Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i 3D World

HERO STUFFIE “This was a beautiful furred stuffie that cost a lot and was designed to be an accurate lighting reference,” outlines Will Reichelt. “It was actually furred with real rabbit fur that the props department sourced as a cured pelt that they then covered over the model. We would wheel that out for every setup to shoot HDRIs and other reference.” DIRECT INTERACTION When the actors needed to hold a rabbit, or be pushed and pulled by one, there were other options. One stuffie was more sandbag in nature and was covered in a bluescreened material. Another method was to have a bluescreen performer on set who would literally poke and prod at the actors with hands or sticks. KEBABS A series of rabbit outlines attached to sticks were…

01 TWEAK SETTINGS FOR BETTER REFLECTIONS Noise in the light or shadows or on reflective surfaces may simply be the result of insufficiently high pixel samples in your Superfly render settings, but it may also mean that certain render settings need to be selectively increased. Sometimes tweaking these can save overall render time whilst producing the improvements you seek. In this image, we can increase the Glossy bounces setting to account for the reflective floor and mirror without cranking up the overall pixel samples beyond 50. If we felt it necessary to add realism to the bath water, we could increment the Volume parameter, and may even activate Caustics, although these three can greatly increase render times. AUTHOR Mat began as a technical journalist over 30 years ago, and is…

If you’re new to CGI, you may feel that there are far too many tools to choose from in a dizzying array of software. This series aims to break everything in CGI down to the very basics, so that every artist can be armed with the knowledge of which tool is best. We continue our look at lighting this issue by exploring Dome lights. The use of Dome lights has been one of the greatest advancements in CGI creation over the past decade. Bathing a scene from every direction used to be computationally intensive, but with advances in both hardware and software, the Dome light has emerged as an efficient way to start lighting a scene. This is because a Dome light can embed an image-based light image (IBL, also…

Maya Jermy replies Pipes are probably one of the easiest hard-surface models you can create in 3D, and are super easy to produce in ZBrush. I used to go back to 3ds Max for all kinds of hard-surface modelling, and would then import the modelled part into ZBrush for fine detailing. I was one of those students who thought they needed a separate piece of software for hard surface, another one for organic sculpting and others for texturing, retopology, rigging and so on. As a result, my PC suffered an overload of programs that I barely used. I would look at other artists’ lists of software skills, and I felt that I had to know them all to become a better artist. It was my very own corner in an…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO www.bit.ly/vault-233-barbarian Terragen 4 (planetside.co.uk) is arguably one of the best pieces of software currently available for the easy creation of realistic CG scenery. Today I will show you how to create a simple environment like the above in just 25 minutes. First of all, at the beginning of the creation of a new environment, we have to delete the default terrain and add a new one. For this scene I selected the Power Fractal option. Once we have done this, we can set a value for the Seed to generate a different terrain. Now we can set our base colour. To do this, we have to open the Shaders panel (at the right of the Terrain panel), and select the default base colour. We can then fix…

I remember the first action film I saw back in the Eighties. It was Superman II, and I was hooked on the genre from then. The seed for my love of action was planted at an early age, as I became obsessed with TV series like The A-Team, Fall Guy and Six Million Dollar Man – to name just a few. However, the reality of one day working in Hollywood seemed like just a pipe dream. I was stuck in a blue collar job which was immensely laborious, but it paid the bills. My shifts were spent staring at papers flying out of a printing press at 50,000 copies an hour. I’d think to myself, “There has got to be more to life, right?” Then, one day, I came across…

TUTOR Maciej Kuciara Maciej Kuciara is a concept designer and a member of the Art Directors Guild (IATS E Local 800) working in both films and video games in Los Angeles, California. Some of his work include Ghost in the Shell, Captain America: Civil War, Guardians of the Galaxy and the critically acclaimed PlayStation exclusive, The Last of Us. www.kuciara.com Understanding perspective – the ability to represent the illusion of three-dimensional space within a two-dimensional surface – is essential to the arsenal of any concept artist. In this tutorial, we’ll get familiar with the process by studying a variety of techniques that will give you the fundamentals of designing environments. We start first by creating objects using 1-point, 2-point and 3-point perspective so we can get acquainted with the procedures.…

MODERN DUTCH INTERIOR ARTIST Martijn Bayens SOFTWARE Blender, Unreal Engine 4 Martijn Bayens, currently studying gaming architecture and design, created this interior scene in 20 hours using only Blender and UE4. “The way I created this scene is actually simple,” Martijn says, explaining that he modelled the outer walls first before heading onto the interior walls, placing the windows, creating the floors and ceiling, and finally adding the extra details. “When the modelling is done I start up Unreal Engine – I always use my lighting template. “What I like the most about creating this project is that when I imported it in Unreal Engine, it looked very bad and you always doubt yourself, but after I added materials and built the lighting it looked very good and that feels…

AUTHOR Vito is an Italian artist, born in Germany and now living in Japan. He has been in the CG industry since the pixel graphic era. Vito’s expertise ranges from modelling and animation to concept art, art direction, supervision and compositing. www.con-fusion.net Compositing is a very powerful process that can really take your imagery to the next level, and is essential for the VFX pipeline. Tasks that may take days to accomplish in 3D can be achieved in only a matter of hours in post. Although visual effects look incredibly creative, there is an even greater technical aspect to it that is not visible to the eye. This is why many users who come from After Effects will find Fusion to be technically daunting. Fusion is made for technical accuracy.…

ISSUE 232 APRIL 2018 THE MILL NYC TEACH MAYA HAIR • Create a photoreal furry monster with a tutorial from The Mill • Part 2 of our film grammar series, analysing the two-shot • Expert tips for hard-surface modelling in 3ds Max • Learn the secrets of some of the most visually impressive titles • Downloads Free video training, files and morel ISSUE 231 MARCH 2018 MASTER HOUDINI: MODEL A ROBOT • Go behind the scenes of The Shape of Water’s incredible VFX • Part 1 of our film grammar series, exploring framing and composition • 15 expert Houdini tips, with advice on character and terrain creation • Discover the secrets behind Thor: Ragnarok with Framestore • Downloads Free video training, files and morel ISSUE 230 FEBRUARY 2018 ILM MODELLING…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO www.bit.ly/vault-233-barbarian Oscar Juárez replies Creating photorealistic images always pushes us to have more detail in every scene. Back in the days when I created the asphalts for exterior images I used to start simple and then later add the details in Photoshop, but as time went by I realised it was easier (at least for me) to have all those details in the rendered scene so I could focus more on other elements. Here’s how I go about it. STEP BY STEP ADD ASPHALT DETAILS USING UNWRAP UVW 01 IDENTIFY OUR POLYG ON AND CREATE GUIDELINES Our first step will be identifying the polygon we need. In this case I selected only the section of the asphalt polygon we will be able to see, however you can…

News and views from around the international CG community SMILE FOR THE CAMERA axisVFX CG supervisor Sergio Caires crafted a tool that streamlined the workflow “Sergio is involved in a lot of the tools within Houdini that make it very easy to just create scenes automatically,” says axisVFX co-founder and VFX supervisor Grant Hewlett. “When we drop Happy as a digital asset within Houdini, and we have a shot output mode, it knows where to look for the camera. It knows where to look for the animation for him, it knows where to look for the light rig for that shot – so a lot of that set-up work is automatic.” We’re living in the golden age of television. Networks are taking more chances and most notably, experimenting with their…

A LIFE OF ITS OWN Now with two batches of AnimDojo students, Badruddin says that the site is starting to become more self sustaining thanks to the enthusiasm of past participants. “There are students who have had more one-on-one intense training with me, so we have more senior students who have been helping out the new students,” he explains. “We’re adding more features and we’re starting to bring in new animators to help out.” You have a great showreel on your hands, you’ve graduated from university with a decent grade, and yet you still can’t bag a job in the animation industry. It’s an all-too-common situation that continues to affect budding animators from all over the world, and Blue Zoo cofounder Tom Box and animation director Bader Badruddin decided it…

FREE This issue we have a free video course from Learn Squared, teaching Photoshop environment concept workflows VIDEO & FILES GET YOUR RESOURCES You’re three steps away from this issue’s video training and files… 1. GO TO THE WEBSITE Type the following into your browser: www.bit.ly/vault-233-barbarian 2. FIND THE FILES YOU WANT FROM THE LIST Search the list of free resources to find the video and files you want 3. DOWNLOAD THE FILES YOU NEED Click the Download buttons and your files will save to your PC or Mac PLUS There are more files and resources waiting online… VIDEO: Get the video tutorials for a selection of this issue’s training FILES: Download the high-resolution tutorial assets for all of our training STEP IMAGES LEVEL UP YOUR GAME HEROES In this…

PETER RABBIT DIRECTOR Will Gluck ABOUT Based on the classic children’s books, Peter Rabbit follows the story of a family of rebellious rabbits and their comical feud with a vegetable garden owner RELEASE DATE Out now Will Gluck’s Peter Rabbit, based on the characters created by Beatrix Potter, is the latest movie to go the way of the CG/live-action hybrid. But just what is involved in making a film where most of your characters need to be added later? How do you plan, how do you shoot with live-action actors, and where do you start with animation? 3D World asked Animal Logic how Peter Rabbit was put together, from planning the shoot, to filming with stand-ins, building a whole raft of adorable CG characters and then animating them. It’s a…

AUTHOR Dora R. Fitzgerald received an MFA in Film from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas San Antonio. Her academic interests include film spectatorship and grammar, and race and representation in cinema. www.uiw3d.com In this third and final instalment of our visual language series, we will examine the function of camera movement. As much as anything you can do as a director, the movement of your camera through virtual space is your chance to covertly narrate your story. Because your camera movement speaks through space, and the audience is sometimes unaware of it, it is one of the most powerful cinematic devices you have at your disposal. Camera movement is one of the great narrative strategies available to filmmakers – whether animators or live-action directors. To…

AUTHOR Andrew Thomas is a community manager at Shapeways. andrewsimonthomas.com In this step-by-step tutorial I’ll be showing you my process for creating the trophy for the Vertex Hall of Fame awards. The trophy will be based on the exploding cube that is the logo for the Vertex conference (www.vertexconf.com). The Hall of Fame award, the first of its kind from the event and sponsored by Bluegfx, was presented to the president of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, Edwin Catmull, at the Vertex conference in London for his outstanding contributions to computer graphics and animation. In this guide I will be detailing my process from designing the original concept to creating a final 3D print of the trophy to be awarded at the event. This trophy will have two parts,…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO www.bit.ly/vault-233-barbarian Creating a convincing landscape for a scene can be a hugely involved process, especially as it often tells a lot of the story itself. Landscapes are complex, whether you’re working on a film or a game, and are only truly believable when they feel like they have literally evolved over millions of years. World Machine is a brilliant standalone piece of software that enables the artist to design a landscape scenario that they wish to see, and then export it to a digital content creation application or game engine – with height and texture maps or as 3D geometry – to create a convincing base for a scenario. Using World Machine, the artist has complete control over the shape of the landscape, with islands or mountain…

PRICE $3,300 | COMPANY Wacom | WEBSITE www.wacom.com As those who have had the chance to use one of Wacom’s large-format pen displays will understand, it is clear to see why the products are used in studios around the world. Wacom’s previous flagship model, the Cintiq 27QHD, provided artists with an impressive 27 inches of screen space at a resolution of 2,560 x 1,400 pixels. As the push for Ultra High Definition content increases, however, artists are beginning to need more resolution and screen space than ever before. Introducing the Cintiq Pro 32. The latest model in Wacom’s Cintiq family features a 4K UHD display spanning an impressive 32 inches, with a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels. With four times the pixels of a standard 1080p display, the Pro…