Table of contents for April 2020 in 3D World

Animal Logic is one of those rare visual effects studios that made a successful jump into being an animation studio. It was behind the Oscar-winning Happy Feet, as well as Peter Rabbit, Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Ga’Hoole, The LEGO Movie and subsequent LEGO films. In the VFX world, Animal Logic has worked on countless projects, including The Matrix, Moulin Rouge, 300 and several Marvel productions. Animal Logic’s development arm, Animal Logic Entertainment, has propelled the studio further into being directly involved as a producer or the developer of specific film properties – something often seen as the ultimate dream for studios wishing to work on their own intellectual property. A significant player in the development, animation and visual effects activities of Animal Logic is its art and…

Inspired by meteorologist and astronomer James Glaisher and aeronaut Henry Coxwell breaking the world flight altitude record in 1862 by soaring to 36,000 feet in a coal gas filled balloon, screenwriter Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials) collaborated with filmmaker Tom Harper (Wild Rose) and Amazon Studios to make The Aeronauts, starring Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones. With over 80 per cent of the action taking place above England under various weather conditions, visual effects had a pivotal role to play in making the biographical adventure film a cinematic reality. Overseeing the CG contributions of Framestore, Rodeo FX and Alchemy 24 was production visual effects supervisor Louis Morin (Arrival), while the physical builds were the responsibility of co-production designers Christian Huband (Justice League) and David Hindle (Bohemian Rhapsody). “The one image…

Practical tips and tutorials from pro artists to improve your CG skills FOLLOW THE VIDEO http://bit.ly/3DW-robots AUTHOR Rusty Hazelden Rusty Hazelden is a visual effects artist, writer, and YouTuber based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He makes videos about movie visual effects techniques. YouTube.com/RustyHazelden PART 3/4 For over 30 years Pixar’s RenderMan has been used in the film industry to render movies featuring groundbreaking animation and visual effects. In this four-part tutorial series, we’re going to discover how to harness the power of RenderMan by taking an animated shot from start to finish, and learn all of the techniques required to create a photorealistic animation using Pixar’s RenderMan for Maya. Using RenderMan to create photorealistic renders has never been easier. In this series we’re going to begin with untextured objects in…

AUTHOR Pietro Chiovaro Pietro is an Italian 3D artist who creates 3D assets and environments, and is currently working on an open-source game. pietrochiovaro.artstation.com Pixar Animation Studios is one of the most iconic and influential CGI studios in the world. In 1984 they released the first CGI short movie with characters and a story, The Adventures of André & Wally B. In this short they introduced new innovative technologies and features related to CGI production, such as particle systems and motion blur. Nowadays their style and stories are well known and appreciated all around the world, and there are many different companies and animation studios that try to re-create the cartoony (but at the same time realistic) style introduced by Pixar. Being inspired by this amazing company, this issue I…

Since we last delved into Gravity Sketch, the design and modelling tool for VR creatives, it has both gained ground in the VR creative space and become even more popular with artists around the world. However, a new feature has made Gravity Sketch the first application to warrant a second appearance in the Bootcamp series. Namely, the inclusion of a subdivision modelling workflow to complement the existing NURBS and spline workflow. While not every object that has been created in Gravity Sketch can be used to create a subdivision object, the available ones are a good start. The most basic is a single polygonal plane, which can be extruded either along an edge or by polygon face to create more geometry. Edge and polygon loops can also be selected and…

Steven Pickering, Milton Keynes Antony Ward replies For a technical artist, as well as making your rigs more efficient and user-friendly, you also need to make sure they can’t be inadvertently broken by the animator. Unfortunately, there are lots of ways this can happen and with just an innocent pick walk up the hierarchy, a group or another node is then being animated and keyed rather than the intended control, which can cause all sorts of issues, especially when exporting to a game engine. Luckily, most issues can be easily avoided by simply taking the time to go through and lock any attributes that are off limits. It also helps to hide them too, just to be extra cautious. These actions do help to keep your rig tamper proof, but…

PASSING THE TORCH Paul Franklin reveals what excites him most about the future of the VFX industry “The most exciting thing about VFX is that anything is possible,” Paul Franklin, creative director of DNEG, tells 3D World. “A few years ago we reached a point where pretty much any image a filmmaker can come up with, you can now create.” Exploring the creative possibilities presented by digital techniques excites Franklin and he relishes the prospect of the younger generation creating visuals he can’t even imagine. “Just as my current role didn’t exist when I started back in 1989, each generation will create and explore new possibilities,” he adds. Franklin points out that the next generation of visual effects artists is one that has grown up alongside computers and technology. “I…

Jason Knight artstation.com/knight Jason Knight is a freelance digital artist with nearly four decades of experience. He started in 1982 with an award for art created using a Timex Sinclair 1000. SHATTERED GLASS IN CINEMA 4D As soon as the idea came to me, I knew that I wanted to have broken glass. I started by drawing a glass break pattern in Photoshop. I used Cinema 4D release 17, but in newer versions Voronoi Fracture also works great. I created a vectorizer and applied the image as the texture in the vectorizer properties, then I set the tolerance to 1 and the angle to 90 degrees to make the edges sharper. I dropped the vectorizer into an extrude object and set appropriate thickness. Finally, I added modifiers to achieve the…

PLUTONIUM GAS STATION ARTIST Anna Zelensky SOFTWARE Blender, Photoshop Anna Zelensky has been studying 3D art for the past three months, having spent the last two years working exclusively in 2D. At the moment Zelensky devotes her time to studying English and enhancing her 3D skill set. This neon-soaked image is one of her first complete works and took just four days to complete. This image was made as part of the Polygon Runway course by Roman Klco. A fairly straightforward workflow brought it to life, beginning with a series of sketches that figured out large and medium shapes. “I then created large cubes in Blender and decided where to put them and what piece will come next,” says Zelensky, “then I moved on to smaller shapes before clarifying the details.”…

Think outside the box: I mostly use the Adobe suite, but really you should just use whatever's required for your problem. I was working on a project for a circular screen and I had trouble getting my head around how it would work. So I would print things out on paper and just stick them back together in a circle. That was my previs: cutouts and sticky tape. – Toby Grime, art director Fonts and VR: I'm likely to get out real brushes and inks. I also love making fonts, and I've got a nice little tool called Fontself Maker which plugs into the Adobe tools. Production designer Kim Taylor also used Tilt Brush here to create the jungle sequence for The LEGO Ninjago Movie, which let the director do…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO http://bit.ly/3DW-robots Cinema 4D from Maxon has had a long-deserved reputation as a leader in creating advanced motion graphics. With the acquisition and integration of the GPU rendering powerhouse Redshift into the Maxon family, motion graphics solutions have received a speed and efficiency boost. This is because Redshift has tools that can create fast proxy geometry, which can drastically speed up responsiveness in Cinema 4D, both in the viewport and at render time. In this tutorial, we will look at how powerful the Redshift Object tag can be for creating particle and spline geometry on the fly with X-Particles and the Matrix MoGraph object. All of this can be done without developing actual geometry in Cinema 4D, which can really slow a scene down. We will also see…

Blend shapes, or morph targets as they are also known, are a powerful way to bring life to a static model. You create a target shape and then your model can blend into and out of this using a slider, so it’s a nice organic motion, even if it is a linear movement. Traditionally, creating blend shapes could be a long and tedious job. You first duplicate the main model, let’s say it’s a head, edit each vertex to create your expression and then repeat the process for all the other face shapes you need. As you can imagine, on those more complicated projects this could involve generating 50 or more shapes so the character or creature you’re working on can express emotions. The biggest issue with this approach is…

Darren Reid, San Francisco Maya Jermy replies Every artist has their own favourite techniques, pipelines and tools. It takes a lot of practice to develop some kind of working pattern that suits one’s style, and with every project there is room for improvement or simply more practice. I am often asked about my step by step for creating designs, and the truth is it is quite basic. Whether I am making characters, accessories, or a piece of environment, I usually follow the same workflow: low poly -> high poly -> details -> retopo -> UVs -> textures and paint. If it is just concept art, I get to skip a few steps and render a beauty shot without having to unwrap or even retopologize my model. Between you and me,…

Tim Doubleday is the VFX product manager at Vicon, helping develop their motion capture tools such as Shogun. We chatted to him about his career journey, studio setup, and predictions for the future of the industry. What got you into the industry? I feel lucky to have grown up alongside the introduction of the internet and PCs becoming available on a commercial scale. I remember the introduction of bulletin boards and the availability of early 3D rendering software like V-Ray and 3ds Max and being amazed at the possibilities that computer graphics could offer. It wasn’t until a year of doing an Art Foundation that I realised how this emerging industry could not only be amazingly fun but also offer a potential career. This was further cemented while doing a…

Whether creating short films or their own unique tools, e.d. films are pioneers in the realm of real-time animation. Recently they announced a slate of three projects, made possible by an Epic MegaGrant. The grant is part of a $100 million initiative designed to support creators innovating with Unreal Engine. “Being one of the first animation companies to receive a grant is a big deal for us,” says Emily Paige, president of e.d. films. “As a boutique studio in an indie market of Montreal, Canada, that specialises in cultural and educational projects, we do not naturally have the glam that it takes to get eyeballs on our work.” The grant has been awarded in recognition of e.d.’s research into realtime animation since 2015, as well as the hundreds of workflow…

We explore the latest software and hardware tools to see if they are worth your time or money PRICE Indie: $99 / Professional: $199 / Enterprise: $299 | COMPANY QuadSpinner | WEBSITE quadspinner.com QuadSpinner’s Gaea has matured since we reviewed it last February, and has regularly released new features and updates. A Windows 7 or 10 exclusive, CPU and node-based application, it is aimed at anyone interested in generating terrains, from hobbyist newbies to indies to enterprises and studios. On release, they talked a big game about their dedication to creating tools and technologies to provide artists with both speed and realism in terrain generation. And do they still walk that talk? Absolutely. To me, on a terrain generation field where Gaea, World Creator, and a lagging World Machine are…

Robots have been an enduring presence in the 3D art community for decades, with creatives constantly looking to put their own stamp on the sci-fi concept. From androids to mech suits, household droids to war machines, artists’ portfolios are awash with mechanical marvels. Just what is it about robots that keeps 3D artists coming back? And how do different artists approach the subject? 3D World has gathered some of the very best bot builders to tell us just that. Steve Talkowski, a character designer, 3D modeller and VR artist based in Los Angeles, has his own ideas about the enduring appeal of robots in CG circles. “They are a fun way to anthropomorphise the continual progress of technology and AI,” he tells 3D World. As technology advances in the real…

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1. GET TO KNOW LAYER COMPS Layer Comps let you take ‘snapshots’ of your setups in a single Photoshop file. It means you can cycle through your Layer Comps to show multiple iterations of a character or composition without having to consider folders and turn their visibility on and off manually. In the example here I have used Layer Comps to organise iterations of the Lady Iron Dragon character designs for The LEGO Ninjago Movie. The folders are colour coded so you can see how each is turned on and off as a different Layer Comp is selected. 2. LAYER COMPS AND ACTIONS You can utilise Layer Comps in actions to export your designs in specific ways. For example, when I am presenting character options in a lineup I need…

“You’d be surprised how many stunts Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne were actually doing themselves,” notes Kaestner. “There was a real attempt from special effects as well to have a suspended basket that had the right angles and the correct number of ropes with the big ring so it could rock about. But once we put all of that together in a sequence it didn’t have quite the right physics, so we ended up doing lots of post camera moves.” “We had to build around the stunts and connect them to the shots where James and Amelia are digital doubles hanging off of the balloon,” explains Magana. “The layout department built the base of the pacing of the sequence by getting the correct dynamic of the balloon going in and…

If you are new to CGI, there are far too many tools to choose from in a dizzying array of software. This series aims to break everything in CGI down to the very basics so that every artist can be armed with the knowledge of which tool is best. This month we look at Houdini. When experienced CGI artists are asked what 3D application can do everything, many will answer with Houdini. Still, they will likely argue that it is also the most intimidating 3D application due to its distinctive and sophisticated ‘node’-based approach to asset and scene creation. SideFX, the developers of Houdini, have realised that this complexity is also the reason that it is one of the most loved applications in CG creation. They have strived and have…

Courtney Dennett, Birmingham FOLLOW THE VIDEO http://bit.ly/3DW-robots Oscar Juárez replies With the release of Unreal Engine 4 came a whole new way to think about and create our archviz projects. I will take you through a few easy steps for creating PBR materials in Unreal Engine so we can work with them as we usually do with other software like V-Ray and Corona. 01 TEXTURES AND NEW MATERIAL The first step is to load our textures in Unreal Engine; we need to create a folder to store our files so that Unreal can access them. Once we have our textures we have to create our material and name it MASTER. Open it and hold and drag the textures we will use. Once placed, change each one to Parameter (right-click, Convert…

Eric Jacobus has been an actor, stuntman and action coordinator since 2001, as well as having a background in programming. He has gone on to have a varied career that includes producing, starring, stunt coordinating and directing. Jacobus also co-founded SuperAlloy Interactive, an action design studio that specialises in motion capture, combat design and previsualisation. He recently sat down with 3D World to discuss an action-packed day in his life. What does a typical day at SuperAlloy involve for you? Every day, I’m up at 5am to read my Bible and see my kids when they wake up. Otherwise there is no typical day. For shoot days, I arrive at the studio at 7am to set up any tech for previsualisation, motion capture or virtual production. Then at 9am we…

VR headset design has long been pointed to as one of the reasons VR is yet to become ‘mainstream’. Often headsets can be heavy, unbalanced and the lenses don’t always match up with your eyes. Headset technology has definitely come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years, with a few key developments unveiled at CES 2020. EYE TRACKING Not only did Pico Interactive debut their own VR glasses prototype, they also showcased their Neo 2 Eye VR headset, which includes eye-tracking technology in partnership with a company called Tobii. The headset tracks eye movements – and can even do so without calibration – allowing the user to activate aspects in the VR world just by looking at them. What’s more, eye tracking makes foveated rendering possible –…

Dell’s internal creative agency, Dell Blue, recently created ad campaigns for three of the computing giant’s latest products: the OptiPlex 7071 Tower, a premium business desktop designed for maximum VR performance; the OptiPlex 7070, a new form factor providing a fully modular desktop experience; and the 5300/5400 Dell Latitude 2-in-1 with Chrome Enterprise OS. Dell Blue partnered with award-winning VFX company The Mill to produce captivating CG spots for campaigns that span broadcast, online and social. “The OptiPlex and Latitude product videos we worked on with The Mill were the first of their kind,” says Michelle Gillespie, senior manager, commercial product launch at Dell. “Dell Technologies introduced a new form factor in the OptiPlex line and a new partnership with Google in the Latitude line featuring Chrome OS. Capturing the…