Maya

Alex Alvarez has worked on numerous hit movies, including Avatar and Super 8. Here, he goes back to nature to create a realistic-looking environment scene.Click image to enlargeCreating 3D art requires a lot of detail, especially natural-looking 3D environments, which for a long time was difficult to achieve due to software and hardware limitations. Today, however, thanks to engines that can render billions of polygons with physically accurate materials and lighting, the process has become manageable.The Onyx tree suite is a great collection of specialised apps for creating broad leaf, conifer and palm trees, with an excellent library. Xfrog also has a large library available online, some of which I have used in my work.Ivygen is a free standalone app tha...

Oscar Juárez explains how use Marvelous Designer to produce photoreal cloth using solid modelling and texturing techniques.From the beginning, I've been a modelling kind of guy. I just like to model my stuff. I think in some way modelling your own stuff makes it more personal. A long time ago, I read about a cool new piece of software called Marvelous Designer; it's a 3D cloth creation tool. I tested it and was very impressed and excited by the results.There's no question that Marvelous Designer 2 has a lot of applications, but in this case I wanted to test it for architectural visualisation work, so I focused on making photorealistic cloth for an interior scene.In this tutorial I'll explain how to export models from Cinema 4D into Marvelous Designer 2, and then I'll show yo...

Character artist Danilo Athayde shares his working process to create this powerful character from King of Fighters.Everything about the process of producing a character fascinates me. This latest work is a fan art tribute to Leona Heidern, a character from SNK's King of Fighters series. I love everything about this character, from her physical attributes to her sense of personality. She's a beautiful, mysterious warrior woman and to show these characteristics in my piece was a great challenge.In this tutorial, I'll reveal the process of creating my image, share elements of my workflow, detail the challenges in finishing this scene and all the things I consider important for producing good work. I will begin with the concept, because this is an important starting point for creating a good p...

3D artist Tyler Bolyard reveals how to model a creature like Louis from Disney’s The Princess and the Frog.My typical workflow when starting a piece is to begin in ZBrush and start sculpting right away. With tools like Dynamesh, it's so easy to just jump right in and start blocking out a character relatively quickly. Let's get going...01. Blocking out the basic modelUsing ZSpheres enables you to pose and position your character while you modelThere are multiple ways to begin modelling by using base meshes, box modelling and so on, but if getting to the sculpting stage as quicklyas possible is the order of the day, use ZSpheres.Try to think of ZSpheres like an armature in traditional clay sculpting, and keep it simple. For more freedom during the sculpting process, turn your adaptive skin m...

ZBrush veteran Scott Spencer reveals how to sculpt, render, composite and paint a creature from The Hobbit.In this tutorial we will look at the process I use to design an Orc from sculpting to the final image presentation. ZBrush enables you to design fast and then render any pose for a presentation painting.What's even more beneficial is that when a character is approved it's a simple matter to return to the model to create further views, or continue with the existing ZBrush sculpture into an animation pipeline.01. Use a generic headWhen we push a design into uncanny territory like this, it helps break away from the ‘person in a monster suit’ tropeLoad a human model as a base for this creature. The underlying mesh is light and easy to manipulate, and will serve as a base for shaping into ...

Sculpt a character-driven illustration with legendary digital artist and Ubisoft art director Pascal Blanche.I have been creating CG illustrations for almost 15 years now, mostly for personal satisfaction and sometimes for freelancing. I am not the technical type of CG artist - far from it. When I use software, whether it's ZBrush, 3ds Max or Photoshop, I only use the basics, it is a way for me to keep the focus on the really important thing: the picture itself. In this tutorial I will describe my personal creative process.01. Working out the ideaPascal was inspired to take Moebius’s take on Miyazaki’s Nausicaä, princess of the Valley of the Wind character, as a basis for his artI couldn't have been more happy when 3D World asked me to createa a Moebius/anime-themed illustration for the c...