Table of contents for September 2015 in 3D World

Who doesn’t love modelling robots? And Mike Jensen creates some of the best. So this issue I’m really excited to share his incredible ZBrush tutorial, where he reveals how to experiment with hard surfaces to create a unique robot character. Read his full tutorial on page 54 and follow his video too, plus download his ZBrush model and custom brushes from this issue’s online Vault! There’s lots more training this issue too, with our 25 quick tips to mastering Cinema 4D on page 44, a guide to editing V-Ray materials on page 74 and in this issue’s Develop we begin Josh Parks’ guide to getting started in Nuke. SUBSCRIBE & SAVE UP TO 59% Now you can get the best of both worlds! Subscribe to 3D World and get both…

Apart from being 3D software providers, what do The Foundry, Pixar, Side Effects, Adobe, Unity and Unreal have in common? They’re all part of a pricing revolution that’s radically changing the way we pay for the tools we use. “The biggest change in pricing models recently has been the introduction of rentals,” says Tim Flett, sales director for Escape Technology, a London-based reseller of digital software. “Firms such as Autodesk, The Foundry and Adobe have all seen increased demand for this flexible licensing model.” More and more people are transitioning from 2D to 3D. Addressing indies, hobbyists, wannabe game developers is now a priority for any software vendor This is making high-end tech more affordable for smaller studios, he adds. “Subscriptions give customers access to the latest versions, maintenance and…

While Cinesite set the tone for San Andreas with the opening sequence, Method Studios took the baton completing 247 complex VFX shots that saw Downtown L.A. and San Francisco being demolished. Method’s VFX supervisor Nordin Rahhali spent two months onset overseeing shots in both L.A. and Brisbane to ensure the digital elements were added seamlessly in post-production. This included the standout continuous three-minute shot beginning with an aerial view into the top-level restaurant of a mid-rise building that then tracks actress Carla Gugino through the chaos as she attempts to escape the impending carnage via rooftop helicopter, piloted by her character’s husband, played by Dwayne Johnson. This sequence was made up of 4,500 frames, the shot was carefully pre-visualised by director Brad Peyton working with The Third Floor. “The Los…

GET PUBLISHED Email your short to ian.dean@futurenet.com MILLIVETTE GONZALEZ Millivette is a character animator and CG generalist from Puerto Rico, with a strong passion for storytelling. millivettegonzalez.com Millivette Gonzalez, Tabia Lees and Valerie Sattazahn, affectionately referred to as ‘The Llamanauts’ began Stellar Moves by sitting down and making lots of doodles on a big piece of paper. The short tells the story of Pluto, who decides against joining the exclusive and cliquey intergalactic dance group, The Planets, in support of his ‘weirdo’ best friend, Charon. “We always felt that Pluto had something untold about his story, that could involve a lot of heart and take place in an interesting world,” says Valerie. TABIA LEES Tabia is a enthusiastic character animator and CG generalist. www.tabialees.com Taking inspiration from 1980s cult classics,…

EXPERT PANEL 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 Anita Brown Anita provides a 3D visualisation service to the interior design and event design industries. She’s also a Maxwell Render certified expert trainer. anitabrowndesignstudio.com Cirstyn Bech-Yagher 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 Joe Parente Joe is a freelance CG artist with experience in 3D modelling, animation, editing and post-production, and a strong background in the visual arts. wachtraumdigitalart.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…

AUTHOR PROFILE Rob Redman VFX and animation trainer, Rob is founder and creative director of Pariah Studios, a boutique studio working in TV, film and archviz, for clients from governments to rock stars. pariahstudios.co.uk Cinema 4D has had massive growth in recent years, both in terms of user base and in its abilities. If you happen to have picked it up around a decade ago, you would barely recognise it: it’s now one of the most rounded and capable applications available. It’s fair to say that Cinema 4D used to be a bit of an ugly duckling, with a UI that was less than intuitive and a workflow that could be a little frustrating, but Maxon has developed what is one of the most powerful 3D applications you can buy.…

ARTIST PROFILE Vikrant J Dalal Vikrant has eight years’ experience in the VFX industry and graphic design. He started his own VFX studio, Project01 Design Studio, which provides VFX, graphic design and tutorial services. www.project01studioblogspot.in. Click TO PLA Y Video www.bit.ly/198-cloth-1 EXPERT TIP Add more elements Add more elements or different types of balloons to create a whole new scene. There are many options in cloth modifiers! Try, learn and use these tools to make better outputs. TOPICS COVERED Scene set up Cloth simulation Lighting and rendering Post-production In this tutorial we are going to take a look at how you could make soft-looking animated objects, using cartoon text ‘balloons’ as an example. There are a number of software options you could use, for example Maya, Houdini and Cinema 4D,…

FOLLOW AIMAN’S NEXT TUTORIAL Issue 199, on sale 12 August ONE GATHERING REFERENCE I’m the proud owner of an eight-month old corgi puppy named Kuma. Since we got him I’ve been browsing corgi-themed artwork online and I happened across Meg Park’s awesome illustrations at the 2014 CTN expo. I bought the print and with her permission started sculpting a corgi a day to practise stylised modelling. This one in particular had some great shape language and a lot of character, so I chose it as a test case to develop my 3D printing workflow. TWO ZBRUSH SCULPT Every day I tried a new way to sculpt hair and to push a little further to tell a story with each sculpt. The exercise yielded eight corgi sculpts in total and I decided…

STEP 1: CREATE A CUBE From the Subtool panel, append a 3D cube and put this over your model. Scale it to cover all of the boundaries of the figure. STEP 2: SET RATIOS Leave only the cube visible and open the Zplugin menu, find the 3D Print Exporter palette and click Update Size Ratios. STEP 3: SET HEIGHT Choose millimeters and put on the Y slider (height) the size you want your model to be, for example 400mm. Press Enter. STEP 4: SET FOR EXPORT Now turn off the cube and make visible the other subtools. Choose from the 3D Print Exporter pallette if you want to export All, Visible or Selected subtools. STEP 5: FILE FORMAT Finally, click on the file format you want to export, for example.stl,…

DEVELOPER/MANUFACTURER AMD WEBSITE www.amd.com COST £479.71 ex VAT / $733* For around twice the price of the FirePro W5100, the W7100 is essentially twice the card. It sports double the GDDR5 memory and more than double the Stream Processors, with 8GB and 1,792 respectively. So it’s a potent piece of hardware for the money. Usability and design The memory bandwidth is also almost twice that of the W5100, thanks to the 256-bit interface. So the GDDR5 runs at 160GB/sec. This card will be even more capable of utilising its four DisplayPort 1.2a connections with a quartet of 4K monitors for a massive 3D-accelerated video wall. However, the W7100 also draws around 150W, which is also twice that of the W5100, so a separate power connector is required. Performance The W7100…

AUTHOR PROFILE Mike Griggs Mike has been a pixel polisher since 1995. He has worked in many sectors of digital content creation from website design to 3D and VFX for film, and TV where he has built a reputation as a digital problem solver. creativebloke.com MAIN FEATURES New physically based shader system UV tools enhanced UI and viewport performance improved Modelling workflow enhancements MeshFusion now integrated Modo has been steadily increasing its user footprint since the release of 801, now with the release of Modo 901, The Foundry has built on this success with a potential landmark release that adds new features as well as a higher price tag. The first thing to notice is that the UI has received a welcome polish. Modo has always been a handsome application.…

VIDEO+MODEL+BRUSHES HARD SURFACE MODELLING Download Mike Jensen’s video, model and custom brushes to create his robot ninja VIDEO+TEXTURES MAYA Resources to create a pro game character VIDEO+FILES ANIMATION Get video and set-up files for 3ds Max VIDEO V-RAY MATERIALS Follow the video to create and edit VRmats MODEL 3D PRINT SCULPT Download a print-ready ZBrush model 10GB OF VIDEO & FILES GET YOUR RESOURCES You’re three steps away from this issue’s video training and files… 1. GO TO THE WEBSITE Type this into your browser’s address bar. www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw198 2. FIND THE FILES YOU WANT Search the list of free resources 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. PLUS! There are more files,…

ARTIST Danilo Athayde SOFTWARE ZBrush, Maya, Photoshop, Marmoset Teaching a subject can often lead to its mundanity but Danilo Athayde proves that there’s always time to ignite your passion through the continuation of freelance projects. Combining two of his favourite characters – Wonder Woman and steampunk Lady Mechanika – the modelling teacher has produced a seamless tribute to two beloved individuals. “It was very fun,” explains Danilo. “I love steampunk clothes and dressing Wonder Woman in this style makes it the perfect mix of two of my favourite characters.” Using ZBrush and Maya for modelling, Danilo then turned to Photoshop for the textures and compositing before finishing with Marmoset Toolbag for the realtime rendering. “I used Marvelous Designer for her skirt – it was the first time I had experimented…

ALEXIS KHOURI VP of strategy and sales, Allegorithmic www.allegorithmic.com “There is a chance that ‘free’ will become the norm and that it’s all going to be about monetising communities and offering great value in return. However, there might also be a backlash similar to what’s currently happening in the Free-to-Play games field. Lots of people are now coming back to more traditional models, where you pay an up-front fee once for all, without having the impression they’re being milked in the long run.” LEE DANSKIN CTO, Escape Technologies escape-technology.com “Despite the many advantages to rental licensing it’s not currently addressing growing concerns around IP protection. You’ll find these days that, in an effort to better protect themselves from leaks or hacks, studios and large manufacturers enforce air gap or air…

SHELDON STOPSACK Sheldon is a VFX supervisor at MPC and has worked on Guardians of the Galaxy, Skyfall and X-Men: Days of Future Past. www.bit.ly/198-sheldon No matter how explosive the summer blockbuster, it’s often smaller, subtle VFX that most impress. This summer the Terminator Genisys returned Arnold Schwarzenegger to the role that made his career, but bringing the actor back to the screen as a robotic killing machine 30 years on proved a challenge for MPC. VFX supervisor Sheldon Stopsack says: “When I first heard about it, it was quite an overwhelming task. Right from the start I thought taking that on would be a big challenge for anyone in the world, not just us as a company – expectations will be incredibly high.” Sheldon had been involved with the…

CARIBOU Jurassic World as a whole showcases an incredible amount of technical detail, from the dinosaurs skin to the perfect lighting – the latter of which the Image Engine team nailed through the use of their own node-based lighting tool, Caribou. Jurassic World was the first time the full version of the Maya plug-in was used and proved invaluable for production. “Caribou was extremely valuable to manage the multiple characters, full CG environment, FX and props in complex lighting scenes,” explains VFX supervisor Martyn Culpitt. “We were able to pull off our full CG shots in a very short amount of time and pass the templates to others. We spent a lot of time streamlining the lighting workflow on past shows so this was a huge push to give artists…

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… 1. Go to the website Type this into your browser’s address bar: www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw198 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. 54 HARD SURFACE MODELLING Concept and model a robotic character 60 MASTER SOFT-FEELING ANIMATED OB JECTS Vikrant J Dalal demonstrates how to create soft animated text in 3ds Max 64 GAME CHARACTER DESIGN Create a production-ready sci-fi character 70 DESIGN A ROBOT How KeyShot 6’s new mascot came to life 74…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO If you see the Play icon, use the link! ARTIST PROFILE Maria Carriedo Maria is a freelance 3D generalist based in Los Angeles. She’s passionate about visual development and storytelling through art. www.mariacg.com EXPERT TIP Custom brushes in Mari Although Mari comes with some very decent and useful brushes, you are not tied to using only these; you can import any Photoshop brushes by going to Tools> Import brushes TOPICS COVERED Planning Block out model and sculpting Retopology and UV mapping Normal map baking Texturing and scene setup Welcome to this sci-fi character tutorial, where I would like to share my workflow to develop an appealing character for games, from concept art to final, productionready model. I will guide you through this lengthy process, sharing key points…

OUR AWARDS BEST IN CLASS Awarded to products that excel in their class. HIGHLY COMMENDED Awarded to great products that achieve a high standard. 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/3dw198 86 NUKE TECHNIQUES Master a more efficient workflow 88 GROUP TEST: GRAPHICS CARDS REVIEW ROUND-UP Six of the most popular professional GPUs are put to the test 92 REVIEW: KEYSHOT 6 The latest version takes a leap forward 94 REVIEW: MODO 901 Mike Griggs on the software’s new features 96 REVIEW: LIGHT STUDIO 5 Is the upgrade worth the hefty price tag? 97 REVIEW: GOLAEM CROWD 4 How does the updated simulation tool fare? 100 MY INSPIRATION André Luis on nurturing CG talent…

AUTHOR PROFILE James Morris James has been writing about technology for two decades, focusing on content creation hardware and software. He was the editor of PC Pro magazine for five years. webmediology.com EXPERT TIP GPU rendering? The idea of harnessing the huge power of the GPU for final 3D rendering has been hovering in the wings for some years now. But it still has yet to hit the mainstream. All of this issue’s cards will enhance modelling alone unless you enlist a specialist renderer, so spending on a multi-core CPU is the best choice when it comes to output. The professional graphics card market used to be awash with alternative brands. But for over a decade the choice has been exclusively between AMD and Nvidia. Even more recently, the latter…

AUTHOR PROFILE Mike Griggs Mike Griggs, has been a pixel polisher since 1995. He has worked in many sectors of digital content creation from website design to 3D and VFX for film and TV where he has built a reputation as a digital problem solver. www.creativebloke.com HDR Light Studio was one of the great secrets in a CGI artist’s toolbox. It enabled the creation of bespoke HDR images, which can be used to light models and scenes using the unique Light Paint paradigm. This allows the artist to interactively choose which part of the model they light. With the release of HDR Light Studio 5, Lightmap are positioning their product as the lighting package to use with its radically overhauled interface, allowing a much more customised approach to light creation.…

ARTIST Teoduro Badlu SOFTWARE Modo, Photoshop With a creative media design diploma, Austria-based artist Teoduro Badlu’s passions lie with character design, illustration and 3D. Creating 3D-based illustrations and characters since 2005, Teoduro is inspired by everything and anything, be it music, movies, religion, comics or toys. “For most of my work I use a combination of box modelling, polygon modelling and sculpting in combination with retopology and the other tools that Modo has to offer,” he explains. “For this particular image there was no need for any kind of simulation or procedural modelling.” Switching from Adobe Illustrator to 3D modelling programs to create his characters, Teoduro says the change was no easy feat. “I also made the change from Cinema 4D to Modo which was really difficult but I am…

HOLGER VOSS Holger is an awardwinning VFX supervisor for Cinesite. He has supervised Cinesite’s work on San Andreas, X-Men: Days of Future Past, the 2014 Robocop reboot and Iron Man 3. www.bit.ly/198-cinesite Opening up a blockbuster feature sets a tone and marker for the entire film, and it’s no mean feat to nail the VFX from the start, especially with a film like San Andreas, packed full of visual effects and CGI mayhem from start to finish. The man in charge of tackling the tricky opening sequence was Holger Voss, VFX supervisor at Cinesite, who managed to control the process across two continents. If you aren’t aware of the 3D disaster flick starring Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) without spoiling the premise too much, it involves a major shift in…

THE STORAGE PROBLEM As studios like Fido and Important Looking Pirates earn more success and acclaim, so the demand for more power and storage increases. ”We get a new system and have terabytes of storage and it feels like a universe… and then we fill it up,” explains Fido’s chief technical officer Thomas Ericsson. PROBLEM SOLVED To help, Fido and ILP turned to Dell Compellent for their storage solution. The flickering lights and whir of power is the first thing you see on entering Fido’s Stockholm offices, “because it’s at the heart of what we do here,” says Claes. “We’re a technology and art studio, the technology matters.” Niklas is equally happy, “super happy,” he says smiling, adding for ILP it was less about the hardware and more about the…

GALLOPING GALLIMIMUS Much like the raptors, the gallimimus hold a special place in people’s hearts. The stampede of creatures which flock towards Dr Alan Grant, Tim and Lex has become one of the most iconic and memorable scenes in the original film. And they’re back in Jurassic World once again – and in large numbers, which proved a challenge. Martyn explains: “We started with a very small number and to be honest it didn’t really work. We needed to keep adding more to fill gaps and to help the shot come alive. The final number ended being 60. We really needed to have the feeling of being immersed in the running of the herd. Camera shake, grass chunks being kicked up and flying past camera, dirt being ripped up, gallimimus…

EXPERT TIP Under the sea Maxwell is a complete spherical environment, so your ocean will look particularly bright and unrealistic, until you add a seabed. Add a plane to the scene and scale it up as needed, then in the node’s Maxwell tab add a rocky/sandy material then render. A Rob replies Creating large bodies of water is something that many VFX artists are called upon to do and there are a few tools that cater to this task; some specialist tools and other methods that use your software’s built-in tools. For example, you could use a combination of displacement and shaders to create a pretty good-looking ocean surface, but getting the interaction between it and other geometry in the scene could become tiresome. That is where the specialised software…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO If you see the Play icon, use the link! ARTIST PROFILE Mike Jensen Mike is a self-taught character artist from Seattle. He started creating in-depth ZBrush tutorials, and now works as a character artist at video game company, Bungie. mikejensen3d.com Designing and creating hard surface characters has always been a passion of mine. I love figuring out how abstract shapes can contour over a character’s forms, and how they can be resolved into a set of futuristic armour. In this tutorial, I’ll be showing you my workflow for creating hard surface characters in ZBrush. I always start projects like this one by gathering reference and inspirational pictures. Using the reference, I’ll come up with an overall theme for the character. Once I have a general idea of…

DOWNLOAD THE MODEL www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw198 ARTIST PROFILE Aiman Akhtar Aiman is a freelance 3D artist, specialising in characters. He’s a beta tester for Adobe’s 3D print tools and continues to experiment with the technology. www.aiman3d.com This month, I have a big announcement: After researching 3D printing for years, and trying out multiple technologies and services, I’ve finally bought my own 3D printer! This was not an easy decision as the tech is still relatively expensive and there are so many choices out there. What ultimately gave me the push is the topic of this issue’s article, the importance of going to 3D print workshops for artists. In May, I attended a character design for 3D printing workshop hosted by Mold3D. It was a two-day weekend event, held onsite at the Concept…

AUTHOR PROFILE Josh Parks Josh is a compositor at MPC as well as a part-time lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire. www.joshparks.co.uk STEP UP TO NUKE Download a free version of Nuke, to find out if it’s a piece of software that you’d like to take further. thefoundry.co.uk Over the course of this six-part masterclass series we’re going to be looking at what I feel have been the most important compositing tips and techniques for me, as well as those that will have the biggest impact on your work. As soon as I started at MPC, I was hit with having to work efficiently. Not only did I have to produce good-looking work, but also optimise everything I could so that my Nuke script would run as quickly as possible:…

DEVELOPER/MANUFACTURER AMD WEBSITE www.amd.com COST £222.51 ex VAT / $340* The AMD FirePro W5100 is the cheapest card on test this issue. But it’s still a capable piece of hardware. It sports 768 Stream Processors and a healthy 4GB of GDDR5 memory. So whilst this won’t be the fastest option, it should have no trouble running any mainstream application. Usability and design However, the memory uses a 128-bit interface, so the bandwidth available is just 96GB/sec. Another beneficiary of the healthy frame buffer complement will be the four DisplayPorts, each of which supports a 4K monitor when used with a DisplayPort 1.2a connection. This card doesn’t require any extra PSU power connection, either, as it draws less than 75W. Performance As the cheapest card on test, the FirePro W5100 is…

AUTHOR PROFILE Andy Jones Boston-based Andy Jones has been working in the CG industry for five years and is currently senior 3D artist at Mullen. Andy has also worked as a concept artist and graphic designer. andyjonescreative. artstation.com Luxion has made a huge leap forward with KeyShot 6 – a release with new features that satisfy both sides of the 3D artist’s brain. It has amazing new plug and play options for those who need to get something out fast but remain beautiful. On the other side, the new nodebased Material Graph gives you the power to get under the hood and make really cool materials. Going further, Luxion has added Scripting Console for those who practise this dark art. So wherever you are on this spectrum, KeyShot 6 is…

AUTHOR PROFILE Cirstyn Bech-Yagher Cirstyn is a freelance CG artist and educator, with over a decade’s experience in 3D, focusing on modelling and texturing. northern-studios.com MAIN FEATURES Even stronger Maya integration Behaviour optimisations (triggers and recycling) Easy to use behaviour manager Handles bipeds to quadrupeds Free assets to help you get started GOLAEM CROWD 4 FOR MAYA Fast and versatile, and now with even more features, Golaem Crowd is being used in TV series and films such as Game of Thrones and Jonathan Strange. In terms of functionality, price and pipeline ease, it’s definitely worth considering as an alternative to Miarmy, for example. Golaem Crowd is a featurerich crowd simulation tool, fully integrated into Maya, which will save many pipeline integration hassles. It’s deceptively simple to use and, once you…