Innehållsförteckning för August 2024 från 3D World

This month we take an in-depth look at the visual effects of the latest entry in the Planet of the Apes franchise. These movies have truly gone from strength to strength with their VFX work, so we took a guided tour to see exactly how they're created. Elsewhere in this issue you can improve your own 3D projects, with training on everything from designing a spellbinding witch character to adding shocking lightning in post. We also pride ourselves on testing the latest tools to help you decide what might be best for your workflow and budget. This issue we checked out Blackmagic Design's updates to both Fusion Studio and DaVinci Resolve, its two hugely popular tools. Plus we test the new Modo to see if it can reclaim its throne…

Feature Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes What was originally a novel called La Planète des singes in France and retitled Monkey Planet in the UK, Planet of the Apes has become a multimedia franchise based on the imagination of the French author Pierre Boulle, where the roles of humans and apes are reversed. The latest entry, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, released in May as the first stop in a new trilogy that continues the story of simian takeover told during the rebooted universe's previous three films, which swung into life with 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes. “When I got the audition for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, I watched [the original] Planet of the Apes because my mum was like,…

Creating the effect of battle damage on a 3D asset often takes the skill of multiple VFX artists, but is by all accounts a relatively straightforward process to work on. However, that simplicity can be misleading when faced with complex sequences involving multiple assets. Plus, most jobs will require you to iterate quickly, match your work to a plate, and handle production-level hero assets with hundreds of UDIMs from different VFX vendors. This was the case for us at Whiskytree on a high-profile TV show our team recently worked on. While tools like Houdini and Blender's Geometry Nodes would usually be the port of call for procedural tasks, we needed a workflow that would allow for render-time damage without affecting the underlying shaders or geometry of the asset. To solve…

The Pipeline Build a sell-out stadium crowd WATCH THE VIDEO https://bit.ly/3Dworld-apes With so few online resources readily available for creating crowds, the ability to do just that in Houdini 20 was exciting for me. A crowd system is made up of characters that have a set of rules to define their appearance, animations and interactions. Such crowds are essentially animated characters attached to particles, with the movement of those characters, commonly called agents, in a crowd simulation based on an underlying particle simulation in DOPs. In a crowd simulation, the agents are in a particular state at any given time, such as standing, walking or running. Events can happen in a crowd simulation that change the state of the agent, for example from walking to running. These events are called…

Artist Q&A Your CG problems solved Pietro Chiovaro replies Whether you're making your characters style icons or trying to design the next trend, creating a T-shirt in Blender is a relatively quick task for even the newest of 3D fashionistas. These simple steps are all you need to get going. Let's start off with the default cube and scale it to create a rectangular shape, which we can Extrude for the shoulders. Delete the faces where the arms are located, as well as the top face to create the neck opening. With that, we have the base model of our T-shirt. Next we need to create a material. Start by making the texture of the shirt – I used Pixelmator Pro, which is similar to Photoshop – defining the colour,…

PROJECT INSIGHT The Hub Einstein and the Bomb Carefully reenacted with the support of historical footage and imagery, Netflix's 2024 release of Einstein and the Bomb has brought Albert Einstein's greatest discovery back to life. The feature length docu-drama uses the iconic physicist's real words, alongside expertly crafted visual effects and motion graphics, to contextualise Einstein's journey to his Theory of Relativity and the resulting creation of the atomic bombs that devastated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Renowned for its expertise in cosmology, history and natural history VFX, longtime Netflix collaborator Lux Aeterna delivered the inspiring visual effects that depict Einstein's earliest memories through to his final days in the United States in 1955. The film was released in February this year, timed alongside the Academy Awards…

The Gallery CG art to inspire “I was browsing ArtStation when I found Simon Gocal's concept. I just fell in love with it and decided to do a 3D version. I used Maya for the retopology, UVs and hair cards, ZBrush for the high-poly, Substance 3D Painter for the texturing, and Unreal Engine for the rendering and look dev. I decided on using Unreal for this project because I wanted to do realtime modelling and learn more about the engine. For the hair, I used an add-on for Maya called GS Curves, which is super useful and easy to work with. The hardest part for me was the reliefs. I just drew on the forehead area of the helmet, but for the other reliefs I made 3D versions and then…

INSIDE WHISKYTREE'S VFX SUCCESS STORY Times are tough for the VFX industry, but it's not all bad news. Even with Hollywood strikes, job losses, and the rise of AI, studios like Whiskytree have been able to blossom. The California-based studio has garnered a reputation for its breathtaking environments, on-set VFX, compositing, effects simulation, and plenty more on top. Most recently you can see its work in the Apple TV+ series Masters of the Air, with other recent credits including Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Indeed, Whiskytree has seen so much success that it recently announced the opening of a second location near Atlanta, Georgia. The facility will help to meet the increasingly extreme demand for VFX in that region, and provide dozens of sought-after job opportunities for…

Technique focus Dynamic poses and clean hair “I'M A MASSIVE FAN OF EVERYTHING KNIGHTLY, SO I USED REFERENCES TAKEN FROM THE DARK SOULS FRANCHISE” DYNAMIC POSES AND CLEAN HAIR In this piece, I used sculpting and polygonal modelling in ZBrush, which gives great freedom in your workflow. In terms of the rendering, I work with Marmoset Toolbag 4 with RTX, as it's a simple program and allows you to quickly set the frame, and adjust light and composition. Let's start out with the fact that I'm a big fan of everything knightly, so I used references from the Dark Souls franchise. I just adore Malenia from Elden Ring, and looking at her in my references, I wanted to make an original dynamic character, like a female knight. At the stage…

Artist Q&A Your CG problems solved Mike Griggs replies The best thing about working in a creative field is teaming up with other artists, as our work always benefits from collaboration. Finding artists with similar skill sets locally can be difficult when working in 3D. So what happens if the huge animation job with multiple shots that you've been pitching for months suddenly gets approved? Hopefully, as part of the pitch process, the budget has accommodated multiple artists, who have been discovered via services such as ArtStation and are ‘pencilled’ in for the production schedule. Pencilling an artist means that you're potentially booking them. There are various types of pencilling from soft to hard. Soft is a vague commitment, and a hard pencil means the artist is booked unless the…

The Hub News and views from around the international CG community April Fools’ Day is special for us at Umeshu Lovers. Every year, the team creates a set of visuals based on well-known characters and worlds, all independently of any of our other ongoing projects and for a little fun. Well, not just for fun to be honest. It's also proved a great opportunity for us to showcase what we can do, and what we can bring to other worlds and IPs. In the past this served us well. For example, after co-founder and art director Sylvain Sarrailh posted his take on Yoshi's Island, Illumination reached out to us, which is how we ended up working on The Super Mario Bros. Movie. A couple of months ago, the Umeshu leadership…

Einstein and the Bomb delivers a compelling insight into physicist Albert Einstein's journey to developing his Theory of Relativity, the discreditation and threats he received from the Nazi Party prior to World War II, and the eventual creation of the atomic bomb. Portrayed by actor Aidan McArdle, and using real soundbites and written documents from Einstein himself, the feature length docudrama reenacts the scientist's experiences and flashbacks while taking refuge in the UK in 1933. In contemplating his multifaceted identity as a public figure, a Jew, and a staunch advocate of peace, Einstein grapples with profound moral dilemmas. Convinced that confronting organised force necessitates its equivalent, Einstein boldly denounces Nazism and the surging tide of antisemitism. Eventually, he becomes a pivotal figure in urging the United States to develop an…

“I always like to create these interesting shapes to make my artwork more attractive to the viewer. One of my goals while working on Travesía was to play with compositions and find a good visual language to help with the storytelling. In this case, the vehicle has this unusual shape; essentially it's a single wheel. For me, this is the key shape in the images and composition, so everything should work in accordance to it. Once you have this clear, it's easy to work on creating a good visual language. For the general mood, I wanted to work on something desert-like, crossing through it alone on this bike. I was heavily inspired by the Star Wars universe, and other sci-fi stories that come to mind when I play video games…

The Pipeline Practical tips and tutorials from pro artists to improve your CG skills Design and render a spellbinding character ZBRUSH | SUBSTANCE 3D PAINTER | BLENDER | MARMOSET | TOOLBAG The world of 3D character creation can feel a little like sorcery at times, especially when we're creating figures such as witches! For this tutorial, I'm going to show you that you're capable of conjuring 3D magic too, as I explain my process for creating a character. Every enchanting tale begins with a character, and my witch is no exception with her mysterious aura and potential for storytelling. After starting out by devising a project plan, we'll then venture deeper into the creative process and discover the importance of imbuing our character with a distinct personality and presence. From the…

The Pipeline Develop electric atmosphere with lighting effects As with so much in the realm of visual effects, there are a myriad of methods and tools that can be utilised to achieve the same end results. If you're looking to add atmospheric effects such as lightning to your scenes it can be much too easy to think in 3D and try to add splines with animated paths, set up emitting materials and so on. That's all well and good, but it can be time-consuming and taxing at render time. There are cases where that's the best way to go, such as when the lightning needs to illuminate a complex shape or a moving character. That said, for an environment shot or something less complex, doing it in post-production can be…

Reviews Modo 17.0 SOFTWARE REVIEW + PROS Faster than ever GPU render plugin Built for the future - CONS OctaneRender is only Prime version Lacks any major new features VIEWPORT IMPROVEMENTS The physically based Advanced Viewport receives a range of improvements that make it more useable in a production context. Environment and viewport lighting can now be viewed at the same time to ensure they interact well. It's also possible to toggle textures on and off without using the Shader Tree. These and other improvements make for a much more streamlined visualisation process. PRICE £75/$90 per month / £415/$515 per year | COMPANY Foundry | WEBSITE foundry.com Version 17.0 of Modo is here, and with it comes a whole host of improvements and changes that developer Foundry says are “the…

https://bit.ly/3Dworld-apes MODELS AND TEXTURES EVERY MONTH Download these models and textures to use in your own projects MODELS + TEXTURES FREE ASSET DOWNLOADS Download a set of fantastic objects and build your own asset library with these fantastic stone building module models from in our monthly model and texture giveaway. TUTORIAL IMAGES + VIDEO SIMULATE A SELL-OUT CROWD Get in-depth instruction on setting up a crowd simulation with the latest version of Houdini. TUTORIAL IMAGES CREATE STRIKING LIGHTNING EFFECTS Add some electricity to your renders in post using simple After Effects techniques. NEXT MONTH Explore the post-apocalyptic visual effects of Amazon's Fallout TV series. ON SALE 16TH JULY Subscribe today: www.bit.ly/3dworld-subs…