3D World - Christmas 2014 UK

EDITOR’S
WELCOMEIs it time to give your CG art

a bold artistic style?
Creating photoreal renders is a great skill to TITANIC TEXTURES

Turn to page 44 for
have, but this issue cover artist Amir Erfani tips on using the new
Substance Painter and
argues you should aim for more. In his Substance Designer!
tutorial on page 60 Amir shares his process

for giving a standard car render a new,
SUBSCRIBE
& SAVE 61% dramatic look. Our other tutorials this issue
Now you can get the include integrating CG and photography to
best of both worlds!
Subscribe to 3D World create dramatic results (page 64), making
and get both the print
and digital editions. surreal renders in Arnold (page 74) and
Turn to page 34!
an imaginative approach to modelling an
Egyptian pyramid (page 76).
Finally, if you want to be featured
in 3D World, write in and show us
your CG art. We’re always keen to
promote artists’ work!
Ian Dean, editor

ian.dean@futurenet.com
EMAIL WEBSITE
3dworld@futurenet.com 3dworld.creativebloq.com
FACEBOOK TWITTER
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3D WORLD Christmas 2014 3 3dworld.creativebloq.com

FEATURED
ARTISTS
Meet the CG experts and artists who
have contributed to this issue
COVER ARTIST
ARTIST
Amir Erfani
SOFTWARE
V-Ray, Photoshop
Amir is a 3D artist with a passion for automotive

design. He enjoys creating photoreal car art
with a game-style look. His personal projects
are a roaring gallery of supercars stunningly
rendered against neon lights and rain soaked
streets. We felt he would be the perfect person
to tackle this issue’s Lamborghini cover.
Wanting a unique car render for the cover,
and a tutorial that reveals something a little
different, Amir chose to focus on the creative
process of rendering; he discusses the ideas
of photorealism and finding a style of your own.
Starting on page 60 you can read how Amir
uses V-Ray to light and render a photoreal
render before using Photoshop in order to
add more drama to the scene. Follow Amir’s FOLLOW THE
workflow and be inspired to create renders
with more artistic flair. WORKFLOW!
For more information on Amir’s work visit: Turn to page 60 to
FYI www.amirhossein-erfani.com read Amir Erfani’s
tutorial on lighting
and rendering the
SPOTLIGHT ON OUR CONTRIBUTORS Lamborghini.
Jonathan Ball Francesca Forzoni Nicolas Garilhe

Jonathan works full time as an illustrator. He’s Frankie is a 3D artist and visualiser in London. Nicolas is a freelance character artist for video
been doing so since 2008, and has worked on This issue she opens our Artist Q&A section games and a user of the Substance suite tools.
a lot of projects for toy companies, games and on page 40 and gets into the Christmas spirit Recently he won the Substance challenge
advertising agencies. On page 36 the artist reveals his process revealing how to create depth of field for your rendered organised by Allegorithmic and on page 44 you can see his
for creating the rainbow rage of Unicorn War! Christmas decorations using Cinema 4D and Photoshop. model and learn from the artist’s advice.
www.pokedstudio.com www.francescaforzoni.com www.guedin.wix.com/guedin
Rafael Vallaperde Vikrant J Dalal Daniel D’Avila

Rafael is a CGI artist and director at Lightfarm Vikrant has worked in the VFX and graphics Daniel is a 2D and 3D illustrator based in Sao
Studios in Brazil. He has experience in the design industry for eight years. He has started Paulo in Brazil with 16 years of advertising
advertising industry and enjoys creating art by his own VFX studio, Project01 Design Studio. On industry experience. He also owns D’Avila
blending art and photography together. On page 64 Rafael page 70 Vikrant shares the basic approach to creating flowing Studio. On page 76 Daniel shares his process for creating
reveals how he mixes CG into his underwater photo shoot. liquids using RealFlow, 3ds Max and After Effects. a complex environment using Modo 801.
www.lightfarmstudios.com.br www.project01studio.blogspot.in www.davilastudio.com

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Print 5,768 Digital 3,001

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ISSUE 189
CONTENTS Our complete line-up for this

DIGITAL month’s 3D World
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Get a free issue when you
subscribe! Or download a
back issue for your
Android device today!
www.bit.ly/3dworld-digital
8 ARTIST SHOWCASE
Discover the best digital art from
the CG community
17 COMMUNITY
18 IN A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
The rise of CG in broadcast sports
22 STUDIO PROFILE
Stop-motion powerhouse Laika
26 SHORT CUTS
Explore the awarding-winning Natalis 26 SHORT CUTS
Natalis fuses mocap and photoreal rendering
36 IN FOCUS
Jonathan Ball shares his techniques
40 ARTIST Q&A
All your software queries solved
by our panel of CG experts, this
issue includes Marvelous Designer 4
FEATURES
44 TITANIC TEXTURES
Tips on using the Substance Suite
54 A THOUSAND FACES
The Boxtrolls: Laika’s 3D print 8 ARTIST SHOWCASE 36 IN FOCUS: UNICORN WAR
Discover the most outstanding new creative work from the CG art community Jonathan Ball shares his techniques
59 TUTORIALS
Improve your CG skills with
practical tips and tutorials
83 DEVELOP
Theory, research and reviews, plus
industry tutorials from the experts
REGULARS
34 SUBSCRIPTIONS
81 NEXT MONTH
91 COMPETITION: ICLONE 40 ARTIST Q&A 44 TITANIC TEXTURES 54 A THOUSAND FACES
Your software queries solved by our experts Substance Painter and Designer tips The Boxtrolls: Laika’s 3D printing workflow

TUTORIALS
60 RENDER A LAMBORGHINI
How to create photoreal vehicle
renders with artistic impact
64 BLEND CG AND PHOTOS
Learn to integrate CG and
photography for unreal scenes
68 VIDEO GAME ENVIRONMENT
Part 3 of the series looks at using
assets and materials
70 LEARN FLUID SIMULATION
Create realistic streaming fluids
in RealFlow and 3ds Max
74 XGEN AND ARNOLD RENDERS
Realise a surreal fantasy scene
using XGen and Arnold
76 MODEL A DETAILED SCENE
Create a complex environment
using Modo 801
60 RENDER AN EXOTIC LAMBORGHINI 64 BLEND CG AND PHOTOS

Learn how to create vehicle renders with artistic impact with car enthusiast Amir Erfani How to integrate CG and photography
68 BUILD A VIDEO GAME ENVIRONMENT: PART 3 76 MODEL A DETAILED SCENE

Create your own assets and materials in the third installment of this series Sculpt a complex environment in Modo
DEVELOP
84 THEORY: RENDERING
How to better understand
texture coordinates
86 DEVELOP: STAR WARS VFX
VFX guru Richard Edlund recalls
working in a galaxy far, far away
92 DIGIMANIA: RENDERING
Digimania reveals a rendering
suite with ambition
92 DIGIMANIA: RENDERING
Discover an ambitious render software REVIEWS
94 MARVELOUS DESIGNER 4
The cloth sim tool gets a revamp
95 MSI WS60-2OJ
The ultra-thin laptop impresses
96 INTERPRO IPW-HWE
A powerful machine that comes
at a price, will you be convinced?
97 LG 21:9 ULTRAWIDE
Two screens are better than one
98 MY INSPIRATION
86 DEVELOP: THE TECHNOLOGY OF STAR WARS 94 MARVELOUS DESIGNER 4 Keith Self-Ballard remembers how
Richard Edlund, the Oscar-winning engineer recalls working in a galaxy far, far away What’s new in the popular cloth sim tool? his career began, with Myst III: Exile

ARTIST
SHOWCASE The best digital art from

the CG community
GET PUBLISHED
EMAIL YOUR CG ART TO
darren.phillips@futurenet.com
There’s a fine line between
inspiration and intimidation.
FAST LANE
Visit the online Vault to download
extra process art for these projects:
The difference is hard work This image took Graham
36 hours.“I’m not very fast
www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw189
and a lot of experimentation – ironic, considering the
content. Snail does F1!”
3D WORLD Christmas 2014 8 www.facebook.com/3dworldmagazine

EXPLODED VIEW OF
A FORMULA E CAR
ARTIST
Graham Murdoch
SOFTWARE
Modo, Photoshop
Graham Murdoch started his CG career in the

1990s using Alias Sketch! before migrating to
LightWave and now Modo, in which he created
this dauntingly complex model of a race car as
an illustration for Popular Science magazine.
“There’s a fine line between inspiration
and intimidation,” says Graham. “Turning that
intimidation into inspiration is just a lot of hard
work and experimentation.”
In this case, experimentation led to Graham
3D WORLD VIEW using some new techniques, including a Render
Boolean for some of the smaller screw holes in
“There’s so much the bodywork. “It saved a bunch of fiddly
to enjoy here. The Sub-D modelling,” he says.
detail and the lengths The car itself was created as a single mesh
Graham has gone to item, then separated into layers to make
for this project are it possible to animate between different
incredible.” configurations of exploded parts. “It adds
another layer of interest to the process,”
IAN DEAN Graham notes.
Editor Read Graham’s quick tutorial at
FYI creativebloq.com/3dworld/cutaway

3D WORLD VIEW
“The character is
very strong without
being overly dramatic.
The subtle gestures,
the lighting and the
richness of the cloth
are a joy to behold.”
KULSOOM MIDDLETON
Operations editor
A WOMAN
IN HANBOK
ARTIST Seungmin Kim
SOFTWARE Marvelous Designer,
ZBrush, 3ds Max, Hair Farm,
V-Ray, Photoshop
Two goals lay before Korean artist Seungmin

Kim as he began this four-week project: to
study V-Ray, and to create a Hanbok – the
traditional local dress – in Marvelous Designer.
While learning V-Ray took up 40 per cent
of Seungmin’s time, adopting Marvelous
Designer sped up his workflow. “Because
everything from modifying clothes to putting
in a crease [is] represented in real time,
Marvelous Designer is definitely an interesting
program for 3D character designers. If you
have a chance, try learning it,” he says.
One unexpected challenge was finding
good design references for the Hanbok.
Seungmin turned to dressmaking books to
find a pattern he could recreate in Marvelous
Designer – and even learned to sew.
As well as recreating the clothing accurately,
a key challenge was conveying the personality
of the woman wearing it. “When creating Asian
female characters, delicate facial expressions
and gestures are considered most important,”
STITCH UP Seungmin says. “Subtle expressions of the
Seungmin created the eyes, nose [and] mouth, gaze, and finger
costume in Marvelous gestures can hold everything.”
Designer, even learning See more of Seungmin’s work on his blog:
to sew in the process
FYI blog.naver.com/seungmingun

SHOWCASE
ISLAND
ARTIST
Ahmad Turki
SOFTWARE Maya, V-Ray,
Photoshop, After Effects
LIGHTING THE SCENE
By day, Ahmad Turki works as a texturing “I wanted to create a
artist in 3D animation studio Rubicon Group simple light setup so
Holding, but in his spare time, he found five I used an HDRI image
days to work on this personal project. with a directional light,”
Of that time, he spent three days working explains Ahmad
on the modelling, and says the most enjoyable
aspect of creating the image was the scene’s
set dressing; creating the trees, grass and
flowers using Maya’s Paint Effects and foliage
using the standalone software Ivy Generator.
“I encountered a problem with texturing the
base, since I had to use different textures and
masks for the road, grass, rocks and sand,”
he says. “After I finished drawing the masks,
I combined them with the blendColors node
in Maya, to texture each part alone.”
After rendering the scene Ahmad imported
the individual passes into After Effects for
compositing, “I like to use the LooksBuilder
plug-in [Magic Bullet Looks],” he reveals.
Follow Ahmad’s quick tutorial on
FYI www.creativebloq.com/3dworld/island
OCEAN BREEZE
“For the ocean, I used a
standard ocean shader
from Maya [with] a Color
map for the cartoonish
look,” says Ahmad

3D WORLD VIEW
"While the colour

and detail is the
immediate eye-
catcher, it's the subtle
composition tricks
that guide you around
the Island that make
this scene special."
DARREN PHILLIPS
Art editor

SHOWCASE
LIGHTS AND MATERIALS
“The light setup is very
simple,” says Luigi.“I
use one VRaySun and
two VRayLights, and one
HDRI.” Most objects 3D WORLD VIEW
use V-Ray’s Standard
material, with V-Ray’s “A scene full of
skin shaders for the character and charm.
frogs and gnome The detail on the
Gnome’s rabbit ride
is wonderful too.”
KULSOOM MIDDLETON
Operations editor
GNOME
ARTIST
Luigi Monaldi
SOFTWARE ZBrush, 3ds Max,
V-Ray, Photoshop
Based in part on the paintings of illustrator

Jean-Baptiste Monge, Gnome took freelance
artist Luigi Monaldi a total of 100 hours to
create. The portrait of a gnome riding his pet
hare is a wonderful image, with some fantastic
textures painted in ZBrush using the Standard
brush with CavityMask, along with the Spotlight
projection texturing system and Surface Noise.
The hare’s fur is also beautifully rendered:
“I used [3ds Max Modifier] Hair and Fur and
combed the hair with an imported spline,“ says
Luigi. Suitable maps were used for Tip Color
The inspiration for the frogs
and Root Color to ensure fur colour felt realistic.
But despite the detail and effort gone into
was the Hex card from
creating the hare and gnome, Luigi’s favourite
part of the image is hidden at one side: “I think Hearthstone, Blizzard
I enjoyed creating the frogs most of all,” he
says. “I was inspired by a card [from Blizzard Entertainment’s card game
Entertainment game Hearthstone] called Hex.“
Follow Luigi’s quick tutorial for Gnome at
F I www.creativebloq.com/3dworld/gnome
FY

CONTENTS
COMMUNITY News and views from around the

international CG community
18 IN A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN 20 FACE OF THE FUTURE

How the rise of real-time graphics has changed the way sport is broadcast Chris Jones’s photoreal human project
22 STUDIO PROFILE: LAIKA 24 NVIDIA VCA EXPLORED

Behind the scenes with Laika, the stop-motion studio responsible for The Boxtrolls Real-time on-demand rendering is here
GET PUBLISHED

www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw189 26 SHORT CUTS: NATALIS 3O REBELS WITH A CAUSE 32 NEW IMAGE FOR IRELAND
Fusing mocap and photorealistic rendering The creation of Star Wars Rebels key art Stephen Lohan argues for better training

THE BIG ISSUE
IN A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN

With sports broadcasting now as much about pixels as players,
Mark Ramshaw examines how CG is changing our TV coverage
T
elevision and sports have a this is perhaps to be expected given ”We’re also seeing downward
remarkable history together, the vast sums of money involved. trend in both software and
stretching all the way back to ”First of all it’s a way for hardware pricing, plus tighter
the late 1930s, when NBC made the broadcasters to put their integration between various
leap from radio with live baseball own stamp and branding on pieces of the graphics workflow. These
broadcasts that initially transmitted programmes, differentiating developments are allowing
to just 400 proud owners of the USA’s them from others and making it clear broadcasters and integrators to
first commercial TV sets. On-screen to the viewer which channel their innovate more easily and frequently
graphics arrived in 1965 and in 1996 watching,” says Thomas Nelson, with technology to deliver graphics that
Fox debuted permanent on-screen business development manager, enhance the viewer experience and
scores. With the arrival of tracked Sports, Vizrt Switzerland. “Broadcasters stand out from the competition.”
screen overlays two years later a new are also seeking to keep viewers Reality Check provides customised
“Storytelling remains era of computer-enhanced sports watching before and after games solutions right across the globe, to
at the heart of broadcasting truly kicked off. as long as possible, to increase their corporations including ESPN, NFL,
sports broadcasting, ratings and so also the amount of Sky and Endemol (for matches airing
therefore if data CG-powered dynamism advertising they sell. By adding VFX like on Fox channels).
can be harnessed by Now it’s impossible to imagine what augmented graphics to their shows they “Most of our systems use Vizrt’s
graphics companies a sports show without an army of can tell their stories in new ways that Viz Artist/Engine to enable real-time
then some very graphical flourishes would look like, captivate the viewers at home.” graphics authoring and rendering,
cool production much less who would want to watch Also broadcaster demand has been with our team building custom
enhancements it. Even in the CG-saturated world of fuelled by the increasing affordability graphics hardware,” says Mike. “We
will emerge,” says the broadcast market, sports shows of the tools required, according to then design and implement the latest
ChyronHego’s stand out in their unbridled reliance Mike Ward, European managing software development techniques
Jonathan Roberts on CG-powered dynamism, but then director, Reality Check Systems. to deliver robust and easy-to-use

“Every graphic has to
be available in real-time
and also templated in
sophisticated ways, to
allow anyone to create
a stunning-looking
graphic with a few
button clicks,” says
Thomas Nelson
INDUSTRY INSIDERS
Thoughts & opinions from the experts
integrated solutions that help bring are working to develop solutions that
client ideas and visions to life.” streamline live sports production
Viz Engine is something of a mainstay workflows. These include Uppercut, a
in sports broadcasting, with CNN, Fox, full HD production system with a micro
Sky, ZDF, and the BBC all relying on footprint that can be controlled by a
the technology to power on-screen single operator. It enables a network MIKE WARD JONATHAN THOMAS NELSON
graphical enhancements. Its roots like Sky Germany to take a smaller European managing ROBERTS Business development
can actually be traced back to the late team on-site, in contrast to the larger director, VP, EMEA sales, manager, Sports,
1990s when it was created as a real- traditional crew live productions often Reality Check Systems ChyronHego Vizrt Swizerland
time rendering tool by Peak Broadcast require.”
Systems (one of Vizrt’s founding Artistically, this is also a unique “Sports broadcasters “The biggest change “Working with
companies). It’s been constantly niche for 3D work, requiring a deft are under pressure in this field has sports is deceptively
developed and optimised since its days blend of asset creation and data/ to create high been the need for tricky. To meet the
as an Onyx-based tool, says Thomas. footage control. “Every graphic has volumes of content the enhanced story challenges that
“In the last couple years, Viz Engine has to be available in real-time and also for distribution across telling. With viewers sports bring, you
expanded its role from just rendering templated in sophisticated ways, to a growing number becoming more savvy need to be good
graphics to being a full video and allow any journalist or producer to of platforms, as well the need to show and at a couple of
graphics compositor,” he adds. “This create a stunning looking graphic as produce more tell a more enhanced things. The first is
is part of Vizrt’s strategy for erasing the with a few button clicks,” says Thomas. appealing content story is becoming data visualisation.
barriers of graphics and video content.” “All these graphics are most likely also that attracts and ever more important. Sporting events are
driven by some sort of data feed that retains viewers. As a The other big thing is all about statistics
Live graphics on the host feed needs to be incorporated seamlessly result, we’ve seen a speed of turnaround, and incoming
Another serious player in the market is into the graphic templates. To create lot of experimentation with the speed at information. You
ChyronHego, which – along with Vizrt these simple but powerful workflows with virtual studios, which production need to be able to
and Sky Sports – recently won an IBC augmented reality companies wish take that information
Innovation Award for Sky’s flagship
Monday Night Football Show. This
By adding cool VFX like graphics and
centralised graphics
to tell the story
becoming more
and turn it into
something tangible
system utilised the company’s GS2 operations, in important. The faster and understandable
Multi-Touch in-studio solution and ultra augmented graphics to addition to far greater the turnaround can by the audience,
high-res Vistacam backdrop system in levels of production be, the more relevant and to do it ‘as it
conjunction with the highly acclaimed shows they can tell their automation in sports the story becomes, happens’. Next is
six-camera, 25fps ChryonHego broadcasting. The so we focus on being easy usability. You
Tracking system. “It’s now in its fourth stories in new ways that rapid evolution of able to show the need to be able to
generation, with the various technology is partly story for first replay put the content in the
iterations used for more than captivate the viewers enabling this. Drawing and even predict the hands of an operator
3,000 matches across five on new hardware and story by analysing and enable them to
continents to date,” says for broadcasters is what we are software innovations, the live footage. make rapid changes
Jonathan Roberts, vice president, continuously striving to do.” companies like RCS Broadcasting on the fly as needed.
EMEA sales, ChyronHego. “For Sky TV Consider that sports broadcasting are able to deliver innovation really More and more
the tracking data is fed live into another isn’t merely getting more graphically solutions like Data comes down to who broadcasters have
of ChyronHego’s products, Virtual ambitious and reliant on the close Center, a cloud-based has the money to also introduced
Placement, which enables Sky to place integration between footage and data network that pay for it. The change immersive graphics
live graphics on the host feed.” live animation, but also on the ever- culls and organises that has occurred into their real studios
With CG now utilised for everything closer links between broadcaster and real-time sports data, is that sports rights over the past few
from on-screen score keeping, player audience. “Social media integration which may not have have become more years, as a way to
tracking and play-by-plays to fully is a huge focus,” says Mike. “The tech been possible two concentrated with create an augmented
digital scene simulations, virtual and techniques to implement it well years ago. Improved fewer broadcasters. reality experience
studios for presenters and even virtual aren’t fully refined just yet, but several rendering power and These broadcasters for the viewers and
ad placements into venue footage, companies are developing solutions speeds, as well as the can then spread the to help tell their
it’s clearly a challenge catering to the to help simplify the process.” rollout of improved cost of innovation. stories in a better
differing needs of each broadcast With programmers now working to broadcast resolutions My prediction is that way. It’s now almost
channel, sport, and show format. meaningfully integrate spectator video have also created if a fraction of the a must-have for
tweets, and more, into their shows; and higher audience analysis that takes sports broadcasters.”
Streamlining sports pipelines content delivery formats evolving daily, expectations, and place at club level
Mike Ward says that the rising cost of sports broadcasting is set to remain the also opened up can be distilled by
sports actually creates an additional most vibrant meeting point between new opportunities broadcasters then
challenge. “Higher fees burden live footage and digital enhancement. for networks.” the true nuances
production budgets, so our team, Make a logo. Follow the C4D and AE of the games will
along with other players in the industry,
FYI tutorial: www.bit.ly/189-makealogo
be discovered.”

COMMUNIT Y CG artist Chris Jones
Project insight is developing a
reusable character, so
he won’t have to keep
reinventing the wheel
PROJECT INSIGHT ADOBE

MEETS MIXAMO
FACE OF THE FUTURE Photoshop

embraces 3D
animation tools
Chris Jones explains how he's developing the ultimate
NEW DEAL
generic CG character for reuse in multiple projects Mixamo’s teamed
up with Adobe to
bring support for
C
hris Jones is known around spawning smaller projects in the form of a series of videos. 3D characters with
the world for his incredible “It has already surpassed its original objective, but now it skeletal animations
photorealistic animations, but for continues to steam on ahead like a runaway train,” he says. to the latest release
his latest project Chris decided to do Jones has been using Light Wave, which he’s been on of Photoshop CC.
something different. “I started thinking board with since 1995. He finds rigging a challenge, but
about possible applications says that, “LightWave’s improvements over the years have
CHRIS JONES for a generic, reusable made it possible for me to push things much further than
Chris Jones has been character,” he explains. before. And there was no shortage of support from the
drawing, animating, “And so I set out to find the LightWave community whenever I found myself stuck.”
and music-making most ideal form, the perfect topology
virtually since the day and the most flexible rig for the Sensitive and subtle
he was born in Bendigo, ultimate template that could serve as The other main tool he’s been using on the project has
Victoria, Australia. the basis of all my future characters, so been Sculptris. “Initially I had some trouble getting things
www.chrisj.com.au I didn’t have to make them from scratch in and out of Sculptris without it crashing or messing up IMPORT SUPPORT
every time.” the mesh,” he admits. “But after I pinpointed these issues Users of the
As it progressed, the goal started (it doesn’t like single point polys, or UVs that overlap or subscription-based
moving more towards realism, and soon extend beyond the boundaries of the texture page for Photoshop CC now
it had become a sizable project in itself, example), it’s been fairly robust.” have the ability to
When it comes to the face itself, Chris was expecting import animated
problems with eyes, he says. “They’re actually not as hard 3D characters in
as I thought. It’s just a matter of scrutinising your reference COLLADA format.
material and being meticulous about reproducing all For details, visit
those details, which I seem to have a knack for.” www.mixamo.
The mouth, however, has been a much more difficult com/workflows/
proposition. “It’s a lot more flexible and is capable of a photoshop-3d
much wider variety of shapes, and we’re also very sensitive
to its subtleties.” Skin has also proved tricky. “It’s about RANGE OF
the most complex material imaginable,” Jones points WORKFLOWS
LightWave’s out. “And you’re at the mercy of the software to some Once imported
improvements over degree. If the lighting or subsurface scattering model into Photoshop,
the years have made isn’t accurate enough or doesn’t offer enough control, artists can use the
it possible for Chris to it’s never going to look completely convincing no matter animated characters
push things further how great your texture maps are. My progress in this area for a number of
are still a bit rudimentary, so whether I can pull off a truly workflows, such as
lifelike skin remains to be seen.” creating animations,
Beyond that, Chris has yet to tackle hair and clothes, and 2D/3D compositing,
says fine tuning everything will be an on-going process. 3D painting of
You can follow Chris Jones's progress on the project character textures,
FYI at his website: www.chrisj.com.au and 3D printing.

COMMUNIT Y
Studio profile
STUDIO PROFILE
INSIDE THE STOP-MOTION

ANIMATION POWERHOUSE “In effect, we are Luddites
Sammy Maine reveals how Laika has revolutionised who have embraced the loom,”
says Laika’s Travis Knight
stop-motion, from Coraline to The Boxtrolls
ortland, Oregon, with its crusty side-by-side with eggheaded engineers and futurists;
P thrift markets, out-of-issue

bookstores and fair trade coffee
shops, is a Mecca for any discerning
STUDIO
STATISTICS
where knuckle-dragging cavemen break bread with
well-mannered astronauts.”
trend-setter. It's no surprise then, that a Old-school movie magic

company formed in an environment like Over its ten-year history, Laika has shunned the advances
this is made up of a bunch of ‘wonderful of modern offerings and have instead opted for one of the
weirdos’. These particular weirdos came LOCATION oldest animation techniques there is: stop-motion.
together to found Laika, to pioneer Portland, Oregon “It's old-school movie magic,” he enthuses. “We fuse
processes and innovate technologies art, craft, science, and technology in a big, swirling gumbo
while expanding the boundaries of TEAM SIZE of production techniques representing a century of
animation and dragging a moribund 364 filmmaking.” It’s a technique that, they feel, allows them to
art form into a new and vital era. stand out from the animation crowd.
“We’re a band of anal- KNOWN FOR “Admittedly, we’re freakishly obsessive,” Travis continues.
TRAVIS KNIGHT retentive mole people,” Coraline “We’re consumed with esoteric and fetishistic bits of
Travis is president and laughs Travis Knight, ParaNorman minutiae, but that’s what we do… The two things that set
CEO of Laika, and also president and CEO of Laika. The Boxtrolls Laika apart are the films we make and how we make them.”
worked as a producer Travis is an Oregon boy through-and- Laika is a small independent animation house in a town
and one of the lead through. Growing up in the great state, DIRECTOR’S NAME 950 miles away from Hollywood that has managed to
animators the new he says that the values of the company Travis Knight establish itself as world-class frontrunner: the team has
movie The Boxtrolls. are a reflection of the environment in produced three full-length feature films including the
www.laika.com which they have flourished. “It Oscar nominated and multi-award winning Coraline, as
inevitably creates a kind of push and well as recent successes ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls.
pull, a dissonance that makes for fertile “We aspire to make films that are visually stunning,
ground for art, ideas, and innovation,” that have a patina of beauty, but more importantly have
he explains. “You see that in our a reservoir of meaning,” says Travis. “Films that are
company, where we've fused an thought-provoking, emotionally resonant, progressive,
age-old craft with cutting-edge and just a wee bit subversive.”
technology. It's a place where Although the animation studio may favour more
troglodytic stop-motion artists work traditional animation methods, director of Laika’s Rapid

STUDIO
PORTFOLIO
CORALINE
Laika’s first feature film, 2009’s Coraline, was the first stop-motion
animated feature film to be conceived and photographed in
stereoscopic 3D. The movie was nominated for an Academy Award
and a BAFTA Award for Outstanding Animated Feature and won the
Cristal Award at the Annecy International Animation Festival.
OFFICE BRIEFING
With an abundance of creative
personalities, Laika is a studio that
flourishes in the animation world.
Working on feature films, commercials
and short films, Laika focuses its craft
on the art of stop-motion, the team has
worked on a number of award-winning
movies including Coraline, ParaNorman
and the recently released The Boxtrolls.
“We’re freakishly obsessive. We’re
consumed with esoteric and fetishistic
bits of minutiae, but that’s what we do,”
says president and CEO Travis Knight.
Prototyping Department Brian Mclean is quick to enthuse PARANORMAN

about their 3D printing technology for facial animation. Laika’s second feature film, the 2012 zombie comedy ParaNorman,
”Knowing we are in uncharted territory can be was the first stop-motion movie to utilise a 3D colour printer to create
BRIAN MCLEAN both daunting and exhilarating,” he explains. replacement faces for its puppets. Over 40,000 individual face parts
Brian Mclean is the “Almost daily we encounter issues that require were printed for the production. It took three to four months to craft a
director of Laika’s Rapid creative problem solving. Realising that the team new puppet from start to finish, not including design or testing time.
Prototyping Department. just discovered a solution to a problem that we had no idea
He has been instrumental was actually solvable is one of the most rewarding aspects
in the development of 3D of my job.” Laika’s unique RP process means it has increased
printer technology. character’s possible facial expressions and combinations
www.bit.ly/189-mclean from 8,000 to 207,000 in just six years. Thanks to
interchangeable 3D printed facial components, Norman of
ParaNorman and Eggs of The Boxtrolls are now capable of
over 1.5 million expressions. “You feel that you are watching
living, breathing kids. We believe they are the most
beautiful and emotive characters in stop-motion history.”
Steve Emerson, who worked as the co-VFX supervisor,
says the art was taken to a new level: he witnessed the inter-
department collaboration excel to the best it’s ever been.
”We’ve progressed to a point where we can look
STEVE EMERSON at a storyboard together and almost instinctively
Steve Emerson worked know who will be handling which aspect of a
as the co-VFX supervisor particular frame and what type of support each
for The Boxtrolls. His department will have to provide.” THE BOXTROLLS
previous credits include And as Travis says, Laika’s just getting warmed up – they Laika’s latest film, The Boxtrolls, is a 3D stop-motion and CG hybrid
The Matrix Revolutions aim to be the centre of independent animation filmmaking: animated feature based on Alan Snow’s bestselling novel Here
and Transformers. “With this remarkable ragtag band of misfits, mole people, Be Monsters. It introduces audiences to a community of quirky,
www.bit.ly/189-emerson and brilliant, beautiful freaks, I know our future is boundless.” mischievous creatures who’ve lovingly raised an orphaned human boy
For more on Laika’s 3D printing techniques see page 54, and named Eggs in the cavernous home they’ve built beneath the streets.
FYI visit the site www.laika.com for news and art.

COMMUNIT Y
Industry news
PEGASUS FOR PREVIZ

Vicon has launched Pegasus, a new tool
for streaming motion capture data into VCA accelerates ray tracing,
game engines developed with IKinema. enabling you to interact with
As Phil Elderfield, product manager, models of such high fidelity
Entertainment for Vicon explained: “It that it can eliminate the need
allows you to stream from Blade, or any for 3D physical prototypes
Vicon product. You can import an .fbx of
your final asset, or a low-res
version if you want, and
retarget in there, then stream INDUSTRY NEWS
the retargeted data out into
Unreal or Unity, or any engine. It streams
the same format coming out of Blade; you
can use the SDK to build an integration
into whatever product you want.”
WHAT WILL NVIDIA’S VCA
Another new Vicon tool solves joints
to rigid body data and streams from Vicon
Tracker. Now you can stream data into
ubiquitous ergonomic packages, as well
as integration with Unreal and Unity.
DO FOR THE INDUSTRY?
Visit: www.vicon.com/software/pegasus. Access graphics-intensive applications powered by
workstation-class Nvidia graphics on demand
N
vidia has unveiled its new VCA 30 per cent faster. The only reason
(Visual Computing Appliance) you’d do it is if you had a piece of code
The new tool solves device – and it promises to be for which there was no CUDA version
joints to rigid body a real game-changer for the industry. available [but] then the OpenCL version
data and streams Packed with eight Nvidia high-end would work fine.”
from Vicon Tracker GPUs that can map a 3D space and
render in real time, the network- GPU acceleration
attached appliance scales to multiple Pressed on whether that could include
nodes, reducing rendering time from Arnold, though, he was open to the
MOCAP MADE AFFORDABLE hours to seconds. The potential benefit possibility. “We’ve always had an
A Kickstarter project is aiming to raise open line of communication with Solid
funds to develop an adaptive and
affordable mocap system by using We’ll be connecting into other 3D Angle and we’d greatly enjoy bringing
a GPU-accelerated version of Arnold
Neuron, one of the world's smallest to market, whether it was OpenCL or
full-functioned 9-axis IMUs. “We started applications that use Iray for a renderer CUDA,” he said. “We'd prefer CUDA
project Perception Neuron to develop if we had the choice, and it would go
the most affordable, inertial sensor- like 3ds Max, Maya and SketchUp faster, but nothing would make us
based motion capture system that fits happier than to have GPU acceleration,
the needs of the majority to the industry is immense, including however it got there.”
of the uses,” explains Dr. enabling designers to study the play of Greg was less optimistic about
Tristan Ruoli Dai, CTO and light on a car windscreen in real time. future GPU acceleration in Mental Ray,
co-founder of Noitom. Originally the device was marketed though. “We’re doing a little there, but
But why use Kickstarter? “We are still as Iray VCA but Nvidia has since you won't see amazing breakthroughs
a fairly new company and don’t get announced you can run V-Ray RT on it there in the short term,” he said. “That’s
much international publicity,” he said. as well. “As the adoption of 25-year-old code, it’s not constructed in
“On Kickstarter, branding has almost GREG ESTES Iray continues to grow, we any way you’d think of if you were going
zero effect and every product is treated Greg is responsible for will be connecting into other to make it GPU-accelerated. It was built
as a new one. The backers are the core worldwide marketing for 3D applications that use Iray with a completely different mindset.”
users: They can provide helpful advice the enterprise business for a renderer like 3ds Max, Maya and Learn more about Nvidia's VCA at
to help improve the products.” See the at Nvidia, focused on SketchUp,” added Greg Estes, VP
FYI www.bit.ly/189-vca
Kickstarter at www.bit.ly/189-mocap2. the Nvidia Quadro, marketing for Nvidia.
Tesla and GRID GPUs. Of course, Nvidia is never going to
www.nvidia.co.uk promote the VCA as being for anything
other than CUDA apps. But Greg
accepts that you could run software that
is GPU-accelerated through OpenCL.
“There’s nothing particularly magic
The Kickstarter about CUDA [in those terms],” said
backers are best Greg, though he stressed that “when
placed to provide we run the same code with the same
useful feedback GPU and compare with the OpenCL VCA is a scalable, network-attached GPU
version, CUDA’s almost always about rendering appliance with eight high-end GPUs

COMMUNIT Y
Short Cuts
SHORT CUTS
NATALIS EVOKES FRIGHTENING GET PUBLISHED

EMAIL YOUR SHORT TO
VISIONS OF THE FUTURE ian.dean@futurenet.com
Natalis, a student short that fuses motion capture and photorealistic rendering,
is an inspiring piece of work. Co-director Jan-Marcel Kühn shares his story
JAN-MARCEL KÜHN
Year on year, students
at Filmakademie Baden- 1
Marcel is the co-director Württemberg have been
of Natalis. He lives and surprising us with their superb
works in the Stuttgart animated shorts, and this animation ups
area of Germany as a the ante once again. (It won the VES
freelance generalist on Award for Outstanding Visual Effects
feature films and spots at in a Student Project in 2013, but it has
local studios. been on the festival run, so we’ve only
www.facebook.com/ just been able to showcase the project.)
natalismovie The original idea came from
student Felix Mertikat, and directors
Daniel Brkovic and Jan-Marcel Kühn
developed the story. “We liked the early
designs done by Felix. It was a pleasure
VITAL
STATISTICS to work with that base and develop
the idea further,“ says Jan-Marcel.
“Inspirations were films like Blade
Runner with its humanoid replicants
TEAM and Avatar with its great creatures, and
Directors/asset creators various images from digital artists.“
Daniel Brkovic
Jan-Marcel Kühn What where the key challenges
Effects TD in the production of Natalis?
David Kirchner We had a lot of challenges, but I'd
Rigging TD/animation say handling the enormous scenes
pipeline and getting them to render was
Tom Ferstl extremely challenging. For this we had
Surfacing/render
pipeline
Karsten Wagenknecht
We spent a lot of time users so it was prudent to use this
tool as our core software. To get it to
Maya. Most of the effects were built
using Houdini and a few with Maya.
Compositor work properly for our production it Final compositing was done in Nuke.
Johannes Peter developing tools. It was vital was heavily customised by our TDs to
Music and sound maintain a good workflow. Without What lessons did you learn?
Johannes Helberger to create a functional, doing this we wouldn't have been able In the early days of the project, we spent
Felipe Sanchez to handle the enormous files or finish so much time making nice pictures we
Producer structured pipeline the project on time. forgot to get the story working well,
Philipp Wolf so later we had problems getting it to
Cast to plan the render scenes accurately What other software did you use? work in a way that the audience would
Evi Rejeki Riecken so all the pieces would fit together in For modelling we used various understand it. Technically, the decision
compositing. Another hard aspect was packages: Maya, 3ds Max, Sculptris, to create an anatomically correct muscle
COUNTRY rigging the monster with its muscle and 3D-Coat, Mudbox and ZBrush. For system for the monster – a very fragile
Germany skin system. And that’s not to mention most of the assets we made sketches and complicated system that let the
the storm and the destruction effects. in Sculptris or ZBrush, which were muscles work right under the skin – was
SOFTWARE retopologised and finally sculpted too much effort for a short. A normal
Maya, 3ds Max, How long did the short take to make? in Mudbox or ZBrush. Texturing was rig with shot-based blendshapes
Sculptris, Natalis took us about 20 months to almost entirely done in Mudbox, with would have worked better and been
3D-Coat, Mudbox, make. So we spent time developing the only minor tweaking in Photoshop. This more efficient. We also wanted to
ZBrush, Houdini, assets and tools. It was vital to create a workflow allowed us to create assets work with two renderers, V-Ray and
MotionBuilder, functional, structured pipeline because in a very artistic way, spending only RenderMan. We found V-Ray easier to
Vicon iQ, RenderMan, we used a lot of different software. a little time on the technical aspects. handle, but knew RenderMan would be
V-Ray, Nuke The mocap was captured and solved faster. However, we didn’t customise it
Why did you use Maya? with Vicon iQ and the animation was properly and so couldn’t use it fully.
PRODUCTION TIME We used a lot of different tools, but done in Maya and MotionBuilder. Watch Natalis online (password:
20 months most of the team members were Maya Rigging and rendering was done in
FYI Enki): www.bit.ly/189-natalis-short

1 Felix Mertikat did 2 Daniel did some 3 We had to create a 4 The creation of 5 Enki’s high-
a lot of breathtaking wonderful mood lot of blendshapes to the big storm was resolution geometry
designs from which boards to get a feeling transfer the real facial challenging. Houdini for the muscle
we drew inspiration for the forest. They captured movements was used for the deformation shows
for the characters Ea were great references from the actor to the simulation of the the muscle areas
(the robot figure) and for the light setup in robot’s face destructive elements
Enki (the beast) the 3D scenes
2 3
4 5
STORM SIMULATION 6
The creation of the big storm where the main character Ea sees
her frightening visions about the future was a challenge. “The
distinctive shape was defined by a procedural particle simulation
in Houdini,” says effects TD David Kirchner. “A relatively small
amount of particles was used for this base simulation. The
base particles were then used to drive a standard Pyro FX fluid
simulation. Finally the fluid simulation advects another particle
simulation. This final particle simulation has a large point count
and was created to get more detail in the Mantra renderings. We
also added some rigid body simulations and stylistic elements.”
6 A screengrab of 7
the proxy model of
the robot. The model
was swapped at the
rendering stage for
the high-poly model
7 Robot texturing
and bump map
creation was done
in Mudbox. We
found it great to
sculpt and paint
at the same time

COMMUNIT Y
Industry interview
INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
REBELS WITH A CAUSE

The Lucasfilm Animation team discuss how they created
a single image to represent the story of Star Wars Rebels
E
zra Bridger stands beneath using the tried and true
a low-flying Imperial Destroyer. KEITH KELLOGG method of contrapposto
As it rumbles by overhead, the Keith is the animaton – which makes characters
warship casts a long shadow over the supervisor of Star Wars: look heroic, rather than bland
young rebel. This, the opening scene of The Clone Wars and Star cutouts. Ezra staring out into the vast
Star Wars Rebels, sets the tone for the Wars Rebels. beyond highlights the hero’s journey
whole series: a return to the look and starwarsrebels.wikia.com he is about to embark upon. Kanan,
feel of the franchise’s original 1977 film. the mentor – slightly behind but still
The team behind the new animated beside Ezra – represents the help that
TV show – currently airing on US Ezra will receive. The Star Destroyer
channel Disney XD – says Ralph was put in to show the approaching
McQuarrie’s original trilogy concept darkness and struggle that the
characters would need to overcome.
We referenced McQuarrie’s palette by We added in the Ghost swooping in
overhead to help sell the existence
of the other characters on the show.”
picking vivid complimentary colours for the
Developing the render
light and shadow sides of the characters The image began with a quick sketch,
which executive producer Dave Filoni
Chris Voy, senior designer, Star Wars Rebels, Lucasfilm created. Senior designer Chris Voy
worked on the lighting concept in
art was a big stylistic influence. In a key Photoshop: “McQuarrie’s
frame created especially for 3D World, CHRIS VOY work has been a huge
Lucasfilm came up with an image that Christopher Voy is a influence on the art of the
captures the essence of the show, Ezra’s senior designer on Star show, so we referenced
journey from teenage thief to hero. Wars: The Clone Wars his palette here by picking vivid
“The posing,” animation supervisor and Star Wars Rebels. complimentary colours for the light
Keith Kellogg says, “is accomplished starwarsrebels.wikia.com and shadow sides of the characters.
We tried to delineate rim light but
kept shadows nice and soft. I painted
a few variations so we could get some
ideas worked out before settling on
the final version to light.”
In Maya, Keith used Dave’s sketch to
position the camera and the characters.
VFX/CG supervisor Joel Aron then took
the scene and set up lighting to match
the look of Chris’s work.
“Once I was close to
JOEL ARON complete with the set,
Joel is a VFX and vehicles and characters, I
CG supervisor who assembled each layer in
specialises in the field on Photoshop where I dialled in final
lighting and FX. colour-looks and paint-retouching,”
starwarsrebels.wikia.com Joel says. “Chris then went in on
top of my final renders and did
further cleanup to the sky and the
characters. I took the complete image
and sweetened it – as we do with the
production shots – a final colour grade
that pushes the contrast and tone.
Lastly, I added the edge treatment and The opening scene of Star
Animation supervisor film grain, processes that are identical Wars Rebels, sets the TV
Keith Kellogg posed to our final shot look for the show.” show’s tone: a return to
the main characters, Turn to page 86 to discover the untold the look and feel of the
such as Kanan Jarrus
FYI story of the original trilogy’s VFX. original 1977 film

USING
THE FORCE
Lucasfilm’s Keith
Kellogg shares his
top tips
LOOK TO REAL LIFE

Observe everything
going on around
you. Study the
differences between
how people stand
and move. How
they think before
they act. Notice
all the little subtle
details in a simple
motion. Once you
can internalise how
people and creatures
move and react, only
then can you begin
to replicate it.
MASTERS AT WORK
Study the masters.
Look at Da Vinci's
sculptures, and
Muybridge’s film
studies. Incorporating
their poses and the
way the body moves
into whatever you are
working on. Read the
amazing book The
Illusion of Life – once
every year. In my
mind that truly is the
animator’s bible.
GESTURE & MOTION

Remember, animation
is the exaggeration
of motion. You
cannot begin to
exaggerate motion
until you understand
the physical reality
behind motion
and gesture. Really
become a student
of motion and
acting. Look at
everything, take in all
the different drawing
and animation
styles. Find the
aesthetic that you
prefer and strive to
create it, but never
discount the others.

COMMUNIT Y
Education news
STUDENT PERSPECTIVE
Film school could be the place to launch
your career in VFX and animation. It
certainly was for Reece Sanders, who
recently completed a course
in Visual Effects for Film at “Students will
Met Film School and is now learn more in one
working as VFX supervisor month than they’ll
on a new feature film called Endemic. learn in four years
Here, Reece provides a glimpse into at university,” say
a day in the life of a film student. Stephen Lohan
“I remember seeing the trailer for
the first Transfomers film. Straight away
I thought: I want to do that. I began
the six-month VFX for Film course at VFX SCHOOL
Met Film School. It was pretty intense.
We learnt theory and skills in the
morning and put them into practice
in the afternoon. For the first three
months the focus was solely 3D work:
IMAGE IRELAND ON
modelling, reference images, rules of
topology, rules of animation and looking
at rigging a character. We also did work
on dynamics using simple objects.
“The last three months was purely
INTENSIVE TRAINING
2D, focusing more on Nuke, compositing, Ireland's only dedicated VFX school aims to revolutionise
After Effects and putting 3D work on
live-action plates. This was the more training for careers in the entertainment industry
challenging part of the course for me,
because as a node-based compositor
S
Nuke was different from anything I’d tephen Lohan promises to teach the initial idea stemming from a poll of
used in the past. his students more in one month Irish animation studios which revealed
“Constantly producing practical than they’ll learn in four years at that 89 per cent would not employ
work meant that I had a ready-made university. Stephen is CEO and founder native students because they lack the
showreel on finishing my course as of Image Ireland School of Visual necessary skills. Similarly, students
well, which the lecturers at Met really Communication, which offers intensive felt existing courses lack relevant,
encouraged me to add to and develop training courses for those looking to real-world training.
over the six months. Another great thing work in the entertainment industry.
about coming to study at a dedicated “One of our biggest One-to-one training
film school is the fact that all of the STEPHEN LOHAN challenges,” he says, “is to To counter this, Image Ireland accepts
lecturers had industry experience. Stephen is CEO and try and change the mindset just six students at a time. Tutors are
“I got my first job, making a promo founder of Image of people. To many, a degree established industry professionals. And
video for Dimitri Vegas in LA, less than Ireland School of Visual is of the utmost importance – which is the course operates on a one-to-one
one month after finishing. I’m about to Communication. fine. But in the ever-changing world of basis (or as closely as possible).
start work as the VFX supervisor on a www.imageireland.ie VFX, a piece of paper does not reflect “We have people on board like
new feature film called Endemic. This is the quality of the learning experience.“ Rob Redman, Glen Southern and Ian
less than six months after finishing my “There is also the cost. There’s a Murphy. These people are well known
course at Met Film. perception that three or four years in in their respective fields, MoGraph,
“I’d definitely recommend going to college represents better value than Cinema 4D, ZBrush and Nuke,” says
film school. But don’t think it all just Stephen. “We have experienced
comes of its own accord: working hard
and putting in the hours in are what
In the month-long courses at Image Ireland actors, concept artists, photographers,
Maya artists, compositors and
took my experience to the next level creative directors, to teach courses
and got me where I am today.” we give our students 160 hours of studio in storytelling, storyboarding, writing,
See Reece’s reel: www.bit.ly/189-reece 3D, compositing, Python scripting
time, working on ‘real-life’ projects and many more to follow.
Recent graduate Reece Sanders is “Our tutors have partnered with us
now VFX supervisor on Endemic one month in a privately run training because they understand the need for
studio. But in the month-long courses at specialised, intensive training.” They
Image Ireland we give our students 160 also offer practical advice on how to act
hours of studio time, working on ‘real- in pitches and interviews, an approach
life’ projects. At least 50 per cent of that that is already showing signs of success.
time is spent with some of the best VFX “Two of our recent Nuke students have
artists and trainers in the world.” worked on a full feature. They hadn’t
Stephen, who’s worked in the visual used Nuke before. They did this after
effects industry in Ireland for 20 years, training with Ian Murphy for four weeks.”
founded Image Ireland in 2013. He To find out more about the school
spent two years planning the school,
FYI visit www.imageireland.ie

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COMMUNIT Y
In Focus
IN FOCUS
UNICORN WAR
Jonathan Ball shares his process for building
on an old render to create something new
W
hile thinking of a new project final image met with Jonathan’s vision of
to devote time to, UK artist a unicorn armageddon. Several different
Jonathan Ball came across an passes were used, including Ambient
old image that gave him inspiration. Occlusion, Glossy Direct, Z-depth and
“I had started an image with unicorn a pass of a custom rim material. Particle
characters about year or so systems were used for the plants.
ARTIST PROFILE back and never finished it. As a full-time 3D illustrator with a love
Jonathan works full I rediscovered it and I of street art and 1980s style, this scene
time as an illustrator. decided to do something of unicorns waging war with rainbow fire
He’s been doing so since with it,” he says. But then the idea encapsulates Jonathan’s work perfectly.
2008, and has worked grew into something a little different. “I love characters and strange worlds,”
on a lot of projects “I like the idea of unicorns, the most he says. “All my personal works form part
for toy companies, peaceful animals, having a battle,” of a world I am gradually creating. These
games and advertising explains Jonathan. will be tied up with a story at some point
agencies, as well as It took around a week to finish … and then we’ll see.”
selling his own artworks. the image, much of that time spent For more art by Jonathan Ball
www.pokedstudio.com adjusting render passes to ensure the
FYI go to www.pokedstudio.com
VITAL
STATISTICS
SOFTWARE
Blender,
Photoshop
COUNTRY
UK
PRODUCTION TIME
Seven days

1 REUSING
OLD ART
With this image, I started
with my rough design for the
unicorns. This was based on
an old 3D model I had found.
I tend to keep my designs
simple and geometric in
nature. First, I create some
plants and foliage and use
a particle system to spread
them around. I also model
some mushrooms.
1 2
2 STAGING
THE SCENE
After modelling a
few new unicorns
to build the idea
in my head, I start
staging my scene,
and experiment with
angles and camera
settings. I add a
few extra details
to the closest parts
of the image to fill
out the setting.

COMMUNIT Y
In Focus
3 TEST RENDERS
I do some test renders to get
an idea of lighting. I add a large
plane with an emission value to the
left of the scene: this helps highlight
the edges of objects. I want to keep
things quite dark with some areas of
brighter light and colour.
4 EMPLOYING
LAYER MASKS
I render a Mist pass so I can
use it to control how other
render layers are blended in
Photoshop. You do this by
pasting the image into a
layer mask. Create a new
layer and click the New Layer
Mask button in the Layers
panel. In the Channels tab,
make sure the eye icon is
displayed next to the mask
channel. Paste the render
pass into the mask layer.
4
5
5 USING Z-DEPTH
I start blending my render
passes by importing them on
separate layers in Photoshop.
I want the background to fade
off to some degree, so I use
the Z-depth pass I’ve rendered
out, and paste it into a layer
mask in Photoshop. I now play
with the mask, making it lighter
and darker, and painting some
areas manually.

6 ADJUSTING
RENDER PASSES 7 ADDING AMBIENT
OCCLUSION
I have a basic render pass
that I use as the base layer
I add an AO pass,
to build all the other layers using the Color Burn
on top. For the next layer I blending mode. I play
duplicate the basic pass and with the colour and
change the Brightness/
Contrast and Hue/Saturation saturation and layer
settings, using the layer mask Opacity until I begin to
I’ve already created from the discover the tones
Z-depth pass to mix it with
the layer below. and feel I’m looking
for in the final scene.
7
6
8 NEW PASSES
I add a Glossy Direct
pass using the Color Dodge
blending mode and set the
Opacity quite low. I also
render out a pass with a
custom rim material: a black
material with a Glossy
reflection and Emission
mixed with a Fresnel value.
You can see the node
network for it on the right.
9 FINAL ADJUSTMENTS
I assign this new layer pass the
Linear Dodge (Add) blending mode
in Photoshop. I make a few other
small tweaks and colour changes to
various layers until I am happy with
the final image. Now my unicorns
9
are ready for war!

EXPERT PANEL ARTIST
Q&A
Cirstyn Bech-Yagher
Cirstyn is a freelance
CG artist and educator,
with over a decade’s
experience in 3D art. Her clients
include AMD and Daz 3D.
www.northern-studios.com
Your software queries solved
Francesca Forzoni
Frankie is a 3D artist
and visualiser in London.
by our CG experts
She has recently moved
from working in post-production to
branding and packaging.
www.francescaforzoni.com
Mike Griggs
Mike is a freelance
3D, VFX and motion
graphics artist and
technical writer working across TV,
exhibitions and digital design.
www.creativebloke.com
Fabian Frank
MPC CG supervisor FOLLOW
Fabian started his career
in VFX in Germany. He THE VIDEO
joined the MPC London commercials
team in 2011 as a CG supervisor. If you see the Play icon,
www.moving-picture.com click the link!
Ethan Wolfe PHOTOSHOP

A recent graduate of
Purdue University’s How do I create depth of field in Photoshop
Computer Graphics
Technology program, Ethan is currently with a rendered image from Cinema 4D?
employed as a 3D artist in Chicago.
www.ethanwolfeart.com
Macie Keyes, US
Francesca replies
There are lots of ways in which EXPERT TIP
artists can create depth of field Create your z-depth
in their animations and stills. pass manually
Personally I like to achieve one By tweaking your camera
gradient running through my scene, from settings to achieve a smooth
white to black, and have this as a separate gradient with your z-depth
pass. Once your scene is all set up and pass, your retouching will
ready to go, just apply the following steps be more realistic. If you
to create your z-depth pass. are animating with a
First, turn on your Depth pass in your separate render pass,
Render Settings, within your Multi-Pass you can animate
option. Remember to save out your depth of field.
Multi-Pass render too. Keep the format
as .psd here, so your pass will render out
separately within your Channels option
once you’re in Photoshop.
Look through your top view in Cinema
4D for the next few steps. If you have one
GET IN TOUCH object you want to focus on, you can drag When your still has objects at
and drop it onto Focus Object, under various depths, taking a Depth
EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO Object in your Camera Settings. If you pass into Photoshop adds the
ian.dean@futurenet.com have several objects, or just want more finishing touch to your render
control, go into your Camera Settings

CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO
www.bit.ly/189-modo
EXPERT TIP
Use the Setup tab
Make your controllers
dynamic using the Setup
Layout when working
with deformers – it adds
STEP-BY-STEP CREATE AND USE A DEPTH PASS a wide range of exciting
possibilities to your
ONE SET UP YOUR SCENE animations.
If you have objects at various depths in
relation to the camera in your scene, a
depth pass is a nice touch for retouching.
Just turn on Depth in your Multi-Pass
options for rendering and ensure you save
out a Multi-Pass image. This will create a
layer in your Photoshop Channels, where
your Alphas normally live.
TWO FOCUS DISTANCE

Decide if you want to focus on a single MODO 801
object or if you may need to change the
point of focus later on. Setting up your How do I modify models
focus distance manually gives you greater
control, which is always beneficial if the while keeping their
work is for clients, but it just gives you
more options when you’re retouching. original state in Modo?
There are a lot of options to play with
in Photoshop, but you can also animate
James Alan, Australia
moving through your depth of field, which
gives some really nice effects.
Mike replies
THREE DOF MAP FRONT BLUR Modo is one of the best polygon
You want the objects in your scene to be modellers on the market, and with
between the front and back lines of the the new release of Modo 801, this
camera box – this is where your gradient software now has a new range
will run through in your render. Keep of powerful deformers which enables you
Start at the most distant point of your to animate your model quickly and non-
scene, and move End to the frontmost destructively. One of the most powerful new
part. Try it out and check your test additions is the Bezier deformer. With this you
renders to see if your gradient is coming can animate and pose meshes easily without
through how you want. affecting the original mesh.
In this example, I will show you how to deform
FOUR PHOTOSHOP LENS BLUR a length of gantry: one solid mesh. In the Setup
Once you’re happy with your z-depth Window create another mesh item, and draw
pass, go into Photoshop and apply a a Bezier curve down the length of the gantry
Lens Blur to your beauty layer. If you’ve which you’ll see in the background. Take care
retouched a lot, use Apply Image to to create logical articulation points especially
make a single layer and blur that. (Lens at the base. Ensure snap to grid is selected.
Blur only applies to a single layer.) Set With the Bezier mesh selected go to the
your Depth pass as Source and tweak Deformers tab on the left of the Setup Window
the settings to your heart’s content! and select the Bezier deformer, and make sure
that the axis is correct in relation to your model,
and that Use Selected Mesh is ticked.
under Object, and move your Focus create a new layer on top and select After hitting OK, Modo creates Bezier nodes
Distance until the furthest green line Image>Apply Image, which flattens all which correspond to the points on the curve.
adjacent to the camera moves past the the retouching underneath my new layer These can be selected and animated like any
furthest object away from your camera. onto a single layer. Now I can apply a object in Modo, but also retain the quality of
Then, under Details, turn on DOF Lens Blur to this layer only. a Bezier such as being able to animate the
Map Front Blur. Start should be on 0cm, When you’re in the Lens Blur dialog tangents independently.
right at the back of your scene; move the box, change Source to your depth map: To apply this setup to the gantry mesh, select
End option to the foremost part of your the Bezier and gantry Mmesh and select Add
scene by increasing the measurement. Selected in the Node view at the bottom of the
I find this gives you a really nice gradient Setup Window and then swap the links for the
throughout your z-depth pass, which Bezier curve and the gantry mesh which you can
gives you more control when you bring now animate via the Bezier Node controllers.
it into Photoshop. Add a Bezier Curve in its own Mesh Item. With
Now render, and your black-and-white Grid Snap enabled it’s easy to keep the points
z-depth pass will be there, ready to bring aligned. In the Deformers tab of the Setup
into Photoshop or After Effects. Keep Window press the Bezier deformer with the
in mind it is the same principle for both Curve Mesh Item Selected. Making sure Use
stills and animations. this way the camera lens will run through Selected Mesh is ticked, hit OK and the Bezier
In Photoshop, I like to retouch my your z-depth gradient like a real camera. Node items are created. Use Add Selected
image first before adding the Lens Blur Have a play with the other settings in the node view to add both the gantry and
filter towards the end, once I have the until you’re happy. Then you can add deformed curve mesh item, swap the geometry
look and feel I’m happy with – this keeps final touches like lens flares, and colour to that of the gantry mesh’SB_45’ and the Bezier
the image looking much more consistent. correction if need be, via layers on top deformer now deforms the gantry mesh.
When I have done my retouching, I of this image.

ARTIST Q&A
EXPERT TIP
Knowing Nuke
Nuke provides much
more control of
mattes when you
understand the
workflow.
Fabian shares his advice for

creating a photoreal lighting
setup using his work from
Assassin’s Creed
MAYA | NUKE STEP-BY STEP CREATING A PHOTOREAL LIGHTING SETUP

ONE GENERATE YOUR HDRI
How do I create a photoreal Use a fish-eye lens for the best result
and take at least three angles to get a
lighting setup to create a CG full 360-degree panorama. Usually seven
exposures for each angle is enough. Make
and live-action sequence? sure your lowest exposure captures all the
detail in the lights. There are several tools
Maria Principle, US to automatically generate and stitch the
HDRI; alternatively you can use Photoshop
and Nuke. You can save your HDRI as a
Fabian replies .tif, .hdr or .exr. Just make sure it’s a 32-bit
A fundamental step for recreating lights floating point format.
from a shoot or set is ensuring you have
taken HDRIs on the shoot day. In the case TWO GRADING HDRIS
of Assassin’s Creed, my example project, By colour correcting the HDRI, your CG
because the foreground is mainly shot in a studio on renders will be much closer to the final
greenscreen and all the outdoor backgrounds, including result than working with a neutral plate and
ships, ocean and islands are created in Maya, the use of applying the grade later. The colourpicker in
the location HDRIs is quite limited. Instead we have to Nuke is a useful tool to measure luminosity
create a CG outdoor lighting from scratch. and colour values. To overlay the HDRI and
The base is a HDRI of a night sky. Extract and remove plate, use the Spherical Transform node to
all direct light sources from the HDRI: you get much convert the latitude-longitude format HDRI
better control over shadows and lighting, intensity and back to a mirror ball image, making it much
direction using CG lights. Next colour correct the HDRI easier to compare the grading. Paint out all
in Nuke to match the graded plate as closely as possible. direct light sources.
Compare the black levels, mid-tones and highlights
but be careful to maintain the full range of the HDRI. THREE SETTING UP LIGHTS
The HDRI works as your diffuse ambient
light. Adjust the exposure and rotation.
Analyse the plate and lighting references
like Macbeth charts, grey balls and
reference objects. Then you can set up
the direct light sources. Start with the key
light: for example, the sun or the main key
light on set. Add fill lights and rim lights.
From there start to set up all direct light sources. To Always ask yourself where the light is
ensure the CGI is integrated perfectly it is always crucial coming from – the setup should match the
to analyse the plate. There are four main components location lighting as closely as possible.
to consider in setting up the shot: light direction/
position, intensity, colour temperature and shape/size. FOUR ADDING AND TWEAKING LIGHTS
Analysing not only the plate but reference images from Once you have the basic light rig of the
the shoot location helps to understand where each scene, you can start to improve your
individual light comes from. image. Depending on the scenario, there
The last step is to tweak the lights. Ensure there are different ways to create interesting
are some interesting highlights and give shape to compositions. Try to play with different
objects by adding an additional rim or fill light, as well light angles or add rim or fill lights to give
as playing with light and shadow. This is an artistic certain objects shape and form, but keep
process and so there’s some freedom to tweak. I would the original lighting in mind; you want to
always recommend referring back to the real lighting keep it photo-real. Render your CG with
of the plate, as you don't want to move away from the plate as a backdrop and make sure
photorealism, but to create a stronger image. that both match seamlessly.

CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO
www.bit.ly/189-marvelous EXPERT TIP EXPERT TIP
Creating buckles Linear workflow
Create loops for your Colour management
scabbard’s buckles or and linear workflow
rings by sewing rectangles eliminates much of the
onto the blade’s edges. guesswork in lighting,
Remember to smooth shading and rendering.
them out by lowering Getting predictable
their particle results from your
distance. lighting setup will
accelerate your
workflow.
Research your subject matter

before you begin. Good
reference will save you time
and headaches later on
Marvelous Designer can

help you create generic
assets easily and quickly
MARVELOUS DESIGNER 4
How do I create a simple
but realistic scabbard?
Robert Bellingham, UK
Cirstyn replies
Sometimes it’s easy to forget you can
shape and drape minor items as well
as larger ones in Marvelous Designer,
especially when it comes to fantasy-
type assets, such as shoes or boots and, as in
our case, a simple scabbard.
As you can see in the accompanying video
(downloaded from our online Vault), it is a
simple workflow: Import your sword as an avatar.
Load the my pre-made, or your own, bounding
volume and arrangement points for draping. MAYA | MENTAL RAY | PHOTOSHOP
Draw up your asset’s components using the
Polygon, Rectangle and Edit Curvature tools in How do I model a suit of armour for a Samurai?
the 2D Pattern Design View. In our case, we’ll
draw a rectangle for a simple locket at the top
Stuart Clarke, UK
of the scabbard, and then the outline of the
scabbard by tracing the sword’s blade before we
copy and do symmetric pastes for tweaking. Ethan replies pieces to individual vertices. Assigning
Next, assign the stiff, leather-based, Traditional Japanese culture different shaders and creating subtle
scabbard material from the asset-folder via the is famous for its attention variation helps disguise the repetition.
Physical Property Editor, before finalising by to detail. Samurai armuor, Time saved here allows you to focus
stitching it all together and watch the model in particular, has a complex on unique elements, such as the fox
assemble itself after having pressed Synchronize construction with many layers and small head helm and mask. Create the the
before Simulate. details. Having lots of reference material ropes and cords using NURBS surfaces
You may of course bump into some issues as is key, especially given the historical made by extruding CV curves. The
you go – first of all, make sure your sword does subject matter. I push myself to be as moustache is created by applying
not rest 100 per cent on the floor when you authentic as possible: however, I research Maya Fur to small cones. When finished,
export it from your modeller. As cloth simulation my subject to not only understand the combine several pieces and use a lattice
is collision based, your cloth may also collide rules, but also to know how to break deformer to finalise the shape.
with the floor at the tip of the scabbard. To avoid them while remaining true to the subject. To create the underlying robe use
this place it slightly off the ground, as shown Begin by building low-poly versions nCloth and a few cylinders to act as
in the project file. In addition, your cloth may of the major armour pieces: chest, colliders. The robe is modelled in a
look or wrap a little bulky. You can solve this by shoulders, gauntlets and thighs. Samurai T-pose to simplify the shapes. Inside
decreasing your garment’s particle distance. armour has many repeating elements, it, build cylinders to represent a basic
If it’s still bulky, try tweaking the Stretch-Weft which can work to our advantage. Create arm and chest. Key these cylinders to
settings a little. When you’re all done, export a library of low-poly fasteners, rivets, move from the T-pose to the pose you
into, for example into ZBrush, as a welded object and stitches. These can be repeated need and then run the simulation. Once
for ZRemeshing and further detailing. across the model as much as needed. By more, use lattice deformers to refine
subdividing the large forms, you can snap the shape and pose.

FEATURE
Titanic textures
[ Tutorial ] [ Company ]
For your free tutorials Allegorithmic
on getting started in
Substance Painter, use [ Software ]
the web links below… Substance Painter,
Substance Designer
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO
www.bit.ly/189-painter-1 [ Website ]
www.allegorithmic.com
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO
www.bit.ly/189-painter-2 [ More information ]
The creatures in this
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO article were created for the
www.bit.ly/189-painter-3 Battle of the Titans contest
(bit.ly/titanscontest). To
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO follow the walkthroughs,
www.bit.ly/189-painter-4 download the artists’
project files from
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO www.creativebloq.com/
www.bit.ly/189-painter-5 vault/3dw189 and trial
versions of both
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO software packages from
www.bit.ly/189-painter-6 www.allegorithmic.com.
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO

www.bit.ly/189-painter-7
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO

CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO

CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO

CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO

This summer, Allegorithmic challenged video game

artists to model a unique Titan and texture it using
Substance Designer or Substance Painter.
We asked the contest winners to explain how they
created their creatures and share their texturing tips

UNCHAINED Freelance artist Nicolas Garilhe’s
FOLLOW
THE VIDEO
winning Titan draws on Studio Ghibli If you see the Play icon,
click the link!
Inspired in part by the texturing workflow the Substance myself a lot of time,“ he says. NICOLAS’S
films of Studio Ghibli, software packages provide. Substance Painter’s ability to EXPERT TIPS
particularly the robot “Since I knew Substance generate multiple texture maps
from Castle in the Sky, Designer was really powerful for in parallel was also crucial to Know your layers
freelance character artist Nicolas making procedural textures and Nicolas’s workflow. “It really sped In Substance Painter,
Garilhe’s gigantic Unchained mask generation, I was able to up my texture work as I was able a single layer can hold
Titan also draws inspiration from skip [creating] micro details, and to work on all the maps (diffuse, painting information
classic PlayStation 2 video game [defining materials], and save roughness, normal, and so forth) for each of its channels.
Shadow of the Colossus. at the same time,“ he says. “Also, You don’t need to create
“I really enjoyed the art
direction, and particularly liked
I particularly liked the unlike Photoshop, where workflow
is linear, in Substance Painter, you
separate layers for height,
diffuse, roughness and
the fact that my Titan didn’t look can have one mask driving all the so on: just select the
aggressive: more curious and fact that my Titan didn’t maps for each material at the same channel you want to paint
mysterious,“ says Nicolas. time, which makes tweaks really in from the Tool panel.
Nicolas came to the look aggressive: more quick and easy.“
competition late, so he needed Visit Nicolas’s site for more info: Make use of masks
to take advantage of the rapid curious and mysterious FYI www.guedin.wix.com/guedin You can use Effects layers
to create editable masks:
useful for adding dirt or
Know your layers weathering quickly. Click
the Add effect button
in the Layers panel to
mask your material.
It’s a non-destructive
workflow, and you can
edit the parameters at
any time. Even better, you
can still refine the result
by applying a regular
mask onto your layer and
painting into it.
Explore Fill layers

Substance Painter and
Substance Designer work
together like a charm. In
Painter, you can use Fill
layers to import a custom
material you have created
in Substance Designer:
to create one, click the
Add fill layer button in
Explore Fill Layers the Layers panel. While
you won’t be able to
paint onto this layer, you
will be able to edit the
parameters of the custom
material. This is a good
way to do quick retakes!
Custom channels
If your engine needs a
texture that isn’t included
in the default set (Diffuse,
Height, Roughness,
Metal), you can add a
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO new map by clicking the
www.bit.ly/189-substance plus icon in the Document
Settings panel. You will
now be able to select
it from the Tool panel
and preview it in your
viewport via Solo mode.

FEATURE
Titanic textures
OCEANUS Carbine Studios’ artist Eddie Munoz

SELVES Wayny Pictures’ Sylvain Castelanelli
reveals how he made an ocean giant created a colourful mythic monster
“The ocean has always EDDIE’S French artist SYLVAIN’S
been something that WALKTHROUGH Sylvain Castelanelli EXPERT TIP
fascinates me because has been using
there is so much ONE TILEABLE TEXTURES Substance Painter Topology counts
we don’t know about it,“ says My base textures come since the start of the year, and Good topology can
Carbine Studios‘ character artist from www.cgtextures. used it in this project for 98 per save hours of texturing
Eddie Munoz, discussing the com and ZBrush stamp cent of his texture work; prior to time, especially when
inspiration for his Titan. “Of what Alphas I made tileable. this he didn’t have any experience you start digging into
is known about ocean life, I think in Designer. the powerful features
orcas are the smartest and most TWO NODE GRAPHS “Substance Painter is of Substance Designer’s
powerful creatures out there, My Substance Designer everything you could dream of,“ toolset. Think your model
and I wanted to portray that in node graphs are shown he says. “It is a pure pleasure to through before you begin
my model.“ in the download use: simple, efficient, intuitive sculpting, and always
Creating a sea creature threw accompanying this article. and constantly evolving.“ keep UV mapping and
up some unique problems for I began with a base colour To create Selves, Sylvain – texturing in mind as you
Eddie, who had challenged himself map and multiplied my currently working at Wayny work to avoid creating
to avoid using Photoshop for the AO map by 30 per cent. Pictures as a 3D modeller on problems later.
work. “There are many examples The Skin Spots section animated feature film Fauve
of hard-surface [assets created of the graph floods the – made use of Substance
in Substance Designer], but not map with spots from the Painter’s layers and masks Topology counts
many of people doing skin,“ he tileable textures. The for non-destructive work and
says. “It turned out to be one Edge Overlay section particle brushes for creative
of the simplest shaders, and it feeds a Curvature map experimentation.
looked pretty neat.“ generated in Designer “The hardest part for me was
Eddie praises Substance through an Edge Select to achieve the right balance
Designer for the accurate preview node to isolate the edges. between texture projection
it provided of the textures he was Colored Shadow tints and direct painting,“ he says. “I
creating. “The render engine my AO map red and wanted [the result to be] colourful
also allowed me to see how my applies it as a Color Burn. without falling into cartoon excess
model would turn out before I that would have affected the
took it to Marmoset [Toolbag] for THREE VEIN TEXTURES readability of the scene.“
the final render,“ he says. “I also Veins/Blood uses a mask Sylvain is most pleased with his
really liked that whenever I made created from a clamped Titan’s head, as it is central to the
changes in Substance Designer, tileable marble texture. concept of the creature. However,
it automatically saved my textures I reduced the noise of he also has a fondness for some
in a specific format and location, the skin by blending my of the scene’s foreground details.
allowing me to work seamlessly original colour base. My “I have a soft spot for the sheep,"
between it and Marmoset.“ Metal mask is black; my he says. “They make me laugh.“
See more of Eddie’s work at: Rough uses an RGB value See a 3D view of Selves at:
FYI www.eddiemz.blogspot.com of around 115, 115, 115.
FYI www.bit.ly/titanscontest
Tileable textures
Vein textures

TUNDRASHIFT KRULO
Naughty Dog character artist Adam Scott
shares his approach to texturing a Titan
“I wanted my Titan Adam worked on Krulo before fan of the mask generator nodes. ADAM’S
to be a large lizard, and after work for two months, By using texture inputs (normal, EXPERT TIPS
mounted with a human getting used to Substance ambient occlusion, curvature,
rider to help show Designer in the process. “It has position) generated from my Work across meshes
the scale,“ says Naughty Dog a unique workflow, and I can see high-res sculpt, I was able to Substance Designer is
character artist Adam Scott. this being the direction a lot of quickly get a solid base texture very efficient for texturing
“Initially I watched my favourite game studios will be heading,” without any manual tweaking. multiple similar objects;
childhood [cartoon], Dino-Riders, he says. ”I quickly became a big This workflow also made once a node graph is
which is where I chose the name refining the Krulo easy. ”If I ever created, it can be used
Krulo, after [Krulos], the evil
Rulons’ leader.“
I quickly became a fan updated my sculpt in ZBrush, I
could easily re-bake my input
to create textures across
multiple low-poly meshes
Adam’s next step was to gather textures and have the final based on their unique
reference material, including of the mask generator textures generated based off normal map inputs.
photographs of lizards, dinosaurs, the new sculpt,” says Adam.
dragons, “and some excellent nodes provided within ”Everything just worked.” Tidy your graphs
concept pieces from Pacific Rim Discover more of Adam’s work at: It’s very important
and [multi-player shooter] Evolve“. Substance Designer FYI www.3dadam.blogspot.com to keep your graphs
tidy when working in
Substance Designer.
Work across meshes Tidy your graphs Not only does it reduce
processing time but
it makes it easier to
make changes later in
the project. It’s easy to
keep adding nodes like
mask generators, level
adjustments, hue shifts,
and detail overlays,
but doing so can make
your graphs balloon to
unmanageable sizes.
As I worked on my Titan,
I found myself going back
to graphs I had created
previously to trim the
fat. A big part of this
was grouping nodes,
which you can do by
right-clicking a node and
selecting Add Frame.
Work across meshes

FEATURE
Titanic textures
INSANIA DEVASTATOR
Whale Rock Games’ Pasha Guba textured his
creature in seven hours in Substance Designer
Whale Rock Games characters. But even with his mapping and baking took up PASHA’S
3D artist Pasha Guba experience of working against most of my time: I only had six WALKTHROUGH
drew on a mixture the clock, he found hitting the or seven hours for texturing,“ he
of sources for his contest deadline difficult. “The says. “Luckily, I know some of the ONE BASIC BRUSHES
Titan, including Pacific Rim, high-poly work, [retopology], basics of Substance Designer. I created the model in
sea creatures and video game The main thing I found useful ZBrush, using mainly the
characters such as Blizzard’s
alien race, the Zergs.
High-poly work, mapping was the opportunity to complete
the whole process, from baking
ClayBuildup, Move and
Dam_Standard brushes.
Pasha has been working in the the model to rendering, in one
games industry for three years, and baking took most of software package. [Not having TWO SET PROPORTIONS
including outsourced modelling to switch] from one software to I changed some of the
work for major titles like Dragon my time: I only had six or another saves time.“ proportions during the
Age: Inquisition and Elder Scrolls See more of Pasha’s work at: sculpting, but tried not
Online, and loves creating seven hours for texturing FYI www.pashaguba.blogspot.com go far from my main idea:
a creature with massive
hands and mantis paws.
Basic brushes Set proportions Split into parts
THREE SPLIT INTO PARTS
I split the model into parts
and retopologised each
one with ZRemesher and
the ZRemesherGuide brush.
FOUR UV LAYOUT
I unwrapped all of the
parts using UV Master
and exported to 3ds Max,
where I optimised my
model and fixed some
seam issues. The final step
UV layout Final render was to pack all the UV
shells into one texture.
FIVE TEXTURE BAKING

Next, I exported my
mesh for texturing. I used
Substance Designer to
bake normal and ambient
occlusion maps, baking
separate normal and AO
maps for each part of the
model and combining
them into one map with a
Normal Combine node.
I converted the normal
map to greyscale maps
with Normal to Height
and Curvature nodes.
SIX KEY MAPS

I created specular and
glossiness maps from my
primary diffuse map.
SEVEN FINAL RENDER

When the textures were
complete, I rendered
the model by taking
screenshots of the 3D
View window. I adjusted
the brightness and colour
balance of the images
in Photoshop.

HYDRA Freelance artist Javier López Sotoca
reimagines Jason and the Argonauts’ beast
Madrid-based character before. “I’d seen them advertised praising its masking workflow and JAVIER’S
artist Javier López online, but I hadn’t actually used “fast and easy previsualisation“. WALKTHROUGH
Sotoca spent six weeks them before the contest,“ he says. In the end, the biggest
working on his Titan However, Javier found the challenge Javier faced was ONE CREATE A MASK
in his spare time, fitting the work software quick and intuitive to use, artistic rather than technical. To create a worn metal
around his day job. “It was a hard “The most challenging aspect effect in Substance
month,“ he confesses.
Javier was under no illusions
The most challenging was [achieving] the colour
combination of the model, finding
Designer, start with a
simple colour map and
that creating the creature – his a sweet natural combination,” he an occlusion map baked
interpretation of the hydra from aspect of the work says. “The reward was seeing the from the high-resolution
the film Jason and the Argonauts character take form, and begin to model. Use this occlusion
– would be a tough task, not was finding the colour seem real.“ map to create a mask,
least because he had never used For more of Javier’s work, visit: add a Sharpen node,
Substance Painter or Designer combination of the model FYI www.doses3d.blogspot.com then add noise to the
edges to make them more
irregular. You can use the
Edge Wear node for this.
TWO RETOUCH THE MASK

Combining the colour
map and mask generates
a worn metal texture.
You can retouch the mask
to control where the wear
appears on the model.
Create a mask
Retouch the mask

FEATURE
Titanic textures
KORONUS Freelance artist Wandah Kurniawan

ANTI-ALIEN DEFENDER
Capcom’s JaeHyup Keum used
created unique armour for his Titan physically based shaders on his model
Self-taught freelance WANDAH’S For his Titan – full name, JAEHYUP’S
character artist EXPERT TIPS Anti-Alien Two-Legged WALKTHROUGH
Wandah Kurniawan Defender – Capcom
used the contest as an Use SVG masks senior character artist ONE COMBINE NORMALS
opportunity to learn how to create In Substance Designer, JaeHyup Keum drew on creatures To create rusty metal
armour, drawing on concept you can create a colour from games and movies. “My first in Substance Designer,
designs for Crytek’s action- mask by using Bake idea was to mix an alien with the I began with a base metal
adventure game Ryse: Son of model information, anatomy of a fantasy creature like material. Substance
Rome to create his Titan, Koronus. then selecting Convert a centaur,“ he explains. materials have Detail
Like many of his fellow UV to SVG from the With many game developers Normal information
contestants, Wandah found Information to bake moving to a physically based already. You can combine
that it was the modelling work drop-down of the dialog rendering workflow, JaeHyup says the Detail Normal of the
that took up most of this time that appears. Connect that the Substance applications material with the original
on the project. “It was my first the resulting map to have a key role to play in the normal map from the
time learning hard-surface a new SVG node as a process. “They’re great tools for mesh using a Normal
[techniques] in ZBrush, so I really background to edit the creating PBR shaders,“ he says. Combine node. Use a
wanted to give my attention to the mask. You can add more For JaeHyup, the most Transformation 2D node
sculpting,“ he says. detail to the mask using challenging part of the work was to control the scale of
Fortunately, Substance the Pen or Extrude tools. texturing the organic parts of his the texture detail.
Designer ensured that the Titan. “It was the first time I have
texturing work went smoothly Use SVG masks tried to create pale skin with a TWO ADD RUST
in the time remaining. real-time shader,“ he says. “I used I used a Rust Weathering
Wandah made good use of both subsurface scattering and node to create the rust.
its features, including the ability translucency at the same time.“ It needs inputs from
to generate dirt, rust and However, Substance Designer’s curvature, ambient
scratches automatically, as well tools for generating rust and occlusion and position
as multi-material blending. “I worn edges made texturing maps: you can generate
particularly enjoyed multi-material metal straightforward. “They are these using the Bake
blending: it works well with SVG a great time saver when creating model information
masks,“ he says. mechanical parts,“ says JaeHyup. command. Just connecting
See more of Wandah’s work at: See more of JaeHyup’s work at: the maps gives quite a
FYI www.kurniawan.wandah.com FYI www.gamegraphicartist.com decent rust effect.
THREE EDGE WEAR

To keep the edges of the
model rust-free, I used an
Edge Wear node to create
a mask for the edges of
the object, and linked
it to the original metal
material and the rusty
material from Step Two
using a Blend node.
I used a grey value of
RGB 115, 115, 115.
Combine normals

MITHALA (KREIKEN)
Xaviant’s Kevin Murphy took a multi-
material approach to his sea creature
Currently a character KEVIN’S KEVIN’S
artist at Georgia-based WALKTHROUGH EXPERT TIPS
game developer
Xaviant, Kevin Murphy ONE FILE IMPORT Reuse normal maps
spent a month working on To set up Substance I highly recommend
Mithala (Kreiken), his marine Designer for work, I drag using your normal map
Titan, regarding the project and drop the .sbs file into to generate your AO/
primarily as a technical challenge. the Explorer and the .fbx cavity, curvature and
“The main inspiration was file into the 3D View. height maps in Substance
to create a multi-material Designer using Grayscale
character with a lot of texture TWO KILL THE GRID Conversion and Levels
types,“ he says. I often turn the Grid off nodes. This way, you can
Not surprisingly for a creature and the Light on under keep your tangent space.
that blends humanoid and Display settings in the These maps are helpful
invertebrate features, and 3D View. [Shift]-click to in edge detailing and
move the light around. setting up material types.
Substance Painter and THREE BACKGROUND Blend switching
I prefer a neutral I like to bring a simple
Designer are both easy to background, so in the target paint in for my
Background Image rollout diffuse texture and use
pick up if you understand (accessed via the icon a Blend node to turn
at the bottom left of the the main output on and
nodes and layers 3D View), I set Visible In off to see how close the
Viewport to False. final texture is to where
contains both organic and I want it. This also helps
inorganic elements, Kevin says FOUR PBR SHADERS to assess the result of any
that his biggest challenge was To switch to PBR shaders, drastic changes further
managing all of the different in the 3D View, go to down the pipeline by
details in the textures, but that Materials>Your comparing the results
“it was rewarding to see how they Object>Shader > with previous iterations.
all worked out together“. physically_based.
The Substance applications’ Using material IDs
fast, intuitive workflow also made FIVE VIEW IN 3D It’s easy to plan materials
the task a lot less daunting. Right-click>View in 3D to in Substance Designer
“Substance Painter and apply your textures to the using the Material
Designer are both super-easy to 3D View and choose the Selector or a colour mask.
pick up if you understand nodes object and channel they I like to do a Polypaint fill
and layers,“ says Kevin. “My display in. in ZBrush for reference.
favourite parts of the software This can either be baked
were the node system, and SIX VIEW TEXTURES into a vertex colour
multi-channel painting to layers: Double-clicking a texture map or used to fill in a
a big time saver.“ makes it appear in the 2D Material ID map baked
Find out more about Kevin at: View: handy for colour from base colours, giving
FYI linkedin.com/in/kevinnmurphy picking a Material ID mask. objects unique colour IDs.
File import Blend switching Using material IDs

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FEATURE
The Boxtrolls 3D printing tips
AUTHOR PROFILE
Barbara
Robertson
Barbara is an award-
winning journalist
specialising in visual
effects, computer
Laika’s rapid prototyping team pushes the boundaries
graphics, and
animation. She’s
once again, producing thousands of face parts for
based in the San
Francisco Bay Area. The Boxtrolls, reveals Barbara Robertson
@barbarobertson
L
aika was the first studio to print puppet expressions with combinations of the two
faces with 3D printers for stop-frame parts. Currently, the studio has five colour 3D
animation, and one of the first companies printers and two polyjet printers. The colour
to use rapid prototyping machines as a mass- printers, which run almost 24 hours a day,
production tools. As a result, the processes print the face parts by spraying glue onto fine
they have developed are state of the art. layers of powder. The polyjet printers produce
The studio first used the process for the internal components. Brian’s
Coraline, released in 2009. For that film, BRIAN MCLEAN department is responsible for both.
painters coloured the plastic parts printed Brian McLean is director of “The polyjet technology is
by the rapid prototyping machines. Rapid Prototype, at Laika dimensionally accurate, precise,
For Laika’s second film, Paranorman, the Entertainment where he and consistent,” Brian says. “The colour
studio brought in powder-based colour has been instrumental in printers are not very accurate. It takes a lot
printers from 3D Systems. the development of 3D of finesse and under the hood work to get
Brian McLean has been the director of the printer technology for facial these colour-printed faces to work well.”
Rapid Prototyping Department, since Coraline. animation at the studio. We asked Brian to describe the process of
He received a Special Achievement Award at www.laika.com giving their puppet heroes a thousand faces
the Annie Awards in 2010. (or more) and to share the lessons they’ve
The studio’s work on the 2014 film Boxtrolls learned about creating facial expressions with
represents the highest form of printing colour 3D printed parts, and provide tips for working
models with a 3D printer. Each of the hero with 3D printers no matter your skill level.
puppet’s faces is made of two parts, a brow Watch the Boxtrolls trailer here
part and a mouth part. Animators create facial www.bit.ly/189-boxtrolls

SCAN A MAQUETTE
We start with a clay sculpt, a maquette and
do a high-resolution scan. We want to pick
up every detail, all the hand and tool marks.
Then we print it. The 3D printers often soften
things. If you tried to print a square, it might
come out with slightly rounded edges.
EXAGGERATE THE DETAIL

Our CG modellers sculpt the head
using Topogun with the scan as
a guide. Then they go into Maya
and ZBrush and exaggerate some
of the detail – the tool marks,
the planer changes. The intent is
to overdrive the details until the
3D print matches the maquette.
The back and forth process can
take two to three weeks. What
you see on the computer screen
is different from what’s printed.
Printing 3D objects is fun, but
it can be frustrating.
RIG THE CG FACE

We have a packet from the 2D department that has a
one-sheet with a range of expressions for each character,
different perspectives of the faces, and a range of
emotions. Also in the packet are a couple of lines of
dialogue strung together in normal, angry, and happy
voices to give a pitch and range to the performance. The
2D department animates that entire line of dialogue so we
can see in 2D how the character talks; its idiosyncrasies.
They animate the front, side, and three-quarters views
with the head locked off to give a schematic look for
the character, how it moves, how the volume changes,
how the wrinkles come and disappear. That gives us
a blueprint for the riggers. They work with a hollow
head. They don’t pay attention to the back of the
head or the ears; they only rig the facemask.
[ Film title ] Boxtrolls, Laika’s

third animated
BOXTROLLS feature has earned
rave reviews
[ Software ]
Maya, ZBrush, Topogun, Mari, Photoshop
[ Website ]
www.laika.com

FEATURE Half of Laika’s fifty-
The Boxtrolls 3D printing tips person rapid prototyping
team is committed to
processing and quality
control, ensuring the
printed parts are right
ENGINEER THE INTERNALS

While the riggers are working,
the modellers switch gears from
sculpting to engineering. They
decide how the head breaks apart,
the face splits, what the eyes look TEST THE COLOURS
like, and how the ears come apart. Tory Bryant, our painter, takes
When the modeller separates the the same solid head given to the
face from the model, we decide riggers and begins to test the
where the split line will be between painting. Her painting process is
the brow and mouthparts. The similar to a CG workflow: colour
reason we split them is to get matching with 3D printing. She
a broad range of expressions. uses Photoshop and Mari – UV
It’s a simple placement. We use unwrapping the 3D head and
the corner of the eye where that painting flat texture maps in
almond shape comes down. If Photoshop, or wrapping and
a character squints, you see the painting with UVs in Mari.
cheeks bulge and the eyebrows
move and it all converges and
moves around the corner of the
eyes. The modellers also start
working on the inner components
and decide what the puppet
department will need to build. We
had to make sure we designed
internal components that would
work with their moulding and
casting processes. For Boxtrolls,
we wanted the ears made of
silicon so the animators could PRINT EVERY DAY
move them around. Every day we combine everything
into one file that we send to the
printer so we can see what’s
working and not working. That
process of getting something
rigged and painted can take three
or four months. Because every film
is different from the last, every
new character has a whole new
set of problems we haven’t solved
before, so there’s a lot of testing
going on. If we were doing cookie
cutter movies, we could streamline
our builds. But we’re not.

BUILD EXPRESSIONS IN PUT THE DIGITAL FACES
CG AND PRINT THE PARTS THROUGH ACTING PASSES
We have two kinds of animators. The dialog animators are the facial
Pose animators and dialogue animation specialists. They work
animators. The pose animators with the animation supervisor,
work with 2D animators. They get Brad Schiff, who is a stop-motion
the packet with the 2D drawings animator. And, if it’s a main
and the line of dialogue that the character, the lead animator will
riggers used, and work in Maya consult at various stages. The
using the rig to create different facial animation specialist grabs
expressions in 3D for the mouth eyebrow and mouth shapes from
and eye parts. Once they get some the digital library and drops them
poses they think are working well, onto the computer model. That’s
they show the director in CG. If the a keyframe. Then they change
directors like the performance, we the shapes, do another pose, and
print out the poses as a test. We’ll keyframe it again. They do acting
fully process them, sand the faces, passes, timing the poses out.
put them on a stick on the set, and They’re trying to see how these
watch how they move. Quite often faces will work when they are on
they look different than on the TEST THE EXTREMES the stop-motion stage. The faces
computer. Weird things disappear, In the design stage, we take a handful of not only have to move naturally,
the cheeks are too thick, we see extreme poses, maybe 20, and do test prints but also stay on character.
colour bleeding through, or maybe to make sure they work without breaking. We
the paint stretches in an unrealistic print kits with similar expressions. A kit of smile
way. When the poses look the way faces might contain 200 poses to include all
we intend, the pose animators the phonemes with various smiles. We have a
save them into a digital library, and frown kit, a sneer kit; sometimes as many as 40
send them to the printer to print kits. Before we start mass production, we take
out. They build thousands of poses samples from each to make sure everything
based on that few seconds of works. Once we start printing, we end up with
dialogue and the drawings. tens of thousands of faces that we test. It’s a
crazy engineering job. All the shapes have to
flow seamlessly from one to the next. They
have to make sure this smile and that frown
work together. It’s a maths problem and it takes
a rigid set of rules. It was difficult on Coraline.
But now we affect more of the character’s face.
We’ve introduced wrinkles, muscles, pinching
in the eyebrows and the cheeks. They all have
to transition into other poses. That whole
testing process takes six months.
SELECT THE PARTS TO CREATE

SHOT-SPECIFIC EXPRESSIONS
Every time the stop-motion animators get
a line of dialogue and know they’ll shoot a
six-second shot of maybe Eggs and Fish and
Shoe, they meet with the facial animation
specialist. The specialist picks mouth and
brow parts from the kits in the digital library
to put together facial poses. They create the
right combination of faces for that moment in
the film and send them to the director. Once
approved, they create an X-sheet that has
instructions like ’Put this face on this frame,
hold for 12 frames.’ It also includes a shopping
list with all the faces needed for the shot. This
enables animators to compartmentalise and
separate the animation task. They animate the
faces first [in the computer]. The body later.
By the time the stop-motion animators are on
set, they know how the faces will animate. They
drop the faces on at the exact right moment.
Then, they can focus their attention on how the
body, hair, eyes, and eyelids will move.

CONTENTS
TUTORIALS
Practical tips and tutorials from pro
artists to improve your CG skills
64 BLEND CG AND PHOTOS

How to integrate CG and photography
IN THE
VAULT
www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw189
ALL YOU NEED
FOR OUR TUTORIALS
www.creativebloq.com/ 60 RENDER AN EXOTIC LAMBORGHINI 68 GAME ENVIRONMENT
vault/3dw189 Learn to create vehicle renders with artistic impact, with car lover Amir Erfani Part 3 of the series looks at using materials
Visit the Vault to add this issue’s
video tutorials and associated
screenshots and source files
to your personal library
Download video and resource

files by simply visiting this issue’s Vault
website and clicking the links
Download video from the Vault

if you see this icon 70 FLUID SIMULATION 74 XGEN AND ARNOLD 76 MODEL A DETAILED SCENE
Create streaming fluids in RealFlow Realise a surreal fantasy scene in Arnold Create a detailed scene using Modo 801
3D WORLD Christmas 2014 59 www.youtube.com/3dworld

TUTORIALS
Render your own Lamborghini
3DS MAX | V-RAY | PHOTOSHOP
RENDER AN EXOTIC
LAMBORGHINI
Follow Amir Erfani’s guide to lighting and rendering to
create a dramatic illustration of a Lamborghini Reventon
W
hen I was asked to I believe realism is not the main V-Ray’s car paint shader, setting
write a tutorial about point of 3D nowadays; it takes a up the lights and finalising the
my work on this image lot to make your artwork more image, both for the cover of the
of a Lamborghini Reventon, I memorable for your audience. magazine and another rendered
thought to myself: ‘There are Of course, there is a lot to learn image of the same model. I’ll also
ARTIST PROFILE a thousand tutorials about about lighting and rendering, talk a little about composition,
Amir Erfani modelling and rendering cars. but those are mainly tasks for the lighting and the colour palette of
Amir is a 3D artist What can I show you that’s a little computer. We should never forget the image.
with a passion for bit different and might enable that we, the artists, are presenting Hopefully at the end of this
automotive design. you to learn something new?’ I an artwork, and that takes more tutorial, you'll know how to create
He enjoys creating came up with the idea of sharing than simply knowing about all a great car render and be able
art with a game- my experience of making your those cool technical tips. to apply the lessons here to any
style look to it works more ‘artistic’ rather than In this tutorial, I’ll explain how to vehicle you care to create.
www.amirhossein- creating a hyper-real render that render a Lamborghini Reventon, For all the assets you need, go to
erfani.com is indistinguishable from a photo. and share some tips about using creativebloq.com/vault/3dw189
EXPERT TIP
Power it up
Find the ‘power angle’ and
best material and lighting
setup for your car. There’s
no formula for vehicle
rendering: what works for
one car is not necessarily
best for another.
COMPOSITION: This simple top view of a Ferrari will
look incorrect if we choose the wrong aspect ratio
1 BASICS OF COMPOSITION
This is a very important step. Let’s not forget that
whatever we do, we’re showing an image in a frame.
This frame could be horizontal, vertical or square,
depending on the purpose of the image. Sometimes
TOPICS COVERED you come up with an idea and search for a good
Materials aspect ratio and composition for the image, and
Lighting sometimes you’re given a fixed frame: in our case, FUNCTION: Having the space around the car leaves
Rendering the cover of 3D World. You need to understand the room for cover elements such as the logo and coverlines
Post-production rules of composition to make a good impression.

COMPOSITION CHOICES
I chose a back view and
left the top and bottom
parts of the image empty
because I knew text had
to be added around them

TUTORIALS
Render your own Lamborghini
SETTING UP LIGHTS
You might want to create
your materials first, but I
prefer to set up my lights
before continuing. It can
save a lot of render time
2 LIGHTING SETUP 3 TIPS ABOUT V-RAY LIGHTS

I tend to set up my lights at this point. You can use There are four Type settings for a VRayLight: Plane,
V-Ray’s VRayOverrideMtl material to see only the Sphere, Dome and Mesh. I want the light to behave
effect of the lights. The VRayLight provides indirect like a skylight, so I choose Dome so that I can provide
illumination which gives you smooth shadows, and my scene with indirect illumination from all possible
VRaySun gives you direct illumination with sharp angles. Assigning a HDR map to a Dome light as
shadows. As this is an exterior scene and there’s no a texture is a great way to provide the scene with
light source but the sun, I use a combination of both, image-based lighting. The HDR image also acts as
but disable the VRaySun’s illumination so we only a nice reflection source for the reflective materials in
have the smooth shadows created by the VRayLight. the scene.
EASY ENVIRONMENTS
Placing your sports
car in a photograph
If you need to present your
vehicle in a nice way but don’t
have time to create a complete 4 SETTING THE ENVIRONMENT 5 ADDING MATERIALS
3D environment, it’s a good The object needs an environment: not only does it Back to our own image. It’s time for the materials,
idea to put your vehicle in fill the background but its reflection can be seen on particularly the car paint shader. VRayCarPaintMtl is
an actual photo. This has the the surface of the car. You could create a genuine 3D a great addition to V-Ray’s materials and gives you
advantage that there’s no need environment, or you could simply put your car in a an awesome result, but I recommend that you try
to model anything but your car, photo and try to match the two. In this case, I create making your own car paint shader: it helps you to
but you have to make sure your a very basic deformed plane, assigning a simple understand V-Ray materials better. I create a simple
car matches with the image. material to represent white sand, and a simple sky car paint shader using a glossy VRayMtl blended
Perspective, materials, the which we’ll work on later in post. (The image above with a less glossy VRayMtl using the VRayBlendMtl
type and direction of the lights shows the same model with a different background.) and enable Fresnel reflections.
you use, and the interaction
between the 3D model and
the photo – the reflections and
shadows – must all be considered.
If you don’t have an HDR image
for the background photo, I
suggest using the whole image
as a texture in the car’s diffuse
channel and blending the result
into the surface in Photoshop.
This might sound a little weird,
but trust me: doing this has
saved me a couple of times
when I have been out of HDRIs
and backplates.
PERSONAL PREFERENCE 6 PREPARING THE PASSES

Which passes you render After you’re done with composition, lighting,
depends on your personal materials, it’s time to think about generating render
workflow. You should passes that can make the final image even better.
render only as many passes In these images, I have the main pass without the
as you need to create details of the sky and ground; a sunlight pass; a sand
the final image pass in which I have covered the car with white sand
so that I can mimic the effect of sand grains clinging
to the paintwork; and a mask pass which helps to
separate the car from the background.

EXPERT TIP
Develop your own style
Realism is good, but try to
develop your own style as
well: not everything that is
‘real’ is necessarily special.
7 PHOTOSHOP COMPOSITING 8 ADDING POST EFFECTS However, achieving realism
Next, we need to combine all the passes we This is my favourite phase of the work. Before this, is the first step. You have
rendered in the previous step to create a single you’re just a 3D artist, but here you’re the art director to know the rules before
image. We can do that in any compositing software; of your own project. I add some particles and lights, you can break them.
I use Photoshop. Importing all the passes into along with the red part of the car body that supports
Photoshop as separate layers and playing with them the back light, using masking and some basic colour
leads me to this image. I also decide to light up the correction and level adjustments. Some of this work
back light, thinking that a red element will improve could be done in 3D, but it can be quicker and more
the colour palette and help prevent the image from creative to make these adjustments during post-
becoming too monotone. production. Feel free to experiment and enjoy.
TAKING CENTRE STAGE

In the final image, the
forms and light have been
directed to make sure that
the Lamborghini Reventon
is the hero of the piece
9 CREATING TYRE TRACKS 10 FINALISING THE IMAGE

I add the tyre pattern on the sand next. I find In Photoshop, I adjust the contrast, sharpness, focal
VRayDisplacementMod a very handy tool for doing depth, colour correction, vignetting and all the other
this. I create the tyre texture by duplicating the tyre things that will help the vehicle to stand out in the
model and bending it, then applying the resulting image. As you can see, I’m directing the forms and
texture to the ground. You can also use 3ds Max’s the light in a way that the Lambo is the hero of the
classic Displacement channel to do this, but it takes piece. I have to be mindful of other elements that
a lot longer to render. may be added to it. If this were a personal piece,
I would go for a horizontal shot, but since my brief
was for a magazine cover, I have to present it like this.
11 THE FINAL RESULT

Here’s the final image. As you can see, we’ve only
used basic tools, and that’s exactly the point of this
tutorial: to explain that creating great CG images
is all about employing basic principles well. Try to
create a mood for your artwork, as if there is a
story behind it. And remember: how successful
an image is isn’t just about how ‘real’ it looks – it’s
also about how you express your own visual taste
through your workflow.

TUTORIALS
Integrate photography and CG
MODO | ZBRUSH | MARVELOUS DESIGNER | PHOTOSHOP
HOW TO BLEND CG
AND PHOTOGRAPHY
Rafael Vallaperde creates a realistic render of a mermaid
and a diver by integrating CG with photography
O
ver the next few pages The photography is a key element
you’ll learn the process in this scene, and while we used a
needed to create a highly professional underwater shoot you
complex image, integrating can adapt the core process. After
photography with CGI seamlessly. getting the shot ready we come FOLLOW
ARTIST PROFILE On a production level we back to our 3D environment and
Rafael Vallaperde can divide the image into five tweak everything again to make THE VIDEO
Rafael is a CGI artist steps: Blocking out, developing, sure it all matches.
and director at Lightfarm shooting, developing again, and When we move on to the If you see the Play icon,
Studios in Brazil. He merging CG and photography. rendering, Modo’s nice rendering click the link!
has experience in the First we’ll go through the engine kicks in. Many techniques
advertising industry concept and idea. What are the will be used here like SSS
and enjoys creating key aspects we want to highlight (subsurface scattering) and
art by blending art and and communicate? Then we move progressive rendering.
photography together. on to modelling and blocking Finally, we’ll merge our render
lightfarmstudios.com.br the scene. Then it’s texture time. and our mermaid shot – this is
We’ll use Polypaint in ZBrush and where we give the scene some
Photoshop to get our textures final touches of realism.
looking nice. After these steps we For all the assets you need go to
should be ready to click. creativebloq.com/vault/3dw189
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO

http://bit.ly/189-dive
FINDING YOUR
COMPOSITION
There’s no right or
wrong way to find your
composition, but to me
drawing is the best way
to get it right; it is a
good way to grab a lot of
expression, especially if
you sketch it quickly
1 THE CONCEPT 2 BLOCKING OUT

This idea was born while I was randomly sketching Blocking is key to creating a successful image, as
between renders at Lightfarm NZ; I’ve always been you can see if the piece is going to work or not. This
fascinated by the sea and human relationship. To is where you should figure out the composition and
TOPICS COVERED communicate the idea, I knew it would need to be relationship between all the parts of the puzzle.
Modelling dark and moody. While many things changed along Often people tend to jump straight into modelling
Shading the process, the colour and mood remained the their assets, but I would always advise you to block
Photography same since the first sketches. out your image first. I tend to go back and forth,
CGI integration blocking with 3D shapes and painting on top of
Retouching the renders in Photoshop.

MERMAIDS EXIST
Rafael has made the
unreal real by mixing
CG and photography
to create this scene

TUTORIALS
Integrate photography and CG
SEAMLESS INTEGRATION
Make sure the angle and light
match; the angle above all,
otherwise it won’t ever feel right
and you won’t even know why
3 SETTING THE LIGHTING 4 CREATING THE HELMET

EXPERT TIP Once you’re happy with the composition, you can Now we move onto some hard surface modelling. To
Tweaking in start detailing. I did some basic lighting just to get model the helmet I source reference of old diver’s
Marvelous Designer the composition right as luminosity plays a huge helmets and mix elements I like together. Use basic
In Marvelous Designer you part on how we read an image. Next, it’s time to get poly modelling to get the shape, then move to
can tweak your cloth a lot these assets ready. Sometimes you'll have a nice ZBrush and sculpt the irregularities on the copper
and when you’re ready to composition where everything works well together material. After finishing with ZBrush, bring the asset
go, make sure you lower as flat shapes but then you start to light it and boom, back to Modo, import the irregularities through
the particle distance on it looks bad. That’s mainly because every element displacement mapping and get all that nice detail
your fabric to something will have a different weight when lit, so take care. back in Modo. At this point I also set up my shader.
quite low like 3 or 1: using
Marvelous Designer is
processor heavy.
5 CREATING THE DIVER’S BODY

The diver’s body is mainly done using the usual
poly modelling (plane and box) technique, and
Marvelous Designer to simulated the cloth parts.
Marvelous Designer makes complex and technical
tasks like simulating cloth a piece of cake. And as all
your simulated cloth comes with perfect UV maps,
applying textures on them becomes very easy. You
can use the wind feature to simulate submerged
fabric as shown in the screengrab.
EXPERT TIP 6 SCULPTING THE TAIL

Masking is Getting the tail on the model correctly is hard due
your friend to the scales’ pattern. I try a couple of different looks
When Polypainting and shaders until I come up with something I am
make sure you mask happy with. The tail is modelled from scratch using
a lot. The masking tab ZBrush. The secret here is to generate a nice scale
has some very powerful map, and then UV map it onto the tail, convert it into
masking algorithms
a selection and paint the scales’ volume back onto
such as cavity
and occlusion. the mesh. Then Polypaint the model to give it colour
and import the maps back into Modo.

EXPERT TIP
Modo’s Mesh Paint
Mesh Paint is a nice
feature in Modo, it is
also present on most 3D
apps under a different
name, so make sure you
use it! It’s an awesome
way to get lots of
detail quickly.
7 DETAIL THE ENVIRONMENT

I do a lot of work on the environment. The rocks are
modelled in ZBrush and then I add coral on them
using Modo’s Mesh Paint tool. Mesh Paint is also
used to scatter little fish and smaller rocks across the
scene. The sandy seabed is modelled in ZBrush too.
You can see how to do this in detail in the video, you
can download this from the link on page 64. The ship
and fish models come from stock, thanks to Mr. Tim ON THE SHOOT
Klanderud. Now it’s time for the photography shoot. Photographing the model
Most people think this image
was created using a large
budget, because of the quality
© Mark Carter Photography 2013
of the render, but it was actually

a budget production. We
rented a diver’s training pool,
hired some lights, a model
and a photographer, and that
was it. Mark Carter was the
photographer on this shoot.
(I have to say a big thank you to
him. Thanks Mark!)
We did the lighting setup
to mimic the 3D environment.
The model on the shooting is
Natasha Johnstone, she’s done a
8 FINAL RENDERING wonderful job. (Again, massive
After the shoot, we analyse the shot from two thanks to her too.)
perspectives, camera matching as per angle and During the session we found
distortion, and lighting matching. The tail is posed to that it is very hard to control the
match up with the model’s waist at the correct angle. movement/acting. So we had an
The camera and lighting are adjusted to match the approach that is very common to
picture. This scene is quite heavy to render, but fashion shooting, do it a million
setting the render to progressive helped to get rid times and comp it all into a
of all the noise as Modo keeps firing samples until single shot.
you call it done.
9 RETOUCHING OUR MERMAID 10 ADD DEPTH WITH DETAILS POST-PRODUCTION WORK

My business partner and great friend Milton This is the final step, where we add depth to the Good retouching can take you miles
Menezes is tasked with retouching the mermaid and image. We add bubbles to increase the sense of ahead from where your raw render
the final comp. Combining many pictures into one is movement on the tail and to help create the illusion is, adding lots of detail that would
a tricky task as we have to respect many goals. Firstly of depth. Actual pictures of sharks, fish, sting ray be impossible or unpractical to
her arms have to be in a position where she can cut and many corals are added to bump the realism model. When dealing with images
the air hose and touch the helmet at the same time. of the shot. Doing this helps to trick the eye, and Photoshop is unbeatable. Add
After creating the combined picture we extend her when done properly the viewer shouldn’t know bubbles to increase the sense of
hair and nails so they look more dramatic. where CG and the photography blend together. movement on the tail and to help
create the illusion of depth

TUTORIALS
Build a game environment
3DS MAX | PHOTOSHOP | CRAZYBUMP | UNREAL EDITOR 4
GAME ENVIRONMENT
PART 3: MATERIALS FOLLOW
Andrew Finch shows you how to deal with assets and materials THE VIDEO
for this video game scene, in part three of our six-part series If you see the Play icon,
click the link!
L
ast issue we looked at UV within the Content Browser much. Materials in Unreal are
unwrapping the asset for and create materials to apply very powerful and give you
texturing and lighting and to your meshes. the ability to create all sorts of
also learnt the process for creating I spend a lot of time creating visual styles from photorealistic
diffuse, specular and normal and modifying assets in the to cell-shaded cartoon.
ARTIST PROFILE maps. We talked about texture Content Browser and with the You can also create special
Andrew Finch creation: I tend to make my own new tools in Unreal 4 it’s now effects such as animated materials
Andrew is a senior textures using Photoshop to and self-illuminating properties
environment and manipulate photographs to that also give off light in your
lighting artist at create diffuse and specular ones. environment. The Material Editor
Codemasters Game Remeber there’s a wealth of free is very simple to use and import
Studio in Birmingham. photograph galleries online that your textures, it uses a visual
He has been in the you can use. node-based graphical interface.
industry professionally This time we’re going to work This means it’s very simple to
for seven years. on the assets and materials. create your materials from a visual
www.andrewfinch. When dealing with your assets in perspective which is fantastic
carbonmade.com Unreal Editor you usually work via for artists. The Material Editor
the Content Browser. This browser easier than ever to transfer assets is where I will set up a quick
allows you to add folders to better from one project to another. example of the physically based
TOPICS COVERED organise and find your assets This tutorial will concentrate shader in order to get a realistic-
Importing assets when creating a new environment, on material creation. Materials looking surface that reflects the
Creating new materials as scenes can get large quickly. are very important to get environment in the correct way.
Creating PBS materials I’ll show you how to import your right because they affect the For all the assets you need go to
Applying materials to assets assets into the correct folders visuals of your environment so creativebloq.com/vault/3dw189

USING TEXTURE
SAMPLES
Hold down [T] with
texture selected in the
asset browser to drop
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO a texture sample node
www.bit.ly/189-game3 into the material
1 IMPORTING ASSETS 2 CREATING NEW MATERIALS

With the Content Browser open select the game Using the same technique for the meshes, drag and
folder and right-click to add a new folder. This is the drop the textures into a new folder called materials.
location for all your assets so name it accordingly. With the textures imported, right-click anywhere
Open an explorer window and browse to the in free space within the materials folder and select
location of your exported .fbx files and select all of Material from the rollout. This will create a blank
them; simply drag the selection from the window material, name it appropriately. Double-clicking on EXPERT TIP
into the new folder you created. Unreal presents you the new material will open the material up for editing Applying new materials
with an .fbx importer options window, just change in a new window. This is where you drop your textures If you want to see what a
the normals rollout setting to Calculate Normals. into the material and can set up how it will look. new material looks like on
a particular mesh that is
already in the scene, drag
and drop the new material
from Content Browser
directly onto the static
mesh in the viewport and
Unreal will automatically
apply the material.
3 ASSIGNING TEXTURES 4 EXPERIMENTING WITH PBS It’s OK to leave the

You have to plug in textures to their corresponding To use the new PBS technology you need to put a
material slot in order for them to work correctly. value into the Roughness slot of the material, in the
For example, the diffuse texture will link into the garage door example, the diffuse has two kinds of smaller objects such
Base Colour slot and the normal texture will link to materials, brick and metal. Using a Constant Node
the Normal slot. Drop Texture Nodes into the new gives the same result across both surfaces which was as the litter at a size
material and assign textures to each of them, in this no good; you have to create a new texture to plug
case, diffuse, normal and specular. Then link each into the Roughness slot. The brick surface would be of 32 as they won’t need
texture to its corresponding material slot. white and the metal would be black. You can now
see the metal is reflective and the brick work is not. such high resolution
MASS IMPORT ASSETS

You can now drag multiple
assets into the Content
Browser at once to mass
import, this saves a lot
of time and fuss
5 APPLY MATERIALS TO ASSETS 6 SETTING UP MESHES

Assigning materials to static meshes is easy. In the Your static meshes will require some minor setting
Content Browser find the garage door mesh and changes in order to light correctly. We have to
double-click it to open its properties. Back in the increase the size of the light map the asset will use
Content Browser window locate the new garage to get a good resolution for our shadows – this is all
door material you created in the previous step and dependant on the size of the asset. Here the garage
select it; return to the garage door mesh window and door asset is selected and because this is quite a
you’ll see a grey sphere in the element 0 section of large object for our scene the light map needs to
the details panel, click the arrow; this will assign the have good resolution, so change the Light Map Res
selected material into this slot and to the mesh itself. from 32 to 512. The smaller objects can stay at 32.

TUTORIALS
Fluid simulation
FOLLOW
THE VIDEO
If you see the Play icon,
click the link!
REALFLOW | 3DS MAX | AFTER EFFECTS
CREATE A STREAMING
FLUID SIMULATION
Vikrant J Dalal explains how to create quick and
successful fluid simulations for different liquids
T
his tutorial will show you how their pipeline, as this software is behave in slightly different and
to create liquid flowing onto well established, trustworthy and unique ways.
an object. This technique most importantly user friendly – a I can’t teach you each and every
can be used to simulate anything, key ingredient for anyone looking parameter of this software, as it is
dripping chocolate or honey to create intricate VFX. vast. However, as far as the topic
ARTIST PROFILE or indeed any thick liquid, onto There are different techniques of streaming liquid is concerned,
Vikrant J Dalal some icecream, for example. So you can use to make this effect in we will learn as much as required
Vikrant has worked in to start, I will introduce the idea RealFlow, for example, Grid Fluid for this particular tutorial. This is a
the VFX and graphic of streaming liquid. You may have & Particle Fluid, but we are going very interesting subject, because
design industry for seen many TV commercials which to use Grid Fluid. you can’t define one certain
eight years. He has include this kind of effect and now Before you start working on process to create a good liquid
started his own VFX we will look to create the same this kind of effect, you should effect. As much as you will know
studio, Project01 technique so you can add it into have some knowledge of liquid the tools, you will find different
Design Studio, which your workflow and projects. properties. You must know about types of effects every time you
provides VFX, graphic There’s a lot of software that viscosity, have a good grasp on play with the software, depending
design and tutorials. we can use to create good liquid density, understand stickiness and on your own understanding of
www.project01studio. effects, for example, Naiad, what friction is, and so on. Also the tools and techniques you will
blogspot.in RealFlow, Houdini, and so forth, there are different types of liquids discover something new.
but many big VFX and animation and you should account for that: For all the assets you need go to
studios use RealFlow software in water, oil, milk, honey, paint, all creativebloq.com/vault/3dw189
EXPERT TIP
Do your R&D
Play with parameters
and daemons so that
you will be able to
see how a variety
of liquid properties
act, for example,
honey possesses
different properties
to water. CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO
www.bit.ly/189-realflow-1 www.bit.ly/189-realflow-2
1 EXPORT GEOMETRY 2 SCENE SCALE AND SETUP

Let’s start with building up the 3ds Max scene. To create the flowing liquid, open RealFlow and
Use two GeoSpheres or any geometry through create a new project. Now click on the Object menu
which the liquid will be colliding. If you are using and select Import. Now open the previously saved
GeoSpheres then keep the radius of both the .obj file, you need to change the scene scale – doing
objects as 20. Then export this geometry in .obj this will save you time. In order to do this, click on the
format. To show you this effect in my demonstration Scale Option button and change the scale from 10
TOPICS COVERED I have used eggs and if you need it you can find the to 1. This means that we have reduced the scale by
Fluid simulation attached project files in this issue’s Vault – follow ten times from the actual 3ds Max scene, and so will
Scene setup the link at the start of this tutorial. speed up the simulation time.

GREEN GLOOP
Learn how to create
quick and successful
fluid simulations for
different liquids
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO

www.bit.ly/189-realflow-3
3 CREATE GRID FLUID DOMAIN 4 CREATE A SPHERE

Now click on Show Grid Fluid menu from the Next we need to create an animated sphere that we
toolbar then go to Domain, a box will appear will use to emit the liquid. We want to keep moving
on both the GeoSpheres. Next go to the Nodes this sphere so that the liquid spreads on both the
parameters on the right-hand side and change the GeoSpheres evenly. Now click on Show Grid Fluid
Position, Rotation and Scale as required. Now click menu button and go to Emitter and select the sphere
on the fluid option below Nodes and change the we have created. Now make some changes in Emitter
Resolution, Density, Viscosity and Compressibility as parameters as shown in the image above.
shown in the image. For example, for a thick liquid
flow, you have to increase the amount of Viscosity.

TUTORIALS
Fluid simulation
HITTING SIMULATE
The time it takes to
simulate will depend on your
machine’s configuration:
you may need to reduce the
Fluid resolution to get a low-
spec system to simulate
5 USING THE GRAVITY DAEMON 6 START THE SIMULATION

To make the liquid move downwards we need gravity After setting up all the prescribed parameters and
and so we use the Gravity Daemon. To do this, click animation, it’s time to hit the simulation button. It will
on the Show Daemon menu and once open select take around two or three hours to simulate. (The time
Gravity. Now move to the Nodes parameters and frame completely depends upon your machine’s
change the Gravity strength from 9.8 to 98. This will configuration.) If you don’t have a highly configured
make sure the flowing liquid now drops faster as it is machine then you must go to Grid Fluid Domain
released. We are now set for the fun part, creating and decrease the Fluid resolution amount and then
the simulation. simulate it. By doing this you might get a lower
quality of simulation, but at least you’ll have one!
PARTICLE FLUID METHOD

Ways to make fluids flow
In this tutorial we have created a
flowing liquid effect by using Grid 7 CREATING THE MESHES 8 IMPORT MESH INTO 3DS MAX
Fluid but this same effect can be Now convert the particles into a mesh. To do this go Now again click on ParticleMesh_RK01 and hit the
achieved by using Particle Fluid. to Show Mesh menu in Toolbar and select Particle Build Meshes Button on the Toolbar. Now that
However, if you choose the latter Mesh (Render Kit). This will be reflected in the Nodes you’ve built the meshes, it’s time to import your
method you will have to modify section. Right-click on ParticleMesh_RK01 and select mesh into 3ds Max. So, now open the 3ds Max
a lot of parameters, which can be the Insert Emitter’s option and then Add Grid Fluid file where we have the prepared GeoSpheres and
very time-consuming. The Grid Emitter. Again, click on ParticleMesh_RK01 and through the RealFlow Mesh Loader import the Liquid
Fluid process explained here is change the appropriate Parameters in Nodes Params. Mesh. You will find this option in the Geometry
a much easier method. Now click on Grid Fluid Emitter, which falls under section on the right-hand side of the panel.
ParticleMesh_RK01 and change the parameters.
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO

www.bit.ly/189-realflow-4
9 LIGHTING AND RENDERING

After importing your new mesh into 3ds Max, you
can set up the lights required and then render
the sequence. Here I have chosen V-Ray as a my
renderer and V-RayFastsss2 as my material. This is
the time to assign your colours to the liquid and the
object. After finishing up with rendering, import the
sequence into After Effects and assign some effects
as per your requirements. Then export this image
sequence in video format.

TUTORIALS
Animating abstract patterns
FOLLOW
THE VIDEO
If you see the Play icon,
click the link!
ARNOLD RENDERER | XGEN
CORE SKILLS: RENDERING

WITH XGEN AND ARNOLD
Make use of Solid Angle’s Arnold renderer and XGen to realise a surreal
fantasy scene with Lee Griggs and Pedro F Gómez
A
rnold is a production ray unique polygons in its stride. expressions or texture maps with
tracing renderer that’s Its scalability ensures it will XGen Descriptions to specify the
used in many feature films, continue to make gains on future location and density of primitive
animations and commercials. It hardware as new CPU technology generation. You can also control
excels in four main areas: high- hits the market. The focus on any other attribute of these
ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST PROFILE performance rendering, scalability unbiased rendering techniques primitives. These primitives can
Lee Griggs Pedro F Gómez to many threads, low memory and fast, progressive interactive range from spheres and splines to
Lee is a technical Pedro is a software usage and ease of use. preview provides natural global geometry that has been exported
author at Solid engineer at Solid Arnold’s focus is on cutting- illumination out of the box, as an archive.
Angle where he tests Angle. He assisted edge unbiased Monte Carlo ray- reducing the number of iterations We will use XGen to create a
and documents the Lee with his XGen tracing techniques, it also avoids you take to final a scene or shot. complex scene with more than 50
Arnold renderer. experitse in here. cutting corners with point cloud Here we will focus on the new thousand instances of a primitive
www.leegriggs.com www.pedrofe.com caches or other tricks that would XGen in Maya via the Maya-to- that itself has over 100 thousand
increase visual bias and reduce Arnold (MtoA) plug-in. The two triangles. The final scene has a
fidelity. It integrates this approach packages go well together, as total of 3 billion visible triangles
with all the usual suspects: motion XGen can be used to generate and it will render using only 1.2GB
blur, displacement, subdivision interesting and organic elements of memory. You will experience
surfaces, primitives like hair such as fur, particle systems, or Arnold’s interactive rendering
TOPICS COVERED and particles, volumetrics, level complex layouts. capabilities when modifying
Organic modelling sets and so on. And it does this XGen is a powerful tool that shaders, lights and camera in
Using primitives while maintaining high-scene offers creative opportunities a Maya IPR session.
Lighting techniques complexity and handling scenes for positioning an arbitrary For more about Arnold and
Creating depth of field with hundreds of millions of number of primitives. You can use MtoA visit: solidangle.com

XGEN DESCRIPTION
You may need to modify
the Size attribute so that
the primitive size fits
the scene
CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO
www.bit.ly/189-arnold
1 MAKE THE PRIMITIVE ARCHIVE 2 THE XGEN DESCRIPTION

Load the geometry that you want to use as the Create a polygon plane, select it and go to XGen> EXPERT TIP
XGen archive. Any initial shaders you apply will be Create Description, then Custom Geometry/Archives Randomising
able to be modified later. Export the archive to the and click Create. In the Archive Files section, add the the primitives
Arnold format; ensure the MtoA plug-in is loaded. archive you’ve created. Use one of XGen’s sample After adding the archive
Open the Arnold Render Settings to initialise MtoA expressions on the Twist attribute to add randomness you’ll notice that the
settings for the scene. Save the scene. With the to the primitives: Under Primitive Attributes, click on primitives are randomly
geometry selected go to XGen>Export Selection as the arrow next to the Twist slider control. Select Load scattered over the plane,
Archive(s)… Rename the Archive Name to stalagmite Expression>Samples>Geometry>Flatten_Room. but with the same size
and choose to save the archive to the Local Archives. Increase the Twist Width to 200. and orientation, so you’ll
have to randomise the
orientation to make
it look right.
MODIFY A TEXTURE MAP

Click on the disk icon at the
right of the length attribute
control to save it. Values from
a texture map go from 0 to 1. If
we want to change this range
and add a bit of randomness to
the primitive height, we can do
this by modifying the current
Length expression.
3 ADJUST THE DENSITY VALUES 4 CONTROL THE LENGTH

If the stalagmite archives are too densely packed, you To control the length (height) of the primitives create MODIFYING THE
may want to reduce the density value, or if they are a texture map: Click on the downward pointing arrow LENGTH EXPRESSION
too far apart, you may need to increase the density to the right of Length. Select Create Map… (This only
or decrease the maximum width size. The image works if the plane has a Maya shader assigned to Use the Expression Editor
shows the effect that increasing the density has on it). Increase Map Resolution to 200 and click Create.
the number of primitives created by XGen. You can You’ll see in the Hypershade or Node Editor that a Click on the Expression icon to the
decrease the Percent attribute to reduce the number file texture node has been connected to the plane. right of the Length slider control.
of primitives being represented in the viewport while Select the file texture and open the texture map that You should see the following
still being able to render all of them with Arnold. you want to use to drive the length of the primitives. length expression text in the
Expression Editor:
$a=map(’${DESC}/paintmaps/
length’);#3dpaint,200.0.
$a
Add the following line in the
Expression Editor before the last
line:
$a = 2*$a + rand(0,0.75)
Now the primitives will have a
length ranging from 0 to 2, and an
additional random value between
0 and 0.75 will be added. Click on
Accept when you are done.
ADDING DOF
In the final image a value of
5 LIGHTING AND CAMERA DOF 6 USE AN IPR TO TEST RENDER 65mm was used. Select the
Select Arnold>Lights>SkyDome Light. Connect a Using IPR rendering with MtoA enables you to camera and go to the Arnold
file texture to the Color attribute of the sky dome interactively update the lighting, cameras and settings. Select Enable DOF
light and choose an HDR map. Adjust the Exposure shaders in your scene. You may need to refresh and choose a focus distance. In
in the Arnold settings of the sky dome light so that the IPR after making adjustments to the XGen order to add shallow DOF to the
the scene is evenly lit. Increase light samples to 3. description. Once you’re happy, you are ready to camera, increase the aperature
Add some DOF to the camera to simulate a macro render. Increase the Camera(AA) samples to around size. Adjust this value according
photography shot; position it close to the XGen 7 or 8. If you get any noise in the indirectly lit areas to the size of your scene
description. Increase the focal length of the camera. of the scene, increase the Diffuse (GI) samples to 3.

TUTORIALS
Model a complex scene in Modo
MODO | ZBRUSH | PHOTOSHOP
MODEL A DETAILED
ENVIRONMENT
Daniel D'Avila reveals how to build a complex
3D environment using Modo’s powerful tools
T
he Egyptian universe is
a fascinating subject to
consider for a modelling
environment project. From its
fantastic architecture to its god
ARTIST PROFILE statues, the elements are a good
Daniel D'Avila starting point for a fresh image.
Daniel is a 2D and 3D In this project I’ll be combining
illustrator based in a pyramid scene with the
Sao Paulo in Brazil excitement of a theme park. We’ll
with 16 years of be using Modo and its powerful
advertising industry native render engine to help us.
experience. He also The possibilities that this scene
owns D’Avila Studio. offer are exciting, and we need
www.davilastudio.com to ensure we don’t get carried
away at the start, so begin by
collecting good references. A
good understanding of not only
Egyptian culture and icons, but
also how rollercoasters and theme
parks work is needed to make this
piece successful.
In this tutorial we’ll be covering
the use of references along
with key techniques in Modo
and ZBrush to ensure that the
Egyptian theme park feels
authentic and accurate.
As well as showing how to
create the cutout of the park ride
to reveal the interior detail, it’s
important to focus on the realism
of the model, so we’ll be exploring
ways to texture and light the
scene in Modo, and importantly
how to save time when modelling
TOPICS COVERED multiple objects like intricate brick
Scene modelling work. With nothing left to add,
Render techniques let’s buy a ticket to ride and start
Composition tips the project!
Lighting & texture For all the assets you need visit
Colour correction creativebloq.com/vault/3dw189

THE BRICK BRUSH
Rather than sculpting
each brick by hand,
Daniel made an alpha
brush with a brick texture

TUTORIALS
1 PLAN THE PROJECT 2 CREATE THE BASE MESH

PLANNING IS THE KEY After spending some time researching rollercoaster So first, prepare the base mesh model of the
Mix media in environments rides and ghost trains, I ended up with my final pyramid inside Modo. Begin with a basic four-sided
sketch. This sketch will help me during the process pyramid shape. It has to have a big hole cut into the
No matter what subject you want of making the image; it will inform the composition pyramid surface like the sketch. To achieve this, add
to illustrate, make sure you plan of the elements, lighting sources, scale and other some edge loops horizontally and vertically using the
it as much as possible. Study and elements. I aimed to maintain the rich detail on each Edge Slice tool or the keyboard shortcut [Alt]+[C]
gather reference of your subject. floor and make the ride coherent. It begins at the with the specified range of slices. Notice that I will
Begin with pencil and paper. You top of the pyramid and comes out of the Pharaoh's divide my pyramid into rectangular polygons that are
don’t have to solve everything in mouth all the way down to the other floors. approximate to bricks at the scale that I want.
3D. The process need not to be a
personal challenge with sleepless
nights. Combine what fits best.
Maybe a CGI of the background
is the best choice as it will give
you the quality and realism you
seek. Maybe some retouches with
digital painting can do the trick
and save you lots of headaches.
Try to imagine the workflow
you’ll adopt and try to choose the
best program for each task. Also
research your colour scheme and
lighting. Imagine how the eyes
will wander around the image
and the points of interest; try to
balance them. And try to have
fun, good solutions will appear, 3 CREATING THE CUTOUT 4 SCULPTING IN ZBRUSH
especially when you do what Now delete the desired polygons to make the hole. Only export the front broken walls of the pyramid
you love. Before deleting them, switch to Wireframe mode, since the other walls will not appear in the scene.
this enables you to select all the polygons you want Using good pyramid reference, work on major
with a single selection, including the inner polygons. sculpting details and then on the smaller ones. I use
Use the RMB to Lasso-select the polygons and three brushes for this task: Trim Dynamic, Smooth
observe the irregular flow of the edge’s hole. Delete and the Move brush for larger bumps. Make a mask
them. Now use the Thicken tool to reach the desired with the bump shape and then bring it out with
thickness of the stone walls. Now the base mesh is Move tool, flatten it with Trim Dynamic and smooth
ready to receive minor details in the next step. the edges with the Smooth tool.
MAKE A BRICK BRUSH

To create the intricate
bricks, use the brick
alpha map and
DragRect stroke to
drag the texture over
the model, keeping a
close eye on the bricks’
alignments and scale
5 CREATE A BRICK BRUSH 6 WORK ON THE TEXTURES

Make an alpha brush with a brick texture. I made Now that you have textured your wall it’s time to
mine in Modo after sculpting a couple of them and work on its thickness. For the rock textures I used
applying the Geometry To Brush command. This brushes that I downloaded from Pixologic, but you
renders an alpha map based on camera projection. could produce your own brushes using the same
To use the brick brush on the pyramid’s surface, procedure as in step 5. Use those brushes combined
mask the wall, excluding its thickness, so the texture with DragRect stroke and vary Zadd and Zsub while
will not exceed its limits. Select the brick alpha map sculpting. Rotate them to avoid pattern repetitions.
and use DragRect stroke to drag the texture over the When you’re happy, optimise the mesh. (At this stage
model. Adjust Z intensity and Draw Size if needed. my mesh was about 15 million polygons!)

EXPERT TIP
Adjusting the light
This lighting setup is a
simple directional light
working as physical sun.
In light properties adjust
the spread angle to 10
degrees so the shadow
edges get a little bit
smoother.
7 REDUCE POLYGON COUNT 8 TEST THE LIGHTING SETUP

With such a dense mesh I need to use Decimation Import the .obj file inside Modo. The model is
Master, this tool is capable of reducing millions of already high-res so it's not necessary to press [Tab]
polygons down to a few. Before doing this be sure to to smooth it. This is a good time to start the light
have a backup of the original pyramid. Decimation testing. I made a sculpt of the sand dunes to see how
Master will transform your mesh into triangles the shadows and light bounces behave. Start to work
making any sculpt changes more difficult to control. on the setup adjustments, turn on GI and select the
Go to Zplugin tab>Decimation Master>Pre-process main render passes that you'll render to use on the
current>Decimate current, and watch the miracle post-production phase.
happen. Finally, export an .obj of your model.
9 MODEL THE INTERIOR 10 SCULPT THE INTERIOR

Modelling the inner elements is a time-consuming Use ZBrush to model the Sphnyx. Start with a low-
task since you need to gather as much reference as poly model and focus on its basic silhouette and
possible, and choose the ones that will guide you shape, slowly increasing the geometry levels. Try
through the modelling stage. I follow my sketch to not to jump to a very dense mesh at once, but put
help with proportions and arrangements. The puzzle in as much detail as you can into each level. When
here is how to combine the Egyptian idols, columns it’s done you can optimise with ZRemesher. Use
and walls with the flow of the trails and tunnels of the ZRemesher Guide brush to guide the polygon flow.
rollercoaster ride. Choosing good quality reference Draw the guides along the model and on edges you
will also aid you in how to texture the various parts. want to sharpen. Open your UVs on UV Master.
EXPERT TIP
Using Bump maps
Normal and Bump
maps are great
friends of yours,
use them to avoid
unnecessary
modelling.
11 FINALISE THE COMPOSITION

Now all the modelling is done, it’s time to finalise
the composition. Begin with the park’s structure;
ramps, trails, columns and tunnels. Then compose
the figures, idols and Egyptian decals, details and
elements. I separate the inner rooms into four
groups; I find this a more secure way to work, as I can
render and texture without getting worried about a
lack of resources. Duplicate the repeated mesh using
instances to speed up your render time.

TUTORIALS
TEXTURING
TIPS
12 TEXTURE THE SCENE
When it comes to texturing I prefer to use seamless
RUST AND DUST files, this helps me to get avoid any annoying UV
ACHIEVING REALISTIC problems. You can find them at www.cgtextures.com.
Modo’s preview window does a great job when you’re
TEXTURE RESULTS handling shaders, it displays a very faithful result of
what you can expect from the final render. For this
image I used Occlusion (see the boxout) to mask
some dust and rust effects. Render the four groups
separately, we’ll assemble them later in Photoshop.
ONE USING OCCLUSION

This technique was used several
times to enhance the effect of
rust and dust. Especially because
you can mask areas regarding
convexity or concavity. Occlusion
is a technique for calculating the
shading of surfaces based on
how occluded it is. In this case,
after the setup you’ll notice the
black areas on the Horus Idol
that will work as a layer mask.
13 COLOUR CORRECTIONS
Open all renders in Photoshop to start the post-
production refinements and colour corrections. With
my shading passes and masks I can now apply the
sky and the sand dunes behind the pyramid. In this
case Surface ID – a coloured mask – will help you
to quickly and cleanly select each desired element
in the scene. To compliment the sandy tones in the
scene, I decide to create some elements in gold and
TWO LAYER MASKS bronze-green to make the image more interesting.
You’ll notice how the effect is
produced after all maps are
exposed on the shader simulating
an oxidised bronze. Occlusion
is set to Layer Mask effect and
positioned under the stack of
maps. Bear in mind that those
adjustments will vary according
to the scale of the model.
14 FINAL ADJUSTMENTS
THREE SEAMLESS MAPS The final touches include adding some extra details
Maps were downloaded from like flame torches, smoke and sand. This creates
CG Textures (www.cgtextures. some bounce light coming from the torches’ flames
com). They are seamless, which that adds texture and life to the walls. Clouds are
means that you don’t need to added one by one in the sky and the depth of field
worry about UV problems. Just fog is controlled by a layer in Screen mode. The
place them and be happy! last touch is a layer of black and white correction (in
Overlay Blend mode) that gives a subtle contrast to
the park. Then flatten the image and you’re done.

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CONTENTS
DEVELOP
Theory, research and reviews plus
industry insights from today’s experts
84 THEORY: RENDERING 86 DEVELOP: THE TECHNOLOGY OF STAR WARS

Learn how to better understand UVs Richard Edlund, the Oscar-winning engineer, recalls working in a galaxy far, far away
92 DIGIMANIA 94 MARVELOUS DESIGNER 4 95 MSI WS60-2OJ

Discover the rendering outfit with ambition A revision or a revamp for the cloth sim? This high-spec laptop impresses
GET PUBLISHED

www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw189 96 INTERPRO IPW-HWE 97 LG 21:9 ULTRAWIDE 98 MY INSPIRATION
A fast machine that comes at a price For when two screens are better than one Keith Self-Ballard remembers Myst III
3D WORLD Christmas 2014 83 twitter.com/3DWorldMag

DEVELOP
Theory
AUTHOR PROFILE
Denis Kozlov
Denis is a CG
generalist with 15
years’ experience in
the film, TV, game,
advertising and
education industries.
He is currently
working in Prague
as a VFX supervisor.
www.kozlove.net
THEORY
Render elements: UVs

Denis Kozlov gives a brief anatomic study of a texture coordinates
output variable so you can employ UVs for post work and more
T
his issue we continue to regular 2D image, thus creating without snapping to texture pixels A tile of texture
present render elements a correspondence and ultimately (texels) – a surface point can be coordinates
that can aid you in your matching every surface point with mapped to a centre of a texel, its represented as RGB
post work and more. a point of a texture. This sets the border or anywhere within its area. colours. Rendering
Previously we’ve dealt with precise way that a 2D texture objects with this
a normals output variable, this image should be placed over a The shader texture and no
time we’ll be delving into the model’s 3D surface. Since raster images store nothing other shading
less common, yet extremely In fact, UV unwrapping, but numbers (and often within generates UVs
TEXTURE powerful render element – texture projecting, pelting and editing that very range of zero-to-one), the render element
MAPPING coordinates or UVs. 3D software are simply the methods by which
typically doesn’t provide a preset we define this correspondence
output for them out of the box, within the software.
Procedural however, it is quite easy to create The UVs are measured relatively
3D textures one manually and then you can to the borders of a picture, and
experience the benefits of post- are therefore independent of its
Three numbers or render texturing and other tricks. resolution, allowing them to be
UVW coordinates reused with any image of any size
are used for The UVs and proportion. The first number
volumetric UV coordinates or texture out of two defines the horizontal
texturing, like coordinates are used to map coordinate (0 means the left
when applying texture along the polygon. For picture edge, 1 stands for the right
procedural each point of a three-dimensional one). The second number describes
3D textures surface, texture coordinates are the vertical position within the
nothing more but two numbers. raster in the same way: 0 means
These numbers define an exact the bottom and 1 is the top.
location of a point within a Texture coordinates locate vertices

RENDERING
THE SHADER
The Red and Green image channels of
this element are traditionally utilised
This is how the for storing U (horizontal) and V
resulting render (vertical) values respectively. The
element looks. The Blue channel stays free and can be
Red and Green used to encode some additional data
values display the (like an object’s mask or ambient
exact UV values for occlusion). The Red and Green values
each pixel and this display the exact UV values for each
enables us to map pixel. And this in turn enables us
a texture after the to map a texture after the render
render is done is actually done.
surface’s texture coordinates can naturally leads to the artefacts in times. Taking it further, the
be rendered out as an additional post-texture projection. A typical texture coordinates plate from the
element. Just like the colour of the way of partly fighting these is image of the UV tile, for example,
main beauty pass, or z-depth, or upscaling the texture AOV before can efficiently serve as a tool for
normals are rendered. processing and downscaling measuring and capturing any
afterwards, which can be turned deformation within the screen
The practical applications on right before rendering of the space. Modifying that image
The main point in outputting UV final composite to keep the project with any transformations, warps,
coordinates as a render element is more interactive. bends and distortions results
the ability to quickly reapply any You could also combat problems in a raster ‘remembering’ those
texture to the already rendered by rendering aliased samples deformations precisely. And that
object in compositing with the directly into a high-resolution means that it can be recreated
specialised tools like the Texture raster; while this is proper method on any other image with the
node in Fusion or STMap in Nuke. it is also a more demanding one. same tools used for post-render
The image below has been
textured in compositing using
the UVs render element and
the individual objects’ masks as
we discussed in a theory article
from issue 186.
Like almost all post-shading
techniques, this one has certain
limitations. The main ones being, And still the advantages are texture mapping. This method is
it is not really suitable for semi- many. Post-texturing becomes commonly used for storing the Lighting developed
transparent objects and works best especially powerful when the scene lens distortion, for instance. for a previous
An image textured on simpler isolated forms. is rendered in passes with lighting Another practical application issue’s article solely
in compositing Using a constant shader ensures information separated from is to render our magic shader from the normals
using the UVs that the coordinate information is textures, so that it can be reused refracted in another object AOV applied to the
render element rendered precisely – unaffected by with the new ones. to create the refractions map same image as a
and the individual lighting. However, antialiasing of rather than the usual surface simple example of a
objects’ masks the edges introduces colour values Post-texturing power UVs element. procedural shading
as discussed in that do not really correspond In fact, much of the lighting can For more about Denis and his setup assembled
issue 186 to the UV information which be recreated in post as well from
FYI work visit: www.kozlove.net entirely in comp
additional elements like normals,
world position and z-depth. All
this, in turn, allows for creating
procedural scene templates in
compositing. As a basic example
of when you might use this,
imagine an animation of a book
with turning pages which needs
to be re-rendered with the new
textures every month.
A good compositing setup
using various render elements
would only need an actual 3D
scene to be rendered once, leaving
most of the other changes in
comp, which typically has more
interactivity and lower render

DEVELOP
VFX insight
VFX INSIGHT
The technology
of Star Wars
Renee Dunlop reveals the technological prowess of Oscar-winning
legend Richard Edlund, one of the key engineers behind Star Wars
T
he iconic work in Star think the effects budget called The Glory Guys. But we
Wars would not have PROFILE on Star Wars was $2.5 didn’t have any feature effects.
been possible without Richard Edlund, ASC, million. It was like no Fox was really paranoid about us
the geniuses who navigated the has won Oscars for money,” says Richard. because we were spending money
AUTHOR PROFILE technology needed to create the the VFX in Star Wars, and they had no understanding of
Renee Dunlop film. One of those geniuses is The Empire Strikes Building a reputation what the hell we were doing.”
Renee has over 20 Richard Edlund. Considering Back, Raiders of the Nothing gets done without Early on Richard called on
years’ experience three of his four Oscars were Lost Ark, and Return credibility, and in Hollywood, Jerry Smith, a business agent at
working as a script for VFX in the first three Star of the Jedi. it’s one of the hardest things to the local camera union 659. “I
analyst, creative War films, and he’s since added a richardedlund.com establish. “So there we were,” told him I was going to take a job
and technical writer, bevy of awards and nominations says Richard, “a bunch of ex- as first cameraman on this big
2D and 3D artist. including three Academy hippies – longish haired guys. I sci-fi movie that Fox was doing
She is the editor of Scientific and Engineering (Above) The don’t even know if I was smoking called Star Wars. Being a punster,
Production Pipeline Awards, it’s difficult to imagine Millennium Falcon pot anymore at that time. We he said, ‘You know, the odds are
Fundamentals for his career began with such is on a track all had great commercial reels; about two thousand to one that I
Film and Games. humble beginnings. Even more as it’s lowered, John [Dykstra] had worked on don’t have a guy that can fill that
www.reneedunlop.com astounding, the innovations on simulating the Silent Running and I had worked job.’” The union sent out a couple
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New landing in the on the Star Trek television show of cameramen but the demands of
Hope launched an entire industry Death Star. Richard and various movies. I set up Al the Star Wars filming process was
on what would now be the budget Edlund is left with Whitlock’s first matte shot for a so unique “they had no idea what
of a 60-second commercial. “I Doug Smith right movie that never went anywhere, we were doing,” says Richard.

The Anderson
printer was
aquired for just
$14,000. On the
left is the aerial
projector, in the
middle, the main
projector and
the camera would
be mounted on
the right
RICHARD EDLUND
The multi-award winning VFX
TM & © 2014 LucasFilm LTD. All Rights Reserved
guru’s career began with Star Wars
Richard has won four Oscars for VFX in Star Wars,

The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and
Return of the Jedi, with a nomination for Poltergeist.
He has received six additional Oscar nominations,
three Academy Scientific and Engineering Awards,
an Emmy, and two Bafta Awards.
In 1983, he founded a visual effects company
called Boss Film Studios, whose maiden project was
the film Ghostbusters. Until its close in 1997, Boss
Film Studios produced visual effects for thirty-plus
About six months later some union was accepted into the local as movies; notable among them 2010, Die Hard, Ghost,
members paid a visit, including a director of photography.” It was Poltergeist 2, Cliffhanger, Batman Returns, Alien 3,
HOLLYWOOD one from the props, some the cameraman’s version of ‘make Species, Multiplicity and Air Force One. The company
HISTORY teamsters and Josef Bernay. The it shiny.’ achieved ten Academy Award nominations over a
timing was good as the team had There was a second instance fourteen-year period.
just finished building the system involving Lin (Linwood) Dunn, Richard has served as a governor of the Academy of
See iconic and that would give more visual detail who was the patriarch of special Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) for twelve
daring designs and greater depth of field: “We had photographic effects (now known years, chairman of their VFX branch since its inception,
finished building the VistaVision as visual effects). “The studio and for eight years as chairman of the Academy’s
Check out some of motion control camera on its boom was paranoid about this bunch Scientific and Technical Awards Committee. In 2007,
the best designs and we were just starting to run of unknowns, so they sent in The Board of Governors of the AMPAS honoured him
in sci-fi movies: tests. I knew they were coming,” Lin and his sidekick, Cecil Love. with the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation
bit.ly/189-sw says Richard, “so I positioned John Dykstra and I were showing for his outstanding service and dedication to the
him the equipment, and John Academy. Currently, Richard is actively serving on the
was evangelising about motion boards of the American Society of Cinematographers
control. Cecil goes around to and the Visual Effects Society.
the back of the tower to look at In January of 2008, the American Society of
the electronics. He opens it up Cinematographers presented Richard with the
and it has all these wires, like Presidents Award in recognition of the contributions
barbershop sweepings, electronic he has made to the art and craft of filmmaking.
spaghetti. He looks at it, looks at
Richard Edlund, special FX cinematographer, Star Wars John, sets his jaw. He was real
stoic and has nothing to say at all.
them for a demonstration. I had John was really worried that we [production coordinator] Mary
pre-programmed the elaborate weren’t impressing them.” Lind and a few other people.
camera to go down to the end of The meeting did result in some I was thinking, “let’s call the
the track and stop, the boom to very good advice. “Lin took me Rand Corporation!”
rise up and swing around towards aside and said, ‘look, I think you
the camera, then to travel right guys have your act together but The Anderson printer
up to within a few feet of the one thing you’ve got to worry “We thought if we were going
union guys and stop. They didn’t about is keeping track of all those to have a VistaVision optical
know what to say, this was like elements. That is going to be your printer, we could make 2:1 optical
magic. Where’s the operator, big problem.’ That was really good reductions, which would eliminate
where’s the loader?! So they left. advice so we wound up hiring the dupe look. In other words,
And about three weeks later I [production staffer] Rose Duignan, that would give us an advantage

DEVELOP
VFX insight
in reduction that would minimise, A pick-up truck in the last thing that had been shot, getting rid of dreaded matte lines Richard Edlund
if not dispense with, the dupe the parking lot was was sitting on the write-up table. became nearly impossible. and Grant McCune
look that would normally happen used to capture They just left. prepare to shoot
when you make composites when explosions on the Dick Alexander totally rebuilt Lofty solutions the sand crawler
they are 1:1. Death Star, using the printer in the machine shop, Dealing with the technology of by digging a hole
Howard Anderson of Paramount the sun for the and David Grafton designed a FX for Star Wars was interesting for the VistaVision
offered to sell his printer, a couple key light special lens that didn’t require the because so much of it was camera. The Death
of roto stands and a few extra cursed field lens. “In other words, groundbreaking. Back in the 1970s Star, with a back
when you have two projectors and that could mean something as light that wouldn’t
a camera, the first projector can simple as pulling a good matte. actually exist in
have a matte and be operating with John Dykstra’s idea was to shoot deep space
an object, and the second projector everything with a front light/
projects an aerial image at the back light, but Richard felt there
focal plane of the first projector. was a better solution. “To shoot
In order to do that, you have to the front light/back light, you
evenly illuminate the combined shoot the hero shot of the model
Richard Edlund, special FX cinematographer, Star Wars images and in order to do that, you against black, and then you put
have to put a simple convex lens a white background behind the
cameras for around $14,000. in the optical path – which did model and then shoot a matte
“We went to see the printer. The provide even illumination but it pass. The problem with the matte
light switches were the kind you destroyed the optical properties pass is that the blurred edges on
turn, from the 1940s. The room of the lens that was feeding the a back light matte are not going
had been untouched since 1956. image through, adding chromatic to be anywhere near the same as
The last camera report written aberrations and geometric the blur on the hero pass, so your
up on The Ten Commandments, distortion. With such impairment, mattes aren’t going to work. I said,

RIP: JOE VISKOCIL
Academy-Award winner Joe Viskocil’s iconic
career started with a bang – literally…
Richard Edlund met Joe Viskocil during Star Wars. Originally, the union
recommended Greg Auer, a Class 1 pyrotechnician. Grant McCune provided
a plastic 707 model for a test. The plastic was roughly a 32nd of an inch
thick, but Greg wanted to put a 12-inch length of primer cord inside – the
same cord used by lumberjacks to take down trees. “They would wrap it
around a 3 foot diameter tree trunk,” says Richard, “and it was so powerful
it would take the tree down with one charge. This cord travels at almost
the speed of light, and when it blows up it’s like the tree has been hit by
800 axes.
“I talked him down to a piece about 5/8 -inch long. We were sitting behind
like a ¾-inch Lexon glass, and I cranked my high-speed camera up to 144
frames per second. He triggered the blast, and boom, it goes off. The next
day in dailies, we viewed the model in centre frame and suddenly the screen
went black; the explosion was so powerful the model disappeared in less
than one frame.”
Joe’s approach was a bit more conservative, but at the time he didn’t
have a powder card. Since a Class 1 technician had to be on set, Greg was
hired, but the actual explosions fell to Joe. “Joe and I worked out black
powder charges that were successful at 100fps, the maximum we could
shoot with the VistaVision high-speed camera. We shot most of the model
explosions in about two weeks and took a few more days for the Death Star
surface. Using black powder bombs and gasoline in moderate amounts, we
came up with some really nice explosions.”
The shot used a high-speed VistaVision camera on a pipe rig mounted
in the back of a pickup truck. The camera weighed about 100 pounds and
though capable of handling 2,000 foot magazines, they used 1,000 foot
rolls of film. As the truck sped by the Death Star model, it would hit an
electronic trigger, followed by an explosion a few milliseconds later. “So
we got some pretty good explosions on the Death Star, by way of a pick-up
truck in our parking lot, using the sun for the key light.”
On August 11, 2014, Joe passed away from complications of liver and
kidney failure. “He came back for pyro shots in Battlestar Galactica and I’ve
met with him a few times over the years. He was my buddy, a really good
guy. Rest in peace,” says Richard.
Joe Viskocil, sitting the only way I can think of that not adhere, and once the process ‘Pork Burger’ – The However, lighting with a blue
in the hole on the you can extract a matte that will fit was completed they could peel Millennium Falcon. screen background in what was
Death Star, sets the ship is to do blue screen.” After the finished screen off the ceiling From left to right: supposed to be deep space could
up an explosion a bit of discussion, John agreed. in one perfect sheet. Using this Grant McCune, still be a challenge. Using the
while Richard Richard contacted LaMar technique, “he made us a 12 foot Richard Edlund, Death Star as our example, when
Edlund prepares Stewart at Stewart Filmscreens, by 22 foot translucent blue screen Joe Johnston and one side is lit, as if by sunlight, and
the camera who manufactured seamless that we could light from behind Steve Gawley. the other side is dark, the dark
screens for theatres. LaMar had with fluorescent lights.” It was Note the side side will reflect blue light from the
a big bright blue light box that mounting post screen: the dreaded blue spill. “In
would show up all the floaters in order to wash out the blue spill we
your eyes… had to have about a 3:1 contrast
“Al Miller, our resident range on the model; in other
electronic genius, figured out words, if the key was 125 foot
how to make fluorescents work candles you had to have about 25
on direct current rather than to 30 foot candles of fill in order to
alternating current so that wash out the blue spill. So we had
Joe Viskocil, special effects artist, Star Wars we could shoot high-speed fill light in space, but Star Wars
photography on the screen and is kind of a fantasy, and so we got
invested a great deal of time not have flickering problems. We away with it.”
perfecting a building with a could also shoot one frame per John Dykstra, Grant, Bill Shourt
flawlessly flat ceiling surface. second motion control. Our task and Dick Alexander used to take
Using a moving gantry they would was all about coming up with a their dirt bikes out to Randsburg,
spray several passes of vinyl on to production line where we could an old ghost town in the Mohave
this surface. It was like a mirror; shoot all those models and still desert. Randsburg was once a
the paint would stick to it but meet the delivery date.” silver mining town, and used a

DEVELOP
VFX insight
method called sluice mining, the The small size of inches high, 20 inches long and 10 the X-wings, Y-wings and Tie The X-wing was
process of shooting high-pressure the X-Wing model inches wide. I think the approach Fighters all had ¾ inch mounting roughly 15 inches
water at decomposed granite to meant it could be of using small scale miniatures rods. Those were much easier to long with an
extract the embedded silver. The mounted on a ¾ really helped us out. They are deal with, and you could set up and approximate 15
silver would settle to the bottom inch rod, making much quicker to build than bigger get ready to shoot in much, much inch a wing span.
as the sluice would run down a it much easier to miniatures, and much easier to less time. It took a lot more time to Smaller models
trough and eventually down the manage than the light and shoot. And our time was shoot the Millennium Falcon.” “are much quicker
hillside, leaving behind a layer of Millennium Falcon getting short.” “The thing about VFX is you to build then big
never know what is waiting miniatures, and
Space-age budgets around the corner to trip you up, much easier to
“I did all the shots on the so you constantly have to be on shoot and light,”
Millennium Falcon, or what guard with your inventive mind says Richard
Grant called the Pork Burger.” in order to figure out how to paint
At almost 5 feet long, the original yourself out of the corner. It’s
Millennium Falcon was big and become a lot easier now, but notice
heavy. “George came in and said, how much more expensive it’s
Richard Edlund, special FX cinematographer, Star Wars ‘you know, that looks too much like become. Visual effects budgets
Space 1999. Let’s come up with a are now reaching tens of millions
fine sand. “As time went on this better shape.’ I think Joe Johnston on the big tent pole movies, and in
fine sluice run-off eroded and came up with the round concept Cameron’s world they are in the
became a miniaturised canyon. and the guys in the model shop hundreds of millions.” And it all
We used this as a backdrop to built it. It was still very heavy, started with just $2.5 million and
shoot the sand crawler, working weighed at least 100 pounds. It some brilliant ex-hippies.
with small miniatures. The sand needed to have a mounting post, See concept posters for Star Wars
crawler model was only about 16 about a 2 foot, 5 inch pipe, whereas
FYI Episode 7: www.bit.ly/189-sw2

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DEVELOP
Studio insight
STUDIO INSIGHT
Making rendering
child's play
Glasgow-based Digimania is busy reinventing how the CG
cartoon industry creates its content, says Steve Jarratt
A
cute young dinosaur walks The system in question is on a Muvizu Pro, when they
across a rocky landscape RenderDigimania (RenderDm were approached by Red Kite
and plays with his new- for short). The app launched at Animation, makers of CG TV
found toy, a rock football. It’s Siggraph in August and uses a shows such as Dennis And
beautifully animated and looks modified version of the Unreal Gnasher, Wendy and The Imp.
AUTHOR PROFILE great – but the surprising thing 3 Engine to produce real-time “They had a self-
Steve Jarratt is that it wasn’t produced using feedback for layout and lighting, BARRY initiated idea called
Ex-editor of 3D Arnold or RenderMan or any and which then generates the SHERIDAN Bradley and Bee,”
World, Steve is a one of the myriad of renderers final anti-aliased image. It’s an Barry is explains Barry
freelance journalist available. Instead, the animation interesting concept and could RenderDigimania’s Sheridan, RenderDigimania’s
and CG artist with was rendered using a game engine, save companies that produce the product director and product director, “and they
an unhealthy plug- and the 565-frame sequence took thousands of hours of serialised studio manager at wanted to take an eleven-minute
in habit. just 207 minutes to render at cartoons for children’s TV time Bradley and Bee. pilot episode to MIPCOM [the
www.bit.ly/189-steve 1,920x1,080, including 33 render and money. www.digimania.com TV and entertainment
passes per frame. That’s 18,645 commissioning fair held annually
files at just over 22 seconds each, Good cartoon graphics in Cannes]. They had an extremely
and all it used was a standard The app is produced by Digimania, tight deadline and had heard
Nvidia GeForce GTX 660, a the team responsible for the about some of our tech, so they
gaming card you can pick up for hobbyist animation package came with a script, and said to
less than £150. Muvizu. They’d been working us, we don’t have time to do this
The cartoon graphics

in Red Kite’s Bradley
and Bee TV show are
a perfect match for
RenderDm’s game
engine render pipeline

MARKET FORCES
Having developed a solution, Digimania
has found that there’s plenty of demand
Naturally RenderDm isn’t an ideal solution for all

content creation, but there’s clearly a market for it
and it’s growing, says Paul Collimore, Digimania’s
commercial director. “We had some research
commissioned that suggested for our kind of profile
animation studio, there are about 1,500 studios
out there,” he says. “But we’ve also seen a lot of
independent studios popping up. The industry for our
market is growing by about 23 per cent annually, in
the normal way, can we try to Digimania’s artists quality in terms of lighting and terms of the number of studios. That’s a quarter every
do it with your software?” create animations shadows, they’re certainly not a year, added on to that 1,500.”
“We were working on ideas and to show off thousand times better – and the And while Digimania is focused on TV production for
prototypes,” Barry adds, “and we RenderDm’s intended pre-school audience the time being, there are lots of other opportunities:
had an assertion in our minds that strength and to won’t be overly bothered by the “Any CAD-based industries, architecture, product
you could render cartoons with stress-test new lack of global illumination or design, engineering, anywhere quick renders are
a game engine, and you could do versions ambient occlusion. needed,” suggests Paul. “Not necessarily the best,
it quicker and cheaper than the “We started to realise, photorealistic, but rapid prototyping. We’ve had a
normal way of doing it, with air- particularly at the end of lot of interest from several design companies who
conditioned render farms.” this project, that there was a specialise in making mock-ups of, say, a Coke can or
Fortunately the pilot’s director professional application to it,” says of a bottle, – you can move them around in real-time,
felt the same way,” says Barry, Barry. “We’ve spent the last nine change them in real-time. So when they take it to their
“and so a three-way collaboration months putting the lessons that client, and the client says, ‘That needs changing’, they
we learned form that pilot episode don’t have to go back to the office they can do it there
into the software that’s released in front of them.”
just now.”
No network rendering
Not only does RenderDm render Bradley And Bee has since
quickly, it enables artists to iterate been picked up for broadcast
more quickly, and removes the in the UK as part of Channel ANIMATION
ensued between Digimania, Red overhead of network rendering. Five’s Milkshake!, with Red SYSTEM
Kite and animation studio Super “We also realised, too late, in Kite commissioned to deliver
Umami. “Storyboards were made the pilot episode project, that 52, eleven-minute episodes.
and reviewed, characters were we were still producing frames By Digimania’s reckoning, a To try out
modelled and rigged, and we did and our compositor was off- traditional show such as Bradley Digimania’s other
the bulk of the animation and site,” explains Barry. “We were and Bee would need 17,500 app, head to
rendering using our software.” producing gigabytes of frames CPU hours to render using 30 www.muvizu.com.
and trying to get them to the rack-mounted PCs, and says You can pay £75
Fast results THE compositor. Sometimes we that RenderDm can do the same for Muvizu Play+,
Despite the app only being at FUTURE OF FTPed it, sometimes we put it show in eight hours, using just or download
an alpha stage, the experiment RENDERDM in a car and drove. And then we a handful of desktop PCs. The the free version
proved successful – the entire realised, the scene files are tens term ‘game-changer’ seems and then pay
eleven-minute episode was of megs – we simply could have suitably apt in this case. to generate
rendered in about three hours Digimania his no just emailed them to him and said, Download a trial of RenderDM: animations using
on a medium-specced Dell PC. shortage of ideas ‘Open that, press the button’!”
FYI www.renderdigimania.com in-app purchases.
Interestingly, the show is book-
ended by two sections rendered As well as
with mental ray, in which the main incorporating
characters are seen in their play the Alembic file
room. They then enter the world format, it also
of a magical pop-up book, which wants to support
is the sequence generated using OpenEXR and
RenderDm. OpenSubdiv. And
“We had this nice comparison as for the next
where the same assets were going game engine, Paul
down our pipeline and also down Collimore suggests With high-res
a mental ray pipeline,” says Barry. that, “It’s more of meshes and the
“To render a frame, mental ray a question of do right textures and
took 210 seconds – we took a fifth we use somebody lighting, you’d
of a second.” else’s engine, or never guess this
And while it’s clear that the do we develop was the output of
mental ray sections are of a higher our own.” Unreal Engine 3

DEVELOP
Software review
SOFTWARE REVIEW
Marvelous Designer 4
PRICE Personal licence: $550 (about £344) | COMPANY Marvelous Designer | WEBSITE www.marvelousdesigner.com
I
nitially promised back in 2011, across garment pieces, reducing the
some users will be happy to steps needed to create these. Add
know Marvelous Designer 4 to that a slew of other tools such MAIN
finally ships with a Quadrangulate as Normal Flipping and Pattern FEATURES
function, which will make rigging Scaling, MD4 has significantly, and
in ready-to-render software less of wisely, solidified and enhanced
a hassle. However, the new version's existing functionality, rather than QUADRANGULATE
strengths lie elsewhere. implementing too many entirely Easing the
The latest release has user new features. workflow for
enhancements and speed of There are some downsides: the the ready-to-
workflow as its primary targets, you can attach several segments new FBX import-function doesn’t render segment,
and it shows. Marvelous Designer to it. Hold down [Shift] while you work on some imports so, you’re quadrangulate
(MD) 4 has few new wow features. Segment Sew, and it will divide the still better off importing and turns tris
AUTHOR PROFILE Instead, the developer has focused sewing lines by itself, should you posing MD3-style. Also the current into quads
Cirstyn on keeping their promises, with not want to utilise the new Free 1: quad-topology is uneven at best.
Bech-Yagher the addition of the Quadrangulate N-sewing option instead. Bar this, MD4 is a solid release; ONE-TO-MANY
Cirstyn is a freelance function, and workflow and its biggest issue may not be SEWING
CG artist and educator enhancements, such as a Symmetry A functional upgrade technical at all: With a full Adobe Easing the
with over a decade's and Symmetry Merge-functions, Several other tweaks and Creative Cloud subscription workflow on items
experience in 3D. Her giving users an alternative to the featurettes have been implemented costing $49.95 (about £29), current like waistbands,
clients have ranged onerous 'design half, unfold, copy for easing the digital garment MD4 licensing fees seem a bit cuffs and necks
from AMD to DAZ 3D and mirror paste' routine in the creation workflow: Basting and out. Commercial licenses start at
and Future plc. creation process. Tacking enables you to test fits $4,000 (about £2,500), in effect WORKFLOW
northern-studios.com Several other tweaks have been before you finalise them, while excluding small studios and ENHANCEMENTS
implemented as well, such as the Layer Clone clones entire layers of freelancers; even current Autodesk Small UI tweaks,
1:N Segment Sewing options, garment patterns, making padded licensing options for Max or Maya like Pattern
which mean you now can now sew garment creation a snap. Multiple are cheaper, and MD4 offers a scaling, enhanced
multiple segments onto one, in one Selection has now made it easier to fraction of their functionality. copy/pasting
go. This removes the need to first create rolled up sleeves and trousers and arrangement
split lines in multiple parts before by allowing poly- or tri-selection VERDICT enhancements
show this is a
no-frills release.
LAYER COPYING
Layer copying
makes creating
padded garments
a snap
SYMMETRY &
SYMMETRY
MERGE
A no-frills, workflow- These much-
enhancing release. requested features
Marvelous Designer that significantly
4 gets your figures ease workflow
dressed. Fast! have been added
WHO'S USING MARVELOUS DESIGNER?

Being used in games like Metal Gear Solid 5, films like The Hobbit, and applications from Daz
Studio, Marvelous Designer is a 3D clothing generator which has garnered interest with hobbyists,
film, and gaming studios alike. Its ease, versatility and speed of use appeals across the board.

The MSI WS60-
2OJ is deceptively
thin and light, but
it still packs in a
serious amount
of workstation
performance for a
reasonable price
HARDWARE REVIEW
MSI WS60-2OJ
PRICE £1,699 inc VAT | COMPANY MSI | WEBSITE www.msi.com
T
he WS60 comes in at just Toshiba THNSNJ128G8NU,
under 20mm thick, and which is a little meagre, but the
MAIN weighs less than 2kg, 1TB Hitachi Travelstar 7K1000
FEATURES it is a decidedly portable 15in 7,200rpm hard disk should mean
laptop, yet it still packs in a bevy you never have an issue with AUTHOR PROFILE
of powerful components. running out of space. However, James Morris
2.5GHz Intel Core Central to the WS60’s abilities there is no room for an optical James has been writing
i7-4710HQ; 16GB are its processor and graphics. The drive, so only a multi-format about technology for
1600MHz DDR3 CPU is a Core i7-4710HQ, which memory card reader is available two decades, focusing
SDRAM is from Intel’s fourth Haswell for removable storage. on content creation
generation. This is a quad-core a 128-bit bus. The processor also Rendering is excellent for a hardware and software.
Intel HD Graphics processor running at a nominal supplies Intel HD Graphics 4600. laptop, with 7.02 in the CPU He was editor of PC Pro
4600 and Nvidia 2.5GHz when consuming its portion of Maxon Cinebench R11.5, magazine for five years.
Quadro K2100M standard 47W, but can increase Professional performance and 648 in R15. The Cinebench www.tzero.co.uk
graphics with 2GB to 3.3GHz at 55W, and a single Nvidia Optimus technology OpenGL results of 55.78 in R11.5
GDDR5 memory core can hit 3.5GHz. With hyper- switches between the two graphics and 68.08 in R15 are excellent if not
threading on hand to turn the four accelerators as required. The desktop-beating. This is mirrored
128GB Toshiba physical cores into eight virtual graphics drive a 15.6in screen with by SPECviewerf 11 results of 64.48
THNSNJ128G8NU ones, the Core i7-4710HQ will be as a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. in lightwave-01, 73.54 in maya-03,
SSD; 1TB Hitachi capable a performer with parallel Despite the svelte, relatively and 47.46 in the SolidWorks sw-02
Travelstar tasks like rendering as it will be light chassis, the WS60 still has viewset. In the recently released
7K1000 7,200rpm for tasks that prefer a single high- room for up to three hard drives, SPECviewerf 12, results are merely
hard disk frequency core, such as modelling. although our sample was only good, with 17.37 in maya-04 and
This will be further assisted by the supplied with two. This took the 40.52 in sw-03.
15.6in LED backlit 16GB of 1,600MHz DDR3 SDRAM, now traditional form of a SSD The WS60 acquits itself well in
TFT screen; 1,920 which is the maximum possible for OS and applications, plus a all areas of 3D content creation.
x 1,080 pixels for this notebook, but more than conventional hard disk for general
enough for professional 3D work. data storage. The SSD is a 128GB VERDICT
390 x 266 x Further aiding the WS60’s
19.9mm (WxDxH); workstation credentials is the
MSI: THE GAMER TURNS PRO
1.9kg Nvidia Quadro K2100M graphics.
This is a mid-range professional MSI has a history of producing laptops for gamers, and its previous mobile workstations
accelerator based on the Kepler were derivatives from the top end of its more entertainment-oriented ranges. The WS60-
architecture with 576 Cuda cores 2OJ, however, is MSI’s first design aimed purely at professional use. It still retains a greater
and 2GB of GDDR5 memory. The sense of style than most mobile workstations though, and the thin profile allied with the
memory runs at 3GHz, but only on low weight are somewhat unique in its class.

DEVELOP
Hardware review
The InterPro IPW-

HWE combines the
fastest eight-core
Intel Core i7
processor, with
64GB of DDR4
SDRAM and the
latest Nvidia
Quadro K4200
graphics giving
it phenomenal
rendering power
HARDWARE REVIEW
InterPro IPW-HWE
PRICE £2,995 (ex VAT) | COMPANY InterPro | WEBSITE www.ipworkstations.com
T
he frequency-enhanced although power consumption has
Intel Core i7 has become a increased from 80W to 105W.
mainstay at the single-socket Storage takes a more usual MAIN
end of the workstation market. But approach, with a SSD for OS and FEATURES
AUTHOR PROFILE the options have been stagnant for applications, plus a conventional
James Morris a while. Now, with the release of hard disk for general storage,
James Morris has the eight-core version of the Intel but both are premium in their 3GHz Intel Core
been writing about Haswell generation, there’s a leap respective classes. The SSD is a i7-5960X Extreme
technology for more in performance, and first to show sizeable 480GB PNY Prevail 3K frequency
than two decades, us the potential is InterPro with its Endurance Edition, while the HDD enhanced to
focusing on content IPW-HWE. than DDR3. The new standard is an also capacious 3TB Seagate 4.4GHz
creation hardware Currently, there is only one will eventually allow 3,200MHz Barracuda 7,200rpm SATA model.
and software. He eight-core Intel Core i7, the 5960X modules, and runs at a lower voltage There’s a Pioneer 209EBK quad- 64GB 2133MHz
was editor of PC Extreme. This runs at a nominal for reduced power consumption. layer Blu-Ray burner as well, but no DDR4 SDRAM
Pro magazine for 3GHz, with a 3.5GHz Turbo mode. The processor and memory multi-format card reader built in.
five years. However, InterPro has permanently aren’t the only all-new additions Nvidia Quadro
www.tzero.co.uk set the processor at 4.4GHz, and the in the IPW-HWE’s specification. A powerful performance K4200 graphics
Corsair H80i CPU water cooling The Nvidia graphics were also The IPW-HWE stormed through with 4GB GDDR5
system will easily cope with the just launched in August 2014. the tests. The rendering results were memory
extra heat. As with all Core i7s, The accelerator in question is 18.95 in Maxon Cinebench R11.5 and
the 5960X sports Intel hyper- the Quadro K4200, which now 1,696 in R15, with the former only a 480GB PNY Prevail
threading, so its eight physical cores comes with 1,344 Cuda cores third behind the fastest dual-socket 3K Endurance
are detected as 16 virtual ones, for compared to the K4000’s 768, Xeon systems we’ve reviewed. Edition SSD; 3TB
huge parallel processing potential and 4GB of GDDR5 compared The OpenGL results of 129.08 in Seatage Barracuda
such as 3D rendering. InterPro has to the K4000’s 3GB. The core Cinebench R11.5 and 188.23 in R15 7,200rpm hard disk
partnered the top-end CPU with a frequency is 780MHz and memory are the highest we have seen by a
similarly meaty 64GB of 2,133MHz bandwidth is 173GB/sec thanks significant margin. Highlights in
memory, and this is another to a 256-bit bus. So performance SPECviewperf 11 include 98.28 in
technology first as it’s DDR4 rather should be significantly improved, lightwave-01, 144.48 in maya-03,
and 81.81 in the SolidWorks sw-02
viewset, all of which are the fastest
A MACHINE WITHOUT COMPROMISE
we’ve recorded. In SPECviewperf
So the InterPro IPW-HWE has phenomenal rendering power, and its modelling abilities are 12, the IPW-HWE managed 54.3
equally impressive whether in 3D content creation or product design. You do pay a sizeable in maya-04 and 95.95 in sw-03.
price for all this, with the system coming in at £2,995 plus VAT, but with no weak areas it
could be money well spent. This is one machine that can do it all without compromise. VERDICT

The 21:9 aspect
ratio aims to aid
your productivity by
simulating a dual
monitor setup
HARDWARE REVIEW
LG 21:9 Ultrawide 34UM95

PRICE £890 (about $1,348) | COMPANY LG (Electronics) | WEBSITE www.lg.com
W
e know what you’re using it if colour accuracy is key.
thinking, “This is a Also, the LG’s panel has a DeltaE of
MAIN gimmick,” right? Those <5, which is OK, but for professional
FEATURES were our initial thoughts too, use we would expect a DeltaE of <2.
back when LG first revealed its AUTHOR PROFILE
21:9 QHD monitor we were puzzled Screen Split software Paul Tysall
10-bit colour via as to who would purchase this Consider how this IPS monitor Freelance graphic designer
DisplayPort unusual, first-to-market display. is constructed and how it can be and illustrator, and former
Turns out LG want it to be us – used, it’s a 34in panel (at 21:9 ratio) magazine art editor, Paul
x2 Thunderbolt digital content creators. delivering 3,440 x 1,440 pixels, 34 has extensive knowledge
ports (for daisy- Just take a glance at the monitor; field of view there’s also the issue per cent greater than a 27in Quad of various professional
chaining only) it’s easy to see why LG is targeting of colour consistency across two HD display like the ASUS PA279Q digital art tools – from
creatives first and why it might (or more) separate displays. Even if ProArt monitor. When using the hardware to software.
DisplayPort be onto something with the 21:9 you use identical monitors, daisy- bundled Screen Split software Between jobs he’s
& HDMI aspect. You don’t need to work in chained and running the same you can chop the screen directly combining his design and
VFX to appreciate a display that colour profile, when you get down down the middle giving you two illustration with motion
110ppi pixel caters for a cinematic aspect, no to colour grading those shadows 20.5in 1,720 x 1,440 views (using graphics to broaden his
density matter what 3D package or video- in a scene on monitor One then a 5:4 aspect ratio) which might creative range.
editing software you favour, the referring to playback on monitor feel a little small at first. In both studio_tysall.prosite.com
Dimensions (with amount of tools and windows you Two, if there is even the slightest instances you’re getting a superb
stand): 829.9 x need to open during an average variation frustration is bound to 110 ppi pixel density.
172.9 x 468.9mm session warrants the extra screen kick in. A large, continuous panel A fixed-height monitor stand
estate. The workflow benefits of negates this. just doesn’t make any sense, the
greater screen space are obvious, It’s also worth noting that LG’s 10 degrees of tilt is OK, but we
but there are some annoying 34UM95 supports 10-bit colour would’ve also preferred the option
downsides to a dual monitor setup. via DisplayPort, the HDMI cable to swivel. There’s too much tacky
Aside from the ugly, intrusive bevel simply can’t deliver full resolution plastic in the overall build for our
smack-bang in the middle of your and deep colour support so avoid liking. Combine these quibbles
with the £890 price point — which
is comparable to a decent dual
THUMBS UP FOR 21:9
monitor setup — and the 34UM95
A middle of the park score for a review that, on the whole, is quite positive might seem a is still a compelling display that
little odd. Don’t get us wrong we did enjoy using LG’s 34UM95, but it’s fair to say we were unfortunately just misses the mark
taken with the 21:9 aspect ratio more than this specific model. This size clicks with the for professionals.
productivity side of our brains, and we’re hoping to see more 21:9 displays appearing on the
shelves. How about a 21:9 Wacom Cintiq, now you’ve really got our attention. VERDICT

DEVELOP
My inspiration
MY INSPIRATION
Keith Self-Ballard
Art training manager at Blizzard Entertainment recounts working
on the Myst franchise and with memorable mentors
ARTIST PROFILE
Keith Self-Ballard
Keith is the art training
manager at Blizzard
Entertainment. He’s
a veteran artist of
the games industry,
who has worked on
a variety of PC and
console titles including
Myst III: Exile (PC)
and Saints Row.
www.eu.blizzard.com
G
etting into the games III: Exile. Most people today have diffuse texture. My painting skills
industry required a lot probably forgotten about the Myst were, to be charitable, lacklustre.
of effort and no small franchise, but those visuals were Thinking back on it, those textures
measure of luck. I didn’t expect considered the ‘high water mark’ looked more like the web of a
to be part of games development; when I was in school. Years later neurotic spider. They were jittery
my schooling had been focused when I was interviewing with a and lacked any sense of depth
more on product visualisation, studio in San Diego, California, of readability. Anyway, the art At school Keith
illustration and design. I had I had no idea what the project director stopped by my desk to was inspired by
originally thought that I would was. When they revealed it to review my progress. He took one the visuals in the
spend several years building my me behind closed doors, I was look at what I had and told me to original video
portfolio in product visualisation dumbstruck. I still take a lot of follow him. We went to the other game Myst. Later,
pride in having contributed to that end of the office where he stopped as a 3D artist, he
franchise: The gameplay is basic, in front of the refrigerator and told got to work on
but the attention to detail required me to hold out my hands. Upon Myst III: Exile
at that time for pre-rendered doing so, he promptly opened up
screens was mind-boggling. Lots the freezer grabbed a handful of
of long hours. Lots of lost sleep. ice out of the tray and dumped
But everyone was fully committed them into my cupped palms. “This
to making it the best game it could is ice,” he said. “Make it look like
and hoped to transition to film/ be, and we were there because we this.” He then left.
TV/VFX in the following years. I loved what we were doing. It was a very humbling and
eventually found myself working In the final stage of Myst big learning moment for me as
in game development, which (Narayan), the art director (Phil an artist. Some will read this
proved to be the ideal match for Saunders) wanted the shield and might think poorly of Phil.
my interests and strengths. surrounding the environment to I completely disagree. To this day,
I’ve been fortunate enough to look frozen, like ice crystals. Phil is one of the best art directors
work on a number of great projects I was still a fairly inexperienced I have ever had the privilege of
and with some truly incredible artist at the time and just tried working with. Thank you, Phil.
teams. As an artist, my personal to cobble together a texture and See some of Keith’s work at
favourite was working on Myst
FYI selfballard.carbonmade.com
paint my own fractures into the

9000
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EDITOR’S

WELCOMEIs it time to give your CG art

Creating photoreal renders is a great skill to TITANIC TEXTURES

tutorial on page 60 Amir shares his process

Ian Dean, editor

3D WORLD Christmas 2014 3 3dworld.creativebloq.com

Amir is a 3D artist with a passion for automotive

SPOTLIGHT ON OUR CONTRIBUTORS Lamborghini.

Jonathan Ball Francesca Forzoni Nicolas Garilhe

Rafael Vallaperde Vikrant J Dalal Daniel D’Avila

3D WORLD Christmas 2014 4 3dworld.creativebloq.com

telephone: +44 (0) 1225 442244

EDITORIAL PR I N T & PR O D UCTI O N

Print 5,768 Digital 3,001

CONTENTS Our complete line-up for this

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60 RENDER AN EXOTIC LAMBORGHINI 64 BLEND CG AND PHOTOS

68 BUILD A VIDEO GAME ENVIRONMENT: PART 3 76 MODEL A DETAILED SCENE

3D WORLD Christmas 2014 7 3dworld.creativebloq.com

SHOWCASE The best digital art from

3D WORLD Christmas 2014 8 www.facebook.com/3dworldmagazine

Graham Murdoch started his CG career in the

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Two goals lay before Korean artist Seungmin

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3D WORLD Christmas 2014 12 www.facebook.com/3dworldmagazine

"While the colour

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Based in part on the paintings of illustrator

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COMMUNITY News and views from around the

18 IN A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN 20 FACE OF THE FUTURE

22 STUDIO PROFILE: LAIKA 24 NVIDIA VCA EXPLORED

Visit the online Vault to download

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IN A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN

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PROJECT INSIGHT ADOBE

FACE OF THE FUTURE Photoshop

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INSIDE THE STOP-MOTION

P thrift markets, out-of-issue

trend-setter. It's no surprise then, that a Old-school movie magic

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Prototyping Department Brian Mclean is quick to enthuse PARANORMAN

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PEGASUS FOR PREVIZ

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NATALIS EVOKES FRIGHTENING GET PUBLISHED

VISIONS OF THE FUTURE ian.dean@futurenet.com

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3D WORLD Christmas 2014 27 3dworld.creativebloq.com

REBELS WITH A CAUSE

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LOOK TO REAL LIFE

GESTURE & MOTION

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