Table of contents for January 2023 in 3D World

The Gallery CG art to inspire ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY SPICY DOG (artstation.com/chillidog) ARTIST Normand Gaudreau SOFTWARE ZBrush, Blender, Photoshop “Being in the gaming industry for a long time means you are at risk of your skills becoming obsolete. New technologies, software and standards are developed every year and the way to keep up is to continue learning, progressing and developing our crafts. When I work, I always aim for small wins that will teach me new techniques and styles. It's easy to get lost within a huge, sprawling project. They require much more work and are more likely to be abandoned halfway through, which will contribute to a loss of motivation. For this piece, I wanted to learn about Blender's materials and rendering pipelines while getting used to the software's…

The Pipeline Star Wars fan film tricks revealed SUBSTANCE DESIGNER CINEMA 4D ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR The Pipeline Practical tips and tutorials from pro artists to improve your CG skills E-11: STANDARD ISSUES Robert Hranitzky's short film parodies unboxing videos from YouTube For Robert Hranitzky, the Star Wars fan film E-11: Standard Issues was a labour of love. It takes on the form of a YouTube unboxing video, in which stormtrooper TK-421 reveals an exclusive first look and tests out the E-11, the upcoming standardissue blaster rifle for the Galactic Empire's army. The short parody film was a long-running passion project for Hranitzky, who is a professional designer and also runs his own YouTube channel. “I thought, ‘What if in the Star Wars universe there were influencers who used propaganda to check…

The Pipeline Forger tips FORGER FOR IPAD Sculpting on an iPad is now firmly established. Nomad Sculpt is a powerhouse of 3D sculpting tools with an excellent real-time render engine, while the Forger app has had over a decade to establish itself as a capable sculpting and painting tool with no competition until Nomad came along. But what about good oldfashioned box modelling? How can we move points, edges and faces or cut, weld, extrude and subdivide as we would in Blender, Maya or Cinema 4D? Up until recently we couldn't. Maxon, who also make Cinema 4D, purchased Forger and as far as we knew for well over a year did nothing with it. How wrong we were. In that time they have added a fully featured set of polygonal…

WATCH THE VIDEO https://bit.ly/3Dworld-294 Pietro Chiovaro replies Today I will show you how to create a simple but realistic polished marble material using Substance Designer. For this material, I selected the Physically Based (Metallic/Roughness) Graph Template and deleted the Metallic and Ambient Occlusion outputs since they are not necessary for this material. At this point we can start to add the nodes useful for this material, so from the Substance Designer library we need the Clouds 2 noise (the base element of this polished marble material), the Height to Normal World Units filter (or the Normal filter, which has the same function), two Levels filters, and the Gradient Map filter that will give colour to the marble. Now it's time to link all of these elements together. All the connections…

PRICE £280/$300 minimum for 100 days COMPANY Autodesk WEBSITE autodesk.co.uk This is a bold move from Autodesk that looks very much like a repositioning of its Maya LT option although, at the time of writing, that remains on the market. For those like me, who were around 20 years ago, you may remember Maya used to offer two versions of their software; the Complete version and the Ultimate version. The Maya team have always recognised its full feature set is not required by all artists, and in an attempt to appeal to more artists they've generally made a cut-down version available. This concerted effort over the years to make Maya accessible to smaller studios and individual freelancers shows what their motives are. So, what's the difference with Maya Creative and…

MODELS AND TEXTURES EVERY MONTH Download these models and textures to use in your own projects FREE ASSET DOWNLOADS Download a set of fantastic textures from 3dtotal and build your own asset library with these incredible free ‘bar’ models from CGAXIS in our monthly model and texture giveaway. CREATE ATMOSPHERIC SCI-FI CITYSCAPES Learn to design a stunning city scene using Blender and Photoshop. FORGER TIPS AND TRICKS Discover how to model with polygons on the iPad with Maxon's enhanced app. ISSUE 295 NEXT MONTH Explore the wonderful world of cutting-edge digital humans ON SALE 28TH DECEMBER Subscribe today: www.bit.ly/3dworld-subs…

The Gallery CG art to inspire WHAT I ENJOYED MOST WORKING ON THIS PIECE WAS CREATING A SHORT CLIP OF FLYING CROWS ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY ALISHER MIRZOEV (artstation.com/alishermirzoev) ARTIST Gwanseon Oh SOFTWARE Unreal Engine 5,3ds Max, Megascans “This environment was inspired by Alisher Mirzoev's original and by watching the Ninety Days video tutorials from the Quixel team. Using Unreal Engine 5 as the main modelling tool, I created a house in the foreground. The castle in the distance is simple modelling and UV work with only a silhouette made in 3ds max. I also used the Fracture Mode in Unreal Engine to add damage effects to the building. The clouds are from the basic Volumetric Cloud component with a cloud shader, made with help from Tyler Smith's tutorial, used to…

The Gallery CG art to inspire “I created this image for a recent KitBash3D challenge, which uses the free 3D model kits they provide for the contest. Loosely inspired by a scene from the recent Dune movie, my goal was to capture an epic look with a darker and moody atmosphere. I wanted my image to be more than just a presentation of 3D models, but rather a majestic moment in a bigger story. I have participated in earlier KitBash3D challenges too. They are doing great work with their 3D products, have a wonderful staff and it's a lot of fun working with their kitbashes. Sometimes it can become pretty challenging since I'm using a low-end PC, but it is still a lot of fun.” artstation.com/keremgo3d ARTIST Kerem Go SOFTWARE…

Feature Options for 3D scanning The process of 3D scanning involves collecting information about a real-world object or environment for the purpose of recreating a digital 3D version. There are a range of options for capturing this data including photogrammetry, laser scanning and contact-based technology. Each option has advantages as well as disadvantages and artists must choose the right option for them. Photogrammetry is one of the most widely accessible options for many artists because the only piece of hardware required is a smartphone or digital camera. By taking a sequence of photos around an object, photogrammetry software is able to stitch the photos together and create 3D point clouds and 3D meshes. This is one of the easiest options to pick up without any prior 3D scanning experience. As…

Getting high on the imagination of American rapper Scott ‘Kid Cudi’ Mescudi and executive producer Kenya Barris are filmmaker Fletcher Moules and DNEG Animation. Entergalactic revolves around up-and-coming artist and recreational drug user Jabari moving into his dream apartment and falling in love with photographer Meadow. The animated romantic musical comedy was produced by DNEG, Khalabo Ink Society and MAD SOLAR, distributed by Netflix, and features the vocal talents of Mescudi, Tyrone Griffin Jr., Jessica Williams, Laura Harrier, Timothée Chalamet, Macaulay Culkin, Vanessa Hudgens and Christopher Abbott. Unlike Jabari, who hangs out with his friends and pursues love on the streets of New York City, the coronavirus pandemic meant that the team at DNEG had to have a virtual rather than in-person interaction with each other. “The positives were that…

The Pipeline Render a stylish real-time character ZBRUSH MARVELOUS DESIGNER SUBSTANCE PAINTER MARMOSET TOOLBAG BLENDER SOFTWARE: NOMAD SCULPT | ANY SLICING SOFTWARE In this tutorial, I will demonstrate my process for creating characters from initial inspiration through to the final rendering. The main focus of this project was to study the technical aspects of 3D character creation for real-time rendering, with a particular goal of achieving realistic texturing. I wanted to combine my passion for manga and anime with my love for video games. My inspiration for the project came from the manga series Akira. This character is a member of a new gang in the world of Neo-Tokyo. I have always been intrigued by the sci-fi genre, especially Akira and Ghost in the Shell, along with many others, with their…

Artist Q&A Your CG problems solved SOFTWARE: CINEMA 4D 2023 Mike Griggs replies Cinema 4D has long had a well-deserved reputation for being one of the most accessible 3D applications for artists to get into, with a robust parametric modelling system, an industry-leading motion graphics suite, first-party integration with one of the industry's leading render engines in Redshift, and full connectivity with applications such as Adobe After Effects. However, it has also had a longundeserved reputation for not being as strong as many of its peers. This has not been the case for many versions, as Cinema 4D has a wide range of advanced modelling tools to allow practically any geometry to be made and textured. There was always one area that Cinema 4D lagged in: symmetry modelling. The system…

PROJECT INSIGHT Unifying multiple departments across the many stages of a game's development and production is indicative of the evolution of project management throughout the creative industries. This more holistic approach might well allow for creative choices to be made in particularly dynamic ways, and also introduces increased efficiency into the process on top. At the Adobe MAX 2022 conference in October, a new collaboration was announced between Adobe and LightSpeed Studios. Their innovative new tool, named the Procedural Texturing System (PTS), is used to enhance productivity in game development and encourage co-operation across LightSpeed Studios’ global research and development. For Steve Martin, the general manager at the LightSpeed LA studio, the company's partnership with Adobe marks a particular phase in the management of design resources. “At LightSpeed Studios we…

ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY DREAMING-D (artstation.com/artwork/5BGxLw) ARTIST Antonio Arroyo Fernández SOFTWARE ZBrush, Blender, Substance Painter, Marmoset Toolbag “Since I was a child I have been passionate about fantasy worlds. When I saw this concept by Dreaming-D on ArtStation, I really wanted to make an iconic dwarf character, which I had never had the pleasure of sculpting before. I really enjoyed the process of creation, learning to convey the personality and volumes of this dwarf lord, such as his voluminous beard and round belly. I worked on the sculpting in ZBrush and all the retopology and UVs in Blender. For baking I used Marmoset, while for the textures Substance Painter was the best program. I like to work with vivid colours and gradients and highlight the volumes of the character. This is…

The Gallery CG art to inspire “IT WAS A SPEED WORK CREATED IN ONE DAY, MADE FOR A NECROMANCER I HAVE WORKED ON” ARTIST Alexandr Novitskiy SOFTWARE Maya, ZBrush, Substance Painter, Marmoset Toolbag “This staff model is a personal project made for fun and to practise textures in the PBR pipeline (Metallic/Roughness). It was a speed work created in one day, made for the necromancer character I have worked on. The idea was to create a cursed staff that brings the undead to life. I used a human skull as a base element and created shapes similar to human bones and old wooden roots using different brushes in ZBrush.” artstation.com/tigersfather…

A growing industry in the plethora of 3D scanning options is drone photogrammetry. This technology is particularly effective for scanning a large or complex site as the drone's flying abilities really come into their own. In this process, a drone is flown around a site while capturing numerous images on its route. Capturing the images correctly is absolutely key for the process to work effectively. If you don't get enough images or there is not enough overlap, your software will not be able to create a 3D mode at the end. All of the hard work on site will be absolutely wasted. By ensuring your images have around 70-80 per cent overlap, your photogrammetry software should be able to decipher specific features and recreate them in 3D space. If you're…

Technique focus Creature design for 3D sculpting DEMON HOUND Software ZBrush, Cinema 4D. Substance Painter Year made 2022 CREATURE DESIGN FOR 3D SCULPTING Animals are infinitely interesting to me and I love to apply my knowledge to imagine alternate life forms and visualise them in 2D or 3D. Predatory creatures and grotesque monsters particularly appeal to me for their uncanny nature. In this scene, I painted the monster in ZBrush with basic light and dark values in order to visually combine and separate certain elements. Combined with a coloured subsurface scattering material, the skin feels much more fleshy and intricate than it actually is. This makes the presentation rendering process efficient and I can focus more on sculpting fascinating models.…

The Pipeline Create atmospheric sci-fi cityscapes BLENDER | PHOTOSHOP This image is the result of a long break from personal art. I thought it was time to pick it up again and challenge myself with a new sci-fi piece. Most cyberpunk and sci-fi images are filled with neon-lit streets and glowing windows. Don't get me wrong, I'm a sucker for those kinds of images and made a fair portion myself, but now it was time for something different. A certain scene from the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence came to mind. I used to watch this one a lot as a little kid. In one of the last scenes you see David, the protagonist, and his friend flying over the ocean through a flooded New York. Besides a few broken buildings,…

3DS MAX BLENDER MARVELOUS DESIGNER PHOTOSHOP SUBSTANCE DESIGNER SUBSTANCE PAINTER UNREAL ENGINE In this tutorial I will go through each step of the visualisation process you need for creating 2D illustrations with 3D tools. After attending the amazing Promised Land Art Festival in Poland, I became inspired by some of the artists I met. I decided to focus more on what I like and try to find a more personalised style. This illustration was my way to do just that using both my 2D and 3D skills. I wanted to make a stylised environment and focus predominantly on the lighting and rendering. My goal was to create a bright and breezy scene and show the beauty of a sunny summers day. While some tools fit a specific task really well,…

Artist Q&A Your CG problems solved SOFTWARE: BLENDER Paul Hatton replies In years gone by, artists were constrained to work in either 2D or 3D. Animators who wanted to work in 2D utilised a set of tools specific to their requirements. 3D tools were left primarily for creating in 3D and then rendering to 2D. In some of these applications it was possible to render objects with cartoon shaders, but it was hard work and not particularly suited to animators. Blender provides a rich set of tools that bring the worlds of 2D and 3D together. There are still numerous animation packages that function solely in 2D and these will continue to take up most of the 2D animation market. The likes of Synfig Studio, Pencil2D and Toon Boom Harmony…

Technique focus Hard surface for cinematic characters MERAX THE BANISHED Software Maya, Photoshop, Mari, Substance Painter, XGen, ZBrush Year made 2022 HARD SURFACE FOR CINEMATIC CHARACTERS For hard-surface modelling, I like to sculpt my pieces directly in ZBrush with DynaMesh. Then I clean my DynaMesh directly and retopologise by hand in Maya with Quad Draw. After that, be sure that your UVs are done and you can add more details on your new topology mesh. Once that's complete, use that mesh with Subdivision 1 in Maya to get the best displacement results.…