The 3D Art Direct Podcast: 3D Digital Art | Artist Interviews | Digital Art Conferences | Sci-fi and Fantasy Genres

My guest today is Chris Hecker. An excellent sci-fi digital artist using Vue, 3DS Max and Photoshop. There’s a recurring theme through part of his portfolio of depicting futuristic large scale cities. And this is a natural response perhaps from growing up in the environment of the industrial landscape of East Germany as well being awed by the production paintings of the sci-fi movies that we all love.

In this session we learn:-

Resources

Chris Hecker's (Tigaer) Deviant Art

The Luminarium Deviant Art group

E-on's Vue software

World Machine

3DS Max

Regina LaGrone also known as Lady Littlefox is an experienced 3D content developer for Poser and Daz Studio. Her strengths are in character and costume designs including contemporary, fantasy and  cartoon styles. She is skilled in all stages of content development and has modelled in Modo, Lightwave, XSI and ZBrush. She is at present a freelance developer and beta tester for Smith Micro software and has successfully run her own business of Lady LittleFox Studios for at least 16 years.

In this Session

- The origins of Littlefox Designs, how it started some of the earliest design highlights.

- Beta testing for over 8 years at Smith Micro for Poser and Anime Studio. Have you been able to initiate some good changes or fixes during this time?

- One of your earlier experiences in work was being a 3D Avatar specialist – what did this involve?

- The foundations of STAR.

- Key design objectives for the STAR anime figure.

- How flexible and smooth motion is a significant aspect of STAR and how this is accomplished.

- The advantages of facial rigging built into STAR.

- Future content from Littlefox Studios

This is session 32 of the 3D Art Direct podcast talking with Stefan Kraus on WorldCreator, a professional terrain generator including sophisticated erosion and sediment algorithms.

I would like to introduce Stefan Kraus, owner of Bite the Bytes started in 2007, a company based in Fulda, Germany that offers three tools for digital artists – “Terrain SDK”, “Shader Tool” and “World Creator” – formerly known as GeoControl and it is “World Creator” that we are going to focus on with this interview with Stefan.

In this session we learn:-

- How long has WorldCreator been around – when was it first created and by whom?  What inspired the original author to bring this software to life?

- Some terrain generators can have appear to have a steep looking learning curve with a node based user interface to cope with. Is WorldCreator different and easier to use in this respect? 

- WorldCreator uses Isolines to build landscapes. What is an Isoline and what advantages do they have in controlling the form of the landscape?

-  “controlled rivers” and the tools to create various water bodies.  

- WorldCreator has the ability to have landscapes eroded or even have “reverse erosion”

- The simulation of sediments in WorldCreator is unique to terrain generators.

- New developments for WorldCreator in the pipeline for this year.

This is session 31 of the 3D Art Direct podcast with Paolo Ciccone on the new Reality 4 software giving  photo realistic rendering in Poser or DAZ Studio.

In this session we learn from Paolo:-

I am very pleased to introduce Oshyan Greene, the business manager of Planetside Software, which produces the highly regarded Terragen, a powerful solution for rendering and animating realistic natural environments. In this session we’re going to discuss the features of a new update for Terragen 3.

In this session we learn:-

- Highlights for Planetside and Terragen 3 during 2014 

- All about new glass shader. 

- Stereo camera handling and support of the Oculus Rift. 

(The Rift is an upcoming virtual reality head-mounted display, being developed by Oculus VR)

- A fisheye lens can now be applied in Terragen 3.2, we discuss uses for the fisheye in Terragen.

- More control over cloud shapes can be applied in 3.2 with the “Taper top and base” parameter.

- Notable media productions created by Terragen 3 

- Plans for Terragen and Planetside in 2015

3DArtLive.com - Live 3D Digital Art Tutorials

3DArtDirect.com- Free 3D Digital Arts sci-fi/fantasy magazine

Welcome to session 29 where we talk to Eric VanDycke (also known as Traveler) who is a partner and the Web Site manager at Runtime DNA

RuntimeDNA is a large and thriving digital community chiefly for Poser. It provides a wide selection of digital content and provides a great learning environment for its members with a very active forum who are from all over the world. A large user art gallery also reflects the vibrant community.  The store boasts over 5000 products with more than 100 content creators.

His 3D roots stretch all the way back to Bryce and the early days of Poser. Eric has been involved with numerous releases of Poser and other software packages used by the community.  So we’ll be interviewing Eric in-depth in this episode and he’s also very much involved with the Poser Expo 3 conference. 

Poser Expo 3 is a live on-line conference for users of Poser and Poser Pro. It’s one of 3D Art Live’s biggest events of the year boasting eight 1.5 hour sessions with leading figures and content creators from the Poser industry. This webinar based conference is on the weekend of the 18th and 19th of October.  

Poser Expo 3 is about connecting and interacting live with professional artists and content creators. You can use instant chat, ask audio questions and see techniques and problems get solved step by step by presenters who will be sharing their desktops live as they share their experience. You can also interact with the other attendees  in the room as well.

Today we are speaking for the second time with long time associate and supporter of Ralph McQuarrie and his work, John Scoleri. Find out in Session 25 of the podcast how John became involved in meeting and helping to promote Ralph’s work.

Ralph McQuarrie was the concept artist for a number of strong iconic movies aside from Star Wars, including - Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, raiders of the lost ark, E.T., Jurassic Park, the 1978 Battlestar Galactica series and Star Trek’s “Planet of the Titans” film which was cancelled at the script stage.  I mention these examples since not everyone is aware of the impact that Ralph had outside of the Star Wars arena and a new book that John Scoleri and Stan Stice hopes to publish called “The Art of Ralph McQuarrie : Archives Art book showcases the best work of Ralph’s career throughout.

John has created a Kickstarter campaign for this unique book, so take a look at the video on Kickstarter.com that will give a preview of the artwork that is likely to be included in the book. Searching for Ralph McQuarrie will get you to that particular campaign.

In this session Christie Knox interviews Dax Pandhi. a 3D environment specialist and co-founder of QuadSpinner. Dax has contributed to a variety of top titles for film and games, and is co-recipient of the 2014 IAWTV award for best visual effects, Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome. 

He is also a respected teacher and author. His students number in thousands and include top studio and indie Visual Effects talent. With 18 years in the CGI industry, Dax's innovations stem from his understanding of nature and his ability to translate those nuances to the digital platform. 

In this session we discover:-

- Dax's background and how he become involved in computer programming as well as 3D Digital Art.

- Artists who inspired Dax.

- What drew him to natural landscape creation and Eon's Vue software. 

- How QuadSpinner started and how it has evolved.

- About the Material Development Kit.

- Helios and how it take clouds and atmospheres into an entirely new place!

- World Machine and and QuadSpinner's Geoglyph toolkit for this software.

- Dax is working on Helios 1.5; but what else does he have planned?

- Dax's "Realism in Vue" book and his next book project.

- Dax's credits to the QuadSpinner team.

http://www.quadspinner.com/

If you'd like to subscribe to the free 3D Art Direct magazine and get alerted for new podcast sessions from us, then sign up at www.3DArtDirect.com

We are privileged to interview Paul Hellard, former editor of CG Society and Ballistic Media, who shares with us his stories on his career in working across the media in filming, sound recording, editing, writing and publishing.

Toni Bratincevic, senior Environment Modeler at Blizzard Entertainment is quoted as saying:-

"I have known Paul for more than 5 years and I must say that he was one of the pivotal persons during my career helping me in so many ways to advance forward and land a job in the CG industry. As an editor of CGSociety, he did an amazing job writing very informative and interesting articles and reports on new software, interesting projects and great reports from Siggraph. The series of Expose books wouldn't be the same without Paul, his ability to keep good connections with artists and inspiring us to send our artwork to be published in these books really helped to push digital arts as a viable and recognized art form."

You can find out more about Paul and his work here:-

https://paulhellard.contently.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hellardmedia

In this interview with Paul we learn:-

- His experiences as a camera assistant for the Kirk Douglas film “'The Man from Snowy River” 

- Going freelance as a cameraman and sound recordist 

- Working as a script editor and then picture desk co-ordinator . 

- Being the assistant editor of “Design Graphics” placing Paul in “tech heaven” where he wrote and edited feature articles, technology updates, hardware and software reviews.

- How Ballistic Media was founded and Paul's involvement in launching EXPOSÉ

- The design objectives of the EXPOSÉ series of Digital Art Annuals.

- The experience at CG Society posting feature articles, the news and managing the social media posts. 

- Paul's global view on the "game changers" of digital art over the years. 

- Those main individuals who influenced Paul as he worked in the various media industries.

This is session 25 of the 3D Art Direct Podcast talking about the life of Ralph McQuarrie, conceptual artist for Star Wars with John Scoleri.

John Scoleri has supported and promoted the artwork of Ralph McQuarrie, the concept artist for Star Wars through many years and more recently with the publication of the book “The Art of Ralph McQuarrie” of which he was co-author and publisher. 

He’s also exhibited Ralph’s work at a series of major events around the world called Star Wars Celebrations, clocking up lots of air miles in the process.

You can find out more about John's mission in promoting and publishing Ralph's work at the Ralph McQuarrie facebook page here:-

https://www.facebook.com/RalphMcQuarrie

In this session we discover:-

- The impact of Star Wars on John Scoleri when he first saw it in 1977.

- How John first met and assisted Ralph at a convention and helped promote his work ever since.

- The story of when George Lucas first hires Ralph McQuarrie and how essential Ralph was to visualising and designing the movie with George. 

- Some of Ralph’s early briefs or instructions for his concepts. 

- What type of paints Ralph used for his work and the advantage of them.

- All about the very first production painting for Star Wars of C-3PO and R2-D2.

- The “Laser Duel” painting and this even influenced set design.

- One of Ralph's favourite paintings and why.

- Details on “The Pirate Ship in Docking Bay 94” 

- Why a  Storm Trooper and Han Solo are holding lightsabers in once concept illustration.

- Details about the concept illustrations on the battle at the Death Star.

- Whether Ralph had a preference for character artwork, landscapes or technology.

- John's story of producing "The Art of Ralph McQuarrie" book with Ralph and Lucasfilm.

- The next book promotion for Ralph’s work.