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August 2015
#197
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This issue we aim to make that a little easier,
on page 42 Alex Dracott shares his 25 tips
to master Unreal Engine 4, then on page 54
Riyahd Cassiem shows how to concept and
model a game mecha character, plus we have
pro tips for getting started with PhysicallyBased Rendering (page 68), rigging better
animation cycles (page 64) and we take a
look at an impressive Halo CG film. Finally,
on page 20, we speak to leading artists at
Ubisoft about the challenges of building
incredibly realistic game worlds.
Ian Dean, editor
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Issue 197
Contents
digital
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6 Free downloads
Get your hands on 8GB of assets
via our Vault download system
8 artist showcase
Discover the best new digital art
and more from the CG world
17 community
18 ChIna CallIng
Is the future of VFX Chinese?
18 ChIna CallIng
22 assassIn’s Creed syndICate
The emergence of Chinese VFX studios
The art of world building revealed
26 short Cuts: two worlds
How the animated short was made
36 artist Q&a
All your software queries solved
Feature
42 unreal 4 teChnIques
Create environments for games
53 tutorials
Improve your CG skills
78 3d maker
8 artIst showCase
Discover the most outstanding new creative work from the CG art community
22 world buIldIng
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate’s stella art
Explore 3D print art and trends
87 develop
Theory, research and reviews
regulars
7 next Month
34 subsCrIptIons
50 dIgItal-tutors vIdeos
77 Free! IClone 5 standard
98 dIgItal baCk Issues
28 gaMe CIneMatICs
42 unreal engIne 4 teChnIques
Kazuyuki Ikumori discusses Deus Ex
3D WorlD August 2015
Discover 25 tips for lighting, texturing and rendering game environments in Unreal 4
4
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Tu
d e
ar lon
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ta o ge
5 s 77 t
n e ge
l o pa
ic rn to
ee
!
tutorials
54 Create a MeCha ConCept
Concept and model a mecha
female warrior in ZBrush
60 MotIon graphICs
Learn to create unique motion
graphics in 3ds Max and After Effects
64 anIMatIng For gaMes
64 anIMatIng For gaMes
Animate a run cycle for a game character
Create perfect run cycle animations
for games using Maya
68 pbr teChnIques
Get started in physically-based
rendering with these core tips
72 Create a spaCe suIt
Learn the new features of Marvelous
Designer 4 to create realistic clothes
54 Create a FeMale MeCha ConCept
72 Create a spaCe suIt
Riyahd Cassiem shows how to create a 3D sci-fi android design for video games
Create a space suit in Marvelous Designer 4
3d maker
ne
3d prw
sectioint
n
78 ColleCtable sCulpts
id’s Brett Briley shares his models
80 3d prInt jewellery
Small-scale modelling tutorial
83 stop-MotIon MasterpeICe
The story behind the Chase Me short
84 MInIature ModellIng
78 ColleCtable sCulpts
id Software’s Brett Briley shares his models
80 3d prInt jewellery
84 MInIature ModellIng
Master the art of small-scale modelling
Javier García Ureña’s insights and tips
Javier García Ureña shares his models
for Privateer Press and Corvus Billi
develop
88 CreatIng an IndIe gaMe
The art process behind indie
game Glee Musketeers
90 MakIng halo: huManIty
Meet the team of fans making a
professional quality Halo movie
92 hoMe Made bloCkbuster
88 CreatIng an IndIe gaMe
The art process behind Glee Musketeers
90 MakIng halo: huManIty
92 hoMe Made bloCkbuster
Meet the team behind the Halo fan film
How Alf Lovvold made a CG movie trailer
Alf Lovvold shares his process for
making a CG movie trailer
reviews
96 3ds Max 2016
Can this year’s edition deliver the
new features we’ve all wanted?
97 CadMouse
It’s a mouse, but not as you know it...
will this change how you work?
97 shaderMap 3
96 revIew: 3ds Max 2016
Can this year’s edition improve on 2015?
97 revIew: CadMouse
97 revIew: shaderMap 3
It’s a mouse, but not as you know it...
3D WorlD August 2015
The user-friendly texture app impresses
5
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The latest edition of the user-friendly
texture app impresses
100 My InspIratIon
Simon Webber shares his career
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showcase
artist
showcase
The best digital art from
the CG community
get published
email your Cg art to
ian.dean@futurenet.com
I often start with some simple sketches
for setting up composition and lighting
Visit the online Vault to download
extra process art for these projects:
www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
3D WorlD August 2015
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3d world view
“This piece is great
fun and there are
some subtle details in
the finished render,
such as the scratches
on the snowmobile.”
iaN deaN
Editor
the great
esCape with
tatra V855
artist Jan Hrebícek and
Ondrej Cervinka
software 3ds Max, ZBrush,
V-Ray, Photoshop
Drawing their inspiration from dreams, comic
books and movies, Prague-based artists Jan
Hrebícek and Ondrej Cervinka took around a
year to complete this particular project.
“I’m not a fan of sitting at a computer for
whole days, so my main source of inspiration
is travelling around on my motorcycle,”
explains Ondrej. “It’s a cliché but after just
one ride, I have a clear head and can think
about anything I want. It’s relaxing and helps
me to focus.” With Jan currently studying
professional photography and Ondrej working
as a shading/lighting artist at ProgressiveFX
based in Prague, the pair are a force to be
reckoned with. The Great Escape with Tatra
V855 was the first project in which Ondrej
used hand-painted textures in Mari and
although it was a time-consuming process,
both artists are happy with the outcome.
“I often start with some simple sketches for
setting up composition and lighting,” explains
Jan. “Then I continue with modelling, lighting
and texturing. Sometimes I like to jump
around the workflow and skip certain parts
to get an early preview of the final product.”
Jan continues, “I usually start with references
to shaders and atmosphere; my work is only
about shaders, light and rendering.”
See more on www.be.net/ondrejcervinka
fyi and www.janhrebicek.com
3D WorlD August 2015
9
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showcase
I look at aspects such as
mood and then I imagine
what’s behind a pose, a
specific lighting… and keep
it simple and clean
keeP it siMPle
Jean Marcel has kept the
topology nice and clean
in his Batgirl model
batgirl
artist
Jean Marcel
software ZBrush, topoGun,
3ds Max, V-Ray, lightroom
Superheroes often prove a great source of
inspiration for 3D artists and Jean Marcel is
just one of those artists who has turned his
hand to a homage. “I’m a story lover, so I like
to capture something that tells the story of
the character,” he explains. “I look at aspects
such as mood and then I imagine what’s
behind a pose, a specific lighting… and keep
it simple and clean.”
Currently working on an animated feature
in Brazil, the portrait took Jean around
three months, working on it for a few hours
a day. “It was all poly modelling,” he says.
“I can only mention the steps sketch and
retopology since I prefer dealing with form
first and then when I’m pleased with it, move
on to make it good for animation.”
Translating a 2D character into a 3D one
was the process that Jean enjoyed the most,
making subtle changes throughout but never
losing the original essence of the character.
“I studied mesh flow, testing possibilities.
What works and what doesn’t, in order to
create the most ideal topology for her. I also
studied new methods of texturing, how to
achieve faster results without quality loss.”
See more of Jean Marcel’s work at
fyi www.artstation.com/artist/jeanmarcel
3d world view
“Jean created this to
improve his character
modelling skills and
here he's managed to
make textures quickly,
without quality loss.”
feliCity barr
Production editor
3D WorlD August 2015
10
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showcase
Trying to create a likeness
is the most enjoyable
aspect... But it’s also the
most challenging
part of it too
portrait of
riChard spriggs
artist
ian spriggs
software Maya, Mudbox,
Photoshop, V-Ray
Working as a character modeller in the VFX
industry, Ian Spriggs is a dab-hand when it
comes to producing undeniable likeness.
“Trying to create a likeness is the most
enjoyable aspect of making a portrait,” he
explains. “But it’s also the most challenging
part of it too.”
Working on films such as Crimson Peak,
Warcraft, Pompeii and horror movie Mama,
Ian creates his best work using photo
references. “I will set up a space with as little
shadow as I can since I will also be using these
images to help with texturing,” he explains,
adding: “I will take 20-30 images in 360
degrees of my subject in the pose and then an
addition 20 or so in a T-pose.”
Ensuring the focus length in Maya matches
that of the camera, Ian then brings in a prerigged base mesh to begin the posing of
the model. “Usually I will block out all the
geometry I need, clothes, props, eyes and so
on,” he says. “Once this is done I will import all
my geo into Mudbox, along with the cameras
I previously set up in Maya. I like to have my
Maya file and Mudbox file in sync, it helps if I
need to make changes on the fly.”
Browse through the rest of Ian’s work at
fyi www.iansprigggs.com
3D WorlD August 2015
3d world view
“Ian was inspired
by Turner, Vermeer
and Rembrandt in
producing this digital
double – and its
natural realism really
does shine through.”
darreN phillips
Art editor
12
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showcase
Apart from merely achieving
the likeness, I wanted
to portray Dana Scully’s
personality in
my artwork
daNa sCully
artist
Jeen lih lun
software ZBrush, Photoshop,
After effects, V-Ray
“I had been working on this piece on and off
for a few months in my spare time,” begins
Cambridge-based artist Jeen Lih Lun. “I
spent roughly three weeks sculpting in ZBrush
to achieve the likeness and created the low
poly model with UVs, two weeks setting up
Maya skin shaders, creating the eyes, lashes,
brows and textures, a week to create the hair
using Maya nHair, and another week or so for
clothing, peach fuzz creation and rendering.”
Jeen is a character artist, who loves to
capture the essence of the character’s
disposition in her accurate renders. “Apart
from merely achieving the likeness, I wanted
to portray Dana Scully’s personality in my
artwork,” Jeen continues. “I particularly
enjoyed sculpting her face, modelling the
eyelashes and creating the hair.”
Working as a senior character artist at Ninja
Theory, as well as experience with Unreal and
Unity game engines, it’s sculpture, painting
and photography that captures the special
moments in life that inspires Jeen. Shunning
‘fancy techniques’ for this piece, Jeen says it
was fairly standard practise throughout.
“I spent some time experimenting both in
Maya nHair and ZBrush FiberMesh, and then
decided that I would prefer to apply nHair for
the hair, and import FiberMesh from ZBrush
for peach fuzz on the face and clothing.”
See more character creations at
fyi www.artstation.com/artist/jeenlihlun
3D WorlD August 2015
3d world view
“With her
smouldering looks,
the popular pin-up
from the 1990s
is back. I love the
realistic skin and
Dana’s piercing eyes.”
feliCity barr
Production editor
14
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3d world view
“Grant has taken
Rafael’s Dragonfly
model and has
given it life by using
great materials and
lighting. The fire rings
are particularly cool.”
iaN deaN
Editor
masteriNg
V-ray fiNale
artist
Grant Warwick
software 3ds Max, V-Ray, HDR
light studio, Photoshop
Collaborating with Rafael Grassetti, Mastering
CGI’s Grant Warwick created this impressive
sci-fi inspired character, taking about a month
to complete the project.
“Grassetti designed the character and
provided the model for me to unwrap, texture,
shade and light,” Grant explains. “I utilised the
3ds Max render surface map tools to automate
a lot of the texturing process. The entire
workflow from start to finish is explained in
the final lesson of Mastering V-Ray Course.”
Running a full-time teaching business in
Mastering CGI, Grant relishes the times when
he’s able to work on ‘amazingly designed
characters.’ “The most rewarding aspect
though, has to be revealing all of the tips and
secrets to my subscribers on the course,”
says Grant. “After seeing the feedback from
Mastering V-Ray and how I have managed
to change so many lives it’s much more
important for me to better myself so I can
share with my subscribers,” he explains.
“Earlier this year I managed to get one of my
first subscribers a position as a senior 3D artist
at Cream Studios due to his determination to
learn from the course.”
See more tutorials and final projects on
fyi Grant’s site: www.masteringcgi.com.au
The most rewarding aspect has
to be revealing all of the tips
and secrets to my subscribers
3D WorlD August 2015
15
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CONTENTS
Community
News and views from around the
international CG community
20 work in video games
Character artist Tom Isaksen shares his tips
22 world building
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate’s stella art
18 the big issue: vFX in China 26 short Cuts: two worlds 28 game CinematiCs
Is the future of VFX Chinese?
Be inspired by Andy Lefton’s artful short
Kazuyuki Ikumori discusses Deus Ex
GET publiShEd
Email yOur CG arT TO
ian.dean@futurenet.com
Visit the online Vault to download
extra process art for these projects:
www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
30 mad maX: Fury road
How VFX studio Iloura created the toxic storm sequence for the latest movie
3D WorlD August 2015
17
3dworld.creativebloq.com
32 20 years oF FmX
How VR stole this year’s FMX conference
Communit y
The big issue
The big issue
Is the future of 3D ChInese?
As the CG industry in China is expanding rapidly,
Tom May finds out where it’s heading…
D
oes the future of 3D lie in China?
It’s been on the cards for a while
but things are changing fast in
the world’s second largest economy.
Recently China launched the CG
equivalent of Silicon Valley, The
Jiangye Newtown Technology Park,
to propel the industry forward. So far
the regional government has bought
400 licenses of PipelineFX’s Qube! to
manage rendering needs, and forged
a joint venture with Original Force
to provide renders, motion capture,
colour grading and 3D scanning to
customers across the globe. In total
100 companies are currently residing at
the park, working across films, games,
animation and new media.
One of those is BaseFX, a Beijingbased digital effects house set up
in 2006 with the aim of serving both
Hollywood and the local Chinese and
Asian industries. And things are hotting
up for the company, which has a close
relationship with ILM.
“We’re currently finishing up Monster
Hunt, the biggest VFX film completed
here to date, with 720 photoreal
character shots,” explains founder
and CEO Christopher Bremble.
“Last year we worked on
Captain America: The Winter
Soldier, Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles, Transformers:
Age of Extinction, Black Sails, True
Detective, Agent Carter, and several
local films including Breakup Buddies
for Ning Hao. So 2014 was a great year
for us and 2015 is looking just as good.”
But working in China isn’t without
its difficulties. “Budgets on Chinese
films remain very challenged. Chinese
films have a small number of territories
to sell into and the domestic industry
can’t afford films heavy on high-quality
visual effects. So there are a lot of
films with a thousand poorly done
shots,” Christopher explains, adding,
“The market place is more focused
on quantity than quality, which is the
inverse of the US market. That makes
it hard to do business locally. The
top companies, such as BaseFX and
Technicolor, all rely on international
clients/co-productions for a significant
amount of their revenue.”
3D WorlD August 2015
18
3dworld.creativebloq.com
There are also cultural differences
when it comes to process. “In China,
many artists are self-taught and like to
handle a shot from modelling to final
comp,” Christopher says. “That’s just
not an efficient way to work most of the
time. The generalist approach works
fantastic for the brilliantly talented
artists, but the majority of artists have
In China, many artists are self
taught and like to handle shots
from modelling to final comp
Christopher Bremble, BaseFX
real weaknesses in some part of the
pipeline, and those weaknesses come
through when they try to work at the
highest level.”
That culture is changing fast,
though, believes Longji Hao
of OxygenTec, Pipeline FX’s
main reseller in the region.
“Most of China’s animation
Chinese CG pioneers
Original Force worked
with The Third Floor to
create the 3D for online
MMORPG Asura
indusTry insiders
Thoughts & opinions from the experts
Beijing-based VFX studio
BaseFX supplied 350 shots
for Pacific Rim under the
supervision of ILM
Christopher
BremBle
Founder and CEO
www.base-fx.com
companies are changing from a
traditional model to streamlined
development right now,” he says.
But they’re not there yet, and Longji
describes the current period as one
of “transition”, in which “pipelines
will need to be more simplistic and
practical” for a little longer.
For that reason, it would be brave
for a foreign company to launch an
offshoot in China right now, adds
his colleague, QiHui Li. “For
a purely foreign team in
China, things would be
difficult since they won’t
understand the perspective of the
Chinese and the business
environment,” he believes. “It would
be better to partner with a Chinese
company first. Then they could both
live and grow in the complex and
expanding Chinese market.”
But in all honesty, it’s most likely
to be homegrown firms who end up
dominating that enormous market.
That’s certainly what Original Force
believes, anyway. Founded in 1999,
the company, which works on gaming,
animation and CGI production, was
invited in 2011 to spend two years
producing the Dreamworks TV series,
Dragon: Riders of Berk.
“Then this April we revealed
the first big screen project
of our own,” says founder
Harley Zhao. And it’s very
much the way forward for the
company as he sees it.
“Outsourcing will be our steady
foundation, but we’re also trying to turn
ourselves from a purely outsourcing
company into a one that can add
to its brand value continuously,” he
says. “We’ve established our creative
production team in both China and LA,
we have the best talents in the industry,
and we’ve got the most incredible IPs
in our hands,” Harley continues.
“We’ve kept the dream in our heart
from day one and are walking on our
way to achieve it. Sooner or later, we
will make the world know about the
most amazing animation movies that
were made by Original Force.”
For more on The Jiangye Newtown
fYI Technology Park: www.bit.ly/Jiangye
3D WorlD August 2015
19
“For expats looking
to work in China, I’d
firstly say that though
there are definitely
opportunities it
remains a very
different world from
Western society and
it takes a level of
patience, humour
and humility to be
successful here. It
also takes learning
some Chinese, which
can be a challenge.
China is in the
midst of an amazing
transformation,
with a deep sense
of its history and
a real hunger to
move beyond the
past. There are great
opportunities for
TDs, supervisors,
and specialists in
areas like massive or
facial rigging, which
haven’t been fully
developed in China.
I’ve been here 13
years and it’s home
to me now.”
3dworld.creativebloq.com
harley Zhao
Qihui li
CEO, Original Force
www.of3d.com
CG editor, OxygenTec
www.oxygentec.com
“There’s currently an
enormous demand
for TV cartoon
episodes to fill the
hours of airtime
on children’s TV
channels. Because
of the strict central
government
regulation of
overseas cartoons,
demand for Chinese
cartoon content
has never dropped
in the past decade.
This means many
investors are seeking
opportunities to put
money into local
cartoon production,
and are seeking
to build their own
licensing business
in China; they’re all
hoping to benefit
from the long-term
brand value of a
character like
Mickey Mouse.”
“Although many
problems and barriers
exist in China, good
companies continue
to stubbornly survive.
Development needs
perseverance and
patience; after all,
this industry is a
delicate balance
between fine
arts and science
and technology
artisanship. There
is an old saying in
China, ’constant
dropping wears away
a stone’ – or as you
might say, ‘Rome
wasn’t built in a day.’
So by introducing
advanced foreign
teams of artists into
China and creating
a better business
model, we hope to
drive the health and
development of local
3D talent.”
Communit y
Industry interview
industRy inteRview
GET YOUR GAME FACE ON
Character artist Tom Isaksen shares his
advice for working in video games
T
Tom Isaksen
Tom is a 3D character
artist from Denmark
with more than 15 years
of industry experience.
He is currently senior
character artist at
Ubisoft Paris.
www.characterink.com
he character designer for the famous action game
Hitman, Tom Isaksen, says, “As an artist, more than
anything, you have to understand how video games
and real-time graphics work, it’s not enough to ‘just’ be
great at sculpting or painting. You need to have a good
understanding of the whole process.”
With over 15 years in the industry and best-selling games
to his name, his tips are golden to any wannabe game artist.
After quitting his job, Tom pursued a career in 3D graphics
and in 2000 graduated from Bournemouth University. “I
spent some time teaching myself how to make
low poly game characters,” he says, and this
landed him a job with IO Interactive.
Tom worked as lead character artist on Hitman
Absolution, spending a year just developing the production
pipeline for characters to improve quality from the previous
games. “Regardless of platform and hardware changes you
always need to improve graphics from previous games, so
a lot of effort went into optimising/improving old tools and
techniques while introducing new ones. 3D face scanning
became a big factor in making the characters for the game.”
Real-time rendering
When creating a character, such as his new Sandtroopers
Star Wars fan art (pictured right), Tom begins with research
and concept art, then creates as detailed a character as
he can, “millions of polygons – it’s
only after the high polygon creation
process the differences start to show,”
he says, explaining his rendering
approach: “Real-time rendering is still
all about optimising your work, making
the most of as little as possible,” he
says. “Octane Render is almost like
using a real-time game engine, but
without having to cheat to achieve
realism. I currently use it on all of my personal artwork, I like
to be free of the restrictions of a game engine, while still
having almost instant feedback on my work.”
When it comes to succeeding these days, Tom has some
sage advice for anyone wanting to get into the industry:
“Today the industry is very specialised, but in order to be
great you need to know how to push the quality to the limit
and how to make sure your assets fit into the entire pipeline.”
“I think it’s important to have a drive that will keep you
pushing the quality of your work, always searching for new
workflow optimisations and more render-efficient graphics,
something you can only really do if you understand how the
game engine works.”
But most of all, “do it because it’s your passion and you’re
prepared to work hard, it’s a competitive field where you
always have to stay relevant. Be curious and constantly
challenge yourself.”
You can see more of Tom Isaksen’s personal renders and
FYI art online at his website www.characterink.com
Octane Render is almost
like using a real-time game
engine, but without having
to cheat to achieve realism
3D WorlD August 2015
20
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“I grew up with Star Wars and
have always been a big fan, and
with the new movie coming I
thought it would be nice to take a
moment to remember the original
designs that, in my opinion,
still stand the test of time”
Communit y
Industry interview
industry interview
SecretS of the world builderS
Ubisoft share the lessons learned from moving Assassin’s Creed to Victorian London
M
Thierry
Dansereau
Thierry is art director for
Ubisoft Quebec and has
worked in gaming since
1997. His big break was
Prince of Persia: The
Forgotten Sands.
quebec.ubisoft.com
oving a well-known gaming
franchise to a whole new world
means even more attention on
your environmental work than usual –
everything will have to be spot on.
So with Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
moving to the open-world stealth
series to Victorian London, how did
Thierry Dansereau, art director at
Ubisoft Quebec, cope with
the high expectations?
In a word: research. “We’ve
spent months educating
ourselves about Victorian London
through history books, photo
references, movies and old city maps,”
Thierry explains. “We want to gather
as much knowledge about the world
we’re building, from architecture, to
the city layout, to technology, to how
people lived. We tried to learn as
much as we can.”
There were also references to draw
from, as photography was starting to
become popular in Victorian London,
ensuring greater accuracy. Plus, Ubisoft
invited historians – both in-house and
external experts – to their studio to
validate their ideas.
The team also spent time in London
to get a better sense of how the
elements in the city relate to each
other. “The atmosphere and the
topography of the city, things that the
maps and pictures can’t fully capture,”
Thierry explains. “I’ve personally
walked about 70km in London to
feel the vibe as much as possible!”
3D WorlD August 2015
22
3dworld.creativebloq.com
For other artists embarking on building
a new world, Thierry has this advice to
offer. “First find what’s cool about the
world you’re trying to build, and how it
relates with the interactive experience
you’re creating. In our case, things like
landmarks, railroads, the River Thames,
gang ridden slums, were all things that
felt cool and also serve a gameplay
purpose. We built around these as
‘must haves’, which are strong world
elements that are part of the core of
the game, not just visually but also
mechanically.”
Thierry’s second tip is that contrast is
essential. “It’s important to look further
than just architecturally rebuilding a
setting,” he explains. “The Industrial
Revolution is loaded with contrasting
Ubisoft’s team spent
months researching
Victorian London
in order to build an
accurate world
how they built it
Thierry admits there
are more boundaries
when creating a
historically based
environment
You want to capture the differences in how people
live in different parts of town, which areas were
darker, poorer, richer, more crowded…
themes and we pushed the differences
into our seven districts as far as we
could, while remaining as historically
accurate as possible.”
“You want to capture the differences
in how people live in different parts
of town, which areas were darker,
poorer, richer, more crowded,
traditional, industrialised, dangerous,
commercial… and support all that with
the appropriate architectural signature.”
It’s easier to create contrast in worlds
that are based on fantasy, he points
out, since there are less boundaries
than an historical setting. “However,
the former can also be a challenge as it
is easier to pull away too far from what
is believable and create things that
don’t fit in your game’s fantasy.”
In contrast, for a historical open
world game like Assassin’s Creed
Syndicate, it’s important to nail down
the small details accurately since
the players already have a base of
comparison and a preconceived
idea of what to expect of 1868
London. “This probably makes the
polish work a bit harder,” Thierry
admits. “But at the same time, it can
be more rewarding.”
Ultimately though, he argues,
“World design is world design,
whether it is fantasy or a realistic
setting. The goal in both cases is to
create a rich and plausible world that
players want to explore.”
To learn more about Ubisoft Quebec,
fyi visit www.quebec.ubisoft.com
3D WorlD August 2015
23
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An open world environment the size
of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate doesn’t
come cheap, and a huge number
of artists were needed to work on
developing it, explains
Jonathan Dumont, level
design world director for
Ubisoft Entertainment.
“The number varied during the creation
process, but at its peak we’d have
close to 200 artists working on the
game,” he explains.
Modelling on the game was mostly
done using 3ds Max, Lightroom,
Photoshop and ZBrush. “For characters,
we also used Photoshop and Lightroom
along with 3D-Coat, xNormal and
UV Layout. Our pipelines are well
established with these software
packages and fully compatible with our
in-house game editor.”
But despite all that, the artists still
had to work their socks off, he adds.
“The expectations were extremely high,
the workload was enormous, and the
teams were huge and located across
the world,” says Jonathan. “You could
compare the production of a game of
this magnitude with a marathon.”
If that sounds negative, though, it’s
not meant to: as Jonathan feels very
positive about the experience. “We had
the chance to work on a brand with
a tremendous fan base,” he enthuses,
“and it’s very rewarding to know that
our work will be in the hands of gamers
on October 23rd, 2015.”
Such passion is something he
believes to be vital for anyone who
wants to make it as an artist in the
games industry. “Without passion, it’s
very difficult to evolve your skills,” he
reasons, “since it takes considerable
efforts to keep progressing and
challenging yourself.”
“You also have to believe in yourself,
to have ambition and to practise,” he
adds. “Practise and practise as well as
to stay humble, since there is always
someone better than you.”
Finally, Jonathan recommends you
dedicate yourself to pushing your limits
and learn to love working with others.
“Today’s development teams are
bigger and bigger,” he points out,
“and you’ll have to work with a lot
of different people. As an artist, you
have to not only be able to work well
with others, but to fully embrace the
teamwork mentality.”
AdvertoriAl
Lenovo ThinkStation
hardware
Lenovo workstations:
empowering 3D artists everywhere
Introducing the best-designed workstations ever for 3D creatives
D
Mike Leach
A graphics workstation
evangelist with over
15 years’ experience,
Mike works as a product
technologist for Lenovo
UK, specialising in
Lenovo’s ThinkStation P
Series and ThinkPad W
Series products.
www.lenovo.com
The ThinkStation
P series offers
performance and
reliability you need
for professional work,
at an affordable price
igital artists need powerful and
reliable workstations to work at
their best, in an ever-evolving
3D industry. With this in mind, leading
computer technology company Lenovo
has built a brand-new product range
– the Lenovo ThinkStation P series –
specifically to accommodate the needs
of 3D artists.
“We’ve completely gone
back to the drawing board
and reengineered it from the
ground-up,” says product technologist
Mike Leach. “What we have now is the
world’s best designed workstation.”
Unparalleled usability
Based on the latest Intel Haswell
processors and powered by Nvidia
Quadro Professional 3D graphics cards,
the Lenovo ThinkStation P series is
a market-leading workstation range.
Designed for ease of use and with
the user always in mind, the Lenovo
ThinkStation P series has unparalleled
usability, featuring a completely
modular design, with red touch points
highlighting every removable and
serviceable item, including power
supply, fan and hard disc drives.
“You could strip the unit down to a
bare, empty chassis in less than four
minutes, with no training or tools,” Mike
comments. “You don’t have to be a
trained IT technician – anything with a
red touch point can be easily removed
and upgraded.” This easy-to-use,
flexible system enables artists to add
options as and when they are needed.
These options include the ability
to change power supply size with the
Lenovo ThinkStation Flex PSUs. The
Lenovo ThinkStation P Series also
benefits from integrated card holders,
in which graphics cards can easily be
inserted and removed without the need
for screws. There’s also a dedicated
diagnostic USB port, whereby users
can plug in any Android-based tablet
or smartphone for system analysis,
saving precious time and money on
diagnosing errors.
exceptional graphics capabilities
The top-end Lenovo ThinkStation P900
can support up to a staggering four
high-end NVIDIA Quadro graphics
cards, delivering potential for over ten
thousand GPU cores to the desktop,
making this perfect for complicated
GPU rendering and intensive real-time
simulation tasks.
Outstanding storage performance
3D projects are renowned for needing
huge amounts of storage space, and
the Lenovo engineers have considered
this carefully. New FLEX features deliver
a fully loaded experience, offering
various benefits to 3D artists, including
We’ve gone back to the
drawing board, reengineering
it from the ground-up
the FLEX connector, a proprietary
PCI-E slot to Lenovo that delivers
high-performance connectivity.
The workstations also come
equipped with FLEX Drives, which
support high-performance M.2 PCIe
SSDs, to deliver extreme hard disc
performance without sacrificing an
I/O slot.
Users can also benefit from more
HDD without the need for more space.
A newly designed HDD tray supports
both 2.5” and 3.5” hard drives. And with
one tray supporting two hard drives,
users can add a staggering 14 drives
on the Lenovo ThinkStation P900.
a fully loaded experience
With all of these features wrapped up
into a sleek and stylish chassis, and
products available from under £700
with up to five years’ manufacturer’s
warranty available, it’s not hard to
see how the Lenovo ThinkStation P
series has become the most powerful,
reliable and best designed workstation
on the market.
For the full range of Lenovo
Fyi workstations visit www.lenovo.com
3D WorlD August 2015
24
3dworld.creativebloq.com
Lenovo
ThinkStation,
powered by
NVIDIA
pushing
power
A workstation that
won’t let you down
Top speed and
reLiabiLiTy
A considerable
upgrade, powered
by the new Nvidia
Quadro™ Kepler
series of graphic
card, the Lenovo
ThinkStation P series
is up 96 per cent
faster than previous
generations of
workstation. And it
won’t let you down
when you need it –
the ThinkStation P
series is a whopping
56 per cent more
reliable than the
industry average.
The ThinkStation P
900 delivers extreme
performance perfect
for rendering and
simulation. It also
boasts the highest
storage capacity in
the industry
3D WorlD August 2015
25
3dworld.creativebloq.com
Communit y
Short Cuts
short cuts
organic meets mechanical
in a tale oF two worlds
get published
email your short to
ian.dean@futurenet.com
How hope and a heavy dose of Tatooine came to inspire
Andy Lefton’s imaginative short, Two Worlds
Andy Lefton
Senior digital artist
Andy currently works
as a freelance 3D/VFX
generalist. He has over 12
years’ experience in the
broadcast, film and digital
illustration industries.
www.andylefton.com
vital
statistics
teAM
Writer, animator, effects
and compositor
Andy Lefton
Music
Thomas J. Peters
Jeff Butta
Sound design
Lister Rossel
Andy Lefton
country
USA
SoftwAre
After Effects
Cinema 4D
production tiMe
Five years
Finding hope in the bleakest
of moments, Andy Lefton’s
short has been almost a
decade in the making,
proving that his relentless faith (and
a lot of hard work) can lead to great
things. “I’ve always been influenced
by post-apocalyptic and sci-fi themes,
but with hope being the main catalyst,”
Andy reveals. “The idea started out
when I was a student in college. I
wanted to create a diverse cast of
characters and felt a relationship with
a character that’s organic in nature and
another that’s robotic in nature would
be interesting. With all the pristine
looking characters out there, I felt the
opposite direction was the route that
I wanted to take for this. Keeping the
colour palette neutral and not too
saturated helped to portray this world
as desolate and barren.”
Being the sole artist on the entire
project posed challenges for Andy but
he brought some talented folk onboard
to assist with the sound design and
score. “I went through many iterations
of the set geometry, character look
development and environment R&D.
Bringing all of these together tallied
over 100 shots and seven and a half
minutes of animation and compositing,
so this was the biggest challenge.”
How long did the short take you
to produce?
The idea has been in my head for
about a decade, but actual production
was approximately five years on and off.
I have other obligations in life, such as a
full-time job and music. It was more of
a part-time gig for me that eventually
became a priority. Shelving the project
With all the pristine looking
characters out there, I felt
the opposite direction was
the route that I wanted
to take with this
1
at times was quite disheartening – that’s
when going freelance really gave me
the opportunity to dive in full force.
So that last year of production was the
busiest and most satisfying.
What 3D software did you use for the
short, and why?
Cinema 4D was my main 3D application.
I’ve been using C4D for approximately
14 years and built everything from
concepts, previz and animatics to final
3D output and rendering. GI was used
via C4D’s AR renderer. Also integrating
TurbulenceFD into the C4D pipeline
was an asset on its own.
What was the most impressive
technical aspect of the project and
how did you achieve this using
3D software?
Creating emotion from characters
that had limited capabilities. With
L.O.I.D and Snibb not having a mouth,
I relied on vocal expressions and eye
movements to convey their messages
3D WorlD August 2015
26
3dworld.creativebloq.com
and thoughts. Using morph targets
and set-driven keys was a great asset in
bringing these expressions to life.
Did anything go wrong in production
and what lessons did you learn?
Of course, due to so much R&D being
involved, but the entire process honed
my abilities and knowledge. Textures
were a challenge due to so much dirt
and grime and I didn’t want to slap
any old texture on, so working with UV
layouts and painting up custom maps
were always a task. Pacing the story
overall was a challenge, too. I didn’t
want to overkill on the pacing or want it
to drag on, so finding that balance was
a lesson learned.
What’s next for you?
Besides currently working as a freelance
3D and VFX generalist, I’m working on
my next short. I’d also like to find more
opportunities to work in film.
Watch the full short at
Fyi www.twoworldsfilm.com
1 There was a lot of
R&D with the look of
Snibb’s world. Ground
shots had different
texture shifts to keep
continuity in the
changing environment.
2 Snibb was unable to
send a distress signal.
Using C4D’s 3D pipeline
into After Effects
was invaluable for
integrating screen and
environment elements.
3 TurbulenceFD was
used in multiple shots
with L.O.I.D’s ship, the
Lucky Strike, including
some interior shots
after colliding with
space debris.
4 The pinnacle of
the story sees Snibb
and L.O.I.D bond and
realise friendship is key
to survival. We used
a composer and the
music really helped.
2
3
4
5
6
5 We meet L.O.I.D
when he’s woken
by the space debris
collision. Set-driven
animation was used in
most head, neck, eye
and finger movements.
DeserteD LanD
One of the biggest challenges was nailing down the environment
look and how this setting would react to the barren and
sometimes rough elements like wind, dust and so forth. Therefore
creating a smooth pipeline with dynamics (cloth, hair, rigid),
and being able to export the 3D data into After Effects was a
necessity, so everything had to be organised accordingly for
compositing. I built a multitude of 2D dust plates via Particular
and also used some particle footage as foreground elements.
Another technical asset used was set-driven keys on some of the
characters’ movements and things like Snibb’s hover seat.
6 Rigid dynamics were
a valuable tool for
the random elements
lingering around.
I wanted to give a
sense of occupancy,
so creating things like
simple mobiles, cloth
flapping and plant
life (food source)
really helped to bring
some life to the
environment.
7
7 A vital part of the
entire story was how
the camera represented
the characters. I had
a limited amount of
static shots. Even
when the camera
was still, I made
sure to add the
slightest amount
of camera float.
3D WorlD August 2015
27
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Communit y
Industry interview
industry interview
When games become movies
Kazuyuki Ikumori and the Eidos Montreal team behind
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided’s CG movies talk perfect cinematics
C
KazuyuKi iKumori
Chief creative director of
Visual Works, Kazuyuki
has many years experience
creating CG cinematics and
contributed to titles such as
Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider,
Hitman and Deus Ex as
well as the groundbreaking
movie, Final Fantasy: The
Spirits Within.
www.bit.ly/197-kazuyuki
Jean-Francois
Dugas
Jean-Francois is executive
game director at Eidos
Montreal. He’s worked
in video games since the
days of the Nintendo 64
console and was game
director on Deus Ex:
Human Revolution
www.bit.ly/197-Dugas
reating a game is one thing, but selling the idea
of that game to millions is another skill altogether.
That’s why Square Enix has its own CG movie
studio, Visual Works – creators of the cinematics for the
forthcoming Deus Ex: Mankind Divided for Eidos Montreal.
The team begin by understanding the game, discussing
with the developer the key ideas, themes and story
elements that need to be conveyed in the trailer. “A really
in-depth understanding of the game universe
and world really helps when making a cinematic,”
says Kazuyuki Ikumori, chief creative director of
Visual Works. “It’s vital that the cinematic team
really understands the game and its feature set to ensure
we can showcase them in the trailer.”
The team work closely with the developer to grasp the
core ideas for the game, and even help create models that
will move from the cinematic and into the game itself, says
Kazuyuki: “The game developers then usually provide us
with the in-game models. These models can actually
be work-in-progress versions that we work together
on to finalise. So Visual Works actually made some
adjustments to the character models that are then used
in the game itself.”
Working on cinematics as the game is still in
development raises more problems, “it makes it
very challenging to stay true to the game,” says
Jean-Francois Dugas, executive game director
at Eidos Montreal. “However, it is always our goal. And
sometimes we need to make a decision for the trailer even
before we’re ready to commit for the actual game.”
The world of game cinematic creation doesn’t stand
still. In his career Kazuyuki has seen many changes but new
technology means real-time visuals and cinematics are
getting closer, which means cinematic artists need to share
assets and work closer with game developers.
The team need to have
an understanding of the
game so they know what
needs to be conveyed in
three minutes
3D WorlD August 2015
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3dworld.creativebloq.com
cinematic tips
Kazuyuki ikumori, chief creative director of Visual Works
shares his key insights into creating game cinematics
Facial animation tips
We used displacement for facials to
bring in the wrinkle expressions. It used
to be hard for animators to manually
animate and set the timing right for the
detailed facial wrinkles during expressions
but thanks to [Maya’s] Viewport 2.0,
animators are now able to review them
at nearly real-time. We used skin slide
techniques to express a physical skin
feel. Instead of moving the real mesh, we
moved UV to create the fake map gaps.
Q&a: Jonathan
JacQues-belletête
executive art director
of eidos montreal
What do you think makes a good
video game cinematic?
It’s highly related to your
actual game. If you have
a good game, there’s a
good story, art direction,
interesting characters, as well as a good
sound score, then it should transpire in
your trailer. If you manage to control
these assets properly and present
them skillfully in your trailer through
a highly fined tuned combination of
pacing, composition, reveals, action and
dialogue then you’re on the right track
for a powerful trailer that will resonate
with your audience.
VFX techniques
To express and increase the volume of the
dust in the air we used FumeFX. We also
used Houdini for some heroic effects such
as Adam’s titan shield, to express the fluid
transformation of magnetic like substance.
lighting aDVice
At the beginning of production we
considered several renderers. We were
using mental ray before, but we used
V-Ray this time to express the Deus
Ex universe feel and develop a new
pipeline. This has enabled us to use wider
expressions including global illuminations,
mesh lighting, volume lighting, which
all be used to be difficult to use in our
previous lighting pipeline.
“It was never a problem if cinematics
and in-game visuals were completely
different before, but today, we need
to create a consistent look. I would
say this is the key change,” explains
Kazuyuki, adding: “However, the
ongoing improvements in the power of
today’s gaming machines means that
in-game models and visuals that derive
from the ones we create for cinematics
will only need very small tweaks one
day. The gap between CG cinematics
and in-game visuals is closing.”
Jean-Francois Dugas agrees, saying:
“In-game visuals are still limited by
technical constraints because we stay
in real-time – we need a good frame
rate at any given time. For a cinematic,
we can build a render farm to process
all the data that is not restricted to
real-time considerations.”
There are tricks to merging in-game
and cinematic visuals, though, “by
using the same colour palette, world
feel and atmosphere, the gap can be
greatly reduced. Cinematics would
give the impression of slightly more
beautiful visuals, but we try not to
be far from the impressions that are
offered in-game,” says Kazuyuki.
A really in-depth understanding of the
game universe and world really helps
when making a cinematic
Kazuyuki Ikumori, Chief creative director, Visual Works
Jonathan
Jacques-belletête
Executive art director
of Eidos Montreal,
Jonathan has over ten
years’ experience in
video games with titles
including Deus Ex:
Human Revolution
and Far Cry:
Instincts on his CV.
www.jayjaybe.tumblr.com
With so much effort involved, can
Kazuyuki distance himself to settle on a
favourite shot? “From a director’s point
of view, the shot of Jensen’s Icarus
wings shows the feel of Deus Ex and
the scene is artistically the coolest,” he
says. “I think it’s my best and also my
favourite scene.”
Jonathan Jacques-Belletête,
executive art director of
Eidos Montreal disagrees,
“It’s by far the final shot
when the titan shield spawns over the
close-up of Adam’s face and hand. It’s
a magnificent shot and creates a super
strong signature for the product as a
whole while being an exact promise for
the game itself.” Even in a three minute
cinematic, we can all have our moments.
To learn more about Square Enix
FYi visit www.square-enix.com
3D WorlD August 2015
29
3dworld.creativebloq.com
What was the biggest challenge
you faced with Deux ex?
Getting the actual story and pacing
right. The toughest things were not the
actual 3D assets and rendering… the
hardest thing has really been the preconception of the trailer. Making sure
that it had the right tone, the right way
of presenting the story, the right balance
between action and slower parts and
that it represented well the soul of the
game and all its complex principal parts.
We went through tons of storyboards
and animatics to get there. Tons.
Do you need to ensure that what
you represent in a trailer is
offered in-game?
I believe that the biggest part of what
you show in a trailer should be a very
good representation of what you will
offer in the game, either through the
story, the visual design, or the gameplay
itself. However, I’m perfectly fine with
taking some liberties with certain
things, but they must be very well
calculated and thought out. The things
that are not exact take-outs of the
final game should still fit perfectly well
within the overall mold and essence of
the final retail product. People should be
able to identify these ‘meta’ additions
within the trailer and easily understand
why they still fit in the overall narrative
or presentation and why it was
acceptable and even necessary to
include them in the trailer.
Communit y
Industry interview
There are more than
300 stunts in the film
so VFX was used
exclusively to achieve
the unachievable
industry interview
While Mad Max: Fury Road features plenty
of in-camera FX, the movie relied on CG to
bring the most extreme sequences to life
KicKing up a storm
Tom Wood explains how Iloura created the challenging
toxic storm sequence in the latest Mad Max movie
F
Tom Wood
Tom Wood is VFX
supervisor at Iloura, an
animation and visual
effects collective based
in Australia.
www.iloura.com.au
ans of the original Mad Max films
have been waiting decades for
a reboot, bringing the benefits
of new technology to the apocalyptic
franchise. But the makers of Mad Max:
Fury Road didn’t want the action to be
overly CGI-dominated, explains Tom
Wood, VFX supervisor at Iloura.
“The approach from day one
was to try to achieve as much
as possible in camera,” he
explains. “There are more
than 300 stunts in the film so VFX
was used exclusively to achieve the
unachievable. This meant we made the
storm and the citadel environment as
stand-out VFX elements.”
The toxic storm sequence (pictured
above) first came to Iloura as an
incomplete post-vis construction, along
with some concept art from Method
London. Working out of their Sydney
studio, Iloura sourced huge amounts
of real twister footage to specify the
visceral effects that would make most
impact on screen.
“The main, large core of the twisters
were 3D volumes, almost entirely
shader based, allowing internal
lighting,” Tom reveals. “These were
then wrapped in multiple, dense
particle simulations that connected to
the ground and sky.
Making the storm
The sky was a 3D, animated matte
painting created as numerous layers
in Photoshop and assembled in Nuke,
he says. “As the plates were shot in
full sun, the vehicles were tracked and
partially re-lit in CG to sit in the dark
environment. The ground was often
replaced to give greater speed and an
undriven, clean look.”
3D WorlD August 2015
30
3dworld.creativebloq.com
As the plates were shot
in full sun, the vehicles
were tracked and partially
re-lit in CG to sit in the
dark environment
The epic storm scene
before the VFX, and
below as it appears
on cinema screens
soFtware
release
The Foundry
releases Modo 901
neW release
Modo 901 launched
to a fanfare in San
Francisco in May
as artists from
Wolverine, CoSA
VFX and PlayStudios
demoed the app’s
new features…
vieWporT TWeeks
You can manipulate
geometry and
materials in a realtime setting that
accurately displays
lighting and shadows,
BRDF materials,
reflections, gloss,
screen-space ambient
occlusion, highquality transparency,
anti-aliasing,
supersampling and a
number of 2D postprocessing effects.
beTTer TexTures
A new option in the
Parametric Ink tool
enables you to use
surface parameters
to vary the opacity
of the applied paint,
while a new texture
switch node and
wireframe shader
extend texturing
possibilities.
Onto this, Iloura added layer upon layer
of individual dust simulations. “Ground
dust that looked like arctic ice racing
close to the surface, rivers of dense
dust up to window height, large,
dense clouds of roiling dust the
vehicles swept through, and a huge
volume that gives a modulation to
visibility into the distance. On top of
these, we added CG and practical
element grit and light variation
to immerse the camera into the
experience,” Tom enthuses.
Lightning strikes were also added as
light sources casting shadows onto, and
lighting through, the dust layers. “These
had a whole series of choreography
passes reviewed by director George
Miller to accent the action, building to
the final ‘crash-endo’.”
For more about Iloura and to see their
FYi showreel visit www.iloura.com.au
3D WorlD August 2015
31
The film’s incredible
explosions and fire
were added digitally
3dworld.creativebloq.com
rendering
Modo 901 offers
a new choice of
BRDF material that
better matches
specular highlights
on real materials, and
offers control over
blurry reflections.
The material is
compatible with
the new advanced
viewport.
Communit y
Industry event
coMMunity
news
What’s caught our
eye this month
industry event
20 years of fMX
Kerrie Hughes on how virtual reality stole
the show at the 20th annual FMX conference
A
John Root
John is a 20 year veteran
of VFX, feature films
and video games. He’s
motion capture lead at
Magic Leap and is also
the co-founder of Virtual
Reality Los Angeles.
www.magicleap.com
s experts, professionals and students gathered to
discover the recent trends in digital entertainment
at this year’s FMX, it was clear one thing was on
everybody’s minds: virtual reality. A key focus this year, VR
and virtual production dominated much of the conference.
FMX welcomed VR pioneer and director of the Mixed
Reality Lab at the Institute for Creative Technologies Mark
Bolas, who discussed his influence on the development
of the Occulus Rift and his ideas on VR, a place he calls
“elsewhere.” In an engaging discussion with FMX associate
and professor in the Department of Computer Science at
New York University, Ken Perlin, Mark showcased his first
VR attempts from over 20 years ago.
John Root of Google-backed augmented reality company
Magic Leap urged artists to be culpable, noting that the
biggest obstacle currently facing VR is responsible content.
“It’s very important that we create responsibly,”
he said, pointing out that while VR is already in
the front room of many homes, there’s no way to
monitor it which presents a very immediate danger.
“Be a good person and respect the human brain,” he added.
Academy award-winning senior VFX supervisor and
director at Weta Digital, Joe Letteri also presented to an
overflowing hall on how Weta has implemented virtual
production into its pipeline – it’s the ability to make films
in a digital setting, in real time. Joe commented that virtual
production is “still in its infancy” but that it will soon “define
movie making.”
3D WorlD August 2015
32
Joe Letteri explained
how Weta Digital had
embraced digital
production techniques for
their mocap production
Using The Hobbit’s fictional
dragon Smaug and actor Benedict
Cumberbatch as an example, Joe
commented: “Even though more
digital characters are being used,
actors still play a pivotal role.
Performance is key. Actors work in
the moment, bringing drama to a
scene that you would otherwise
have to think about in a different
way. But virtual production gives
actors the ability to play a character
that otherwise they couldn’t
physically do.”
the future’s bright
While there’s still a long way to go
with virtual reality, it’s clear that a
key focus in the CG industry right
now is this technology and it’s
seemingly endless possibilities.
And if this year’s demonstrations,
including Crytek’s popular VR demo
Back to Dinosaur Island are anything
to go by, the future of VR looks to be
very exciting.
For more on FMX and to register for
fyi next year’s show visit www.fmx.de
3dworld.creativebloq.com
RecoRd bReaking
mocap attempt
Motion capture
technology specialist
Vicon, joined forces
with Audiomotion
Studios to set a
new world record
for the most people
motion-captured in
real-time: 19 people.
The attempt, which
featured two UK
based hip hop dance
crews, took place in
Oxford on 9 March
this year and was
adjudicated by Gary
Marshall, motion
capture supervisor at
Framestore, and The
Imaginarium Studios’
Rebecca-Louise
Leybourne. Go to
www.bit.ly/197-vicon
and watch the record
breaking feat.
RendeR faRms
solved
PipelineFX has
launched Qube!Tube,
a free online service
providing training
on using render
farm management
software. Visit www.
pipelinefx.com/
qubetube to catch
up on free resources,
video training and
tutorials to get the
most from Qube!
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Artist
EXPErt PANEL
Q&A
Cirstyn BechYagher
Cirstyn is a freelance
CG artist and educator,
with over 15 years experience in 3D.
Her clients include AMD and DAZ 3D.
www.northern-studios.com
Christiano Pires
Christiano has been an
audiovisual producer for
nine years specialising
in video editing, motion design and
video direction.
www.behance.net/christianopires
Your software queries solved
by our CG experts
Kieran McKay
Kieran works in the
games industry as a
professional 3D character
artist. He’s currently based in the UK
working with Sony/Guerrilla Games.
www.kieranmckay.co.uk
Mike Griggs
Mike is a UK-based
freelance 3D, VFX and
mograph artist, who has
been polishing pixels since 1995 for
broadcast and commercial projects.
www.creativebloke.com
Rob Redman
Rob runs a 3D animation
and VFX studio, working
for clients ranging from
governments to rock stars. He’s also
an industry commentator and trainer.
www.pariahstudios.co.uk
Get in touch
EmAiL your quEstioNs to
ian.dean@futurenet.com
3D WorlD August 2015
36
3dworld.creativebloq.com
expert tip
ciNEmA 4d | PhotoshoP
How can I create neon typography in Cinema 4D?
Setting the lamps
Using Spline and Sweep
create lamps and set them
manually, changing their
sizes to follow the 70 and
S design. This way you
can create a gradual
and interesting look.
Daniel Barrett, UK
Christiano replies
Working with neon lights in
any 3D software demands
special attention, especially
when working with reflective
materials. Having said that, it’s quite easy
to produce a neon effect in Cinema 4D,
and as I will show you, if added to a good
If added to a good construction of
splines and typography, and finished in
Photoshop, you can get an interesting look
construction of splines and typography,
and finished in Photoshop, you can get a
very interesting look.
It’s important to observe the
interaction between the real-life lights
and the objects, so you can simulate
the same effects on your material.
Cinema 4D has one of the
friendliest interfaces on the
market, so applying a neon light
to a scene is simple. The material
sets and the lights that illuminate the
final scene will give a special touch to
your project.
In my example, I’ve created some text
in Cinema 4D, using a stylised font with
the Text tool – unlike the other elements
in the scene that were initially sketched
in Illustrator and saved as Illustrator
8 – allowing you to create a series of
elements to compose the final scene,
and thereby saving you time.
With the .ai elements imported in
Cinema 4D, connect the splines to the
extruded objects. To get some volume
you can adjust Caps within the Extrude
tool. The 70s typography was duplicated
many times and interleaved between
extrude and sweep to create volume and
rounded contours, using a circle inside
the sweep within the text to generate
neon tubes on the typography shape.
Change the caps to get different
shapes and use materials with vibrant,
reflective and specular colours. Use
some material on the lamps and the tube
around the 70s with the Luminance on.
Light the scene using a three point light
setup: Key light, Fill light, Rim light. Try
different positions or use more than three
points until you get the result you wish.
When rendering, use the Standard
setup with Ambient Occlusion and
Global Illumination. Once the render
is finished, take it to Photoshop and
finish the composition with a few colour
corrections to improve the glow.
step-by step CreatIng neon art
one creatinG the typoGraphy
In Cinema 4D select Text on the top tool
bar. Choose the size and style of the
font, then type the text in the available
space. The text will appear automatically
on the main screen.
two Get the neon effect
Go to Materials>New Material. Click
on the material, activate the Luminance
and set the Brigthness between 200 per
cent and 600 per cent. Adjust the cursor
for the colour you wish, viewed in the
preview window. On the material, go to
Transparency and make the object 60 per
cent translucent and 30 per cent reflective.
Enable the Reflectance option.
three LiGhtinG the scene
Go to the menu and add three lights to
the scene. Using the three-point-light
technique, set the lights. When setting up
the lights, go to Type>Area to adjust the
Intensity values to get the result you wish.
You can use another fill light, adjusting the
parameters by clicking Shadow>Shadow
Maps (soft) to diffuse the hard aspect
generated from the other points of light.
four render setup
Use Ambient Occlusion and Global
Illumination with the standard setup.
Make a preview to check the light
positions. Move the lights closer or
further away from the typography to get
the results you want. Once the render is
finished, open it in Photoshop and finish
with some curve layers to highlight the
colours and the glow.
3D WorlD August 2015
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3dworld.creativebloq.com
expert tip
Artist Q&A
substANcE dEsigNEr
How do I create a curvature map in Substance Designer?
Soften a harsh map
If anti-aliasing by scaling down
isn’t an option, try putting a
Greyscale HQ-blur from the library
between the maps’ output and
input nodes to soften it. Give it a
low Intensity setting and a high
Quality setting, bake it out, and
load the tweaked bake to
save resources, as Blur is a
resource-expensive node.
Emilio Londiono, UK
Cirstyn replies
Also called a convexity or
concave map, a curvature
map is a map that stores the
peaks (convexities) and hollows
(concaves) of a model. This rendered map
lets you create a mask where a surface or
texture would get more wear, tear, or dirt
accumulation. On a monochrome map,
white areas are where the model is the
most bent, or curved – which is where
it will get the most wear. Grey areas are
typically even, and black ones denote dips
or dents that accumulate dirt and debris.
It’s easy to create curvature maps
in Substance Designer because the
application is built to be a one-stoptexturing stop. You can plug the rendered
map straight into your node and use it
to control how you dirty up your texture.
As always, a good modelling routine
lays the groundwork for great texturing,
so remember some basics before
importing your model; make sure it has
a good, flat set of non-obstructed or
mirrored UVs to work from or the bake
may not come out right, with islands
crossing or sitting on top of each other.
If you’re a ready-to-render content
creator, remember to save your model
with normals, or you risk getting a blocky,
practically unworkable map.
After having created a new package
for your resource in Substance Designer,
right-click, and select Bake Model
Information. As a curvature map is
dependent on a normal map, select
Normal Map from the dropdown in the
Bakers tab, and remember to check your
normal orientation based on your host
application – in OpenGL(Unity) Z is up,
whereas it’s Y in DirectX. Set the rest of
your normal options, and when you’re
Plug the rendered map into
your node and use it to control
how you dirty up your texture
done, select Curvature map from the
Bakers dropdown and set your algorithm
to Per Pixel, as it will give more detailed
results. I like rendering my curvature
maps out in 4k, so I can shrink them
down and get an extra, old school antialias, should I get jaggy edges. Select
From Previous Baker in the Normal
map dropdown, check your Normal
Orientation so it matches your host
application, and press OK. Voilá!
Instant curvature map!
Keep an eye on your normals, in
particular if you provide readyto-render content. Erroneous
normals can generate blocky
maps, in turn generating
stripey maps affecting your
render, as shown
3D WorlD August 2015
38
3dworld.creativebloq.com
modo
How do I use different
backgrounds for lighting
and final render?
expert tip
Mix background elements
Modo can support multiple
environments, which can be
animated. For example, colours
can be changed during the course
of an animation, or tie the position
of the gradient to a Texture
locator using the Input
Parameter dropdown in the
Gradient properties in the
Shader Tree. Experiment with
these features to create more
interesting results.
Suk Yin Chen, China
Mike replies
Modo’s render engine is
versatlie: It enables the set up
of complex shaders and camera
effects which minimise the
need to touch up the image in post.
The ability to have multiple
environments in an image or animation is
easy to set up. In particular, when doing
mograph work it can create new effects
or make effects such as depth of field
adjustments in post straightforward.
Using different environments gives
the opportunity to light with an HDR
image, and use another environment for
the render background, which could be
interactive dependant on the parameters
set up by the artist.
To use two environments firstly create
a lighting environment using an HDR
image. Modo comes with a wide range
of preset HDR environments. When
selecting the environment image in the
Shader Tree it can be rotated or moved
using the Properties palette to adjust
the look.
When the scene is lit, select the
Environment, right-click and duplicate.
Delete the image from the new
environment and then choose the type
of environment that’s to be visible to
the camera.
For the new Environment object, which
will be the background of the image,
Modo’s powerful
rendering and lighting
tools can minimise
any need to go to
post-production
Screen Y is
used, meaning
the gradient
remains constant
no matter what’s
happening with
the animation
3D WorlD August 2015
39
the ability to have multiple
environments in an image or
animation is easy to set up
in its Properties, ensure only Visible to
Camera is checked. In the Environment
that contains the HDR image, uncheck the
Visible to Camera option.
For motion graphics a gradient
can be a useful background. This
is added in the Shader Tree (Add
Layer>Processing>Gradient). Ensure
the Gradient Effect is set to Environment
Color then adjust the colour of the
gradient in the Properties palette by
using the Color Picker. Middle-click to
create a new colour. When the gradient
colours are set, set the input parameter
to the desired choice.
3dworld.creativebloq.com
The natural variation
of grass is easy to
simulate with Maxwell
Artist Q&A
expert tip
Flat, curve or tube?
Maxwell’s grass extension
provides three different methods
for generating the grass geometry
at render time. They each have
benefits so pick the type that suits
your image best. Flat can still
have bent fibres but each strand
is a flat polygon – less detailed
but very fast. Tubes are slow
but perfect for close ups
and curves are a good
middle ground.
ciNEmA 4d | mAXwELL rENdEr
How do I get good ground coverage in C4D using Maxwell Render?
Connie Ryan, US
Rob replies
The key to creating realistic grassy scenes is
chaos. This doesn’t necessarily mean you can set
a random figure for each attribute, but it does
mean you should pay close attention to your
settings. Luckily, the Maxwell Grass Extension (applied in
Cinema 4D as a tag) has a number of ways in which
natural variation can be achieved.
Firstly, you can just type in the numbers and use the
variation controls to add a bit of natural feel. If you
don’t get the look you want, or if you’re trying to get
a particularly stylised layout for your grass, there’s the
option to load a map that drives functions for you. These
range from density and length for standard types of grass
control but you can go further and generate much more
advanced maps. It’s outside the scope of what can be
covered here, but you can create a swirl map in Photoshop
step-by step DealIng wIth grass
If you’re trying to get a particularly stylised
layout for your grass there’s the option to
load a map that drives functions for you
that can be used to create very believable looking crop
circles. It really is all down to variation. A lawn may look all
neat and regimented with it’s mower stripes, but have a
closer look and you will see that isn’t the case. There are
variations not just in the individual blades but in the colour,
species, curl, thickness, and how much light is transmitted
through the blade.
As with most of what we do in 3D it’s a case of choosing
between style and realism. You may think realism needs
the most reference and attention to detail but if you
understand the world around you, you’ll be able to break
those rules creatively but with purpose.
Pay attention to the materials as well, not just the form.
There isn’t space here to look at SSS but it’s an important
part of the look. Download the scene file and investigate
how I set mine up.
3D WorlD August 2015
one Ground LeveL
The first thing you need is a surface for
the grass to grow on. Use something
flat and low poly or alternatively
shaped and dense. Either is fine but
make sure you apply a material to it,
as that will help your render look its
best. I’ve used an earthy material as I
want to achieve a realistic look.
two Just add water
Right-click the object and choose
MaxwellforC4D/Grass. You can also apply
the tag to a null, growing grass across all
children. Select the tag and in Display set
to Enabled and 10 per cent (for an idea of
your results with fewer overheads). Under
Primitive set widths, heights and taper for
each blade, along with variation.
three imaGe controL
Grass can be controlled with the attributes
mentioned above or paint greyscale maps
to drive things for fine control. An example
would be a stripey lawn. Make a black and
white striped image in Photoshop, possibly
with noise along the change between
black to white, and apply that texture in
the Grass tag’s length map field.
four varyinG the Grass
Realistic looking grass is varied, not just
in length but in colour, density and so
forth. You can apply multiple grass tags
to an object, making variations easy. Try
inverting any density maps you might
have to place each ‘species’ of grass in
its own area, or blur that map to have a
little bleed between them.
40
3dworld.creativebloq.com
zbrush
How do I add details to
my ZBrush sculpt?
expert tip
Manage symmetry
When making characters I
almost always begin with
symmetry. This usually speeds
things up at the start. You can
always break the symmetry
later on, which instantly
makes your sculpt feel
more real, and then you
can add the details.
Dan Blazier, Australia
Kieran replies
This is a World of Warcraft fan art piece I made
and the original concept is by Cole Eastburn. The
design blew me away so I sculpted it in ZBrush. This
was a huge project and I want to explain how you
can take your sculpt even further with intricate details.
The concept of this character is great because there are
so many different surface types involved such as wood,
stone, metal, fabric, skin and so on. I especially wanted to
pay attention to the metals, the skin and the cloth materials
because they are the largest areas of the model and would
be the most defining and detailed features.
While sculpting, I tried and tested many alphas and texture
brushes until I finally got the results I was searching for. I
needed to make sure you could point out and really feel the
differences in the materials. One important part for me was to
make sure that there was no symmetry in the model because
gather lots of reference images when doing this
kind of work... sometimes it’s good to create
your own textures and brushes from them
I wanted every part to feel real, like every scratch and dent in
the armour and skin could tell a story.
For the details I mainly used the Standard brush in ZBrush
with many different alphas and I played around with strength,
focal shift and brush sizes. I also used the Dam Standard
brush with the Lazy Mouse turned on to do some deep cuts
and swirls, which was really useful. Overall it is good to have a
balance and a range of details with large, medium and small
focussed areas. You should always gather lots of reference
images when doing this kind of work and sometimes it’s
good to create your own textures and brushes from them.
Finally, I spent some time working on a lighting set-up
that would show off the model and details best. ZBrush
has powerful render settings and lights that you can easily
control. One image was done in ZBrush and the other made
in KeyShot for a realistic 3D printed style approach.
Great attention was paid to
the metals, skin and cloth
materials as they’re the most
defining and detailed features
3D WorlD August 2015
41
3dworld.creativebloq.com
Alex Dracott shares tips and tricks for lighting,
texturing and rendering in Unreal Engine 4
S
ince public release early last year, Unreal 4 has set and raised
the bar for third party engines. As of March it’s now free
to use and there’s no better time to get creating on your
own. Built from the ground up, Epic’s newest engine is capable
of producing truly incredible visuals. Its deferred rendering,
custom materials and advanced lighting techniques are perfect
for pushing the engine – and your art – to the next level. I’ve
worked professionally in Unreal 4 since its public release and have
discovered some fantastic techniques for creating and presenting
high-quality art in-engine. Here I share some of my personal tips
and tricks I use on a day-to-day basis to help you light, texture,
and render your own beautiful scenes within Unreal 4. In this
issue’s online Vault you can find video tutorials as well as models
and textures to get started in Unreal 4 today!
For all the video and digital assets you need visit
www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
Author profile
Alex Dracott
Alex is a lighting,
effects and
environment artist
working in the gaming
industry. He has been
working in the field
for the past four years.
digitaldracott.com
3D WorlD August 2015
42
3dworld.creativebloq.com
1
iMporTing TExTurES inTo unrEal 4
3
phySiCally-BaSEd rEndEring
You can import textures via the
Import button in the Content Browser.
Unreal 4 supports a large variety of
texture formats, from .tgas and .pngs to
.psds and .jpgs. One important tip is to
make sure normal maps are compressed
as TC Normalmap to prevent visual
errors in engine. Also be aware that if
your texture dimensions do not follow
the power of two, they won’t stream
or have mipmaps.
2
SavE MEMory: ChannEl-paCk TExTurES
One of the fantastic things about
Unreal is the large amount of control
you get to have by creating your own
materials. When you’re creating
multiple black and white masks for
textures like roughness or transmission,
you are able to save memory by hiding
each mask into an individual channel of
a texture image and then accessing
each channel of that texture separately
in your material.
With the dawn of new rendering
capabilities in new engines like Unreal
4, there has come the widely praised
adaptation of physically-based rendering.
This should definitely be worked with
rather than against. Learning how
to accurately represent the physical
properties of materials with roughness
and metalness masks can seem like a
change from the way game engines
worked last generation but can help keep
materials consistent and believable across
multiple lighting environments.
Follow
The video
if you see the Play icon, click the link!
3D WorlD August 2015
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3dworld.creativebloq.com
unrEal inSighT
Epic’s content examples
Looking to learn more?
Check out the great content
examples from Epic in the
Learn tab on the Unreal
launcher. There are also
some great free community
examples on the
marketplace itself.
4
4
TExTurE rEuSE
Another fantastic element of Unreal
4’s Material Editor is that it allows for
very intelligent texture reuse. This can
not only save you memory, but also
time. Sometimes a red channel from
a rock albedo texture can make a
great overlay for a roughness texture.
A tiling cloud render texture from
Photoshop could be useful for adding
variation to a brick, but also to blend
in a detail texture for some concrete.
The possibilities are endless.
5
don’T MakE
unnECESSary TExTurES
Occasionally certain textures are
not needed and can be left out to
save memory. For 100 per cent nonmetal materials like wood or dirt, a
metalness texture can be substituted
in the Material Editor for a simple
float constant with a value of 0. The
same idea can be applied for multiple
versions of the same material. Three
slightly different coloured bricks
don’t all need different normal
maps, but could share one.
6
GeNerAtiNG mAteriAls
Large collections of
materials can be made by
instancing a smaller set of
base materials
6
Vertex material blending
uSing MESh vErTEx Colour for BlEndEd MaTErialS
Building a CorE MaTErial SET
One way to save considerable time
and work is by creating a basic set of
materials that can be instanced out for
different objects. When I start projects
I create a base material for each type
of object I’ll need. For example, if I was
making a nature scene I would want
base materials for terrain, props and
foliage. There will always be outliers but
it helps with the bulk of the process.
onE add in TExTurE SaMplES
Two BlEnd TExTurE pairS TogEThEr
For this example we want to blend two
different texture sets. Once I have created
my blank material I import the texture sets as
samples by dragging them from the Content
Browser into my material. I also add in a
Vertex Color node.
Use HeightLerp functions to blend the first texture
set. HeightLerps blend two textures based on an
input and Heightmap. Connect the Vertex Color
red channel to the Transition Phase. Lerp Nodes
can be substituted for extra sets by connecting the
alpha of the HeightLerp to the Lerp’s alpha.
3D WorlD August 2015
44
3dworld.creativebloq.com
Online resources:
EMBraCing ThE CoMMuniTy
mAteriAl iNstANces
These can be used to
create a wide variation
all from one base
material
The online Unreal 4 community is active
and getting bigger and better by the day.
Online sites like Epic’s Unreal forums and
Polycount have incredibly large amounts of
information and helpful members looking
to share techniques. On top of the official
documentation for UE4, large collections
of tutorials can also be found on YouTube.
Epic has also set up the incredibly useful
UE4 AnswerHub site for those with specific
technical problems to seek help from others
as well as those looking to offer assistance.
(https://answers.unrealengine.com)
7
7
iTEraTing Through
MaTErial inSTanCES
8
MaTErial CoMMEnTS
and organiSaTion
9
MaTErial funCTionS
A great feature of a Material Instance
of a base material is its ability to
parameterise values that can be changed
in real time. You can use these changes
to rapidly test out many different values
without having to recompile a material.
Whenever I have a complicated material
I always have a test material instance on
the side. I use the test material instance
to lock in more realistic base values for
the final material.
For very complex materials Unreal
4 brings some very welcome
organisational tools to help. Selecting
a group of nodes and pressing [C] puts
those nodes into a comment, which can
then be moved as a group and colour
coded. The comments (and individual
nodes) can have basic text explanations
added to improve readability.
creAtiNG GreeNery
The forest was made mostly
from five base materials,
instanced out for foliage and
key environment elements
ThrEE hooking EvEryThing up
four TESTing ouT ThE MaTErial
For each pair of textures (diffuse, normal map)
connect one texture to input A of a Lerp node and
the other to input B. Ensure you’re consistent, so
input A for each Lerp is always the same texture
set. The output from each Lerp can be connected
to the appropriate input for the base material.
Click the Apply button and drag the material
from the Content Browser to a tessellated mesh.
Switch to the Paint mode in the editor by moving
to the Paint Brush tab in the Mode window. After
flooding the mesh black, paint red on the mesh
and see the material change appropriately.
3D WorlD August 2015
45
Material functions can be thought
of in the same way real functions work
in code – repeatable operations that
can be called multiple times to perform
a specific set of instructions. They
are made outside of a material in the
Content Browser, but can then be
called on their own to help simplify
materials. They can contain their own
set of inputs and can be a fantastic
way to save time when repeatable
operations need to be called.
3dworld.creativebloq.com
Natural lighting
SETTing up BaSiC ouTdoor
lighTing CondiTionS
unrEal inSighT
Saving camera positions
Unreal 4’s viewport camera
positions can be saved by
pressing [Ctrl] and any of
the number keys. You
can then recall that
position by pressing the
number again.
onE rEfErEnCE
While it often seems like common sense, I
always try to find references for my work.
Lighting is no different. It could be times of
day or just colours and clouds, but it always
helps. I personally love the program PureRef for
gathering and viewing large image collections.
Two adding lighTS and Sky
For outdoor scenes I always start with a
Directional light and a Sky light. I also drop
the Sky light to a .5 intensity to start. Unreal
4 offers the option of starting scenes with
the BP_Sky_Sphere blueprint which can be a
great start/placeholder for a skysphere.
10
ThrEE EnvironMEnT fog
The last step I take is usually adding fog,
as almost all times of day have some kind
present. I almost always start with the
Exponential Height Fog actor and tweak
it over time to match the time of day I am
working on. If the scene includes long view
distances I will include the Atmospheric Fog
actor. This is where I usually add a postprocess volume as well.
foliagE MaTErialS
Foliage can be one of the trickiest things to ensure looks
correct in any game engine. As of UE4 version 4.7, a Foliage
Shading Model exists to help make that task easier. It is highly
recommended as it supports sub-surface transmission, which
most leaves benefit from. I also recommend adding sky light
to your scene to help balance out some of the darker areas of
a foliage mesh that could be in shadow.
3D WorlD August 2015
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3dworld.creativebloq.com
14
let there Be liGht
Lighting is absolutely key in
setting mood and tone for
your artwork and should
never be undervalued
11
vErTEx ColourS
Having access to vertex colours in
materials is one of my favourite features
in Unreal 4. They can be incredibly
powerful when used creatively. From
ambient occlusion to masking out
wind and world offset for foliage,
their versatility is incredible. They‘re
particularly useful in blending tiling
textures together. Vertex colours can be
imported from outside 3D software or
imported and painted in editor.
12
dETail diffuSE and
norMal ovErlayS
13
TExTurE BlEnding
in MaTErialS
14
knowing your lighT TypES
Because you can customise texture UV tiling rates you
can increase the details of a material by blending in
a secondary set of textures, usually diffuse or normal
maps, then tiling them at a higher frequency on top of
base textures. Diffuse detail can be applied with various
techniques, such as the Overlay Blend Function, while
detailed normal maps can be applied by adding the red
and green channels to the base as normal.
Want to combine textures in the material editor but
only familiar with Photoshop’s blend modes? Epic has
it covered. Along with many useful material functions,
they included the majority of blend modes that all
Photoshop users are familiar with. From Overlay to
Linear Dodge, they can be found in the Palette window
inside the Material Editor. They can be particularly
great for adding detail and variation to your materials.
developiNG skills
This forest was one of Alex’s
first big personal projects in
Unreal 4 and really helped
him push his skill set and
learn the engine
3D WorlD August 2015
47
Unreal offers four different types
of lights to use in the environment:
Directional, Point, Spot, and Sky light.
Directional lights are great for outdoor
areas or any kind of extreme singular
light source. Point lights are omnidirectional and Spot lights are similar
but have their limits defined by a cone.
Sky lights can be used to add ambient
light to your environment by capturing
distant parts of your map. They also
support custom Cubemaps.
3dworld.creativebloq.com
15
feature
Become a Modo master
15
adding EnvironMEnT
fog To your SCEnE
While close up fog can always be created with particle
effects, Unreal 4 offers two other ways to add fog to
your scene. AtmosphericFog reacts to directional
lighting angles and intensity to create fog based
on actual scattering of light in the atmosphere.
Exponential HeightFog gives a bit more colour
control and allows you to add a simpler fog effect
that becomes less dense in higher parts of the
map and denser in lower parts.
16
CrEaTing ClEvEr
lighT ShafTS
Light Shafts or ‘god rays’ can be a
powerful visual tool and are created by
particles in the air being lit by specific
light sources. In Unreal 4 they can
be created in a few ways. The most
common way is by enabling them from
the properties of a Directional light.
They can also be made using geometry
and clever materials. Epic’s blueprint
example project contains a good
example of how someone could go
about doing this.
17
Taking high-rESoluTion
SCrEEnShoTS
While custom resolution videos can be rendered
out of Matinee, there is a quick and easy way to take
high-resolution screenshots straight from the editor.
By clicking the little downward arrow in the top left
of your Viewport you can reveal a little drop down
menu. At the bottom of that you can open up the
High Resolution Screenshot window. From there highresolution shots can be captured and sent to your
project/saved/Screenshots folder.
Get iNspired
Alex’s process for making
this environment can be
found in the accompanying
video, including all assets
18
19
16
18
creAtiNG God rAys
These can be cheesy if
overdone so add subtly
with an artistic touch
Colour CorrECTion
and look-up TaBlES
Using post-process volumes, final render
colours can be tweaked and adjusted
based on artistic preference. While
options exist for basic settings like
contrast and colour tinting, custom colour
correction can be done using colour lookup tables. These tables allow for complex
colour transformation and can be made
with a base file available on Epic’s Unreal
4 documentation site and Photoshop – or
other image adjusting software suites.
3D WorlD August 2015
48
19
EdiTing BlooM and
lEnS flarES
Image bloom and lens flares post
processing has become popular in
games and 3D and can be enabled and
customised in UE4 using post-process
volumes. Bloom can be highly customised
in almost every sense. Size, colour,
intensity, and threshold can all be tweaked
and even be used to mask in dirt textures
to mimic dirty lenses. Similarly, imagebased lens flares can also be enabled and
their shapes and intensity adjusted.
3dworld.creativebloq.com
22
liGht fuNctioN
A tool used for flickering
candlelight patterns to
stained glass window
colouring on the ground
CliCk To PlAY video
www.bit.ly/197-unreal-1
CliCk To PlAY video
www.bit.ly/197-unreal-2
CliCk To PlAY video
www.bit.ly/197-unreal-3
CliCk To PlAY video
www.bit.ly/197-unreal-4
CliCk To PlAY video
www.bit.ly/197-unreal-5
CliCk To PlAY video
www.bit.ly/197-unreal-6
CliCk To PlAY video
www.bit.ly/197-unreal-7
CliCk To PlAY video
www.bit.ly/197-unreal-08
CliCk To PlAY video
www.bit.ly/197-unreal-9
CliCk To PlAY video
www.bit.ly/197-unreal-10
CliCk To PlAY video
www.bit.ly/197-unreal-11
21
20
20
CrEaTing dEpTh
of fiEld
Unreal 4 supports both gaussian and
custom shaped bokeh depth of field.
Both of these options exist within the
settings of Post Process Volumes. It
should also be noted that while bokeh
sprite weighting exists to help with
blurring thin objects in front of distant
objects and vice versa, problems can
sometimes still occur. Care should be
taken when applying depth of field to
foliage and other similar shots.
21
22
lighT funCTionS
23
SavE yourSElf TiME By
Copying and paSTing
24
viEw ModES and BuffEr
viSualiSaTionS
25
pErforManCE TipS
One fun feature when lighting in
Unreal 4 is the support of light function
materials. These materials act as masks
for the light and can be used to make
anything from custom colour variation in
a light to cloud shadows on the ground.
They are made by setting the Material
Domain to Light Function in the Material
Editor and can be used on spot, point,
and directional lights.
One fantastic trick to know about Unreal 4 is that any
object in a level can be copied and pasted directly into
another level within the same project. It will appear
with the same properties and in the same location.
What’s even better is that anything copied from Unreal
can be pasted into a text document. That text can then
be copied and re-pasted into another Unreal 4 level.
Knowing what makes up your image is an integral part
of working in any 3D engine and working in a deferred
renderer like UE4 allows for some useful view modes.
Pressing [Alt] and [1-8] switches between various view
modes like Unlit or lighting only but if you click on
the View Mode button in the Viewport you can view
individual buffers. This can be useful for seeing level
wide ranges of material inputs, like roughness.
auTo ExpoSurE and
EyE adapTaTion
Auto exposure control is on by default
and simulates eye adjustment to bright or
dark areas. The effect is awesome but can
create constantly changing visual variables
that are hard to stay consistent within.
Adjustments to the exposure range can
be made in the settings of post-process
volumes and can be disabled by setting
the minimum brightness equal to the
maximum. Exposure bias can be used to
adjust base exposure settings.
3D WorlD August 2015
49
While Unreal is incredibly
powerful, not every workstation is
created equally. If you are running
into performance problems in-engine,
the first place to turn is the Engine
Scalability Settings within the Setting
button on the Editor Toolbar. Turning
down some options like anti-aliasing can
really speed things up when working.
Another trick is to organise large
groups of assets into folders in the
world outliner. You can then toggle their
visibility to help with performance.
3dworld.creativebloq.com
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Master the
pro gaMe pipeline
Download these three FREE video courses to get started in video game CG
T
ogether with Digital-tutors
we’re pleased to present
three full video courses that
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from modelling in Zbrush and
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the three tutorial courses include
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these beginner courses, and all
the resource files you need to
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these video courses are Free to all
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visit the Vault at www.creativebloq.
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For more CG art training visit
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artist profile
Lee Magalhaes
Lee graduated
from the Istituto
Europeo di Design
(IED) in São Paulo
with a bachelor’s
degree in Digital
& Virtual Design.
He is currently a
freelance 3D artist
and has worked on
a variety of projects
in the industry. He
focuses on character
art, anatomy, and
digital sculpting.
www.bit.ly/197Magalhaes
Create a Fantasy Creature From ConCept art in Zbrush
in this advanced Zbrush tutorial you will tackle a
concept by the awesome anthony Jones and work
towards an extremely detailed and precise sculpture
of his unique creature design.
While focusing on matching the concept, you’ll
learn how to pay special attention to the anatomy and
proportions of the creature, as well as any underlying
and perhaps undefined details that will need to
3D WorlD august 2015
50
be filled in later. that being said, there will be a
plethora of topics covered from polypainting to highfrequency detailing, such as the creature’s skin pores
and detailed scales.
by the end of this extensive video tutorial course
you should be more comfortable with advanced
workflows that will get you professional results fast
and with greater efficiency.
www.youtube.com/3dworld
artist profile
Joshua Kinney
download
The videos
www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
Joshua has devoted
his life to creating
games, as well as
teaching others
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fantastic video
games. At DigitalTutors, he has taught
for CryEngine, Unity,
UDK and Unreal
Engine 4.
www.bit.ly/197joshua
Game asset proDuCtion pipeline in unity
in this series of unity tutorials you’ll learn to create an
asset in a step-by-step process and explore the entire
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starting with general set up tips for creating game
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Finally, learn how to create loDs and a custom
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digital tutors
Creative and tech training
Digital-Tutors develops awardwinning training solutions
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artist profile
Eddie Russell
introDuCtion to materials in substanCe painter
materials in substance painter live at the heart of
the texture painting process so mastering them is
important to your success in this powerful texture
painting application.
in this course you’ll get started with this substance
painter by learning how materials can contribute
to multiple texture channels inside our substance
painter project.
you’ll explore two different methods of applying a
material. next, you’ll learn how to customise materials
to your own needs by adjusting their parameters.
Finally, you’ll learn how to save your customised
materials as well as bring in custom substance
materials from substance Designer. after finishing
this training, you’ll have a great understanding of how
to create impressive textures for your own assets.
3D WorlD august 2015
51
www.youtube.com/3dworld
Eddie has been with
DT for over four years,
teaching creative
artists to expand
their knowledge
on everything
from design and
illustration, to
hand painting
beautiful textures for
their models.
www.bit.ly/197-eddie
Contents
TuTorials
Practical tips and tutorials from pro
artists to improve your CG skills
60 motion graPhics
How to achieve dynamic VFX in 3ds Max
For more on your
free downloads
& video training
turn to page 6
geT your
resources
You’re three steps away from this
issue’s video training and files…
54 create a female mecha concePt
64 animating for games
68 Physically-based rendering techniques
72 create a sPace suit
Riyahd Cassiem shows how to create a 3D sci-fi android design for video games
Animate a run cycle for a game character
1. Go to the website
Type this into your browser’s address bar:
www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
2. Find the Files You want
Search the list of free resources to find
the video and files you want.
3. download what You need
Click the Download buttons and your
files will save to your PC or Mac.
Discover map creation guidelines for the metal/roughness workflow in Substance
3D WorlD August 2015
53
www.youtube.com/3dworld
Create a space suit in Marvelous Designer 4
TuTorials
Create a mecha concept
ZBrush 4r7 | Keyshot 5 | PhotoshoP Cs6
Create a female
meCha ConCept
Riyahd Cassiem shows how to create a 3D sci-fi android
design for video games using 3D and 2D techniques
I
ArTisT profile
Riyahd Cassiem
Riyahd works as an
independent freelance
digital artist creating
visual effects, motion
graphics, 3D character
sculpting, illustration
and concept art. He
uses a mixture of 2D
and 3D techniques
in his workflow and
enjoys working in the
fantasy and science
fiction genres.
www.riyahdart.
blogspot.com
n this tutorial I will go through
some of my workflows and
techniques for creating a female
android character illustration using
ZBrush, KeyShot, and Photoshop. I
use a mixture of 2D digital painting
and 3D sculpting techniques to
create the illustration.
This character was part of a
personal project to explore mecha
design through the female form.
I focused on conveying a strong
yet feminine character through the
illustration while integrating mech
design elements.
I draw reference and inspiration
from fashion, robotics, military
gear, biology, nature, human
anatomy and other fictional
sources, as well as comics, games
and characters from films like
Tomb Raider, Kill Bill and Sin City.
This helps bring more depth to the
concept, incorporating different
design elements into the character.
I use my previous mecha designs
as inspiration, using the workflow
and techniques I learned from
each piece to develop my ideas.
After compiling references, I
create a few concept sketches
using digital painting and photo
compositing techniques within
Photoshop to work out the overall
design, form and values of the
character. The concept is used as a
guide to develop the design.
I start in ZBrush with a base
mesh, blocking out the character
and different elements, looking
for interesting shapes and angles
to develop the design further
while maintaining good space
relationships and proportions.
I use various tools and features
in ZBrush, such as the Extract
function to create parts of the
mecha design.
After sculpting is complete I use
the KeyShot Bridge feature to
export my sculpt form ZBrush into
KeyShot for lighting, material set
up and rendering.
I apply materials and textures
to different parts of the model
to help distinguish material
differences and contrast in values.
I experiment with different
environment HDR light set-ups to
create interesting contrasts in light
and shadow.
I export the renders from
KeyShot into Photoshop for
post effects and to enhance the
final output. I use these tools
and techniques to help explore
creative solutions while creating
my designs. So, follow my process
and try the techniques for yourself
to create your own concept.
For all the assets you need go to
creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
Use references
Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft,
Ripley from Alien, Motoko
from Ghost in the Shell,
Beatrice from Kill Bill and
Nancy from Sin City all
came to inspire the
concept character
1 RESEARCH AnD REfEREnCE
Topics covered
Concept design
Character design
3D sculpting
Digital painting
Compositing
I begin by researching subjects that relate to the
concept I’m trying to flesh out. I draw reference from
various sources from western to eastern, as well
African design aesthetics. These references help me
to better understand the concept I’m trying to create
and makes the process easier to work on. I also use
my previous mecha designs as inspiration, using the
work flows and techniques I learned from each piece.
3D WorlD August 2015
54
2 START To ConCEPT
I start to create concept sketches using digital painting
and photo compositing techniques within Photoshop.
I start by establishing a strong silhouette then work
out the additional character assets, forms and values.
once I’m satisfied with the overall concept sketch,
I then repose the character symmetrically using the
Puppet Warp and digital painting tools accordingly,
to serve as a reference guide when digitally sculpting.
www.youtube.com/3dworld
The femAle form
This character was part
of a personal project to
explore mecha design
3D WorlD August 2015
55
www.youtube.com/3dworld
TuTorials
Create a mecha concept
Adding
exTrAs
sculpTing
secOndAry Arms
One use THe TrAnspOse TOOl
I duplicate the original set of
arms then scale and position the
second set into place using the
Transpose tool. I isolate one of the
arms to work on separately and
mirror later. I begin to sculpt on
the hands with the Move, Clay and
Inflate brushes to make the hands
composed of three fingers instead
of five. The DynaMesh button is
used to merge the digits together.
3 BASE MESH BloCKIng
I start off in ZBrush with a figure base mesh, then
import the concept sheet into lightbox via the
Texture tab menu. The lightbox tool enables me to
use the reference sheet as a guide to block in the
general proportions. I use the lasso tool to select
parts of the mesh, combined with the Move, Snake
Hook, Clay, and Inflate brushes, and the Transpose
tool to refine the forms of the character. The aim at
this stage is to capture a readable silhouette.
TWO Adding surfAce deTAil
I subdivide the model and sketch
out cut lines onto the surface of
the mesh with the Dam Standard
brush. The Lazy Mouse feature
is used for smoother line control
when sculpting the cut lines. The
sketched out cut lines serve as
a guide for the paneling of the
outer shell for the arms, with the
masking tools and Extract feature
for extracting masked selections.
THree creATe And duplicATe
You could also use polygroups and
the Panel Loops feature to create
a similar paneling effect. I created
the finger parts by using the same
technique; isolating one finger and
working out the design for the one
digit then duplicating, scaling and
positioning the others accordingly.
4 ISolATIng PARTS
I start to isolate different sections of the character
with the Paint and lasso tools. I then create individual
polygroups out of the selections by pressing [Ctrl]
+ [W]. Duplicate the mesh to save the original base
then select the groups Split button to separate the
polygroups into separate tools. This allows me to
work on each part individually. The extra set of arms is
added by duplicating the original set then scaling and
positioning into place using the Transpose tool.
3D WorlD August 2015
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5 ASSET BloCKIng
I block out some of the character’s assets with basic
primitives then use the Insert Cube and Cylinder
brushes with the Transpose tool to create the different
character elements, such as the headphones, sword,
guns and tactical pouches. I continue to follow the
layout from the concept sheet for asset placement.
My goal is to maintain good proportions and space
between the different elements while using the
current assets as place holders.
www.youtube.com/3dworld
experT Tip
Creating straps
I make some of the straps that
wrap around portions of the
model by selecting an IMM
Curve Strap brush with the
curve function active. Then
draw a stroke across the surface
holding the shift key until the
line extends outside the mesh
to wrap the stroke around
the surface.
6 ASSET ExTRACTIon
I create some clothing and assets using the Paint or
lasso selection tools. Start by selecting a part of the
mesh then select the Extract feature in the Subtool
menu to extract a piece of the model. I experiment
with the Thickness slider for the desired result working
my way through the design and extracting the
different elements. The Move brush is used to shape
certain elements into place and the Smooth brush to
smooth some of the hard edges.
I use a few basic
brushes for sculpting
the different surfaces
of the character
experT Tip
7 BASE SCulPTIng
After blocking out all the assets I select the primary
forms (torso and head) to start sculpting on, working
back and forth between the different parts of the
character. I continually look for interesting shapes and
angles to help develop the form, with the concept
sheet as a guide to sculpt from. I begin working on the
shape as a whole, focusing on the silhouette and then
breaking it down into smaller parts. This workflow
helps manage the complexity of the character.
8 SCulPTIng SuRfACES
I use a few basic brushes for sculpting the different
surfaces of the character. using the Move, Clay, Hard
Polish, Trim Dynamic and Dam Standard brushes.
The Move brush is used to move portions of the
sculpt and the Clay brush to add or subtract masses
from the model. The Hard Polish and Trim Dynamic
brush allows for sculpting smooth flat surfaces. The
combination of these brushes help to create the
various hard or soft surface effects for the character.
9 SuRfACES ConTInuED
I use the Dam Standard brush for sketching in cut
lines onto the surface. I use some of the Insert
brushes, like the Insert Cylinder brush, for cylinder
bases for joints or mechanisms. The Trim brushes cut
out angles or curves from your sculpt. Experiment
with the different brushes and settings within ZBrush
to get a feel for what the tools can do. It helps
to have an organised library of custom tools and
brushes to draw from when sculpting.
3D WorlD August 2015
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www.youtube.com/3dworld
Frame mesh lining
I use the Frame Mesh feature
to create additional border
lines to the design elements.
I select the Frame Mesh
feature with Poly Groups
active. Choose the Curve
Tube brush then select a
highlighted border line
to create the edge
lining mesh.
TuTorials
Create a mecha concept
sculpTing
guide
sculpTing
THe fAce
10 MECHA SCulPTIng
I sculpt parts by working out how different sections fit
together and the function of the character elements.
The underlying anatomy structure and reference
sheet guides the flow of the outer shell panelling and I
use the extract technique for overlaying panels on the
model. I try to get a visual rhythm and balance using
shapes – a visual language. I do this by repeating
shapes and patterns throughout the character to
make a more unified design that’s easier to read.
One BlOcking OuT
I sculpt the face by blocking
out the primary forms. I begin
sketching out lines on the surface
with the Dam Standard brush to
indicate the panel separations.
The sketched outlines are used
as reference for painting masked
selections on to the surface of the
model. These masked selections
create polygroups by pressing
[Ctrl] +[W] to create a polygroup
from the selection.
11 DETAIl THE CHARACTER
TWO using pOlygrOups
I press Group Split button in the
Subtool menu tab to split the
polygroups into separate tools and
use the Group Loops function to
smooth the edges on the separate
parts and the Move brush to
modify the edges. I also use the
selections to create extracted
panel parts on the surface of the
mesh using the extraction method.
I create character details like the bolts, zipper, and
straps with the IMM brushes. They save time by using
pre-existing objects as brushes to add mechanical
detail elements to the design. The addition of the
Curve function tool allows the mesh to be replicated
along a curved stroke. I also use the Curve Tubes
brush to create line detail on certain parts of the
model. I use these details to add areas of interest and
help accentuate the lines to the character design.
12 REfInEMEnT
I create recessed surfaces by painting mask
selections, then use the Inflate slider in the
Deformations tab to raise or lower the surface.
The Move Transpose tool is an alternative for more
intuitive control. I refine the overall shapes and lines
of the design with the Move brush for modifying
proportions. The Smooth brush will soften areas of
the sculpt and the Dam Standard brush, with the lazy
Mouse feature active, refines the surface cut lines.
THree WOrk in sTAges
I work on each part individually
by subdividing the separate
subtools and begin to sculpt in
the surface details with the Clay,
Hard Polish and Dam Standard
brushes. I focus on balancing the
hard surface effect and organic
lines of the design.
13 oRgAnISE THE SuBToolS
Before posing the character I organise the subtools
by grouping certain parts together and using naming
conventions. I try to maintain a consistency for the
subdivision levels for the different tools to avoid slow
down when posing with the ZBrush Transpose master
plug-in. Try to keep the subtool meshes clean at the
lowest subdivision level. The ZRemesher feature
can be used to remesh surfaces and maintain good
topology for the meshes.
3D WorlD August 2015
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www.youtube.com/3dworld
experT Tip
KeyShot editing HDRI
In KeyShot I use the Edit
HDRI feature to modify the
environment light set-ups.
I create additional light sources
by creating Pins in the Pins
tab menu, experimenting
with different settings for
the desired effect.
14 PoSE THE CHARACTER
The character’s posed using the Transpose Master
plug-in in ZBrush. I press the TPoseMesh button
to activate posing and merge the subtools into
one. I use different polygroups from the organised
layering process for isolated mask selections and the
Transpose tool to move or rotate different parts of the
character until satisfied. I use the Blur Mask function
located in the Masking tab to create soft mask
selections for more surface control when posing.
experT Tip
Blur Mask selections
I use the Blur Mask feature
to create soft selections when
moving or rotating objects
with the Transpose tool. I Press
Ctrl and click on a masked
selection to blur the mask.
You can press Alt and click
on the mask to sharpen
the selection.
15 ExPoRTIng To KEySHoT
I use the new KeyShot Bridge feature to export my
sculpt from ZBrush into KeyShot for material set-up
and rendering. As well as the ability to retain the
ZBrush MatCap material information when exporting,
KeyShot allows me to work out and visualise different
materials, decals, textures, and environment lighting
set-ups for the character to render. I apply different
materials by dragging a material from the Material tab
onto different parts of the model.
17 MovE To PHoToSHoP
I export KeyShot .tiff renders with alpha and object
colour passes to assist selections in Photoshop and
test background variations with environment renders.
The renders are used for compositing with various
layer blending modes and transparency settings. I
then modify and manipulate the pose using Puppet
Warp and the liquify tool. Additional environmental,
texture, decal and lighting effects are added with
paint brushes and layer blending modes.
16 ExPERIMEnT WITH lIgHT
With the Environment tab I explore HDRI environment
lighting set-ups. I select a thumbnail from the
Environment tab and drag into the background to
apply the environment to the scene, then experiment
with settings for brightness and contrast, looking for
interesting light set-ups to complement the character
and background. To rotate the background I press Ctrl
and drag left or right to rotate the environment. I play
with materials and light set-ups to see what works.
18 fInAl TouCHES
Depending on the mood I wish to create, I import
some grunge textures to overlay parts of the design
with layer blending modes and add to the worn feel.
I refine the image by painting in additional, texture,
dirt, scratch, shadows and highlights. I modify the
values and colours using Color Balance and levels
Adjustment layers to create added contrast to
the image. finally, lens correction, blur, noise and
sharpen filters are applied to finalise the image.
3D WorlD August 2015
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experimenT
Values and materials
I like to create variations of the
design and experiment with
different values, materials and
environment settings before
deciding which route to go. I
use the KeyShot Bridge feature
to bounce between ZBrush and
KeyShot to refine the design. This
allows the concept to be developed
further. In ZBrush I create a few
additional character assets and
test different object placements.
In KeyShot I create iterations
by dragging the materials onto
specific parts of the character,
while trying to maintain a balance
in contrast and value and working
out material differences between
objects. The same technique is
used to experiment with different
background HDRI environment
light set-ups. I create test
renders in KeyShot and do quick
composites in Photoshop to see
which variations may work for the
final illustration.
TuTorials
Create motion graphics
follow
the video
if you see the Play icon, click the link!
3ds Max | after effects
Create motion
graphiCs in 3ds max
Vikrant J Dalal explains how to produce motion
graphics to achieve dynamic visual effects
I
ArTisT profile
Vikrant J Dalal
Vikrant has eight
years’ experience
in the VFX industry
and graphic design.
He started his own
VFX studio called
Project01 Design
Studio which
provides VFX,
graphic design and
tutorial services.
project01studio.
blogspot.in
n this tutorial we are going to
take a look at how you can make
motion graphics, like the kind
we see in television commercials.
There are a number of software
packages which can give this kind
of effect, including Maya, Houdini
and Cinema 4D. However, we are
going to use 3ds Max as our main
application because it offers many
effective and simple options to
achieve our desired result.
For the compositing I will use
both 3ds Max and After Effects,
working mainly with manual
animation, for example Path
Follow Animation, Rotation and
FFD Modifier.
Before you start work you
should be clear about the kind
of effect you are wanting to
create. Then you can find the
best options to create any effect
and make it more dynamic. It’s
important to have a good working
knowledge of 3ds Max as you
never know which tool you are
going to need.
Motion graphics is a very
interesting subject because you
can’t define just one process to
create it – it very much depends
on your own understanding of
using tools and techniques.
As much as you will use your
creativity and tools, you will find
very dynamic and varying types of
effects each time.
For all the assets you need go to
creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
click to PlaY video
www.bit.ly/197-3dsmax-1
ExpErt tip
Try to master different
modifiers and tools
Have a good knowledge
of your 3D application.
If you’re using 3ds Max
then learn each modifier,
modelling, lighting,
material, dynamics and
animation tool. Your
project will be on time,
with good results.
click to PlaY video
www.bit.ly/197-3dsmax-2
1 SCEnE SET-uP
Topics covered
Modelling
Animation
Lighting
Rendering
Compositing
Before starting work on any effect you should know
how many elements you will require. It will help
you to create this effect with a good output – and
on time. For this effect we’ll need four types of
elements: Tentacles, Base, Small Objects inside the
Hole and Background. So initially make a rough setup of the whole scene. Make a base with a hole
in the centre and add some objects around that
hole. Then add rough splines to the base.
3D WorlD August 2015
60
2 SPlInE SET-uP
After finishing your rough scene set-up start
working on the final shot. First create different
shapes of splines which we will use for a path for
the animation to follow. But remember every spline
should look like it is coming out from the centre hole
of the base. Make lots of variations in spline shapes,
for example some should go backwards, some
should come towards the camera and some should
swirl around each other.
www.youtube.com/3dworld
ue
15
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k u
Vi t t sale
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Toxxxxx xxx xxx xxxx
xxxxxx xxxx xxxx xx
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TenTAcle Timings
It’s important to use
different timings for
each of your tentacles
in order to produce an
effective end result
3 TEnTAClE MODEllIng
now it’s time to create tentacle models which will
follow the path. This is a very simple procedure, just
create a Cone with a large number of segments
and on top of that add a noise modifier to create
the uneven surfaces of the tentacles, which will help
when we use Path Deform. Create more tentacles
with this same procedure for all the splines. You can
use more modifiers if needed to create better effects
or to match your requirements.
4 TEnTAClE AnIMATIOn
Select one tentacle and go to the Modify panel, then
select Path Deform Binding modifier and click on the
Pick Path button. now select one path and click on
Move to Path button. Animate the Stretch Parameter
to move the tentacle onto the spline. Make some
modifications in the Rotation and Twist Parameters
to make the tentacle look more dynamic. use the
same procedure for all tentacles with different
timings and you will achieve a good animation.
3D WorlD August 2015
61
www.youtube.com/3dworld
TuTorials
Create motion graphics
5 MODEl ExTRA OBjECTS
After finishing the tentacle set-up, it’s time to work
on additional object modelling to sell the scene. I
make a base with a hole in the centre and then add
some small objects around that hole – like pieces of
flat wood, and I position these around the hole. Then
I animate this base and the small objects to support
the tentacles’ motion. Finally I add a plane in the
background to define the scene.
CrEating ElEmEnts
lEarn how to makE
your own ElEmEnts
6 AnIMATE ExTRA OBjECTS
It’s time to animate the new objest to fit with the
tentacles’ motion. Select the base and assign a
Cylindrical FFD modifier. using FFD points animate
the hole in Final Output as shown above. Selecting
the small objects and using Rotation, animate them
in such a manner that they will look like a flower is
opening its petals. Adjust the keys according to the
tentacles’ keys, this will synch the two and help the
tentacle motion to look more dynamic.
7 ADDIng TExTuRE
It’s time to add some texture to each element in the
scene. Start with the tentacles and create a gradient
texture with different colours for each one, then
assign these textures on top of the tentacles. use
a concrete texture for the base and a dark wooden
texture for the smaller pieces and a green forest
image for the background. You can refer to my 3ds
Max files for a better understanding of this process,
at www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197.
In this tutorial we have learned
how to create motion graphics
but you should use this guide to
make your own elements. So use
different animation, shapes and
textures. You can also add more
dynamic elements to make it
more attractive.
8 lIgHT AnD REnDER SET uP
After texturing it’s time to add some lights to the
scene. I have used one target spotlight and one
VRay Dome light. You can see the parameters of
both the lights in the image (there’s a hi-res in the
online Vault). For rendering I use V-Ray with Indirect
Illumination. Before pressing the Render button, set
the Output Path and then go to Render Element and
add a V-Ray ZDepth pass. now select the Render
button and check the results.
3D WorlD August 2015
62
9 COMPOSITIng ElEMEnTS
We can now composite all our elements. So open
After Effects, load the layers into the timeline and
assign some effects. Add Color Balance, some
Sharpen and Defocus, then modify to suit your
requirements. You can use your own effects or
parameters to make it better. In short, give it a
more realistic look. We now have our motion
graphics visual effect. You can experiment by
adding or modifying tools to create your own.
www.youtube.com/3dworld
TuTorials
Create a video animation
Maya
AnimAting for
video gAmes
Thiago Vidotto shows how to animate
a run cycle for a video game character
T
he animation on a video
game character is one of the
main elements that defines
its personality, so it should be
created with extra care.
The run animation is usually
the most played in a game. It will
repeat its loop several times and
a single mistake, even if it’s
subtle, will be noticeable.
This tutorial will look at the
animation of a run cycle for
a character I made for the
game Dota 2, covering the
creation of the main pose, the
inbetweens and the refined
version. I will discuss common
mistakes and ways to speed
up your process, as well as
highlighting the importance
of testing in game, because an
animation in Maya over a clean
canvas works differently when
surrounded by other elements.
For all the assets you need go to
creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
ArTisT profile
Thiago Vidotto
Thiago is a Brazilian
self-taught generalist
artist who has
been working as a
freelancer in video
game art for more
than five years.
www.tvidotto.com
ExpErt tip
Silhouette
Always check if the
silhouette works. When
working in Maya you
can preview your model
in black by pressing [7]
on your keyboard, or by
adding a Surface
Shader to it.
1 source references
Topics covered
Ground references
Main poses
Inbetweens
Working with Graph Editor
Refining animations
The use of references is really important when
animating a character. even if the character is a
crazy new creature it will always follow some rules
of physics and it’s still possible to relate it to real,
living animals. In this project I used footage of bears
and large felines running to serve as my references. I
wanted to keep the character looking like a bear but
with some more agile movements based on tigers.
3D WorlD august 2015
64
2 anIMaTe The rIg
The rig should be simple and easy to animate. not all
game engines support blend shapes and sometimes
the same result can be acquired with bones, so
unless you know exactly how much further you can
go I would suggest keeping it to just animated bones
with a maximum of three bone influences per vertex
on the skin. avoid any kind of muscle simulation that
is not based on bones.
www.youtube.com/3dworld
coming To life
Animating a video game
character helps define
its personality
Follow
The video
if you see the Play icon, click the link!
3 anIMaTe In splInes
usually when it comes to animation curves the best
approach is to use the stepped Tangent mode,
avoiding inbetweens created by the computer.
however, most of the time in game animation this
leads to more rework and a frustrating moment when
passing everything to spline. By working straight
onto spline it is possible to have a better usage of the
ground reference and preview if the loop is working.
4 grounD reference
When animating a run cycle it’s important to know
exactly the speed your character is going to move
at in the game. after this, I build a ground reference
that moves at the same speed but in the opposite
direction (going backwards), allowing me to animate
without the paws sliding. If the speed is unknown a
good trick is to animate the ground with a random
speed and export with the model to test in the game.
3D WorlD august 2015
65
www.youtube.com/3dworld
managing CyClEs
Ensure cycles loop smoothly
Most of the cycles in the game
are going to repeat until another
animation is triggered, therefore
it’s extremely important that the
last key’s values exactly match the
first key’s values and share the
same tangent angle.
An easy way to copy a key is to
set the Time Slider on the frame
you want to copy, click with the
middle mouse button on the Time
Slider at the frame you want the
new key and press [S].
To make the keys share the
same tangent angle at the start
and end of the loop, I select
both of them and flatten the
tangents. In the Graph Editor go to
Tangets>Flat, or click on the icon
shown on the image. Then using
the Shift button I select one side
of both tangents and move them
together. It’s important to consider
both keys as being one and keep
a smooth in and out tangent to
make the loop unnoticeable.
TuTorials
Create a video animation
animatE thE
CharaCtEr
ChECk list
following thE
ControllErs
CliCk To Play video
www.bit.ly/197-maya-1
5 creaTe soMe WeIghT
I like to start the animations with the body
movements. Depending on how this is done it will
create a completely different weight feeling. It’s like
a bouncing ball; the way the character bounces back
from the ground and the time it spends squashing
down dictates the feeling of weight. I want to make
it look heavy so I increase the contrast on the vertical
movement and make him spend more time on the
ground before coming up again.
onE CEntrE of gravity (Cog)
Start animating the COG as it
will affect most of the other
controllers. A bad animated centre
affects your entire model.
two limbs and spinE
It doesn’t matter if your character
runs or flies, the way it moves
is extremely important and the
active limbs and spine should
come after the COG.
CliCk To Play video
www.bit.ly/197-maya-2
CliCk To Play video
www.bit.ly/197-maya-3
6 paW placeMenT
after setting up the ground reference and the
body’s vertical movement, I start blocking the paws.
This is always a trial and error process and it usually
requires some adjustments to the loop’s length. If
the loop is too long it will require the character to
spend too much time in the air and that will affect
the weight. on this project I set my loop to last 24
frames with only four frames without any contact
with the ground.
7 geT a squasheD pose
another important animation rule that can be
compared to a bouncing ball is the squash and
stretch happening on the entire body. at the
moment as the character touches the ground it
starts to squash in an overlap motion, first with the
front legs, then the body and ending with the back
legs and tail. It is still not necessary to worry about
the graph editor, what is more important now is to
get a good contact and squashed pose.
thrEE sECondary animations
Parts that do not affect the
movement and are influenced by
other parts can be animated at
the end, like the tail or ears.
ExpErt tip
Overlap test method
A good way to check if
your overlap is working
is by previewing the
animation backwards; the
tip of the tail should be
directing the movement
like a snake moving.
CliCk To Play video
www.bit.ly/197-maya-4
8 sTreTch your characTer
now it’s time to block the other two main poses: the
moment were the character is leaping forward and
the fully stretched pose where it is completely in the
air. It’s really important to follow the references and
keep the poses consistent. If on landing the right
paw lands first, it will also be the first one to leave the
ground. avoid over stretching the legs and never let
the elbow or knees bend on the wrong side.
3D WorlD august 2015
66
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AS THE BALL
HITS, IT RECOILS
AND BECOMES
SQUASHED
ExpErt tip
Start over
Sometimes trying
to fix an animation
may not be the best
answer. Try deleting
all the keys on that
controller and
start again.
CliCk To Play video
www.bit.ly/197-maya-5
CliCk To Play video
www.bit.ly/197-maya-6
9 Break The syMMeTry
It’s important to always break the symmetry on the
poses and make the actions happen at different
moments. for example, when one paw is hitting
the floor, make sure to create a key on the other
paw in a different position. after the four main
poses are blocked, I then check from multiple
angles to see if the poses are looking good and also
have a strong silhouette.
CliCk To Play video
www.bit.ly/197-maya-7
10 InBeTWeens placeMenT
after the poses are blocked we can start adding
the inbetweens. There are no rules about the frame
placement or quantity. I try to keep the inbetweens
every two to four frames but some exceptions
happen. The important thing now is not to worry too
much about the placement of the keys but focus on
the weight and on a clean movement. The extra keys
are going to be cleaned later.
CliCk To Play video
www.bit.ly/197-maya-8
11 TaIl overlap
12 cleanIng The keys
13 The loop
14 exTenDIng The cycle
I work following the hierarchy of bones, starting
with the base of the tail and creating the movement
reacting to the body. Depending on the rig, it may
be necessary to counter-animate the rotation on the
first bone of the tail to make it move smoothly. after
the first controller is finished we can move to the
next one, always making sure the movement is like a
whip. It’s important never to allow the tail to become
straight so always try to keep it as c and s shapes.
for the loop it’s important that it’s continuous and
looks like one big animation when repeated. for
this to happen you need all the keys from all the
controllers to be the same on the first frame and the
last frame. They must also have the same tangent so
there is no contrast on the speed when it loops.
now it’s time to delve deeper into the graph editor.
Don’t worry if it looks a little confusing, we are going
to work on isolated keys and controllers with the
aim of making everything work smoothly. Make some
playblasts and keep watching the animation – one
part of the character at a time. This way you will be
able to spot any issues and know the frame in which
it is happening in.
It is possible to make the cycle more organic by
extending it but that usually leads to much more
work. By modulating it is possible to extend the cycle
by repeating part of the loops and at the same time
we make animation longer in other parts. This is what
I did with the tail with the use of animation layers.
3D WorlD august 2015
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brokEn tangEnts
Know when to use them
Usually all movements have a
certain amount of deceleration
and acceleration when changing
direction. This is known in
animation as ‘easy in’ and
‘easy out.’ That is why almost
all tangents are going to be
continuous in the keys.
The exception to this rule is
when something external acts to
change the movement direction.
In these cases the broken tangent
can be used to make the change
of speed more distinguishable.
This can be applied on the step
action, which can be compared to
a bouncing ball; the moment the
paw hits the floor is the moment
with the highest vertical speed (y
axis) and it suddenly comes to a
stop on the next frame.
It’s really simple to break the
tangents. Inside the Graph Editor,
select the key, then click
Tangets>Break Tangents, or on
the icon shown on the image.
After that you will be able to
move the tangents independently.
tutorials
Master PBR textures
ArTisT profile
Wes McDermott
Technical artist Wes
strives to improve
his work by finding
a balance between
technical knowledge
and artistic skill. He
works for Allegorithmic
as the community
manager and
Substance ninja.
www.allegorithmic.com
Winged Throne room
This impressive render was
created by Anton Cheikin
and Ekaterina Stoycheva
SubStance DeSigner | SubStance Painter | bitmaP2material 3
learn how to
master PBr textures
Wes McDermott talks through the map creation guidelines
for the metal and roughness workflow
ExpErt tip
Create PBR materials
The Base Material node in
Substance Designer can be
used to quickly create PBR
materials from base values
or through user-defined
maps. The node contains
measured data as presets
for common metal
and non-metal
materials.
Topics covered
Base Colour maps
Roughness maps
Metallic maps
Ambient lighting
P
hysically-based rendering, or
PBR, is a method of shading
and rendering that provides
a more accurate representation of
how light interacts with surfaces.
It can be referred to as PhysicallyBased Rendering (PBR) or
Physically-Based Shading (PBS).
The metal/roughness workflow
is defined through a set of
channels, which are fed as textures
to a sampler in the PBR shader.
The maps specific to the metal/
roughness workflow are Base
Colour, Metallic and Roughness.
The PBR shader will also utilise
Ambient Occlusion, Normal
and possibly Height for parallax
mapping, but these maps are not
specific to the metal/roughness
workflow as they’re also used in the
specular/glossiness workflow.
In the metal/roughness
workflow, the reflectance value
3D WorlD August 2015
for metals are placed in the
Base Colour map along with the
reflected colour for dielectrics and
the reflection at grazing angles is
handled by the BRDF.
A metallic map is utilised, which
works like a mask to differentiate
metal and dielectric data found
In Substance Designer
there’s several PBR utility
nodes providing presets
for real-world values
in the base colour map. The
dielectric F0 (fresnel zero angle)
values are not authored by hand
as the shader handles them. When
the shader sees black in the metal
map it treats that corresponding
68
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area in the base colour map as
dielectric and uses a four per
cent (0.04) reflectance value. This
four per cent value covers most
common dielectric materials.
It’s important to note that all
values, such as dielectric F0, metal
reflectance and brightness ranges
for albedo colour, are derived
from actual measured data. In
Substance Designer, there’s
several PBR utility nodes providing
presets for real-world values.
Here we’ll cover each map type
used in the metal/roughness
workflow. Each will be presented
with a set of ranges and guidelines
for authoring. For a more in-depth
look at the theory of PBR and
the metal/rough and specular/
glossiness workflows, visit this
issue’s Vault.
For all the assets you need go to
ceativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
AmbiEnt lighting
OnE AmbiEnt OcclusiOn
The Ambient Occlusion (AO) map
defines how much of the ambient
environment lighting is accessible
to a surface point. It only affects
the diffuse contribution and
should not occlude the specular
contribution. Engines like Unreal
Engine 4 have an option for screen
space reflection to simulate local
reflections. The best combination is
AO with screen space reflections.
bAsE cOlOur mAp
twO using AO mAps
The Base Colour map is an RGB map that
can contain two types of data; reflected
colour for dielectrics and reflectance values
for metals. The colour that represents
dielectrics represents reflected wavelengths
that we see. The reflectance values are
present if an area is denoted as metal in the
metallic map, such as white (1.0). The Base Colour
map should be set to be interpreted as sRGB.
In Substance PBR shaders, ambient
lighting is multiplied by the AO. The
AO map is supplied by a texture
sampler in the PBR shader. It’s an
optional channel. The AO shouldn’t
be baked into texture maps, only
supplied as its own channel to the
shader. Exceptions can be microocclusion that can’t be computed by
the shader from the AO map alone.
thrEE AO mAps & substAncE
In Substance Designer, AO can be
baked from a mesh or converted
from a Normal map using the
integrated baking toolset. In
addition, there is an Ambient
Occlusion node for converting
height to AO. Bitmap2Material
3 can be used to generate AO
from a source image as well. The
Ambient Occlusion map should be
interpreted as linear.
bAsE cOlOur mAp sEttings
DiElEctric F0 FOr mEtAl wOrkFlOw
The Base Colour map contains both metal
reflectance values and diffuse reflected colour.
Base colour should be devoid of lighting
information with the exception of micro-occlusion.
Dark values (dielectric reflected colour) should
not go below 30 sRGB (tolerant range) – 50 sRGB
(strict range). Bright values (dielectric reflected
colour) should not go above 240 sRGB. Reflectance for raw metal is
going to be high in the range of 70-100 per cent specular, which we
can map to 180-255 sRGB.
3D WorlD August 2015
Some metal/roughness implementations such as those found in the
Substance toolset and Unreal Engine 4 have a specular control,
which allows the artist to change the constant F0 value for
dielectrics. In Substance, this output is labelled as SpecularLevel and
is supplied by a texture sampler in the metal/roughness PBR shader
as shown here. It represents the range of 0.0 - 0.08. If you need to
manually set the F0 for a dielectric, you can do so using the
SpecularLevel output in the Substance graph within Substance
Designer. This output can be utilised in UE4 for authored substance
materials to have full control over dielectric F0 in engine.
69
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tutorials
Master PBR textures
mEtAllic mAp
bAsics
This defines areas of a
material that denote raw
metal and is a greyscale map.
It describes to the shader
which areas in the base
colour should be interpreted
as reflected colour (dielectric)
and which areas denote
metal reflectance values
shown here. In the metallic
map, 0.0 (black - 0 sRGB)
represents non-metal and 1.0
(white - 255 sRGB) represents
raw metal.
mEtAl surFAcEs
AnD tExturing
mEtAllic mAp
sEttings
Metal surfaces have two
important aspects as it
relates to texturing. These
are that their reflectance
values are going to be high,
so around the range of
70-100 per cent specular –
and some metals can be
corroded. If a metal is
corroded or has a paint layer,
then it should be treated as
dielectric. The Metallic map
should be set to be
interpreted as linear.
Black (0.0) is non-metal and
white (1.0) is metal. There can
be transitional greyscale
values to account for
oxidation. If the Metal map
has values lower than 235
sRGB, then the reflectance
value needs to be lowered in
the Base Colour map. This will
account for a dielectric layer,
such as dirt or dust, that might
be semi-occluding the raw
metal. Painted metal should
also be treated as non-metal.
whAt’s rOughnEss?
The roughness map describes
surface irregularities that
cause light diffusion. The
reflected direction varies based
on the surface roughness.
Rougher surfaces have larger,
dimmer looking highlights
and smoother surfaces keep
specular reflections focused,
appearing brighter.
rOughnEss sEttings
With roughness, there’s no right or
wrong. The artist has full creative
control. To start with, roughness is the
surface detail maps, such as Height and
Normal. The Normal or Height map will
often contain key surface details that
should also be represented in the Roughness map.
The Roughness map should be interpreted as linear.
3D WorlD August 2015
70
www.youtube.com/3dworld
rOughnEss mAp
bAsics
In this map, black (0.0)
represents a smooth surface
and white (1.0) represents a
rough surface. The Roughness
map is the most creative and
allows you to visually define
the character of a surface and
to tell a story. The condition
of a surface tells a lot about
the environment it is in and
further relates to the overall
design of the assets and the
worlds that you are trying
to create.
nOrmAl mAps & pbr
The Normal map is used to
simulate surface detail and their
usage is the same in PBR as it is in
non-PBR workflows. However,
since the Normal map simulates
surface detail, it can be beneficial
to have the surface details from
the Normal map also affect the
Roughness or Glossiness maps as
well, as shown in my image here.
nOrmAl mAps AnD substAncE DEsignEr
tExEl DEnsity
A Normal map can be baked in Substance Designer from a mesh
using the integrated baking toolset. In addition, there is a Normal
node for converting height into a normal map. Bitmap2Material 3
can be used to generate a normal from a source image. You can
paint height data using vector or bitmap painting tools in Substance
Designer and use the Bevel node to quickly create hard surfaces as
normal data such as panels and doors. Height data painted in
Substance Painter can be exported as a Normal map. The Normal
map should be interpreted as linear. Substance Designer also
supports custom tangent basis plug-ins and ships with MikkTSpace.
A result of using the metal/roughness workflow
is a white edge artefact. This fringe is apparent
in the transitional areas between materials where
it goes from a dielectric to a bright metal due to
texture interpolation. With metal/roughness, the
base colour contains a brighter value for the metal
reflectance that is interpolated with the non-metal
diffuse colour, producing the white edge.
EDgE ArtEFActs
is thE surFAcE mEtAl?
The document resolution and texel
density have a direct impact on the
visibility of edge artefacts. For example,
if you use a Hard Edge brush to create
the transitional areas between metal and
non-metal, a low document resolution
will still soften the edge and exacerbate
the artefact. This low-resolution issue is also caused by UVs that are
not scaled to provide an adequate texel density based on the
document resolution. Providing a good texel density for UVs is the
best method for minimising any edge artefacts, as shown here.
3D WorlD August 2015
It can be helpful to break down a surface
into the metal or non-metal categories. I
will often begin the texturing process by
examining the material and asking myself
if what I’m creating is metal or not.
Through this you can derive some
guidelines for the texturing process, as
covered in this tutorial. In the image here you can see a chart
summarising the guidelines to follow for a metal or dielectric surface.
With metal/rough, you only need diffuse reflected colour and metal
reflectance as dielectric F0 is not authored directly.
71
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TuTorials
Create a space suit
ArTisT profile
Chris Chui
Chris Chui is a
freelance character
designer specialising
in cloth simulation
and apparel design.
He works with both
digital and physical
cloth, tailoring
custom apparel
during downtime.
www.mxnarch.
artstation.com
Topics covered
Initial concept phase
Marvelous Designer features
Modelling with MD imported geometry
3D WorlD August 2015
72
www.youtube.com/3dworld
Marvelous Designer 4 | 3Ds Max | PhotoshoP | Corona renDerer
Create a spaCe suit in
Marvelous Designer 4
Chris Chui talks through the essential features he uses in
Marvelous Designer 4 to create complex clothing
Follow
the viDeo
if you see the Play icon, click the link!
W
hen creating complex
characters it’s important
to optimise where time
is spent. This ensures we get
the best outcome in the least
time. For me it’s essential that
my characters are realistic and
believable, while also having an
appealing design.
Marvelous Designer is my
main tool and allows me to
create believable designs in
a comparatively short time.
Marvelous Designer is a software
that enables the simulation of
cloth in a way that is easy to learn
and mimics real-life garment
making. Its revolutionary method
of dealing with what essentially is
a complex area of 3D has lead to
its massive success.
The release of Marvelous
Designer 4 was a game-changer
that has enabled me to create
character designs faster than I
ever could before. These features
ranged from simple bug fixes to
massive overhauls in how it deals
with geometry. Tasks such as
editing one side of a symmetric
pattern would require building
one half then copy and pasting
it over and over again to update
a change. This one new feature
enables users to have a clone
pattern that mimics all changes
and updates automatically.
However, the biggest change
is the one everybody has been
anticipating since the release of
the first Marvelous Designer. The
software previously produced
triangle meshes as they are better
for cloth simulation. However,
this meant 3D packages would
struggle to subdivide and
edit these meshes. Marvelous
Designer now supports simulation
and exporting quad meshes which
has enabled not just smoothing,
but the easy editing on a polygon
level for a boost in detail.
The best part is I now spend
less time with laborious tasks
and more time trying new design
options. It allows me to get more
content to my clients for review
and in shorter time too. Marvelous
Designer is a software I use
everyday and I could not produce
the characters I do without it.
For all the assets you need go to
creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
ExpErt tip
Shortcuts are
your friend
Make yourself familiar with
these handy shortcuts:
Space bar – Simulate toggle
G – Internal Polygon/Line
[Ctrl]+[D] – Sync toggle
M – Free Sew
1 CreATe MooD boArDs
The success of a new project can be dependent
on the references you gather, therefore I always
grab references for anything I’ll need to design. In
this case it’s the overall suit style, specific helmet
designs, shader reference, decal reference and even
fabric samples and patterns. I create a mood board
with everything on a single page where I can draw
ideas from without scrolling through folders. It takes
a bit of time initially but it will pay off.
3D WorlD August 2015
73
2 explore IDeAs In 2D
If you’re stronger in 3D than 2D you may dread
drawing, but it’s important to explore ideas. I’m not
concerned with the realism of my sketches, but the
flow of the design. I use lots of strong angled lines in
my designs so I employ what fashion designers do
and just draw line art. After I have a few iterations
in the design I’ll do another variation in a different
direction. once I have a winner, I draw in the wrinkles
of fabric and very primitively add in shadow.
www.youtube.com/3dworld
TuTorials
Create a space suit
Quick fixES
troublEShooting
fixing fAultS EArly
CliCk to PlaY viDeo
www.bit.ly/197-designer-1
3 JuMp InTo 3D eArly
once I’m comfortable with where the concept is
heading I’ll jump into 3D – and often this is quite early.
Marvelous Designer is amazing as I can make a very
basic suit in little time and this serves as a base to
design over. not all ideas in 2D translate to 3D, so here
I weed out problem areas as they arise. I’ll build suit
parts as fast as possible, temporarily ignoring all good
modelling practices. I can throw away parts that don’t
work without having spent ages on its construction.
onE StrAin mAp ViEw
4 pose your CHArACTer
I make sure when I’m designing in 3D to have a
basic pose on the character. This doesn’t need to be
the most exciting pose, but it definitely helps with
selling the character to both yourself and the clients.
often the biggest hurdle in 3D is keeping yourself
motivated with the design you’re working on. A
pose can be the thing that makes a huge difference
in the way you feel about your character and the
direction it’s heading in.
CliCk to PlaY viDeo
www.bit.ly/197-designer-2
It’s easy to make small errors
when tailoring a rough suit for
the concept stage. One way to
troubleshoot this is to enable
the Strain Map View. Without
this view it can be hard to
locate the problem.
CliCk to PlaY viDeo
www.bit.ly/197-designer-3
5 syMMeTrIC pAsTIng
two Spotting problEmS
Look for the Strain Map under
the Surfaces tab or press
[Alt]+[6]. This will highlight
areas of great strain in red. The
red highlights an area where the
seams don’t line up and are
causing the side to pull.
thrEE All fixEd
With the error fixed, most of the
garment should appear green
unless deliberately stretched.
Now you’re good to go and
any problems that may have
caused a headache later on
have been solved.
one of my most frequently used features in
Marvelous Designer is symmetric paste. The way
this works is one pattern will have a symmetrical
twin, which when edited the other twin will reflect
any change you make. Complex pieces like the main
torso can be halved and sewn together. once happy
with the piece you merge it with the symmetric
Merge option. Make sure that centre line is straight
or you might end up with errors.
CliCk to PlaY viDeo
www.bit.ly/197-designer-4
sewing one edge to multiple edges is always a pain
because of the maths involved in balancing both
lengths. now Marvelous Designer has the 1 to n
feature, which balances lengths automatically. In
Free sew Mode define the edge you wish to sew to
multiple edges and when defining the remaining
edges hold shift. The seams will go green indicating
you are in 1 to n mode.
CliCk to PlaY viDeo
www.bit.ly/197-designer-5
7 lAyer ClonIng
when making something like a puffer jacket, or the
shoulder padding in my case, I used the layer Clone
feature. If you wanted a duplicate layer on top of an
existing piece you would have to copy, paste and
re-sew all seams. This is now a one-click solution
via the layer Clone feature. It makes sure all seams
and inner lines are automatically sewn together. It
also offsets the new piece conveniently so you don’t
need to re-position it.
3D WorlD August 2015
6 1 To n sewIng
74
8 DeAlIng wITH lAyers
when editing multiple inner lines on a pattern,
Marvelous Designer now uses a layer system similar
to Adobe Illustrator. previously, if an inner line was
occluding another it became very difficult to access
the line below. To combat this, right-click and look
for order and choose one of the various options
according to your needs.
www.youtube.com/3dworld
ExpErt tip
Stick with what
you know
MD has a great setting
where you can set the
viewport controls to mimic
the style of your favourite
3D apps. Find it under
Settings>User Settings>
ViewControls>
User Preset
CliCk to PlaY viDeo
www.bit.ly/197-designer-6
9 superIMpose To sAve TIMe
The new superimpose feature is where you can
essentially take a part and have it pasted onto a
surface without simulation. This might seem a small
feature but when you have several parts to position on
a complicated garment it’ll save time and headaches.
The superimposed parts will follow the surface of the
part it’s pasted to. This might help in a situation with
a curved sleeve without going through the steps of
freezing the piece and guiding the new piece in place.
Is symmetric
merge option
CliCk to PlaY viDeo
www.bit.ly/197-designer-7
10 THe press Tool
To mimic how fabric bends at a seam, Marvelous
Designer has introduced a feature which simply
requires both pieces to be selected with the tool.
This is the only new feature I don’t use too often. This
method affects all your seams uniformly but in most
cases you may only need a few seams to bend. I prefer
to select seams manually and apply a numerical value
in the fold angle. This gives me freedom to specify the
degree of bendiness or even an inverted bend.
CliCk to PlaY viDeo
www.bit.ly/197-designer-8
uSE SnApShotS
Check your concept
CliCk to PlaY viDeo
www.bit.ly/197-designer-9
11 wHen To use QuADs
The Quadrangulate feature all Marvelous Designer
users have been asking for has finally been
implemented. This is obviously the biggest gamechanger as most applications will support quad
meshes far more than the previous triangle mesh
output. Though quads are readily available, I like to
stick with a triangle mesh right up until export time.
I have experienced different results with quad mesh
simulations versus triangle mesh simulations.
12 exporTIng THe MesH
when exporting and finalising a mesh into your
chosen 3D package be sure to take note of the
export settings you apply. with 3ds Max I often
need to change it to cm to match my scene scale. I
always have Multiple objects, Thin and unified uv
Coordinates ticked. This ensures separated pieces,
single layered geometry and a matching uv scale.
3D WorlD August 2015
75
www.youtube.com/3dworld
As you’re modelling it’s often a
good idea to take a screenshot of
your character so far and explore
more ideas in Photoshop. This is
a really good way of exploring
alternative versions or trying out a
big change. I also draw in details
that otherwise would take a long
time in 3D. This can be colours
and decals. Don’t forget to open
up your previous concept and take
a look at how it has changed.
If it has lost the essence of the
concept, this is going to be a
very quick way to figure out why.
Often this will be the moment
where you improve the design by
choosing elements from the old
design and the new.
TuTorials
Create a space suit
13 HArD surFACe MoDellIng 14 overCoMe uv MAppIng
when geometry is finished it’s key to go back over
the rough geometry modelled in the concept phase.
It’s vital to model these parts properly as subdivision
surfaces to increase the smoothing required during
render time. I use 3ds Max for my modelling because
of its great modelling tools. For Max users there is a
good feature often overlooked; under the Modifier
list there’s a space for shortcut buttons. use this
feature to set up any shortcut buttons you use.
A technique using Zbrush can solve dreaded uv
mapping. Zbrush handles unwrapping objects
very well with little to no stretching. If your object is
relatively complex it will need seams created in Max
first. use the unwrap uvw Modifier and the point
To point seams tool under peel to draw seams. Then
export your objects into Zbrush and select uv Master
under Zplugin. Tick use existing uv seams and click
unwrap. This gives great uvs and saves lots of time.
ExpErt tip
Keep on saving
A good rule of thumb
is when you see
something you like, hit
[Ctrl]+[S]. Countless
times I’ve reverted back
to an earlier version
that looked better.
15 renDerIng
I’ve made the switch from v-ray to Corona as the
realism in usually obtained much faster. The renderer
is still in its infancy but for most projects I think it’ll be
perfect. It’s in the latest trend of unbiased renderers
being developed, which uses Cpu instead of gpu.
I use Corona Interactive to get fast feedback as I
develop shaders and lighting. It’s great as the preview
is exactly what you get in the final render, as they both
use the exact same rendering engine.
universAl meThod
This texturing method
can be utilised in any
render engine. The
concept is much like a
mask in Photoshop
16 proCeDurAl TexTures
For texturing in Corona I procedurally create shaders
that can be dragged onto any surface. I use Invert
normals with the CoronaAo map for surface wear.
use a mask to blend the paint material with a steel
material to get a worn paint effect. be sure to
put a noise map in the Max Distance to break up
uniformity. This should sit in the mask slot of a blend
material. For a stronger effect add an output map to
the CoronaAo and push the contrast in the curves.
3D WorlD August 2015
76
www.youtube.com/3dworld
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3d World August 2015
77
www.3dworld.creativebloq.com
3d printing
3d maker
Exploring the best 3D print art,
technology and trends
get published
email your Cg art to
ian.dean@futurenet.com
Visit the online Vault to download
extra process art for these projects:
www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
3D WorlD August 2015
78
3dworld.creativebloq.com
“RAGE from id Software was the most
fun [to work on] since I was given quite
a bit of creative freedom to explore the
characters, and I had a very solid and
talented team to work amongst, which
always makes things fun,” says Brett Briley
interview
it’s not all doom
Veteran video games artist Brett Briley shares
his passion for 3D printing with Ian Dean
T
Brett Briley
Brett has worked in
video games since
1999, on major titles
such as Doom 3 and
RAGE for id Software.
www.bbriley.com
The nine-inch-tall Clover
Bust (opposite page) is one
of Brett’s current models
available from his website
hough Brett Briley began his
career as a merchandise artist
at Disney, he has spent the last
16 years working in video games
after he attended the E3 Expo and
thrust his portfolio at anyone who
would pay attention.
Is it just as easy to catch a break
for an artist fresh from college
today? “I think there is
always a possibility of
someone breaking into
the games industry by
attending a conference, especially
if you have the portfolio someone
is looking for,” says Brett. “Having
the opportunity to meet with fellow
artists and possible employers is
more effective than sending your
work into the internet void.”
The video games industry is a hard
place to work and stress takes its toll
as companies chase bigger profits
and success. “Stress from worrying
about creating the next big thing or
stress from trying to keep that next
big thing going… They constrain
creativity by trying to keep that big
thing going, continuing expansions
to that success, leaving little
chance of new creative directions
to happen. Too many times I have
3D WorlD August 2015
seen a great team break down due
to both of these things, and once it
seeps in, there is little chance to get
out of that hole,“ admits Brett.
To de-stress, Brett is turning his
hand to 3D printing. “In my free
time, I am working on personal
projects like traditional sculpting,
Talking with others whose
prints you appreciate is a
big help, as they can
guide you around pitfalls
or creating my next monster or
character to make into a 3D
print,” he explains.
This means he can explore his
love of character design, and Brett
has some advice to artists working
on their own creatures: “I would say
that giving that extra subtle care and
detail will help push the character
from good to better,” he says.
“Also, to realise that art is never
ending, and you should always
expect to learn from everything
that you do,” he continues.
79
3dworld.creativebloq.com
Brett’s interest of 3D printing
stemmed from his day job. Having
been asked to create some collector
figures for a special edition of
a game, he was impressed with
the results. “Unfortunately, that
[project] didn’t pan out, but seeing
it intangible from my computer to
seeing it as something tangible on
my desk got me hooked on all the
possibilities, and I just kept going.”
So what advice does Brett have
for newcomers to the 3D print
scene? “Be aware of your costs
and understand the benefits or
limitations of the various printers,” he
explains. “Size, details, and weight
will affect the cost quickly. Decide
the level of detail you want to get
from your print, keeping in mind that
after clean-up some of those high
level details would mostly disappear.
Also, decide if your model is hollow
or solid since a hollow cast is cheaper
comparatively but might not be what
you want ultimately. Talking with
others whose prints you appreciate
is a big help, as they can guide you
around pitfalls you want to avoid,”
Brett concludes.
Download images of Brett’s models
Fyi creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
3d maker
3D print jewellery
3d print tutorial
3D print your own jewellery
Learn the art of creating personalised jewellery as Aiman Akhtar
takes you through the process of making a stylish dancer pendant
R
Artist profile
Aiman Akhtar
Aiman is a freelance
3D artist, specialising
in characters and
based in Los Angeles,
California. He’s also
a beta tester for
Adobe’s 3D print
tools and continues
to experiment with
the technology. His
resolution for 2015
is to become a 3D
printing expert.
www.aiman3d.com
esearching 3D printing for jewellery was a
whole new chapter in my odyssey. It’s one
thing to make a New Year’s resolution
to 3D print something completely new each
month, it’s another to keep it! In a previous
issue’s coverage for the 3D Printer World expo,
I met and had a chance to interview some
exceptionally talented artists that have been
using 3D printing to create jewellery unlike
anything I’ve seen before. You can learn more
about their art, process and backgrounds
following my own jewellery tutorial.
My jewellery story is relatively recent. I
was never exposed to jewellery growing up
as earrings, necklaces and pendants were
a decidedly girly thing and I was a boy.
The closest I got was rebelliously wearing
a beaded choker in high school, because I
thought it made me look cool – it didn’t.
A few years back I decided to propose to
my then girlfriend and started researching
3D WorlD August 2015
80
wedding rings. I saw all sorts of people from
all over the world, really talented craftsmen
and craftswomen that made exceptionally
unique and beautiful pieces. A shift occurred
in my mind and I started thinking of jewellery
as little pieces of wearable art. Now this was
I didn’t want to make anything
cheesy or obvious and started
thinking about things I really enjoy
something I could get into! I collaborated
with a jeweller to design a one-of-a-kind
engagement ring and learned all about the
various gradings of silver and platinum, the
four Cs for picking a good diamond: cut,
colour, clarity and carat – and the lost wax
casting process. The ring turned out amazing
3dworld.creativebloq.com
Aiman plans to
spend the next year
prototyping more
dancer pendants
and finding buyers
for his wearable art
ue
5
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ow
ll n’s ia ly
fo ma tor 5 Ju
ai t tu sale 1
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s
Is
1
moDel anD print a piece of jewellery: 3D printeD Dancer penDant
manufacturing with matter
Software: ZBrush | KeyShot | Photoshop
Find a local printer to get your work made
For my final output I worked with Matter, a
Brooklyn-based manufacturer that specialises
in small-scale jewellery production. I was
impressed with their excellent website
design, clear pricing and professionalism.
They’re a small business, but they’ve built
a great service around 3D printing in wax,
molding and rapid casting. The process starts
by signing up and uploading a 3D model or
photos of an object you want digitised. Then
my favourite part, using their interactive
materials guide to choose a base metal,
surface finish and plating: see www.matter.
io/materials/?ref=header_nav. You are then
quoted a price for one sample order or batch
production costs for 10, 20 and up to 100.
Add it to your cart and your order is off to
production. Manufacturing made easy and
accessible to individuals.
download
the model
www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
and on a summer vacation snorkelling off
a beach in Costa Rica, she said yes.
So naturally, when I started thinking about
what to 3D print for this article I gravitated a
full 180 degrees away from the jewellery I saw
as commonplace, kitschy and gaudy. I didn’t
want to make anything cheesy or obvious and
started thinking about things I really enjoy.
I was into sculpting and had spent years
studying human anatomy, posing, shape and
form, but there wasn’t a clear direction. My
now wife suggested taking a break and going
out to see a contemporary dance take on the
Phantom of the Opera classic. Seeing the
masterful leaps and graceful elegance that
allowed the dancers to tell stories with their
bodies, the idea hit me. I came back home and
gathered a gigabyte worth of dancer photos
off Pinterest and then got to sculpting.
For your model and files visit
fyi www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
one Back to Basics, shape anD form
two Detailing anatomy
I start with a mannequin in ZBrush and pose it
based on dancer references I’ve found. At this
stage all I’m focusing on is the gesture or form
lines of the movement. These create a dynamic
and appealing pose, which is even more
important because of how small the final output
will be. Once I have the pose blocked out, I
begin sculpting in a first pass, adding volume
and realistic human proportions but still limiting
my focus to the large primary shapes.
Next I sculpt in the anatomical details while
observing good reference. I want to walk the
line on being anatomically accurate but also
beautiful, just like the sculpted and toned bodies
of professional dancers. This works too well
and before long I have a sculpt that is far too
realistic in its detail. Realising the scale this
would be printed, I use a Smooth brush and
start taking away detail. I add hair, shoes and a
ring for the necklace to loop through.
three refine sculpt
four prototype
I know from previous experience that printing
at two inches or less would be severely limiting
in terms of what I can sculpt. For example, I
have to turn the hands into fists, which hurt
the gesture. I decimate the model and export it
out as an .stl, then upload it to Shapeways to
run their print test for stainless steel. It brings
up some thin wall issues on the model’s hair as
well as the thumb. I go back to ZBrush to refine
the model: I inflate the thin areas.
I use an earlier version of the model with
less material to order some test prints from
Shapeways so I can test various materials and
sizes. The right is polished flexible plastic and
the left is stainless steel. Both are too grainy but
holding these in my hand was useful to decide
the final size, as well as improve the flow lines.
Back in ZBrush, I change the position of the ring
and also raise the free arm to create a more
dynamic pose. I then export the model.
five chain anD accessories
six presentation anD marketing
I visit some local hobby stores to find chains for
the dancer pendant, however, they are all too
clunky and large. They don’t enhance the focus,
but rather take away from it. I decide instead to
order professional quality sterling silver chains
from www.sarraf.com. They have a wonderful
selection of chains in various material finishes
and styles. I decide on the .9mm round snake
chain, which at 16 inches was the perfect length
to showcase the pendant.
I create a beauty render of the final sculpt
through KeyShot to create a custom rose gold
material, the intended finish for the piece. After
receiving the completed order in the mail from
Matter.io I carefully check the quality, add the
chain and take presentation photos. From talking
to several jewellers, I’ve learned the trade is
equal parts craft and marketing. I shot using a
high-quality DSLR camera in RAW mode and
made final adjustments in Photoshop.
3D WorlD August 2015
81
3dworld.creativebloq.com
3d maker
3D print jewellery
3d print jewellery designers
Aiman gathers insights from jewellery makers to help you to make a success of your art
igor Knezevic Product & concept designer/architect
and exposure through selling at retail stores, but my main
way to sell is through my own online store and Shapeways.
I make extensive sketches, though once I start working
in 3D this is used only as a reminder of my original
ideas. Working digitally in full 3D is, for me, a process of
exploration, especially if one is using parametric workflow.
You need to give up some of the control and embrace
randomness. It is more like playing jazz, you improvise as you
go. Sometimes you fail. Actually, failure happens a lot. Then
you repeat. Keep trying. Remember that you are creating
real physical objects. Such objects need to be durable, have
a good finish and they need to function properly.
Photo by Jennifer-Pan
jenny wu Architect/partner at Oyler Wu Collaborative
I have been using 3D printing for the past 10 years, mainly
for architectural model making and as a faculty member at
Southern California Institute of Architecture.
I see the potential of jewellery as being architecture on
the body. About a year and half ago I started sketching some
ideas and decided to 3D model it digitally as a quick way
to prototype the pieces. I 3D printed them to see how they
would fit and look.
In December 2014, I attended Art Basel Miami and
brought a few of the prototype necklaces with me. By
wearing them around Miami that week, I received so much
attention with them that I decided to design a collection of
my own called LACE by Jenny Wu. I started selling on
www.jennywulace.com in October of last year. I returned to
Miami and debuted the collection in my own pop-up shop at
Aqua Miami. The response was overwhelming.
3D printing technology is finally at the point where
we can prototype the necklaces in metal, especially the
interlocking pieces. We hope to launch that at the end of
the year. We are also working on a wedding band collection
as well as pieces for men. My advice for aspiring jewellery
makers is prototype, prototype, prototype. I think the
success of any piece, beyond its aesthetics, is to test run it so
that you can foresee any issues with them.
tomas wittelsbach Independent jewellery designer/sculptor
My inspiration when I was young was Lalique jewellery and
I started sculpting odd organic objects and little characters.
Then, when I was nine or 10, I saw alien and told my mother:
“See I’m not crazy, other people make things like I do. I’m
not sick.” Thus, I was introduced to my major inspirations
Geiger, Moebius and Beksinski. I was lucky enough to meet
all three and work with two of them.
I started as a traditional sculptor doing large abstract
bronzes then transitioned to costume design and sculpting
in Hollywood/union local 755. In 2007, I left Hollywood and
decided to try making jewellery. I went to Chicago and met
with Jason at Casting House – they were the first casting
facility that said yes we can make that. So I started House
of Wittelsbach and began selling my pieces online and at
boutiques. Having your pieces in stores is important so
people can actually hold and look at them, but I’m a great
sculptor and a crappy salesman.
My advice is to make the pieces however you can. Design
for the machines you have access to. If you can only print
at 50um don’t put more detail in as it won’t show. No one
cares if you tell them there should have more stuff going on.
Design smart. People should be able to hold the piece and be
excited about it. Print, print, print. Only by printing will you
know what actually shows up and how.
louis benowitz CAD artist, president of RP Wax
I began in the jewellery business in 1979, then started
travelling overseas, buying loose gemstones and making
custom pieces to sell directly to retail buyers. I really enjoy
the challenge of going from a 2D concept to a finished 3D
fine-made piece of jewellery.
I first heard about 3D printing around 1999. By 2004 I
had completely retooled my business to take full advantage
of the CAD/CAM process. By trial and error, I found the
best machines and best process for the highest results to
make custom jewellery designs, which is quite difficult
as the machine manufacturers often provide misleading
information regarding the machine capabilities, actual model
3D WorlD August 2015
82
cost and if models can be directly cast. I started RP Wax in
2004 and market directly to designers, manufactures and
retail stores through www.rpwax.com.
Plan ahead for the production process when building 3D
models. There may be shrinkage in casting depending on
the process and metals used. Finishing removes metal, it
makes the piece smaller on the exterior and larger on the
interior. Prongs need to be a certain diameter for different
stone sizes, stone materials, shapes, etc. Everything doesn’t
work the first time. Research and development is not
eliminated by using 3D printed models, rather it streamlines
the process and allows for a better final product.
3dworld.creativebloq.com
Photo by Leticia-Llesmin
I was born in Croatia, studied architecture in Vienna, Austria
and came to the USA in 1999. I create jewellery because
it is the perfect design area to explore new methods
and try to find a new aesthetic, which makes sense for
novel parametric and generative design tools. Only after I
researched the material properties of SLS nylon printing did
I understand that 3D printing is not only for prototyping, but
can be used to make quality final objects.
The greatest thing about 3D printing is that objects can
be customised and improved without huge investment in
production costs. It definitely helps with creating the best
possible design for the customer. It’s great to get confidence
Stop-motion animation
Chase Me was created
from 3D printed models
3d Maker
3d print project
aDoBe gets
3D FrienDly
New features for
Photoshop CC
3d print projeCt
Frame By 3D-PrinteD Frame
French animator Gilles-Alexandre Deschaud on the
painstaking process of making his new film, Chase Me
W
Gilles-AlexAndre
deschAud
Gilles has been working
in the VFX industry
as a digital artist and
animator for eight years,
experimenting with
various techniques using
a hybrid of 2D mediums,
such as painting and
drawing, combined with
3D animation.
www.chasemefilm.com
hen CG animation first captured
everyone’s imagination, some
thought the analogue days of
snapping frame after frame of solid scenes
were over, but with his groundbreaking film
Chase Me, Gilles-Alexandre Deschaud has
married the latest technology with the best
tradition – 3D printing a stop-frame film.
“I was experimenting, mixing
digital with more traditional arts
like 2D, street art, stop-motion, and
sculpture,” Gilles-Alexandre says.
“I liked how digital art could embrace other
mediums and make something totally different.”
Armed with a 3D printer, he enthuses: “At
the beginning, I wanted to do just a test of 1015 seconds of animation. The further I got into
the 3D printing world, the further I fell in love
and wanted to do something bigger.”
In Chase Me, a young ukulele-strumming
girl is pursued through a shadowy forest by
an ominous shade, the mystery intensified
by the grey textures designed and printed
by Gilles-Alexandre: “Stop-motion gives a
lot of texture to the film. I liked including the
striations of 3D print, which change frame by
frame, as well as the imperfections that give
Gilles-Alexandre
found animating
and painting the tiny
models to be the
most challenging
3D WorlD August 2015
it even more life. It’s hard to have those kinds
of effects in CG. Stop-motion animation also
gives a lot of richness; I have a few involuntary
shifts between each frame that I really love.
My 3D animation is nothing like what I got
after printing my poses. I even painted some
models frame by frame and you can see the
brushstrokes change,” he explains.
“I exclusively used resins created for the
Form 1+ 3D printer. All the resins I used
behaved similar to ABS filaments. At a few
points I was able to slightly bend some parts in
order to assemble sets, which were composed
of several prints – generally of around 20-30 –
adhered together.”
Calm under pressure
A single frame took eight hours to print and
nearly two hours to clean all the supports, so
Gilles-Alexandre needed to be patient: “If you
break the part or remove a piece of the print
instead of supports, you have to start all over.
I spent approximately 20 minutes per print
removing unnecessary pieces, putting a hidden
frame number on the print and generating
supports for the 3D printer. Multiply that time
by 2,500 models – that’s a huge task.”
The most challenging part was animating
and printing the tiny models: “I couldn’t print
too small or I would lose a lot of detail. On the
other hand, if I printed too big it would have
taken forever to finish. Artistically, the most
stressful thing was to not really know how the
film would look at the end. I was completely
new to 3D printing before and Chase Me is
the first project of its kind.”
To see the Chase Me trailer and making of
Fyi the project visit www.chasemefilm.com
83
3dworld.creativebloq.com
Print to 3d PdF
The new PDF format has
launched for Photoshop CC
with the aim of making your
life easier. The Print to PDF
feature runs a 3D model
through the 3D print pipeline
where it’s then automatically
checked and repaired. So
could this be the end of
stressful prints?
Print to sVx
Produce high quality, full
colour, sliced 3D models
using this new SVX format.
Designed for colour printers,
this feature will verify and
update your files when
converted to SVX.
3d hub suPPort
Finding a local printer
service to produce your 3D
masterpiece will now be
easier in Photoshop CC. A
searchable 3D Hubs option
will enable you to find a
local printer service and
send your files at a click,
via a worldwide network
of providers.
tinkerine dittoPro
You’ll now be able to print
directly to a Tinkerine Ditto
3D printer from Photoshop
CC. Simply download the
new printer profile from
www.photoshop.com and
away you go.
3d Maker
Artist interview
artIst IntervIew
modelling miniature marvels
Creating 3D printed miniatures is a labour of love for artist
Javier García Ureña. Here he shares his advice and techniques
javier García
Ureña
Javier is a freelance
CG modeller and 3D
print artist who creates
game miniatures
for Corvus Billi and
Privateer Press.
www.bit.ly/197-javier
Learning ZBrush on my own and reaching my
dream job, fighting to make a living from my
art skills, that’s what I’m most proud of
Copyright by Corvus Belli
F
or some artists the path to a career is
a straightforward one, but for Javier
García Ureña it’s been a long journey. As
a child Javier loved to draw, but… “my father
told me to study something useful
at university, so I studied physics
and ended with a specialisation in
theoretical physics, nothing to do
with arts,” says Javier.
However, the call of the artist continued to
persist and he took freelance illustration jobs
and soon decided to risk all and “leave a good
stable job to follow a dream.”
After teaching himself digital art from online
tutorials he soon discovered ZBrush. “That
program changed the way I work,” he says.
“Digital scultping freed my mind.”
Learning the software wasn’t easy, but as
Javier says, “there’s nothing more difficult than
quantum mechanics,” so mastering ZBrush
“Working for Corvus Belli
is great because I’m an
Infinity player and it’s great
to sculpt the miniatures you
are playing with… and even
earn money doing that!”
proved a success and with it a role at Corvus
Belli, home to the wargame Infinity.
Working at a company that creates detailed
miniatures for wargames has meant Javier has
needed to grasp the thorns of 3D printing.
Going to print
location
Spain
software
ZBrush
projects
Infinity
Warmachine
3D WorlD August 2015
It’s all a matter of scale
With modern and affordable 3D printers
you can print almost anything. There are
printers that can translate nearly any little
detail to the final 3D printed model with
endless possibilities, so what rules has Javier
discovered to aid his modelling?
“Any crazy design could be printed, but as
I mentioned before the scale is important.
When designing a model for 3D printing it’s
very important to have in mind how big you
are going to print it. For example, if you are
going to print a warrior with a spear you have
to be careful how thick the spear is compared
to the rest of the sculpt, if you are going to
print it 3cm tall maybe the spear will be too
fragile and could break easily once printed.”
“Having in mind the relation between
proportions and scale is very important when
designing a character. Very detailed designs
are not suitable for small scales, but they are
great for bigger ones.”
Pro advice
Copyright by Privateer Press.
vital
statistics
“When I was learning ZBrush I found that some
of the miniatures used for wargames were 3D
printed. I started to investigate and I realised
it could be possible to print my own projects,”
explains Javier. “Soon I learned how to get
the files ready for printing and I printed my
own models with different companies, trying
to find the best – and cheaper – results. When
I was ready, I showed my work to a couple of
companies and I got my first job with Corvus
Belli. I learned a lot during my first projects,
they were also newbies on 3D printing and
we’ve grown up together.”
Now Javier has turned full-time freelance
and balances work at Corvus Belli with projects
for Privateer Press, creating digital sculpts
and 3D printed miniatures for the tabletop
game company, and the hard work has paid
off. But what has he learned about character
modelling for 3D printed miniatures?
“When you model characters for 3D printing
you must have in mind a lot of things: level
of detail, molding, how to breakdown the
sculpture, which 3D printer to use…” explains
Javier. “I learned how much detail to sculpt by
trial and error. I’ve tried lots of 3D printers until
I found which ones give the best results for the
scales I use for work, trying to find which one
translates the 3D file more accurately.”
The size the sculpture is going to be
printed at is very important when you detail
it, explains Javier: “If it’s going to be a 30mm
tall miniature you have to put in less detail,
making it bolder and deeper so it can be
readable on the 3D printed model. Bigger
scales mean more detail and it can be less
bold and looser.”
“Every project I do for Privateer
Press is more challenging and
tests my skills, I’m improving a
lot with them and also having
so much fun!”
84
Javier has some advice to aspiring modellers,
including testing out different printers via
online services to find the one that suits you,
and considering your materials. On a practical
level, Javier offers some modelling tips: “All
pieces (subtools) must overlap so when you
get the model ready for printing the mesh
is closed and watertight. Be careful with
details and scale. Balance is also important so
check it out before printing, you don’t want a
sculpture falling down and breaking the first
time you put it on the table. Finally, try to keep
a low polycount.”
So does Javier regret turning his back on
physics? “To be a self-taught artist was my
greater goal,” he says. “Learning ZBrush on my
own and reaching my dream job, fighting to
make a living from my art skills, that’s what I’m
most proud of.”
See more of Javier’s 3D prints and models
FYi at www.javi-ure.deviantart.com
3dworld.creativebloq.com
Copyright by Corvus Belli
“ZBrush has a lot of
tools that enable you
to sculpt hard surface
and organic shapes
so it’s great for any
kind of project.”
“For modelling
I use ZBrush
exclusively.
It’s one of the
most powerful
sculpting software,
and the most used
in the industry.”
[ Artist in residence ]
“Working for
Privateer Press is
great – I love that
game; and sculpting
iconic characters
like Victoria Haley
was awesome.”
Copyright by Privateer Press
“I always start sculpting the model in a
basic T-pose. It’s important to remember
that all the pieces of the model must
overlap, if not, when you try to get it
ready for printing, holes and ‘shells’
could appear inside the model and it
wouldn’t be suitable for 3D printing.
I always try to be as accurate to the
concept as possible. Once I get the
T-posed character accepted by the art
director, I start posing it using ZBrush’s
Transpose Master. It’s important to have
a low number of polygons because
Transpose Master works better with a
low polycount. Having a few subdivision
levels helps a lot with this, keeping
detail on the higher levels enables
you to pose it easier. Once the model
is posed I add the final details. Some
companies need the model breakdown
to get the different pieces ready for
production. I always do the breakdown
using ZBrush’s DynaMesh feature. The
DynaMesh Boolean operation merges
all subtools in a watertight and closed
mesh; these are the two most important
things to have in mind when getting
a file ready for 3D printing. I also
check there aren’t any holes or shells
inside the pieces. Then I decimate the
mesh as much as possible to reduce
the polycount. After this, I export it to
Netfabb (www.netfabb.com) using a 3D
print exporter plug-in. Once in Netfabb
it’s easy to get it ready for 3D printing.”
Copyright by Privateer Press
artist process
“There are lots of
software out there for
getting your models
ready for 3D printing.
I use Netfabb. It has
a free version that
offers enough to get
everything ready for
printing, and it’s very
easy to use.”
3D WorlD August 2015
85
3dworld.creativebloq.com
Vote
voTe now!
We invite you to join us for the CG Awards 2015, a celebration of
the most amazing art and technology that has been created over the
past year in the world of animation, computer hardware and VFX
The caTegories
The 3D World CG Awards 2015 will feature the following:
creaTive awards
Technology awards
• Best VFX feature film scene
• New application of the year
• VFX short film of the year
• Software update of the year
sponsored by
• Plug-in of the year
• Software innovation of the year
• CG animated feature of the year
• Hardware innovation of the year
• CG animated short of the year
• 3D print innovation of the year (new)
• Best CG commercial campaign
• Arch-viz animation of the year
communiTy award
• Arch-viz still of the year
• Live Event of the year
• CG video game of the year: in-game
• 3D World Hall of Fame
• CG video game of the year: promotion
Vote now at www.thecgawards.com
sponsored by
Contents
our
awarDs
Develop
Theory, research and reviews plus
industry insights from today’s experts
Best in class
Awarded to products that
excel in their class.
editor’s choice
Awarded to great products that
are highly recommended.
88 creating an indie game
The art process behind Glee Musketeers
90 the making of halo: humanity
The team behind the ambitious Halo fan film share their production art and insights
92 home made blockbuster trailers
96 review: 3ds max 2016
97 review: shadermap 3
98 my inspiration
Alf Lovvold reveals how he made his own CG blockbuster movie trailer
Can this year’s edition improve on 2015?
Get published
email your CG art to
ian.dean@futurenet.com
Visit the online Vault to download
extra process art for these projects:
www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw197
The user-friendly texture app impresses
3D WorlD August 2015
97 review: cadmouse
It’s a mouse, but not as you know it…
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Simon Webber on the art that inspired him
develop
Video game project
video game project
One For All
PlayStudios’ Bob MacNeil explains the making of the
indie video game The Glee Musketeers
T
Author profile
Bob MacNeil
Senior art director at
PlayStudios and New
Jersey native, Bob is
an illustrator, painter
and director.
www.taminglight.com
Author profile
Alex Patanjo
Alex is a CG supervisor,
and has worked as
a technical director/
FX artist for The
Orphanage, ILM and
Dreamworks Animation.
www.bit.ly/197-alex
he thing about ‘casual
gaming’ is you have no
option but to be original
and eye-catching. These games,
readily available to players via
a simple download, offer fans a
chance at total control of their
entertainment with little to no cost
commitment. To the developers, a
fresh approach to the content they
design is mandatory for attracting
players who aren’t necessarily
considered serious gamers.
The Glee Musketeers is a
concept of my own, which takes
players on a journey to 17th
century France. For years, we
were led to believe the Musketeers
were the suave, sword fighting
protectors of the king. In reality,
they were a ragtag group of
theatre performers who loved
the stage. Unfortunately, the stage
did not love them.
Imagining designs for these
sympathetic characters, I found
myself referencing everything
from the Muppets to the Three
Amigos. From that research I
then dreamt up a character
roster that was ready for a
command performance.
Early drafts of Porthos were
created to establish a visual
direction for the game. Typically,
the graphic designs would be
created first to establish the visual
direction of the other remaining
game assets. However, since this
game is character driven, I decided
to tackle them first.
Because these characters were
meant to be comical and ragtag in
their appearance, the first designs
Author profile
Aybars Turan
Aybars is a lead 3D
character artist based in
San Francisco. He uses
his fine art background
to imbue his sculpts
with life and realism.
www.bit.ly/197-aybars
The Musketeer
characters were
intended to be
comical and ragtag
in appearance
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seemed safe and uninspired.
Therefore as a result, they ended
up being discarded.
the king’s men
Unusually, the game also required
the characters to perform multiple
in-game dance routines. It was
decided early on that real-time 3D
would be the most efficient way to
work with the limitations presented,
such as the developer design specs,
mobile device limitations and
allowable data footprint.
Character designs were
refined further to work better
as dimensional characters, but it
was important the asymmetric
proportions were retained. To
add a further level of complexity,
I envisioned the game to have a
DIY feel, making it seem more
handmade and not as polished as
most casual games.
I worked with CG supervisor
Alex Patanjo and lead 3D character
While high res
models were
created, these
were reduced in
poly count for the
game. The poly
limit the team had
to work with for
low res output
was around 1,000
tris per character
artist Aybars Turan to bring
the Musketeers to life. Alex and
Aybars had developed a pipeline
for completing the game that
leveraged three separate tools:
ZBrush, Modo and Mari.
Aybars started out with
ZBrush using ZSpheres and
created base meshes for the
characters. ZRemesher helped to
produce a decent topology as
well as any additional details
on the Musketeers that the
designs dictated.
Once the sculpting was
completed Aybars moved
over to Modo for retopology
(poly reduction). With Modo’s
retopology tools he was able to
create nice edge loops and clean
mid-res topology quite easily.
After the hi-res topology was
finalised, the UVs were generated,
with the headus UVLayout.
Normal maps were then baked
from high levels in ZBrush to
StrictLY come riggiNg
How the Musketeers found their groove
Another challenge the team faced was to animate the
three heroes performing a variety of dance steps for an
interactive bonus game. In lieu of custom rigging, we
decided to use Mixamo’s online auto rigging system.
Aybars felt Mixamo provided the easiest solution
for a decent rigging and animation set-up. However,
because the Musketeers had such a stylised look,
auto rigging presented some challenges. Fortunately,
with the wonkiness of the characters, these issues
were easily corrected with slight manipulations. There
were no facial riggings so Aybars attached facial
expressions as morph target animations, and further
crunched size with three-fingered skeletons. The
team sourced dance animations from Mixamo’s online
catalogue, breathing life into the characters.
mid-res topology. The final count
for the high-resolution poly
characters weighed in at about
three million polys each.
For the next stage, because
of mobile restrictions, low-res
characters had to be produced
alongside high-res counterparts
so they worked in-game with the
limited bandwidth. The poly
limit we had to work with was
around 1,000 tris per character,
so each Musketeer had to be
reduced drastically.
Using Maya, Aybars removed
things like eyes and mouth
geometry from the high-res models
and substituted them with planes
that would have facial features
painted on later. He deleted loops
and made sure the characters
had enough geometry around
their joints to have a nice range
of articulation while they moved
through their various dance steps.
He easily unwrapped the UVs once
again in headus UVLayout and
moved onto texturing.
The final polycount came in
under an astounding 950 polys,
while the asymmetric qualities
I had in mind from the concept
stage were maintained.
Mari was used
by Aybars Turan
for texturing the
low polygonal
models, based
on concept art by
Bob MacNeil. The
ability to paint on
3D objects and
UVs with a layered
Photoshop system
proved essential
it’s a pretty story
The game’s stylisation as a whole
was very illustrative so we wanted
more of a 2D styled drawing than
a 3D shaded look. Alex started
to R&D surfacing methods and
shading and found solutions
that offered suitable results, but
ultimately conflicted with the
Unity environment.
With Mari, he was able to create
procedural base textures that
felt as if they were illustrated. He
mimicked my painting style using
brushes and techniques similar to
the ones I employed in Photoshop.
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He also painted separate mouth
and eye expressions onto the facial
planes created in Maya to use
with blend shapes during
animation. The texture size per
character was 512x512 – the most
optimal in achieving the level,
quality and size needed.
The last stage for the team
was to design and build the fruit
objects for the bonus game.
These juicy bonuses would serve
as the targets players interact
with. They had to have a decent
level of quality so players could
differentiate between the variety
proposed in the game’s scope,
but also be efficient enough not
to disturb the already tight data
budget. Aybars used the same
techniques, but also incorporated
ZBrush’s Decimation tool to
reduce the end polycount.
The original concept presented
challenges, especially in the
restrictive environment we had to
work in. However, with the help
of Alex and Aybars the three of us
produced final results that stayed
true to the illustrated aesthetic.
We were given a data cap of
8MB for the final game footprint,
(which included all game assets,
VFX and sound) and produced well
under their designated umbrella
by handing off a game that came in
around 4.9MB in total.
For more on PlayStudios’ work
FYI visit www.myvegas.com
develop
VFX project
VFX project
Making Halo: Humanity
Director Robert J Merritt shares the secrets of creating
the ultimate Halo fan film with Ian Dean
A
Author profile
Ian Dean
3D World editor Ian
has been writing about
video games, film and
digital art for over 15
years and has edited
eight magazines on
the subjects.
www.3dworld.
creativebloq.com
big fan of Microsoft’s Halo,
Robert J Merritt found
the closing moments of
Halo 4 raised more questions
than answers, and sort to solve its
cliffhangers himself, with a little
help from his friends.
“Master Chief begins to question
his humanity. He’s attempting
to uncover the meaning of being
human and he struggles to cope
with the death of his companion,
Cortana,” says Robert. “This is
the beginning of an exciting and
unexpected journey, for all of us.”
The original idea for Halo:
Humanity came from co-director
and writer Dayton Neuburger. It
was a film he had even intended
to create in his own backyard,
but soon realised he wanted to
make something bigger. “Dayton
proposed the concept of a fan film
centred around Chief and we all got
goosebumps and decided to pursue
the idea as doggedly as possible,”
recalls Robert.
The goal of the project is to
create a film fans can enjoy: “This
film really is for them. Many Halo
fans have wanted an actual film
that involves more of Master Chief,
and we certainly intend to cater
to that desire,” enthuses Robert.
“Those of us working on this
film obviously love Halo, but we
also love filmmaking and video
games in general. We are using
our experience, and working
professionally on Humanity, to
make photoreal, quality assets,”
reveals Robert, adding: “No Halo
fan film has managed to take
themselves this seriously yet. It’s
what the Halo universe deserves.”
The events after Halo 4 are new
territories for Master Chief and
the team want to take advantage
of the undiscovered stories yet to
be told. Unlike past Halo fan films,
this one delves into the character
of Master Chief rather than just
what he does.
Lacaux, Joshua Towns, Leonard
Hemby, Onyx Lee and Richard
Coleman onto the film. “All are
incredibly talented and dedicated
CG artists, passionate about what
they do,” says Robert. “Togrul was
actually involved with the Halo 2
Anniversary cinematics by Blur
Studios as a freelance artist, while
Milorad has significant experience
with V-Ray and 3D work for
commercials. We’ve also brought
Fan power
The founding members – Dayton
and Robert – are joined by Zack
Smith and Martyn Tranter and
were all active in the Machina
community for years, telling new
stories within the Halo universe.
Once the concept was created
the team started scouring the
internet for artists to help realise
the film in the best way possible.
This led to bringing Togrul
Alekperov, Milorad Petkovic,
Matthew Hasbrouck, Christophe
in concept artist Jason Brown
(SkribbliX), storyboard artist C.J.
Franks and music composer Maria
Rubel of Dreamsfall Music.”
Finding the right people wasn’t
easy: “We’re facing a huge galaxy
of challenges and finding CG
artists was difficult as it’s such
a demanding art. Since there is
such a huge weight of lore behind
Halo, we needed people who could
really invest their time to make our
Halo: Humanity aims to
be the most professional
fan film yet made
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Humanity is aimed
at Halo fans and
the creators are
eager for it to
reach as many of
them as it can
A team of experienced
artists were recruited
to bring Dayton
Neuburger’s idea to life
assets as accurate as possible. We
really wanted people who were as
passionate about Halo as us and
able to put in the effort.”
It’s that attention to detail that
made Dayton’s original story so
compelling: “It gripped us all;
Master Chief was trained to be
a war machine throughout the
duration of his life. Cortana’s
purpose was to maintain the
social efficiency of Master Chief.
After her death, his emotional
response asks the question ‘who
is the machine?’”
The story focuses on Master
Chief’s search to find a way to
bring back Cortana, a quest that
sees chinks in Master Chief’s
armour emerge and the character
unravels as his human side
emerges and he confronts his
loss. At the same time, the UNSC
is searching for Master Chief to
bring him back into action.
Halo to the chief
Chaos Group, the creators of the
rendering engine V-Ray, started
helping Robert and the team in
January. “V-Ray is the fastest
and most efficient photorealistic
rendering engine for producing
the best results,” says Robert.
Video Copilot, an online VFX
suite, is also providing help with
stock footage for compositing.
They too came on board in
January. At the same time,
Shotgun Software began
providing crucial production
organisational software.
“Our creative crew are spread
out throughout the world and we
needed a reliable way of updating
each other on changes and work
in progress. We are eternally
grateful for their contributions
and could not make this movie
without them,” shares Robert.
For all of the 3D work most
of the team uses Maya. When it
comes to compositing and editing
they are avid users of Adobe’s
After Effects and Premiere,
and for graphics they are using
Illustrator and Photoshop, “so it’s
Adobe city,” Robert explains.
cortana trap
“The Halo universe is so vast, and
finding a part that’s untouched
and creating a story we envision
will please fans, has been really
rewarding. Halo’s stories have
always been creatively portrayed
and we want to emulate the same
level of creativity in our own way.”
However professional the team’s
approach, Humanity remains a
non-profit project created by the
fans for the fans, and Microsoft
is in no way affiliated with the
project, nor do they endorse it.
“We are heavily following their
Game Content Usage Rules to stay
in their comfort zone,” says Robert
who reveals that, “we are making
this knowing that they can take all
of our ideas and use them however
Director Merritt’s enthusiastic
creative backers
Dayton T. Neuburger is the project’s
founder, co-director, editor, lore
enthusiast and writer. He loves Halo,
philosophy, music and storytelling.
Milorad Petkovic, 3D artist, is
from Serbia and lives and works
in Belgrade. He has very extensive
experience in the VFX Industry.
they please. We completely respect
their rights to their IP.”
The biggest challenge was getting
the project known and funding
came from a Kickstarter campaign.
“All we ask of our audience is for
their support and excitement,” says
Robert, adding: “We’re extremely
grateful to the fans and want to
make an amazing movie for them.”
To see Humanity’s progress visit
FYI www.halohumanity.com
inside tHe longsword
Recreating the UNSC’s
star fighting craft
Togrul Alekperov was tasked
with creating the Longsword. It
took nearly 10 weeks to model
and eight hours a day before it
was finished – both inside and
outside. “A job like that could
potentially be completed faster
depending on how much time
you are donating to it, and
how much money you have to
throw at the problem. However,
we were proud to show off his
handiwork as a treat for all our
Kickstarter supporters,” says a
proud Robert Merritt.
3D WorlD August 2015
the
humanItY
team
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Togrul Alekperov is a self-taught
3D artist with over eight years’
experience in CGI. He specialises
mainly in environment creation
and visualisation.
Zack Smith is one of the writers, an
actor and lore specialist for the film.
C.J. Franks is an experienced
storyboard artist, illustrator, and
graphic design specialist whose
work spans films, book covers,
and comics.
Maria Rubel from Dreamsfall
Music is a self-taught composer,
who specialised in writing hybrid
orchestral music for films
and video games.
Martyn Tranter is the project’s lead
graphic designer. He is a fan of
video games and movies.
Joshua Towns, character rigger,
was responsible for rigging the
characters as well as skinning and
rig improvements for the project.
Onyx Lee (Keyi Li), is a medical
animator dreaming of making
space operas.
Matthew Hasbrouck, 17,
home-schooled, self-taught 3D
artist, carpenter, firefighter,
snowboarder… He’s always looking
to gain new experiences.
develop
Project insight
project insight
Create a Hollywood trailer
Alf Lovvold shares his process for putting together
a blockbuster movie trailer
I
Author profile
Alf Lovvold
Alf is co-founder of
Gimpville, a small
Norwegian-based VFX
house doing a mix of
feature film work, such
as Kontiki, Trollhunter,
Headhunters,
Ragnarok and The
Wave (Norway’s first
destruction movie),
and VFX/animation for
various commercials
and short films.
www.alflovvold.com
really like to throw things
together quite quickly to get
them up and running and
then send them off for further
refinement. However, after several
years of creating content for
customers at my studio Gimpville,
I finally decided to create my own
little project. Turns out it kind of
snowballed – a lot.
starting point
The project itself started as
a series of tests to acquire
knowledge and see how much I
could throw at the engine before
it kneeled down. As I discovered,
it handled a large amount of
geometry really well and I found
myself detailing up various shots
to an extent I’ve not done before.
The helicopter crash sequence
was a testbed to utilise new skills.
I found that having certain goals
forced me to use various new
approaches and to do things that
actually worked out quite nicely
in the end.
Tools
of The Trade
I’m using Redshift
for Maya, a GPU
based physical
render engine
that’s pretty
awesome. It’s
really fast and
nicely integrated
into Maya. It
makes it possible
for a one-man
team to create
quality content
but not be limited
by dreadful
render times.
The helicopter sequence attracted
some attention, which I was really
overwhelmed by. It gave me the
energy to follow up with new shots
that eventually led to my most
complex sequence yet – the car
chase. I was in for some work.
Early shots were one-offs with
the camera constrained to a few
angles. In the car chase sequence
I would shoot from all angles and
this required an extensive set
to follow up earlier shots, with
regards to richness.
After I planned the route the
car would drive, I sketched out a
draft of how the city and street
would be set. I tried to balance
it out with narrow streets to get
a sense for the speed, and larger
shots to establish the setting and
show some scale. The narrower
segments required less set
dressing than the large shots,
reducing the overall time to
detail the set.
As I was used to a lot of previz
work, I handled this project like
The hardware was pushed
to see how much could be
rendered at a decent speed,
so we see the detailing of the
background with all 3D objects
and no matte paint or 2D cards
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I would in my day job. Therefore
I used a mix of assets we already
had at Gimpville, though I also
invested in various more detailed
assets such as the Humvee, city
blocks, tanks and so forth.
I could of course have done
all the assets myself but then I’d
probably have never been able
to actually finish the project.
Being just one guy, I prioritise
getting the whole thing produced
over getting some custom made
assets done.
sTeP BY sTeP
A large root hand punches up
from underneath the asphalt
in the chase sequence
Working in Maya
First I prevized the whole
sequence using Maya’s Camera
Sequencer, which is a really nice
way of editing work directly in
Maya instead of playblasting a
bunch of shots and then editing in
post. It can be helpful if you plan
ahead and put some thought into
the edit while using the sequencer.
However, since I was skipping all
over the timeline with various
shots it needed to be delegated into
various cameras and render jobs.
I used Deadline as a render
manager. As I was doing this
project using only one computer
it acted as both a manager and
a render slave. Each camera is
therefore an own job and when
updates occur on various shots I
got new dailies the morning after.
This really helped to push the
project along the way as I saw new
render updates and not just plain
and uninspiring playblasts.
Cameras were set up
with noise to mimic live
ProCess: CreaTe a TraIler
Alf Lovvold shares his planning
and production tips
action photography and also
add a dynamic feel. I tried to get
a cinematic quality and feel to
the camerawork, which I really
enjoyed doing. After the main shots
are set up and the animation itself
was roughed out I experiment
with a lot of camera placement to
add a type of live action GoPro/
Stickycam feel to some shots,
which was a cool contrast to the
more controlled dolly and followcar camera set-ups.
When the sequence was roughly
prevized I created an early sound
effects pass in After Effects to get
more feel for the sequence. It also
helped with the motivation as the
sound design of a shot/sequence
is really important and helps it to
come alive.
car animation
Once previz was locked I started
refining the car animation. I rigged
the car with basic controls
and also added a lot of noise
controls to try to get a lot of
secondary animation and a jiggly
feel without having to manually
keyframe the extra touches.
Objects like mirrors, exhaust,
doors, turret and so forth had
pretty much a random noise
making them jiggle and therefore
appear dynamic.
The Humvee followed an
animated path created back at the
previz stage. I experimented with
a couple of automated solutions for
driving the car rig/suspension but
didn’t quite get it right so in the
end I stuck to my original set-up.
The army guy in the turret
was rigged using Maya’s AutoRig
and constrained into position.
I also added noise to his spine
with a controller to make him
bounce around. His hands were
constrained to the turret.
Most assets underwent a
custom-dirty texture treatment
and were optimised with regards to
handling/rendertime. Pretty much
all of the static items were exported
as proxies to be able to keep things
one sCrIPT
Always have some sort of underlying
idea written down. I will often try to
break it down and simplify it. It’s easier
to build upwards than downwards.
TWo sIMPle sTorYBoardInG
Needles to say, even if you are not a
storyboard artist just doing basic layout
and shot planning will help a lot when
trying to tackle them in 3D. Even if it’s
just sketches.
Three BloCKInG/PreVIZ/edIT
Always block out your shot/sequence
with low-poly geometry. I often use
objects as simple as cubes to get a feel
for the timing and not the actual asset
itself. It helps me focus on the timing/
motion rather than giving the OCD a
chance to kick in.
foUr fInalIse hero asseTs
It goes without saying but always
prioritise the assets that are important
for the shot/sequence and work your
way down.
fIVe deTaIlInG IT UP
Finished with all important assets and
the shot/sequence are basically done?
Then putting a few hours into adding
details will make all the difference.
sIX renderInG/PosT WorK
Give yourself time to do proper post
work – don’t underestimate it!
seVen soUnd desIGn
Ensure the sound design fits well
with the pictures up on the screen.
eIGhT PrePPInG MaTerIal
Gathering all relevant accumulated
material from the project, like those
early tests and research, can help you
do a nice breakdown and really get
the most out of the project and all the
hours put into it.
nIne GeTTInG eXPosed
Feeling happy with the results? Do dare
to contact publishers and media
alike, though keep the request succinct.
Ten relaX
Sit back and enjoy the fruits of your
labour. Hopefully it will gain noise
and lead to other exciting stuff.
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develop
Project insight
This shot in the sequence
underwent a lot of custom
treatment in terms of
detailing and animation
QUicK tips
Get the most from your project
as lightweight as possible, and
were only called in at render time.
It also helped with the placement
of the assets as the whole car chase
sequence was actually one big
file. It’s not until I started doing
minor adjustments per shot near
completion that I divided it into
various sub-scenes.
city building
I used Maya’s scene assembly tools
to work with the big chunks of city
blocks. The blocks use GPU cache
so I could easily detail them with
various assets and keep a good
frame rate. At render time I called
the proxy and the same set-up is
utilised with the metro.
For the crowd I used stock
characters from Mixamo with
all kinds of animation, such as
running, walking and falling. I
was also fortunate enough to use
Golaem Crowd for this project, as
it’s a non-profit personal project.
I ended up between a mix of
Golaem agents, which followed
a target, and some custom placed
agents. Golaem is a really nice
system, though to be able to get
this produced I only tapped into
it lightly.
3D WorlD August 2015
For minor physics stuff I used
Maya’s native Bullet Physics
plug-in, which works nicely. For
the more detailed physics I used
FractureFX, which I’ve come to
love during production – it really
works well and is quite easy to get
into. Being able to do various takes
and export directly to Alembic is
just awesome. Well, at least for a
sim light guy like me.
I also used FractureFX for a
lot of the fracturing of various
assets. Generally I tried to use
Alembic imports for all the second
animated assets and physics stuff
to make sure the main work file
was as lightweight and tech-free
as possible.
Foliage was created with Maya’s
native Paint Effects from various
default presets to custom tweaks.
Some ivy was generated with
Ivygen and then all of these assets
were exported into proxies for
placement in the main scene.
I decided to produce the
project in 1440p to really push
both myself and the hardware.
It was really nice to work oneto-one with regards to screen
space. Rendertime varied from
two minutes per frame up to 20
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1 Always block out sequences
with simple geometry
2 Keep it simple
3 Keep it tidy. Keep the
sequence in one file as long
as possible and use logical
naming conventions – it will
deinitely benefit you later on
in the project
4 Keep assets in separate files,
plan ahead and have them
ready for set dressing
5 Keep most tech in separate
files, keeping a clean main file
6 Use proxies whenever possible
7 Get the full project working
in the edit before starting
detailed work
8 Don’t be afraid to learn new
things, mix it in with the
old knowledge
9 Don’t be afraid to fail. You
will – then solve it
10 Putting time into comp work
will lift the quality over the
raw render so don’t skimp here
11 Do not underestimate the
importance of sound design
12 Get the most out of the
hours put into the project by
keeping material underway
in the project for further
breakdowns
13 Do not rush when you near
the finish line
14 Spend some time planning
where you will be exposing
the work
15 Have fun and don’t be too
serious. Build connections
and meet people
16 Render straight to .avi for
best results
One of the trickiest pictures of
the sequence was the entrance
of the big root hand. A lot of
work went into getting the
richness in the details
minutes per frame for the denser
shots, rendering on four GPUs. I
tried to keep as much as possible
in the beauty pass and fall into the
big “I’ll fix it in post” trap, but it
worked out pretty well.
The whole project was comped
in Fusion. I simply love Fusion and
am really happy that Blackmagic
has taken over the development
and is pushing it out to the masses.
On roughly two thirds of the
shots I added some smoke or impact
cards from Maya via Fusion’s
camera import. I also exported out
both placeholder geometry and the
cards from Maya in order to get
them positioned right.
I rendered out custom Maya
fluid passes. Although it slowed
down progress and really doesn’t
look as good as just using cards
for a lot of the smoke and impacts,
it’s a great thing to use for minor
things like turret impacts, blood
spray and so forth.
For some early shots I used an
extra world position pass to add
extra fog via Fusion’s Volumetric
Fog nodes. However, I ended
up mainly relying on a good old
z-depth pass and some holdouts
for certain elements of the shot.
From Fusion, all shots were
exported to ProRes clips for
further work in the edit, which
were mainly done in After Effects.
I spent a lot of time making the
cut work. Also, since I was doing
the sound design myself, it goes
without saying that this was a
big undertaking.
My main goal with this project
was to make a rich-in-detail
sequence with a cinematic feel –
not ‘real’ in the sense of live action,
and fInallY...
Having certain goals made me force
myself to use various new approaches,
to do things that worked out quite nicely
but at a kind of high-end cinematic
style. I also find it funny to spoof
big blockbuster film trailers, hence
the title and other elements that
kind of pokes a bit of fun.
The big challenge was to deliver
all this content single handedly. I
had to make some smart choices
and cut some corners, but in the
end it worked.
For Alf’s Hollywood trailer go to
fYI www.vimeo.com/129346968
3D WorlD August 2015
behind the
scenes video
www.vimeo.com/129344367
95
twitter.com/3DWorldMag
In order to stay
motivated and
complete a project
like this you need
help and support.
A big thanks goes
to Ådne Lyngstad
Nilsen for creating
the custom sound
score. I also want
to thank my family
for helping me
through months
of late nights.
Finally, it’s
great to receive
encouragement
and kind words
from ‘the
internets.’
develop
Software review
Software review
3ds Max 2016 Review
Price £3,100 (one-time licence). Ongoing subscriptions are available. | comPany Autodesk | website www.autodesk.co.uk
M
author Profile
Paul Hatton
Paul Hatton leads a
studio of visualisers
based over on the
East Coast in Great
Yarmouth. He delivers
a whole host of
projects including
video and interactive
environments.
cadesignservices.co.uk/
services/3d-studio
any people were
understandably
frustrated with Autodesk
for releasing 2015 and taking away
some beloved features, only to
introduce others which could be
accessed through plug-ins already
on the market. Even messing with
the Layer Manager and removing
the Plus button was criticised. Let’s
see how the 2016 version shapes up
in comparison…
Some people believe Autodesk
release a bad version of their
software to then release a later
version which performs better
by comparison. I think this is a
little harsh but understand the
frustration. To be fair to the 3ds
Max development team, they’ve
been through a lot of changes in
recent years and at the release
of 2015 had many features they
wanted to integrate but for various
reasons were not able to. I feel with
2016 we’ve seen the result of a lot
of hard work and the culmination
of their desire to release some truly
impressive features.
The most exciting feature to
note is the all new Max Creation
Graph (MCG). They claim this is
“a completely unique method for
customisation and tool creation
3ds Max 2016 really does deliver
in terms of providing new features
that will actually integrate into
your production workflow
This tool enables studios
to develop their own
bespoke solutions to
common tasks
within 3ds Max.” It’s a node-based
scripting environment that allows
artists in all industries to create
custom scripted tools, all without
having to write a single line of code.
Every studio has unique
challenges and requirements and
this tool enables studios to develop
their own bespoke solutions to
common tasks. It’s a very powerful
solution, especially as it can all
be done inside their bespoke
node-based interface. Even better,
these tools can then be packaged
and shared with others – either
in the same studio or all around
the world. I really like the way
they’ve set the workflow up and I’m
looking forward to using it in the
production environment.
I imagine it’ll be different for
everyone but my next favourite
feature that has been introduced
is the Camera Sequencer. It
enables you to sequence multiple
camera shots while providing the
functionality to adjust their timing
and how they flow.
I’ve always thought setting up
animations was a bit disjointed
in 3ds Max so I’m glad they’ve
addressed it. The tool works
quickly and efficiently for an
initial implementation. I’m looking
forward to its further development
in future versions of 3ds Max.
From a quick investigation of the
many other features introduced
there seems to be something for
most people, which is good. The
development team are so pleased
with the range of tools that they
are now calling it The Biggest
Max Ever. Though we as the users
should be the judge of that!
The UI seems to change with
every release and 2016 is no
different. This will either frustrate
you or be a good thing depending
on whether you’re an if it ain’t
broke, don’t fix it kind of guy.
Overall a good release. Last year
my studio stuck almost entirely
with 2014 due to the annoyance of
2015, but I think we’ll now adopt
2016 more quickly.
Main
Features
Camera Sequencer
to layer multiple
shots together
OpenSubDiv
support so you can
utilise smoothing
tools developed
by Pixar
Max Creation
Graph to create
bespoke tools with
no programming
required
Multi-touch
support which
is great if you’re
using it on a tablet
The Plus button is
back for the Layer
Manager
Verdict
The hisTory of 3ds max
3ds Max has been around in some shape or form since 1990 when it was simply called 3D Studio. It made the
move from MS-DOS to Windows in 1996 and has been improving ever since. In recent years there has been a huge
push to deliver tools that can be utilised within the arch-viz and entertainment industries.
3d World August 2015
96
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Hardware review
3Dconnexion CadMouse
price £95 | compAny 3Dconnexion | website www.3dconnexion.co.uk
Main
Features
Adaptive scroll
wheel
QuickZoom
function
Favourite
commands with
the mouse gesture
Left click, right
click and middle
click!
S
o here it is. The world’s first
CAD mouse! Proceed with
caution though. It may have
warmed my hand for the last
couple of weeks, but it has by no
means warmed my heart.
To get started you need to install
some software that’s available for
free from 3DConnexion’s site. Once
up and running, the first thing that
hit me was that there are three
main mouse buttons. This took my
hand a while to get used to, but I
have to say that it feels nice.
The best feature is the
gesture button. It gives you four
options that you can access by
gesturing with the mouse, and
they’re software dependent,
which is great. My only niggle
is the button position, which is
positioned just above the scroll
wheel; meaning I have to move my
whole hand to access the button.
If you want a mouse which
does a little bit more
than your standard
mouse then
this is the
product
for you
Moving onto the scroll wheel. It’s
smooth and built well. It responds
predictively and has a nice inertia
effect when scrolling in browsers.
Also worth mentioning is the
QuickZoom function that lets
you zoom in and out of your
geometry with a single click of a
Author profile
Paul Hatton
Paul Hatton leads a
studio of visualisers
based over on the East
Coast in Great Yarmouth.
He delivers a whole host
of projects including
video and interactive
environments.
cadesignservices.co.uk
thumb button. Delightful! All in
all, the CadMouse is a well-built
and useful mouse, but it doesn’t
really do much more than you can
achieve with a simple mouse and
a few keyboard shortcuts!
Verdict
Software review
ShaderMap 3
price $49.95 ($29.95 for an upgrade) | compAny Rendering Systems Inc. | website www.shadermap.com
Main
Features
Fast and easy
Bitmap to
renderable map
generation
Fast and easy
model to map
generation
Extendable to
create your own
version via SDK
S
haderMap is one of those
little 3D toolbox utilities that
have been around a while.
Starting out as a bitmap to map
generator in around 2008, version
3 finally lets you bake maps from
models, among other new features,
tweaks and bug fixes.
If you’re a texturing enthusiast
on a budget and need an application
to generate renderable maps from
bitmaps and models alike, you may
want to give ShaderMap 3 a go. As it
is a map-generator only, it has less
functionality than the Quixel or
Substance family, but what it lacks
in extended functionality, it makes
up for in ease of use.
Newcomers to ShaderMap and
map-generation in general will be
happy to see it autocreates maps
when you load a bitmap, and that
working with version 3’s new
model-import is simple.
Author profile
Cirstyn Bech-Yagher
The new model-based
baking and normalpainting options are the
main features in v3
Experienced users will be happy
to see it still autocreates Normal,
Displacement, AO, and Specular on
bitmap-load, and you can render
these out from a model and its
cage in the Project Grid. Following
the trend of on-Normal painting
in applications like nDo and the
3d World August 2015
97
Substance family, ShaderMap now
also offers a basic Normal painting
tool, enabling users to detail their
Normals in various ways.
Overall it’s a solid, not-tooexpensive release; worth a check.
Verdict
twitter.com/3DWorldMag
Cirstyn is a freelance CG
artist and educator, with
over 15 years’ experience
in 3D. Her clients include
AMD and DAZ 3D.
northern-studios.com
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Issue 196 July 2015
VFX Special
40 years of ILM, plus discover the VFX of Avengers: Age of Ultron
Model Star Wars inspired spaceships
Master the new modelling tools of Maya 2016
Create an epic sci-fi environment in Modo
Downloads Video tutorials, project files, resources and more!
Issue 195 June 2015
Photoreal portraits
Create a lifelike portrait with
effective modelling & rendering
Sculpt armour in ZBrush
Meet Chappie: how Image
Engine brought the robot to life
Industry experts advice for
kickstarting your career in CG
Downloads Free book, video
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Issue 194 May 2015
Make a Star Wars movie
Issue 193 April 2015
ZBrush Anime skills
Create your own VFX movie
Master mech modelling in
Cinema 4D and ZBrush
Star Trek interview: Pierre Drolet
talks building starships
The ultimate guide to lighting
and rendering a complex
illustration in LightWave
Downloads Video tutorials,
project files, resources and more
Master the art of modelling an
anime style character
ZBrush 4R7: why the latest
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Create a collectible action figure
10 years of CG in anime: meet
the directors who are creating
the leading 3DCG
Downloads Video tutorials,
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Issue 192 March 2015
Model magical ZBrush Creatures
Create our cover character.
Complete tutorial with video
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The ultimate guide to mastering
Maxwell Render
Big Hero 6: discover Disney’s
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Issue 190 January 2015
Create ZBrush robot Art
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Master 3D print modelling
Model a robot toy for 3D printing
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25 Modo tips to reinvent
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Star Wars VII: what the industry
really thinks
Speed up your workflow with
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Issue 189 Christmas 2014
Create Photoreal Vehicles
Issue 188 December 2014
Master Pixar’s renderMan
Get started in RenderMan 19
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Model a lifelike cityscape
using CityEngine
Discover the character VFX
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Downloads Video tutorials,
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Give your car V-Ray renders
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Learn to blend photography
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How to model a complex Modo
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The VFX of Star Wars: Discover
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Issue 185 September 2014
Modo 801 modelling
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Issue 187 November 2014
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Master an advanced setup in
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ZBrush 4R7: discover new tools
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The making of The Lord
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Develop your LightWave
modelling skills
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Issue 184 August 2014
Master Maya 2015
Design and build a high-poly
Wolfenstein mech model
Learn how to build your very own
video game
Discover the rise of real-time tools
in video game creation
Find out how to give depth to
your matte paintings
Downloads Video tutorials,
project files, resources and more
Model a perfect cartoon figure
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Learn how to design dynamic
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Sculpt DC Comic’s supervillain
Catwoman in ZBrush
Ed Hooks on how to make every
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Use Bifrost and Bullet for
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Add Fracture FX and Pulldownit
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Find out how MPC created the
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Discover Weta Digital’s motion
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Downloads Video tutorials,
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develop
My inspiration
My inspiration
Simon Webber
The experienced creature artist shares his rise to the big screen
L
pany. All Rights Reserved.
Simon is a seasoned
creature designer and
concept artist. His
work has contributed
to feature films such
as Pacific Rim, World
War Z and Godzilla.
www.imdb.com/
name/nm0916443
© 2013 The Jim Henson Com
ARTIST pRofIle
Simon Webber
ike many people currently
working in film design, I
grew up on a steady diet of
sci-fi and fantasy and would spend
my time seeking out and soaking
up everything I could find relating
to science fiction, film effects,
creatures and characters.
From Ray Harryhausen’s stop
motion epics featuring Talos and
the Cyclops and the cutting edge
animatronics of Jim Henson’s
creature shop, through to the highend optical and compositing effects
of ILM – I was an addict.
I’d spend every penny I earned
on back issues of Cinefex and a
multitude of more obscure film and
special effects magazines trying
to glean whatever insight I could
into the world of effects and film.
Any money remaining would buy
materials to try out the techniques.
This was before the internet
when information was more
Adopting a digital pipeline
has allowed me to be more
prolific and collaborative
hard-won – there was no one-stopshop for the answers (Google), and
you had to be committed to finding
answers yourself.
I may not have been as talented
as some of the other aspiring artists
and designers out there but I made
up for it with drive. I lived and
breathed creatures and characters.
I was that kid who would play
with the cardboard box rather
than its contents (unless the box
had a Star Wars logo on it), because
it afforded my imagination more
opportunities than the toy inside.
When I finished school at 15
my family moved up north. This
subsequent setback lead me to
attend art college, a fine art BA
(Hons) course, and following that a
course in model design.
As it happened Steven Spielberg
was shooting his next project,
Saving Private Ryan, next door
to my university campus and I
managed to get a job working for
one of the special make-up effects
designers on the film. It’s still one of
the best projects I’ve been involved
with and was my first real gig in FX.
After 12 years in make-up effects,
I had worked with many people who
had initially inspired me but felt
things were becoming repetitive and
the hours increasingly anti-social.
During one particularly gruelling
location shoot I started to question
my career direction. I didn’t feel
I was enjoying the work as much
and wanted to be more creatively
involved at a design level. I had a
competent grasp of Photoshop but
that was my only digital knowledge.
I decided to get a copy of ZBrush
after being inspired by Aaron Sims,
who also came from a make-up
effects background and honed his
traditional skills in the practical
world before moving to digital.
At first I was a bit of a monkey
with a typewriter but excited by the
potential of these new tools and the
design opportunities it could offer –
that drove me to learn more.
3D WorlD August 2015
100
I found digital tools expanded the
rate I could learn at artistically and
there was a genuine willingness
to share techniques among the
digital communities, in particular
on ZBrush Central. The guys at
Pixologic couldn’t be more helpful.
Seven years on I’m still as excited
by this new digital toolset and my
focus has shifted to being more
involved in larger storytelling
aspects and the creature/character
design work I’ve always enjoyed.
Adopting a digital pipeline has
allowed me to be more prolific and
collaborative and there’s no 3am
starts. Also, coming onboard earlier
in the development process is more
enjoyable than during production
when the clock is really ticking.
With a wealth of free online
resources readily available, now is
a good time if you want to do this.
You just have to be committed and
put in the legwork.
For more on ZBrush Central
FYI visit www.zbrushcentral.com
twitter.com/3DWorldMag
One of Simon’s
many inspirations
have been Jim
Henson’s
characters
9000