issue 06

3D Art

BE INSPIRED BY 3D DIGITAL ART

Direct

-Inspiration for 3D digital artists

-Interviews with top artists

-The stories behind the pictures

-Insightful galleries

-Quick tips

Issue 6

December 2010

Premium Edition

2

Christmas and New Year Mini Galleries

We approached a number of our artists we interviewed in 2010 for an update on their works and

have created a series of mini-galleries in this issue as a result. We asked each artist what inspired

them to create the image in question, what they learned from creating it and asked their favour-

ite aspect of the final render.

As a general question we asked many of the artists what aspect of their craft did they hope to

improve upon as they went into the new year and also invited them to promote any project, im-

age or new direction of work that they would be taking in the near future. Some of the answers

may reflect your own directions as your aspire to improve your digital art craft during 2011.

We’re also pleased to have a full interview with Yaroslav, a popular Mojoworld artist from Tokyo,

Japan, one of the moderators of the Mojoworld forum on Renderosity.com.

We’ve ended 2010 with two new conduits of promoting artists work—one is through a FREE 3D Art

interactive game gallery on our

website. Explore the island of

Praetax here, which includes a num-

ber of images from artists inter-

viewed in 2010.

We’re also now promoting our artists on youtube.com, starting with a video review of artist Peter

Rex—see the promotion of his portfolio here.

Our best wishes for all of you in 2011.

2

The content of this magazine is © 2010 3D Art Direct

Paul Bussey Editor

[email protected]

Cover art ―Durin’s Bane‖ by Juan Rodriguez

The ―Stonghold‖ by Yaroslav

(Mojoworld planet by Alex Niko)

http://3dartdirect.com/blog/?page_id=207

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0JijWXA2wQ

FEATURE YOUR ARTWORK

ARTICLES

The type of articles we consider for publication are:-

1. About the Artist : featuring what inspires your 3D digital art and a portfolio of your work.

2. Quick Tips : short tutorial including screenshots and instructions of a tip that has developed your ability as a

3D digital artist.

3. Images With a Story : Provide a short narrative (less than 5000 words) with digital art illustrations.

Please email us at [email protected] for rates.

ARTWORK

Since we focus on artwork in the science fiction and fantasy genres, we welcome your artwork in these categories. If you have other types of images you

would like to submit, we will certainly consider them for inclusion.

3D ART DIRECT POSTER STORE

To sell your images in our poster store as an A2, A3+ or A4 print,

it must be rendered with these pixel dimensions:-

The good news is that we will host your images as products for

free (once approved by us) and there is no limit on the amount

of images you can submit. There are certain terms and condi-

tions, one of which is that the image MUST NOT include any ele-

ments that are COPYRIGHTED material. For each poster sold we

pay you via PayPal these rates:-

A2 A3+ A4

6960 x 4920 4920 x 3480 3480 x 2460

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

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3. Uploaded art MUST NOT include any elements that are COPYRIGHTED material.

4. Models used in images must be licensed for commercial use.

5. We do not accept art that contains nudity or strong images of violence.

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7. 3D Art Direct retains the right not to use the artist's work for use as a product if not deemed suitable for sale.

8. Artists will be informed by email within 48 hours of upload if their artwork will be used as a product. Products will be placed

online on the 3D Art Direct store within 72 hours.

9. 3D Art Direct will only use uploaded images of the artist for the express purpose of 1) poster sales on the 3dartdirect.com

domain and 2) if given written permission by the artist, the promotion of their artwork in the 3D Art Direct online magazine.

10. Uploaded artwork by the artist will never be passed onto a 3rd party.

11. Artists are given an emailed monthly report of their sales on the 15th of each calendar month, showing sales in the previ-

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A2 A3+ A4

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HOW TO SUBMIT

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Artwork”

3

http://www.3dartdirect.com/blog

4

Editorial ●

Feature Your Artwork! ● Tell us the stories behind your Portfolio!

Artur Rosa ●

Alex Niko ●

Warren Turner ●

Danny Gordon ●

Juan Rodriguez ●

Phil Drawbridge●

Jacob Charles Dietz●

Peter Rex●

Melissa Krauss●

Full Interview with Yaroslav● Mojoworld artist shares his inspirations for his cata-

logue of volumetric worlds

4

CONTENTS

Page 2

Page 3

Page 5

Page 8

Page 11

Page 15

Page 18

Page 21

Page 24

Page 27

Page 30

Page 33

ARTUR ROSA

5

AR: In my images you'll often see roads and travellers, quite often through strange and uncharted territories. I love the

feeling of exploration and since I don't do it in real life, I do it in my mind. This is one of those images. The title and specific

place comes from another thing that fascinates me: the midnight sun. So, I imagined a journey through this strange land

during the midnight sun. The tower gives the traveller a sense of purpose, a destination.

3DAD: What did you learn new as a digital artist when creating it? AR: I learned how to get the most from twisted terrains, one of the features in Vue

that, interestingly, I had never seriously used before.

3DAD: What do you like best about the image? AR: The asymmetrical symmetry of the image. I know it sounds strange but that's true. :-)

Soltice

6

ARTUR ROSA

6

AR: I made this image for the Vue Environment Competition in 2008. It didn't win but it was among the 12 finalists. I basi-

cally wanted to create an image that could show some of the best that Vue has to offer, from terrains to atmospheres

to distributed ecosystems to material handling. This image contains many of the different Vue features and that was my

intention.

3DAD: What did you

learn new as a digi-

tal artist when cre-

ating it?

AR: I learned a bit

more how to distrib-

ute ecosystems

more precisely and

how to integrate

different Vue ter-

rains. It may not be

obvious at first sight,

but this is in fact a

collection of several

terrains.

3DAD: What do you

like best about the

image?

Undoubtedly, the

winding river and

winding road, side

by side.

The 3rd Route

ARTUR ROSA

7

3DAD: What prompted or inspired you to create this image?

AR: In this one I wanted to reach that point where real, unreal and surreal meet in harmony. I love clouds and I

wanted to have lots of them. I often think that clouds are to the sky as roses are to a garden. You can have a gar-

den with no roses but it doesn't seem complete. :-)

3DAD: What did you learn new as a digital artist when creating it? AR: I learned a bit more on how to better con-

trol clouds.

3DAD: What did you like best about this image? AR: The clouds and their reflections.

Unfinished Circles

3DAD: : What aspect of your craft do

you hope to improve upon next as you

go into the new year?

AR: I don't plan anything in what con-

cerns image creation. On purpose, I

don't think about the future, I just go

with the flow. That's the opposite of my

real job, where I have to plan every-

thing, very carefully and thoroughly.

Image creation should remain sponta-

neous, unplanned, wild and untamed.

The next thing that comes to my mind

is the next thing that I will make. The

visions that appear in my mind will dic-

8

ALEXANDER NIKO

AN: I was inspired

by the music of John

Serrie. This image

has the same name

as the album that

was released in 1987

"And The Stars Go

With You".

The composer Jonn

Serrie wrote this al-

bum for those who

lost their lives in the

space shuttle Chal-

lenger disaster. The

1986 Challenger

tragedy deeply af-

fected Serrie, who

went on to write this

body of music as a

way of honouring

the dead and work-

ing through his grief.

I think my astronaut

in this image has a

chance to stay

alive!

8

ALEXANDER NIKO

9

10

ALEXANDER NIKO

10

"Beyond" - This was another chance to explore and return to the Chasma world ... i really love this planet!

"Unknown Sector" - This was another experiment with Volumetrics plug-ins, creating the asteroids, which I

am still learning. It’s a paradox: the more you learn about something, the stronger is your conviction that

on a subject you know very little!

3DAD: What aspect of your craft do you hope to improve upon next as you go into the new year?

Is there a project, image or new direction of work that you would like to promote to the readers?

AN: I have a lot of different ideas .. in the new year I will try to surprise more than anything.

For a long time I have wished to make one project, i wish to create a global battle on the planet Hoth

from the Star Wars.

BEYOND

UNKNOWN SECTOR

WARREN TURNER

11


WT: I was just playing around with my Reflecta world looking at differing ways of using sine in nested distorted noises to see what construction looking forms

could be created.

3DAD: What did you learn new as a digital artist when creating it?

WT: The sine function does have its limits in Volumetrics and there is a lack of more primitive like forms that can be created. Volumetrics is great for organics

but less supportive for architectural styles or more contrived forms.

3DAD: What do you like

best about the image?

WT: The end result is dark in

mood and the overall im-

age conveys a sense of an

aftershock or similar event

where what could be struc-

tures are bounced up in

the air (if that makes

sense).

12

WARREN TURNER

12


WT: The Renderosity Mojoworld galleries were all pulling cool renders from Alex Nickolaevs ―Sandy Rocks 3 ― planet but they were all distance shots trying to

get as much form in as possible. I just looked closer and found a spot where the form was equally as dramatic and could also try and capture more of the

details.


WT: When to stop! I was contemplating a character sitting with their knees bent up and tucked into their arms under the right overhang just looking out as if

taking shelter…but I opted

not to. I’m still in 2 minds

whether I should have or

not…but I stopped where I

was and focused more on

the terrains form rather

than a character in the

image which would have

distracted. I also consid-

ered alien vegetation but

MoJoTree and Volumetrics

just don’t mix very well.

3DAD: What do you like

best about the image?

WT: I really like the overall

form, hence its title...but I

also think that’s Slav’s ma-

terials worked really well

with some slight adjust-

ments. The overall sepia-

ish tones fit well with the

slight colouration to the

multiatmos creating an

overall relaxed look and

sensation.

WARREN TURNER

13


WT: My brother in law wanted some of my work for his living room and wanted a beach/waters edge style scene but non typical. This was something I did

over 1 year ago.


WT: Like all things Volumetrics needs transparency to really help to convey water correctly and I really struggled to try and fake some waves against the

shoreline which is still something Id like to achieve but its really NOT easy trying to calculate where the terrain is as it’s a differing surface.

3DAD: What do you

like best about the

image?

WT: Probably the rocks

distribution into the

waters edge. It helps

take the viewers eye

into the overall image.

14

WARREN TURNER

14


WT: Keep plugging away with Mojo and Volumetrics in the dream that maybe one day its development plan may be rekindled. Im not over anxious if it

does or not TBH now, there are other apps I could turn to…but mojo is fun now despite its shortcomings. Its like a pet dog that although it farts and smells

badly you still love it nonetheless!

3DAD: Is there a project, image or new direction of work that you would like to promote to the readers?

WT: I am grateful to

anyone that visits my

gallery. I’m even more

grateful to those that

drop a comment. Its

only via constructive

feedback that we im-

prove via positive and

negative feedback

and I openly welcome

both. So I have many,

many, many old pro-

jects tucked away

that one day I will get

to finish and I also

have many that I

want to do but have

yet to start off. All I

can say is keep an

eye on my gallery and

hopefully a new path

will develop out of ex-

perimentation and

collaboration through

the Renderosity fo-

rums.

DANNY GORDON

15

DG: This Planet file, which was created by Firesong, I found in the Mojoworld free section at Renderosity. Immediately after opening this file what caught

my eye was the Alien Desert Type atmosphere that reminded me of the landscapes of the Planet Tatooine in Star Wars. After exploring this planet in its

stock form, I knew I was going to have to make some changes to get the look that I had in my mind—mainly the surface.

After several experiments with materials and .mjw files I ended up tweaking materials from Cangi Cangmo a classic file from Caylxa to get the surface I

needed. There were very minor tweaks to the atmosphere (mainly increased density) and scaled up the Moon to be the focal point of my final Panoramic

View. This is one of my personal favourite renders with Mojoworld.

LHA BHO’

16

DANNY GORDON

16

This is a stock Planet created by Doc Mojo and Armands that comes with your purchase of the software. A thread in Renderosity's Mojoworld forum started

by Mojo Veteran Wirepaladin showcasing this file, reworked by Mojo artist Hakujin, immediately sparked my interest. I joined this thread with my tweaks and

started posting

small renders of my

progress, Wirepala-

din added several

pointers and guid-

ance to my work

which ended up

being a tutorial of

sorts for me, learn-

ing several tech-

nics he has learned

over the years. Alt-

hough I am not

completely done

tweaking this world

I am very pleased

with the fore-

ground textures

achieved by

tweaks to the FG

Blend Node in the

land materials Mo-

jograph (Credit -

wP)

* This Hakujin re-

wired version of

Ways of Fire III is

now available in

the Mojoworld

Freestuff at Ren-

derosity

Ways of Fire III

DANNY GORDON

17

DG: This is a heavy tweak of Planet Chasma by Hillrunner. After seeing Mojoworld Artist Alex Niko's results with this planet I knew by his many examples this

file had no boundaries. Although the terrain isn't the main focus of the piece its undeniably a great foundation. I treated the terrain with tweaks to stock

materials from Mojoworld's extensive library of textures. The atmosphere was created using a fairly simple mixture of none volumetric stock atmospheric ele-

ments and textures. Work flow on the sky progressed in the way Mojoworld is best suited, just experimenting and having fun. Very happy with the out come.


DG: Well in regards to Mojoworld,

I would defiantly like to improve

my overall understanding of the

logic in wiring complex worlds via

the Mojograph. With Terragen V

2.2 - One word - NODES

3DAD: Is there a project, image or

new direction of work that you

would like to promote to the

readers?

DG: I Just upgraded my Terragen

vr 9.43 to Terragen vr 2.2, There

has been significant improve-

ments to this program, namely

the interface also thegeneral sta-

bility of the program as well as

the support of multicore proces-

sors. I have been seeing some

extraordinary images coming

from vr 2.2 and with the devolop-

ment of the Mojoliths clip file by

Richard Street (aka Rich2) I defi-

antly see my gallery splitting up

again between Mojoworld, Man-

delbulb and Terragen 2.2.

ENTITY

18

JUAN RODRIGUEZ

18

JR: With this title is easy if you are into AD&D and Forgotten Realms to know what inspired me to do this image. The books by R.A. Salvatore about the drow

elf, Drizzt Do'Urden. I like very much this image and how it ended. At first i thought that it was good enough because i focused on the characters rather

than the terrain

(something that not all

users of Vue like), but

what i think i did achieve

is the sense of movement

and violence of the giant

near the "victims". I think

this is what makes this im-

age worthy.

The rest... well I am not

pretty satisfied with the

pose of the victims, but i

think the big guy catches

all your attention.

This is the first image

where i have learnt that

no matter what you de-

scribe in your scenes, is

how you describe. Almost

everything is already said

and told in fantasy. Using

poser means that you are

using models that any-

body else can use, so you

have to focus on making

it different. Try to catch

the viewers eye. That can

be achieved i think, using

different POV or very dra-

matic poses

ICEWIND DALE MOUNTAINS

JUAN RODRIGUEZ

19

JR: This one took a long time to render and do the postwork. Most of the background is postworked because my system wasn't able to handle the amount

of Poser figures I included in the scene. So i postworked using real photos (God bless Google images) that I placed over the "nude" terrains that came out

of Vue. I also postworked to add the fog where the ghost character is, as well as the magical effects of the cleric and wizard.

It was just a little tribute to those adventurers that have partied in AD&D when I was a kid. DEEP HILL

20

JUAN RODRIGUEZ

20

As I have said, POV is one of the most important things within a render, in my opinion. I have tried several times to portrait a dragon but haven't been suc-

cessful to date. This one is the first one I’m pretty satisfied where a dragon is portrayed. And i think what makes this image different is the POV. It makes you

feel the danger the three dwarves are in. I think that the lighting is also a good input adding some realism.

I also think that the Dwarvez by Sixus1 are incredibly good figures that add that special

touch to the image.

DURIN’S BANE

SIXUS1

http://www.runtimedna.com/Dwarvez.html

http://www.runtimedna.com/Dwarvez.html

PHIL DRAWBRIDGE

21

3DAD: What

prompted or in-

spired you to cre-

ate this image?

PD: I was still into

my underwater

period and was

playing more and

more with the dif-

ferent caustic set-

tings and came

across a very nice

effect on the

ocean floor.

The results were

more a test, but

worked well

enough to share.

3DAD: What did

you learn new as

a digital artist

when creating it?

PD: I came to

terms with a few

of Carrara's more

indepth (no pun

intended!) caustic

features.

WRECK 2

22

PHIL DRAWBRIDGE

22

3DAD: What prompted or inspired you to cre-

ate this image?

PD: This was in a series of images created with

Carrara clouds. Clouds are a little processor

heavy so I've never really played with them

much before. I created a nice cloud nebula

and wondered what they would look like with

a realistic atmosphere and sun. With a few

backlights they turned out pretty well. I added

a ship that was breaking through the clouds to

give some depth to the otherwise flat cloud

image. The lens flare is actually from a back-

light and the sun is higher and more to the left

to give the sky a better colour.

3DAD: What did you learn new as a digital art-

ist when creating it?

PD: Clouds in Carrara are hit and miss. but I did

learn a lot about how to light them better. Also

the various settings for thickness, silver lining

etc. The combinations are endless and there's

a lot more to learn.

3DAD: What do you like best about the im-

age?

I really like this image. This is one of my most

recent models and I'm very happy to use it

when I can. I'm very happy with the

clouds. They rendered very realistically. The

lens flare is way over the top, but you gotta

love lens flares. I also rendered this with skylight

on, which again adds time to the render but

lights the model better.

Through The Clouds

PHIL DRAWBRIDGE

23


PD: I have two monitors and I've been creating some pretty boring wallpapers for them and wanted to do something a bit more arty. I had "borrowed" a

nebula from another artist that was created in Apophysis, which is a really cool fractal generator. This worked well, but I wanted to try to create a more 3d

nebula. So I added some clouds and a few lights and was pretty amazed how well it worked. So I added two ships, one in the clouds and the smaller ship

for scale and created my wallpaper. Then I felt like sharing, so uploaded it.


PD: This was the first cloudy picture I created, so there was a learning curve with the cloud settings.

3DAD: What do you like best about the image?

PD: The colours and depth are pretty cool. Makes a great two screen wallpaper.

FULL NEBULA

24

JACOB CHARLES DIETZ

24


JCD: This was actually from a multi-part commission that was never completed after collecting a kill fee and left to languish on my

hard drive. I was inspired to pick it back up by my cat, Tabitha, who was going through renal failure at the time. Despite her being in

her last days of life, she still had the 'and who the hell are you' attitude about her that I'd come to know over the fifteen years we

shared together and I tried to put that into the image.


JCD: The original image was created a

couple of years prior to my opening it up

again, so one thing I learned is that in the

time since my material and lighting setups

have improved considerably. Thinking the

core scene was a done deal, after looking

at it with fresh eyes, it was clear that it was

not, so I did a lot of tweaks and re-

rendered the whole thing. Not really some-

thing I learned here, but I was quickly re-

minded how much longer interior lighting

setups take to render, especially when

there are reflections picking up the lights.

3DAD: What do you like best about the

image?

JCD: Honestly, it's the interaction with the

two actors - the gynoid and the cat. Each

is doing their own thing, but taking excep-

tion to the other with just the right amount

of attitude. As many cat people know, that

is pretty much expected from a cat, but

seeing a female android have a 'catty' re-

action is something you really don't see

much of.

PROMENADE

JACOB CHARLES DIETZ

25

3DAD: What prompted or inspired you

to create this image?

JCD: I had actually created this for a

promotional contest called 'Envision the

Executioner' when the latest installment

of the Resident Evil franchise was com-

ing out. The only real rule was that you

had to show the Executioner character

from the franchise, though most people

were taking the route of uber violent

fight scenes which I thought was a little

too obvious. Instead I tried to create

some pre-dust up tension with a total

David vs. Goliath type of composition. I

think it worked as you can almost see

the two players start to flinch if you stare

at the image long enough.

3DAD: What did you learn new as a

digital artist when creating it?

JCD: This was a first for me as I utilized a real world object within a 3D scene. Since I didn't have a 3D model of the Gatekeeper character and the contest

was nearing deadline, I purchased an action figure and photographed him against a chroma key background and proceeded to composite him into my

rendered scene file. From there I went to work Photoshopping out all of his joints and over-painting him with more detailed textures to shake the plasticy ac-

tion figure look and even adding some extra blood and hanging chains. The final step was to paint some stronger lighting and highlights onto the figure to

really make him come alive in the scene. All told it was a pretty interesting exercise and one I may have to try again.


JCD: It's got to be the caustics in the light shafts. Aside from the obvious conflict that makes up the core subject of this one, the gritty lighting and dusty air is

what takes the environment from cool to freakin' awesome in my opinion. The visible light shafts were in the original render, though I pumped them up in

post and really made them shine with splintered beams, heavy particulates and some very soft falloff.

GATEKEEPER

26

JACOB CHARLES DIETZ

26

3DAD: What prompted

or inspired you to cre-

ate this image?

JCD: I was lucky

enough to have done

quite a few commis-

sions in 2009 and want-

ed to thank the great

people who were actu-

ally paying me to make

stuff that I loved. While I

could have sent a

cheese of the month

club or a hokey card, I

opted for a custom,

limited edition holiday print instead. Printed on Hahnemühle Fine Art Pearl stock, each print was hand signed and numbered in the margin and rolled into a

little tube with my custom labels on them. It seemed to go over well and I got more work from the recipients, so I guess I've started a tradition ;)


JCD: Since relocating to Arizona from Washington State, I had come to know and love the Sonoran Desert and the magical atmospherics that can be

found throughout this amazing part of the world. I really wanted to create the look of the winter sunsets as scene in the more rural areas of the state and

after running several test renders, I just wasn't getting it. So I hit the road and watched a lot of sunsets in different areas - the one I had pictured was found

in an area called Bloody Basin, which sounds very sinister, but is a rather gorgeous valley filled with wild sheep and mountain goats. Nonetheless, after see-

ing my target environment, I was able to push the software to make my own digital version of it.


JCD: I drove heavy-haul dump trucks for years as I was going to school and trying to transition to working as an illustrator and stopping for fuel was both the

best and the worst part of your shift. On the one hand, it's nice as you can stand around and do nothing for a few minutes, though on the other hand it's

one more thing that is in the way of being done for the day. Seeing Santa Claus smoking a Lucky Strike as he fuels up reduces him to just another working

stiff pulling a long shift which I think is pretty relatable to anyone. I was also happy with how hurried he appears as he looks down the road toward his next

stop, but hey, it is his busy season.

LAST GAS

PETER REX

27

3DAD: What prompt-

ed or inspired you to

create this image?

PR: I have always

been a great fan of

Peter S. Beagle's "The

last unicorn", a great

book, written in a

way that you have to

re-read it every now

and than.

The unicorn is the be-

ing that represents for

me the magic that

disappears when we

grow up, but even at

nearly 50 years, there

are sometimes pas-

sages that open up

suddenly and bring

back for a short mo-

ment this magic.


PR: That I still have a lot to learn, especially how to paint convincing hair.


PR: I think the lightning worked out quite good, setting up the mood I was aiming at.

THE PASSAGE

28

PETER REX

28

3DAD: What prompted or inspired you

to create this image?

PR: Firstly it was just before Halloween

and I had caught as well the

"Halloween render flu", secondly, as

some may have noticed, I don't like the

idea of the "absolute evil" and "You are

how you look". The (DAZ)Troll is not evil,

he just looks like a brute, he loves chil-

dren and cats and has a gentle and

tender heart.

A werewolf is afflicted by a terrible

curse, it has to follow its instincts, always

trying to fight against them. A tortured

soul in the body of a deadly hunter.

3DAD: What did you learn new as a dig-

ital artist when creating it?

PR: Even after years of rendering, it is still

very difficult to get a convincing volu-

metric lightning, I think I have done

about 30 test renders before settling

with that light set-up.

3DAD: What do you like best about the

image?

PR: That some people could see what I

was seeing, not the hunter with a trophy

of his last kill in his hands, but a tortured

soul, holding the souvenir of a happier

time.

THE CURSE

PETER REX

29

3DAD: What prompted or inspired you to create

this image?

PR: When I started with this one, I wanted to cre-

ate the image of a large whale, carrying a small

island on its back. As soon as I started, the words

of the little text that comes with the image lit up in

my head. From there on, it was more the image

that used my hands to be created. The whole

creation took less than 40 minutes.

3DAD: What did you learn new as a digital artist

when creating it?

PR: That sometimes the creation uses the creator

to be "materialized".


PR: Everything! One of the rare images where I

don't feel the need to re-do the lightning, the col-

ours, the poses or the camera position when I look

at it two days, a week or a month later. The only

other image that gives me that same feeling is

the "Sad troll".

3DAD: Finally as a general question: What aspect

of your craft do you hope to improve upon next

as you go into the new year?

PR: Materials, I still need to get better with the

materials. Especially since I started using the Reality plug-in for DAZ Studio to export a scene to the Lux renderer (an unbiase render engine, that can create

some great images (see my last two pictures at RDNA)).

And modelling of course, as every year I tell myself: Get moving man, learn how to model! But I use every day such great models that I always feel bad

about my small (and bad) modelling attempts.

FLYING WHALES

30

MELISSA KRAUSS

30

MK: This was an experiment in creating a

paladin, something I never really made in

the past. Thought I'd try something a little

different for a change.

With this image, I did some experimenting

with metal shaders in Vue. I blended them

in layers, something else I feel I need prac-

tice with, as well as worked with modifying

Poser materials for Vue.

What I liked most about the image was the

overall feel to it. I wanted her armour to

have an almost otherworldly sheen to it.

THE JUSTICAR

MELISSA KRAUSS

31

MK: This image was all about the posing and the lighting, plus I do not have many archers in my collection. I wanted to focus on the lighting in particular,

though the pose was slightly off to my eyes. I learned even more about modifying textures from Poser for Vue, and I was really thrilled with the lighting in this

one.

THE ARCHER

32

MELISSA KRAUSS

32

MK: This is one of my older images, and one of my first battle angels. The inspi-

ration for this one comes from thoughts of the brave men and women, both

past and present, who have fallen in the line of duty. I loved the lighting in this

one. I also loved the overall feel to it, and it remains one of my favourites from

my older works.

3DAD: What aspect of your craft do you hope to improve upon next as you

go into the new year?

MK: This upcoming year will find me focusing more on Vue, picking up new

techniques with it, and expanding my knowledge of it in general. I also intend

to focus on creating some more complex images.

3DAD: - Is there a project, image or new direction of work that you would like

to promote to the readers?

MK: Among the numerous projects I have for the new year, I'm planning to

work on a new series of images, as I did with my battle angel series. These will

be a series of images with dragon in the name, though they won't actually be

about dragons. The first one is "The Black Dragon." I will also be adding "The

Red Dragon", "The Gold Dragon", "The Silver Dragon", and "The Bronze Drag-

on". Since a unique environment has to be created for each one; it'll take

about a year to finish them all.

PRAYER FOR THE FALLEN

YAROSLAV

33

3DAD: Have you had a long term interest in digital art? Was

Mojoworld your first 3D graphics application?

YAROSLAV: I`m a big Sci-Fi and Fantasy fan from my childhood

years and so I was interested in digital art for quite some time.

As for doing it myself, well, I started using CG applications

somewhere around 1997. First I was mostly interested in model-

ing spaceships and stuff. My first CG application was Infini-D,

very nice little application. Then I tried Bryce, for making sci-fi

landscapes. I also used Shade R4 (japanese spline-based

modeler) at that time, still modeling spaceships.

Finally in 2000 I met MojoWorld 1.0. Downloaded the demo

and the first couple of renders just totally astonished me. And

so I was hooked. I ditched modeling for some years, but 3-4

years ago I relearning it using Modo (the best modeler availa-

ble for Mac, in my opinion)

3DAD: You’ve mentioned your main area of interest is digital

landscapes. With the introduction of technologies like CityEn-

gine, used with E-on’s Vue – creating procedural cities with a few clicks – do you think your interests may expand to more urban imag-

es?

YAROSLAV: The CityEngine technology indeed looks very interesting and promising. I never tried Vue, but yes, maybe I will. Just for the sake of making urban

stuff . I would love MojoWorld to have the same capabilities in making cityscapes, though. I think the images made with MojoWorld`s renderer (old as it is)

still have a more realistic look then the ones made with Vue.

Yaroslav hails from Tokyo, Japan and

is a popular Mojoworld artist, who has

used it from it’s first version, although

he started using CG applications at

an earlier point since 1997. Here we

look at his portfolio and delve into

some of the inspirations for his work.

LANDMARKS

34

YAROSLAV

34

3DAD: You also enjoy creating models. What software are

you currently using for this and are you pleased with what

you’ve been able to achieve with this tool (or these tools) so

far?

YAROSLAV: As I said above, presently I use Modo for model-

ing. Its a superb tool, evolving and getting better with each

new version`s release. I used it from the first version (Modo

101) when it was just a modeler. Now it has has a cool ren-

derer, very nice texturing capabilities, UV mapping is proba-

bly the best available, etc. It`s just unfortunate that I have

very little time for my CG now. Everyday`s work takes most of

it and I like to spend some time with my family too. Also my

Mac G5 is quite old, which prevents me from trying some

cool new features in Modo (like sculpting). I`m planing to buy

a new machine this summer and then....(first I`ll play Diablo 3,

though:)

3DAD: Do you vend your models or do you use them exclu-

sively for your own artwork?

YAROSLAV: I only use them in my own images.

3DAD: You have a strong interest in the sci-fi genre, where

have you your main inspirations come from for your art?

YAROSLAV: Heh, see the above. Yes, I love to read Sci-Fi and

Fantasy, or watch these kind of movies. The Star Wars were

one of the main inspirations for me. I love the works of Tolkien,

I have almost all of his books. Right now I`m finishing reading

the "Malazan Empire" series by S.Erikson and I.Esslemont. I also

got a lot lot of inspiration from the Japanese animation by

Hayao Miyazaki("Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind", "Princess

Mononoke", Laputa: Castle in the Sky") and CG animation

like Ghost in the Shell, Innocence, Apple Seed, etc.

The “Old Bone” Ridge

YAROSLAV

35

3DAD: You’ve been in the Renderosity community since 2001. What have you

liked about the community and website and what have been its best develop-

ments over the years?

YAROSLAV: I think Rendo is a very nice place for non-hardcore cg profession-

als, for the CG beginners, or just those who do CG just for fun ( and those who

want to sell a lot of Poser stuff, maybe:). There is a great variety of forums and

galleries - from the Poser to Maya and Lightwave, so the person who begins his

way can find and learn the different styles in one place. Lods of the tutorials

and free stuff, a great bunch of nice people,

3DAD: You’ve provided a nice portfolio of Mojo. Planets and other items in the

free stuff area in Renderosity. Do you have a personal favourite creation that

you’ve provided here? What’s proven to be the most popular item from this

collection – and why do you think this is the case?

YAROSLAV: My own favorites are the Chouro and the Kodai. Chouro was prob-

ably the first Mojo planet that I was confident in building. It has a nicely varied

terrain and the materials are overall are OK. I think the sky/clouds are not bad

too.

Kodai was my last "native Mojo-stuff" planet (I moved on to making volumetric

planets with the Volumetric plug-in by D.Lavrov since then). I think the terrain

on that world is the best I ever made. Unfortunately it`s very complex and very,

very slow to render. That and probably the period of it`s release (not the best

times for MojoWorld) made it mostly unknown in the Mojo community.

As for the popularity, I think the Chouro and the Hitokuro are the top ones. Hito-

kuro is actually the only MojoWorld planet that has the procedural rainbow.

The terrain there was kind of a simple, but it has a nice set of the materials es-

pecially for closeup renders.

Hitokuro—procedural rainbow

36

YAROSLAV

36

3DAD: For those who have just come across Mojoworld, could you give two tips for those just starting out using this package?

1. Be patient. MojoWorld is a difficult application to learn. But it will become very addictive as more as you learn it.

2. Try to actually learn it. Try to understand the work of the functions and settings. MojoWorld is about making worlds, WORLDS!!! and not just the pretty pic-

tures.

3DAD: What were some of your earlier ―breakthrough‖ images that started to

gain you much more attention in the Rendo. Community?

YAROSLAV:

"In the ravine..." , "Hitokuro Final" and "Unscaled Path. I think most of the people in

Mojo community know me for my Volumetric renders, though.

In The Ravine Hitokuro Final

YAROSLAV

37

3DAD: ―Dragon Hills‖, ―Bite you‖ and ―Landmarks‖. In all of these images you’ve discovered some great ―characters‖ or notable features embedded in the

landscape. It’s where digital art landscape packages can be used to tease out such features. Is this the factor what drew you to experimenting with digital

art landscapes in the first place?

YAROSLAV: That may be one of the factors. But the main one, I think, is a desire to get as close as possible to the real life landscape. Be it an ordinary one or

the bizarre one - Mother Earth has plenty of those. I love to spend the time in the mountains or doing hiking and the things in the natural landscape never

stop to amaze me.

Dragon Hills

38

YAROSLAV

38

3DAD: ―Twister Tryout‖ and ―Look Mom a Twist Without a Twister‖. These are good examples of

where Mojo can be taken in new directions – in this example using a ―Twister node‖. How was

this Twister cloud effect achieved?

YAROSLAV: "Twister Tryout" was made using Twister node. One has to specify the local point on

the Mojo planet (using a marker flag, or just dropping a primitive somewhere) and then spin

the volumetric cloud around it.

"Look Mom...." doesn`t use the Twister. The cloud shape is made using the Sine noise. Sine noise

shape is a round blobs placed in the grid. If you distort the sine blob it will start spinning in it`s

grid cell. So it nay produce the twisting shapes the applied to the surface or the cloud.

Bite You

Twister Tryout

Look Mom a Twist Without a Twister

YAROSLAV

39

3DAD: ―Lost Bay‖ from Alex Niko’s ―Sandy Rocks‖. You’ve mentioned that you use a Mac with Mojoworld – are there particular aspects of Mojo that the

Mac tends to crash whilst trying to render? (in this case it was a transparent water material).

YAROSLAV: Mojo on Macs is just much slower and less powerful then on Windows. Much, much slower. And my Mac is quite an old and slow one (first gener-

ation G5) . The water in Mojo is one of the most render intensive things, so Mac Mojo doesn`t really like it.

Lost Bay

40

YAROSLAV

40

3DAD: ―Gokuhoku‖ is one of your older volumetric worlds. Did it take a while to get what you wanted to achieve with this world – an approximation of the

icy world of Hoth from ―The Empire Strikes Back‖?

YAROSLAV: The textures were not very difficult to make, although the isosurface terrain and the clouds took sometime to make. I spent some time adjusting

the clipping of the iso-terrain ( in the early versions the mountains had the weird cutout tops). I`m not sure I was able to get rid of it completely. I also tried a

couple sets of the atmosphere/clouds there.

Gokuhoku

YAROSLAV

41

3DAD: ―The Door‖ and ―Where do you want to go now?‖ are from a nice volumetrics world that includes lots of rock archways – perhaps one of the earlier

holy grails that artists using Mojoworld were trying to create with volumetrics. This type of landscape feature is quite an interesting element for many (eg

think of Arches National Park in Utah with over 2000 natural arch formations). Were you pleased with the tweak that brought out all these archways? You’ve

done other worlds with archways – is it a fond landscape feature of yours?

YAROSLAV: Yes, I love archways:) Archways, overhangs, caves is the stuff you can`t do with native Mojo (you have to use the Volumetrics - isosurfaces).

Well,OK, you can do a bit of the overhangs with Mojo displacements. I think the surface used in those images is good for making archway images, although

it`s form variety is not that great.

The Door

Where Do You Want To Go To Now?

42

YAROSLAV

42

3DAD: ―ICamel2‖ – following on from the last question these arch rock formation shapes have real charm and uniqueness. Was that camel easy to find!?

Or did it take a few random camera stops to find it?

YAROSLAV: Yes, I think it took a quite a few random cam stops. It was a very lucky find.

Where Do You Want To Go To Now? ICamel2

YAROSLAV

43

3DAD: ―On the Move‖. This is an interesting piece, inspired by one of your favourite movies "Naussica and the Valley of the Winds". Tell me about this piece

and it’s development.

YAROSLAV: "Naussica..." is my favorite movie by H.Miyazaki. One of the main themes of the movie is that "the nature will someday punish us the way we pun-

ish it everyday". The "Omu" - giant bug-like creature which you can see in the image is the main nature`s weapon. It sweeps any remnant of the human civi-

lization which does even the slightest hurt to the nature. Burn a tree, kill a little animal and they will go after you and all around you. The Omu-bug is great

character - huge, enormous raw power, speed, you name it. I wanted to model it for a long time. So it became one of my early projects with Modo. I think

the general shape of the creature came out good (helped me a lot in understanding a bit the organic modeling), although it still left unfinished, because I

want to sculpt on the small details and need

a more powerful machine to do this.

"Hillrunner"`s planet Flojoa was first that

came to my mind when I decided to bring

the bugs into the Mojo world. It perfectly

gives the feel of the half dead planet de-

scribed in the Miyazaki`s movie. I had prob-

lems with importing creature into Mojo first,

the OBJ files produced by Modo got messed

up after importing into Mojo. So I had to im-

port the Modo OBJ file in the Blender, and

then export it again as Blender OBJ file. This

one worked nicely in MojoWorld. However

the mesh had no proper UV map and tex-

tures, I was (still am:) challenged with mak-

ing UV maps at that time. Putting the mojo

materials on the meshes haven`t produced

any good results, so there was no close up

on the bugs in the final render.

ICamel2

44

YAROSLAV

44

3DAD: ―Mandelo

Skyline‖. I believe

the starfields are

under used in Mo-

joworld, so it was

good to see this

particular creation

in the Free Stuff ar-

ea in Renderosity.

Do you think more

could be made of

the Mojoworld Star-

fields?

YAROSLAV: More

could be made of

the any part of the

Mojo universe.

There are loads of

the untried stuff in

everything, includ-

ing the Starfields. I

think some great

results could be

produced using the

Volumetrics to

make nebulas and

stuff. Alex_NIKO

had some great

results doing that.

YAROSLAV

45

3DAD: Cybercities – ―the Drone Patrol‖. This includes some hexagon style ―boulders‖

which you created – tell me about these and the render you created here.

YAROSLAV: I made that image as kind of promotion for the our short-lived GraphMon-

key e-zine (devoted to discussing different mojo techniques).

The "Hexagon" made by Dmitry Lavrov is a very fun plugin. I`m not a math-head and

don`t really understand the logic behind the hexagon function. But just playing with

different settings of the plugin or blending hexagon driven textures produced a great

variety of interesting mecha-looking shapes. I put the hexagon texture on the boul-

ders because MojoWorld boulders use the same style of the surface displacement as

mojo land material, and that`s different to the standard mojo displacements in the

diffuse materials - they have some buffer against the render artifacts. So my guess

was that even the extreme hexagonal displacements would work better with the

boulders rather then with standard sphere primitives. The colour texture for the boul-

ders was also made using the Hexagon plugin. So this is the story behind the hexa-

bolders` creation.

The ones in the image reminded me of some war drone from the Star Wars. The Cy-

bercities` surface materials which have a feel of the sci-fi ship`s hull plating worked

well as an environment for those boulders.

46

YAROSLAV

46

3DAD: The images ―Flight of Thorondor‖, includes a quote from the ―J.R.R. Tolkien, Silmarillion‖ and also ―The next stop...." both from the planet ―Tenjiko‖ –

another ice bound world. Is Tolkien another source of inspiration for some of your artwork?

YAROSLAV: Yes. I re-read the LOTR, Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales every year. Tolkien`s world is a great source for the inspiration.

Manwe said, "only the trees of Aule

will be tall enough. In the mountains

the Eagles shall house, and hear the

voices of those who call upon us..."

(J.R.R. Tolkien, Silmarillion)

YAROSLAV

47

3DAD: ―Hoth‖ is a popular planet to reproduce by digital artists– with myself, Alex Niko and others all having a go. Have you tried to recreate other Star

Wars planets?

YAROSLAV: Yes, I did a few tries for the Tatooine. One you can see in my image "The Morning run"

48

YAROSLAV

48

3DAD: ―On Patrol‖ is your most viewed

image in your Renderosity portfolio

which includes your own models made

in Shade. I love the land material here –

it looks like the texture of ice cream, with

spooned out crater shapes. Is this image

one of your older favourites?

YAROSLAV: To tell you the truth I paid

very little attention to the background

when making that image. My main pur-

pose was to show off the gunships there.

I just wanted a kind of desert world

background from the fast rendering

world. Robbr`s planet worked well as a

starting point. I just did a couple of the

small tweaks and fired up the renderer!

3DAD: What are you working on at the

moment? Do you have any goals for

next year for your portfolio?

I have a bunch of the unreleased volu-

metric worlds or just the isosurfaces,

each one is kind of a big test table, with

different setups for the shapes saved in

it. So I rarely start anything new this days,

just go through these worlds or surfaces,

and tweak them. I hope to try a couple

new shapes for the volumetric clouds this

year. But as a said above I hope to buy

myself a new Mac this year and spend

more time on re-learning the modeling

then just landscape making. On Patrol

YAROSLAV

49

3DAD: What three tips would you give to those who are just starting out with digital art?

YAROSLAV: As I said above - be patient and that goes not just for MojoWorld. Ask your-

self what kind of the digital art you really want to do. Try to find the tool (application)

that suites you best. Experiment a lot, sometimes even the slightest tweaking can give

you insights on the workings of the different settings and produce great results at the

same time.

If you really want to learn the CG, put some heart into it, read the manuals and the tu-

torials.

And of course have fun. Don`t forget the your real life. There`s no point in spending all

your time before the PC screen. Do that and all the inspiration and vigor you once had

would be gone really soon.

Into the Crust Unscaled Path

issue 06

Documents

digital art craft

d digital artists interviews

digital artwork

digital art illustrations

d art direct poster

artists rights

artists workone

artists inter