Table of contents for October 2020 in 3D World

Three different locations had to be combined to produce the Desert Garrison Attack. The wider galloping Shadow Warriors shots and the mountains behind the Desert Garrison were inspired by the Rangipo Desert in New Zealand, the sand dunes and foothills came from the Kumtag Desert in China, and a partial garrison set was constructed at Kumeu Film Studios. “Across the board skies had to be replaced,” states Image Engine VFX supervisor Christian Irles. “We also had to even out the colour of the ground and roto the riders. Because the sequence is quite dynamic we could easily use at different moments certain shots to hide where we were transitioning from one plate to another.” Böri Khan (Jason Scott Lee) and the Shadow Warriors leap from their horses and run up…

In 2007, George Miller’s Happy Feet won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It was a major turning point for Animal Logic, as the film’s feature animation was created in the Sydney studio. Since that time, the studio has become one of the premiere animation production companies, while also continuing to advance the art of visual effects. Just some of the animated features by Animal Logic, or features where character animation has been a principal part, include Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, Walking With Dinosaurs 3D, The LEGO Movie franchise and Peter Rabbit, along with its upcoming sequel. This series so far at 3D World has looked at the art, story and tech side of bringing a couple of those films to life. Now in our…

1. WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR ON THE REEL I’m looking for potential. I’m looking for work on the reel that I find interesting – that I find believable – in terms of either its weight or its acting. I am making decisions on whether I feel that the applicant has demonstrated a style appropriate for the film we’re making. If I see a great stop-motion reel and that’s not what we’re doing, I will still put down a reminder of it in our recruiting database and note, ‘This person’s amazing, reconsider at a later date’. 2. WHAT TO PUT ON YOUR REEL The reel does not have to be long. Put your best work up front. Catch my attention – I’m looking at a lot of reels. A lot! For…

01 It can be understandably hard to remain creative during these difficult times, where paid work might be sparse. A way to maintain your creative spark is to work on your own personal project. A good place to start is to see if there are any competitions or challenges that have been posted by software developers or on community websites such as ArtStation or 3Dtotal. Some can come with decent prizes, but even if there is no financial benefit to a competition, it could spark ideas into new creative possibilities. Social media can also be a great source of inspiration; looking at what other artists have created can be an inspiring way of sparking the creative juices. If there is a specific 'creative' project that you would like to try,…

The IRT Powerhouse (Interborough Rapid Transit) was built at the beginning of the 20th Century to power the New York subway system, which was then being built in Manhattan. It was designed in the form of a classic temple to pay homage to the powerful growth in industry of that time and still stands at West 59th Street. In 2017 the building was designated a New York Landmark. The station no longer provides power to the subway, but since the 1950s it has been occupied by Consolidated Edison who use it to supply steam around New York City to heat buildings, provide humidity control and steam cleaning. All the original chimneys and the roof have long since been removed and a large blocky extension was added to the riverside elevation…

Pietro Chiovaro replies In Substance Designer, we have an easy and really powerful way to create a basic metallic material. Even if this material is simply composed of a few nodes, the result that can be achieved is incredible and useful for many other materials. For this type of substance, I selected the Physically Based (Metallic/Roughness) Graph Template, and I kept all the default outputs since they are necessary for this material. At this point we can start to add the required nodes, so from the Substance Designer library we need: the Fractal Sum Base noise (this is the main element of the texture of this material), the Height to Normal World Units filter, four Levels filters and the Gradient Map filter that will give colour to the metal. Next…

Housed in a modernist theatre in the centre of Amsterdam, Dutch National Opera is home to some of the Netherlands’ most prestigious opera performances, producing as many as 11 shows every year. In a bid to promote the coming 2020-21 season’s programme, the institution opted for a commercial redesign, commissioning a series of animated vignettes to represent each production. Dutch National Opera looked to attract new audiences to the theatre with a modern approach. Taking inspiration from innovative artists on Instagram, the organisation decided upon a human-led aesthetic with movement at the heart of the design, which required body motion data captured from real performers. They looked to the creative talents of BeamSystems, an audiovisual production company also based in Amsterdam that specialises in innovation, helping its clients realise their…

Trevor Hogg Trevor takes you behind the scenes of the fascinating visual effects of Disney’s live-action Mulan. Ian Failes Ian returns this issue with the next instalment of his series, looking at the stunning work of Animal Logic. Mike Griggs Lockdown is treating people differently but Mike is on hand to help, with a collection of tips to stay creative in isolation. WEBSITE 3dworld.creativebloq.com FACEBOOK www.facebook.com/3dworldmagazine INSTAGRAM @3DWorldMag TWITTER @3DWorldMag…

In the sixth century Chang’an was one of the most cosmopolitan places in the world. “Weta Digital designed the Imperial City based on Chang’an, Xiangyang Tangcheng Film and Television Base backlot, and production designer Grant Major’s [The Meg] designs for the main palace building,” states Mulan VFX supervisor Sean Faden. “But because main unit never shot there, anytime we see our actors in the Imperial City it is a digital recreation around them.” The entire Chinese studio backlot set was LiDAR scanned. “That was the largest LiDAR scan Weta Digital has ever done. 250 square metres,” notes Weta Digital VFX supervisor Anders Langlands. “The LiDAR and texture photogrammetry were used to build a construction kit of modular building pieces that we could then utilise to create a huge variety of…

STEP 1. STORYBOARDS Storyboards for this musical moment between Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi and the astronaut Benny establish the look and general staging of the scene, in a 2D drawing form. STEP 2. LAYOUT At the layout stage, the scene is laid out in 3D with characters, sets and props positioned, while lensing and early lighting is also established here. It’s also where some very rough blocking/movement occurs. STEP 3. ANIMATION The animation team springboard from the established layout to craft the performance of the characters (this moment is part of an incredibly elaborate musical number). STEP 4. FINAL LIGHTING After the animation work is done, layout will do a final pass on the shot, which then goes through the final lighting and rendering stage, via Animal Logic’s in-house Glimpse path…

It’s astounding to think that up until just a few years ago, the idea of being able to print out any real, physical object you could imagine – all safely at home – was mostly considered the stuff of science fiction. Though the earliest 3D printing technologies can be traced back to 1986, when the first patent was issued for an SLA apparatus invented by Charles Hull, it was not until January 2009 that the first commercially available consumer 3D printer, the BfB RapMan, was put up for sale. The move was like the start of an avalanche. Soon, projects like Z Corp’s Spectrum Z510, RepRap and MakerBot’s Cupcake CNC kit began to change the world for good. 3D printers could be bought to use in anyone’s living room or…

01 One of the best ways to maintain creativity is to make sure that however we work it is as comfortable as it possibly can be. One of the best ways to do this is to prevent strain on the neck, back and arms caused by bad computer placement, which is especially acute with laptops. 02 To make sure that the working space is as efficient as possible, find an area that is not shared. Set it up with the items that will be needed to help you work, such as reference, mobile device, and so on. A plant can be a great way to ensure a 'healthy' desk. 03 Raise the laptop on either a dedicated stand or shelf, alternatively books are just as good. Do this until the…

As an experienced 3D artist, it’s been exhilarating to witness Notch develop into a highly sophisticated top-end 3D creation tool. I have been using Notch for more than two years; the versatility of this software has never been so good. And it’s really only just beginning to stretch its legs! I’m going to show you Notch at its finest with a range of projects. Over the following steps, we will create a series of photorealistic product images for use in marketing and advertising. I plan to demonstrate just how easy it is to import existing 3D models into Notch where they can be textured, lit, animated and rendered at an unbeatable speed. Notch’s simple node-based workflow makes versioning product designs a breeze. And as well as simply using pre-made models,…

Maya Jermy replies With the vast array of tools and options we have available to us at all times, it can be incredibly easy to forget some of the most useful. I found myself creating certain shapes from scratch pretty much manually, as I completely forgot that there was a ZBrush shortcut that enabled me to do it in no time whatsoever. Imagine my frustration at myself when the lightbulb finally came on and I realised how much time I had wasted on something that only required me to simply press a couple of buttons. Turns out it is very useful to refresh your memory from time to time. Just give yourself a few minutes to go through the menus and check out what awesome tools have been hiding from…

Design Lad began his career after completing a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design Communication at Chelsea College of Arts. He worked as a freelance graphic designer for over five years, with high-profile clients like the BBC, Red Bull and Levi’s. In 2016 he switched things up and became a freelance 3D illustrator and animation director with a penchant for bold, playful and colourful work. As Design Lad’s signature style bloomed so did his career, seeing him create vibrant art for the likes of Sony Music, Adidas, Nestle, NOW TV, Virgin, and more. 08:00am My morning routine starts by getting a workout in early, so I’m out the door and running by 8am. This is like my therapy which sets me up for the day ahead, and it’s also when I…

MODELS + TEXTURES FREE ASSET DOWNLOADS Download a set of fantastic textures from and build your own asset library with these incredible garden-themed models from in our monthly model and texture giveaway. HIGH-RES SCREEN GRABS TOP PRODUCT SHOTS Notch show you how to set up beautiful product renders with their in-depth guide. HIGH-RES SCREEN GRABS SCULPT A SHAMAN Marco Rizzotti runs you, step by step, through the process of sculpting a character in ZBrush. ISSUE 265 NEXT MONTH Next issue, we take you for a ride through the VFX of Westworld ON SALE 8TH SEPTEMBER Subscribe today: www.bit.ly/3dworld-subs MODELS AND TEXTURES EVERY MONTH Download these models and textures to use in your own projects…

An ancient Chinese poem about a daughter pretending to be a son in order to take the place of her conscripted father in the Imperial Army was made into a Disney animated classic. Rather than have singing and a sidekick dragon in the live-action remake, New Zealand filmmaker Niki Caro (The Zookeeper’s Wife) focused more on the source material. “Our intention with Mulan was to honour the original ‘Ballad of Mulan’ which was written over 1,500 years ago. This drove all of us involved with the film into real China. We drew great inspiration from being down on the ground there. While this movie is a real visceral, raw, high-octane epic action adventure, it still honours some of the iconic elements from the animation that I love.” Chinese cinema influenced…

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1. STORYBOARDS The first pass storyboards for this Peter Rabbit scene were drawn in pre-production by the story team. These drawings are the essence of the shot and were used as a guideline for the action and timing on set. You can see that the framing changes a lot from these boards to the final film, but the story beats are there. 2. ANIMATICS After the plates were shot, the story department completed draw-overs of the sequence on the footage as a guide. As you can see, the scale of the rabbits and their depth in 3D are hard to get spot-on in a 2D drawing, so now layout needs to build everything and begin our process of creating an awesome composition. 3. LAYOUT, PART 1 The elements come together…

There has not been a global event like the COVID-19 pandemic since World War II that has had such a profound impact on the way of life for billions of people across the globe. We have all had to adapt to the changes brought by government-imposed health lockdowns, and these have been accompanied by profound and radical changes to nearly every business sector, including our own creative industries. These industries have been hit in a scattershot manner, with some sectors like live-action TV and film suffering from being shutdown overnight in many countries. This has had a massive impact on many freelance creatives whose projected incomes went from healthy to zero instantly. While some governments have offered help to supplement the income of freelancers, not all have. This means that…

In previous instalments of this tutorial series we planned the look and feel of our level, but other than the initial brief we don’t have any details of what our player will face, or the timings and location. We need to define the flow of the level. First off we will need to create a bill of parts that can form the list of what assets need to be created for modelling and texturing. This might be the best place to decide where some savings could be made with regards to repeatable assets. Obviously we don’t want to make the level repetitive, but there may well be places where elements can be reused, saving precious system resources. Secondly, and more importantly, this is where we start to define the player’s…

Mike Griggs replies When there is an F-stop option on a 3D camera object, most often through the attribute or properties palette of an application, this is a setting which mimics those of real-world cameras. An F-stop (also known as an F-number) is the width of the hole (or aperture) that the aperture blades create in the camera lens. The bigger the hole, the ‘larger’ the F-stop number. The easiest way to read an F-stop value is to think of it like a fraction where an F-stop value of f/2 equals an aperture of approximately half the diameter of the lens. In contrast, an amount of f/16 creates a hole of roughly 1/16 the width of the lens. The reasons photographers have this control on a lens is to do…

Donna J. Cox has long been on the cutting edge of jaw-dropping scientific visualisations as director of the Advanced Visualization Lab (AVL) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Cox and her team have created visualisations for museums, exhibits and even feature films. Through her work, Donna Cox has seen scientific visualisation as not just something that inspires awe, but also has great educational and research utility. Donna J. Cox is also a professor at University of Illinois’ School of Art and Design, College of Fine and Applied Arts. I spoke with her in Brisbane during the SIGGRAPH Asia conference in November last year. “The NCSA AVL works with domain scientists and our artists and technologists receive massive supercomputer simulation or observed datasets,” explains Cox. “We create data readers…

When virtual reality (VR) first broke onto the mainstream scene about five or so years ago, it was met by some with scepticism and some as a revelation – predicted to revolutionise how we consume content and interact with each other. But the big boom predicted didn’t pan out quite like that. Consumer uptake remains relatively modest and it has turned out to be enterprise use – where the technology has been put to a practical purpose – that has seen most growth. But the situation created by the coronavirus has changed how everyone around the world is living. Could this crisis be the moment for VR to shine? At the time of writing, the world is still very much in the grip of the coronavirus crisis. While lockdowns have…