Introduction

In this video for 3ds max we’ll continue converting the VRay scene to be rendered with iRay and we’ll focus on final image quality.

What we’ll do

In Photoreal interior with iRay – Part 2, we’ll finish to convert all VRay materials to iRay using the Arch&Design shaders. We’ll tweak lighting and exposure to obtain a better result in rendering and with some tweaks to the camera position we’ll prepare a frame to be moved in Fusion for final look development.

Introduction

In this video for 3ds max we’ll take a look at some advanced manipulation with particle dynamic driven by forces and new MassFX tools in 2013 extension and 2014.

What we’ll do

In Advanced particles manipulation we’ll take a look at mParticles in 3ds max 2014, (it can be done with 2013 with extension installed). We’ll introduce some dynamic principles to fill a volume with particles, then manipulate it using standard forces and then change its dynamic using MassFX features again. We’ll use a simple PFlow setup to move some colored balls from one cup to the 2nd one. Rendering will be done using iRay to add depth of field and motion blur and compositing will be done using Fusion.

Introduction

In this video we’ll take a look at photoreal interior rendering done using iRay, and to do it we’ll convert our VRay interior scene.

What we’ll do

In Photoreal interior with iRay, we’ll work using our VRay interior scene created some weeks ago. We’ll start converting lighting using a mr Sun and Sky, and then we’ll start converting all materials to iRay. To do it, we’ll use the Material Explorer to manage all shaders and then we’ll use Arch&Design shader to render it in the right way.

We got the chance recently to chat with David Lesperance, a 6 year game industry artist who has worked with such studios as Blizzard, Midway, 343 and most recently at  Valve.

To start off, could you give a brief description of who you are and what you currently do?

Currently I work at Valve with a TON of very very smart people. My focus is around helping out with art needs and I’m also slowly learning programming. I also really enjoy teaching on the side as well.

So working at Valve with all of there great franchises has to be fun, which one of their games do you like the most?

Counterstrike is amazing, even though I suck at it. Love the Left for Dead franchise and of course Half-life.

You’ve had a very successful career in the gaming industry, did you know in school this is the direction you would go?

I started working professionally when was about 16 or 17. I was doing automotive related 3d in Michigan where I grew up. I’ve always enjoyed games and film. So choosing to do it professionally really aligned with my love of computers as well as trying to find a job that was somewhat safe during the recession. As far as knowing about having a talent for it, I don’t really feel like I have talent for it now lol. I just love what I do and try to do the best I can.

Your portfolio is very impressive, specifically the amount of detail you get in each piece. Can you give us a breakdown of your common creative workflow?

Its honestly super organic. I would call it a mess but I have a lot of fun with it which is the most important thing. I really try to focus on composition and try to give as much detail without it being too busy. I also study a lot of photography which really really helps. I basically keep hitting the art piece till it either looks right or I can’t stand to look at it any more ha!

What are you favorite tools of the trade to create and how would you want those tools to evolve in the coming years.?

I’m a max dude along with Zbrush. I use whatever I can get a hold of to make my life easier. For my personal work I render with Vray. Honestly I would love to actually see some kind of big change in terms of workflow throughout all of the software thats floating around. The current year to year release is a mess in terms of actually making something good or worth buying. The lack of true innovation is what needs to change. Great things are happening with Modo which gives me hope. I also would like to see them make the software more accessible to those who want to learn it. You should be able to learn it for free and not get hammered with watermarks. It encourages piracy in my opinion. Someone working on their portfolio won’t can’t afford to shell out 4 to 5k for a software license. Its not realistic.

What’s the time of day you love working the most?

For my professional career. I like to work a very sustainable shift. I tend to start at 8 or 9 am. Work till about 6 or 7pm. I don’t really agree with game crunches or death march hours. It can really hurt your development and really burn you out. For my personal work I tend to do the 12 am to 2 or 3am shift.

If you could meet any other artists living or dead whom would it be and why?

Bernini is by far my favorite artist. Given the chance I would love to meet him. He is hands down in my opinion one of the greatest sculptors to have lived. I really think we lost something when we go back and look at baroque and Renaissance art. Bernini’s understanding of composition in a 3d space is something that most modern artists will never come close to. He’s a true master.

If you were not working in games what do you think you would like to do?

Actually I think about this alot. I think it would have to be being a doctor. Honestly it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do.

If you could talk with your younger self, what would you advise him?

I really wouldn’t tell him much. I think that when you are presented with choices in life you make the best you can with what you have then and they’re…actually thats not true. I would tell me to buy a ton of Apple and Google stock.

Lastly, if you could be the front man of any band, who would it be and why?

Slayer or Motorhead. I wouldn’t want to replace the singers or anything because Tom and Lemmy are gods, but I think it would be pretty gnarly to rock out Reign in Blood or Killed by Death with the greats would be epic. Thanks!

Check out David’s website: http://david-lesperance.squarespace.com/

Introduction

In this video for 3ds max we’ll take a look at a simple technique to use Forest Pro to create a 3D island in a sea environment.

What we’ll do

In The island video, we’ll create a 3D island mesh using a plane primitives with a displace modifier over. To create the mountain look, we’ll use a nested noise/gradient map. Then we’ll add a sea environment done using the VRay Sky, and a plane with MTD displacement in rendering to simulate the waves. Waves map is generated by a tweaked smoke procedural texture. Forest Pro will be used to add various plants/trees to cover entire island and decide where to put vegetation using heigh and slope variation. Rendering will be done using VRay and final comp/color correction will be prepared using Fusion.

We caught up recently with Tony Zeffiro, a 13 year game industry veteran and a Lead Animator at NetherRealm Studios in Chicago. NetherRealms is (formily MidwayGames) is responsible for Mortal Kombat  and most recently the release of Injustice: Gods among us.

What made you get into the game industry and choose animation?

My first animation job didn’t work out, and I kind of fell into the video game industry by chance.  I knew I loved bringing something to life, and in school I began to learn all about computer animation, which made me want to focus on the growth that it was going through with feature films and game cinematics.

At the time, Midway was looking to hire and I had 2 years of animation work experience, so they hired me to work on MLB Slugfest.  I learned all about motion capture, which was some deviation from traditional hand key, but soon I realized that all the layering on top of motion capture and using motion as just a base of movement, can be such a powerful and creative technology.  Games especially need animations to be output at a rapid pace so having that base motion is a huge help.

How important is a traditional art background in your position?

It is important to go to school for at least a couple of years and learn more about the technology and focus solely on what you are interested in.  It can take anyone a couple years just to figure out what you want to do, but when that happens, learning from some of the best instructors who have had experience in your field of study is priceless.  Animation in particular focuses on motion, and knowing the body, how it’s built, how it moves, is something you learn about all the way back to Life Drawing classes.  You also need to be able to express ideas through drawing, and all the basic art classes help further your skills.

How challenging is it creating the fight animations found in Mortal Kombat and Injustice?

It can be challenging to re-invent the fighting styles of characters for each game, but we bring in martial artists and we have a very talented design team to help make each character feel unique.  The best part about working on Mortal Kombat is the over the top fatalities we create.  The ideas for those come from various people in the studio and it’s our job to bring those to life.  This is where traditional hand key ability comes into play more, as many of the movements are so crazy that obviously we can’t motion capture everything.  Injustice is similar with the Supermoves that each character has.  With the addition of flying characters, making them feel like they are actually floating, dynamic, and still look realistic, is challenging and so much fun at the same time.

Who was your favorite character to animate in the MK games? Who was the least?

It’s hard to pick just one character who is my favorite, with all the history of Mortal Kombat, but I’d have to say the most fun to animate is Goro because of his 4 arms.  No one really knows how someone with 4 arms would move, attack, and react, so we have a lot of creative input to bringing him to life.  A close second is Scorpion because of his combination of martial arts and special abilities.  My least is probably someone who is more of just a guy off the street who’s a good fighter, like a Stryker, but honestly, every character has something unique about them that make animating them such a blast.

When you are not creating art, what do you do to fill your time, or relax?

When I’m not creating art I try to spend as much time as I can with my wife, my family, and my lab.  I try to stay healthy by working out because the hours can get very intense, and it helps me stay focused and alert.

 If you were not working in games what do you think you would like to do?

If I wasn’t working in games I’d probably be a chef.  I say that not being able to cook for the life of me, but I’ve always thought it was such a creative field.  I have to admit that I am a little addicted to some of those cooking shows, but I’ll leave the actual cooking to my beautiful wife, for now.

What advice can you give people looking to do what you do?

My advice would be to go to school to find your true passion.  You need to be able to learn from people who have experience in your field, and eventually create a demo reel to be able to show employers what you’ve learned and your potential.  Constantly study your surroundings, how everything moves, and take video reference to try an mimic in your animations.  The last thing is always be humble and willing to learn.  Criticism is a huge part of any art field and you have to be willing to take that criticism and grow.

Lastly, in the spirit of the newly released Injustice game, if you could have one superhero power, what would it be and why?

Another tough question, I mean, who wouldn’t want Xray vision?  Seriously though, super strength would be nice, but I personally would love to be able to fly.  Dating back to a little kid watching Superman, that’s what always stood out.  If I can’t punch someone up into space with my strength, than at least I can travel the world  and be back in time to create the next big thing.

Thanks to Tony for taking the time for the interview!

Images are screen shots of the games Injustice and MortalKombat available on their respective websites from NetherRealm Studios in Chicago

Introduction

In this tutorial for 3ds max we’ll talk about a simple workflow to manage particles between different tools playing with fluids in PFlow, FumeFX and Frost.

What we’ll do

Our main purpose in this video is to understand how we can use different tools in 3ds max to manage particles, fluid simulation and particle caching. We’ll prepare a basic smoke simulation using an animated mesh as emitter in FumeFX. Then we’ll use this data to drive a Particle Flow system, useful to have a particle system to play with. To speed up particle data management, we’ll use Krakatoa to save cache in PRT format, then using the PRT Loader will move this data to Frost to simulate a fluid mesh to be rendered with VRay.

100 Total Textures Ready For Use In Your Game!

I’m excited to announce we have partnered with GameTextures.com to provide top-notch, ready-to-use texture packs through our CG Cookie Shop. Each of these texture packs comes with a large number of tiled textures, complete with their diffuse, normal, specular, glossy, and height maps. All of the textures are expertly crafted, with a great attention to detail. Check them out on the shop for more details and a complete listing of all the included textures.

Asylum Texture Pack

Originally designed as their first actual theme pack, this texture package has some incredible textures which will allow you to construct an old, gross asylum in no time flat. Check out the Padded Wall Textures, the heavy set steel locked doors, and all of the rest of the decorations to match.

Sci-Fi Texture Pack

The GT Art Team built this package slowly over the last year, and includes all of the gems in our sci-fi material library. You’ll find walls, floors, blast doors, crates, laser blast marks, ship damage, and much much more inside. Having this arsenal of tools in your pocket will allow you to create any sort of space station, mars research station, or abandoned asteroid mining ship with ease and speed.

Medieval Texture Pack

Inside, you’ll find beautiful brick walls, shiny used castle (and commoner!) doors and windows, ground textures and more! This pack was created over the course of the last year, and has quite a few of our favorite materials which are sure to make your dungeon, castle, village, or throne room stand out.

Be sure to check out GameTextures.com for even more textures.

Introduction

In this video for 3ds max we’ll talk about global illumination and animation, introducing to some techniques and tips to be used with VRay.

What we’ll do

We’ll use a scene prepared for a previous tutorial about interior rendering, we’ll add an animated camera simulating a walk-through to see how to manage global illumination with VRay. To avoid flickering and other rendering artifacts we’ll use some caching techniques for Irradiance and Light Cache, and we’ll re-use it for rendering. Then we’ll see how to optimize this process to obtain good quality output and speed up rendering time.

Introduction

In this tutorial for 3ds max we’ll talk about Forest Pro plug-in from Itoo Software giving some basic informations about it to create a realistic natural environment with VRay.

What we’ll do

In Natural environment introduction video, we’ll model a simple environment with a terrain and a water plane done using primitives and Graphite modeling tools, then we’ll use some simple materials to render it. All the plants, will be add using Forest Pro plug-in and we’ll take a look at some basic features useful to create a simple but realistic natural scene. Rendering will be done using VRay and compositing will be finished in Fusion.