Since he first held a pen, Simon Lavit has been an artist. Now, Lavit adds Omniverse Machinima to the list of creative tools he’s mastered, as the winner of the #MadeInMachinima contest.
His entry, Painting the Astronaut, was selected by an esteemed panel of judges that included numerous creative experts.
Powered by a GeForce RTX 3090 GPU, Lavit’s creative workflow showcases the breadth and interoperability of Omniverse, its Apps and Connectors. He used lighting and scene setting to establish the short film’s changing mood, helping audiences understand the story’s progression. Its introduction, for example, is bright and clear. The film then gets darker, conveying the idea of the unknown as the character starts his journey.
Lavit storyboarded on paper before starting his digital process with the Machinima and Omniverse Create apps. He quickly turned to NVIDIA’s built-in 3D asset library, filled with free content from Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries, Squad and more – to populate the scene.
Then, Lavit used Autodesk Maya to create 3D models for some of his hero assets — like the protagonist Sol’s spaceship. The Maya Omniverse Connector allowed him to visualize scenes within Omniverse Create. He also benefited from RTX-accelerated ray tracing and AI denoising in Maya, resulting in highly interactive and photorealistic renders.
Next, Lavit textured the models in Adobe Substance 3D, which also has an Omniverse Connector. Substance 3D uses NVIDIA Iray rendering, including for textures and substances. It also features RTX-accelerated light- and ambient-occlusion baking, which optimizes assets in seconds.
Lavit then returned to Machinima for final layout, animation and render. The result was composited using Adobe After Effects, with an extra layer of effects and music. What turned into the contest-winning piece of art ultimately was “a pretty simple workflow to keep the complexity to a minimum,” Lavit said.
To power his future creativity from anywhere, Lavit won an ASUS ProArt StudioBook 16. This NVIDIA Studio laptop packs top-of-the-line technology into a device that enables users to work on the go with world-class power from a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU and beautiful 4K display.
Lavit, born in France and now based in the U.S., sees every project as an adventure. Living in a different country from where he was born changed his vision of art, he said. Lavit regularly finds inspiration from the French graphic novel series, The Incal, which is written by Alejandro Jodorowsky and illustrated by renowned cartoonist Jean Giraud, aka Mœbius.
