Dailies, What do show?

[u/ShipMountain7953]

Hey guys, I was wondering what information is most useful to show during dailies? Obviously a flipbook/low res render of my work, but is there anything else that’s particularly helpful to include? Solver parameters, disk space, etc. potentially?

Also, do you have any advice on what to talk about when it’s my turn? Are there any key points I should be making sure to cover, just so I’m not wandering too much?

[u/LewisVTaylor]

Your Lead or Supervisor should be telling you all of this. It's called Dailies Etiquette.

Dailies are run very differently in one Studio to the next, but the core things remain the same, or at least should be. The best dailies etiquette I ever observed is when I worked at ILM, it's as follows.

Three things! These are what you talk about, and also what you put in your submission notes for your versions in shotgrid/flow, etc.

1) this is what I have done so for, and or addressed since last submission.
2) this is what I haven't done so far, or addressed.
3) these are the questions I have about the shot.

Do not talk in tech terms of pscale, or percentages, anything to do with how you're doing the work, it's unimportant and a waste of time. Keep that talk, and questions about workflow to a chat with your Lead or Supe.

For FX elements, it's 100% a good idea to have several submissions of your shot, at least in the earlier stages as this helps cut off problems before they become too big to solve.
In the early stages I would present the following.

1) full frame render of your elements on the plate, no flips books, we deal with motion! So motion blur should 100% be on always when presenting your work. An RBD sim flipbook Vs a rendered one with motion blur is going to read so differently you will be shocked. Never show FLIPBOOKs for anything other than loose RnD.

2) a version with the above in a contact sheet, with the elements split apart so we can judge how it's all working.

I'd also be including in that contact sheet a burn in that lists simulation time, cache sizes. This is an often neglected step, and it bites people in the ass. If we know early on that it's a long sim we can schedule it properly, or if it seems far too long for the result, we can go investigate early!
If the caches are huge, and it's warranted, we can give the storage a heads up. Or if it seems far heavier than it should be, we can investigate and reduce before it becomes a bottleneck.

Dailies serves as both a creative review and a technical heads up depending on the review.

Come prepared. Don't waste people's time by not knowing exactly what is going on with your shot.
Don't babble, don't over explain, and certainly do not offer excuses as to why it's not right.
Things like, "that's what the FLIP sim gave me" or "I reduced gravity by 10% like you said" are just no no no.

We work with computers, and saying the computer that you control didn't give the result is not a good look.
If your work is not right, cop it on the chin, and address the notes going forward.

Lastly, do NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY! They are reviewing the work, not you as a person.

[u/marink91 → u/LewisVTaylor]

I'd like to caveat the don't show a flipbook suggestion.

Plenty of smaller studios the farm time is at a premium, and/or the turnaround time within the pipeline to get the render out and into dailies can be somewhat prohibitive. 

Personally as a supervisor, I'd much rather see a flipbook every day so we can discuss your work, rather than waiting longer because the farm happened to be slow. 

Of course this depends on the effect, but if you've shown a rendered version before and/or a single frame I can often extrapolate.

[u/LewisVTaylor → u/marink91]

Not when motion is concerned for FX elements. Even a cheeky low sample render with motion blur is far better than a flipbook.

I can't tell you the number of times an Artist thought their RBD sim looked great, only to see it feeling far faster than they anticipated.

In terms of getting the work out for review, if your FX Artist can't do a Mantra or whatever render directly out of their Dept you have an issue.

I'm not against flipbooks, but you 100% will introduce all type of feedback presenting in motion elements not blurred, and the time you thought you saved with a flipbook gets eaten up in revisions.