3DWorld201310 PDF

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GAME ASSET PRODUCTION PIPELINE
SCULPT FACES IN
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Master facial anatomy in a morning
PLUS! 60 minutes of expert video tips!
Creating zombies
Insider interviews: How Cinesite made
undead hordes for World War Z
MAYA TEXTURES:
STEP BY STEP
UV maps, baking and more!
SECRETS OF
CG CREATURES
Aaron Sims shares
his concept art
techniques
OCTOBER 2013
Highlights
Your cover stories this issue. Full contents: page 5
Issue 173 October 2013
@3DWorldMag
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Includes video: see page 5
Freelance 3D
artist Titouan Olive
shows how to make
your digital faces
anatomically correct
SCULPT FACES IN ZBRUSH:
60 TUTORIAL PLUS VIDEO
Using ZBrush, we guide you through the steps
to help you sculpt a realistic-looking face
Secrets of CG creatures Maya textures: step-by-step Game Asset Production

52 with Aaron Sims
The founder of the Aaron Sims Company
68 guide with video tutorial
We explain how to take a model of a futuristic
80 Pipeline: complete video
Discover the smart way to design and model game
reveals how he builds his outlandish creatures space dock loader and fully texture it props with this full video from Digital-Tutors
www.3dworldmag.com October 2013 | | 3

Inhalt
Our complete line-up for this issue
The leading COMMUNITY REVIEWS

magazine for 10 Showcase 82 After Effects CC
CG training We look at some of the most outstanding new
creative CG projects
There’s a richer set of 3D tools in this update
of the much-loved compositing software
and artwork
30 In Focus 86 Vue 11.5 Infinite
Every issue, 3D World brings you the David Domingo tells us all about his CG creation, It seems only yesterday that Vue 11 was
best training for popular CG apps like 3ds Rob the Robot unleashed. So what does this update offer?
Max, Maya and ZBrush. Our tutorials are
written by professionals working in the 34 Short Cuts 89 Plants Kit 1
field. Look out for bonus videos and scene How to animate a entire gang of pirates for Want to create realistic foliage and plant life?
files to help you take your skills further. a short film in only 10 days… Laubwerk may have the answer
3D World also offers inspirational
new artwork, access to the artists 90 Unfold3D 8
behind the latest CG movies, FEATURES This UV unwrapping tool for texture artists
and more! is now Mari-friendly
36 World War Z
We talk to the visual effects team behind this
summer’s zombie-drenched blockbuster POST-PRODUCTION
46 The Paper Fox 92 Debrief
How do you create a CG character that looks as Psyop’s Brian Kehrer tells all about his studio’s
if it’s made from paper? Jeremy Kool explains… new project, Play Fanta: Saving the Source
52 Aaron Sims 96 Freeze Frame
Vault
www.3dworldmag.com/vault
The veteran of movies such as I Am Legend
and The Incredible Hulk talks monsters
TRAINING
How Look Effects created its version of the
undead for zombie drama Warm Bodies
PLUS
Download videos and 60 Facial anatomy in ZBrush
43, 57 Print subscription offers
98 On the cover
tutorial files in three Using ZBrush, we take you through the key
stages of creating anatomically correct faces
simple steps
66 Fundamentals: Instancing
GO TO THE VAULT SITE We explain how instancing can give you power
01 Your Vault account holds your 3D World
issues, as well as any other Future titles that
of thousands of objects
use Vault 68 Texturing in Maya

How to fully texture a model of a futuristic
CHOOSE YOUR 3D WORLD ISSUE sci-fi space loader ready for rendering
02 You’re asked two simple questions to
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60 Face
anatomy
your collection Some of the best experts in the industry tackle How to create
your CG software questions realistic heads
DOWNLOAD YOUR FILES
03 Get the files you need whenever you
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80 Game assets video
Digital-Tutors on how to overcome challenges
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Welcome
Meet the team and our panel of experts Find out
more about our
Issue 173 October 2013 advisory board
members at
www.3dworld
mag.com/
board
Improve your The 3D World advisory board

characters’
faces with Our panel of leading figures from across the
3D World... CG industry give us their advice and help
Faces are one of the hardest parts of
the human body to model well. This Tim Alexander Jonathan Davies
issue we help you achieve the perfect VFX supervisor Head of commercials production
face, as Titouan Olive shows how a basic Industrial Light & Magic Envy Post Production
understanding of facial anatomy and
transform your models and sculpts.
Stuart Adcock Sofronis Efstathiou
Richard Hill, editor Technical art director Postgraduate Framework Leader
[email protected] Ninja Theory NCCA, Bournemouth University
Jordi Barés Paul Franklin

Deputy creative director VFX supervisor
Realise Double Negative
The 3D World team
Rob Redman Pascal Blanché Andrew Gordon
Technical editor Senior art director Directing animator
[email protected] Ubisoft Pixar
Kulsoom Middleton Tim Brade Eddie Leon

Features editor Pipeline Technical Director President/CEO
[email protected] Sony Pictures Imageworks Spine3D
Rob Bredow Jeremy Moorshead

CTO Animation department chair
Sony Pictures Imageworks SCAD
Gustavo Capote Alex Morris

Art director Founder
Writers GC-VFX Alex Morris Visualisation
Conrad Allan, Cirstyn Bech-Yagher, James Cutler,
Digital-Tutors, David Domingo, William Dwelly, Mike
Griggs, Brian Kehrer, Christopher Kenworthy, Jeremy Andrew Daffy Shelley Page
Kool, Titouan Olive, Mark Ramshaw, Antony Ward Director Head of International Outreach
The House of Curves DreamWorks Animation
Art & Production
Art Editor Darren Phillips
Production Assistant Adam Hurrell Lee Danskin Jolyon Webb
Propduction Steve O’Brien, Alvin Weetman Director of technology R&D art director
Cover Titouan Olive Escape Technology Blitz Games Studios
6 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

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Gemeinschaft
Mingle with the world’s
greatest CG artists Showcase
This month’s best new creative work features
MPC, Blur Studio and Platige Image
Studio: Logan
Project: Kira for Toshiba
Software: Maya, ZBrush, V-Ray, Houdini, RealFlow
and Flame
To promote the release of their new Kira laptop and
its honeycomb chassis, Toshiba approached Logan
to create an advert with a technical complexity that
would reflect the technology in its new machine.
“Logan was responsible for everything from
conception to realisation of the spots,” says VFX
supervisor Julien Brami. “Jens Gehlhaar, our
creative director, led the team working closely with
the agency on the designs and storytelling followed
by the live-action shoot and the post-production to
bring the concept to life
“The spot took about two and a half months to
complete and, including production and direction,
22 people. For the first two weeks, we focused
on the multiple designs (the hero bee, the queen
and the drones), design frames, storyboard,
pre-visualisation and preparation for the live action.
A lot of work was put in the animation research and
development of the bees, as we needed them to
communicate emotions and feelings without any
facial expression.
“The animation required the most effort: Maya
was the centrepiece. As we developed an array of
in-house tools for it, we were really efficient in
creating multiple versions of same shots per day,
without jeopardising any other tasks. Versions of
animations were key in this project, as we were in
constant collaboration with the agency. Feedback
from them was flowing, and we were able to
address all of the issues that arose.
“The biggest technical challenge beside the
animation was to blend perfectly CG and footage to
help the storytelling. A lot of work was done on the
plates, enhancements and CG additions to give life
and magic to the environment. The most difficult
shot was the time lapse, as we wanted to fake it as
little as possible in post. Jens Gehlhaar and the VFX
supervisor, Julien Brami, tried to find the best
solutions to achieve that in camera. We used a rig
of eight light sources, and a spotlight mounted on a
crane, everything controlled by a lighting control
console, the rest was timing and rehearsal.”
www.logan.tv

Showcase COMMUNITY
Se d in
yournwork
Email y
our ima
ges to
portfo
3dworldlio@
ma
com g.
A lot of work was put in

the animation research and
development of the bees, as we
needed them to communicate
emotions and feelings without
any facial expression

COMMUNITY Showcase
I was reaching near 22 million

polys so eventually it caused some
problems to handle the file. To
overcame that, I had to render
some elements separately

Showcase COMMUNITY
Artist: Daniel D’Avila

Title: Granny Enjoying Life
Software: Modo 701, ZBrush, Photoshop and
After Effects
I’m a 2D and 3D illustrator in my own studio, D’Avila
Studio, based in São Paulo, Brazil. This image was
something that I had sketched out and had lying
around for some time before I ever really did
anything with it.
The way I usually work is to do a sketch first and
gather as much reference as possible that will help
me through the process. This will guarantee a more
settled result. The more you plan before, the better it
looks in the end. This image particularly has lens
distortion effect that simulates a fish eye lens. I
figured out that the scene couldn’t just be distorted
only with the camera effect inside the software, so
I had to model the objects already distorted to fit
where I want them to be.
After the modelling was done, I made a subtle
distortion inside Modo’s camera. Another issue was
the number of polygons. I was reaching near 22
million polys so eventually it caused some problems
to handle the file. To overcame that, I had to render
some elements separately. And, at last, the number
of used effects such as displacements, hair,
volumetric light, also contributed to a more complex
scene. Every time you do a new project you learn
something new: in this project, the lesson learned
was balancing all the elements in a way that pleases
the eye.
I used Modo 701 to model the scene, except the
granny and the bulldog. These characters were
blocked in ZBrush first, exported to Modo for
retopology and then back to ZBrush again to sculpt
and paint the details.
After that they were posed in Modo and rendered
in its own render engine. Once the image was
rendered, I used Photoshop for colour corrections,
to place the sky and the smoke. Subtle lens flares
and depth of field were added in After Effects.
In the studio we mainly work on advertising
projects, so we have to deliver a variety of styles like
hyper-realism, character design and digital painting
among others. It will vary accordingly with the
client’s needs. But to be able to work on whatever
we like in our spare time is a great release for our
creativity, and an excellent opportunity to practise
our skills and develop new ones.
www.davilastudio.com

COMMUNITY Showcase
MPC’s main task was to

replace the puppet head
and bring Arthur the
Galápagos tortoise to life
through his expressions
Studio: MPC “To generate an exact recreation of the

Project: Mating Season for 4Creative puppet head in 3D was the biggest technical
Software: Maya, mental ray, ZBrush and Mari challenge. We scanned the puppet head,
UK broadcaster Channel 4’s recent season of retopologised it and re-projected the details
programmes on modern dating needed an using ZBrush.
ident that conveyed the complexities of “It was quite impressive to see the puppet
finding love in the 21st century. Using the coming to life as soon as we applied the
character of Arthur the tortoise, MPC was facial expressions and animations. We had to
commissioned to bring him to life and enable carry out a number of tests and study
the audience to connect and sympathise with footage to get it right. Eventually we used an
him, through his facial expressions and the advanced facial rig in Maya to achieve the
emotions he portrays. look we wanted.
“MPC’s main task was to replace the “By using the vector displacement feature
puppet head and bring Arthur the Galápagos in mental ray, we were able to keep the poly
tortoise to life through his expressions. count of the 3D model in our animation
Furthermore we replaced the legs and scenes very low, while still getting all the fine
enhanced textures of the original puppet in surface details in the final render.
some of the shots,” explains CG supervisor “The most interesting and challenging part
Fabian Frank. of the ident was the disco scene. This had
“It took about five weeks from shoot to massive light changes and lens flares, so we
final delivery, with a core team of two 3D had to extract the light information from the
artists, two 2D artists and two matte painters. HDRI and recreate an animated environment
A few more artists were involved during the of the whole scene in 3D.”
initial build and concept stage. www.moving-picture.com

COMMUNITY Showcase
Artist: Henrik Bjerregaard Clausen in conjunction with V-Ray. After Effects is my
Project: Biomorph compositing package of choice with a few added
Software: 3ds Max, V-Ray, ZBrush, Photoshop, plug-ins – such as Frischluft Lenscare, which
After Effects and Premiere makes adding depth of field in post a breeze with
To challenge current students and to attract predictable, fast results.
prospective new ones, 3D College thought a new “For the students I believe ZBrush was the most
type of student project to create a promotional powerful tool in their arsenal: it leaves you free to
trailer for the college was in order. not worry too much about the technical aspects of
“3D College contacted me and asked me if I modelling, but focus on what we needed for the
could come up with a cool idea that would suit the film – details, lots and lots of details.
students’ skill set as well as attract new students “Our scene files became increasingly heavy due
to the school once it was completed,” says director to the massive amounts of polygons on all objects.
Henrik Bjerregaard Clausen. Especially the third opening shot where the huge
“We used 3ds Max, V-Ray and After Effects – trail leading up to the pile of skulls is revealed.
a wonderful combination for me. I have used 3ds We used a combination of V-Ray proxies and
Max for over a decade and feel very comfortable MultiScatter to be able to manage and render the
coming up with solutions to any challenge using it scene. Even with a lot of optimisation, the scene
file for that shot ended up in excess of 2GB.
“Another challenge was simulating the pile of
skulls. This was achieved by exporting a heavily
decimated version of each skull (there are three
separate types in the film) and then optimising that
further in Max, welding vertices together until we
had a tight shape for each of them. These were
then stacked in columns of instances, simulated
using MassFX and finally changed to their original
high-poly versions before lighting and rendering.
A similar proxy approach was used for any object
pushing the skulls around – like the claw or the
back of the beast.”
http://henrikbclausen.com/

Showcase COMMUNITY
Our scene files
became increasingly
heavy due to the
massive amounts
of polygons on
all objects

COMMUNITY Showcase
Studio: Blur Studio tool set. V-Ray’s high-quality surface shaders, GI

Project: Batman: Arkham Origins cinematic lighting, and overall artist centric integration into
Software: 3ds Max, Softimage, ZBrush, V-Ray, 3ds Max proved invaluable.
Fusion, Photoshop and Vegas “Creating realistic snow accumulation on all
The brief was to create the trailer for the next exterior surfaces proved challenging. We used the
instalment of the of the Batman video game. It subsurface scattering shader typically intended for
needed the foreboding and action that has become skin on the snow surfaces to simulate the light
synonymous with the Batman franchise. As Blur scattering into the snow.
Studio created the previous version, it was the “Modelling the exterior shipyard with hundreds of
obvious studio for Warner Bros to approach. shipping crates would’ve resulted in unacceptable
“Warner Brothers enjoyed our treatment for the RAM usage. Instead we relied heavily on the use of
previous Batman: Arkham City instalment of the instanced proxy objects.
game franchise, so they came to us again asking for “Batman: Arkham Origins was a rather typical Blur
us to contribute another cine for their latest, Arkham project. However, one notable difference was the
Origins” says CG supervisor Kevin Margo. immovable delivery deadline that had us working on
“Blur executed in its entirety the four-minute editorial and output up to only a few hours from its
trailer, from script to mastering. The project took online release. Typically there is at least a few days
about four months to complete and roughly 30-40 buffer between our delivery and when it is released
people contributed their skills. “3ds Max and V-Ray online – just not in this case.”
continue to be Blur’s core modelling and rendering www.blur.com

Showcase COMMUNITY
Creating
realistic snow
accumulation
on all exterior
surfaces proved
challenging

COMMUNITY Showcase
The big challenge

was to come up with
the whole atmosphere
of the spot
Studio: Platige Image “From the beginning, we wanted to base the pipeline “Jointly with Rafał Wojtunik, we created preliminary
Project: The Big C for The Alivia Foundation on the solutions we already know,” says Pohl. “We sketches and concepts. Later we just focused on the
Software: 3ds Max, ZBrush, V-Ray, Photoshop, used 3ds Max to model the characters, props and darkness and worked on the pitch-black places in
After Effects and Nuke assets. We wanted to do Cancer in ZBrush but we the movie. The breakthrough came after we saw
This spot for a Polish charity is all about the fight gave up the idea. The sharp edges of its armour did initial renders of the first shot. With the help of
against cancer. “The whole idea – the scenario and not require such detailed modelling. It was faster Photoshop, we created the atmosphere and
the concept of the spot – was created here in and easier to do it by poly modelling. reflections on the floor.
Platige,” says CG supervisor Kamil Pohl. “Jointly with “The big challenge was to create the atmosphere. “We used V-Ray for final rendering. Obtaining this
the DDB Warsaw Agency, we came up with the idea We didn’t want it to be hyper-realistic but we also effect you can see in the screen was quite simple
of a fight between two arch-enemies: strong, didn’t want it to be too stylised. The inspiration came and based on preparing a few render layers for the
courageous Mecha-Pig and horrible, dangerous while watching Sin City: the sharp contrasts, composition. Finally Manuela Balk and Dennis
organic Cancer.” monochromatic images, edge-lit characters and Nikolayenia did their magic in Nuke. Their help in this
Crayfish and cancer are homonyms in Polish, so conventional spaces with bricks, bright spots and project was invaluable.”
a crayfish creature represents Cancer in the spot. floors were exactly what we needed. www.platige.com

COMMUNITY Showcase
We wanted to
show Science
Channel as the
home of smart
science fiction
Studio: Blacklist animation and V-Ray for rendering: both are

Project: Science Channel idents very important tools for us. We also used
Software: Maya, 3ds Max, RealFlow, Photoshop to generate some of the textures
Photoshop, After Effects and Nuke and After Effects to animate them for
Having seen Blacklist’s previous work, the compositing. We relied on RealFlow for
Science Channel contacted the studio to generating the fluids.
commission some new channel idents. It “Liquid presented special challenges in that
wanted the channel and its content to look we had to rig the egg for a very abstract
modern and exciting and knew that Blacklist character, but also make the animation look
was the go-to firm to get that look. natural. The cracking of the egg was also a
“Science Channel checked out our previous bit difficult – we tried to use dynamics, but in
work and approached us with a pretty open the end it was done manually.
brief,” explains producer Marga Sardà. “The “In Erosion we worked with animated
idea was to investigate the micro and macro textures which in turn generated huge files.
worlds of biology, insects, technology, the It’s something that always makes the process
strange and the odd - all in dramatic, a bit more difficult, especially when you’re
surprising and unusual ways. We wanted to working in 3D.
show Science Channel as the home of smart “In all the spots we experienced vibration
science fiction.” during the render which proved to be
“All the software we used was vital to the challenging. But as always, we worked our
production,” adds creative director Teo way around it.”
Guillem. “We used 3ds Max for rigging and www.blacklist.tv

For Sweet
Attack, I did the
main workings
in 3ds Max and
then completed
the rendering
in V-Ray
Artist: Petr Vykoukal “My work usually starts in 3ds Max, where I try and product visualisations. This work can, at times, be
Title: Sweet Attack make some basic models and concepts of what I quite limiting creatively speaking, as we have to fulfil
Software: 3ds Max, V-Ray, Photoshop, ZBrush think I am going to create. Once I set the shapes the brief from the client, which can be quite tight, so
“This scene took me about five months to create, up, I work the camera angles and some basic I enjoy personal projects like this to really let my
working in my spare time, and it’s something I have lighting. Little by little as I progress, I add more personal creative juices flow.
really enjoyed doing. As scenes go, this is not a and more details, textures and shaders until I have As an artist I am fascinated by the whole 3D
particularly complicated one and as such the reached my final result. For Sweet Attack, I did the scene. I work using lighting and shading at the
progress being made on it each day was really main workings in 3ds Max and then completed the studio, so I’m most experienced with these aspects;
obvious and quite tangible. It was great to see the rendering in V-Ray before finally adding some details but I really enjoy modelling and experimenting with
image coming together bit by bit and knowing that in Photoshop and ZBrush. different types of rigs and texturing.”
each time I picked it up it was a little bit closer to “My day job is with a studio called Alien Studio. We [email protected]
being completed. do a lot of work for in advertising and things like www.petrvykoukal.com

COMMUNITY Showcase
Studio: Playground effective process. During the modelling stage, we

Title: Blitzen Benz focused on great levels of detail. After the initial
Software: 3ds Max, V-Ray, Photoshop modelling, we had to use few procedular maps and
Studio director Jan Rambousek says: “This is based specific bitmaps for displacement to enhance the
on the original 1910 photograph ‘Barney Oldfield realism of the surface.
racing the Blitzen Benz - Daytona Beach, Florida’, “We kept in mind that no surface is flat, and we
which was taken by Richard H LeSense. In 1910, tried to reproduce specific deformations for every
Oldfield took the car to a record speed of 132mph. object using a standard displacement modifier.
“We worked on this project as a team in-between When we were texturing, we used a multi-channel
our other jobs in the studio. It took us about a approach and very basic projection techniques in
month to complete from initial modelling to the conjunction with blended materials. We used a lot of
finishing touches. We loved working on the detail of textures from www.cgtextures.com and they really
the image – the dust, the oil splatters, the exhaust do bring the scene to life. Procedural maps really
smoke, the cracked paint – it’s these little touches played a great part in both the modelling and the
that make the car and its speed look so real, so texturing process due to the unlimited resolution and
dramatic. It is also these bits of detail that create object space mapping.
the sensation of raw unparalleled speed and power. “As a production studio based in Prague, we work
They bring the car and the engine to life and make it on anything visual, and have recently done a lot of
seem like some fire-spitting dragon that the driver is advertising work for a huge range of clients. We love
desperately trying to control. to do team projects as a way pooling our creative
“In order to achieve this incredible finish, we used and design talent.”
a variety of slightly unusual techniques. These were www.janrambousek.com
all essential due to the extreme resolution and www.plgr.cz

The dust, the oil splatters, the
exhaust smoke, the cracked
paint – it’s these little touches
that make the car and its speed
look so real, so dramatic
CORRECTION In our look at Mark

Fairless’ Martian Madness in 3D World
171, we got Mark’s website wrong: it’s
http://darkusmarkus.prosite.com
www.3dworldmag.com
Community
Get inside the mind of a
CG artist as he reveals
his creative process
In Focus
David Domingo talks mapping and shading as
he reveals the creation of a very special robot
Artist David Domingo Jiménez

Title Epic (The Adventure of
Rob the Robot)
Software 3ds Max, ZBrush, Rob the Robot took David
UVLayout, Photoshop, V-Ray Domingo about a month
From conception to completion, to complete – with an
this image took me a month excellent final result
to complete. I don’t mind
admitting that I’m really pleased with the result.
All the modelling and rendering is my own work
except the face, which is a copyright-free emoticon
from http://bad-blood.deviantart.com.
I started working with 3D in 2004, mainly based
in advertising, and I am now a lead artist in textures
and shading for environments and props for Kandor
Graphics. I find working on personal projects keeps
my skills fresh and current.
As an artist, I am always inspired by other artists
and seeing their work – people like Juan Siquier
(with whom I have had the pleasure of working),
Ian McQue, Michael Kutsche and Olivier Ponsonnet,
among others.
http://ddjimenez.blogspot.com.es
01 Modelling
Beginning with a simple hand-drawn
sketch, I add a proxy model to obtain the initial
shape. After this, I use reference photographs in
order to detail every part until I reach the hi-poly or
final model. It is important to use the tools available
to really do the job well. On occasion, it is best to do
a quick ZBrush model, and then do a retopology. In
this case, in parts such as the trousers, the gloves
and the vests. »

In
P Focus
f li COMMUNITY
I don’t mind
admitting I’m really
pleased with the
final result
Send inrk
your wo es to
ag
Email your im
portfolio@
.
3dworldmag
com

COMMUNITY In Focus
Stage X
Xxxxxxx
02 UV mappingWith UVLayout, I open different and parts then group them
into six models for more comfortable texturing. I personally do not
organise or distribute the islands. What I do instead for texturing is to
take a render ID for each object and use it as a mask. This is so that I
differentiate between materials, metal, paintings and plastics.
Dividing up the model into different parts, dependent on the material

that is being rendered, can make it easier to render the model
03 Texturing
First of all, I work on the base textures that I will need later on: metal,
rust, leather, fabric, paintings, and so on. Afterwards, using render texture, I
extract the ID maps, AO, displacement, normal map and UV. In the end, it is all a
matter of painting and texture use. I always recommend using a tileable texture
base. In this case, there are nine textures in 8K, three of which are for the terrain.
The face reflection level was created The head monitor was tricky to map
before the emoticon was added as it was built up of different textures
UV AO NORMAL
DSP PAINT METAL
BMP
DIFFUSE SPECULAR
04 ShadingFor each part of the model, I extracted the polygons that would be the
same material. Then, it was a matter of using the properties of each material,
specular and glossy, according to the finish I was looking for.

In Focus COMMUNITY
The compositing of
the model took a lot
of tweaking to get it
the way I wanted
05 Illumination
For the exterior lighting, I have used a direct light with
Sun and Sky in the environment and a HDRI for the GI, in order to
pick up the areas in the shade. It is no more complicated than this.
I always use a Physical Camera from V-Ray.
RENDER RAW REFLECTION RAW SPECULAR REFLECTION
SPECULAR ALPHA Z-DEPTH SKY
07 Final As a last step, I would like to

point out that it is important to get
feedback from someone who has
some 3D knowledge, to avoid mistakes
06 Composition
This is one of the most important steps. Playing with colour, saturation and contrast is essential. It is also
important to use all the maps available, using Render Elements from V-Ray – as is creating an atmosphere that will highlight
that may have gone unnoticed. In my
case, I was helped by Victor Loba. I
certainly owe him a dose of thanks for
the object and that will be in harmony with the story the illustration is telling. It is also useful to employ fog and noise. helping me improve.

POST-PRODUCTION
Community
The best new animated
shorts from outside
the major studios
Short Cuts
How do you animate a whole pirate’s crew in
10 days? Kulsoom Middleton investigates
nomalia is a training and

A networking platform for 3D
animation, which started
as an initiative to further educate
The original designs Central European artists in modern
for the pirate Babinsky 3D animation and filmmaking. Isaac
had him looking like a Kerlow, formerly of Disney, and Kyle
“wrestler in underwear” Balda, formerly of Pixar, delivered the
first workshops in Prague in 2008; since
then, Anomalia has provided a classroom
experience every summer in Litomyšl, in
the Czech Republic.
With a strong emphasis on project
development and team collaboration,
Booty Call tested the 16-strong team
of student animators. “We try to offer
unique topics every summer and to
challenge ourselves with new things
never done before in collaboration
with experienced professionals,” says
executive producer David Toušek.
“So when Kenny Roy talked to us and
suggested a Short Film Making course
to animate a short in 10 days, where
animators could get into a challenging
collaborative environment, we figured
this was worth our effort.”
Anomalia worked on the concept a
year ahead of the course, and narrowed
the idea down to a simple story; a down-
and-out, second-tier pirate tries to steal
treasure from another crew. “Eventually,
we spread the word out to the animation
community across Europe and got 16
very talented animators interested in the
event. Then we set sail!” says Toušek.
Pirate copies
With the concept set, Anomalia began
Vit al to design the main character of the
pirate. They worked with character
st atistics designer Jan Živocký, who gave them
Title: Booty Call
Duration: 04.14 several inspiring ideas before they ended
Website: www.anomalia.eu up with a pirate, called Babinsky. “At
Director: Kenny Roy
Production time: Preproduction: 3 months.
first, Babinsky looked like a wrestler
Production: 10 days. Postproduction: 2 months in underwear,” says Toušek. “But since
Software: Maya Babinsky was supposed to be a character
Synopsis: Pirate Babinsky is on a quest to steal
treasure from a ship. His greed leads to for the entire training, I wanted him
his demise to be strong, because I feel it’s easier
If you like this, watch… A Fox Tale,
Thomas Bozovic, Alexandre Cazals to practise weight and charismatic
personalities with a fuller character.”

3dworldmag.com
Short Cuts COMMUNITY
The Anomalia team’s main goal is to

keep the platform small enough so it
stays personal, unique and oriented
toward the highest possible results
WATCH
THE TRAILER
See the Pirate’s Crew
trailer in the Animations
section of the website
3dworldmag.com/
piratescrew
Key technology
Anomalia relied heavily mean the animation had a referenced file; not just multiple props in a scene,
The animation style was a departure on Maya’s referencing to be copied from one animation either. It will as Babinksy does several
from Toušek’s personal style, which pipeline to push small character to another,” actually include constraint times. When a new
tends to lean toward classical puppetry: rig updates to all the explains Kenny Roy. “A information; recreate rig update came from
“We gave animators space to improvise animators at once. “A little-known tool in Maya locators and all associated our rigger, I was able
and take their imagination through few times through the is Export Reference Edits. connections – perfect to sidestep technical
the roof. Just a couple days later, production we had rig It is a way of saving all of for when you have a roadblocks using this
somebody started to push the style updates that would the data associated with character manipulation unsung function of Maya.”
beyond what a real puppet can do; very
cartoony, rubbery, lots of smooth arcs.
Immediately, during the dailies, others
started to enjoy this and soon enough Animator CVs Jan Živocký and rigger Victor Vinyals, “The lighting was straightforward as
Kenny Roy
we realised all of us were trying to push Since starting his
to produce the main character. He also well. The deck was put together as a
it beyond a standard CG style. It really career in 1988, Roy worked on animating two shots, and long tube with several segments, and
started to amaze all of us.” has worked worked after the Anomalia event was over, then we set up an overall lighting
on films such as
Garfield and King Toušek lit and rendered Booty Call. with several variations – key light
International schooling Kong. He founded Arconyx “I would dare to say that the lighting source coming from the lanterns in
Animation Studios in 2006
To set things up, Roy’s team of artists at www.kennyroy.com
could have been done before we one segment and no key light source in
his LA studio, Arconyx Animation animated the short,” admits Toušek. “It another segment, which was illuminated
Studios, created the modular set and David Toušek
could have saved us time and we could with dim area lights representing bounce
props, and the entire layout. “On any Educated in Denmark have had more time to experiment.” light coming from further away.”
production, the hardest job is always and the USA, Toušek Roy agrees that if they were to Maya was the animation software
teaches 3D animation
going to be whatever you are the most as well as acting as produce Booty Call again, he would take used on Booty Call: all of the animators
cramped for time to do. In our case, art director at his time to work on the look development knew Maya and the course was geared
own studio, Bohemian Multimedia,
many of the animators had never in Prague and establish a lighting rig that slotted towards taking technical skills to the
worked in a production pipeline before, www.3bohemians.eu into the shots more easily: “I would next level. “We also relied heavily on
so a large portion of time and energy Maya’s referencing pipeline to push
was put into conforming the dozens and small rig updates to all the animators at
dozens of shots: fixing rigs, rigging once, and it all had to work smoothly in
props, doing layouts for animators that “I feel it’s easier to practice weight and order for us to get anything done in such
had really novel ideas,” explains Roy. a short window,” says Roy.
Toušek was the executive producer,
personalities with a fuller character” For the lighting and rendering they
but also worked on the modelling David Toušek chose V-Ray for Maya. “Maya seems
together with the character designer, to be a dominant tool for animation
at the moment, and V-Ray is known
for its intuitiveness and quality of the
create a script that at the very least rendering,” says Toušek. “When I work
aligned the lights to locators in the sets with this tool, I’m really happy with how
– some of the animators rotated their artist-friendly the settings are. It is also
sets instead of their character, so our a physically correct renderer, but gives
lighting rig had to be manually aligned me enough room for stylisation. So I
with each shot.” can go into the animation and still take
The main focus of the course was on advantage of the lights, for example, to
the animation of the main character and [make the scene] mimic real-world light
overall atmosphere, so the modelling, quality and behaviour.”
set assembly, lighting and rendering, The concept of artists coming together
was kept really simple. “We had one and producing an original IP in an
modular set, several assets that are used educational setting is a new concept.
A team of only multiple times, almost no texturing, Now that Toušek and Roy have proved
16 artists were used just one normal map on the wooden that it can be done, they are already
to get Booty Call made deck... Everything else is only gradients,” using the production model to develop
explains Toušek. further events just like it.

World War Z
Kulsoom Middleton fi finds

nds out how
Cinesite and MPC created the ravenous
zombies for summer blockbuster World War Z. Plus:
pre-production insights from Centroid and Framestore

World War Z
Massive was used to

simulate people bottlenecking
through a road block on the
Benjamin Franklin bridge
This traffic jam sequence

was actually shot in Scotland,
with elements of Philadelphia
integrated in to the plates
World War Z copyright © 2013 Paramount and Plan B Productions. All rights reserved
orld War Z opens with a thrilling VFX Framestore, ILM and Centroid. Director Marc Forster
W sequence that shows a confused Gerry
(played by Brad Pitt) and family in the middle “Hundreds of different
wanted the film to seem real; like a documentary,
not like a VFX movie. He wanted the audience
of a traffic jam in Philadelphia. A massive rubbish to focus on the story, not the effects. Cinesite’s
truck busts through the traffic, wiping out a police motions were captured, environment team decided that to make the opening
officer a split-second after he tells Gerry to stay in shot convincing, they would base the CG as much as
his vehicle. Zombie mayhem ensues. from walks to runs to possible on reference photography.
This, and other key sequences in the film, used The opening sequence was actually shot in
environments created by VFX outfit Cinesite, which complicated vignettes” Glasgow, and then elements of Philadelphia were
worked on the movie for two years, along with Anthony Zwartouw, CG supervisor, Cinesite mixed into the footage. Cinesite took extensive
a handful of other VFX houses including MPC, reference photographs of buildings in and around

World War Z
ZOMBIE PRE-VIZ
Stuart Haskayne, head of production at Centroid, talks
to James Clarke about the pre-viz for World War Z
3D World: What were the key 3DW: What particular software

creative challenges of the work? did you use in delivering the
Stuart Haskayne: My job was to work for World War Z?
do pre-shoot prep, shoot and SH: We used MotionBuilder from
oversee post. From the World Autodesk. It’s great because
War Z production team, a stunt it beds [the mocap footage]
coordinator, a visual effects into the world [of a scene]
coordinator and a visual effects better. The VFX supervisor
supervisor came down with five loved that we could record data
stuntmen. We spent just one day and play back and then use
capturing sample data for the MotionBuilder for live pre-viz.
production that would be handed We’ve got a virtual camera – Before (above) and after (top). Philadelphia, which were digitally projected onto the
on to Cinesite. a shoulder-mounted camera Each character had to have geometry. The buildings were then placed in layouts
We didn’t have any concept that allows you to walk through three levels of detail in Nuke and fitted into the original Glasgow plates.
art to refer to, and they tended a virtual environment. We’ve Once the plates were complete, the crowds of
to shoot for what they need. got particular mocap software, CG zombies, swarming and attacking people were
They had an idea of what scenes, and MotionBuilder is used just added. They had to have realistic hair, cloth and
and all we knew that it was a for live pre-viz, applying data attacking movements: as these effects had to stand
hardcore zombie apocalypse. to an environment. By default, up for both distance shots and close-ups. “The main
The zombies were like lemmings wherever you stand is what the
crossed with ants. camera sees, and the camera
has modified X-Box controls on
3DW: Can you offer a sense of it that allow you to jib and do “Each hero digi-double had to have a
the workflow in achieving a some nice angles.
specific scene? Our client had a generic range of expressions which needed to be
SH: We shot lots of material of character asset, and using
the stuntmen, as zombies, MotionBuilder we take live captured, modelled and rigged”
climbing over crash mats, so that performance and bake it in. The Anthony Zwartouw, CG supervisor, Cinesite
in the finished shot you’d see the VFX supervisor loved the real-
first hundred zombies clear time aspect of it as it gave him
a wall and then there’d be a free rein. factor for the crowd in World War Z was that they
pile-up on top of that. The crash We can build a scaffold prop. had to work as a cast of thousands in some shots,
mats were about seven feet high If you’ve got a corridor with a but also had to hold up as full-screen individuals in
and three feet thick, and they room off it, we can fly through others. Each character had to have three levels of
stood in for cars and walls and that environment to see where detail. The more distant crowds use lower-resolution
other obstacles. The stunt guys we might need to lay out geometry, textures and simplified shaders, whereas
went hell-for-leather across something physical on our floor those closer use high-res geometry with sculpted
these obstacles. to help the performers. displacement, full three-layer subsurface scattering

World War Z
Motion capture and key frame animation

was used extensively to make the mass crowd
movements look realistic and equally terrifying
and fully simulated clothing and hair,” says CG

supervisor Anthony Zwartouw. LIGHTING PIPELINE
Cinesite completed 432 shots, which involved CG supervisor Anthony Zwartouw explains how
extensive TD input and led to significant simplifying shaders made life easier for the team
developments in Cinesite’s raytracing, lighting and
shading pipelines. (See ‘Lighting pipeline’, right.)
The hero digital doubles and shaders are written from scratch reflection samples should be
Crowds of zombies crowd characters’ skin, hair and by its own shader writing team. linked because the rougher the
For the zombie movement visualisation, motion cloth shaders were constantly “We decided early on to try reflection, the more samples
capture and keyframe animation, Cinesite used upgraded in tandem with the to simplify our shaders,” says are needed.”
Maya and MotionBuilder. During pre-production, advancements made by the Zwartouw. “The main ways we Amalgamating all these
the animation team, led by Peter Clayton, created pipeline team. “The look dev of wanted to achieve this were parameters resulted in far leaner,
dozens of movement tests for Forster so that he the six hero digi-doubles and that we wanted to identify easier-to-use shaders that
could visualise how the zombies should move. 50 crowd characters was led by the parameters that should be yielded better results in less time.
“These tests included the look of the zombie run, Joel Bodin and myself,” explains connected to each other, and Cinesite also worked on
the zombie’s ‘teeth-first Israeli attack dog’ style Anthony Zwartouw. thus could be merged into one. developing the co-shaders.
lunge through the air, jumps and other shot-specific Although Cinesite uses For example, spec gain and “This enables the artist to
actions,” explains Zwartouw. RenderMan as its primary reflection gain should have the only plug in attributes that are
The production did three mocap sessions, which rendering package, the software same gain value, so they could specifically needed rather than
each lasted two days and were led by animation is heavily modified to integrate be merged. having everything in one go,” he
supervisor Andy Jones. Also, on the shoot from it into the post house’s pipeline. “Another example would be says, “the latter being how the
Cinesite was crowd lead Jane Rotolo, lead animator For example, all Cinesite’s that reflection roughness and monolithic shaders worked.”
Peter Clayton and Anthony Zwartouw.
“Hundreds of different motions were captured,
from walks and runs to complicated vignettes which and effective technique to gather the expressions.
featured multiple characters for specific actions in “Each hero digi-double had to have a range of
specific shots,” says Zwartouw. “The zombie mocap expressions which needed to be captured, modelled
was then augmented with key frame animation to and rigged,” explains Zwartouw. “For some of the
create the arms-back, stooped-forward run that the characters we didn’t have all the expressions we
director was looking for.” needed in the reference, so the head of modelling,
Although mocap was used extensively for crowd Royston Willcocks, proposed a method of doing a
scenes, a lot of pure key frame animation was done shoot with several of the willing artists at Cinesite,
for hero digital double shots and actions that were which enabled us to extract each expression from
impossible to achieve using mocap. the neutral pose and map it onto our digi-doubles.”
These expressions were then split up into Amalgamating the parameters of shaders enabled
Digital doubles separate muscle groups and given to lead rigger better results to reached in a faster time
The crowd shots and the full-frame digital doubles Adam Lucas, who built all the face rigs.
proved to be extremely challenging. In the
Philadelphia traffic jam scene, for example, there Clothing the undead
were a few close-ups of fully CG doubles; these The digital doubles had to be convincing in terms
needed fully simulated clothing and hair. Six bespoke of the CG hair and CG cloth too. Some shots were
hero digital doubles were built, which had to hold too close to the camera to use a normal crowd
up full-frame and intercut seamlessly with their live- approach, so Cinesite had to simulate everything
action counterparts. Cinesite came up with a novel as though they were going to be heroes.

World War Z
MPC created the incredible

zombie pyramid in Jerusalem
that featured alongside CG
environments and aircraft
“Asset management
tools were developed
around cloth to be able
to import a character
from animation into the
cloth pipeline”
Anthony Zwartouw, CG supervisor
“We first shot video reference of several types of

clothing in motion from three different angles,” says INTELLIGENT AGENTS
Zwartouw. “We put each costume through a work- How MPC used massive crowd simulations and hand animation
out, which consisted of extreme body positions like to create the realistic hordes of zombies in Jerusalem
touching your toes and reaching up in the air to
running on a treadmill. We then rotomated the work-
out and stress-tested all our digital costumes using MPC’s team completed more angle shots of Jerusalem with
the HD footage to guide us. From that, we devised than 450 shots for World War Z, massive zombie crowds, hero
base settings for garments.” which included some stunning zombie animation, CG planes and
Lots of time was spent refining the garments in action sequences, such as the environment work.”
modelling to get the best solve from the sim mesh thrilling plane crash and the nail- MPC received concept art
and also setting up how to accurately wrap the bitingly good zombie pyramid early on from Framestore,
render mesh to the sim mesh. nCloth was used to shot in Jerusalem. showing different zombie
do most of the cloth sims, but Cinesite developed The action in Israel starts formations. CG supervisor
several tools to facilitate the task inside its pipeline. in the safe area known as Max Wood was in charge of
“A cloth wedge tool was developed, which enabled The shot sculpting tool helped Busland. The shots were a mix the 3D work, and planned
artists to select specific parameters and vary their when adding wrinkles, massaging of live-action plates, added CG from very early on how MPC’s
values over a number of versions. This would then be unnatural looking folds and fixing environments, CG humans, CG teams should tackle these
put on the farm overnight. In the morning we would geo inter-penetrations zombies, CG helicopters and FX massive and complex crowd
get multiple simulations, each one slightly different passes for dust and helicopter simulations. “Some of [the
from the other,” explains Zwartouw. The tool saved wash. Once Busland gets over concept art] showed zombies
lots of time and enabled the artists to fine-tune run by zombies, the action creating tentacle shapes, and
their simulations. It was also developed into an continues throughout the city. another variation showed them
overall simulation wedge tool that would run all “The Jerusalem sequence was appearing as a swarm of insects
simulations from fluids to hair. “Asset management In several aerial shots, a great challenge!” says MPC and schools of fish formations,”
tools were developed around cloth to be able to Cinesite’s team populated VFX supervisor Jessica Norman. explains Norman.
import a character from animation into the cloth environments including the “MPC created the zombie “Our animation supervisor
pipeline already setup and ready to sim,” Zwartouw Benjamin Franklin bridge with pyramid, crowds of zombies Andy Jones also provided us
continues. CG traffic, crowds and zombies overturning a live-action bus, with motion studies made with
Much like the requirements of the cloth simulation and turned the calm streets a sequence of shots of performers. We used MPC’s
set-up, all the hero and crowd characters had their into chaotic apocalyptic scenes, zombies running down narrow mocap room to capture clips of
own individual grooms, sculpted to impressive detail complete with CG helicopters, streets, a tentacle of zombies the different actions we needed
by lead groom TD Tarkan Sarim. smoke, fire and destruction attacking helicopters, wide for the pyramid, which included

World War Z
To create the hordes of

zombies, MPC enhanced
its proprietary crowd
system, ALICE
performers climbing up ramps allowing us to create behaviours The lighting team worked For hair grooming, Cinesite acquired several licences
and nets. Complex crowd shots and animations in the crowd closely with the crowd and cloth of Peregrine Lab’s Yeti (www. peregrinelabs.com/
started with the layout, shape engine, which could then also teams to ensure the right level yeti) while it was still in beta stage. As the company
and speed of the crowd being be used to drive the physics of detail was used and to split developed the software, Cinesite offered direct
defined,“ explains Norman. simulations at the same time.” up the crowds in ways which feedback to help it craft the tools.
To create the hordes of MPC’s pipeline was adapted would allow them to render in “We created a similar asset management pipeline
zombies, MPC had to enhance to be able to promote single the most efficient way without as we did for cloth, which enabled us to get
its proprietary crowd system ALICE agents to the animation compromising the quality and characters from animation through hair and into
ALICE, which would usually department, then either keep look of the renders. lighting, with a lot of the manual labour taken out,”
be used to keep agents in the them as a hero or incorporate “Compositing supervisor says Zwartouw.
crowd apart, but here was them back into the crowd. Jonathan Knight and leads Lev “It was decided to only simulate hair that was
used to simulate streams of CG Kolobov and Jeremy Sawyer longer than a ‘bob cut’,” says Zwartouw. “The
zombies. “For the pyramids we Fashion values worked closely with our lighting shorter hair is, the stiffer it becomes, so
started with geometry that we For the larger crowds, MPC used team and discussed the best movement would be very minimal in those cases.
then populated with clips based its in-house cloth solver that ways to break down the many We developed the Cinesite curve cache tool which
on inclination using ALICE, works with ALICE. “We used passes and layers that made made handling and visualising hair inside of Maya
which enables our artists to nCloth for hero cloth sims or up the crowd,” says Norman. less heavy, but with keeping a lot of the original
curve’s attributes.”
Massive simulations
“The number of zombies made rendering tricky, Massive was used extensively in World War Z,
from characters walking along the street while
as well as the fact that any zombie could start off talking on a mobile phone and crossing roads,
to hoards of zombies chasing and attacking
in the distance but end up full-frame” thousands of civilians, to populating military
Jessica Norman, VFX supervisor, MPC personnel and refugees.
“Because the crowd in WWZ was to be used as
a horde of thousands but also to come as close as
manage crowd behaviour, motion where extra crowd cloth detail “We then set up standardised half-screen height, it was decided to create a tool
clip editing and blending and was needed,” Norman explains. Nuke templates that streamlined which enabled the Massive TDs to export portions
customised scripting for large “One of the biggest challenges the compositing workflow. For of the simulated crowd as animation rigs to import
groups of agents,” says Norman. for our lighting team was to the complex zombie shots, we into Maya; so the animation could be tweaked, the
Many of the shots also render the crowds of zombies. rendered deep passes to allow geo could be upgraded to a higher resolution and if
required MPC to leverage the The number of zombies made us to combine the different need be, high-res cloth and hair sims could be run,”
power of PAPI, its in-house rigid rendering tricky, as well as the layers of crowd more easily. explains Zwartouw.
body dynamic solver based on fact that any zombie could start Many live-action elements of Cinesite’s in-house shader assignment system
the Havok engine. “PAPI and off in the distance but end up smoke and dust were then enabled the artists to do the look development
ALICE are bridged together, full-frame as they advance.” added to help integration.” once for both digital doubles and Massive agents.

World War Z
Filmmakers are demanding

more and more realism
these days, even at the
early concept art stage
CREATING THE DEAD

Kevin Jenkins, art director at Framestore,
on his company’s concept art for World War Z
3D World: What was the brief need a more detailed maquette

that the filmmakers approached or texture study, or something
Framestore with? How did you might get a test rig on it to see
conceptualise your zombies, to if it’ll work as intended.
make them different?
Kevin Jenkins: The director 3DW: Art directors are placing
Marc Forster’s brief to me was greater emphasis on realism
simple - make it unusual, make even at the early concept art
it different. In the early stages stage. How great a role do
I put up a ‘No’ wall of reference ZBrush or other 3D tools play
images and zombies from movies in your department’s work?
and books. Everything I set KJ: It depends on what’s being Framestore’s Kevin Jenkins “This enabled us to precisely match a Massive
out trying to avoid was on this developed. For example, believes the more tools you use agent’s appearance when it is promoted to an
mood wall of images. From there when developing a creature in concept creation, you more animation rig,” says Zwartouw. They also used the
we started painting ideas, and it will always start off in a flexible and fast you can be system to easily assign materials to crowd agents
if anything from the ‘No’ wall sketch or drawing phase, but based on various agent properties. “This came in
appeared early on we abandoned as each pass happens it will handy for visualising demographics, for example,
the concept. It proved as a gradually get more finished until the distribution of humans versus zombies, when
reminder to try different ideas. a final model and sometimes blocking out crowd shots.”
early look develop.
3DW: You’re creating concept 3D plays a large part in
art in the knowledge that many concept work, but it’s still a
elements in scenes will be case of the right tool for the job. “It was decided to only simulate hair that
created as CG assets. How does I’ll use whatever it takes to get
this inform your design decisions the job done: ZBrush, SketchUp, was longer than a ‘bob cut’. The shorter
at the concept stage? Modo, Maya – even Poser if it
KJ: Having a shot VFX gets the point across. It’s hair is, the stiffer it becomes”
background does influence important to be mature about Anthony Zwartouw, CG supervisor, Cinesite
design decisions, but not until the tools you use, and not
much later in the process. The to eliminate one based upon
early stages of a design should reputation. The more tools you Rotomation of live-action performers was used to
be free and without limits until know, the more flexible and fast further enhance the CG zombie characters’ hands
the idea seems good. Only then you can be in concept creation. and faces. For the tracking, rotomation and layout,
do I question how to make the Cinesite used a combination of software: Maya, 3d
idea achievable. That’s when See more World War Z concept Equalizer, boujou, PFTrack and Nuke.
approaches may develop to help artwork by Framestore on the “Specific models and rigs were built for each
VFX later on in the process. Framestore Visual Development character whose face needed enhancing,” explains
For example, a creature might blog: www.framestoreart.com Zwartouw. “3D head rigs were hand-tracked to

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World War Z
capture the larger movements of the character’s

head and face.
“Witness cameras used during the shoot made
the character rotomation tasks more efficient and
accurate. Then the 2D department would use motion
analysis in Nuke to nail down the finer twitches and
integrate the make-up enhancement, which was
created by the matte painting department.” Moving cloth
Zwartouw remembers having sleepless nights due “We developed our
to one particularly challenging shot in Philadelphia, ‘shot sculpting tool’
where all the foreground and mid-ground people further so it was possible to
and zombies are CG. sculpt in tangent space onto
a deforming mesh, which
enabled us to tweak the cloth
post sim and carry brush
“The 2D department strokes from frame to frame,”
says Anthony Zwartouw
would use motion
analysis in Nuke to
integrate the make-up
enhancement which was
created by the matte
painting department”
Anthony Zwartouw, CG supervisor, Cinesite
“The very nature of this shot is challenging. We

have close-up CG people running: as humans, we
are accustomed to finding any minute detail that is
wrong. Also, the lighting is overcast, so completely
flat. Direct sunlight can be very helpful because it
adds contrast, shape and detail, so we had to make
sure there was enough detail in the characters
to work in that environment.” After a lot of
experimenting, Cinesite finished the sequence. It’s
seamless and grounded in reality, delivering exactly
what the director wanted.
World War Z is out on DVD and Blu-ray later this year

The Paper Fox app
Discover how this interactive

tale of adventure was brought
to life using the stunning visual
style of digital papercraft,
with co-creator Jeremy Kool
ne thing I’ve always been acutely aware of

O is stagnation. If I’m working on 3D props
and landscapes all day, I spend my off-hours
on character projects so that I don’t feel I’m over-
specialising. Back in 2010, The Paper Fox project started
with a personal challenge: to create a CG character that
looked as if it was constructed from paper.
I’m not sure why I picked a fox to model: maybe
because they have great personalities and easily
distinguishing features. I found that the model came
together quickly and, with the help of some texturing
and added depth of field in the render, it looked halfway
convincing. I finished the piece by making a diorama
with a little tree, some birds and rabbits and then put it
up on my blog and thought nothing more of it.
To my surprise, people kept bringing my attention
back to it over the course of the next 12 months, telling
me they really liked it and wanted to see more. During
this time, my wife gave birth to my son and I changed
jobs twice, so my little cardboard fox got put on the
back-burner. After the dust had settled, I decided to
revisit him and see what I could do to improve to iterate
on the piece.

The Paper Fox app
Jeremy
Kool
Jeremy is a 3D artist and
graphic designer from
Kool chose a fox as his main Melbourne, Australia.
character because of their www.thepaperfox.
“great personalities and easily blogspot.com
distinquishable features”

The Paper Fox app
“I’m lucky to be I wanted to see if I could push the style further, so I than a week, and I ended up raising just over $105,000.
created a colour palette, remodelled the fox in a T-pose I also received a lot of attention from third parties
related to a very and started creating other animals in the same style. I interested in the project.
talented writer, my found creating the characters came very easily. Most of After being approached by multiple book and game
the challenge was to keep everything simple and maintain publishers during and after the crowdfunding, I knew
sister Amanda” interesting proportions. Before I knew it, I had a small I was thinking too small. If my sister and I were the
Jeremy Kool, director of collection of paper woodland creatures. only ones working on the project, it would be devoid of
The Paper Fox project animation, sound and interactivity – basically it would
Kicking off in style be a traditional book on iPad, which seemed like it
At this stage, I started thinking that this could be more would be a waste of the hard work we had put into it.
than just a folio piece, and tried to think of what I could We needed to think bigger.
use these creatures in. As I didn’t have any money to pay With some sage advice from my friend Joe Tabor,
people to work on it, I wanted to make sure I could keep who later became the producer on the project, we
it to a scope that I could handle as a solo project. Around created a pitch to Screen Australia to garner more
that time I had bought an iPad and I learned that there funding. This time we scoped the project to include
was a burgeoning market for interactive books. How hard much more animation, sound and interactivity.
could that be, I thought? We were lucky enough to get the grant and, at the
I’m lucky to be related to a very talented writer, my same time, signed a deal with a fantastic US publisher,
sister Amanda. I went to her with the characters and told Bento Box Interactive. We were off to the races! Now, we
her my plans for making it into an interactive book. She just had to make the app. Simple, right?
loved the characters, and as our tastes are very similar, we The first big hurdle was the choice of engine: all the
All the artwork shown quickly came up with a concept and outline for the story. artwork shown in the pitch was pre-rendered, so we
in the initial funding pitch I decided to crowdfund the project on Kickstarter, needed a solution that could deliver the same level of
was unrendered offering a copy of the app in addition to fine art prints of quality on handheld devices like the iPad. The shader set
the characters and scenery. This would not only pay for up for V-Ray wasn’t anything earth-shattering, but we
my software but also give me a decent insight into what were pretty sure that the iOS platform couldn’t handle it.
people thought of the concept. The crowdfunding was a Was it even possible to get something looking as good as
huge success. The target of $5,000 was reached in less we wanted?
The Paper Fox is

intended for all children
aged four and over
JEMERY KOOL Q&A

Find out what drives Jeremy Kool and his advice for people trying to break into the CG industry
What first inspired you to How did you break into Where do you draw your Of which piece of work What is your favourite or
become a 3D artist? the industry? inspiration from? are you most proud? most-used 3D software,
It’s partially due to I worked my butt off for As many places as I think it would have to be and why?
laziness, to be honest! the year I was at the possible: books, art the character of The Paper I use Maya for modelling,
My goal as an artist is to Academy of Interactive galleries, nature, games. Fox. The reason being: but render in V-Ray, which
create original, inspirational Entertainment in Australia. I’ve found in the past that I set myself a challenge I love. It took a while to
pieces as quickly and In addition to the school if I’m just paying attention that I wasn’t sure I could learn, but I find that V-Ray
effectively as possible. 3D work, I asked my lecturer if to video games, for accomplish – to create gives me great, fast results
art allows me to focus on he could tell me where my example, my artwork will a near photo-realistic every time. If your models
the creative aspects of weakest points were in my simply be a sad photocopy papercraft look in 3D. I aren’t lit and rendered
the artwork and not have folio, so I could improve from that world. think my proudest moment nicely, it’s the equivalent
to worry about spending those areas. During that was when people around of putting a beautiful
hundreds of hours learning year, I built up a folio of the world contacted me sculpture in a dark room
how to render, light and work and luckily Krome asking what kind of paper with a dim bulb.
colour by hand. hired me later that year. I used!

The Paper Fox app
CREATURE OF HABIT
Jeremy Kool shares his working process for creating
the woodland creatures in the Paper Fox app
To create the wise For the texture, As I’m also using
Amanda
1 stag for The Paper
Fox interactive book, I
3 I created a coloured
set of tiling paper
6 these creatures
in a game engine,
Kool start by box-modelling textures using a base using multiple tiling
Jeremy’s sister has in Maya, using reference texture I created from textures isn’t optimal.
been a technical writer images for proportions. royalty-free paper To get around this, I
for 15 years and has The models are very images. To finish the use Maya to bake the
written three novels. low-poly with hardened illusion of paper, I multiple textures into
She is currently normals. This helps created a normal map one texture sheet. For
working on her fourth imitate the flat planes of using Nvidia’s Photoshop each shader applied, I
folded paper, and also plug-in from the same set the ambient colour
allows the models to be set of textures. This to V:1.000 and the
used on low-powered normal map creates diffuse value to 0.000.
mobile platforms. the subtle detailing This ensures no lighting
that helps sell the information will be baked
After the main form hand-crafted look. in. I then use mental
2 has been modelled,
I spend a great Rendering the animal
ray’s batch bake to bake
the light and colour into
deal of time adding
imperfections. As I’m
4 portrait, I use V-Ray
with a very simple
one map.
trying to make the lighting set-up. For a In addition to colour,

creatures look as
though they were
fill light, I use one large
V-Ray area light and cast
7 I bake an occlusion
pass and a directional
created by hand, this it downward. A smaller light pass. The latter is
is imperative to remove area light is used for a to give the character
the digital feel. I simply key light to illuminate a subtle gradient and
spend time moving, the opposing side, which helps to create the
jostling and rotating pops the character from illusion of sun light. I
faces and vertices ever the drop sheet. create a directional light
so slightly to ensure that pointing downward and
there are no perfect I also render out a bake out an only-light
boxes or edges. 5 Z-depth pass, which
I use in Photoshop to
pass. In Photoshop I
apply this pass at the
create the depth of top of the stack and set
field. This is crucial for it to Soft Light.
creating the illusion
of realism. Once I’ve To complete the
balanced the levels
and sharpened the
8 in-game character
texture, I add some
image, I create a wear to the edges and
combined flattened layer corners to enhance the
[Ctrl]+[Shift]+ [Alt]+[E] illusion of paper craft. An
and apply a layer mask. exported image of the
I use the exported UVs is perfect for this. I
Z-depth pass for the lay the UV image at the
layer mask and then use top of the stack, apply a
a Lens Blur to add depth layer mask and invert it
of field. so none of the UV lines
is showing. Using a soft
brush, I then brush back
the mask on the corners
It took a lot of trial and harder edges. Voila!
and error to achieve the Wear and tear. And we’re
desired lighting effects done, and I love it.
What studio or artist do

you most admire?
There are a lot of game
studios I admire, more
than I can list! I love
DreamWorks, Disney and
Pixar of course. One of my
favourite artists and the
biggest influence on me
is Mike Yamada. He’s a
visual development artist
over at DreamWorks and I
simply adore his art style
and compositions.

The Paper Fox app
With the help of talented environment artist Stephen

Honegger and some hard work, Unity delivered the results
we needed. We baked the lighting in the environments,
and created a simplified version of the character textures
that looked convincingly enough like paper.
Seamless planning
With the characters and first environment modelled,
textured and light-baked, our animator Ian Bright set
to work on rigging the characters and animating the
first scene. The first scene came together better than
expected, with Ian going over and above in the animation
department and giving us new sense of confidence on
bringing life to the world of The Paper Fox.
That confidence was soon to be rocked as we quickly
realised there was a big gap in our overall plan: we had
scoped the artwork, storywriting, animation, mini-games,
music and sound effects, but we hadn’t worked out who
would put all these elements together. We needed to
actually script the app together.
This being my project, I stepped up to the plate.
Nothing drives innovation like necessity, so I started
scouring Unity forums for a way I could put this together
myself without having to learn how to code. This was
certainly the most stressful part of production, because it
The characters were was the biggest unknown.
animated and rigged At this point I discovered PlayMaker, a great visual
after the lighting and scripting plug-in for Unity. It was a complete life-saver
environments had for someone with limited code knowledge, or none in
been finalised my case. I was able to start moving cameras, triggering
animation and sound effects and, after two or three
Particles and effects weeks, I had a working first scene.
were added once the Once all the scenes were assembled, it was a matter of
scene had been completed polishing the visuals, adding particles, layering in the UI,
music, SFX, voiceover track and finally the mini-games.
After around nine months of full-time production
following on from nine months of pre-production, the
app was released on the App Store in late April 2013. It’s
very difficult for me to separate the stress of production
from the genuine love I have for the world we’ve created.
There were times when I was working 12 hours a day,
seven days a week, which doesn’t make for a healthy
lifestyle. That said, I’m extremely proud of The Paper Fox,
and think the level of quality can rival projects with larger
scopes and much bigger budgets.
And I’m sure that, given some time and (hopefully) mild
success, I’ll be excited to delve back into the world of The
Paper Fox again.
”I’m extremely proud of Paper

Fox, and I think the level of
quality can rival projects with
much bigger budgets“
Jeremy Kool

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Aaron Sims interview
Illustrious concept artist Aaron Sims talks about his early

fascination with CG creatures, creating Hulk concepts,
his working process and more…
The Aaron Sims Company’s

first work was for
Francis Lawrence’s 2007
adaptation of I Am Legend

Aaron Sims is one of the most innovative and versatile

concept artists working in films today. To industry insiders,
he is revered for his multi-faceted approach to creature
development and design. To audiences, he is the genius
behind many of today’s most memorable movie monsters.
Find out about Sims’ creative approach to concept and the
adventurous spirit that spurred him on to found his own
studio, The Aaron Sims Company, in this in-depth interview.
The company How has your studio progressed in

3D World: When exactly was The Aaron the last few years?
Sims Company created? The studio has grown from concept
Aaron Sims: I founded The Aaron Sims and design work to pre-viz and VFX.
Company in 2005, after two decades of The movie industry is tricky and I feel
effects work with Rick Baker and Stan we always need to reinvent ourselves to
Winston. When I started it was just me, stay [relevant].
working from home. Then I moved into Although this is true of all businesses,
offices on the historic Warner Brothers the film industry changes the way it makes
lot in West Hollywood. As the workload movies almost every year. So the addition
increased, I needed space to house the of pre-visualisation and VFX to the
artists that would work with me on the company allows us to be more involved
various projects. In June of 2012, we throughout the project and cut costs,
had to move to an even bigger space to or just be used for one of our services,
accommodate the workload. depending on the need.
How many people work in the studio? What do you bring to the CG industry?
There are usually 10 artists that work in As someone who has spent many years
the studio and a few others that are more creating effects for both make-up and
freelance, as the workload increases. The CG, I feel I approach the design process
number goes up and down depending on in a unique way that has helped many of
the projects we’re working on. the films I designed on. I do my best to
communicate with the director or team
How have you developed? by explaining the thought process behind
As someone who has worked in design the design, what it really means and how
for so many years, I realised early in my it will work within the real world.
career if you want to stay current in your With the help of my talented team,
industry, then you have to constantly we often do motion studies to help
reinvent yourself. Adapt what you know illustrate the design. This ensures the
to the current, and always try harder to design works before production even
outdo yourself. begins and [avoids] the possibility of
Sims worked as concept

art director at Stan
Winston’s studio for
2005’s Constantine

Sims’ short film

Archetype focuses on
a giant combat robot
named RL7, which
malfunctions during
a mission
having to redesign something because it Which piece of work would you say the story and script to make the film the
wasn’t thought out. you’re most proud of? best it can possibly be. We are currently
There are so many projects that I’m working on a great script that I know will
What work do you take on? very proud of, and all for many different excite people. Hopefully we’ll be starting
I take on anything that’s given – even reasons. But the one I really feel I had production sometime later this year.
the projects that are different from the a lot to offer in many capacities was my
status quo, or similar projects to ones that short film Archetype. It embodies the The artist
I’ve done in the past. I’m always up for a aspect of so many things that inspired me What is your favourite or most-used
new challenge. as young man, such as Star Wars. A robot 3D software?
that’s in no way human, yet you feel for it. Having a background in practical effects,
What’s the next step for you and Aaron Sims set up his and sculpting in clay for so many years
your company? What’s the latest with the Archetype company in 2005 and really makes me enjoy ZBrush. It is my
The next step for my company is to feature film? has contributed designs favourite 3D program when it comes to
continue evolving the art process and how Making movies takes a lot of time – years for, among other movies, modelling and virtual sculpting. Before
we execute it by creating and developing in some cases. It takes even longer if the X-Men: First Class, Clash that I was a huge fan of Softimage – but
new tools that help us design and create concept isn’t well known, like Archetype. of the Titans and The now I mainly use Macs, and unfortunately
effects, and to create our own IP. This is an original idea and with that Amazing Spider-Man they never made it for that platform. Also,
comes the risk of whether or not people it seems everyone uses Maya within the
The work will go see the movie – if they’re not industry, and so I have embraced it as
What was the first piece of commercial familiar with the notion, there is a chance an animation program.
work the studio did? they won’t go.
The first job at my company was the film The good thing about films like Describe your ethos in 10 words.
I Am Legend (the 2007 sci-fi movie Archetype, and taking the time to make I’m a passionate artist for the entire
directed by Francis Lawrence). it, is that it allows us to really focus on process of film-making.
Background and evolution

How Aaron Sims marries CG with the traditional to make movie monsters
“I believe the most 80s and 90s, we only had for someone who loves
important thing in pen and paper, paint or sculpting, it’s the closest
designing any character clay to create the designs. thing to designing in
for the film industry is I’m really dating myself, clay. ZBrush is my
designing it in a way that aren’t I? go-to software.
everyone will understand “However, I feel this “What’s also great
how and what they are benefited my creative about designing in 3D
making. This means process by learning the is being able to make a
designing the character more traditional way of library of your work that
exactly how it will look in designing. Then, it was you can come back to
the movie by making it as just creating any design for designing on some
real as possible. from scratch. There is other project later – this is
“With all the great 3D nothing like sculpting in important for me and my
technology available and real, physical clay. But team of artists. Building
programmed with the these days there’s rarely a library of humans,
artist in mind, designing the time or the need. creatures, robots and
has become an easier “Today we have 3D so on makes it easier to
task than it was many software like ZBrush get lots of concepts out,
years ago. When I first and Mudbox, which isn’t without starting from
started designing in the really like clay at all – but scratch every time.”

Incredible iterations
Aaron Sims reveals the early concept work that he did for The Incredible Hulk
“Every project has its own until I felt it was close face to the length of hair
challenges, but the most to a Hulk-like body. From to the exact shade of his
challenging piece had to there, it was making skin. Then I also had to
be The Incredible Hulk. many variations until we incorporate how much
The reason why this was got something that was of the actor we wanted
such a challenge is that working for the director. to see within these
whenever you design a Then I focused on the designs. I must have done
character that’s so well head. This was the most hundreds of versions. I
known, you have to be time-consuming part – started with modelling
sensitive to the fan base, mainly because this is in ZBrush; would bring it
while making something where the character really into to Softimage to do
that works for the film, is. The face, the eyes – it’s my render passes; then in
and feels fresh. It took what makes the Hulk, Photoshop I’d composite
hundreds of designs to the Hulk. This is where them together and do
get the final version. the personality of the my tweaks. I would add
“For the Hulk, I started character comes through. layers of photos for pores,
in ZBrush with a base “Focusing on the Hulk wrinkles, hair, etc, to help
human I had made, and was a process of finding contribute to the realism.
began to change the the right look from the After a lot of hard work,
“When I first saw proportions of the body structure of the head and we finally found our Hulk.”
Jurassic Park, I was

immediately interested
in CG because I was
so impressed with
the dinosaurs”
What do you aspire to?

I always aspire to be better than I was
the year before. I always try to devote
my time and life to the things that betters
myself, and the things that will help to
inspire others.
What first inspired you to become

an artist?
I had many inspirations as a child, but
my father had to be my first. He was both
an artist and an animator. I watched him
as I was growing up always embracing
new technology.
When I saw the film Jurassic Park,
I was immediately interested in CG
because I was so impressed with the
dinosaurs, and I desperately wanted to The Hulk for Louis
know how they created them. At that Leterrier’s Incredible Hulk
time, there wasn’t much information had a more sinewy look
on CG, but I absorbed anything I could than in Ang Lee’s original
get my hands on to learn about it. Later,
luckily, there were quite a few tapes and
books on the market.
Where would you say you draw your

inspiration from?
Anywhere and everywhere. I often find
inspiration through movies, video games,
and other artists around the world. It
seems anytime I Google a reference for a
project, there is always something on the
internet that I find inspirational.
What’s your favourite film?

Star Wars has to be my favourite film,
for so many reasons. It just blew me
away when I was a kid. At that time,

Sculpting realistic detail

Aaron Sims develops fantastical creatures full of emotion using ZBrush,
Softimage and Photoshop for his Tethered Islands project
“Tethered Islands is a alien races, and this is an To create this, I used the
project we are working example of one of them. same process of sculpting
on internally. We plan I started with the idea the forms and details in
on creating a short film that I wanted this guy to ZBrush, then bringing it
to generate interest, be able to create a lot of into Softimage to render
with the hopes it will get emotion and be able to out my passes; and in
developed into a feature. be expressive through his Photoshop I composited
“In the film, there are dialogue, while remaining them together, and added
lots of different types of relatable to the audience. photo layers.”
Sims’ concept art for

Tethered Islands
I had never seen anything like it, from The industry “The film industry is
the characters and aliens, to the distant What studio’s work do you most admire?
worlds and spaceships. Star Wars was the I’m a huge JJ Abrams fan. His studio Bad always changing. When
first film that took me on a journey to a Robot produces amazing and inspiring
galaxy far, far away. work. I’m also a fan of the pioneers at I started in the 1980s,
ILM for really blazing the trail for what we
What’s your favourite CG animation? see on the screen currently. most creature effects
CG is one of those things that seem to In fact, both ILM and Weta have
always get better. As audience members, always pushed the envelope in VFX work. were done with make-
we are always amazed when we first see They are responsible for some of the
something new; but we soon become most incredible and memorable VFX, and up and puppets”
jaded when we see new effects that make have so many talented artists that are
the ones from before look less convincing. continually creating really amazing work.
Still, for me, the first Jurassic Park started in the 1980s, most – if not all –
‘T-Rex in the rain’ scene continues to What advice can you give to aspiring 3D creature effects were done with make-up
amaze me; but there are too many artists looking to break into the industry? and puppets. It was Jurassic Park that
favourites now to list. The only advice I can give is that you must changed everything, opening up a new
work hard and then put your work out world of what one could do with VFX,
What’s your favourite video game? there for all to see. If you have talent, and but it also helped begin to eliminate the
I’m a big fan of first-person shooter others see it, there is a good chance you need for animatronics and puppets - and
games, especially if I’m fighting aliens or will find work. There is a lot of competition even some makeup effects.
monsters. Halo, Mass Effect, and Gears of Vampires, monsters in the movie industry, and being a CG It is really hard to say what will happen
War are just a few that I enjoy playing, as and aliens are the some artist is very much a freelance business, so with VFX artists and companies. Many
well as the back-stories. of the main products of keep in mind that work may come and go. companies are going out of business, and
Aaron Sims’s CG studio Always remember that it is difficult work outsourcing is becoming more prevalent.
Who’s your favourite artist? and you will spend long hours in the office, Right now the VFX community is coming
I really don’t have a single, favourite artist. but it’s worth the time and effort. together to bring attention to how artists
There are so many that I like, for many are frequently overlooked, even though
different reasons. But I would mention How has the industry has changed since they [make] enormous contributions to
both HR Giger, for his inspiring Alien you first started? major blockbusters. I hope more attention
design; and Syd Mead, for his amazing The film industry is always changing, and will be paid to this portion of the industry
outlook on the future. always will continue to evolve. When I in the very near future.

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www.3dworldmag.
com/vault
60 MINUTES
OF VIDEO
Understanding face Download Titouan Olive’s guide
anatomy can give great to facial construction
Secrets of
results – just like this www.3dworldmag.com/vault
issue’s cover image!
About the author

Titouan Olive is
a freelance 3D
artist working
sculpting faces
as a lead
character artist
on videogames and animated
Titouan Olive uses ZBrush to take you through
films. He has also worked on
various freelance projects for
rapid prototyping, product
the key stages of creating characters with
design and architecture
digitalia3d.teria.fr accurate muscle and bone structures

Face anatomy in ZBrush TRAINING
natomy is a basic art that has been
A studied for hundreds of years by all
the great masters. It was, and always
will be, the key to creating realistic and believable ANATOMY LESSON
characters. Improving your knowledge of A Orbiclaris oculi
F
anatomy will also greatly improve your B Levator labii
sculpting skills. C Orbiclaris oris
It’s essential for realistic characters, of course, D Depressor labii
but it’s also important for cartoon and stylised E Trapezius
G F Frontal area
characters. The underlying anatomy is always A
there, but muscles, bones and cartilage – even if G Temporal area
they might seem almost invisible at first sight – H Major zygomatic
are still the main building blocks. I Minor zygomatic
For this tutorial, I want to focus on facial J Masseter
anatomy. You’ll learn about the underlying K Sterno-cleido-mastoid
muscles and bones and how to sculpt the visible B H
muscles directly on a skull. I
This exercise will help you to be more accurate
in sculpting faces. Your ability for head sculpting Before you start
will change as well because now you’ll be able to C Research the muscle groups
understand what is under the skin, and you’ll then J
Before you embark on your CG
be able to apply your anatomical knowledge to head, have a look at the image I’ve
your own sculptures. prepared for you, where some of
I have prepared a skull specially for this tutorial the main muscles are named. Also,
(look in the accompanying tutorial files), and we’ll D if you have the opportunity, a good
build the muscles directly on to it. We’ll use this thing is to collect more information
skull as a base and it will be a great help to sculpt K
about what we are going to study
accurately, keeping the right proportions and here. The internet is full of websites
staying on track. E about anatomy, and you should find
I used ZBrush for this tutorial, but it shouldn’t what you need in a few minutes.
be a problem to follow this training with other This preparatory step is always
sculpting applications, as long as you’re familiar important and will certainly speed
with the software. up your work.
Video 1 tool: use the buttons at the top and

Basic shapes click and drag on your mesh to draw
We shall start by drawing the basic a transpose line, then use this line to
shape on the skull. We’ll then sculpt move and scale your sphere.
the main muscles and cartilaginous Under Geometry, click on the
parts, such as the ears, and then DynaMesh button to create a
finish by refining each part. dynamic mesh. This function also
Load the mesh I’ve prepared for enables you to be able to update
you. We’ll build the muscles on top. your mesh as you work. If you think
For this, click on the Append button you need it, you just have to [Ctrl]-
under the Subtools menu and choose drag on the Canvas and ZBrush will
a sphere in the pop-up window. calculate a new mesh adapted to all
A sphere is now added in your the modifications you make on it.
subtools list and is, of course, also You can repeat this action every time
visible in your scene. Select it and you need to, as often as you want.
start by activating Symmetry ([X] on Doing this, you will have entirely new
your keyboard). Place it correctly on geometry that is evenly distributed
the skull using the Scale and Move across the mesh.
Import the skull in

ZBrush and use it to sculpt
the muscles of the head »

Video 2
Setting transparency
Now click on the Transp button on the right to
enable transparency and to be able to see the skull
under your sphere. This function is very helpful
when sculpting, as it gives us a reference point. If
you want to adjust the opacity/transparency level,
you can do this by playing with the sliders in the
Preferences under the Draw menu.
We can now adjust our sphere on the skull. Start
by giving a basic shape with the Move Brush. Don’t
hesitate to stretch your mesh now that you are in
DynaMesh mode. Hold the [Ctrl] key and click and
drag on the canvas to update your mesh if you
need to. You can also increase the resolution at
any time if you feel you don’t have enough polys
to reasonably work with. Deform and adjust
Adjust your mesh on the back of the head. You the sphere on the skull
can adjust it very close to the skull, since the skin to shape the head
is very thin at this point.
Draw a mask,
Sculpt the main inverse it and extrude
elements of the face very your selection to
roughly at this stage create the neck
Video 3 you need it. When the shape is Video 4 neck. Once it’s done, hold [Ctrl]
Shaping the face basically sculpted, switch to the Building muscle and click and drag on the canvas to
Once the main shape is roughly nose and sculpt the nostrils and At this stage, the goal is still to build erase completely your mask and to
adjusted on the skull, you can the main cartilage areas. the main foundations and to keep as be able to sculpt everywhere. Use
start to shape the eyes and the Look at the skull under your many shapes as simple as possible. the Smooth brush to soften your
nose. The skull will help you to mesh and see how the bone Since it’s hard to imagine a head work and the Move brush to improve
sculpt each of these elements structure has changed, if indeed without a decent neck, it seems the main form. Block out the main
more accurately, so keep an eye it has changed at all. If you obvious and indispensable to study muscles – those are very strong
on it through your mesh as you observe the nasal area, the those muscles in this training too. and pretty massive to sustain the
sculpt. You can add more volume bone here is very short and so, The neck plays a very important head, so keep that in mind during
to the eyebrow areas with the obviously, the nostrils and the role and puts the head into action. your work. Their role is also to move
Standard or Clay Brush – or your tip of the nose are made with The muscles of the neck also have a the head – that’s why their visibility
preferred sculpting brush; it’s cartilage and muscles only. strong impact on facial expressions. changes as the head moves. The
totally up to you. Now sculpt the shape of the Draw a mask under the head neck muscles are more obvious when
We are now going to sculpt mouth and block out some of (hold [Ctrl] and simply draw on your it’s turned than what it is faced
closed eyes in order to see the surrounding muscles. Don’t mesh). Invert your mask by holding forward, for example. Things should
more clearly the eyelid area. Use waste your time on details: rough [Ctrl] and clicking on the canvas. go pretty fast at this stage: don’t
the Pinch brush on this part if shapes are enough at this stage. Use the Move tool to stretch down waste your time on complicated
your selection and to shape the shapes, and keep it simple.

Face anatomy in ZBrush TRAINING
Video 5
Ear ‘ere!
We’ll create the ears next. This part
is mostly done with cartilage. We’ll
speed up the process using a base
mesh already available in ZBrush. To
do this, hit [B] on your keyboard to
open the Brushes menu and choose
IMM BParts Brush, then hold [M]
on your keyboard and choose the
ear in the pop-up menu. Now click Place the ears on the
and drag on the side of the head, head and merge them on
approximately where you want to the face with DynaMesh
place the ears. At this stage, ZBrush
will mask the whole head to enable
you to move, rotate, or scale the ears
as if it was a new subtool, without
worrying about the head.
Once the ears are placed, use the
Move brush to adjust correctly the
main shape on the head and update
your mesh with DynaMesh ([Ctrl]-
drag outside your mesh) to merge
the ears onto the head. Expert tip
It’s important to
work in the detail and
individual muscles, while
remembering the overall
impact they have on the
face as a whole
Refine the lips and

continue your work
on the facial muscles
Video 7 why, when you smile or when you laugh,

Start to block Visualise the muscles working they are very useful. The orbicularis
out the main We are now going to focus our work on oculi muscles around the eyes are used
muscles and the the muscles of the face, trying to sculpt to close the eyelids, and the orbicularis
basic shapes of them as accurately as possible. We’ll oris muscles act in the same way but
the face sculpt them pretty roughly at first and for the lips and mouth. (See the muscle
we’ll then refine them one by one. diagram on page 61.)
Keep up your work on the muscular As you sculpt, a good thing to do is
system, shaping the main muscles to draw stripes on the muscles to
Video 6 around the mouth and around the eyes. keep the same flow. It will also help
Placement problems They look like circles and are moved by to visualise how each muscle works.
Smooth the merged area and sculpt the anatomy of the ears, the other muscles attached on them to Draw circular stripes around the mouth
which are made with cartilage but without visible muscles. give the various expressions of the face. and vertical lines on the muscles of the
Block in the main shapes and try to use reference to be At this step, when you want to build neck for example. During this step, try
more accurate. Ears are not very difficult to sculpt once you’ve a base mesh with polygons ready for to imagine how each muscle will react
understood their anatomy, which is very particular. A good animation and which deforms properly, when the face will be happy or sad.
tip is to use a mirror to look at your own ears and to use as you need to create the same flow Each muscle is important when the face
many references as possible. Take care with proportions and around eyes and mouth with edge loops. expresses a mood, so try to keep that in
placement. The ears will look wrong if you place them too high As you sculpt, try to understand what mind when sculpting.
or too low, for example. Try to place them between the lower the role of each muscle is. For example, Now sharpen each muscle and
part of the nose and of the upper part of the eyebrows. the minor zygomatic muscles pull up give some more definition on the face.
Continue your work on the face, roughly sculpting the jaw, and and outside the upper lip. The major You can experiment to use a brush with
the cheekbones where several muscles are attached. It’s a good zygomatic muscles plays the same role, a lower radius to do that and to be
idea to sculpt the eyelids and the chin as well, while at the same but for the corner of the lips. That’s more accurate.
time trying to work on the whole face as a whole. »

Sculpt each
muscle one by
one, taking their
Draw the direction into
muscles around account
the eyes and
around the
mouth, and then
refine them
Video 8 to increase the resolution using the Video 9 area. A rectangle area will appear
Muscle definition slider under the DynaMesh button Beautiful eyes in green. When you release the
and refinement and update your mesh. ([Ctrl]-click Let’s refine the eyelids at this mouse button, anything outside
Draw the muscles on the chin and and drag on the canvas.) stage. To do this, import a sphere this area becomes hidden –
on the jaw, bearing in mind this is a In some cases, you might also as a new subtool using the unless you also hold down [Alt],
strong muscle that has to be able to want to activate Lazy Mouse. This Append button. Then hide the which will make the selection red
move the lower jaw and to be able to function helps a lot when you face and select the skull. Now and hides whatever is inside the
chew food. need to sculpt very smooth and place your sphere in the orbital selection area. When it’s done,
Continue to work on the skull and accurate lines. To do this, the only hole inside the skull. Check your hold [Ctrl]+[Shift] and click on
temporal areas. The muscle on the thing you have to do is press [L] on mesh and adjust the eyelids on the canvas to make the whole
frontal area is very shallow since your keyboard. the sphere. It’s a great way to head visible. You can now delete
the underlying skull is very close. Check the placement for each get the right shape. the sphere since this one won’t
However, the temporal area is slightly muscle and the shape of the bones You can isolate the eye area, to be useful anymore. Refine the
deeper and a little bit stronger. of the spine at the base of the neck. enable it to be easier to work on, muscles around the eyelids by
Now focus your work on the neck I slightly refine the lips at this stage by holding the [Ctrl]+[Shift] keys drawing circular lines and giving
and refine the main muscles. If you and I also make some adjustments and drag and drop onto the eyes them more volume.
feel you lack polygons, don’t hesitate on the neck.
Finish your work by Video 10 match your references. The nose

sculpting the cartilage Nose sculpting is made with bones, muscles and
on the nose and redefine and finishing touches cartilage – try to keep that in mind
some muscles if needed When you’re done, focus your and sculpt each part differently and
attention on the muscles close to appropriately.
the nose. Paint stripes on each Finish the work by sculpting and
muscle to give the right flow and to adding stripes on the last muscles.
make the muscles more readable. It’s always much more easy to
Keep in mind that each muscle has create something when you know
its own function. what you have done to reach
Continue to refine the whole that stage, and I would strongly
Expert tip face. Draw bigger stripes when the recommend to anyone willing to
Having a solid grasp muscles are stronger, on the jaw learn or to improve their knowledge
of anatomy of the head for example. It might sound logical, about portrait and head sculpting to
and face muscles and but it will help you to understand get a clear and solid understanding
structure will dramatically and to read more clearly the whole of portraiture through this kind
improve your workflow muscular system. of anatomy training. I would
when creating this type Sculpt the main cartilage on recommend you do this at least once,
of model the nose and don’t hesitate to as it should significantly improve your
smooth and to redraw a muscle workflow, as well as your quality of
if you think it’s wrong or doesn’t work. Good luck!

TRAINING Fundamentals
Fundamentals
Scene layout
FOR
Any 3D software
TOPICS COVERED
tGenerating
instances
The fundamentals
tExternal instances
tCreating variety
DOWNLOAD VIA
3D WORLD VAULT
of instancing
tScreenshots
www.3dworldmag.
Mike Griggs explains how intelligent cloning gives
com/vault you power over thousands of objects
ou need to make a scene of a are just ethereal ghosts in the amount displaying the light characteristics of a
Y woodland glade as a backdrop for
a new animation your company is
of resources it uses on your computer.
Incredibly complex meshes such as forests
scene that much quicker.
Depending on your software, instances
about to create. It has to have lush verdant can be rendered in not much more time can be animated via deformers or can
trees that the camera will move through, than if you were rendering a single tree. populate the surface of large meshes
but the 3D supervisors want a first look at Getting to grips with the instancing quickly if they are selected as the generator
a rendered scene by tomorrow morning. characteristics of your 3D software can of the instances’ position in your scene.
Thing is, you’re on set and all you have is unleash huge benefits to you as an artist When using crowd generation software,
your laptop. You tell him you will have it laid both in terms of efficiency in scene building instances can travail terrain quickly or be
out and rendered in an hour. and render time, as you minimise the given rudimentary intelligence about how to
Instancing, an amazingly powerful load on your computer. An instance of a act with their new terrain and each other.
feature of 3D software, is known by other 3D mesh requires a fraction of the RAM Variety can also add flavour to your
names such as proxies or referencing. and other computer resources that a full work. Why have a city of one building when
In essence, instancing creates multiple duplicate of an object requires. Render time three distinct meshes will give much more
clones of a 3D object, the layout of which reduces exponentially when using instances character as they are cloned over your
is controlled by the artist. These clones compared to duplicates, as the renderer street map? Instancing can give you the
appear fully formed at render time but as far only has to load a mesh once, which allows power of a god to build complex scenes in
I N A S S O C I AT I O N W I T H
www.mediadesignschool.com as the 3D software is concerned the clones it to get to its main job of calculating and your 3D software.
Make a forest with instances
About the author

Mike Griggs is 01 Choose your trees 02 Create your landscape 03 Generate your instances
a freelance I choose three similar trees from I create a rolling mesh to act as a Ensuring my centre point for each tree is
concept 3D,
VFX and motion my library; ideally their leaves will be landscape for my trees. I insert my trees at the base of the trunk, the instance tool
graphics artist instances as well, saving time on loading into a cloning tool to create instances is set to the landscape mesh to generate
working across TV, exhibition
and digital design models as you work and render. of them. my instances to create a forest.
www.creativebloke.com

Fundamentals TRAINING
Five instancing tips

HOW TO GET THE MOST OF INSTANCES IN YOUR SCENE
Use multiple mesh generators

To add variety to a scene of instances it is best
practice to use more than one base mesh, for
example a forest of trees or buildings in a city. This
can add realistic variety to your scene as the human
eye is designed to distinguish repeating patterns.
If your instances are set to generate and scale
randomly, they can create unique imagery that will
Animate instances convince the viewer they are looking at thousands of
Depending on your software, different items.
instances can be animated via
deformers within the cloning
tool and this carries across all or
pre-selected instances. You can
also use these same techniques
to offset the time of animations of
your instances to add variety to a
running crowd. Dynamics, when
applied to instances, can create
complex animations, and allow
the computer to concentrate its
resources on the simulation rather External files
than on the geometry. as instances
If you’re working in a team,
instances can be a great way
of collaborating efficiently. If
one artist is working on a model
of a soldier, another artist can
reference that model as an
external instance for animating
in a crowd scene where multiple
instances of the soldier can be
seen. As the instances are derived
Optimising your scene from a separate model file, when
The great thing about using the soldier model is revised by the
instances is that they allow you to modelling artist, the layout and
manipulate more geometric data animation artist will see this new
than your computer could handle model used without the need to
if each instance were a unique redo any of the animation.
object. However, you may still find
that your machine can grind when
working with a large amount of
instances. If available, view your
instances as bounding boxes,
which give a representation of the
position and scale of your instance
but will help your computer more
efficiently manipulate the scene
before your render.
Instancing software
Most 3D packages use instancing at the core of their pipelines,
and render applications like V-Ray have render proxies which
allow you to only bring in geometry at render time while being
represented by bounding boxes or similar while you’re in your edit
view. The new player on the instancing software block is Clarisse
iFX by Isotropix: this 3D layout application takes instancing to a
new paradigm with the ability to allow you to edit your instances
directly within your Preview/Render View.

TRAINING Texture a model in Maya
Video Guide
Maya /
Photoshop
Texturing
FOR
Maya 2014
Master the full

Photoshop
TIME TAKEN
Two hours
texturing process
TOPICS COVERED
tUV mapping
tOcclusion and
diffuse map baking
tTexture painting
tTexture detailing
tSpecular and bump Antony Ward uses a sci-fi mech model to present
map creation
a complete guide to adding surface information
here is no denying that a beautifully constructed can be daunting, but they needn’t be. Over the course
T model can be both impressive and inspiring. The
ability to create something from a handful of
of this tutorial, we will explore how to take a model of a
futuristic space dock loader and fully texture it, readying
vertices and polygons is a true skill. it to be rendered.
DOWNLOAD VIA What some artists struggle with is the idea of taking You will explore UV mapping, texture baking and
3D WORLD VAULT this model a step further, bringing it to life with colour, generating a basic texture pass before you go further
tVideo tutorial surface detail and specularity. The thought of painting and spoil the clean, showroom finish with dirt, damage
tProject files texture maps, especially if your 2D skills are a little rusty, and the odd splash of alien ooze.
tScreenshots
www.3dworldmag.
com/vault Video 1
Choose your route
Having your model built is only the
first stage, and unfortunately you
can’t rush ahead and begin painting
your textures just yet. Before any
paint, dirt, rust or alien fluids can
be applied, you must first add UV
mapping data to each model. This
will help dictate where each pixel will
lie across the surface of the model,
so you know exactly where you are
going to be painting.
Before you begin to UV the model
you have a decision to make. To
Smooth Mesh or to Smooth your
mesh? A tricky but crucial decision.
Using the Smooth Mesh option
will give your model the illusion that
is has been subdivided – much like
Do you rely on when using Subdivision Surfaces.
Smooth Mesh, or This route will also keep the polygon
Smooth your model count low and manageable.
and increase the Applying a Smooth operation to
polygon count? your model effectively bakes these
subdivisions into the topology. This
approach will make UV mapping
About the author easier, but at the cost of increased
Antony Ward has topology and a much larger file size.
been provoking
pixels since the For the purposes of this tutorial we
early 1990s. He will focus on the Smooth Mesh route,
has worked for
some of today’s top studios as it’s a little trickier to work with
www.ant-online.co.uk when UV mapping.

Texture a model in Maya TRAINING
Follow this tutorial to

learn how to make your
machines look battered
and thoroughly used
98 MINUTES
OF VIDEO
Download Antony Ward’s guide
to adding textures and maps

Video 2
Planar projections
Rather than use an automatic mapping system
to give your initial layout of UVs, focus on planar
projections to start off. This will give you much more
control over the first stages of your UV layout.
When working on a the Loader’s lower thigh,
for example, generate a planar projection from the
side, then select the polygons where the texture
is stretched and project again from the front. You
don’t need to create fixed projections from all
angles, just the most important.
Once those are generated, it’s then time to
define the major UV seams, which should be placed
in hidden areas, and then to use the Unfold UV tool
to spread out the UV shells, making them more
evenly spaced out.
Using the Unfold Constraints, first horizontally
and then vertically, is a good way to start relaxing
each UV shell while preventing it from collapsing Use basic projections to
in on itself. start your models UVs
Video 4
Video 3 UV shells
Unfolding UVs With the process repeated for each element of the
Let me guess: your UVs aren’t unfolding model, you now need to arrange the UV shells so
as planned and instead are deforming in they fit neatly onto each texture page.
an unpredictable and horrible way? This is For something like the Loader, you can’t fit
down to the use of Smooth Mesh, which everything onto a single page as there wouldn’t be
Maya currently doesn’t play well with when enough space to correctly texture each element.
generating sensible UV layouts (among A sensible option would be to multiply the texture
other things). There is however a quick way page into two and assign the torso to one page,
to get around this problem. and the limbs to another.
With the initial UVs applied, before you If you want to be more economical you could
use the Unfold UVs tool, duplicate the simply work on one set of limbs, duplicating and
model and move it to one side so you can mirroring them when you’re finished. This will save
focus on it without getting distracted by the on texture space, and time, but it’s always good to
rest of the Loader. try and make each side even a little unique.
What you can do now is apply a single A good rule to work to while organising your
Smooth to the model, effectively following UV shells is to apply a checkered texture and then
our earlier Plan B. try and keep each grid section uniform in size and
Baking just a single subdivision into the shape to ensure even page distribution.
mesh will give you more topology to play
with, meaning the Unfold UV tools will start
to behave.
At this stage you could choose to keep
the subdivided model and delete the lower
version, but if you want to retain the more
economical option simply use the Transfer
Attributes tool to copy the fixed UVs from
this model back to the original.
Once each element

is fully UV’d, arrange
and layout your
texture pages
Generate UVs on a
high-res model and use
Transfer Attributes to
copy them back to the
low-res version if you
have problems

Expert tip
Once you have a
finished texture you can
then copy it to other body
parts. This method is
much faster than creating
unique textures for each
separate body part
Bake the subdivisions into each model
before you begin baking your maps
Video 5 maps are also handy to use as a guide while you the limbs. This means you only have two models
Baking maps are painting later, as a texture page with lots of in this scene now but don’t worry, this file can be
You are going to linger in Maya for a little longer elements can sometimes be difficult to navigate. treated as temporary – so don’t overwrite your
now, and make Photoshop wait its turn. While Let’s focus on the torso from here on so we existing save!
you have the model ready, with its UVs neatly aren’t repeating the same steps over and over. Baking maps won’t currently work correctly on
organised, it makes sense for you to let Maya Each stage you do to the torso can be transferred a mesh with Smooth Mesh enabled (that’s another
generate a few starter maps for you. easily to the limbs. limitation), so you will need to quickly bake the
Baking out occlusion and diffuse maps will To make your life easier, combine all the subdivisions. You can do this by performing Modify
speed up your workflow while also adding more elements which will be on the torso texture page, > Convert > Smooth Mesh Preview to Polygons on
depth and realism to the textures. These starter so you have a single model. Also do the same for each model.
Video 7
Applying colours
For the next stage you are going to bake
out the colour information from the model
into a diffuse map.
On a fresh version of the model, work
your way around applying colours to each
part. These only need to be basic shaders
at this stage as all we are after is the colour
information. We shall add the detail in a
later stage in the process.
Remember while you are doing this you
don’t need to limit yourself to each model.
Use a texture Experiment by applying colours on a per-
bake set with a polygon basis. This enables you to include
surface shader extra details which may be tricky to try and
to bake out an draw in by hand later.
occlusion map
Video 6 tells Maya to bake out the surface information on

Occlusion map this model.
The first map you are going to bake is a lighting Adjust the resolution to suit your needs, and also
map, also known as an occlusion map. This will increase the Fill Texture Seams option.
export the lighting information on the model, Next create a new Surface Shader and apply this
giving you highlights and shadows which will make to the Torso. You will be using this to gather the
the Loader feel more solid. information which will be baked, but before you
Before we proceed I have to say a big thanks to do, you need to connect a new mib_amb_occlusion
fellow tutor Pat Imrie for sharing this tip. node into the Out Colour tab.
Select the torso and assign a new bake set by With that set all you need to do now is go to Work your way around the model
going to Lighting/Shading > Assign New Bake Set Lighting/Shading > Mental Ray (Batch Bake) to dictating key areas of colour
(Mental Ray) > Texture Bake Set. This effectively bake out the Occlusion map. »

Video 8 Lighting/Shading > Transfer Maps to
Duplicating and diffusing open the tool.
When you are happy with the colours, In here you can transfer
bake the Smooth Mesh subdivisions information between two models, be
in the same way you did earlier by that normal map data, shader data or
using the Smooth Mesh Preview to as you will be needing, diffuse data.
Polygons tool. Select the Diffuse option and
You now have a source model, then specify your Source and Target
but for this step to work you need models, along with the path and size
a model to bake the information of the texture you wish to output.
onto. Duplicate the coloured model, Then click Bake!
applying a temporary flat grey
material to the new mesh so it’s Use the Transfer Maps tool
easily identifiable. With your Source to bake the colour information
and Target models ready go to into a diffuse map
Video 9 blending mode to Soft Light, and the

Texture pages new copy to Multiply.
Now you have these main maps in Adjust the Opacity on both these
your arsenal you are in good shape to layers now to around 50%.
start creating your texture pages. If you now reapply these new
Take these into Photoshop and textures back onto the Loader you
layer them up so you have a Diffuse will see you have the base colours
and an Occlusion layer. Duplicate and lighting completed, and it didn’t
the Occlusion layer and set the first take long to do...
Start by drawing main details

like panels, decals and stickers
Video 10 dirt and damage, it’s important

Adding textures to get the main details into the
Your maps are off to a great start textures. This includes any text,
and with a few simple details, logo’s, patterns, stickers or
what you should be looking at is a anything important to dictate the
clean, new Loader. This however machines identity.
isn’t what you want: this machine What you also need to do
needs to look like it’s been used is draw in areas which will be
and abused in an alien-infested recessed into the surface,
space station, not fresh off the like panels, controls or other
production line. technical bits and bobs. These
With just a few textures won’t remain black however, and
added you can quickly dirty this may not make it through to the
machine, and with some quick final diffuse map. They are here
Expert tip painting add some wear, tear to guide you, and later on you can
To make your textures and damage to the surface. use this layer to help build your
looks as realistic as Before you move onto the actual other detail maps.
possible, research how
they look in real life and try
and replicate them in your
modelling and painting
Use textures or photos to give

you some dirt and rust
Combine the diffuse
and occlusion maps in
Photoshop and apply Video 11 Overlay these onto your texture and
them to the Loader Blending modes experiment with different blending
All the main areas are marked out, modes to get the look you are after.
so now you can throw some dirt Each will give a different result, but
and general surface debris over the Overlay, Multiply or Soft Light are a
model. This is much easier than it good place to start.
sounds, but you will need to source Dirt generally doesn’t fall onto a
some textures first. surface uniformally – it gathers in
There are plenty of websites that creases and around edges. Once you
host good, high-resolution textures. have your maps in place, go over
Search out some appropriate ones them and gently erase some of the
that can also be easily tiled. detail to replicate this effect.

Use your painting skills now to go in and mark areas

where the surface has been chipped or worn away
Video 12 texture painting in these worn and chipped areas. Just

Texture painting with a pen use a flat colour, like grey, and almost scratch away at
Now you have some general dirt over your textures you can start the surface.
to go in and work a little closer. For an extra level of detail why not add a slight white
If you examine metallic surfaces, particularly ones which Outer Glow effect in Photoshop, to simulate the
have a covering of paint, you will see that the worn away areas pale layer of paint between the surface and the
are usually restricted to the edges, or sections more exposed metal beneath?
and likely to come into contact with the outside world. It’s now You can even go a step further and add a
time to get your pen out and start working your way around the darker Inner Glow for a slight feeling of depth.
Use and adjust

the key layers from
your diffuse map to
generate a bump map
Build the specular map in exactly the

same way as you approached the bump
map, but in reverse
Video 14 think in reverse. The areas you want to

Specular maps be the shiniest, like the metal under the
The specular map works in much the paint, should be the brightest on the
Video 13 same way as the bump map. Lighter texture so they catch more light.
Generating maps areas are shinier and more reflective Over the past six pages we have
Even with the diffuse map created and applied, your Loader still than darker areas. explored a quick way to build texture
seems a little flat. In order for you to include some surface relief This map however doesn’t have to be maps, but as always this is just the
and also make those worn-away areas stand out, you will need greyscale if you don’t want it to be, as start. Now you have the basic process
to build a few detail maps. any colour information you leave in will fresh in your mind feel free to go further
The good news is these needn’t be built from scratch. You come through in the specular highlights. and experiment with different effects
have already been working hard on them, you just didn’t know This time around you need to almost and layers.
it. If you have been sensible in your workflow and kept each
Photoshop file nicely layered you can use these to help generate
some nice bump and specular maps.
A bump map, or height map as it is also known, is simply a
greyscale image. The colours dictate height, with white being
the highest point, and black the lowest.
In terms of your model, this will allow you to quickly
add grooves, panels and other surface noise.
Begin with a new layer which is filled with 50% grey.
This is the base line, and will act as the level where the
surface is flat. With those new
Begin duplicating the main layers, and move them over this maps applied to
base layer. Think about how you want these to act on the model your shaders, you
and adjust them accordingly. As an example, take the layer you should be looking at
added first to mark out the panels and set it to full black. This a more weathered
will push these lines into the surface. and battered-
The same can be done with the hand-painted layer which looking machine
added chipped paint and worn edges. This doesn’t want to be
full black, however: you only want a slight recess.

Questions
& Answers
Your software queries
solved by experts
Volume lights are

created using a direct
light source
Supporting files
Visit 3D World Vault
3ds Max / V-Ray
to download videos
for V-Ray and Maya,
“How do I create a volume light effect
scene files for V-Ray
and screenshots for
using V-Ray and 3ds Max?”
all three Q&As Hannah Rigby
James Cutler replies: parameters, set the type to Inverse Square. If the
To generate volume light, you must use a direct light light decays too fast, you can tweak this by adjusting
source. 3ds Max standard directional lights work the Start Parameter.
well – but you can also use V-Ray plane lights by 3ds Max standard light multipliers do not behave
increasing the directional parameter. in the same way that V-Ray lights do. When using
Start by adding a target directional light into your Inverse Square falloff, the multiplier must be set to
scene and position the light source and the target so a very high value in order to appear within the scene.
that the light passes through the opening or window. A good value to start from is 800, as this roughly
The target must go beyond the floor or wall so that equals a standard V-Ray light. The multiplier is also
the volume light continues throughout. Avoid angling affected by the start decay parameter. The lower
the direct light towards the camera otherwise you the decay, the lower the multiplier needs to be. You
may end up with a washed out render due to the may end up setting the light multiplier up in the
volume light covering the camera. thousands to get the correct illumination in
The volume light will be contained within the accordance to the decay.
direct light’s hotspot beam and falloff field. If you Under shadow parameters, turn on atmosphere
set the falloff field to be much greater than the shadows and area shadows. This softens them as
hotspot beam, the volume light will start to lose the shadow moves further away from the casting
density quite rapidly and fade out the further it object. Increasing the subdivisions here will also
travels from the centre of the light. If you want an improve the shadow quality and reduce noise.
even distribution of light, it is best to keep the falloff Go to Environment Effects and add a V-Ray
field value close to the hotspot beam value. Environment Fog to atmosphere effects. Under
By default, 3ds Max standard lights do not V-Ray Environment Fog nodes, add the Direct Light.
have any attenuation applied, so the light has Turn off Use All Lights so the volume light effect is
continuous luminosity. This is incorrect. Light should only applied to the lights you choose.
start to lose luminosity by dispersing the further it In the general parameters, you can either set the
I N A S S O C I AT I O N W I T H
www.mediadesignschool.com travels away from the source. Within the decay fog colour here or within the Directional Light. You

Questions & Answers TRAINING
Volume lighting and atmosphere
6 MINUTES
OF VIDEO
Download James Cutler’s
video from 3D World Vault
FAKE GLOBAL ILLUMINATION BY USING FOG EMISSION Using scattered GI can lead to
01 long render times. As an alternative you can adjust the fog emission colour to generate self-
illumination to affect surrounding objects.
cannot mix the colours, so one must remain white to

be inactive. The Fog Distance controls the length the
volume light will travel along the direct light, so set
this distance to be the light’s entire length.
The fog height also affects the visibility. Therefore
this setting must cover the entire height of the light.
If the light is positioned 9,000mm above the floor, EXCLUDE OBJECTS FROM ILLUMINATION In order to get the correct volume light effect,
then this must be your minimum value. A good way
to determine the value is to draw a rectangle that
02 you may end up with a very strong light source casting unwanted shadows. You can exclude
objects so that only the volume light is visible.
covers the height and length of the scene.
V-Ray Environment Fog is an atmospheric effect
that is calculated during rendering using a brute-
force method. Therefore it is important to optimise
the settings so that the render times are not too
high. The subdivisions parameter controls the noise
level. Lower values produce more noise, whereas
higher values produce less at the cost of longer
render time. Start with a value of 16 and increase in
increments of 8 until you are satisfied with the
results. Usually 50 subdivisions are adequate, but you
may need to go up to 100 depending on the scene.
If the scatter GI parameter is enabled, the volume
light will scatter throughout your scene, via Global
Illumination illuminating surrounding objects. In
addition to just direct light, this will add further
realism but it can render very slowly. You may find
that after a certain value the results are the same; try
setting this to 8 and then 16. If not, then a value of
8 would be adequate.
James Cutler runs MintViz

Workshop, a resource for any SPEED UP RENDERING In the render settings under System, turn on Optimised Atmospheric
CG artist, designer or generalist
looking to develop their skills
03 Evaluation. It determines whether or not to add shading behind the volume light depending
on the level of transparency.
www.workshop.mintviz.com

TRAINING Questions & Answers
How to distress
your road sign
CROP IT Take a grab of the model

01 to be textured. Open this up in
Photoshop and crop it close to the border
of the model, so you know where you’re
working better.
RANDOM DAMAGE Use whichever

02 are your preferred brushes and paint
out areas that you want the rust material
to show through. Stick to edges and other
high-wear areas. Adding some random
Expert tip damage can add a little natural chaos.
Experiment with
built in noises to create
chaotic alphas. These
will let you add
Create and texture additional materials
a sign that looks while leaving the work
weathered with age below untouched
Cinema 4D
“How do I make a material with clean areas THE GRUNGE LOOK Now apply your
and rust without painting it all by hand?” 03 base material (the sign) followed by
the rust. Then in the rust material load your
Oscar Benton new alpha and see it turn grungy.
Rob Redman replies: and scratching away at the uppermost to reveal what opacity for your alpha, generally with black being 0%
There are many occasions when we need to create lies below. That is all an alpha channel does. The opaque and white being 100%).
a material that not only serves a single purpose but great thing about this is that there are limitless One thing to certainly remember here is that
must be easily adaptable, or have multiple states. opportunities for creativity here. You can add as alphas aren’t just useful for diffuse/colour channels.
If you can get into the habit of creating your many extra materials as you need to on an object, You can make use of them for all manner of things.
materials in this way then problems like making an each with their own alphas, so if you wanted to add One good trick is to make a shiny material, with
object that has both paint and rust, or some other some mouldy-looking dribbles, where rain has some fresnel reflection, high specular and then
surface, becomes much easier and also has the collected you could do that with a separate material, paint an alpha for wetness. This could be a puddle or
benefit of allowing you to save a huge amount of leaving everything below untouched. some kind of wet patch on an otherwise dry
time hand painting. This kind of layering approach makes any given pavement, or if you created some slight animated
In this example you will learn how to create two model much more versatile, as you can swap out bump you could use it to drive rain falling on a
materials and mix them up as you see fit by using a layers, or turn them on and off. window, or hitting the surface of a pond (with the
third. I’ll show you how to take this road sign and Creating an alpha itself is pretty easy. You can UV bump making ripples).
texture it so it appears to have had a few years of the object if needed but for a simple piece like this
service, rather than having a too-factory-fresh look. just screengrab a front view and use that as a guide 3D World technical editor Rob
The key to this is pretty simple. You just have to to paint out areas in an image editor. The best way is Redman is a CG artist has worked
imagine the object with one material, like the ‘no to take a grab in wireframe mode, so you can see with clients from governments
entry’ decal here, then think of it as just a sheet of where details are, then change the image to to movie studios
rusty metal. Now think of layering one over the other greyscale (which will give you 256 levels of variable www.3dworldmag.com

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TRAINING Questions & Answers
Expert tip
Increasing the
stickiness of your
nCloth is a great way
to get the stream to
stick to objects, like
the bottom of your
dog’s chin
nCloth is an excellent
tool to use when
creating realistic
looking drool
Maya Now convert the extruded surface into nCloth. The

stream of drool needs to conform to the shape of the
“What’s a good workflow for creating dog’s mouth, so convert the dog’s teeth and gums,
etc, into passive colliders. It’s not a bad idea to create
easily controllable drool?” a custom piece of geo for just the collision area to
reduce simulation time. Advance the simulation a few
Roger Heskith frames, to allow the nCloth to conform to the shape
of the collision objects and then set the initial state.
Finally, apply an nCloth Transform constraint to
William Dwelly replies: the drool is whiplashing around, I decided to use anchor the nCloth to the dog’s mouth.
One of the most important aspects of character- nParticles emitted from the nCloth surface. Once you have the nCloth hanging from the dog’s
related FX systems, like a stream of drool hanging Starting inside the dog’s mouth, draw a curve that mouth it’s time to start adjusting the nCloth Settings.
from a dog’s mouth, is control. More often than not, is roughly the length you want your drool stream to I found that the default settings were pretty close to
animators will want to be able to control the effect be. Rebuild the curve with 30 or 40 spans – so what I needed, but reduced Stretch Resistance to 3,
without needing a degree in fluid simulations. This that your final surface can deform freely – and and Compression Resistance to 10. Critical attributes,
set-up combines nCloth and nParticles for an a parametric range of 0 to 1. The nParticles will such as Rest Length Scale, can be connected to
animator-friendly system. move along the final surface according to its custom attributes on a Locator, to provide easy
The approach is simple. For the drip that hangs parameterisation, and values from 0 to 1 will help control to animators.
suspended from the dog’s mouth, I decided to use simplify things. Now draw a profile curve, and extrude Once you have the drip swinging below the dog’s
nCloth because of its easy-to-control dynamic it along the first curve to produce a poly mesh. Scale chin, it’s a good idea to cache the nCloth. If all you
properties, such as Stretch, Stickiness and Bend the profile curve down to about 0.01 to make your wanted was drool that dangled from the dog’s chin,
Resistance. For the drips that come off of the end of extruded surface very skinny. This will cause your but never detached, you could just render your
the stream, when the dog is moving its head and emitted nParticles to travel in a very tight stream. nCloth surface.

Questions & Answers TRAINING
Create dynamic drool
CREATE THE NCLOTH

01 Create a poly mesh
that’s approximately the size
and shape that you want the
drool stream to be. Convert
the mesh to nCloth and
constrain it to your dog’s
mouth. Tweak the nCloth
attributes until you’re happy
with its behaviour.
82 MINUTES EMIT FROM

OF VIDEO 02 NCLOTH
The nCloth’s job is purely
Download William Dwelly’s to give you an easy to
www.3dworldmag.com/vault control dynamic structure.
Once you’re getting the
performance you want
out of the nCloth, apply a
surface emitter to it.
CONTROL THE
03 NPARTICLES
Set the mesh as a goal
object for the nParticles,
drive the GoalU and GoalV
values with Creation and
Runtime expressions to
move the nParticles along
the surface. Release
according to the required
criteria, then control
RadiusPP with a ramp.
CREATION EXPRESSION Thanks to Guilherme Carvalho for creating the

nParticleShape1.goalU = nParticleShape1.parentU; dog’s head model for this project
For the drip that hangs nParticleShape1.goalV = nParticleShape1.parentV;
William Dwelly has been working
suspended from the RUNTIME EXPRESSION in visual effects since the 1990s,
nParticleShape1.goalU = nParticleShape1.goalU + 0.01; working on such films as Avatar
dog’s mouth, I decided and I, Robot. He has also written
To create the illusion of the fluid being stretched out two books on Maya
to use nCloth because of as a droplet forms at the end, map the nParticle’s
RadiusPP attribute to a ramp driven by the GoalU
its dynamic properties parameter. This is so that you can easily make the
nParticles larger when they’re born, smaller in the
middle of the stream, then larger as they reach the
Make sure the nParticles > Create nParticles option is end of the stream.
set to Water. This will set some basic values that work To detach the nParticles from the end of the Send us a question
well with water simulations. You may have to adjust nCloth, use a Runtime expression to set the GoalPP No matter which 3D software package you
the attributes in the Liquid Simulation section of the value to 0. The criteria for release can be as simple use, our experts are here to help. Send your
nParticle: lowering Incompressibility and increasing as reaching a given GoalU value on the surface, the questions to the email address below and we’ll
Viscosity is a good start. nParticle’s velocity, or a combination of whatever try to find a solution. Include your scene file
To keep the nParticles flowing along the surface, criteria you like. (no larger than 5MB in size, please) if it helps
instead of flying off into space, you need to set the Finally, once you’re happy with the overall results to illustrate the problem.
surface as a Goal for the nParticles, then drive the of your drool simulation, you can cache your [email protected]
Goal position with a couple of simple expressions: nParticles and render the animation.

TRAINING Game asset production pipelines
Games
3ds Max /
ZBrush
Modelling
FOR
t3ds Max
tZBrush
tPhotoshop
TOPICS COVERED
tSilhouettes
tAsset development
tSub-divisions
tActivating NURMS
tUnwrapping UVs
DOWNLOAD VIA
3D WORLD VAULT
tComplete video
from Digital-Tutors:
Game Asset
Production Pipeline
tProject files
www.3dworldmag.
com/vault It’s crucial that you work
quickly with game assets
while maintaining quality
The smart way to

create game assets
Digital-Tutors reveals how to design and model
great props in less time than you’d think
reating game assets can be nailing down the aesthetics of your included in the asset that you couldn’t
C extremely fun and yet equally
challenging. However, the
assets for two main reasons: they are
created quickly and they are flexible.
see in the silhouette.
You can then start building a base
challenge can be sometimes When creating silhouettes, it’s mesh to bring into ZBrush. At this
frustrating if we don’t have a solid important to stay relaxed and to not point, you should be most concerned
workflow in place to overcome the over-think the process. Just paint a with the polygon size and polygon
obstacles ahead. blob that kind of looks like an axe, and flow. The polygons should be
To get started with game assets then start painting and erasing shapes consistent in size, with only a little
like weapons, it’s crucial to establish until you have a refined-looking axe. variation and should flow naturally
the aesthetics of your asset before you Once you have the basic silhouette across the model. This ensures that
About the author
begin modelling or sculpting. You only of your asset finalised, you then need your model will subdivide properly
Digital-Tutors have a finite amount of time to crank to develop the overall look and design in ZBrush.
teaches people to out these assets, and it’s crucial that of the asset. This can be done with a With hard-surface models, it can be
make movies and
games with the you work quickly while maintaining development sketch or its more difficult to retain the model’s hardness
world’s largest the quality. Creating silhouettes is an polished counterpart, concept art. This once inside of ZBrush. So instead of
CG and VFX training library
www.digitaltutors.com extremely effective technique for will give you an idea of what details are worrying about that in ZBrush, you fix

Game asset production pipelines TRAINING
Remember to stay
loose with your
silhouettes and give
yourself lots of options.
You’ll find that you’ll
get more ideas as
you continue to
create silhouettes
154 MINUTES
OF VIDEO Using NURMS will
Download Digital-Tutors’ make your model mushy
www.3dworldmag.com/vault unless you enable the
Smoothing Groups
option under Separate
By. This will ensure your
edges stay sharp based
on the smoothing
groups you have set up
When sculpting, make

sure your details are
chunky. This makes your
details more obvious
from long distances
while in the game.
Really sharp edges
will just look aliased
on screen at when
further away
If you forgot to
activate Symmetry
before you started
sculpting, you can
use Smart Resym to
get that symmetrical
detail back very quickly
and with relatively
good results
it in 3ds Max by activating NURMS. This mesh. All you have to do from here is
also gives you a preview of what the optimise the model by removing
model will look like when it’s subdivided unnecessary polygons and edge loops
in ZBrush. from the base mesh. To help save time
This is a good point to import Now it’s time to unwrap the UVs of during the unwrapping
each piece of your asset into ZBrush the game mesh. Texture space is just stage, you can delete
as separate subtools. Once everything as important, if not more, as polygon one half of a
is in ZBrush, it’s a good idea to count. It is possible to save space here symmetrical element
reconstruct the subdivisions using by using symmetry and mirrored and delete duplicate
the Reconstruct Subdiv tool. Each elements. By deleting polygons that objects. Once those
time you use this tool, it will create are symmetrical and mirrored pieces have been
a lower subdivision level while retaining elements, you can cut down the unwrapped, then you
your current subdivision level as amount of unwrapping that has to can reapply symmetry
the highest. be done. and duplicate your
Once you’ve finished sculpting the Once everything has been objects again
detail, you want to get that high-poly unwrapped, you need to line up the
mesh back into 3ds Max for baking. game mesh and the high-poly mesh in
The problem is that 3ds Max will have 3ds Max and use Render To Texture to
a hard time displaying all of those bake your maps. When baking maps,
vertices on screen at once. The you should do small-scale tests and To help reduce any
Decimation Master plug-in in ZBrush check for any errors before moving on ray miss errors during
allows you to reduce the number of to painting the final diffuse map. the baking process, you
polygons in your model without losing Whatever game asset you are can separate the pieces.
too much detail. Once all of the creating, it’s worth taking the time to This is called exploding.
subtools have been decimated, you will figure out a workflow that will work It’s a great way to
need to export them as .obj files into best for the challenges you must ensure you get the
3ds Max. overcome throughout the duration of best bake possible
Because you’ve already created the our project. With this, you can have
base mesh, you have a really great more fun than frustration taking on
start on creating the game resolution these modelling challenges.

Bewertungen
Software
Compositing and
effects tool
PRICE
£14.65 per month
OPERATING SYSTEM
Windows / Mac OS X
By selecting points on the
FEATURES moving foreground, and then
tCreate complex deleting them, Warp Stabiliser
graphics with layer- VFX does a better job of
based effects stabilising the background
tRefine Edge to add
transparency to
difficult masks, such
as hair
tLive Cinema 4D pipeline
to render 3D models
After Effects CC
inside After Effects The update to Adobe’s leading compositing tool is more than a
tWarp Stabilizer VFX
to track effects into motion graphics package. Christopher Kenworthy gets stuck in…
moving footage
t3D tracking to add
objects and text to ome people call After Effects the could drop 3D text directly into their have them update immediately in your
moving shots S Photoshop of the video-editing
world, but it does more than
scenes. It was then possible to fly an
After Effects camera through a basic 3D
After Effects timeline. In practical terms,
this means that creating complex text
DEVELOPER manipulate your images. You can use scene. In this release, this concept has animations is much easier, if you know
Adobe After Effects to create movie-style visual been taken much further by introducing your way around Cinema 4D. It also
www.adobe.com effects, perform colour correction, create a direct pipeline to a 3D package. means that you can import models you’ve
title sequences and motion graphics, Cinema 4D Lite is now bundled with purchased online, and render them within
and even add 3D models to your scenes. After Effects, meaning you can create After Effects. This saves on render time
The new release will feel familiar to 3D scenes or models in Cinema 4D, and and enables you to make adjustments to
current users, but it has a much richer set
of 3D tools.
The interface in After Effects is similar
to that in Premiere or Photoshop. By
combining layers with different blending
modes and applying filters and masks, you
create your final output. Getting to grips
with the basics of After Effects is quite
simple, but becoming an advanced user
takes some training, and this is even more
About the author noticeable with the integration of more
Christopher
Kenworthy has
complex 3D.
worked as a 3D layers have been available in After
writer, director Effects for many years, and motion Add semi-transparent
and visual effects
artists for the past 13 years. He graphics designers have made great use edges to a mask, and then
has worked on a feature film, of the ability to arrange 2D layers in 3D animate the transparency
several music videos and many
commercial projects. space. In the previous release, raytraced over time
www.christopherkenworthy.com 3D text was introduced, so that users

After Effects CC REVIEWS
Create models and scenes in

Cinema 4D, then render them
live in After Effects, with
direct control over lights,
textures and camera animation
the 3D scene while you work on it in After

Effects. One of the biggest production
delays that artists encounter is when a
client asks for a slight change to the 3D
scene, requiring a complete re-render.
That no longer happens, because you can
change the 3D, and see the result in After
Effects straight away.
POWERFUL RESULTS
Multi-pass rendering can be controlled
directly in After Effects, so that you
can control aspects of the image, such
as shadow, specular highlights and
reflections individually. Imagine you’ve
created a 3D scene in Cinema 4D, with
text floating over a floor. From After
Effects you can blur the reflection, darken
the shadows and colour the highlights.
The level of control used to require
complex renders was extremely
time-consuming previously.
More ambitious users can drop
3D objects into a filmed scene, and
composite them so they appear to be The complexity of learning Cinema 4D may You can affect
part of that scene. This is a mainstay of selectively add effects
visual effects work, and by connecting the make After Effects training much more to shadows, highlights
applications in this way it has been hugely and reflections, or any
simplified. It takes only a few minutes complicated for new users other part of the
to track your scene, create a camera, multi-pass render
and drop in a 3D object. Adding shadow, Despite the apparent hassle of switching you have handheld footage of somebody
reflections and other details that make between applications, the pipeline works dancing in front of a wall, you select the
this look realistic takes more time, but a effectively, and rapidly becomes an tracking points of the moving subject, so
process once reserved for experts is now efficient way to work. that only the background is stabilised.
available to all After Effects users. A much simpler effect is Warp Stabiliser This is a small feature, but one that
The benefits of this pipeline are VFX, which can remove camera shake makes the Warp Stabiliser more practical.
enormous for advanced users, but the from handheld footage. You have the With a few tweaks, you can also use
complexity of learning Cinema 4D may option to smooth footage or stabilise it Reverse Stabilisation. Although the
make After Effects training much more completely, but in this new release you workflow is somewhat complicated, this
complicated for new users. Powerful can now delete unwanted track points, enables you to add paint or graphics to
results are possible, however, even if you so that After Effects knows which part an image. First, you stabilise the image,
just get a basic grasp of Cinema 4D Lite. of the image to stabilise. If, for example, add whatever imagery you want, then »

REVIEWS After Effects CC
Cinema 4D Lite is
packaged with
After Effects CC
and has a familiar
feel, with similarly
coloured 3D arrows
you reverse the stabilisation. The results

are the same as you would get with using
the 3D Camera Tracker, so it’s not entirely
clear why this feature has been included,
although it could be because many users
are put off by the complexity of 3D
Camera Tracking.
DIFFERENT STROKES
Although After Effects comes with tools
for removing greenscreen from shots, the
real challenge comes when you want to
isolate an element that was shot without
a green screen. One of the most common
requests from clients is to separate a
foreground actor from a background, or
add a new sky to a shot. This is possible
with masking tools, and the job has been
made much easier with the new Refine
Edge tool.
Although you can apply Refine Edge
to any mask, its real power comes when
combined with the Roto brush, which
is a semi-automatic way of selecting a
For video editors wanting to create visual With Colour Finesse

bundled in, you can
effects or motion graphic sequences, there colour-grade footage VERDICT
using the Effects tab
is no better value software available or a standalone PROS
interface t Powerful masking tools
moving object in a scene. By drawing such as fur, hair or a treeline against the t Integrated Cinema 4D
rough strokes on a foreground object, sky, this perfects a difficult mask with a t Easy to master the basics
such as an actor, the Roto brush does few strokes. Shots that were too difficult t Innovative stabilisation
its best to guess what you’re trying to to mask can now be completed with a
select. Although far from perfect, it does minimum of effort. CONS
a reasonably good job, and as you draw You do need a fast computer to run t Slow rendering
corrective strokes you guide it to near- the new After Effects. If you try to get t Steep learning curve
perfection. The problem with the Roto it working on a top-of-the-range Mac,
brush in previous releases was the hard for example, you will spend a lot of time After Effects is capable of creating many
edge it generated. Now, the Refine Edge waiting for frames to render. For video video effects, and is at home colour-
tool enables you to create areas of soft editors wanting to create visual effects grading footage, generating motion
transparency on that edge. or motion graphic sequences, there is no graphics, or adding 3D models and
By painting over the edge you’ve better-value software available, but you animation to your shots
created, you can show After Effects where need to be prepared to spend some time
to add semi-transparency. On soft edges, learning its intricacies. RATING

REVIEWS Vue 11.5 Infinite
Only six months after the

last Vue update comes the
latest update, 11.5 Infinite
Software
Environment
creation tool
PRICE
$1,295
Upgrade from
Vue 11, free
Upgrade from
Vue 10, $459
OPERATING SYSTEM
Windows / Mac OS X
MAIN FEATURES
tReal-time terrain
modelling
tEnvironmental and
atmosphere effects
tEcoSystem technology
for easy scene
population
tOver 550 material
Image by Cean Herzfield
presets
tUpdated user interface
WEBSITE
e-on Software
www.e-onsoftware.com
Vue 11.5 Infinite

Vue continues to be at the forefront of natural environment
design. Conrad Allan says it’s ideal for both pros and amateurs
or a while now, e-on Software has always a fresh addition of new features or presets that come with Vue by default are
F been releasing Vue on a cycle.
Whole version numbers get
improvements to enjoy.
There were some great new features
one of the huge benefits the software
offers. All of a sudden, it had become
new features and the half version added for the Vue 11, with particle possible to create an environment in an
numbers add refinements to the systems being the headline addition. incredibly small amount of time.
previous release features, performance With this e-on kept up its good form by
improvements and bug fixes. These providing a few pre-packaged elements PARTICLE SYSTEMS
updates come every six months, so there’s to kick-start artists in using particles. The From a studio environment, however,
particle systems weren’t as exciting
as those that were usually added to
the half version number editions. What
makes these versions exciting, is the
workflow improvements. Terrain, material
and EcoSystem editing features have
been improved along with adding Global
Illumination Caching and material layer
sharing. This is one example where many
small improvements add up to make one
huge improvement.
The release of Vue 11.5 brings in
Image by Sylvain Chevallier
About the author refinements made to new features and

Conrad Allan continues to provide improvements in
is a freelance
environment Sci-fi environments, such various others. For the particle lovers,
artist with as this space hangar, will EcoParticle Collision has been included so
over five years
experience with Vue. be yours to design any particle system added can have the
www.extremeprojects.com.au option of reacting with static EcoSystem

Vue 11.5 Infinite REVIEWS
Image by Conrad Allan

Rendered in parts and
tweaks applied all within
Vue, something which
previously required a
third-party program
elements in a scene and not just terrains.

e-on released Vue 11 with the option to
add rain and snow with a single click – just
like adding the infinite ground plane and
ocean. These can then be modified in the
Atmosphere Editor. If you have a specific
way of setting up your atmospheres you
may find this plays havoc when turned
on – nothing a seasoned user can’t get
around with a bit of tweaking. A new user
probably won’t notice any problems, as
the rain and snow presets are designed to
play nice with the atmosphere presets.
The rest of the updates are all quite
similar. They’re all updates and upgrades
to existing features that help with
workflow, editing and general ease-of-use
for the pro user.
BIG IMPROVEMENTS
The Material Summary page is one that
has needed an update for some time.
It displays every material in the scene godsend to be able to flick back and see to the render they select and set the Vue 11.5 offers
which, when working on large projects, different versions and see the scene as it camera to that! And for personal projects a complete toolset
can be a huge amount. Up until now we has progressed. where I want to test out a few different for creating
were restricted to a single line, making The improvements we get this release angles, if I lose the exact settings of and rendering
it cumbersome and slow to use. While are fabulous. Each render in the stack my favourite camera position it can be exceptionally rich
the World Browser is still the best way now contains all the data for the camera; really frustrating. and realistic natural
to select and edit materials, the Material that is, focus, field of view, position, Another added feature to the Render environments
Summary window is starting to develop rotation – the list goes on. From a Stack is the ability to combine an area
into a more useful function. workflow perspective this is fantastic. I render with the full version and then
Improvements have been made to often hear clients ask for multiple angles merge the two into a third, combined,
the Render Stack in Vue, and from all which used to result in the scene having image in the stack. This new feature
the 3D programs I’ve used, I think it is a list of cameras just so I didn’t lose improves working time-flow no end.
now one of the best. It is an absolute the one they liked. Now I just go back In the same spirit of post-render

Image by Massimo Verona
REVIEWS Vue 11.5 Infinite
In Vue you can

create your own
ecosystems
improvements, e-on has provided a really welcome. Last in the list of updates experienced Vue user, but are no less
new post-processing feature which is worth noting are the World Browser and appreciated for that.
essentially a Curves module for colour camera management improvements. Vue When I first picked up the update, I
and contrast. It’s similar to the rest of 11.5 brings camera attribute locking – wasn’t expecting much. I thought it would
the filter graphs in Vue so is a little this includes animation key frames – and simply be a list of tweaks and fixes that
tricky to use but it is a nice addition and optimisations to the World Browser for wouldn’t be worth the time. I was wrong.
enables you to stay immersed in Vue large scenes. This includes the ability to Vue 11.5 is a very welcome update and it
during the draft stages, saving time filter the materials seen. These updates appeases all crowds. As far as value for
and money. will most likely only be of interest to the money goes, if you’re a hobbyist, you may
e-on has recognised, with the still want to wait for Vue 12 for the new
changes to the Render Stack and post- features; but if you’re in a professional
processing options, that its users have I thought it would be a list of studio environment or plan to use Vue
been looking for a way to do basic edits on a weekly basis, Vue 11.5 is a worthy
to renders easily, so it wasn’t necessary to tweaks and fixes that wouldn’t be upgrade. I also recommend purchasing
export to a third-party program just for a the e-on maintenance package, as this will
simple image tweak. These changes are worth the time. I was wrong get you all the way through to 12.5.
VERDICT
PROS
t Solid workflow improvements
t Tweaks to features added in Vue11
t Value for money, if used regularly
CONS
t No major new features added
This upgrade t Particles, while easy to use, is not a useful
introduces a number feature for large production pipelines
of enhancements such
Image by Carlos A Silva
as faster rendering, This is a great new version due to the

Illumination Caching, streamlining updates. Now’s the time to
terrain and EcoPainter use Vue, it’s easy, forgiving and clear
improvements and
360° population RATING
88 | | October 2013 3dworldmag.com

Plants Kit 1 REVIEWS
Plants Kit 1 is an
excellent foliage plug-
in for the creation of
trees for landscapes
Plug-in
Foliage creator
PRICE
£126 / $193 / €149
OTHER EDITIONS
Free version available
PLATFORM
3ds Max or Cinema
4D (version tested)
on Windows
MAIN FEATURES
t Integrated tree
creator for core
software
Plants Kit 1
t Trees can be Laubwerk offers a new way of adding extra
customised
t Works with variety of trees to your renders says Mike Griggs
renderers
t Integrates with
application’s workflow reating realistic foliage for your quantity. Each tree can be configured
t Range of trees
available
C renders is always a daunting
prospect. Even if you go for stock
to times of year and age via drop-down
presets, and there is control over details
models, this can be problematic, not to such as branch thickness and subdivision
MANUFACTURER mention expensive as not all stock models level or leaf amount. Each tree can be Each tree can be highly customised
Laubwerk are created equal. Laubwerk is a developer double clicked in the browser or added giving you great control over the type of
www.laubwerk.com that hopes to make your CG landscape as a Tree Object, which you can then foliage and overall tree appearance
gardening easier when selecting trees associate a tree from the Laubwerk
with Plants Kit 1 for 3ds Max and now browser with. You also have options
Cinema 4D. for how you want your tree to appear you need to share files with clients or other
Instead of just being a content folder of while you are modelling – from puffy artists. Viewport performance does take
meshes and models, Plants Kit 1 is a plug- simple polygon shapes, through wire- a massive hit, however, and the only thing
in that creates a dedicated menu in which frame to full geometry. This allows great you would be easily able to manipulate is
you can access the Plant Browser directly viewport performance while your working, the tree’s materials.
About the author
within the Cinema 4D application. especially as trees are usually instanced or At the time of testing, a Mac version
Mike Griggs Plants Kit 1 is great fun to use, turned in to V-Ray proxies. was being written that will hopefully be
is a freelance although you might find yourself initially available in the autumn. If you do a lot of
concept 3D,
VFX and motion disappointed with the limited number TREE BROWSER arch-viz work, or are just in need of some
graphics artist of tree options when you first look at Laubwerk supports V-Ray in Cinema 4D as easy to use trees for your scenes, Plants
working across TV, exhibition
and digital design the browser, it soon becomes clear that well as the native standard and physical Kit 1 is an excellent and easy to use way of
www.creativebloke.com Laubwerk have gone for quality above renderers. This means that you can really adding natural variety to your work.
get the most from the software.
There has been a great deal of thought
going into the development of this
software. A particularly good feature is
the drop-down menu at the bottom of VERDICT
the Tree Browser window. It asks which
renderer you would like to choose, then PROS
supplies the correctly formatted materials tExcellent integration into host app
for your renderer of choice. Laubwerk tHigh-quality models when rendered
is also clever in the way that you add tTrees are easy to customise
additional trees, as it will ask when you
loading each tree in if you want it to CONS
use the same materials for any of the tSmall selection of starter trees
same species in your scene or add new tOnly supports V-Ray as an external render
materials for that specific tree. tHeavy meshes for non-Laubwerk users
Alongside a standardised naming
convention, this means that if you wished An excellent plug-in, but it lacks variety in
to switch from Standard rendering to its plants other than trees. A few bushes
V-Ray halfway through a project, it’s really or grasses would be good
The menus and interface of the app enables you to chose and easy to reassign materials. Trees can also
view your tree from more than one angle at once be turned into editable polygon objects if RATING

REVIEWS Unfold3D 8
Unfold 3D is a fast
and easy unwrapper,
and currently the only
standalone capable
of unwrapping 1
Software million+ tris or polys
UV mapping
PRICE
€299
OTHER EDITIONS
1-seat Networking, €699
5-seat Networking,
€2,800
25-seat Networking,
€8,750
Additional seat, €580
OPERATING SYSTEM
Windows / Mac OS X
MAIN FEATURES
t UV unwrapping
t Automatic unwrapping
t Cutting
t Welding
Unfold3D 8
t Stitching Its developer says it’s the fastest UV mapper around. Cirstyn
t Island editing
functionality Bech-Yagher puts it through some thorough tests to find out
t Density painting
t Packing
hen 3D World last took a look at the market. Some features, like the new don’t want to tweak the layout, and save
DEVELOPER
Polygonal Design
W French UV mapping veteran Unfold
3D from Polygonal Design, we had
alignment and straightening tools are on
par with UV Layout’s, and probably a little
the template out.
Despite the well-implemented new
www.polygonal- some reservations giving it an enthusiastic more intuitive to use. Version 7’s welding features and improvements, Unfold 3D is
design.fr thumbs up. For its eighth incarnation, the and über-strict mesh hygiene issues also not without flaws: the largest being the
developer has fixed a lot of those issues, seem to have been resolved, as you can million+ triangle or quad import function,
in addition to adding a few new aces up now import items version 7 wouldn’t, which can cause lag and churning when
its UV mapping sleeve. Unfold3D 8 sports like objects with 3+ neighbouring polys, cutting into, or unwrapping a mesh of that
a much more forgiving import function, butterflies, or non-convex n-gons. It still size, especially a complex one, wasting
a blisteringly fast, overhauled, 64-bit won’t allow relative vertex numbering, and potential time saved. Developer Polygonal
unfolding core, updated select functions, Unfold 3D would probably benefit from is currently working hard to fix this.
multi-UV grid tools and several other some import troubleshooting tools like UV One feature is sorely missed: an option
tweaks and touches. Layout’s Weld/Clean/Detach Flipped UV’s to select shells via Group or Material.
If you’re working with low to normally but bar that, the import improvements Currently, you can only select manually per
dense meshes, Unfold 3D is true to its over version 7 are significant. island or area in the user interface, which
word, and unwraps significantly faster than In addition to the speed-optimisation gets old fast if you’re working on large
most other standalone UV mappers on and import-fixes, the easy-as-ever models with 6,000 shells.
interface sports some new workflow
features, such as Select Borders, which
Unfold 3D can will select all the border-edges on a shell,
unwrap and pack and Select Similar Islands, which will
average-sized meshes select other shells with the same topology. VERDICT
like this in minutes, Used with the existing Select Island UV
but you may need to and Copy Edge Selection tools, these PROS
group and arrange your tools make hard-edged UV mapping in t Fast and easy to use
shells manually particular a lot easier, enables you to t Major core overhaul
define cuts or layouts on one island, and t Significant bug fixes
then copying them onto similar geometry,
before stacking and packing them. CONS
Together with the new Multi UV-Grid t Poly-heavy meshes can cause instability
functionality, which enables you to stack t Could use some additional tools
About the author
or render on an underlying square on a t Only video documentation
Cirstyn Bech- 0,9 grid, rather the standard 0,0 add-to
Yagher is a long- square/render/hide/repeat process many If you’re in the market for a speedy UV
time freelancing
all-rounder, UV mappers still sport, you can save time mapper with an intuitive learning curve,
doing anything in creating and rendering templates as Unfold3D is definitely worth checking out
from project management to
modelling, rigging and texturing
well. All you have to do is select the shells
www.northern-studios.com on the square, select Pack, provided you RATING

#generateconf
EST. 2013
THE CONFERENCE FOR WEB DESIGNERS
LAST CHANCE TO GO TO BUY ADVANCE TICKETS
FEATURED SPEAKERS
LAST CHANCE TO BUY ADVANCED TICKETS

Post Production
Trace the history of a CG
project from start to finish Debrief
Psyop’s Brian Kehrer reveals the studio’s most
ambitious project, Play Fanta: Saving the Source
syop has been working with

P Ogilvy and The Coca-Cola
company on the Fanta account
for over six years. We created the
Developing an original cast of characters, which has
interactive app led been used in all kinds of media around
to a learning curve the world, from TV spots (which we also
for studio Psyop created) to artwork for bottles and cans.
Five key points

1. We started the project with a clear
vision... For the most part anyway!
A native mobile application was just one
component of the entire Fanta campaign,
which also included a web graphic novel,
a print version, multiple TV spots and
additional marketing material.
With so many moving parts, it was
important that everyone who was
involved had a good idea of what the
intended user experience should be
for this app. Our creative directors had
fallen in love with Operation Ajax (www.
cognitocomics.com/operationajax),
another interactive graphic novel, and
we used it as a starting point for our
discussions about interaction design.
This vision acted as an anchor and
allowed us to experiment and innovate
freely on functionality without fear
of losing track of the product goals.
Looking back, there were some
possibilities that were left unconstrained
– such as whether the app would
include 3D content alongside 2D – which
may have slowed down development,
but staying flexible early allowed us to
innovate very quickly.
2. We initially focused our attention on

tools and training
Vit al I was the only developer on the team,
s t atis tics which made sharing asset management
Project: Play Fanta: Saving the Source responsibilities crucial. Because the
Studio: Psyop application team was small it was easier
Format: Interactive graphic novel
Client: The Coca-Cola Company to manage, but I still needed to introduce
Time taken: 4 months the artists to a few pieces of new
Team size: 12 – 20+ people
Software used: After Effects, Flash, Maya, technology, including Unity, a custom UI/
Softimage, Photoshop, Illustrator animation system and version control.
Release date: 1 May 2013
See it: www.fanta.com/playfanta/
Of the three, version control was the
graphicnovel/1 most foreign — and we versioned every

3dworldmag.com
Debrief POST-PRODUCTION
Psyop used a
combination of key
framing and full 2D
cel animation to build
a dynamic animation
experience
single asset. Initially I was using SVN

with Cornerstone on Mac and Tortoise “With so many moving parts, it was important
on Windows. I’ve since switched to
Git and use SourceTree as a universal
that everyone involved had a good idea of the
client. A good Git client is essential; intended user experience” Brian Kehrer, creative technologist, Psyop
the command line is not viable for
non-engineers. Using a GUI client, I
was able to teach my entire team not
only to commit, but also how to discard and animations. Initially, we wanted it examples of highly interactive digital
changes, inspect history, revert to a to be a highly interactive experience, experiences early on in the development
previous version and merge old versions with each panel containing clickable process, that may have helped us.
back into the current branch — all elements. Unfortunately, that proved to Finally, interactive experiences
mostly unaided. That saved days and be unrealistic given the sheer magnitude are inherently less controllable than
days of time, and the concepts of version of the app. directed ones — embracing that rather
control broke some habits (such as Further, there is a tension between a than fighting it may have led to some
incremental asset naming) which can directed experience and an interactive interesting innovations during the
make a TD’s job painful. one. Given everyone’s familiarity with development process.
About the author
Brian Kehrer is the non-interactive media, providing a
3. The experience could have been creative technologist solid argument for more interactivity 4. We didn’t have a formal Quality
at Psyop. Brian
more interactive developed Play Fanta: was difficult, especially considering the Assurance process
Despite the tools and training, this Saving the Source, lack of examples of highly interactive Especially on an agile team with short
and is currently developing two
app was really big: 49 pages with over Unity games for clients
digital storybooks at the time. If we had deadlines, it can be exceptionally
100 panels, each with dozens of layers www.psyop.tv been able to find and provide concrete tempting (or feel necessary) to eschew
a formal QA process. Although this
is bad practice, QA frequently falls
on engineers who could be doing
Each text bubble development, and so avoiding QA frees
was animated up development time. Reacting to client
individually. Ensuring requests is also much faster without
that the text worked in build validation.
multiple languages was That said, even as a solitary developer,
a painstaking process not formalising QA is very risky. For us, a
few typos and minor bugs escaped until
the very last stage, due to last-minute
regressions. These would have been
caught easily with basic regression
testing by a QA person. Sometimes
simple feature requests or bug reports
were lost for days or weeks before
they were addressed. This wasted a lot
of valuable testing time. We’ve since
adopted a basic issue tracking system,
and will host an external facing system
for clients in the future.
5. We iterated rapidly on the core

experience of the app
Within a week of starting the project we
had a prototype working, and during the
four months of application development
there were only two days in which the »

POST-PRODUCTION Debrief
After viewing the same

content for weeks, developers
couldn’t see obvious mistakes.
It’s very important that
someone other than core
team members do QA
app was not available on TestFlight for compared with iOS, both domestically
internal testing; we were able to push “There were only two days in which the and internationally – we are now much
out new builds almost daily. Our shortest less enthusiastic about the platform.
client turnaround time was three hours,
app was not available on TestFlight for The final product, Play Fanta: Saving
from receiving the feature request to internal testing” Brian Kehrer, creative technologist, Psyop the Source, was simultaneously released
delivering it to the client. for iPhone, iPad, and Android phones
We achieved all this by having the and tablets. At the same time we also
entire development team, creative decided to integrate Google Analytics
director and artists in the same room at The character bios directly into the app in order to receive
the same time, which allowed us to very were a late addition to comprehensive analytics of how the app
rapidly iterate on the app. In addition the project. Interactive was being used. User engagement times
to scheduled feedback sessions, it was development practices were relatively high, with the average
simple to get really quick clarifications. allowed us to stay user session (from app open to app
This immediate availability saved us without losing control of pause) lasting 13 minutes while viewing
huge amounts of time. the code base 20 pages.
The software design was highly
data driven, allowing each animated
element to be independently versioned.
This slowed down the initial setup, but
revisions could be made immediately.
Because the app is rendered in real time,
results were instantaneous, improving
both quality and speed by reducing lost-
in-translation errors.
Lessons learned
There were a few major takeaways for
us. As a result of rapid iteration and
continuous feedback, we dramatically
reduced the amount of unpleasant
production surprises, which in turn
reduced the number of late nights. There
was virtually no engineering crunch.
Based on the enormous difficulty of
testing the dozens of variants of Android
hardware and software – as well as
shockingly low download figures when

Post Production
The best recent visual
effects work, revisited
on DVD and Blu-ray
Freeze Frame
Warm Bodies breathes life into the zombie genre
with some romance and CG. By Mark Ramshaw
© 2012 Summit Entertainment LLC

or a breed of monster with no
F communication skills and little
motivation other than to chase
down their next meal, zombies have
proven extraordinarily versatile as a
metaphor for society’s various ills. In
the case of Jonathan Levin’s witty Warm
Bodies, that target is the loneliness
of our modern society: R, the film’s
romantic lead, just wants to make a
connection – but that’s not so easy when
your heart has stopped beating and you
hunger for brains.
While the fleshy undead in the film
are relatable, the more extreme form
of undead – the ‘Boneys’ – are stripped
down killing machines. Responsibility
for creating these and various ruined
city enhancements fell to Look Effects.
“We knew going in that we’d have to
deal with a lot of character animation,
along with matte paintings for the post-
apocalyptic world, but first we needed to
establish an office in Vancouver as the
work needed to be handled in Canada,
so the first task was to start everything
up there,” says digital effects supervisor
Mat Krentz.
The Boneys
Krentz says that director Jonathan
Levine clearly enjoyed this opportunity
to really explore the visual effects
process. “We had a great pipeline and
workflow set up, so that he would make
comments on grey-shaded Boneys for
blocking and animation purposes.”
Concept artist Peter Konig provided
the initial creature design, from which
renowned make-up effects artist Adrien
Morot built a maquette that would later
also prove useful for onset lighting
reference. “At the same time, our lead
Vit al s t atis tics character/art designer Jelmer Boskma
Title: Warm Bodies
The Boneys in Warm Released: 4 June (USA), 17 June (UK)
created the model in ZBrush, and once
Bodies are stripped- Formats: Blu-ray/DVD that was approved we began texturing
back killing machines Distributor: Entertainment One/ and adding detail,” says Krentz.
Summit Entertainment
Watch out for... The Boneys falling “Jonathan specifically didn’t want to
through the airport’s glass ceiling, the have any recognisable clothing on the
showdown when the humans, fleshy
zombies and Boneys collide, and the Boneys, so we came up with the idea
numerous decayed city shots. and look of the clothes starting to merge

Freeze Frame POST-PRODUCTION
The pipeline for the creatures was

separated into multiple elements
to allow various components to
be worked on at the same time
Key technology
Around 85 of the was done through a handle the large amount “The EXR approach
with the organic matter of what was left 350 shots in the film series of blend shaders, of textures we had for the allowed us to just load
of their bodies.” involved the all-CG mixing multiple layers of creatures, so they could bits of texture at render
Boneys. “We worked specular/reflection and hold up in close-ups. The time, and then unload
Mocap versus keyframing with Maya and V-Ray, fast SSS. The general main creature alone had them once that area
The original intention was to utilise using a combination of look of the Boneys didn’t 65GB of data, with around had been rendered. In
motion capture as much as possible. GI and direct lighting, call for much in the way a third of that for each of the end we were able to
“It’s easy to assume that motion capture mixing a light rig to of subsurface though, the supporting ones. Every render up to 20 creatures
will just work, but when things get represent the on-set since they had to appear texture was a 4K tiled – with all their textures,
moved around and changed, you then lighting with V-Ray’s dry and more or less EXR, with 16 UV tiles (and displacement and motion
end up having to go and re-do the dome light,” says Dmitry non-scattering. The tricky around 290 files total) for blur – in just one shot on
mocap multiple times, or else just spend Vinnik. “The shading part was to be able to each creature. one layer.”
the time keyframing instead,” says CG
supervisor Dmitry Vinnik.
“When animation notes were pouring
in for every Boney in every shot on easier to manage. “Deformation or
a daily basis, there was no way to simulation of skin is easier to handle “We had a great pipeline and workflow
effectively motion-capture, and we on the skinnier meshes than on meshes
ultimately came to the conclusion that with larger volumes,” explains Vinnik.
set up, so that [director Jonathan Levine]
keyframing was the more efficient way “We did, however, create a wide range of could make comments” Dmitry Vinnik, CG supervisor
of handling it.” blend-shaped poses for extra control in
The biggest challenge then proved situations where the skin sliding would
to be giving the Boneys an appropriate be apparent – something that was easier
sense of menace, despite their rather than running a full sim.” In the first part of the fly through the
fragile appearance. “To compensate we camera pans across the airport grounds,
had the animators add more weight Flying through the city past a building covered in digitally
in the movements,” says Krentz. “Our Beyond the swarms of ravenous Boneys, added shattered glass panes. “In the
biggest breakthrough with reference for Look’s workload also involved ensuring second part, we had a digital forest in
the animators was telling them to look that the live plates – shot in Montreal – addition to the cityscape. In the third
at the movement of the T-1000 in the were given a suitably post-apocalyptic part the shot goes over a zombie wall,
second Terminator movie.” makeover. This involved several hero “The city was textured where we had to hook up with the plate
However, the director’s desire for a shots in addition to extensive matte very roughly for the matte again. Here we modelled and extended
creature with a dried-up, almost skeletal painting work, including a fluid, painters to take over. We the city in the background and used
appearance did make the relationship accelerated camera sweep through the painted over everything, that to create a matte to seamlessly
between the Boneys’ underlying city. The trick, says Vinnik, was to split it continually improving until blend with the live plate. It was the most
structure and overlaid skin remains down into three separate parts. the end of the deadline” difficult shot of the entire production.”
In contrast to other zombie-infested
Hollywood movies, Warm Bodies is
a film that wears its visual effects
enhancements lightly. But it’s the way
that Look’s work is used in service of the
story rather than as obvious eye candy
that ultimately makes both the CG and
the film itself so satisfying.
“This film was especially pivotal for
Look,” admits Krentz. “We hadn’t really
done any character animation work
before, so this was a new experience for
us. We’re very proud of the work, and
to have helped Jonathan tell such an
unusual story.”
www.lookfx.com

On the cover
Titouan Olive helps you construct the perfect face
Faces are far and away one

of the hardest things to
design inside the computer.
But with enough
understanding of facial
anatomy, there’s no reason
why you can’t paint yourself
a realistic-looking digital
human. You’ve just got to put
some serious study time in.
If you’re really serious about crafting a photo-real
human head, we advise you diligently research
what makes every inch of a face work. There
are plenty of websites out there to help you out.
Every facial artist, whether they use clay or oils or
plasticine, has investigated every muscle from the
orbiclaris oculi to the sterno-cleido-mastoid.
Freelance 3D artist Titouan Olive has worked all
over the world, and specialises in facial animation.
In this month’s cover feature, he uses ZBrush to
build up a face bit by bit, guiding you through the
process as you add muscle, cartilage and skin to
the basic skull.
Because of the ‘uncanny valley’ (the name for
the disorientating effect when realistic humans
aren’t quite realistic enough), digital facial design
may always remain that most difficult undertaking
for 3D artists – but after our tutorial on page 60,
it’ll be that little bit easier.
Next issue
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GAME ASSET PRODUCTION PIPELINE

Includes video: see page 5

Secrets of CG creatures Maya textures: step-by-step Game Asset Production

www.3dworldmag.com October 2013 | | 3

The leading COMMUNITY REVIEWS

52 Aaron Sims 96 Freeze Frame

use Vault 68 Texturing in Maya

www.3dworldmag.com October 2013 | | 5

Improve your The 3D World advisory board

Jordi Barés Paul Franklin

Kulsoom Middleton Tim Brade Eddie Leon

Rob Bredow Jeremy Moorshead

Gustavo Capote Alex Morris

6 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

Next issue on sale 10 September 2013

The Ultimate Guide to 3D GENERAL ENQUIRIES

From designing characters to making them Future plc is a public

8 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

10 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

A lot of work was put in

www.3dworldmag.com October 2013 | | 11

I was reaching near 22 million

12 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

Artist: Daniel D’Avila

www.3dworldmag.com October 2013 | | 13

MPC’s main task was to

Studio: MPC “To generate an exact recreation of the

14 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

16 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

www.3dworldmag.com October 2013 | | 17

Studio: Blur Studio tool set. V-Ray’s high-quality surface shaders, GI

18 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

www.3dworldmag.com October 2013 | | 19

The big challenge

20 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

Studio: Blacklist animation and V-Ray for rendering: both are

22 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

24 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

Studio: Playground effective process. During the modelling stage, we

26 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

CORRECTION In our look at Mark

Artist David Domingo Jiménez

30 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

www.3dworldmag.com October 2013 | | 31

Dividing up the model into different parts, dependent on the material

DSP PAINT METAL

32 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

RENDER RAW REFLECTION RAW SPECULAR REFLECTION

SPECULAR ALPHA Z-DEPTH SKY

07 Final As a last step, I would like to

www.3dworldmag.com October 2013 | | 33

nomalia is a training and

34 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

The Anomalia team’s main goal is to

www.3dworldmag.com October 2013 | | 35

Kulsoom Middleton ﬁ ﬁnds

36 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com

Massive was used to

This trafﬁc jam sequence

www.3dworldmag.com October 2013 | | 37

3D World: What were the key 3DW: What particular software

38 | | October 2013 www.3dworldmag.com