Innehållsförteckning för January 2022 från 3D World

Blade Runner is one of those films that’s made an impact on so many of us, which is why we’re so excited about the animated project, Black Lotus, that sits between the two feature films. This month we dive behind the scenes to show you how it was put together. Elsewhere this issue we show you how to project skin detail, set up stunning archviz exteriors, and so much more. We love this magazine and hope you do too. There’s nothing quite like having the latest issue delivered to your door, so if you don’t already, consider getting yourself a subscription. I don’t want to use this space to sell you things, but the deal we have at the moment is really good, so if you are in two minds…

This incredible likeness of actor Robert de Niro was painted and sculpted by hand by 3D artist Thomas Schreiter. “I tried to do every detail by hand,” he explains. “So I didn’t use XYZ maps or photo textures. I just painted many wrinkles piece by piece in ZBrush with the DamStandard brush or other standard brushes.” When it came to the bumps in the skin, Schreiter utilised ZBrush’s powerful NoiseMaker tool. “I previously used MorphTarget to remember the original mesh, and I added the details using the NoiseMaker. Then I used MorphTarget to switch back to the original mesh, then the Morph brush to add the details where they make sense,” he explains. “I had a painted pore alpha here that I then used over the NoiseMaker. The exact technique…

ARTIST Daniel Sabaté SOFTWARE Maya, Arnold, ZBrush, Substance Painter This 3D ewer prop, based on a 16th century porcelain jug displayed in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (bit.ly/3151O43), took recent graduate Daniel Sabaté three days to create, with most of that time spent painting many of the parts by hand. “The prop, in general, is quite simple,” he explains. “The only new thing I tested was to work with a higher number of masks to control the base colour. When using Substance Painter, I mainly worked in black and white so I could use it as a mask in Arnold afterwards. This gave me more control in case I needed to modify the colours later. I worked with five different layers in the base colour, so I can alter…

“We weren’t given enough time to do look development or tests, so things were happening real time based on the production flow that we established with series work that we’ve done previously,” remarks Joseph Chou. “Lighting tests went through several phases, but we had an amazing CG supervisor Manny Rojas who really had the eye for the ‘Blade Runner-esque’ look – so he took the lead in creating the look and feel of the film with the directors.” Motion capture was done in two parts. “Drama and action were done separately,” states Chou. “The drama part was tough because we were working off of English scripts, so we auditioned English-speaking actors in Japan who would act to the recorded lines, or sometimes off the script because we did not have…

1 GET INSPIRED At Formlabs we have an enormous amount of content from our user base showing some amazing pieces of 3D-printed art. They can be found both on our blog as well as our user forum. We are amazed literally every day by new creations. And the 3D printing community freely shares advice and best practices. 2 LEARN THE PROCESS You should start by familiarising yourself with the complete workflow and different steps of the 3D printing process so that you understand how your creations will come to life. Try not to get bogged down by the technical specifications of your 3D printer. 3 START SIMPLE Have a primary application in mind to get yourself started and then get to work with easier applications or uses first. While it's…

Antony Ward Be it game development, rigging or recording in-depth courses for his YouTube channel, Antony boasts experience in most areas of 3D. www.antcgi.com Glen Southern Glen runs SouthernGFX, a small Cheshire-based studio specialising in character and creature design. He has been using and training ZBrush in the UK for over 15 years. youtube.com/c/SouthernGFX/videos Mike Griggs Mike Griggs is a digital content creator with over two decades of experience creating VFX and CGI for a wide range of clients. www.creativebloke.com Pietro Chiovaro Pietro is a freelance 3D artist and YouTuber. An expert in the creation of game assets and environments, he shares many of his creations on his channel. www.pietrochiovaro.com GET IN TOUCH EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO rob.redman@futurenet.com Antony Ward replies I’ve been working freelance for over 14 years now,…

“That was a real stunt,” states Noble. “Lee Morrison [stunt coordinator] did an incredible job with his stunt crew. It was truly epic. There were one or two faces to change because we didn’t always have Daniel riding the bike. There was a ramp that enabled the bike to get up and do its jump. We dressed in the nice Matera stonework and made sense of trying to build something on top of that ramp to blend it into the surroundings.”…

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It is clear that hybrid (and in some cases entirely remote) setups are here to stay and this has fed into our vision of hosting our HD reprocessing engine entirely on the cloud. As we mentioned, this would allow for incredible processing speeds and large-scale capacity for indies, larger studios and research facilities that capture a high volume of motion capture data. Picture it – a modern, globally connected workforce with instant access to motion capture data and processing from multiple locations simultaneously.…

ARTIST Raphael Ragimov SOFTWARE ZBrush, Marvelous Designer, Cinema 4D, Octane Render, Photoshop This atmospheric render presented a new challenge for concept artist Raphael Ragimov. “I wanted to try my hand at creating something large with great ambience, which I had not done before,” he says. “Every time I work on a new project, I like to set new goals for myself, at least small ones, to do something I have not done before. It's always very interesting to find new solutions for yourself.” To start the creation process, Ragimov used Fusion360 to create the main structure, and then utilised some kitbash details in ZBrush and primitive cylinder shapes to create the station. “During the process I've learned that small details would not be visible at this distance,” he explains, “so…

“We knew right away that we did not want to do what’s called ‘photoreal’ looking CG,” explains Joseph Chou, CEO of Sola Digital Arts/executive producer of Blade Runner: Black Lotus. “Why do in CG what can be done better in live action? But we also did not want to do a flat 2D look either because we were in the CG sandbox. From the beginning we looked for a designer who can come up with stylised characters that can straddle the best of both worlds. We wanted designs that can only be fully rendered in 3D but also have that stylised look of illustration. This project was relatively easy to translate from the design pages to 3D, compared to some other projects where we are expected to translate 2D characters…

1 STANDARD PHOTOPOLYMER FOR LCD 405NM UV-CURING Standard photopolymer resins are one of the widest accepted resin for SLA printers. By allowing stable curing for SLA 3D printing, they present exquisite texture, smooth surface finishes and refined details in final models. Look no further if you are searching for materials for SLA printers. 2 PLA PRO FILAMENT FOR FDM PLA pro filament is a strengthening version of PLA filament with many superior features. With an upgraded formula, PLA pro filaments are tangle-, clog- and bubble-free compared to regular PLA filament. It ensures seamless PLA 3D printing with smooth surface, less tangle, no jamming, no warping while keeping the machine running consistently. 3 WATER WASHABLE PHOTOPOLYMER RESIN FOR LCD 405NM UV-CURING These resins are low-stimulus 3D printer resin that produce items…

“There’s a developing culture between commissioning bodies and production companies to evolve sensibility around diversity and inclusion. In the last two or three years, that’s been a real step change. On Chicken Run, we’ve put in a female-director training programme attached to the project working with the director across all levels of production. The fruits of that won’t happen for a couple of years yet. If you’re great with drawing you can go into storyboarding. If you’re great at building things you could go into modelmaking. Where we really don’t have many women is in those rigging and camera roles. I’d like to see a lot more women in those. I’d like to see more women DoPs and camera crew. There are no barriers. There will be a role for…

Glen Southern replies Posing a model implies creating a rig in most cases. Rigging is a very specialist skill and can take years to master at a professional level. Sometimes we just want to pose a character or creature to see if the anatomy is working, or maybe to see how a certain action pose might look. Nomad Sculpt is a feature-rich iPad sculpting app, but it has no rigging capability. Often, you can achieve what you need by masking off part of the model and then moving and rotating the unmasked area. This method is great if you have a lower-polygon model to work with but as the model gets larger, the masking doesn’t yield the results you might need. Another method is to simply use the Split tool,…

With ten years of experience in the automotive, product and feature film industries, Jason Brown is a talented CGI artist with a brilliant sense of humour. Originally from South Africa, or in his own words, “the country that stole the Rugby World Cup”, Jason’s career has led him across the globe. Now as Saddington Baynes’ lead CGI artist, he uses his experience to mentor junior artists. Jason chose the 3D animation sector through his love of art, skill with computers and the fact that he “can’t draw to save his life” (again, his words). Here, he answers our questions and shares his story. Can you tell us about your journey to becoming a lead CG artist? I studied 3D animation in Cape Town, and after working on a few films…

Over the last few years, many industries and technologies have already undergone some form of digital transformation. Thanks to the advantages of cloud computing, the benefits are seemingly endless – scalability, agility, cost-saving, the list goes on. It also goes without saying that the past 18 months have seen the cloud become one of – if not the most – vital tool for businesses as they continue to battle through the pandemic. Businesses were forced to undergo an accelerated transformation overnight and find new ways to work remotely, but also securely – another factor in accelerating the mass adoption of the cloud. The entertainment industry has long since assimilated cloud technology into almost every facet of its being. Cloud services are now commonplace for studios of all sizes who are…

AUTHOR PROFILE Mark Pickavance A veteran technology author, Mark Pickavance first wrote for 3D World in 2002. He’s been a commercial animator, games designer, managed Automotive CAD, and even published software. FEATURES AMD Ryzen 9 5950X Asus Pro X570-ACE motherboard Fractal Design Define 7 Samsung 980 Pro NVMe MSI RTX 3080 Ti + PROS Massively powerful CPU and GPU Great expansion possibilities Industry-standard parts - CONS Limited motherboard access Lacks Thunderbolt support PRICE £3,845 inc VAT ($5,145 approx) | COMPANY Wired2Fire Ltd | WEBSITE wired2fifire.co.uk Wired2Fire is a UK-based business offering pre-built systems for gamers and power users that exploit the latest processor architectures and GPU designs for optimal performance. Its Artemis workstation combines the very best of current AMD CPU and Nvidia GPU technology in a built-for-purpose system aimed…

ARTIST Albert Ramon Puig SOFTWARE Blender (Eevee, Workbench), Photoshop, Illustrator A fascinating sci-fi design by environment concept artist Albert Ramon Puig, who states that his artistic inspiration comes from the ability “to translate my imagination into a picture and design without limits, create environments that do not exist, or imagine what life would be like in another world.” Detailing his process, Puig explains that his first step is designing the main elements of the scene on paper or in Photoshop – in this case, the telecommunication towers and the maintenance aircraft. He then begins modelling in Blender, recreating the composition he detailed in his initial sketches using Blender Viewer, before rendering in Eevee and also Workbench. “I used the Workbench render engine of Blender 2.93.1 to render the material in…

ARTIST Arash Hadavi SOFTWARE Maya, ZBrush, Marvelous Designer, Mari, Substance Painter, V-Ray, Photoshop This fan art of Scorpion from Mortal Kombat was created by freelance 3D character artist Arash Hadavi, who is also studying filmmaking at the art university of Tehran. “As a 90s kid, I grew up with the Mortal Kombat game series and Scorpion was my favourite character,” he says. “I was really hyped for the new MK movie, so I decided to create a fan art of my favourite video game character. It was a quick, fun project, taking almost two weeks, and I enjoyed every single minute of the process.” Discussing his workflow, Hadavi begins by gathering references, before moving on to blocking out the model’s primary shapes in Maya. “In this case, I used a…

ROE Dental Laboratory has been lending its expertise to dentists since 1926, and has been at the forefront of dental technology throughout the following decades. Having been involved with the laboratory since his teenage years, B.J. Kowalski took over the family business from his father in 2001 and has been spearheading its progression across the 21st century. A recent part of that progression is the adoption of 3D printing technology in the creation of a wide range of dental products. “3D printing has been a serious tool for the last five years,” Kowalski tells 3D World, “and it has been an active part of our business for the last 15 years.” Currently ROE Dental Laboratory runs 50 3D printers 24 hours, seven days a week in order to produce a…

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“Inevitably due to schedules and actor availability you have to have the odd face replacement where either the actor isn’t around or the stunt itself is dicey,” notes Noble. “Daniel was scanned at ICT which gave us the chance to get a headstart with ILM’s head build. We used Clear Angle’s rig called Dorothy to scan the rest of the cast. A lot of the stunt doubles and crowds were scanned to expand various scenes.” Craig hurt himself on set which resulted in principal photography being suspended. “There were moments where we had to do face replacements for Daniel Craig, but it didn’t have that much of an impact as we had a hiatus.”…

The Xsens MotionCloud platform is a brand-new service that connects the Xsens motion capture user base with cloud computing, opening up rapid cloud-based processing and automatic reporting. It also gives Xsens’ tools a more affordable price model, giving a wider range of studios and research facilities access to Xsens’ high-quality inertial motion capture offering. MotionCloud was developed to make it possible for Xsens MVN users to run motion capture projects in multiple locations simultaneously, around the world. For example, a creative studio shooting mocap sessions in London can process its data at high speeds using MotionCloud, and immediately share that same data through a cloud repository with animators in LA to drive the movements of realistic, CG characters. Because it significantly increases your team’s productivity and efficiency, you can fine-tune…

Missing an issue of 3D World? Fill the gaps in your collection today! ISSUE 280 CHRISTMAS 2021 CREATE STUNNING FAN ART •This month’s cover artist breaks down his workflow process for producing awesome fan art •We explore Unreal Engine with advice and tutorials from the pros •Discover the incredible VFX of sci-fi blockbuster Dune •Digital Domain talk creating cinematic-quality TV series •Downloads Free models and textures, files and more! buy://com.futurenet.3dworldmagazine.217/ ISSUE 279 DECEMBER 2021 THE VFX OF FOUNDATION • Get the lowdown on the Apple TV+ sci-fi series Foundation •Inside Blue Zoo: Part 5, exploring the exciting future of real-time tech • Stage and compose a shot with Pixar’s layout artist • Get started in VR: how to utilise this immersive creative medium • Downloads Free models and textures, files…