Table of contents for April 2019 in 3D World

SOFTWARE Maya, ZBrush, SpeedTree, Substance Painter, V-Ray, Photoshop, Houdini This image is based on a magnificent concept by Quentin Regnes, and took senior environment artist Dmitry Kremiansky three months to complete, working in his spare time. “I used Houdini for the fog and the clouds. It was relatively simple and just involved bringing in some blobs from ZBrush and then adding noise to them. I can't wait to try out this process on something realistic.” Dmitry’s favourite part of the process was creating the mountains. “They were something I wasn’t sure how to tackle or stylise,” he says. “At least until the end of the project, when I sculpted them in ZBrush just like I did for the terrain. It was a lot of work, but I managed to stay…

MIKE GRIGGS WILL BE PRESENTING AT VERTEX VERTEXCONF.COM TICKETS ON SALE NOW 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 start a new section on animation. As we have touched on in our previous Basics article about camera animation, knowing how to animate elements is a core skill, even for artists who only do stills – the depiction of movement remains a critical component in visual storytelling. Unfortunately, there is no default method of animation across 3D applications as there was when animation…

Pat Imrie replies As sculpting programs become the standard go-to tool to begin creating a model, developing new topology has become a necessary stage of many pipelines. The process of retopology is similar to a style of polygon modelling known as edge modelling, where a mesh is built by creating strips of polygons to create rings and loops to produce the final mesh. The main difference is that when retopologising we use a version of our high-resolution model as a ‘live’ model that we can snap our new geometry to. The Quad Draw function in Maya is excellent and has a flexible set of tools that allow users to complete the task at hand. It reminds me a lot of Topogun, my go-to software for retopology before Quad Draw was…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO www.bit.ly/vault-245-space Pietro Chiovaro replies This issue I will show you my creative process for a simple floor material using Substance Designer. I selected the Physically Based (Metallic/Roughness) Graph Template and deleted the Metallic output since it isn’t necessary for this substance. Next we can start to add the nodes useful for this material, so from the Substance Designer library we need: the Clouds 1 noises, the Brick 2 patterns (the base elements of the stone material), a Blend filter, the Height to Normal World Units filter, two Levels filters, a Blur filter, a Warp filter and two Gradient Map filters that will give colour to the floor. Now it’s time to link all of these elements together. First of all, we need to link the Brick 2…

The shot involved a car that needed to drive along and then stop right before falling off a cliff. The previs showed the shot as it would be captured and as it would appear with final effects. “The idea was to have a car stop safely before any real cliff and have VFX design the cliff,” explains Fleet. “This was one of my first forays into using Cinema 4D for previs. I built the Technocrane in 3D that they used to film the shot, and I designed it all to scale. I remember the crane operator was very impressed and said, ‘That’s exactly how I’m gonna do the move!’ These images from the Vegas previs sequence show, on the left, how the live action would be captured, and, on the…

PRICE $99 (Indie) / $199 (Professional) / $299 (Enterprise) | DEVELOPER QuadSpinner | WEBSITE www.QuadSpinner.com When you read the QuadSpinner About page, they talk a big game about being dedicated to creating tools and technologies that provide artists and studios expediency and realism in environment design. In earlier incarnations, they did this successfully with the Helios plugin for Vue, and the GeoGlyph plugin for World Machine. Standing on the shoulders of GeoGlyph is their new offering: Gaea, a standalone CPU and OpenCLbased terrain generator aimed at studio, indie and hobbyist workflows. The first impression after initial install is the ease of creation from scratch, regardless of how pretty the quick-start terrains are. So, for me, the first stand-out feature in Gaea is the speed at which you can generate beautiful…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO www.bit.ly/vault-245-space VIDEO + IMAGES USE EXISTING MODELS TO KITBASH A VR SCENE Expert VR artist Martin Nebelong shows you his process for kitbashing a scene in VR, a fantastic way to get more life out of your existing asset catalogue. VIDEO + STEP IMAGES 3DS MAX ARCHVIZ In this video, Carlos Lucio demonstrates his methods for creating stunning exterior archviz renders. VIDEO + STEP IMAGES Q&A SECTION This issue we bring you two video responses to our Q&A section, including curve mapping and tiling. 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-245-space 2. FIND THE FILES YOU WANT FROM THE LIST Search the list of free…

Faster and more precise editing! DaVinci Resolve 15 is perfect for both offline editorial and online finishing. You get every editing and trimming tool imaginable, new stacked and tabbed timelines, multicam, closed caption and subtitling tools, on screen annotations, faster project loading, more customization options, 2D and 3D title templates and dozens of other new features! Amazing new color correction tools! Hollywood’s favorite color corrector keeps getting better! DaVinci Resolve 15 features an entirely new LUT browser, multiple playheads, shared grades, better noise reduction, 10x faster stabilization, 8K super scaling, GPU accelerated HDR grading, Revival dust and dirt removal plugins, new ResolveFX lens filters, smart fill patch cloning and more. Incredible new Fairlight audio features! With hundreds of new pro tools, the Fairlight page is now a full blown digital…

You might assume that the environment of space is pretty straightforward to create in CG. After all, space is geometric. It follows specific scientific rules, and we all know what it looks like… right? Well, kind of. But that’s not the whole story. For starters, if you really want to be scientifically accurate, you’ll probably need either an astronomy degree, or to hire an expert. Luke McDonald opted for the latter when working as digital effects supervisor on Cosmos, the landmark 2014 documentary series fronted by Carl Sagan. “I consider myself to be at least up to date in what’s going on in the science world,” says McDonald. “But for instance, I might do a replacement of the stars to look like how it would have in ancient Rome or…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO www.bit.ly/vault-245-space MARTIN WILL BE PRESENTING AT VERTEX VERTEXCONF.COM TICKETS ON SALE NOW I’ve had my Oculus Rift VR headset for around two years now, and to this day I’m still surprised by the flexibility and speed this new medium provides. You might argue that I could do the same things I do in this tutorial from the ground up in ZBrush, Blender or another program. But to me, the joy of working freely in VR is much greater than pulling meshes with my mouse or pen. I usually compare working in VR with the freedom of sketching in your notebook… but in 3D. In this tutorial, I’ll be taking you through how I built an architectural environment, inspired by ancient Roman architecture mixed with a sci-fi element,…

Creating new characters can be a tricky task for any 3D artist, and it’s even harder when the artist is new to CGI creation. While downloading basic models from stock sites can certainly be a good starting point, what happens when bespoke characters are required? Adobe has recently added the Fuse application to its Creative Cloud suite. Adobe Fuse enables artists to create bespoke humanoid models, and cloth them using the array of clothing presets that come with the software. Adobe Fuse is primarily designed to work with Adobe Photoshop’s 3D system. This often-underused system allows a 3D model to be part of a normal ‘2D’ Photoshop file, and the model can be posed directly within Photoshop thanks to a wide array of poses and animations that can be stopped…

MAYA JERMY WILL BE PRESENTING AT VERTEX VERTEXCONF.COMTICKETS ON SALE NOW Maya Jermy replies Productivity can be enhanced by several factors, including scrupulous research, background music, the environment, organisation skills, even persistence. Anything that stimulates our mind can increase or decrease productivity, and it’s important to recognise and bring out all the good things that support our work. One of those factors is a customised user interface. When we have become familiar with a software, we work faster and learn quicker. The trick is to surround ourselves with the tools we use most frequently, shortcuts to speed up our workflow, and even a favourite colour scheme. Imagine how much time gets wasted by going through the menus over and over again to find what we need. If you want to…

Over three issues of 3D World visual effects supervisor Stephan Fleet, a veteran of the episodic television world, has guided us through the worlds of pre-production, shooting and postproduction. It’s a rare insight into the world of television VFX, where fast turnarounds are required from production, and high quality demanded by audiences. Now Fleet looks into some very important aspects of the production process that have become crucial in almost all television shows that require visual effects: previs and greenscreen shooting. Specifically, Fleet’s discussion of previs is not about how to create the actual content, but instead how to utilise it on set. Then, the visual effects supervisor examines what works and does not work when you need to shoot greenscreen. PROPER PREVIS PRACTICES The benefits of creating and using…

3D Artist, 3D World and ImagineFX magazines are teaming up with CreativeBloq.com to bring you Vertex 2019. On 8 March industry experts from across the world of CG will descend on Olympia, London for a day of inspiring talks, workshops, career advice, portfolio reviews and more. A host of exciting speakers have already been confirmed across the world of games, VFX, VR, character creation and everything in between. 2019’s event will see the addition of a new area dedicated to 2D-themed talks, courtesy of ImagineFX, with key advice to help you take your work to the next level, regardless of your chosen medium. There will also be a devoted archviz area, in which the top agencies and artists will discuss how they construct the best architecture in the business, also…

PRICE £1,499 standalone / £499 per year subscription | COMPANY Foundry | WEBSITE www.foundry.com/products/Modo We reviewed the first release of Modo 12 back in Issue 236, and now that we are with the final release of the product’s threepart lifespan, we can look at version 12 and take stock of where Modo is now. First of all let’s take a look at the new features that come with Modo 12.2. It could be argued that Modo has been on a constant refinement path rather than offering lots of splashy new features; that being said, there are definitely some big new additions that will be compelling to new and existing users. Following on from the addition of the beta integration of AMD’s Hybrid Radeon ProRender in the previous point release, the…

SOFTWARE 3ds Max, Ornatrix, Arnold, Mudbox, ZBrush, SpeedTree, Nuke Alireza Akhbari is a digital environment artist at BaseFX. This image took him just six days to complete. “My workflow is like that of several different companies, with some slight differences to account for being one person,” he says. Alireza highlights nature, photography and other artists’ work as essential influences. On finding the right pose for his wolf, he says: “Usually I prefer to pose my character in the scene. 3ds Max has a few handy tools for this part. For the wolf I used the CAT rig system, then made corrections in ZBrush.” The very last step is the lighting, a crucial aspect of any image. “For base lighting I imported my blocking scene. I wanted to achieve atmosphere and…

3D printing is the process of converting a digital creation into a physical 3D model. Like much of our modern technology, the earliest mentions of it can be found in science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke, renowned author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, described the technology in a BBC documentary back in 1964, while Star Trek has long depicted replicators – machines capable of creating food and other objects. In the late Eighties 3D printing stepped outside the realm of science fiction and into reality, with stereolithography. This process uses a singlepoint laser to solidify a liquid resin one layer at a time. And throughout the Nineties and Noughties, various expensive 3D printing technologies were used in rapid industrial prototyping. It wasn’t until the end of the Noughties that the term…

1. Performance capture Salazar performed scenes in a custom-built motion capture suit, and wore a head-cam with stereo cameras. It pointed back at her face, which was covered with tracking markers. 2. Translation to CG character Weta Digital’s proprietary facial solver and a host of facial animation artists take the raw motion capture face data and translate it to a CG avatar of Salazar in the form of Alita. 3. Final shot The computer-generated Alita, carried out with the studio’s proprietary path-tracer Manuka, incorporated new developments in skin shaders and hair simulation for the final result.…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO www.bit.ly/vault-245-space In the architecture industry, life-like renders have become invaluable, enabling designers to fully communicate their vision and allow the client to experience how their project will look upon completion. Standard practice of architectural visualisations, or arch vis, is you’re handed a 3D model or floor plan and are required to produce a true-to-life render. If you’re new to arch vis this can be a daunting task, but this tutorial will guide you through the process of creating an architectural render from a 3D model. Architectural models are typically received in Revit, AutoCAD (plans), Rhino or SketchUp. Personally, I prefer to model in SketchUp for its speed and accuracy in dimensions, but each program has its pros and cons. More important is importing the model to 3ds…

Splines enable you to work with a greater degree of precision than other tools, and also allow you to use imported paths from external software such as Adobe Illustrator. The downside to using imported paths is that you don’t have access to the same toolset. Likewise if you draw your paths natively inside Cinema 4D, you might find that you don’t have the level of control you thought you might. In actual fact, the spline tools in Cinema 4D are powerful and easy to work with, even if you forgot to do something in your workflow. Imagine you are drawing a shape that needs to have smooth transitions between segments (imported or drawn). Well, you either select the point between segments, then right-click and choose ‘chamfer’, dragging in the viewport…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO www.bit.ly/vault-245-space Oscar Juárez replies One of the most enjoyable steps when creating archviz is mapping. Most of the time we use cubic polygons, but what if we need to map a polygon with tiles, and we need the tiles to be seen as if they are following a curve? I will teach you how to achieve this with a fast and simple method. For this example we will create the mapping on the floor of a scene. Keep in mind that the images are tileable already – that’s useful to remember as it can help us to achieve our desired result. So let’s get to it and find out how it’s done. EXPERT TIP ALWAYS START WITH HIGH VALUES Once we have mapped our polygon we can…

1. The show’s ‘Lifeboat’ was sometimes a full-sized prop positioned on set, behind which greenscreen panels could be placed to add in different backgrounds. 2. Other times, the actors would emerge from a greenscreen-covered proxy of the Lifeboat, with the timetravel vehicle replaced in CG. 3. On locations, a bluescreen buck of the Lifeboat served as a stand-in, which the actors could then emerge from or enter convincingly during the shoot.…

PRICE £199 | DEVELOPER Oculus | WEBSITE www.oculus.com/go The Oculus Go is marketed as a kind of little sibling to the Rift, in that it is cheaper and a little less ambitious when it comes to its capabilities and, while its target audience is definitely the entertainment side of things, it might be a worthy investment for content creators too. The headset is wearable for longer sessions, although less well balanced than the Rift, probably because of the lack of cables that hang behind on that HMD. The materials all feel high quality, although it has to be said that the foam that fits round the face does let a little light in round the nose, for some users. This isn’t a deal breaker however and a bit of shuffling…