Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 113 i 3D Artist

When we first saw Agent 327: Operation Barbershop back in May 2017, we were absolutely floored by the quality of the animated short. The models, animation, rigging, environment, lighting, scene composition and just about everything else involved was undeniably already Hollywood quality. What was more impressive was that anybody at home could technically achieve the same calibre – there were no secret tools involved. No, it was all Blender, which is of course free for anyone to download and start learning. We’re so excited for you to read about how this fantastic short was achieved, and hope you will get inspired to create your own high-end CG piece with the exact same tools over on page 24. Elsewhere, we’re discovering the secrets behind incredible game cinematic prowess with Digic Pictures…

MODELLING It might not surprise you to learn that everything the modellers create ends up in Maya, but admittedly the artists do have complete freedom to create in whatever software they want, and with whichever plugins they desire. “We have a very long history with ZBrush as well,“ says Tamás Varga, “And so they do have to use ZBrush, because that’s where we have a pipeline.“ There is a mix of additional tools, however. The likes of Headus UV and Unfold3D are the two key choices for artists, while it’s Body Paint for 3D texture painting with some Mari use for the higher-definition models. ANIMATION Again, the animation department also requires everything to end up in Maya to help with the pipeline flow and in fact most of the company’s…

01 Set up a Voronoi Fracture to a mesh Create a Voronoi Fracture object from the MoGraph menu and make it the parent of a mesh – here we have a simple flattened cube. Add a Rigid Body Simulation tag to the Voronoi Fracture object and create another floor object below as a Collider. Play back to see the whole mesh breaking up into random pieces at once upon impact. 02 Build connections In the Voronoi Fracture object’s attributes, open the new Connectors tab and click Create Fixed Connector. This creates a Connector object under the Voronoi Fracture object, and connections have been generated to join every single fragment together. Play back to see the mesh now break up in multiple stages, starting from the point of impact. 03 Increase…

LIGHTING I really wanted to re-create as close as possible the mood of the original concept art made by Fredrik Rattzen. To do so, I heavily used light linking within Maya to art direct the image and enhance the composition. I also rendered the lights in several passes to have more control over their intensity and colour in post. Arthur Gatineau arthurgatineau.com Arthur is a CG artist specialising in modelling, texturing and shading for films and games, currently working at Entropy Studio in Spain Software Maya, ZBrush, Mari SummerReading , 2017…

Based on the notion that animation tools are too convoluted, Akeytsu is designed to simplify things. Highlights include Light Rig and Skin tools letting artists click a skinned mesh and create poses, an integrated F-Curve Editor in the 3D Viewpoint, IK/FK Solver without complex Manipulators, and a ‘Cyclemaker’ that mirrors a character’s Motion Cycle once animators have set up the animation. It is available in three versions: Learn, Indie and Pro.…

 Job title Freelance art director and matte painter “I hit this point a couple of years ago where I realised that if you didn’t use 3D you were going to get left behind”Maxx Burman, Freelance art director and matte painter Location Los Angeles Website maxxburman.com Biography Maxx Burman broke into visual effects by learning matte painting from one of the masters, Syd Dutton, at Zoic Studios. He’s since worked at several VFX studios as a matte painter, concept artist and art director, including on the opening titles for Westworld and The Crown. Portfolio highlights • Titanfall 2, 2016 • The Crown, 2016 • Westworld, 2016 • Game of Thrones, 2015 • Far Cry Primal, 2015 • Godzilla, 2014 • Iron Man 3, 2013 • Her, 2013 • Dark Souls 2, 2012 At age 18 and intent on working…

IAN FAILES vfxblog.com  Ian returns this issue with a fantastic behind-the-scenes feature on Agent 327, the exciting animated short and proof of concept from Blender Animation Studio. Read it on page 24. 3DArtist username N/A SAFWEN LAABIDI artstation.com/safwen  Character creation tutor Safwen has given us this incredible guide to making a real-time cyborg for any game engine. Make sure you check it out on page 46. 3DArtist username safweno DORU BUTZ artstation.com/dorubutz  We welcome Doru to the magazine this issue, with his amazing tutorial on creating a steampunk-style diorama with Modo. Learn his workflow and try it yourself! It’s on page 54. 3DArtist username DoruB JONATHAN BENAïNOUS jonathan-benainous.blogspot.com  Jonathan is a senior texture artist working at Ubisoft Quebec. His industry-standard techniques for texturing ornate details with Substance Designer is over…

1966 AGENT 327 IS BORN The first Agent 327 comic is published in Pep magazine, and focuses on the adventures of a Dutch secret agent who fights for ‘righteousness and world peace’. It is written by cartoonist Martin Lodewijk and illustrated by Jan Kruis. Lodewijk would soon take over as both writer and artist, and the series would continue to run regularly over the next few decades. 2002 MAY BLENDER IS FORMED Ton Roosendaal, having written an animation package beginning in the mid-Nineties, starts the non-profit Blender Foundation. It is aimed at promoting the Blender software as a community-based open-source project. Later this year, after a successful crowdfunding campaign raising 100,000 euros Blender is released under the terms of a GNU General Public License. MARCH 2006 BLENDER’S FIRST FILM In…

CONTRIBUTORS MICHAEL BALCHAITIS  3D artist artstation.com/skullmelt EDNA KRUGER  Learning content developer, MAXON cineversity.com/user/profile/282816 CALDER MOORE  Surface artist, Atomic Cartoons artstation.com/refriedspinach RODRIGO SAAVEDRA  Director and founder, Cinema 4D Tutorial cinema4dtutorial.net Cinema 4D is known for its stability and fast workflow, and the good news is that the newest release certainly won’t let you down in those departments. In addition to the solid performance we’ve come to expect, there’s a raft of exciting new features that will push the boundaries of what has been achievable with this software so far. Over the following pages, Edna Kruger from MAXON takes you through the best of new features in Cinema 4D R19, and is joined by other artists who offer up their tips and tricks for using core elements of the software. Covered in…

LIGHTING My goal here was to look at materials from the Cycles materials vault. Bokeh in Cycles usually needs many more samples, and now we have great denoising in Blender, which makes crisp bokeh, and sharpens details in focus. I really like the Blender glow effect, it’s a useful feature in close-up renders or foggy weather exteriors and interiors. Denis Voloskov mastervolden.ru Denis is a freelancer with seven years of experience profiling interior and object visualisations. He is also a martial artist and musician Software Blender, Cycles, Affinity Photo EdisonLamps , 2017…

POSTPRODUCTION To get a more saturated glare from the render, I used render elements (raw reflection, specular, ambient occlusion) for the subsequent flexible image processing, strengthening and weakening the glare and shading in the image. To quickly get the necessary effects, for example, contrast and saturation, I like to use Photoshop. Igor Kulkov igorkulkov.com Igor Kulkov is a freelance 3D artist from Russia. He specialises is high poly modelling with texturing, illustrations and 3D environments Software 3ds Max, V-Ray, Substance Painter, Photoshop Light in the Attic, 2017…

NukeX 11 sees the continuation of Foundry’s focus on performance, stability and open standards. If you’re just starting out with Nuke, the updated Tool Sets is worth a look for seeing recommended techniques. It includes ready-made 2D and 3D example scripts for common compositing tasks, such as multi-pass rendering from popular third-party renderers, keying, particle systems and rig removal. However, this is of little benefit if you’re experienced and like to work efficiently because you’ll already have your own Node templates or scripts saved. In terms of performance improvements for day-to-day working, NukeX 11 includes the newly introduced LiveGroup Node. This node serves as a container that provides a new collaborative workflow system by enabling artists working on elements of a comp to directly share parts of their script with…

Unity has become the first creation engine to gain access to Autodesk’s FBX SDK source code, allowing the development of a non-destructive workflow between the tools. The new 2017.2 FBX Importer/Exporter package includes a custom Maya plugin, and features support for GameObject hierarchies, materials, textures, Stingray PBS shaders and animated custom properties. “Autodesk is very interested in making media and entertainment artists’ work as seamless as possible, and the workflow between 3D art tools and engines is a big part of that effort. 3ds Max and Maya users often utilise Unity technology, so we want to provide the best possible connection between these tools,” said Marc Stevens, vice president of Entertainment, Autodesk. “Unity developers turn to Autodesk for the deepest 3D modelling and animation toolsets available,” said André Gauthier, studio…

Substance Painter 2017.3 The latest update brings seamless exporting to Felix, making assets ready-to-render in Adobe’s latest compositing and rendering tool. There’s also access to gITF 2.0 exporter, a universal 3D scene format that is PBR ready and open source, and a new auto-backup plugin for incremental saving that features a snooze setting. 3ds Max 2018.3 Update 3 introduces a multi-threaded fluids simulation system inside 3ds Max for creating realistic liquid behaviours. The Arnold plugin MAXtoA has been updated to support fluid rendering with BIF file output. There is also a new Motion Field Force for affecting fluids, particles and deforming meshes at the same time. Instant Terra 3D terrain creation software Instant Terra is available in public beta version. The node-based tool supports unlimited terrain sizes, and has settings…

As a freelance artist, Burman was on the lookout for an elegant web builder that would enable him to create a portfolio of his many and varied projects. “Getting your work out there is everything,“ he says. “It doesn’t matter if I do an amazing painting if no one sees it. There are so many great digital art communities, and I try to stay involved with them, but really, clients want to see a real website that’s easy to navigate and showcases the art well. I use Fabrik, it’s an amazing web builder designed specifically for artists. “Having a well-designed and easy-to-navigate site is so important if you want to be treated like a professional,“ he adds.…

TAMÁS VARGA “I have accepted long ago that things have changed, and will be changing. It is completely clear to me that if we want to move beyond the kind of projects that we can do as a small team then we have to expand. If we want to do something more than a one-minute trailer with five characters, if we want to do something like an animated feature, we have to grow for that. Things will have to change as the company grows, and so I have accepted it. As I said, sometimes I miss the old days, sometimes I don’t.“ GÁBOR LENDVAI “When I came here there was about 40 people, so the company was mostly started by these guys. I really like that scale, because in that…

01 Create a Pose Morph tag for the elbow control PSD morphs can help you get the correct skin shape for certain poses, such as fixing creases or even adding muscle or fat definition. Starting off with a rigged character, you first need to add a Pose Morph tag to any rig control. We’re going to use the right elbow control here. 02 Pose the arm where you need the corrective shape Rotate the elbow control so that the arm is in a pose where you need a corrective shape. This is usually at a point where joints are bending and creating unattractive bulges or creases. It’s hard to fix this using only joint weighting, which is where these shapes can help out. 03 Add in a new pose Open…

SAFWEN LAABIDI Real-time_Sumire_01, 2017 Software ZBrush, 3ds Max, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Marmoset Toolbag, Mari, Photoshop Learn how to • Block out • Retopologise • Model • Create real-time hair • Texture the whole model in Substance Painter and Substance Designer • Integrate with Marmoset Toolbag for shading, lighting and rendering Concept The original concept is from one of my favourite concept artists, Warren Louw. I picked it because I liked the design and it’s got both organic and hard surface details, which would be a challenge for me to translate that into 3D. You can check his awesome work here: artstation.com/ warrenlouw. In this tutorial we’ll go through the process of making a real-time character that can be rendered in Marmoset or integrated in any engine, from creating a base…

JONATHAN BENAïNOUS Dark Fantasy Ornate Column, 2017 Software Substance Designer, ZBrush, Marmoset Toolbag Learn how to • Master Substance Designer • Avoid traditional modelling by using a curve node • Smartly use ZBrush to speed up your process • Add a destruction pass procedurally • Generate a final render using Marmoset Toolbag Concept The goal of this project is to master Substance Designer in order to make a hard-surface ornate column using the node collection in the program. In this tutorial, we’re going to take a detailed look at the methods needed to create a fully procedural PBR texture using Substance Designer. With this program in particular, moving too quickly into generating detail could make you lose track of where you are and end up in difficulties. To help avoid…

“ This affordable eight-core processor [is] more than capable of delivering the rendering grunt artists require” The resurgence of AMD CPUs as a viable alternative to Intel is perhaps 2017’s biggest PC hardware news. And this Chillblast Fuson Ryzen is the first AMD system to grace the pages of 3D Artist in years. Ryzen uses the new ‘Zen’ architecture, bringing performance up to a level that is genuinely competitive with Intel chips in gaming and productivity applications, accompanied with a pricing strategy that vastly undercuts the competition. Ryzen competes with Core i7 processors in four to eight-core configurations, with the more high-end Threadripper chips going up against Intel Xeons in eight, 12 and 16-core packages. All Ryzen processors support two threads per CPU core, and the line-up runs with DDR4…

LIGHTING The light scheme for this is from a HDRI Map by Peter Guthrie (pg-skies.net) inside a V-Ray Dome light and combined with a V-Ray Sun for soft shadows and warm highlights. Rather than concentrate on settings and parameters, we focused on the correct hierarchy between light intensity and colour temperature for a high level of photorealism. Oxygen oxygen.pt Oxygen is a creative studio that specialises in arch vis. It provides visual support for different companies around the world Software 3ds Max, V-Ray, Photoshop Axis Viana Hotel, 2014…