Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 116 i 3D Artist

A great character is not limited to just what is presented on the surface as we all know. Alongside the textures, hair, composition, model and great lighting – a good narrative represented by an interesting pose and facial expressions is also paramount. That’s why we’ve enlisted the help of 3ds Max rigging extraordinaire João Victor Ferreira this issue, who will divulge how to rig an expressive face. Talking of faces, some of the digital humans being produced by VFX studios have been nothing short of impressive – with many regular filmgoers marvelling at the work behind Blade Runner 2049’s CG Rachael. We spoke to MPC (the geniuses behind the digital Rachael), Lola VFX and Image Engine to find out what it takes to make something human. Elsewhere, you can learn…

“We built a skull so we could get key points on the face to understand the proportions… better”Richard Clegg, Visual effects supervisor, MPC Hollywood has been making phenomenal leaps and bounds in the creation of photoreal digital humans in recent times. Notable standouts include Digital Domain’s Benjamin Button work, Weta Digital’s resurrection of Paul Walker for Furious 7 and Industrial Light & Magic’s CG Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One. Three films released in 2017 also greatly advanced the art, in different ways: Blade Runner 2049 with its digital Rachael; Logan in creating CG digi-doubles of the main actors; and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 in de-ageing Kurt Russell. 3D Artist caught up with the studios behind those digital humans – MPC, Image Engine and Lola VFX – to…

JOÃO VICTOR FERREIRA Mad Dudes, 2017 Software 3ds Max, Ornatrix, V-Ray and Photoshop Learn how to • Create morpher connections • Make expressions in wire parameters • Create a stretch IK system • Create base-bones rig for a head • Limit controls for 2D UI • Wire parameters for Path Constraint percentage Concept I created this image to show the contrast of a strong MMA fighter and his little Chihuahua dog, creating a funny scene. Both are angry because they are ‘bad’. The face is very important in character animation because it is always in focus, showing the character s expressions. Depending on the expressions needed, facial rigging can take a lot of time, often requiring more than one rigging artist and many systems to create. There are many techniques…

MODELLING The BMX was created for a personal project using ZBrush and was modelled entirely using the ZModeler tool in addition to DynaMesh for the framework. The ZModeler tool is absolutely fantastic and helps speed up my workflow massively – it is pure joy to work with! Edward Price brightsplashes.com Edward is a digital artist creating a wide range of visuals using 3D software, photography and illustration techniques Software ZBrush, 3ds Max, V-Ray and panocapture.com CountrysideRider , 2017…

JOãO VICTOR FERREIRA joaovictor3d.com  A specialist in rigging and modelling, João has given us his expert workout tips for creating a dynamic facial expression. You can read about his techniques on page 46. 3DArtist username N/A GREG BARTA artstation.com/scivfx  Taking us through the space of physically accurate atmospheres is VFX artist Greg Barta. Learn the science behind the art and how to enhance your VFX on page 54. 3DArtist username N/A CHRIS MCFALL unitedfilmdom.com  Blender pro Chris will teach you how to use Blender modifiers to upgrade your rigging workflows and develop soft forms like this lion’s mane jellyfish. Read the tutorial on page 60. 3DArtist username unitedfilmdom HUSSAIN ALMOSSAWI moxxawi.com  Hussain is an international product designer and this issue, he adds to his burgeoning series of rendering tutorials with…

CONTRIBUTORS PASCAL BEECKMANS  Environment artist at Gameloft Montreal behance.net/paqwak THOMAS KLYHN CHRISTENSEN  Freelance 3D generalist artstation.com/snakeboxmedia YANN COUDERC  Technical artist / Clarisse specialist artstation.com/yannpix MARK CULLUM  3D graphic artist artstation.com/cullylad VICTOR DUFAYARD  Environment, digital matte painting artist at Fauns artstation.com/victordufayard MARK FLANAGAN  Technical trainer N/A WILL GIBBONS  3D artist willgibbonsdesign.com AGATHE GIRARD  3D generalist – surfacing/lighting artist artstation.com/zaggirard SéBASTIEN LEVIEUX  CG/VFX artist slecreativestudios.com BEN MARTIN  Lighting & FX artist ben-made.com MARCIN MIODEK  Tech support specialist for Corona Renderer corona-renderer.com CHRISTOPHER NICHOLS  Director of Chaos Group Labs chaosgroup.com ALEXIA RUBOD  3D artist artstation.com/alexiarubod MOHAMAD SAIED  CGI artist linkedin.com/in/mohamadsaied3d DYLAN SISSON  RenderMan technical marketing manager artstation.com/dylansisson RAUL VALVERDE  Multimedia artist linkedin.com/in/valverderaul/ GREG ZDUNEK  CG generalist and founder at Vertex Library artstation.com/gregz Rendering is getting smarter,“ states Lon Grohs, vice president of marketing…

GROWING HAIR Although the on-set stand-in actor did wear a matching hair style to Rachael, MPC replaced the hair and generated eyelashes, eyebrows and peach hair fuzz completely digitally with its proprietary hair and groom toolset called Furtility. LIGHT RIG COPY On set, a unique rotating disc of light was used by cinematographer Roger Deakins for the scene. MPC rebuilt that rig in its CG lighting setup. “We had a scan of the light rig,“ says senior lighter Ian Cooke-Grimes. “We used this light rig to position all the lights, which was also tricky shot-by-shot because the lighting was always moving.“ EYE REALISM Often referred to as the ‘window into the soul,’ the eyes of digital actors are perhaps the most important. MPC also paid close attention to digital Rachael’s…

GREG BARTA sciVFX Atmospherics, 2017 Software Houdini, Clarisse, scientific simulators like Stellarium and PhET Learn how to • Observe nature from both a scientist’s and an artist’s point of view • Investigate the science behind real-world experiments • Learn the basics of atmospheric optics • Dive into details to understand the causality of the phenomena • Simulate and visualise them with scientific and VFX tools • Apply these experiences in order to enhance your image or VFX shot Concept This is a concept/study image for my scientific visualisation research. We should all look closely at water droplets to understand intuitively how they scatter the light. We begin a series of tutorials in 3D Artist with this one, talking about a natural phenomenon in each. The pieces of software we’ve chosen…

This year’s CG Futures event offers attendees a golden opportunity to hear from industry legends as they share their experiences of working on feature films, AAA and mobile games, commercials, and AR experiences. Confirmed speakers include Aaron Sims, founder/CEO of Aaron Sims Creative, who will present the first ever introductory masterclass of new training programme ‘Sketch to Screen’ (ascmasterclass.com). Furio Tedeschi, ZBrush Summit Sculpt-Off Champion for the past three years, will showcase his character art. Josh Simmonds, VFX supervisor at Iloura will give a behind the scenes look at the Loot Train Scene in Game of Thrones Season 7. Seth Thompson, art director at Blizzard Animation, will share techniques he uses to create realistic video game props for titles including Warcraft III, Overwatch, StarCraft II and Diablo III. CG Futures…

Available for Maya, the versatile tool operates as a bi-directional constraint that enables Character TD’s to determine direction ‘on the fly’. Riggers can also build Rulesets within the ExoSwitch Constraint that dictate how constrained nodes interact with one another to resolve issues where adding multiple constraints cause them to fight each other. “ExoSwitch is a different paradigm of rigging and animation that the industry has been asking for since I can’t even remember,” explains co-founder Tim Naylor.…

It’s the 21st century, technology is more advanced than ever before and 3D scanning promises to be a hot trend moving forwards through 2018. Nowadays, it’s possible to scan almost anything and create a perfect digital copy – from the smallest of props to live horses. But what are the benefits of doing so? In the visual effects industry, this solution offers ultimate flexibility and the ability to store reusable elements for future projects. Assets can be pulled from one shot, then reused in any still or animation across multiple platforms, which can come in handy for promotional campaigns. 3D scanning can be particularly useful when creating digital doubles, or a ‘virtual talent’, as we call it. A totally unique human being. In the past, we’ve created a lot of…

LIGHTING Inspired by photos of Arizona deserts taken during sunset, when the sun illuminates the spines of cholla cactus in a unique way. I challenged myself to achieve a similar effect. Instead of translucency, I used extremely high backlight values (200%) on the spine textures. I also increased the strength of diffuse lighting on the spines (72%). Drea Horvath dreahorvath.eu Drea is a graphic designer / DTP operator & freelance landscape artist Software Vue xStream 2016 (scene, lighting / atmosphere, rendering), Photoshop EarlyMorninginArizona , 2017…

“We were like, ‘should we do this?’, if it was a big publisher you know they would have gone, ‘definitely not’”Dan Attwell, Principal environment artist For as historic and significant as British game development has been, it’s a mixed bag. There’s a handful of behemoth studios, but in the grand schemes of things the UK is a little more subdued with the videogames it creates. As is the case with many of the world’s creative industries, the UK’s input is significantly more artistic in its approach, and as a result British game development studios can be typified by smaller, more flexible teams to allow for that. Cambridge-based Ninja Theory is perhaps the best example of this British sense of creative flair, having built up a reputation over the course of…

The process began with scanning Jackman in USC ICT’s Light Stage. “The OLAT (one light at a time) from ICT was great reference,“ notes Image Engine senior lookdev artist Adrien Flanquart. “The OLAT light rig triggers a flash of light from a different position across a 360-degree sphere around the actor. Each image represents a single light source and the combined result represents nearly all possible real world lighting of the actor.“ “Those images,“ continues Flanquart, “give us perfect insight of how light scatters through hair and skin, how eyes react to light direction and how specular highlights roll over the face of the actor.“ This is just another reason why the Light Stage is often sought out by visual effects studios to aid in the creation of photoreal digital…

CHRIS MCFALL Lionsmanejelly, 2017 Software Blender Learn how to • Rig soft or amorphous forms • Think outside of the box (jellyfish) • Use standard Blender modifiers to augment your rigging workflow Concept A video featuring a lion’s mane jellyfish swimming in the ocean’s current and is an extract from a larger looping video, which was designed as an installation piece to use in an aquarium. So when a client comes to you asking for a seamless loop of a near photoreal jellyfish, to be created entirely in Blender, you know that you’re going to have to find some pretty smart solutions to some pretty big problems. Like how do you begin to manually animate a thousand tentacles? (Because there’s no way to make a simulation that complex loop fluidly;…

When you hear about a VFX short with over 30 festival awards and nominations, you probably wouldn’t expect it to have been created from inside someone’s living room. But that’s exactly what happened with indie filmmakers Miguel Ortega and Tran Ma. For The Ningyo, Ortega and Ma turned their living room into the primary sound stage, while their bedroom doubled as a Victorian-style college professor’s office. Each set consisted of physical objects paired with black screens rather than green, in order to help establish the Lovecraftian tone. Once the sets were ready, the 3D part of the environments was lit with V-Ray, using up to 80 CG stand-ins for the characters. The Ningyo was funded via a Kickstarter campaign, which surpassed its goal of $50,000 to reach over $80,000 in…

The work of Jeff Lait, Mark Tucker, Cristin Barghiel and John Lynch from SideFX has been formally recognised with a Scientific and Engineering Award for their contributions to the design and architecture of the Houdini visual effects and animation system. In addition, Mark Elendt picked up an Academy Award of Merit for the creation and development of Houdini, which includes an Oscar statuette. Meanwhile, Bill Spitzak and Jonathan Egstad were also awarded for their work on the Nuke compositing system. Other winners include Pixar, Dreamworks, ILM and Rhythm & Hues.…

Clarisse 3.6 Next Gen 2D/3D rendering product simplifies live action integration by enabling background plates to receive shadows and colour bleed from CG elements with Shadow Catcher. For non-photoreal rendering, a new filter has been included. Watermarks are removed from personal learning edition renders, although subject to limitations. iClone 7.2 Reallusion has released two incremental updates for iClone 7 in quick succession. Version 7.1 features improved Camera Depth of Field and a complete overhaul of the Timeline system, while 7.2 now integrates with the PopcornFX particle plugin and includes five embedded particle building tools. To improve lighting results HDR and Glow effects are vastly improved. Maya 2018.2 This compact update mainly delivers extra features to the Render attribute group in Bifröst shape nodes. Highlights include: Ocean Blending settings; Clipping, shape…

“ When presenting your showreel it’s vital to explain the techniques and tools used and why… what went wrong and how you overcame it ”Joshua Gotto, Compositing supervisor, Lexhag Visual Effects Job title Compositing supervisor Location London, England Website lexhag.co.uk Biography Joshua Gotto is the compositing supervisor at Lexhag Visual Effects in London. He has worked on Oscar-winning blockbusters and BAFTA-winning television shows. Over the course of his career, Joshua has been credited on 28 films and television shows, working at some of the most successful VFX studios Portfolio highlights • Sand Castle, 2017 • The Autopsy of Jane Doe, 2016 • The Girl with All the Gifts, 2016 • Collide, 2016 • Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, 2014 • 47 Ronin, 2013 • Prometheus, 2012 • Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, 2012 • Wrath of the Titans, 2012 • Rise…