Table of contents for August 2017 in 3D World

TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT director Michael Bay VFX SUPERVISORS Scott Farrar Jason Smith SFX SUPERVISORS John Frazier SYNOPSIS The Transformers are at war with humans, and must look to the past to save the world RELEASE DATE June 21 WEB www.transformersmovie.com There is no bigger Hollywood production than one directed by Michael Bay, and the fifth instalment of the cinematic franchise about galactic giant beings using Earth as their battleground, Transformers: The Last Knight, is certainly big. The director has welcomed cinematographer Jonathan Sela (A Good Day to Die Hard) to his inner circle of trusted collaborators, which includes production designer Jeffrey Beecroft (Twelve Monkeys), special effects supervisor John Frazier (Spider- Man 2) and the team at ILM. “Michael is like a kid in the theatre on a Saturday afternoon…

Not only does the Earth make an appearance on the big screen, but also the planetary home of the Transformers known as Cybertron. “Cybertron is in many shots and was dauntingly complex,” states ILM associate VFX supervisor David Fogler, who oversaw the development of the world building. “Cybertron as a basic concept was a challenge. What it should look like? How should it behave? We spent a year and a half figuring out what it should look like and that’s not an exaggeration.” Numerous concept designs were developed by production designer Jeffrey Beecroft and ILM art director Ryan Church. “Michael Bay chose a few of those concepts that were his favourites,” explains ILM visual effects supervisor Jason Smith. “Once we had those key pieces of art, David Fogler, Scott Farrar…

While gaming is the predictably flash poster boy helping to grab headlines and revenue for VR right now, it’s arguable that the real creative fireworks are currently found in the animated story/experience arena. Games developers have worked with real-time engines and first-person viewpoints for so long that the leap to immersive stereo 3D is, if not painless, then at least a logical. For storytellers, on the other hand, virtual reality is a foreign land that is ripe for exploration. 360 degree video arguably offered a kind of soft introduction via the 2014 launch of Google Cardboard and subsequent arrival of YouTube and Facebook support for the format. But there’s a gulf between creating a story to render out and play back in stereo as pre-canned spherical animations and creating a…

The design and visualisation industries have changed enormously over the last few years, with leaps in graphics rendering transforming the working practices and quality of imagery produced by professional creatives. Now it’s VR that looks set to change the rules of play, affecting every aspect of the creative process, from initial concept work through to client presentation, and opening up plenty of fresh opportunities for 3D artists in the process. Such enthusiastic and rapid adoption of VR may be unlikely in the professional design world, but then these are arguably the markets best prepared to embrace the technology. “VR historically came from the production side, where professionals have been utilising virtual environments [in various forms] for the last 20 years,” points out Bruno Stefanizzi, senior manager of software development at…

Follow The video If you see the Play icon, use the link Expert tip AVOID COLLISION When using FiberMesh, you may find ugly kinks at the base of your hairs, which look unnatural. To remedy this, go to the Brush menu with your Groom brush selected. Under FiberMesh, turn Front Collision Tolerance down to a smaller number. I find a value between 2 and 5 works. Click TO PL AY Video www.bit.ly/223-ZBrush-01 Francis-Xavier Martins replies Caricature is an imitation of a person in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or, in some cases, a grotesque effect. Fortunately, with ZBrush and DynaMesh, you are able to mess around with the mesh without worrying about polygon size or topology, and get the results you want. It’s…

Convergence has been a key buzzword across the industry over the last few years. The worlds of games and VFX are advancing, and with this change, a natural crossover is happening. We are now seeing that the production methods used in the creation of digital art for film and games are very similar. This has been partly triggered by the rise of new technologies such as VR and with both areas using the same tools such as Maya and ZBrush, but it wasn’t that long ago that a single plant in the film Avatar had more polygons than an entire game environment. Motion capture is a big area where we are seeing more and more convergence. I still get excited teaching PBR texturing to my students, knowing I am using…

Practical and visual effects seamlessly work together to produce scenes such as a transformation of Bumblebee while Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) is driving, and an ocean scene where human cast members struggle to survive while Transformers battle on a partially submerged spaceship For the driving scene, Michael Bay wanted the door to open, Mark to slide out of the seat into the street [in Detroit] and for the roof to start opening, explains SFX supervisor John Frazier, who rigged a convertible with a moving steering wheel and a swivelling seat that slid two feet out of the car while the visual effects team from ILM digitally inserted the roof. “There are certain things that you’re going to miss [during the shoot]. We had to go back and do some close-ups.”…

There’s little doubt that the games industry is currently the driving force for VR home adoption right now, as sales of around one million Playstation VR units in the first six months since launch attest. This is all the more impressive given the relative paucity of VR-specific gaming content currently available, and all the more exciting for 3D artists. With publishers rushing to capitalise on this fresh thirst for content, VR is injecting new life and fresh opportunities into the games development industry. The first-person viewpoint has dominated gaming since its popularisation in the early 1990s so VR is – superficially – familiar territory. In reality, however, there’s a perspective shift involved, a good number of graphical considerations to deal with, plus fundamental changes to the way players navigate, interact…

Create an explosion AUTHOR Syawish A Rehman Syawish is a visual effects and motion graphics artist based in Pakistan. Aiming to make a career in visual effects, he does a lot of R&D to recreate famous visual effects from Hollywood on his YouTube channel: The Alpha Channel. www.goo.gl/4qtzIz Explosions are a huge part of our entertainment, from video games to full-on Michael Bay explosion porn. However, most of the time, the explosions you see on screen aren’t real. I remember seeing the making of a scene from the second Transformers movie, where an ILM artist was bringing in pre-made explosions from the archives. According to him, the company’s archives had thousands of such explosions. Some directors still prefer to use real explosions, but even then they send their footage to…

Follow The video If you see the Play icon, use the link Rob Redman replies Architectural scenes serve many purposes, from demonstrating designs to clients to use in other projects. No matter your final use, it’s almost always the case that a scene centred on a man-made structure will benefit from a touch of the organic. The contrast in colour, texture and form can really help add interest to the final render, as well as bring life and interest into what could be a sterile look (unless of course, sterile is what you’re going for). The problem here is that it’s not always possible to find plant models that properly fit your use. There are lots of ready-made options, but it’s best to know how to efficiently create your own,…

News and views from around the international CG community Following the divisive Prometheus, Alien: Covenant marks a more critically accepted return of filmmaker Ridley Scott to the monster in space franchise that he launched in 1979. MPC Montreal looked after 600 shots that included the Neomorph and Xenomorph, while MPC London did 100 shots focused on flashback and environment work, as well as the shower scene. “We had meetings with Ridley Scott in London and he showed us original pieces by HR Giger of the Xenomorph and scenes that he liked in Alien,” says MPC VFX supervisor Ferran Domenech. “Ridley wanted to make the Xenomorph more organic, which is a departure from the purely biomechanical look of the original.” Ferran adds that for the classic curved head of Xenomorph, Ridley…

First showcased at GDC 2017, the latest version of Unreal Engine packs quality new features including support for volumetric fog. Developers now have more control over media density and lighting for more exciting environments. “The new volumetric fog in Unreal E 4.16 allows developers to create an incredible sense of mood and space. You can simulate clouds of dust or smoke flowing through light shafts,” says Daniel Wright, senior rendering programmer at Epic Games. “The algorithm we’re using provides a unified solution to volumetrics, so varying densities are supported and any number of lights can affect the fog,” he explains. Now developers can use Materials applied to Particle Systems to control Volumetric Fog with the new Volume Domain setting. Daniel explains: “A single particle with a Volume Material causes a…

SUMMER READING ARTIST Arthur Gatineau SOFTWARE Maya, Arnold, Mari, Photoshop “I really enjoyed working on a cartoony scene. The personal work I’ve been doing for the past two years has been more realistic and creepy, so it was really refreshing to work on a colourful scene,” says Entrophy and freelance CG artist Arthur Gatineau. This image is based on a concept by Fredrik Rattzen, a Swedish visual development artist. “I really wanted to keep all the features and details, including the camera angle, lighting and general mood,” says Arthur. “I did my best to match everything. As I’m faster on 3ds Max, I did all the modelling and UV work there, then I exported everything – including the camera as an Alembic – and switched to Maya.” Arthur used light…

Along with mainstays Optimus Prime and Megatron, this movie sees two new Transformers making an appearance: Cogman and Sqweeks. “There’s a wonderful illustrator named Steven Messing, who I have been working with for quite a while, and he had this idea of this Jules Verne-type of character that came from the age of the later Industrial Revolution,” says production designer Jeffrey Beecroft. “We used elegant pieces to create him and looked at Breguet watches. The older watches have this wonderful movement to them.” “Cogman is a beautiful design that is reminiscent of old firearms or old armour with brass inlay metal,” observes ILM VFX supervisor Jason Smith. “I hope that audiences get a kick out of him because he’s a fun character.” Cogman is a special robot known as a…

The future is virtual Some may still find it incredible that virtual reality is now an actual reality, and furthermore one with the potential to influence multiple computer graphics industries. By turns a science-fiction staple, lab experiment and bad 3D joke, VR spent so long as vapourware that few seriously expected Palmer Luckey’s 2012 Kickstarter campaign to usher in the fastest moving period in computer graphics in 25 years. But VR is here, and it’s not to be ignored. In the last 12 months alone, there have been three major VR headset launches, a flurry of activity from GPU giants AMD and Nvidia, and a wealth of investment in new virtual reality tools and projects. Even so, that loaded expression ‘may you live in interesting times’ could so easily have…

HOW DID THE DECISION TO CREATE A VR-SPECIFIC GAME AFFECT THE GAME’S DEVELOPMENT? From day one we planned it so that players on all platforms, and with different types of VR headsets and controllers, could all play together. The decision to focus on a seated experience fell out of those commitments, and was an immediate win for us. It allowed us to make the game really comfortable with no compromises. It also happens to work beautifully for the game’s setting, and for the social aspects. THE USER INTERFACE IS A KEY PART OF THE EXPERIENCE. HOW DIFFICULT WAS THIS TO GET RIGHT? We support gamepads and three different types of hand-tracking controllers, plus we had to build virtual starship controls and character animation that worked really well with all of…

THERE ARE OTHER REMOTE AND WEARABLE SENSOR-BASED MOCAP SOLUTIONS OUT THERE, SO WHAT DIFFERENTIATES SM ART SUIT PR O? In our Smartsuit Pro, all electronics are embedded in a suit, which takes around 30 seconds to put on. The suit ensures that all parts are always in the exact right places and that they will stay there. And while other mocap suits are known for being fragile as all the tech is exposed, the textile in the Smartsuit Pro protects all its parts. HOW DO YOU ADDRESS ACCURACY OF CAPTURE DATA ISSUES? Drift and inaccuracy over time is a challenge with all inertial systems, but with our factory calibration of each of the components and algorithms that corrects the positions over time, we have already taken great strides toward solving…

Valley of the Kith VALLEY OF THE KITH ANIMATORS Cal Woolcock and Jumbla COUNTRY UK & Australia ABOUT Jumbla creative director Cal made this game-style sequence in 10 weeks, with help with additional asset modelling RELEASE DATE Out now WEB www.vimeo.com/ jumbla Much like the video games themselves, the quality of game cinematics has exponentially increased over the past decade. Characterising the theme and tone of a new title, gameplay is no longer the deciding factor as to whether gamers make a purchase. It’s all about generating hype around a title before release with a stand-out video, and new sequence Valley of the Kith does exactly that. The four-minute cinematic film from Melbourne and London-based animation and motion graphics studio Jumbla is a mysterious, high-adrenaline video gamestyle piece, which was…

AUTHOR Chris Hodgson A senior environment and texture artist at Starbreeze Studios, Chris has over 10 years of games industry experience with credits that include Watch Dogs, Tom Clancy’s The Division and Payday 2. www.bit.ly/ chrishodgson Substance Designer is my tool of choice when creating realistic tiling materials as the huge array of noises, patterns and generators available give you the freedom to create a wide variety of materials entirely within the one application. However, Substance Designer is a program that plays well with others; height, mask and other texture maps can be easily imported and used to springboard your texturing process, especially if you have something specific in mind. Over the course of this tutorial, I will show you how to combine together mask textures created outside of Substance…

This issue, we’ve joined forces with Pluralsight (formerly known as Digital- Tutors) to offer you a comprehensive video training course that you can download from our online Vault – for free. Simply visit our online content downloads page at www.bit.ly/vault-223-Transformers to get all of the files you need. In this course, animator Nathan Glemboski shows you how to design motion controller experiences in Unreal so you can actually stand in worlds you have created. The videos cover setting up a VR character with motion controllers, interacting with objects and creating a teleport system. By the end of the course, which is under two hours, you’ll know how to move freely in a scene, and will also be able to pick up objects really easily. Before you start, you need to…

Follow The video If you see the Play icon, use the link Syawish A Rehman replies Well, you can start by getting a doctorate in theoretical physics and getting a grant to fund your research. Then you can invent a time machine, go forward in time to when humans are advanced enough to control the paths of meteors and space debris and hurl some of that towards Earth. However, if you’re not an evil genius and merely want to make a 3D meteor shower for a scene or project, might I suggest a less deadly approach. You can very easily render a photorealistic meteor shower in any 3D design application. I’m going to be working with 3ds Max and Sitni Sati’s FumeFX. It’s a fairly simple process. On page 48,…

Click TO PLAY Video www.bit.ly/223-Cinema4D-1 01 CREATE LEAVES First off we need our leaf section. You can use the one supplied or create your own. The key is to use a format such as .png that allows for alpha channels. I tend to add a normal map as well, to help sell the details. Once you have that, apply it to a simple plane, bent in the middle to add a little life. Try to keep to around six to ten polygons. 02 MAKE LOW-POLY OBJECT Now it’s time to create a quick low-poly object to act as the growth base. Remember that modelling to scale will help. You can make any shape you like – I’ve gone for a simple spherical shape and a cubic one. Add any other…