3D Artist No. 105

As I hit the big green button to send this issue to press we’re in the middle of this year’s GDC festivities. It’s a show that I’d love to go to myself one day, as it looks like a hell of a lot of fun. Its exhibitor content raises a lot of questions about the future of computer graphics, though. One thing seems certain – technologies and techniques across different fields like games, movies, TV and visualisation work are starting to merge. A vast array of the real-time technologies on the show floor at GDC are creeping into other industries at a startling rate, and apps like Unreal Engine and Allegorithmic’s Substance tools are starting to include functionality that could see them break out of games and into other disverse…

JOÃO VICTOR FERREIRA joaovictor3d.com We see so many character designs on a daily basis that they can quickly blend into one. However, with an eye for posing, perspective and design like João’s, your characters will stand out easily. 3DArtist username n/a ANASTASIA OPARA anastasiaopara.com Despite still studying, Anastasia’s formidable talent for creating stunning environments using Houdini’s procedural tools displays an understanding well beyond her years. Her tutorial is on p58. 3DArtist username n/a JONATHAN BENAÏNOUS jonathan-benainous.blogspot.com Jonathan returns to the pages of 3D Artist this month to take you through his tried and tested workflow for building triple-A videogame assets. He’s worked on some huge games, so take note. 3DArtist username Jonathan Benaïnous TOM HANKINS www.colorbleed.nl Tom joins us from the awesome team at Colorbleed to demonstrate how Blackmagic Fusion can really enhance your cinematic projects. Check out his guide over on p72. 3DArtist username…

“I created this image for an ArtStation challenge and was lucky enough to win first prize. I focused on storytelling and tried to create something everyone can relate to. I decided to get inspiration from personal experience and capture a moment from a family vacation as my interpretation of the theme – The Journey ”Wojciech Piwowarczyk, The Journey, 2016 WojciechPiwowarczyk wojciechpiwowarczyk.com Wojciech is an environment artist and creates worlds for games, short films and TV Software 3ds Max, V-Ray, Quixel SUITE, ZBrush Work in progress… “ To attain realism in my artwork I created Raspberry in my spare time. This piece of art was also good experience in creating realistic renders, as well as enhancing my shading and lighting skills. My primary challenge was to reach lifelike details ”Shubham Mehta, Raspberry, 2017 Shubham Mehta shubhmehta.artstation.com Shubham currently works as…

Allegorithmic has had something of an astronomical rise in popularity in the last few years with its Substance tools. Switch on a games console and you’ll very likely find yourself in an awe-inspiring realistic environment talking to highly detailed characters, all textured using Substance. Of these, the most notable is Allegorithmic’s flagship product, Substance Designer, which is now the industry standard in games for PBR material authoring. Substance Painter, its sister tool for PBR and particle painting, followed in 2014. Since then, Substance has been used across studios for animation and VFX work including Framestore, Blur Studio, MPC, Fox and Digital Domain, as well as triple-A games including Uncharted 4, Forza Horizon 3, Watch Dogs 2 and Call Of Duty: Black Ops III. Some of the artists working on these kinds of…

01 Prepare model for baking Instead of ‘exploding’ the model for baking, we can use the baking-by-names feature inside of Painter. Simply alter the Match setting. However, this feature requires the proper naming of our objects (see image). Objects with the same colour have the same name, but with added suffixes: ‘_low’ for low poly and ‘_high’ for high poly. 02 Split the model (texture sets) I had to split my model into several 4K texture sets, because I needed high quality. I’ve achieved this by assigning different materials in Blender for each part of the tank. If the dividing line went through the same object, then I had to adjust masks (dirt, scratches) by hand (see example image). In total, I used seven texture sets. 03 Texture layers of materials As…

PROCEDURAL BRICK TEXTURE The main challenge was to catch interesting reflections. Having control in my graph over the size, rotation and other parameters with instant results makes me keep choosing Substance Designer for creating my tileable textures. TEXTURING VEGETATION Substance Painter can be a very strong tool for vegetation texturing. Using only fill layers and Smart Masks I was able to achieve realistic results in the plants’ maps. All alpha work was also tackled in Painter. PROCEDURAL MUD TEXTURE Fully created with Substance Designer, this mud texture was core in giving a wild and wet feeling to this piece. The Water Level filter made adding the puddles to the texture easy and gave me amazing results on the spot. OLD GAS PUMP Texturing all props in Substance Painter allowed me to have easy control over things like…