COVERING OUR TRACKS March 2007
by John
Mantzefield
Copyright 2007
I’ve
had the idea for this months cover for some time, but I
didn’t have the software that would allow me to create
it. My previous covers were made with photos and 3D
elements like robots and spaceships that had smooth
surfaces and well defined edges. What I wanted to
introduce into cover images are 3D organic elements
like foliage and landscapes, realistic looking sky’s
and people. Several months ago I noticed software
reviews and commentaries in magazines like Computer
Graphics World and Layers that answered the questions I
had about what Software to use to make these natural
scene components.
3D LANDSCAPE SOFTWARE
To create the landscape elements and sky in this months cover I used a type of software that’s referred to as a “terrain generator”, it’s Vue d'Esprit v5 Pro Studio from e-onsoftware.com. While the program itself isn’t terribly complex, getting it’s rendered images into Photoshop in a usable form was somewhat difficult. Ideally I’d like to merge a complete 3D landscape with other 3D objects in one scene (to have consistent lighting), but this version of Vue only allows me to export terrain objects (hills & mountains) but not the complete scene with trees, rocks, grass, etc. E-On Will have the next version of Vue completed soon which will allow me to export complete scenes and then I can combine this with the other 3D elements I’ve created in Cinema4D.
The way that I’m currently using Vue is a little cumbersome but it works. I create background landscapes and foliage elements and then render them as TIF images. The background sky in the cover just had distant mountains in front of a sky preset. The tree on the left and its ground plane was placed in front of a flat black background (in Vue) so that those foliage elements could be separated from the background in Photoshop. The grassy areas in the cover’s foreground were also created in Vue, but here all of the patches of grass were extracted from a single TIF image using Photoshop Layer Masks.
3D HUMAN FIGURES
The human machine operator was created using Poser v5 from e-frontier.com. Like Vue, Poser isn’t very difficult to learn if you intend to use it the way I do. After you choose the type of figure you want and select the clothes he needs to have, you just drag dialog box sliders to manipulate the figure into the desired pose. This program allow you to export the complete human figure with his hat and cloths (but no hair). The program I used to build the main 3D elements (the machine, rock text, etc.) is Cinema4D v8.5 from maxon.net. This program allows me to Import the Poser human figure file in the OBJ format. The only problem with this process is that the OBJ file contains dozens of human figure components. After opening the Poser file in C4D I had to manually separate all the component parts (head, lags, arms parts, etc.) into separate folders.
BUILDING
THE MACHINE
The rail mounted rock cutting laser blaster was modeled and rendered entirely in Cinema4D. Because the machines operator was a fully formed 3D object I just had to position him in the 3D scene with the machines parts. I placed the operators figure on the control station platform and then adjusted the position of the other parts (table top, computer, etc.) so that they would be properly aligned with his arms and legs. The flat rock wall behind the raised MacCamp letters was made in the same C4D scene as the laser machine. The image to the left shows a cut-away view of the laser blaster and illustrates how the C4D Lathe tool was used to make what appears to be a complex cylindrical shape.
3D LANDSCAPE SOFTWARE
To create the landscape elements and sky in this months cover I used a type of software that’s referred to as a “terrain generator”, it’s Vue d'Esprit v5 Pro Studio from e-onsoftware.com. While the program itself isn’t terribly complex, getting it’s rendered images into Photoshop in a usable form was somewhat difficult. Ideally I’d like to merge a complete 3D landscape with other 3D objects in one scene (to have consistent lighting), but this version of Vue only allows me to export terrain objects (hills & mountains) but not the complete scene with trees, rocks, grass, etc. E-On Will have the next version of Vue completed soon which will allow me to export complete scenes and then I can combine this with the other 3D elements I’ve created in Cinema4D.
The way that I’m currently using Vue is a little cumbersome but it works. I create background landscapes and foliage elements and then render them as TIF images. The background sky in the cover just had distant mountains in front of a sky preset. The tree on the left and its ground plane was placed in front of a flat black background (in Vue) so that those foliage elements could be separated from the background in Photoshop. The grassy areas in the cover’s foreground were also created in Vue, but here all of the patches of grass were extracted from a single TIF image using Photoshop Layer Masks.
3D HUMAN FIGURES
The human machine operator was created using Poser v5 from e-frontier.com. Like Vue, Poser isn’t very difficult to learn if you intend to use it the way I do. After you choose the type of figure you want and select the clothes he needs to have, you just drag dialog box sliders to manipulate the figure into the desired pose. This program allow you to export the complete human figure with his hat and cloths (but no hair). The program I used to build the main 3D elements (the machine, rock text, etc.) is Cinema4D v8.5 from maxon.net. This program allows me to Import the Poser human figure file in the OBJ format. The only problem with this process is that the OBJ file contains dozens of human figure components. After opening the Poser file in C4D I had to manually separate all the component parts (head, lags, arms parts, etc.) into separate folders.
The rail mounted rock cutting laser blaster was modeled and rendered entirely in Cinema4D. Because the machines operator was a fully formed 3D object I just had to position him in the 3D scene with the machines parts. I placed the operators figure on the control station platform and then adjusted the position of the other parts (table top, computer, etc.) so that they would be properly aligned with his arms and legs. The flat rock wall behind the raised MacCamp letters was made in the same C4D scene as the laser machine. The image to the left shows a cut-away view of the laser blaster and illustrates how the C4D Lathe tool was used to make what appears to be a complex cylindrical shape.
PAINTING WITH PIXOLS
Programs like Cinema4D work really well for creating scene elements that have smooth surfaces and uniform edges. It’s the 3D tool to use for creating machine parts, spaceships, buildings and the like. But if you want organic, natural looking shapes like rocks or trees, people or animals then this type of program is not really the one to use. To create organic shapes with a program like C4D you have to do what is usually referred to as “box modeling”. In this modeling process you start with a “primitive” shape like a box or cylinder, and over a period of time you move (sculpt) the polygons in the objects surface to create the shape you need. I employed a much easier and lass time consuming method to create the large rock face on the left and the other rocks in the scene. I made the general shapes I needed in C4D and exported them as OBJ files.
These files where then opened in a unique program called ZBrush v2 from pixologic.com. This program offers a variety of paint-like tools that are used to modify or sculpt 3D objects. You paint with ZBrush’s “pixols” on the surface of 3D objects which either raises or indents a part the surface depending on which modifier keys you have pressed (Com, Shift, Ctrl). The term “pixol” was invented by Pixologic and denotes the process of 2D painting on 3D objects to modify their surface contour. Because ZBrush is designed to work with non-uniform surfaces it’s the perfect tool for modifying Poser’s human figures. On close inspection a Poser figures looks more like mannequins then a photo-realistic person. This is primarily due to the fact that the fabric in their cloths doesn’t fold and hang in a natural manner. This problem can be easily corrected with ZBrush which allows you to pixol-paint in natural looking folds and wrinkles in fabric.
