Blender

How to compose and create dramatic key art

3D, Blender, Maya
Creative director Davide Bianca explains how to create eye-catching key art.Key art is what should sell the concept, so you should make something that grabs people's attention, has the right colour palette and poses, and essentially tells a story in a single glance. This key art illustration (above) was created for our motion comic Slavers.It portrays the epic arrival of the Slavers, and the dawn of a new era of humanity. We wanted to convey a sense of vast scale and powerful destruction in the image. The composition had to be developed around the triad of the Slavers, which would be the main focal point, but in order to empower the characters we also needed to showcase the environment in which they were placed.Given the characters' poses we opted for a classic compositional appr...

How to create type effects in Illustrator and Photoshop

3D, Blender, Maya
The second of a two-part series on creating type effects in Adobe's tools looks at Illustrator and Photoshop.In part one of this two-part series of articles, I walked through how to create type effects in InDesign. One might justifiably think that everything you want to do with vectors can now be done in InDesign CC, so why use Illustrator CC?There are many tools and capabilities that Illustrator has that make it very worthwhile. Its toolset is quite different and geared towards different work. While it can be used as such, it is not a page layout tool.Export optionsThere are many ways to bring items over from InDesign to Illustrator, various exports such as EPS and PDF. But unless the clipboard won't support what you have created (which can happened sometimes), the eas...

How to create a cool 3D motorcycle

3D, Blender, Maya
Digital artist Josh Flores explains how to create an accurate rendition of a Confederate Wraith motorcycle by mixing organic and hard surface modelling techniques.Vehicle modelling can be a difficult task, but in this tutorial, I'll take you through the steps you need to build your very own Confederate Wraith B91 bike. During the course of the tutorial, you'll discover that there are different ways to build organic and hard surface models.I'll also cover the importance of clean-up – so that the model can be used in production – as well as show you three paint methods I use to decal and colour the bike.Typically I build a model by slowly detailing it piece by piece. The most important thing to think about when you start to model is blocking in the correct shape. Proportions and silhouetting...

Tiny characters promote Coke’s new mini bottles

Blender
Pitchi Poy Animation creates 3D mini-mes in new promotional campaign for Coca-Cola Israel's mini-bottle.Coca-Cola Israel recently launched its new mini-bottle by offering 3D printed mini versions of consumers. To promote the new campaign, Pitchi Poy Animation Productions created this brilliant new spot, which features mischievous mini versions of four friends at a basketball field, who magically pop out of their mini bottles.Created in collaboration with ad agency Dahaf1 and Gustavo Productions, the Pitchi Poy team co-developed the concept and script, before producing the entire spot.The PItchi Poy team had just three weeks to produce the brilliant spotA mixture of live-action and CG, the team had just three weeks to bring the production to life.  CEO and...

How to simulate fluids in Blender

3D, Blender, Realistic Photo
Add splashing liquids to your scene with Phil Nolan’s in-depth guide to creating realistic fluid simulations.Splashing or flowing liquids can add an extra touch of realism to your 3D scenes – even if it’s something subtle such as a character knocking over a glass of water, or an advert for a new candy bar with melted chocolate pouring over nuts and raisins. Recently, I needed a flowing liquid as the focus for one of my LightWave projects. LightWave has some amazing tools that can handle just about every situation. However, in this case, Blender offered a better option, and I was able to get my fluids flowing and splashing just as I needed, then bring them back into LightWave to finish my project. I’m going to show you how to do the same.01. Prepare in LightWave ModelerIn the files accompan...

Control how objects shatter in Blender 2.6

3D, Blender
Indulge your inner demolition team with Rob Redman’s advice for destruction.Almost every 3D artist I have ever spoken to enjoys destroying things digitally – there’s something fascinating about watching a complex event unfold in front of you and having the means to control it. So you turn on whatever dynamics engine you use and start blowing things up, or crashing cars. The problem with this is that we often miss what makes these tools perfect for serious VFX as we indulge our inner demolition team.What makes this kind of simulation so believable is that we have ultimate control over how things break. You can just add an object to a scene, hit Divide and then watch it fall – but for finer control, there are also methods of telling Blender exactly how you want the object to break. You could...

How to create realistic metallic models in Blender

Blender
Metal is difficult to model. Gleb Alexandrov explains how to give your Blender work more realism by adding rust, roughness and specular highlights.Metal is an extremely tricky subject to reproduce in 3D. To make it look believable we need to pay attention to many different things: details in specular highlights, rusty parts, edge scratches, roughness and glossiness variation. In this training, I'll show you how to easily create an old and rusty metal. We'll also cover various properties of the old metal and ways to reproduce it using material layers.First we need to start with a pretty basic material, to which we will add details, one layer at a time. So, we'll make a dull metal base, cover it with rust, then go even further and scratch the surface until it looks terrible (which is what we...
Modeling A Modern Interior Scene In Blender

Modeling A Modern Interior Scene In Blender

3D, Blender, Photoshop
Step 1First of all, make sure you are using the latest stable release of Blender, which you can freely download from blender.org. I'm writing this tutorial with version 2.62, so if by the time you are reading this there is a newer version, keep in mind that it might have some slight changes but you should be good to go.Note: You can also download daily builds, which include up to date improvements in Blender. However, if you are using Blender for production I don't recommend you to do so, they are not stable. If you just want to try out new features, go grab them.Step 2We will be modeling from a reference photo so let's begin by setting it up as a background image. Go ahead and open up a new scene in blender and delete the cube and the lamp from the default scene by pressing 'Shi...

How to model and render a surrealist scene

3D, Blender, Cinema 4D, Maya
Enrico Cerica uses Blender to bring his imagination to life in this surrealist image, from modelling to rendering.I've always been fascinated by surrealism. I often have Magritte in mind when I create my work, in the way he distorts reality to create ambiguity and push the viewer to search and find the hidden messages, as can be seen in this image Cyber Destiny: Repairing GrandMa.Often what is really exciting is when you start rendering and progressively discover your idea becoming reality. With this kind of scene I enjoy the whole process, beginning with the research, which may require several weeks of maturation.I usually don't have a precise plan of what I will create. The start point is an idea, then I let my imagination lead my work. I may change my mind during the process to achieve ...

How to model a fantastical 3D creature

3D, Blender, Cinema 4D, Maya, Photoshop
3D modeller Aybars Turan uses reference and concept art by Jan Vidra to model a realistic yet fantastical creature, the Imperator.Creating creatures in 3D requires a lot of research – referencing real animals is absolutely vital if you're going to pull off a believable character. It's all about planning and paying attention to everything step by step, from large-scale shapes to the finest details.Jan Vidra recently won a contest hosted by Helpful Bear Productions to conceptualise a unique creature. Referencing real world animal forms – including horses and tapirs – Jan's winning entry, the Imperator, forms the reference for my 3D model.As I modelled Jan's Imperator at Helpful Bear, I was supervised by leading creature designer Terryl Whitlatch, who is known for her work with Lucasfilm...