Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 136 i 3D Artist

We are celebrating a whole lot this issue, from the fantastic title sequence Elastic made for the final series of Game Of Thrones on page 36, to the stunning modelling work that MPC do on their movie projects, over on page 44. For me though, the areas that blow me away most often are the projects made by students, hobbyists and other artists new to the industry. This issue we showcase the very best student work, and I hope you agree that they are just incredible, and all respect to the talent of the creators, as well as their tutors. Check out our feature on page 22. Sticking with the theme we turn to fan art on page 28, talking to a number of talented 3D artists behind some simply…

There are few communities within 3D art as reverent or appreciative as the world of fan art. Each re-creation or reinterpretation is a labour of love in which artists pay tribute to their favourite characters, comics, films, franchises and more. In order to unpack the science of fan art, 3D Artist has gathered some masters of the craft to discuss their processes and approach. They also divulge how fan art can bolster a budding artist’s skillset and provide valuable inspiration. Plus, the artists deliver some practical tips and advice that you can apply to your own works of fan art. Among our gallery of artists and experts is Franco Carlesimo, a 3D generalist with a focus on modelling for collectible figures. Eduardo Silva is a character artist with a decade…

Bio Mohammadreza is a CG artist, tutor, certified architect and professional photographer with over 13 years’ experience in 3D rendering and visualisation. Software 3ds Max, Corona, Substance Painter, Phoenix FD, Corona Image Editor Learn how to • Create a metal material in Substance Painter using smart material • Make a material based on textures exported from Substance Painter • Create a fire effect with Phoenix FD • Render volumetric fire effects in Corona • Use IBL lighting in Corona Concept I wanted to create a room in sunset with a fireplace to utilise Corona’s ability for rendering volumetric fire effects.…

Bio Muhammad is the founder, chief designer and art director of NAG®, a creative design studio based in Egypt that produces high-end architectural designs and visualisation. He also works as a teaching assistant at the department of architecture, Faculty of Engineering at Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. Software 3ds Max 2018, V-Ray 3.6, Photoshop CC 2018 Learn how to • Manage large-scale 3D scene files • Model non-destructively • Optimise your polycount consumption • Simulate photorealistic atmospheres Concept We will create an atmospheric photorealistic aerial composition, simulating the noon time of Hurghada in Egypt with its glowing sun.…

Bio For over four years, Andy White has delivered sensational imagery, visual effects and short films as the creative director at Saddington Baynes. Andy oversees the entire studio pipeline from concept to delivery, working closely with Steve Page and Olly Crawford to tailor the look and feel of each project to a client’s specifications – whether for a brand, advertising agency or beyond. Software Houdini, Maya Learn how to • Quickly concept and build a timeline before creating • Utilise insider tips to get the most out of Houdini • Tweak liquid simulations to deliver desired results • Differentiate multiple simulations to avoid repetition • Import sims into Maya for maximum flexibility Concept Redefining Beauty explores the power of CGI to present a new forward-thinking style for beauty brands in…

Modo 13.1, the latest release in Foundry’s Modo 13 Series, brings with it significant improvements in performance, particularly when working with the kind of assets that Neon Giant creates in production. The process of converting mesh geometry into a surface that can be drawn to the screen is now up to four times faster, really accelerating animation playback. Multi-threading has also been optimised, enabling artists to make better use of the power provided by high-core-count processors like AMD’s Ryzen™ Threadripper™ CPUs. The speed boost makes it possible to manipulate complex meshes with multiple deformers interactively in the viewport. Modo’s modelling tools continue to evolve, with a new Tool States Presets system enabling artists to save and reuse custom settings, and new options for creating bevels, selecting and thickening geometry, and…

Industry veterans Ben Lock and Patric Roos have joined Outpost VFX as executive producer and executive creative director, respectively. Based in the APAC region, Lock and Roos will work closely with senior management to establish a footprint in Asia. The company’s operation in the region will give Outpost access to up to 300 additional artists. “It’s an incredibly exciting time to be joining such a forward-thinking company, which is looking east to what will become a massive market for VFX," says Lock. Roos adds: “In an ever-changing VFX industry branching out in APAC will see Outpost VFX become a global partner for our clients, offering greater flexibility and leveraging the best talent worldwide.”…

1 The perfect pose The first thing I do is use a base mesh to pose the character and see if it works in the 3D space. Sometimes an idea can look really cool in 2D because you are focusing on one angle, but in 3D you have to try to make it look cool from several angles. I always try to have at least three good angles to look at it. 2 Modelling the character I start in an A pose; working in a symmetrical way makes this stage easier and faster. Once I have the overall model, primary shapes, correct proportions, suit, and some texture details done I will take it back to the pose that I figured out at the beginning. 3 Refining At this point I…

We didn’t have enough reference material for the character other than the original Blade Runner footage and the ‘life cast’ scan. MPC Film’s Character Lab artists built three different models for this process: firstly, the young Rachel we see in the movie, secondly the actress who plays Rachel, Sean Young as she is now, and then finally a model of the on-set acting double. The on-set double and Sean Young were used for the facial performance workflow. We started with an old-school technique, which involved grabbing various reference angles and aligning these to the ‘life cast’ scan by playing with different focal lengths. Then we built a model of the current Sean Young, aligned to Rachel’s positions. This helped us with the right skull proportion. We then blocked the overall…

Generally, in large-scale scenes we recommend not to work on anything that cannot be seen by your shooting camera. Moreover, you should activate your polycount statistics by hitting the 7 key on your keyboard, then keep your eyes opened to it as this will affect your file size and viewport navigation speed. If you want to quickly sort your objects by polycount, add the Faces column to the ‘Select by name’ menu and sort all the objects by quantity of polygons. It’s important also to eliminate using Chamfer, MeshSmooth or TurboSmooth modifiers and keep using them only for your scene foreground objects that are quite close to your camera.…

CGI is the key to transforming how beauty is portrayed in the media. It is no longer necessary to have extensive shoots or to focus on the female body, as CG allows artists to recreate products and manipulate them in new and unfamiliar ways. Not only does this provide creatives with a whole new playground of possibilities when it comes to dreaming up marketing imagery, but it also ties into the concept of corporate social responsibility as brands move away from the so-called classic standards of beauty, and embrace a wider palette that better reflects the actual customers buying their products.…

V-Ray for Houdini is production-ready thanks to Ingenuity Studios, who have been using it since 2017 to create high-profile pieces for Billie Eilish and The Walking Dead. “We started using the alpha build about 30 minutes after it was released,” recalls Grant Miller, owner and VFX supervisor at Ingenuity Studios. “We wanted to move scene assembly into Houdini, so we’d have more control over our instances and a tighter loop on VFX and look dev. If V-Ray for Houdini could take us there, we were all in.”…

1 PROXY SET A proxy representation of the set was made after concepts and storyboards were done. From a given storyboard, our director started blocking out sets with proxy geometry, camera movements and rough animation. This was an essential step as we knew which parts of the sets are visible in which shot. 2 SET BUILDING The proxy geometry was later replaced with high-poly meshes baked from high-resolution displacement maps to get proper contact surfaces for animation, simulation and set dressing. Each piece of high-poly geometry was then split out in one or more separate Maya scenes to start set dressing. 3 PLANT LIBRARY We had created a big asset library of plants. However, we realised that they would not work as well as we expected, since most of them…

1 Concept The first step is to choose some good concept art as the basis. A lot of research was done to determine which would be the best choice, and it became obvious that it should be a comic book cover. The best choice was to use a DC Universe Rebirth cover, illustrated by super-talented artist Jorge Jiménez. This cover has a great action scene with the characters in very dynamic poses and good elements to compose the base. The goal now was to make this illustration a statue that works from all angles. 2 Modelling My workflow is very simple. First I work on a base mesh in ZBrush, to find the simplified form of the characters. I gradually evolve this base form and block out some accessories. Once…

In this tutorial, we will dive into the archviz industry with the purpose of managing our project professionally and efficiently. We’ll focus on covering the rendering of interior architecture design, using various tools that are unconventional to some extent in archviz. With Megascans and its connection to 3ds Max for texturing, we will be able to make the materials quickly and efficiently. For the hero element of the render, we will use RizomUV for unwrapping and Substance Painter for texturing by applying smart materials to get the desired result faster. Additionally, for the fire, we will use the most versatile simulator plugin available for 3ds Max, Phoenix FD, which makes it very easy to create a volumetric fire. The skills you learn from this tutorial will help you do much…

CGI is such an immensely flexible and powerful tool that you can use it for just about any purpose – even augmenting or completing a live-action shoot. For Redefining Beauty, however, we wanted to focus on shots that wouldn’t be achievable in-camera… at least not easily. Our goal is to help clients realise the enormous ability for CG to transform the way that we present and showcase beauty. We don’t want to just recreate what’s already out there, but also push beyond the norms and help pioneer new techniques.…

First introduced in Modo 13.0, AMD’s Radeon ProRender is a fast, physically accurate GPU render engine. It quickly became part of Tor Frick’s workflow, enabling him to see photorealistic previews of the models he is working on, rather than just relying on the simplified versions that are visible in the viewport. “Being able to see how things look with real materials, not just grey-shaded, means a lot to me,” he says. “A model can look correct in the viewport, but completely different in-game. The faster I can preview things the way they’re going to look later, the better.”…

Since World of Tanks launched on consoles in 2014, Wargaming has added over 900 tanks to the popular game. Generating this amount of content and optimising it to run on the decade-old hardware of the Xbox 360 is no mean feat. The tank optimisation process took an average of two to three days per tank, and a typical monthly update for their title could require anywhere from four to over 100 tanks to be reprocessed by a team of three artists. Much of this heavy lifting has been taken care of by InstaLOD’s remeshing and optimisation features. Both InstaLOD’s remeshing and optimisation can handle skinned meshes, meaning artists were able to save valuable time not having to reskin tanks that had complex suspension rigs. After integrating InstaLOD into their pipeline…

Since joining Foundry in 2013 Jody Madden has been instrumental in the company’s growth. Prior to this, Madden spent more than a decade in technology management and studio leadership roles at Industrial Light & Magic, Lucasfilm and Digital Domain. Madden adds: “I’m thrilled to be taking on the CEO role at this unique time in our company’s history. Over the years I have worked at Foundry, I have seen the amazing things the talented people in our business can do, and I continue to be inspired by the images created by our customers. During a time of rapid change in creative industries, Foundry is committed to delivering innovations in workflow and future looking research. As the company continues to grow, delivering further improvements in speed, quality and user experience remains…

Substance Painter 2019.2 The latest update from Substance by Adobe includes faster bakers and Flix 6.1 The updated story development hub enables automated round-tripping between editorial and 3DCoat 4.9 This update features improvements to the Paint room, including support of 16-bit PNG smart materials. Bakers have received a massive performance improvement, making it up to 200x faster with RTX. There are also 40 new smart materials and 20 new smart masks that can be used for texture. Substance Painter has a variety of licenses available, starting at $19.90 a month. story, so that artists can seamlessly publish to and from Avid Media Composer. Creatives can also organise and name their files consistently with improved export preferences. Flix 6.1 can be demoed or purchased by contacting sales@foundry.com. for alphas. CutOff in…

Website moving-picture.com Location USA Project Legend Project description MPC helped create an action-packed 60-second spot for BMW, who launched their new X7 model in a blockbuster-style film that draws inspiration from children’s storybooks. The film, directed by MJZ’s Dante Ariola with visual effects by MPC, turns the brand’s X7 model into the hero of the story. Studio MPC Company bio MPC solve their clients’ toughest business challenges through fresh, innovative and unexpected creative solutions. From original ideas through to finished production, they are perpetually pushing the limits of what is technologically and artistically possible. Constantly redefining industry standards, they find new, effective and authentic ways to connect with audiences. Contributors • Nicole Saccardi, VFX producer • Morten Vinther, creative director As one of the world’s largest and most established visual…

COMPOSITING My technique is fast, spontaneous and occasionally chaotic. For this image (as for most of my concept art) I rendered the head with a transparent background using KeyShot. This gave me the ability to play around with the backgrounds in Photoshop and see what mood fitted the character best. As I usually don’t show my concepts from all angles, I chose a perspective that highlights the best features, allowing me to keep the background 2D. For me, it’s about the design of the character, not about how good the model is. Daytoner daytoner.net Daniel Hahn lives in LA where he works on AAA game and movie projects. Software ZBrush, PS, Substance Painter, KeyShot, OctaneRender BirdofPrey, 2019…