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

Greg Teegarden is a computer graphics supervisor at Digital Domain, a visual effects and digital production company based in Venice, Los Angeles, California.  

He has been in the industry for over 20 years and has worked on productions including SeaQuest 2032, The Fifth Element, Tron : Legacy, X Men: First Class, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and more recently the Oblivion movie starring Tom Cruise.  

He has been nominated six times at the Visual Effects Society for his work.

We are pleased to interview Greg in this session and learn:-

- How Greg's father, James Teegarden, who was an art director and set designer for Back to the Future II, Artificial Intelligence and E.T. influenced Greg. 

- How Greg got started professionally in visual effects.

- The experience of working as an animator on Seaquest 2032.

- The influence of Industrial Light and Magic.

- Some of Greg's earliest visual effects tools including Lightwave.

- Greg's experience on the sci-fi movie Oblivion, which starred Tom Cruise. 

- Using Terragen to create a procedural generated Earth for the opening scene in Oblivion with the Universal Studios logo.

- Some of Greg's highlights at Digital Domain.

- The benefits gained from managing production pipelines at Digital Domain.

- Some of Greg's work on Tron : Legacy as the lighting supervisor. 

- Advice from Greg for those who are looking to get into the visual effects industry.

Resources and companies mentioned in this podcast

Digital Domain : James Cameron's visual effects company - http://digitaldomain.com/reels

Terragen (version 3) : Planetside Software - http://planetside.co.uk/ 

LightWave by Newtek - https://www.lightwave3d.com/

Houdini by Side Effects Software - http://www.sidefx.com/

Kim attended the University of Applied Sciences in Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media Design and Illustration.

Over the years Kim has done work in the role-playing game industry applying her illustration skills for RPG games such as Engel for Feder & Schwert,  Redaktion Phantastik, and the Pegasus Spiele game—Call of Cthulhu.

Her journey into 3D Digital Art began in 2000 with Poser and started vending Poser content in 2006. 

She delves into other packages occasionally including Carrara, Bryce, Terragen and used Hexagon for modelling. She also uses GIMP, Photoshop elements and UV Mapper Pro in her workflow.

Kim Schneider can be found at Runtime DNA under the name Arki.— www.runtimedna.com/Arki/

In the session we discover:-

- How Kim started her passion for artwork with a single illustration of a dragon.

- Her first impressions of Poser and how she overcame early barriers with 3D digital art using this application.

- Her experiences of creative artwork in the role playing game industry.

- How she became a vendor at Runtime DNA.

- Her forthcoming live webinars at 3DArtLive.com in how to create successful Poser content projects as a vendor.

Sign up to get notification of our free podcasts and monthly 3D digital sci-fi and fantasy arts magazine at www.3DArtDirect.com

In this session we interview  Paolo Ciccone with his new book "The Complete Guide to DAZ Studio 4".

You can find out more about the book here:-

http://3dartdirect.com/GuideToDazStudio4

And the book is also available on Amazon here:-

http://3dartdirect.com/DAZStudio4Amazon

Suprisingly, despite the wide reach and community of the DAZ Studio software (it's a free application), there are not many publications to choose from when it comes to learning the software. Of course, there are the DAZ 3D forums where you can get answers to specific queries, but a complete map and guide to using the sofware in the form of a book will be greatly useful.

The book is aimed at those starting out with DAZ Studio up to the level of mostly intermediate users, but more advanced level users will find gems in here also.

The author, Paolo Ciccone is a software engineer and photographer who now lives in Santa Cruz, California. 

He is an experienced software developer with 20 years of experience. His field of expertise is developing applications  for both Mac OS and Windows  that assist computer graphics artists achieve photorealistic results. He founded Prêt-à-3D (www.preta3d.com) in 2010 , a company dedicated to bringing high-end computer graphics tools to the masses. 

His Reality software for Poser and DAZ Studio has been used for video game illustration and for the preproduction of Hollywood large budget movies such as Jurassic Park IV and Hunger Games: Catching Fire. 

In this session we ask Paolo about:-

- His first contact with DAZ Studio the strengths he noted from it during his early use of the software.

- Whether he immediately saw a gap in the market for the book? Or did it take some time for you to identify some needs of the DAZ Studio community that could be fulfilled?

- We talk about the by-line of the book “Community Experience Distilled”. 

- The book cover artwork.

- Paolo is an educator and writer in the 3D Arts world, but this Was Paolo's first book project. What were some of his early barriers he had to overcome in starting up and getting a writing regime going?

- Who the the book is aimed for?

- The mind-set barrier of being able to pose figures naturally when first starting and how this book overcomes that barrier.

- How the book covers creating new characters with morphs - the ability to start adapting existing characters to create new ones.

- The practical content of the book - customising DAZ studio, finding and installing new content and navigating the studio environment.

- The aspects of lighting covered in two major chapters : lighting a scene and achieving photo realism with the Reality Plugin.

- How the new Dawn figure is covered in the book- what readers can learn about using this figure.

- Paolo's favourite topic or chapter.

Welcome to session 20 and I hope you are having creative success at the moment, whichever 3D application you are using.  We’d love to see your artwork, especially if its in the sci-fi or fantasy genres, which you can share on the facebook.com/3dartdirect page.

Dawn is the newest in a line of significant figures developed by Chris Creek, who created the original Poser figures, Dork and Posette, and the original Michael and Victoria figures.

Dawn is for both Poser and DAZ Studio users in mind, with two versions available, one with native Poser files compatible with Poser 9 and above, and another with native DAZ Studio files compatible with DAZ Studio 4.5 and above.

I've really pleased to interview not only Chris Creek, but Eric Merritt , Steve Kondris and Paul Lesard from HiveWire 3D, who are freshening up the market with this new significant figure.

I’m also pleased to announce a new live and on-line conference for the Poser community: Poser Expo 2 : Creative Professionals Live. Chris Creek and his crew from HiveWire 3D will be the keynote speakers at the beginning of the conference, and then we’ll go into nine more webinar sessions of Poser training content on the weekend of the 18th-20th of October, with some of the brightest and creative minds in the community presenting.

At the moment there is a reduced price for the event tickets that will get you into ALL the webinars. Up until around the end of September, you can take advantage of a 23% discount on the ticket price.

http://3dartlive.com/poserexpo2ticket

We're pleased to interview Oshayn Greene, business manager at Planetside Software on the new release of Terragen 3 Professional.

For those of you who don’t know much about Terragen, I can tell you that If you like the idea of applying 3D graphics to create photo-realistic natural environments, then Terragen is definitely for you. Another upside of this software is if you go to planetside.co.uk and go to the products section, there is a free pre-release edition of Terragen 3.

In this session we tallk with Oshyan on:-

- The build-up for the release of Terragen 3 and som of the early feedback of T3 as features of it became public. 

- How Terragen 3 started. Was it based on the platform of Terragen 2, or is it a completely new product written from the ground up?

- The story of how T3 was utilised for the sc-fi film Oblivion.

- The T3 Global Illumination Surface Details option. 

- Fast and noise free depth of field in T3. 

- The new spherical camera option.

- When T3 becomes available and what will the variants of the software be?

3D Art Live is planning to create a new TERRALIVE webinar based conference for the Terragen community, this time with a focus on the new Terragen 3.

If you would like to sign up to let us know what you would like to see featured or emphasised at the conference, you can have your say at http://3dartlive.com/terralive/

Paul Bussey

Podcast host and editor of 3D Art Direct magazine

www.3DArtDirect.com

In this session, we get behind the scenes of D&D Creations and learn how this powerful partnership of Drea Horvath and Michel Rondberg was created. Many people in the Vue community will have heard of least one of these names, so you can discover more about this partnership in this session, what they did in their early years to get to the level of success they have acheived now.

Even they are suprised how fast they have got involved in commercial and non-commercial productions of bigger studios in a relatively short time. It's been only since the start of the year since they officially launched their services, but during their first few months they has already worked on a cinematic trailer, a historical animation, and building scenes for a big commercial 3D projection mapping project.

If you have considered animation in Vue or are trying to improve or optimise your animation work in Vue, Make a note of this live webinar event in your diaries which will be on the 3rd and 4th of August; the first weekend in August. It's entitled "Animating Nature" and the URL to book a webinar seat is www.3dartlive.com/vueanimation, so we hope to see you there or take advantage of the recording. 

Michel and Drea's services for Vue are found at http://www.ddcreations.eu

In this session we learn how a hobby for computer games and graphics led to a notable visual effects business headed by Tobias Richter based in Cologn, Germany called "The Light Works". His company is now used by main industry clients such as Atari, CBS Digital and Lucas Arts as well as indie film producers for quality visual effects.

Discover in this episode:-

- Tobias has an amazing working environment, filled with sci-fi physical models that act as a great reference to creating virtual ones.

- How physical model building is a useful discipline for virtual modeling. 

- How The Light Works company started.

- The secrets of how high quality visual effects are created on a relatively small budget.

- Tobias's main tools and workflow.

- The Light Works involvement in Star Trek Phase II.

- Tobias and Fedcon - a major annual Star Trek convention in Germany.

- Tobias's visit to George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch.

- The more recent projects of "Nobility" and the "5th Passenger"

Check out a reel of completed projects at thelightworks.com and look out for stuff in production at their facebook page.

If you've enjoyed this session, let us know some of your feedback at iTunes.

Don't forget to check for our latest live 3D digtal art conferences and webinars over at 3DArtlive.com

I started off asking Tobias about his working environment at the Light Works Studio.

Sergio Martinez from Xurge3D creates custom outfits for Poser. As a content creator for Poser, Sergio has invested many years in this application, starting out with Poser 4 back in 1999. His specialisation is in fantasy and sci-fi outfits which fits right in with 3D Art Direct’s coverage of the sci-fi and fantasy genres in the 3D Digital Arts world.

Ever wondered how to create Poser accessories and clothing? Sergio will reveal step by step how he creates his custom clothing with his three part live webinar conference on Saturday 8th and 9th June 2013. Go to www.3DArtLive.com/contentcreation to register.

In this episode we learn:

- What got Sergio hooked into Poser clothing content creation. 

- What were some of the most difficult challenges you had to overcome when bringing his content to market.

- Find out which Poser character continues to attract the most sales for Xurge3D.

- What is “conforming clothing.” for Poser. 

– What’s the difference between “dynamic clothing” and “conforming clothing.”

- What’s been the most satisfying product for Sergio to create and why?

Remember you can sign up to our free 3D Digital Arts magazine at www.3DArtDirect.com

- Where have some of Sergio's influences come for clothing design.

Welcome to session 15 of the 3D Art Direct podcast. In this session we continue to follow the progress of the sci-fi series project CAS Nobility which is actively pitching for crowd sourced funding on the Kickstarter.com website. Go to Kickstarter.com and just search for nobility and take a look at the videos describing the project, which feature E.J. Del La Pena, the creator of the Nobility project and also the director Neil Johnson. They are offering all kinds of goodies to those who donate to the project. I’d like to welcome E.J. and Neil to this session.

E.J. De la Pena is an Actor/Film Maker with more than 20-years experience in the entertainment industry. He’s been a child actor who has earned dozens of credits – including projects like Jingle All The Way and Boy Meets World. He is now the president and founder of the film production company Cowboy Errant!

Neil Brook Johnson (July 26, 1967) is a British film and music video producer, director, and editor best known for his long association with heavy metal band Manowar, and for directing and writing Science Fiction Films. Neil is regarded as a pioneer in digital film-making. He has to his credit over 20 years experience in the industry including 6 feature films and 500 music videos.

Highlights of Neil’s career:-

- The youngest paid director in Australia

- Demons In My Head (1997) is reputed to be the world's first digital film

- His second film, To Become One (2000) was produced for exactly $2,196 [5] as proof that you do not need money to make a successful film

- In 2008, he made Humanity's End, a film about the last man in the universe being hunted down to extinction by a race of beings known as the Nephilim. In fact, all his films take place in the same universe and all contain Nephilim as characters dominating mankind

Achievements:-

- 20 years experience

- 6 feature films

- 500 music videos

- 5000 productions

- Specialising in music/sci-fi/drama