Cinema.4D.3D...uly.

Volume 01 Issue 03 JULY 2004 THE

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Multi Target Kinematic

Waiting in the Fog Character Modeling with Cinema CE+ by Chong (Andreas Krause)

Learn how to set up your Character for animation with Sion’s in-depth Tutorial.

Featured Artist

Our featured artist of the month “Kangaxx”. Check out the interview and his pictures in our Showcase!

Sketch&Toon Tutorial

Check our great Tutorial on how to use “Sketch&Toon”! Get your markers and paper ready to follow us step by step!

3D ATTACK QUICK INDEX PAGE 3-4

Featured Artist “Kangaxx”

PAGE 5-6

Snowshader Tutorial

PAGE 7-9

“Waiting in the Fog”

PAGE 10-13

Sketch&Toon Tutorial

PAGE 14-17

Multi Target Kinematic

PAGE 18-21

“Ethereal Whisper”

PAGE 22-23

Texture Work

PAGE 24-25

XPresso Tutorial

PAGE 27-28

Candlewax Tutorial

PAGE 29-30

The Sentinel

PAGE 32-32

Last Words

Featured Artist “Kangaxx” (Johann Strauss)

Johann Strauss, aka Kangaxx, has only been doing art in the graphics genre for a short time, but his talent is obvious.

increase my C4D skills or playing some games! But I also like to meet with my real life friends and do things everyone in my age does!

His love for Sci-Fi is seen throughout most of his work. We at 3dattack, would like to feature Johann as an up and coming artist in the 3d community.

Join us as we take a little deeper look at Johann and his work.

Tavy: Around the 3d community you are known as "Kangaxx". Is there any special meaning behind this alias you go by?

Tavy: Thanks so much for taking time to have a chat with me today.

We, here at 3dattack, have members from all over the world. Where and when were you born, where are you currently living? What do you like to do in your spare time?

Johann: I was born on June 26 in 1985 in a little town called Neustadt Aisch! I lived there for about 13 years! Currently I'm living in Erlangen Germany! It has got about 100.000 inhabitants and is located in Bavaria! In my spare time I spend some time with my PC, trying to

Johann: It's out of a Roleplaying Game (Baldurs Gate 2)! I saw it and I liked it - that's all behind this nickname!

Tavy: Just how long have you been doing 3d art?

Johann: I made my first experience with Cinema 4D in November 2002!

But things didn't work as I wanted and I stopped playing around with Cinema 4D till Summer 03! Since then, I have been trying to work more seriously with it!

Tavy: What first interested you in 3d graphics?

Johann: I was always fascinated about Sci-Fi pictures!

Tavy: Do you do 3d professionally, as a hobbyist, or both?

Johann: Its just a nice to hobby to waste some time with ;) But after passing school I will try to get a job in the CG sector!

Tavy: 3d Artists typically use many software programs. What are the programs you use to create your art? What software do you find yourself in most?

Johann: Well, I'm currently using Cinema 4D (I never tried any other 3D application)! For the postwork I use Photoshop! That's all Tavy: What is your favorite type of 3d work? I mean, most 3d artists find there niche in modeling, lighting, character rigging, where's yours?

Johann: Hard to say! But I really

Featured Artist “Kangaxx” (Johann Strauss)

Tavy: Thanks for taking the time to share a bit of yourself and your work with our readers. Any last words?

Johann: See you around on some CG Boards :)

influences, i.e., other artists who have inspired them. What are yours? Why? Johann: Yes, it's always great to see what other artist create!

Sometimes I really get inspired by some professional works of other artists! If I look at them I see what I want to be able to create one day by myself! like modeling non organic stuff and textures. (Unfortunately, I never tried to model a character)

Tavy: Where do you like to visit on the net? What sites or forums do find most useful to you and why?

Tavy: What are some recent projects you've worked on? Are you currently working on something you would like to tell us a bit about?

Johann: I really like to "waste" my time hanging around on various 3D communities like this one! It's a great source of inspiration and an opportunity to get to know other artists and share information and tips with them!

Johann: I'm currently working on a new scene! It's a first serious try in architecture! It's going to be a room inside some kind of ancient temple!

You can see it in the WIP section of this forum!

Tavy: Most artists have outside

Tavy: Do you have any advice for other 3d artists?

Johann: Don't try to copy things!

Use your brain and be creative!

If you would like to follow Johann work, he's a regular at 3dattack.net.

Here you can view the status of his current projects.

Snowshader Tutorial

by Sion Sion Cross Cross by

Snowshader setup 1. Create a new material and make the color a bit lightblue

2. Under luminance give it a darker blue and reduce the brightness

7.add a noise in the blend-channel and set the values as you see in the picture below. You can also use bfm as noise instead of naki 4. Config the noise as seen in the picture above.

5.in the alpha channel add a fusionshader

3. Set the strength of the bump about 140-150 and add a noiseshader

6.set blend to 55% and the mode to levr but feel free to test another mode 8.create a falloff for the base-channel and set the value as seen in the next picture.

Snowshader Tutorial

by Sion Sion Cross Cross by

11. Give the blend-channel a noise and set the values as seen next.

9. Under displacement add a fusion and set the strength to 100% and the height to 7m

14.give the base-channel a falloff like here: 12. Give the mask-channel a fusion and set the mode to levr and blend 60-70% 10. Under fusion enable use mask

That’s it! You are ready to use your material! Please post some pictures on the board so we can see how your snow-shader scene looks like!

13. Put a noise in the blend-channel and set the value as seen in the very next picture.

Waiting in the Fog

(Interview with Andreas Krause)

al 3d artist or a hobbyist? What do you currently do for a living?

Andreas: I'm a pure hobbyist!

Currently I'm working as a salesman for a big company that sells spare car parts.

Tavy: Do you do freelance work?

Andreas: I did some graphics for a game project called "Tight", but I recognized that low poly modeling is definitely not for me.

Tavy: How long have you been doing 3d art?

Andreas: I started in the early 90's with Reflections 1.6 for the Amiga.

The program wasn't that bad (at that time) but the render times were VERY HEAVY. About 17 hours @ 640x512 for some simple spheres.

So, I decided to take a look at other programs like Real3D and Imagine…..and finally I came up with Cinema 4D. Tavy: How long have you been working with Cinema 4d?

Andreas Krause…What can I say?

His work is stunning! Working with the CE+ Version of Cinema4d, one would think, how did he create "Waiting in the Fog"? He's a highly skilled and gifted 3d artist. Join me as I spent some time with Andreas, learning more about him and his work.

busy schedule to share your knowledge and skill with our readers.

Tavy: Hi Andreas. Thank for taking time to have a little chat with me today. I must tell you that 3dattack is honored to highlight you and your work is this months issue of "3dattack the Forum in Print". You are obviously a more than accomplished 3d artist and have much wisdom to offer the 3d community. Once again, thank you for taking time from your

Andreas: Sure! I was born in Berlin, Germany where I'm currently living. I'm 26 years old. For 5 years I lived in Cologne, but I didn't like it too much, so I went back to Berlin.

I really like every piece of art that is stimulating to the eyes, ears, the mind, and heart.

Andreas: Hmm, I'm not very ambitious with the tools in Cinema.

Maybe it's because I've been working with the CE+ Version ;) I really like the fully customizable layout in Cinema. It's very good for increasing the work flow. Hum, I'm not into animation yet. Looks very Spanish to me ;)

Tavy: Do you work as a profession-

Tavy: What would you like to see in

In the 3d community you are known as "Chong", but little else is known about you. Would you mind telling us a little about yourself, i.e. where you were born, your age, where you currently live, etc.

Andreas: I've been working with Cinema 4D for about 4 years.

Tavy: What do you like/dislike about the modeling tools in Cinema?

Waiting in the Fog

(Interview with Andreas Krause)

the future for Cinema? What kind of tools are you missing in Cinema?

Tavy: What was your inspiration behind this character?

Andreas: OOOhhh...I'm missing the SLA Shaders. I tried them in the R8 Demo and I loved them. Some radiosity would be nice too. I think it would be a good idea to put the Koenigsmarck Tools (Cutter,Edge Extrude,Edge Bevel) into future releases or i.e. some better polygon cutting tools.

Andreas: The inspiration..hmm..I love watchin' movies like "Equilibrium - Killer of Emotions", "Crying Freeman" or "The Mask" (with Jet Li)..dark characters, full of aggression, but with a sense of good emotional power.

Tavy: Your project "Waiting in the Fog" has to be one of the most stunning character models I have ever seen. The details are incredible and the life likeness is amazing. If you don't mind, I would like to get some details from you about this project.

Tavy: Was this a personal project or professional?

Andreas: It was a personal project.

Tavy: What kind of tools did you use to create your character?

Andreas: For the modeling and lighting I used all sorts of Cinema´s main polygon and lighting tools and the Plugins from Koenigsmarck (Cutter/Edge Extrude/Edge Bevel).

For the Texture and Post Processing I used UvMapper Classic (for unwrapping the UVs) and Photoshop 7.0 Tavy: Were there any special techniques you used to create your model?

Andreas: Thank you! It started with a Self portrait-Contest in another forum. The task was to create a head from photo reference (side/front view) of yourself. Well, I did it and won the contest. I was very, very happy about it, but imho, the head looked kinda naked...it was just a head, without any emotion or a scene around it. So I decided to go on and started to refine it with the goal to create a human head. I tried different poses, from very angry to smiling from ear to ear. I decided to make him look just a bit angry, too much expression in his face and he would look too cartoonish.

Andreas: Not really. I used the tutorial of Julian J Mortimer. He works with an edge loop technique.

He´s a Pro..he can describe it much better than I could. If you want to take a closer look, heres the link. http://aardvarko.snappyanswers.com /mirrors/www.cgart.i12.com/news.ht ml Tavy: Were there any "problem areas" on the modeling end of your character?

Andreas: Oh yes! The eyes. I find it very difficult to create good looking, believable eyes.

Tavy: What did you find to be the most important/critical part in the modeling process?

Andreas: It depends on what character you want to create. It's important to create something believable out of a summary of details without getting lost in it.

Tavy: Did you use Bodypaint to create the texture? If yes, did you find it difficult to use Bodypaint?

Andreas: I don't have Bodypaint.

Tavy: Can you give us some "special" tips or tricks on the texture end of your project?

Andreas: Try to work in a high resolution, the higher the better..I'd say the texture resolution has to be Render Resolution*2. If you are doing the texture with Photoshop or any other painting program use layers. It's much easier to work with layers. It's useful to create custom

Waiting in the Fog brushes i.e. for random spots and bumps on the skin. The blending feature of the layers is very important too.

Tavy: What kind of light did you use in your scene? Can you tell us a little bit about your light-setup?

Andreas: It's a simple 3-Point light setup. A key light from the right, a fill light from the left and a back light.

Tavy: I'm sure this had to be a challenging yet fun project. Which part of the process did enjoy the most?

Andreas: The modeling and lighting and some cups of coffee and a cigarette in between.

Tavy: Ha! Now that sounds like a real artist. This piece of work obvi-

(Interview with AndreasKrause)

ously was not done quickly. How long did it take you from start to finish?

Andreas: It took about 40 hours at all Tavy: What are you currently working on? Do you have any projects lurking in the future that you can tell us about?

Andreas: Oh, it's nothing special. I think I will complete some unfinished projects first, before I start a new project.

Tavy: I really enjoyed our time together today. It's truly been informative and fun getting to you better and learning about your work. You are highly respected at 3dattack and I'm quite sure our readers will find the time they've spent reading this article rewarding. Would you like to

leave our readers with any final thoughts?

Andreas: Thank you very much. I enjoyed it too. Final thought. Hmm. The more you try, the more you learn. And never stand still…..keep moving.

I hope you, our readers, enjoyed this interview with Andreas Kruase "Chong". Keep a close eye on Andreas and his work. He is truly a gifted talent, and I'm sure there is much more to come.

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Sketch and Toon Tutorial Sketch and Toon Cellshading

By Aaron Biscombe Requirements: Cinema 4d R8 Sketch and Toon Skyshader Plugin (optional download for free from plugin café) As nearly everyone at 3D Attack knows, I'm obsessed with NPR, or non-photorealistic rendering. I love the look and feel of traditional animated films, both in the American and Japanese styles. With the release of Sketch and Toon, there has been a surge of renewed interest in this area of cg especially among cinema 4d owners. In this tutorial, I will walk you through my workflow for setting up a model for rendering with Sketch and Toon, and along the way I will give a few pointers miscellaneous pointers I have discovered in my efforts to recreate the manga style in 3d.

Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, the most important stage of creating this style of render in 3d, is modeling. I say unfortunately, because I lack the years off experience in modeling to impart any in depth instruction in this aspect to you.

However, I can give a few pointers.

Basically modeling a manga style head is the same as modeling any other humanoid head, with a few exceptions. You can use either nurbs or polygonal style modeling, although I suspect that many folks model these with nurbs. I use a combination.

For the following model, I built the general forms (the mouth, eyes, ears, etc) with nurbs in Maya, and then converted these general surfaces to polygons. Modeling like

by Aaron Biscombe (EtherealWhisper)

this has two advantages, first, with nurbs it is somewhat easier to obtain the smooth silhouettes that are typical of anime or manga characters. Second, once the nurbs surfaces are converted to polys, they have rather nice topology, and we all know how important topology is don't we?

Of course this isn't the only way to go about doing things, and working solely in polys or nurbs for the duration of the modeling is perfectly fine as well. In addition, I find that if you are using reference images, stylized or photoreal (it doesn't really matter, as long as you are getting the general proportions of the head correct), it is important to have hard edges around the silhouette of the model.

When I first began modeling these style characters, I was a little put of by the way the geometry looks in the viewport- I irrationally expected everything to look the same in the viewport, but magically look like anime when I rendered with lines and such. I generally find that its okay if the geometry looks like an alien in the viewport, as long as you are sure that you are following the features on your reference.

Also, its very difficult to find orthographic style references on the internet that are suitable for setting up in the viewport, so if you have the skills, its probably best to create some on your own. But if your modeling skills are good enough, its just as good to simply have a picture of some character, and use that as reference.

These days, now that I have a handle on the general modeling, I just have numerous references at hand, and only place in the viewport when

necessary. Lets first begin by modifying our Cinema 4d layout so that we can do what we need to do efficiently. I've uploaded to 3D Attack the layout that I am using, and you can find it here:www.3dattack.net/ Of course, you can use whatever layout you like, but its essential that you have access to a large Object Manager, a material manager, and the active tool. I will be using my character that I modeled off of the Bao & Long-Long concept off of the Falcoon website. Some of you may recognize him from the W.I.P forum However there is female nudity in some sections of the website, so enter at your own risk.

You of course can use any bipedal character you might have at hand, heck, you could use a elephant, just don't blame me if it doesn't look right.

In order to have a happier time Sketch & Tooning, I find that it speeds things up to approach the rendering of a scene in an organize manner. Therefore, once I have finished modeling a character, with most details, I go through the painful process of assigning the selection tags to which the different materials will be applied. I've included lots of screenshots of this process because while not the most exciting activity, it

Sketch and Toon Tutorial

by Aaron Biscombe (EtherealWhisper)

might help beginners to understand the process better. First, I selected those polygon loops which corresponded to the border of the jacket

then I selected the polygons shown in the following screenshot.

Then, while maintaining my selection, I went to the selection menu, and chose "set selection;" a polygon selection tag should appear in your characters hierarchy.

By double clicking on this tag, I brought up the attribute editor, and changed the name of the selection to "jacket border."

Then as shown, use the extrude tool to extrude these polygons inward (as in the direction opposite their normals).

The following screenshots take you through the next set of polygon selections I set: (004,005,006,007).

Next, I came to the shoes, note that

at this point, my character is still in separate pieces. I decided I wanted to add a little extra detail to the shoe around the heel area, as shown in the next couple of screen shots.

First a I created a new row of polygons with the mesh surgery katana,

You can either do this interactively by dragging in the viewport, or by entering a value into the active tool manager. Now use the inner extrude tool a bit to well… extrude inward I guess. Then I beveled the selection. Finally, I selected the polygons shown, and labeled them "shoeblack."

By now you should probably have the drift of creating selections and-

Sketch and Toon Tutorial

by Aaron Biscombe (EtherealWhisper)

working on this tutorial in the dead of night like many 3d nerds, this would be total useless. In your material manager, double click the new "Sky material." Under the color channel, edit the texture that has been placed. This will bring up the SkyShader settings.

what-not, very simple stuff really.

We can now move on to the render settings for this scene. Open up the Cinema 4d render settings (its part of the layout I created). As you can see in the screenshot, I switched my shading model to gradient, as I don't really like the quantize effect. The default gradient is fine, just make sure your settings match mine in the following screenshots.

Hopefully you downloaded the Skyshader plugin. I am using it in this scene to aid with my lighting set up, however, its not mandatory. I like to use it add an interesting light source to begin with, so I'm not starting from scratch. There are probably legions of people who deplore this however, so try not to tell anyone. Regardless, create a new sky by selecting, Plugins- SkyCreate Sky & Material. This does exactly what it says, create a complete sky and material. You're not done however; the plugin automatically sets the sky according to the time on your computer, so if you're

in this scene by rotating my character 90 degrees, as you can see in the coordinate manager in the following screenshot.

This is fine for the setup we are trying to obtain. Now create a new light, with settings as in my screenshot.

In my screenshot, notice that , under Time, "now" is checked. Uncheck it, and change your time to the one shown in my screenshot.

Next, return to the sky plugin under the plugins menu, and this time select, "create sun." Make sure your attributes are the same as mine.

Do an editor render (ctrl-R on the Mac). Hopefully you have a similar shading model to mine. At this point, I quickly made selection sets for the hat, and the jacket (excluding the jacket details which we did earlier). At this point, I'll tell you that's its Now I'm not too sure about anyone else, but MY copy of Cinema has a positive z-axis that faces in a direction that I'm not really used to, as I learned 3d in Maya. If you were to render right now, you might wonder why the model is rather dark, despite the lights present in the scene. Well, while I'm sure I'm about to tell you to do something heinous, I just remedied the problem

very important to make sure that all your normals are pointing in the

Sketch and Toon Tutorial

by Aaron Biscombe (EtherealWhisper)

1. Position: 0% Red: 31 Green: 55 Blue: 41 2. Position: 30.24% Red: 45 Green: 71 Blue: 53 same direction, or else Sketch and Toon will place lines in places you probably won't feel pleased with.

Now that we have set up our lights and shading model for the scene, we are ready to create our cell materials. Create a new material.

Disable ever channel except the Luminance channel. Click the arrow next to Texture, and from the Sketch sub menu select cell. The horrible blue preset appears.

We must quickly edit this, or it will destroy our scene. Click the word "cel" or the image, to edit the shader properties. By clicking on the arrows next to the gradients you can enter more precise values for positions. Check the screenshot if you would like a visual example.

I have enabled the diffuse, specular,

3. Position: 48.38% Red: 96 Green: 136 Blue: 110 I copied this material, and changed its name to shoe. However, I disabled the cell Specular, as well as Backfacing. The Diffuse gradient is as follows: 1. Position: 0% Red: 161 Green: 105 Blue: 56 2. Position: 30.24% Red: 207 Blue: 174 Green: 129 3. Position: 48.38% Red: 207 Green: 188 Blue: 148

have left to do is apply your materials to to the pieces of your model.

When you do this, open up the material tag, and in its "selection" field, type the name of the polygon selection you would like that material to be applied to. My model is still in pieces, because I am not yet ready to rig the character yet.

However, if I were to rig, I would connect all my objects, and before deleting the original objects, I would carefully transfer all polygon selection tags to the new, single mesh.

Then I could simply drop my materials on again and specify which material goes where. I hope this tutorial was helpful to you. As this was my first tutorial, it was neither the most intensive, nor the best, but should you have any questions, please post them in the Sketch and Toon forum on 3D Attack, and I will be happy to help you.

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Finally the skin material.

Backfacing, Lights, Illumination, and Shadows should be selected.

and illumination channels. Most importantly, I disabled "camera" and selected "lights."

For the Diffuse gradient, the values I selected were:

1. Position: 0% Red: 230 Blue: 194 Green: 160 2. Position: 46.57% Red: 250 Green: 238 Blue: 215 Any other materials you see in this tutorial are quite easily derived from what you know by now. Now all you

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Multi Target Kinematic

by Sion Cross

Pic05

This tutorial is for users without mocca!!!

First, the (A) rig is the simplest and fastest to make (for animations in the background)! The (C) rig is somewhat more fastidious in and more flexible !!!

For all: Create both rigs to see the differences in the setup later. For beginners, please complete the (A) setup and the (B) setup first!!!

Pic02 Pic06

Before we begin please switch into object the mode in pic.01

Pic03

Pic01 1(a/c) Create the first bone under: - Objects - Deformation - Bone At the beginning a bone shows in the positive z-direction. To scale or rotate the bone pick the orange point at the tip of the bone. You can use also the normal move/rotate tools.

Now come steps where the rigs are different!!! "please pay attention to the indications (a or c)"

6. now arrange the hierarchy... it should look as follows! rig (a) pic.07 rig (c) pic.08

4(a). pull out a further bone and position him as in pic.04 and rename him to L_foot! the rig (A) is now finished... rig (C) still gets a few extensions!!! (c). position the bone as pic.05 Pic04

Pic07

Name him ROOT or Hips and rotate it 89° at P (pitch) so that he looks straight up.

2(a/c) Create a new one and rotate him as pic.02 rename him to L_thigh.

3(a/c) Hold down Ctrl.and pull out of the orange point (the tip of L_thigh) a new bone "childbone" and position him as pic.3. rename him to L_shin.

5(c). pull out a further bone and position him as pic.06 rename him L_toe! Rig (C) is finished too!!

Pic08

Multi Target Kinematic 7. fix the bones by "root > rmb > fix bones" and confirm with yes!

If you would like to make changes in the hierachy (which concern bones) you should reset those bones first "root > rmb > reset bones" ! so that there are no surprises later :) pic.9 Both rigs are now ready to animate with FK (forward kinematic)!

Pic09

by Sion Cross

from this copy the children.

Rename him L_00! drag and drop the L_thigh under L_00 If the L_thigh still has some angleworth° type in 0!

I made the following ik setups without L_00 but the only thing that you have to do is to give the L_00 an "anchor tag" !!!!

Pic01

***Now lets make some IK (inverse Kinematic) for the rigs! To keep a better overview i use the (a) (c) namings!!!*** "For beginners, please make first the A setup and then B and C" Setup (A) "can use for some background action or to get you comfortable with IK" 1(a/c). create "> rootbones > rmb > new tag > anchor" one anchor for the root bone.

2(a/c). Create 2 (0-objects) rename them into: shin_ik and foot_ik! (c) provide 2 further named: heel_ik and toe_ik!

Note: Please do not forget that the bones do not have the right influence on the geometry!"

Please visit www.c4dcafe.com for their great tutorials about bones an weights!

Where the L_thigh is zero out with a 0-bone!!!

But you can still do this later in the setup too! So here it is... ..make a copy of the L_thigh per >Ctrl./drag and drop< and delete

Prepare for some huge differences in the setup"! The following steps are only for rig (a) to finish it!!

3(a). Now create for shin/foot bone in each case one ik expression over "RMB > new expression > ik expression" 4(a). Select foot_ik and use "functions > transfer" place it as pic.01!

5(a). select shin_ik and position it as pic.02

Pic02 6(a). now arrange the hierarchy as pic.03 " setup for rig (a) is now finished " move now the foot_ik object... as I already said only for background actors or for this little training to make you get comfortable with IK!!!

So now that there are no complaints or why one would asks why does the foot not rotate... we make a small change in rig (a) which we also need for rig (c)! we call it simply rig (b) Pic03

Multi Target Kinematic Setup (B) 1(b).delete the ik expressions!

by Sion Cross

8(b). arrange everything as into pic.02 and the setup is finished.

"Play around with the controllers.

2(b). produces a 0-object and call it toe_ik!! " for rig (c) we had already created one " 3(b).select toe_ik and under "functions > transfer" types L_foot! position it manually approximately to the tipp of the toe bone.

4(b). repeat "functions > transfer" with the others (foot_ik > L_foot// shin_ik > L_shin) 5(b).arrange it as into pic.01

Pic01

Pic02 The shin_con (must be animated individually)" !

Setup (C) 1. everything should look as in pic.01

Pic01 6(b). provide copies of (shin_ik/foot_ik/toe_ik) with pressed Ctrl. And pull them out of the hypernurbs. Rename the ik of the copy to con (controller)!

7(b). give now shin_ik/foot_ik/toe_ik a IK expression and put the same named controller to the IK expression !

2.use "functions > transfer" at shin_ik > L_shin / heel_ik > L_foot / foot_ik > L_toe / toe_ik > L_toe !

3. select L_toe bone and copy its lengthen-worth. pic.02 Add the value to toe_ik under "P.Z" ! (example: bone size is 20 the value from toe_ik at Z is -30, put -20 "-3020"//altogether -50!)

Pic02 Now seat toe_ik exactly on the tip 4. now arranges everything as in Pic.03 5. make in each case a copy of (shin_ik,heel_ik,foot_ik,toe_ik) and drag them out of the hypernurbs! designates ik over to con (controller) 6. create IK expressions for (shin_ik,heel_ik,foot_ik,toe_ik) and putt the same named controller to the IK expression !

Multi Target Kinematic

by Sion Cross

PS: Drag the shin_con under L_thigh as into pic.05 in order to not constantly animate it! " if those bones strongly rotate you can use >Reset bones< to fix them to the normal position!

Pic03

Pic05

Pic04 7. arrange everything as in Pic.04 8. You are done! " with this setup you have more possibilities and it is more stable "

Ethereal Whisper

3dattack was blessed to have such a gifted artist like Aaron Biscombe "Ethereal Whisper" stumble upon us in early June of this year. Not only is Aaron gifted artistically, but as a human being he is awesome.

Getting to know Aaron on a personal level, has been a true pleasure for me. A few days ago, Aaron was kind enough to sit down with me for a little interview. I hope you will enjoy the time we spent together, as much as I did.

Tavy: There are many 3d artists on the Internet today that have considerable talent, and I'm truly blessed to able to discuss their work and showcase their talent. It's an honor to have you as a featured artist in this month's issue of 3DATTACK. Let's get started by you sharing a bit about yourself. Where and when

by Tavy

were you born, your hobbies, goals, work, etc.....

Aaron: Hmm, quite the interrogation! Well, I was born in Virginia in 1983, and here I have stayed for all my 21 years (sorry I just turned 21 recently so I have to keep throwing it around). Interestingly enough I didn't really have much experience with the visual arts till around the time I graduated high school.

Instead, I was much more enamored with the performing arts, drama, and music in particular.

I'm a classically trained pianist and vocalist, with a little bit of jazz vocals thrown in… although my voice has been suffering a bit in the past few years. That's what happens when your face is plastered to your computer screen waiting for Maya to load all the time. My other

huge passion besides music is the written word, and I love to tell stories. I still feel that writing is perhaps the richest form of storytelling.

Currently I am a full time student, I just completed my third year of college at the University of Virginia, and soon I will be applying to graduate programs in animation.

Here at UVA, I am a Media Studies major, which is mainly a theorybased program, so currently my 3d work is done on the side. However, since my major is very independent study oriented, several opportunities have arisen that allow me to integrate my curriculum and passion for animation. You asked about work as well, I am the senior consultant at my university's Digital Media Lab. My major is very film oriented as well, but even besides us majors, there are many students and faculty

Ethereal Whisper that need help with film, art, and web projects. The consultants assist these folks in their endeavors.

Tavy: How long have you been doing 3d Art? Aaron: I've been trying to learn the ropes for about a year now. A little bit over that perhaps though. Now that I'm getting on in years, the past is so cloudy.

Tavy: How have your artistic abilities improved over this time period?

Aaron: Hmm, this is a hard question; it's not really something I've thought about. In my first two years of school, I was under the impression that I would do something involving the web and design, I wanted to become an Art Director of some kind I suppose. However, what I really wanted to do in my heart of hearts was, to tell the stories that I've been telling myself for years.

There are many issues that I am passionate about, that I wish to fuse with fantastic landscapes, and I was always subconsciously searching for ways to do this. After a while, I had to come to terms with the fact that I just could not do justice to my narratives, personal or imagined, with Flash. A good thing too, because I never did get action script. Anyway, my lab came into the possession of a set of Maya licenses,

by Tavy

and that was when I first started exploring the world of 3d art. I was astonished, because for the first time, besides writing, I had found a potential way to express my visions.

I feel a little preposterous talking about "my vision" as I'm only 21, and don't even have my degree yet, but I don't know what else to call it.

And I also don't think it is fair to deny my ambitions despite the fact that I am not yet a professional. I think it is easy to get the impression when you dive into this whole 3d thing, that if you're a "newbie" (which is a rather derrogative term in some circles I might add lol), you don't have any business trying to achieve fantastic goals.

would be the most helpful to me. I figured if I couldn't figure out how to create a sphere without looking at the manual, I might as well find something else to do with my time, because I obviously wasn't going to be any good at it.

So I don't really feel that my artistic abilities have improved so much as they have had a chance to be released so to speak… I've improved my software proficiency certainly, but whatever small artistic ability manifested in my renders has always been there… just in my mind's eye.

Which in some respects is true of course… when you first start, there is practically no way that you will create an amazing lifelike 3d model… but there's no reason you can't try, and keep trying, over and over. That's what I did. When I began, I realized that this was an incredibly difficult and involved discipline, so I chose to throw myself into it fully.

Aaron: No, I don't do any professional 3d work. I may be 21, but my Mom would kill me if she found out I was spending my time rendering for money instead reading extra textbooks or something. I mean, she is paying for my education and all…

But I also chose to equip myself with tools that would be useful along the way… I always tried the difficult tutorials first, because I felt that they

Tavy: Do you do any professional 3d work? What about the future?

But I would definitely love to get into a good animation program, and hopefully go on to work for a studio of some kind. I'm so new to this, that I'm not really sure what I will be doing 7years from now…. All I can think about now is grad school. I would love to be able to direct my

Ethereal Whisper own films one day. Who knows? It could happen.

Tavy: What first peeked your interest in 3d art?

Aaron: Hmm, in my rambling I kind of answered this already… so sorry about that. But like I said, I really see animation and 3d art in general as a wonderful amalgam of so many mediums, film, painting, etc, that is has this amazing potentiality to express what is in the imagination directly, without constraints.

Tavy: Many artists find their niche in specific area's of their work.

Where would you say yours lies?

Aaron: Well I really like modeling, but I'm not that good at it yet, just very enthusiastic. However, what I really love is NPR. Any excuse to cell shade, hatch render, whatever, I take it. When people mention texturing I'm like, textu-who?

Tavy: We are all influenced by others. When referring to 3d, who has influenced you most and why?

by Tavy

Aaron: PSYOP. There work is beautiful. But they were not so much an influence on me, as they were inspiring to discover.

When I first encountered their work, it was the first time I saw examples of an aesthetic that were analogous to what I one day wanted to achieve. Of course there are always differences, but the way they blend three and two-dimensional imagery with film, is truly indicative of the way that media has the potential to coalesce and form new art forms.

Tavy: What is the driving force behind your work?

Aaron: Well, back when writing seemed to be the only outlet for my creativity, I developed a series of short science fiction stories dealing with exploits of a bunch of vagrant teenagers. Ultimately, I'd like to bring their stories to life visually, so that is what I'm training myself to do.

Tavy: Tell us a bit about the software you use to generate your work.

Pro's/Con's?

Aaron: Originally, I began learning on Alias's Maya. While everyone knows this is an incredibly powerful program, it is also a very dense one, and I admit that I struggled in the beginning, but after a while I became comfortable with it. I don't remember how I came across Cinema 4d originally, I probably ran into it in my never-ending search for cool 3d programs, but at some point I downloaded the demo.

I really liked the software, but I remained sort of in limbo between it and Maya for a long time. I really enjoy the use of ngons in the modeling workflow in Maya (and most 3d programs for that matter), and I found modeling originally quite awkward in Cinema 4d. Originally I would just model completely in Maya, or more recently Silo, and export to Cinema 4d. With the release of the Mesh Surgery plug-in for Cinema 4d, I was finally able to do organic modeling in C4D. However the lack of a decent inbuilt extrudes is still somewhat of a pain.

While I still use Maya to maintain my proficiency with the program, most

Ethereal Whisper of my work is done in Cinema 4d now. I do a lot of manga models, and for complex body modeling and the like, I will be using Silo for Mac in the future. I've used the demo of Silo for several modeling projects, and I really enjoy the features, workflow and price.

For animation, I use Motionbuilder quite extensively. I first obtained the learning edition for $100, and then upgraded to a permanent license for another $100 through their promotion. It's a wonderful piece of software. As far as I'm concerned there are no drawbacks. The real-time capabilities of the software are a dream, especially for me, as I don't have the world's most advance machine. For rendering I again return to Cinema 4d, and as most everyone on 3D Attack knows, I'm enamored with the Sketch & Toon module. I can tell you from my many searches for good npr rendering solutions that it among, if not the best non-photorealistic renderer.

Tavy: Can you share something with our readers about any current projects your working on?

Aaron: Currently I am working on a short film for school called Short Story. I actually applied for grant money from my university, and obtained around $1000, which I used to purchase the additional software I needed.

The film is somewhat of an extension of my media studies work, in that I am forever obsessed with the goal of creating art and media which enables minority youth to view themselves in a more constructive light. I feel that most of the media today, even the media which attempts to examine the situations of various minorities, is rather detri-

by Tavy

mental to the self image of much of today's youth.

I speak from personal experience, so I feel that it is my responsibility to try and create a body of work which engages in a dialogue with this problem, rather than constantly complain about it.

Short Story is more autobiographical than most of my other stories and it deals with a child's tendency to find refuge in imagination in the face of adversity.

The whole film has a very dreamy and nostalgic feel to it, and hopefully it will be a pleasure to watch when I finish it in November… which is when I must present it to the university.

Tavy: Is there a specific avenue of thought and artistic expression you would like to explore in the future?

Aaron: Hmm, well I've been composing and arranging the music to my film, and I would love to continue exploring the creation of music on the computer. It's such a rich world, but also very daunting, and I would love to gain mastery of it.

Tavy: Do you have any words of advice to give to 3d Artists of all calibers? Any words of wisdom?

Aaron: Ha! Well I don't really think that I'm in the position to give advice to anyone, but I will say that I feel a community that enriches and promotes exploration of art, rather than the stifling of ideas, is of benefit to everyone.

Tavy: Ok, this is your chance

to plug your favorite web-sites.

Where do you hang out on the web, and why?

Aaron: Well, in terms of cg stuff, the sites that I visit on a daily basis are obviously 3D Attack, but also CG Channel, because they always have great news, 3D Total, and CG Talk, because they have amazing user galleries, such amazing talent is always present… very awe-inspiring and all that.

I also love to visit Comix Fan, because I am obsessed with comics, it's a wonderful medium, with endless potential. Other than that, I have pretty boring web habits.

I spend too much time chatting online…

Tavy: Well, I must say it's been a real pleasure to interview you. I speak for myself, and I'm sure our readers, when I say I'm looking forward to seeing more of you and your work in the future. Any last words?

Aaron: Naw, I'm still surprised someone wanted to interview me!

Aaron is a moderator on 3dattack.net. Be looking for him and his work when you visit the board. We at 3dattack are expecting great things from him in the future.

Texture Work

by Mathias

Using Photoshop to create seamless textures.

A great scene can easily be ruined by poor lightning and texturing, as well as a poor scene can be made looking fairly good with the right texture and light. In this tutorial I´m going to explain how to create a texture out of a photo, taken by you or downloaded from one of the many free texture libraries such as http://www.mayang.com/textures/ and hopefully you will be able to learn a thing or two on the way.

Anyways, let's get started.

Taking your own pictures: Im not a professional photographer but I've learned from my own mistakes that if you are going to take your own photos for textures then there are some things to keep in mind before you start shooting.

First thing to think about after finding you the perfect material, is the light.

Sure it could be retouched afterwards in Photoshop or Paintshop but this will save you a lot of unnecessary work. Make sure the wall, or whatever your taking picture of is well lit so that you don't have to lighten or darken large parts of the photo to fit the rest of the photo when making it seamless and non repeating.

After making sure that the wall is well lit, then look for a straight line in the wall and use that as a reference for the shot so that you will get less work with rotating it later. Also look out for and avoid large differences in color or decay of the wall. Decay looks great, but it also makes it easier for the eye to notice if the texture is repeating it self, so even if you cant see the seams, it will still look repeating and destroy the illusion in

the picture. Another good thing to do is taking a couple of photos from the same object or wall so that you got a couple of pictures to choose from if one of them aren't good enough to use, either way, if you choose to work with an own picture or if you download a texture from one of many free libraries on the net you have to retouch the image so that it appears seamless in your 3d scene if you want to tile it.

First thing to think about when selecting your texture is, the higher resolution of the texture, the better it will look when you get really close to objects in the render. If the resolution is low, then the object will look very blurry which can make a huge difference sometimes in the quality

for the tutorial which is a fairly nice picture of a brick wall photo.

Now when you have the image in photoshop, make sure it follows a clean horizontal line. You can easily check this out by using the selection tool and drag it from one side to the other along with the bricks, if the line is not horizontal, then you will have to rotate the image in order to make it horizontal.

This is very important if we are going to make it look right later on when removing the seams.

and realism of your production.

Here you can clearly notice the differences between different texture resolutions.

Seamless texture in four steps: To make a texture seamless is a simple process if you know the basics of Photoshop. As I wont go very deep in the descriptions on how to use Photoshop in this tutorial, it's required that you are atleast a little bit familiar with the interface to fully understand and follow the different steps, which I will try to explain as simple as possible for you.

Step one: Select the picture you have chosen to work with and load it up in Photoshop. I have chosen this one

Step two: Now we are going to crop the image

in order to remove all bricks that are not completely visible in the image.

Just drag the crop cursor as shown on the image and double click to accept to crop the image.

Step three: There we go, an almost perfect image ready to be made seamless.

Texture Work

by Mathias

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In order to get to see the seams we will use a filter known as offset. This filter movies the image in both verti-

like this. cal and horizontal directions and tile them as shown on the image.

Step four: We are finally getting somewhere now, its time to remove the visible seams that we got when using the offset filter. This can easily be done using the clonebrush. Using the clonebrush can be tricky sometimes and needs some patience and practice. Select the clone brush and then hold down the "alt" key. Notice the cursor change to a crosshair, press down the left mouse button on the part of the picture you want to clone.

Easiest way now is to select a corner of the bricks to clone and then

clone over the seam. Play around a bit to get the hung of it.

Remember that cloning to light or dark parts, decay or certain patterns will make the final texture look repeating.

When you are finished with the clonebrush it could look something

Now all you need is to use the offset filter again to test if there are any seams left, if it is, then just go through the whole clonebrush procedure again.

Also when there are no seams left, you could either use the clonebrush again or lighten / darken the parts that draw attention to itself, since we don't want that repeating look.

Anyhow, this should be the end of the tutorial and I hope it helped some of you to understand the basics of making seamless textures.

If someone have any comments or questions about the tutorial I'm glad

to answer any mails sent to this address: dhi_matte@hotmail.com

Visit us on: www.c4d-cafe.com

Xpresso Tutorial Thinking Particles scenes often involve lots of complex looking Expresso expressions. In this tutorial we're going to use just one Thinking Particles node in the EXpresso window, a couple of primitives and create a very cool looking animation of objects dissolving into particles and flying through space and reassembling themselves into another object.

Hopefully after doing this, your appetite will be sufficiently wetted as mine was to have a go and learn TP. So without further ado, let's begin.

Begin with a new scene and create a sphere and cube primitive. Drag them apart a bit along the X axis to say X = 200 for the cube and X = 200 for the sphere. Because we're going to be dissolving the primitives into fragments we need to increase their segments. Be careful here as making the segments too high will overload your computer and it may run out of memory later on or crash.

I've set the cube here at 20 segments in each axis and 50 for the sphere. Make both primitives editable.

Next create a TP Particle Geometry object (Plugins/Thinking Particles/Particle Geometry). In the object Manager drag and drop the sphere and the cube inside so that the hierarchy looks like this.

by 3DKiwi (www.c4d-cafe.com)

An optional step here is with the Particle Geometry object selected is to open the TP settings (Plugins/Thinking Particles/Thinking Particle Settings) and drag the word "All" from the particle groups in the settings and drop it into the Particle group box in the object parameters window.

Close the Settings dialog box and still with the Particle Geometry object selected create an Expresso Expression for it (Right click / New Expression / Expresso Expression).

This creates an Expresso Expression and opens the Expresso Editor. Don't panic because as I mentioned at the start we're only going to create one node and without any connections. Make sure the "Expresso Manager" tab is selected (it should be) and somewhere within the window create a TP PBlurp node (Right click / New Node / Thinking Particles / TP Generator / PBlurp. The Expresso Editor should now look like in the next Screenshot.

Make sure the PBlurp node is selected by its border highlighted red and in the parameters window drag and drop the cube and sphere object from the Object Manager so that it looks like this.

The order that you place the cube and sphere is important as the morphing begins with the first object.

Also note that you can have more than 2 objects in here and create some very cool animation's. To get some action going in our scene we need to animate the "Animation Phase" parameter changing over time. So, make sure your frame position is at frame 0 and right click on the animation phase parameter and create a keyframe with its setting at 0%. Drag the time line slider to frame 90 or whatever you want and change the animation phase setting to 100%. Right click and add a keyframe. At this stage you can play back the animation which should show big chunks of the sphere flying off and reassembling on to the cube.

All that's left now is to tweak the settings of the PBlurp node and we're done. You may have noticed that the settings are grayed out for the PBLurp node. Just select both the

Xpresso Tutorial Sphere and Cube in the object window and the settings become active.

I'm not going to explain these settings but you can find out more in the 8.1 addendum for TP. Change your settings to something like what I've got. To start with keep the "Count" amount down to say 50 and you can experiment with the settings. Once you're happy with things, increase this amount to 1000 and your particles with become smaller. (If you want fine particles you need to increase the segment resolution at the beginning).

by 3DKiwi (www.c4d-cafe.com)

background object. If you made the cube and sphere at their default sizes, you will drop down the floor to -100 in the Y axis.

To get the white floor fading into the background like in illustrations, create a white material and apply it to the Background and Floor objects.

On the Floor object add a "Compositing" tag to it. (Right click / New Tag / Compositing Tag). With this tag selected enable "Composting Background".

Render the animation in a size and format of your choice.

Final words. As mentioned you can use more than 2 objects. I've had a lot of fun using Human Meg and Otto and morphing one into the other. You can use text as well.

Just make sure to convert it into proper geometry with the "Current state to object command. You may need to subdivide it to break up the faces. To create a Matrix "Bullet Time" effect all you need to do is record a keyframe at say frame 45 and have the animation phase at 50%. Record another keyframe at frame 75 still with the animation phase at 50% and then your final keyframe at say frame 120 at 100%.

I've made a video tutorial of this process and you can download the video here http://c4dcafe.christiandesigns.org/tu torials/Tut17TP.mov Quicktime mov format.

For some more Cinema 4D tutorial videos check my web site C4D Cafe http://www.c4dcafe.com/

Finally add a light or lights to your liking and enable shadows. If you advance your frame count to say frame 41 hopefully you will have something very similar to this: To finish up. Hide the cube and sphere in both the workspace and from rendering. Play back the animation and you will see the sphere dissolving and reforming into the sphere. You'll want to chuck some colors on to things so give both the cube and the sphere a colour. To help see things, add in a floor and a

Cheers 3DKiwi

ADVERTISING

C4D is currently developing at a very high speed and has found many fans among Russian speaking 3d-enthusiasts. They just love the ease of use combined with the huge potential of C4D. Those are the main-factors which support creativity itself. About three years ago a Russian C4D-community started out of nothing an it keeps growing day by day.

Since users of C4D always wanted an active portal with all possibilities that such software offers, I asked myself what a solution for this might look like and how can it be realized.

I´m not at all experienced in maintaining a portal, so I contacted my old buddy Luca Dalla Benetta who is the administrator of the well known Allplan-Forum and he spontaneously agreed with me to sponsor the hosting of our future portal.

We tried different forum systems and finally decided to use the broadly based and free whilst fast and lucid phpBB software.

Luca and Albert Zmora who acts as a moderator kindly helped me installing the forum and gave me many hints and precious tips. Let me express my hearty thanks towards Luca and Albert. Without their help it has never been possible.

The forum has been online for several weeks and and has become successful so far. This is very pleasant, but we don't want to freeze in that trim - we can and will be better as we already are. We are trying to improve our board by including functions that our members suggest.

Our portal should not only be an attractive community of professionals, but for beginners as well. Our forum is populated with competent and sophisticated designers and animators who answer your questions. We also host a wip-gallery that offers the opportunity to comment on work in progress. But that's not nearly all! Download models, textures and other useful gimmicks.

Furthermore, we are preparing tutorials and interesting interviews. We believe that we're heading toward a really bright future. Come and join us for a fascinating journey. If you can read russian text we would be happy to welcome you at our portal.

If you don't speak russian you are welcome as if you could and will at least be able to share your stuff or browse and post your pictures in the gallery. All forums have english subtitles.

Michael Petrischenko c4d.allplanforum.com

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Candlewax Tutorial In this Tutorial I chose to go with a green looking candlewax material.

You are free to change the color anytime.

Just pick a color you like and change it to your style.

by Jeso

2. Diffusion Channel Let’s go on with the “diffusion channel”. We are going to use the SSS (SubSurfaceScattering) in the diffusion Channel (Texture ->Effects -> SubsurfaceScattering).

1. Color Channel made it a little bit darker to begin with.

Let’s start with creating a new Material. First we will change the RGB settings into this: R: 0 G: 94 B: 0

Make also sure that you change the brightness to about 19%

Let’s change the color of the “absorption filter” - I used the same gradient like we did before in the texture channel. Now change the settings for your SSS like this:

Go with those settings for your SSS: Strength: 100% Filterlength: 50 Absorption: 5 Samples: 5 Minimum Thickness: 5.17 Scattering Length: 300

Strength: 200% Filter Length: 20 Absorption: 5 Samples: 5 MInimum Thickness: 5.17 Scattering Length: 300

Next thing we will do is to add a Gradient to our Texture-Channel.

Change it’s color like you can see in the next picture.

I chose a slight dark green to begin

After that you have to change the “mix-mode” to “add” and you are set.

4. Transparency Channel 3. Luminance Channel Settings

with and a brighter green at the endgradient.

The last thing we have to do in the Color channel is to change the “mix strength: from 100% to 10% and you are done.

Change the RGB settings as follows: R: 6 G: 106 B: 68 and reduce the brightness to 59% Again we are using the SSS Effect as Texture. I chose the same gradient as before (the green one) but

Change these settings:

Candlewax Tutorial

by Jeso

You will get the best results while using a HDR Map to lighten your scene.

Brightness: 18% Refraction: 1.5 Again we are going to use something in the texture channel. This time it will be the Fresnel-Shader.

You don’t need to change the settings for that and just go on with setting the “Mix-mode” to “Add”.

Change it to 32% and you are done with this Channel.

Thanks for reading and have fun using this tutorial!

Greetings Jens (Jeso) http://www.jeso.de.vu

7. Specular Channel Change the settings or your Specular Channel to: 5. Reflection Channel

Width: 40% Height: 79%

In the “Reflection Channel” you will change the brightness to 12%.

8. Displacement Channel

6. Bump Channel Let’s use the “Noise Shader” in this Channel. Change the Global Scale and Relative Scale settings to 20%.

Also, change the strength of the Bump Channel to 5%.

In our last step we are going to copy the noise shader from our bump channel into the displacement channel. Change the Strength to 2% and the maximal height to 1.

The Sentinel

by Georg Niedermeier aka “sad”

This picture is a true masterpiece of 3d-Art that deserves a closer look.

We have a room that is flooded, several chairs, a mask and one person which is about to leave the scene. Everybody will have his own interpretation of these things and therefore I can only share my personal interpretation of this picture.

Before I began to write my article about ToxicMind's artwork, I searched the web for some information about the meaning of the materials that were used in “Unmasked”, but i could not find very much.

A dream lexicon finally helped me out, though I know that dreams and art are often interpreted differently.

Please remember that I am not a professional reviewer and I am open for your input and suggestions.

The main attention is drawn by the mask laying on the center chair.

Someone has taken his mask off.

This totally fits anything we see in the picture. Did you notice the person in the background?

Let´s say the room and all things are part of a person. Water in a room would either be used for cleaning or for bathing. Well, for bathing it is too small of an amount, but you need no flood to clean a room unless it is a piece of mud.

Therefore I believe that the big amount of water is the result of a catastrophe. As I said earlier I want to treat the room as part of a person so the catastrophe must have convulsed his very soul.

Everybody wears masks. The older we get the stronger our masks grow and we carefully chose whom we allow to see our real “I”. We often

use different masks depending on what mood we are in or what social standing our opposite possesses.

Some of our readers possibly have made the painful experience of losing control of all masks. To make that possible, something overwhelming must happen. It must make us lose any countenance, which not necessarily means to cry, scream or to despair but, to understand that the old masks are not useful after that moment. That ,by the way, is a crucial moment because it allows us to decide if we either start a “new” life of truth or to form new masks, which in art also stand for falseness.

A chair offers rest, relaxation, and it gives us time to contemplate something, to make a decision or just to calm down. Imagine a heated discussion where the participants are loosely standing around. Now envision that everybody sits down. Isn't

The Sentinel

by Georg Niedermeier aka “sad”

anything calm and restrained now?

The order of the chairs in this picture is very interesting. One stands in the middle of four others. Those in the background are averted as if individuals who sat there weren't part of the group in the foreground.

Possibly they were part of it, but the conversation got out of control so they turned away. Maybe they got annoyed by the masquerade and turned away.

Another thought goes as follows: The person who sat in the middle wore the mask. He played a roll in a play and the two in the foreground were impressed by the show, while the others just did not want to see a pretender. They wanted the real one and because they didn't get it they turned around. Alternatively, per-

haps the persons in the foreground tried to convince the hooded to expose his real self. If so, they obviously have been successful.

There is a third idea: Since we only see one person and the mask laying on the center chair, it might be possible that others went away. Now they cannot witness his decision to take down the mask - it's simply too late. Perhaps they come back, but all they will find is the mask. All they will remember is the masked person. The only remembrance is what they have seen. The mask.

Wearing masks can make us feel guilty. It is a form of lying. Lying to ones self and others, which puts people around you to flight.

The picture also speaks of loneli-

ness. Masks can make us lonesome and the decision to unmask is no switch, it is rather a process. To unmask is work, and on the contrary, strenuous. Getting out of solitude is no different to that. It needs effort.Take down the masks, stand up, start a new life. That's what ToxicMind's picture tells me.

Georg Niedermeier (aka Sad)

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MD - Muscular Dystrophy What is MD and what can you do to help?

MD, (Muscular Dystrophy), is a disease in which muscles in the body gradually deteriorate and/or become weaker. Depending on the type of MD a person is diagnosed with they may also have problems with the membranes around their muscles.

Muscles of the heart and some other involuntary muscles can be affected along with other organs.

More than 500,000 people world wide are affected by the various types of this disease. MD affects people of all ages and race.

In Some types of MD, muscle problems start as early as infancy, while others may not appear until middle age or later. Muscular Dystrophy is considered a genetic disease that is often inherited. However, numerous cases have been Diagnose without prior family history.

What is the prognosis of those with MD. Some cases may be mild and have a slow progression with normal life span, while other cases may have more marked progression of muscle weakness, functional disability and loss of ambulation. Life expectancy may depend on the degree of progression and late respiratory deficit.

For example, boys affected by Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy have an expected life span into their late teens or early twenties. However, advances in respiratory care has improved this prognosis in recent years and some are living into their third and rarely, fourth decades.

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good. He was - he is - a shining star."

To learn more about Mattie and what you can do to help those with Muscular Dystrophy, click on the following links:

Mattie Stepanek: http://www.mdausa.org/mattie/reme mber.cfm MDA: http://www.mdausa.org/

With national headquarters in Tucson, MDA has more than 200 offices across the country, sponsors 230 hospital-affiliated clinics and supports nearly 400 research projects around the world.

On June 22, 2004, The Muscular Dystrophy Association, and the world lost Mattie Stepanek. Mattie, 13 years old, was the author of 5 bestselling books of poetry and the MDA's National Goodwill Ambassador from 2002 through 2004. Mattie died due to complications from his rare neuromuscular disease.

MDA National Chairman Jerry Lewis, had this to say about Mattie, "Mattie was something special, something very special. His example made people want to reach for the best within themselves. It was easy to forget how sick he was because his megawatt personality just made you want to smile.

"With Mattie, there was always a silver lining. Life threw its worst at him and he responded by seeing the

2002 MDA Jerry Lewis Telethon: http://www.mdausa.org/t2002/highmed02.html MDA Germany: http://www.dgm.org/ MDA Australia: http://www.mda.org.au/ MDA Italy: http://www.telethon.it/ MDA Canada: http://www.mdac.ca/

Last words...

ChristianDesigns.org: Serving God through Designing Art ------------------------------------------------Throughout history, art has been defined as a talent derived from mental thought and constant determination to create the perfect piece.

Artists have tried creating that single masterpiece, propelling their life to ultimate satisfaction.

At ChristianDesigns.org we understand an artists' life, and believe your art is precious, and deserves great care. Frank Lloyd Wright said it best: "I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen."

An image is the completed work through many building blocks for any artist, and we are providing you a chance to host your artistic abilities on our dedicated servers. This is a chance for you to satisfy yourself with a quality service, and be managed by a determined staff.

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We made it! Our third issue is out and we all hope you enjoyed reading the tutorials and articles in this issue.

If you have questions or problems regarding any tutorial or article within this issue, then please feel free to contact via mail, or on the forum.

We are always looking for people who are willing to write good articles and tutorials, so if you have something interesting for us then please contact us as soon as possible.

Let us know what you think about this issue! Every response is helpful and we will listen to our members and readers of our magazine to create an even better magazine the next time!

Happy rendering and may the poly’s be with all of you!

The 3d Attack Team!

3dAttack.net is a true graphics community dependent on honest actions, and that's why we have aligned our company with its excellent member base.

Sincerely, John Napuunoa ChristianDesigns.org CEO/WebMaster

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