Table of contents for December 2016 in 3D World

SUBSCRIBE FROM £11.25 Get print and digital editions every month, turn to page 26 In this new look issue, we delve into animation FX. Discover how Houdini helped Blizzard’s cinematics team grow a forest, and meet the DreamWorks team behind Trolls’ hair animation. The hairy theme continues into our training – learn how to create cartoon hair in Maya’s Yeti and realistic hair in ZBrush. ian.dean@futurenet.com…

AUTHOR Fábio has been working in the CG industry for five years and currently works for Naughty Dog. www.fabiomsilva.com Today we will be creating eyebrows to ensure your portraits look more realistic. Just like hair and eyelashes, eyebrows are often neglected in tutorials about creating the human body in 3D, but unrealistic-looking eyebrows can really make the difference between a believable and an unbelievable 3D model. First, we will take our model into ZBrush and mask the areas we need to use as our scalp or hair emitter. ZBrush is great for doing this since we can basically paint in 3D on our high resolution model in order to make it look exactly the way we want it. Then, we will perform quick actions such as generating UVs and retopologising…

Kim Lee, US To illustrate this, I’ll be sculpting a cartoon version of Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings books. This particular model is based on a sketch by Alberto Camara. Check him out online, his work is awesome. Fifty percent of this model is hair, and when it comes to sculpting hair, there are many ways to go about it. First, I split each section into subtools. The hair is extracted from the head, I use the Move tool to get it into position and then Dynamesh. Once I am happy with the shape, I use ZRemesher for nice even topology. The tash is created using the CurveTube brush. Going into the Stroke menu, I am able to adjust the size, using the Curve Modifier to get it…

The decision to produce rather than license its comic book characters for film, starting with the release of Iron Man in 2008, proved a turning point for Marvel. In order to accomplish this cinematic feat, Marvel Studios’ president Kevin Feige sought the expertise of both Louis D’Esposito and Victoria Alonso. “For the longest of times we divided ourselves. Kevin was always the story and creative vision of our company, Lou [Marvel Studios’ co-president] came from production so he was our line producer and executive producer dealing with all things production, and I was responsible for visual effects, post-production and stereo,” explains Marvel Studios’ executive vice president of physical production, Victoria Alonso, who previously worked at Rhythm & Hues. The Marvel trinity Over the course of orchestrating the release of 13…

BLIZZARD ANIMATION COUNTRY USA STAFF 200 (across all departments) SOFTWARE Houdini, Maya, Mantra, Redshift, RenderMan WEB blizzard.com While the Overwatch game was released to acclaim earlier this year, Blizzard Animation has been steadily releasing short animated films to expand the back-stories of the leading characters. Of the five episodes, The Last Bastion stands out as an incredible technical achievement, and uses Houdini to create a large, dense forest environment and foliage. The short presented some artistic challenges for the animators. Project director Ben Dai explains that one goal was “to tell the story of Bastion without any dialogue. Another major goal, like all the Overwatch animated shorts, was to expand the game universe by telling great stories about our heroes.” For VFX supervisor Jeff Chamberlain, it also meant doing things…

PRICE $149 (Indie), $590 (Pro) | COMPANY Allegorithmic | WEBSITE www.allegorithmic.com AUTHOR PROFILE Cirstyn is a freelance CG artist and educator, with over 15 years’ experience in 3D. Her clients have ranged from AMD to Daz 3D and Future. One of her current projects is with AMD as technical artist for Radeon ProRender for 3ds Max. northern-studios.com EXPERT TIP EASIER SEARCHING For those with heaps of non-tagged (smart) materials, brushes, alphas and tools in their shelves, the improved filtering and search options added to previous release Painter 2.2 make it a lot easier to navigate the main and minishelves, which helps to solve the ‘wade through SP assets until you find what you need’ issue. Released on the heels of Substance Painter 2.2 (SP 2.2), which had a large and…

David Burgess On page 20, head of character animation at DreamWorks, David Burgess, reveals what it took to bring Trolls to the big screen. www.bit.ly/david-burgess Germán Casado Fraga On page 56, Germán Casado Fraga – a freelance concept and matte painting artist working at The Mill in London – shares his detailed process for creating a landscape for film VFX in Clarisse. www.germancasado.tumblr.com Mateusz Wielgus Mateusz Wielgus – freelance CG artist and the owner of Black Chilla Design Studio – shares how to create complex environments in Blender on page 38. www.designstudio.blackchilla.pl Dan DeLeeuw Marvel’s VFX supervisor Dan DeLeeuw shares how he and his team have worked together to create films such as Iron Man and Avengers: Infinity War. Read all about it on page 82. www.bit.ly/dan-deleeuw Fábio M. Silva…

AUTHOR Dan has worked in the games industry for eight years as both an environmental, concept and character artist. www.bit.ly/dan-cox 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 content downloads page at www.bit.ly/vault-214-blizzard for the files. In this course, you’ll learn methods for modular modelling inside 3ds Max. When it comes to creating believable game art, detail and structure are important. With that in mind, the training will outline a detailed process to ensure your models have a final look that will transition well. We’ll also make sure models will work later on in your pipeline, for example when baking and detailing in ZBrush. By…

AUTHOR Germán is a freelance concept and matte painting artist, who currently works at The Mill in London. You can see his work on his website. germancasado.tumblr.com Clarisse is a very powerful application and a godsend for CG environment artists. In this tutorial, we’ll have a look at some of its features. The workspace layout is fully customisable, so I first make sure it shows what I’ll be needing. I also create a project structure to keep my items organised. The scene organisation works very much like a regular file navigator and it’s very intuitive. Folders are called ‘contexts’; contexts can be created, duplicated, and more importantly, referenced in other contexts. Once you get used to working this way, it’s hard to go back! I’ll take you through the steps…

Amy Knowles, UK Kevin Kleyla Kevin has worked within the arch-viz world for the past 16 years. He currently works as a 3D designer for NA-Collective in New York. www.akueous.com Paul Hatton Paul leads a studio of visualisers based in the UK. He delivers a host of projects including video and interactive environments. www.cadesignservices.co.uk Francis-Xavier Martins Francis-Xavier is a character artist and CG generalist based in Brighton, with over a decade of experience in video games, media and TV. www.polyjunky.com Nick Leonard Nick specialises in texturing, look development and lighting. He works as a lighting technical director for MPC Film. www.nickleonard.co.uk Jason Knight Jason is a freelance digital artist with over 33 years’ experience. His latest obsession is his much-loved Wacom tablet. www.knightgraphics.daportfolio.com GET IN TOUCH EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO…

PRICE from £2,600 | COMPANY Maxon | WEBSITE www.maxon.net AUTHOR PROFILE Steve is a freelance tech journalist and CG artist, with an unhealthy addiction to 3D apps and plug-ins. www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jarratt FEATURES MoGraph gains new Effectors and Voronoi fracturing Improved Knife tool with enhanced slicing modes New Shadow Catcher, Thin Film and Inverse AO shaders Motion Tracker can now track 3D objects OpenGL viewport gets real-time reflections, AO and tessellation After the disappointment of R17, which offered little of substance apart from the Take System, Cinema 4D is back with a vengeance. With a feature list too long to cover, we only have room here to focus on the big ticket items, but Maxon’s website has a full list. The one new feature of Cinema 4D R18 that affects everyone is…

Follow the link to download your free files www.bit.ly/vault-214-blizzard FREE! 2-hour Pluralsight video training for video game asset production 7GB 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 the following into your browser: www.bit.ly/vault-214-blizzard 2. FIND THE FILES YOU WANT FROM THE LIST 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. PLUS! There are more files, art and resources waiting online… FILES: Download the menu images to follow the photogrammetry settings FILES: Get the stepby-step images for this issue’s Artist Q&A tutorials ARTWORK: Download the extra tutorial images that…

AUTHOR Ali is a self-taught CG character artist. He loves creatures and characters in realistic, fantasy and cartoonish styles. www.jalaliart.com This Batman character was created for a challenge as part of Comic-Con 2016. The theme was undead superheroes, so I decided to go with my favourite of all time. I begin all my projects by sourcing and collecting together reference materials. I knew that I wanted Frank Miller’s Batman with an undead style. I therefore had to find some differences between the undead and zombies. After watching plenty of zombie and undead movies, I realised that the latter are a bit more agile! This agility affects the pose and overall mood of the final piece. In this tutorial I will talk through the sculpting process and the methods I used…

AUTHOR Arthur is a CG artist based in France who specialises in character modelling, texturing and shading for film and video games. www.artgatineau.com Photogrammetry is fastbecoming a staple of many video game asset creation workflows. So for this tutorial I will cover the process of making a game character, focusing on the creation of some parts of my latest project, a survival character I imagined, which was inspired by the universes of games such as The Division and The Last of Us. I will go through the steps of using Agisoft PhotoScan to speed up making a pair of shoes and a rucksack. I will also explain how I created a shirt in Marvelous Designer, ZBrush and Substance Painter. While we won’t be covering the modelling process here, it might…

Joel Wrigglesworth, UK I played the game Myst in the mid ‘90s, and like much of the world was completely fascinated and immersed with the amazing 3D graphics, so I landed myself a free copy of Bryce 2.0 at a software and hardware tradeshow. I still remember making my first render, a simple island nested in a water plane. It was a case of a few clicks, picking a water texture, adding some sunlight and hitting render. It was an amazing feeling to be able to create such realistic visuals, whole worlds even, with very little effort. I was hooked! Back then, my wife always said she didn’t like the unrealistic horizon line in my Bryce renders, nor how fake the shadows always looked. I frequently found myself trying to…

PRICE $149 (Indie), $590 (Pro) | COMPANY Allegorithmic | WEBSITE www.allegorithmic.com AUTHOR PROFILE Cirstyn is a freelance CG artist and educator, with over 15 years’ experience in 3D. Her clients have ranged from AMD to Daz 3D and Future. One of her current projects is with AMD as technical artist for Radeon ProRender for 3ds Max. northern-studios.com EXPERT TIP TUTORIAL HELP One thing that may be a potential curveball for new users is the obvious difference in vernacular and set-ups, but Allegorithmic has this covered by providing new and experienced users with the usual excellent introductory tutorials by Wes McDermott. Substance Designer 5.5 (SD 5.5) is the first tool available with an interface for generating MDL materials. There’s a reason this is big news: initially introduced in Substance Designer 5.3’s…