers, and what is going to be needed down the line with the animators, FX, scene assemblers.
“Everything needs to be taken into account,” Paul describes “You have to have a process in place for everything, from the structure to your Rig to how every object is named. It takes a lot of planning at the outset, but later, all projects to follow will benefit.”
“I believe as a rigger it is important that, no matter what an animator gets from you, every rig works the exact same way,” he continues. “For example at a studio like Blur, an animator can go from project to project wherever he/she is needed. That animator can’t be wasting time trying to figure out how an eye control works. They need to be able to sit down with a new character and know that every animation control and every layer is set up to a structure they are familiar with.”
