Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 92 i 3D Artist

We’re big fans of Blender at 3D Artist. Its power, diversity and the passion of its community is quite astounding for an app that many people palm off due to it being open source. Surely by now it’s more than capable enough to stand up against the big guns? This month we’ve spoken to five veritable Blender masters about their approach to various aspects of the pipeline including materials, compositing and sculpting – if you’re a non-believer then these guys will change your mind. If you’re already on Team Blender, then this should serve as inspiration for you to take away and apply in your own work. We’re hearing of more and more studios adopting Allegorithmic’s line of Substance tools in recent months – Substance’s inexorable rise shows no signs…

REFERENCING I was looking for a new, very simple model, but with a lot of emotion.I found a reference for these feet, and this was a very interesting challenge for me to reproduce a realistic model, with a story that you can feel when you look at it. My starting point is very often a good reference, as it gives you detailed lighting, colours, and shaders. Jessie Martel jessiemartel.com Jessie is a texture artist at Digital Dimension and has also worked on triple-A projects at Ubisoft Software MARI, ZBrush, Photoshop, 3ds Max, V-Ray Feet, 2016…

01 Shade and light the scene For this green screen, the background is CG. It’s a simple model, since it will probably be slightly out of focus. I only build what I know is going to be seen by the camera. Most of the time here is spent on shading and lighting. 02 Start rotoscoping I bring in the green-screen footage and begin rotoscoping where needed. I garbage roto out the equipment from the set and the bottom of the table. Later, once I’ve started keying, I’ll make a couple of rotos to patch matte holes. 03 Correct edges I work on pulling a clean key from the footage and apply the garbage masks created earlier. Her skin edges require a different key from the rest of her edges, so…

“The benefit of sculpting in a full DCC application such as Blender is that you have the ability to apply any tools of the software to accelerate the process” Software Blender, Houdini Indie Learn how to Set up workspace efficiently Work non-destructively Crease and bevel Utilise modifiers Use multi-axis symmetry with the Mirror modifier Set up advanced Arrays Synergise with Houdini Use Booleans (including OpenVDB) Kitbash and linking reference Isolate components to enable easy editing Set up automatic UVs Create dust and edge wear Concept Behind every digital artwork there are countless hours of hard work by the developers. This Blender-themed project was a way of familiarising myself with their tools, as well as a way of expressing gratitude by referencing all of the kind people who empower us with…

One of Dell’s primary selling points for its Precision workstations is that it has teamed up with specific software developers to ensure that its hardware performs reliably and optimally. I was pleased to hear that Autodesk and Adobe are two such companies that Dell has linked up with. I utilise a large chunk of the Adobe suite as well as several Autodesk programs, so I could rest assured that the workstation would deliver. It’s worth bearing in mind that AMD FirePro cards, like the FirePro W7170M that features in this workstation, are Adobe and Autodesk certified, meaning they’re fully compatible with all of the tools I need for work. I rely on my workstation for delivering work to clients, not just for personal things, which makes this reality a big…

Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke box office records when it opened last year and was the fastest film to reach the billion-dollar mark in ticket sales. This box office smash took the world by storm, but what was it like working behind the scenes of such an iconic movie? Carlos Conceição, digital compositor, was part of the VFX team at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) which gave the movie its winning special effects. “I still can’t believe I just accomplished the dream of working at Industrial Light & Magic on my favourite movie, surrounded by the most amazing visual effects crew you could ever imagine: devoted, extremely humble and talented artists that pushed the limits to help produce the most expected movie of the decade! Incredible experience that I…

JÜRI UNT cgstrive.com We found Jüri whilst trawling through the fantastic galleries on blenderartists.org and wanted to learn more about his Blender AstroMonkey workflow. Re-create it for yourself on p38. 3DArtist username cgstrive GUSTAVO ÅHLÉN facebook.com/gustavoahlenstudio This month, Gustavo takes on building a convincing sci-fi environment using Terragen 3. Learn how to use nodes, work with fractal terrains and create atmosphere over on p46. 3DArtist username gustavoahlen JONATHAN BENAÏNOUS jonathan-benainous.blogspot.com If you’re a regular reader you might recognise this image. Back in issue 84, Jonathan taught you how to model his sci-fi helmet in ZBrush. Now, he’s here to teach you how to texture it in real time. 3DArtist username Jonathan Benaïnous PAUL HATTON cadesignservices.co.uk V-Ray is an extremely popular tool, but how much time have you spent actually experimenting…

A Smart Material is a preset of layers constructed from the layer stack in Substance Painter. The layers within a Smart Material are fully editable. Any baked maps that are used in a Smart Material will automatically be updated when the material is applied to a different texture set. This makes Smart Materials very flexible and versatile for use across texture sets and projects. 01 Get Smart Materials Substance Painter ships with several Smart Materials in the Shelf under the Smart Materials tab. You can also download free Smart Materials from Substance Share (share.allegorithmic.com) for use in your projects. 02 Add the material to enable access To gain access to the Smart Materials across all of your projects, you can add the SPSM file to the user shelf directory. All…

VOLUME SHADERS To simulate atmospheric effects use Volume Scatter and Volume Absorption shaders. It’s essential in simulating fog and other volumetric effects. AREA LIGHTS These lights are a crucial (and the most commonly used) weapon in our lighting arsenal. We use area lights as often as photographers use softboxes. FILM EMULATION With film emulation and RGB curves we can affect the display of colours and lighting. We can simulate an old analogue film response to light, for example. BAKING To transfer the lighting to an engine, just bake the lighting information into textures. Create UV unwraps, choose the Complete map and press Bake. ROUGHNESS Just by tweaking the Roughness parameter alone, you can create materials ranging from chrome to rough metal, from wet mud to sand.…

Software ZBrush, Maya, Photoshop, Substance Designer, Marmoset Toolbag Learn how to Create a nice and clean retopo in Maya Master the baking process Build fully procedural shaders using Substance Designer Exploit your mask to easily create different ‘skin’ Generate a final render using Marmoset Toolbag 2 Concept I aimed to create a high-definition videogame asset, based on one of my previous pieces of work, to further push my knowledge of shading and texturing within Substance Designer. The production of a highly detailed real-time asset for use in videogames will demand time and patience, but with hard work comes great results. We will review the method, techniques and tricks that will assist you in reaching this high level of quality. We will learn how to take advantage of powerful tools such…

“It’s great to type on with angled chiclet keys, and the trackpad is roomy and apparently resistant to wear and tear” The configuration of the ThinkPad P70 sent to us by Lenovo is the most powerful mobile workstation we’ve ever tested, combining the very latest high-end mobile components, enormous amounts of memory and storage, and some specific useful features that are of particular interest to graphic designers. It’s the first laptop we’ve reviewed with a mobile Intel Xeon processor in it, and it’s also the first outing for Nvidia’s Quadro M5000M, the firm’s top-end Maxwell-based mobile graphics card. It also has a highly colour-accurate 17.3-inch IPS screen with X-Rite PANTONE calibration, a feature that should make any graphics artist happy. This comes in either 1080p or 4K resolution and it…

Post-simulation editing has been introduced to Golaem Crowd 5 via its new Layout Tool. Artists can now access simulated characters to complete tasks such as retiming and offsetting animation, editing posture, repositioning with Maya’s transform tools, adjusting props and character appearance, and duplicating or deleting individual characters. These changes can also be modified or removed using the History Stack. Nicolas Chaverou, Golaem Crowd product manager, explains its efficiency: “Before, artists had to go back to the beginning of the workflow to move a character a bit, simulate, re-export everything… All this without even being sure if the modification will be validated or not. Now they can just select a character, translate it left and it is done! They can see the result at once thanks to Golaem advanced viewport pre-visualisation.”…

To quickly populate scenes with assets such as vegetation or lamp posts, Skatter provides dozens of options and parameters for scattering, such as along curves, at specific chosen points or in precisely painted areas. And being fully parametric you can edit settings at any time with the new SketchUp plugin. The Render only feature helps large scene performance by sending scattering data directly to a render engine, and is currently supported by Thea Render, V-Ray, Corona Renderer, Twilight Render and other render engines. To use Skatter with other render engines, uncheck Render only.…

TEXTURING After making eight UDIMs (roughly according to the different materials), the first thing I did was collect references and base textures. Texturing is an iterative process; you want to build things layer after layer. I ended up using a mix of photo projections and procedurals. I also used AO and grunge maps to drive the dust into occluded areas. Arthur Gatineau artgatineau.com Arthur is a 20-year-old 3D artist from France. He enjoys modelling, texturing and shading Software 3ds Max, MARI, V-Ray Peugeot205, 2016…

Job Acting creative director Website ilm.com/offices/ london Location Industrial Light & Magic, central London Biography David Vickery began his career as an industrial designer before pursuing studies and training in moving image production. After graduating with his MA he secured work in the London VFX industry. In late 2015, Vickery took up the post of acting creative director at Industrial Light & Magic’s flourishing London studio. Portfolio Highlights 2017 Star Wars Episode VIII 2016 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 2015 Jupiter Ascending 2013 Fast & Furious 6 2010/11 Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Parts 1 and 2 2008 The Dark Knight 2005 Batman Begins “The London studio can really help ILM grow and develop, and…

To access FileSilo, please visit filesilo.co.uk/3dartist 01 Follow the on-screen instructions to create an account with our secure FileSilo system, and then log in and unlock the issue by answering a simple question about the magazine. You can access the content for free with each issue of 3D Artist. 02 If you happen to be a print subscriber, you can easily unlock all the content by entering your unique Web ID. Your Web ID is the eight-digit alphanumeric code that is printed above your address details on the mailing label of your subscription copies. It can also be found on any renewal letters you receive. 03 You can access FileSilo on any desktop, tablet or smartphone device using any popular browser (such as Safari, Firefox or Google Chrome). However, we…

01 Have no fear Every action and stroke in Substance Designer and Painter is non-destructive, so you can try things out and not lose any work. 02 Stay focused Built-in texture bakers let you remain in one program without having to move images or other data back and forth between a variety of applications. 03 See results fast Preview your asset in a PBR (physically-based rendering) viewport with all textures applied to fine-tune Albedo, Normal, Specular and Gloss maps. 04 Less sculpting, more painting Take advantage of height maps in Substance Designer to reduce the need for ZBrush sculpts. 05 Try something new Go beyond the usual painting tools by using a Substance Painter particle brush to mimic the effects of natural elements like wind and rain.…

01 Set up the scene As with most materials, it starts with a basic setup. In this example, it’s a combination of a Glossy shader and an Emission shader. In the following steps, we’ll use several nodes to control which parts of the object are affected by these two shaders, and the colour they produce. 02 Work on the noise Now we will work on creating the noise texture. To create the initial texture that will later define the patterns, add a Noise texture and adjust the values accordingly. Use the Factor output of the Noise texture as the Strength input of the Emission shader. 03 Get colour variation from nodes This is one of the most crucial parts of creating this lava material. To define the ’hot’ areas of…

01 Sketch shapes I start by sketching out simple shapes as a base mesh. I use the Skin modifier and simple spheres sculpting them with the Snake Hook, Draw and Inflate brushes. I prefer Snake Hook over the Grab brush because of its falloff while moving the mesh. When I am happy I move on to sculpting with Dyntopo. 02 Sculpt with brushes I keep Dyntopo at 3-5 px detail size and at Subdivide Collapse. I sculpt rough shapes with Clay Strips and Crease. With hairstrands and parts like that I use Snake Hook with the strength curve set to sharp, and adjust the thickness with Inflate and Smooth. After, I switch the Dyntopo to Subdivide Edges so that no details get accidentally destroyed. 03 Retopologise I merge some objects…

“Terragen 3 enables us to develop realistic atmospheres, enhance the final lighting and create detailed terrains” Software Terragen 3 Learn how to Work with a UI interface Use node connections Set up terrains Work with fractal terrains Shade Create atmosphere Light Render Improve render settings Work in post-production Concept Inspiration comes from different sci-fi images in the form of photographs as well as films. We can get inspiration from anything around us and we should connect these separate pieces of knowledge to create something new. Over the next few pages you will learn how to sharpen your knowledge and skills to improve CG environment work, matte paintings and animations. There are several ways to create CG sci-fi environments by using different software and techniques, but Terragen 3 enables us to…

MochaBlend C4D plugin Import Mocha 2D planar tracking data and roto splines into a 3D-solved Cinema 4D workspace with MochaBlend C4D. Features include a single plane solver, roto splines to animated geometry conversion (with depth to interact with physics and simulations) and much more. MochaBlend C4D is $250. Learn more at imagineersystems.com. ManuelLab 1.0 A toolset for character creation in Blender, you can create human and anime characters, set anthropological phenotypes and more using ManuelLab 1.0. Meshes are optimised for subdivision surfaces and sculpting. The next version includes expanded anime characters with more styles. ManuelLab is free, get it from manuelbastioni.com. Asset Management This Blender add-on has been designed to help you with staying organised, by letting you add any kind of assets to your own libraries. Thumbnail images are…

DETAILING My goal was to create a close-up shot inspired by Weta Digital’s Apes films. I used HD Geometry in ZBrush to create HD detail in sculpting. It’s important that you have sufficient detail on the surface to provide high-quality Normal and Displacement maps. Knald helped create sensitive Cavity maps that were used for Specular maps. Yuki Sugiyama yukisugiyama.com Yuki is a lighting/lookdev artist with professional experience at Tokyo-based animation studios Software Maya, V-Ray, NUKE, MARI, ZBrush, Knald MoreThanMeetsTheEye, 2015…