Photoshop offers intuitive ways to build up your textures. Leigh van der Byl reveals her top tips

While 3D painting applications such as The Foundry’s Mari are gradually replacing 2D software for texture painting, Photoshop nevertheless remains a stalwart for many, with its flexibility and advanced blending, painting and masking tools still offering a robust package for texture painters who have either not invested in a 3D painting package yet, or continue to use it alongside a 3D package.

• Read a review of Mari 1.5

Photoshop still has a few tricks up its sleeve that the 3D options don’t yet offer, especially when it comes to blending and adjusting layers in a texture. Additionally, the user-friendliness and familiarity of the application make it a good solution for things that need to be done quickly and with minimal fuss.

This is a collection of essential techniques and tips for texture painters using Photoshop.

These represent some of its greatest strengths with regards to our particular discipline, and will help to improve your efficiency and texturing approach if you incorporate them into your workflow. Many of these are particularly notable for their non-destructive approach.

In other words, they use tools and techniques such as adjustment layers and layer masking, which offer a great way to alter your document in a non-permanent fashion, so you can change or even completely undo your work at a later stage without excessive reworking.

This non-destructive workflow has always been one of Photoshop’s greatest flexibilities when it comes to painting textures, and is a core reason why it remains an essential part of most texture painters’ toolsets.

01 Customising your brushes

Using Angle Jitter set to Direction with a custom brush is great for painting hair and fur

Photoshop’s brush engine is an extremely robust and highly customisable one, offering a wide array of custom features that you can tailor to your particular style of painting, or to achieve a specific effect.

Creating brushes from any bitmap shape is as simple as selecting the shape and then selecting Edit > Define Brush Preset, which creates a new brush in your current Brush palette from the selection.

You can then open the Brush Tool palette and add additional enhancements to it. Among the most useful of these are Angle Jitter, which causes the brush’s shape to follow the direction you’re painting in – which is great for painting things like fur or stitching details on clothing.

02 Good cloning techniques

Everyone loves Photoshop’s Clone Stamp tool, mostly commonly simply referred to as the Clone tool. However, there’s a trick to using it in such a way as to prevent areas from becoming soft and blurred, and that’s to use hard-edged, custom-shaped brushes.

Using Photoshop’s default round brushes with soft edges, which is what many beginners use (and what you would use in many other circumstances), tends to result in soft patches in the texture, due to the soft edges of the cloned patch of pixels. Using a custom shaped, grungy type brush with hard edges will reduce this soft effect. Use custom-shaped brushes – round brushes don’t look good when cloning with hard edges.

03 Use layer blend modes

Using Photoshop’s layer blend modes generally produces more natural-looking results than simply lowering the opacity slider on a normal blended layer.

Modes such as Overlay, Multiply and Soft Light in particular are very useful for layering different photographic textures or painted layers with pleasing and organic-looking results, with each mode using the tonal values of the layer differently to produce the final result.

While these blending modes can be useful for all kinds of textures, they’re particularly efficient at creating organic textures, because blending multiple layers on top of one another produces a sense of substantial depth. This impression of depth is especially good for creating the look of living organic tissue.

04 Advanced blending

Hidden away in the Layer Style dialog, under Blending Options, are the incredibly useful Blend If sliders. You’ll find them under the Advanced Blending header.

You use these to blend the layer according to either its own grey or RGB values, or the values of the layer beneath it, or both. They enable you to define value ranges that become transparent.

The sliders are particularly useful for dropping a photographic texture onto the one beneath it, such as a photo of some rust onto an underlying metal layer. Holding down [Alt] while adjusting a point on the slider splits it to allow a finer transition.

The dialog also offers a number of other options for expanding and fine-tuning layer blending.

05 Adjustment layers

Adjustment layers non-destructively alter underlying tones and colours

Adjustment layers have long been one of Photoshop’s greatest features, allowing you to alter the values of colours or tones of the layers beneath them without permanently applying the change to them.

Levels, Hue/Saturation and Color Balance are all of particular use to the texture painter, and when used in combination with the Blend If sliders (see tip 4), they’re a powerful way to selectively alter tones and colours without having to use layer masks.

For example, you can use the Blend If sliders to make the adjustment layer affect only the light pixels, or just the dark ones, or any of the red, green or blue tones of the underlying layers.

06 Layer clipping

Clipping an adjustment layer to the layer below protects the layers beneath the clipped layer

Another somewhat hidden feature of layer usage is the ability to clip layers to others. Clipping an adjustment layer to another layer will have the adjustment affect only that single layer, while clipping a regular layer to another will have the original layer’s visibility controlled by the layer to which it is clipped.

In other words, the visibility of the clipped layer will depend upon the opacity of the pixels of the layer to which it is clipped. To clip a layer to another, simply position one above the other, hold down [Alt], position your cursor between the two layers in the Layers panel to get the clip option, then click.

07 Layer masks

Layer masks are the most effective way to control a layer’s visibility non-destructively

Masks are a great way to control the visibility of any layer. Due to their nature they are totally non-destructive, as you can use them to simply ‘hide’ portions of a layer instead of permanently erasing those pixels.

They’re especially useful in texturing when combined with grunge maps, which are essentially high-contrast images created from detailed photos. This allows you to blend layers together using highly detailed, organic masks that retain natural-looking shapes in their details.

Right-clicking a mask also allows you to open the Refine Mask dialog, which has numerous options for further refining the results. These are also all non-destructive, because the pixels of the mask aren’t permanently altered by adjusting them.

08 Masked adjustments for removing lighting

Masking adjustment layers is the best way of non-destructively removing lighting from an image

Using layer masks in conjunction with adjustment layers provides a highly flexible and effective way of painting light out of photos and evening their tones, especially when using them to mask Levels and Hue/Saturation layers.

Again, this is a non-destructive technique, which allows for constant refinement or alteration at a later stage, and because you’re not painting onto the actual pixels of the layer that’s having its lighting removed, you end up with a cleaner, more controlled result.

We use this technique a lot when dealing with reference photos of actors, or set pieces that need to be projected onto their equivalent digital doubles in film work.

09 The High Pass filter

The High Pass filter can be used to create a quick base for bump maps from a texture

The High Pass filter, found under Filter > Other, is useful for two things in texturing: sharpening photo textures that are a little soft or need more detail enhancement, and for creating quick bump maps.

For the former, simply duplicate the layer, desaturate it, and apply the High Pass filter with a relatively low radius (below 5 pixels), and then blend it using Overlay above the original layer.

For bump maps, desaturating and applying High Pass at a relatively high pixel value is a quick way to get a good base image, because the filter’s effect is based on an average of 50 per cent grey; this is good for bump maps because 3D renderers use 50 per cent grey as the median point for greyscale maps such as bump and specular.

10 Using opacity effectively

Carefully build up tones by using low opacity brushes for a more natural look

Perhaps one of the most crucial pieces of advice I can give about painting textures in Photoshop is to use a build-up approach – in other words, painting (whether it’s actual painting on layers or on layer masks) is often best accomplished by using low-opacity brushes to build up the tones slowly, as opposed to simply slapping opaque paint details onto a layer and trying to blend them down.

Painting with a gentle approach is likely to yield the best results in most cases, especially when it comes to organic textures, but also when dealing with hard surfaces.

Leigh van der Byl is a VFX texture painter in London. Her recent credits include X-Men First Class and the upcoming sci-fi thriller Gravity. She also scours the globe shooting landscape photography in cold, bleak environments

• Check out this ZBrush, Maya and Photoshop tutorial, by readers of 3D World
• Also see Arch-Viz top tips

• Read a review of Photoshop CS6 Extended

Master Photoshop! Discover 120 top Photoshop tutorials at Creative Bloq.

Every year, artists create tens of thousands of 3D images and animations, both for job pitches and personal portfolios. Make sure your work stands out in the crowd with our expert arch-viz tips…

With the size of the 3D industry increasing each year, it’s becoming more important than ever to make sure your work stands out from the crowd.

But finding that extra something that will open doors, win commissions, or simply give you the exposure you want is no easy task.

Many artists create work that is technically competent, or even excellent, but to get 10,000 ‘favourite’ votes from users of one of the big portfolio sites, or win an award at one of the main international animation festivals, you need more than technical expertise.

So what is it that makes a chart-topping 3D image or an award-winning animation?

As with all such questions, an element of subjectivity comes into play. For one piece, for one commentator, the composition might set it apart. For another, it may be the balance of colours.

Attention to detail could make for a winning piece of compositing, while in the case of a visualisation still, it could be the way that the reflections are handled that really makes the viewers’ jaws drop.

▲ Architectural specialist Alex Morris loves artist Viktor Fretyán’s detail and restrained use of colour…

Visualisation: Alex Morris on Viktor Fretyán

After completing renders for a client, Hungarian artist Viktor Fretyán created his own interpretation of the structure. Architectural specialist Alex Morris loves their detail and restrained use of colour…

ABOUT THE EXPERT
Alex Morris studied at Cambridge and Liverpool universities, qualifying as an architect in 1990. In 1996, he joined leading international visualisation studio Hayes Davidson, becoming a partner in 2001. He was responsible for many of HD’s landmark images. In 2009, he left to found his own agency.

▲ “The depth of field is relaxed and restrained, giving a heightened sense of photorealism, and helping to focus the composition,” says Alex Morris

WHY ALEX CHOSE VIKTOR FRETYÁN

“Something I really like in Fretyán’s work is the variegated light and texture.

“The attention to detail is also impressive, with the foreground leaves adding a sense of depth and realism.

“Unlike a lot of CG, the depth of field is relaxed and restrained, giving a heightened sense of photorealism, and helping to focus the composition around the areas of greatest interest.

“In this way, Fretyán communicates his ‘story’ to the viewer, making each image much more than a straight representation of the structure. The use of colour is also restrained and again helps to draw the eye to the main areas of interest, without detracting from the realism and believability of the images.

“The furniture and other objects in the images really sell the reality. To understand why, spend time analysing architectural photography to see how the artist uses these elements to frame the image and draw the eye into the scene.

“Observation is the key here, and experimenting with photos really helps.

“With the exception of the interior, these images couldn’t have been photographed. Fretyán has exercised judgement in the way that parts of the image have been exposed, and the use of colour is also contrived to help focus the viewer’s attention. Being a CG image, the artist has freedom to place elements where they can have the optimum impact.”

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Viktor Fretyán is an architectural visualisation artist in Hungary. The images shown here are an interpretation of a house by Satoshi Okada. radicjoe.cgsociety.org

▲ Check out the visualisation tips below to create your own fantastic CG renders

Top CG visualisation tips

By definition, architectural images have only one kind of subject matter – so you need to exploit composition and colour to stand out, advises Alex Morris

1: Don’t show the entire building
One of the main clichés Viktor Fretyán avoids is trying to show the whole building in one shot. This is a common client requirement that almost always results in a distorted view of the space.

2: Use unusual lighting
Unusual lighting conditions rather than standard blue skies make a setting interesting and believable. The colours and depth of field also help avoid the feel of an ‘out of the box render’ that many architectural images have.

3 Be brave with composition
Compositionally, the rule of thirds (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds) is apparent in Fretyán’s work, but he also demonstrates the confidence to use asymmetry. This can give your work particular strength if executed well.

4: Work the base render hard
Some people find it quicker to add texture in post using Photoshop. But some details, such as reflections on surface textures, are better done in the render. A good example of this is polished wood surfaces, where grain and edge bevels really help sell the reality of what you’re looking at.

5: Only show your best work
Unless your work is up for critique (and it’s clearly labelled as such) you should only ever display complete work. If you aren’t 100 per cent satisfied with an image, don’t show it in public.

▲ Issue 163 of 3D World is on sale now on the UK newsstand, via subscription and as a digital edition

Buy the magazine

On sale now at My Favourite Magazines
On sale in UK newsagents: 06 November 2012
On sale US newsstands: From 08 December 2012

Buy the digital edition
On sale 06 November 2012 via the 3D World Magazine app (iOS)
On sale 06 November 2012 at Zinio (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android)

IN THE MAGAZINE

Factory Fifteen: environment insight

▲ Build your own worlds with insight from this dream factory which has established itself as one of the coolest kids on the block

Kon-Tiki VFX secrets

▲ Three effects houses use contrasting techniques to simulate the oceans conquered by Thor Heyerdahl in the Norwegian epic Kon-Tiki. Meet Storm, Gimpville and Fido...

TRAINING | PRACTICAL TUTORIALS TO BOOST YOUR 3D SKILLS

Make epic volcano scenes in Vue

▲ Master environment creation with Conrad Allan’s expert guide to building a volcanic scene using Vue and World Machine

• You can view the first part of this video tutorial right now!

Matte painting techniques: turn day into night!

▲ Maya Emilie Enevoldsen helps you to turn a daytime photo into a night-time matte painting

Light an interior scene with 3ds Max and V-Ray

▲ James Cutler explains how to set up an indoor scene for day or night with 3ds Max and V-Ray

Animator tips: rigging basics

▲ Learning how to rig your models properly is the start of bringing them to life, says Mike Griggs

Artist workshop: create hyper-real renders

▲ Bertrand Benoit describes the tools he used to create his bread still life

Questions & Answers

Animate handwriting, attach a lens flare to a moving object and more

On test

Mari 1.5: Amanda Bone is excited about the new features in this latest version
V-Ray for Softimage: How does the ever-popular renderer fit with Autodesk’s Softimage?
Toolbag: Light and render in real time with Marmoset’s presentation tool
Wacom Cintiq 22HD: Rob Redman tests the new Cintiq
Efficient Cinematic Lighting with Jeremy Vickery: Training from The Gnomon Workshop
The Otherworldly Adventures of Tyler Washburn: Dylan Cole’s first children’s book

Also in this issue

• The Foundry & Luxology: how the recent merger of these popular developers could shape the future of the visual effects industry
• The month’s best new commercial projects
• Inspirational artwork from readers
• Luca Gabriele Rossetti: The master of illusion explains how digital technology has transformed the art of digital matte creation
• Debrief: Kenneth Polonski and Oliver Conrad explain how Kompost created the effects for ‘Mass Construction’

▲ Our wonderful Portfolio section shows the pick of artwork sent to us by 3D World readers

Downloads

This issue’s downloads include 190 minutes of video training: a 138-minute tutorial on making a volcano using Vue and World Machine, a 16-minute complete video from Chaos Group on V-Ray Lighting, and expert advice on how to light the same scene for day and night, plus tutorial scene files and Q&A files and videos

Contents for the latest issue of 3D World. Discover top character design tips! Plus there are tutorials on how to make plasma trail effects, composite in post and create realistic foliage. Also, find out who won in our CG Awards 2012…

Buy the magazine
On sale now at My Favourite Magazines
On sale in UK newsagents: 11 September 2012
On sale US newsstands: From 12 October 2012

Buy the digital edition
On sale 11 September 2012 via the 3D World Magazine app (iOS)
On sale 11 September 2012 at Zinio (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android)

In the magazine

Character design

The artists behind this issue’s cover reveal how they created characters for their short film A Fox Tale

CG Awards 2012

The results of this year’s 3D World CG Awards, a celebration of the best of the CG industry. Discover who earned your votes and took the top slots in categories including Animated Feature Film, Plug-In and the 3D World Hall of Fame

TRAINING | PRACTICAL TUTORIALS TO BOOST YOUR 3D SKILLS

Animate plasma trails

Hone your VFX skills with this guide to creating plasma trails in After Effects by Christopher Kenworthy

Composite in post

Paul Hatton shares post-production techniques for better renders

Create realistic foliage

Find out how 3D artist Alex Alvarez made his stunning forest scenes

Render lifelike metals

Make your metal surfaces more realistic with Mike Griggs’ guide

Model soft furnishings

Jane Chambers on how to simulate fabrics with Marvelous Designer

Questions & Answers

Create a mushroom cloud, set up weight maps for a head and more

On test

ZBrush 4 R4: The latest revision to the digital sculpting tool from Pixologic
Mudbox 2013: Autodesk’s user-friendly sculpting application receives an update
Boston Venom 2300-7T: A high-spec machine that reveals the power of Nvidia’s Tesla card
Wacom Cintiq 12WX: Are interactive pen displays a good investment for 3D artists?
Secrets of ZBrush Experts: A showcase of new sculpting talent
Introduction to ZBrush 4: A comprehensive training video from ZBrush legend Scott Spencer

Also in this issue

• Siggraph 2012: 15 cool sights at the world’s biggest CG event
• The month’s best new commercial projects
• Pete Draper and Adel Adili explain how Makuta created over 2,200 visual effects shots for Eega, a landmark film in Indian cinema
• The Mill’s Nicolas Hernandez talks to Mark Ramshaw about how the studio developed the Mirror Man for Snow White and the Huntsman
• Inspirational artwork from readers

On the disc (print edition only)

Exclusive video chapter from the Gnomon Workshop series Forest Techniques, plus video for After Effects, Marvelous Designer and 16-bit compositing tutorials, and content for this issue’s Q&As

Antony Ward shows you how to optimise your polygon count to improve speed and response without making too many visual sacrifices

FOR: Maya

TOPICS COVERED:

• Level of detail principles
• Reducing polygon counts
• Simulating detail

Building assets for games is a bit like packing a case for a long holiday – there’s never enough room to fit everything in. Put too much on screen at the same time and the game can grind to a halt. This is where level of detail (LOD) models can help. By switching to lower-resolution models as the character or object moves away from the camera, you can lighten the overall polygon count on the screen without sacrificing visual quality. In this tutorial, Antony Ward shows you how to get the best out of LOD models while keeping quality high and the frame rate solid.

01 The golden rule
There’s one rule that all level of detail models must live by: the total number of polygons in the lower LODs must not be greater than the polygon count of the highest LOD. For example, if you’re using four LODs and your most detailed model has a total of 5,000 polygons, the next LOD down should be around 3,000, the model after that would be 1,500, and the last one would be 500. If you have more than four LODs, the limits would have to be adjusted.

TOP TIP: Switch to lower-resolution models as your character moves further away from the camera

The further away a model appears to be, the fewer polygons it needs to have

02 Remember to zoom out
It’s important to remember that the in-game model you’re working on won’t be seen until it’s a certain distance away from the camera. The player will never get up close, so, as you work, make sure you’re zooming out all the time. This way you can better judge what can be sacrificed, and what can’t. Viewing a lower LOD up close will always give you a false sense of how it will look in-game.

As characters get smaller, gradually reduce their hands to mitten shapes

03 Hack away at the hands
Hands are an obvious place to chop out those polygons – they typically hold a lot and the digits are relatively small. Initially, reduce the round digits until they’re more of a diamond shape and then start to sacrifice them – not by deleting them, but by merging the fingers gradually until you end up with a basic mitten shape.

At a distance you won’t see eyes blink or a mouth smile, so you can afford to chop these right back

04 Facial animation
If your model has facial animation, this is another area to sacrifice. At a distance you won’t see eyes blink or a mouth smile, so chop this right back, but leave room for the jaw to open and close so some degree of animation is still available to the medium LODs. If using blend shapes or morph targets, simply ensure these are disabled.

05 Remove small details
At a distance from the camera and surrounded by a complex game environment, small details on your model’s surface just won’t be seen. Items such as buttons, belts or buckles can easily be removed and, if needed, you can always replace them by painting them back in on the texture page.

06 Remove small tangents
When you’re optimising a model, you should look out for geometry that doesn’t add to the overall shape, or help in deformation. The same rules can apply to LOD models. When reducing, look out for slight tangents in its silhouette that won’t be missed if flattened.

07 If it’s quicker, rebuild
If you’re working with a high-res model, reducing it manually can be a tedious task – so why not just rebuild the model? Use the high-res version as a reference and, once built, adjust its UVs to fit the existing texture page or bake the texture from the high-res model down onto your new set.

Swap out an object and replace it with a simpler model with an alpha map applied

08 Use alpha maps
A quick way to claw back some of those precious polygons is to replace an object with a much simpler model, with an alpha map applied. This is an essential approach for curved or round objects, such as wheels. Reducing the geometry alone would result in a boxy-looking model, but adding an alpha plane at either side is quick, painless and can keep the object looking round.

09 Watch those texture seams
It’s all very well chopping out polygons here and there, but it will also affect your UV seams. You may find that when you remove a complete edge ring you’re left with a glaring seam. Depending on the LOD you’re working on, this may not be an issue as it will be too far away to even notice, but try to adjust the UVs, or update the texture page as you go.

10 Fill out the shape
Things become reduced when you take something away from them. As you peel away the geometry of your character models, you may notice that the body and limbs are much thinner than when you started. To avoid this rapid weight loss, keep comparing the shape against the highest LOD. A good trick is to put the higher LOD into a display layer and set it to Reference. This will display just its wireframe, so you can refer to it as you work.

In Maya you could use the Transfer Maps tool to bake textures onto the lower LODs

11 Bake textures down
If the budget will allow it, and you’re struggling with texture warping and UV seams, you can always use a smaller texture page for your LODs. Once the model has been reduced, rework the UVs and then bake the diffuse map down onto the lower LODs. In Maya use the Transfer Maps tool.

12 Skeleton LODs
Polygons take up memory, as do the joints moving them around. It’s not always a good idea to completely replace a skeleton on the fly, but you could reduce its influence on the model. So, for example, on lower LODs where you’ve reduced the hands, make sure you remove the finger joints’ influences too. The same applies to facial animation.

13 Minimise the ‘pop’ factor
When playing a game you can always tell when LOD models have swapped because you see that tell-tale ‘pop’. The character will suddenly, and often drastically, change shape as the higher LOD is removed and its lower replacement is loaded. You may not be able to completely avoid this, but you can make it less obvious by constantly comparing it with its higher version and using reduction techniques.

14 Strip out texture passes
It’s not just polygons and joints that can be removed: you can also strip out textures, particularly extra texture passes such as a normal map, reflection or specular pass, which would only be effective on the higher LODs.

Use a Level of Detail group to hide and reveal objects at different distances

15 Use a LOD group
As you create your LODs you’ll naturally want to see that they change at the correct distances. Maya has a handy tool to help: going to Edit > Level Of Detail > Group will put your objects into groups, which you can then show and hide when at specific distances from the camera. This is a great way to help reduce the ‘pop’ effect mentioned earlier. As an added bonus, some game engines will take this group and use the information in-game, so you know what you see is what will be in the game.

16 Stagger your LODs
If your model is made up from a collection of parts – like a vehicle, for example – then you don’t need to restrict yourself to just three or four set distances for objects to switch at. For instance, if the vehicle will be viewed from behind for most of the time, set the front elements to drop to lower LODs earlier than those behind.

Lower-poly models can suffer if the normals aren’t set up properly

17 Surface normals
Lower-poly geometry, when not using a normal map, can suffer if the normals aren’t set up correctly. You may end up with edges appearing darker than they should be and a general reduction in quality as the models swap. When you’ve reached your desired polygon limit, make sure you also do a normals pass, softening and hardening key edges to reduce this effect.

Keep an eye out for quads being triangulated the wrong way on lower models when exported

18 Triangulate and flip edges
When exported, most models are triangulated as part of the process, and on higher-resolution models the result is generally fine. On lower-end models, however, you can suffer when a quad is triangulated the wrong way so that the surface appears concave, rather than convex. To prevent this, make sure you triangulate any suspicious areas, ensuring the edges will export how you want them to and not how the exporter thinks they should be.

About the author
Antony Ward has been developing games since the early 1990s. He’s worked for some of today’s top game studios and has also written three books and numerous tutorials
www.ant-online.co.uk

Check out our special Games issue

Develop stunning games! Discover the secrets of Method Studio’s epic Halo 4 trailer, make real-time CG with Unreal and CryEngine, build low-poly buildings, game levels and more

Andrew Comb shares his techniques for creating paint chips and blended surfaces in LightWave 11

This tutorial will cover a number of techniques focused on building complex surfaces and simulating mixed materials, as well as showing you some more exotic tricks to get pretty lighting effects. I’ll explain how to build energy-conserving surfaces, which will work properly under most situations and respond to light and reflections correctly. You shouldn’t need to build specific versions of them for some scenes. Once you move over to this technique, lighting will just start to work without too much cheating.

This project relies on two superb plug-ins that should be part of every LightWave artist’s installation: Denis Pontonnier’s DP Kit and the Tools collection from db&w. Both plug-ins have been updated for LightWave 11, are free to download, and are available for Windows and Mac OS X.

Download the supporting files for this LightWave tutorial here.

01 Colour spaces

The first thing to do is make sure you’re working in the sRGB colour space. The default sRGB preset supplied with LightWave since version 10.0 should be fine for good lighting and shading under most circumstances. I prefer to leave all the colour inputs set to Linear and simply have Display Colour Space set to sRGB. This is the most important setting to get right, because then you know everything is being displayed as it should be.

Typically, while I’m working in Modeler I have Colour Correct OpenGL unticked , and have it ticked in Layout. This is because it also affects the colour of the wireframes, which makes modelling awkward – but this is a personal preference. The important thing is that Display Color Space is set to sRGB, so that the surface editor previews and rendering are correct.

Altering the Color Space settings within Modeler is done in the General Preferences (press [O] and go to the Color Space tab) and in Layout it’s done in Display Preferences: press [D] and choose the Color Space tab. The main reason for this is to ensure LightWave is correctly rendering in linear colour space, with all of the colours and textures converted so that they add to the light calculation properly. Most modern monitors and image formats are configured so that they display correctly in sRGB (approximately Gamma 2.2). If these textures and colours are added to the linear lighting model, they throw out the maths. Remove the gamma in textures and colours and the lighting model will work correctly.

You can correct the colours by either changing the colour space settings to sRGB or eyeballing the colours in the surface editor and leaving them set to Linear. For textures, any images that contribute to ‘colour’ need to be set to sRGB, so the gamma is removed (open the Image Editor ([F6]), select your image and set the Colour Space RGB setting for the image to sRGB).

However, any images that are to be used for texturing inputs, such as reflection, specularity, diffuse and normal maps, should be left set to Linear, or they won’t work correctly. This is why I leave the preset for images set to Linear (off) and manually set each image.

02 Set up the scene

For the scene I’ve used a new feature in LightWave 11, Instances. Instead of just cloning the item (via Item > Add > Clone > Clone Current Item), I used the simple instance command (Item > Add > Clone > Clone Instance). This creates a null, which has an instance generator inside it. You can then treat this null like a regular object, and rotate and position it. I created 12 instances of the cargo object and four of the central strut object, as I modelled them separately, and simply rotated each instance into place – just like you would with a clone.

Create 12 instances of the cargo object and four of the central strut object, then rotate them

Note that by default the instances are set to invisible/bounding box mode. To change that so you can see them, go into the properties for the null ([P]), then go to the Instances tab and open the instance preferences. In there you can see the instance Visibility settings, just as with the scene editor (a small eye icon) – change the Visibility setting and your instance will appear. If you’re in textured wireframe mode, you won’t see wireframes because instances don’t support this mode, so it’s a quick way to know which items in your scene are instances. In all other respects they will render identically to other geometry, and save a lot of memory.

Instead of using a Distant light as my scene’s key light, I used a Dome light with Angle set to 1. That’s all I use in the scene for lights, except enabling radiosity, so the objects bounce light around, and some luminous surfaces on the objects.

03 Create the basic energy-conserving shader

If you open the finished model, the final shaders look horrendously complex. However, I’ll go into the basics. Open the model and check out the test_cube surface. This has the main components of a basic shader to handle opaque dielectric materials, such as wood, ceramic, paint, plastic and so on.

The Schlick’s Approximation node is a new node by db&w that can be used to create a fast Fresnel-like effect, with a number of texturable channels. (It’s found in the node editor in db&w > Math > Schlick’s Approximation.) Typically, Grazing Reflectivity is left at 100 per cent and Facing Reflectivity is adjusted to create metals (if you use high numbers) or dielectrics (low numbers). The strength channel is excellent for plugging in textures for your surface, in order to vary them subtly.

Another excellent feature of the tool is the No Preprocess Reflectivity checkbox, which causes the reflectivity output of the tool to render as black during the radiosity preprocess, which can dramatically speed up that phase of rendering.

To get the right settings for the tool, add a Fresnel node (Math > Scalar > Fresnel), type in the value for your material (1.3-1.5 for a plastic- or paint-type material) and then alter the Facing Reflectivity value so it looks roughly the same. Plug the Reflectivity output into the Reflection input of the surface, and the Inverse output into the Diffuse. This way you have a simple energy-conserving material.

I use another Schlick’s node with a larger Facing Reflectivity value for the Specular shader: this is because the specular hit isn’t really energy-conserving, so I eyeball this to look good. If you’re just using HDR-based lighting, you can ignore this part of the shader; but for a space-type scenario, there isn’t usually an HDR environment, so just use Specular.

If you look at what I’ve done with the reflection and specular shaders, you’ll see that I added a Scalar constant (Constant > Scalar) and an Invert node (Math > Scalar > Invert), and plugged the Scaler constant into the Reflection Blur amount, and Invert into the Glossiness value for the Cook Torrance shader. This is because in LightWave, Reflection Blur and Glossiness are inversely proportionate (approximately).

Plug the Scalar constant into the Reflection node’s Blur input, and Invert into Cook Torrance’s Specular

This way you make one value that controls both shaders, so if you increase the Blurriness value, the specular hotspot spreads out more. I use the Reflections shader and the Cook Torrance Specular shader because I find these yield better results than the native, but you can plug the same inputs into your Glossiness and Reflection Blur inputs in the main surface node if you prefer.

For a metal shader, simply increase the Facing Reflectivity value and lower the colour. If you’re creating a coloured metal such as copper, then plug the colour texture into your surface colour, specular colour and reflection colour.

04 Make the material with a switch

Making one material blend with another is tricky. You could use Material Mixer (Materials > Material Mixer) and blend together two surfaces with your paint-chip texture, but in LightWave this is wasteful because each surface is calculated and then mixed, so that means calculating two sets of Reflection Blur. Instead, simply modify the surfaces using Remap nodes to achieve the same effect.

I use a few of the nodes from db&w’s tools nodes. The Cache node (db&w > Tools > Cache) stores a value that can then be reused without being recalculated. The Remap node (db&w > Maths > Remap) is useful here. It will remap one set of values to another. For example, I mapped 0-1 (0 to 100 per cent) to be 0.03-0.4 (3 to 40 per cent). If I plug into a black-and-white texture, when a value is black it will be converted to 3 per cent and when a value is white it will be converted to 40 per cent.

Modify the surfaces using Remap nodes to make one material blend with another

Feeding this Remap node into the Schlick’s Approximation node controls how reflective the surface will be based on the texture you feed into it. In this way, I control the reflection blur (and glossiness) with an input value, and the specular and reflection values too. The surfacing colour is also being driven by the same input. Using it as the opacity for a Mixer node (Tools > Mixer), you can have the two surfacing colours in the background and foreground colours.

The texture input that will drive the reflective amount also drives the reflective blur value, but this amount is multiplied with the Switch texture, and then remapped, to give the minimum and maximum blur values. This should yield variances in the reflection blur, based on the texture. To see what this effect is doing, you can type a value into the top-left Constant Scalar node. If you type in 0, you’ll see the red paint material; if you type in 1, you’ll see the grey metal finish.

05 Create paint chips using textures

Once you have your basic material set-up, it can be copied and pasted over your surface, and you can plug in the textures. If you open the st_paint_white_panels surface, you can see where I’ve plugged in the textures. To load in textures, add an image node (2D Textures > Image) and select the textures from the image drop-down. They’re set to be cubic repeating textures. (Set the Mapping type of the texture to Cubic, and set Scale to 3m.) The black-and-white mask image (hull-chipped-mask.png) is plugged into the Switch cache. The image is back to front, so I inverted it using an Invert node (Math > Scalar > Invert) so the background is black and the chips are white. There’s a texture for the metal surface (hullmetal-chipped.png): this is used for the Foreground input of the Mixer node, as the background colour is that of the paint. I also generated a normal map, based on the image, and plugged it into the Normal input to add a relief effect.

For the slight modulation of the reflection amount and reflection blur, I used a tiling scratches image (metal-grungy.png), remapped it so it’s not as strong, and then plugged it into the second cache node. This way it slightly varies the surface reflectivity and the reflection blur amount.

06 Generate paint chips procedurally

To create the procedural chips on the edges of the material, I used the Edge shader, which is part of DP Kit (DP Kit > Shaders > Edge). If you plug the shader into a Make Material node’s diffuse input (Materials > Make Material), it generates a black-and-white image based on edge detection.

You can plug a texture (procedural or image based) into the Edge Width input. I added a couple of the Standard LightWave procedurals, and then multiplied them by 0.4.

This essentially scales the maximum effect the edge width has to 0.4 metres. (One node editor unit equals one metre.) If you plug this output into the top left cache node, it will function just as the image map did, and control the mix between the metal-like material and the paint-like material.

To create the procedural chips on the edges of the material, you can use the edge shader that’s found in the LightWave plug-in DP Kit

The red paint material is exactly the same as the white material, with a red constant colour added to the background colour mixer (Constant > Colour). A note about the Edge shader: it’s limited in that it can’t be used on a surface if that surface is on more than one layer (although clones and instances don’t count). That is why there are several identically duplicated surfaces on the model. I just copied and pasted the surface back and forth if I made any changes. It also doesn’t give you any sort of preview feedback in either the node editor interface or in OpenGL (along with all node shaders), but it previews excellently in VPR.

07 Make the glass shader

The glass material for the coloured lights uses several of the same principles as the paint material, just without the paint chip texture. The lights are modelled with a chrome reflector interior and a lighting strip. The lighting strip is simple geometry with a 1,200 per cent bright luminous value applied. The glass is what does most of the work. The glass object is modelled with a smooth front face and ribs on the back, so that it refracts the light in interesting ways, like a car headlight.

I’ve used Schlick’s Approximation again for speed (and disabled reflection during the radiosity preprocess). The only difference between this and the opaque surface is that I’ve also plugged the Invert output into transparency. To make the refractions happen properly, I’ve used a Refractions shader node (Shaders > Transparency > Refractions), set its Refraction Index to 1.5 – which is analogous to crown glass – and plugged the colour used for the diffuse colour into the refraction colour to tint the material.

Another trick I used with this material was to help it cast coloured light in the scene. Unless you have Directional Rays enabled in the Radiosity preferences (Render Globals > Global Illum), the luminous surface behind the glass doesn’t contribute anything to the lighting of the scene as it can’t be ‘seen’ by radiosity rays.

However, the Directional Rays attribute in the Render Globals slows down the radiosity calculation. To fix this, I made the glass material emit light by making it a luminous orange (or blue for the blue glass), but that is only visible to the radiosity rays. I plugged all the shaders used for the surface into a Make Material node (Materials > Make Material), which are all labelled as such. I then added a second Make Material node, and into this I plugged a Scale node (Math > Vector Scale) to the Diffuse input and plugged the colour into the Vector input.

Use a refractions shader node, set Refraction Index to 1.5, then plug in the colour used for the diffuse colour into the refraction colour

I then typed in a value (200 per cent) that doubled the strength of the colour to make a luminous orange material. Using the Multi Switch node (Materials > Multi Switch), I plugged the glass material into input 1, and the luminous surface into input 2. To switch between materials, I used a Spot node (Spot > Spot Info) and plugged the Radiosity Ray output of this into the Switch input. This means that if the material is being sampled by a radiosity ray, it only sees the bright orange luminous material.

08 Render settings

The unified sampling system in LightWave 11 is designed to simplify and improve material shading and AA. The samples taken equal (per pixel): Shading Samples x Shadow Samples x Minimum Samples. Then if you enable Adaptive Sampling (in the Camera properties) it takes a defined number of additional samples up to the Maximum Samples value. These are taken a single sample at a time (if your Minimum Samples was 4, and your Maximum Samples was 8, it would take four additional sub-passes) using a Threshold value, so the samples are only taken where needed: in the noisy areas of the render.

Before LightWave 11, each shader, material and light could have individual settings, so it could become complex to manage and optimise large scenes. The AA settings were also slightly complicated because it was based on the threshold, which could be confusing at best. Now each pixel is re-rendered with a single sample per pass, which can make the render appear a lot slower than it will be. This project, with high polygon counts and lots of blurry reflections, appears to render a lot slower than it does.

Unified sampling in LightWave 11 is designed to improve material shading and AA

Typically, good settings for situations where you have blurry reflections or refractions are low Shading samples (around 2) and Shadow Samples, and high Minimum Samples. I’ve set my Minimum and Maximum to 8 and 32 respectively, which cleans up most of the noise. In most scenarios you need to keep Minimum samples to a reasonable level, otherwise you’ll get shader or shadow noise that the adaptive sampling can’t cope with. The VPR with this scene can seem quite blotchy, because of the small size of the parts in the scene. However, VPR is only a preview renderer, so don’t be put off – this isn’t what the final render will look like. I’ve set the Radiosity sampling settings quite high to eliminate blotches, so it will be slow to render – but the results speak for themselves.

Andrew Comb, aka ‘tobian’ on forums, is a freelance digital artist and designer, specialising in hardsurface modelling, surfacing, lighting and rendering. Most days he can be found tinkering around with his Pluto Station

Over the last 20 years, 3D modelling has come a long way. I say 20 years because for a lot of people their awareness of 3D modelling was first sparked when they saw animated 3D creatures in films such as Jurassic Park.

Modelling 3D creatures and characters is now a recognised career and spans many different sectors, including games, film, broadcast TV, web, print, advertising, marketing, medical and so on. As with most things these days, there are many ways to get any given job done, and just knowing one tool isn’t always enough.

Organic 3D modelling can use subdivision surfaces, voxels, DynaMesh, retopology tools, normal maps and a whole list of other features and tools. Understanding where to use each one and for what task can be confusing until you understand what they can do for you, so read on for my collection of tips and tricks.

Understanding real-world anatomy is crucial for an organic modeller

01 Brush up on your drawing skills

A lot of character and creature modellers are also accomplished 2D artists. It’s a logical progression from concept sketch to 3D model, so it makes sense to try to work out your intended subject’s anatomy on paper first. Most concept artists have to do turnaround images that show a character from several angles or perspectives. If you’re asked to model a dog and you don’t understand how the bones in a dog’s (or any quadruped’s) leg fit together, then the whole model will be unconvincing. Take your time learning how bones fit together in nature. Understand how muscles attach to the bones and how they move and slide together.

Life-drawing skills can very quickly be incorporated into fantasy creature modelling

02 Enrol in a life drawing or anatomy class

If you’ve realised how important good anatomy skills are to the organic modeller, the next step is to get some experience. Start with a Google search for reference material and maybe a few books with good diagrams of anatomy. Begin to look at each muscle group and understand how that works and interacts with the next. To go one step further and really push your skills, you can enrol in life drawing classes. Once you’ve trained your eye and you’re getting familiar with anatomy, you’ll notice an immediate improvement in your modelling and sculpting. Most universities run regular life classes and a lot of large studios arrange classes for their artists.

The model needs to work from all angles – form and volume are everything

03 Consider form and volume

Two big mistakes modellers make are adding too much detail too quickly and not getting the form and volume correct on certain parts of the subject. Whether you’re box modelling or sculpting in 3D, one of the first things you need to achieve is the overall shape of the character you’re making. If you nail the silhouette (form), then invariably the volume will be right. For example, if you were to model an arm, which is roughly speaking two cylinders, there would be much more bulk in the biceps area and the forearm than there is in the wrist area. The overall shape needs to be accurate from all angles. If you start to model details in the hands at this stage it becomes harder to focus on the overall form.

04 Edge loops and topology

Flowing edge loops and good topology are crucial for rigging and animation

Once you’re actually modelling your desired character, there are a few technical rules that you may need to learn. When using subdivision modelling to create a model it’s essential that you have good edge flow in certain areas of the mesh. This flow often mirrors real-world anatomy, so this is where your newfound skills come in handy. An edge loop is basically a continuous ring of polygons that follows a specific path around a model. For example, the muscle ring around an eye that makes the eye open and close or the line of polygons that run under the chest, defining the pectoral muscles. Important loops are the shoulder area, the mouth, the hip and so on. This matters most if you’re planning to rig the model for animation. A poorly made model is hard to rig and deforms badly when you’re animating it.

05 Subdivision modelling and HyperNURBS

Switching between smoothed and unsmoothed during modelling is essential

Subdivision modelling is a modelling technique that smooths out a mesh by dividing and rounding the polygons based on a set of algorithms. Each polygon is divided into four and rounded off. The higher the subdivision level, the rounder and smoother the mesh looks. Most 3D programs enable you to subdivide your mesh and then return it to the normal level, and that helps you keep the polygon count down while refining the look and form of the model. There are many ways to subdivide a mesh but often the underlying maths is the same. For example, ZBrush uses the same method as Cinema 4D, which calls it HyperNURB Tags.

06 Quads, triangles and ngons

Use quads where possible, triangles if you have to and no ngons

Generally speaking, try to model in quads. Quads (quadrangles – four-sided polygons) are predictable and subdivide in a clean way, leaving less chance for bad artefacts at render time. You can use triangles for certain modelling jobs and game engines generally convert a mesh to triangles at render time anyway. However, if you get into the habit of using quads you’re also modelling in triangles when each quad is split in half (a mesh with 1,000 quads can be converted to a mesh with exactly 2,000 triangles at the click of a button). The one to avoid if possible is the ngon (a polygon with more than four sides) – these can cause problems in some programs and lead to issues if they’re subdivided. They’re used in lots of modelling situations, but as a character modeller the ngon is not your friend. Avoid them!

07 Box modelling or point-by-point?

A combination of box modelling and point-by-point modelling is needed for most projects

As an organic modeller, you’ll need to learn as many techniques as you can. Modelling with polygons can mean box modelling or point-by-point (or edge) modelling. The trick is to become proficient at both methods. Box modelling is so named because you start with a basic primitive shape (a box), and refine the shape by adding splits and cuts. Point-by-point or edge modelling is where you add more geometry onto existing polygons by extruding or stringing together points. Learn both methods, and learn how to do them well. When modelling a head you may like to box-model the overall shape, but then refine an area such as the ear by extruding polygons to suit.

You can create amazing characters and creatures by using DynaMesh, and never have to work outside ZBrush

08 ZBrush’s DynaMesh

A relative newcomer to the digital sculpting world is DynaMesh, a modelling process found in ZBrush. ZBrush uses subdivision modelling at its core: when you pull out part of a model, sometimes the underlying polygons become stretched or elongated. DynaMesh solves this by remeshing the model on the fly. This is revolutionary – you no longer need to consider what’s happening to the polygons in your model as ZBrush is taking care of it in the background. You can sculpt almost anything and focus purely on form and silhouette. This method doesn’t respect the rules about edge flow and good topology, though, so that’s where retopologising comes in handy.

09 Retopology tools

Using DynaMesh means you can focus on the modelling and think about the polygons later Models in a voxel-based program can be exported for further sculpting or retopology

If you made a model with no regard for the underlying topology it would be impossible to rig or animate that mesh. To solve this issue, programs such as Maya, modo, ZBrush, 3D-Coat, TopoGun and many more now have tools to enable you to create a new base mesh with edge loops and edge flow to suit your needs. This goes back to the rules about modelling for animation and creating good loops around areas that will deform the most. Retopologising means effectively rebuilding a well-constructed low-polygon model over the top of a highly detailed sculpt, and comes at the end of the modelling process rather than the beginning.

10 Use normal maps

Using normal maps can enable you to use lower polygon models and still get a high-end look

Even with the more powerful CPUs and GPUs of today, there’s still a limit to how many polygons can be moved around without lag or stuttering. To get a high level of detail into games with only limited polygons, you can use normal maps – and they’re not limited to games. If your mesh has UV co-ordinates you can extract a normal map and apply it to the low-poly mesh, giving an approximation of the detail seen in the high-poly mesh.

Models in a voxel-based program can be exported for further sculpting or retopology

11 Voxel-based modelling programs

Some voxel-based modelling programs, such as 3D-Coat and Sculptris, enable you to sculpt volume by adding triangles. This can be a great way to build up complex organic forms and structures, and you don’t have to focus on topology or edge flow. The end result can be retopologised for animation in the same way as any other mesh. Voxel-based modelling is sometimes overlooked, but it can be a great addition to your organic modelling toolbox and is well worth the time spent learning how to integrate it.

About the author
Glen Southern is a freelance 3D artist with over 15 years of experience in film, TV and game. He’s the owner of SouthernGFX creative services

A great 3D graphics card is essential for showing your work at its best before rendering. James Morris explains how to choose the model that suits your distinct needs

One of the most nuanced issues you face when specifying a 3D workstation is which graphics card to choose. The difference in price between a professional 3D accelerator and one aimed at consumer usage has reduced a little over the years, but it’s still significant. The most expensive consumer-grade cards cost under £800 while higher-end professional models routinely cost over £1,000 – or as much as £3,000. So what exactly are you paying the extra for? And which card should you choose?

There’s a lot of confusion about what a 3D graphics card can do for your productivity. After all, if you work with 3D content creation software, it would seem like an accelerator should help with the entire workflow, from modelling to rendering. But while there is promising development in GPU-accelerated rendering, adoption has been slow to filter through. 3D graphics cards are still primarily aimed at powering modelling viewports, so you can preview the effects of your work as you make changes.

A modelling viewport won’t support the same level of visual polish as an offline renderer. You’ll get some level of lighting and surface texturing, and all the geometry will be intact; there may even be shader effects available. But the frame will be rendered using a simpler rasterisation technique that offline renderers generally use, and certainly won’t involve any raycasting or raytracing.

The more powerful your graphics card, the more fluidly you can move around the viewport when modelling, and if you’re previewing an animation the more smoothly it will play, giving a better sense of the motion. This is particularly important for complex scenes or testing out rigging.

Consumer or professional?

Ostensibly, the GPU designs of consumer and professional products follow the same development curve. You can typically expect new consumer cards to be swiftly followed by updated professional-grade models. The specifications of individual models in each line usually have a mirror in the other, too. So you might think that the equivalent consumer-grade product would give you similar performance as its professional counterpart, for significantly less money.

Consumer-oriented cards like GeForce lack the features that can aid artist productivity

In some situations this might actually be the case. Where graphics cards are being used as co-processors, using Nvidia’s CUDA or AMD’s OpenCL support, GPU-accelerated renderers will give more performance for your money with consumer-grade cards. But this isn’t the case with the 3D modelling viewports of professional content-creation software. Here, driver and hardware optimisation can have a huge effect on performance. Where Quadro and FirePro cards will have been optimised in this fashion, GeForce and Radeon cards won’t.

Professional graphics hardware will be specifically tested with versions of popular professional software, and will therefore be qualified to use it – so you can call upon specialist support if problems arise. On top of this, professional graphics cards almost always come with a three-year direct manufacturer swap-out policy, whereas consumer-grade cards usually have shorter, return-to-base guarantees. This means you could be left without your graphics accelerator for a week or two while its problems are investigated.

Check the specification

Graphics cards vary greatly in specification, however. The main differentiations between professional models are the number of processing units and the quantity of memory. As a general rule, the more processing units, the greater the performance. However, there’s considerable variation between memory types too: the memory used in graphics cards, GDDR, is a special variant of the DDR employed for main system memory. But the generation level of the memory is not equivalent between the two, so the GDDR5 used in the most recent graphics cards is not two generations ahead of DDR3 system memory.

Memory and GPU clock speeds also have a significant effect on performance, but these are rarely stated for professional graphics cards, even if they’re a focus for consumer models. More important is memory bandwidth, which is a product of the raw memory speed and width of the interface in bits. The greater the bandwidth, the greater the performance, although this doesn’t change quite so much between graphics card generations as the number of processing units.

In our testing, the quantity of frame buffer only has a limited effect on performance beyond a certain level. If your graphics card doesn’t have enough memory, applications won’t run properly and may even crash. But if the quantity of memory is sufficient, having 50 per cent more memory won’t give you 50 per cent more performance. It might not make any difference at all.

In fact, some years ago we found the ATI FireGL V7350, with 1GB of memory, had identical performance to the V7300, with the same GPU but only 512MB. The Nvidia Quadro FX 4600 and 5600, with 768MB and 1.5GB respectively, were only differentiated in a few tests. Frame buffers greater than 2GB (or in most cases 1GB) are only really necessary for specific applications that require huge viewsets, such as very large scientific modelling projects, or when high levels of anti-aliasing are needed.

The Quadro 400 is one of the entry-level cards making pro graphics more affordable

Driver version can have a huge effect on performance, however. We’ve seen a leap of as much as 100 per cent in performance simply by upgrading to the latest version, and the best thing about this is that it’s free. Nvidia’s accelerated drivers for 3ds Max gave it a significant advantage with this application for some time, for example. It’s not always the best idea to use the very latest betas out there, though – with professional cards, it’s often better to use the driver version that’s specifically qualified for use with your chosen app version number. At the very least, opt for the Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) update rather than any beta, unless you’re already experiencing problems with these. Another feature you may have noticed on a graphics card specifications page is support for certain levels of DirectX, OpenGL and Shader Model. The latest version of DirectX is 11.1, but that’s only available in the Windows 8 preview so far. DirectX 11 is the relevant release to look for, and all the latest cards from Nvidia and AMD support this. It’s most important for gaming, but 3ds Max uses DirectX viewports, and other applications have the option available.

Allied to this is the Shader Model, currently at version 5, which defines standards for vertex, geometry and pixel shaders, and works within DirectX to accelerate these routines in the viewport, but few applications make heavy use of this. The OpenGL level is more significant, as OpenGL is the de facto standard for accelerating 3D content creation software viewports. The latest release here is 4.2, but the latest Quadros and FirePros only support 4.1. This will be more than enough for current software releases, which tend to lag behind the bleeding edge anyway.

Making comparisons

Comparing graphics cards between Nvidia and AMD can be confusing too. As already explained, professional cards are essentially classified around the number of processing units they contain. However, Nvidia and AMD don’t categorise their graphic processors in the same way. Nvidia appears to have far fewer CUDA processors in its top models than the Stream Processors in AMD’s top units – but that’s because the architectures are different.

Maya Viewport 2.0 is one of the real-time preview technologies taking advantage of faster GPUs

Each CUDA core contains a cluster of subunits that AMD counts separately, although the subunits aren’t entirely equivalent, as they don’t all do the same jobs. As a rule of thumb, each Nvidia CUDA core is equivalent to anywhere from three to five AMD Stream Processors. But since the architectures are different actual performance results vary with specific software, and an Nvidia Quadro may be faster with one application while an AMD FirePro could excel in another.

These are the main factors to look out for but, as always, your budget will be the deciding factor. Professional graphics cards ranges don’t change as quickly as, say, processors. The Fermi Quadro range arrived almost exactly two years ago, and although Kepler-based GeForces have recently hit the market, there’s no word on a release date for a Quadro version. Opting for the highest-end graphics you can afford is a worthwhile investment, and one you can benefit from for a number of years.

Watch out for our round-up of three popular 3D graphics cards, coming up in just a few days!

For this series, we’ve found some truly inspirational 3D artists who have been kind enough to share their CG tips and secrets with us.

This week, VFX guru Allan McKay, provides invaluable insights. We hope that you learn new techniques to help you to improve your CG skills, and most of all, that you enjoy Allan’s cool showreel…

Allan McKay is an award-winning industry veteran working in Hollywood as both a VFX Supervisor and Technical Director. He has worked for many leading studios, including Industrial Light + Magic, Ubisoft, Blur Studio and many more. Some of Allan’s recent projects include Flight, Transformers 3, Looper, Dracula 3D, The Last Airbender and Priest.

“I think I’m the only person in history to have Michael Bay ever comment that my explosions were ‘too big’!”

3D World: How did you break into the industry?
Allan McKay: I started out in the mid-90s originally in computer games, one of my first jobs was working on Team Fortress 2 for Valve Software back in its early development days (the game ended up having a 10 year development span).

I started out initially using Deluxe Paint Animation and other 2D packages and then got into POVRay and 3D Studio R3 for DOS.

When Max and Maya came out I started delving into a lot of particle work which was still pretty raw, there weren’t really that many people doing FX work full time and I was definitely very interested in the hard-to-approach-stuff in 3D, such as digital fire, smoke, explosions, clouds, water, destruction etc. Which there wasn’t much of back then it was all practical elements for the most part.

So I went after those sort of jobs and through trial and error started researching day and night how to do a lot of this sort of stuff.

What was worse was anyone who DID do this sort of stuff, was very protective over their methods, and wouldn’t share with anyone. So I always enjoyed developing my own techniques and then heavily documentating how I did them, because obviously it was painstakingly hard to do a lot of this stuff so if I can help others where they’re struggling then that’s an added bonus.

I started out in Australia very young, close to 20 years ago and definitely things have changed drastically in many ways. I moved to the US when I was 21 (I waited until when I was legally old enough to drink of course!) and started out as a Lead at a studio in Hollywood doing game cinematics and moved into feature films, and started jumping to a lot of the larger studios sup’ing work etc.

3D World: What first inspired you to become a 3D artist?
AM: I was always an artist, my mother always encouraged me to go after whatever I was pasionate about, so lots of sculpting, painting etc. But no real formal background etc. My mother coincidentally bought me an issue of Design Graphics Magazine in Australia, which covered a lot of really amazing Photoshop work as well as wavefront and other cool 3D imagary on the SGI.

Allan loves to blow things up, so on his showreel you'll find plenty of fire and smoke effects. Here's a still from Transformers 3 where Allan blew up a police car

It had a review of 3D Studio 3 for DOS in it, which looked amazing, I had no idea what any of that stuff was at the time, but it always stayed in the back of my mind that that stuff looked so amazing and polished, far better than anything I could ever paint (hey I was 11 and still wrapping my head around the concept of polygons etc. since 3D wasn’t really that mainstream until the late 90s). However it did give me that mental connection to what I wanted to do.

Without having any money I bought my first computer when I was 14 with my own money I earned from selling my art work anywhere I could. I started out doing pixel-by-pixel, frame-by-frame animation, and eventually got myself a 486-DX 100mhz PC with 4MB RAM – enough to barely run a 3D app and started working 24/7.

I literally buried myself in 3D, noone I knew even knew what 3D was, I had no internet, no books, manuals or way to even understand what keyframing was or any of the concepts we take for granted now. It was painstakingly painful to wrap my head around 3D especially with the packages that were out back then (no shaded viewports, no particles, packages like lightwave had separate apps for modeling modules etc. very different to now).

At the time I was interested in programming, however quitting school at a young age and again no books or people around to help, it was hard to find out where to start.

Watch Allan McKay’s showreel

3D World: At what point in your life did you make the decision that that’s what you were going to do?
AM: It’s pretty much all I’ve ever done. I’ve done the reverse – at one point when I was 16 and after working for nearly three years already, I wanted to have a simpler job like my friends all did, they all worked at Pizza Hut or Subway as a part time job, studied and partied.

I’d been working in offices or remotely from home at that point, so I actually quit freelancing and got a job for six months at KFC in my home city, just for fun. Not the most pleasant work but I enjoyed hanging out with people my age and trying something different just for kicks.

But for the most part, rather than doing multiple career changes in my life, I did that internally, moving from initially video games to commercials and then film, and then from specifically FX/Dynamics to leading teams, producing, R&D, later VFX supervision on set, and then eventually running a studio. It’s only been the last few years I jumped back into 3D again and it’s been a great break from other stresses to find something I’m passionate about and enjoy the day-to-day challenges of working on FX shots for various high-profile films.

3D World: Where do you draw your inspiration from?
AM: Personally, I get it from everywhere. I don’t really see myself as much of an artist, in terms of my day-to-day work. I’m rarely modeling or if I am animating anything it’s more realistic dynamics and destruction, the rest of the time it’s simulations and heavy amounts of problem solving.

So I wouldn’t call myself an artist these days – I love the business side and I love the service side of production. However, I occasionally direct and do other things still which are more my creative output.

My inspiration usually comes from other peoples work, things I see day to day etc. I usually paint most of the work I do before I start, this allows me to communicate what I want to clients as well as give me a clearer idea of what I plan to do before I start, as it’s very easy to bury yourself in the technical side and lose control of what you were visually trying to achieve.

YouTube definitely is a starting point for drawing things from reality, plus I use Evernote’s tool to quickly store cool images or on my iPhone as well when I see things on the web or other places. I’m in Detroit this week and seeing all the run down buildings out here is really interesting, and there’s already so many photos I’ve taken just of burned down houses or deserted buildings etc. My brain gets very ADHD when it comes to ideas for cool shots or other things so I’m constantly pulling out my phone to write notes on ideas for upcoming projects etc. But even seeing other people’s work is inspiring, even sometimes if it’s not necessarily ‘good’ the idea might be really solid, or bits of it might inspire you to do something completely different.

3D World: What is the most enjoyable project you have worked on so far in your career?
AM: There’s so many great ones, I enjoyed working on Transformers 3 for many reasons, it was a tight turnaround project working with a lot of ex Orphanage (studio in San Francisco) staff, really amazing team of people.

It was one of those jobs that had such a high demand and a very small amount of time to turn it around. I worked with an experienced team and we worked a lot of hours but there was never a single point where we ever went in the wrong direction, we were always moving forward.

I was FX Lead and had a lot I was chewing through, everyone there were really inspiring and motivating just everyone’s attitude and great work they were doing. I think I’m the only person in history to have Michael Bay ever comment that my explosions were ‘too big’ when I blew up a police car in one of the more epic shots I worked on.

• Read the making of Transformers 2

• Rig your own Transformer in LightWave

Allan has worked on some top blockbusters including Transformers 3 and Blade 3

　
3D World: What 3D tools and techniques do you use on a day-to-day basis?
AM: Right now I’m doing a lot more 3D so I’ll state the obvious stuff I use – a majority of FX work I do in Max. A majority of the tools I use are the plugins for Max:

• Read a review of 3ds Max 2012

Rayfire for most of my fracturing (I like Volume Breaker too, but Rayfire’s pretty amazing).

Fire I always use FumeFX at this point, there are some limitations but for the most part it’s the most solid solution out there. Same for smoke, explosions etc.

Krakatoa is a great addition, I probably don’t use it as much as I should be – it’s pretty powerful.

• Watch an amazing animation created using Max and Krakatoa

I use Supermesher in 3ds Max for all the mesh caching, this can be a real life saver with complicated shots being able to cache everything and pull all particles into a master file for rendering etc. without any memory overhead for pre-rolling particles and calculations etc.

Thinking Particles I don’t really use too much, I think the software is amazing, I use it when it’s needed. I think the RBD solver is one of the best out there, very solid for dynamics etc.

For water currently I use Realflow and have been using it since around 1998. Although I’m really interested in trying Naiad and Houdini at this point, Naiad’s large-scale, water-based stuff looks amazing and Houdini’s SPH-based particles are interesting for more regular-sized sims.

Realflow I love, but it requires a lot more fighting to get stable results and in more ambitious projects that can be make or break.

I comp in Nuke, Deadline’s more my preference for network rendering, Shotgun I have a love-hate relationship with for managing projects amongst mid-sized teams.

I like Reel production calendar for scheduling projects, it’s pretty low profile tool and is only Windows based, but pretty cool very much like a lite version of microsoft project. So it’s great for me personally just to block out my year with projects etc.

I also like Mind Meister just for brainstorming and building notes.

I figure everyone’s going to point out the usual tools like Photoshop etc. So I figured I’d mention a few of the less mainstream tools I use on a day-to-day basis that I find really enjoyable.

I use Google Docs heavily to just write up spreadsheets for all my shots. I tend to heavily manage myself, with lists of all my shots, status, paths to everything. This way it’s easy for me to juggle more work but also communicate with other team members when I need to share things to give updates. I think this is definitely crucial for all artists – I’d personally love to see this more.

Evernote just for randomly snapshotting things and making notes. That’s more a personal thing, but it helps daily with everything I do.

Allan uses a mix of Max plugins in order to achieve fantastic VFX

3D World: What’s your favourite 3D package?
AM: I always get asked this and my jaded self I usually say I hate them all equally. I think every package is pretty much able to do anything you need these days. There is no ‘superior’ package. However, it’s more a preference to how you like to work, and also what studios are a majority in your city. Don’t go and learn Houdini if you’re based in New York and don’t go and learn Maya if you find most of the jobs advertised are Max rather than Maya etc.

Personally I use 3ds Max, I know Maya equally as well, but Maya hasn’t evolved much for FX in the past nine years, nParticles isn’t evolutionary and a lot of its mindset for FX is pretty old these days. Personally I haven’t even looked at any of Max’s new features since Max 8, I use it solely for the plugins, Fume FX, Krakatoa etc. I think Max is great.

3D World: What’s your favourite film containing VFX/CG?
AM: That’s such a hard question, in a way I always go back to Jurassic Park, because it was one of the first ever CG films and it still holds up today flawlessly. It and Terminator 2 really set the CG boom and many, many, many movies over the following decade were filled with bad CGI that pretty much gave the reputation for CG looking fake. Whereas Jurassic Park just still today holds up really well. You can’t look at a single shot and be like “oh that’s so fake” and it’s 1993!

Jurassic Park is one of Allan's favourite films. "Jurassic Park just still today holds up really well," says Allan. "You can't look at a single shot and be like "oh that's so fake" and it's 1993!"

3D World: What’s your favourite animation?
AM: I’m one of those people that oddly doesn’t watch that many animated features. I used to, Toy Story 1 was inspiring to me because I was getting pretty heavily into 3D when that first came out, so it was kind of inspiring being able to relate to it at the time.

Avatar’s interesting because it isn’t actually an animated feature, but you get so immersed in the film and in that world that when they do cut back to the live action sequences you kind of snap out of it and remember oh yeah there’s people in this movie too. Which makes it interesting when the two finally cross paths at the end.

Read the making-of Avatar

I think if I had to pick a favorite feature, CG or not CG I would choose Monsters Inc. from Pixar, I just really like that film, it uses a really nice palette of colors, and overall just always sat well with me, plus there was plenty to do with that entire world character design wise etc. Some animated features like Cars and Finding Nemo (yes, I still liked it… just more the theme didn’t really grab my attention) both weren’t really movies that inspired me, I think Cars was the film that in a way put me off of animated features a bit, maybe I just prefer biped/quadruped characters over fish and cars.

3D World: What advice can you give for aspiring 3D artists looking to break into the industry?
AM: Take your job seriously.

Learn to be just as good in business as you are in your work. In other words, have a plan and figure out all your tactics to get your foot in the door. I say take it seriously, because it’s such a highly competitive industry with so much talent, that you really need to figure out your way to break into it.

And you need to focus and really grip the right skill set to make yourself stand out. Pick the popular software that your city/country uses, and try to find postings for jobs and try to pick something that’s in high demand without much of an actual competitive market.

In other words, be good at modeling, but if you notice there’s lots of job postings out there for rendering and lighting people, and not many to fill it – then maybe it can’t hurt to learn a bit of L+R as well?

Lastly, hang in there. It takes time, I spent years when I first started out trying to get my big break, but once you’re in it’s relatively easy to consistently get work. It’s just the initial proof that you are capable of doing the work most studios don’t want to gamble on initially. And network – make as many friends as possible, and don’t screw up your professional reputation, you’ll never outrun it.

3D World: Please could you share a top tip with us on how you work?
AM: There’s so many, some of these might sound simple and probably not too applicable at first, but they’re pretty key.

I tend to work at the same scale when doing all my FX. I usually will rescale my shots down to whatever scale I find useful and go from there. In other words, if I’m doing a lot of fire and explosions at a specific scale, the next few shots or projects I’ll probably make my scenes the same scale.

Most solvers, when it comes to fire and particles etc, aren’t necessarily too physically accurate (more specifically fire/water fluids than RBD solvers) so it isn’t too big a deal if your stuff isn’t at the same scale as everything else when you’re working on it. You can rescale your solvers back up or else your render passes still come out fine and match etc.

This sounds a bit silly, but most packages’ tools are built at certain scales and when they go too extreme big or small they break, but more importantly, if your forces, your turbulence, your sims, everything are always the same scale, then the values you work at will always be the same. So there’s less guessing and playing around, you can usually punch in the right values and get the exact look you like, or better yet recycle effects from previous projects etc.

I just find that working this way everything consistently works and I can get the desired look I’m after usually within the first 1-2 iterations because I know what every setting is going to do and how it’s going to look before I sim it. Rather than playing around and trying to guess the right settings for that scale etc.

There’s a time and place for everything so use your judgement to where this applies, but I do commonly get asked about scale, and see people running into issues or struggling to get good results at extreme scales etc. So this is why I bring this up.

At the same time, learn some scripting, it doesn’t hurt to know a bit of Python no matter what you’re doing and it will help you down the line as you evolve as an artist.

3D World: Do you have any comments on how the industry has changed since you first started?
AM: I started out in 1994. It’s changed so much over the years, it’s ridiculous. I’d say there’s definitely more people.

When I started out, I couldn’t really explain to people what I did because VFX/CGI/Animation etc. weren’t really common terms, now your neighbor will be referring to mocap suits, green screens and Maya etc. without blinking an eye.

There’s definitely more people doing it, the industry is far bigger, many many productions going on world wide, the infrastructure has changed drastically, now with larger studios outsourcing to smaller studios who outsource again and split areas up to send to other regions for more efficient budgeting.

However, with more people doing it, and access to the internet, people are all coming out of schools fully equipped to rock and roll in this industry, so its much more competitive to get into the industry I think than it used to be. But as I said above, it’s just a matter of learning good business ethics and finding a way to establish yourself.

The industry in a way is definitely more shaky, with more productions, the expectations have risen, and so have the budgets, however, studios still underbid and the profit margins aren’t very wide.

Studios collapse constantly, perks and benefits aren’t as common in smaller studios etc. More work is going off-shore (from Hollywood at least, to Vancouver, London, Australia etc).

Definitely with larger amounts of work needed on any given film, it’s less common to have one studio handle the work, now it’s usually sourced out to multiple vendors, so it’s interesting whereas before it usually was one studio would handle all of the work. I just recently finished up on Denzel Washington’s new film, whereas one studio (Atomic Fiction) handled all of the work on the VFX which was fun, as we were a lot more tied into the process.　

For more information please visit Allan’s website

Find out how freelance 3D artist Matus Nedecky created this gorgeous arch-viz scene called ‘Modern Sleep Unit’ using Photoshop and 3D software…

Freelance visualiser Matus Nedecky won Image of the Week on the Vismasters.com blog with his ‘Modern Sleep Unit’ design in 2011. Read on to find out how he created the winning image…

Visual artist Matus Nedecky won Vismasters Image of the Week prize with this image

The inspiration behind the model by visualisation artist Matus Nedecky was the lack of sleep in a modern world.

Nedecky explains that the Modern Sleep Unit comes from his vision of the future: “There will be more and more people trying to live in post-industrial buildings, in large halls, which are not working as productive industry items anymore.

“Many of these would be used as studios for artists, photographers, and others. Architects, designers and students work many more hours than other professions.

“Many times, they stay in the office over night just to be ready to work from early morning before tight deadline.

“Sleeping under the desk was necessary from time to time in the architectural studio I worked a few
years ago. I believe, this solution would be the best for people like me.”

Below, Nedecky runs through the creation of the model and its insertion into the scene in his own words:

Preparation

I work in Rhinoceros – an awesome 3D NURBS modeller, and for rendering I use V-ray for Rhino.

The style of modelling that comes from using NURBS geometry enabled me to create freely and independently any number of subdivisions.

Working on soft and organic models became a passion for me immediately after my first model in this software.

First off, I created 2D planar drawings of the sleep unit out of the curves. Front and right views were enough for me.

Then I pushed and pulled control points of these curves to match both views in 3D space.

I did it a few more times, until I was completely satisfied with the shape of the unit and with the smoothness of the curves.

In this workflow I chose to cut and blend surfaces, instead of creating them at the first hit, like I do for architectural visualisations.

Modelling

In the Sleep unit project, there aren’t any planar surfaces. Sides of the unit are convex, which was confusing for many artists who saw the image and thought that the reflections made in the post-production process were incorrect.

I had to persuade these people that reflections do not work the way they imagine.

I created my workflow on a basis of creating border and section curves and then I used them to model organic surfaces.

The most used command in Rhino was the Curve Network for creating surfaces out of these border and section curves.

On one side of the unit, I created an opening and closing desk for a computer and a few shelves for personal stuff, such as books, WIP projects, sketches etc.

Wireframe and Rendered viewport:

On the other side of the unit I made a sliding door as an entrance to the interior of the unit.

Shaded and Rendered viewport:

For the environment, I used a garage HDRI map, which was mapped onto the sphere surrounding the whole unit.

I could then see the final composition and a relatively detailed final render – excluding reflections, glows, etc. straight from the live viewport.

As I was rendering the unit in the HDRI environment, I was able to decide whether to make shadows on the ground using V-ray Sun, or to make them in Photoshop.

As I am trying to work more within Photoshop, I decided to use only the HDRI to light the scene and then, in post-production, draw shadows, glows and flares using my tablet.

Post-production

The quick 3D overview is done. V-ray rendered several channels for me, for example Raw GI, Reflections, Lights, Self illumination, Total Light, Render ID, Z-depth.

I used these channels and their blending modes in Photoshop to enhance the overall feeling of the image.

This is the final render without any post-production, so you can see how useful Photoshop was.

First of all, I had to remove unnecessary light from the background image:

Using self illumination layers three times stacked over each other, I enhanced the light coming from the wheel circles and made glow effects using the Blur tool in PS.

To give some depth to the scene, I drew some glow over the top part of the unit:

I then drew some more glow all over the render to bring together any parts that are broken apart.

The flare effect caused by the Sun reflection was added using PS brush.

For me, colour balance is one of the most important PS tools in post-production process. It is able to create any mood you would like to have on your visualisation.

I personally prefer using some warm colours, mostly orange.

Levels, Contrast, and Curves were then used to add contrast to the image and to enhance final colours.

And again: the final image…

See more great artwork by Matus Nedecky at www.matusnedecky.com.