Roy thinks that everyone in the VFX industry is doing a great job. And he’s not at all happy about it

As Radiohead so succinctly sang – just before they disappeared up their own arses and started recording entire concept albums based around the mating rituals of the lesser spotted flying snowfish – “you do it to yourself, you do”. Or, to put it another way, we in the visual effects industry haven’t half made a rod for our own back.

Think about it. What happens every time we get a bigger rendering farm, more processing welly or a new tool to streamline the whole godforsaken process of turning innumerable mouse clicks into 4K, stereoscopic gold? What we should be doing is turning out work to the same old standard, then clocking off early and using the extra time to discover first-hand what daylight really looks like. But no, instead we faff around, increasing the complexity and quality of the work until all speed benefits are completely and utterly negated.

It’s not as if anybody further up the food chain even offers any additional praise, much less a pay rise or sexual favours. And why should they? It’s highly unlikely they asked for the extra bells and whistles in the first place. But you can be damn sure they’ll demand them next time around.

Going the extra mile when it’s uncalled for is bad enough, but even more damaging is the way we all collectively bow to pressure from people who have the audacity to squeeze every last ounce of blood, sweat and tears from a studio they’ve hand-picked solely on the basis of its financial desperation and geographical location (essential for those all-important tax incentives).

In any other service industry, the creative types always sail generously over deadline and over budget. For one thing, it sticks it to The Man. And, more importantly, they realise that demonstrating the ability to come in under budget and on time would be counter-productive: next time around they’d be asked to do the same or better work with less money and less time. Hell, I’ve submitted this article three days late and am charging 3D World double my usual fee, just to demonstrate how it’s supposed to work.

But the visual effects industry? It just never learns. Everybody loves to trot out the same old theory that everything went pear-shaped after Steven Spielberg personally wired electrodes to the nether regions of VFX grunts to get the CG work for War of the Worlds completed in a mere 12 weeks. But truth be told, the visual effects industry has always acted like the ugly girl at the prom – so grateful to get any kind of attention from Hollywood that we let them get past third base without so much as the promise of a phone call the next day. Ever wonder why VFX supervisors always look so uncomfortable at the Oscars? They’re forever waiting for a team of security guards to swoop in and drag them away from Brad, Angelina and all the real movie industry types.

What’s needed is a return to the days when the movie industry didn’t have quite so much confidence in visual effects. By sticking CGI front and centre in their movies, directors have piled on the pressure to unbearable levels. Critics love to harp on about the digital dinosaurs in Jurassic Park being as good, if not better, than those in the current crop of creature features. But they’re more impressive because they were used sparingly. The Spielberg of 1993 knew that less really was more – a lesson he’d learned the hard way when making Jaws and discovering that lingering shots of a plastic shark wouldn’t frighten a small child.

Luckily, I’ve got a plan. If we all just agree to start collectively underperforming, then I think we might be able to turn back the clock. Think about it: if the quality dips just a small amount with every show, the money men won’t spot what we’re up to, while the directors will react subconsciously by slowly but surely paring back the CG. Like the apocryphal frog in the pan of slowly heating water, Hollywood will only realise something is up when it’s too late. And by then we’ll all be working 30-hour weeks, enjoying extended liquid lunches, and deciding when and if we want to take their calls.

Alternatively, you might want to consider a more forgiving creative field, like the music industry. I hear there’s currently a lot of demand for musicians who can play the Siberian arse lute. Radiohead must be getting ready for another world tour…

About the author
Mental Roy has been lurking on the fringes of the 3D industry for years – usually fringes that contain pubs. We could tell you his real name, but then we’d have to kill you

As Daz’s free software promotion draws to a close, we caught up with co-founder and chief strategy officer, Dan Farr, to ask him about Daz’s decision to give away millions of dollars of software…

This month, Daz is offering over $800 of software to download for free. So if you haven’t already cashed in on this awesome deal from Daz, you’ve still got a few days to do so.

The promotion includes figure-posing tool DAZ Studio 4 Pro, landscape generator Bryce 7 Pro, modelling application Hexagon 2.5 (and PhotoShop Bridge).

Dan Farr interview

We caught up with co-founder and chief strategy officer, Dan Farr, to ask him about Daz’s decision to give away three software packages:

3D World: Daz’s software pricing has always seemed very reasonable, so please could you explain the thinking behind giving away the three packages for nothing?

Dan Farr: DAZ is in a fortunate situation where we offer both software and content that allows us tremendous flexibility on pricing and promotions. Although our software is very reasonably priced, we felt that it would be very beneficial for us do something ‘risky’ to really reach out to new customers in a big way. Although we may be stepping over some immediate revenue, we now have relationships with hundreds of thousands of potential new customers. That strategy is already paying off. In one week, our new user registrations eclipsed what most software companies would cite as their total installed base.

3D World: Daz’s bread and butter is the 3D stock content that’s used with Daz software, but surely by offering this software for free you’re losing out on software sales?

Dan Farr: Although we can’t be too specific with the numbers, I will say that the large majority of DAZ’s revenue is from content. Software is definitely something that helps to drive the sales of content usage and content development.

3D World: Who are you targeting with this promotion?
Dan Farr: This promotion was targeted to anyone who has an interest in doing 3D art and animation.

Get three award-winning 3D software products for free and start illustrating, modelling and animating now. Illustrations by Ka-Anna and Tony Bradt

3D World: Daz is often labelled ‘for hobbyists’, but how much of your business in made of up professional 3D artists and how many are amateurs?

Dan Farr: Although our current mix of customers is definitely heavy towards hobbyists, with Genesis we have seen a huge surge in usage by professional illustration and animation customers. For many of the high-end animators, DAZ has become their secret weapon as it helps them create fantastic work faster and easier.

3D World: Did you think about offering all your software for free?

Dan Farr: We defintely put some thought into doing that, but we felt that our needs were better suited to focus on the promotion on DAZ Studio, Bryce and Hexagon. We felt we could still make a huge impact on the 3D industry without going all in and the results proved that to be the case.

3D World: Why was Carrara left out of the giveaway promotion?

Dan Farr: Carrara is getting near a new release that will provide support for Genesis. Carrara also has a higher percentage of professional artists and animators using it so it did not make as much sense to put it out for free.

3D World: Have you got any plans to release more content for free, or is it just the software?

Dan Farr: We have found a ‘freemium’ strategy to be successful in both content and software. I definitely believe that we will have more content in the future that is available for free. One of the most valuable free offerings at this point is the Genesis base product included in DAZ Studio. There are a ton of capabilities that come with the free version (maybe too much) before you add any of the purchasable Genesis components.

Dan Farr says, "One of the most valuable free offerings at this point is the Genesis base product included in DAZ Studio." As this image shows there are a multitude of options that come with the free version

3D World: How long have you been planning this promotion?

Dan Farr: We have had internal discussion about putting our software out free many times over the years but the timing seemed great following Genesis. People can now use Genesis in its full capacity in DAZ Studio and then use Bryce and Hexagon to provide additional content and environmental rendering.

3D World: Have you ever done anything like this before?

Dan Farr: DAZ Studio was originally free until DAZ Studio 3.0, which was when we started offering Standard (Free) and Advanced (paid) packages. One of the drawbacks of offering things for free is that customers do not always appreciate the value. With this latest offer, customers do realize that we are truly giving away something of great value.

3D World: What’s been the takeup so far?

Dan Farr: I cannot be specific but we have had hundreds of thousands of registrations of the software products. The mix is actually pretty evenly spread out with DAZ Studio being slightly in the lead in the number of new registrations.

3D World: How are you dealing with people who have recently bought the software? Have you had many complaints from customers?

Dan Farr: DAZ is one of the few (if not only) companies that offers customers a 30 day guarantee. The number of customers who were frustrated were very small in comparison to how big of a deal this was. I think the DAZ customers realize the value they receive from us on a continual basis and that we will be offering more things in the future that will directly benefit them, like our March Madness promotion where people are able to get top quality products for just a few dollars each.

3D World: Are you happy with the results?

Dan Farr: There is never a completely perfect promotion but this one has turned out to be a contender for our most successful ever. We are in this business for the long haul and realize that success isn’t based on one event but a persistence of good events. The DAZ user base has received a huge bump and as a result we are seeing our daily number of new customers grow significantly higher and that trend should continue for many months to come, even after the promotion ends.

Download the packages via DAZ’s main free software promotion page

3D World is giving away a free model of Victoria 5

We’re also giving away a free Daz Victoria 5 figure with latest 3D World magazine.

Victoria is the best-selling 3D female figure from Daz.

She usually costs $39.95, but she’s all yours for nothing in issue 153 of 3D World.*
The latest issue of 3D World is on sale now!

*Print edition only

For years, it was an industry standard. But will recent changes in upgrade pricing and new alternatives prompt the VFX community to abandon Adobe’s image-editing software?

Adobe’s decision to restrict the upgrade path to the upcoming Photoshop CS6 sent shockwaves through the software’s user community when it was announced last November.

The move will confine upgrades to users of CS5, forcing those with earlier versions to buy the software again outright ­- an extra cost of $500, if current pricing is maintained.

According to Scott Kelby, president of the US National Association of Photoshop Professionals, the new policy will leave a significant number of [Adobe] customers with no affordable upgrade path to Photoshop CS6 or the Creative Suite.

NEWS UPDATE 9 February 2012

Since this article was written, Adobe has made a new announcement:
“With regards to the Adobe Creative Suite Upgrade Policy, we’ll be offering CS3 and CS4 users special introductory pricing on the upcoming new CS6 when it is released later this year. The special introductory offer will last until 31st December 2012,” says Adobe.
Read more information about the Creative Suite Upgrade Offer on the Adobe website

The decision is part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud initiative, and the issue of whether the new policy is unfair to users – or, in contrast, whether its previous upgrade policy was unduly lenient – has been debated at length online.

But it does raise the question of what other options its users have, particularly in an industry like visual effects, in which Photoshop has been a de facto standard since the early 1990s.

In a recent thread on CGTalk, Mari product manager Jack Greasley pointed out that The Foundry’s 3D paint package already contains many of the core components needed to build a 2D image-processing application. His comments prompted a story on CG news site Max Underground headlined ‘Photoshop competition on the horizon?’

The Frost Beast from Thor. For large studios such as Digital Domain, Mari is increasingly replacing Photoshop in the texture pipeline

Do you really need Photoshop?

So could the VFX industry ever move away from Adobe? And is there a Photoshop killer currently in development? We spoke to a number of major London studios and found that the answer is ‘yes’ but not necessarily in the way you might think.

Our first port of call was The Foundry itself, where co-founder and chief scientist Simon Robinson squashed speculation that the company is actively developing a 2D image-editing package. “There’s nothing in the immediate roadmap,” he said. “But it’s not the first time this has been brought up, and we’re fascinated by what people might want us to do.”

“We could drop things and build [a direct competitor to Photoshop] tomorrow, but I think it would be a mistake,” he continued. “Photoshop is a very tough target because it’s so pervasive. It’s on so many desks in so many industries, and has such a long history.”

This isn’t the first time that the idea of a dedicated alternative to Photoshop has been proposed. In the 1990s, Adobe’s decision to discontinue support for the application for the then-standard SGI workstations prompted VFX house Rhythm & Hues and software developer Silicon Grail to fund work on an open-source image-editing tool originally created by students at UC Berkeley.

This branch of the code was used internally within Hollywood studios, only coming to wider attention through a story written in Linux Journal by Robin Rowe. Following its public release, Rowe was contacted by studios including Sony Pictures Imageworks and ILM to contribute further source code they had generated internally, SPI even temporarily dedicated a staff member to development work.

Talk of a VFX-specific alternative to Photoshop goes back a decade. Although on hiatus since, open- source tool CinePaint was used on movies such as 2003's The Last Samurai

Lessons from CinePaint

Although the application, now known as CinePaint, went on to be used on The Last Samurai and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, development again slowed, and the project effectively went into hiatus until Rowe’s announcement of an official 1.0 build late last year. The GUI may now look dated, but he points out that the software’s ability to handle the 32-bit floating-point images necessary for visual effects work makes it “a bit like a DeSoto with a turbo-charged V8 engine underneath”.

But for studios unwilling to devote their own staff to the CinePaint project, the unpredictable pace of community-led development is likely to prove a stumbling block.

Such companies are more likely to turn to existing commercial software. Major VFX companies typically ask for fairly small tweaks to The Foundry’s exisiting products: Mari and the compositing package Nuke.

According to Elliot Newman, head of assets at London VFX house MPC, Mari and Nuke “have all the features we need [in a texturing pipeline] already. The issue for me is more about getting them to flow nicely together.”

Textured in Mari: part of BlueBolt's work from Game of Thrones. Although Photoshop's filters are faster for batch operations, The Foundry's software replicates most of its key features

At present, MPC artists have to open Photoshop, ZBrush, Mari, Nuke and Maya to navigate from one end of its’ texturing and shading pipeline to another: that means five separate applications, running on two different operating systems, each one with its own unique workflow.

“That’s a lot of software to learn,” Newman says. “If we could get something that has the paint [capabilities] and fast layering functionality of Mari, but with the powerful image-editing tools of Nuke, with strong integration to our renderer, I think it would be a winner.”

Teaming Mari with Nuke

Double Negative, another leading London VFX house and MPC’s near neighbour, has gone even further towards eliminating Photoshop from its texturing pipeline. “Mari hasn’t completely replaced it, but it’s close,” says Alwyn Hunt, senior texture artist at the studio. “For character work, I hardly use Photoshop at all. It’s just that some of [Mari's] filters are slow, so we find for batch-processing stuff, we still go into Photoshop and quickly manipulate maps, especially if we’re dealing with a lot of maps.”

On recent movies, Double Negative has even dispensed with this step, using custom scripts to generate the secondary texture maps within Nuke. “Rather than going from Mari back into Photoshop, we’re using Nuke, which reads sequence-named images to set up fast workflows for outputting secondary maps. This enables us to easily adjust complete sets of texture maps. From a production point of view this saves a lot of time,” Hunt says.

For recent movies like Captain America, VFX house Double Negative has increasingly teamed Mari with compositing package Nuke, reducing its use of Photoshop

The issue, he believes, is not that Photoshop lacked the tools necessary for visual effects but that cross-platform workflow forced artists to spend so much time opening and closing large files. “When you have files with 100 layers, managing them eats up a lot of your time,” he says. “Whereas in Mari, you just paint – which is where a texture artist wants to be.”

Although for smaller facilities, the combined cost of Mari and Nuke – currently $6,880, as opposed to $1,699 for Adobe’s Production Premium product bundle – may still be an insurmountable hurdle, Adobe’s new upgrade pricing has begun to eat away at that price differential.

According to Hunt, this increase in operating cost, combined with the efficiencies in workflow made possible by eliminating an extra software package from a pipeline, could soon lead to the end of Photoshop’s 20-year run as an industry-standard visual effects tool.

Your ‘Photoshop for VFX’

What would you like to see in a dedicated VFX image-editing package? Have your say in our poll

We’d also like to hear your thoughts on the subject. Alwyn Hunt, co-ordinator of the LinkedIn Texture Artists group, is hosting a poll on the site to coincide with the publication of this story. Visit the LinkedIn Texture poll to have your say.

Read the article in full in the latest issue of 3D World magazine, now on sale. In the full article we also disclose what our interviewees would like to see in a hypothetical new 2D image-editing application.

Read Adobe’s official statement on its upgrade pricing and Creative Cloud initiative

View information on The Foundry’s products

View information on CinePaint

Looking for good 3D reference while you’re on the move? Mara3D’s David Giraud – Male Anatomy app provides a figure for you to play with

By offering multiple poses, layers of detail and unlimited viewing angles, Mara3D makes finding an artistic perspective, angle and shading reference fast and easy. The figure is based on the work of leading gaming artist David Giraud.

“Helping artists grow and cultivate their craft is extremely important to me. Mara3D is an excellent way for me to give back to the artist community with this inspirational reference tool that adds tremendous value to an artists’ study and workflow,” says Giraud.

OUR THOUGHTS

This app is excellent for quick surface anatomy, pose and lighting reference, especially when a full-sized computer is not available – like in a sculpture studio. However, the app limits users to preset poses and models which could limit its application. Nonetheless, Mara features accurate surface and muscle anatomy which is critical for figurative artists.

At $3.99, this handy reference tool is well worth a punt.

A version for Android mobile OS is currently in production, and expected to ship in early 2012.

Visit the Mara3D website

Buy David Giraud – Male Anatomy via the App Store

If a common task seems long-winded or complicated, it’s worth spending time finding a script or plug-in to help.

Anything that can speed up regular tasks in a production environment is worth its weight in gold; a well-thought-out plug-in can pay for itself in increased efficiency within a single job.

Don’t think that because something can’t be done because it’s not a standard option in your software.

There’s a whole bunch of 3ds Max plug-ins that are great for arch-viz, but here are three must-haves:

01 Relink Bitmaps

Although 3ds Max’s asset tracking is much improved these days, we’ve found this script to be even better. If you’re given a model by an architect and a load of maps linked to a client’s networked drives, this script can find the maps, adjust their paths and display them in the viewport.

02 EraseEmptyLayers

When you receive models from architects that have mostly been created in other 3D packages, there are usually plenty of empty layers lying around. Once you’ve tidied up their models, you’ll be left with even more of them. This handy script deletes all those empty layers in a flash.

03 Merge by layer

If you use a lot of layers, a strict naming convention to scenes is essential. If you need to merge by layer when merging objects into Max, then this script will be invaluable. It replaces the Merge dialog with one that shows you the layers in the selected file, plus the objects on each layer.

View the 10 must-see VFX scenes post

See 3D World issue 146 for the best-ever VFX scenes

Or carry on for 5 more great examples of visual effects…

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District 9 (2009)

Still from District 9

Dir: Neill Blomkamp
VFX: The Embassy Visual Effects

Killer sequence: Exoskeleton fight scene -a mutating civil servant defends his alien chum in a stonking exoskeletal Battle Suit

Why watch it?: Hapless civil servant, Wikus van de Merwe, finds himself piloting an alien Battle Suit in an attempt to protect his ‘prawn’ buddy from mercenary fire.

Weta Digital provided the mothership shots, but became swamped by the workload of Avatar. So at this point Blomkamp made the most of his meagre $30 million budget by turning to Vancouver-based facilities, with Image Engine doing the CG creature work, The Embassy on Battle Suit duty, and the province of British Columbia providing the tax breaks. The suit was built and animated in Softimage XSI, lit with HDR imagery and employed a special occlusion map to add layers of dust. The live action footage was shot handheld on a RED camera, and matchmoved in SynthEyes for compositing in Shake.

A virtual ground plane was added to most of the 100 or so shots so they could create footprints and dust clouds. District 9 is a cracking little movie, with effects that put some of the bigger blockbusters to shame.

Behind the scenes of the Exoskeleton fight on fxguide

The screenings at SIGGRAPH for the Computer Animation Festival cover a whole range of industry sectors and topics. We see student shorts, full-length studio animations, VFX sequences, clips from the conference technical papers, and commercial projects.

In our top picks we’ve focused largely on the short animations. By the time the Hollywood movies make it to SIGGRAPH, they’ve usually been released, or covered in some of the presentations throughout the week, while the technical papers are also shown at the conference.

We get excited by the stuff we haven’t seen before, or the films we’ve only seen a trailer of due to somewhat archaic rules at the festivals that prevent shorts getting an online release while on the circuit.

Some of these are starting to trickle out these days, but even so, just a trailer will give you a tasty look of these excellent examples of 3D animation:

DreamGiver

dir. Tyler Carter, Brigham Young University

Made by Brigham Young University students, and written and directed by Tyler Carter, DreamGiver is a film about a mysterious being that delivers dreams to sleeping people.

When an orphan boy’s book on Ancient Aztec Mythology comes alive, the DreamGiver has to save him from his own nightmare.

The film doesn’t break boundaries but it’s beautifully made and the story is expertly told, using a variety of techniques, including some breath-taking visual effects, and a mix of 3D and 2D animation to represent the real world, and the dream world.

3D World hasn’t had much experience with the BYU students in the past, but we’ll definitely be checking out more of their work.

Take a look at this video from BYU that talks about DreamGiver, including clips from the film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpEEd-_EBok

—

Paths of Hate

Damian Nenow, Platige Image

Now this one blew us away, plain and simple.

Paths of Hate is one of the latest projects from Polish studio Plastige Image, who also support some of renowned short film director Tomek Baginski’s projects, including the excellent Fallen Art.

This film tells the story of the demons that can be found deep in the human soul, represented by two fighter pilots on screen, the intense tale sees the pair on a path of destruction and hate.

Visually speaking, the film, which took 2 years to produce, is incredible to watch – and the detail is immense, as explained in a post on Optimum Wound, which notes the cloud-filled environment, 10 square kilometers of 3D Alps, and the multitude of rivets and screws that were manually deployed in constructing the planes.

It’s no surprise that Paths of Hate managed to scoop the Jury Award – when the film was shown in the Electronic Theater the tension was very real, and there was a noticeable pause before the wild cheer after the film finished: a deserved victory, we says.

Check out the minute-long trailer below – hopefully a full release will arrive in the near future:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZn65LA2w90

—

Portal 2: Turrets

Valve Corporation

Finally, we just had to include this. Released earlier this year, it’s nice to see a game trailer with a sense of humour.

This got some big laughs in the Theater and was a nice break between the VFX breakdowns. It’s presented in an infomercial style, complete with cheesy voiceover.

So what makes these Turrets so special? As the video explains: “They fire the whole bullet: that’s 65% more bullet, per bullet”.

Take a look below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGPIQ72-2Vg

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Read our full report on the Computer Animation Festival

The printed word may well be struggling today, but judging by the amount of 3D-related literature we get sent here at 3D World, books are still an important resource to many of you

Of course, technology like the Kindle is both contributing to the decline of, and propping up the hard and paperback industry, so, no thanks to the text message, we don’t have to fear for worldwide illiteracy just yet.

With this in mind, we’d like to present a list of our favourite animation books.

Whether you want to learn a new technique, get some tips from the professionals, or to simply find some good old fashioned inspiration, this selection should help you on your way.

—

Click for more info

01 The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams

Even though this book is more focused on traditional animation than any of the others on this list, it’s one of the most important, teaching the fundamental skills that apply to both traditional and computer animation.

Covering pretty much everything an overview of animation demands: techniques, advice, tips, tricks and information on animation history, many artists list this book as one of their favourites.

Best known as the animation director on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Williams has a wealth of experience, which he shares in The Animator’s Survival Kit.

—

Click for more info

02 The Art of 3D Computer Animation and Effects by Isaac Kerlow

At 512 pages, it’s pretty expansive, and up to date – currently on its fourth revision, it contains much of the latest technologies.

The book uses a step-by-step technique to take the reader through the whole process of creating a 3D animation, using examples from some big names including Pixar, DreamWorks, Framestore, ILM, Blue SKy and tonnes more.

Aimed at any animator from student to professional, there should be something for everybody in here.

—

Click for more info

03 Ideas for the Animated Short: Finding and Building Stories by Karen Sullivan et al

We’ve been in the business of talking to top 3D artists and studios for over 10 years now, and if there’s one thing they want to see in a showreel is a story.

The last thing they need is another generic reel that demonstrates the key skills, but without any zing. You need to grab their attention!

Perhaps Ideas for the Animated Short will help. Written by educators Karen Sullivan, Kate Alexander and Gary Schumer, this book is great for students, focusing on building the skills to develop story ideas specifically for an animated short.

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Click for more info

04 Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right by Jason Osipa

In animation, as in life, when someone talks we look at the face, unless you’re short has little dialogue, in which case facial modelling because even more important.

Learn how to make your characters act out your story to the best of their ability by perfecting facial modelling and animation  in the book Stop Staring.

The book covers basic techniques like squash and stretch, lip syncs etc. but it is also up-to-date, covering how to automate processes using Python scripting.

—

Click for more info

05 How to Write for Animation by Jeffrey Scott

This may be knocking on a bit now (well, 2002, but that’s a century in this business right?) but it doesn’t matter, because the principles of writing for animation in this book are pretty timeless.

Describing how to work on a plot from scratch, this book has proved inspirational for many animation writers and artists working on their own projects.

The book covers absolutely loads, from writing outlines, scripts and dialogue, to how to write a presentation and pitch your project.

Click on the image to find out more about this issue of 3D World magazine

The latest issue is out now, and inside we’ve counted down the top 25 greatest CG VFX sequences. But during our research for the best scenes, we found that there were way too many to fit in the magazine.

We don’t want them to drift off into the ether, however, so in an online special, we’re presenting even more great VFX scenes from the world’s finest effects artists. Enjoy…

When asking for advice, a 140-character restriction is ripe for abuse.

In fact, we were surprised to only receive one tweet telling us that you can’t polish a you-know-what.

And it surprised us even more that the response from you all wanting to help out fellow artists was so huge. As a result, we’ve put together this list of the best advice for CG artists in bite-sized chunks for everyone to see.

Modelling

For some, it’s all about getting the model right before even considering the next step… check out these tips for modelling spaceships.

“Make sure your model is flawless before rendering; an imperfect render is a waste of your time”
Michael Hill, @michael90hill

“Sculpting-wise, if your model doesn’t look good at 10k polys, it won’t look good at 10 million polys”
Jelle van de Weghe, 3D modeller and sculptor, @Jellevdweghe

3D software

The overall consensus is that the 3D software you use is irrelevant. Trying to stick to just one package is a big no no, as is expecting it to do the hard work. If the expense of using multiple apps is an issue, it’s worth signing up to the new 3D World newsletter, and checking out the Creative Challenge in the forum where you can win software prizes – it’ll also help you improve your art!

“Never marry to one piece of 3D software, learn how to adapt to many 3D programs: they all complement each other”
Mauricio Sierra, artistic director, @mau_sierra

“What matters is that the final product works, not how you get there or what you use to get there”
Travis Saul, @3dnerdry

“The day you think you know everything about your software is the day you have stopped learning”
Chris Guerin, director at Short CGI, @shortcgi

“Don’t let software be your limitation. E.g. don’t say you can’t do something with Maya because 3ds Max is better suited for the job. You can do whatever you want as long as you persevere”
Stephen Cordes, via the 3D World Facebook page

“It doesn’t matter whether you use Max, Maya, or C4D – the software is just a tool. It is the digital counterpart of a paintbrush, pencil or chisel. Learning to use the tools is a step towards creativity, it is not the end result.”
Steve Kerry, via the 3D World Facebook page

“Software is just another tool. The better your drawing skills are, the better your 3D will be. The only issue with Maya (or any other program) is user error”
Dwayne Rene Martin, via the 3D World Facebook page

Real life

A huge part of your learning should come from spending time away from the computer (and that includes taking a break if necessary!). Check out our recent feature, 10 anatomy tips for 3D artists (though admittedly you’ll need to use your computer to view it).

“One of the biggest contributors to my skill set: pick the brain of a photographer, and then integrate that information to the 3D realm”
Alex Al-Hamdan, @arccentric

“Learn how to light in the real world – then transfer to 3D”
Eugene Rockstar, @EugeneRockstar

“Photography is just as much your friend as anything else: composition, colour, light – all without a computer!”
Ross Board, 3D artist, @RossBoard

“Consume anatomy books, and explore the most of a model while in lower sub divisions”
João Fiuza, via the 3D World Facebook page

“Draw, paint, photograph, sculpt, etc. Pressing the right buttons in the software is only part of the process”
Scott Honeycutt, via the 3D World Facebook page

“If you’ve spent hours trying to find solutions to problems, take a break. Hour, day, week. Solution will come eventually”
Alex Jevon, @ajevon

“Do not turn your nose up at running for breaking into VFX. Its a superb way to get your foot in the door”
James Stone, senior modeller and texture artist at Cinesite, @mrjames

Miscellaneous words of wisdom

There were many general pearls of wisdom that came through the doors too… or comments that were just plain crude/enjoyable…

“The wrong audio track can destroy any masterpiece of ‘creative video’. We see it all the time”
Dan Forsley, @DanForsley

“It’s not the tool that you use, but the vision that you have”
Brian Hanson, president of The Bible Animated, @BrianHanson2nd

“Take the time you think it will take and multiply by one and a half, that is the time it will take”
Maxim Fleury, freelance 3D modeller and texture artist, @MaximFleury

“Make sure all of your 3D work includes lots of ‘Winning’”
James Stone, senior modeller and texture artist at Cinesite, @mrjames

“You can’t polish a turd”
Eugene Rockstar, @EugeneRockstar

“Do stuff you enjoy! Oh, and read the f**king manual”
Dean Punchard, @DeanPunchard

And though irrelevant to this current subject, we feel the need to end on this next piece of advice, which is just too damn valuable to ignore: “Don’t eat the yellow snow” (Wayne Robson, @WayneRobson)

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