june-july20 by Hiba Dweib

CGArena

VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3 JUNE - JULY 2008

Get Attention in the Computer Graphics Community

INTERVIEW GALLERY

Latest 3d inspiring art

PHOTOSHOP

Dario Lanza

3DSMAX

Making of Cultural Heritage of Ancient India

ZBRUSH

Spring Break

Making ofSculpture

Painting to Reveal Layer

Modeling Morgane

AFTER EFFECTS

MAYA

05 Interview Dario Lanza

14 Photoshop Spring Break

20 After Effects

Painting to Reveal Layer

24 3ds Max

Making of Cultural Heritage of Ancient India

40 ZBrush

Making of Sculpture

51 Maya

Modeling Morgane

63 Gallery

Showcase of latest 3d art

Magazine Edited: Ashish Rastogi Magazine Cover Image: Nitin.D.Mahale, India

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Issue 3 June - July 2008

industry news nPower Software’s received turbo performance boost with v5.0 release

iZ3D Selected to Join Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program

nPower Software’s popular Power NURBS, Power Translators, and Power Solids products received a turbo charged performance boost with the version 5.0 release. This 5.0 version dramatically improves productivity and design throughput by significantly optimizing the most common operations used in virtually all of the commands. Power Translators, Power NURBS and Power Solids 5.0 now also take advantage of modern multi-processor architectures with multi-threaded tessellation. Version 5.0 also supports much larger models (especially for importing) due to a reduced memory footprint. With version 5.0, you can work on larger models, get the job finished significantly faster, with fewer obstacles, and have more fun doing it.

iZ3D, LLC, designer, developer, and marketer of advanced 3D visualization systems, is pleased to announce that it has been selected to join the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program. Stewarded by the Emerging Business Team (EBT) at Microsoft Corp., the program is designed to connect high-potential startups committed to the Microsoft platform to an extensive support network that provides access to Microsoft people and programs. “We are pleased that Microsoft acknowledges the emergence of 3D as a viable trend for immersive gaming, computer design and home theater purposes. Through our selection into the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program we are hoping to work closely with Microsoft to expose more consumers to the thrill of the stereoscopic 3D experience through our 22-inch widescreen 3D monitors,” remarked Thomas Striegler, CEO of iZ3D, LLC.

Book

ZBrush Character Creation: Advanced Digital Sculpting - ZBrush’s

popularity is exploding giving more CG artists the power to create stunning digital art with a distinctively fine art feel. ZBrush Character Creation: Advanced Digital Sculpting is the must-have guide to creating highly detailed, lush, organic models using the revolutionary ZBrush software. Digital sculptor Scott Spencer guides you through the full array of ZBrush tools, including brushes, textures and detailing. You’ll gain inspiration and insight from the beautiful full-color illustrations and professional tips from experienced ZBrush artists included in the book. ISBN: 978-0-470-24996-3

Training

Unreal VFX: Material Transitions - In this demonstration the instructor

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goes into depth on how to create a material that can transition from one set of textures and parameters, into another. He also gets into how to make a character completely dissolve away. Once the materials are setup, the instructor goes into how to control them in Cascade, Kismet, and Matinee. While inside Matinee, you learn how to time the dissolve to match the animation, and also how to swap entire materials and allow the character to dissolve after he has transformed from stone to real life. Price of the DVD is $59.95 and download for $49.95

Issue 3 June - July 2008

Your Best Opportunity This Year to Reach the Dynamic Digital Media Audience in Asia. The first SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Asia opens in Singapore on 10 December 2008. SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 will be a very powerful magnet for everyone in the continent’s vibrant computer graphics community. Reserve your exhibit space now for this historic marketing opportunity in the world’s most dynamic digital media region. THE EXHIBITION

THE CONFERENCE

A diverse, energetic showcase of everything Asia and beyond have to offer in computer graphics and interactive techniques, from hardware and software companies to production studios, and country trade pavilions hosting the established and emerging enterprises that are shaping the future of digital media.

Art, animation, instruction, interactive demos, and technical papers–all of tomorrow’s digital media technologies, and all presented to attract Asia’s talented, energetic cast of researchers, developers, producers, and users of computer graphics and interactive techniques.

Companies interested in purchasing exhibit space or sponsorships, please contact: SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 Exhibition Management T: +65 6500 6726 F: +65 6296 2771 exhibits_asia2008@siggraph.org Singapore Skyline photo courtesy of Singapore Tourism Board

The 1st ACM SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Asia CONFERENCE 10 – 13 DECEMBER 2008 E X H I B I T I O N 11 – 13 DECEMBER 2008 SUNTEC SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION AND EXHIBITION CENTRE

interview

AN INTERVIEW WITH Dario Lanza Q. Hello Dario, could you tell us a bit about yourself, location etc.? Hello. I’m engineer, but I found that digital imaginary was my passion. Then, I studied photography and film making in Madrid, and started working as graphic designer at the advertising agency BBDO. Working there, I found 3D imaginary and that changed everything... Q. Were you trained in 3D or self taught? My first step in 3D was self taught and trying an old version of 3D Studio max. I apply for working on an advertising campaign for a well-known Spanish gin. After that, I decided to improve my 3D skills and I began a Master course at Aula Tematica, the big Spanish Training Center, where after years I found myself working as 3D Instructor for people like me years before.

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interview

AN INTERVIEW WITH Dario Lanza Q. Have you done any work on the films live set? Please share the experience and any obstacles face. My only work on film till today was for a 2D animation film, where I was integrating 3D animations and characters over 2D footage. The main obstacle, as always, was the tight deadlines, but I met great artist there and I found this as a very enriching experience.

Q. What’s the reason of choosing Lightwave as your main 3d program and what changes you like to see/recommend in the future versions? The main reason for choosing Lightwave was its amazing quality and speed of render. With FPrime you can see realtime results, even with radiosity or complex illumination. No more time-consuming waiting to see if this texture is looking good or not. This changed our way of working forever. I find that real-time feedback is the future of the tools for 3D imaginary. The speed and ease of model was another important asset to choose Lightwave. I would like to see some changes in character setup and animation, and why not some improvements in fluids.

Q. Do you do any preliminary drawings before you model, or do you just start and see what happens and how long on average would you spend on an image? Lots of drawings and sketches are always necessary in my work. I never start modeling before having a very close idea

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interview

AN INTERVIEW WITH Dario Lanza of what I’m looking for. We must never forget that computer is only the tool but the artist process works as always: from the idea to the sketch and after dozens of sketches you can plan the final piece. This is the only clue for success. Naturally, more the complex image is, the longer it takes, but an average illustration is lasting about ten days approx. from the idea to the post produced final render.

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Issue 3 June - July 2008

interview

AN INTERVIEW WITH Dario Lanza Q. Do you think sketching is necessary for the 3d Artist or is there any other way round? Preproduction and sketching are indispensable for the 3D artist, just like search of references, research and look development. With a good preproduction, you get half the illustration finished. The other half is the execution itself, but this is a more mechanic work. Q. How’s the CG industry and scope in Spain? Your government helps in any way for the growth of the animation industry? In Spain, the CG industry is starting. There is no help from the government and our cinema industry has not enough special Fx or animation films. This is the reason why so many excellent cg Spanish professionals working all around the world on the greatest studios, but some working in our country. But this is finally changing, and now there are a few studios that are helping to grow it up, and I think that there is a very interesting future for our industry and our cinema here. I hope so.

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interview

AN INTERVIEW WITH Dario Lanza Q. If you could create yourself as any 3D character whether it’s in a game or a film who would it be? Hmmmm... This is a very funny question. I think I choose Gandalf, this is a very cool character, don’t you think? Q. What are your hobbies, and where you see yourself after 5 years? My hobbies are music (I’m bass player), photography, designing and film. I see myself in the future working on a university, helping to research and developing this exciting art-technique. I enjoy teaching and developing, so I think this is my perfect job. I will combine it with a bit of production and creative work. You need to feed your creative soul anyway... Q. What is one piece of advice you would give to any artist looking to get into 3D? Have Patience, if you don’t get what you’re looking for, try another way. Be always alert, the real world is full of subtle tiny details you must be aware. Study and look for inspiration in the classics and work of other artists. Then you can define your own style as you like it. In this job, you must never stop learning, but the reward will make it worth. Be sure. Q. On which projects you are working these days, and which project you enjoying the most? These days I’m busy with the projects of the students and the classes, but I’m waiting to have a little time to make an illustration I have in mind. I can only say that it will be a reconstruction of the ancient life. Q. Anything you like to add? It is your chance now to state your opinion about anything. Congratulations to a lot of great artists out there. I’m always learning from them and they are a real reference for my work. I would like to be reference for others like those are for me. Don’t you think we have the best job in the world? Thanks a lot Dario for your time. Best Wishes for future. Thank you, Good luck and Congratulations for this wonderful magazine.

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Website: www.dariolanza.com Issue 3 June - July 2008

Artwork By: Dario Lanza

by Kriss Skorjanec Email: krisstus@digitaljesus.eu

Spring Break

photoshop Usually we soften portraits, but not this time. We are going to crack it up. Big time.. Step 1: Open the image in Photoshop and duplicate it. Now set the new layer to Linear Dodge. This gives our portrait more vivid colors.

Step 2: Let’s get even more Contrast and Dynamic. Create a new Adjustment layer „ curves „ . Make sure you have the Channel set to RGB and slightly give the Contrast a little Boost.

Step 3: To add more Contrast hold down the [ALT] Key and click in the layers window between the Curves layer and the layer beneath ( in our case it’s called Layer 1 )

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photoshop Step 4: Okay. Now starts the fun part of our project. Let’s take our texture and place it in our PS document right on top of the other layers. Set the layer mode to multiply.

Step 5: Now we want to get rid of the red colors in our work. That’s an easy one. We go Just beneath our texture layer and add another Adjustment layer. Create a new Adjustment layer -> Hue/ Saturation. Now take the Saturation down to -100.

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photoshop Step 6: Adding shadows. To make our work look more 3D we will have to boost the shadows, espacially in the mouth and between the theeth and the upper lip. For this I like to work on a layer, that contents all the visual layers beneath, just like a screenshot. That gives you even another advantage: you can adjust the intensity of the shadows with the opacity of that layer. Make sure you have the top layer selected. Hold down [shift] + [Ctrl] + [alt] press [N] , then [E]. That will give you a layer that contains all the other visible layers.

Step 7: Select the Burn tool [O]. Range: Midtones. Exposure: 10 – 20 %. Choose a round brush with soft edges and start burning up the shadows. The blue lines show you where you should boost the shadows.

Step 8: To get more life in our picture we can give more color to our grass. So let’s add another Adjustment layer on top of our composition. New Adjustment Layer -> Hue/ Saturation. Instead of Edit: Master we choose -> Edit: Greens. And now we increase the Saturation for about + 20.

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photoshop Step 9: Well, we did it. Now we can flatten the image and sharpen it up a little. After the flattening we go to Filter -> Sharpen -> Unsharp Mask.... The settings you choose depends on what you want to do with your project. If you want to print it, i recommend to sharpen it a bit more than it looks perfect on your screen.

Now your effect is complete, I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial.

by Kriss Skorjanec krisstus@digitaljesus.eu

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Project Dogwaffle at TheBest3D.com: Beyond Digital Painting Do you like to Draw? Paint? Animate? Do you have 3D animations that need post work? Special FX? Discover the fun of digital painting and animation with Project Dogwaffle Planetary Art - Create fabulous planetary textures for great space art!

Credit: Philip Staiger Painting with Particle Brushes - Use Particle brushes and special FX filters to turn a simple screenshot from your game into a dramatic vision.

Dogwaffler of the Moment - Great western art - native americans, cowboys and eagles

Credit: Frank Bonaquisti See the animation – Click here Blue Screen Compositing of Animations Take your 3D rendered animation or video sequence into a different world. Use PD Pro for blue- or green-screen compositing.

June-July 2008 Promotion for CGArena Readers Order Buy PD Pro 3.5 or 4 and save 25% over the regular price. Order the download edition from the BMT store. Click Here! PD Pro 4 regular price is $119 , PD Pro 3.5 regular price is $79 Be sure to enter this discount code when ordering till 31st July 2008: BHCB0003U

after effects Paint i ng to Rev e a l L ayer by Suzane Smith, Canada Email: suz.smith@hotmail.com

Quite often, you will not use Paint to directly create visible strokes; instead, you will use Paint to reveal other layers you’ve already created. This can give the impression that you are “painting on” more complex imagery. This trick will be the focus of this tutorial Step 1: Create composition and import the image on which you like to paint. Remember for this tutorial creates an alpha channel in the image using Photoshop. Create a selection around the object in Photoshop and press create alpha button in the channels panel. Save the image as tga, tiff or any other format which can keep alpha channel not jpeg, gif, bmp.

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Issue 3 June - July 2008

after effects Step 2: Drag the new image in the composition. To reveal an image, its layer has to start off invisible, and then gradually be revealed over time. Painting on an invisible layer isn’t very easy, though – so you’ll make the layer transparent in a later step. Change the Workspace to Paint. Start by painting in its new alpha channel.

Step 3: Double click on the image to open it in its layer panel. Click on Show Channel icon at the bottom of the Layer panel and select Alpha.

Step 4: Select the Brush tool. In the Paint panel, check that Opacity and Flow are both set to 100%. Set the Foreground color to white. Set Mode to Normal and Channels to Alpha

Step 5: Set the Duration popup to Write On. The Write On option automatically sets the keyframes for the stroke’s End parameter. Adjust the brush tip as per the image requirement.

Step 6: You are at starting of the composition 00:00, paint from the bottom up in one continuous stroke over the course of a few seconds. When you release the mouse, the paint stroke will disappear. This is because Write On automatically created keyframes for End, starting at End = 0%. If you’re not happy with the stroke, Undo and try again.

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after effects

Step 7: Select the layer and Press F3 to open Effects control panel. Check the Paint on transparent option On. The remaining problem is that the original alpha has been replaced with the paint stroke. To retrieve it, apply Effect > Channels > Set Matte. Leave the options at default, this way your strokes also not override other things in image and strokes don’t go outside your alpha channel in the image.

RAM Preview it and your effect is completed and this technique you can use in creating very complex effects. If you create something using this technique then please don’t forget to show me. by Suzane Smith, Canada suz.smith@hotmail.com

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Cultural Heritage of Ancient India by Nitin.D.Mahale, India Email: nitinszz@gmail.com

3ds max

Hi friends, my name is Nitin.D.Mahale and may be you all know that I made this piece for CGArena “Ancient Times” 3D Challenge sponsored by iZ3D, Pixologic, Craft Animations, Polyboost, ambientLight, Hyperfocal Design, Noesis Interactive and N-sided, I won the first prize in this challenge. I would like to thank CGArena for arranging this wonderful challenge and allowing upcoming artists like us to show some skills and learn from it. So, this is a great opportunity for me to show the process of making this theme come into life. First of all I would like to give some introduction about the concept and the inspiration of the theme. Inspiration/Concept I have always been fantasized about the Architecture of India and the Era of the time when the Kings and their kingdom. I especially love Rajput architecture, at that era near about 8th - 10th century they build many beautiful palaces and setup their kingdoms at places like Ajmer, Jaipur, Udaipur, Ujjain etc; I always used to portray the kind of environment where they stayed, obviously their great palaces and the beautiful surrounding around them. This was the greatest inspiration I got and rest was my imagination helped me in following the concept.

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3ds max References

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Issue 3 June - July 2008

3ds max Modeling Modeling is the part I really enjoyed doing, as I love complex modeling and maintaining the proportions as it is, for the proportions I just imagined the floor size and started meshing accordingly. Here u can see started on the modeling process of the entire Udaipur palace building, using the reference picture as a background, also maintaining the proportions and modeling with box, spheres, splines and arcs I got what I want. There is nothing fancy in modeling things; normal poly modeling at some stages is very useful. So, here is my basic mesh of the side building. I already decided to build this in two parts, the side building and main building, for main building I got some reference picture from internet, the modeling process is as seen here. After spending some time on complex meshing on the buildings, I am pretty satisfied with the modeling there, and its time to show some environment add-ons such as trees, water and other necessary models to add and beautify the scene to get the desired look as planned.

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3ds max

Tree Therefore, started to model some trees around, because I never modeled any of these before, it was my 1st attempt. Started with a cylinder with specific segments(10 each), convert to edit-poly, extrude, bevel and move some vertices to get the tree trunk kind of look, apply mesh smooth and there it is, u got the trunk there, if its too smooth then try to chamfer some edges and adjust it however you want. Ok, now for the leaves, refer to the Scatter tutorial we get in Autodesk 3ds Max Help section, its pretty easy and can be done within minutes, or you can follow other method of Particle system which I did, here it follows, select Pcloud under Particle Systems, drag it as per the branches of the tree and then make a small place with leaf texture applied with opacity map and keep aside which be our source to scatter around the Pcloud; under Pcloud there will be pick object where we have to pick the same plane(leaf ) and set pcloud to sphere emitter with viewport display of mesh, under particle type select instanced geometry and under instancing parameters pick object the same leaf plane, that will give the exact amount of leaves around the branches, later play in particle generation which will give the control of the leaves and its size etc, that’s it. Copy, scale and arrange around the branches of the trunk as per the desired look!

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3ds max Stones/Rocks It’s quite simple, for this take a sphere radius 600mm with default segments, anyways it can be increased later as per desired simulation, then apply Noise modifier with fractal option checked on, and strength X, Y to 75 and Z to 50 or as per need, then convert to Edit poly and move some bunch of polys here and there to get stone kind a look and apply mesh smooth modifier, that’s it, applied texture with little displacement and rocks are ready to add in the scene!

Stone Map which is used on above textured stones

Diya It’s a simple lathe modeling, scaled, skewed, applied FFD Box and played around the shape until it I got the desired look, selected the upper polys and applied Floral texture whichever looked nicer, & for the flame, I surfed through internet and got a good looking flame image, which I edited in Photoshop and also made opacity map, placed a plane at the edge of the Diya and added VRayMTLwrapper to the flame material to spread some light around itself, & there was my beautiful Diya!

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3ds max

Flame Material and Settings -- > Boat Modeling done using bevel profile for the boat shaped spline, added necessary stuff to look it more old of its kind, apply nice wood texture and I got what I want.

Textured Boat

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Wireframe of the Boat

Issue 3 June - July 2008

3ds max Mashaal (Light Torch) Good reference from internet helped me to get the accurate shape of the mashaal, modeled it accordingly following the shape and got exactly the same, applied nice rusted metal texture to it and got the rusty kinder look. For the flames, I tried 2 types of them, one is with sphere gizmo under Atmospheric apparatus and other with same trick I did for diya, image with opacity map, and wrapped around with planes on the mashaal.

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3ds max Flag This was quite simpler, yet it was my first time and I really enjoyed doing this, because this was done with the help of the Flag tutorial from default Autodesk 3ds Max Help section there was no major errors as I followed the tutorial as it is and played little around the parameters and got the look what I wanted.

ith sufficient amount of segments, added little noise of about X, Y, Z – 50, noise map in both diffuse and bump with 20-30 or as desired, on right page there is the material with settings.

Now, everything’s done and I started merging all the stuff and placing it in there respective positions where they should be, so, here is the scene without textures.

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Texturing Finally my modeling is done and models were ready for texturing but I am not a great fan of texturing, anyways I had to do it, so I decided to go for it and collected some nice textures from my library. Not sure whether which will look good, as you can see in the references palace, there is entire single flat paint flowed to it, so I decided to keep it that way and applied nice marble texture to it and kept it as it, somehow after some test with rough lighting I finally managed to give proper textures to entire models therein.

3ds max

Lighting This is the most wonderful part of the entire theme and also the trickiest, as u all know that lighting plays an important part in bringing things to life! And I really enjoyed doing this the most, I had planned accordingly and also had portrayed the look of the moonlight in a calm and beautiful atmosphere, where it should feel like everybody is retired and is sleeping. So, the entire environment should look peaceful and pleasant. For this scene I chose V-ray as my renderer, as it gives better result than any other Rendering engine, according to my experiments!

So, I have to create a moonlight effect, for that, the moon light should be felt throughout with its blue tint and as I had planned of the night scene, I modeled the mashaal to get the warmer look as well where the light will fall on the walls of the palace and make it look much natural, which also the theme suggested as in olden days there were no light bulbs or any so this was the better idea. Here u can see the scene with lights placement and light settings accordingly.

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VraySun

Direct Light

Vray Light

Omni Light

3ds max Rendering So, everything including lighting is done and I am very happy about the results I got; now I have to render it in high settings, I decided to go for 3000+ pixels which also I can print. Here are the settings for the same.

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3ds max Post Production This was the final step of the render, and also important too. I have some nice skies in my library, picked some of them and blended them within each other with some stars and moon which I got from internet, and created my own version of nice moonlight sky! Then, the scene was ready and to give a more fantasized look, played with hue-saturation, color corrected and added a little bit of bluish tint with slight yellow highlights which will give colder as well as warmer look to the entire scene. Now, the image is a bit sharp and I wanted a kind of dreamy look so added some Gaussian blur to the scene of around 10% and there it is my final version is ready to upload! Hope you all enjoyed the tutorial as much as I enjoyed it writing, if there is any thing more u want to know or any feedback’s, you are free to ask or mail me on nitinszz@gmail.com & nits_1603@yahoo.co.in Again, I thank CGArena for giving me chance to explain the process and making this tutorial, Happy rendering to all! About the Artist My name is Nitin.D.Mahale; basically I am from India (Mumbai).I have been in this field for past 5 years, I graduated with Bachelors of commerce degree and have no base of Arts or any of such streams. I love working on large projects, especially lighting, creating environments as you can see it’s the best part in my work, and I just love it!

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see it...capture it... we’ll take care of the rest. screen capture the way you always wanted it to be.

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by Ralph Reinle, Turkey Email: ralphreinle@gmail.com

Making of Sculpture

zbrush Introduction Being a 3D enthusiast for many years, I’m always watching closely the CG communities and forums for inspiration and information. I find the workshops, running in some of those communities/forums, especially at CGTalk.com, a wonderful opportunity as learning experiences and pushing the artists’ skills further. The only problem I usually have, working full time and doing my fine art bachelor degree, is finding time to participate of such workshops. But one in particular that picked my attention was the 3D Sculpting Workshop – Motion, at CGTalk moderated by Rebecca Kimmel. There were some suggestions that we could pick from. I saw the Corneille Van Clève’s Polyphemus Sculpture and I thought that would be a great exercise to start with. At that time I had done only some tutorials and modeled a bust on Zbrush. So I didn’t know that much of Zbrush and this project was a real challenge. Since it was one of my first’s models I learned a lot, but had done lots of mistakes that I wouldn’t do in the same way today. References

The first step for me is always to look for as many reference pictures as I can get, from all sides I can find. I found these at the site of the Louvre: Click Here.

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zbrush Basemesh The basemesh was a kind of Frankenstein. I picked parts from different models I had done in the past in Maya and started putting all together. I had a poly hand that looked beautiful in Maya, but later on I realized that, because of the so many details on the fingernails I had modeled in Maya, it brought me a lot of trouble in Zbrush. So if I have an advice would be, if you start with basemeshes, start it simple.

Pose your Model First Another mistake that made me lost a lot of time, was trying to pose the model AFTER I had done some details. He had a complicated pose and it was very time consuming trying to adapt what I had already detailed in the right pose. Even the hand is important to be positioned first before detailing it.

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zbrush

A good tip is trying to pose him at the very beginning with the basemesh at level 1, or, if the pose is too complicated, maybe trying to use some maquette models just to experiment and find the right pose of your model. At Ryan Kingslay’s blog Sculpt. Paint. Create. there are some great maquette models to download. Detailing the Hair and Beard Another issue that I had was the amount of detail on the beard and hair. Because I was using a basemesh with a head that I’ve done in the old fashion way, in other words bald, when I started detailing those areas the resolution was not enough and if I had subdivided the whole mesh once more, the total poly count would be too high. The solution I got was to subdivide only the regions of the hair and beard and the rest of the mesh was hidden. The resulted mesh was not really what I wanted but it did the trick. I think the best solution is to predict where you will have more details in your mesh and prepare a basemesh with this in mind.

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zbrush Modeling and Detailing There is actually no secret for the rest of the modeling and detailing. It’s just a game of patience and observation. I picked a subject with lot of details and props. So you can’t really do it fast because at some point, after hours looking at the object, my eyes started getting tired and you didn’t see the things right. When that happened, I stopped and tried again the next day. Take your time!

After finished the render, now I ready to composite the renders in XSI. In this session I only used 3 render pass, they are color pass (with shadow), ambient occlusion pass and specular pass. The Alpha pass I used it later in Photoshop for color correction and other tweaking.

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zbrush Exporting and Rendering Well that was probably the most time consuming and boring task of the whole project. For one side because I had to learn all the technical aspect of bringing the details from Zbrush to an external 3D package (the one I chose was 3dsmax because I wanted to render with Vray), the other side because I couldn’t find a well documented default procedure for rendering the details on the low-res model. I had to do a lot of tests and searched all over the place for information. I only found my way when I saw a thread at Zbrushcentral.com that the artist was exporting the mesh in a mid-level resolution and using normal maps instead of displacement maps. The material and light setup was very basic.

That’s it and my final image is ready, in upcoming pages check out the model from different angle and close up.

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winners In Feb2008-Apr2008, your mission was to create a 3d image on the theme “Ancient Times” and sponsored by Pixologic, Craft Animations, iZ3d, N-Sided, Hyperfocal Design, ambientLight, Polyboost and Noesis Interactive.

Nitin.D.Mahale, India nitinszz@gmail.com

First Prize - $7323USD

Christopher ADAJAR, France topherus@yahoo.com

Second Prize- $1164 USD

june-july20

Articles inside

Interview Dario Lanza

Maya Modeling Morgane

ZBrush Making of Sculpture

After Effects Painting to Reveal Layer

Photoshop Spring Break