3D World Issue 200

3dworld.creativebloq.com November 2015 #200

Dis t h e V c ove r tha F X f ilm t he C t c ha nge s d G a s vo i n d u s t r y , te by y d f o r ou !

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November 2015 PRINTED IN THE UK

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showcase

artist

showcase The best digital art from the CG community

get published Email your CG ART to ian.dean@futurenet.com

Like many people I was inspired by the 3D work in the Star Wars movies

Visit the online Vault to download extra process art for these projects: www.3dworldmag.com/vault

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Maze model

The base of the maze was modelled around a single cylinder, with selected polygons removed

Labyrinth II Artist Jean-Francois Liesenborghs Software 3ds Max, mental ray, Photoshop Lose yourself in Jean-Francois Liesenborghs’ gritty towering labyrinth, where the only lights in the sky are neon striplights and the burning jet trails from spaceship exhaust ports.

Drawing influence from the 3D work seen in Star Wars films, the architecture and scale certainly echoes the darker parts of a galaxy far, far away.

With a day job as a computer scientist, Belgium-based Jean-Francois created Labyrinth II in his spare time. Drawing inspiration from the futuristic matte paintings of artists like Dylan Cole and Yannick Dusseault, Jean-Francois creates whenever he can. “I do 3D work as a complementary job,” he explains. “I’ve made a series of spaceships for video games, environments for short movies and classical architecture for different companies, but I’d really love do it for a living.”

When it came to making the buildings, Jean-Francois resorted to one of his favourite tools, the Greeble plugin. “Greeble is a simple but powerful plugin,” he says. “I used it to create the base of the image, then added my own buildings in to create the final result.

I really love the depth of the city and I was impressed by the plugin when it came to the base mesh and texturing. It gives an impression of a complex city.”

See more of Jean-Francois Liesenborghs’ art FYI at www.jfliesenborghs.deviantart.com

3d world view “There’s an art to creating a sense of depth and perspective in a sprawling scene like this, and JeanFrancois certainly has the knack!”

Ian Dean

Editor

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showcase

Furiosa Artist Fellipe Beckman Software ZBrush, 3D Max, Marvelous Designer, Mudbox, Ornatrix, V-Ray and Photoshop

I always like to research and collect a good base of references

Ephere software developer and 3D graphic designer Fellipe Beckman created this stylised homage to Mad Max’s Furiosa in his spare time. Inspired by films that used groundbreaking computer effects, including Toy Story and Jurassic Park, Fellipe took the opportunity with his Furiosa tribute to try something a little different. “I’m inspired by a need to express myself in a way that I’m not able to with words,” he says. “Giving her a cartoon aspect was the best part of the project. It was very cool to do, although it suffered many changes.”

Taking three weeks on the project, Fellipe experimented with some unusual techniques.

“The shaders are mostly procedural, which made the process faster,” he explains. “The pants were made in Marvelous Designer and I did the hair in Ornatrix.

“For personal projects I always like to research and collect a good base of references. With all the references selected I start modeling using just a basic blocking in ZBrush. I did 80 per cent poly by poly – I like to work in a traditional way so I don’t fall out of practice.”

When it came to making Furiosa, the range of methods was a welcome challenge for Fellipe. “I try to be generalist. I’ve always liked all the steps of production and try to understand a little of everything.”

See more of Fellipe’s work at www.

FYI artstation.com/artist/fellipebeckman

3d world view “I love work that combines realistic textures and materials with a personal, cartoony look. Fellipe really pulls it off.”

Felicity Barr

Production Editor

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Gnome Artist Gustavo Groppo Software ZBrush, 3ds Max, Mari, V-Ray, After Effects Gustavo Groppo’s sinister Gnome is loaded with intricate details, from gold fillings to delicate cobwebs threaded around a cracked, impaled skull. This eye for precision showcases Gustavo’s thirst for inspiration. “I believe that everything I look at will serve as a reference point and knowledge as an artist,” he explains.

Originally from Brazil, Gustavo travels around cities in California and is currently based in Los Angeles as a 3D artist in Vetor Zero Studios. He takes his cues from artists all over, in particular the world of Jean-Baptiste Monge. This inspiration can be seen in the gnome’s fairytale storybook appearance, which is offset by some darker details including bloodshot eyes and a maniacal grin.

The character design and texturing were done in Mari, and the whole project took Gustavo three months to complete in his spare time.

Despite the immense level of detail, it was easy for Gustavo to keep on top of everything. “I don’t have a complex workflow, just the usual modelling, texturing, lighting and rendering,” he says. “Lately I’ve been studying and giving more attention to linear workflow, so as to better develop and compose my works.”

See more of Gustavo’s process at FYI www.artstation.com/artist/gugroppo

3d world view

Everything I look at will serve as a reference point

“Gustavo’s eye for detail shines through – look at the stitching on the gnome’s belt, the hair on his fingers, his wrinkled skin... I don’t feel very well...” felicity barr

Production editor

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Communit y Short Cuts

short cuts

Envy and resentment rock this robot’s world

get published Email your short to ian.dean@futurenet.com

Scott Thierauf reveals how he created Desire, a collaborative musical short blending a Rob Fetters song with a charming robot-centric narrative Scott Thierauf Scott is the Creative Director/3D Animator at Red Echo Post in Cincinnati, where he creates award-winning animation and visual effects for television commercials and animated shorts. www.redechopost.com

vital statistics

TEAM Story, Direction and Animation Scott Thierauf Sound Design and Creative Collaboration Grant Kattmann Editing Theresa Bruce Colour Grading Chris Joecken Software Maya, Maxwell production time 2 years

After being contacted by Cincinnati rock musician Rob Fetters to create a music video for his song Desire, Creative Director at Red Echo Post Scott Thierauf was inspired. “I realised the story I wanted to tell was on a larger scale than a music video, so I designed a short film that uses the song for a montage sequence,” says Scott. “The main character is a small red robot who was designed for a specific yet seemingly menial task. Unhappy with his job, he becomes envious and resentful, acting out the central message of the song.” The result is a charming animation with a unique perspective.

What did you do on the short and what was the hardest job?

As a solo 3D animator at Red Echo Post, I handled all aspects of story, design, modelling, layout, animation, lighting and rendering. Being responsible for every frame of the 9+ minutes of animation, the most challenging part of the project without a doubt was carving out time to finish it. All the work that went into Desire was cobbled together in unscheduled downtime, evenings and weekends. I needed to work around my more immediate deadline-oriented commercial client work and drop the short into any holes in the schedule I could find. Luckily, not everything fell on my shoulders. We have an amazingly talented team here for sound design, editing and colour grading.

What was your pipeline like?

For modeling and animation, I used my go-to workhorse, Maya, exclusively.

Several scenes had extraordinarily high

The stop-motion look is partly because I keyframed movements in quick bursts and a lot of stepped keys with no in-betweens at all

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poly counts and a massive amount of file references and shaders, and Maya handled these without complaint.

I used Next Limit’s Maxwell Render to light and render nearly the entire film; I love its camera-like simplicity and straightforward shader system. Getting the lights set up quickly, sending the scene off to render, and moving on to the next scene was critical to finishing the project. I rendered each scene at full resolution with a low Shading Level for editing, then went back to render everything to a higher quality for the finished animation. I found it necessary to scale back the shading levels and accept some graininess as the render times were quite high with Maxwell.

What was the most impressive technical aspect of the project?

There’s a moment when the main robot modifies himself into a monster of immense proportions built from hundreds of parts and holds various smaller robots captive in a multitude of

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claws and pincers. This massive creature required custom animation rigs for all the accessories and mini-robots, which were then loaded as separate Reference Objects in Maya and constrained to the rig of the main robot. Managing the rigs was super-crazy.

What did you learn from the project?

Because a good portion of Desire was timed to the underlying song like a music video, I needed to have a tight animatic for that sequence to ensure the animation would fit time-wise. But I disregarded that all-important part of the preparatory process. I created boards for some of the trickier scenes but not for the flow of the whole piece.

That was a bad idea. I created minutes of animation that inevitably ended up on the cutting room floor. Had I pre-planned better by boarding and shooting an animatic of the entire piece, I could’ve saved myself a lot of time.

Watch the full short online at FYI vimeo.com/94555198

1 After writing a preliminary treatment, I created rough sketches of the various single-task robots that would inhabit this world.

2 As still a bit of a Maxwell novice, I lit and re-lit the models to constantly test the surfaces and environments with the rendering software.

3 Knowing that each robot should be modular and easily re-accessorized, I tried to keep their basic structures very simple and toy-like.

4 Though many of the rigs were somewhat interchangeable, each character had its own peculiarities and their rigs required a lot of customising.

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Robo-Tech

5 I created proof-ofconcept animations and stills at the outset to prove the concept was viable and Maxwell Render was the right choice.

Asked how he made the short look like stop-motion animation, Scott reveals: “In early character animation tests, I had the idea to keep the movement quick and snappy, with the robots moving like tiny, bird-like mechanisms. But there’s another, more practical reason: I needed to keep things moving along fast to fit the story into the Desire song montage. To do this, I keyframed most of the character movement in quick bursts with some linear interpolation and a lot of stepped keys with no in-betweens at all. Snapping from pose to pose was perfect for the robots’ motion. Rendering with fairly realistic shaders and lenses only added to the effect.”

6 Since these robots inhabit a tiny world, I used lenses and f-stop settings that would simulate a very shallow depth-of-field whenever possible.

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7 The pencilsharpening scene, which was unplanned and created very early as a character test, is a favourite sequence and a reminder that working loose can lead to discoveries.

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feature The 200 greatest VFX films

the

Gre atest vfx films

Dis t h e V c ov e r t ha F X f ilm t he C t c ha nge s d What’s the greatest VFX film of all time? That was G a s vo i n d u s t r y , t the question we posed the readers of 3D World and e by y d f o r ou ! our website Creative Bloq, and the results are on these

pages. Which films changed the course of your life or impressed, defined or changed the industry? What do we collectively believe are the greatest, most influential VFX movies of all time? The criteria to be included in the top 200 was simple: The movie must have a running time of 60 minutes or longer; to have received a full cinematic release and to have a significant element of CG animation or VFX work, as opposed to matte painting or compositing. The final list is eyeopening and nostalgic, old classics rub shoulders with new releases‌ all have made an impact. Is your favourite included?

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200 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ILM, Rodeo FX (2008) A marmite movie on so many levels, hence why it’s found itself at 200. Despite a promise by Lucas and Spielberg to go back to physical and in-camera effects for the fourth Indy movie, it soon became apparent that just he opposite was the case. It’s riddled with some 560 (often surprisingly poor) VFX shots – including some dreadful CG monkeys in that crappy jungle sequence – but makes our list because you voted for it, and it has some saving graces – the epic saucer take-off at the end and dramatic nuke explosion that introduces us to an Atomic Age Indy.

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Tutorials Model a cinematic alien

Follow The video www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw200

ZBrush | 3ds Max | Mari | Substance Painter | Marvelous Designer | KeyShot

modelling a cinematic alien Marlon R. Nuñez shows how how to boost your workflow using simple techniques and the latest software

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n this tutorial I will show you how to interpret an original concept and bring it to life. We will go through my general process and I will explain some very useful tips that will enable you to improve your character pipeline and boost your workflow in any project. We will be using ZBrush, 3ds Max, Marvelous Designer, Substance Painter and Substance Designer, Mari and KeyShot. Each software has its own advantages, so I will cover the most important aspects of each one as we go.

This character is based on the fantastic concept art by Ben Erdt (www.artstation.com/artist/ benerdt) - it caught my attention

Artist profile Marlon R. Núñez Marlon has been working in the video games and VFX industry since 2010. He has vast experience in creation of characters from interpreting the original concept to bringing the characters to life. www.mrnunez.com

Legs struc­ ture

Parallel planes

Arms proportions

1 Analysing the concept Topics covered Character sculpting Hard surface techinques Clothes in Marvelous Designer Textures with Mari & Substance Rendering in KeyShot

We will be using ZBrush as our main tool. For clothes, Marvelous Designer has become a standard in the industry and now we are able to create realistic clothes in much less time. From there, I will be talking about the best features in Mari and Substance Painter and why I decided to use two different texturing software applications for this character. Finally, we will be looking at composition and rendering. Presenting your characters is probably one of the hardest things you can encounter, and the most important tip I can give you is… keep it simple!

For all the assets you need go to creativebloq.com/vault/3dw200

Spine curvature

Expert tip

Always work with polygroups Using polygroups in ZBrush will save and improve your workflow during the sculpting process. Make sure you keep everything organized so can easily hide/unhide groups.

from the first moment I saw it.

Ben himself was of a great help when I was creating the 3D model: with his feedback I got a deeper understanding of the concept.

Anatomically the model is a rather challenging one as it has its own body structure that is quite different from most of the classic chubby creatures. Besides, the creature has quite distinguishing elements on the back (bags, jets and tubes) that nicely break the silhouette, making the whole creation process really enjoyable.

The design meant I can practice and improve my hard-surface sculpting pipeline in ZBrush, which is covered in the tutorial.

Always begin by analysing the proportions (the head size, etc). In this case it’s important to emphasise the arms and legs of the alien, at the same time retaining the overall balance of the character. I also like to get into the smaller details at this stage, such as the mouth’s shape, the size of features like the teeth and eyes. Understanding the body proportions will help later when you’re sculpting the anatomy and will give an overall common sense to your creation.

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2 Block out the base mesh

Start with Zspheres for the initial structure. Once you have it, use Adaptive skin to get the first level (the second figure here). From here you can start adjusting the shape with the Move, Clay and Clay Build Up brushes, just by adding small chunks of clay and moving here and there. I find using a brush in Dynamic mode with Topology turned ‘on’ helps tweak the character quicker as it covers a larger area of the canvas in the least amount of time.

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Marlon explored new techniques in hardsurface and creature design during the process of creating this cinematic alien

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Tutorials Create a fire tornado

Follow The video www.creativebloq.com/vault/3dw200

3ds Max | FumeFX | After Effects

Create a realistic fire tornado Learn how to simulate a tornado made from fire for realistic VFX shots, with Vikrant J Dalal

I Artist profile Vikrant J Dalal Vikrant has eight years’ experience in the VFX industry and graphic design. He started his own VFX studio, Project01 Design Studio, which provides VFX, graphic design and tutorial services. www.project01studio. blogspot.in

n this tutorial we are going to take a look at how you could create a fire tornado, like those seen in films such as Twister, The Day After Tomorrow and 2014’s VFX epic movie Into the Storm.

There are a number of plugins for 3ds Max that you can use to create this kind of swirling tornado effect including Afterburn and Phoenix FD but many big VFX and animation studios use FumeFX in their pipeline, as it gives good output, it’s trustworthy and most importantly it’s user-friendly.

So, to create this effect we’ll use 3ds Max and the FumeFX plugin.

I can’t teach you each and every parameter of this software and

plugin, so for now we’ll focus on just as much as required for this particular project.

There are various different techniques you can use to create this effect in FumeFX, including Simple Source, Object Source or Particle Source, but we are going to use Object Source.

Before you start working on this kind of effect you should try to familiarise yourself with the real thing. You must know the real world height and diameter of a standard tornado or twister to create an accurate simulation.

What will be the rotation speed?

How much will the tornado move in ‘wavy’ manner, and how quickly

1 Tornadow Object Setup

Topics covered Scene setup Simulation Rendering

Start by using a cylinder to create the tornado’s geometry. Create a cylinder from standard primitives and make some changes in Parameters: make Radius 15.0, Height 200.0, Height Segments 90 and Sides 30. To animate this tornado base model use Noise modifier with Scale 12.0 and Strength X:10 Y:10 Z:00. Now turn ‘on’ Animate Noise and set the Frequency to 5.0. Add a Twist modifier, set the Angle

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will it travel from one place to another? A combination of all these factors will decide the scale of tornado. So, you should begin by studying any reference footage you can find and only then start working on the actual shot.

This is very interesting subject, because there’s really no single definitive process for creating this effect. What you create will very much depend on your own understanding of the tools and techniques; how you use your creativity with the tools will create different types of effects every time you work.

For all the assets you need go to creativebloq.com/vault/3dw200

at 1080 and set Twist Axis to Z. Add one more Noise modifier and set the Scale to 45.0, Strength to X:20 Y:20 Z:00, then turn ‘on’ Animate Noise and set the Frequency at 0.2. So after finishing the animation and editing of the parameters, we can see that our base model (Cone) is ready to generate the smoke.

You can use my 3ds Max file with the base model, which you’ll find among the assets for this project.

www.youtube.com/3dworld

Fire storm Create a swirling fire tornado in 3ds Max using the FumeFX plugin – it’s made for just this kind of job!

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develop Hardware review

Hardware review

Scan 3XS GW-HTX35 Price from £ 7,575 plus VAT | company Scan | website www.scan.co.uk/3xs

T 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. webmediology.com

he primary factor in professional 3D modelling performance is the hardware graphics acceleration.

So if every frame of responsiveness counts in your workflow, this is the thing to spend your money on. This is where the hugely expensive Nvidia Quadro M6000 comes in, and our first taste of this monster is in an equally monstrous workstation from Bolton-based Scan, the 3XS GW-HTX35.

This is definitely a giant among workstations. It’s based on a pair of Intel Xeon E5-2687W processors, which have 10 physical cores each and run at a nominal 3.1GHz. With Intel Hyper Threading, there are thus 40 virtual cores available in total, and Turbo Boost provides a top processor clock of 3.5GHz, although not for all cores at once.

The two Xeons are partnered with a healthy 64GB of Crucial ECC

Registered DDR4 SDRAM running at 2,133GHz. Since the Xeons are from the Haswell generation, a quad-channel memory pipeline boosts performance, and there are eight DIMM slots free for upgrade.

This brings us to that graphics card. The Quadro M6000 uses Nvidia’s latest Maxwell GPU. Most of the Quadro range is still on the previous Kepler generation and some lower-end Quadros use the first-generation Maxwell, but the M6000 is the first to use the second generation of Maxwell. The spec is phenomenal, with 3,072 CUDA processors – over 700 more than the Quadro K5200 – and a 384-bit memory interface. So the sizeable 12GB GDDR5 frame buffer provides 317GB/sec bandwidth.

This is on par with AMD’s rangetopping FirePro W9100, although the latter sports a greater 16GB memory allocation. This is the

first Quadro to support DirectX 12, too, although OpenGL remains at 4.5. The downside is that this is a 225W card, requiring two power connections, unlike other Quadros.

Storage includes a sizeable 512GB Samsung 850 Pro SSD for OS and software, plus a 2TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 regular 7,200rpm hard disk for general data. Our only criticism

Performance is phenomenal across the board. This is easily the fastest modelling system we’ve ever seen here is that the Asus Z10PE-D8 WS motherboard offers a PCI Express-based M.2 SSD slot, which promises much faster storage connectivity, but Scan hasn’t taken advantage of this. There is at least a Samsung SH-224DB DVD rewriter and multi-format memory card reader included, so storage options are comprehensive.

Speed demon

The Scan 3XS GW-HTX35 is a huge system in every sense, with its Nvidia Quadro M6000 graphics providing the fastest modelling performance we have ever seen Maxwell House Professional 3D graphics used to drive technology, but the debut of the M6000 illustrates how times have changed. The first consumer-grade Nvidia Maxwell cards arrived in February 2014, over a year ago, although the second generation of Maxwell is more like six months old. The primary benefit of Maxwell over Kepler, however, is in power efficiency rather than raw performance, although there are a number of feature enhancements as well.

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Not surprisingly, performance is phenomenal across the board.

In Maxon Cinebench R15, the rendering score of 3,063 is the second-fastest we have seen, with only Armari’s M36H-AW1200 with its dual 16-core processors being faster. The OpenGL score of 174.23 is also one of the highest recorded.

But the Quadro M6000 graphics conquer all in SPECviewperf 12.02, with every single result the fastest we’ve tested. Highlights include 104.25 in maya-04, 134.29 in sw-03, 167.02 in snx-02, 13.2 in the gruelling energy-01 and 131.56 in catia-04.

The Scan 3XS GW-HTX35 is easily the fastest modelling system we have ever seen, and almost as quick for rendering. It does cost a lot at over £8,000, but around £3,000 of that is the graphics card alone. So if your workflow really needs massive amounts of realtime 3D performance, the Scan 3XS GW-HTX35 delivers in spades.

Verdict

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Main Features

2 x 3.1GHz Intel Xeon E5-2687W v3 64GB 2,133MHz ECC Registered DDR4 SDRAM Nvidia Quadro M6000 graphics with 12GB GDDR5 memory 512GB Samsung 850 Pro solid state disk 2TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 SATA 7,200rpm hard disk Samsung SH‑224DB DVD rewriter Multi-format memory card reader Warranty: 3 years – first year onsite, second and third years RTB (parts and labour)

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