Innehållsförteckning för January 2024 från 3D World

This month we delve into the world of Aardman Animations to discover how it created its latest feature film, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. We’re nearing that time of year when festivities abound and we want to surprise our nearest and dearest. If you have a creative in your life who you’d like to treat this holiday season, then head to our ultimate gift guide where we highlight our top picks… or you might just want to treat yourself. Either way, we have you covered. Elsewhere we have a number of tutorials to help you up your game, which cover everything from making mixed-style scenes through to creating procedural environments using the tools in Epic’s Unreal Engine 5, plus so much more to discover. Enjoy the issue! rob.redman@futurenet.com…

ARTIST Tarmo Juhola SOFTWARE Blender, Photoshop "The base for these images was largely done in Blender with a few purchased photoscans from Sketchfab that I edited around. Just one good scan can save a lot of time, so I don’t hesitate to buy them. For the vegetation I used tree assets from Botaniq and Forestation, alongside some Megascans assets. I tried to push the scene as close to the desired result as possible while still maintaining reasonable optimisation. If I have the time, especially with natural environments, I do a lot of photo overlays in Photoshop for more realism. I also wrote a short backstory for this set. To create believable images, I find it always helps to have context or a framework of the world in which you’re trying…

The Gallery ARTIST Roger Magrini SOFTWARE Maya, Substance 3D Painter, ZBrush, Arnold, XGen "I began this project because I was inspired by Ian Spriggs’ 3D artwork Gina. It was so much fun, as I let myself do it freely without thinking too much about technical factors. I also loved adding more hand poses to my portraits. Usually they’ll feature heads looking straight or doing a slight head/eye pose, but this one breaks that up a little. That’s something I really enjoyed, and I’m keen to add more hands to my future portraits." • artstation.com/rogermagrini…

In the original Chicken Run movie, the chickens were filmed and presented in separate shots to the humans. Sam Fell explains: “The very nature of The Great Escape with chickens [in the original movie] means that they’re contained in their huts at chicken scale, while the humans are in their kitchen. If you watch the first film, they’re rarely seen in the same shot together. Even if they are in the same scene, they’re shot in opposite directions. Whereas in this film, we needed some form of previs to kind of figure out how to split the scales out. We needed a 3D blueprint that enabled all the departments to know where their bit fitted into the big jigsaw of it.”…

Feature Framestore in 2023 BEAUTIFUL CONFECTIONS Back in the early 2000s, as a number of lavishly produced and visual effects-heavy feature films went into production, the visual effects studio scene in London rapidly evolved and consolidated in turn. Key to this rapidly establishing network of companies was Framestore. In just over 20 years, it now stands as a globally recognised studio facility with bases in London, as well as Canada, the United States, Australia and India. Framestore’s list of past projects is extensive, including the likes of the Harry Potter and James Bond franchises. Soon to be added are Wonka and Rebel Moon, with Paddington in Peru, and a live-action version of How to Train Your Dragon currently in production to boot. We spoke with visual effects supervisors Glen Pratt,…

Wajsbrot comments on how the work of Framestore informs the overarching visual language of a film, with key conversations between Framestore, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 director James Gunn, and the film’s other creative leads ensuing from an early point in the process. “I truly, really believe that Framestore is one of the best in the world,” he says. “It would be crazy not to give us a bit of freedom to help shape the movie. “We were very involved in that process because of the trust of Stephane Ceretti [the production VFX supervisor] and James Gunn, and the fact that now Framestore can offer a service from early concept through to previs and postvis, and up to the final colour grading. For us, it makes the job even…

01 THE CINEMA 4D ASSET LIBRARY Cinema 4D 2024 has a built-in asset system, meaning many artists may never need to understand where their files live, as the Asset Browser contains so many resources. An artist can simply drag a model such as this guitar from the Asset Browser into a Cinema 4D Scene Viewport, where it will be available to work with alongside all its textures. 02 THE PROJECT ASSET INSPECTOR You can bring up the Project Asset Inspector by heading to Window>Project Asset Inspector. It can then be nested into the Cinema 4D layout. The Asset Inspector shows all the files associated with a scene, which in this case is the textures for the guitar model. As this is a model from the Asset Browser, all the file…

These types of feature-length film projects often utilise a wide range of applications including but not limited to After Effects, Nuke, Photoshop, Dragonframe and TVPaint. These are made by different developers and despite the fact that universal file formats and standards are becoming incredibly ubiquitous, there’s still a lot of care that has to go into moving files between applications. Not to mention the fact that having to do this takes a significant amount of time and energy. Foliascope removed a huge amount of this headache by opting for just one developer in Blackmagic that provided them with software for all their editing, colour grading and compositing. On a project that requires such a substantial amount of compositing and colour grading, it made a lot of sense for the gap…

“My advice to 3D artists would be to jump into the metaverse,” says Olivier Jean. “It’s the Wild West and some of the rules aren’t written yet, so it’s a really good industry if you want to help define the space. There’s a huge amount of freedom because it’s so new, and it has the potential to be so wide in its expression. It’s not often that humanity gets presented with a tool that can create so much and reach so many people. A lot of virtual experiences out there are a reproduction of what you can already experience in terms of design, architecture and storytelling. There’s a vast amount to be explored; things that we don’t even know about yet. What’s more, you can do it from anywhere if…

PRICE £100/$120 COMPANY Marshall WEBSITE marshall.com FEATURES Sync two or more in Stack Mode for a bigger sound Play from anywhere with versatile positioning IP67 dust and water resistance 15+ hours of playtime + PROS Massive sound from a tiny device High-quality materials Easy setup – CONS None from our testing Marshall is well known for producing outstanding-quality amplifiers, but it’s also making waves with a growing range of headphones and speakers too. A shining example of this is the impressive Willen mini speaker. Designed to go everywhere with you, the Willen has an IP67 dust and water resistance rating, so won’t be fazed by a typical rainy British barbecue. It also offers flexibility with the option of being placed in a variety of positions, whether that be standing, lying…

PRICE £70/$80 COMPANY Nanoleaf WEBSITE nanoleaf.me FEATURES Ultra vivid screen mirroring Trimmable lightstrip Privacy cover for camera Suitable for TV screens or monitors + PROS Easy set-up Smart home compatible Impressive colour saturation and brightness – CONS Colour accuracy in Cinematic mode Inconsistent blackout in Custom mode Whether relaxing with a movie or playing music while partying with friends, adding immersive backlighting can push your experience to the next level. The Nanoleaf 4D Screen Mirror + Lightstrip Kit does precisely that, moving entertainment beyond the screen by using a camera to sync the lighting to match the colours appearing on your display. The set-up process is fairly straightforward. The kit comes with a reel of trimmable lightstrip, corner brackets, a controller box and a camera. You can use the Nanoleaf…

The Gallery CG art to inspire "When creating this project, I was inspired by romanticism and influenced by the composer Chopin's nocturnes. I wanted to design a lyrical character who can fantasise about anything, contemplating the world around them while unburdened by the bustle of the day. The character takes off his headphones to listen to this world, the beauty of its sounds, and even to the silence. I also created a minor character who is designed to contrast with the protagonist in both form and mood. It’s for the viewer to decide who they are and where they go. When I develop characters, I create large selections of image references, music and films that correspond to the mood of the future work. This helps to influence all spectrums of…

The Gallery The Rookies The Rookies is a platform to help digital artists get discovered without having to compete with professionals for attention. You’ll get to the front page of those sites one day, but for now, we’ve got your back and want to help turn your passion for creative media into a successful career. WWW.THEROOKIES.CO SOFTWARE ZBrush, Maya, Substance 3D Painter, 3ds Max, Marvelous Designer, Marmoset Toolbag YEAR CREATED 2022 This is the first real-time character I made, which I did under Bruno Camara’s mentorship and based on yang qi917’s original design. It was truly a challenge to me, but in the end I was happy that I was able to learn so much. I can already see a lot of areas that need improvement, and though it may…

Digital extensions were applied to expand the scope of physically constructed sets in Dawn of the Nugget. In turn, these digital elements allowed for certain camera movements to be explored. This was certainly true of the action set in Funland and some of the compound. Production designer Darren Dubicki says: “Because of the scale of geography and the camera angles for the sequences, it was important we gave a kind of flexibility to Sam [Fell, director]. For the compound, for example, we had the big establishing shot: the standard piece of practical foreground, a CG midground and matte paintings, and then the blending of these elements.”…

“For the Dawn of Woman scene, that was basically the previs team scouting those shots and creating geometry and pieces of set before we shot that sequence. Kaya Jabar really helped to drive that and get the look. It was quite a puzzle, because obviously we wanted to help out production, so we were able to map where all of the vignettes for that piece could happen. The scouting was then passed on to the art department for the physical building of that stage.”…

SUB-ZERO Software ZBrush, Blender, Photoshop Year made 2022 RECREATE A CHARACTER IN YOUR OWN STYLE This was a project I developed in order to explore my design and creation skills, reinterpreting an existing character based on my personal style. Something I love to do when working on this type of project is visualise everything as soon as I can. I try to do a general blocking of the character quickly and without any details, which allows me to get a good idea of the design straight away. With that completed, I can then start to advance further into the finer details of my project. My favourite part of working on this character, without a doubt, was the exploration of the armour. The plate separations and the aggressiveness they add to…

Glen Southern Glen runs SouthernGFX, a small Cheshire based studio specialising in character and creature design. He is a Wacom ambassador, VR artist, and accredited ZBrush instructor. youtube.com/c/SouthernGFX/videos Paul Hatton After graduating with a first-class computer science degree, Paul Hatton has spent nearly two decades working within the 3D visualisation industry. 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 Glen Southern replies There are so many ways to do tasks in 3D that it’s…

01 CREATE AN ICOSPHERE Icospheres are polyhedral spheres made up of triangles. They offer an isotropic layout of vertices perfect for sculpting. Create one by pressing Shift+A, or by following Add>Mesh>Icosphere. Increase its subdivisions to up the number of triangles. For more visually appealing results you’ll need to set the shading of the object to Smooth. Do this by using Shift+F10 and selecting Shade Smooth. 02 ENTER SCULPT MODE Using the Mode dropdown box at the top of your Viewport, enter Sculpt mode, then on the top bar select the X axis for symmetry. This ensures both sides of the face are the same. You can break out of this symmetry at any time if you’d like to create any unique adjustments to one side of your character’s face. Please note that…

Pietro Chiovaro replies When you’re trying to create a wet environment, properly setting up your surfaces to look damp is obviously vital. Perfecting that effect in your project couldn’t be simpler with this easy-to-follow setup. To begin, select the model you want to make wet and assign a material to it. In the Shader Editor check Use Nodes, and we can begin the creation of the material. By default we’ll find the Principled BSDF shader in the material created, which will form the base for the wetness effect, and then bring in a Mix shader and connect it to the Principled BSDF. Now we can add in a Layer Weight node and connect it to the Fac input of the Mix shader to help control the wet surface’s reflection intensity.…

One area that Foliascope was able to save a whole lot of time and money was compositing. This step is often associated with the latter part of any project like this, but Foliascope saw a use for Fusion compositing in the early stages of planning each shot. This was done by carrying out a series of compositing tests, for specific shots, so it was absolutely clear the composite would work when the final files were received. That meant that footage was only captured if needed, which enabled a much more targeted approach to the whole creative process. These initial compositing tests also resulted in the final compositing for those shots being much more straightforward. Doing a lot of the challenging work of problem solving up front not only meant the…

“As a theatre nerd, I was interested in the composition of a show and how the space would transform it. In my experience doing design for theatre and film, I came across projection mapping, which seemed like all the best parts of set design, lighting, filmmaking and live events in one challenging medium. I taught myself and worked as a freelancer around New Zealand, putting on theatre shows, concerts and installations. “Now, at disguise, I get to work on a real variety of cool projects with my team. Right now, we’re focusing on our new integration with Move AI, which has a markerless motion-capture suite. We’re building content and seeing how we can join it together with different creative solutions. There are also a lot of pitches for different projects,…

PRICE From £350/$420 COMPANY Boulies WEBSITE boulies.com The Boulies Elite Max 2024 was impressive from the start. It was easy to put together, the tools and fittings were well organised, and the build instructions clear. The quality of the materials and finish are fantastic, more so considering the sub-£400 price tag. This chair is designed for people of a larger frame, but nevertheless perfect for those on the smaller side that tend to fidget while they’re working. You’ll find yourself able to sit and create for hours without getting uncomfortable. The chair boasts more than six adjustable functions that let you customise the position to make it the perfect fit for you. It has a multi-tilt mechanism that can be locked at any angle desired, which enables you to recline…

The Gallery CG art to inspire (artstation.com/artwork/eJrQg6) ARTIST Pavel Solin SOFTWARE ZBrush, Maya, Substance 3D Painter, RizomUV, Arnold, XGen "The character was made following a cinematic pipeline. The goal of the project was to push myself working with hair software XGen as much as I could, as well as to try out the cinematic pipeline with a full-body character. I had to redo the head about four times because I didn't like it at one stage or another, so the whole cinematic pipeline consisted of a constant return to past stages and changing certain elements. This was the first time I’ve tried a lookdev rig in Maya, and I used shading tips from Tom Newbury that were absolutely awesome, so many thanks to him for sharing them. The character's sculpt…

ARTIST Gurjeet Singh SOFTWARE ZBrush, Maya, Substance Painter, Unreal Engine "My main inspirations for this character were the God of War and Diablo games. For the references, I looked around lots of images and did a quick paintover on a character sculpt I’d made a few years ago for an online competition. I followed Marco Plouffe’s technique, using a decimated mesh for the low-poly model, and ZBrush’s UV Master and RizomUV for the UVs. I baked with Substance 3D Painter and rendered in Unreal Engine 5. When making ropes, most of the time curve brushes work just fine. But when I need more control, I use the Bend Curve option under Gizmo to speed up the process." • gurjeetsingh.artstation.com…

Feature Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget There’s a healthy tradition of sequels reaching screens many years after their progenitors and doing so with a real creative kick and vigour. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is now among that company. The original Chicken Run film, released in 2000, was Aardman’s first feature-length project, and in the years since other features have been produced by the studio. Now, 23 years later, Dawn of the Nugget showcases the studio’s embrace of digital tools in the production of a stop-motion film. An in-depth conversation with Dawn of the Nugget’s director Sam Fell, the film’s production designer Darren Dubicki, and modelmaker Anne King begins with an observation from Fell. “I wanted Dawn of the Nugget to feel like a constructed world, but not…

“WE’RE NOT TRYING TO DO REALITY. EVEN IF WE WERE DOING CG, I WANTED IT TO FEEL LIKE A MODEL” Sam Fell, director “Chicken Island, in act one of the film, is mostly in-camera and done old school; it’s CGI water. We did look at using cling film and super-old techniques. We looked at whole bunch of Gerry Anderson stuff with live effects, and that became my reference point for everybody. It makes the water [and its immediate environment] feel as though it’s miniature. It’s not infinite. We’re not trying to do reality. Even if we were doing CG, I wanted it to feel like a model.”…

“For the development of the skies, we worked closely with the director of photography, Rodrigo Prieto, to pin down this feeling of the right version for Barbie. Again, a lot of that was driven by the teams here at Framestore; a lot of what you see in the film is the result of that. The work we did on Barbie has real flare.” Pratt also opens up on the inspirations taken from an older style of movie. “Looking back to the Powell and Pressburger films or to The Wizard of Oz, it was a huge big deal because they used early colour and it was like, ‘Wow! Look what technology can do.’ Greta [Gerwig, Barbie director] really tuned into that.”…

01 USE THE TUBE TOOL Select the Tube tool, then choose the Path option and lay down two points wide apart from each other. Tap the green ball to accept the settings as they are, and then drag the orange ball away from the centre to expand the diameter of the tube. Next we can convert our shape from a tube to a plane in the profile settings to create the basic ribbon. 02 PROFILE SETTINGS This is a newer feature in Nomad Sculpt and it allows us to change the shape projected along the tube path. Tap the first Profile button and you’ll see three dots that give you different options. The second Profile window gives you a pop-up to change the Profile shape. Move the points to make a flatter…

We explore the latest software and hardware tools to see if they are worth your time or money AUTHOR PROFILE Cesci Angell Cesci is a writer with a background in design and sustainability, covering everything from tech to lifestyle. When she’s not writing, Cesci is busy planning a house build with her other half. rabbitwrites.uk If you’re on the lookout for the perfect gift for the creative in your life, it can be tricky to know where to start. To help you out, we’ve hand-picked a range of different products at various budgets. We’ll provide you inspiration for gifts that could improve somebody’s working environment, remind them to practise a bit of self care while they’re on the job, or just to help make their working day more efficient or…

PRICE £150/$150 COMPANY Levoit WEBSITE levoit.com FEATURES Smart controls 24-hour timer Check filter indicator Three-stage filtration Sleep Mode + PROS Intuitive, handsfree operation Easy set-up VeSync app offers air quality updates – CONS Noisy at higher fan speeds MULTI-STAGE FILTERS Levoit offers a range of multi-stage filters to customise filtration to best suit user needs. The unit comes pre-installed with a three-stage Original filter, while other options available include a three-stage pet allergy filter, three-stage toxin absorber filter and a four-stage smoke remover filter. From dust and pet fur through to bacteria and viruses, many contaminants can affect the purity of the air around us. Whether you’re looking to decrease the level of dust and pollen in your studio to combat allergies, or reduce the intensity of odours in your…