Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 87 i 3D Artist

Welcome to 3D Artist! Many artists will tell you that the key to creating a strong character in 3D that feels interesting and believable is to have a strong idea of the character’s backstory. I suppose the key is to act like a storyteller – even if you’re creating a still image, having a story in your mind will pay dividends in your character work. Someone who believes in this quite strongly is our superb cover artist Pablo Muñoz Gómez, whose Lost Creatures characters each have their own personalities and behaviour patterns. He’s invented a coherent world for them to inhabit, which directly informs their designs. You can read his thoughts on the matter on p36, and learn from his expertise when it comes to creating incredible hair and fur…

2006 Joe Letteri starts to develop a paint tool that can handle modern VFX, while retaining the real-world reference of physical painting. Jack Greasley joins Weta. 2009 Kiyoyuki Nakagaki joins Weta. MARI 0.1 is released for internal use at Weta. It offers basic painting and the projection of multiple texture images. 2010 The Foundry releases MARI 1.0 so that other people and FX houses can use it too (on Linux). MARI version 1.1 adds support for machines running Windows. 2010 As one of the earliest adopters of the tool, Baseblack makes use of MARI to help them create multiple shots for the two-parter Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows. 2011 Digital Domain uses MARI 1.3 for the first time on Thor, and that’s partly due to the fact that a…

Software ZBrush, Photoshop Learn how to Design with a story Explore silhouettes in ZBrush Tweak character proportions with ZSpheres layers Polypaint for FiberMesh Edit and groom FiberMesh Set up fur for a full-body character Group FiberMesh for more control over the grooming Pose the character Render multiple passes and combine them in Photoshop Concept This creature is catalogued as one of the most social subspecies of the Lost Creatures. However, their interaction is restricted to other species as they are hostile to individuals of the same group. In this project we are going to explore the workflow and method used to create a Lost Creature. We will be making this creature to help us make a central character as part of an illustration. This is an imaginary Lost Creature wandering…

Software MODO, Photoshop, Marvelous Designer Learn how to Create a kitbash set Kitbash Hide repeating elements Place efficient decals Distribute details Concept I wanted to make a mech heavily influenced by maschinen krieger, with a heavy feel and layers of details and plates that are gritty and worn from use. In these steps we will give an overview of some of the main steps taken when building complex mechanical models from the idea to the finished product. We will explain the thoughts behind the choice of workflows and why we do things in our chosen order. The focus is on kitbashing and quick detailing, and how to avoid the pitfalls that normally come with these workflows. For example we will teach you to use kitbashing extensively while avoiding a repetitive…

Maxwell Render V3.2 Enhancements include lat/long and stereo fish lenses for virtual reality systems such as Oculus, subsurface scattering improvements, faster fluid rendering courtesy of a new nested dielectrics approach, multilayered PSD render support and procedural emitters for applying emitter materials to entities like hair, fur and grass. Get it at maxwellrender.com. Substance Designer 5.3 The power of Nvidia’s Iray comes to Substance Designer. You can now switch instantly between the original renderer and high-end photorealistic renderer Iray. This adds features such as unlimited render resolution, true emissive materials, YEBIS real-time postprocessing and complex real-life materials. Find out more at allegorithmic.com. Blender 2.76 Blender Foundation’s latest release features a viewport performance boost, initial support for Pixar’s OpenSubdiv geometry, Cycles volume density rendering with new Point Density textures, Node Auto-offset, new…

Job CEO and founder, Escape Studios Website pearsoncollegelondon.ac.uk Location London Biography After beginning his career in the UK visual effects industry where he worked at Double Negative, Glassworks and the BBC, Dominic Davenport recognised the need to develop formal training and education for students wanting to work as VFX artists. Alumni Highlights 2016 Inferno (Sophie Robinson), Tom Clancy’s The Division (Ognyan Zahariev) 2015 Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Spectre (John Gresko); Terminator Genisys (Sophie Robinson) 2014 Interstellar (John Gresko), Hercules (Sophie Robinson), Forza Horizon 2 (Ross Garfoot) What’s at stake in the brave-new world of cross-platform media and getting the next generation of creatives primed? They’ll need to be software savvy, technically confident and well-versed in other skillsets that the 21st century digital practitioner needs at…

MARI’s first user was a look-development artist called Nikolay Gabchenko, who was workingonthedirehorsesin Avatar. “At this point MARI could only really paint in black and white and had a very basic brush engine,“ says Greasley. “We worked very closely with Nick, sometimes releasing new versions to him three times a day.“ As Avatar progressed, so did MARI. “At its peak over 60 texture artists were using MARI daily on Avatar,“ says Greasley. “With a very small team we needed to both develop and support a very much work-in-progress application. This required a large amount of patience and understanding from our users and very close support from the developers. We would often develop features specifically for individual users and work with them to refine and test code as it was developed.…

Software Maya, ZBrush, MARI, Photoshop, KeyShot Learn how to Explore an idea using contextual information from the past and present Begin fleshing the idea out in sketch or model form Take your model in a direction for painting and lighting Composite your renders with a background to make a final image that shows your design in its intended environment Concept I was wondering about old WWII designs that were never fully documented, or failed. There were plenty of interesting wartime craft and weapons. I took today’s interest in drones and overlaid that with a craft that might need to be unmanned but accurate in application, as well as a potentially aesthetically interesting design problem. The sub drone is that result! This tutorial will give you insight into the process of…

Software giant Microsoft has announced the acquisition of 3D physics middleware company Havok via its official blog (bit.ly/1LXL26N) and promises to not make the technology exclusive. Microsoft has said that it will “continue to work with developers to create great gaming experiences” and continue to license Havok’s tools for development to partners. Havok has been used to create real-time physics for over 600 games including many triple-A titles, and will help boost Microsoft’s gaming ambitions. The company plans to build Havok physics into the Xbox One processing cloud and deploy it in the upcoming Crackdown 3, which is set for release in 2016.…

With a round of Indiegogo funding accomplished, XrayUnwrap 2.0 has been officially completed. Its newest features include a revised interface; new selection tools for vertex, edge, polygon, element and UV shell; enhanced seams tools; shell resymmetry enabling you to reflect or flip sides of an island or average both sides; four different checker map types for verifying the unwrapping; shell alignment within the UV space; overlapping shells for economic layouts by sharing the same UV space; and multitile UV offset to enable the organisation of UVW coordinates, which is handy for UDIM management. Currently available for 3ds Max 2009 and above, the Maya version is slated for release by the end of October. For more information, visit raylightgames.com/tools.…

Mech Armour Concept by Marcus Whinney 3DA username Marcus Marcus says: “This is a study into hard-surface modelling techniques using ZBrush and Maya. I composited the scene in Photoshop.“ We say: There’s a quality sheen to Marcus’s mech image, and we love the vibrant, menacing glare of the blue eyes that he’s included. The smoke and camera effects add a lot, too. The finishing touches like the fog effect are well realised. Watercolor by Cynthia Decker 3DA username Curious3D Cynthia says: “I just recently decided to start painting again, so I dug out my watercolours. I love how they look: all stained, dried up and well used. This is a love letter to my old paints.“ We say: We love all of the colours in this scene. Cynthia…

When did you first use MARI? I used MARI for the first time three years ago, back in version 1.4. Good times. How different was it back then? MARI was way more complicated than it is now. It didn’t have a proper layer system, which made texturing really time consuming. It also didn’t run smoothly at all on my machine, as my graphics card wasn’t up to par. It wasn’t until version 2 that I had a proper card; finally I could run MARI in all its glory! What’s great about it now? It’s objectively the most powerful texturing tool on the market. While you have other tools like Substance Painter and Mudbox, they can’t even get close to handling the amount of data which MARI chugs through like it…

Software Marvelous Designer, ZBrush, KeyShot and Photoshop Learn how to Use basic features of clothing Stitch pieces Create basic shapes in Marvelous Designer Test the Morph Target Texture Pose the character Sculpt the head Use references Concept The concept was made after I did some advances on the sculpt and pose; this process helps greatly when you have a clear idea of what you are after. So I sculpted a basic head and body, made the pose, and over it I did some doodles of what I had in my mind regarding his outfit. Over the next few pages we will cover all of the essential techniques in creating a Native American character from scratch, including: sculpting, clothing, texturing and rendering. With the use of Marvelous Designer, we will show…

M axon’s latest milestone release of Cinema 4D promises to be “faster”, “easier” and “more realistic”. Workflows are now paramount to Cinema 4D R17, with new and killer features like the Take System at the forefront of Maxon’s push. We’ll be testing out all the latest features in the new iteration with our own project. We start by using a standard head mesh from the C4D library with a plane. This will be useful as a background and as support for the area just behind the ears of the character. To build the scene, we create a camera and choose an angle that we like. The Pen tool now has four configurations: Pen, Sketch, Spline Smooth and Arc Tool. Each of these can do some amazing things; we used the…

At this year’s annual Adobe Max 2015 conference, plans have been laid out for a ‘connected creative canvas’ designed to enable people the freedom to create and share their work from anywhere. Part of this mobile strategy includes the launch of two new apps for design on the go; Adobe Photoshop Fix and Adobe Shape CC. Photoshop Fix enables quick and easy image retouching and restoration and includes desktop features such as the Healing Brush and Liquify Tool. Adobe Shape CC combines Adobe’s brushes, shapes and hues into one app that lets you turn photos into colour themes, unique looks, vector graphics or custom brushes that you can use in other Creative Cloud products. Coming soon, Adobe Portfolio is a new service that comes free with any Creative Cloud plan…

The Grove is a piece of software that provides a new way of growing naturalistic and groups of trees for visualisation, art and film. Trees are evolved interactively based on your chosen parameters and the immediate environment, which define the tree’s life from sapling to tree. For more common species such as oak, ash, maple and birch, there are modifiable presets. Resulting models are high quality and lightweight to render. It’s ready for download now as a commercial plugin for Blender on OS X, Linux and Windows. More information is available at thegrove3d.com.…

Description Founded in 2000, Axis is an award-winning, international studio of directors, designers, artists, animators, writers and producers that creates content for the biggest names in videogames, film, television, commercials and online entertainment. Website axisanimation.com Location Scotland Project Halo 5: Guardians Project description Axis was charged with delivering VFX supervision, FX, compositing and character creation for the latest Halo game. Studio Axis Animation Contributors Richard Scott (managing director), Debbie Ross (executive producer), Sergio Caires (CG supervisor), and Stuart Aitken (creative director) © 2015 Microsoft “This was a perfect project for us: epic scale and insane amounts of action”Richard Scott, managing director Our conversation with Axis starts energetically with Richard Scott’s enthused and excited breakdown about the major creative and industry profile opportunity that Halo 5 represents for the studio:…

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