Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2016 i 3D World

FREE! VIDEO AND ASSETS Turn to page 98 We all need inspiration to keep our creativity on track, and there’s no better way than reading this issue’s exclusive feature on the VFX and SFX behind Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, on page 41. We speak to the veteran team, led by visual effects supervisor John ‘DJ’ DesJardin to uncover how DC’s iconic legends have been brought to life. Now you’re inspired, turn to page 57 to take a look at this issue’s tutorials, including advice to model a still life scene in Maya, creating a stylised animation in Cinema 4D and destroying a building using RealFlow 2016. All these tutorials come with free video training, work files and more. If you like this issue, then don’t miss another – see…

The hosts of the CG Student Awards have launched a new international awards scheme, covering more categories than ever before. Dubbed the ‘Oscars for creative students’, The Rookies is a platform for talented students to launch their careers, network with the creative industry’s top studios and connect with the next generation of creative minds. We want to create a clear path for all students to get some feedback and become comfortable with showcasing their work Alwyn Hunt , co-founder, The Rookies In its new format, the scheme builds on its heritage of VFX, animation and next-gen gaming to add a further nine prize divisions that focus on the most competitive artistic industries – from illustration to virtual reality. The goal of the The Rookies, explains co-founder Alwyn Hunt, is to…

We also took the day to go to Brands Hatch to shoot the HDR images Finding inspiration to make great art is always the hardest part of starting a new project. For Luke Reade, a 22-year-old CG artist working in London, the subject was staring him in the face, or rather, sat in his garage. “I have always been into my cars and I love racing,” says the artist as he reveals the origins of his latest project, Mini Challenge Full CGI. “I currently race in the Mini Challenge and this is a replica of my car. Me and my colleague Sam Milner put our heads together to come up with the idea.” The project took two months “on and off” for Luke and Sam to model and render the…

A Jason replies So, you spent a significant amount of time creating a fancy 3D character. Maybe you even gave her some hair to cover up that bald head that is common in 3D renders. Nice work! I suppose you could consider the project done at this point, depending on what type of image you may be trying to make. For me, I see one big problem. My 3D character is standing around naked wondering if I am ever going to put some clothes on her. So what now? You could spend hours sculpting a 3D dress and perfecting the folds and wrinkles, but if you decide to change your character’s pose later you may have to start over. I am here to tell you that there’s an easier way.…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO If you see the Play icon, use the link ARTIST PROFILE Zeno Pelgrims Zeno is a CG student with a passion for animation and VFX. When he’s not waiting for render buckets, he can be found staring at the great intricacies of the world. zenopelgrims.com TOPICS COVERED Modelling XGen Look development Lighting Compositing Over the next few pages, I will explain my thoughts behind this South American scene and describe the techniques used to create it. The inspiration for this image sprouted from the incredible amount of wanderlust I’ve been having lately. This world has so much beauty to offer and I want to see it all! Knowing my scene will be scattered with pots which have many beads scattered on them, it’s really important to try…

FOLLOW THE VIDEO If you see the Play icon, use the link! ARTIST PROFILE Ridvan Maloku Ridvan is a motion graphics artist and 3D generalist, who currently works at Ataboy Studios in New York City. In his spare time he creates tutorials, mostly for Cinema 4D. plasticpistols.com TOPICS COVERED Modelling Animation Texturing Lighting Rendering This style of animation is very popular, and has been seen in everything from TV commercials to short movies. In this tutorial we will cover everything you need to know about how to build your own folding paper animation inside Cinema 4D. We’ll start by learning how to model. Because we are aiming to create something that looks like it’s made out of paper, we don’t need to be 100 per cent accurate. This can be…

We asked Nvidia and AMD to comment. Both companies sent official statements underlining the professional certification of their Quadro and FirePro ranges. BENEFITS OF PRO VS CONSUMER A lot of the quoted benefits are a little hard to quantify, such as the technical pre- and post-sales support. The support forums for professional cards will also be focused on issues with professional software rather than problems with the latest games. However, Nvidia also pinpointed driver features that would be beneficial to the professional user. Aside from being optimised for professional applications, Nvidia’s Quadro drivers also ship with a huge list of presets for specific applications. But there is now also increasing interest in harnessing the GPU power for realistic live rendering and even accelerated final output. In SolidWorks, the RealView mode…

PRICE Basic Edition $149, Standard Edition, $249, Professional Edition $399 COMPANY Filter Forge Inc WEBSITE www.filterforge.com AUTHOR PROFILE Cirstyn Bech-Yagher Cirstyn is a freelance CG artist and educator, with over 15 years’ experience in 3D. Her clients have ranged from AMD to Daz 3D and Future Plc. She is currently providing design and tutorial content to HobbyRenderer.com’s launch in February. nothern-studios.com Despite Filter Forge 5’s new features seeming solid, well tested and developed, they seem like enhancements rather than major new functionality. However, if you’ve been collecting frequent flyer miles in the Node editor’s Bomber, Brick, Tile and Pavement components, there’s good news: they’ve all received major overhauls, as well as new features to support them. First introduced in Filter Forge 2, the Bomber component has become one of Filter…

SHARAN BASSI Recruitment consultant, Aardvark Swift www.aswift.com “Some courses are designed to build a student’s capabilities and skills, and it’s only in their last project that they’ll specialise in one area, so they’ll be good at environment, good at characters and vehicles. If you want to make it as easy as possible to get into a studio, keep brushing up those skills. Don’t let any skills drop down. However, you’ve always got to go beyond your degree. Networking and getting your name out there is really really important.” JM BLAY Head of motion graphics at Escape Studios www.pearsoncollegelondon.ac.uk “Keep working, keep working, keep working. Create something, put it together in a showreel, then start calling people. We’re in a creative industry, so what that means is, be creative. As a…

AXIS ON TV Kiss Me First, a new six-part thriller created for E4 and Netflix is in production at Axis and marks the studio’s expansion into TV from video game cinematics. “People’s perception of animation is changing, animated content is not just for kids and Kiss Me First is a natural extension to the Axis teams’ work on some of the world’s biggest game franchises,” says managing director of Axis, Richard Scott. FLAUNT IT Axis’ sister studio Flaunt also announced the creation of its long-format division and will focus on TV animation, TV specials and feature films. Flaunt has already begun to expand, hiring new staff in its UK studios located in Bristol and Glasgow. FEELING POSTIVE “We are incredibly excited about both the creative and business opportunities in the…

ONE CHOOSE BASE COMPONENT From the the drop-down menu you have many choices for your base shading component. We will stick to diffuse and map truck_ color-red.jpg to the Color slot. TWO ADD LAYER Click on the +Layer button to add a component. You can choose how it it mixed. Custom gives the most flexibility but we choose Fresnel Layer as we are creating reflections. THREE ADDING YOUR ELEMENTAL COMPONENT Now you can choose what type of layer you want. We will choose Specular Reflection for a sharp reflection. Choose Glossy reflections for objects like a tire.…

ONE MODEL PRICE TAG STRINGS To create the strings I start by creating a rough curve and then apply the PrimGen plug-in to it. Playing with the Twist function and the rope segments I create a rope-like appearance. TWO XGEN HAIR SYSTEM After applying XGen to the string geometry, I use the TiltU parameter to flatten out all the hairs. Then I apply a Noise modifier to give it the desired scruffy appearance. THREE HAIR SYSTEM SHADER Things don’t always need to be complicated. In theory you could use a complex hair shader for the hair system, but practically a rough diffuse shader will work just fine.…

ONE CUBE WITH THE BEND DEFORMERS Open the Cube_Start.c4d. Here we have a cube made of six planes, and for each plane we have applied the Bend Deformer. Select all Bend Deformers by holding [Ctrl]. TWO ANIMATING YOUR BEND DEFORMERS On the frame 0, increase the Strength to 360°, add a keyframe (Hold [Ctrl] and click the circle next to Strength). After 15 frames bring the Strength back to 0 and add another keyframe. THREE NEST THE BEND DEFORMERS TOGETHER Delay each Bend Deformer for 10 frames (Face 4a, 4b and 4c should be treated as a single face). Now make each face a child of the other.…

To test the vendors’ theory that driver optimisation makes a considerable difference to the performance of professional graphics compared to consumer versions, we tried side-by-side tests of the Nvidia Quadro M4000 against a GeForce GTX 970, using SPECviewperf 12 and the OpenGL portion of Maxon Cinebench R15. The tests were performed with the cards installed in a YOYOTech Renatus Pro M3 workstation, equipped with an Intel Core i7-5830K six-core processor clocked to 4.2GHz and 32GB of 2,133MHz DDR4 SDRAM. As we stated elsewhere in this article, both of these cards sport 1,664 CUDA cores, but the clock speeds are slightly different. The Quadro M4000 runs its GPU at 773MHz, whilst the Asus GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU II OC Strix we were comparing operates at a considerably faster 1,114MHz. However, the…

PRICE £99 / 139 / $149 COMPANY The Foundry WEBSITE www.thefoundry.co.uk AUTHOR PROFILE Mike Griggs Polishing pixels since 1995, Mike is a UKbased freelance 3D, VFX and mograph artist, and a freelance technical writer. creativebloke.com Learning about how to light CG scenes is one of the key skills of learning 3D, with Slik 2 for Modo, The Foundry has offered a practical solution for every level of CG artist. Lighting is one of those disciplines that is simple to learn but requires patience and research to master. The mistake many new CG artist’s make is to light as they see other 3D artist’s do, when in fact the best source is to look at how photographers and cinematographer’s light their scene. Slik (The Studio Lighting & Illuminance Kit) for Modo…

PRICE £2,727.14 inc VAT COMPANY Yoyotech WEBSITE www.yoyotech.co.uk AUTHOR PROFILE James Morris James has been writing about technology for two decades, focusing on content creation hardware and software. He was editor of PC Pro magazine for five years. www.tzero.co.uk Yoyotech is a somewhat unfamiliar name in the workstation market, although the company has been supplying a professional range for a few years now. The Renatus Pro M3, however, is a brand new line. It combines a familiar set of components with one or two enhancements that could win it favour in the larger corporate world. The first familiar component is an Intel Core i7 processor, which has become increasingly popular in workstations. The six-core 5930K is a good balance of clock frequency and multi-core power, and Yoyotech has set it…

Being a freelancer, you earn a certain amount of day rate, then you put a little aside in your piggy bank for filmmaking. And over the month I accumulated a certain amount of funds for sound, audio, crew, paid for the expense of actors and stuff like that, and saved a lot by editing myself. But still, you’re taking a risk. It’s a blessing though, because you’re much, much more careful about how you’re spending your pennies. Sponsorships I’ve gone for haven’t been cash financing, because I funded it myself, and a lot of that’s to do with letting me retain more control as well. I got to use Adobe Premiere as long as I talked about it, which was a win-win for me, because I got to talk about…

1. BE CONSISTENT Treat your VFX plates like every other shot. If your scene is handheld, shoot the plates handheld. Resist the urge to lock it down or shoot safe. The audience will notice, no matter what you do in post. 2. SCHEDULE FOR SUCCESS Schedule your most complex and exciting shot at the beginning of the day. Then when you’re scrambling at the end of the day, you’re rushing the easy stuff. 3. TAKE RISKS Make sure you’re not just shooting ‘sixes’ and ‘sevens’ (shots that do the job and nothing more). A good action scene deserves a fair amount of ‘kings’ and ‘queens’ (shots that dazzle and impress). 4. LOVE THE GENRE Study your favourite action scenes. Pay attention to the coverage, not the edit. Where were the…

GET PUBLISHED EMAIL YOUR SHORT TO ian.dean@futurenet.com After stumbling upon an English translation of a Portuguese web comic by Fabio ‘Coala’ Cavalcanti (www.menthirinhas.com.br), Jacob Frey decided to use the premise for his thesis short at the Institute of Animation at the Filmakademie Baden-Wüerttemberg. “Seeing Fabio’s comic I immediately knew I had to make a short out of it,” he says. “The story was simple, full of emotions and had a great twist at the end. It was screaming out to be turned into an animated short.” Taking inspiration from Pixar and Disney, The Present was Jacob and his team’s attempt at getting as close as possible to the high quality of a major feature animated film. Taking inspiration from Pixar and Disney, The Present was Jacob and his team’s attempt…

EXPERT PANEL Jason Knight Jason is a freelance digital artist with over 33 years’ experience. Today his paint brushes sit neglected while his Wacom tablet receives much love! www.knightgraphics.daportfolio.com Francis-Xavier Martins Francis-Xavier is a character artist and CG generalist, with over a decade of experience in games, media and TV. www.polyjunky.com Dennis Haupt Dennis has been using Blender for eight years and works as an animator at InGAsys where he uses Blender Game Engine. www.3dartdh.wordpress.com Pietro Chiovaro For the last few years, Pietro has worked creating 3D assets and environments, and is currently working on an open-source game. www.bit.ly/pietro-chiovaro Josh Lynch Josh is an envirnoment artist at Infinity Ward. He has seven years of experience working on various game titles and platforms. www.josh-lynch.com GET IN TOUCH EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO…

I have always had a tendency to like more mythological creatures than anything else Patrick Tatopoulos, production designer Overseeing two iconic superheroes coming together for the first time in movie history is filmmaker Zack Snyder, who has assembled a team of cinematic talent that includes three veteran collaborators and an inner circle newcomer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. “It’s evolved to the point where Zack feels good about bringing me in on an early and deep level,” notes visual effects supervisor John ‘DJ’ DesJardin who has worked on every film by Zack Snyder since Watchmen. “We like to look at what Patrick Tatopoulos is designing in terms of whole concepts and then we’ll work with him to say, ‘You just need to build this little bit here because…

With a crisp white finish, timeless features and sought-after furniture, London apartment Seaford Court is the ultimate designer pad. But it didn’t always look like this. When the owners decided to give the place a major overhaul recently, they enlisted the help of an interior designer and London-based architectural visualisation company Atelier York to visualise the new design in CGI and reveal its potential to the owner. With a brief to refurbish Seaford Court to a very high specification, the designer – with Atelier York’s help – came up with a totally new vision for the property, bringing a beautiful, contemporary new design to life through a series of still CGI interior shots and a one-minute animation featuring the most interesting focal points. Showing off every last detail of the…

AUTHOR PROFILE James Morris James has been writing about technology for two decades, focusing on content creation hardware and software. He was editor of PC Pro. webmediology.com We are frequently asked by readers whether the considerably greater cost of professional workstation graphics accelerators over their consumer equivalents was worthwhile. The Nvidia Quadro M4000, for example, has 1,664 CUDA cores, which is the same number as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 970, although the latter has 4GB of GDDR5 compared to the M4000’s 8GB, and the 4GB is divided into an unusual 3.5GB + 0.5GB configuration with the smaller portion of frame buffer running quite a bit more slowly. But the Quadro M4000 will set you back around £650 plus VAT, whilst a standard GeForce GTX 970 is just a tad over…

AUTHOR PROFILE Josh Parks Josh is a compositor at MPC as well as a part-time lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire. www.joshparks.co.uk In last month’s article I covered how to set up a custom light setup that would allow you to utilise passes that we can generate in V-Ray for Nuke in order to speed up your workflow. This issue I’m going to go over how to create and use the Position pass in order to generate custom mattes – speeding up our V-Ray for Nuke workflow. Being able to create mattes that dynamically move with our object is a must on projects that have a quick turnaround. Using a Position pass we no longer have to fiddle around with roto when needing to mask areas on our CG renders.…

PRICE $999 COMPANY Red Giant WEBSITE www.redgiant. AUTHOR PROFILE Rob Redman Rob is creative director at a boutique animation and VFX studio, working across TV, film and print. Often found on the events circuit, he is a regular speaker at industry conferences. pariahstudios.co.uk Red Giant’s Trapcode Suite has a large and well deserved following, with fans praising the fully loaded toolset. With that in mind it’s hard to see where it could improve, but the latest version, the thirteenth release, has definitely brought more to the table. Firstly there is a brand-new tool in the suite: Trapcode Tao. It’s a 3D motion graphics tool that brings a simple concept to life. Aimed at creating organic motion to a project defined by other elements, from paths to existing animation, Tao is…