FREE DOWNLOADS! MODELS, MAPS AND TEXTURES
NAVIGATING DIGITAL TV ENVIRONMENTS
The story behind the worlds of Game of Thrones, Lovecraft Country and more!
3dworld.creativebloq.com Master your mattes #269
AMAZING FOLD-OUT COVER!
DETAILED GUIDE
BE A WORLD BUILDING GOD Level up with our step-by-step
guide to building digital scenes
PRO ADVICE
MASTER YOUR
MATTES
Environmental artists share their techniques for creating stunning outdoor landscapes C THISREATE Turn SCE N to p age E! 36
LIGHTEN UP YOUR CALLIGRAPHY TRANSFORM 2D TEXT INTO A 3D NEON SIGN
ISSUE 269
The art of environments
The art of ENVIRONMENTS 3D World gathers masters of CG environment work to discuss what they do and how they do it
20 3D WORLD
The art of environments
uilding environments has become a cornerstone of 3D art. From home interiors and city skylines to dense forests, mountain ranges and alien worlds, the technology now available allows for limitless creation and photorealism on an epic scale. But in such a diverse and unrestrained discipline, are there any artistic principles? What do environment artists have in common? How do they work? And, perhaps most importantly, how can you create your own jaw-dropping 3D environments? 3D World has gathered a diverse selection of environment artists, with decades of collective experience across the CG industry, to answer all these questions and more.
B
RECREATING THE WORLD Veteran VFX matte painter and CEO of MattePaint.com, Conrad Allan, was drawn to environment work when he discovered Vue (a world generation tool by E-on software) whilst studying game animation in his native Australia. After sinking countless hours into the software, Allan connected with Dax Pandhi, CG veteran and QuadSpinner co-founder, who was a master of Vue at the time. “He was a major factor in springboarding my understanding,” Allan tells 3D World. “I’m a firm believer in finding a mentor. It’s
like having a one-on-one teacher on a semi-regular basis. That said, most of how I got started was just due to the fact that I’d play around with sliders for hours, continuously hitting the render button to see the different results.” Allan has always been fascinated by the visual aspects of the world around him. “When I was a kid I’d stare out the window looking at clouds,” he recalls. “I love the formations and colours. When I discovered I could actually create environments, that fascination was the driving force pushing me to recreate reality in 3D.
Rodeo FX was the main VFX vendor for HBO’s Lovecraft Country, covering 17 months of production and 1,218 shots
3D WORLD 21
RenderMan meets photo-surrealism
Practical tips and tutorials from pro artists to improve your CG skills
3DS MAX | CORONA RENDERER | PHOTOSHOP | GAEA | ZBRUSH | MEGASCANS
CREATE A STEAMPUNK ICELANDIC LANDSCAPE Ryan Elliot takes us step by step through the creation process for this issue’s incredible cover scene
I
n this tutorial I’m going to take you through my personal workflow used in the creation of environments with 3ds Max and Corona Renderer. I will take you from concept, to modelling, to rendering and finally, postproduction in Photoshop. This workflow is written with the end goal of creating a vast landscape, while teaching you various techniques that you can 36 3D WORLD
apply to any of your projects moving forward. As this is quite an in-depth process, I will be assuming you have some existing 3D knowledge and will try to explain everything in manageable steps, but won’t be going too in-depth on the more basic principles. If you are unfamiliar with Forest Pack or Corona Renderer I would recommend checking out some
tutorials on those. If you are a V-Ray user, you should be able to follow along very closely as they are quite similar render engines. Let’s get started!
DOWNLOAD YOUR RESOURCES For all the assets you need go to https://bit.ly/3Dworld-environments
AUTHOR Ryan Elliot Ryan Elliot is a 3D artist from Perth, Western Australia. He currently works in architectural visualisation and freelance as an environment artist. art_by_ ed.artstation.com
9000
Create a steampunk Icelandic landscape
CONCEPT AND DESIGN
01MOOD BOARDS
When starting a new project it’s important to collect reference images and create a mood board. This project was based on a mountainous Icelandic landscape.
01
02
02 THUMBNAIL SKETCHING
After collecting reference and putting together a mood board, start sketching out some ideas. Don’t get too bogged down in the details, keep things loose and just think about the major forms and composition.
03 FINAL CONCEPT
Once the concept is down, it’s time to take it a bit further and develop the idea before moving into 3ds Max for blocking.
03 3D WORLD 37