FREE!

TEXTURES, MODELS, AND VIDEO TRAINING

GET STARTED
WITH 3D SCANN
ING
We test the best a
p
on the market! ps

3dworld.creativebloq.com
TMNT: Mutant Mayhem
#304

COWABUNGA

EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT CINESITE'S

B ODACIOUS NINJA TURTLES VFX

AND
UNREAL 5.2 REVIEWED • CREATE DYNAMIC F1 SCENES MORE!
DAVINCI RESOLVE TRAINING • PEDRO CONTI INTERVIEW
ISSUE 304
RENDER STUNNING ART TOYS • STYLISH ARCHVIZ KITCHENS
 WELCOME
This month we have some real
inspiration for you! The Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles have been
well-loved for a long time, but
nothing looks quite like their
latest movie, Mutant Mayhem,
which showcases absolutely
stunning visuals. We caught up
with Cinesite, who spoke about
their work on the film.
On top of that, we also have
a wonderful in-depth look at
virtual cinematography, a real
growth area. That’s not all, as
we talked to Pedro Conti; one
of our previous cover artists and
a veteran of the 3D art world.
Plus, we have our usual range
of informative tutorials. Rob Redman, Editor
Enjoy the issue! rob.redman@futurenet.com
3D WORLD 3
3D WORLD ISSUE 304
ARTIST SHOWCASE
6 The Gallery
Discover the best digital art
from the CG community
06
FEATURES
22 Teen spirit
Cinesite’s role in Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
32 Zooming in on virtual
cinematography
Explore the world of film and
games through the virtual lens
40 The art of Pedro Conti
The animation master talks about
his career and favourite projects
40
4 3D WORLD
THE PIPELINE 22
48 Build a stylish kitchen
Shaygan Shamlou returns with
a stunning Scandinavian room
52 Add virtual lights with the
Relight Effect in Resolve
Learn how to perfect the lighting
in your scenes with pro training
56 Design art toy
product renders
Oscar Juárez shares his process
for producing pristine renders
62 Create a dynamic
Formula One scene
Accelerate your 3ds Max skills
with Paul Flower’s F1 workshop
68 Develop a real-time
stylised portrait
Check out Satoshi Arakawa’s PBR
pipeline for creating portraits
ARTIST Q&A
72 Your CG problems solved
Pro artists tackle your queries
 32
SIGN UP!
For content direct to your
inbox, subscribe to our
weekly newsletter at:
bit.ly/3dworldnews

48 THE HUB
80 Meet the Artist: Tav Flett
The Lux Aeterna compositor tells
us about his life in the industry

REVIEWS
84 RailClone 6
iToo builds on its solid package

86 Group Test: Mobile

scanning apps
62 We check out the best options
for creating high-quality assets

92 Xencelabs Pen Tablet

Medium Bundle
Up your digital art game with a
highly recommended package

94 Unreal Engine 5.2

Why new features have an instant
impact on the strong UE offering

REGULARS
30 Subscriptions
Subscribe and save!

96 Back issues
Complete your 3D World
collection today

98 Free downloads
Images and files
from our tutorial SAVE UP TO
80
92%
section

ON YOUR ANNUAL
SUBSCRIPTION!

3D WORLD 5
The best digital art from
the CG community
 CG art to inspire

FOURTEENTH
OF THE HILL
ARTIST
Maxime Schyns
SOFTWARE
ZBrush, Maya, Substance 3D Painter, Photoshop, RenderMan

All told, it took me approximately four weeks to put

this enchanting Witcher fan art character together. I
worked across sculpting, modelling, texturing, shading
and grooming, and was able to utilise my varied skill set to
create an attention-grabbing character. This project was
the first I used RenderMan as the render engine for, as I
usually go with Arnold. It was a bit of a different process,
learning how the shaders work.
What I enjoyed the most about this project was that
I took a realistic character and turned it into my own
style, 3D concepting a character almost from scratch. It
was a lot of back and forth, a lot of iterations to find the
stylised look I wanted, but that’s a process that I find very
rewarding in the end. I look at a lot of digital work, but I
have to admit that I’ve got a huge soft spot for traditional
art. Drawing and traditional sculpting are probably the
mediums that inspire me the most.

artstation.com/maxschyns

3D WORLD 07
CG art to inspire

THE SOURCE
A few years back, I barely knew how to use
3D, but now my work is being noticed and I’ve
finally dived into Unreal Engine 5. Originally I
wanted to learn just a little 3D to streamline my
processes, as before that I began working on art
for games so I could make some extra bucks. You
know, adult life began with bills and so on. I didn’t
take it too seriously in the beginning, but it’s cool
how things subtly pull you in, and suddenly it’s
your life. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved
art and put in a lot of hard work to achieve results.
But as a kid, I thought I’d paint canvases and
wear berets (kidding!). It turned out even better
though. My message is to enjoy the process, and
the goals will guide you.

artstation.com/monsta

ARTIST
Dmitriy Bessonov
SOFTWARE
Unreal Engine, Blender, Photoshop

08 3D WORLD
 CG art to inspire

3D WORLD 09
CG art to inspire

10 3D WORLD

UNDEAD
I enjoy creating organic and
hard-surface assets including
characters, creatures, costumes,
groom, props and environments.
This spooky character took 12
weeks to create and I employed
plenty of unique techniques
throughout the process.
Instead of retopologising the
sculpt of the head from scratch,
I decided to use ZWrap to wrap
a pre-existing topology from
one of my base models onto the
sculpt. Before doing this, I made
sure the topology was clean on
the base model and unwrapped
BASED ON A CONCEPT
BY SEBASTIAN KOWOLL
(artstation.com/sebastiankowoll)
the UVs into multiple UDIMs.
It required a bit of cleanup after
wrapping, but it saved me tons of
time while keeping things fairly
clean and symmetrical.
I painted finer displacements
in Mari by mixing sets of
textures from TexturingXYZ.
I then exported the model and
displacements into Mudbox to
add and refine details. Taking
advantage of its powerful layer
system, I was able to quickly
carve into and exaggerate the
pores and wrinkles, adjusting
them non-destructively.
CG art to inspire
On this particular project, I
had more artistic freedom with ARTIST
the look of the character’s skin, Fiona Ng
and decided to paint several SOFTWARE
region masks in order to have Maya, ZBrush,
the flexibility to dial each of Marvelous Designer,
their gloss values independently XGen, Mudbox,
during look dev. This allowed Mari, V-Ray, Nuke,
me to get instant feedback and Substance 3D
fine-tune the values to the exact Painter
amount I want, all within Maya’s
Hypershade, without the need
of going back and forth between
Maya and Mari.”
fiona-ng.com
3D WORLD 11
CG art to inspire
M24 GRENADE AND CASE
I started out in 3D around 11 years ago and
have now been in the industry for about five
years, working as a vehicle artist and now
an external art lead. Hard-surface is what
I’m most passionate about, as the shapes and
textures always speak to me, especially old,
worn objects as all the wear and tear tells a
12 3D WORLD
story. In this project I wanted to really push
myself into improving my quality in both ARTIST
presentation, texturing and lighting in Unreal Tomas Tagesson
Engine 5. I’m super proud of the project and SOFTWARE
happy with the final outcome. Maya, Substance 3D Painter,
Fusion 360, Unreal Engine,
artstation.com/tomastage Marmoset Toolbag, ZBrush
CG art to inspire

LUXURY BATHROOM
This luxury bathroom is a personal project aimed at enhancing my
artistic skills. Created in Unreal Engine using the Lumen workflow, it
features a variety of styles, with a focus on incorporating elements of
nature such as lush, green plants. The design seeks to seamlessly blend
opulence with natural aesthetics, offering a serene and luxurious
bathing experience. I’ve been part of the 3D industry since 2014 and ARTIST
worked on Pakistani animated movies, TV series, and architectural Ahsan Ali
visualisation projects using Maya and Unreal Engine. I truly enjoy my SOFTWARE
work and always strive to create amazing art for the industry. Unreal Engine,
Maya, Photoshop
artstation.com/ahsanali1414

14 3D WORLD
 CG art to inspire

3D WORLD 15
CG art to inspire

COLOR OF LIGHT
This piece is one of my favourite artworks
ARTIST
I’ve had the chance to sculpt. When I found
Raphael Perroni
the original concept by Veronique Firsova,
SOFTWARE
I absolutely had to make it. I’ve always
ZBrush, Marmoset
adored animated movies and
Toolbag, Photoshop
wanted to bend this a little
more towards a Pixar art
style. The biggest challenge,
and also the most fun,
during the process was
her hair, which is wild and
long! Later I animated the
character using Mixamo,
which is when it really came
to life. I’m hoping to sculpt
more stylised characters
in the future and become a
character artist working on
this type of art.

rperroni.myportfolio.com

16 3D WORLD
CG art to inspire

HE-MAN
I always wanted to do an anime fight
ARTIST scene, and when I found these incredible
George Moïse He-Man and Skeletor models on CG Trader
SOFTWARE I was immediately inspired! Samurai Jack
Blender and Afro Samurai were my references.
One of the main challenges turned out to
be organisation. I realised I needed one
Blender project for each shot, and one for
each version of a shot! Then my scene kept
crashing. The problem turned out to be the
textures. I used a lot of Sketchfab scans and
some of the textures were way too big. I had
to go through every object and double-check
how big the textures were and create either
2K or 4K versions. Then it worked.

georgemoise.com

18 3D WORLD
 CG art to inspire

3D WORLD 19
The Rookies

The Rookies is a platform to help

digital artists get discovered
without having to compete with
professionals for attention. You’ll
get to the front page of those
sites one day, but for now, we’ve
got your back and want to help
turn your passion for creative
media into a successful career.

WWW.THEROOKIES.CO

20 3D WORLD
LOVER
SOFTWARE ZBrush, Maya, V-Ray,
Nuke, SpeedTree, Mari, Marvelous
Designer, Photoshop, Substance
3D Painter, Yeti ARTIST David
YEAR CREATED 2023 Eisenstadt
LOCATION Canada
David is a zestful
Story is my primary intent artist who is avid for
in any piece. Here I wanted storytelling above all
people to view this image of else. He is happily in
Lover Boy and fully imagine his first industry role
the movie from which this as a look dev artist
still piece of art would have with DreamWorks.
originated. I also wanted the bit.ly/3qjOPZn
audience to feel his love and
yearning for this girl at which
he gazes, just through the
expression on his face.
 Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies, and Point Grey Pictures
Teen Spirit

22 3D WORLD
 Teen Spirit

a journey
3D World takes
ork on
into Cinesite’s w
t Ninja
Teenage Mutan
Mayhem
Turtles: Mutant
eenage Mutant

T
Ninja Turtles:
Mutant Mayhem
has reinvigorated
the on-screen
adventures of the pizza-loving
heroes in their half shells. 3D
World speaks with Eric Cheung,
Cinesite’s animation supervisor,
and VFX supervisor Chris
Kazmier about the studio’s part
on the new, visually stunning
film. For Mutant Mayhem,
Cinesite’s artists worked in
collaboration with Mikros
Animation, taking on particular
sequences and scenes.

3D WORLD 23
Teen Spirit
With an origin in the comic book
series created by Kevin Eastman
and Peter Laird in the early 1980s,
the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
have become an enduring set of
characters across comics, toys,
animated TV series and feature
film versions and variations. Mutant
Mayhem marks a particularly
successful entry in the Turtles’
filmography with its dynamic
animation and compelling story.
Our conversation begins with
Cheung addressing the degree to
which the character designs from
the original comics informed the
character design and animation
undertaken for the movie.
“Mutant Mayhem seeks to stand
out by emphasising the youthful
adolescence of the turtles, not
24 3D WORLD
just by casting teenage actors to
play the heroes, but in the very
visuals themselves,” he says.
“The character design we were
working with was more youthful;
because the designs were slightly
skinnier versions of the Turtles than
audiences had seen to date. It was
a kind of more teenage build.
“When it came to the animation,
we needed to embrace the overall
feeling of adolescence that the
filmmakers wanted to get across.
This meant the action choices were
more naturalistic, keeping hand
gestures and cliche acting to the
minimum. One of the live-action
movies that Jeff Rowe [director]
referenced was Attack the Block,
a sci-fi movie in which a group of
armed teens fight an alien invasion.
For the action and fighting style,
it was all Jackie Chan-focused:
utilising props around which to
gain advantage in a situation, and
showing real effort in the moves
and choreography.”
Cheung then goes on to
describe the kind of scope
available to Cinesite to both stay
‘true’ to the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles aesthetic, and also where
they were able to elaborate and
iterate on it. “Mikros [the lead
animation studio for the film] Above: The design
developed the visual style for of each of the
Mutant Mayhem and provided Turtles for the new
textures and models for all of our film adopts a more
shared assets,” he says. “Cinesite adolescent frame
then used that information to
recreate shaders and the final look Right: April O’Neil in
of the characters to match the mission mode
 Teen Spirit

3D WORLD 25
Teen Spirit

26 3D WORLD
 Teen Spirit

LIGHT AND SURFACES

Eric Cheung explains the nuance and detail of lighting and
surface work undertaken by Cinesite for the film

“The team also constructed the newsroom and were careful to be creative allies to the ‘show
style’, and also added a DMP [digital matte painting] to the background. Superfly’s Lair was more
where the surfacing team had creative freedom, they worked closely with Paramount Animation’s
art team to really nail the look. Our use of the DMP department on sets to add all the fine line work
was a huge efficiency, instead of tasking the modelling department to keep adding curves as we
saw the sets in lighting. This was also apparent in the TCRI lab. We could go into tight shots and
really change the set if we needed to. Also, this applied to the complex lighting in the TCRI lab
where a CG renderer could not, so additional painting had to be done from the DMP department.
This ultimately added the hand-painted look to the sets that the art team really responded to.”

filmmaker’s pre-defined visual
style and language.
“There were some characters,
props and locations only featured
in our sequences and we created
those assets ourselves, guided by
the Nickelodeon art team, to match
the established style. Additionally,
we received a couple of animation
sequences from Mikros early
on. We also did animation tests
internally to ensure that we
matched the amazing work coming
from Mikros. We then showed
Jeff Rowe and [co-director] Kyler
Spears some iterations to get some
feedback. It went generally well.”
Kazmier augments Cheung’s
insights on the overarching stylistic
approach. He notes: “There was
amazing attention paid to the
colour palette of the toys, and also
the chunkiness of those toys. Even
the colour palette of the original
cartoon series was very influential
on the film itself. In the TCRI
[Techno Cosmic Research Institute]
lab sequence, the original toy
Technodrome was an influence on
the set and acted as a reference for
the surfacing.”
Cheung also adds: “As
an animation supervisor, it’s
very rewarding to help create
something that others can enjoy,
and especially rewarding to see
animators grow and succeed in
their craft. Cinesite had completed
an NPR sequence with another
Paramount Pictures film Paws of
Fury: The Legend of Hank. TMNT
allowed us to be a creative ally to
Mikros and explore this style much
further. An example of this would
be our Cynthia Utrom, the head
of the TCRI who’s trying to milk all
the turtles. The character design
of Cynthia came from Nickelodeon
Top: The Turtles, creative and we then created the
desperate to be model to final.”
accepted as normal Cheung and Kazmier then
teenagers, find proceed to delineate how the film
themselves taking on has provided an opportunity for
a mysterious crime Cinesite to continue refining its
syndicate workflow and pipeline. Cheung
explains: “TMNT was animated
Above (left): The on 2s mostly, where every pose is
sets are notable for held for an extra frame, with some
their hand-painted exceptions. Animation on 2s has a
appearance very appealing and traditional feel
to it, you can focus a little more on
Far left: A more spacing and really think about your
traditional cartoon breakdowns. This style was chosen
look characterises to give a more traditional cartoon
much of the action in look to the film, but it was the first
the film time we adopted this workflow.
Also, all the 2D line work was new
to us, so Cinesite’s pipeline team
had to develop a tool in-house to
meet this new way of working.”
For their work on Mutant
Mayhem, Cinesite’s team worked

3D WORLD 27
Teen Spirit
SPLINTER UNIT
Eric Cheung and Chris Kazmier talk through
a key action sequence in Mutant Mayhem
Eric Cheung: “The Splinter rescue sequence was challenging,
in that we had to find ways to incorporate interesting
choreography to the fight scenes. We were provided
storyboards of the actions but were also given some creative
control over the choreography. We researched and referenced
a lot of Jackie Chan’s movies and took clips from that, and
edited them all together to show Jeff and Kyler before
implementing them into our shots. For example, his very first
contact with multiple guards consisted of at least eight clips
from eight different Jackie Chan movies, and the animator
stitched those moves together, then the animator had to
adjust those moves to work for a rat.”
in Gaffer, Maya, Houdini and
ATrack. Additionally, because the
2D line work was new to Cinesite,
the team developed that tool
in-house so as to be consistent
with the style of the project.
Kazmier then adds: “We had to
bring some new ways into the
pipeline that were being worked
on earlier than was expected by
the development team. Some of
28 3D WORLD
Chris Kazmier: “It was really animation that could be
creative from a department side, whereas the other
departments’ challenges were to recreate the Mikros
look with only images to reference from. There were a
lot of shader tricks being used in a very compositing-
heavy show, not unlike Spider-Verse. Once that was
figured out, then it was a matter of keeping up with
the schedule and delivery. Four Cinesite-group
locations were involved in the project.”
the tools were a version that
ultimately became the next release,
but I’m sure that the development
team expedited what they could in
order to help the show stay on
track. Some of the tools were of
course the curve/line animation
tools that have been mentioned,
but some were under the hood of
how to manage data more
effectively. Also, we introduced a
full 2D FX team, which meant
bringing the software, Toon Boom,
into the pipeline in our Linux
environment. This started off more
of a manual process but eventually
became more automated as
compositing artists received all of
the correct FX layers in the final
comp automatically.”
Another important dynamic of
the pipeline management process
that Kazmier is keen to identify
relates to managing asset ingestion
from another vendor. He explains:
“We use different software to
Mikros Animation for grooming, so
along with our CG supervisor they
were able to bring in guide curves
from one grooming software and
replicate the final groom from
within Houdini in order for it to
work within Gaffer. They could also
sim the grooms within this process.
Mikros had developed a very ‘show
look’ way of rendering hair that our
dev team had to create on our side
to match.”
Animation has the capacity
to energetically combine the

photorealistic and a range of more
abstract approaches, and our
conversation with Cheung and
Kazmier turns to how the visual
palette of the film accommodates
that spectrum of choices. “Trying
to apply so many of these ideas,”
Cheung says, “such as the live-
action camera language, the
teenage sketchbook look and
feel, and the point of view of a
much younger take on the Turtles,
proved to be quite a challenge. Or,
at least, a different challenge.
“We came up with the
description, ‘The look is like you
took some school notebook
drawings and shot them with a
high-end film camera using an
anamorphic lens and a full lighting
crew’. The idea was they wanted to
make it cinematic and widescope,
but the detail and colours are off
and imperfect. Imperfect meaning
that there are no perfect profiles
and sketchy lines on everything.
There is film grain, noise, lens
flares and dust on the lens, and
you also couldn’t pick any of the
colours from a colour wheel. All
mixed and smeared with usually
grey and a rough brush feel on the
transitions. Exactly what a modern
renderer does not do, hence the
challenge in all departments on
the backend. In addition, we set
up a 2D traditional FX department
within the CS FX department and
had a lot of hybrid looks, or just
pure hand-drawn FX that we could
leverage in the final shots.”
Cheung then adds: “On the
technical side, it was dealing with
strobing issues against moving
cameras, because this is our first
film on 2s and camera movements
are on 1s, so we had to adapt and
study films that have used NPR
Teen Spirit
Below: A sense of extensively to reference how it
imperfection informs was done. Another challenge we
the visual ‘noise’ of had to overcome was working
the film with characters that had a lot of
accessories, we had to constantly
Bottom: The entire manage belts, wristbands, straps,
film’s aesthetic crashing through geometry, but we
is intended to had an amazing shot finaling/tech
conjure the feeling animation team. So shout out to
of a teenager’s those guys!”
sketchbook Bringing our conversation to a
close, Cheung makes a key point
about the visual distinction of the
project, appropriately emphasising
the energy that defines both the
Turtles and, indeed, the animation
aesthetic that characterises the
new movie. “Mutant Mayhem has
a style all its own inspired by a
teenager’s sketchbook,” he says.
“It was a design philosophy that
production designer Yashar Kassai
described to artists as ‘draw like
you’re 15!’”
3D WORLD 29
*Terms & conditions Offer closes 1st October 2023. Offer open to new subscribers only. After your first three issues, your subscription will
continue at £13.75 (digital only), £16.25 (print only) or £20 (print + digital) quarterly by Direct Debit. Please allow up to six weeks for delivery
of your first subscription issue. The full subscription rate is for 12 months (14 issues) and includes postage and packaging. If the magazine
ordered changes frequency per annum, we will honour the number of issues paid for, not the term of the subscription. For full terms and
conditions, visit www.magazinesdirect.com/terms. For enquiries and overseas rates please call: +44 (0) 330 333 1113. Lines are open
Monday-Friday, 8:30am-7pm, and Saturday, 10am-3pm UK time or e-mail: help@magazinesdirect.com. Calls to 0330 numbers will be
charged at no more than a national landline call, and may be included in your phone provider’s call bundle.

3D WORLD 31
 Zooming in on virtual cinematography

ZOOMING
IN ON VIRTUAL

Trevor Hogg examines the worlds of live-action, animation

and video games through a virtual camera lens
Image Courtesy of Sony Interactive Entertainment and Sucker Punch

ven with the console in their hands, and with that sort of world,” observes

E
dominance
of digital
photography,
there is still a
push to reflect the grounded
philosophy from the film
era – though this traditional
approach is changing as
several generations have
grown up with a video game
smartphones have led to
the global proliferation of
cameras. As a result, the
criteria for what is considered
to be believable and attainable
imagery is being redefined,
and causing a reshaping of the
cinematic visual language.
“There’s got to be a knock-on
effect from people growing up
Oscar-winning cinematographer
Greig Fraser who shot the pilot for
The Mandalorian, which sparked
the virtual production craze. “I
don’t think every film in 25 years
will be a first-person shooter but
we’re seeing that with films, like
The Revenant, which is immersive
and wide angle. I believe that
there’s going to be a place for a

32 3D WORLD

lot of different styles without a
shadow of a doubt.”
In the past, getting access
to camera equipment was an
expensive proposition, but game
engines such as Unreal Engine
and Unity are making the virtual
alternative an affordable and
accessible option. “The best
training tool that I could possibly
imagine would be someone being
proficient in these programs where
they can experiment and play
to their heart’s desire,” believes
Fraser. “And then apply what
they’re learning to the real world,
but they’ve also got a huge base
of knowledge when they get into
the virtual world, and know what’s
possible and what’s not possible.”
Tools in virtual cinematography
are appearing in the real world.
Zooming in on virtual cinematography
“FPV drones can fly through the Above: When you’re
legs of people and into bowling learning how to tell
alleys,” Fraser adds. “They can a story, Ira Owens
do things that a camera has never points out that it is
been able to do.” VR scouting film language, screen
is also an indispensable tool. direction, and the
“You can be in a set months or camera that he kept
years in advance without the set in mind when working
being built, and be talking about on Ghost of Tsushima
what you would be exploring the
day before the shoot. You can
3D WORLD 33
Zooming in on virtual cinematography

Image Courtesy of Warner Bros.

refine the parts of the set that
you need and what the shots are.
On the day, you are able to get
through the work quicker and
with more precision. And it costs
peanuts compared to a day on a
film shoot, where you’re spending
hundreds of thousands of dollars
every single day you’re standing
there. Of course, on the shoot
day everything decided on the VR
scout can change, but it provides
knowledge and information that
makes you more prepared.”
Image Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Visual continuity has become an

issue as a growing number of shots
are being digitally created and
augmented in post-production by
visual effects artists. “Everybody
has to understand the limitations
of their skill base,” states Fraser.
“The cinematographer has to
know instantly why it isn’t working.
‘The lens is too close. The lens is
too wide. The light is too bright.
The backlight doesn’t match the
previous shot.’ As tricky as it might
be, the best practices are keeping
the production designer and
cinematographer involved in the
entire process as best as possible.
Up to now we’ve got through. Films
look good. Thankfully the directors
have probably learned enough of
the visual language that they can
help with that. But in order to take
the pressure off the director there
should be a system worked out
whereby there are reviews with the
cinematographer.”
Animated projects can benefit
from the expertise. “When you
have films like WALL-E, for which
Roger Deakins helped to supervise
the cinematography, that’s
fantastic,” Fraser adds. “The level
of precision and artistic choices on
that film is fantastic. They made
such a clever decision to employ
someone like Roger, who all he
has done for 30-plus years is shoot
scenes. It's the same for me over
the last 15 years. When you’re
trying to make a scene its best,
hire those people who have done
it before, because they can make it
good quickly.”
Nothing is free within the virtual
realm. “Happy accidents are rare
in a computer but is what helps to
ground some of the imagery, so
we work hard to recreate them,” Top: Understanding
notes Ian Megibben, director of how lighting interacts
photography for lighting at Pixar. with the characters,
“It’s almost the opposite. The environments and
tools are so flexible that you have lenses is an important
infinite possibilities. It’s more of part of being a
a study going, ‘How do we limit cinematographer, as
all of those options so that we reflected by Greig
create a character out of it?’ The Fraser’s work on Dune
characteristics of the Lightyear or
WALL-E lens, or whatever show Above: Greig Fraser
we’re working on. If you use every scouts a location for
colour in the crayon box it can start the spice planet of
to lose its focus.” Arrakis featured in
The type of movie being made Dune, which resulted
influences the style of aberrations, in him winning
such as camera shakes. “WALL-E an Oscar for Best
had a heavy documentary camera Cinematography
shake feel, especially for the

34 3D WORLD
 Zooming in on virtual cinematography
Image Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Above: Greig Fraser

incorporated virtual
production along with
location shooting for
The Batman

Visual appeal of Ratatouille “A lot of care and time was spent on

studying what makes food beautiful,”
Rats in a kitchen is not an appetizing premise outside of a
states Ian Megibben. “When it came to
horror film, but Ratatouille was able to defy expectations
the rats themselves, I remember spending
a lot of time getting highlights on their
whiskers just right for maximum appeal.
One of the shots that I worked on was the
aerial shot of thousands of rats running
everywhere through the kitchen. The
cheese has to have a certain glow to it, the
sauce has to have a sheen to it, and every
copper pot and pan needed to look like it
was expensive. There is a lot of beauty in
finding the artefacts of how something is
shot. Just the simple warm colour grading
Image Courtesy of Pixar

that the movie had was a great example.

Generally, CG can have a cold, grey and
lifeless quality to it, and every film we
work on we invest time inserting richness
and warmth, especially to the shadows to
create that appeal.”

3D WORLD 35
Zooming in on virtual cinematography

Ramifications
of WALL-E
At the time of WALL-E, Pixar was
moving towards a more realistic
virtual lens package

“Up until WALL-E our virtual lens was

just a lens that used field of view instead
of focal length,” explains Jeremy Lasky.
“You would say, ‘I want a 50-degree
field of view.’ And that’s what you got
and dialled in anything you wanted.”
However, filmmaker Andrew Stanton
wanted WALL-E to look like a lost sci-fi Image Courtesy of Pixar
movie from the 1970s that had been
rediscovered. A major point of reference
was Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
“I was looking at the aspect ratio,
lens distortion, lens breathing – which
is when you shift your focus – and the
amount or lack of depth of field you
get when putting something close,”
states Lasky. “We had never gotten
depth of field exactly realistic before;
flares are different in anamorphic and
I said to Danielle Feinberg [director of
photography for lighting, Pixar] and Jim
Morris [president], ‘I wish we could figure
out how to make this.’ Jim said, ‘Why
don’t we rent a 35mm camera and some
Panavision anamorphic lenses? I have a
buddy who is a DP, Marty Rosenberg, and
you can direct a shoot.’
“We set up in the atrium in our
building. Jerome Ranft, one of our
sculptors, made life-size EVE and
WALL-E models. We did charts and
tests. Then we took that to figure it out,
with software, how to make those lenses
work in our computer, and how we would
change those settings to get something
that we like. We could all look and say, ‘I
know that a real lens will do this, but in
CG that is unfortunate looking. Let’s dial
that down a bit.’ That’s something that
gave us the unique look to the lenses,
but based on the education of having to
shoot a real thing.” Image Courtesy of Pixar

36 3D WORLD
 Zooming in on virtual cinematography

first third of the film, which

was designed to fit in the world
and look we were going for,”
notes Jeremy Lasky, director of
photography for camera at Pixar.
“Lightyear has camera shake too
but in a different way. It’s there all
of the time but subtle. It doesn’t
feel like we have lockset pixels
at any one time. There is always
a little adjustment happening
some place to keep the image
fresh. And when we put it in, we
wanted to make sure that the
animation quality of the camera
was consistent in the world with
the animation quality of the
characters and effects. Meaning if
you have camera shake on a film
like Toy Story, those characters
behave in a cartoony way; though
you want the shake to feel realistic,
you don’t want it to take you out
of the film by introducing a new
kind of motion you haven’t seen
somewhere else.”
Being a member of the 3D
story team on Star Wars: The
Clone Wars, where traditional

Images Courtesy of HBO

storyboards were replaced with
3D animatics, taught Ira Owens,
a cinematographer in the video
game industry, that wide shots
should be beautiful and epic,
medium shots have to be clear
and concise, and close-ups are
for punctuating the moment.
“Because gaming has changed so
much over the years to be more
cinematic in its storytelling, those
skills allowed me the opportunity
to cross that bridge of being
in animation, which is primarily
cartoony but has gotten a lot more
action oriented over the years,”
believes Owens. “When you’re
learning how to tell a story there
is film language, screen direction,
and the camera. How does a long
lens operate versus a wide lens? It
was a learning curve. I watched a
lot of films and asked myself, ‘I like
this shot. How did they get it?’ I
would research that.”
The game controller becomes
the camera that can pan, pitch
and crane around a roughed-
out or completed setting. “I
work with the environment and
lighting teams directly in the
“YOU HAVE INFINITE POSSIBILITIES… HOW
DO WE LIMIT ALL OF THOSE OPTIONS SO THAT
WE CREATE A CHARACTER OUT OF IT?”
Ian Megibben, director of photography for lighting, Pixar
game and can change the lenses
quickly to see what looks good
for different characters based on
their appearance.” Storyboards,
concept art and previously shot
live-action footage influence
camera and lighting decisions. “I
pull everything together before
I make any final decisions. Even
when I go through and do cameras
for a cinematic, there are a lot of
different people who are part of
that conversation.”
Storytelling has become more
sophisticated. “The Last of Us
is a fantastic example where the
Top left: Physical
sculptures of EVE and
WALL-E were shot in
the atrium at Pixar in
order to do lighting
and camera tests for
the movie
game was cinematic and had Left: Roger Deakins
this tone and pacing that wasn’t was consulted on
constant action,” observes Owens. how to shoot WALL-E,
“There are moments to breathe. which was meant
Now you watch the TV series, to feel like a lost
which has been beautifully done. sci-fi film from the
Cinematography in games is 100 1970s that has been
per cent being influenced by rediscovered
live-action film and the marriage
is there now. If you’re using Above: The cinematic
Unreal Engine all of those bells storytelling of The
and whistles are available. I enjoy Last of Us lent itself
using these 3D tools not just in to being adapted into
the practical sense of exploring a television series
how we’re going to schedule this for HBO
and build it, but to figure out

3D WORLD 37
Zooming in on virtual cinematography

Above: House of the

Dragon was the first
to use the virtual

Image Courtesy of HBO

production stage at
Warner Bros. Studios
in Leavesden

the shots and pacing, being

intentional with my shot choices,
and also being clear on how I tell
the story.”
Virtual production has become
a victim of its own success. “It’s
being used so much, but where
is it being used in a way that
complements the story and
all of the elements? House of
the Dragon is beautifully done.
Personally, I always want to bring

Image Courtesy of Pixar

a grounded reality to the cameras.
Not everyone feels the same way.
Some people in video games
want to explore a more immersive
experience. There is certainly the
VR aspect as well. The God of War
series shattered any expectations
that it needs to be a cinematic
cutscene that’s shot to shot. The
God of War game is a continuous
shot every time; it’s a cinematic and
they pulled it off. It’s incredible and
immersive. There are opportunities
to tell a story in a different fashion.
"Technology allows a lot
more wiggle room, but still the
storytelling has to be grounded
in a reality. Games enable you
to push what that is and how
you’re going to tell that story.
What I’d hope that anyone would
have to say about being a 3D
cinematographer is that our first
and foremost goal is to tell a story
in the most entertaining way.”
Finding Dory in the correct perspective
A major challenge of shooting non-human CG characters is that the distance
between nose and eyes is not the same as humans
“Imagine shooting a car, taking a wide-angle
lens and shoving it in there. All of a sudden,
the hood of that car where the mouth is
becomes gigantic on the screen, the eyes
are tiny, and it doesn’t look like a character
anymore,” notes Jeremy Lasky. “It’s
unappealing. For Finding Dory, I switched
the film back from 35mm to 16mm to see
if it would help us to have a smaller piece
of film with smaller characters. It brought
everything into the right perspective
immediately.” The decision was made to
go between 16mm and 35mm. “We decided
16mm will be for when Dory is safe at the
reef at home. You feel like you’re among the
characters. And when we go out into the
big ocean, especially when we get to the
Marine Life Institute, we’re shooting in 35mm
and it feels human scale, which makes the
fish characters small. You’re in this mentally
different place as an audience member of,
‘Oh, wow. They’re in danger. This is not what
I remember seeing before.’ It’s super geeky,
but you want audiences to feel that stuff.”

38 3D WORLD
ON SALE NOW! PRINT AND DIGITAL EDITIONS AVAILABLE AT

Digital editions are also available on iOS, Android, and more

 orn and raised in São Paulo, Brazil,
B
Pedro Conti has had a long career in
the international animation industry.
He has worked with many of the
world’s biggest studios and names
including Netflix, Walt Disney Animation and
DreamWorks, and collaborated with artists such
as Katy Perry, Gorillaz and OSGEMEOS.
Conti specialises in character development,
lighting and rendering. The stories he tells through
his directorial work are told with a big heart and
often explore topics we all can relate to through the
40 3D WORLD
struggles of daily life. He works
as a freelance visual development
artist and runs the production
company Flooul Animation.
Your The Wonder Years image
took CG forums by storm. How
did that help you break into
the 3D industry and were you
expecting such a response?
It’s surprising to hear about this
project even after so many years.
The Wonder Years was created
back in 2007 as a personal
project. It was special since it was
the first project where I could
express myself in 3D. Sometimes
3D can be very technical and
when you’re starting to learn,
it can be very challenging.
This project was based on
my childhood. I used to have
relatives that lived in rural Brazil,
in a tiny city called Itobi, and I

would travel there during the
summer holidays.
This project had a surprising
response. What I love about the
3D community is how forums
can really impact your life,
and after this project I had the
opportunity to work at Seagulls
Fly, an amazing studio that is one
of the biggest in Brazil. I think
that personal projects are really
important and it’s something
The art of
The animation specialist tells Paul
Hatton about his career path and
favourite projects
I still keep doing, even after
almost 20 years in CG.
What has working at Seagulls
Fly and Techno Image taught
you about the benefits of a
team environment?
I really loved the collaborations
I had at these studios. I have
no university degree so most of
my learning was through work
experience. The studios here
in Brazil tend to have a friendly Main: A frame from
environment, which really helps Conti’s short film
the artists evolve fast. Both these Tamo Junto (which
experiences completely changed translates to ‘We’re
my life. I made friends for a together’), set during
lifetime in these companies and the pandemic
met artists that are impacting our
industry, even after many years.
I think the best way to evolve is
to be surrounded by talented
people, and this environment
really helped me to evolve fast.
3D WORLD 41
The art of Pedro Conti

42 3D WORLD

What is your favourite
Above: Tamo Junto,
Conti’s favourite project of all time, and why?
project so far, was My favourite project, so far, was
inspired by the city he a short film called Tamo Junto. I
grew up in, São Paulo, think this project was something
and his experiences I was trying to do since I started
living there with art. I wanted to be able to
share something personal that
Left: The In My Heart people can relate to. I had many
music video, with different ideas for short films but,
music by Ron Artis II like a puzzle, I was always trying
to balance the idea; how to
produce, budget, and things like
that. Producing personal projects
in 3D is quite a challenging task,
so this short film was done during
the pandemic and was a way to
express my fears and also have
an excuse to talk and collaborate
with many artists.
So, besides the filmmaking
side of the project, to be able
to connect with people through
art was a big goal. I also had the
ARTIST BIO
“IN MY LATEST SHORT FILMS
AND PROJECTS I CELEBRATE MY
SURROUNDINGS THROUGH ART”
chance to explore screenwriting,
poetry and other forms of art that
I’m not so used to expressing
myself in. As 3D artists we used
to be very confined but, at our
core, we’re artists and to be
able to not label ourselves to
a specific role is such a good
experience. If you want to
express yourself in a different
way, just go for it. This project
was about that.
What has been the highlight of
your career so far?
The most special moments for
me are when I can access places
and people I never imagined
The art of Pedro Conti
Pedro Conti
Pedro Conti is a freelance 3D visual
development artist, character artist and
director working in the animation industry.
Alongside his freelance clients, he is also
the founder of Flooul Animation.
pedroconti.com
I could and have one-on-one
conversations. This is powerful
for me. I love to learn from
people and sometimes having
conversations can really make
me see things from different
perspectives. I think digital art
can access so many different
layers of society that the variety
of people you get to meet is
super interesting. To be able to
work with local artists in Brazil to
big Hollywood productions really
gives good life experience.
Give us an insight into what it
was like to work at Walt Disney
Animation Studios.
3D WORLD 43
The art of Pedro Conti

Top: In Tamo Junto,

the main character
helps out his
neighbour during the
pandemic; the short
film addresses the
importance of coming
together during
difficult times

Right: The adorable

In My Heart music
video was produced
with a limited budget
and schedule,
presenting new
challenges

44 3D WORLD

KEY ADVICE
Working in the CG and entertainment
industry, we feel inspired to produce
things we see in movies and games, but
sometimes it has been hard for me to
deeply relate and connect to certain
topics. I’ve been trying to push myself to
observe my own life and the things that I
love about the world around me. It can be
a moment you see walking down the street,
fascinating people you meet, architecture,
or a conversation you have with someone.
These moments are golden and can
often take your attention. Taking this as
a source of inspiration is one of the best
things I’ve experienced as an artist. We
tend to look at and get inspiration from
what’s already been done, but taking raw
information from life and coming up with a
piece of art is a truly rewarding experience.
My latest short films and projects came
from this exercise of looking at life around
me and trying to be grateful for the
architecture and the people, and in turn
celebrating my surroundings through art.
Working at Disney was a fun
experience. I always wanted to
have access to a production of
this scale. I was always trying to
learn how to do animation and
am still learning now. I had
always questioned how to
approach certain elements of
animation, and to be able to see
how things work on a big scale
was such a great opportunity. I
loved the experience and it gave
me a lot of confidence to get
back to my personal project and
keep producing. I’m grateful for
those days.
Can you tell us a bit more
about the role you played
on Moana?
I worked as a look development
artist, which means I was
responsible for working on
textures, shaders, vegetation
and hair grooming for both
environment and characters.
This was such a fun experience
because it’s a really big, broad
range of tasks. I worked on very
different sequences and also
worked on Te Kã, the villain of
the film.
The art of Pedro Conti
What was working on the
animated short In My Heart
like compared to working in
big production studios?
In My Heart is an independent
production with Hawaiian
musician Ron Artis II, directed
by me and my good friend
Fernando Peque and produced
by us together with our
talented friends and artists.
The big difference between
small productions and large
productions is the freedom. I
love this feeling of sitting with
friends and just going wild
exploring ideas and producing
something for fun. I guess the
coolest part is just to be able to
do whatever you want. Ron gave
us total freedom to explore.
A challenge in productions
like this is always the budget and
schedule, but sometimes this can
lead to interesting results. For
example, limiting the resources
you have can give you room to
come up with solutions that fit
these aspects. So this film was
about how to make a three-
minute animation with a limited
budget and schedule.
Can you tell us a bit about your
motivation behind that project
and what led you to move
in this direction of making a
music video?
This project was such a fun
coincidence because I had no
connections at all with Ron Artis
II. One day I got a call on my
phone and it was him. He told
me he wanted to do a music
video and asked me if he could
share some music tracks with me.
I really love music and playing
guitar is such a big part of my
life, so when I listened to his
music I was really in shock.
A couple of weeks before
this call, I was telling my friend
Fernando about how I wanted
to do something with a flower
blooming from the concrete.
This image was in my mind for
quite some time. So in this call
with Ron, he told me he wanted
a music video with that idea. So
when I heard that, I knew I just
had to do the music video.
What software do you use and
have you added any new
3D WORLD 45
The art of Pedro Conti
Below: A gift Conti Right: One of Conti’s first 3D
created for the rapper renders, made back in 2007,
Emicida. His work titled The Wonder Years. It’s
had a huge impact on inspired by Itobi, where he
his life spent many holidays as a child
tools to your arsenal in
recent years?
The tools that I use most are
ZBrush, 3ds Max and Maya. In
recent years I’ve started to use
Substance Painter and Marvelous
Designer. A couple of weeks ago
I’ve also begun experimenting
with tiny things in Blender which
I’ve really loved.
What advice would you give to
aspiring character artists?
One thing I’ve been discussing
with friends and people around
me is not to be afraid of doing
the things you really want to do.
For me, to be able to produce my
own projects is something I love,
even if it’s an illustration or a tiny
project. Don’t be afraid to dream
big and go for it. Our industry
can be a lot of fun if you know
how to navigate it. It’s such a
life-changing industry regardless
46 3D WORLD
of where you’re from. If you show
your potential you may be given
great opportunities. I think my
best advice is to focus on your
skills and share your passions
with people.
What are you working on
at the moment? Do you see
yourself continuing in the
direction you’re going, or
are there any plans to do
something different?
For now, I’ve been a bit more
chill in terms of personal
projects. I’ve been doing mostly
commercial work and just
experiencing life as it’s such a big
part of my inspiration. I have a
couple of short films that I wrote
but I don’t know how to produce
them since they’re quite big. I’m
also collaborating with some
artists I admire and just keeping
things more chill.
 SUBSCRIBE TO THE
3D WORLD NEWSLETTER
Get practical inspiration direct to your inbox

FRESH
3D CONTENT

EVERY
FRIDAY NEWS | TIPS | REVIEWS | DEALS

SUBSCRIBE NOW!
bit.ly/3Dworld-newsletter
3D WORLD 47
 Practical tips and tutorials from
pro artists to improve
your CG skills
3DS MAX | CORONA | TOPAZ DENOISE | PHOTOSHOP
BUILD A STYLISH
KITCHEN RENDER
Discover Shaygan Shamlou‘s techniques for beautiful interiors
T
he attractive, minimalistic
or Scandinavian-style room
design is being used in
houses across the world. It’s a style
that’s relaxing, and if the existing
elements are used correctly, it can
produce great results.
In this small, modern kitchen, I
was trying to create a combination
of three spaces within a single room.
The use of white, glossy chalk on the
48 3D WORLD
AUTHOR
Shaygan
Shamlou
Shaygan began
working as an
walls and light, wooden parquet When working on a new project, interior designer
floor are two of the elements of this I always refer to reliable references five years ago and
style. The use of a special, stylish such as sources like Pinterest and has continued
sofa with a more neutral colour is ArchDaily for a better view and his dream job as
also effective. In this design, there a professional
is both a dining table and a small designer and
sitting area with its own table for 3D artist.
storing small items. By managing DOWNLOAD YOUR RESOURCES bit.ly/3E10KOT
the placement of the furniture, you For all the assets you need go to
can get the most out of the least https://bit.ly/3dworld-cowabunga
amount of space.

understanding of my space. I always
use 3ds Max software and Chaos
Corona’s powerful render engine to
build interior architectural spaces,
which can be used in any field,
especially realistic architecture. In
this tutorial, I’ll help you make the
most of small spaces and using
minimalistic style.
01 BUILD WALLS AND USE
FLOORGENERATOR
To start work on building the
structure, we’ll use 3ds Max.
To build the walls of the house
or room, I generally use the
program’s default tools and
replace the window. The next key
step is to make the floor. I use the
01
02a
03
FloorGenerator plugin because it
allows you to design it any way you
want. Inside this plugin, there are so
many options for manual settings
that you can get to know with a
little experimentation.
02 WORK WITH QUIXEL
MEGASCANS MATERIALS
I like to use quality materials that
feel natural. In the digital world
there are materials called PBR
(Physically Based Rendering), and
the massive Quixel Megascans
library is a great place to source
them. I used a black metal material
for the legs of our dining table,
which is a good combination with
the surrounding white colour. For
Build a stylish kitchen render
02b
the tabletop, I used a plain but
slightly patterned cream-coloured
marble for the design. The use of
quality materials brings you closer
to natural rendering.
03 FIND COLOUR HARMONY
Tools that help you combine
colours can have a big impact on
your final work. One such tool I
use a lot, the Color Hunt website,
helps with finding harmonious
colours. It enables you to choose
your own colours to produce a
final result, and if you feel a colour
isn’t a suitable match with another,
you can change it. As shown in the
screenshot, I used a black, yellow
and two soft skin colours.
3D WORLD 49
Build a stylish kitchen render

04 LIGHTING AND
BACKGROUND
For the lighting of this scene, which
is a crucial in any render, I used a
Corona Sky light that was adjusted
with a Correction map. I lowered
some of the colour concentration
and made changes in the Corona
Sky settings. To make the scene
natural, I also used the backdrop
of a forest outside the window
that combines with the sunlight, 04
which gently shines into the room
from among the branches. For the
background, I used a photo with 4K
resolution, attributed to a simple
rectangular surface, but you could
also use a hollow cylinder to display
a backdrop.

05 READY TO BAKE
THE MATERIAL
Material is another vital aspect of
a good render. The first material
I made for the floor was for
the parquet design, for which I
compared several types of wood
using the MultiTexture Map plugin
in order to create an attractive 05
composition in Floor Generator.
The next material is the yellow
assigned to the flowers, chosen for
its harmony with black. That was
followed up by the fabric material
for the sofa and chairs.

06 CAMERA AND
LENS SETTINGS
The next step is to put the camera
in the right place and set its target.
For this, I usually use the Image
Comp Helper plugin, which allows
you to find the centre and golden
point of the frame. The plugin can
typically be used in any shot. It’s by
no means mandatory to use, but 06
will provide better results if you
do. In this frame, I also used the
Camera Clipping function, which
gives you the ability to place the
camera outside the house and
capture more angles.

07 DEPTH OF FIELD
Using a telephoto lens to
take zoom shots is common. In
this scene, I used two different
cameras and decided to render
two different, attractive shots. The
first point in this type of rendering
is the use of the ‘Depth of Field’
feature. When you place the
camera in Corona, this option is
07a

50 3D WORLD

07b
08
not active, meaning you have to
activate it and select the target.
Your chosen object is captured in
focus, compared to other parts
of the scene. The F-stop function
determines the amount of image
blur; the smaller the amount, the
more visible your target will be and
the rest of the image more blurred.
08 RENDER OPTIONS
Finally, we reach the
rendering and related settings. In
the Camera tab, you can adjust the
resolution of your work; I generally
use 4K for the main shot. The next
option is to set the Image Aspect,
which should be between 0.75 and
2, compared to your camera frame.
In the Scene tab, your rendering
time should also be determined.
Build a stylish kitchen render
I often use the ‘Noise level limit’
option with the percentage set
to between 2 and 4. In the rest of
the tabs, Corona’s own settings
are sufficient, so we won’t need to
change them.
09 POST-PRODUCTION
The last stage of the project
is all about editing the final render.
I usually do this with Photoshop,
though you can also use Corona
itself if you wish. I work with LookUp
09a
Tables (LUTs) a lot in the lower
layers of my photos, as they provide
good effects on the image’s colour.
The Camera Raw Filter plugin also
provides a lot of useful additional
options. To finish up, I’ll use Topaz
Denoise to eliminate any extra
noise from my work. •
09b
3D WORLD 51
Add virtual lights with the Relight effect in Resolve

DAVINCI RESOLVE

ADD VIRTUAL LIGHTS

WITH THE RELIGHT
EFFECT IN RESOLVE
Software specialist Natalie Barnard returns to teach you
how to correct lighting errors in your Resolve projects

52 3D WORLD

T
his exercise will be a
continuation from our
previous tutorial in the last
issue on isolating backgrounds
using the Depth Map. In this
AUTHOR part we’ll use the Relight effect,
introduced in DaVinci Resolve
Natalie Barnard Studio 18.5, to analyse a scene so
Natalie is an editor that three-dimensionally accurate
and trainer with virtual lights can be added. If
Team 2 Films. She you’re not sure what we mean yet,
is a certified DaVinci then keep on reading.
Resolve trainer Thanks to the Relight effect
who loves working we’re able to correct lighting
on short-form mistakes that were made during
narratives and
documentary films.
When not in front of
a computer, Natalie
loves spending time
out in nature.
team2films.com
01
02
01ADD RELIGHT EFFECT
From the Effects tab, you can
add the Relight Open FX effect to
your node tree. You can apply it
to an existing node by dragging
it onto the node, or alternatively if
you drop the effect onto an existing
WATCH THE VIDEO connection in your node tree,
To see a video version of this tutorial Resolve will automatically create
visit youtu.be/h9U3rrvGa40, a new node that already has the
or follow the QR code. appropriate connections ready-
made for you to work on.
Add virtual lights with the Relight effect in Resolve
the production process, or in this
instance enhance an existing look
with additional virtual lights. Even
though Relight is computationally
intensive, render caching means
you’re still able to enjoy smooth
playback in your timeline.
In the shoot our interviewee
has been lit with a high contrast
ratio, so the key is bright and the
fill dark. The goal is to reduce the
lighting ratio by adding a virtual
fill light. Additionally, we’ll use the
background colour as motivation
to add a hue to the fill light.
02 RELIGHTING
PREVIEW
MAP
By default the Relighting Map
Preview is shown. The Open FX
Overlay in the viewer shows the
location of your virtual light. Areas
of the image that will be affected by
the virtual light are shown in white,
and areas of the image where your
virtual light casts a shadow, the
parts of the image that it will not
affect, are shown in black.
3D WORLD 53
Add virtual lights with the Relight effect in Resolve

03 EXPERIMENT WITH
LIGHT POSITION
Take a moment to move the light
around your scene and see how
the Relighting Map is affected. The
circle affects the light’s distance
from the camera, while the star
controls the light’s location. For us,
it’s obvious that the Relight effect
has correctly understood the 3D
layout of the scene.

04 LIGHT TYPES
There are three types of
virtual light that can be applied to
your scene. Firstly, the Directional
light is positioned outside of the
frame, and as a result can be set
up with less falloff than the Point
Source or Spotlight. Meanwhile, the 03
Point Source is great for positioning
a light close to objects within your
scene. The Spotlight is similar to
the Point Source, but the additional
on-screen control allows you to
manipulate its direction and focus.
In this exercise we’ll be using the
Point Source light. Take the time to
position it carefully in your scene; in
this instance we want to position it
close to the interviewee’s face, and
on the fill side. 04a 04b

05 ADJUST LIGHT AND

SURFACE PROPERTIES
The Light Properties and Surface
Properties can be adjusted to
fine-tune the characteristics of your
virtual light. In this instance, try
decreasing Contrast and adding
Glossiness and Specularity. It
will make the light less flat and
feel more dynamic. Do note that
adjusting the Glossiness property
unlocks the Specularity property. 05a 05b
Now our light is configured, we can
turn off the Relighting Map Preview.

06 APPLY LOOK
The Relight effect works
similarly to effects like the Depth
Map or a Qualifier, in that the effect
itself does not make any changes to
the image. The changes themselves
are made using other tools such
as the Primaries colour wheels; the
Relight effect has just created a
mask that will control where those
adjustments are applied. Increase
the Gamma and Lift to brighten the
subject’s fill side, and push Gamma
towards purple to hue the light to
match the background.
06

54 3D WORLD
 Add virtual lights with the Relight effect in Resolve

07

07 FIX LIGHT SPILL

Our work is looking great
so far, but the Relight effect is also
affecting the background of the
shot. If this light were prepared on
set, the director of photography
would most likely have had the grip
set up a flag to prevent the fill light
from spilling onto the background.
In the previous exercise we used
the Depth Map tool to isolate the
08a interviewee from the background,
and we can utilise this matte once
again to flag our virtual light off
from the background.

08 CONNECT AND
INVERT THE KEY
Next, connect the Depth Map’s
Alpha output to the Alpha input
of the Relight node. Because our
Depth Map was set up for grading
the background, it’s flagging the
Relight effect off the interviewee,
rather than the background. Don’t
08b worry, that’s easy to fix; just go to
the Key tab in the centre toolbar
and invert the Key Input.

09 RENDER CACHE
Given that the Relight effect
is computationally intensive, you’ll
likely find poor playback with
high-resolution clips, which can
be fixed by enabling the Smart
Render Cache. If you followed
the first exercise on Depth Maps,
you’ll already have your render
cache turned on. If not, go to
Playback>Render Cache>Smart.
However, do note that if you make
any changes to the Relight node or
upstream nodes, then the node will
need to cache again. •
09

3D WORLD 55
Design art toy product renders
3DS MAX | CORONA | PHOTOSHOP
DESIGN ART TOY
PRODUCT RENDERS
Oscar Juárez shares the best way to show off your models
A
s the world of creating
art toys has become
more and more popular,
an increasing number of people
are creating figures of their own.
From sci-fi, anime, and wargame
models to the more stylised
figures, the widening variety on
offer may never end.
With all of this, many creators
are eager learners, which is why
we have so many more people
designing, modelling and printing
their own figures. Some even
put their products forward for
enthusiasts and collectors to buy.
It’s an exciting process, but it also
has its steps, and one I’m here
to help you with is creating a fast
and easy 3D setup that will allow
you to make product renders of
your own figures.
DOWNLOAD YOUR RESOURCES
For all the assets you need go to
https://bit.ly/3dworld-cowabunga
01
56 3D WORLD
When creating figures, many
views will be seen, and with that
come different approaches. Yes,
it may also lead to changes until
it fits the needs the artist first had
in mind for their image, but when
the final figure is released it’s
always totally worth it.
One of the most important
aspects of creating product
renders for our figures is to be
able to set our work running,
but how? Renders can help
launch pre-orders and see how
the model is received on social
media. One image can be vitally
important, but keep in mind it
can also help us for marketing,
stickers, packaging and so on.
The process will be simple
and fast, so everyone can achieve
their required results. Remember,
the render doesn’t always have to
be elaborate. Effects such as fogs
and rays everywhere can help
in some situations, but with the
basic knowledge you can try out
many different methods.
AUTHOR
Oscar Juárez
Architect Oscar has
worked in the CG
field since 2010. He
runs Fibrha Studio
and has worked
01EXPORT CORRECTLY
Once the model is done
the next logical step is to render.
with clients around
the globe. An eager
learner, Oscar is
But how? I work with ZBrush and currently focused on
it offers some styles and other creating art toys.
options, but I’ve also worked fibrha.com
in archviz using Chaos Corona
for a long time, which is why
I render in 3ds Max. The first
step is exporting. It may look
complicated, but what I do is
merge the whole model together
with DynaMesh, then decimate it
and finally export as an OBJ.
02 SOFTWARE SELECTION
As I said, I’ve been working
in archviz for over a decade and
used V-Ray and Corona, hence
my experience in simplifying my
workflow. Nowadays we have a
whole host of render engines with
many different pros and cons,
but this time my focus is on 3ds
Max and Corona so we can get
the best results with the fastest
and simplest possible process to
achieve quality renders.
02
Design art toy product renders

3D WORLD 57
Design art toy product renders

04

03

Simple lighting
There are many ways
to light a scene, but
03 IMPORT THE MODEL
Correctly importing the
model makes the whole process
for a quick, simple so much easier, and the majority
product blank, a light of the time I use two file formats
at the top and side in my archviz work: OBJ and
is enough. Even only FBX. I’ve found they import the
a back light can add exact way they are exported in
a mysterious mood. ZBrush. In the File menu select
Always keep with Import and then Merge, which 05
the basic idea of will add the model into our file.
showcasing the figure,
but if you experiment
you may hit upon a
The technique of dragging into
the Viewport and placing works
too, but I’ve noticed some errors,
05 SIMPLE BACKGROUND
Now let’s create a simple
background for our figure. In
drag to create the main camera
for the final render. Set the Focal
to 90mm, check the ‘Automatic
happy accident. which is why I prefer importing 3ds Max go to Create and select vertical tilt’ option and set the
and merging. Splines. Here we need to pick camera a little closer to the point
Line, switch to a side view and of view. Now you can adjust the

04 LAYOUT AND
SAFE FRAMES
Now that we have the model
click to set the first point. Click
again so you have a corner
and select its point, then in the
background plane so that it fits
for our camera.

loaded, it’s time to configure our

Viewports so we don’t have to
worry about the framing. There
are plugins for 3ds Max that
help here, but this is the way to
create a rule of thirds grid with no
plugins needed. Press CTRL+B
and a new window will pop up. In
Layout, select the option that’s
divided vertically in two, and in
Safe Frames check Action Safe.
You’ll want to set the Horizontal
field to 66.0 and the Vertical to
0.0. In Title Safe, set Horizontal to
0.0 and Vertical at 66.0.
Modifier panel choose Fillet,
and click and drag so it creates
a curve. Now it’s just a matter of
adding the Extrude modifier that
we’ll adjust later with the camera.
06 CREATE
CAMERA
A CORONA
Keep in mind that rendering is
like taking a picture, so every bit
of knowledge you have about
photography will help too. To add
a camera, click the tiny camera
icon in the Create panel and
select CoronaCam, then click and
07 TWEAK CORONA
Every render engine
has its own ways of improving
performance. Corona is one of
the most ready-to-use engines
I’ve ever worked with, although
there are two options that I always
adjust. The first is in the Render
Setup of the Performance tab; in
the Interactive Rendering section
I always uncheck ‘Fast preview
denoise during render’, which will
only show how the denoiser works
in our render. In the Scene tab
I also set the Denoising option

58 3D WORLD
 Design art toy product renders

06 07

to Corona High Quality and the

noise value to 7%.

08 CREATE LIGHTS
We have the background
and the model, and we’re almost
ready to start rendering, we just
need the main soul of any render:
the lighting. First of all we need
to apply a simple material to the
whole scene so we can see the
results in no time; this is called
override rendering, and ignores
the materials and shows how the
light interacts. Once the material
is in the Render Setup, check the
‘Mtl. override’ box and place a
simple material in the next box.
Go to Create and select Corona,
then Corona Light and choose a
rectangular one. Place it over the
figure and hit Render.

09 CORONA LIBRARY
MATERIALS
As I said in the introduction,
the blank render doesn’t have
to be fancy or complex. In this
scenario we need to be able to
show off our figure, which is why
we set the light to cast shadows,
in turn creating volume. One
element that’s still missing are
the materials. From the get-go
we have plenty of different ones
to choose from in the Corona
Material Library, many of which
08

3D WORLD 59
Design art toy product renders
09
11
are useful having a UVW map
in our model, while some don’t
need it. In this case I selected a
wax material and tweaked it so it
could let light pass through the
figure to add a nice effect.
10 RENDER ELEMENTS
There are extra elements
we can add to make the details
in our image pop. Remember
though, that doesn’t mean they
have to be exaggerated. In
this case we’ll set three render
60 3D WORLD
10
12
elements that I use all the
time: CESSENTIAL_Reflect,
CMasking_WireColor and
CTexmap. The first helps with
the definition in the image, the
second if we need to remove the
background as it gives us a mask
to focus solely on our figure,
and the last to add depth to the
edges in the figure.
11BACKLIGHT RENDER
The scene is ready to
render, but I want to suggest
an extra approach. Remove the
background stage and turn off
the top and side lights. It will be
interesting once you add a light
in the back of the model. You
can add a new light or copy an
existing one, place it in the back
and make it smaller. Set the Power
to 200 and see how it makes a rim
over the figure’s silhouette.
12 CORONA VFB
We’ll work on the post-
production process in Photoshop

13
15
later on, but for now we can
tweak and add some looks to
the image within Corona. In the
Corona VFB we have the Post
tab, where we can fix a wide
variety of options, with the most
important for me being the
Exposure, Highlight Compress,
White Balance and Contrast.
The Corona VFB is a powerful
tool; why not try tweaking
several more of the fields to get
vastly different results to what
you initially envisioned?
14
13 FINAL RENDER
SETTINGS
The scene is ready to make some
renders, so let’s prepare the
final settings. As I said, Corona
has had some of the most user-
friendly settings on the market
since its early versions, although
let’s not get confused between
friendly and easy. For the final
image we’ll set a value of 7%
in the Noise, and Corona High
Quality for the Denoiser, with a
size of 2,500 x 2,500px that we
Design art toy product renders
can upscale later. With the render Keep the file
elements added, we have enough as a master
to make a nice render. Once everything is
ready and the render is
14 POST-PRODUCTION
The post-production in
this image isn’t complex, as we
done, keep the file and
save it as a master. It
will save a lot of time;
only need to show our figure, its just a matter of adding
volumes and so on. After opening the model and making
the image in Photoshop, I minor adjustments for
modified the Curves for a brighter more renders.
image, then added the Reflect
element set to Soft Light with
a value of 23. I then added the
CTexmap with the Multiply blend
mode to create smooth shadows
on the edges of the figure. Finally,
with some extra effects such as
Color Lookup we can achieve a
better, more contrasted image.
The tuning can be different
depending on your preferences,
but this is what I usually do in fast
renders for art toys.
15 ENHANCE IMAGE SIZE
Sometimes clients ask for
big image sizes, which used to
mean rendering at a larger size.
Now, thanks to AI, it’s possible
with tools like Topaz Gigapixel. It
can be done in Photoshop too,
but Topaz has been part of my
workflow and I find it so useful.
Once the image is loaded, I set it
to scale at 4x and leave the rest of
the options. The final quality is so
nice for use with social media, for
clients, or to sketch over. •
3D WORLD 61
62 3D WORLD
 Create a dynamic Formula One scene

3DS MAX | MUDBOX | PHOTOSHOP | LIGHTROOM

CREATE A DYNAMIC
FORMULA ONE SCENE
Paul Flower combines his passions for motorsport
and modelling as he creates a retro racing render

T
his is an image that I wanted
to create both as fan art and
as a tribute of sorts to the
late Roland Ratzenberger. Due to
the tragic events at the San Marino
Grand Prix in 1994, his memory is
somewhat overshadowed and I
wanted to create a more positive
image showing him at the wheel,
doing what I imagine he loved. This
is also why I wanted to create a retro
feel with the styling.
In this tutorial, you’ll be shown
how to set up and create a Formula
One car using a range of tools
including 3ds Max, with techniques
that you can use on other models.
Among the advice here, I’ll show
you how, by using programs like
Mudbox, you can use various
02 BASE MODELLING
Start with a Plane that’s set
to See-Through under Object
Properties. This allows you to see
the blueprint, making it easy to
move the edges and vertices, and AUTHOR
match the image behind. Now Paul Flower
convert the plane to an editable Born and based
poly. Dragging and extending in the UK, Paul
the edges and vertices, you can is a freelance
manipulate the plane to reflect the digital artist and
representation in the blueprint. 3D modeller who
Remember to orientate between spends a lot of
the different views to create the 3D time in Hong Kong
model. At this point you should start and Macau. He’s
to see the 3D form take shape. particularly keen
on creating Formula
03 CREATE SECTIONS
Try to divide the model into
sections that match the panel
One-related objects.
3dorigin.co.uk

functions and settings to pose

elements including the driver.
There are other techniques
that can help you take your model
a step further and truly bring it
to life. For example, setting up
and lighting the scene, rendering
the model with the aid of V-Ray,
and compositing the renders and
adding details in Photoshop.

01SET UP BLUEPRINTS
AND TEMPLATES
Before the modelling work begins,
it’s always best to find blueprints or
cross-sections of the vehicle you’re
making. Apply these to planes in
3ds Max as materials, and position
the planes so you’ll be able to
model in a 3D space between them
and view from all angles.

DOWNLOAD YOUR RESOURCES

For all the assets you need go to
https://bit.ly/3dworld-cowabunga

01&02

3D WORLD 63
Create a dynamic Formula One scene

lines of the car, for example

the nose cone, engine cover and
monocoque. Doing so will make the
final model resemble the actual car,
while on the contrary, making it all
in one piece and adding lines as a
texture or bump map is less likely to
achieve the results required.

04 MIRROR AND WELD

Once you have the shape
correct in editable poly, select the
complete element and drag to
clone it. Add a mirror modifier and
once again convert to an editable
poly. You need to position them
together and weld the vertices
down the centre to make it a solid
piece. Repeat this process for each
element of the model. 04

05 SMOOTH THE MODEL

Once the element is how
you want it in terms of shape, add a
MeshSmooth modifier, which will be
used for a detailed model. Doing so
helps remove blocky edges and is
more in-keeping with the smooth,
aerodynamic surfaces of an F1 car.

06 UNWRAP UVW
Add an Unwrap UVW
modifier to the element. You
06a

can do this before you add the

MeshSmooth modifier to make the
process quicker and easier, but it
may result in distorted textures,
hence why I did this afterwards for
this particular model.
There are different approaches
to UVW mapping, but I usually
select all the polygons, click the
Mapping tab, and then Flatten
Mapping using a 50-60-degree
angle threshold. This divides the
map up into decent-sized chunks,
which you can then use to divide
along panel lines or into better
whole sections. Use either the Quick
Peel or Relax option to flatten it out
more appropriately.

07 TEXTURING
Now it’s time to bring the
model to life, and one of the parts
I enjoy the most: texturing. Export
the element as an OBJ and import
it into Mudbox. Add a Paint layer
and export the Paint map into
Photoshop. This will give you an
unwrapped UVW as a mesh layer
in Photoshop. You can do this
to accurately lay out the texture
06b

64 3D WORLD
 Create a dynamic Formula One scene

map. I’d recommend creating the

textures at 4,000 x 4,000px, which is
a good size for high-quality textures
and limits pixelation.

07a 07b
08 ADD DETAILS
In this type of model, it’s
recommended that you gather
as much reference material as
possible to aid with the details. In
this example, there are small details
such as the aerials, locking bolts on
the engine cover, and a drinks tube
for the driver to stay hydrated. All
these small details help make the
model feel real.
07c 07d The engine and some of the
internal workings are also added.
Doing so helps when positioning
the car for later renders as you never
know what can be seen through
the intake or the rear. It’s not a
necessity, however, if you know it
won’t be seen.

07e 07f
09 SCENE MODELLING
This render didn’t require
too much scene modelling except
for elements such as the tarmac,
white line, curb, tyre barrier, and
even a wall to help with creating
realistic reflections and setting the
location. In order to help make
these small but important details,
07g 07h use substance maps alongside
VRayBlendMtl with mask maps to
Large textures create the dirt and colour variations
Creating large- found in the tarmac and curb.
scale textures at
approximately 4,000
x 4,000px, or as large
as you can, allows
10 REFLECTING REAL LIFE
To show that the car is
moving, you want to replicate
the model to retain movement. It’s tempting to add
high-quality textures, too much, but when you look at
limits any pixelation, actual images of a moving car, they
and reduces post- don’t show that much movement as
production touch-ups. the camera keeps the car in focus
unless it’s at high speed. You want
to preserve the details in the model
here, but do remember that it still
09 requires some artistic licence when
balancing with real life and what you
would expect to see.

11 CREATE MOVEMENT
To create the desired
movement, animate the wheels
to roll forward along with the car
moving a short distance. Add
a physical camera to the scene
and turn on the motion under the
camera parameters. Doing so can
render the motion blur. You can
11

3D WORLD 65
Create a dynamic Formula One scene
12
14
later overlay this render to the
unblurred render to create the
desired motion.
12 HDRI ENVIRONMENT
Add a V-Ray Dome light to the
scene and bring in an HDRI map to
a VRayBitmap. Also set the Mapping
Type to Spherical, which sets the
tone and reflections for the scene.
There are plenty of free HDRI maps
available online. A dusky racetrack
version was used in this example
as it kept the tone of the lighting
darker and more in-keeping with
the retro feel desired.
13 LIGHT THE SCENE
In addition to the V-Ray dome
light, two VRayLight Planes and
VRaySun were also added to the
scene. This combination helps with
the realistic shadows and ensures
the key areas of the model are
66 3D WORLD
lit. Turn down the sun and dome
lighting to make sure that it doesn’t
overpower the model.
14 RENDER SETTINGS
Depending on your machine,
you can use V-Ray to render the
model. In this example I tried
to render to a fairly large scale,
approximately 6,000 x 4,000, and
set a 180-minute render time for the
overall image.
In the Render Setup window
under the Global Switches tab,
tick Override Depth and set the
Minimum transparency to 50 and
the Maximum level to 100. Also set
the Light Cache Subdivs to around
3,000. You can play around with
these to get your desired results.
15 CREATE THE DRIVER
You can create the driver’s
overalls using the same method 15&16

17
19
as the car. It doesn’t need to be
100 per cent correct at this stage,
nor does it need to be a high-poly
model. Once you have created
something close to what you want,
Unwrap UVW the driver, export the
model as an OBJ and import into
Mudbox. This step could also be
done in ZBrush.
16 DRIVER DETAILS
In Mudbox create a new
Modelling layer and, using the Wax
or Grab and Positioning tools,
manipulate the driver to how you’d
like. Now increase the subdivisions
and, using the Repeat tool and
appropriate stamps, you can add
clothing creases and stitching to
Camera
experimentation
Always explore
the overalls and gloves to make
them more realistic. The stamps
that I used to create the overalls
different camera were the 50 Seam Brushes Without
angles and fields Stitches (4K)+Alpha -Vol 04, created
of view. You’d be by OMiD Mousakhani, and the 20
surprised how often Folds VDM Brush for ZBrush Vol.2
you find a new made by VK GameDev.
dynamic angle just by
moving the camera
around the scene. 17 RENDERING
When it comes to rendering,
I always like to render out multiple
passes: a clean standard render, an
ambient occlusion version (which
enhances shadows), a cloud texture
(for the car to render an overlay
as additional reflections), as well
as renders of varying brightness.
These will all be used as different
Create a dynamic Formula One scene
“I WANTED TO
CREATE A MORE
POSITIVE IMAGE
SHOWING HIM
AT THE WHEEL,
DOING WHAT
I IMAGINE
HE LOVED”
overlays when we move on to the
post-production process.
18 RENDER DETAIL
You can render key sections
such as the driver using the Region
render in the Render window. This
creates a render of higher quality
for that particular section. I also
use the Render region section to
improve texture, for example on the
driver’s gloves, as the colour can
block out some of the texture. In
this case, you can re-render just the
texture pattern on the gloves, which
can then be faded in on top of the
original gloves to make the texture
more noticeable.
19 IMAGE EDITING
Once you have all the relevant
renders completed, it’s time to
compile them together. To do
this, use Photoshop. Import all the
renders in order with the ambient
occlusion versions above set to
Multiply. You should start to see the
image come to life.
Add the motion blur render
along with the high-quality render
sections that you may have created.
Finally, add a Curves or Levels
adjustment layer to make sure that
your colours pop. To really add the
retro feel, you can import the final
render into Adobe Lightroom, add
a preset you like and adjust the
lighting. With that, you’re done! •
3D WORLD 67

MAYA | ZBRUSH | SUBSTANCE PAINTER | MARMOSET TOOLBAG | PHOTOSHOP
DEVELOP A REAL-TIME
STYLISED PORTRAIT
Character artist Satoshi Arakawa demonstrates how he created
a stylised portrait in real time using PBR materials
T
his tutorial will demonstrate
how to create a stylised
portrait from a concept
illustration (concept art by
Nutsa Avaliani). The goal is to
create something that is stylised
in nature while utilising PBR
materials to give it a realistic feel.
The real challenge is to add a
fluffy look to the softer materials,
without having to rely on actual
fur strand geometry like in film or
offline rendered pieces.
So we will focus on how to
accomplish this using techniques
applicable in a real-time setting.
We will begin in ZBrush to sculpt
something that will work well
with our low-poly techniques in
Substance Painter and Marmoset.
DOWNLOAD YOUR RESOURCES
For all the assets you need go to
https://bit.ly/3dworld-cowabunga
01
02
01BLOCK OUT
THE BASIC SHAPES
The first step is to block in your
shapes to get a feeling for how you
will translate the concept into 3D.
Before even tackling the details, it’s
important to establish your forms or
the details won’t really be effective.
In order to match the forms you see
in the illustration, use DynaMesh
or the move tool – these will prove
to be the most useful tools at this
stage of sculpting. Now you need
to block in very basic shapes of all
the elements; try not to match the
concept too closely at this juncture.
02 SCULPT THE FACE
Although the focus for this
tutorial will be the soft materials,
the face is still the focal point. In this
case achieving a cute, adolescent
face can be quite challenging. Make
sure you have a lot of reference on
the age group you are trying to
achieve. With a young face, you will
want to keep details rather soft and
the anatomy more round to really
sell the youthful vibe. Slowly build
up your forms using a brush like
Clay Buildup. You can add some
subtle details like pores at the end.
Develop a real-time stylised portrait
AUTHOR
Satoshi Arakawa
Satoshi Arakawa has
been a character
artist in the industry
for over 15 years. He
enjoys various forms
of character art,
from high-fidelity
realistic, to low-
poly stylised.
03 MODEL THE CAP
The easiest way to
accomplish this is to create a basic
bit.ly/47zkQ0c
shape of the cap that is perfectly
round. Use Maya or 3ds Max to
model something like this. Once
you have your round cap geo, you’ll
want to use radial symmetry in
ZBrush. Because the pattern on the
cap is complicated, we want to take
a shortcut here and only sculpt a
section of it.
Using radial symmetry set
to something like 8, we can
accomplish this by only sculpting
1/8th of the cap. For the fluffy
ball at the top, you can up the
symmetry number and only sculpt
a fraction of the surface.
03
3D WORLD 69
Develop a real-time stylised portrait
04 SCULPT THE SCARF
For something like a scarf
where you don’t necessarily see the
entire flow in an illustration, it is a
balance of matching what you see
while filling in the areas that aren’t
visible in the concept with a cloth
flow that makes sense. Having a lot
of references at this stage will help
immensely. Once you are happy
with your foundational sculpt, you
will want to retopo your mesh to
give you a cleaner geometry to work
with, while also being able to lay out
some quick UVs on your mesh. This
is important for the next step.
05 CREATE THE KNIT
ON THE SCARF
Lay out your scarf UVs in a relatively
straight manner so you can apply
a pattern in ZBrush that will follow
the folds of the scarf. You’ll want
to create a tiling knit alpha in
Photoshop that can be used in
ZBrush. Once your alpha is ready,
use Noisemaker under the Surface
menu and select your alpha. Using
the sliders, you can adjust the tile
rate and the strength of your alpha.
When you are ready to apply it
to the mesh, make sure you have
enough subdivisions and that you
apply it on a layer so you can easily
adjust the strength afterwards.
06 DESIGN THE HAIR
We will redo the hair later
at the low-poly stage, but this
step can be an effective precursor
to knowing how the hair will flow
and to give you an easier frame of
reference to match your concept
illustration. Block in major forms
with DynaMesh and once you have
that established, sculpt in medium
chunk volumes. Finish with some
fine detail strands using either Dam
Standard or Slash3.
07 MAKE THE SWEATER
Sculpting the child’s sweater
is relatively straightforward. The
main challenge of the sweater
is to match what you see in the
concept. It also serves as a good
frame of reference for matching
other elements. Sculpting actual
folds comes with practice; having
good reference images helps
immensely too. You still want to
make sure you sculpt the main folds
at a low density to easily achieve
70 3D WORLD
04 05
more depth. Once you get your
main folds in, you can refine and
move on. In a lot of cases too much
detail is not necessary as you can
easily add more micro-details in
Substance Painter later.
08 KEEP CONSISTENCY
WITH THE CONCEPT
Once you have all of your elements
detailed in, it’s a good time to
make adjustments to match the
concept. Inevitably you will have 06
some deviation from the original.
Some details just won’t translate
well from 2D to 3D because the
illustrator wouldn’t be able to
foresee certain issues. The key is
to make sure you are maintaining
the proper proportion and focal
points established by the concept.
In fact, this is something you always
want to do as you are refining all
the elements. Constantly having
the sculpt next to the concept and
comparing the differences is vital.
07
09 THE LAYERING
TECHNIQUE
This is the main technique you will
use to achieve the soft feeling of
the knit materials. It is a commonly
used method in games. The idea
is to duplicate the knit geo and to
expand it out slightly. Pushing the
duplicate geo using vertex normal
in Maya is an easy way to expand
the mesh evenly across the entire
surface. You will want to do this a
number of times in order to get a
08
layering of duplicate meshes that
incrementally expand away from the
base geometry.
10 TEXTURE LAYERING
Layering the geometry gets
you about halfway to your goal.
There are two keys to texturing the
layers: alpha and value. You will
want to alpha more heavily as you
09

go outward, and you will want the
texture value to become brighter as
well. By using an AO or cavity map
generated from your knit normal
map, you can create an alpha map
for the knit areas. As you create
new textures for each layer, you
can simply increase the levels in
your alpha to mask more out. And
for the albedo, simply increase the
brightness subtly.
10
11 TEXTURE THE FACE
You can texture the face in
Substance Painter or Photoshop.
While it might be easy to get carried
away with details for a realistic face,
for a stylised portrait focusing on
colours is more effective. Using
references that give you a good
example of colour zones of the face
is best practice and will produce
a better result. Layer reds, blues,
purples, pinks, and whites to give
a good variation to the skin. Using
splatter shaped brushes to add
these colours can work very well.
11 Finish with some details like freckles
for some added effect.
12 MATERIALS
FOR THE FACE
In Marmoset use the skin shader
to mimic subsurface scattering.
You can soften the details on the
face along with assigning a colour,
which you will see in the transition
from light to dark on the face. A
translucency map can be used to
12
13 14
15
Develop a real-time stylised portrait
show where the skin is the thinnest
and where light would penetrate
more easily. Utilise a detailed
normal texture to add a bit more
pore information, and use a fuzz
map in order to imitate the small
hairs on the surface of the skin. You
can also add occlusion and cavity
maps to break up the surface values
and specularity.
13 MATERIALS AND
TECHNIQUES FOR THE EYE
For our next step, creating the
eye, you want the eyeball and two
duplicate meshes layered on the
eye. The second ball will become
the cornea. The third ball will be
where you can texture a shadow
from the upper eyelid. You want to
create normals for the eye to have
the iris bump in, and a normal for
the cornea to bump out. You can
also create a thin layer of geo to
mimic the surface between the eye
and the surrounding eyelid skin.
14 TEXTURES AND HAIR
Hair can be done using cards.
Use your decimated ZBrush geo as
a guide to place your cards. Texture
a few strands by painting them in
Photoshop. Using a brush with a few
dots as the shape can work wonders
when painting hair. In Marmoset,
set your hair shader’s reflection
model to Anisotropic. This will give
you that halo-type highlight in your
hair. If you texture all your cards
in the same direction, you can set
the Anisotropic angle; or if you
have unique flow or differing card
directions, you can paint a flow map
using Substance Painter
15 LIGHTING AND
FINAL TOUCHES
Lighting will make a huge difference
in your attempt to match a concept.
Still, it’s best not to overcomplicate
it. The foundation to most strong
lighting scenarios is a basic three-
point composition.
A key light to create your main
focus, a fill light to soften the
shadows, and a rim light to enhance
the shadowed side from the back.
You can add a couple of extra lights
to enhance specific focal points
such as the eyes or hair. Utilising
Marmoset’s depth of field and a
well-placed background image can
help finalise your render. •
3D WORLD 71
 Practical tips and tutorials from
pro artists to improve
your CG skills

Glen Southern
Glen runs SouthernGFX, a
small Cheshire based studio
specialising in character and creature
design. Wacom ambassador, VR Artist,
accredited ZBrush lifelong maker.
youtube.com/c/SouthernGFX/videos

Paul Hatton
After graduating with
a first-class computer
science degree, Paul Hatton has spent
nearly two decades working within the
3D visualisation industry.

Mike Griggs
Mike Griggs is a digital
content creator with over
two decades of experience creating VFX
and CGI for a wide range of clients.
www.creativebloke.com

Substance 3D Modeler is a
Pietro Chiovaro
powerful tool for VR sculpting
Pietro is a freelance 3D
artist and YouTuber. An
expert in the creation of game assets SOFTWARE: SUBSTANCE 3D MODELER
and environments, he shares many of
his creations on his channel.
www.pietrochiovaro.com IS VR SCULPTING STILL
RELEVANT, AND WHERE
IS IT BENEFICIAL?
Jamie Davidson, Cornwall

Glen Southern replies

Sculpting in virtual reality process feel more natural and intuitive.

GET IN TOUCH
EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO
rob.redman@futurenet.com
(VR) offers a range of unique
and valuable benefits that traditional 3D
sculpting methods, and even physical
sculpting, may not provide. Here are some
reasons why sculpting in VR is useful.
Firstly, it’s an immersive experience. VR
allows you to step into your artistic world,
providing a heightened sense of presence.
This immersion can make the sculpting
It gives the artist a spatial understanding
where you can physically move around
your virtual sculpture, just like you would
with real clay. This helps you understand
the 3D space better, making it easier to
manipulate your creation.
Scale and proportion is handled
differently than in desk-bound programs.
In VR, you can adjust the size of your

72 3D WORLD
 Your CG problems solved

EXPERT TIP
SCOPING IN AND OUT
There is no hierarchy or scene menu in
Modeler just yet. I’m sure it’s coming, but
for now you have to rely on something
called scoping in and out of an individual
model part in the scene. It takes a
while to get the hang of it, but it soon
becomes second nature.

sculpting tools and the sculpture itself

more intuitively, ensuring your creation STEP BY STEP SUBSTANCE 3D MODELER
has accurate proportions.
Freedom of Movement is a big
advantage. 3D sculpting might limit your
physical movement by the fact that you’re
stuck looking at a 2D screen, but in VR you
have the freedom to sculpt from any angle,
and even create large-scale sculptures
without needing the physical space that
a real-world sculptor would need. Real- 01 02
time feedback in VR allows you to see the
results of your sculpting immediately in
the virtual space you’re occupying. You
can instantly assess how changes affect
your work, leading to a more efficient
creative process.
This one doesn’t apply to 3D modelling,
but unlike working with real clay or other
physical materials, VR sculpting doesn’t
create a mess. You don’t need to worry
about cleaning up, storing materials, or 03 04
dealing with physical limitations. Another
benefit when compared to physical
sculpting is that VR often gives you access
to advanced tools. VR sculpting software
01THE SOFTWARE
Substance 3D Modeler is the direct
descendant of Adobe Medium, which was
03 EXPORTING YOUR
FINAL MODELS
Most of the models that you’ll create will
often provides options impossible in the originally owned by Facebook under the be heading for another package to be
real world, like instantly duplicating and Oculus banner. Medium was the software retopologised, UV unwrapped, textured,
mirroring parts of your sculpture, or even that got voxel sculpting off the ground and possibly moved on to an animation
using tools that manipulate the physics of and what brought most people into VR package. Modeler gives you a wide range
your sculpting materials. sculpting. The team that made Medium of common file formats that you can use
Collaboration and sharing is another moved to Adobe, and have been working when exporting, and also decimates
one of the standout features in VR. under the new leadership to craft Modeler the model to a lower polygon count if
Some VR sculpting software can enable and absorb it into the Adobe Substance required. You can even generate the UV
collaborative work where multiple artists ecosystem. Modeler is available as part of mapping right there inside Modeler from
can virtually work on the same project the Adobe Substance 3D plan. the Export panel.
simultaneously, even if they’re physically
distant or remote. Additionally, you can
easily share your sculptures with others
for feedback or showcase; art direction
02 DESKTOP AND VR
One of the biggest changes in VR
sculpting over the last few years is the
04 VIEW RENDER
Although there’s little in the way
of rendering capability in VR, there is a
in VR is time-saving and efficient in lots rise of programs that can be used both way to show your models in a better light,
of cases. Overall, VR sculpting offers an in VR and also back on the desktop. With and with shadows too. When you take
innovative and dynamic way for artists Modeler you simply take your headset off your headset to review the finished
to create, experiment and explore their off and the software reverts to a desktop model, you can use a View mode from the
artistic vision, while leveraging the view, and you can use a wide range of interface that gives you a basic rendered
benefits of digital technology and an tools and features on the desk. To dive and lit view. It just helps to push the
immersive environment. Let’s take a look back in, just put the headset back on. realism that little bit further.
at Substance 3D Modeler as an example.

3D WORLD 73
Your CG problems solved
SOFTWARE: BLENDER
HOW DO I MAKE BRAIDED HAIR IN BLENDER?
Helen James, Wrexham
Paul Hatton replies
Getting hair right is tricky,
and the challenge becomes
even greater when that hair needs to be
animated. Hair grooming tools in the likes
of Houdini have become so advanced
that the only limit seems to be an artist’s
abilities. Blender contains an improving
set of grooming functionality as well, but
as the question focuses on braids we’ll
take a more specific approach.
To help answer this one I’m indebted
to Nino (AKA DefoQ) for Braidify, a free
tool developed alongside some incredibly
helpful training videos. The first iteration
was impressive, great for creating braids
and animating them, but was highly
processor intensive. Making changes to
the output was, at times, rather slow and
74 3D WORLD
sucked some of the life out of the creative
process. Nino listened to artist’s feedback
and introduced a second, far quicker and
more responsive iteration. It integrates
well into Blender’s existing tools, but isn’t
quite as effective at animating braids.
Braids are a complex structure formed
by the interlacing of three or more strands
of material. We see this most often in
hair, but any type of flexible material can
be braided, including textiles and wire.
Re-creating braids in 3D without the
help of a plugin would be tedious and
cumbersome, with each strand needing to
be created individually before interlacing
them. This leaves the potential for clashing
high, with an additional challenge around
making any changes to the braid paths.
The tool we use here takes all the hard
work out of creating braids by requiring a
single curve that is then used to drive the
braid. This curve can be edited in Sculpt
mode using any of Blender’s brushes.
Our answer can only cover the basics of
getting you set up and pointing you in the
direction of a few helpful workflows. To
get to grips with this tool, just play around
with it. All the parameters are in one place,
and as the braids update interactively
you’ll be able to see exactly how your
creations respond to different settings.
Braidify is simple and straightforward,
but don’t be fooled into thinking it lacks
functionality and capability. The braids
you can generate are realistic, predictable
and suitable for production-quality work.

Creating braids couldn’t be
simpler with Braidify. It’s easy
to set up and quick to generate
even complex braids.
EXPERT TIP
CHANGE THE ATTACHMENT OBJECT
The Attachment object can be changed at
any time by going into the Geometry Nodes
modifier Properties and using the Object
Picker to select a new object. You’ll see
your curves jump onto the new object and
your braids will be generated in their new
location as well.
STEP BY STEP CREATE WITH BRAIDIFY
01
03
01GET SET UP
Download Braidify from Nino
DefoQ’s website, which you can find
at ninodefoq.gumroad.com. At the
time of writing, there are two versions
available; for the sake of simplicity,
you’ll want the performance-updated
one. With your scene open and your
attachment object selected, which is
probably going to be your character’s
scalp, go to File and Append, then
select your Blender file and navigate
into the NodeTree folder before
selecting Braidify. With that done,
you’ve now successfully appended the
tools that you’ll need to get going.
02 CREATE YOUR CURVES
Select your attachment object
and create a new curve of the type
Empty Hair. In Sculpt mode, create
a new curve and sculpt it into the
shape that you want the braid to take.
Now switch back to Object mode,
go to Properties, and create a new
Geometry Nodes modifier. Change
the type to Braidify and a braid
should appear in the location of the
curve that you created. Move back
into Sculpt mode once again to adjust
the shape of your curve.
Your CG problems solved
02
04
03 CUSTOMISE YOUR BRAID
Before proceeding, in Output
Attributes type “OurUV” to make
sure that the correct UVs are being
pulled through. Then, the cool thing is
that this tool lets you generate either
realistic or anime-style braids. In the
Geometry Nodes modifier Properties,
you’ll find a checkbox that allows you
to switch between the two different
states. With the realistic version
selected, you can amend the realistic
hair properties. You can increase the
Realistic Hair Amount to create a
thicker style of hair, and change the
thickness of each hair too.
04 FURTHER CUSTOMISATION
One thing you’ll want to tweak
is where the hair comes out of your
attachment object. In a real braid this
area is particularly complex because
hair is originating from a broad area
and the distribution is incredibly
random. This tool gives you a Hair
Starting Noise strength parameter
that lets you make this either more or
less chaotic. Don’t forget that more
strands can be added at any time by
going into Sculpt mode and adding
additional curves.
3D WORLD 75
Your CG problems solved
SOFTWARE: NUKE
WHY DO MY RENDERS LOOK DIFFERENT
IN SEPARATE PARTS OF NUKE?
Douglas Mannings, Lancaster
Mike Griggs replies
One of the toughest elements
about learning new creative
software is plodding your way through the
essential elements to give a foundation
for doing the fancy stuff. This becomes
even more frustrating if the software is
already in a skill area the artist knows, and
understands the underlying knowledge of
the task or brief at hand. That often means
finding a tutorial on a specific process
can actually hamper more than help the
overall software experience.
76 3D WORLD
Nuke is a piece of content creation
software that, in many ways, can do too
many things. It’s imperative to cover as
much of the basics as possible, as they can
lead to potential time-sucking ‘gotchas’
later down the line. The fantastic thing
about Nuke is that thanks to its nodal
architecture and ability to open up nearly
every available parameter for adjustment,
it can mean there are too many choices
for new artists, or those used to similar
software that hides a lot of the complexity.
A great example is how the humble
Nuke Viewer node works. The Nuke Viewer
node is the only node that appears when a
new Nuke comp is created, and therefore
it’s easy to ignore, but that does the
node a disservice for its importance. For
example, most new Nuke artists wouldn’t
know the Viewer is an item in the Panels
tab of the overall Preferences.
Artists can become a bit confused
with the Viewer node as each can display
different variations of the same footage.
 Your CG problems solved

EXPERT TIP
MORE THAN ONE SOURCE
Using two Viewer nodes can be a great way of looking at multiple
versions of the same shot, for example, a specular pass loaded
into Viewer2 to compare with the main beauty pass. Making extra
Viewers is a handy way to work with a lot of footage.

STEP BY STEP SET UP TWO VIEWERS IN NUKE

01 02

03 04

01INITIAL SCENE SETUP

This tutorial was created in Nuke 14
and is aimed at new users using the OCIO
and ACES 1.2 config Project settings,
Nuke provides many which are accessed with the ‘S’ key. A
ways to keep a Node render sequence of EXR files has been
Graph organised loaded into Nuke and connected to the
default Viewer node. That node is set to
use the sRGB (ACES) View Transform, the
default for the OCIO config.
03 VIEW BOTH
NODES TOGETHER
To view both nodes concurrently, click
and drag the Viewer2 window to the side
of the main view display. This will create
a dotted outline denoting where and
how much of the screen the Viewer will
occupy. When the Viewer occupies half of
the screen, let go of the button, and the
Viewer2 screen should appear beside the
Viewer1 screen.

This happened to me recently when I

grouped a range of renders in Nuke. The
colour settings in the View Transform of
the Viewer in the group were different
from the Viewer in the main node graph.
Still, I quickly realised that it was the Viewer
node, which meant seconds of confusion
rather than hours of panic. This quick
tutorial for artists new to Nuke will set up a
simple two-viewer comp, showing how one
render can be used to create an sRGB and
HDR workflow concurrently.
02 ADD AN ADDITIONAL
VIEWER NODE
There is a range of options to add a
second Viewer node into Nuke, either
through the toolbar by pressing the
Tab key in the node graph and typing
“Viewer”, through the main application
Viewer menu, or with the shortcut CTRL+I.
Connect the new Viewer up to the EXR
Render sequence, and set the View
Transform of the second node to a suitable
HDR-ready Transform such as the P3-D65
ST2084 100 nits (ACES).
04 ORGANISE THE SCENE
As you can now see, when placed
side by side the two viewers can show
drastically different colour profiles for
the same render. Like most things in
Nuke, these nodes can be relabelled,
which in this case means denoting Viewer
1 with its task of displaying colour in a
standard 8-bit fashion that’s suitable for
social media, while Viewer 2 can be used
to preview HDR workflows on HDR-
equipped monitors.

3D WORLD 77
Your CG problems solved
SOFTWARE: BLENDER
HOW DO I SYNC MUSIC
WITH BLENDER?
Raphaëlle Abras, Paris
Pietro Chiovaro replies
With the advent of web 3.0
and new, better-performing
virtual reality headsets, entertainment
is changing, and it’s not uncommon to
produce virtual gigs you can enjoy from
home. In this tutorial, I’ll show you a simple
way to get parameters from any audio to
produce lighting and movement effects
that sync with music in Blender, without
the need for any external software.
In this render, I first created a simple
stage using basic shapes, then assigned
some materials, and lastly added lights
and the crowd. As soon as you have your
environment, we can focus on the process
of getting the data from an audio file.
Let’s start animating a light of any kind;
spot light, point light, sun light, and so
on. In this case I decided to just use point
lights. Add your light, head to the Editor
panel and select it. We need to insert a
keyframe at frame 1 of the Power of the
78 3D WORLD
Perfect visual sync in
Blender is simple, and
takes just five minutes
with this process
light by right-clicking on the parameter
and choosing Insert Keyframe. EXPERT TIP
Moving to the Graph Editor panel, we
have to select the animated parameter, EXPERIMENTING
in this case Power, and click on Channel
followed by ‘Bake sound to f-curve’. Now
The key part of this process is to
select the audio you want to use, and once transform the audio with parameters
done you’ll see a curve, which is the song
converted into a graph.
that change in relation to the beat and
Depending on the song, you may need flow of the music. This can be applied
to increase the effect of this curve, which
can be done by again hitting Channel and
to different kinds of objects, particle
Un-Bake Curves. The curve will now be systems, lights or specific elements
editable, allowing us to press ‘S’ and ‘Y’ to
scale it and increase the effect; I suggest
of a shader – such as emission,
scaling up around 10 times the default. colours or displacement – that can be
To finish, we have to add the actual
audio. Head to the Video Sequence panel
animated in the timeline. Have fun and
and, always starting from frame 1, add the experiment with it!
same sound you used for the light. If you
now click play, you’ll see the light emission
increase and decrease with the beat.
 The number one destination
for digital art news,
views and how-tos
EcrApc_rgtc
@jmobgpcarrm
wmspgl`mvugrf
mspuccijwbgegr_j
_prlcuqjcrrcp

Graphic design Art Web design 3D Digital art

www.creativebloq.com
 News and views from around the
international CG community
Learn how the compositing supervisor got his start in
VFX and what his work at Lux Aeterna entails
s a compositing supervisor,
A
Tav Flett is instrumental in
managing the compositing
pipeline of Bristol-based
studio Lux Aeterna. With
over 10 years of experience working for
industry giants like Walt Disney and
Aardman Animations, he’s brought new
tools, techniques and ideas to his projects,
particularly when it comes to colour
science and compositing workflows.
After working freelance with the
company for three years, leading on titles
like Netflix’s Our Universe, Flett joined Lux
Aeterna as a permanent member of staff in
February 2023. He sat down with us to talk
about his origin story, career highlights, and
the challenges of running a VFX pipeline.
Can you tell us about your path into
the VFX industry?
I started out at the University of the West
of England in Bristol, studying audio
production. My girlfriend, now wife, was
80 3D WORLD
Flett has been part of the Bristol VFX scene for eight years, and
MEET THE ARTIST
Tav Flett
working on a feature film for Disney in
London and recommended I apply for a two-
week work placement. I think I impressed
the team during my placement, because they
asked me to leave education and join them
on a full-time basis.
After consulting with my lecturers, I
was able to work at Disney four days a week
alongside my studies, commuting back and
forth between Bristol and London. Despite
all the travel that was involved, I managed
to balance my time and graduated with a
first-class honours degree in media practice
with animation.
During my time in London, I worked as
a junior compositor on projects like Tim
Burton’s stop-motion classic Frankenweenie,
however once that project wrapped I was
at a loose end. Luckily, through some of my
contacts on Frankenweenie I was able to
secure a compositing position at a company
called Telegael, located on the west coast
of Ireland about an hour west of Galway.
Having worked there for a number of
enjoys the balance it brings to both his personal and work life
months I decided that I needed to be closer
to my fiancee in Bristol, and I moved back
to the UK as a freelancer. I worked across
a number of Bristol-based studios before
finally finding a home at Lux Aeterna.
How do you keep things fresh?
I find that taking on as much variation in
work and projects as possible always keeps
things interesting. I tend to get bored doing
the same job over and over, so getting out of
my comfort zone, whether that’s learning
new software or doing stints at other
studios, is a great way to learn new skills and
stay relevant. This industry really is moving
faster and faster these days, so it can be a
challenge to keep up.
What’s your day-to-day life like?
My day-to-day life is actually pretty chilled,
apart from delivery weeks. Work at Lux
Aeterna usually revolves around meetings
with the team in the mornings to get up to
speed across however many projects we
 Meet the artist

Our Universe images courtesy of Netflix

Netflix series Our Universe has been one of Flett’s favourite projects
to date, as he helped to produce a number of shots for the series

Lux Aeterna VFX is

By working across studios large and small, Flett based in the heart of
believes artists can gain greater perspective and the Bristol, opposite the
ability to be more hands-on across different disciplines BBC’s studios

have in the studio at the time. That’s where

we figure out with production, and the other
supervisors, the most economical way to
approach shots while still delivering quality
and meeting clients’ demands. The rest of
the day is usually split between comping
sequences and directing traffic.

Can you tell us a bit about your

current studio setup?
Our studio currently runs on a lot of
different software as we have quite a wide
range of media we work with. For our
VFX pipeline, we use Nuke as our main
Image courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures

compositing package, Maya for 3D, and

Houdini for simulations. The bulk of the
lighting is done in Maya with Houdini.
We also use a mix of Arnold, Redshift, and The contacts made while
occasionally Mantra for rendering. working on Frankenweenie
For the graphic side of things we opened doors for Flett
predominantly use Adobe Creative Suite

3D WORLD 81
Meet the artist
Flett is a compositing supervisor with
experience spanning over 12 years
and Cinema 4D. It can be tricky keeping
the pipeline consistent through so many
different software packages, but having
ACES and OCIO now commonplace in most
software applications does make things
considerably easier.
Can you walk us through a typical
piece from concept to final render?
Generally, a sequence will start with the
concept art and storyboards that one of
our in-house artists will devise with the
director to try and realise their vision. Once
these have been nailed down, we’ll review
the boards as a team, bearing in mind the
budget, and try to devise the best way to
approach it. There are lots of different ways
to approach a single problem, so this is
actually a critical step in the process.
Once we’ve settled on an approach,
depending on the type of shot, we’ll either
speak with the directors and DPs on the best
way to capture footage in the case of live
action, or we’ll start to previs and blockout
shots in the case of CG. We repeat these
steps through 3D and then 2D until the
director’s happy and will hopefully sign off.
It’s a slow, iterative process, but you can’t
rush it, or it’ll come back to bite you.
What’s the best thing about working
in-house at a VFX studio?
I would describe the working culture at Lux
Aeterna as creatively open. The ethos of
BDH, the studio’s former name, always had a
strong sense of family, which has very much
carried through to Lux Aeterna. There’s
also good work-life balance and we’ll often
socialise outside of the studio, like going to
the pub or watching the rugby.
Being able to stay in Bristol is also a huge
bonus as it’s such a creative place. The city
is continuing to attract a lot more talent and
bigger projects from out of London, without
the same levels of pressure that jobs in the
capital can have.
82 3D WORLD
In total, the Lux Aeterna team comped over 700 high-end
VFX shots when working on the Our Universe series
Unlike previous studios I’ve been
employed by, the work at Lux Aeterna
tends to be less prescribed, which means
that I can get hands-on experience in areas
outside of compositing, like production
management, concept art, title graphics, art
direction, and research and development.
Add that to larger projects we work on like
Our Universe, where everyone’s chipping in
and cross-pollinating skills and ideas, and it
can be a very exciting place to work.
What are the biggest challenges in
the VFX pipeline?
In any VFX pipeline, technology plays a
massive part in ensuring the best work is
delivered. Vendors are always asking for
higher-quality work, and with 4K rapidly
becoming the standard resolution now,
render farms are getting overloaded because
of the increasing file sizes. As a result of
this, trying to complete the work to a high
standard in such a short space of time can
be very challenging.
Luckily, we have an excellent R&D
team whose job is to stay on top of all
technological advancements, particularly
AI, which can help speed things up. Since
the introduction of text-to-image model
Stable Diffusion, we’ve been able to ease the
load thanks to its ability to generate quality
textures, matte paintings, and concept art
incredibly quickly.
What are the current trends within
the industry?
Along with the evolution of AI and newly
integrated AI tools into Nuke’s standard
workflow, and the ongoing discussion
around work-life balance, the move to ACES
colour space over the past few years has
made a huge difference.
As more vendors, such as the likes of
Netflix, have requested that companies
adhere to the standardised colour space,
it’s meant that post houses now don’t have
to do as much work for tasks like grading,
resulting in a faster workflow and fewer
complexities when it comes to compositing.
Having a standardised production, from
shoot through to post, has made my
workflow much smoother and quicker.
What advice would you give to
people who are trying to progress in
the VFX industry?
Gain as much experience as possible in as
many different areas of work as you can.
Working in both big and small studios will
help to round out your experience. In larger
studios, your role is much more prescribed,
but you have exposure to larger production
lines and workflows. In the smaller studios,
you have the ability to be much more hands-
on across different disciplines, picking up
skills and knowledge that span the entire
studio offering. Working across both
 Meet the artist

DEVELOPING A
UNIVERSAL PROJECT

“I really enjoyed the work we did on

Our Universe,” says Tav Flett. “I’ve
worked on lots of exciting projects
recently, such as Star Wars: Visions
for #ardOan and .ucasƂlO, and
also Tiny World for Apple TV. But
Our Universe was truly something
different, marrying the epic sciƂ
imagery you’d see in something like
2001: A Space Odyssey with the
grounded, intimate moments found
in the best nature documentaries.
“Engaging as a collective to
develop a new language of visual
storytelling, which worked in both
a dramatic and factual manner, was
really satisfying. It was also the result
of a strong collaboration between
Lux Aeterna, BBC Studios and
0etƃix. The BBC in particular gave
our team lots of creative freedom,
and I loved working with the series
directors Stephen Cooter, Alice
Jones, and Naomi Austin.”

gives you great perspective, helping you to

understand how different applications and
deliverables are applied across the VFX and
creative workflow.

Is there a dream project that you

would like to work on?
I’d probably have to say at the moment I’m
really enjoying a lot of Denis Villeneuve’s
films. Not only are they beautifully shot
with immaculate VFX work, but the stories
Image courtesy of Universal Content Productions

and concepts have a lot of depth; they’re

not just about people being thrown through
buildings. I always enjoy working on
projects that have something to contribute,
rather than those that are simply about
making money. Flett served as a digital compositor
You can find out more about Lux for black comedy series Happy!
FYI Aeterna’s work by visiting lavfx.com.

3D WORLD 83
 We explore the latest software and
hardware tools to see if they are

Justin Siemt (artstation.com/justin_siemt) / Abenstein, Maximilians am See

worth your time or money

AUTHOR PROFILE
Paul Hatton
After graduating with
a first-class computer
SOFTWARE REVIEW
3D generalist Justin
science degree, Paul

RailClone 6
Siemt put RailClone
Hatton has spent
to good use in his
nearly two decades
archviz work
working within the 3D
visualisation industry.
PRICE £195/$275 | COMPANY iToo Software | WEBSITE itoosoft.com/railclone
PROS

R
ailClone first hit the 3D
Great support and marketplace in 2010,
development making it possible to
create procedurally driven
Ever-growing and models. Artists were already
improved asset library in full flow with duplicating
and instancing tools, but
the concept of using set
CONS parameters in order to
generate models wasn’t in
Only works many people’s minds.
with 3ds Max At the time it was a game
changer, and it continues to
Rivals chomping largely dominate the market. In
at its heels the past 13 years, RailClone has
evolved with the ever-changing
needs and requirements of a
MACRO NODES fast-paced and demanding
industry. In this latest release
When working with users get a major overhaul
RailClone nodes it can get to the asset libraries, an all
pretty cluttered. Macro new RC Slice modifier, and an
nodes aim to solve this improved workflow for their
problem by enabling node graphs.
artists to copy and paste The power and flexibility
entire graphs into macros. of parametric modelling is
If you’re struggling to multiplied tenfold when it’s
conceptualise what this then partnered with excellent
looks like, in essence assets; an area RailClone has
it’s pretty much a case
of grouping a collection
of nodes into one single
Macro node.
devoted a lot of time to over
recent years. Artists can now
enjoy a much larger array of
libraries to choose from when
setting up scenes.
For this latest release there multiple parts, even if they’re
has been a particular focus the same component.
on exterior road and street- Another nice addition to
related assets. I’m especially this modifier is related to the
excited by the road library, faces that are left after slicing
because this will make setting through an object. It’s now
up roads and their associated possible to treat these faces
line markings an absolute with separate Material IDs,
breeze. That has historically ensuring that they are properly
been a time-consuming task to represented in the final image.
get right, with artists having to These new improvements to
rely on masks and complicated RailClone’s slicing capabilities
maps to achieve anything that help it to further integrate into
comes close to realism. an artist’s workflow.
Meanwhile, the new RC Aside from the more
Slice modifier now makes it feature-focused additions and
even easier to divide up your improvements, it’s also a relief
existing meshes for use within to see that the RailClone Style
RailClone. This modifier means Editor will now remain on top.
that users can link to the The annoyance of having to
same sliced component from open and close this during a
anywhere within their node workflow was a big bugbear for
graph. This has the obvious many artists. No more though,
benefit of not having to create with the always-on-top editor.
THE VERDICT
RAILCLONE 6
8.0
OUT OF 10
RailClone has supplanted itself into the workflow of many
artists, and this latest update will make it even easier to
create dressed scenes. If you’re wondering what all the
fuss is about, then take their Lite version for a spin.

84 3D WORLD
GET 3D WORLD
DELIVERED WORLDWIDE
SUBSCRIBE NOW AND GET 3 ISSUES FOR £/$/¤3
Delivered directly to your doorstep globally, or download instantly

GLOBAL
OFFER! details
for more 30
see page

Subscribe and save by visiting

WWW.MAGAZINESDIRECT.COM/3DW3FOR3
Or telephone +44 (0) 330 333 1113 and quote code B24J

*Terms & conditions Offer closes 1st October 2023. Offer open to new subscribers only. After your first 3 issues, your subscription will continue at £13.75 (digital only), £16.25 (print only) or £20
(print + digital) quarterly by Direct Debit. Please allow up to six weeks for delivery of your first subscription issue. The full subscription rate is for 12 months (13 issues) and includes postage and packaging.
If the magazine ordered changes frequency per annum, we will honour the number of issues paid for, not the term of the subscription. For full terms and conditions, visit www.magazinesdirect.com/terms.
For enquiries and overseas rates please call: +44 (0) 330 333 1113. Lines are open Monday-Friday, 8:30am-7pm, and Saturday, 10am-3pm UK time or e-mail:help@magazinesdirect.com.
Calls to 0330 numbers will be charged at no more than a national landline call, and may be included in your phone provider’s call bundle.
Mobile apps for 3D scanning

GROUP TEST

MOBILE APPS FOR

3D SCANNING
Create assets for your visualisations, videos and games with
no-stress workflows and incredible results
REVIEWED BY PAUL HATTON

here’s no getting or room that you want a 3D and tablets has only further from strength to strength and

T away from it. Asset

creation is easier
than it has ever
been. That is, assuming you
have access to a physical
version of the asset that you
want to replicate in 3D. If
you don’t, then this group
review won’t help you in
those circumstances. Sorry.
If, on the other hand, you
have access to the object
model of, then the rise of 3D
scanning apps will save you
countless hours and make the
modelling of complex objects
something no longer restricted
to more advanced artists.
What was initially possible with
expensive laser scanners has
increasingly found application
within the mobile market. The
rise of LiDAR in some of the
most recent mobile phones
extended the capabilities
of small devices to deliver
incredibly accurate scans.
I first came across the
creation of 3D models from
photos when Bertrand Benoit
posted some images on his
blog. It opened my eyes up
to the possibilities, and to the
required attention to each
step of the process. Over the
years, mobile apps have gone
bigger players in the market,
such as Epic Games, have
entered the fray.
In this review we’ll take a
look at some of the biggest
apps out there. Each targets
itself towards specific areas
of the market, but the same
rules always apply: have even
lighting, minimise reflective
surfaces, and capture the best
quality photos that you can.

86 3D WORLD

RealityScan 1.1
PRICE 10 free scans per month / Pro £19/$25 monthly / £145/$180 annual
Epic Games marked a defining
year in 2021. Through the
introduction of MetaHuman
alongside the acquisition of
Capturing Reality, Epic Games
displayed its intention to make
it as easy as possible to create
assets for Unreal Engine.
MetaHuman has gone from
strength to strength and now
enables artists to deliver not
only realistic-looking humans,
but ones that are animatable.
The acquisition of Capturing
Reality and its associated 3D
scanning technology has also
delivered incredible results.
RealityScan is free to use and
the resulting models are not
limited to use only in Unreal
Engine, unlike MetaHuman.
The first thing I was
impressed by was the visual
feedback in the camera view.
As I took photos, the 3D
location of those photos was
being overlaid live onto the
camera view. This made it
incredibly easy to see where
gaps were in the photo
coverage, and whether I was
| COMPANY Epic Games | WEBSITE unrealengine.com/realityscan
“ITS FEATURES MAKE THE SCANNING
PROCESS FEEL PRETTY SEAMLESS”
maintaining an even gap
between my photos.
Alongside this, the AR
guidance proved particularly
helpful in that it told me
exactly where I needed to take
extra photos. It highlighted
problem images with a red
outline, which meant I could
address problems in the
coverage and a lack of overlap
in the photos. This feature is
fairly common to scanning
apps, but in RealityScan there
is the additional feature that
it gives you a brief note to
explain how you can fix the
problem images.
The process of capturing
photo scans truly felt like a
team effort between me and
the app, almost like my hand
was being held throughout
the process to ensure it was
as pain-free as possible.
Mobile apps for 3D scanning
RealityScan helps to
guide the user through
the scanning process
FEATURES
Android and iOS
Inexperienced users will
particularly appreciate the AR guidance
support offered by the app.
One of the downsides In-app cropping
is that it’s strongly tied into functionality
Sketchfab. You not only need
an Epic Games account to use FBX and USDZ
RealityScan, but you then need export options
a further Sketchfab account
to be able to access and Sketchfab
download your models. I would integration
prefer to have stayed within
the RealityScan framework to
access my models. Users are
also limited to just 10 uploads
per month before having
to pay for a pro or premium
account. This takes a bit of a
VERDICT
shine off the ‘free’ app.
All in all, this is a brilliant
scanning app. It’s easy to
use, intuitive and the features
that it offers make the overall
9.0
OUT OF 10
scanning process feel pretty
seamless and simple.
3D WORLD 87
Mobile apps for 3D scanning

The MagiScan app is best

used to capture scans of
smaller objects
MagiScan
PRICE Free with limited scans and features / Premium £7.50/$9.50 monthly / £48/$60 annual | COMPANY MagiScan
WEBSITE magiscan.app

MagiScan allows its users to
scan objects up to 1m in size.
It is, therefore, not suited
FEATURES towards scanning larger
objects or rooms, but excels
Android and iOS in scanning objects such as
furniture, sculptures, food or
Camera mode general set-dressing items.
To carry out the scanning,
360-degree MagiScan offers the traditional
compass mode photogrammetry approach of
enabling the user to move their
Upload photo device around and selecting
functionality when photos are taken. This
puts the power in the hands of
the user, which in some ways is
important, but also means that
getting the required coverage
can be problematic.
In recognition of this
problem, and to make it easier
for the user, MagiScan offers
a video-like option to capture
the photos. It involves moving
VERDICT the device around an object
while the app automatically
8.0
OUT OF 10
takes the photos it needs to
ensure good coverage. This
is a great feature and works
surprisingly well. Make sure
you move around your object
slowly though, otherwise you’ll
only capture blurry photos that
will be useless for creating an
accurate scan.
Another nice feature is the
ability to upload photos to the
app that have been created
using an external camera
such as an SLR or drone. This
is perfect for more advanced
users who want much more
control when capturing the
photographs. This workflow
enables the user to make use
of a polarising filter that helps
to eliminate reflections from
objects, and any amount of
post-processing can be carried
out on the photos before
they’re uploaded to the app.
It’s free to download, but
seriously limits what a user
“ANOTHER NICE FEATURE IS THE
ABILITY TO UPLOAD PHOTOS CREATED
USING AN EXTERNAL CAMERA”
is able to do without paying
for the premium version. This
begins by limiting the camera
mode to 45 photos rather than
200 with premium, the Upload
Photo option is restricted,
and no more than three scans
can be created before you’ll
have to part with some cash.
The premium version not only
reduces and removes these
restrictions, but also gives you
high-priority processing.
MagiScan succeeds at
providing the necessary
workflows for multiple types
of photogrammetry and 3D
scanning, and is one of the
most affordable ways to create
3D models. See if it fits your
workflow by making use of
the three free scans.

88 3D WORLD

Qlone
PRICE £19/$25 for Android app / additional cost for exporting
Qlone, in many ways, is a
standard 3D scanner app, and
yet there are some things that
make it stand out. Where other
apps have focused only on
perfecting the photography
and scanning process, Qlone
has also given its efforts to
developing and providing
additional tools such as built-in
editing and a functionality
for AR animations.
In terms of workflow, one
of the main differences about
Qlone is the requirement to
print out and use an AR mat.
The most recent iOS version
has the option to scan without
a mat, but that is not possible
with the Android alternative.
The requirement of a mat
does make the scanning
workflow a little clunky and
limited. Users must have
access to a printer and the size
of the printout is limited to its
format. For most people this
will be A4, although for some
it could be A3.
Either way, the object to
be scanned must not only
fit onto the mat, but also
cannot be taller than the
AR dome overlaid onto it.
| COMPANY EyeCue Vision Technologies LTD | WEBSITE qlone.pro
Considering most scanning
apps don’t require a mat,
Qlone should look to address
this quickly. The downside to
scanning without a mat is that
processing moves from the
device to the cloud. If security
is an issue for you, the Android
option would be better.
The actual process of
scanning an object is pretty
seamless and effective. It
adopts a video-like mode
where the app automatically
takes the required photos as
the user moves their device
around the object.
The overlaid dome provides
instant feedback on where
photos have been captured
and which areas will require
some attention. This ensures,
as much as possible, that
the resulting model will be
fully covered and takes the
guesswork out of the process.
If your first attempt is not as
successful as you needed, then
you can carry out a second
scan and try merging the two
results together.
Once the scan is complete,
Qlone will then offer some
rudimentary sculpting and
Mobile apps for 3D scanning
FEATURES
Android and iOS
AR functionality
“IT ADOPTS A
Mesh-editing
VIDEO-LIKE MODE tools
WHERE THE APP HTML export
TAKES THE PHOTOS (iOS)
AS THE USER
MOVES AROUND
THE OBJECT”
VERDICT
texture-editing tools. These
are by no means as advanced
as the likes of ZBrush or 3ds
Max, but will be useful for
7.0
OUT OF 10
making simple corrections
prior to exporting. Getting
consistent textures is difficult
using photogrammetry, but the
built-in blurring and painting
tools help to overcome these.
Qlone is a comprehensive
3D scanner that is being
advanced all the time. It’s a
shame the iOS and Android
versions are different, but the
features contained in both Qlone overlays a dome to
provide the necessary tools to offer feedback on where
get great results. your scan needs attention
3D WORLD 89
Mobile apps for 3D scanning

The editing tools available

in Widar are nifty, though
not at the same level as a
dedicated program
Widar
PRICE Five models free per month / Pro £8/$10 monthly / £55/$70 annual | COMPANY WOGO, Inc.
WEBSITE widar.io

Widar is a lightweight app that
packs a punch on features.
It behaves very much like
FEATURES a social media app, with
editing and composition
Android and iOS functionality that would be
at home in any photo-editing
3D model editing app. Don’t let that fool you
though. It has fully functional
Post-production photogrammetry and LiDAR
lighting capabilities, and can create 3D
models that can be tweaked
either in-app, or more reliably
in a separate DCC.
The app’s photogrammetry
side adopts a video-style
approach to moving around
the object and taking photos
automatically. I wasn’t a huge
fan of this implementation
because it takes photos at
regular intervals, rather than
when it determines you’ve
moved your device into a new
VERDICT location. I felt under pressure
to make sure I’d moved my
the app to decide when I’m in
a new, overlapping location.
I ended up taking a series
of photos that weren’t usable,
but it was easy to delete those
before the processing and
creation of the model. As with
any 3D scanner, it’s definitely
easier and more predictable to
put your object on a turntable
and your camera on a tripod.
Once the 3D model had
been generated I entered
into the editing tools. There
are a few simple tools such as
erasing geometry, cropping
the scene and even post-
processing tools on the
textures. There’s also a set of
sculpting tools, but I’d prefer
to do this in ZBrush on my
primary machine rather than
on a mobile device. All of these
tools are helpful for making
some basic adjustments, but
are by no means extensive
enough to correct any major
errors in the scan.
One feature I loved was
the Compose tool, which lets
users make changes to the
scene as a whole and add in
other objects if required. I
was particularly impressed by
the ability to add lights to the
scene. These could be moved
and parameters such as colour
and brightness adjusted.
Again, you’ll get much better
results with a dedicated
renderer, but for simple edits
on the fly this is impressive.
Widar would benefit from
improvements to its capturing
functionality to make it more
automatic, but its functionality
for editing and composing set
it apart in many regards.

8.0
OUT OF 10
device enough and to have
it sufficiently focused on my
subject in time. It is possible
to adjust the length of those
“I WAS IMPRESSED BY THE ABILITY
TO ADD LIGHTS TO THE SCENE”
intervals, but I much prefer for

90 3D WORLD

3D scanning on devices
such as phones and tablets
has been available for a
while. It has only gained
the traction it has in recent
years because it now not
only delivers on the level of
quality required, but also fits
into a broader ecosystem of
tools that are suited towards
both traditional workflows
and the emerging game
engine market.
Advances in mobile tech,
including camera capabilities
and LiDAR, has meant that
what you hold in your hand
has enough hardware and
processing power to deliver
incredible results.
In this conclusion we’ll place
the four apps side-by-side to
get a feel for how they stack
up against each other. We’ll
break the conclusion down
into sections so we can clearly
see how they each perform.
USABILITY
The app I found the most
usable was RealityScan,
closely followed by Widar.
RealityScan was intuitive and
the workflow through the
various steps seemed simple
and understandable.
There are simpler apps
that, in one sense, would be
easier to use, but RealityScan
contained some proper
professional and advanced
tools, and yet it was simple to
use. The implementation of
Widar is well thought through.
Each section of functionality
contains its own set of
dedicated tools, and so the
interface never manages to
become too cluttered.
CORE FUNCTIONALITY
Interestingly, out of the apps
we reviewed, RealityScan
was the only one that didn’t
contain the video-style
functionality for capturing
the photos. All three of the
other apps used this type
of capture technology, and
MagiScan opted for providing
the most comprehensive set
of options for photo capture,
video capture, and even photo
uploads from external sources.
In that regard, MagiScan is
probably the best option if
you want all that functionality
in one place.
I was highly impressed
by RealityScan’s additional
guiding tools, which helped
me to get all the necessary
photos, and correct issues
with any unsuitable ones.
Meanwhile, I was probably
least impressed with Widar,
which felt like it was forcing
me to be quicker than I
wanted and lacked any
intelligent functionality to
determine when a photo
should or shouldn’t be taken.
EXPORTING
All of the apps export to
the major formats, so you’re
unlikely to have any problems
with getting the model into
a format that you can use
beyond the scanning app.
It’s with the exporting that
most of these apps sting you
financially though.
Qlone has decided to
charge per export, which is
perfect for light usage, but
the subscription model of
Sketchfab with RealityScan
might be better for more
models, alongside the
additional functionality that
Sketchfab will provide you
through its subscription.
ADDITIONAL
FEATURES
To try and set themselves
apart, each app provides
complementary features
that go alongside the core
Mobile apps for 3D scanning
scanning app functionality.
RealityScan offered next to
nothing in terms of additional
features, while Qlone and
Widar provide additional
editing tools. For serious
users, these are far too
rudimentary for anything
particularly meaningful, but if
you’d like the ability to make
changes to your scanned
models and their textures then
those apps are good options.
SUMMARY
I think my favourite app was
RealityScan but, to be fair, all
the apps we’ve looked at in
this group review will serve
you well. Each app performs
its core functionality solidly,
but the implementation of the
tools varies quite considerably.
The way they ‘behave’ goes
a long way to determining
how enjoyable they are and
whether they’ll fit into your
workflow. Take a couple of
hours and give them all a spin,
that’ll be the best way to get
a feel for them.
“THE WAY THEY ‘BEHAVE’
GOES A LONG WAY TO
DETERMINING HOW
ENJOYABLE THEY ARE”
3D WORLD 91
Xencelabs Pen Tablet Medium Bundle

AUTHOR PROFILE
Paul Blachford
Paul is the Art Editor for
MacFormat magazine,
the leading publication
covering all things
Apple in the UK.

PROS

Stunning build quality

Wireless or
wired connectivity

Fuss-free setup

Class-leading
drawing experience

CONS

Complex interface

Steep learning curve

PACKAGE AT HARDWARE REVIEW

A GLANCE

The Pen Tablet Medium

comes with a host of
extras, including a
Xencelabs Pen
Quick Keys remote, one
Thin Pen (12g) and a 3
Button Pen (17g), both
with 8,192 levels of
pressure sensitivity. It
Tablet Medium Bundle
PRICE £330/$420 | COMPANY Xencelabs | WEBSITE xencelabs.com
also has wi-fi or USB-A

connectivity, with a
USB-C adaptor supplied,
and up to 16 hours of
battery life.
W
hen it comes to
fully featured
graphics tablets,
Xencelabs is on a tear right
now, and it’s easy to see
why. The company’s Pen
Display 24 has wowed with
its incredible build quality
and cool set of features.
Now it’s the Xencelabs Pen
Tablet Medium Bundle’s
turn, and it also stacks up
superbly in our testing.
For £330.00 you get a
medium-sized graphic tablet
(measuring 320.5 x 232.5 x
8mm), a Quick Keys remote
control, two styluses (the 3
Button Pen and the Thin Pen,
which features two buttons),
and a pen case, which comes
with all kinds of add-ons and
accessories. An equivalent
Intuos Pro tablet from Wacom
would cost a similar price just
for the tablet alone, while the
accessories like a second thin
pen and spare nibs will cost
you extra.
The Xencelabs Medium
Tablet Bundle’s pen case is,
ahem, a case in point. Not
only does it contain the two
aforementioned pens, it also
has 10 spare combo nibs, six
standard nibs and four felt
nibs. Plus a Bluetooth dongle,
a nib extracting ring and a
USB-C adaptor inside.

92 3D WORLD

As for the pens, both have
an eraser button on top and
offer up to 8,192 levels of
pressure sensitivity, along
with 60 degrees of tilt, making
it easy to turn doodles into
gorgeous graphics.
Going hand-in-hand with
the tablet and pens is the
Quick Keys remote. This marks
a key point of difference in
Xencelabs’ and Wacom’s
tablets, as while the extra
function buttons and controls
of Wacom are built into the
tablet, Xencelabs’ are largely
separate. On the Quick Keys
remote you’ll find a jog wheel,
eight programmable buttons
(with up to 40 presets) and an
OLED display for ease of use.
“THE INITIAL SET-UP WAS
PAINLESS, THE DRIVER
COMES WITH PRESETS FOR
ALL THE MAJOR APPS”
The advantage of having
these functions on a separate
controller becomes obvious
when you use it. Whether
you’re left- or right-handed,
the controls can be moved to
exactly where you need them,
minimising the risk of covering
up the buttons when drawing.
UNDER PRESSURE
The Medium Tablet measures
8mm thick and is just a little
larger than a sheet of A4
paper. It has a sturdy metal
base and rubber feet, plus
a palm rest so your wrist
always remains comfortable
during long working sessions.
The drawing area is framed
by four corner LEDs, which
Xencelabs Pen Tablet Medium Bundle
Main: The Pen
Tablet Medium
Bundle makes for
a solid package
Below: The case
keeps everything
in place, including
the spare nibs
Images courtesy of Xencelabs
are customisable with eight contact. Pressure sensitivity
different colours. There are is easy to judge, and easily
also small programmable repeatable, which makes for
buttons along the top. a natural experience.
Set-up is painless. The This is a stunning piece
driver comes with presets of hardware, and proves
for major apps that support that Xencelabs is a serious
tablet input and we never contender. The bundle is great
suffered any lag while using it, value, while the build quality
or instances of unregistered and design are exceptional.
THE VERDICT
XENCELABS PEN TABLET MEDIUM BUNDLE
9.0
OUT OF 10
This is possibly the best tablet on the market, suitable for
enthusiasts and professionals alike. The Pen Tablet Medium
Bundle impresses in not only quality, but value too, and
extends Xencelabs’ impeccable product range.
3D WORLD 93
Unreal Engine 5.2

AUTHOR PROFILE
Paul Hatton
After graduating with
a first-class computer
science degree, Paul
Hatton has spent
nearly two decades
working within the 3D
visualisation industry.

PROS

Free standard licence

Excellent tool for

virtual production

Massive worlds are

even easier to create
SOFTWARE REVIEW
Includes native Apple
Silicon support

CONS Unreal Engine 5.2

PRICE Free Standard licence | COMPANY Epic Games | WEBSITE unrealengine.com
Complex interface

U
Steep learning curve nreal Engine (UE), is
now at version 5.2 and
continues to be a force
to be reckoned with. It took
ML DEFORMER Epic Games eight years to
CHANGES move from version 4 to 5 and
it has continued to favour
At present, Unreal point iterations rather than
Engine relies on an full version updates.
offline solution for its So even though we’re
ML Deformer. In version reviewing 5.2 this time round,
5.2, Epic Games is don’t be fooled into thinking
making moves to give that this is just a minor update.
artists the tools they Epic has packed a lot into
need to enable this this release and provided the
simulation to be carried necessary foundation for even
out in the engine. This greater and more substantial
will speed up workflows developments in the future.
for cloth simulation UE and Unity continue
artists and simplify the to trade blows, with both of
creative process. This is them boasting the latest and
carried out using Chaos greatest features that set
caching and includes them apart from the rest of
training capabilities. the pack. This release features
an expansion to UE’s existing
ground breaking toolset while
introducing new features
including Procedural Content
Generation Framework (PCG)
and Substrate. These sit with a
number of feature refinements
and stability improvements
to keep the whole, complex
machine moving smoothly.
In this review we’ll take a
look at two major toolsets that
provide foundations for further
improvements, as well as
seeing whether the new virtual
production tools are anything
to write home about. Let’s
jump straight in.
PROCEDURAL CONTENT
GENERATION FRAMEWORK
If you’re used to any type
of scattering tool such as
MultiScatter or Chaos Scatter,
then you’ll be familiar with the
concept here. Scattering is the
process of selecting assets,
setting rules for how they’ll be
generated across a surface,
and then letting the software
do all of the hard work. This
type of technology is perfect
for creating forests or any type
of landscape and, in the case
of UE, any type of world.
Unreal Engine actually
introduced some scattering
capability a number of releases
ago with a Procedural Foliage
Volume. Although there are
similarities between the two,
the new PCG framework
provides a much greater level
of functionality and has the
potential for being extended
on in future releases.
Once you have the PCG
framework set up, the workflow
is straightforward and intuitive.
Static meshes can be dragged
and dropped from the Content
Browser straight over to the
scatterer. Multiple meshes can
be added to create a massive

94 3D WORLD

amount of variety within a
single world.
As with other scattering
solutions, you’ll need to keep
an eye on your hardware
resources. Static meshes,
especially vegetation, can
contain millions of polygons,
which results in an unwieldy
amount of data for your
scattered worlds. Always
make sure that you know the
limits of your hardware and
the data contained in your
static meshes before you
go experimenting with the
scattering parameters.
One of the neat things
about the PCG framework
is that it includes a run-time
component, which allows it to
respond to either gameplay
or geometry changes. Users
of Unreal Engine need models
to allow for interactivity, and
that is precisely what this
framework enables.
This feature is still in an
experimental phase so you
might want to wait a little while
longer before integrating it
into your production workflow,
but if you learn to manage
some of the issues it has you’ll
be able to make use of it
straight away.
SUBSTRATE
This feature was actually
introduced for early testing
back in version 5.1 and is a
new modular workflow for
authoring materials. This
addition will be particularly
pleasing for material creators
that need to create layered
materials. Substrate delivers
where the existing material
editor lacks, primarily in
its limited ability to create
complex layered materials.
As with any multi-layered
material, artists will need to
keep a careful eye on the
nodes that they are creating.
Ensuring strict creation and
naming conventions will help
to keep everything organised
and workflows light.
It’s also worth noting that
even though Substrate is still
in an experimental phase, it
performs incredibly well in
terms of its speed, stability
and realism. There is therefore
little concern with adopting
“SUBSTRATE DELIVERS WHERE
THE EXISTING EDITOR LACKS”
a Substrate workflow at this
point in time.
VIRTUAL PRODUCTION TOOLS
UE 5.2 sees virtual production
tools continue to evolve. This
is a key part of the product, so
it’s vitally important it keeps
improving. Development
is often driven by actual
production contexts where
tools are stress tested under
intense conditions. It’s these
where any lack of functionality
becomes apparent and new
features suggested.
THE VERDICT
UNREAL ENGINE 5.2
8.0
OUT OF 10
UE continues to go from strength to strength with new
and improved features that are instantly useful. PCG and
Substrate enable creators to make complex scenes in a
fraction of the time and enable a greater level of realism.
Unreal Engine 5.2
Main: Environment
artist Riley Lewand
created his vibrant
cyberpunk bar in
Unreal Engine
Left: The Mimic
House, made by
Alan Andrade, used
Unreal Engine’s
Nanite technology
Below: Andrade
made his own
master shader for
the project
With that in mind, stage
operations have improved via a
new iOS app offering intuitive
touch-based capability,
including colour grading and
light card placement. Being
able to control these through
an iPad means filmmakers can
quickly set up the look and
feel of their scenes, as well as
make changes easily on the
fly. Production workflows look
almost unrecognisable from
a decade ago and it’s largely
due to the innovation of real-
time engines including UE.
3D WORLD 95
 BACK
ISSUES
Missing an issue of 3D World?
Fill the gaps in your collection today!

ISSUE 303 OCTOBER 2023

SHOWCASE SPECIAL
• See the work of 20 incredible 3D artists in our extended gallery
• We delve into the state of play in the 3D and digital industries
• Isolate backgrounds in Resolve for powerful colour corrections
• Look back at the major names in the history of the VFX world
• How KitBash3D plans to democratise the building blocks of 3D
• Downloads Free models and textures, files and more!

ISSUE 302 SEPTEMBER 2023
PRO TIPS FOR VIRTUAL INTERIORS
• Incredible interior artist Gabriel
Fabra Pérez on his stunning work
• Learn to use the Megascans
library in your Unreal environments
• Why you need to power up your
skills in real-time game engines
• We review the latest updates for
Blender, 3ds Max and more
• Downloads Free models and
textures, files and more!
ISSUE 301 AUGUST 2023
CONJURE GREAT CHARACTER SCULPTS
• Blizzard’s Jamir Blanco shares
how he created our demonic cover
• The inside scoop on Aardman’s
episode of Star Wars: Visions
• Get started in the world of GPU
rendering with our expert guide
• How to set up for success with
long-term animation projects
• Downloads Free models and
textures, files and more!
ISSUE 300 JULY 2023
MASTER HOUDINI
• We celebrate our 300th issue
with a look at the history of VFX
• Learn how to make procedural
paint strokes with Houdini
• Annibale Siconolfi discusses his
awesome architectural artwork
• Rating the latest updates to
Adobe’s Substance 3D Collection
• Downloads Free models and
textures, files and more!
ISSUE 299 JUNE 2023
DIRECT IN REAL TIME
• Miguel Ortega shares his journey
with The Voice in the Hollow
• Dive into our inside insight on
Avatar: The Way of Water
• Learn to design and render a
film with Blender’s Eevee engine
• VFX supervisor Jay Worth
discusses Westworld’s final season
• Downloads Free models and
textures, files and more!

CATCH UP TODAY!
Visit Apple Newsstand, Pocketmags and Zinio stores to download a back issue of 3D World to your tablet or computer

96 3D WORLD
ISSUE 298 MAY 2023
BECOME A VFX PRO
• Learn to capture and edit epic
practical effects with InCamera
• Expert advice for grading video
footage using DaVinci Resolve
• Discover how Fusion can make
your special effects pop
• Guillermo del Toro on his award-
winning Pinocchio adaptation
• Downloads Free models and
textures, files and more!
ISSUE 294 JANUARY 2023
ACTION-PACKED STYLISED 3D
• Get the inside dope from DNEG
Animation on Entergalactic
• Discover the secrets behind a
hilarious Star Wars fan film
• Learn all about the history and
techniques for 3D scanning
• Create atmospheric sci-fi cities
in Blender and Photoshop
• Downloads Free models and
textures, files and more!
APPLE NEWSSTAND bit.ly/3dworld-app
POCKETMAGS bit.ly/pocket3D ZINIO bit.ly/3dw_zinio
ISSUE 297 APRIL 2023
NEXT-GEN TOOLS
• All the details on what Unity’s
latest acquisitions mean for you
• Visit the future for the lowdown
on the VFX in The Peripheral
• Discover how to level up your
old assets for Unreal Engine 5
• Dive into the new tools in
ZBrush 2023 with our expert review
• Downloads Free models and
textures, files and more!
ISSUE 293 CHRISTMAS 2022
DISCOVER AMAZING ANIMATION
• Delve into the creation of
Skydance Animation’s Luck
• Master golden hour lighting for
atmosphere in your scenes
• How Prehistoric Planet is
bringing dinosaurs back to life
• Design and sculpt custom toys
for 3D printing in ZBrush
• Downloads Free models and
textures, files and more!
ISSUE 296 MARCH 2023
CREATE EYE-CATCHING FAN ART
• Journey into the awesome world
of fan art with six pro artists
• MPC on their dirtier, grittier
Westeros in House of the Dragon
• Spend the day with animation
supervisor Liz Bernard
• Find out what the Unreal Engine
5.1 update brings to the table
• Downloads Free models and
textures, files and more!
ISSUE 292 DECEMBER 2022
MASTER NARRATIVE BLENDER SCENES
• Pro tips on composition and
lighting for story-driven images
• Behind the otherworldly VFX of
Stranger Things season 4
• How MPC transformed Pinocchio
into a live-action adventure
• Review round-up of the market-
leading scattering tools
• Downloads Free models and
textures, files and more!
ISSUE 295 FEBRUARY 2023
CRAFT PAPER WORLDS
• The tricks behind Pop Paper
City‘s unique 3D world revealed
• Expert advice on creating
stylised worlds using Blender
• Insight on the evolving tech
powering digital humans
• Discover the top plugins to level
up your Unreal Engine projects
• Downloads Free models and
textures, files and more!
ISSUE 291 NOVEMBER 2022
ADD MORE STYLE TO YOUR SCULPTS
• How to design amazing stylised
characters with basic techniques
• Learn expert tips and techniques
for upgrading your old art
• How the unique creatures of sci-
fi horror film Nope were realised
• We interview Aardman about
new technological developments
• Downloads Free models and
textures, files and more!
3D WORLD 97
 IN THE VAULT

FREE RESOURCES
Future PLC
Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA

Editorial
Editor Rob Redman
rob.redman@futurenet.com
Art Editor Ryan Wells
Designers Jo Gulliver, Harriet Knight, Will Shum
Production Editor Henry Burridge
Contributors

Follow the link to download your free files James Clarke, Trevor Hogg, Paul Hatton, Shaygan Shamlou,
Natalie Barnard, Oscar Juárez, Paul Flower, Satoshi Arakawa, Tav
Flett, Glen Southern, Mike Griggs, Pietro Chiovaro, Paul Blachford,
Rachel Terzian

https://bit.ly/3dworld-cowabunga Creative Bloq

Editor Georgia Coggan
Advertising
Media packs are available on request
MODELS !ǝǣƺǔ«ƺɮƺȇɖƺ ǔˡƬƺȸZack Sullivan
UK Group Commercial Director Clare Dove
AND TEXTURES Advertising Director Matt Johnston

EVERY MONTH International Licensing and Syndication

3D World is available for licensing and syndication.
ÁȒˡȇƳȒɖɎȅȒȸƺƬȒȇɎƏƬɎɖɀƏɎlicensing@futurenet.com
or view our available content at www.futurecontenthub.com
Head of Print Licensing Rachel Shaw
Download these models and Subscriptions
textures to use in your New orders www.magazinesdirect.com / 0330 333 1113
Email enquiries help@magazinesdirect.com
own projects Renewals www.mymagazine.co.uk / 0330 333 4333
Renewals enquiries help@mymagazine.co.uk
Acquisitions Director Sharon Todd
Subscription delays:
Disruption remains within UK and International delivery
networks. Please allow up to 7 days before contacting us about
a late delivery to help@magazinesdirect.com
Production
Head of Production Stephen Catherall
Senior Production Manager Maaya Mistry
Senior Ad Production Manager Jo Crosby
Digital Editions Manager Jason Hudson
Ad Production Controller Peter Burton
Management
Group Art Director Dean Usher
Content Director Chris George
Global Head of Design Rodney Dive
Managing Director Stuart Williams
Commercial Finance Director Tania Bruning
Printed by Buxton Press Limited, Palace Rd, Buxton, SK17 6AE
Distributed by Marketforce, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf,
London, E14 5HU www.marketforce.co.uk. For enquiries, please
email mfcommunications@futurenet.com
MODELS + TEXTURES ISSN 1470-4382

FREE ASSET DOWNLOADS
Download a set of fantastic textures from
free audio-themed models from
TUTORIAL IMAGES
and build your own asset library with these
in our monthly model and texture giveaway.
TUTORIAL IMAGES
3D World (ISSN 1470-4382) November, Issue 304, is published monthly with an
extra issue in November by Future Publishing, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath,
BA1 1UA, UK
The US annual subscription price is $194.87 Airfreight and mailing in the USA by
agent named World Container Inc., c/o BBT 150-15 183rd St, Jamaica, NY 11413, USA
Application to Mail at Periodicals Postage Prices is Pending at Brooklyn NY 11256.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to 3D World, World Container Inc., c/o BBT
150-15 183rd St, Jamaica, NY 11413, USA
Subscription records are maintained at Future Publishing, c/o Air Business
Subscriptions, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath,
West Sussex, RH16 3DH, UK
All contents © 2023 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All
rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or
reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England
ƏȇƳáƏǼƺɀِ«ƺǕǣɀɎƺȸƺƳȒǔˡƬƺ‫ي‬ªɖƏɵRȒɖɀƺًÁǝƺȅƫɖȸɵً ƏɎǝ ‫׏׏‬ÈِǼǼ
information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as
we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any
responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to
contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/
services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this
publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents
or any other changes or updates to them. This magazine is fully independent
ƏȇƳȇȒɎƏǔˡǼǣƏɎƺƳǣȇƏȇɵɯƏɵɯǣɎǝɎǝƺƬȒȅȵƏȇǣƺɀȅƺȇɎǣȒȇƺƳǝƺȸƺǣȇِ
If you submit material to us, you warrant that you own the material and/or have
the necessary rights/permissions to supply the material and you automatically
grant Future and its licensees a licence to publish your submission in whole or
in part in any/all issues and/or editions of publications, in any format published
worldwide and on associated websites, social media channels and associated
products. Any material you submit is sent at your own risk and, although every
care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents, subcontractors or
licensees shall be liable for loss or damage. We assume all unsolicited material
is for publication unless otherwise stated, and reserve the right to edit, amend,

DESIGN ART TOY RENDERS CREATE A STYLISH KITCHEN SCENE adapt all submissions.

Oscar Juárez shares his process for making Follow along as Shaygan Shamlou shows you
beautiful product renders using Corona. how to render stunning interior images.

ISSUE 305
NEXT MONTH
Discover the varied and stunning
Future plc is a public
company quoted on the
London Stock Exchange
(symbol: FUTR)
www.futureplc.com
Chief Executive Jon Steinberg
Non-Executive Chairman Richard Huntingford
!ǝǣƺǔIǣȇƏȇƬǣƏǼƏȇƳ³ɎȸƏɎƺǕɵ ǔˡƬƺȸ Penny Ladkin-Brand

Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244

VFX of Star Wars: Visions Volume 2

© Lucasfi lm/D’Art Shtajio

We are committed to only using magazine paper

ɯǝǣƬǝǣɀƳƺȸǣɮƺƳǔȸȒȅȸƺɀȵȒȇɀǣƫǼɵȅƏȇƏǕƺƳًƬƺȸɎǣˡƺƳ
forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper
RD in this magazine was sourced and produced from
ON SALE 3 OCTOBER sustainable managed forests, conforming to strict

Subscribe today: www.bit.ly/3dworld-subs environmental and socioeconomic standards.

98 3D WORLD
9000 900
01