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December 2016 

#214 

create cartoon style 

maya 

hair 

Set up and comb 

fluffy fur in Yeti 

“it’s wall to wall hair” 

dreamworks’ 

trolls 

How Houdini brought a CG forest to life 

in Blizzard Animation’s The Last Bastion

Editor’s wElcomE 

What’s hot this issue 

EDITOR’s 

WELCOME 

Discover how DreamWorks and Blizzard tackle hair and foliage animation 

subscRIbE 

fROm £11.25 

Get print and digital 

editions every month, 

turn to page 26 

In this new look issue, we delve into 

animation FX. Discover how Houdini 

helped Blizzard’s cinematics team grow a 

forest, and meet the DreamWorks team 

behind Trolls’ hair animation. The hairy 

theme continues into our training – learn 

how to create cartoon hair in Maya’s Yeti 

and realistic hair in ZBrush. 

Ian Dean, editor 

ian.dean@futurenet.com 

spOTlIghT On OuR cOnTRIbuTORs 

David Burgess 

On page 20, head of character 

animation at DreamWorks, David 

Burgess, reveals what it took to bring 

Trolls to the big screen. 

www.bit.ly/david-burgess 

Mateusz Wielgus 

Mateusz Wielgus – freelance CG artist 

and the owner of Black Chilla Design 

Studio – shares how to create complex 

environments in Blender on page 38. 

www.designstudio.blackchilla.pl 

Fábio M. Silva 

Naughty Dog artist Fábio M. Silva has 

been working in the CG industry for five 

years. On page 50, he reveals how to 

achieve realistic hair in portraits. 

www.fabiomsilva.com 

Germán Casado Fraga 

On page 56, Germán Casado Fraga – a 

freelance concept and matte painting 

artist working at The Mill in London – 

shares his detailed process for creating 

a landscape for film VFX in Clarisse. 

www.germancasado.tumblr.com 

Dan DeLeeuw 

Marvel’s VFX supervisor Dan DeLeeuw 

shares how he and his team have 

worked together to create films such 

as Iron Man and Avengers: Infinity War. 

Read all about it on page 82. 

www.bit.ly/dan-deleeuw 

David Stephens 

On page 88, FX supervisor David 

Stephens tells us how Houdini was used 

to create the dense animated forest 

foliage for Blizzard’s latest animated 

short, The Last Bastion. 

www.bit.ly/david-stephens 

EMaiL 


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tWittEr 

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3D WorlD December 2016 

3 

www.youtube.com/3dworld

Contents 

ISSUE 214 

DECEmbEr 2016 

Free 

Pluralsight video 

course for 3ds max! 

Turn to page 43 

ShowcaSe 

Discover the best new digital art from the CG community, starting on page 8 

FeatureS 

Exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the latest CG technology, film VFX and video game art 

20 trolls 

The team behind DreamWorks’ hair-raising new film share their secrets 

28 doctor strange 

Discover how Marvel Studios created the CG magic of Doctor Strange 


4 


tutorialS 

Practical tips and tutorials from pro artists to improve your CG skills 

tutorialS 

56 photoreal landscapes 


reveals how to create a detailed 

landscape using Clarisse 

32 sculpt a superhero 

Ali Jalai shares his ultimate ZBrush 

workflow to sculpt a zombie Batman 

64 generate better clouds 

Create realistic cloud-filled skies 

with Vikrant J Dalal’s process 

66 create cartoon fur 

Learn how to use Yeti to create 

furry, striped cartoon characters 

artiSt Q&a 

74 your cg problems solved 

This month, how to create 

stitching in 3ds Max 

38 master city scenes 

Discover how to create an urban scene 

in Blender with Mateusz Wielgus 

inSight 

86 news and events 

Alt.fx’s latest record-breaking 

advert, plus more industry news 

reviewS 

94 cinema 4d r18 

We take you through the long 

list of features in Cinema 4D’s 

latest release 

44 learn photogrammetry 

How to use photos of objects to 

make stunning video game assets 

inSight 

50 improve your portraits with realistic hair 

Fábio M Silva reveals his process for creating realistic hair and 

eyebrows using ZBrush, 3ds Max and the Hair Farm plug-in 

News and views from around the international CG industry 

96 susbtance designer 5.5 

Does the latest release of 

Designer have any substance? 

97 susbtance painter 2.3 

Cirstyn Bech-Yager explores the 

various new layers of Painter 2.3 

regularS 

26 subscriptions 

Save up to 58% by signing up 

for a 3D World subscription 

82 marvel cinematic universe 

The Marvel team on bringing superheroes to life 

88 making the last bastion 

How Blizzard used Houdini on its latest animation 

43 free pluralsight course 

Master the game asset 

modelling pipeline 

98 digital back issues 

Catch up on missed magazines 

100 free downloads 

7GB of resources via our Vault 


5 


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art editor Jo Gulliver 

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Fraga, tanya combrinck, andrew cottle, 

Vikrant J dalal, arthur Gatineau, Paul Hatton, 

trevor Hogg, ali Jalali, Steven Jarratt, Kevin Kleyla, 

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6 


ShowcaSe 

CG art to inspire 

SHOWCASE 

The best digital art from 

the CG community 

AliEn Big CAt guy 

ARTIST 

Tyler Smith 

SOFTWARE 

ZBrush, TopoGun, Quixel, 

Marmoset Toolbag 2, Photoshop 

This incredible creature took 

environment and character artist Tyler 

Smith under two days to complete from 

start to finish. 

Once Tyler had the body and limbs 

blocked out using a DynaMesh sphere, 

he moved the silhouette around to get a 

good ratio of shape differences. 

Tyler then began developing the 

anatomy of the creature, he explains: 

“I started laying in the muscle/bone 

forms and the skin wrinkles going from 

the major forms to the small alpha 

based details. I also kept an eye out for 

any detail patterns that could be added 

to make the design more appealing.” 

To paint the model, Tyler started 

with large strokes of colour and tried to 

ensure the greatest range of value and 

colour temperature coincided with the 

sculpted detail. 

“Then I used the masking tools to 

highlight the details sculpted into 

the form with colour or value. After I 

retopped and baked the maps, I used 

Quixel to bring out and punch up the 

texture’s value and colour details for 

the Marmoset render,” Tyler explains. 

www.artstation.com/artist/tsmith3d 


8 


ShowcaSe 



9 


ShowcaSe 


JOurnEy tHrOugH 

tHE JunglE 

ARTIST 

Michael Johnson 

SOFTWARE 

3ds Max, GrowFX, Forest Pack, 

Corona, Marvelous Designer 

Balancing work and family life, Blur 

Studio lead scene assembler Michael 

Johnson created Journey Through The 

Jungle over three months, and he’s 

clear as to its inspiration: “I would say 

the Jungle Book. I love the feeling of 

being deep in a jungle – hints of light 

fading in and out through leaves, and 

rays of light peeking through.” 

For a scene like this, Michael creates 

assets to be used throughout the image. 

“Here it was different types of shrubs, 

plants and trees,” he says. 

He then created the base of the 

ruin with primitive boxes to get the 

silhouette. GrowFX was used for the 

roots and ivy, then photo-bashed 

images were added on top of the ruin 

to develop details. 

“I could have spent days modelling 

the complete ruin, but matte painting 

courses have taught me that this 

technique is a lot faster and smarter 

if you don’t have the time to do all the 

modelling,” says Michael. 

Another tip is to gather reference: 

“It’s so important to be able to look at 

the real work side by side with your 

image and see what looks wrong if 

you’re going for a realistic look.” 

www.michaeljohnsoncg.com 


10 


ShowcaSe 


rEACHing FOr 

MOnOCErOS 

ARTIST 

Kim Strandli 

SOFTWARE 

Maya, ZBrush, Mudbox, 

Photoshop, Arnold 

“The inspiration had been lingering 

in my mind for a year,” says student 

and self-taught artist Kim Strandli, 

who reveals that the image took three 

months to create and offered him the 

chance to try out some new techniques. 

The volumetric fog was created 

with a static fluid container in Maya. 

“It didn’t need any simulation, only a 

constant gradient for ‘density’, and a 

wispy texture for opacity,” says Kim. 

He relied on Arnold for Maya’s 

mesh lights for the undersides of the 

mushroom caps, “It was tricky,” he 

says. “I had to deform the mesh light 

itself to control where the light was 

hitting the face and body, and the 

intensity of the illumination.” 

Trying new things meant setting 

goals, which helped Kim as each new 

technique he attempted pushed him 

forwards to try new things. “If you 

don’t know what you want to achieve, 

it’s difficult to find achievements to be 

happy about. Look for progress, not 

results,” he advises. 

www.kimstrandli.com 


12 


showcase 


tHE CrOW’S CAvE 

ARTIST 

Mason Menzies 

SOFTWARE 

Blender, ZBrush, Cycles Rendering 

Engine, Photoshop 

Freelance CG artist Mason Menzies 

created The Crow’s Cave for clients 

Blender Guru and The Rock Essentials. 

A three-day deadline meant Mason 

needed to use some new techniques: the 

water was created procedurally, while 

the rocks were photoscans. 

“The rocks are full, scanned rocks 

from the real world. Most of the large 

boulders you see here are ones I made 

for The Rock Essentials – a pack of 3D 

scanned rock models,” says Mason. 

Other elements of the scene, such as 

the ground, were also made with scan 

data – or Real Displacement Textures 

– in order to get the most realistic 

scene possible. 

The cave itself proved enjoyable to 

create. “I had lots of fun,” says Mason. 

“I used ZBrush for sculpting the walls 

and ceiling of the cave… using more 

scan data with brushes in ZBrush, I was 

able to get really nice details.” 

www.masonmenzies3.artstation.com 


14 


showcase 



15 


ShowcaSe 


HOMElESS 

ARTIST 

Hossein Diba 

SOFTWARE 

ZBrush, 3ds Max, Mudbox, 

Marmoset Toolbag 2, Photoshop 

“I really like Lee Jeffries’ photography, 

and when I saw his photos of homeless 

people, I had to make one of them 

in 3D,” explains freelance character 

modeller Hossein Diba. “I love the 

mood in his portraits,” he adds. 

The project took two weeks to 

complete. Hossein used ZBrush to 

sculpt the character’s clothes, with 

textures created in Mari. 

Interestingly, Hossein says he came 

late to character creation after starting 

his career modelling environments 

and scene assets. Given the beautiful 

quality of Homeless, we’re pleased 

Hossein switched to character art. 

www.hosseindiba.wixsite.com/character-artist 


16 


ShowcaSe 


grEEdy rACCOOn 

ARTIST 

Mauricio Canon 

SOFTWARE 

ZBrush, 3ds Max, Ornatrix for Maya, 

V-Ray, Photoshop 

After 12 years in the CG industry 

focusing on modelling and lighting, 

Colombian artist Mauricio Canon has 

recently turned his hand to animation. 

The result is Greedy Raccoon, 

which was created by Mauricio and 

concept artist Felipe Hernandez for a 

commercial animation. 

Most of the modelling work was 

done in 3ds Max, and ZBrush was 

used to polish the details. The lifelike 

fur was created using Ornatrix for 

Maya and the render was done in 

V-Ray, with a little Photoshop editing. 

“My biggest difficulty was 

creating the fur shaders to give the 

tone ramdomness and a credible look 

and feel,” says Mauricio, who spent two 

days combing the fur. 

www.behance.net/mauriciocanon 


18 


ShowcaSe 


tHAnAtOS 

ARTIST 

Caroline Ng 

SOFTWARE 

Maya, Mudbox, ZBrush, Photoshop, 

Mari, Nuke, V-Ray 

Based on concept art by Sabbas 

Apterus, Thanatos took Caroline Ng 

10 weeks to complete, and formed 

part of a character texturing and 

lookdev module on the Modelling and 

Texturing course at Gnomon School 

of Visual Effects. 

“When I create artwork, the first 

thing I do is make a plan of attack,” 

says Caroline. “I then start gathering 

reference and possible texture images 

I may need in the future.” 

After planning, Caroline blocked 

out the entire scene and set the camera. 

She then recreated the lighting in 

3D based on the concept, brought 

everything into ZBrush and started 

sculpting the piece. 

Fine details such as wrinkles and 

pores were created in Mudbox: “This 

allows me to create better displacement 

maps and transfer the details to my 

textures properly,” she explains. 

“My approach to modelling was 

pretty standard. The only notable 

exception was the use of the GHM2 

plug-in to create the creature’s hair,” 

Caroline reveals. 

www.artstation.com/artist/carolinepricillia 


19 


FEATURE 

Trolls 

TROLLS 

Ian Dean discovers how DreamWorks created the 

handmade, fuzzy feel of the colourful Trolls’ world 


20 


Feature 


DreamWorKs 

Directors 

Mike Mitchell and 

Walt Dohrn 

team size 

25 (animators) 

locations 

Glendale & Bangalore 

weB 

www.dreamworks. 

com/trolls 

“It’s hard to earn emotion 

honestly, but no harder 

than coming up with a joke 

everyone laughs at,” says 

co-director Walt Dohrn 

When DreamWorks 

bought the rights to 

the Trolls toy line, the 

decision slipped under 

the radar. Really? 

An animated feature based on 1960s dolls? 

But as The Lego Movie proved, this pitch 

can work, and with the team behind the 

hit Shrek series on board, why are we 

surprised it looks so good? 

Production designer Kendal Cronkhite, 

a veteran of 20 years at DreamWorks, 

explains: “When we started, [director] Mike 

Mitchell and I were talking and he said, 

‘We’ve got this doll, but let’s shock people 

and let’s make it so unexpected that people 

can’t hate it.’ And I think, maybe, we did it.” 

The result is a CG movie that shuns the 

aesthetic of the format. Just as The Lego 

Movie ditched smooth animation for a 

staccato stop-motion feel, Trolls embraces 

the hand-made felt and wool of the 60s and 

70s eras that spawned the popular toys. 

“The first Troll doll Thomas Dam created 

was carved out of wood and adorned with 

lamb’s wool and felted woollen clothes,” 

says Kendal. As she researched the toys, she 

came to the bold decision to “just felt these 

characters! We thought that was a great 

approach, almost Muppety, multi-coloured 

and felted. Let’s embrace fibre art and really 

do this incredibly fuzzy, fibre inspired world 

that they live in. I never thought it would fly, 

and it’s also incredibly expensive to do.” 

Put it all on screen 

There was never a moment when 

DreamWorks considered not doing the 

expensive felted approach: “They said, ‘You 

Big heads and stubby 

arms meant the animation 

team had to work hard 

to achieve good poses 

Dreamworks saiD, ‘you Design 

what’s right for the story anD 

for the movie, anD we’ll figure it out’ 

Kendal Cronkhite, production designer, DreamWorks 

design what’s right for the story and what 

you think is right for the movie, and we’ll 

figure it out,’” says Kendal. 

For directors Mike Mitchell and Walt 

Dohrn, cost wasn’t an issue. Mike explains: 

“We only wanted to know what’s going to 

be the challenge here. At DreamWorks, 

the director is involved in the budget so I 

wanted to make sure every dollar is seen up 

on that screen… that meant a lot of hair: wall 

to wall hair! We wanted to be able to change 

the colour and shape of the hair, as well as 

grow it in any direction.” 

It meant trying something new: “The 

computer has come such a long way to 

make things look very realistic, you can 

make skin look just like human skin and 

trees look like they’re in the real world, 

so we took the tech and went the other 

way. Instead of materials and surfaces to 

make it look realistic, Kendal used natural 

fibres to make it look stylised but realistic, 

using carpet for grass, and a look for the 

Trolls similar to gummy bears dunked in 

velvet. We loved that handmade look.” 

Walt adds: “Technology has become 

so advanced that we’re able to achieve 

that handmade look, ironically speaking.” 

Mike agrees: “It was technically very 

difficult, but we were very secure with 

what we wanted. Even the fire in our world 

is made out of wool, Kendal was super 


21 


FEATURE 


Creature feature 

A tour of the Trolls’ world 

While Trolls begins on familiar CG animation ground, 

one sequence sends the movie into a whole new 

world of colourful Muppet-ish, Miyazaki-inspired, 

Adventure Time craziness. As Poppy sets out on 

her adventure, ‘sequence 1000’ throws the whole 

Troll world up on the screen, with 25 different 

environments in 10 minutes. 

“This is one where we decided to push that 

graphic sensibility and 2D feel as far as we could 

go, because every two shots the environment 

would change because she’s on this journey and it 

was super, super fun and challenging,” says Dave. 

Because sequence 1000 had to be done quickly 

for a Cannes screening, everyone in the animation 

department got a shot or two. “We spread it really 

thin but I think the nature of that sequence – because 

it’s so episodic and it changes so much from every 

two or three shots – I think that kind of lent itself to 

that and we actually tore through it really quickly.” 

It’s also the moment we first see the wider Trolls’ 

world. “A hillside will open up and eat her. Floating 

eyeballs in the sky are creatures. Trees, mushrooms, 

the fluffy centres of flowers and the stars in the 

sky are creatures – the world comes alive,” says 

production designer Kendal Cronkhite. 

confused by that.” To help solve any 

confusion raised by a world made of hair, 

fibre and felt, Kendal hired fibre artist 

Yuri Sasaki to create a real-life exhibit based 

on the film’s production art. 

Kendal explains: “We really wanted 

to see what a fibre artist would do to 

solve the problem of, say, how you build a 

mushroom out of fibre. What would your 

choices be? Or a tree, flowers, leaves or 

grass, what would your choices be?” 

The artist used techniques that were 

new to the film’s production team. She used 

hand-dyed materials, water felting, needle 

felting, macrame, embroidery and stitching. 

The final model was six feet by four, and 

represented the base of a tree from one of 

the scenes in the film. 

“It’s almost like you’re on the floor of this 

model, and it’s almost true to size for our 

characters,” says Kendal. “Our modellers 

and surfacers really pored over that thing, 

because we didn’t just want to take a grey 

model and wrap it. We wanted it to have 

the integrity of what a fibre artist would 

do, so we really analysed it and built the 

world based on those techniques. It has 

some authority in that way, because it’s a 

small step to transfer it to CG using 

Because everything the trolls 

stanD on is fuzzy, we haD to Be 

careful where we put their feet 

Dave Burgess, head of animation, DreamWorks 

Maya and Mari, but in that transference 

it takes on a ‘thing’ – it’s not really stop 

motion and it’s not completely hard CG – it’s 

something in the middle.” 

felt VfX 

While the modellers and texture artists got 

their heads around the fibre art style, the 

pressure was on the VFX team to deliver. 

“My first reaction was excitement,” 

says VFX supervisor Philippe Denis. “I 

wasn’t really feeling too concerned about 

the complexity of what was involved, 

I just thought, ‘Wow, that’s a very cool 

visual…’ then I began thinking about 

how we were going to make that work in 

a 3D environment.” 

Philippe worked on the VFX for Trolls 

for two and half years, using Houdini as 

part of his software arsenal to ensure the 

handmade concept made it to the screen 

with an authentic feel. 

This meant plenty of research, often 

using Yuri’s model as a guide. The 

materials were often the challenge, as the 

trolls’ hair is made of physically based 

wool, while the skin is a translucent gummy 

texture covered in what the team describe 

as a ‘kind of peach fuzz’. 

“Lighting is very naturalistic, and 

colour is different from the real world,” 

explains Philippe. “There are subtle 

variations in light with lots of bump and 

displacement. It’s very tactile in some ways, 

like you can reach out and touch it… I felt, 

‘oh my God, you just want to touch it’. 

It elicits a physical response.” 

The world was considered in its totality, 

too, which meant dust became an issue. 

“We tried to get something with the feel of 

fabric, maybe cotton. But no, we had to think 

differently. We ended up with fibre dust – 


22 


Feature 


“the challenge for us with the creatures 

was that the designs were so simple 

and appealing that we actually wanted 

to ‘under animate’ them as much as we 

possibly could,” says Dave Burgess 

dust made of tiny fibres. When we have a 

haze of dust, it’s actually a large sheet 

of gauze fabric.” 

fuzzy tricks 

The team always looked for tricks to cut 

down render times, using camera angles to 

help manage detail and choosing “where to 

put fuzz and where to drop it behind”. 

The Trolls’ small scale came in handy 

for the animation team too. “One thing that 

really helps us is that these characters are 

six inches high in a human-scale forest,” 

says Kendal. “We use a lot of short depth 

of field, and end it early to try to give that 

macro camera quality – so we can let the 

fuzz go at a certain point because it’s just 

confusion and blur beyond that.” 

The animation team had to cope with 

their own hair-related dilemmas. “Because 

everything the Trolls stand on is felted or 

fuzzy we had to be extremely careful where 

we put their feet, because we generally 

didn’t see that fuzz in our part of the 

production pipeline – it came after. A lot of 

times we’d do what we thought was our best 

guess, and then we’d see it in lighting and 

they’d be ankle deep in fuzz so we’d have 

to raise them up and make it look right. So 

that was certainly challenging,” says head 

of animation Dave Burgess. To help, the 

animators built ‘guide hairs’: “We built tubes 

that could give a rough approximation of 

where that kind of stuff is going to be, but 

when you see it in our renders it kind of 

looks like our characters are standing on 

this bowl of spaghetti, so it doesn’t really 

give you the same feel that it does in the 

end. We did our best to hit it and we just 

had to fix it later.” 

The limited rendering at the animation 

stage had further impact: “When I looked 

at the Trolls and the surfacing, they kind 

of looked like dusty gummy bears, there’s 

a little bit of that peach fuzz on them,” 

explains Dave. “We don’t see any of that 

in our tools. So when we do our renders 

we see them in a much flatter way. It’s not 

until we see the lighting renders that we see 

all of that extra detail because having the 

surfacing with the little bits of fuzz and all 

that kind of stuff adds a lot more detail. It 

reveals more things about where the cheeks 

are moving and the eye creases, so because 

that’s intense to render it isn’t something 

we see until lighting gets to it. A number 

of shots bounce back because things are 

revealed in our end of it.” 

using Premo 

What helped was DreamWorks’ proprietary 

software, Premo. “Its hi-res deformation of 


23 


FEATURE 


use of Colour 

An adventure into happiness 

Trolls has themes of love and 

happiness at its core, inspired 

by the 1960s toys. “We used 

happiness to inform the colours 

and design of the characters and 

design of the world. We really 

wanted to dig into the theme of 

happiness,” says co-director Mike 

Mitchell. “I love colourful films, 

and this gave me an excuse to 

create a colourful film. There’s 

been a trend for monochromatic, 

it’s kind of like cold and cool, those 

movies have become chrome and 

leather, and this was an excuse 

to explode with colour and have a 

really nice palette.” 

“Because colour is so 

important to the storytelling – 

the idea of happiness and joy is 

related to the Trolls and comes 

from the hair, so colour and 

the meaning of colour is tied to 

happiness and joy, and it has a 

trajectory through the film as 

the Trolls bring colour to the 

Bergins.” The Bergins are the 

Trolls’ adversaries – a joyless, 

cold and grey troll caste. 

“This is the most diversely 

coloured movie I’ve done as far as 

the environments and places they 

travel through, and each one is so 

particular that honing it all that 

way was really important. Troll 

village is one colour palette and 

her [Poppy] journey is a mix, and 

Bergin village is different again.” 

“Because of the real-time deformations I think it’s a lot closer to 

hitting that same [2D animation] zone where the software just kinds of 

disappears, and you’re just animating, you’re just trying to breathe life 

into this character,” says Dave Burgess, on using Premo 

the characters in real time… it’s amazing,” 

says Dave, explaining that the animators can 

work on shots based on the sequence, which 

developed into a workflow called ‘Chunky 

Casting’, where artists are given a series of 

shots that connect to each other, so they get 

a ‘chunk’ of the film. 

“Depending on the schedule, it’s anything 

from 30 feet to 60 feet, and that breaks down 

to 20-45 seconds of animation. If you have 

all of those shots connected up to each other, 

because I trust my guys so much, I think 

everyone is so talented, I sort of let people 

do what they want and then we talk about it. 

Even if I think it might be a little off-base for 

what the directors are after, I generally let 

them have their shot,” says Dave. 

Bad hair days 

Hair played a huge role for the animators 

and was always going to be central to the 

characters’ personalities. The Trolls can 

we DiDn’t want the hair to look 

like a tentacle Because we felt 

that coulD Be really unappealing 

Dave Burgess, head of animation, DreamWorks 

it’s really much more efficient, you can make 

sure your emotional beats work well from 

shot to shot, and that one pose from one shot 

hooks up to the pose from the next shot. It 

makes that much more manageable. When 

everyone is working on the sequence we’re 

all kind of looking over each other’s shoulder 

with the work we’re doing,” he says. 

When Dave’s team get their shots, the 

camera is roughed in and the shot length set 

up, then the sequence is launched with the 

directors and storyboards are referenced for 

expressions. “After that it’s really up to the 

animators to make it their own – personally, 

manipulate their hair into different shapes, 

from staircases to whips. 

“In the early days, one of Jeffrey’s 

[Katzenberg] notes was ‘all hair, all the 

time’. We have a bunch of controls on the 

different characters – some of the hair on 

the Trolls is a little bit longer than others, 

but we have IK joints and FK joints so we 

can animate and scale it. We can also stretch 

it so that when Branch uses his hair like a 

whip we were able to rough that in for the 

following departments,” says Dave. 

The fashionista Trolls, Satin and 

Cheneille, are conjoined at the hair and 


24 


Featurein Feature 

trolls 

“a lot of hard work was put into 

how we render it and how do we 

make this movie on a budget and 

on time,” says Kendal Cronkhite 

that was a continuing challenge to make 

sure it worked on screen and get the shape 

language just right. 

“Because the Troll dolls are all about 

their hair, we felt that had to influence 

the movie, so we pushed that stuff as 

much as we could,” says Dave, explaining 

a shot in which heroine Poppy is wrapped 

in a spider’s web, about to be eaten, and 

is saved by hero Branch who uses his hair 

to grab her. 

“When we were animating that, we 

thought very carefully. We didn’t want it 

to look like a tentacle because we felt that 

could be really unappealing, so we figured 

out what’s the best angle for the hair to come 

in [from], what’s the optimum width and 

length that we can get away with and still 

have it feel like hair but not turn it into this 

gross tentacle finger.” 

The hard work has paid off: everyone 

involved loved the experience. “I’ve worked 

on a lot of movies over the years – I was at 

Disney for 11 years in the ’90s and I’ve been 

at DreamWorks for 15 – and this has been 

the most fun, most enjoyable production 

I’ve ever been on,” says Dave. 

Kendal agrees: “It felt like we did 

something new in the CG filmmaking 

landscape. I think we’re at the beginning 

of what can be explored now, and we’re 

always pushing it, and I think we kind of 

really pushed it on this one. And it really 

worked. So I’m pretty proud of that.” 

You can catch DreamWorks’ Trolls 

FYI 

in cinemas from 21 October. 

CharaCter aPPeal 

Putting personality on screen 

“One of the things I love about this movie is 

that the characters are appealing and the 

environment is engaging. It sucks you in,” 

says Dave Burgess, head of animation. 

“You didn’t have to do much to 

the character designs to get them to 

look good,” he continues. “We looked 

at Po as one of our gold standard 

characters, where if you bring him into 

a shot, all you have to do is lower his 

arms, open up his eyelids a little bit, 

and pull the corners of his mouth up, and 

he looks fantastic.” 

Care was taken to capture the simplicity 

and appeal of the Troll dolls. “So when you 

bring Poppy or Branch into a shot you don’t 

have to do very much to get them to look 

really good. Ultimately, when you look at 

it in the lit version, what you end up with is 

that real feast, that stop motion feel, that 

handmade feel and that felted quality of the 

environments – it’s so unusual.” 


25 


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27 


FEATURE 

Doctor Strange 

A full digital version of New 

York was created in order to 

allow Marvel Studios to bend 

the streets and fold buildings 


28 


Feature 


Doctor 

strange 

director 

Scott Derrickson 

Production 

Marvel Studios 

VFX suPerVisor 

Stephane Ceretti 

DOCTOR 

STRAnGE 

VFX Vendors 

Industrial Light 

& magic, Luma 

Pictures, Method 

Studios 

release date 

26 October 

Web 

bit.ly/213strange 

Trevor Hogg meets VFX supervisor Stephane Ceretti 

to discover the magic behind Marvel’s latest blockbuster 

One can never say that the 

Marvel Cinematic Universe 

has been without its creative 

difficulties. For Marvel 

Studios’ visual effects 

supervisor Stephane Ceretti, the challenge 

has been going from producing a photo-real 

CG raccoon for Guardians of the Galaxy 

to folding cities in Doctor Strange. “It’s 

different! The racoon had its challenges and 

this one has its own challenges as well.” 

Unlike Guardians of the Galaxy, which 

dealt with a group of galactic misfits 

coming together to save the universe, 

Doctor Strange revolves around a physically 

and spiritually crippled world-famous 

neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Strange, and 

his discovery of a mystic place known as 

Kamar-Taj that leads him to become The 

Sorcerer Supreme. 

“Guardians finished August 2014 and 

we started this one in September 2014,” 

recalls Stephane, who went immediately 

from collaborating with filmmaker James 

Gunn (Super) to Scott Derrickson (Sinister). 

“Scott was already on the project starting 

to write the script, and had collected a huge 

amount of visual references on the web and 

from books. He had a lot of ideas in mind 

about what the magic would be and what it 

would do, but was also open to new ideas. 

Charles Wood, the production designer, was 

really involved with all of that too. There 

were so many things in the film that we had 

to tackle from the astral projections to the 

dimensions they visit. We wanted to have a 

full overview of everything that we would 

have to deal with.” 

Getting started 

Storyboards, techvis, previz and postviz 

were extensively utilised. “Charles does a 

lot of concepts even in terms of key frames, 

which the visual development department 

at Marvel also creates,” explains Stephane. 

“As soon as we had a good idea of the script 

and the story beats that we would have to 

deal with, The Third Floor was brought 

in to start to build all of these worlds and 

work on the sequences in previz. We were 

using concepts as a base and then animated 

them so we had understanding of how 

things would look, but also how they would 

move. It was important for us to get the key 

players working together to get all of these 

things going because it’s such a dynamic and 

evolving process. 

“Previz/Postviz was led by Faraz 

Hameed from The Third Floor and a lot of 

it was also worked on in close conjunction 

with Marvel’s editor, Wyatt Smith, who 

came on the project before production 

started to shoot. Around 1,400 visual effects 

shots needed to be produced. “All of the 

shots have little tricks and are different 

from each other,” says Stephane. “We always 

tried to bring new ideas to every shot. Every 

shot had it own R&D.” 

Achieving a balance between fantasy 

and reality was an important goal for the 

production. “That was a big thing for Scott,” 

remarks Stephane. “We always tried to 

relate magic to something that is physically 

correct. For example, we have a type of 

magic in the film called Eldritch magic. 

They open these sparkly gateways that are 

used to go from one place to another. It’s 

all based on long exposure photography 

and physical objects that people can relate 

to. If we use a material that is going to 

distort and change itself, like moving and 

bending buildings, we wanted to make sure 

that they look completely physical in their 

movement,” he says. 

Whipped into shape 

In the film, there are different types of 

Eldritch magic and Doctor Strange, played 

by Beneditch Cumberbatch, can draw 

mandalas in front of him: “He uses Eldritch 

magic to create Rune Shields to protect 

himself when fighting. Then there’s what 

we call the Eldritch Whip, which is created 

by Doctor Strange to battle the Zealots,” 

reveals Stephane. 

Interactive lighting helped with the 

creation and integration of the Eldritch 

Whip. “It looks like a stream of energy with 

lots of sparks, and when it hits something it 

sears and burns. We had some LED strips in 

Benedict’s hands so we could get a little bit 

of light on the hands and face when Doctor 


29 


FEATURE 


Strange is using it. We also had a LED 

whip for fighting. It was like strings of LEDs 

put into some gel so they wouldn’t break.” 

Mixed into VFX was the ability of Doctor 

Strange to handle the magic. “The main arc 

of his story is him learning about magic, 

being a bit clumsy and not that good at it. But 

through trials and tribulations, he becomes 

the real Doctor Strange. It’s a big thing and 

we played that story in terms of the effects, 

like with the Cloak of Levitation.” 

“Doctor Strange finds the Eye of 

Agamotto in the Kamar-Taj,” remarks 

Stephane when discussing the mystic 

artefact of wisdom residing in an amulet 

that enables its wearer to see through 

illusions and to create gateways to other 

dimensions. “He’s carrying that around his 

neck. I won’t go into too much detail about 

what Doctor Strange does with it. But I will 

say that the Eye of Agamotto is quite an 

important thing in the film.” 

Another key storyline element is a 

fictional grimoire. “There are tons of books 

because there’s a library in the Kamar- 

Taj and that’s how he learns about magic. 

There’s the Book of Vishanti [contains spells 

of defensive of magic] and The Book of 

Cagliostro [a collection of mystic knowledge 

gathered from numerous sources] is the 

most important book in the film.” The path 

of learning does not always go easy for 

the apprentice sorcerer, who accidentally 

conjures a crystal effect. “Doctor Strange is 

not a patient student. He’s playing around 

with one of the spells and in this case it 

doesn’t turn out well.” 

Fractal worlds 

“We do a lot of Kaleidoscope effects,” 

reveals Stephane. “It’s going back to magic 

and optical illusions. We do a lot of things 

with 3D fractals. There’s a shot in a church 

where it seems to be all changing and we 

call it MandelBroting [in honour of the 

MASteriNG the AStrAl ForM 

Creating an out-of-body experience 

A dramatic moment occurs when the 

Ancient One causes Doctor Strange to 

leave behind his physical being. 

“The Astral Form is when the 

sorcerer can go out of their body,” 

explains Stephane Ceretti. “During the 

film, Doctor Strange is learning how to 

get into his Astral Form and the Astral 

Plane. For that we used digital doubles. 

It’s all complex animation and effects.” 

Numerous iterations were explored. 

“We started with something complex in 

terms of the look because of our ideas 

about long exposure photography,” 

remarks Stephane. “But we wanted to 

make sure that people recognise our 

actors. It was a difficult process to get it 

right. We put the emphasis on what they 

can do in the Astral Form. The look is 

fairly simple.” 


30 


Feature 


CloAked iN MAGiC 

Stephane Cerrati explains the 

effects used to create Doctor 

Strange’s magical Cloak 

of Levitation. 

all oF the shots haVe little tricks 

and are diFFerent From each other; 

We alWays tried to bring neW ideas to eVery 

shot, and eVery shot had its oWn r&d 

stephane cerrati, visual effects supervisor, Marvel studios 

mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot who 

invented fractals]. Basically, the Zealots 

have the power to change the shape of the 

world and when they do that it turns into a 

big fractal world.” Buildings fold over each 

other harkening back to the signature visual 

effect in Inception. “It’s definitely a point of 

reference but we’re pushing it much further 

than before.” 

Rendering was a major issue for the 

mind-bending urban scenes. “We had a full 

digital version of new York and bent entire 

streets. We did same with London. It was a 

huge amount of assets that we had to build.” 

A pivotal environment that needed to be 

digitally and practically conjured was the 

mysterious enclave of Kamar-Taj. Situated 

in the Himalayas, Kamar-Taj serves as a 

home for sorcerers and mystics. “We went 

to Kathmandu, nepal, scouted the place 

Eldritch magic was created by a range of effects, including 

interactive lighting 

a few times and shot some stairs there. 

Charles rebuilt a huge temple in London 

at Longcross Studios that was precise, 

detailed and beautiful. We did a lot of set 

extensions so we recreated it digitally. We 

also recreated a CG view of Kathmandu 

from Kamar-Taj that was done by Method 

Studios. It’s very good.” 

The trailers for Doctor Strange only 

offer a glimpse into what audience members 

are going to experience when watching 

the movie. “We were trying to push the 

Marvel Cinematic Universe even further. 

In Guardians we started sending it to the 

galaxies and now there is lots of travelling 

across the dimensions so we’re really going 

into other worlds. It’s both exciting and 

unique as well.” 

Marvel’s Doctor Strange is in cinemas 

FYI 

from 26 October. 

A potent mystic item that has 

become a signature part of the 

attire worn by Doctor Strange 

was brought to cinematic life by 

a combination of practical and 

digital effects. 

“The Cloak of Levitation 

was designed by the visual 

development department at 

Marvel but then taken over by 

our costume department, who 

did a great job of creating a real 

cloak,” states Stephane Ceretti. 

“Most of the time Benedict 

Cumberbatch wears a real cloak 

on his shoulders but we did scan 

and recreate it. The CG cloak 

was used by our visual effects 

vendors. The stunt guys added 

extra ideas about how to reveal 

the cloak. The cloak itself is 

sentient. It has a really strong 

personality and we play on that 

with Strange, so there’s a lot of 

interaction between them.” 

“As soon as the cloak is active 

and behaving on his shoulders 

we put in the CG version,” reveals 

Stephane. “But most of the 

time when the cloak isn’t doing 

anything, it’s the real one. We 

mixed and matched them both to 

make sure the cloak looked real 

all of the time and spotted the 

places in the sequences where 

the cloak is active. 

“At the beginning, the cloak 

is leading and teaching Doctor 

Strange because he doesn’t know 

how to use it. As Doctor Strange 

becomes more of a sorcerer, 

that changes the dynamic as he 

becomes more in control of the 

cloak by the end of the movie.” 

Doctor Strange’s Cloak of Levitation is a mix of a 

real cloak made by Marvel’s costume department 

and a CG version 


31 


TuTorials 

Practical tips and tutorials from 

pro artists to improve 

your CG skills

TuTorials 

Sculpt a zombie superhero 

rising to the 

challenge 

CG artist Ali Jalali 

created this incredible 

zombie Batman 

character for a Comic- 

Con 2016 challenge, 

with his goal being to 

tell a story through a 

still image. 

zbrush | quixel | marmoset toolbag 

sculpt zombie 

superheroes 

Ali Jalali shares his process for the ultimate 

ZBrush workflow to sculpt a zombie Batman 

Author 

Ali Jalali 

Ali is a self-taught CG 

character artist. He loves 

creatures and characters 

in realistic, fantasy and 

cartoonish styles. 

www.jalaliart.com 

t 

his Batman character was 

created for a challenge 

as part of Comic-Con 

2016. The theme was undead 

superheroes, so I decided to go 

with my favourite of all time. 

I begin all my projects by 

sourcing and collecting together 

reference materials. I knew that 

I wanted Frank Miller’s Batman 

with an undead style. I therefore 

had to find some differences 

between the undead and 

zombies. After watching plenty 

of zombie and undead movies, 

I realised that the latter are a bit 

more agile! This agility affects 

the pose and overall mood of the 

final piece. 

In this tutorial I will talk 

through the sculpting process 

and the methods I used in ZBrush, 

which is in my pipeline from 

the beginning of production. 

I hope this will inspire you to 

have a go at creating your own 

undead character. 

DownloAD your resources 

For all the assets you need go to 

www.bit.ly/vault-214-blizzard 


33 


TuTorials 


01 02 

stArt sculpting 

01 With these characters there 

isn’t an exact concept; it needs to be 

created from scratch. I use ZBrush 

to play with some ideas and get an 

understanding of what I’ve imagined. 

I have some blurry images in my 

mind, so create this head sculpt in 

a few minutes – then put it aside for 

a few days. When I come back to it 

I see it as a fresh piece of work that 

needs completing. 

I start with a sphere and, 

after creating the biggest head 

proportions using the Move brush, 

I continue blocking the face shapes 

using the Clay Buildup brush. It’s the 

very first level of my sculpt, so I block 

in using big shapes. 

BoDy proportions 

02 I continue the sculpt using 

my Frank Miller references, trying to 

make the body proportions as close 

to Miller’s Batman as I can. For the 

body, I start with basic shapes ready 

to use in ZBrush: sphere, cylinder, 

Insert Multi-Mesh body parts (IMM 

BParts) and combine them using the 

Mesh Insert brush. Sphere is used 

for making something similar to the 

torso, cylinders for arms and legs, 

then the pre-made hands in IMM 

BParts brush. This makes it easy to 

focus on the main proportions and 

play with basic shapes to achieve 

my desired composite. I convert the 

insert meshes to DynaMesh as I go 

(see image 2). 

BoDy sculpting 

03 Again, I use the Move brush 

and Clay Buildup brush to create 

my biggest blocked shapes. Usually 

I use pin marks in my sculpts to 

gain a clear view of what I’m doing, 

Back to basics 

A good base 

construction of 

anatomy creates a 

better sculpt. Knowing 

the shapes and forms 

of the skull, and the 

impact it has on what 

we see as a character, 

will improve your work. 

and avoid getting lost in anatomical 

details. My main pin marks are 

in places where there is nothing 

between bones and skin, such as the 

clavicle bones, hip bones, elbows, 

knees and the rib cage. By paying 

attention to these, I can see what is 

where and make clear shapes in my 

model, as in image 3. 

04 

MAke the cApe 

The torn cape was one of the 

trickiest parts to model. Create a 

rough sculpt for the cape, showing 

the main (large) wrinkles – the 

thickness doesn’t matter at this 

stage (see image 4a). Start painting 

a ZBrush mask on one side of the 

sculpt – the side you have worked 

the most on that has good shapes 

and wrinkles (image 4b). In the 

Tools>Subtools>Extract rollout, set a 

suitable thickness for the cape fabric 

and hit Extract. Then click on Accept 

to make a subtool from your masked 

area (see image 4c). 

As you can see, this will give 

you a cape with the same thickness 

all over. It has three polygroups: 

front face, back face, and sides. 

Hide and delete the side and the 

03 

back/front polygroups. Using 

[Ctrl]+[Shift] and LazyMouse, click 

on the polygroup you want to 

unhide and then hit Del Hidden 

under Tools>Geometry>Modify 

topology (image 4d). We need clean 

topology so use the ZRemesher from 

Tools>Geometry>ZRemesher to 

create a suitable remeshed object 

(image 4e). You might see some 

polygons intersecting with each 

other or overlapped; fix them simply 

by using the Move brush and pushing 

the vertices around. 

Now we need to give our clean, 

remeshed cape a thickness. Use 

the ZModeler brush and click OK 

to close the pop-up window. Hover 

your mouse over one of the cape’s 

polygons and press and hold the 

Space key. A new command window 

opens. From the Polygon Actions 

window select Extrude. From the 

Target window select All Polygons, 

then release the Space key. Now 

select and drag one of the polygons, 

in order to extrude the cape with the 

desired thickness, as in image 4f. 

Now we have our torn cape we can 

divide it and sculpt torn leather 

effects on the edges of the holes 


34 


TuTorials 


04a 04b 04c 04d 

04f 

04g 

04e 

and sides of the cape. I use the 

Slash3 brush, as it’s perfect for 

sculpting sharp, hard edge effects. 

creAte the skin DetAils 

05 For skin details I use a 

combination of different detail levels; 

using Surface Noise and Hand Paint 

Noise, which I will explain. First of all, 

05a 

I add a large noise distortion on the 

skin, especially if it’s a creature or has 

a sort of exaggerated skin. To do so, 

select the Standard brush, set Stroke 

on Spray and set the Placement 

Variance to 0.8. Use alpha 49 and start 

brushing on the skin, trying to brush 

with different pen pressures and 

random intensity all over the surface. 

Mask areas you don’t want to 

have skin noise, such as lips and 

eyelids. To use ZBrush’s Surface 

Noise plug-in, go to Tools>Surface> 

Noise and play with Noise Scale 

and Strength until you have an even 

Attention to detail 

Different parts of the 

body have unique 

skin pores. So try and 

study high-resolution 

images in order to see 

the differences 

in various areas. 

and small noise on your surface. 

Choose Spray Stroke and start 

making skin variations according 

to the skin position. Use different 

alphas, different intensities and 

some smoothing, as in images 5a, 

5b and 5c. 

06 

reMesh AnD uv 

I use ZBrush’s ZRemesher 

and 3DCoat remesh tools for 

retopologising the character. As for 

UVs, I use ZBrush’s UV Master plugin 

as well as Maya tools. The UV is 

detailed below. 

UV Master works pretty well 

with polygroups. First of all I assign 

polygroups to my object, then I go 

to my first divide in ZBrush and mask 

any areas that I want to be a UV 

patch. Use [Ctrl]+[W] to make the 

masked area a polygroup. Instead of 

masking, you can hide other areas 

of the model and hit [Ctrl]+[W] to 

assign a polygroup to visible polys. 

Next, go to Plugins>UV Master, 

turn on Polygroups and hit Unwarp. 

If you don’t have any divisions you 

05b 

05c 

06 


35 


TuTorials 


07 

09 

08 

can click on Flatten to check the flat 

UV and edit the UV with the Move 

brush. You can pack your unfolded 

UVs in Maya or any other software. 

07 texturing 

Quixel Suite is the software 

I use for texturing. It’s super easy 

and fun to use, and it has a 3D 

pBr options 

You can search the 

Internet and find many 

standard settings for 

Albedo, Glossy and 

Specular for a specific 

material, such as 

metal or plastic. 

10 11 

viewer where you can check your 

texture and shaders live. Substance 

Painter is another option and has 

a similar workflow. Both Painter 

and Quixel have many smart 

materials that you can either make 

layers with, erase each part of the 

layer you want, or assign smart 

maskings that the software creates 

from your Normal map or Cavity 

map. The textures I export for 

each object are Albedo, Glossy, 

Normal and Specular. 

08 shADing 

I use Marmoset Toolbag 

for shading and rendering. As 

Quixel and Marmoset workflow 

is based on PBR rendering, the 

maps I export are matched with 

Marmoset. So it’s just a matter 

of assigning the textures to the 

shader and it’s done. 

09 posing 

I use the Transpose Master 

plug-in for posing. I do some tests 

to see which pose creates the mood 

I had in mind. I am looking for a 

zombie feeling, plus a heroic comic 

book character. 

10 lighting 

I need lighting which is 

sharp, with high contrast between 

shadows and light places – it will 

add a comic book feel to my work. 

For this, I use four Spot lights as 

back lights, with really high intensity, 

and an Omni light with controlled 

reduce as the key light. I leave some 

areas in darkness to add to the 

undead, horror feeling. 

11 renDering 

As I use Marmoset Toolbag for 

rendering, I can see the final result 

during the process of assigning 

textures. There are some special post 

effects and options in the Render tab 

to pay attention to before exporting 

a final image. In the Render tab, 

changing the Resolution to 2:1 will 

produce a sharper and higher-quality 

image. Be careful to use it only for 

exporting the final image as it makes 

the file very heavy to work with. 

In the Lighting options, turn on 

Local Reflections. In Marmoset you 

can’t see an object’s reflection in a 

reflective material, such as a mirror or 

high-glossy metal. Local Reflections 

turns this feature on. 

Don’t forget to turn on High-Res 

Shadows to achieve better calculated 

live shadows. You can check the 

settings for Render and Camera 

Post Effect options in image 11 – 

download it from the online Vault. 


36 


TuTorials 

Master a city scene 

blender | substance painter | photoshop 

model a 

complex 

city scene 

Mateusz Wielgus breaks down his 

workflow and offers tips for creating 

an urban scene in Blender 

Author 

Mateusz Wielgus 

Mateusz is a freelance CG 

artist and the owner of 

Black Chilla Design Studio, 

based in Poland. 

www.designstudio. 

blackchilla.pl 

ambient Noir was a 

personal project created 

in my spare time on my 

laptop, while my desktop PC 

was busy rendering all of the 

commercial work I do. 

It was fully modelled in 

Blender, rendered using Cycles 

Render Engine, and adjusted in 

Photoshop. For texturing some 

of the elements, I also used 

Substance Painter. 

Making a city scene like this 

is no small undertaking, and a 

project such as this one requires 

a significant amount of repetitive, 

and sometimes boring, modelling 

actions. Explaining my process 

also requires plenty of text if we 

try to cover every single step I 

took during the making of this city 

scene image. 

Therefore, instead of just 

enumerating point by point 

what I was doing, I thought I 

would try and break down my 

workflow into pieces and 

present them as a series of 

general steps and tips. 

Hopefully this should come 

in handy for users of various 

software – not just Blender. 

DoWnloAD your resources 


www.bit.ly.com/vault-214-blizzard 


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TuTorials 


Black chilla 

Design stuDio 

Established in 2013 in Poland (Silesia), 

Black Chilla Design Studio focused on 

creating urban and architecture designs. In 

September of 2015 the company changed 

tack, to use its experience, skills and 

professionalism to design and create 

stunning concept art, CG models and 

graphic design projects. 

www.designstudio.blackchilla.pl 


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iDeAs AnD inspirAtion 

01 Forming ideas and deciding what to make is the 

first step to creating anything. Inspiration is everywhere; in 

everyday objects, movies, books and the art of others. The 

idea to make a noir and slightly cyberpunk city scene came 

to me after watching Blade Runner. I wanted to see if I 

could achieve this look with my skills and Blender software. 

using reference 

02 It’s not always necessary to use reference during the creation process, but 

it makes life much easier. Using real-life pictures saves time, as instead of making 

things from scratch, you can recreate them from photos and ensure they look 

correct. I used plenty of photos of colonial buildings, wet roads, street lamps, bus 

stops, different materials, and cyberpunk/futuristic game and movie trailers, such 

as Blade Runner (pictured). 

© 2016 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights 

plan ahead with 

your work 

No matter what kind 

of image you are 

creating, it’s always 

a good idea to sketch 

and plan it first. This 

way you can avoid 

further frustrations, 

as well as problems 

with composition. 

sketching AnD plAnning 

03 Once the idea is established, it’s good to make a 

general concept of the scene we want to create. Some 

people sketch doodles, others do matte paintings or make 

a photomontage. I sketch directly in 3D software by setting 

a camera and placing the basic objects to create a general 

comp. Here I set two rectangular planes as a road crossing, 

then added multiple cuboids, like buildings and vehicles. 

creAting coMposition 

04 Working with primitives allows us to establish our 

intended composition fast, and change things quickly. At 

this point, we don’t need to know what type of buildings 

they’ll be – we just need basic shapes to work as walls for the 

urban interior, limiting field of view and guiding the viewer. 

I direct the viewer along the street into the tunnel by placing 

the guidelines of the buildings from all sides of the picture. 

using reAl-life scAle 

05 When working with just the basics, it’s still important 

to use objects to scale – even if the scene is just fantasy. By 

keeping realistic measurements, it’s easier to achieve reliable 

results and helps avoid incorrect size relations between 

objects on the scene and texture inaccuracies. In Blender, 

change the measurement method in the Scene tab. 

MoDelling the city structure 

06The next step is all about replacing the created basic objects with real 

objects. Here, all of the gathered reference photos come in handy. A lot of 

people say that it’s better to work on the whole picture at once, but I like to 

focus on each individual element at a time. In this case, I make building after 

building (as the numbers on the illustration show) and make sure that they 

match more or less stylistically to one another. 


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BAsics AnD rhythM 

07 It’s vital to use the Array/Modifier function to 

create buildings in 3D. Create as many repetitive assets as 

possible: ledges, ornaments, pillars, windows and doors. 

In architecture, many elements are simple primitive shapes 

multiplied many times. The more recurrent assets are 

created at the beginning, the faster work will be in the future. 

setting the MAin light source 

08 After modelling buildings, it’s a good idea to set the main light in the scene. 

When rendering architecture, it’s necessary to set the HDRI Environment map as 

the main illumination source, as in most cases this gets the best results. I use the 

Pro Lighting Skies Ultimate add on (HDRI map: Night 04). It’s easier and faster 

than setting all the nodes manually and allows me to test different lighting styles 

quickly. Any other night or blue evening environment map will do the trick. 

ADDing environMent eleMents 

09 Lighting from the environment texture will reveal the 

imperfections on modelled surfaces and missing details. It’s 

a good time to start adding smaller environment elements 

such as street lamps, bins, pavement tiles and street signs 

– remembering most of those elements are objects within 

the Array modifier. The more objects the better. 

Applying AMBient light 

10 I set the materials on the scene as a white diffuse 

material (except glass shaders) and add additional light 

sources. I want to collide cold blue street illumination with 

warm lights. Additional lights are planes with the Emission 

shader, except for TV screens and billboards; these are 

textures plugged into the colour input of Emission and 

Diffuse nodes, which are added together. 

scale and 

dimensions 

When you are 

modelling, always 

ensure you use 

objects with real 

life scale and 

dimensions. This 

allows you to achieve 

realism and helps 

avoid mistakes. 

texturing MAin eleMents 

11Once the lighting is set, it’s time to add materials. In 

this particular scene in Blender, it’s easier to tweak materials 

to look good with lights you’ve already created than the 

other way around. Practically all materials use PBR shaders 

(there are plenty of online tutorials on this) and are a mix of 

albedo, roughness, specular and normal textures. 

QuAlity BAlAnce 

12 Since the scene is large, be aware of texture size, so as to save memory. 

The further an element is from the camera, the less detailed it can be and the 

lower quality texture it requires. There’s no point having high-quality textures in 

the whole scene, especially when they’ll be visible only in the first row of objects 

in the picture. The same goes for UV maps of objects – since the scene is full of 

modelled details, most objects have Cube Projected UV maps. 


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Wet roAD MAteriAls 

13 One exception for PBR shaders is the wet road 

material. This is a mix of two materials that use the same 

textures, the only difference is the first is very rough and the 

second is very smooth and reflective. When mixing these 

materials, I use the noise texture added to hand-painted 

black or white textures created in Texture Paint mode. 

MAking DetAils 

14 After all the main materials are set and are working well with my lighting, 

it’s time to add some imperfections, such as dust, scratches, drips, water 

streaks and cracks. This can be done by simply multiplying the Diffuse map 

with a ‘grunge texture’ (with its own UV coordinates). To add grunge details in 

a couple of places, I use Substance Painter as a material generation tool, for 

example with the street lamps and some of the ledges. 

fixing your 

mistakes 

It is much easier 

to fix mistakes on 

a rendered image 

during postprocessing 

by matte 

painting, instead of 

having to re-render 

the whole scene. 

renDering lAyers 

15 I render my scene using Cycles Render Engine but it 

doesn’t look like it will in the end. It’s not important to get 

a 100 per cent perfect look directly in Blender. Things can 

be fixed in post-processing, so it’s a good idea to render 

the main materials as separate render layers, giving them 

a different Pass Index in the Material tab. Then it’s easy to 

extract them after rendering is finished for further editing. 

MAking tWo renDers 

16 I render this scene twice, making two completely 

different images. One is bright and reflective and the 

second is toned down and diffused. This way, I have more 

control in post-processing, as I can mix both images 

together. I recommend this technique to everyone – make 

more than one render and then the pick elements that 

came out nicely in each to combine into one shot. 

17 coMpositing 

in photoshop 

At the end, in Photoshop, I like to do 

everything that requires a lot 

of effort to make in Blender, 

including colour grading; brightness 

and contrast balance; and levels 

and filter effects. Most of the time I 

use the Camera Raw Filter function, 

which is a very powerful tool. 

Photoshop is also a good place to 

add missing details, imperfections 

and atmospheric effects, such as 

smoke or mist elements and lens 

flares. You can do this by matte 

painting or by overlaying individual 

textures; lens flares, for example, 

are just .png files placed over the 

picture with the Blend Mode Screen 

option selected. 


42 


Free pluralsight course! 

game art modelling in 3ds max 

A free video course to master the game asset modelling pipeline 

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Improve your 3ds Max 

modelling skills and 

get ready for game 

development 

T 

his issue, we’ve joined forces with 

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In this course, you’ll learn methods for 

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comes to creating believable game art, detail 

and structure are important. With that in mind, 

the training will outline a detailed process to 

ensure your models have a final look that will 

transition well. We’ll also make sure models 

will work later on in your pipeline, for example 

when baking and detailing in ZBrush. By the 

end of this tutorial, you’ll understand the 

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All you need to follow this training course is 

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author 

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dan has worked in the 

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eight years as both an 

environmental, concept 

and character artist. 

www.bit.ly/dan-cox 

Free DownloaD! get your video course: www.bit.ly/vault-214-blizzard 


43 


TuTorials 

Use photos to create textures 

Agisoft PhotoscAn | zbrush | mArvelous designer 

Learn to use 

photogrammetry 

Arthur Gatineau shares his advice for using photos of 

objects to create video game character assets 

Author 

Arthur Gatineau 

Arthur is a CG artist based 

in France who specialises 

in character modelling, 

texturing and shading for 

film and video games. 

www.artgatineau.com 

photogrammetry is fastbecoming 

a staple of 

many video game asset 

creation workflows. So for this 

tutorial I will cover the process 

of making a game character, 

focusing on the creation of 

some parts of my latest project, 

a survival character I imagined, 

which was inspired by the 

universes of games such as The 

Division and The Last of Us. 

I will go through the steps of 

using Agisoft PhotoScan to speed 

up making a pair of shoes and a 

rucksack. I will also explain how 

I created a shirt in Marvelous 

Designer, ZBrush and Substance 

Painter. While we won’t be 

covering the modelling process 

here, it might be useful to know 

that I used ZBrush and 3ds Max 

to create my character. 

I used Marmoset Toolbag 2 to 

create a working real-time render, 

but ultimately I’m aiming to build 

a full scene in Unreal Engine to 

add more background to this 

character, in order to explore her 

personality in more detail. 

If there’s anything you want to 

ask me about, feel free to email 

me at arthur.gatineau@gmail.com. 

DownloAD your resources 



Marvelous 

designer 

Arthur’s use of 

photogrammetry has 

led to some extremely 

realistic textures on 

the girl’s clothing, and 

the character looks as 

if she might be from 

an upcoming series of 

Stranger Things. 


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01b 

01a 

Get stArteD in 

01 PhotoscAn 

I don’t have the best set-up to take 

photos – just one Canon 550D – but 

the goal here is not to have a supersharp 

model right away. Instead, I’m 

looking to get the proportions and 

basic forms photographed. 

The workflow is pretty 

straightforward. I start by taking 33 

photos of a trainer from different 

angles, then in Agisoft PhotoScan I 

go to Import photos>Create Masks 

to get rid of the parts I don’t want 

Agisoft PhotoScan to focus on – 

everything apart from the shoe. 

Next, I go to Align Photos and 

choose Build Dense Cloud from the 

Workflow menu. I set my parameters 

and click OK. Then in Build Mesh I 

set more parameters, click OK and 

export as a .obj file. 

Import the raw scan into 3ds Max 

to remove the ‘floaty bits’ and close 

any holes. This step can be done 

in ZBrush, but I find I have more 

control in 3ds Max. 

tiDy uP the scAn 

02 Once in ZBrush, I tidy up the 

model using smooth strokes with a 

low intensity; hold Shift and adjust 

the Z Intensity slider to access an 

alternate Smooth brush. I continue 

sculpting missing parts where the 

photos didn’t capture anything. 

Now, because I sculpted and 

smoothed some parts of the model, 

I need to redo the UVs, so I use 

the UVMaster plug-in to avoid 

stretching in the texture. Doing 

this will also lead to better texture 

check your 

volumes 

Remember to check 

and adjust your 

reconstruction volume 

bounding box when 

using photos in 

PhotoScan. To adjust 

the bounding box use 

the Resize Region 

and Rotate Region 

toolbar buttons. 

02 

quality – we don’t care a lot about 

this here since it’s just a shoe, but 

it’s good to get into this habit. 

Finally, I import the model into 

PhotoScan and use Workflow>Build 

Texture to generate a new texture. 

convert to PolyPAint 

03 As you can see on this before 

and after comparison (image 3b), 

it’s a great deal easier to work with 

this new UV layout. I take this texture 

back into ZBrush and convert it to 

a PolyPainting texture by going to 

Tool>PolyPaint>PolyPaint From 

Texture. When doing this, don’t 

forget to flip V in the Texture tab, 

otherwise the texture won’t fit 

your model. Be careful: the fewer 

polygons your model has, the less 

detail you’ll get on your final texture, 

so make sure to divide quite a lot. 

I now export this mesh as my final 

high-poly model. 

creAte A low-res Mesh 

04 Now I have to make a lowresolution 

mesh for my asset. I 

01c 

personally use 3ds Max to make 

the retopology, but the package 

doesn’t really matter. What’s 

important is to maintain the 

volumes of the high-poly asset, for 

instance the shoelaces. To bake the 

maps, I use xNormal. When doing 

this, don’t forget to untick ‘Ignore 

per vertex color’ in the properties of 

the corresponding high-poly slot. 

I then bake another PolyPaint 

with vivid colours to make an ID 

map, doing this will mean it’s easier 

to assign different materials later in 

Substance Painter. 

liGhtinG tweAks 

05 I notice there’s some 

lighting information in my texture. 

This is because the photos 

were not taken in an evenly lit 

environment. Here’s a simple 

method to extract the shadows 

and highlights in Photoshop: 

1. Open texture in Photoshop. 

2. Duplicate its layer by pressing 

Cmd/Ctrl+J, and remove all 

saturation using Hue and Saturation. 

DiviDe your mesh 

Match poly-count and pixels 

When importing back into ZBrush to 

convert a texture into PolyPainting, you 

need to divide the model so that its 

polycount is as close to your texture’s pixel 

count as possible. Roughly, a 2k texture 

map has four million pixels, a UV will use 

around 70 per cent of that space. 


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03a 

03b 

04 05 

3. Invert this layer with Ctrl+I and 

change the blending mode to 

Soft Light. 

4. Add adjustment layers, such as 

Levels, and use Brightness/contrast 

to tweak the effect. 

ADDinG More DetAil 

06 Since the scan didn’t catch all 

the fabric details I need, I convert 

my diffuse map into a normal map 

and overlay it onto my original 

scan to add an extra layer of detail. 

Now I have all my maps ready, the 

converting maps 

I use Knald to convert 

my diffuse map into 

a normal map, you 

can also use xNormal 

which does the 

same thing. 

fun begins in Substance Painter! 

I learned Substance Painter by 

watching Christophe Desse’s 

YouTube channel (www.youtube. 

com/user/xtrm3d), where he has 

plenty of videos showing texturing 

tricks, I really recommend it! I end 

up modifying the colours of the 

shoes to create a nice contrast with 

the trousers. 

creAtinG the rucksAck 

07 That’s it for the shoes. The 

second asset I need to create with 

the help of photogrammetry is 

the rucksack, which I want to be 

modern, and something that we see 

all the time so we can better identify 

with the character – so I choose to 

make an Eastpack bag. 

It’s night-time by this stage and 

I don’t want to wait until the next 

day to take photos so the lighting is 

very bad, but I manage to capture 

images with the correct proportions 

and the main folds visible. 

The scans of the rucksack are 

pretty rough and have many 

06a 

06b 


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07 

gaps, which will need to be fixed. 

This is very common when working 

with scans. 

Fill in the GAPs 

08I fill the largest gap behind 

the main side part of the rucksack 

and rear of the bag with a very 

simple mesh in 3ds Max. To do this 

I Dynamesh everything in ZBrush, 

use ZRemesher to achieve a fairly 

low-poly first subdivision level, then 

I project the details back. 

At this point, I sculpt all the 

elements that are missing from the 

scan, such as folds and stitches. 

I add a zip using the ZBrush IMM 

brush and then I open 3ds Max 

and model a zip puller with the 

polygon modelling tools found in 

the Polygon Modeling panel – it’s 

nothing fancy. 

story 

development 

When texturing, 

consider the asset’s 

story. For example, my 

character could be put 

in a post-apocalyptic 

environment and 

the details would 

be believable. 

09 

usinG substAnce 

09 PAinter 

I use Substance Painter to bake 

the maps for the rucksack asset. 

What I love about Substance 

Painter is that I don’t have to 

explode my mesh any more to bake 

multiple pieces. All you have to do 

is to name your low-poly meshes 

with ‘_low’ at the end and your highpoly 

with the ‘_high’ suffix. 

I assign different materials in 

3ds Max to generate an ID map in 

Substance (don’t forget to switch 

from Vertex Color to Material Color 

in the ID baker parameters). 

With the help of my ID map, I 

start to assign basic materials to 

the different parts of the asset. 

Texturing is an iterative process, 

layer after layer I develop the 

look of the asset; I am adding 

smaller and smaller details such 

as dust and tiny imperfections 

to make it look believable. You 

also have to think about the 

story. When a viewer sees the 

asset, he or she has to imagine 

the background of the model 

– whether it’s old, whether it was 

left outside for a long time. 

Mix MArvelous 

10 DesiGner AnD Zbrush 

My attention now turns to the 

character’s shirt, where I use 

Marvelous Designer. For me, 

Designer is a tool to facilitate 

and accelerate the process 

of creating clothes. It’s a very 

good base for sculpting, but I 

wouldn’t really call my Designer 

mesh the final high-poly one. 

There are a lot of ways of 

working with Marvelous Designer 

and ZBrush, and you may already 

have your own. What I’m showing 

here is my workflow, inspired by 

the amazing Yuri Alexander (who 

has extra steps and explains this 

technique in more depth on his 

website www.yuri3d.com). 

I start by decreasing the particle 

distance of my clothes in the 

Property Editor. To increase the 

density of the mesh, wait a few 

seconds for Marvelous Designer 

to make the new folds and export 

as an .obj file. Here are my settings 

for the exporting, under the Export 

OBJ menu: 

1. Set Object to Single Object and 

turn on Thick. 

08 

10a 

10b 


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11a 

11b 11c 12 

2. Under Scale, turn on cm 

(DAZ Studio). 

3. Keep all Invert options under 

Axis Conversion unticked. 

exPortinG the shirt 

11 I export the shirt in different 

sections, for example I separate 

the sleeves and pocket from the 

body. It’s important to do this in 

such a way that they don’t share 

borders, so the combination of 

parts doesn’t matter. I then import 

all the meshes into ZBrush using 

the same tool. From here, each of 

the following steps will have to be 

repeated on each of the SubTools: 

Under the Polygroups tab select 

Auto Groups, under the Modify 

Topology tab select WeldPoints and 

under the ZRemesher tab make sure 

KeepGroups is selected to maintain 

the shape according to the groups 

we set earlier. 

MerGe subtools 

12 Once finished, I can either 

continue like this with separate 

pieces and start dividing to 

add more details, or I can 

merge all of the SubTools using 

the MergeDown option under 

the SubTool tab – and that’s 

what I do here. 

sculPtinG FolDs 

13 At this point, it’s time to look 

at my references again and start 

sculpting folds, memory folds, 

seams and some damage, such as 

wear and tear, to give a backstory to 

the shirt. I don’t use anything fancy 

here, just the Standard brush, Clay 

brush and Inflate. You can find some 

image 

adjustment 

Another way to 

get rid of lighting 

information in your 

image is to go to 

Image>Adjustments> 

Shadows/Highlights 

and play with 

the sliders. 

great, free brushes to download 

at ZBrush Central too, for example 

the ones by Michael Dunnam at 

www.bit.ly/free-brushes. To add 

small folds, I recommend using the 

Drag Rectangle tool with a cloth 

texture such as alpha and a very low 

intensity on your brush. 

texture AnD FinessinG 

14 After the retopology and bake 

(in Substance Painter) is done, it’s 

time to texture. The images below 

(14a) show the main evolutions of 

the look in Substance Painter. As 

before, it’s a layering workflow. 

When I feel that I’m getting closer, 

I like to go back and forth between 

the game engine and Photoshop 

to fine-tune the textures before 

creating a real-time render in 

Marmoset Toolbag 2. 

To DeTail or 

noT To DeTail 

What if no one will see? 

13a 

14a 

One thing I notice when I look back over 

my work now is that I spent too much time 

adding details that no one will see when 

the model is used in-game. The fact that 

you can paint height information in 

Substance Painter is game-changing as 

it means you can leave your sculpt more 

‘unfinished looking’ and then do most of 

the damage marks in Substance Painter 

later in the workflow. 

13b 

14b 


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TuTorials 

Create better eyebrows 

follow 

The video 

when you see the Play icon, use the link 

realistic 

eyebrows 

These striking and 

realistic-looking 

eyebrows were created 

using a combination 

of ZBrush and the 

Hair Farm plug-in 

for 3ds Max 

zbrush | 3ds max | hair farm 

perfect hair in 

your portraits 

Fábio M Silva shows how to perfect your portraits 

using ZBrush, 3ds Max and the Hair Farm plug-in 

Author 

Fábio M. Silva 

Fábio has been working in 

the CG industry for five years 

and currently works for 

Naughty Dog. 

www.fabiomsilva.com 

t 

oday we will be creating 

eyebrows to ensure your 

portraits look more realistic. 

Just like hair and eyelashes, 

eyebrows are often neglected in 

tutorials about creating the human 

body in 3D, but unrealistic-looking 

eyebrows can really make the 

difference between a believable 

and an unbelievable 3D model. 

First, we will take our model 

into ZBrush and mask the areas 

we need to use as our scalp or hair 

emitter. ZBrush is great for doing 

this since we can basically paint in 

3D on our high resolution model 

in order to make it look exactly 

the way we want it. Then, we 

will perform quick actions 

such as generating UVs and 

retopologising automatically to 

get clean and fast results. 

This technique – which uses 

ZBrush, 3ds Max, the Hair Farm 

plug-in and Photoshop to make 

eyebrows – can also be used to 

create other types of hair. 

DownloAD your reSourceS 




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click to PlAy viDeo 

www.bit.ly/214-hair-1 

02 03 

01 

loADing the MoDel 

01 Load your ZBrush model. If 

you didn’t make it in ZBrush, insert 

a PolyMesh3d object and then 

use the import function. Export 

your model from your 3D package 

to .obj or another format that 

ZBrush supports. Once your model 

is loaded, make a duplicate of it. 

We’ll use this as a backup. 

teSting the MeSh 

02 Paint a test mask onto the 

surface to check if it has enough 

subdivisions to ensure a clean and 

detailed mask. If your mask is low 

resolution or jagged, increase the 

subdivision until you get a clean 

result. It doesn’t really matter if you 

go a bit overboard (as long as it 

doesn’t slow down your machine) 

Symmetry issue 

If when you’re 

painting it doesn’t 

look right and 

your face is not 

symmetrical, 

disable Symmetry 

and do the eyebrows 

one at a time. 

04a 

as we are only interested in getting 

masks to generate objects and we 

won’t overwrite the original object. 

ActivAting SyMMetry 

03 Go to the Transform menu, 

enable Activate Symmetry and 

make sure X is enabled. 

PAinting the 

04 browS MASk 

Start painting the mask for the 

eyebrows. Use reference to ensure 

you get a proper shape. Use 

Ctrl+Alt to erase any unwanted 

areas and Ctrl to add more surface 

to the eyebrow. Review the brows 

from all angles until you’re satisfied. 

04b 

turning the MASk 

05 into A PolygrouP 

Go to the Tool menu. Open the 

polygroup tab, and click Group 

Masked. This will turn our selection 

into a polygroup for easier access, 

and also means it can be isolated 

from the rest of the geometry. 

iSolAting the Selection 

06Hold Ctrl+Shift, then click in 

the masked area of the eyebrows 

to isolate the selection. Go to the 

Tool menu, open the Geometry tab, 

and under subdivision levels, delete 

both Lower and Higher subdivisions 

if you have either of them. 

05 

06a 

06b 


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07 08a 08b 

Deleting the 

07 hiDDen MeSh 

Go to Tool>Geometry, select 

Modify topology, then press the 

Delete Hidden button. This will 

delete all the polygons that are 

not visible at the moment. 

08 Auto-retoPologizing 

the browS 

Go to Tool>Geometry, and 

open the ZRemesher tab. Click 

the ZRemesh button. This tool 

is amazing, as it usually creates 

great topology instantly. A few 

years back, you would need to 

remodel all these polygons by hand, 

something which, depending on 

the complexity of the object, could 

take hours. Now, with a simple click 

and a few seconds… voila! It does a 

really good job most of the time. 

Tweak the values of the 

polycount slider and feel free 

to press Half to turn it on. Click 

ZRemesher a few more times until 

you get a good-looking brow 

mesh that is not too high res (but 

not too low res either). Make sure 

you have enough polys not to 

sacrifice the overall outline we 

had with the brows. 

Setting uP the uvS 

09 uSing uv MASter 

Go to the Zplugin menu. Open 

the UV Master rollout and press 

Unwrap. This will lay out the UVs 

nicely for your mesh, enabling 

us to paint a mask for the brows 

in Photoshop later on. You can 

09a 

convert to 

geometry 

When you are happy 

with your eyebrows, 

you can decide to 

convert them into 

geometry. This option 

can come in handy 

since geometry is fast 

to view in the viewport 

and you can render it 

with any renderer or 

export it to another 

3D package and it will 

still work. 

09b 10 

double check how they look by 

pressing Flatten. While in this 

mode, you can modify the UV’s 

position and scale. Press Unflatten 

to return to the geometry. 

exPorting the browS 

10 MeSh AS .obj 

In the Tool menu, scroll down to 

the Export section. Disable the Grp 

button and leave everything else at 

default (see image 10 to compare 

my export settings with yours). 

Scroll back up, and press Export. 

Save as a .obj file. Alternatively, you 

can use GoZ to transfer your work 

into a compatible application. 

StArt 3DS MAx 

11 Open 3ds Max, go to the 

Import menu, and import the .obj 

(if you used GoZ it should appear in 

the scene automatically). Make sure 

click to PlAy viDeo 

www.bit.ly/214-hair-2 

you also import the original head 

so we can have an idea of how the 

brows will look on the model. 

Select the brows mesh we 

imported, go to the modifier menu, 

and select Hairmesh edit. Choose 

Polygon Selection mode and 

make sure the brows are selected 

completely. Click on Extrude and 

extrude slightly to represent our hair 

volume (in this case, the eyebrow 

hairs’ length). Once you’ve done 

this, adjust the verts until you have 

something that looks more like an 

eyebrow from the top. 

ADjuSt geoMetry 

12 Adjust geometry at the vert 

level from all views. Make sure 

you look at real life references, if 

possible, and your own photos. 

Don’t forget male and female 

eyebrows are very different. 

11 

12 


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13 

generAte hAir 

13 Load a Hair Generate modifier 

and set the hair count to 5,000, 

Length to 28.6 and Thickness Curve 

to 0.01. Play with the viewport 

percentage until you get something 

that is workable in the viewport. 

tweAk the hAir 

14 Press M on the keyboard 

to go to the Material Editor. Add 

a Hair Simple material to the 

editor slot and apply it to the 

eyebrow mesh under the Hair 

Generate modifier in the Material 

section. Tweak the hair count to a 

higher value (15,000) and set the 

length to 100. Darken the diffuse 

colour of the Hair Simple material 

to make the brows darker. Tweak 

the eyebrow shape a bit more 

as you work. 

ADDing A light 

15 Go to Light tab and select 

Target Spot; add it to the scene 

and aim the target at the face. 

Move the light up. Change the 

shadow type to Hair Shadow Map. 

centre your 

mesh directly 

You could also centre 

the pivot directly 

onto the mesh of 

the eyebrow using 

the Align tool and 

choosing the options 

Center to Center 

in XYZ. 

14 

15a 

Fixing the Pivot 

16 Select the brow mesh, go to 

the Hierarchy tab, and select the 

option Affect pivot only. Move the 

pivot up (it should be at 0,0,0 in the 

scene) and place it in the eyebrow, 

where it will help you move the 

eyebrow mesh onto the head mesh. 

tweAking the ShAPe 

17 On the modifier list from 

the brow mesh, go to Editable 

15b 

Poly and change the shape of the 

original mesh to conform better 

to the head. When the warning 

appears about the modifier in 

the stack being dependent on 

topology, simply press Yes. As long 

as no verts or edges are added 

we should be fine. Remember to 

use soft selection to move several 

verts at once. Once you are happy 

with your eyebrows, do a test 

render. Continue to tweak the 

16 

17 


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18 

shape, and extrude once more 

to get a bit more depth and more 

control over the curvature of the 

eyebrow (curvature if viewed 

from above). 

ADDing hAir to 

18 Poly MoDiFier 

Go to the Modifier list and add a 

Hair to Poly. This will convert the 

brows to a mesh. Then go to the 

Hair Generate modifier and tweak 

the thickness. 

Mesh across 

renderers 

Having eyebrows as a 

mesh is great. You can 

view them exactly as 

they will be rendered, 

control and fine-tune 

their thickness, and 

the mesh will work 

on any renderer, even 

if it doesn’t support 

Hair Farm. 

19 20 

ADDing More hAir 

19 Style MoDiFierS 

Add Hairstyle Wisps. This will 

generate more strands of hair. 

Tweak the count until you have 

something desirable. In my case, 

a count of 3 seemed to work well. 

Since we have a lot more hairs, 

this is a good time to refine the 

eyebrow shape. 

ADD A uv MoDiFier 

20 Add an UnwrapUVW modifier. 

Open the UVW Editor. Now go to 

Tools>Render UVW Template. Save 

the image somewhere on your drive. 

PAint in PhotoShoP 

21 Open Photoshop and the file 

we just exported. Using a Round 

brush with 0 Hardness, paint white 

in the areas of the UVs where the 

hair is more dense, and darker 

where it is less dense. It should be 

completely black around the edges 

so the hairs fade out in those areas. 

Save the file and return to 3ds Max. 

hAir DenSity 

22 On the Hair Generate 

modifier, apply the image we 

created into the density slot. 

Change the hair count to 4,000, 

or whatever number seems to 

work best for you according to 

your topology. Keep tweaking 

the shape of the brows. 

Mirroring the brow 

23 Click the Mirror button and 

select X and Copy. This will create 

a copy of our brow on the missing 

side. Feel free to tweak it to make it 

slightly different from the first one. 

21 

22 

23 


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Render a photoreal landscape 

Clarisse 3.0 

RendeR a 

photoReal 

landscape 

Germán Casado Fraga reveals how 

to harness a professional workflow to 

create a detailed landscape for VFX 

Author 


Germán is a freelance 

concept and matte painting 

artist, who currently works at 

The Mill in London. You can 

see his work on his website. 

germancasado.tumblr.com 

clarisse is a very powerful 

application and a godsend 

for CG environment artists. 

In this tutorial, we’ll have a look 

at some of its features. 

The workspace layout is fully 

customisable, so I first make sure 

it shows what I’ll be needing. I also 

create a project structure to keep 

my items organised. 

The scene organisation works 

very much like a regular file 

navigator and it’s very intuitive. 

Folders are called ‘contexts’; 

contexts can be created, 

duplicated, and more importantly, 

referenced in other contexts. 

Once you get used to working this 

way, it’s hard to go back! 

I’ll take you through the steps 

to create a simple landscape 

scene. I’ll be using imagery 

from Utah’s State Geographic 

Information Database (SGID) – 

they have a great portal where 

you can download digital 

elevation images, LIDAR and 

orthophotography 

(www.raster.utah.gov). 

In the online Vault, you can find 

high-resolution screen grabs to 

follow my settings and download 

the texture files used in this scene. 

DownloAD your resourCes 




56 


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01 

GettinG stArteD 

01 Create a map file item by 

right-clicking through the contexts: 

New>Texture>Map>Map File. 

All items can be created by rightclicking 

in the browser window and 

navigating to the relevant section. 

I set the projection mode to Planar 

Y, and set the path to my texture. 

Now I create a polygrid in the 

Geometry context and set its size; in 

this case each pixel of my elevation 

map equals 0.5m, so I make the 

02 

03 

real-life units 

I prefer to work in 

real-life units, and 

Clarisse has no 

problems when 

dealing with 

big scenes. 

polygrid 4,651 km by 3,6455 km, 

and set its divisions to 250. 

I can now go back to my Map File 

node and click on Fit to Bounding 

Box (make sure your Y value is 1). 

My texture is aligned to my grid, so 

I can duplicate it and set its path 

to my colour texture. 

hAnDlinG mAteriAls 

02 I create a material for my 

geometry in my Materials context 

and lock the Attribute Editor by 

clicking on the lock icon. This 

allows me to navigate to where 

my textures are and drag them 

to the corresponding slot in the 

material properties. 

To see the geometry, I drag 

the Geometry folder to the Display 

Selection Mode drop-down in the 

3D view. This is a very common 

workflow in Clarisse. The 3D view 

can be very easily configured to only 

show contexts, geometry groups, 

objects and more. 

It’s now that the texture loads 

into memory: Clarisse only loads 

data when it’s needed. 

AssiGninG the 

03 DisplACement texture 

To add the displacement, you need 

a displacement item. Displacement, 

clip maps and materials are shown 

on the Material Linker (in the far 

right panel under Attributor Editor). 

After assigning my displacement 

texture, I make sure that the Single 

Channel Behaviour in the Attribute 

Editor is set to Force Luminance. 

The polygrid has been displaced 

upwards. I know the lowest value 

of my displacement map, so I 

move my geometry in the Y axis by 

that amount so it’s in line with the 

ground plane. 

trillions oF polyGons 

04 In the 3D view, I change 

the Refresh Mode to FPS Driven. 

This ensures that I’ll have smooth 

interactivity no matter how many 

polygons are in the scene – 

Clarisse’s viewport doesn’t rely on 


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04 

05b 

05a 

05c 

OpenGL, so you can easily navigate 

scenes with trillions of polygons! 

Then I create a Perspective 

Advanced camera in my camera 

context, and drag it to the eye icon 

in the 3D view to look through it and 

compose the shot. 

usinG 3D lAyers 

05 Selecting the Image item, 

I can see in the Layer editor that 

there is a layer called background. 

Every image can contain multiple 

layers, these are 3D layers – 

referring to objects in the scene, 

textures or even other images within 

my scene. In this case, I just need 

a 3D layer. So I create a new Path 

Tracing item in the Shading context 

and assign it as the renderer by 

dragging it to the Renderer slot, 

and I do the same with my camera. 

The Anti Aliasing Sample Count 

can be increased to 12 samples per 

pixel, and I change the Anti Aliasing 

filter to a Blackman-Harris filter. 

liGhtinG the sCene 

06 I now need some light, so I 

click on the chrome ball icon in the 

Lighting tab and pick an HDRI. 

The image is still black. The 3D 

layer in my image has all its visibility 

options set to Use Current Context. 

Forget loDs 

There’s no need to save 

LODs of your objects. 

Clarisse can work with 

your high-res geometry 

all the time. 

You can define geometry groups, 

but in this case I’ll just instance the 

contexts that I want the renderer 

to see. This can be easily done 

by right-clicking and dragging 

whatever context you want the 

renderer to see into the Image 

context. I bring in my Geometry 

context and my Lighting context. 

The Geometry and Lighting 

contexts are now instanced inside 

of the Image context and their icons 

have changed to reflect whether 

they are a source (S) or an instance 

(I). Assets can be organised in their 

own contexts and referenced in 

other contexts or across scenes. 

06 


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You could, for example, create 

a lookdev context that would 

have its own image. You would 

just need to instance in it your 

lighting and whatever asset you 

wanted to lookdev. 

To see my HDRI in the scene, 

I create a new sphere geometry, 

make it very large, assign a Matte 

material to it and point it to the 

HDRI texture. In the Attribute 

Window all the visibility options 

except for Unseen by Renderer 

and Unseen by Camera should 

be ticked. Cast Shadows, Receive 

Shadows and Is Emitter should be 

turned off. We also have to change 

the original texture mapping type 

from Parametric, to Spherical Y. 

work on the 

07 ForeGrounD 

I want to add some detail to the 

foreground of the scene. Since my 

displacement is being applied as 

a planar projection, I can align a 

plane to my foreground and export 

it for detailing. 

To bake out displacement, it 

needs to be applied as a deformer, 

since the displacement I applied 

previously is calculated on the fly. 

To line up my new plane to our 

foreground, I just need to select 

it and move it while pressing the 

[S] key. It will snap to the vertex 

under the mouse. 

Once lined up, and checking 

that it covers enough area, I 

add a Displacement deformer 

in the Deformers drop-down 

menu, making sure I turn Local 

Deformation off. Copy the terrain’s 

Y value, and they should line up 

perfectly. You can export it to an 

external app for editing through the 

File>Export menu. 

After importing the terrain 

back, I can work on my external 

app, updating the file and pressing 

Ctrl+R in Clarisse to reload any 

changed assets. 

To add some rocks to the 

foreground, I import some external 

.obj files into my Geometry context. 

I create a Point Cloud item in my 

Scatterers context and set my newly 

imported foreground object as 

its source in Geometry under the 

Scattering options. Starting with 

a Density of 1. 

07a 

07b 

08a 

08b 

07c 


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09 

10 

11a 

usinG the sCAtterer 

08The Scatterer is a really 

powerful scene tool that enables 

you to scatter tons of scene 

objects. I set my point cloud as 

the Geometry Support, and under 

Geometry I choose my rocks. 

I adjust the Scatter Scale, Scatter 

Scale Variance and set Scatter 

Rotation Variance to 360 on all 

axes. To create a second layer of 

detail, I duplicate and rename 

both my scatterer and point cloud, 

and change their settings to make 

pebbles: 303,811 geometries, 5.568 

billion polygons and no lag at all! 

sCAtter some points 

09 Let’s scatter some points 

on the main terrain. I create a new 

point_uv_sampler in my Scattering 

context. A regular Point Cloud 

item would also do, but the point_ 

uv_sampler looks at values in the 

chosen texture to place the points, 

while the point cloud places them 

and then culls them by looking at 

the texture, so it’s not as efficient. 

ADjustinG pArtiCles 

10 I can see that my particles are 

not sitting on the ground. I move my 

terrain from its original position and 

parent my point cloud so that the 

transformations carry along. In the 

Attribute Editor, I choose a terrain 

as Parent in the Parent slot – right 

under the transform controls – and I 

set the Y translate to zero again. My 

particles are now on the terrain. 

11b 

11c 


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12a 

DeCimAte with textures 

11 You can control which points 

you decimate with a texture. 

I duplicate my colour texture, set its 

mapping to UV and set it as Texture 

in the point_uv_sampler. Some 

points may disappear. If you bring 

up the Material Editor and select 

my point_uv_sampler, you’ll see it’s 

wired to your texture. Now press 

[Tab] and add a Remap node. Adjust 

the curve to improve the scattering. 

ADDinG vAriAtion 

12 The Instance Color node can 

be used to easily add variation. 

Here, we can see how the texture 

maps on the foreground terrain 

and how it maps on the scatterers. 

You can duplicate and offset the 

texture, and blend between them to 

add even more variation and avoid 

tiling. I import my bushes into my 

‘geometry’ folder and use the same 

procedure as with the rocks. 

12b 

12c 

shortcut keys 

If you click and hold 

while positioning an 

object, you can cycle 

through the [W], [E] 

and [T] keys to adjust 

its position, rotation 

and scale in all axes 

on the fly. 

12d 

12e 


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13a 

13b 

13c 

DetAil the ForeGrounD 

13 After tweaking the shaders 

and distribution, I want to add some 

more detail to the foreground. The 

Clone Stamp 3D tool is ideal for 

this process. Select which objects 

you want to ‘paint’, and set the 

randomness you want. A target 

geometry can also be specified. In 

this case, I pick my foreground floor 

and add some more rocks. 

ADDinG Atmosphere 

14 To add atmosphere, I add 

a Geometry Box Volume, set its 

size to encompass my scene and 

assign a volume material to it. I 

usually start with a 0.001 density 

in the volume box and then adjust 

my material settings, tinting the 

scattering blue, and adding red to 

the absorption colour. 

renDer the FinAl sCene 

15 You can do most material 

and lighting tweaking in the 3D 

view, but if you need to look at 

your image, there is a handy slider 

that will reduce the quality of the 

render settings. So you can leave 

your Pathtracer item untouched and 

just adjust the slider to get faster 

feedback. I now just need to render 

my image, replace the sky and do 

some comp work on it. 

14a 

15a 

14b 

15b 


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TuTorials 

Create a striking cloud render 

Follow 

the Video 

when you see the play icon, use the link 

Vue Xstream | photoshop 

click to Play ViDeo 

www.bit.ly/214-clouds 

generate better 

cloud renders 

Vikrant J Dalal reveals how to create a realistic cloud-filled sky 

author 

Vikrant J Dalal 

Vikrant has nine years 

of experience in VFX, 

arch-viz and graphic design 

industries, and now runs his 

own training website. 

www.project01design 

school.com 

For this tutorial, we’ll be using 

Vue xStream to create a sky 

full of clouds. While you 

could choose to recreate the look 

of clouds by using smoke sims, 

for example FumeFX and the 

PheonixFD plug-in for 3ds Max, 

Vue xStream is great as it has a 

special section for clouds, with lots 

of parameters to adjust – that’s 

why it’s used by many animation 

and VFX studios. 

Vue is based entirely on realworld 

clouds, so it’s very easy to 

get up and running in this software 

because it has many default cloud 

set-ups to help you understand 

the parameter settings. These 

settings also help when you’re 

making your own clouds. 

Before you start working on this 

kind of effect, you should have a 

good understanding of what kind 

of clouds you want to create. You 

need to know what density you’d 

like, what the shape of the clouds 

should be, what height is correct 

for your chosen type of cloud, 

how sunlight affects cloud 

shading, and so forth. 

I can’t teach you every 

parameter of this software, as 

there are many and this would take 

a lot of time. Instead, we’ll focus 

on the key stages and settings 

you need to know to create a 

believable cloudy sky. 

This is very interesting subject, 

because you can’t define one fixed 

process when creating this effect. 

As much as you will use your 

creativity and tools, you will create 

different types of effects every 

time you approach the subject. 

Follow my tutorial, and then you 

can use it as a base to begin 

experimenting yourself. 

Being familiar with software 

is the key to getting great 

results. Start by clicking Create 

New>Empty file to launch the 

software workspace. On the right 

hand side, you can see Object 

Properties and Camera Control; 

inside Camera Control you can see 

the small render preview. World 

Browser includes all of the layers, 

(such as Geometry, Camera, Sun 

Light and Clouds) so you can add 

or remove layers easily using this 

browser. 

DownloaD your resources 



creating rich 

environments 

Vue xStream comes 

with many cloud 

presets, so you can 

get started straight 

away. What’s more, 

you can manipulate 

them using the 

parameters to create 

rich and realistic 

atmospheres. 


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TuTorials 

Create a striking cloud render 

create a clouD layer 

01 To start, go to Create New>Empty file and add a 

cloud layer. As we aren’t going to see the clouds from 

the ground, it’s important to adjust the cloud layer to get 

the correct perspective for a sky view. I place the camera 

on top of the clouds (for a dense view, place it inside the 

clouds). To do this, go to the Object Tool Bar and click 

Cloud>Atmosphere Editor>Clouds. 

set the clouD Parameter 

02 Now go to Atmosphere Editor>Clouds>Cloud Layers and click the Load 

button (Arrow Icon). A Materials window will appear stocked with ready-made 

cloud presets, so just select any one cloud layer. I choose Thick Cumulus Layer 

and set the Parameters as: Cloud Scale 2.0, Altitude 400m, Height 765m, Cover 

100%, Density 100%, Opacity 100%. Now click OK and you will see a preview 

appear in Camera Control window. After setting the Clouds Layer, it’s time to 

work on Camera Properties and set up. 

alternative 

sun setting 

You could also just 

select the Sun Light 

and move it using 

the mouse until you 

are happy, but again 

make sure to untick 

the Attach Sun to 

Camera Direction. 

set the camera height 

03 First, select the Camera from World Browser, and 

you’ll see the camera properties menu appear in Object 

Properties. If you want, you can make changes in all 

parameters, but I only want to change the height of the 

camera, so just set Height to 1.05km. Now you’ll see the 

view from the top of the clouds. The next step is to set 

up our sun to light the scene. 

sunlight settings 

04 To set up the sun, start by selecting Sun Light and 

clicking Atmosphere Editor>Sun>Position of the Sun, and 

adjust the Azimuth and Pitch parameters – these dictate 

the horizontal and vertical position of the sun. Make sure 

to untick the Attach Sun to Camera Direction, otherwise 

your sun will move with the camera angle, which will 

create problems when working with an animated camera. 

renDer setuP 

05Before rendering, check your scene in the preview 

window. Now right-click on the camera icon (top right): 

A settings window will appear. Make these changes: set 

the Preset Render Quality to Final, Render Destination to 

Render to Screen, Picture Size & Resolution to 1600x900. 

Now click Render. It will take 15 minutes to an hour to 

render a single frame, once it’s finished, save it manually. 

comPosite in PhotoshoP 

06 Once the render is finished, you can import it into picture editing 

software, such as Photoshop, as a single frame, or if it’s a sequence then 

import into After Effects (or any other compositing software). I’m using 

Adobe Photoshop, so I import the element and then drag it into Time Line. 

I select my cloud layer and go to Filter, then click Color Correction and select 

Brightness & Contrast, Color Balance and Sharpen. Now make modifications 

in parameters as per your requirements, and you have your cloudy sky. 


65 


swiff 

directors 

Alexis Agliata, 

Arnaud Bellour, 

Juliana 

Berckmans, Théo 

Bonora, Thibaud 

Gambier and 

Romain Lavoine 

music 

Simon Lebrun 

sound 

Le studio des 

Aviateurs 

production 

ESMA Montpellier 

web 

www.facebook.com/ 

swiffthemovie 

Maya, yeti, RendeRMan (RiS), nuke 

Master Yeti to 

create cartoon fur 

romain lavoine reveals how to create wooly cartoon 

characters and set up your animation scene 


66 


AuthoR 

Romain Lavoine 

romain is a 

student driven by a 

passion for detailed 

environments. 

lavoineromain.com 

s 

wiff is the story of a dirthating 

extraterrestrial who 

is travelling in space. He 

breaks down and crashes on Earth 

in the countryside. In this ‘terra 

incognita’ adventure Swiff goes 

looking for a compatible fuel 

source for his spaceship. During 

his quest, he finds himself face to 

face with a hyperactive little boy 

who is definitely going to give him 

a hard time. 

While working on the short film, 

I had the opportunity to use 

Peregrine Labs’ Yeti and Pixar’s 

RenderMan (RIS). In this tutorial, 

I will explain some of the key 

techniques used in Yeti to make 

the sheep’s wool (fur), and an 

instancing solution for Maya. 

I needed to learn Yeti for 

Swiff, and along the way picked 

up some useful tricks that I hope 

you will find equally handy for 

your animated film projects. Over 

the coming pages, I will share 

my process for setting up and 

combing fur in Yeti, as well as how 

we created the scene for our short. 

DownLoAD youR ResouRces 




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Create cartoon fur 

pRepARe the teRRAin 

01 The first step is to establish a good cartoon 

environment for the character we’ll create and add later 

on. I tend to work in a different, smaller scene to the final 

scene, and when I’m happy with the look of the object or 

terrain that I’m working on, I reimport the asset into the 

final scene. For the grass, I create a basic terrain in Maya 

and I import my own light rig, which contains multiple 

lighting conditions for different times of day. 

cReAte the teRRAin AnD unwRAp uVs 

02 For this terrain, as I want to work in a smaller area than my actual terrain, 

I create a rounded surface with just a few polygons, where I can populate some 

grass. Yeti uses a cache system and it can take a long time to generate if you’re 

using big terrain. By using a smaller version of the surface, I make sure that the 

caching time doesn’t exceed a few seconds. The goal is to define the look of 

the grass so there’s no need to waste time on a big surface. Once I model the 

basic terrain, I unwrap the UVs using Maya’s default tools. 

ADDing the stRipes 

03 We wanted everything in our short film to be striped. To 

do this I use Ramp, Maya’s procedural texture solution. I create a 

ramp in Maya and plug in a PxrDisney shader. It’s just for preview 

so you can use any shader. Use the place2dTexture to repeat your 

ramp as much as needed. In my example, I do it directly in the 

ramp to add a bit of variation in the stripe width. I also connect a 

PxrConstant in every colour of the ramp for more control. 

time saver 

For the short film, 

we had more than 

a hundred shots to 

set up with grass. 

i created a simple 

script to automate 

the ramp creation 

process. using 

python allows you 

to automate simple 

tasks and can save 

you a lot of time. 

pRepARe the geometRy foR instAncing 

04 We decided to instance polygons in order to get 

more control over the look of the grass, but you can 

also create a fur system in Yeti and use it as grass. If you 

decide to use polygons, create a few bundles of grass in 

Maya using basic modelling techniques. There is no need 

to add a lot of polygons as the tiny details will get lost. 

You also have to make sure that your grass is at the centre 

of the world in Maya to make it work with Yeti. 

open yeti 

05 Yeti is very powerful and offers great optimisation 

possibilities. It allows you to instance millions of polygons 

very easily. Start by selecting your terrain and go to 

Yeti>Create Yeti Node On Mesh. Open the Yeti Graph 

Editor. In order to control the stripes separately, create 

multiple Yeti systems corresponding to the different 

areas of grass. I convert my coloured Ramp to a black and 

white ramp in order to use it as a density map in Yeti. 


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TuTorials 


noDes in yeti 

06 Next, select your Yeti node in the Outliner, and go 

to the Attribute Editor. You should see your terrain in the 

Input Objects tab. If you don’t, add it. Add the objects 

you want to instance and make sure that they are at the 

centre of the grid in Maya. 

setting up noDes 

07 In the Graph Editor, create an Import node, a Texture node and a 

Scatter node. The texture node will be used to control the density of our 

instanced geo. In order to do so, I bake my ramp into a texture. It allows me to 

retouch the map afterwards if necessary. I use Nightshade Blockout to bake 

the Ramp. It’s free and available on www.creativecrash.com. 

instAnce youR geometRy 

08 Once you’ve connected your densityMap in the 

Texture node, add ‘density’ in the attribute of the node. 

Create an Instance node and another Import node. Use 

the Import node to choose the geometry to instance and 

connect it to the second input of the Instance node. Set 

the Instance node to Element and add scale and twist 

variation; use the Scatter node to change the density. 

For more variation, add a custom attribute, create a few 

graphs with different types of grass and merge them. 

ADDing shADeRs 

09 We used RenderMan RIS for rendering. The 

materials available in RenderMan are physically plausible 

and offer great possibilities. I use a Pxr LMDiffuse as 

a base and connect different variations of the texture 

for the front and the back. Then I use a LMLayer to 

add a specular layer over it. I’ve also played with the 

translucence of the LMDiffuse to get a softer look. Simply 

assign the shader to your Yeti node to make it work with 

the instances. 

sheep shape 

the sheep in our film 

have very small feet 

and their wool has 

to be striped. we 

wanted them to be 

very stylised even 

in their behaviour. 

the character 

design and the 

modelling were done 

by Alexis Agliata. 

i was in charge of 

the texturing, the 

grooming and 

the shading. 

cReAting the sheep 

10 Select your mesh and go to Yeti>Create Yeti Node 

On Mesh. Do the same with Yeti>Create Groom Node 

On Mesh. This will create a pgYetiNode and pgYetiGroom 

in your Outliner. Select the pgYeti and go to the Yeti 

Graph Editor. Click on the Import Button and doubleclick 

on the node Yeti has created. This will pop up in a 

window. Make sure the type is set to Geometry, then click 

the button on the right of the Selection field. 

AppLy fuR 

11 In the new pop up, select the object you want your fur to be applied 

to and click Select. If you need to manually add objects in the list, select the 

pgYeti, go into the Attribute Editor, under Graph>Input Objects and click on 

Add Object. Weirdly, sometimes the list doesn’t seem to update after adding 

a new object. Select anything else in the Outliner and then select your pgYeti 

again to see the new object correctly added to the list. 


69 


TuTorials 


12 

impoRt youR gRoom 

Select your pgYeti node and go to the Attribute Editor (Ctrl+A). Under 

Graph>Input Grooms click on Input Grooms. In the list, select the groom that 

you’ve previously created. Now, go back to the Yeti Graph Editor and click on 

Import. Select and double-click the new Import node. Set the type to Groom 

and select the groom like we did previously with the geometry. You now have 

two import nodes in your graph. Keep your graph organised and name your 

Yeti node correctly. 

stARt gRooming 

13 In the Yeti Graph, create a Scatter node, connect 

the import_geo to the first input of the Scatter. Select 

the scatter and create a Grow node. If you double-click 

on the Scatter, you will be able to increase the density. 

Connect the import_groom to the second Input of the 

Grow. Select the Groom node in your Outliner and go 

into the Attribute Editor. You will find a wide range of 

tools that you can use to create various hair effects. 

Length change 

note that you have a 

Length multiplier in 

the Grow node if you 

want to increase or 

decrease the length 

of anything. 

popuLAting stRAnDs 

14 Start by pressing the + button. This will allow you 

to populate your mesh with strands that will be used to 

create the hair in the pgYetiNode. Under the Brush tab, 

you will find Radius and Strength parameters. Under the 

Strand tab, there is a slider called Initial Strand Length. 

Increase this a little bit if the default parameter doesn’t fit 

what you need. Click on your mesh to populate strands. 

contRoL the Length 

15 You can easily control the length of your strands by 

going to the Attribute Paint tab. Simply double-click on 

the Length parameter, set the Value to the number you 

want and set the Mode depending on what you want. 

The Multiply and Randomize modes can help you create 

a lot of cool variations. For my sheep, I increased the 

length of the head area to match the original design. 

using the comb noDe 

16 It’s time to create a bit of mess. Create a Comb 

node. Connect the Grow to the first Input of the Comb 

and connect the Groom to the second Input. At this 

stage, I play with the different tools in Yeti to create 

variations. Take your time, especially if your character 

will be seen from different angles. When I am done 

tweaking the strands, I add a Curl node. It creates some 

nice curling effects in every strand. This adds a lot of 

variations and makes your fur look more realistic. 

unDeRstAnDing cLumping 

17 The Clumping node is one of the most important nodes in Yeti. To apply 

the Clump, select your current network and duplicate it; create a Clump node. 

Play with the Density and the Length parameters on one of the networks 

to enhance the effect. You can play with this technique many times in your 

grooming network to make multiple clumping effects. Note that you can also 

use the Clump tool to enhance the clump effect in some areas. 


70 


TuTorials 


benD the cLumps 

18 To finish my base network, I add a Bend node (which in this case is crucial 

to bend the clump we previously made and get the look we want). Playing 

with the combination of different nodes allows you to get subtle and very cool 

effects. This leads us to the Merge Node… 

the meRge noDe 

19 In order to make the sheep look better, I create a 

few networks with different looks – the only thing I need 

to do is merge them. You can create different pgYetis and 

let them overlap each other but this is not the best option 

for my sheep. I prefer to create everything in one pgYeti 

network and merge them by creating a Merge node and 

connecting input one and two to the desired networks. 

20 

the wiDth noDe 

To complete my graph, I need to control the 

width of my fur. I create a Width node and put it at the 

end of my graph, then I am able to control the width 

of the base and the tip. I get pretty good results with a 

value of 0.07 for the base and 0.03 for the tip. There is 

also the Multiplier parameter if needs be. 

optimise youR DispLAy 

21 Optimisation is obviously very important when dealing with fur. The 

more fur you have in your scene, the harder it will be to navigate. You can hide 

the Yeti Node by going into the Show Panel (Viewport) and unticking Plugin 

Shapes, or by using the attribute provided in the pgYeti Node. In the pgYeti, 

you will find a Display tab. Three parameters are available to control the display 

(and only the display) in the viewport: the density, the length and the width. 

optimise youR RenDeR 

22 In the pgYeti under the Display tab, there is a tab 

called Render. You will find the exact same parameters as 

in Display, but for rendering. I like to set my density value 

in the Scatter node and set the render density after that. 

On some shots, the sheep are quite far from the camera 

so don’t need much density. I decrease the render 

density accordingly. 


71 


TuTorials 


Render Density 

You can play with 

the render density 

parameter to increase 

or decrease the 

overall density of 

your graph. 

Limit of the ViewpoRt 

23 The preview of Yeti in the viewport is great but it 

has some limitations. At some point, you need a render to 

see if you’re going in the right direction. When I start the 

grooming of my sheep, I import my light rig and render a 

couple of images at each stage of the Yeti graph in order 

to get a better look of what my fur is going to look like. I 

use the PxrMarschnerHair available in RenderMan RIS to 

shade the fur. 

24 

cReAte the stRipes 

The final thing to finish the sheep is to add the 

stripes. I could use the same techniques that I used for 

the grass but with fur, but there is another method. After 

creating a ramp with a series of stripes, I create a Pxr 

Manifold and I connect it to the Maya ramp. Without the 

Pxr Manifold, it won’t work properly. In the Connection 

Editor, connect the Result S (Pxr Manifold) to uCoord 

(Ramp) and ResultT (Pxr Manifold) to vCoord (Ramp). 

finish the stRipes 

25 To last thing to do in order to make the stripes 

work is to add the correct information in the Pxr Manifold. 

Add surf_s in PrimVar S/ST and surf_t in PrimVar T. Note, 

if you are not using a Maya node – you want to use a 

texture that you painted, for instance – simply create a 

PxrTexture and drag and drop the Pxr Manifold in the 

Manifold field of the PxrTexture. Once the stripes are set 

up, I work more on the shader in order to get a nice look. 

impoRting the scene 

26 Now all the assets are created, textured and shaded, it’s time for me to 

gather them all into the scene. I start by creating a new scene in Maya and I 

import my main assets. I add the grass at the end of the process because it’s 

quite heavy for Maya and not essential at this point. The important thing is 

to get the main elements to start the lighting. Keep your Outliner as clean as 

possible in order to stay organised. 

importing assets 

in order to be more 

efficient when dealing 

with a lot of assets, i 

create a python script 

with a simple ui that 

we use to import our 

assets. navigating 

through all the folders 

just to get a maya file 

and import would be 

very time consuming. 

stARt the Lighting 

27 The lighting of my scene is daylight, the sun is high 

and some clouds are casting shadows on the ground. 

I create an HDR of one of our scenes that we use as a 

base in the main environment shot. Then I add a simple 

Directional Light to enhance the lighting direction. To 

enhance certain areas, I put some colours in the light and 

shadows or plug in some textures. This creates contrast. 

ADDing the gRAss 

28 Using the technique that I explained before, I apply 

the grass to my main terrain. With my camera angle, 

I don’t need the same density of grass everywhere. I 

simply split the terrain into different meshes and create 

a different Yeti node. I reduce the Render Density of 

the grass. The scene looks the same but the caching 

time is reduced. Optimise your scene as much as 

possible, especially when you are working with instances, 

otherwise it can become too large. 


72 


TuTorials 


29 

pLAcing pLAnts 

It’s time to go into detail. I start by adding mushrooms all around the 

scene, then some plants. I also add trees in the background to add variation. 

The more variation you add, the better it will be. Our universe is very colourful 

and it was not always easy to deal with it. Most of the time, I import a simple 

version in Photoshop and do a couple of tests with various colours. The 

important thing is to keep the image clear and readable. 

30 

ADDing Rocks 

I want to make the ground more interesting so I add 

more variation of colour and textures in the grass. I decide 

to add some tiny rocks. I’ve found a very cool, free script 

called RockGen from Creative Crash (www.creativecrash. 

com/maya/script/rockgen). I launch the script, choose the 

number of rocks, and their height and click Generate. I can 

now place these rocks in my scene. 

using sppAint3D 

31 spPaint3d is a must-use script on Creative Crash 

(www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/sppaint3d). It 

enables you to duplicate or instance a series of meshes 

on a surface. This is very useful for an environment scene 

like this one. It allows me to place all the clovers, the 

rocks and the plants randomly in a very short amount of 

time. There are a lot of parameters I can tweak just to add 

variation in the placement of my meshes. 

spLitting youR scene 

32 In order to have more flexibility in compositing, I split my scene into 

different parts. Splitting your scene really helps when you need to tweak 

particular elements separately. I use different render layers to split my assets 

and recombine them in Nuke. For the background, I create a Yeti node on the 

hill using the same technique as the grass. I work in a different Maya scene to 

keep it light. Once the hill is created, it can be reused in other shots. 

finishing using nuke 

33 We use Nuke for compositing. In an environment scene like this one, 

I really recommend adding a bit of atmosphere (using the ZDepth as a mask) 

to help the legibility of your image. After this tiny modification, I use a few 

Grade nodes to enhance some parts of the image using the ID channel. To 

complete, I add a bit of vignetting, a spot of depth of field and a touch of 

chromatic aberration. 


73 


Artist q&A 

ARTIST 

Your CG problems solved 

Q&A 

Practical tips and tutorials from 

pro artists to improve 

your CG skills 

Kevin Kleyla 

Kevin has worked within the 

arch-viz world for the past 

16 years. He currently works as a 3D 

designer for NA-Collective in New York. 

www.akueous.com 

Paul Hatton 

Paul leads a studio of 

visualisers based in the UK. 

He delivers a host of projects including 

video and interactive environments. 

www.cadesignservices.co.uk 

Francis-Xavier Martins 

Francis-Xavier is a character 

artist and CG generalist 

based in Brighton, with over a decade of 

experience in video games, media and TV. 

www.polyjunky.com 

Nick Leonard 

Nick specialises in texturing, 

look development and 

lighting. He works as a lighting technical 

director for MPC Film. 

www.nickleonard.co.uk 

Jason Knight 

Jason is a freelance digital 

artist with over 33 years’ 

experience. His latest obsession is his 

much-loved Wacom tablet. 

www.knightgraphics.daportfolio.com 

GET IN TOUCH 

EmAIl yOUR qUESTIONS TO 


SOFTWARE: 3dS mAx 

HoW can I aDD stItcHIng 

to my geometry? 

Amy Knowles, UK 

Kevin Kleyla replies 

Adding a stitching pattern to 

your geometry can be a simple 

process that helps to add a higher level 

of detail and realism to your creations. 

By adding a stitching pattern, you are 

communicating to the viewer that you have 

placed a great deal of thought into the 

overall reality of your environment. 

It is very important when creating a 

model that you think about its actual 

construction. In the real world, constructed 

objects have seams and stitching. These 

tell a story of construction and materiality, 

which is a necessary reality that should not 

be ignored when making models. 

The best way to add realism to your 

environment is by giving some indication as 

to how the objects within it are made. No 

matter how crazy or unique your creations 

are, once you explain to the viewer that 

your reality is actually possible, you have 

suspended their disbelief and you have 

them pretty much hooked. 

This takes a little advanced planning on 

your part. Therefore, when modelling your 

geometry, try and think ahead. Think about 

where the seams and stitching will be 

placed, and adjust your model accordingly. 

Personally, I like to start with a clean piece 

of geometry, and then divide it up into 

smaller sections. These smaller sections 

represent the different pieces that will be 

stitched together in order to create one 

larger piece. 


74 


eXPert tiP 

Artist q&A 


Use edge CoNstraiNts 

If you need to create a continuous loop on your geometry, simply select an edge/ring 

selection and connect the edges. With the new edge loop selected, you can move 

it into place. Before you move it, enable the Edge Constraints so your loop can only 

move within the constrained edges of your geometry. 

steP-by-steP CreATe STiTCHiNG 

Once I have divided the sections, I create a 

seam, or in this case simply fillet the edges 

between two or more sections. For this 

part, it is good to look at some reference 

images in order to decide exactly which 

type of seam you wish to create. 

For my example, I choose a simple 

straight seam with a top stitch as a 

decorative element. I kept my stitching 

pretty simple, but if your camera view is 

more of a macro shot, add more detail. 

To create a stitching pattern, you only 

need two basic components: the stitch and 

the stitch path. The stitch will be a separate 

piece of geometry and the stitch path will 

be extracted from your existing geometry 

– allowing the stitch to follow the exact 

contours of your geometry. 

To add the stitching, I will be using the 

Spacing Tool in the Extras tool palette in 

3ds Max. You may need to load the palette 

into your interface by right-clicking the 

ribbon and activating it. The Spacing tool is 

a sub-tool located within the Array button. 

It arrays your stitch geometry along a given 

path at an interval you select. 

Create stitCH geoMetry 

01To model the stitch, start by creating 

a rectangle with rounded corners in 

3ds Max. Collapse the rectangle to an 

editable spline and remove the lower 

segments. In the control panel, under the 

Rendering tab, click on Enable In Viewport 

to give it a thickness. Now, collapse it to 

an editable poly. Once it is modelled to 

your liking, adjust the pivot so it is just 

below the lower edge of the stitch. 

Use sPaCiNg tooL 

03Activate the Spacing Tool, which 

will open a window within your interface. 

Select the stitch geometry you have 

modelled, click the button Pick Path, and 

select a path. Use the Spacing option and 

enter a distance. Make sure to tick the 

Follow box. This assigns the paths’ local 

coordinates to your newly added stitch 

geometry. Click Apply to execute. 

eXtraCt stitCH PatH 

02 Once you have your base geometry 

divided into sections, you will need to 

extract a shape or path for your stitching 

to follow. Once you have located a 

continuous loop, select it and click the 

Create Shape From Selection button 

within the Modify Panel. This will create 

a new spline for you to use as a path. 

Duplicate this process for each stitching 

path, as they need to be separate shapes. 

adJUst iF Needed 

04Once you have the stitch geometry 

multiplied along your path, it may need 

some minor adjusting. It can sometimes 

be rotated in the wrong direction; this 

is an easy fix since you ticked the Follow 

box. If you need to rotate the geometry, 

do so using the Local Coordinate System. 

Simply select your new geometry and 

rotate it/them in the necessary local axis. 


75 


Artist q&A 


SOFTWARE: 3dS mAx 

In 3Ds max, HoW Do I 

populate my booksHelves 

quIckly anD realIstIcally? 

Nico Forbes, US 

Paul Hatton replies 

The best and most robust 

solution I’ve found for this is 

to use the Itoo plug-in RailClone for 3ds 

Max. It seems that people are constantly 

finding new and exciting uses for this plugin, 

so it’s well worth the investment. There 

is also a lite version available if you know 

you’ll only need a basic implementation of 

the plug-in. Once you have it, it’s not that 

difficult to create realistic bookshelves. 

Firstly, create the splines to represent 

the back of your shelves, then create a 

RailClone object from 3ds Max’s Create 

panel. With your RailClone object selected, 

open the Style Editor; create a Spline node 

by dragging it from the Items list. With it 

selected, go to the Properties panel and 

add your splines into the Object parameter. 

Having successfully done that, you need 

to add a Linear array node to your editor 

and plug the Spline node into the Spline 

input of the Linear array. Then create a 

Material operator and plug it into the 

Default node of the Linear array. In the 

material properties, set Replace Material ID 

to 2 and set the range from 2 to 50. 

It’s now time to create your book objects, 

so in the Style editor create a Segment 

object node for each book. With that 

complete, create a Randomize operator 

and plug each book node into an input 

node of the the Randomize operator. You’ll 

also need to wire the Randomize operator 

into the Material node. To ensure that 

your books are aligned to the splines you 

have created, you’ll also need to create a 

Transform operator and place it between 

the Randomize and Material nodes. In its 

properties, make sure that Alignment is 

turned on and set Y to Top. 

There is a whole host of other things 

that you can do to control the placement 

of your books, but I’ll just mention that 

you can quickly and easily customise how 

the books appear on your shelf by using 

the properties of the Transform node. 

You’ll notice that there are two tabs in its 

properties. You want the Transform one. 

Tick each of the Translation, Rotation and 

Scale check boxes. By adjusting the ranges 

for each axis you can make your books 

appear a lot more random. 

eXPert tiP 

Free sCriPt aLterNative 

Back in 2013, a guy called Kamil 

Malagowski created a script called 

Fill my shelves, which performs a 

similar function. This script provides 

parameters for customising the 

layout of your books and you can 

even set the books to lean on each 

other in natural looking formations. 


76 


ARTIST Q&A 


eXPert tiP 

sNaKeHooK CoNtroL 

To get a pointed tip when using 

the SnakeHook brush, go to Brush, 

Curve, and make sure Accucurve 

is turned on. Also if you want your 

mesh to follow the model when using 

the brush, hold down Alt and it will 

do just that as opposed to shooting 

out in an arbitrary direction. 

SOFTWARE: ZbRUSH 

HoW can I sculpt 

HaIr In ZbrusH? 

Kim Lee, US 

Gandalf’s beard and moustache were created using the CurveTube 

brush, with the SnakeHook brush used to add a pointy effect 

Francis-Xavier Martins replies 

To illustrate this, I’ll be sculpting 

a cartoon version of Gandalf 

from the Lord of the Rings books. This 

particular model is based on a sketch by 

Alberto Camara. Check him out online, his 

work is awesome. 

Fifty percent of this model is hair, and 

when it comes to sculpting hair, there are 

many ways to go about it. First, I split each 

section into subtools. The hair is extracted 

from the head, I use the Move tool to get it 

into position and then Dynamesh. Once I 

am happy with the shape, I use ZRemesher 

for nice even topology. 

The tash is created using the CurveTube 

brush. Going into the Stroke menu, I am 

able to adjust the size, using the Curve 

Modifier to get it tapered. 

The beard was another appended 

ZSphere. Because I want cuts at the 

bottom, I don’t want too much depth. Once 

I have the shape I want, I retopologize 

just the front part of it with the ZSphere 

tool and then use the ZModeler brush to 

Qmesh some depth into it. 

The brows are the CurveTube brush 

again, layered on top of one another. I use 

the SnakeHook brush to pull out the pointy 

ends on the brows and the tash. 

For the actual sculpting, I divide the 

mesh into sections with the Dam_standard 

brush then use the ClayBuildup brush with 

LazyMouse turned on to give me some 

smooth, even strokes. It’s important to 

have Backface Masking turned on when 

sculpting on a thin mesh so as not to pull 

the faces on the other side. Because this 

is a cartoon style, I don’t want excessive 

details in the sculpt, so I run a Clay Polish 

on it, unmask and then go over it again with 

the Standard brush in a few areas to bring 

out some subtle details and catch the light. 

For more realistic hair, I would use the 

Standard brush with an alpha and go over 

the model to really bring out the details. 

This requires a lot of patience and coffee! 

But in my case, I apply simple colours and 

my model is done. 


77 


Artist q&A 


SOFTWARE: mAyA | ARNOld | NUkE 

HoW can I Improve my sHaDIng 

anD look Development skIlls? 

Juan Diego González, Chile 

Nick Leonard replies 

Before we start building up 

our shaders, we need to know 

exactly what we’re trying to recreate, so pull 

up a few images from Google or even your 

own photographic references if you have 

any. Pay really close attention to the way 

the light interacts with the surface and how 

the reflection is being scattered, absorbed 

and distributed across the subject/object. 

Typically in film, your reflection/specular 

value should always be left at 1 to achieve 

physically plausible and accurate results. 

That being said, I believe as long as the 

final result looks convincing enough, then 

you can play around with the specular 

intensity. Most surfaces such as wood and 

plastic will range between 1.4 and 1.6 IOR, 

which gives us a good ball park figure to 

start with. Once we’ve got our references 

of what we’re trying to create, let’s set up 

a HDRI for fill and a directional or area 

light as our sunlight. 

If your shaders appear to be 

overexposed, first try adjusting the 

intensity of the HDRI and sunlight before 

adjusting the specular intensity, which 

should typically be set and left at 1. The 

majority of the time, shaders are let 

down by the lack of detail which comes 

from a well-made roughness, bump or 

displacement map. If we use the wood in 

this piece as an example of how to build 

the shader, we need to firstly connect a 

high resolution (1/2k) tileable wood texture 

into the diffuse colour parameter. Next, 

we take that diffuse texture and create a 

specular map out of it by making it black 

and white, followed by adding a Levels 

correction. Next, we need to invert the 

specular map to create a roughness map. 

For now, we can leave the specular map 

out and plug in our roughness map. By 

using a roughness texture, we’re telling the 

surface to reflect light differently based 

on roughness at different points on the 

surface, creating a random look. As light 

hits the surface, it will now react differently 

at certain points. On the surface, more 

light will be reflected back to the camera, 

creating a more glossy look, and in other 

areas light will be spread over the surface 

creating a rougher look. Next, we need to 

add surface detail by plugging the specular 

map we created into the bump parameter. 

eXPert tiP 

aCCUrate ModeLLiNg 

Be careful of straight and sharp 

edges on objects, they’re a serious 

giveaway! Most edges aren’t 

perfectly straight unless they’ve 

been precision cut using a machine, 

which does happen in some cases. 

Most objects will have small bumps 

and slightly turbulent and softer 

edges. I subtly warped the edges of 

the wood on my record player. Pay 

close attention to the edges of your 

models and soften using bevels 

and edge loops. 


78 


Artist q&A 


steP-by-steP THe reCorD PlAYer 

01 ModeLLiNg 

The record player has some slightly trickier parts to model, 

but overall it is quite straightforward – with a simple box-like shape 

and a few curves for the handle at the back. 

I start off with a cube and extrude away until I have the really 

basic form. When the proportions are correct, and I’m happy with 

the results, I think about adding edge softness. This can be done 

by either using edge loops with a smooth shape on top or using a 

simple bevel on each edge. I choose to bevel my edges in Maya, 

but first I decide to UV the basic model to save myself time later 

on. This means that when I now go to add my bevels and edge 

loops, the overall UV shape won’t change. 

02 teXtUriNg 

The wood on the record player is made using several high 

resolution wood textures all from the same type of tree to keep 

the look consistent. You can tile your textures, but in this case I 

don’t want anything repeating because that’s also another clear 

giveaway that it’s CG. So I organise about three or four different 

variations of that wood texture and start planar mapping each 

section of the record player. Be very careful of the scaling of the 

wood when you’re lining your textures up on your model. Common 

mistakes are either making the textures repeat, making the object 

look huge, or making the textures too large on the object so that 

the object looks miniature. Again, pay close attention to the scale 

of the texture on the model you’re trying to replicate and never 

work simply using your imagination. 

03 sHadiNg 

For this project, I use Arnold to render with AL shaders as 

opposed to the standard Arnold stock shaders. Arnold is fast 

and efficient at brute force rendering – which is the direction the 

industry is moving towards – and it delivers great results, so it’s 

pretty much win-win. The AL shaders really give me the control 

I need and they’re really easy to use. 

Build your shader up using lots of different layers to really add 

that extra bit of detail that the eye picks up on, for example, by 

adding scratches and dirt to an extra varnish layer. You can use 

a standard Maya layered shader to stack your textures/shaders. 

Alternatively, I use the AL colour and AL layer nodes to build up a 

really solid and believable shader with lots of different layers. 

I’d also recommend adding black and white maps into the mask 

channel of the AL Colour node to break up detail from layer to 

layer, adding even more detail. 

gradiNg (CoLorLooKUP) 

04I like to reach a point with my render where I’d be happy 

enough to rely on the render alone. Compositing and grading 

really does take the image a long way, but if you can achieve a 

solid looking image straight out of the render engine, even better! 

Most rendered images will look slightly flat, so you’ll need to 

make a contrast adjustment, pushing the blacks and whites in the 

image until they stand out. The ColorLookUp node in Nuke has 

a lot of good pre-sets that you can play around with, but I like to 

make my own adjustments first. Using the ColorLookUp’s RGB 

curves, I push red into the highlights, blue into the shadows and a 

weak orange colour into the mid-tones. 

To finish the image off, I add slight diffusion to blur the 

highlights to give a very subtle glowing effect. I blur and increase 

the brightness of the background to give a photographic feel 

to the shot. To make the record player feel like it’s in the same 

environment as the background, I use LightWrap in Nuke to push 

light around the edges and give it a nice light bleed, and render. 


79 


Artist q&A 


eXPert tiP 

Use tHe CoMPositiNg tag 

When you’re compositing 3D 

models onto photos using Cinema 

4D, getting the shadows to cast 

correctly and feel realistic can be 

tricky. Luckily, Cinema 4D has the 

Compositing Tag that simplifies the 

process. In Cinema 4D R18 it is even 

easier, Maxon has now added the 

new Shadow Catcher shader. 


80 


Artist q&A 


SOFTWARE: CINEmA 4d R17 

HoW Do I make realIstIc 

sHaDoWs on top of an Image? 

Joel Wrigglesworth, UK 

Jason Knight replies 

I played the game Myst in the 

mid ‘90s, and like much of 

the world was completely fascinated and 

immersed with the amazing 3D graphics, 

so I landed myself a free copy of Bryce 2.0 

at a software and hardware tradeshow. I 

still remember making my first render, a 

simple island nested in a water plane. It 

was a case of a few clicks, picking a water 

texture, adding some sunlight and hitting 

render. It was an amazing feeling to be able 

to create such realistic visuals, whole worlds 

even, with very little effort. I was hooked! 

Back then, my wife always said she didn’t 

like the unrealistic horizon line in my Bryce 

renders, nor how fake the shadows always 

looked. I frequently found myself trying 

to compensate by hiding the horizon with 

objects and by editing the shadows in 

other photo editing software. Anyone who 

used Bryce back then knows exactly what I 

am talking about. 

I remember wishing there was an easy 

way to composite 3D objects and their 

shadows on to a 2D image or background, 

and had I been a software developer, 

I probably would have created a plug-in 

that solved the issue and made millions. 

Instead, I just waited around for others to 

come up with a solution. 

Fortunately, in modern times, casting 

realistic shadows on top of an image is 

fairly easy. In my image titled Pluvia Mundi 

(which is Latin for Rain World), I used 

Cinema 4D to set up and render convincing 

3D objects and shadows over a 2D image 

that I use for the background. Although 

the process is pretty straightforward, 

sometimes getting the shadows to cast 

and feel realistic can be a bit tricky. 

In this article, I cover the four steps I use 

to get everything set up using a still photo 

as the background, while casting shadows 

from 3D objects onto the floor. 

The background image was obtained 

from the US Library of Congress 

(www.bit.ly/picture-resource). I felt it had 

the perfect mood for what I was trying to 

achieve, and it also saved me the trouble 

of having to model and texture something 

similar for the background. It also had no 

known restrictions on use or publication. 

If you are lucky enough to have the latest 

release of Cinema 4D, there is some 

exciting news. Maxon has just rendered 

everything I have written in the steps below 

obsolete. In Cinema 4D R18, you can easily 

integrate 3D objects into photos or live 

footage with the new Shadow Catcher 

shader. You simply apply the shader to 

steP-by-steP MAKiNG THe SHADoW CATCHer 

Create baCKgroUNd 

01I start by cleaning up my image 

in Photoshop. Once I’m happy with it, I 

then create a new material in Cinema 4D 

and add my edited image to the Color 

channel, turning off the Reflectance 

channel. Under Create>Environment, I 

add a Background Object and apply the 

previously created material. 

set UP CaMera 

03 I create a Camera, make it active 

and add a Protection tag so I don’t move it 

by mistake. I apply the same background 

material to my Plane Object and change 

the Projection from UVW Mapping to 

Frontal. I add the Compositing tag to 

my Plane Object. In the Compositing 

tag properties, I turn on Compositing 

Background and turn off Cast Shadows. 

geometry that roughly matches the 

footage or background image and 

composite the rendered result using an 

alpha that includes shadows. 

For the rest of us that are still using 

the older version of Cinema 4D (and why 

not?), my method works like a charm. 

Hope this solution helps! 

LiNe UP tHe FLoor 

02 I notice that my background image 

looks distorted. This can be corrected 

by adjusting my render settings to match 

the aspect ratio of my background image. 

Next, I add a Plane Object and adjust the 

view so that the Plane Object roughly lines 

up with the floor. I test the perspective by 

adding a Cube Object to the scene. 

add LigHtiNg 

04The Plane Object is displaying the 

background image correctly, but I don’t 

have any shadows yet. I add one main 

light near the window as the primary light 

source. I set the type to Omni and turn 

on Soft Shadows. Next, I add additional 

lights (without shadows) and tweak all 

light settings until I have lighting and 

shadows that match the background. 


81 


insight 

news and views from around the 

international Cg community 

Marvel vFX special 

REnDERERS ASSEMBLE 

Trevor Hogg travels through the Marvel Cinematic Universe speaking to the studio 

and creative talent responsible for bringing its superheroes to life on the big screen 

T 

he decision to produce rather than 

license its comic book characters 

for film, starting with the release of 

Iron Man in 2008, proved a turning point for 

Marvel. In order to accomplish this cinematic 

feat, Marvel Studios’ president Kevin Feige 

sought the expertise of both Louis D’Esposito 

and Victoria Alonso. 

“For the longest of times we divided 

ourselves. Kevin was always the story and 

creative vision of our company, Lou [Marvel 

Studios’ co-president] came from production 

so he was our line producer and executive 

producer dealing with all things production, 

and I was responsible for visual effects, 

post-production and stereo,” explains Marvel 

Studios’ executive vice president of physical 

production, Victoria Alonso, who previously 

worked at Rhythm & Hues. 

The Marvel trinity 

Over the course of orchestrating the release 

of 13 movies, the creative partnership of the 

trio has remained intact. “It’s exactly the 

same!” chuckles Victoria. “This is why it 

works. We call ourselves ‘The Three Amigos’. 

We’re different people but we have the 

utmost respect and love for one another, and 

for the craft that we do together.” 

This spirit of collaboration is prevalent 

during review sessions. “When presenting 

work, I’m showing it to Kevin with the 

director, Victoria, and Lou at the same time,” 

explains Marvel Studios’ VFX supervisor 

Jake Morrison, who oversaw Ant-Man. “In 

some studios, there is a moment when you 

present something, then it disappears, and 

they’ll get back to you. That absolutely doesn’t 

happen at Marvel. If there are any concerns 

about what we are doing or any notes, you 

get all of them at once. Any disagreements 

in the room are knotted out right then and 

there. Sometimes it’s: ‘Let’s go down these 

two paths and we’ll see which one works out’. 

They’re an incredibly creative bunch.” 

Victoria started in production and then 

went to visual effects facilities. “I took all of 

the good things from everywhere I’ve been 

and avoided repeating what didn’t work. 

The facility approach I like is this family 

feeling, where people you trust consistently 

roll from job to job because that pays off, and 

as long as everybody is getting along it’s like 

perfect casting. I also like to share data and 

information within teams since that’s how 

facilities get strong as they continue to learn 

while growing, because the same people are 

there; it’s just the movies that change.” 

VFX supervisor Dan DeLeeuw, who was 

responsible for Captain America: Civil War, 

agrees with the Marvel family workplace 

philosophy which carries over to the VFX 

vendors and on-set contributors. “You can 

go to Russell Bobbitt in props and say ‘we 

need Hawkeye’s quiver in The Avengers’ 

and he knows where it is. Some of The 

Third Floor previz team we’re working 

with now [on Avengers: Infinity War] go 

back to Iron Man 2, so if we need a character 

from another film they have it, bring it in, and 

we use it.” Dan adds, “You try to find likeminded 

individuals to work with, because 

then you’ll get to the finish line quicker.” 

Everything is done to make sure that 

nothing overshadows the real focus. “The 

I took all of the good thIngs from everywhere I’ve been 

and avoIded repeatIng what dIdn’t work 

Victoria Alonso, executive vice president of physical production, Marvel Studios 

best thing about the Marvel Cinematic 

Universe [MCU] is that when I go to see 

the films, I care deeply about the characters,” 

remarks Jake, who understands why Marvel 

hires independent filmmakers such as 

Peyton Reed for Ant-Man and Taika Waititi 

for Thor: Rangnarok. “If you strip away all 

of the blockbuster trappings like the big 

sets, big camera moves, explosions and CG 

Helicarriers, what you’ve got is storytelling. 

If you watch Taika Waititi’s Boy or What 

We Do in the Shadows or Hunt for the 

Wilderpeople, the production gets steadily 

more complex, but they’re character pieces. 

Taika was asked in an interview, ‘What’s it 

like to be finally working with an unlimited 


82 


inDustry 

marvel studios 

you try to fInd lIkemInded 

IndIvIduals to 

work wIth, then you’ll get to 

the fInIsh lIne quICker 

Dan DeLeeuw, visual effects supervisor, Marvel Studios 

MArVeL 

StuDioS 

founded 

1993 

mCu fIlms 

13 since 2008 

key people 

Kevin Feige, 

Louis D’Esposito, 

Victoria Alonso, 

Dan DeLeeuw

inDustry 


The Hulk has been a 

mainstay of the Marvel 

cinematic Universe and 

is created by ilM, he’ll 

return in Thor: ragnarok 

budget?’ He’s like, ‘no. There’s always a lid 

on the box’.” 

vFX begins at home 

Marvel Studios’ own visual development 

team is run by Ryan Meinerding. Victoria 

says: “It’s great to have that original 

conversation early on because sometimes it 

inspires the story, sometimes it defines the 

story, and sometimes it reshapes the story.” 

Jake adds: “Ryan is one of the best artists 

I have ever had the pleasure of working 

with, his character nuances and framing are 

stunning and he dreams in cinema and comic 

books. The Visual Development Department 

at Marvel Studios creates key frames which 

are moments in the movie. For Ant-Man, it 

would be the moment where Yellowjacket 

got run over by Thomas the Tank Engine. 

Ryan will paint that or art direct it. The key 

frame has so much inertia, presence and 

possibility, that you could start with the script 

and a handful of those key frames. It’s not 

hard to push forward if the target already 

looks awesome.” 

Victoria adds: “Every movie that we’ve 

made, Ryan has done a key frame which 

we all say, ‘that has to be in the movie. Let’s 

figure out a way to write it’. And these turn 

into some of the most iconic moments.” 

“If there’s one thing that Kevin Feige, 

Louis D’Esposito and Victoria Alonso have 

brought to prominence in the VFX industry, 

it’s the idea of using every single tool in the 

toolbox to tell the story,” says Jake. “It’s very 

much the story pushing the visual effects and 

tech forward, not vice versa.” 

One question is always asked: “Every time 

we open this Pandora’s Box, the underlying 

sentiment is, ‘Does it serve the purpose of 

this story?’” says Victoria. “Why is it that we 

want Thor’s hammer to do this or Captain 

America’s shield to do that? If it doesn’t serve 

the story it has no place in our movie.” 

we use every sIngle 

tool In the toolbox to 

tell the story. It’s very muCh 

the story pushIng the vIsual 

effeCts and teCh forward, 

not vICe versa. 

Jake Morrison, VFX supervisor, Marvel Studios 

Despite the superhero subject matter, 

everything is grounded in reality. “At 

Marvel, we always strive for photorealism,” 

observes Dan. “With Vision, you’re working 

with the performance of Paul Bettany and 

modifying his face for the final look of the 

film. Going all the way back to the comics, 

those characters have always lived in the 

real world to the point that even in the script 

they call each other by their first names. 

They call Captain America Cap, but Iron Man 

is always Tony and Black Widow is always 

natasha. Guardians of the Galaxy certainly 

has a heightened sense of colour and design, 

but that lends itself to it.” 

A significant indication that Marvel 

Studios has come a long way from licensing 

comic book characters to other movie 

studios occurred when a deal was reached 

with Sony to enable a famous wall-crawler 

to appear in the MCU. 

“We knew going into making Captain 

America: Civil War how much of a role 

Spidey played in the comic,” says Dan. “It 

got to the point that, when we were doing 

motion studies with Black Panther, the 

rumours were that they really wanted Spidey 

in it. When Spidey started getting into previz 

people began to get more excited about it. 

Tom Holland hadn’t yet been cast when we 

started shooting, so we had a costume and a 

stunt performer. Then they cast Tom who 

has a slight frame while our stunt performer’s 

muscles were developed from parkour.” 

A digital double was utilised to solve the 

mismatch problem. “Tom’s performance 

dictated everything from Peter Parker 

to Spidey in the suit talking to even how 

he swang through the air. It was the 

idea of a younger Spidey who was not as 

experienced, so sometimes he spins around 

in the air when he’s swinging.” 

Each MCU phase concludes with 

superheroes teaming together. Interestingly, 

Captain America: Civil War was nicknamed 

Avengers 2.5. “It was a great experience,” 

remarks Dan, who is supervising Avengers: 

Infinity War and its sequel, which are 


84 


inDustry 


ryan Meinerding leads 

Marvel studios’ visual 

development team. His 

artwork sets the tone 

for vFX vendors 

The concept art for 

Giant-Man was created 

by andy park, Marvel’s 

concept artist and visual 

development supervisor 

Words of Wisdom 

Jake morrison and Victoria Alonso 

give advice to set you on your 

visual effects career path 

“Things that inform what I do on 

a daily basis are things that I’ve 

learned over the years,” says Marvel 

Studios’ VFX supervisor Jake 

Morrison. “I don’t think it would have 

been sensible for me to have done 

what I’m doing now 10 years ago. 

Being proactive is critical for those 

wanting to have a career in the visual 

effects industry. Don’t wait around 

for someone to hand you a job, start 

doing things for yourself. 

“Get a camera, go out, and shoot 

a bunch of stuff. It is important to 

learn about lenses, depth of field and 

photography. You can’t make photoreal 

if you don’t know what a photo 

is. There are a couple of programs 

like Maya and Nuke for doing 3D and 

2D,” Jake notes, “I would enforce the 

fact that you have to go to a facility.” 

The big desire for Marvel Studios’ 

executive vice president of physical 

production, Victoria Alonso, is to 

narrow the gender gap. 

“There are a lot of phenomenal 

ladies out there, but not enough 

have made a mark, not because of 

a lack of talent,” she says, before 

adding: “It’s because people have 

to open the doors and allow them 

in. My message is to keep on 

knocking because somebody’s ‘no’ 

will become a ‘yes’ some day. Just 

don’t lose faith. It’s a better world 

when we are in it too. We’re 51 per 

cent of the population and I think 

that we have something to offer.” 

being made back-to-back with principal 

photography commencing in november. 

“You know the difficulty of planning a fight 

with that many characters, and in terms of 

design, information and implementation of 

the visual effects. If you needed a training 

course, the splash panel of the airport fight 

was a great place to begin.” 

Producing Avengers: Infinity War and 

its untitled sequel is much like compressing 

a season of an epic HBO fantasy series into 

two movies. “It’s big! By the time we’re 

finished they’ll have film classes about the 

film in terms of everything that we were 

able to accomplish. It’s a lot of moving parts 

to put the two together and interweave the 

schedules and get everything to work. The 

guys who make Game of Thrones do an 

awesome job.” 

The plan is to get ahead of the 

technological curve. “We talked to all of 

the vendors and are saying to everybody, 

‘We want the next generation of things.’ 

It’s my hope that we will get them,” Dan says. 

“We’re incredibly fortunate in that, based 

on the films that we make, we have the best 

visual effects houses in the business.” 

Jake also thinks that the teams work well 

together, “You look at what works and do 

post-mortems for every show,” states Jake. 

“If it’s something that is scriptable we write 

it. We all build on top of what everyone else is 

doing. Victoria encourages the visual effects 

supervisors to get together [most of time 

remotely] and share any information. If I’m 

shooting with a particular type of camera 

that I think is really cool, I can ping Dan 

DeLeeuw or Chris Townsend or Stef Ceretti 

and say, ‘This is great’. Or conversely, ‘We 

just had an absolute nightmare with X’.” 

Victoria Alonso is proud of the workplace 

atmosphere. “It’s pretty utopian. In our 

hallways you have three or four teams who 

are always chatting with each other and 

saying, ‘I have to tell you what I did with this. 

I think it would be really helpful’. It’s so cool 

to have every team as a little family, and then 

there’s this big family that we all belong to 

and that everyone wants to be a part of.” 

Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War is 

FYi 

out now on DVD and Blu-ray. 


85 


industry 

News and events 

industry news 

CreATure VFX 

BreAKS reCOrdS 

Nick Angus explains how Alt.vfx helped break Japanese TV records 

with the creature FX it made for the Pepsi Strong Momotaro advert 

T 

he latest installment of the Pepsi 

Strong Momotaro TV commercial 

has broken records for being the 

most awarded commercial series in Japanese 

history. The commercials, based on the 

popular Japanese folklore of Momotaro 

(Peach Boy) and his battle with Oni, feature 

visual effects provided by Alt.vfx and have 

become star-studded hits, with Jude Law 

starring in the latest episode. 

“We really raised the bar as we had never 

been this close to the character, so we 

included rigid body rockfall simulations 

and extremely high resolution smoke 

simulations,” says Alt.vfx’s head of VFX, 

Nick Angus. Nick also explains that new 

effects were needed for these shots: “For the 

first time, we added fluid simulations to the 

close up shot to eject lava from his hot core. 

These extremely detailed and high polygon 

These exTremely deTailed and high polygon characTer 

simulaTions are very complex buT very rewarding 

Nick Angus, head of VFX, Alt.vfx 

the anatomy of animals and mutated and 

deformed it to make the original character 

in this special episode. The creature was 

then groomed with a fur layer and we had 

to figure out some new techniques to groom 

based on proximity of the fur to the chains 

that are tightly wrapped around him. 

The chains also needed to be simulated to 

hold the Ogre in place while he violently 

struggled against them.” 

Watch the VFX breakdown at 

FYI 

www.vimeo.com/179406436 

“We have tried to bring feature film 

quality FX and character design to the series, 

and each episode has gotten bigger and 

more challenging,” says Alt.vfx’s executive 

producer Takeshi Takada. 

VFX studio Alt.vfx has been tasked with 

bringing the giant creatures to life for the 

past two years. The latest episode sees the 

studio create a close-up of the lava monster 

the Oni, which required extra work. 

character simulations are very complex but 

the level of detail is very rewarding.” 

A new creature for this latest episode was 

the Orge, created and designed by director 

Kouichi Iguchi, and revised and sculpted 

into a life-like monster by Alt.vfx’s artists. 

“The Ogre was always going to be chained 

up,” commented Angus. “So we needed to 

account for this in texturing, adding wounds 

and wearing in his skin layer. We studied 

Further FX were added to 

the Ogre shots, including 

saliva, dust particles and 

small wood splinters 


86 


industry 

News and events 

event news 

AN eXCITING 

VIeW AHeAd 

VIeW Conference director, Maria Elena Gutierrez explains why 

this year’s festival of animation and visual effects will be its best 

Flame 2017 goes 3D 

Autodesk has released a new 

update to Flame, the VFX 

and compositing platform. 

The big news is the addition 

of new 3D scene navigation 

features that run similarly 

to Maya’s workflow. “Many 

other new features, including 

better colour management 

and batch tools, are a direct 

response to some of our 

most popular user requests,” 

comments Marc Stevens, 

vice president of film and 

television at Autodesk. 

VIeW Conference is Italy’s largest 

CG and animation festival, and in 

recent years has fast become a 

go-to event – being held in Turin helps. This 

year’s five day conference will start on 24 

October and marks the event’s 17th year. 

While other event offer huge, 

orchestrated lectures VIeW prides itself 

on being more personal. VIeW conference 

director, Maria elena Gutierrez explains: 

“VIeW is a smaller, more intimate, curated 

during the talks often come from other 

speakers and many of the speakers also offer 

workshops. Where else could an attendee 

take part in a small workshop offered 

by the director, director of photography, 

screenwriter or animation supervisor of a 

major feature film? The resulting interaction 

among speakers who might have never met 

before VIeW, and among attendees during 

the week, is unique and inspiring and has 

fostered unexpected future collaborations.” 

curaTing view is a liTTle like creaTing a gourmeT meal. 

each ingredienT, each speaker, is special 

Maria Elena Gutierrez, VIEW conference director 

conference. At VIeW, speakers from high 

profile projects share their work with an 

audience of around 600 people in a theatre 

setting in our main room.” 

This year’s keynote speakers include 

Byron Howard, co-director of Walt disney 

Animation Studios’ Zootopia; dr. donald 

Greenberg, director of the Program of 

Computer Graphics at Cornell university; 

and Brad Lewis, producer of Warner 

Animation Groups’ Storks. 

“The speakers and talks are carefully 

scheduled so that all attendees, including all 

the speakers, can go to all the talks,” explains 

Maria. “Most speakers stay for the entire 

week to hear the other talks and to interact 

with attendees. Questions from the audience 

Some of the speakers you can meet 

around the show this year include Pixar’s 

supervising technical director John 

Halstead; Sony Pictures Animation’s director 

david Feiss and roger Guyett, the visual 

effects supervisor of Star Wars. 

“This year, I wanted to bring people 

from animation, visual effects, games and 

virtual reality, and include some innovators 

who can’t be put into a box,” explains 

Maria. “Curating VIeW is a little like 

creating a gourmet meal. each ingredient, 

each speaker, is special, but when they are 

all assembled, the conference becomes 

magnificent. That’s our secret sauce.” 

Get more information on VIEW at 

FYI 

www.viewconference.it 

C4D gets iray 

Maxon has signed a multiyear 

deal with Nvidia, which 

means Cinema 4D users can 

now access Iray for Cinema 

4D, a plug-in that provides 

scalable, intuitive, physically 

based rendering for the most 

accurate previews when 

lighting and designing a 

scene or adjusting a scene’s 

geometry and materials. 

Read more about it with our 

full review of Cinema 4D R18 

on page 94. You can also try 

Iray for Cinema 4D for free 

at www.nvidia.com/object/ 

iray-plugin-trial.html. 


87 


industry 

Making The Last Bastion 


88 


industry 


Blizzard 

animation 

CounTry 

usA 

STAFF 

200 (across all 

departments) 

SoFTwAre 

Houdini, Maya, 

Mantra, redshift, 

renderMan 

weB 

blizzard.com 

fx special 

MAkIng THe 

LAST BASTIOn 

Ian Dean discovers how Blizzard Animation harnessed Houdini 

to create the dense foliage for its latest animated short 

W 

hile the Overwatch game was 

released to acclaim earlier this 

year, Blizzard Animation has 

been steadily releasing short animated films 

to expand the back-stories of the leading 

characters. Of the five episodes, The Last 

Bastion stands out as an incredible technical 

achievement, and uses Houdini to create a 

large, dense forest environment and foliage. 

The short presented some artistic 

challenges for the animators. Project 

director Ben Dai explains that one goal was 

“to tell the story of Bastion without any 

dialogue. Another major goal, like all the 

Overwatch animated shorts, was to expand 

the game universe by telling great stories 

about our heroes.” 

For VFX supervisor Jeff Chamberlain, it 

also meant doing things a little differently. “I 

was hoping we could tell a story that wasn’t 

typically what you’d expect from Blizzard 

Animation, but still universally appealing 

enough to be accepted by our audience.” 

Doing things differently meant pushing 

the FX as much as possible. Houdini has 

been the Blizzard FX department’s package 

of choice for the last few years, and FX 

supervisor David Stephens explains that 

many of Blizzard’s artists come from a 

film VFX background, so making more of 

Houdini seemed a good direction to go in. 

“When we were going into this there 

was a question of whether the plant work 

would have to be done in Maya, in traditional 

rigging, or in FX, so getting some of the 

early results with the hair solver seemed to 

confirm that we were able to do it,” explains 

David. “Certainly when we were testing 

some of the heavier trees, when you get up 

to hundreds of thousands of branches and 

Many techniques 

were used to 

create the moss 


89 


industry 


millions of leaves, the fact that we could 

process that and get it to rig correctly was a 

good moment for us.” 

Moving moss 

The animated short includes plenty of 

standout moments, but it’s the undergrowth, 

forest foliage and shot of a flowing grassy 

field that are technically impressive. 

“We were pretty fond of the shots where 

Bastion stands up and emerges from the 

undergrowth. These were a combination 

of plant wire simulations riding on top of 

PBD simulations. They were fun to see 

come together since so many people and 

techniques were involved,” says David. 

To achieve the detailed feel, the team had 

to custom model the plants, leaves and trees, 

using the 3ds Max plug-in growFX, which 

the modellers then further modified and 

sculpted in Maya and ZBrush, allowing a fine 

degree of stylisation. The moss on Bastion 

was sculpted in Maya and then covered in 

fibres using Xgen. 

three layer thing: we had to take the shell of 

the moss and that was converted over into a 

PBD sim in order for that to all kick off as a 

mass when he’s standing up,” explains David, 

adding: “As to do the soil sim we had to 

reattach all of the Xgen moss hairs that had 

when you geT up To hundredS oF ThouSAndS oF BrAnCheS 

And MiLLionS oF LeAveS… ThAT wAS A good MoMenT For uS 

david Stephens, FX supervisor, Blizzard animation 

“They [the art team] had to custom model 

a lot of the plants and growth that was 

around and on top of Bastion, and there was 

also a layer of some standard library plants 

as well. So effectively, we had to do a two or 

been generated over on the Maya side and reoutput 

those so that the moss would actually 

track with it, all in Houdini.” 

For the plants, the team would end up 

merging the two or three different layouts 

animating in fx as 

well as traditional 

rigging worked 

wonders for Blizzard 


90 


industry 


Plant rigging 

in Houdini 

FX supervisor David Stephens 

explains Blizzard’s approach to 

creating plant animation 

Foliage on Bastion 

was created from 

up to three layouts 

of auto-rigged 

plants, leaves 

and flowers 

that they had made to create the different 

plants that lived on top of Bastion. These had 

been through the process of auto-rigging and 

had been broken down into their components 

– details, leaves, flowers and buds. 

“eventually, you’d have this great big wire 

solve that is using the previously done soil 

simulation as a route anchor for those curves, 

and then all of that is simulated. Then all 

of the plants’ hero geometry is deformed 

based on those curves, and on additional 

procedural animation based on pivots for the 

leaves and buds, and [it all] stacks up two or 

three layers deep for the final result.” 

“It’s one of the scariest networks of all 

time!” exclaims David. “It’s a large system 

that took months to build. The network 

is hundreds and hundreds of nodes, and 

networks within networks.” 

Ground work 

The development on the soil sims took three 

weeks. The plant system itself is something 

Blizzard developed over a period of months, 

and for The Last Bastion this is more an 

application of that wider system than 

something developed for the short. 

“essentially, we had a combination of 

both library plants and then we had custom 

plants – that was kind of interesting as we 

just received this giant lump of greenery and 

we had to kind of go through that and break 

a few things out so we could convert them 

into rigs, that’s probably two or three more 

weeks of custom work setting up the plants,” 

reveals David. 

Another standout moment comes towards 

the end of the animated short as Bastion 

“We developed a unified approach to 

the plant animation using Houdini. The 

first stage of the process would take 

a completed plant model and derive 

the branching structure through an 

iterative search algorithm. This worked 

surprisingly well – even for trees or 

bushes with tens of thousands, or even 

hundreds of thousands of branches. 

Next, the process [team] would figure 

out the attachment point of leaves, 

flowers, buds, etc. relative to the branch 

structure,” says David. 

This meant the team could then 

build a hybrid ‘rig’ for the plant, explains 

David: “Portions of the hierarchy would 

be simulated using the Houdini wire 

solver and all other portions animated 

procedurally. We developed a rich suite 

of tools to define the simulation and 

procedural animation behaviors.” 

It meant the team could then create a 

large library of plant animation cycles 

for each plant at varying wind 

intensities. “These plant cycles could 

then be dropped in by the Layout 

department to create general ambient 

motion for the forest and plant cover,” 

says David, explaining: “For more 

complex shots requiring character 

interaction or specific choreography, 

the plant rigs could be loaded into a 

live scene with collision objects and 

simulated in Houdini’s DoPs module. 

The plants on Bastion himself were 

simulated in this way for most shots.” 

An auto-rigging 

system in Houdini 

was used to 

setup plants for 

both simulation 

and procedural 

animation 


91 


industry 


emerges from the forest and walks through 

a field, a sea of flowing grass. This was done 

using a Mantra volumetric shader created 

by senior artist Matt Cordner, to create the 

distant fields of moving grass, complete with 

independently moving grass blades. 

“The grass is actually in three layers,” 

says David, with the closest part to the 

camera being the ‘hero portion’, where the 

character would walk through and interact 

with the grass. “Basically, every stalk in 

there is a wire going through a massive wire 

solve. So that ultimately ended up being the 

hero section of the film, and then a second 

section beyond that uses a Houdini hair 

system to set up a bunch of curves – some we 

use as hair renders that actually go back into 

Maya, but we also use it to drive some rigidly 

bound instances of some of the plants.” 

David continues: “In the hero section, 

closer to the camera, each of the plants has a 

wire and fully deforms and bends. The next 

section out – maybe 50ft beyond that – ends 

up being a combination of hair and these 

instances that are being rotated based on 

a hair and follow the hair. Then, in a third 

The SySTeM we CreATed 

For The LAST BASTion iS 

one oF The SCArieST neTworkS 

oF ALL TiMe! 

david Stephens, FX supervisor, Blizzard animation 

This layer and the one 

above show the geometry 

for the grass that appears 

closer to the camera 

Matt cordner wrote a 

Mantra volumetric shader 

to create an instant field 

of moving grass 

zone beyond that, is a volume shader that 

was written for Mantra, which produces this 

lovely cheat from the distance that produces 

these moving stalks… a volumetric cheat, 

it’s pretty cool.” 

shortcuts 

In terms of ‘cheats’, Blizzard overcame 

the workload of a project like this by 

considering the shorts as a whole, and also 

thinking about how they fit into the video 

game production. The flashback battle scene 

in which Bastion remembers his war-torn 

past was one area that especially benefitted 

from this process. 

“At the outset of producing these 

shorts, we consciously began building up 

a repertoire of FX techniques that would 

fit within the game’s art style, so with that 

battle scene, you’re seeing the amalgamation 

of many of those FX all in one place. each 

effect is reasonably stylised, but the scene 

complexity pushes the overall look back 

towards something that reads as real,” 

explains David. 

Blizzard’s cinematics team developed 

a large number of gun-related effects that 

created with Houdini and Mantra, which 

came in useful for the battle scene. Over 

a period of weeks sever artists pieced it 

together. A HDA - Houdini Digital Asset - 

(also known as OTL) written for The Last 

Bastion can be used in future cinematics. 

“We tend to write a lot of tools for reuse 

or as starting points for later development, 

so there’s quite the suite of OTLs [HDAs] 

now for gun fire effects, lightning, and lately, 

plants,” explains David. “Because a lot of 

what we do is custom to the shots, in a lot 

of cases we have to leave things a little bit 

looser so that we have room to tear it apart 

and rebuild it for the next show. When I say 

we have one OTL [HDA] for a gun effect, 

we probably have five or six OTLs [HDAs] – 

from the flash to the sparks to the shells to 

the tracer fire, it’s a whole suite of tools.” 

The three layers come 

together in the final shot 

to create a grassy field 

with realistic depth 

David has been using Houdini for 20 years, 

so a project of this complexity didn’t phase 

him, but he does identify what has changed 

to help newcomers. 

“Some of the Shelf buttons and interface 

advancements that have happened in the 

last few years help a lot. I think the Wrangle 

nodes help tremendously because you can 

get some decent sized programs going 

there without having to write HDk or do a 

compiled operator the way you did years ago, 

and so those things have really helped out 

and made it more accessible… It’s really very 

powerful, we wouldn’t change Houdini for 

anything but calling it easy and accessible 

does it a disservice.” 

Watch The Last Bastion short animation 

FYi 

at www.bit.ly/tdw-bastion 


92 


CONTENTS 

REVIEWS 

We test the latest new software 

and hardware for CG artists 

ouR aWaRdS 

Best in class 

Awarded to products 

that excel in their class. 

highly commended 

Awarded to great products 

that achieve a high standard. 

94 cinema 4d r18 

The new Voronoi Fracture object and improved motion tracking features of C4D R18 are put to the test 

96 substance designer 5.5 

Does the latest release of Designer have any substance? We tell you 

everything you need to know about this Allegorithmic release 

97 susbtance painter 2.3 

Cirstyn Bech-Yager explores the various new layers of Substance Painter 

2.3, which builds on the new features that formed Substance Painter 2.2 


93 


Reviews 

Cinema 4D 

sOftWare reVIeW 

AuThOr prOFILE 

Steve Jarratt 

Steve is a freelance 

tech journalist and CG 

artist, with an unhealthy 

addiction to 3D apps and 

plug-ins. 

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 

Steve_Jarratt 

Cinema 4D 

Studio r18 

prICE from £2,600 | COMpANy Maxon | wEbSITE www.maxon.net 

the new weight painting tools 

provide the most precise control. 

Here, we’ve restricted random, 

shader and Push apart effectors 

by painting the effect onto a grid 

of honeycomb array clones 

features 

MoGraph gains new 

Effectors and Voronoi 

fracturing 

Improved Knife tool with 

enhanced slicing modes 

New Shadow Catcher, 

Thin Film and Inverse AO 

shaders 

Motion Tracker can now 

track 3D objects 

OpenGL viewport gets 

real-time reflections, AO 

and tessellation 

After the disappointment 

of R17, which offered little 

of substance apart from 

the Take System, Cinema 4D is 

back with a vengeance. With a 

feature list too long to cover, we 

only have room here to focus 

on the big ticket items, but 

Maxon’s website has a full list. 

The one new feature of 

Cinema 4D R18 that affects 

everyone is the enhanced 

OpenGL viewport, which now 

provides a really nice realtime 

preview of your scene, 

with environment-mapped 

reflections, screen-space 

ambient occlusion and realtime 

tessellation. Sadly, it only 

previews masked layers in the 

Reflectance channel rather 

than roughness or reflection 

maps, and shadows can still 

look grainy. So while it’s not 

quite Element 3D for Cinema 

4D, it’s ideal for playblasts. And 

if Maxon can get the viewport 

working more accurately with 

Reflectance’s many functions, it 

would be invaluable for quickly 

previewing materials. 

NeW tool 

The tool that has everyone 

excited is the Voronoi Fracture 

object. Cinema 4D users have 

had this functionality for a while 

via plug-ins like NitroBlast, but 

now it’s deeply integrated in 

Cinema 4D’s MoGraph toolset. 

In typical Maxon fashion, it 

might be late to the party, but 

boy, does it come in style. 

Fracturing is beautifully 

implemented – from the 

pastel-coloured preview to 

the application of distribution 

sources – providing exhaustive 

control over the type and 

location of the fracture. The 

wonderfully accurate results 

also work seamlessly with 

Cinema 4D’s Bullet physics 

– although that just makes 

us wish the engine itself had 

more options, such as influence 

weight maps or falloff, so that 

items broke progressively as 

they might in the real world, 

not into clearly-defined pieces 

all at once. 

Of course, the fracturing is 

all procedural and compatible 


94 


Reviews 

Cinema 4D 

Rather than try and scatter physical rocks over this Mars 

landscape, we’ve just applied the Mars Pebbles material 

from Substance Share and made a few tweaks. The 

displacement does the rest 

with the rest of the MoGraph 

toolset – not to mention all 

the plug-ins that work with 

MoGraph and give users a 

rabbit hole of possibilities down 

which to venture. It may not be 

worth the entry price alone, but 

the Voronoi Fracture object is 

certainly a big selling point. 

MoGraph gets more love 

this release with the addition 

of the new Push Apart Effector, 

which prevents clones from 

overlapping; plus the Re 

Effector, which removes the 

influence of other effectors in 

the scene. Both are genuinely 

useful for motion graphics 

artists. Perhaps best of all is the 

new weight-painting function 

that affords precise control over 

the way your clones are created 

and modified, and is also of use 

in modelling. With lots of other 

neat touches, such as the ability 

to scale clones on polygon size 

and shape groups of clones 

with splines and other objects, 

this is a healthy update to the 

MoGraph toolset. 

useful extras 

As well as these showy items, 

there’s a host of smaller, but 

these four planes have nothing on them but a Parallax bump map. 

the features don’t cast shadows as would true displacement, but for 

adding realistic detail that renders quickly, Parallax bump mapping is ideal 

just as useful additions in R18. 

Gaming tech comes in the 

shape of Parallax mapping, 

which sits between normal 

mapping and displacements 

as a clever way of adding 

detail without the rendering 

overhead. There is some 

artefacting on large or closeup 

textures, and as you raise 

the Parallax samples, you may 

well find it’s quicker to use 

displacement instead 

– but overall the effect is 

convincing and will no doubt 

become a staple of many 

rendering workflows. 

With other features, such 

as the upgraded Knife tool, 

the long-awaited Shadow 

Catcher shader and the 

addition of object tracking 

to the Motion Tracker, R18 is 

an excellent upgrade. Many 

of Cinema 4D R17’s criticisms 

and complaints have been 

addressed, and Maxon has 

clearly listened to its user base 

in terms of the many tweaks 

and improvements that have 

been made to the standard 

workflow. With improvements 

to BodyPaint coming in the R18 

cycle, plus major architectural 

restructuring under way, it all 

points to a really exciting future. 

VErDICT 

A MATTEr OF 

SubSTANCE 

It’s interesting that Maxon has decided 

to build support for Allegorithmic’s 

substance shader directly into the app. 

Substances can be downloaded from 

the Substance Share website, and now 

anyone can make use of these .sbsar 

files. Once inside Cinema 4D, they 

can be used as textures, complete 

with PBR shading and displacements 

for realistic walls, floors, ground, 

fabrics, and so on. Also, the procedural 

nature of the material means you can 

still make changes to them in the 

Substance Asset Manager. 

If you have Substance Designer, 

you can take things even further. By 

exporting Normal maps from Cinema 

4D, you can build Substances that 

understand the topology of an object 

to produce things like rusty edges or 

grimy crevices. And because they’re 

adjustable within Cinema, you can 

still tweak the settings to get the 

look you want. It’s easy to think of 

the Substance toolset as solely for 

game designers, but they’re useful for 

anyone doing texture work on a regular 

basis, and at just $20 per month with 

Allegorithmic’s rent-to-own system, 

the toolset is well worth considering. 


95 


Reviews 

Substance Designer 5.5 

SOFtWARE REViEW 

AUTHOR PROfILE 

Cirstyn Bech-Yagher 

Cirstyn is a freelance CG 

artist and educator, with 

over 15 years’ experience 

in 3D. Her clients have 

ranged from AMD to Daz 

3D and Future. One of her 

current projects is with 

AMD as technical artist 

for Radeon ProRender 

for 3ds Max. 

northern-studios.com 

Substance 

Designer 5.5 

PRICE $149 (Indie), $590 (Pro) | COMPAnY Allegorithmic | WEBSITE www.allegorithmic.com 

Substance Designer 5.5 (SD 

5.5) is the first tool available 

with an interface for 

generating MDL materials. 

There’s a reason this is big 

news: initially introduced in 

Substance Designer 5.3’s Iray 

implementation, MDL – Nvidia’s 

Material Definition Language 

– allows you to share Materials 

across MDL-supported 

applications. This means that 

by defining a shader in, for 

example, Nvidia’s Iray for 3ds 

Max, you can then share and 

use that shader in software 

such as Maya and Cinema 

4D’s Iray. And despite MDL 

having a native interface in the 

applications which support it, 

SD 5.5’s dedicated interface for 

creating such shaders outside 

of these is a first. 

Sharing Substance Painter’s 

push towards more, and better 

cross-application functionality, 

SD 5.5 is pretty easy to get the 

hang of, as the workflow is the 

same as the generic substance 

graph generation, whether you 

generate one from scratch or 

mix and tweak existing content. 

After selecting Create 

New MDL Material, you will 

get SD’s node graph view for 

MDL, in which you can then 

add the nodes and define 

the parameters you need. 

The implementation of Iray 

facilitates how the material will 

look in-renderer, and means 

you can generate a whole slew 

of new materials that were 

previously stuck at the ‘one 

layer only’ level, such as flaked 

car paint or refractive materials. 

The fuTure WiTh mDl 

It’s clear to see that the 

implementation of MDL opens 

up a whole new set of versatile 

doors but, as always, there are 

few flaws with Allegorithmic’s 

release – although it should be 

noted that implementing new 

renderer functionality is never 

a smooth ride. At the time of 

writing, there were some Maya 

import issues Allegorithimic 

was working hard on fixing, as 

well as some stability issues 

– SD 5.5 was less stable than 

previous versions when baking 

or using the MDL nodes. 

The other new functionalities 

make this a release well worth 

grabbing. The FBX camera 

support, where you can grab 

your listed, imported camera 

from any application, is a 

godsend for those who need to 

texture their assets for specific 

views, and being able to use 

Substance Designer on Linux 

is guaranteed to make many 

pipeliners pretty damn happy. 

VERDICT 

ExPERt tiP 

TUTORIAL HELP 

One thing that may be 

a potential curveball 

for new users is the 

obvious difference in 

vernacular and set-ups, 

but Allegorithmic has this 

covered by providing new 

and experienced users 

with the usual excellent 

introductory tutorials by 

Wes McDermott. 

By implementing Nvidia’s MDL, 

Substance Designer shares Substance 

Painter’s push towards more, and better, 

cross-application functionality 


96 


Reviews 

Substance Painter 2.3 

SOFtWArE rEViEW 

AutHoR PRoFIlE 

Cirstyn Bech-Yagher 

Cirstyn is a freelance CG 

artist and educator, with 

over 15 years’ experience 

in 3D. Her clients have 

ranged from AMD to Daz 

3D and Future. One of her 

current projects is with 

AMD as technical artist 

for Radeon ProRender 

for 3ds Max. 

northern-studios.com 

ExpErt tip 

EASIER SEARCHING 

For those with heaps 

of non-tagged (smart) 

materials, brushes, 

alphas and tools in their 

shelves, the improved 

filtering and search 

options added to previous 

release Painter 2.2 make 

it a lot easier to navigate 

the main and minishelves, 

which helps to 

solve the ‘wade through 

SP assets until you find 

what you need’ issue. 

Substance 

Painter 2.3 

PRICE $149 (Indie), $590 (Pro) | ComPANY Allegorithmic | wEBSItE www.allegorithmic.com 

Released on the heels of 

Substance Painter 2.2 (SP 

2.2), which had a large and 

welcome feature list, Substance 

Painter 2.3 (SP 2.3) is a small 

‘top up’ of the previous version. 

The new version features some 

bug fixes and incorporates user 

requests – the most notable 

being better Photoshop export, 

which was probably added to 

facilitate SP 2.2’s new Material 

Layering functionality. 

There’s also a new way to 

search for assets in the shelf 

and the mini-shelves, as well as 

projection preview channels, 

baker scripting, updated mask 

generators and UI tweaks. 

The star of the last few 

releases is of course the 

dynamic Material Layering 

function and the added 

functionality it brings with 

it. Targeted primarily at 

game engine workflows, 

you start with an all model 

encompassing base layer, on 

top of which you mix and mask 

up to three additional nonsmart 

materials (or textures). 

The workflow aims at removing 

another step from the generic 

asset texturing pipeline, namely 

the Photoshop-based black 

and white masking – and the 

manual render-tweak-render 

workflow that goes with it. 

This makes it easier to share 

materials rather than final 

textures across your assets; said 

materials can be pure materials, 

or a mix of animated materials, 

textures and decals. 

revampeD functions 

Interfaces and APIs have 

both received a bump in 

functionality, so it’s even 

easier to set up your JSON 

to run between Painter and 

your engine’s material setup 

system. Another plus is that 

the expansions to the scripting 

API make the bake-automation 

process easier. 

New in SP 2.3 is the Export 

to Photoshop plug-in. Simply 

press the Photoshop icon on 

the toolbar, and Painter will 

export your entire texture set 

into Photoshop, which is a 

godsend for both masking and 

detailing. As not all layer modes 

are compatible with Photoshop, 

it will rasterise the incompatible 

ones on export. 

The plug-in is also opensource 

on GIThub, meaning you 

can tailor it to your needs. 

The only issues I had were 

some minor instabilities and 

hangs on baking a pre-made 

FBX, which, in all fairness, may 

not have been Painter’s issue. 

I would also love to see dualscreen 

support. 

Overall, these are minor 

issues on a rock solid release. 

VERdICt 

the new photoshop 

export features added to 

Substance painter 2.3 make 

for a streamed workflow 


97 


Back 

issues 

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Issue 213 November 2016 

Real-time cinematics 

● Unity share the making of their animated short, Adam 

● Ninja Theory and Epic Games reveal real-time cinematography 

● Finesse your ZBrush modelling workflow 

● Render a windy beach house in 3ds Max and V-Ray 

● Downloads Free videos and setup files 

Issue 212 october 2016 

Game aRt skills 

● Eidos Montreal’s modeller shares 

her 3ds Max knowledge 

● Learn the pro tips to master 

Substance Designer 

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workflow for Unreal Engine 

● Get started in Amazon’s new game 

engine, Lumberyard 

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Issue 211 september 2016 

animation special 

● Discover Laika’s innovative stop 

motion and CG hybrid technique 

● Learn animator Keith Lango’s secrets 

for a better, faster workflow 

● Master the art of facial rigging 

in Maya 

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in Modo and ZBrush 

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Issue 210 August 2016 

the futuRe of hypeRReal cG 

● Discover the cutting-edge tech 

behind ILM’s Warcraft characters 

● Create a VR environment in Maya 

and test it in the free app 

● Master skin texturing in Maya and 

V-Ray 

● Learn the techniques needed to 

model for game design 


textures, setup files and VR app! 

Issue 209 July 2016 

Get staRted in filmmakinG 

● Artists turned film directors’ top 

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● Sculpt a fantasy creature in ZBrush 

with legendary artist Steve Lord 

● Create more expressive character 

rigs with Maya 2016 

● Meet the creative teams behind 

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catch up today! 

visit google play, Apple Newsstand and Zinio stores to download a back issue of 3D World to your tablet or computer. 


98 


Issue 208 JuNe 2016 

masteR cReatuRe modellinG 

● Jurassic World’s Ian Joyner shares 

his creature design techniques 

● Create an anatomically accurate 

fantasy creature for 3D printing 

● Master ribbon rigging in Maya with 

Reel FX’s Josh Carey 

● Discover the 25 best new CG art 

and animation courses 



Issue 207 mAy 2016 

the aRt of film VfX 

● How the VFX of Batman v 

Superman was created 

● Model and render a still life scene 

in Maya and XGen 

● Simulate the destruction of a 

building in Realflow 

● Create a paper folding animation 

in Cinema 4D 



Issue 206 AprIl 2016 

Become a pRo Games aRtist 

● Gain expert advice on how to break 

into the games industry 

● Model and rig a game character 

using ZBrush, Modo and Maya 

● Render photoreal hair with 

Unreal Engine 

● Master 3D concept art with Maya 

and KeyShot 



Issue 205 mArch 2016 

masteR mech modellinG 

● Improve your modelling skills and 

create a tank-inspired mech 

● Rise of the Robots: experts share 

their advice for mechanical projects 

● Get started in texture app 

Quixel Suite 2 

● Learn how to sculpt a Norman 

Rockwell character with ZBrush 


material textures and project files! 

Issue 204 FebruAry 2016 

staR WaRs: the foRce aWakens 

● Behind the scenes: ILM discuss the 

making of The Force Awakens 

● Master the workflow for modelling 

ZBrush droids 

● Create a photoreal character render 

of Boba Fett 

● Discover the untold story behind 

the making of A New Hope 


material textures and setup files! 

Issue 203 JANuAry 2016 

the 2016 VR ReVolution 

● Improve your real-time CG: The 

game artist’s guide to VR 

● Discover Epic’s 10 ways to improve 

your Unreal Engine VR movies 

● Render a photoreal VR scene from 

V-Ray to Samsung headset 

● Master high-poly creature design 

● Downloads Free software worth 

$199, models, videos, setup files! 

Issue 202 chrIstmAs 2015 

anatomy sculptinG 

● 10 techniques to perfect Anatomy. 

Plus get this cover’s ZBrush model! 

● Weta creature modelling 

masterclass 

● Model the Joker: create dynamic 

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● Hone your post-production skills for 

perfect lighting 

● Downloads Free Creative Market 

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Issue 201 December 2015 

Game aRt techniques 

● Art of Halo 5 Guardians 

● Master character design with 

Insomniac Games’ pro advice 

● Create and texture a robotic 

character with Substance Designer 

● Concept and design a real-time 

game character 

● Downloads Free iClone 5, 

video training, setup files, 

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99 


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Type the following into your 

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2. Find the Files You 

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Search the list of free 

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