3D World September 2022

COVER ARTIST Eidan Elgrably SOFTWARE Maya This month our cover features the wonderful Ana Kaona by Eidan Elgrably. The modelling is fantastic of course, but it is the lighting that really makes it – so Eidan shares his top tips for lighting a character using Autodesk Maya. We also take a good look at some of the latest tech advances in this issue. We investigate how 3D printing is helping movie props makers and set design, explore Ncam's real-time tools, and review the latest versions of Modo, Lumion, Phoenix, and Wacom's Cintiq Pro 16. If you're looking to use your skills in new ways, check out how to use Blender for TikTok, or learn how to make use of cheap cameras for your own VFX projects. Rob Redman, Editor rob.redman@futurenet.com…

MAMA MONKEY ARTIST Mariano Steiner SOFTWARE ZBrush, Maya, Substance Painter “It's very interesting how our subconscious minds can guide our art if you are open to it. Trying to capture a moment in nature, step by step this project began to take shape and suddenly I realised this would be a portrait of a mother. She's watching in the distance, giving space but ready to step in and fight if necessary. Fearless and loving. Devoted but also going through her own personal journey. This is most certainly connected to my own life and relationship with my parents. So I decided to call her Val, the Mama Monkey.” artstation.com/marianosteiner “SHE'S WATCHING IN THE DISTANCE, GIVING SPACE BUT READY TO STEP IN AND FIGHT IF NECESSARY” GUNNER ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY BAGEUMI (ARTSTATION.COM/BAGEUMI)…

Feature The rise and rise of Unreal Engine The story begins in the early 1980s with a young boy by the name of Tim Sweeney. Having hit double digits, Sweeney began his love affair with programming, reportedly clocking up over 10,000 hours before the age of 15. This devotion steered him down the games route, leading to him creating editing tools for shareware games in the early 1990s, but it took until 1995 for Sweeney to begin writing the code for what he is now famous for: Unreal Engine (UE). UE's first game, Unreal, hit the shelves in 1998: a first-person shooter game for the PC. In those early years UE went head to head with the Quake Engine, developed by id Software. Years of fierce competition has pushed the…

Feature 3D printing Our conversation begins with props and modelmaker Jack Cave, as he sketches out how he came to work in the world of prop design and modelling. “From an early age, I had always been interested in 3D design and film, but I didn't really know that a job in modelmaking was a possibility until I was at college studying architecture and 3D design. It was only when I got the chance to start building architectural models as part of the course that I realised modelmaking was really what I wanted to pursue. After college I went on to study modelmaking at Arts University Bournemouth, and within a couple of weeks of graduating I managed to get a job working as a junior modeller in the art department…

“Last year we worked on a project producing three Egyptian artifacts for a film. The studio's designers had already worked on some 3D models, so we knew exactly what they needed to look like. In the film, they were to look like gold and silver, covered with precious stones like diamonds and rubies. The props were going to be used as a promotion and given away as competition prizes.” The particular use of a prop will determine its detail, as Milward elaborates: “How close up they'll need to shoot the object or how it's going to be handled will be part of the decision-making process. We'll deliver some rough outlines of the final options to the client, with our views of any pitfalls we can anticipate and the pros and…

“During the production of the latest James Bond film, No Time to Die, one set that the Glowforge helped heavily on was the Russian submarine pen, where Bond enters Safin's island. This set had to be angled in frame to provide the illusion that the submarine had partially subsided, so we decided to build a ½” to 1' scale model to help visualise it better. “This presented several key challenges, including making sure the model components were waterproof and ensuring that we could accurately show the water's reflections, as well as the action of the glider landing in the water. “Working from 3D models from the art directors and concept artists, I would create 2D templates that could be laser cut on the Glowforge and used to build the bigger…