Table of contents for May 2019 in 3D World

“Let's say we had a bunch of doll characters standing in a ‘U’ shape,” outlines visual effects supervisor Kevin Baillie, “and all their faces needed to be sharp. Instead of just narrowing the aperture and making it not look like a miniature, we developed a technique, together with Pixar, that would allow us to effectively draw a curtain in a shot. “Wherever that curtain is in a shot, is in focus. We can almost infinitely vary what point in the shot is in focus across the frame, creating our version of a really flexible diopter. What we are doing here, really, is using techniques from practical filmmaking and either emulating them or even enhancing them in the digital workflow, to arrive at a look that is photographically genuine and also…

Practical tips and tutorials from pro artists to improve your CG skills Simon Edwards Simon works freelance at 3DArtvision. He has worked professionally both as an architectural visualiser and 3D artist for 20 years in Holland and the UK. www.3dartvision.co.uk Antony Ward Since the early 90s Antony has worked for many of today’s top game and VFX studios, and has written three technical manuals and many online tutorials. www.antcgi.com Oscar Juárez Oscar is a 3D generalist based in Mexico City. He has been running Fibrha Studio since 2010 and specialises in archviz rendering, animations and Unreal Engine. www.facebook.com/FibrhaStudio Pietro Chiovaro Pietro is a freelance 3D artist and YouTuber. An expert in the creation of game assets and environments, he shares many of his creations on his channel. pietrochiovaro.artstation.com EMAIL YOUR…

Hennessy, the world-renowned cognac brand, has teamed up with legendary director Ridley Scott for an advertising campaign that showcases its iconic blend, Hennessy X.O. The result is a four-minute-long, VFX-heavy spot entitled The Seven Worlds. It was crafted in close collaboration with RSA Films, The Moving Picture Company (MPC), and was based on an idea by advertising agency DDB Paris. Expanding on the concept that ‘Each drop of Hennessy X.O is an odyssey,’ Scott presents viewers with a visual experiment that explores seven flavour profiles in a surreal and immersive fashion. Work on the project started in April 2018 with MPC’s creative director Ryan Jefferson Hays creating an initial treatment for each of the seven VFX worlds. He says: “The sheer scale of the spot is immense – both in…

AUTHOR PROFILE Cirstyn Bech-Yagher Cirstyn has moved from Radeon’s ProRender to the RizomUV team, where she does product management as well as modelling, UV mapping and tutorial writing. www.twitter.com/cirstyn FEATURES Ships with Plant Factory New versioning system Substance SBSAR support Improved path tracer VDB/Open VDB OLD TOOLKIT STAPLE Used in films like Avatar, Vue has been an industry staple for many years. It was the first application to offer ecosystems, allowing many to dig in and get their fingers dirty in digital nature. It evolved into a toolkit staple, with ease of workflow always being its key feature. Its current clients include 343 Industries as well as Naughty Dog and advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. E-on software, makers of Vue, recently rebranded itself. The new website, logo and versioning model…

VIDEO + IMAGES CREATE DRIPPING FLUIDS IN X-PARTICLES Director of design at Insydium, Mike Batchelor uses his vast knowledge to show you how to create a viscous fluid system using X-Particles, inside Cinema 4D. VIDEO + STEP IMAGES MAYA RIGGING In these videos Ant Ward teaches you how to create ribbon-based rigs in Maya. VIDEO + STEP IMAGES RECREATE THE COVER Carlos Lucio shows you the process for creating our archviz cover image. 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-246-archviz 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 THE FILES YOU…

Architectural visualisation (archviz) is one of the 3D world’s most vibrant and exciting communities, melding artistic flair with technical know-how to achieve frequently stunning results. But to those on the outside, it can be a mysterious and often daunting area. That’s why 3D World has assembled the experts to lift the lid and explore the foundations of archviz. LAYING THE GROUNDWORK So what is archviz? Jeff Mottle, CEO and founder of CGarchitect, the leading online magazine for architectural computer graphics, has some thoughts: “At its core archviz is using some form of computer generated visualisation to depict architecture. In reality, the term encompasses an entire profession that ranges from image generation to real-estate marketing films, VR/AR, touch-screen installations, apps, etc.” He adds: “There is very little standardisation in what we…

1. SETUP: Everything you need to shoot a real-time composite scene is included in the box. Start by installing the capture card in your PC, and mounting the Vector stereo-camera tracking sensor onto your camera rig. The tracking sensor is small and lightweight, and the included mounting bracket can be attached to any standard one-quarter inch thread, making this process quick and painless. 2. CALIBRATION: Launch the Vector software application, and create the calibration board. Print it to mount on a rigid backing. Run Vector’s automatic calibration process from the live camera feed. This will save out a calibration file, which will then be used to run Vector’s automatic lens offset function. This is vital to ensure that your composited elements do not slide against each other when the camera…

AUTHOR Mike Griggs is a 3D and visual effects artist with vast experience across the industry, as both a creator and a technical writer. www.creativebloke.com If you’re new to CGI, you may feel that 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 deformers in animation. A great way to start learning animation is to understand deformers, as they separate the ‘animation’ from the geometry. This is very useful, as it can allow features like bends and twists, without the need to animate every spline or edge. Plus, deformers can go…

Antony Ward replies I’m often astounded by some of the models I see these days. On the surface they look great, they’re nicely detailed, have accurate anatomy and good proportions, but once I see the wireframe I gasp in horror. You see, sculpting a model in ZBrush is one thing, as you have a huge amount of geometry to play with and almost no restrictions. The issues come when ZRemesher is used to then reduce this to a game-friendly level and the work stops there. It’s now considered ready to go into a game. Don’t get me wrong, ZRemesher does an amazing job, but the flow of the edges and deforming areas on the model often need a rework to aid deformation. I often find that the models could also…

The bOnd marks Axis Studios’ first venture into the world of virtual reality. Viewers are taken on an immersive journey, traversing an alien planet through multiple perspectives. Directed by Olly Reid, The bOnd follows TiaMuati as she uses her mystical powers to watch over the alien ecosystem of LuKara. In a trance, she can feel the threads of energy that connect her and every living being to each other. Sensing an imbalance, she enters the minds of the forest inhabitants to help restore equilibrium. Audiences follow TiaMuati and find themselves inhabiting terrified prey, towering predators and tiny insects. VR film provides a huge opportunity for story-driven, fully cinematic experiences that pull no punches in regard to animation quality. Applying their pedigree to VR, Axis have expanded the platform’s possibilities, experimenting…

AUTHOR PROFILE Glen Southern Glen runs SouthernGFX, a small Cheshire-based studio specialising in character and creature design. He’s been using and training ZBrush in the UK for over 18 years and is a Wacom Ambassador for the UK and Ireland. www.southerngfx.co.uk FEATURES Single cable from the top of the unit keeps things tidy Pro Pen 2 with 8K levels of sensitivity Competitive pricing ADDITIONAL INFO Screen size: 15.6 inch Screen resolution: 1,920 x 1,080 (full HD) Display size: 422 x 285 x 24.5mm Screen technology: a-Si Active Matrix TFT LCD Colour gamut: 72% NTSC (CIE1931) typical Pen: Wacom Pro Pen 2 Pressure levels: 8,192 Weight: 1.9kg without optional stand Ports: HDMI/USB out This new product from Wacom is probably a response to a number of competitors entering the market…

ARTIST SOFTWARE ZBrush, Maya, XGen, Photoshop “I worked on Ape on and off for a couple of months,” says Stockholmbased artist Björn Arvidsson. By day Björn works as lead character artist at Embark Studios and has been in the industry for close to seven years, previously working in advertising and film, before moving on to real-time graphics at DICE. “The most unusual thing about the image is that I barely used any textures,” he continues. “The only textures I used were for the eyes. The face and body were almost entirely made up of procedural nodes in Arnold and Maya. I then used several small masks to control the look and feel for different areas.” Björn enjoys the learning involved in each new project. “This was no exception,” he says.…

ARTIST SOFTWARE Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Unreal Engine 4, 3ds Max, Marvelous Designer, Adobe Premiere This image is freelance artist Ronan Mahon’s entry for the X-TAON art car contest by Allegorithmic. “My theme for the art car entry was based on the node graph in Substance Designer,” he explains, “how any one node in the graph can be used to create an explosion of art and creativity.” Ronan won Best Storytelling for his entry and received an RTX 2080 from NVIDIA. “Through my entry to the competition Allegorithmic got in touch and we subsequently collaborated on a video for Substance Source,” he adds. “I enjoyed having Substance Painter and Unreal 4 set up in live link mode and seeing it come to life before my eyes in a lit scene,”…

YOUR BRAIN There are a lot of tools out there, but at the end of the day it’s the result that matters. No client ever hired someone in archviz because they had the best grass shader, or knew how to tweak the settings in a rendering engine better than someone else. Jeff Mottle COMMON SENSE I’m a long-time defender of the fact that software and hardware is a big help, but without taste and knowledge in fields such as composition, colour theory and storytelling, everything falls apart. You have to know exactly where you want to arrive before you start walking. Victor Bonafonte 3DS MAX, V-RAY, SUBSTANCE DESIGNER, PHOTOSHOP 3ds Max’s interface is easy to understand and has routed itself into my nerves. Then there’s V-Ray, the primary engine for…

In Welcome to Marwen, actor Steve Carell plays Mark Hogancamp, an attack victim who deals with his PTSD by building a world of dolls and photographing them. In the film, scenes featuring the dolls play out in fantastical sequences using CG characters, with the figurines made to look like altered versions of characters from Hogancamp’s real world. Director Robert Zemeckis engaged frequent collaborator and visual effects supervisor Kevin Baillie to oversee the creation of the dolls and the world in which they exist. Baillie’s studio Atomic Fiction, now part of Method Studios, led the effort, with Framestore also contributing. Having dived into the area of CG humans on previous occasions, Zemeckis was well aware of problems that can occur if avatars venture into the ‘uncanny valley’. Ultimately, Baillie and the…

James Lawley’s work straddles the boundary between architectural photography and architectural visualisation. A highly sought-after freelancer with a client list including both architects and developers, the artist creates images that balance minimalist rigour with human warmth, whether created as 3D renders, photographs of real spaces, or a mixture of the two. Over the next few pages, Lawley discusses the relationship between photography and digital art, the lessons that 3D professionals could learn from photographers, and the crucial role that AMD hardware plays in his workflow – no matter which side of his business he is working on. AMD: How did you get started in the architecture industry? James Lawley: I studied product design at university, and through that I ended up designing things that interacted with spaces in interesting ways:…

AUTHOR Mike Griggs is a 3D and visual effects artist with vast experience across the industry, as both a creator and a technical writer. www.creativebloke.com One of the hardest aspects of learning 3D is figuring out how to transfer a rough idea into a 3D shape. As most 3D applications depend upon the user having a working knowledge of a complex system of mouse clicks and keyboard shortcuts to move around and draw in 3D space, it would be great to have a 3D application that offers an intuitive modelling environment, and can still create geometry that is able to be transferred to other 3D software when finished. Gravity Sketch goes a long way to becoming this ‘dream’ application. The reason for this is that Gravity Sketch creates its modelling…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO www.bit.ly/vault-246-archviz Oscar Juárez replies There are many elements to consider when creating archviz images. One of these is the tiling – when we add a texture and see it repeating all over the polygon. There are several ways to avoid this repetition, and I will show you how using the CoronaUvwRandomizer map. With this, we will be able to avoid tiling using a single texture. For this example we will add the texture to a floor, a wooden floor being one of the mostused textures in the archviz fields. By the end this will result in a more realistic, nonrepetitive look. So let’s get to it. 01 CREATE THE BASIC MATERIAL First we have to create the material. This method applies for non-seamless and seamless textures, but…