The Gnomon Workshop released two new titles for 3D artists: Hard Surface Shading and Texturing with Neil Blevins and Character Design and Modeling for Next-Gen Games with Vitaly Bulgarov. Neil, a Technical Director at Pixar Animation, has put together a very thorough DVD that explains his shading and texturing pipeline for hard surface models. The lecture is broken up into two parts: a detailed breakdown of his process followed by the application of the process to the shading and texturing of a "mortuary" robot that collects and recycles dead bodies. Vitaly Bulgarov, a 3D artist at Blizzard Entertianment, shows his process for making his "Rabagh" character which was inspired by Gears of War and is a great example of his organic-mechanical style. Using XSI, ZBrush and Photoshop, Vitaly covers everything from concepting in both 3D and 2D applications to presenting the high-poly model.


Character Design and Modeling for Next-Gen Games with Vitaly Bulgarov

In this DVD, Vitaly Bulgarov walks you through his process for creating highly detailed organic-mech characters using XSI®, ZBrush® and Photoshop®. Vitaly explains his 2D/3D concept design process, then shows his process for creating clean detailed meshes within XSI, as well as the sculpting process in ZBrush. Finally he shows how to add character and life to the hard surface and make a presentation of the final high-poly model using ZBrush and Photoshop.

"When I came across Vitaly's work for the first time I was really impressed by his notion of design, shapes and form," says Fausto De Martini, 3D Art Director at Blizzard Entertainment." In addition to Vitaly's mechanical design, which is one of the best that I have ever seen, his creative organic design has an extremely strong style, which make his work very unique. I am very proud to have Vitaly on my team."

Instructor Bio:

Vitaly Bulgarov is an award-winning 3D artist who is currently working at Blizzard Entertainment as a Cinematic Artist. He started his career in Moldova as a freelance artist about six years ago. After moving to Moscow he worked in major Russian game developing studios as a full-time artist and at the same time continued freelancing for American and European studios.

Hard Surface Shading and Texturing with Neil Blevins

In this DVD Neil introduces his pipeline for shading and texturing hard surface models. This pipeline can be applied to any high-res model, such as models for photoreal effects work, animated feature films, ride films or video game cinematics. In the first part of the DVD, he discusses reference gathering, how to make a visual details list, and common shaders. Next he outlines all of the major methods for placing patterns on your surface, their advantages and disadvantages, and ways of creating patterns, including procedurals, photo manipulation and hand painting. The lecture includes practical demos in Adobe Photoshop® and 3d Studio Max®, using the Scanline, Brazil and Mental Ray renderers.

In the second part, he uses the theory and pipeline from part one to shade and texture a 2000+ object robot character and simple environment using 3ds Max, Photoshop and Brazil. With a focus on texturing thousands of objects fast and efficiently, this intermediate level course is useful for any 3d application or renderer and will add many new tricks to your personal arsenal.

"Neil is a rock star and is always raising the bar for us," says Chris Burrows, Sets Shading Supervisor for Pixar Animation Studios. "He can paint, he can use procedurals, he can use both at the same time. Neil just has this amazing ability to consistently create the best looking assets using whatever techniques are necessary to get the job done."

Instructor Bio:

Raised on a healthy dose of sci-fi and fantasy films, books, and video games, Neil Blevins started off painting and drawing traditionally, and then got into 3d graphics while he still lived in his hometown of Pointe Claire, in Quebec, Canada. After getting a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design Art at Concordia University, he moved to Los Angeles where he worked at Blur Studio for three years, creating graphics for video game cinematics, commercials, TV, ride and feature films. He was also a senior tester for the Brazil Rendering system.

Neil now lives in San Francisco working as a Technical Director for Pixar Animation Studios, primarily creating Environments and FX, and has worked on films such as The Incredibles, Cars, Wall-E and Up.

More Information at: www.thegnomonworkshop.com. Image and Video Courtesy of Gnomon Inc.