Table of contents for July 2021 in 3D World

COVER ARTIST Leonardo Peñaranda SOFTWARE ZBrush, Blender, Photoshop For most of us, we may never get the chance to put our skills to the test on a Hollywood blockbuster, or we may never want to. That doesn’t mean we have to keep our passions to ourselves, however. This issue we take a look at the ever-expanding world of custom toys and collectables, where 3D is fast becoming the tool of choice for designers and garage operators, so have a read from page 24 to see if this particular cottage industry is one that excites you, gathering some advice from the experts along the way. As always, we also bring you insights into the industry, high-end training for your favourite software, and answers to your burning CG questions. rob.redman@futurenet.com…

ARTIST SOFTWARE Blender, Substance Painter 3D artist Gabriela Fuentes works on personal pieces in the evenings around her day job at digital animation studio L Creativa, with this charming character taking a little over two months to complete. “With the passing of the years I've learnt to enjoy the processes and not rush to finish it, that way I feel I can connect with what I’m doing,” she says. Fuentes adds that the fur was the most challenging and time-consuming element of the character, with a lot of experimentation needed to nail Mommy’s realistic fur. “At first my vision was to make very thick and curly wire hair to look like a stop-motion puppet, but then I realised that type of hair made her look very neglected, and fluffy, natural…

ARTIST SOFTWARE Blender, Substance Painter, Photoshop, Illustrator, PureRef, Lightroom Freelance artist Marco Vivirito created this photorealistic automobile after working with an event celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Alfa Romeo 8C. “In my free time, I continued to define the car, adding more detail to produce an image to add to my portfolio and continue looking for work as a 3D artist,” he tells 3D World. “These images were a totally unexpected success. This makes me super proud.” Vivirito devotes a lot of time experimenting with new ways to learn and make the creative process easier. In this piece, the number on the 8C’s front grille is actually a separate .png file, speeding up the process and allowing Vivirito to use it as a mock-up for graphics or logos he…

3D tools and software are invaluable to the creation of toys, from action figures and collectables to busts and statues. To discover more about these digital design processes, 3D World has gathered several talented artists to explain how they leverage their skills for the sculpting of detailed and articulate toys: Anthony of Anthony’s Customs, a creator and reviewer of action figures, discusses the creation of great toys; Wandah Kurniawan shares the secrets behind stunning collectable statues; master sculptor Taregh Saber tells us about his journey and offers his advice for 3D artists; finally, Peter Clark, who creates handcrafted resin figures as Delicious Again Peter, and 3D designer Leonardo Peñaranda explain their creative process. CUSTOM CREATIONS Anthony of Anthony’s Customs is a traditional and digital sculptor and designer that brings action figures…

Phil Stilgoe says of the opportunity to explore a range of projects in terms of content and scale that, “We’re working on a pilot for a puppet project. This is a big development project and if we get it all right there’ll be a feature. We’re looking at puppetry and a digital pipeline that’s slightly driven by old-school methods using gloves as joysticks. It’s nice to have this whole scale of work that takes us from indies through to AAA games.” On a development project like this, Molinare can provide grading and other post processes for Centroid.…

26 SCENE LAYOUT The final geometry was imported into Maya, either using the Alembic (.abc) file format, or as Arnold StandIns (to keep the scene nice and light to navigate). After initially positioning a camera to match the angle and framing of the concept, we instead opted for a camera angle that would show off a nicer perspective, adding greater range to the depth of the scene. We ended up tighter on the character too, adding to the intimate feel of the image. 27 LIGHTING CHOICES The concept image was added to the Arnold RenderView background to simplify matching the tone with 3D lighting. Shader balls and an Arnold Skydome light were used to set up an initial ambient/specular HDRI baselight in keeping with the concept’s colour and tone. A…

EXPERT TIP KEEP IT LOW! Decimation Master is also a great way to keep your file sizes down as a project progresses. If you are doing things like trees, environments, buildings or other things where the surface detail isn’t as important as on a character, then keep the models lower by using Decimation Master. Glen Southern replies Pixologic, who makes ZBrush, has a habit of creating tools with the strangest names possible – ZSphere, Tessimation, Sculptris Pro, and of course Decimation and DynaMesh. Let’s try and unpick those last two, and see where you need them. Let’s start with Decimation. To decimate in 3D speak is to reduce the amount of polygons that a model has (usually resulting in triangles) without changing the overall look or shape of a model.…

ARTIST SOFTWARE ZBrush, Blender, Marvelous Designer, Megascans, Redshift, Cinema 4D, Photoshop Freelance 3D artist Gregg Hartley took time each day over two weeks to create this compelling character piece. “This was one of those times I just went with the flow,” Hartley explains. He began with a sphere in ZBrush and kept modelling until a creature took shape. Hartley took inspiration from his surroundings during the COVID-19 lockdown as well as images he gathered on PureRef Although he enjoys sculpting in ZBrush, Hartley feels most comfortable developing parts like the flute and the patterns on the creature’s gauntlets in Blender. Identifying his camera angles helped Hartley to work on the composition, flow and folds of the cloth in Marvelous Designer, which he wanted to use to guide the viewer’s eye.…

ARTIST SOFTWARE 3ds Max, Corona Renderer, SiNi Software, Photoshop This realistic visualisation is a commercial project by talented 3D designer Vic Nguyen. “I only receive an interior layout and preliminary layout,” he tells 3D World. “I have to design ideas and combine colours to match my style.” Nguyen spent around four days designing, editing and rendering the piece. Nguyen’s process begins with engineering and architectural drawings or SketchUp files, as well as illustrations of the expected style, which inform how the light should be set up to create mood and atmosphere. With all these elements in place, Nguyen works out how the image will look in terms of colour, planning, and lighting. “I LIKE ANGLES THAT ACCENTUATE THE LOOK AND FEEL OF THE BUILDING” “At this stage, I model the…

ARTIST SOFTWARE ZBrush, KeyShot, Photoshop Andres Rios is a freelance concept artist at Grinding Gear Games, as well as a talented digital sculptor and character-creature designer. He spent around ten hours working on this intricate design. Rios began working professionally in 2020, but is familiar with most of the 3D pipeline, from concept to rigging and animation. “I try to stick to concept art as it’s my favourite part,” he adds. Depending on the project, Rios either begins with a traditional 2D sketch or directly in ZBrush. “When I start on ZBrush I usually have some clarity on the concept I want to make, and often I kitbash parts of the concept,” he explains. “I have a library of models that I have done or purchased, and sometimes in my…

1 Never stop learning Learning new things might not be entertaining for some, since it requires spending a great deal of time and attention on experiments. For me, any project is a learning experience. I enjoy the process, it makes me more prepared and qualified for more complex projects. The harsh reality is that people commission artists based on how well they sculpt so artists need to raise their game and bring new elements to the table. 2 Accept constructive criticism No artist ever likes to hear criticism because of the time and the effort one has put into his or her work. Artists always take it personally. However, many of these criticisms refine and complement your work. I even admire when I see artists criticising their own work because…

Of their venture with Centroid, Gathard says that “Phil and his team have always been very forward thinking, and cutting-edge technology and young talent keep us on our toes with ideas. We will take on anything as long as it’s storytelling, and that’s what’s cool and will keep us cutting edge: R&D, working together, even just having a think about what it will be like in two years. It’s exciting.”…

01 INSPIRATION The first step was to draw an image that I thought could translate well to a CG art piece. I had drawn this image in pencil back in the summer and I knew I wanted to progress it, so I spent two days improving the composition, adding colour and texture and further defining the two different characters involved – the mischievous tree and the sleeping boy. 02 IT’S ALL IN THE DETAILS I began thinking about how this would translate to 3D and what a CG artist would need to model it. Everything has volume, so how does the child look from the front, in profile? What about the tree? As a concept artist, the greater detail you can provide the CG artist, the better, so I created…

32 BACKGROUND SETUP AND GRADING CG Using Nuke, I set up a script ready for compositing. I imported Pedro's layered file and used ColorCorrect to adapt the clouds, lifting the highlights and stripping back some of the red and green to add contrast, before applying ZDefocus to the overall background for depth. I imported the CG containing all of the layers and channels needed. Using the Cryptomatte node, I selected parts of the CG leaving me with an alpha channel for each layer. I then applied a grade node to the CG, attaching the mask input to each cryptomatte. Colour correcting allowed me to pick up some of the detail in the hair, face, clothing and grass. 33VOLUME RAYS AND DUST PARTICLES I imported Matt's volume rays and applied them…

elenaa.artstation.com Elena Turgeneva is a freelance character artist based in Germany. She enjoys creating characters in all variations, from photorealistic to stylised. DIGITAL SCULPTING, MODELLING AND TEXTURING | sculpted primary and secondary skin details in ZBrush, then switched to Substance Painter to add the smallest details (like pores and directional wrinkles) because it allowed me to adjust their size and depth freely. To complete the normal map, I used a female face scan from Substance Painter, combining it with some skin materials from the library. For the other maps, I used a combination of procedural layers (with ambient occlusion and curvature generators) and simple coloured fill layers where I would paint white on a black mask using standard brushes to unmask certain colours wherever needed.…

ARTIST SOFTWARE ZBrush, Substance Designer, Substance Painter, TopoGun, 3ds Max, V-Ray, Photoshop This cool character concept took 3D artist James Lin roughly just over a month to complete in his spare time. Lin has worked intensively with a cutting-edge 3D anatomy company called Atomedge in Cape Town, South Africa for a year and a half, and has been freelancing since his student days. “For this project, I wanted to focus mainly on hard-surface sculpting in ZBrush and creating some really cool materials in Substance,” Lin tells 3D World. To sculpt fine details Lin first unwrapped the clean model, used Substance Painter to add some texture detail, exported the textures and then placed them back in ZBrush, where he used the exported height map from Substance to create sculpted detail. “My…

ARTIST SOFTWARE ZBrush, Maya, Substance Painter, Marvelous Designer, Unreal Engine Adam Fisher, a freelance 3D character artist for the games and collectable industry, worked on this fan art of fan favourite Star Wars character Ahsoka Tano for two months, spending a couple of hours on it whenever he had time to spare. Fisher has more than a decade’s experience in 3D and has been freelancing for the last five years. His credits include AAA games like Prey, Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Total War: Warhammer II. Ahsoka recently made her live-action debut in season two of The Mandalorian, providing Fisher with the inspiration for this piece. “I enjoyed the challenge of trying to capture the likeness and cinematic style of the show,” he explains. Ahsoka’s cloak was sculpted fairly…

ARTIST LOCATION South Korea I majored in painting because I liked to draw pictures, but I want to work in the field of movies or animation because I like the form of narrative work. My aim was to try and reproduce a 3D environment from a reference image (bit.ly/39LJ9f9) and add another factor (FX, different light). I added evening sunset lighting because I didn't want to finish the work just like the reference image. I think slowly floating dust creates a calm mood. www.artstation.com/cjunhyung THE ROOKIES The Rookies is a platform to help digital artists get discovered without having to compete with professionals for attention. You’ll get to the front page of those sites one day, but for now, we’ve got your back and want to help turn your passion…

Looking ahead towards a more settled post-pandemic landscape, Bennett explains of Molinare’s big picture plan that, “Glen and I have always had the same viewpoint: we’ve spent a long time building our relationships and there’s a real convergence between games, the interactive space and film now, and I really believe that part of this, whether motion capture is being used for TV content, film or interactive, is a massive convergence. This is where Centroid brings something to the table in working with us and it doesn’t just have to be the interactive space; it’s really about creating that pipeline and I think that ends up giving us a headstart on other facilities. “We’re in a world where day and date release won’t just be for a film, it’ll be for…

09 INITIAL BLOCK-OUT Using Pedro's supplied imagery, I was able to set up image planes that represented the front and side views of our character within ZBrush. A feature that's new to ZBrush 2021.6, 'Mesh Balloon', lets you quickly describe shapes by drawing a mask onto an object. I was able to pair this with our image planes to draw out the character's initial forms. 10 FINE-TUNING DETAILS Once I was happy with the basic formation of the character, I enabled DynaMesh to add details – the shape of his face and the roundness of the ears. 11 RETOPOLOGY ZRemesher was used in conjunction with both ZRemesher guides and Polypaint. The guides were used to suggest an ideal topology flow and the 'red' Polypaint was used to entice the algorithm…

The two-minute video ‘Elevation’ became not just a project, but a praise of creativity and the motion design community. After all the unfortunate events of 2020, Mondlicht Studios and the Motion Design Awards came up with an idea to create a project to inspire designers worldwide. One of the key impacts of 2020 is our relocation more into the digital world. So, in the video, the digital and the real world are combined and both influence each other, pushing creativity through the boundaries of ‘new normal’. In this tutorial, Mondlicht Studios demonstrate how they created one of the most remarkable video shots. The team show the process in a step-bystep guide, and share several handy tips and tricks to enhance your pipeline and efficiency. 01 CREATE A MOODBOARD Everyone knows…

Pietro Chiovaro replies I will show you the full process for creating a basic skin material using Substance Designer. Here, the process has been used to create the base material of the skin of Fedez, an Italian rapper. For this type of material, I selected the Physically Based (Metallic/Roughness) Graph Template and deleted the Metallic output since it is not necessary for this kind of material. At this point we can start to add the following nodes from the Substance Designer library: the Cells 3 noise and the Clouds 1 noise (these two are the main elements of the material), the Height to Normal World Units filter or the Normal filter if you have the latest version of the software, two Levels filters, one Blend filter and last but not…

Missing an issue of 3D World? Fill the gaps in your collection today! ISSUE 273 JUNE 2021 DUKES OF NUKE • Discover how Nuke is used by pros working on blockbuster films and AAA games to take their work to the next level• Behind the scenes of the beautiful VR experience Baba Yaga• How to build an animated in-game asset from scratch• Downloads Free models and textures, files and more! ISSUE 272 MAY 2021 MASTER YOUR BLENDER LIGHTING • An expert guide to lighting your character renders• Delve into the fantasy world of Raya And The Last Dragon• We explore how cutting-edge tools and software are revolutionising the fashion industry• Create a robot with Blender• Downloads Free models and textures, files and more! ISSUE 271 APRIL 2021 THE EXPANSE •…