Watch this short black comedy animation about the Reaper’s attempts at claiming a soul and find out how it was created using Maya, Mental Ray, Fusion and Photoshop

Temps Mort (English title: Time Out) tells the tale of a young man, Ethan, who is electrocuted as he assists his elderly neighbour Mrs Bompas. The Reaper comes to claim his soul but will Mrs Bompas let him succeed?

The short was created by three students – Micael Lima Barbosa, Laura Sabourdy, Paul D’Herbemont – of the ESMA School of Arts in Toulouse, France. The concept for the story first came about when they were brainstorming ideas in their second year of study.

“I pitched an idea about a young man who can’t die because Death is stuck with an old lady in her house,” says Lima Barbosa. “The team liked this idea and so we developed it. In the first version of the plot, Ethan had to wake up and die again and again while the reaper was at the apartment. We showed our teachers and subsequently decided to focus on what happens in the apartment with Mrs Bompas.”

The killer look

It was at the beginning of the team’s third year of study that they began to work on storyboarding and character design. “We compared our visions of Death and a professional killer and found many similarities,” says Lima Barbosa. “Calm, both keep cool in any situation, methodical, precise and they kill upon receiving a contract.”

The team drew inspiration from black comedies such as Jonathan Lynn’s Wild Target and Edouard Molinaro L’emmerdeur (English title: A Pain in the …), both of which feature professionals killers who get in trouble when their routine doesn’t go to plan.

The Reaper’s design was also influenced by a German fashion designer. “Yes, I admit he looks like Karl Lagerfeld,” Lima Barbosa laughs. “When we talked about the black suit, mittens, class and an imposing presence that would convey the Reaper, we thought Lagerfeld would be the perfect example.”

When designing Mrs Bompas, the team had to think of a complete contrast. “She’s like granny in Tweety & Sylvester,” says Lima Barbosa. “We wanted a grandma with great spirit: joyful, charming, lovable, myopic and most importantly, one who never stops talking.”

Find out how the loveable Mrs Bompas irritates and frustrates the Reaper so much that his contract killing has to be put on hold...

To create the film, the team turned to the powers of Maya and Mental Ray for modelling, lighting, animation and rendering. They had an extremely strict pipeline in place for the animation process. “We had a very detailed plan for each shot with how many days we had to spend on each,” explains D’Herbemont. “The difficulty of the shot was a big help to determine the estimated time. Each week, we had a review with teachers, and other students and, thanks to our pipeline, we’ve were able to release the film on time.”

Hard times

During production, the team encountered some difficulties, with the biggest technical challenge being the number of props in Mrs Bompas’s apartment. “I think we had over 200 single props, which was still not enough,” D’Herbemont says. “We had over 270,000 polygons and as we were using global illumination to light the apartment we were scared about the render time.

“We decided to render the characters separately from the backgrounds. Thanks to the minimal camera motion we had, most of the time we rendered only one background frame, and then we rendered all frames of the characters which didn’t take too long. Thanks to that we saved render time and could release the film on time.”

Watch Temps Mort

Like this? Check out our selection of other awesome animations on the Animated Shorts page

If you’ve seen a short you’d like to know more about, send us a link and we’ll try to find out about it for you.

Make sure to come back next week for more Friday Animation Fun!

Check out NewTek’s latest version of its Emmy award-winning, professional 3D modelling, animation, and rendering software

Last November NewTek announced LightWave 11. It was due out at the end of last year, but here it is after a couple of months of bugfixing.

LightWave 11 incorporates many new features, such as instancing, flocking and fracturing tools, flexible Bullet Dynamics, ZBrush support, and much more.

Mikael Burman, technical supervisor at Massive, a Ubisoft Studio based in Sweden, says, “Our cinematics team works in a mixed 3D pipeline most of the time, and the updated I/O tools in LightWave 11 (FBX and MDD/GeoCache), combined with the new Unified sampling; colorspace-aware Adaptive sampling; and updated shaders, such as the reflection blur; allows me and my team to deliver fast, artistic, and adaptable content,” Burman explained. “LightWave 11 continues to improve and make our work more creative and enjoyable.”

LightWave 11 is now available for the retail price of $1,495. Upgrade pricing from earlier versions of LightWave is $695. Educational pricing is also available.

Read the full press release on the NewTek website

For more information on LightWave 11, visit the NewTek site

You can now catch a two-and-a-half-minute clip of Pixar’s next blockbuster online — is it enough to get you hooked?

Disney/Pixar’s has just posted a YouTube video showing a scene from its next big animated feature film due to hit UK cinemas on 17 August.

Starring the voice talents of Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly and Julie Walters, Brave is a grand adventure full of heart, memorable characters and signature Pixar humour.

It follows the story of the impetuous Merida as she defies an age-old custom and inadvertently unleashes chaos, forcing her to discover the meaning of bravery before it’s too late.

Watch the clip of Brave

We’re hooked. Are you? Let us know what you think.

As Daz’s free software promotion draws to a close, we caught up with co-founder and chief strategy officer, Dan Farr, to ask him about Daz’s decision to give away millions of dollars of software…

This month, Daz is offering over $800 of software to download for free. So if you haven’t already cashed in on this awesome deal from Daz, you’ve still got a few days to do so.

The promotion includes figure-posing tool DAZ Studio 4 Pro, landscape generator Bryce 7 Pro, modelling application Hexagon 2.5 (and PhotoShop Bridge).

Dan Farr interview

We caught up with co-founder and chief strategy officer, Dan Farr, to ask him about Daz’s decision to give away three software packages:

3D World: Daz’s software pricing has always seemed very reasonable, so please could you explain the thinking behind giving away the three packages for nothing?

Dan Farr: DAZ is in a fortunate situation where we offer both software and content that allows us tremendous flexibility on pricing and promotions. Although our software is very reasonably priced, we felt that it would be very beneficial for us do something ‘risky’ to really reach out to new customers in a big way. Although we may be stepping over some immediate revenue, we now have relationships with hundreds of thousands of potential new customers. That strategy is already paying off. In one week, our new user registrations eclipsed what most software companies would cite as their total installed base.

3D World: Daz’s bread and butter is the 3D stock content that’s used with Daz software, but surely by offering this software for free you’re losing out on software sales?

Dan Farr: Although we can’t be too specific with the numbers, I will say that the large majority of DAZ’s revenue is from content. Software is definitely something that helps to drive the sales of content usage and content development.

3D World: Who are you targeting with this promotion?
Dan Farr: This promotion was targeted to anyone who has an interest in doing 3D art and animation.

Get three award-winning 3D software products for free and start illustrating, modelling and animating now. Illustrations by Ka-Anna and Tony Bradt

3D World: Daz is often labelled ‘for hobbyists’, but how much of your business in made of up professional 3D artists and how many are amateurs?

Dan Farr: Although our current mix of customers is definitely heavy towards hobbyists, with Genesis we have seen a huge surge in usage by professional illustration and animation customers. For many of the high-end animators, DAZ has become their secret weapon as it helps them create fantastic work faster and easier.

3D World: Did you think about offering all your software for free?

Dan Farr: We defintely put some thought into doing that, but we felt that our needs were better suited to focus on the promotion on DAZ Studio, Bryce and Hexagon. We felt we could still make a huge impact on the 3D industry without going all in and the results proved that to be the case.

3D World: Why was Carrara left out of the giveaway promotion?

Dan Farr: Carrara is getting near a new release that will provide support for Genesis. Carrara also has a higher percentage of professional artists and animators using it so it did not make as much sense to put it out for free.

3D World: Have you got any plans to release more content for free, or is it just the software?

Dan Farr: We have found a ‘freemium’ strategy to be successful in both content and software. I definitely believe that we will have more content in the future that is available for free. One of the most valuable free offerings at this point is the Genesis base product included in DAZ Studio. There are a ton of capabilities that come with the free version (maybe too much) before you add any of the purchasable Genesis components.

Dan Farr says, "One of the most valuable free offerings at this point is the Genesis base product included in DAZ Studio." As this image shows there are a multitude of options that come with the free version

3D World: How long have you been planning this promotion?

Dan Farr: We have had internal discussion about putting our software out free many times over the years but the timing seemed great following Genesis. People can now use Genesis in its full capacity in DAZ Studio and then use Bryce and Hexagon to provide additional content and environmental rendering.

3D World: Have you ever done anything like this before?

Dan Farr: DAZ Studio was originally free until DAZ Studio 3.0, which was when we started offering Standard (Free) and Advanced (paid) packages. One of the drawbacks of offering things for free is that customers do not always appreciate the value. With this latest offer, customers do realize that we are truly giving away something of great value.

3D World: What’s been the takeup so far?

Dan Farr: I cannot be specific but we have had hundreds of thousands of registrations of the software products. The mix is actually pretty evenly spread out with DAZ Studio being slightly in the lead in the number of new registrations.

3D World: How are you dealing with people who have recently bought the software? Have you had many complaints from customers?

Dan Farr: DAZ is one of the few (if not only) companies that offers customers a 30 day guarantee. The number of customers who were frustrated were very small in comparison to how big of a deal this was. I think the DAZ customers realize the value they receive from us on a continual basis and that we will be offering more things in the future that will directly benefit them, like our March Madness promotion where people are able to get top quality products for just a few dollars each.

3D World: Are you happy with the results?

Dan Farr: There is never a completely perfect promotion but this one has turned out to be a contender for our most successful ever. We are in this business for the long haul and realize that success isn’t based on one event but a persistence of good events. The DAZ user base has received a huge bump and as a result we are seeing our daily number of new customers grow significantly higher and that trend should continue for many months to come, even after the promotion ends.

Download the packages via DAZ’s main free software promotion page

3D World is giving away a free model of Victoria 5

We’re also giving away a free Daz Victoria 5 figure with latest 3D World magazine.

Victoria is the best-selling 3D female figure from Daz.

She usually costs $39.95, but she’s all yours for nothing in issue 153 of 3D World.*
The latest issue of 3D World is on sale now!

*Print edition only

Watch Industrial Light and Magic’s visual effects breakdown videos on the work for the third installment in the Transformers series, Dark of the Moon

Both Transformers and Transformers 2 used ground-breaking VFX so ILM needed to up the ante in Transformers third outing, and as these two breakdown videos show, it didn’t disappoint.

The VFX in Tranformers: Dark of the Moon have been taken to another level. A case in point is the ‘Catching Sam’ shot (broken down in Part 2 below), where Bumblebee ejects Sam from his seat to avoid a high-speed crash. Bumblebee continues to bash things out of the way to protect Sam as they fly through the air, before grabbing him at the last second and transforming back into car-form and driving on.

Take a closer look at the VFX as ILM shows you behind the magic…

Watch the VFX of ILM’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon Part 1

Watch the Visual Effects of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” Part 2

Watch more YouTube videos from ILM

In issue 154 of 3D World, we talk to the creators of recent short Swing of Change about how they coped with the film’s technical and social issues. Watch the animation here too and grab a copy of the mag for the full making of article

Swing of Change is a short film about a fastidious but bigoted barber in 1930s New York, who comes into possession of a black jazz musician’s trumpet that changes his attitude towards racial discrimination.

Being musically inclined, he can’t resist the urge to play it, and proceeds to blow the first few bars of a military tune. Seconds later, the trumpet animates and begins to play its own jazzy, looser music. Initially, the barber is shocked by the behaviour of the instrument, casts it down, and eyes it suspiciously. Eventually, he warms to the new music and begins to play jazz, after which he abandons his shop’s racial discrimination policy and welcomes black customers into his shop.

The film was created by four students of the ESMA School of Arts in France – Harmony Bouchard, Andy Le Cocq, Joakim Riedinger and Raphael Cenzi. The student team wrote the script for the short during their second year of study, before moving on to production in their final year. It was during this time that the film’s characters were created. “Our movie needed a character with a closed state of mind, like Carl Fredricksen in Pixar’s Up or Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino,” says animator Joakim Riedinger. “We tried to give a stiffness to Harry, and wanted the music to be his weakness, so we chose to design him with big, low ears.”

The team took inspiration for Harry’s design from, among others, American artists Peter de Sève and Norman Rockwell. The quartet also used the atmosphere of American paintings from the beginning of the 20th century as inspiration for the overall style of the film, in particular the work of John French Sloan. Other influences included fi lms such as Clint Eastwood’s Bird, Joel Coen’s The Man Who Wasn’t There and Sylvain Chomet’s 2003 animation Les Triplettes de Belleville. The soundtrack aimed to recreate the jazz sound of the 1930s, with a New Orleans and Louis Armstrong style.

You can read more about the technical process behind Swing of Change in issue 154 of 3D World.

Like this short? Check out the selection of other inspiring films on our showcase page

Antony Ward creates a cute robot to demonstrate the principles of rigging a rotating track, in a series of nine videos…

These videos accompany a tutorial in 3D World issue 154, where you’ll find additional context and detail for this project.

Download scene files for this Maya tutorial (ZIP, 5.1MB)

Find out more about 3D World 154

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Alex Telford explains how to create a library of mouth shapes and other expression components, in a series of 14 videos…

These videos accompany a tutorial in 3D World issue 154, where you’ll find additional context and detail for this project.

Download scene files for this Blender tutorial (ZIP, 3.8MB)

Find out more about 3D World 154

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Mike Griggs shows how to project textures onto objects to speed up your modelling workflow, in a series of five videos…

These videos accompany a tutorial in 3D World issue 154, where you’ll find additional context and detail for this project.

Download scene files for this modo tutorial (ZIP, 82.9MB)

Find out more about 3D World 154

Video 1

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The latest version of Pixologic’s digital sculpting app is announced with enhancements to FiberMesh, Best Preview Render, and the interface, as well as the addition of Vector Displacement Maps and the NoiseMaker plugin

Last month, Pixologic released ZBrush 4R2b. In addition to enhancing the Best Preview Render (BPR) capabilities of ZBrush, the upgrade patch also added innnovative and exciting features such as FiberMesh and MicroMesh.

Today Pixologic has announced the upcoming release of ZBrush 4R3. This update includes new features and expands the features introduced in previous versions. As Jim Thacker writes on CG Channel, “Our hopes of ZBrush 4R2d2 are dashed… Lots of cool tools, though, including the NoiseMaker plugin.” (Ha, ha, ZBrush 4R2D2!)

Alongside many features and enhancements, ZBrush 4R3 will now be released with NoiseMaker, the procedural texture-generation plugin.

This powerful enhancement to ZBrush 4R3 allows you to create a wide variety of noise and patterns. With over 25 parametric generators, limitless combinations, and the ability to work in both 3D and UV mode, NoiseMaker is looks like a neat solution.

NoiseMaker uses interpolated masking per polygon for an accurate display of noise and patterns even on lower polygon meshes. It also features a larger preview window and new masking capabilities to provide multiple scaling options to your noise.

NoiseMaker, the procedural texture-generation plugin, will now be released with ZBrush 4R3

Enhancements include:

FiberMesh
Significant advancements to the FiberMesh settings provide you with greater control and flexibility. Curve modifiers have now been added to a number of FiberMesh settings including: Length, Coverage, Gravity and Color Profile. Revolve has also been added as a new setting. Textures applied to FiberMesh and MicroMesh objects can now be transparent (true black pixels will be hidden), allowing even greater diversity in their use. FiberMesh settings can now be saved and loaded as needed it. In addition, various FiberMesh presets will ship with ZBrush 4R3. These presets can be pre-viewed in Lightbox, as well as modified and shared amongst ZBrush artists. Once you have styled your FiberMesh to perfection, export the fiber guides to other applications for further use. Moreover, fibers can also be exported as unique vector displacement maps to be rendered in external applications.

Vector Displacement Maps
ZBrush 4R3 will export both 16-bit and 32-bit Vector Displacement maps, providing you with a powerful and easy way to export your sculpted details to other programs for rendering. Take full advantage of the capabilities inside rendering engines by using maps to displace the surface in any direction, including undercuts.

BPR to Geo
You can now convert your MicroMesh and FiberMesh renders into actual geometry with a single click. The resulting geometry can be further edited. With the additions of the dot preview and Spin Edge features, control the direction of any MicroMesh before rendering or converting into geometry for future edits.

Interface Enhancements
Sub-palette sections will allow you to control the length of each sub-palette simply by collapsing or un-collapsing sub-sections. Show what you need, when you need it! Moreover, a new Magnify option allows you to zoom into portions of the canvas or interface. This is especially useful when recording videos or turntables.

Render Enhancements
With the ability to cast shadows and silhouettes based on any Micromesh and FiberMesh (including fibers with a transparent texture applied), the ZBrush 4R3 BPR (best preview render) rendering system takes your final image a step further.

Auto Updating
ZBrush 4R3 will include a new web-enabled update feature. Enjoy “click of a button” access to check if new updates or plugins are available from Pixologic. Never miss a new plugin or enhancement!

There’s no more talk of the remeshing solution, codenamed QRemesher, but despite this R43 looks to be a significant update. As usual, the update will be available free to registered users – it is due to ship on 28 February 2012.

Check out the full list at ZBrush Central

Read our in-depth ZBrush 4 review

Want to learn how to sculpt like a pro using ZBrush?

Master the secrets of Hollywood’s digital sculptors with this essential guide to ZBrush, brought to you by the creators of 3DTotal and 3D World magazine.

Suitable for every level of experience, ZBrush Essentials is your complete guide to digital sculpting.

Inside, the world’s leading 3D artists reveal their trade secrets, taking you from basic modelling to advanced detailing and texturing in easy stages.

The bookazine contains 24 complete tutorials, written by veterans of movies from X-Men 3 to Clash of the Titans. The accompanying DVD provides project files for each tutorial, including over 10 hours of video training.

To buy the ZBrush Essentials handbook, containing 228 pages of ZBrush advice, visit My Favourite Magazines

Chaos Group announces V-Ray for Softimage, the newest addition to the company’s suite of innovative rendering solutions

V-Ray for Softimage includes ICE support, quick and accurate global illumination, complex mesh support with V-Ray Proxy, versatile shaders with V-Ray materials and much more…

Now you can manage scene memory and efficiently render massive amounts of geometry using V-Ray Proxy objects.

Press release excerpts

With support for Softimage’s award-winning ICE system, dynamic geometry, and V-Ray Proxy objects, V-Ray for Softimage supports the size and complexity of even the most demanding scenes.

“The future of high-end VFX work lies in integration: a single pipeline with multiple modeling applications. V-Ray for Softimage brings that vision a step closer. The power of ICE, the elegant animation and rigging tools now work with the most advanced renderer on the market. ‘One V-Ray on all platforms’ is a strategy that makes sense for small and large 3D shops alike,” said Kamen Lilov, Chaos Group Product Manager, V-Ray for Softimage.

Watch the overview on YouTube

Key Features in V-Ray for Softimage

Geometry

• Render particles,strands,hair,and geometry produced by Softimage’s ICEsystem
• Manage scene memory and efficiently render massive amounts of geometry with V-Ray Proxy
• Render dynamic geometry such as displacement, proxy objects,fur,and hair
• Use all geometry animation and deformations applied through animated parameters and keyframes,
  the Animation Mixer, and ICE-based simulations

Shading

• Create materials based on physical properties using V-Ray’s versatile shaders
• Use built-in Render Tree procedural shaders, computational, and logic nodes
• Simplify the texturing process and eliminate the need to assign UVs using Ptex
• Simplify the creation of complex multi-layered automotive paints using the VRayCarPaintMtl
• Render hair and fur with unprecedented control, quality, and speed using the VRayHairMtl

Lights & Illumination

• Create simple, artifact-free image-based lighting using the Dome Light
• Create realistic illumination using physically-based lights, including IES lights and texture-mapped
  area lights
• Emulate real-world atmospheric lighting conditions using the V-Ray Sun and Sky system

Cameras & Optics

• Render true 3D motion blur using the V-Ray Physical Camera
• Create fast and accurate depth of field with bokeh effects using the V-Ray Physical Camera
• Import displacement maps from Nuke to match lens distortion

Shading

• Create materials based on physical properties using V-Ray’s versatile shaders
• Use built-in Render Tree procedural shaders, computational, and logic nodes
• Simplify the texturing process and eliminate the need to assign UVs using Ptex
• Simplify the creation of complex multi-layered automotive paints using the VRayCarPaintMtl
• Render hair and fur with unprecedented control, quality, and speed using the VRayHairMtl

For more information on V-Ray for Softimage and to download the demo, visit the Chaos Group’s site

Read a full list of features in V-Ray 1.5 for Softimage

Contents and downloads for the latest issue of 3D World: This issue you’ll discover expert tips from great 3D animators and how to find your ideal animation school. Plus rigging for games, modelling and texturing hands, setting up tank tracks in Maya and more

Buy the magazine
On sale now at My Favourite Magazines
On sale in UK newsagents: 29 February 2012
On sale US newsstands: From 31 March 2012

Buy the digital edition
On sale 29 February via the 3D World Magazine app (iOS)
On sale 29 February at Zinio (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android)

Find out what’s in the magazine
Find out what’s on the disc (print edition only)

This issue’s files and videos

Maya tank tracks tutorial by Antony Ward

Watch the videos and download files on this Maya tutorial’s own page

Blender phoneme tutorial by Alex Telford

Watch the videos and download files on this Blender tutorial’s own page

modo projection mapping tutorial by Mike Griggs

Watch the videos and download files on this modo tutorial’s own page

Game character rigging tips by Antony Ward

Download reference screenshots (ZIP, 1MB)

Hand modelling tutorial by Mike Griggs

Print edition: the video is on the disc
Digital editions: please visit www.3dworldmag.com/claim to request your videos

Questions & Answers

Download reference screenshots for James Cutler’s depth-of-field Q&A for 3ds Max (ZIP, 531K)
Download scene files for Tom Skelton’s spray paint reveal Q&A for After Effects (ZIP, 201MB)
Download scene files and screenshots for Alex Telford’s spline Q&A for Blender (ZIP, 1MB)
Download reference screenshots for Glen Southern’s retopology Q&A for ZBrush (ZIP, 950K)
Print edition: videos for Q&A are on the disc
Digital editions: please visit www.3dworldmag.com/claim to request your videos

In the magazine

25 top tips on animation

Discover must-have animation tools, essential instructional books and insider tricks of the trade with these tips from leading industry professionals past and present

Get Ready for Animation

Kick-start your CG career with an animation course from one of the world’s best-known schools. Find the right college and qualification for you with our in-depth guide

Rig tank tracks in Maya

Antony Ward shows you how to rig tank tracks for a robot character, working with expressions to make the rig easy for an animator to use

20 character rigging tips for game artists

Discover the key points that you should keep in mind when rigging a new character with this collection of expert tips for games artists

Projection mapping in modo

Find out how to create a realistic textured scene in modo quickly and efficiently using the software’s projection mapping capabilities. Bonus: This tutorial includes 51 minutes of video training*

Model and texture a hand

Mike Griggs demystifies the art of modelling the human hand, sharing his techniques for creating the basic model and adding textures

Create and use phoneme libraries

Lip-sync like a pro as Alex Telford reveals how to set up a pose library for facial expressions and talking, and use it to animate a character. Bonus: This tutorial includes 152 minutes of video training*

On test

KeyShot 3, MentalCore 1.0 and Monsters GT 7 for After Effects

Also in this issue

• Questions & Answers
• Australian studio Iloura explains the techniques involved in creating numerous creepy creatures for horror film Don’t be Afraid of the Dark
• Our resident CG curmudgeon, Mental Roy, has it in for students as he takes on the horrors of learning 3D animation
• Inspirational artwork from readers and shortform commercial projects

On the disc (print edition only)

Discover V-Ray 2.0 with 46 minutes of video on the leading render system from Chaos Group. Plus 29 surface textures with multiple maps from Photosculpt, and videos for this issue’s Fundamentals tutorial and Q&As.

*Digital edition: please visit www.3dworldmag.com/claim to request your videos

Find out how Pixomondo used a combination of 3D software to create this abstract dance-infused spot to promote the 2012 Grammy awards. Watch the full commercial here too

International VFX company Pixomondo recently collaborated with advertising agency TBWA/Chiat/Day to create this spot featuring electronic musician and Best New Artist nominee Skrillex.

Based on the We Are Music campaign, the ad is filled with liquid metal pulsating to Skrillex’s beats.

Pixomondo first got involved with the project after receiving a treatment and mood animatic from the agency. Creative director Simon Mowbray explains, “Matt Kalish – director from Chiat – had a specific style in mind, and provided a lot of reference material accompanying his animatic and written brief.

“Our designer Alex Yoon executed a short test sequence which the agency fell in love with – this helped answer a lot of questions about the approach we’d take as well as the look and feel. However, we were coming up with solutions and new approaches all the way to the end.”

After nailing the look and feel of the spot, production got underway with Pixomondo handling everything from the design through to execution – including match-moving and camera tracking of the live-action, ingesting the mo-cap data from the live-action dancer and applying it to a biped used to emit the liquid-metal particles.

To create the intricate effects, the Pixomondo team found that more than one piece of software would be required.

“We threw everything at it: Cinema 4D, 3D Studio Max (mostly Particle Flow, Thinking Particles and Fume), ThinkBox Frost to create the liquid metal mesh sequences, Maya, Flame, After Effects, Frischluft, Nuke…,” Mowbray explains.

Well choreographed tools

The combination of tools allowed the team to create the exact style they were looking for.

“Cinema 4D was the primary software for lighting, mostly because it allowed us to get the look we wanted very quickly, as well as the ease of sharing camera data with After Effects,” says Mowbray. “3ds Max with Thinkbox Frost was invaluable – it generated beautiful meshes from Particle Flow efficiently and with lots of control.”

Every aspect of the spot was managed meticulously, right down to the direction in which the liquid metal moved.

“The most impressive aspect of this spot was probably having the ability to direct the action of the metal flows,” Mowbray explains. “Even though it was all mo-cap driven particles – with all the associated randomness – we were still able to determine how each distinct shot should flow and had a lot of aesthetic control for such a simulation based project.”

Watch the promo

Like this spot?

Watch Pixomondo’s VFX showreel online

We think you’d also enjoy this high-adrenaline post: Amazing Cinema 4D breakdown animation

Check out the selection of other awesome ads on our commercials page

Have your say

Seen a great CG commercial and want to know how it was made? Let us know via Facebook, Twitter or email and we’ll do our best to find out for you.

The Blender Foundation has released the latest version of its open source 3D app – check out the bimonthly update now

The Blender Foundation’s February update is out! Version 2.62 sees notable improvements to the Blender Game Engine and Cycles Render Engine, Boolean operations and more.

Among other things, the Cycles Render Engine now supports render layers and passes, multi-GPU rendering, and border rendering.

The Boolean modifier now uses the Carve library, which should give much improved results. The Carve library is more stable and fast than previously too.

The motion-tracking tools have been updated and there are new UV-editing tools including an advanced interactive stitch tool, a tool to compute seams for islands and sculpting tools to grab UVs and relax or pinch unwraps.

Read the full new feature list for Blender 2.62

Download Blender 2.62

3D World has a new editor! Let Richard Hill know what you think of the magazine and website…

I’ve been asked to become 3D World’s latest editor, so it’s now my privilege to lead the 3D World team of writers, artists and designers in bringing you the best possible mix of expert tutorials and inspiring artwork in print, in digital and online. I’m looking forward to the challenge, and I hope you enjoy what we come up with.

The team and I have loads of ideas, big and small, for how we can improve 3D World – but we want to know what you think. How can we make 3D World better? What do you want to see more (or less) of? What aren’t we covering that you’d like to read about?

Whether you have a view about the magazine (in print or digital forms), the print edition’s disc, this website, our videos, our Twitter feed, our Facebook page, our Essentials specials or anything else we publish, we’re listening. Your views on anything to do with 3D World, down to the smallest detail, are always welcome – but with a fresh editor in place, now’s the perfect time to make your voice heard.

Please add your comment below, tweet @3DWorldMag or email me with your thoughts. Thanks!

Richard Hill
Editor, 3D World

One-man 3ds Max developer powerhouse, Marius Silaghi, has released a new modelling system that allows you to quickly and easily create models

Marius Silaghi has been very busy of late, with the release of Projection Painter for Max and FiberMesh to Splines, and now he’s released Form, a new ZSphere plugin.

We caught up with Silaghi last week to ask him about Form for 3ds Max. You can read the full interview by following the link below.) When he spoke to us, the core of the plugin was ready but there were some features to work on – for example, adding a symmetry mode.

Benefits to users

“In an normal modelling environment it may take hours to produces a model that with this system can be produced in minutes,” Silaghi told us.

“When modelling traditionally you very little artistic freedom to play with shapes and volumes. You have to worry about topology constantly, but with this system you can scale, rotate, reposition and combine parts of your mesh very easily.”

Want to see how Form works? Watch the videos below…

Form 1.0: Overview

Form (alpha version): Deformers

Form (alpha version): Symmetry

Read the interview with Marius Silaghi

Form costs $50 and is available on Marius Silaghi’s personal site

Find out how many VFX shots ILM produced for Rango, meet the man behind the chameleon and take a look at the animation and effects work on the celebrated animated feature film

Discover how Industrial Light & Magic travelled the dusty road from thumbnails to Rango’s finished frames and more as we bring you choice cuts from our making of Rango article (which ran in issue 141 of 3D World magazine).

And watch the breakdown video of the animation and VFX ILM has just posted online.

First for some vital statistics…

Vital statistics

Total shots in film: 1,547
Total shots featuring Rango: 1,068
Total animation shots: 1,528
Animation man-hours: 79,724
Rate of animation: Two weeks for five seconds
Longest shot: 1,505 frames
Shots per night: 350 at peak
Render time: 120 million hours (13,670 years)
Render farm: Total processors 5,500, plus approx 3,000 high-end desktop systems used as needed (generally at night). Rango was one of up to eight large shows going through the facility over the course of its production.
Average time per shot: 12 hours to complete and render all the elements in one frame
Storage: 371TB during peak production, although the entire show was never online at one time

From sketch to screen

1 | Gestural story sketches such as this one are created for each shot in the film, and used to denote shot composition and assist in the editorial process.

2 | At the layout stage, ILM’s virtual DPs set lensing and framing, and create any necessary camera movement to help tell the story.

3 | The animation team takes the shot and creates the keyframed performance for each character in the scene. Here Rango is unknowingly stalked by a ruthless hawk.

4 | The finished shot shows the handiwork of the technical directors, whose lighting gives Rango its dusty, gritty look, along with the work of the compositing team, which combines sometimes hundreds of separate elements.

Meet the man behind the chameleon

Kevin Martel began working at ILM as a character animator on Star Wars: Episode I. Later, he was part of animation supervisor Hal Hickel’s crew on the Pirates films. When Hickel became animation supervisor for Rango, he asked Martel to be the lead animator for the title character. By the end of the film, Martel was associate animation supervisor.

“There’s a line in the film: ‘acting is reacting’,” Martel says. “That was one of the first shots I did. It drilled home that message to me, to think about the broad context, not the main accents.”

The scale of Rango’s eyes posed challenges for animators trying to solicit a strong facial performance

The broad context began when Hickel, Martel and other animators received shots from director Gore Verbinski, who walked through each sequence with them. “Gore is a fantastic actor,” says Martel. “He’d perform on camera for us, and in person. He could morph from one character to another.”

Martel also received the storyboards and video of Johnny Depp performing Rango. “The storyboards capture the essence of the shot,” says Martel. “Johnny Depp gave us the physical performance and the eyes. I’d watch him and develop an impression in my head. I’d start to visualise Johnny Depp as Rango. That was the code in my head.”

Creature lead James Tooley (above) and animation supervisor Hal Hickel (right) at work on ILM's Rango

In addition, the animators had access to a room with cameras set up so they could act out the scenes. “We could close the door and let loose,” says Martel. With all this material in mind, before he touched the keyboard Martel would spend a half-day or so studying and thinking, sometimes sketching. When he moved onto the computer, Martel started creating Rango’s performance by placing a low-resolution model of the chameleon in poses. “I want speed to get in all those ideas,” he says. “I’d block in the biggest poses. I want clarity in the poses, the main beats.”

Once approved, Martel would move to a higher-resolution model to fine-tune the performance and add facial expressions. “That was the most fun,” he says. “Rango has a lot of range. His eyeball is small, but he has all these folds and wrinkles, all driven by sculpted shapes. We had more than 300 controls on his face.” Creature lead James Tooley (above) and animation supervisor Hal Hickel (right) at work on Rango

Rango’s varied cast, including this feathered Mariachi band, provided a number of technical hurdles in terms of clothing and skin types

The devil is in the detail

Meet one of the texture artists behind Rango’s distinctively dusty, weather-worn surfaces and clothing

“I was going over some numbers, and it was staggering,” says Steve Walton, a viewpaint supervisor for Rango. At ILM, viewpainters paint texture maps. “37 buildings. 1,000 props. 28,000 set dressing objects. Rocks, pebbles, grass, cactus. 130 characters. Looking back, I think, ‘Oh my goodness: that’s what we did for two-and-a-half years.’”

During that period, Walton led a team that grew to 20 painters, who provided much of the gritty visual complexity in Rango for the town and the characters. “Early on, Gore [Verbinski] and the story people came up and helped us get in the vibe,” says Walton. “We had a vibe room decorated with spaghetti western posters and cactus. We watched Once Upon a Time in the West. Everyone in the film was greasy, grimy; not pretty, not cute.”

If artwork from Crash McCreery and descriptions from Verbinski weren’t enough, the director had another way of making his point. “Gore is colourful when he describes how he wants something to look,” says Walton. “He reduces descriptions to sound effects. He gets this crusty, cowboy voice and goes ‘rrrrrgh’.”

To translate McCreery’s drawings and Verbinski’s growly descriptions into digital images, Walton worked with Damian Steel, look development technical director, who did material assignments. “We’d look at the results every day for months, and Gore would say, ‘I need a little more rrrrrgh.’ I had to translate that into a look. One time, Gore stood over me, waved his hands over my head and said: ‘Do your magic.’”
To help Walton do just that, McCreery brought in costumes from Universal Studios’ wardrobe department.

Rango director Gore Verbinski takes the Industrial Light & Magic animation team through a series of concept designs

“He wanted us to see the sweat stains, the dirt stains,” Walton says. “To feel the fabric.”

With few exceptions, the characters all wear costumes, and Rango wears several. “We don’t just paint the character once,” Walton says. “Rango gets muddy, he gets dirty; different things happen to him. He goes on set and we have to react to everything that happens to him.”

Modeller Frank Cravat created Rango’s major skin patterns, using ZBrush displacement to produce bumps and scales. Walton added smaller details using black-and-white texture maps that fed the RenderMan shaders and controlled surface characteristics such as shininess, translucency and subsurface scattering. How many texture maps in all? “Oh my goodness,” Walton says.

“Let me count one row then count across. Okay: 120 different effects maps. 20 colour maps. We had such a variety of things that happen to him. Luckily, I sit next to Damian. We came up with a strategy for keeping track of maps, and we shared the strategy with as few people as possible. We’d make sure the right stuff went to the right shot. We attached our phone number and said to call if they had questions.”

Look dev for the characters lasted about a year. “An artist would come in and make an extra mangy character and the favourite would change,” says Walton. “Like the inbred rodents. They were really gross. Odd-shaped, super-mangy. That’s when we went too far. Gore said, ‘You can go bumpy, crusty, sunburned. But let’s stay away from puss. I’m not into puss.’ ”

This isn’t the first time Walton has worked with Verbinski: he was a texture painter on the Pirates films. Before that, though, he spent eight years in ILM’s model shop painting practical models, a job he landed by accident. “I studied fine arts in school,” he says. “Painting on canvas. And everyone asked me what kind of job I could get. My first job was painting the back of a set for a rock concert with fireproof black.

“Now, I’m painting sets again,” he says. “But in a nice warm room, not in some random warehouse. I was worried about going into the computer side, but really, the skill set translates one to one.”

Watch ILM’s making of Rango video

Find out how Rango did at the VES Awards 2012

All images © Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved

The full story was published in issue 141 of 3D World magazine. You can buy back issues online at My Favourite Magazines

Find out how Framestore created bedlam with Houdini and Maya as we go behind the scenes of the latest spot for Axe – The Chain. Watch the commercial here too

London-based VFX facility Framestore has recently finished working on extensive effects for this new Axe commercial from creative agency BBH.

Framestore’s head of production Helen Hughes explains, “The brief came in collectively from Daniel Schaefer and Szymon Rose at BBH and director Tom Kuntz at (production company) MJZ.

“There was an initial request to create exotic CG birds that escape from the pet store during the chaos. We created six variants of parrot/macaw and six smaller birds in the style of a sparrow/finch. Also in terms of CG we created a parade balloon, helicopters and coast guard boat.”

Framestore also carefully crafted complicated but invisible VFX for virtually every scene. “This included compositing multiple plates of action,” says CG lead Diarmid Harrison-Murray.

“For example the crash scene through the window was made up from a pass for the bike, a pass for the window and re-timing that action so that the hero plates lined up, compositing the birds, adding interactive smoke that the birds fly through, clean up of the store and creation of the store name and logo.”

The final scene featuring flaming trees was also created at the hands of the Framestore team. “We composited a burning tree into the main hero plate,” says Harrison-Murray. “Before engulfing the tree with additional flames, adding embers and sparks into the air, smoke, CG birds, the parade balloon into the city scape and augmenting the buildings in the background.”

To achieve such intricate effects, the Framestore team chose the powers of Maya and Houdini, with the latter proving to be particularly useful. “Houdini played a vital part in this project,” explains 3D generalist Robert Kolbeins.

Super software

“The main CG task came in the form of designing a bird procedural feather system, starting with distributing points on to the bird body that would be representing each feather shaft. The system took into account mesh density and cleverly knew where to put more dense feathers, for example from the neck up, this gave us a good starting point before beginning the paint grooming phase.

“The system needed to be flexible to accommodate all the different bird types, ranging from small species to bigger tropical birds. This involved needing absolute control over how the feathers could vary in colour and shape. Using only 5 base feather types, we were able to accomplish all the variations needed by making procedural filters that would control things like, colours, symmetry, scraggle, noise, spread, curl etc.

“One of the cool aspect of Houdini is the fact it’s procedural node based system gave us the option to amend more features as needed without breaking the pipeline as well as removing the need for any plugins to accomplish the desired effects.”

With the bird types created, the next stage was to find ways to get the feathers to behave in a realistic manner, without colliding and remaining a certain distance apart. “Working in commercials, one is always looking for system that gives the quick turnaround needed,” says Harrison-Murray. “Houdini gave us the option to make a procedural system without needing any dynamic simulation for the feathers.”

When it came to rendering the feathers, the team chose Mantra using Houdini VEX shaders driven by the program’s CVEX coding system. “The feather render types would pick up painted attributes from the base mesh,” Harrison-Murray explains.

“The five different feather types would then drive the procedurals, picking up colour ramps and textures where needed. By being able to procedurally generate the feathers using curves, we could then loft a poly mesh for every feather on the bird body. This gave us the option to pre-generate an irradiance cloud map from the HDRI environment and apply it to the feather curves combined with deep shadow spotlights.”

Watch The Chain

Check out Framestore’s website for more work

Like this spot?

Check out our selection of awesome ads in the commercial section

Slug Invasion tells the story of a slug-army who are forced by hunger to traverse an elderly lady’s garden in order to reach a luscious flower. However, the granny has plans to halt their advance.

The short is the product of nine students – Morten Helgeland, Casper Wermuth, Lasse Rasmussen, Carina Løvgreen, Kirsten Bay Nielsen, Polina Bokhan, Peter Egeberg, Magnus Myrälf, Maria B. Kreutzmann – from The Animation Workshop in Denmark.

The plot for the story was inspired by the family of the film’s director and animator Morten Helgeland. “The initial ideas came from my grandmother who is always out in the garden picking up and killing slugs in various ways,” Helgeland explains. “Newspapers and articles of ways to kill the slugs were also a great inspiration when working with this story. When the third and last school-year started I pitched the idea in front of my class and a panel of selected school teaches and various people from the film-industry. Every student had the right to pitch and 6 groups were then created to make the six best ideas.”

With the Slug Invasion team quickly assembled and the narrative decided, pre-production got underway, starting with the characters stories, design and personalities. “We knew we needed a hero, one who could lead the army into war,” says Helgeland. “He was the one that changed the most design-wise. In the beginning he was a big masculine slug, but we later changed that to be the exact opposite. Then there was the new guy, who is the inexperienced frightened little character. We wanted to show him as the weakest character, both physically and mentally. This was done by making his design small and thin with a huge helmet for him to hide under. For the third character, the medic, we wanted him to always be sincere and clear minded, ready to go in and help the ones in need without hesitation. His design was always thought of as a big and friendly guy.”

Following the character designs, was creating the film’s overall look. “We looked at many films for inspiration, including Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Full Metal Jacket and We Were Soldiers,” says Helgeland. “The idea was to catch the feel of harsh and brutal war when the camera was following the slugs. Most of the war movies we used for inspiration used a distinct desaturated and cold feel to it. The handheld camera also helps to set the mood of the film.” The war scenes created, the student team then looked at creating an alternative environment for the old lady. “The whole feel had to be a complete contrast to the world of the slugs – going from cold, chaotic and a fast paced to a calm, quiet and saturated world with no worries. The film Blue Velvet’s opening shot was one of the main inspirations we used for the old lady’s world.”

To create the film’s many different assets and environments, the team used Maya for the 3D layout, modeling, lighting, and animation, with Mental Ray for Maya for rendering. Photoshop and Mudbox were used for the 2D, designs, storyboards and textures and for compositing, Fusion with the plugin Frischluft Lenscare for the frequent use of strong depth of field.

Despite having all of this powerful software, the team still encountered some technical challenges. “Dealing with all the grass that had to be in the film was difficult, especially the very long shot of the slugs sneaking under the grandmother,” Helgeland explains. “We did not have time or experience to do dynamic grass, so we chose to opt for strategically placed rigged hero grass that the animators could go in and animate slightly where the slugs had the most interaction with it. That, however, ended up taking much more time than anticipated, and instead of having animated grass in some shots and not in others, we chose to just keep with static grass for the entire film.”

The team’s also had to adapt their pipeline in order to fully achieve some scenes. “Most shots in the film were taken through a normal pipeline with lighting, rendering and compositing,” Helgeland says. “However, the two shots where the grandmother is getting up from the garden shed were done purely in compositing and only using masks from Maya, with no beauty render as usual. We wanted the shots to feel very different from the rest of the film, so we chose this approach and accomplished the shots only with masks and 2D effects.”

Now complete, the film took eight months of production time from start to finish. “A lot of work went into this film from the whole team and they all did a really good job,” adds Helgeland. “One can always see faults and areas to improve on things you make but the state that the film is now is very pleasing. I think the final product is a great achievement!”

Like this? Check out our selection of other awesome animated films on the shorts page

Make sure to come back next week for more Friday Animation Fun!

Get ready for some astounding VFX as Pixomondo shows you the secrets behind car crashes, falling buildings, massive explosions and erupting volcanoes in a VFX showreel…

VFX film editor, Brad Tobler has posted up a VFX showreel by Pixomondo. Brad worked with Pixomondo on Terra Nova – which won the award for best visual effects in a broadcast series at the VES Awards last week. Pixomondo’s other recent credits include Hugo, Super 8 and Red Tails.

And a couple of weeks ago we showed you work from Pixomondo in our Lead VFX studio Pixomondo shares its video breakdowns post.

Well, if you enjoyed those posts, you’re going to love this. Get ready for some fantastic VFX as Pixomondo shows you how to crash cars, trains and planes…

Next Limit is due to release an update to RealFlow RenderKit, its toolkit for generating procedural geometry from RealFlow scenes at rendertime. See what’s new…

Next Limit has announced that the forthcoming RFRK 2.5 update will include a new plug-in that will allow Cinema 4D artists to use it. The software already supports Maya, 3ds Max, Softimage and Houdini.

RealFlow RenderKit 2.5 will be released free to all RealFlow RenderKit license holders at the end of the month.

So, what’s new in 2.5? It’s many features include viewport enhancements, support for RenderMan volumetric primitives and RMS3.0 particler, and the ability to set environment variables in the sequence paths…

RealFlow RenderKit 2.5 features

• Cinema 4D users will now be able to enjoy RFRK as part of their RF workflow/pipeline
• Enhancements to the viewport
• This allows users to use the RenderKit with any renderer
• RFRK Mesher visualization in the 3D viewport for Maya, 3ds Max, Houdini and Cinema 4D
• Users can now fine-tune their meshes with a visual clue in the viewport, without having to hit render to see the final result
• New method to compute mesh normals to reduce flickering issues
• Smoother results for slow and viscous fluids
• Support for RenderMan volumetric primitives and RMS3.0 particler + BlobbyVolume rendertype primitive
• The original implementation of RFRK Cloud in RMS has been replaced using RenderMan volumetric primitives, which include motion blur!
• RFRK Cloud in Mental Ray now with 3D Texture coordinates
• Users can now add an extra level of detail to the RFRK Cloud in Mental Ray
• Ability to set environment variables in the sequence paths
• Moving RFRK files around in different OS systems is now easier than ever!

Press release excerpts

This month we are delighted to announce the release of the latest patch for the current version of the RealFlow RenderKit: Version 2.5, which will be released at the end of the month and will be available for FREE for all RealFlow RenderKit license holders.

For more information, or to buy a standard license of RenderKit for $200/€140, visit the RealFlow website

See RealFlow in action in opening titles to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

See sneak peek videos of latest updates to RealFlow

We catch up with Romanian artist and coder Marius Silaghi to ask him about his latest version of a ZSpheres-inspired modelling toolset for Max

Romanian artist and coder Marius Silaghi has posted a video on YouTube showing his latest work on a script to add ZSphere modelling to 3ds Max.

We watched the video and thought, that is neat and fast, but we wondered what sort of mesh it would generate and whether it’s got a symmetry mode… so we got in touch with the developer:

Interview: Marius Silaghi

3D World: How long have you been working on this script to add ZSphere modelling to 3ds Max?
Silaghi: The idea to add ZSpheres to 3DS Max came to me in June 2011. In that time I wasn’t that skilled at scripting and didn’t know anything about max’s SDK, so it was very hard for me to create such a complicated script/plugin. Here you can see the very first prototype I did. It just draws the spheres, but it doesn’t create the mesh around them.

I decided I need to learn more stuff like max’s SDK and get more skilled. For a period of 6 months on and off I created other scripts and plugins. In that time also I learned Max’s SDK.

In January 2012 I resumed my development of the ZSpheres plugin for 3DS Max. I worked on it and other scripts for about one month and a half. It consist of a modifier that creates the mesh, a new sphere object and a set of scripts to make it easier to work with the spheres.

3D World: Where did your inspiration come from? Do you consider it to be like MetaReyes, ZBrush or 3D Coat?
Silaghi: My inspiration came manly from ZBrush. I was very impressed what the guys over at Pixologic did with ZSpheres. I never used MetaReyes but from what I hear from other users it produced meshes with horrible topology. So maybe it can be viewed as MetaReyes with good topology.

3D World: What are the benefits to the artist?
Silaghi: In an normal modelling environment it may take hours to produces a model that with this system can be produced in minutes.

Also when modelling traditionally you very little artistic freedom to play with shapes and volumes, you have to worry about topology constantly, but with this system you can scale, rotate, reposition and combine parts of your mesh very easily.

3D World: Please could you explain what mesh it generates?
Silaghi: It generate a polygonal mesh consisting of quad polygons with nice flowing topology. The mesh can then be further edited with the normal polygon tools or be sent to an sculpting application.

3D World: What’s been the greatest challenge in this project so far?
Silaghi: The greatest challenge in this project has been learning c++ and Max’s SDK.

3D World Is it near completion?
Silaghi: I still need to add some additional features but the core of it is ready.

3D World Does it have a symmetry mode?
Silaghi: Right now it doesn’t, but I will implement one for the final release version.

Watch the sneak peek video now

Once work is complete, Silaghi plans to distribute ZSphere’s for 3ds Max via his site as a commercial plugin.

Visit Marius Silaghi’s website

See how the amazing VFX and animation are bought to life in this spot for Mc Donald’s as The Mission’s shares its making of video online

Californian visual effects and animation studio The Mission, shows us a spot it did for McDonald ‘McDonald’s Earth’s Treasure’ and then a short Making of video.

Watch McDonald’s Earth Treasure:

Watch the Making of video:

Autodesk has released another sneak peek video showing new simulation features that might be included on a future release of 3ds Max – watch the video now

Ken Pimentel returns with a new video post, this time of a MassFX simulation that includes mRigids (using a new concave meshes option), mCloth objects, breakable Constraints, and mCloth tearable cloth. It’s a shaky, ‘over the shoulder’ shoot of something captured in the lab, Ken comments on his blog, “it is not a professionally narrated piece. You’re not supposed to be seeing this…”

According to the designer: “A lot of the scene geometry (all the stacks of logs) were stacked running separate simulations, just to get a nice realistic distribution, and then baked into their final positions.

“The highlight of the simulation is the use of standard Max forces. The forces used include a spherical Gravity, two PBombs, and a Vortex field. These affect the rigid bodies, and mCloth, which not only reacts to the forces, but is also capable of respecting pinned verts and tearing under the influence of the force.

“There is a PFlow system, but it’s a pretty standard particle system under the influence of some of these forces. The particles are not dynamic. The shattering windows were pre-shattered using a free script, and then the fragments were assigned as rigid bodies.

“The render came from the free script PowerPreview (which uses the Nitrous viewport to render with). Looks nice because the Nitrous viewports were using all the nice bells and whistles – photometric lights, exposure control, realistic shading, shadows, AO, etc.”

We can’t be sure if the new simulation features will make it into the next version of 3ds Max, but the development work at the moment looks very interesting and as Ken has previously said on his blog, “We’ve got some crazy, far out stuff we’re working on too, I hope to share that sooner than later.”

We can’t wait to see more!

Watch more 3ds Max development sneak peek videos

Read Ken Pimentel’s blog post

Find out how Psyop created photorealistic bugs using a combination of 3D software in this awesome Chevy Sonic ‘Joy’ spot for Superbowl. Watch the full Superbowl commercial here too

As always, this year’s line up of commercials for the Superbowl featured some seriously impressive CG and this one for Chevy is no exception. Created by LA-based creative studio Psyop, the thirty-second ad features a host of thrill-seeking photorealistic, 3D bugs hitching a ride in the grill of Chevy’s latest model.

We asked the Psyop team how they got started: “We used a lot of photographic and macro reference for the details on the bugs, and had a miniature museum exhibit here for a while with preserved bugs for reference.

“On the shoot we took a lot of reference of the grill so we could re-build it perfectly in CG (including all the fine details of the real dust, etc). For character reference and animation we drew from the creative minds of the Psyop team and had a lot of fun.”

To give the spot more emotion and humour, the team gave each bug its own unique personality. “The creative challenges were really with how “human” we made the bugs,” says Psyop. “We wanted the viewers to feel something for and connect with them so did some augmentation to each bug to make them more attractive. We enhanced the eyes on the spider and gave him a brow and added a tramp stamp to the ladybug. The adrenaline addicted Slater, the dragon fly, has other subtle details like a tattoo and helmet to make him more hardcore.”

A huge amount of detail went into each character to also ensure that they were factually correct. “We put photoreal CG fur on the bee and the spider and this was probably our favorite technical challenge,” explains the Psyop team. “We wanted to create the right balance of interaction with the wind to really feel like these guys were speeding along.”

To fully achieve the complicated VFX, Psyop chose the combined powers of Maya, Boujou, Arnold, Shave and A Haircut, Nuke and Flame. Not that you would ever notice, but this system was a first for the studio. Psyop explains, “It was our first job in the LA office using a Maya-Arnold rendering pipeline, and we’re more than thrilled with the results.

Check out more work from Psyop on its website

Like this? Check out the other selection of ads in our commercial section.

And don’t forget to check back as we’ll be adding a newSunday special each week