Cgarena: Photoshop After Effects 3dsmax Gallery Interview Maya

CGArena
VOLUME 2, ISSUE 6 OCT - NOV 2007
Get Attention in the Computer Graphics Community
GALLERY INTERVIEW
Showcase of latest 3d inspiring art Jason Busby
PHOTOSHOP 3DSMAX
Shutter Text Making of Italian Creek
AFTER EFFECTS Maya
Sweeping the Light Making of Cheese Platter
05 Interview
Jason Busby
14 Photoshop
Shutter Text
18 After Effects
Sweeping the Light
22 3ds Max
Making of Italian Creek
33 Maya
Making of Cheese Platter
43 Gallery
Showcase of latest 3d art
Magazine Edited: Ashish Rastogi

Magazine Cover Image: Khalid Abdulla Al-Muharraqi
Page 2 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

industry news
Luxology Licenses Pixar Animation Studios’ Halo 3 Registers Biggest Day in
Subdivision Surface Patents US Entertainment History
Luxology® LLC, an indepen- Microsoft announced that

dent technology company de- the Xbox 360 exclusive
veloping next–generation 3D game “Halo 3” has officially
content creation software, an- become the biggest enter-
nounced that Pixar Animation tainment launch in history,
Studios and Luxology have garnering an estimated $170
finalized an agreement under million in sales in the Unit-
which Pixar has licensed its ed States alone in the first
Subdivision Surface Patents to Luxology. The agreement 24 hours. The Xbox 360 title
covers key Pixar proprietary computer graphics technol- beat previous records set by
ogy that will enhance Luxology’s products. Luxology is blockbuster theatrical releases like “Spider-man 3” and
making no specific announcements as to when this tech- novels such as “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”
nology might be incorporated into future Luxology soft-
ware offerings. The specific terms of the agreement are More than 1.7 million copies of “Halo 3” were preor-
confidential. dered in the United States before a single store opened
its doors, making this the fasting pre-selling game in
We are very excited to have clear rights to use some of history, surpassing the previous record-setting pre-sales
the most fundamental SubDivision surface modeling of “Halo 2.” Well beyond just a U.S. phenomenon, the
and rendering algorithms on the planet.” said Brad Pee- launch of “Halo 3” was a worldwide celebration that re-
bler, President and Co-founder of Luxology leased in 37 countries and available in 17 languages.
Buzzword of the Month

Mo-Cap - Motion Capture or Mo-Cap – is movement capture process of a real
man and/or object for further use of received data in production of character and/or
object animation. For motion capture special markers are put on actors, wearing spe-
cial elastic tight-fit costumes, than special mocap-cameras determine the positions of
these markers in space, and mocap-system generates a file with motion data.
In the early days, the effort required to ‘clean up’ motion capture data often took as
long as if the animation was created by an animator, from scratch. In entertainment
applications this can reduce the costs of animation which otherwise requires the ani-
mator to draw each frame, or with more sophisticated software, key frames which are
interpolated by the software. Motion capture saves time and creates more natural movements than manual animation,
but is limited to motions that are anatomically possible. Some applications might require additional impossible move-
ments like animated super hero martial arts or stretching and squishing that are not possible with real actors.

To find out more about nPower CAD Translators for Maya Visit us at www.nPowerSoftware.com
interview
AN INTERVIEW WITH
Jason Busby
Hi, my name is Leonard Halmrast. I have the privilege of doing this interview with Jason Busby, for CGArena. Jason
is known to most as Buzz from 3D Buzz.
Q. First can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Well, I’m the President/CEO of 3D Buzz, Inc., where I work hard to provide
the world with professional quality training in 3D, programming, and a lot more.
I live in Dickson, Tennessee, which is where 3D Buzz is based, along with my
lovely wife Angela and my daughters, Heather and Meagan.
Aside from my work - which pretty much consumes every aspect of my life – I
enjoy flying (I’m a private pilot), scuba diving, and going to the movies with my
family. I don’t get a lot of time to do these kinds of things, though; 3D Buzz
keeps me very busy.
Q. How did you get the idea to start something like 3D Buzz?
Several years ago I took on a job as the Director of Animation at The Renaissance Center, a local learning facility that
had started its own animation studio and training center. The classes we held were great, but I quickly became discour-
aged at how many students I had to turn away simply because they couldn’t afford to participate.
I thought it would be great to start a website in which the

training would be free to the public, but paid for by the soft-
ware companies who were making the applications. The idea
was fairly simple; we’d create training videos and host them
on our site, and the companies who developed the software
would be so excited about their software being covered that
they would sponsor us.
Things have changed a lot since then. The original idea for
3D Buzz didn’t really work out the way I wanted it to. We
had to start charging for our training, although we work
hard to make sure that it’s the very highest quality and the
most competitively priced training on the market.

interview
AN INTERVIEW WITH
Jason Busby
Q. How could you best describe the 3D Buzz community?
3D Buzz’s community is one of the most helpful and learning-driven groups you’re going to find on the Internet. We
welcome newcomers openly and have a lot to offer those who are trying to get into 3D, programming, game design, etc.
3D Buzz has been operating since 2002, but it has only been a full self-sustaining business for about 2 years.

interview
AN INTERVIEW WITH
Jason Busby
Q. What do you enjoy most with what you do at 3D Buzz?
Seeing my students start to “get it.” That’s always been my favorite thing. I like knowing that we’ve got people who
come to us to learn their desired skills, and that they become members of the community as they become better artists,
developers, technical thinkers, or whatever they came to 3D Buzz to learn.
Q. Where did you get your background in teaching from?
Most of my teaching experience comes from my time at The Renaissance Center. I tried to keep all of my classes engag-
ing and entertaining. I wanted students to feel challenged by what they were learning, but make sure they realized that
with enough perseverance, they could master the topic and it would become easy for them.
Q. Have any of the members of your site been able to learn enough skills to make it into the CG Industry?
We’ve had many students go to work for major studios. The names are far too many to list here. I often get emails and

interview
AN INTERVIEW WITH
Jason Busby
PMs from members thanking me for the training videos we put together, because it was those skills that landed them
their new job.
Q. How do you and your team come up with the ideas of what kind of courses to teach in VTM form?
It usually starts with coming up with some skill or topic we want to cover, and just sort of grows from there. There’s
usually a lot of discussion and planning. Some ideas are so vastly different by the time they get recorded that they’re
something new altogether. It’s a bit of an organic process, I guess you could say.
Q. Are all of your videos for pur-

chase, or do you still offer free
videos for users who’d like to get
a taste of 3D?
We still have hundreds of hours

of free training on the site. Much
of it is with older versions of the
software, though the basic con-
cepts are still valid today. We also
release free videos whenever we
can. In fact, we’ve got some free
videos over Houdini lined up for
release very shortly.
Q. What projects do you have

cooking over at 3D Buzz?
We’ve just launched the registra-

tion of our MasteringMaya: Ad-
vanced Digital Production online
class. I’m really excited about it;
it’s a six-month intensive online class which will teach people the entire production process of a digital short. We’re also
still working on the XNA Xtreme 101 class, and we’ll be releasing the second volume within the next couple of weeks.
We’ve got several Houdini projects in the pipeline as well, including the first volume of the Houdini Technical Director
series, which I’d like to see going out the door in three weeks or less. Needless to say, we’re very busy right now!

interview
AN INTERVIEW WITH
Jason Busby
Q. Can you tell us what is in your Mastering Maya – Advanced Digital Production online and how is this is differ-
ent from others?
The Mastering Maya: Advanced Digital Production class is the only online course or training DVD set that walks you
through the entire production of a digital short from concept to final result. It currently includes 19 different lessons
ranging from concept art and storyboarding through dialog recording and capture, modeling, texturing, rigging, ani-
mating, lighting, rendering, compositing, and final video compilation. We’re teaching it as part of a six-month online
class, provided we don’t need to extend the class session a tad; it will depend on how long the curriculum turns out to
be as it is recorded.
Q. Today many different companies jump into the

field of making training DVD’s, or tutorials and no
need to say, some are very good and some very bad, so
how is an artist to decide which one too choose?
In short, do your homework. Contact the people who

make the videos and find out what’s in them. Watch
some of their other work (most everyone has free vid-
eos to offer these days) and find a teaching method
that suits you. Some people like to have every possible
thing explained to them, other’s like a quick overview.
Find the style that helps you learn the fastest and make
the most of it!
Q. What advice would you give to future wanna be CG artists and freelancers out there?
Know going in that this is hard work and don’t let yourself get discouraged. The tools get better and faster every year, but
there’s no such thing as instant gratification. The skills that will impress an employer come with time and dedication.
It’s too easy to glance around at various works on the web and start to think that you don’t have the chops to compete.
Every single breathtaking image you’ve ever seen produced in 3D was created by people just like you, and if you take
the time to really learn this stuff and are patient with yourself, you have every opportunity to join the ranks of the CG
industry.
Thank You for your time in answering these questions for us, and we shall catch up with you again at 3dbuzz.com

challenge
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This challenge will be a WIP (Work in Progress) Challenge. Each challenger is required to submit Work In Progress
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photoshop
Shutter Text
In this tutorial we are trying to create a shutter text effect using layer styles, pen tools and color blending. This is just an
explanation of the simple technique, so you can create unlimited effects on this base.
Step 1: Like always create the canvas, if you are using CS3 then you have noticed that Adobe categorized the Presets
because those are fillinf lots of space. Btw, fill the canvas with the radial gradient tool. I will not explain more than this
or increase the number of steps explaining this.
Step 2: Select Freeform Pen Tool (Shift + P) and draw your shape or write your text as per your choice. Make sure
in the menu bar you select the second one called paths. This is not necessary that you use Freeform Pen Tool, you can
also use Pen tool and create the shapes by clicking and dragging the mouse. But always remember not to use too many
points.

photoshop
Step 3: Once you have a nice curve or text, create a new layer. Then click on the paintbrush tool (B) and choose a thin,
hard brush. In this case I choose the 5 px Diameter brush.
Step 4: Now switch back to the PEN tool. Then right click and select “Stroke Path”. Choose “Brush” in the dialog box
and make sure there is a tick next to “Simulate Pressure”. This is important as it will give your curve tapered ends!
Step 5: Now you have your white line right click on the same layer and go to the blending options by double clicking
on the layer. On your left select Outer Glow. Now you can adjust your glow, play around with the colors & sliders.

photoshop
Step 6: Firstly duplicate your text layer twice by going to Layer > Duplicate Layer. Select both duplicate layers and
press Ctrl + E to combine them. Now drag your new combined layer below your main text. You should now have 3
layers, a background, your text and the combined layer of text.

photoshop
Step 7: Select Duplicate layer and click Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and set amount to between 15-20, Spin and best
settings.
Step 8: Now we add some particles. To do this create a new layer then select a tiny paint brush, make changes in the
scattering settings - and just paint some dots on of different colors and reduce the opacity. You can also change the
whole look of the image by creating a gradient on a new layer, keep this layer on top and change the blending mode to
Color. Keep experimenting and Enjoy!
Andy Halls
andyhalls123@yahoo.com

after effects
Sweepinmg the Light

May be you have read many tutorials like this on web but to create this effect I used 2 wonderful plugins called Trap-
code Stroke and Shine. And today we combined these two to create the sweeping of light.
Step 1: Make a new composition at 768 x 576 with the dura-

tion of eight seconds. Press Ctrl + Y to create new solid of
same size as composition.
Step 2: Select the pen tool and create a shape of your choice
but try to keep the shape bigger the size of the layer because
when we apply the 3d stroke and bend the stroke then enough
size of the stroke makes it watchable.

after effects
Step 3: Apply the Effect > Trapcode > Stroke. Click the stopwatch for Offset, Z Position, X Rotation, Y Rotation and
Z Rotation to set keyframes for each at time 0:00. And choose the same settings as shown in below image
Now you need to make the changes in the settings on the regular time intervals. At 2:00

after effects
At Time 4:00 At Time 6:00
At Time 8:00
Step 4: Now apply the Effect > Trapcode > Shine and choose the
following settings. Shine is a fast light effect plug-in. The effect
looks very much like volumetric light, but is actually a 2D effect.
There are special controls to make shimmering lights and numerous
coloring modes.
Step 5: Duplicate the layer and change the color in the shine plugin,
you can also make some changes in 3dstroke too for making little
different. You can also apply the Glow on both the layers. That’s it,
hope this is useful for someone. Don’t hesitate to email me.
Suzane Smith
suz.smith@hotmail.com

3ds max
Making of Italian Creek

by Honza “IcemanJ” Jinda
icemanj@maxarea.com

3ds max
Introduction
I’ll explain creation of my last picture Italian Creek. I wanted to show you my techniques and procedure. I’ll take it
almost step by step and I’ll focus on most interesting parts of production.
Inspiration
I want to create some environment scene in short time, but in quiet high quality. I was surfing the web for some inspira-
tion and I found some great photos, but the best photo found by my friend. It’s photo made by Sanja Veletanlic. I didn’t
want to change anything in the scene accept lighting and then some details because of time.
Blocking
First of all I prepared lines in original photo in Photoshop for better orientation, after that I’ve created a camera in max
and set up resolution aspect same as in original, then I applied photo with perspective lines as a viewport background in
camera view. So my scene was ready for blocking part. This is one of the most important parts in creation of “copy” of some
photo. I built the whole scene with simple boxes with their approximate position and orientation. Then I tweaked the
whole scene because it wasn’t
very accurate, because I didn’t
know lens of camera etc. so
I fixed for example sizes of
steps and pavements. A lot of
problems with the houses in
background, but I’ve tweaked
it and faked it a bit. I don’t
know why but I wasn’t able
to hit correct distances etc,
but from camera view every-
thing is all right :).
Modeling
I didn’t use any special tech-

niques for modeling. It was
only standard poly modeling
and basic modifiers like Bend,
Noise, FFD, Lathe etc. You
can see some more interest-
ing models in pictures. I must
point out that plants and tree
are models from database. I
don’t think that modeling of

3ds max
this scene was difficult. Actually there are only modified basic primitives. After elementary modeling I added some
irregularities to the scene by using Noise modifier, damaging corners of houses, deforming surface of pavements etc.
In scenes like this organizations is very important. For example using layers, I got used to use script written for Blur
Studios for layer management, it’s called the Onion (http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/theonion). This script is like
an upgrade of standard layer manager. You can create sub layers, give layer alternative materials or properties and many
other useful things. I really recommend this script. I think we can close this chapter about modeling, it wasn’t too in-
teresting, but we are going to move to chapter about texturing and this will be much more interesting.
Texturing
I think texturing was the most interesting part of production. I want to create really complex realistic looking textures.
I used a lot of textures from mainly from cgtextures.com and from my own photo library. I paid most attention to
textures which take most space in render. My final resolution was about 3000px so I must prepared suitable textures.
Texture size should be two times bigger than its space in render. I tried to adjust resolution for almost all of my textures
with my sample mapping reference (made by loocas duber - http://www.duber.cz/dump/uv_map_reference.jpg). If
reference was sharp in render, resolution was right so I start to create final texture. In pictures you can see examples of
some interesting textures.
I used almost same technique, some base texture of surface, mostly desaturated or with very low saturation, then I was
adding lot of other layers to achieve some irregularity, these textures maybe of little different color. After creation of
some surface I add details and lot of dirt, because buildings are quite old. Finally I add color layer with some suitable
blending mode and adjust levels etc. When I’m satisfied then I create other maps for material of the object, especially
bump maps. I used finalRender R2 for rendering all materials and those are based on fR-Advanced material. Materials
in scene are really really simple, nothing complex.

3ds max
This is my first project where I tried to use NodeJoe plugin. It’s awesome upgrade for materials in max. With NodeJoe,
it’s really easy to create complex materials and mainly it helps to orient in maps of our material. In picture you can see
tree of one most complex material used for cubes on pavement. I must point out that I’m using Color correct map,
which is coming with finalRender, it allows you to control a lot of parameters of map directly in max such as brightness,
contrast, RGB values or HSV etc.

3ds max
Lighting and Rendering
Lighting was very simple. As sunlight I used finalRender RecLight. The color was light orange, because I want to
achieve warm sunset mood. Then I adjusted size of light, it caused little more blurred shadow. I also used skylight with
physical sky and GI. For nice shadow from tree I used plane with opacity map. That’s all about lighting, simple as I said.
More interesting part was rendering, I used pretty same technique as Tim Jones on DVD series about Environment
creation from Gnomon Workshop (http://thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/tjo01.html).
I rendered background houses and the rest alone. I’ll explain my passes. Main was keylight, there was skylight and
GI turned off and RecLight has a bit bigger multiplier, about 2. All passes were saved in 32bits with alpha. This is
important; when you save in 32bits you can later adjust intensities of light, colors etc in large scale without damaging
image. Then I rendered only ambient, it was skylight and GI, last pass was fog, with this I created little mood and fog
for background. I rendered whole image with all the lights together and it took about one and half hour in 1000x863.
Hardware was Core2duo 6600 and 2GB RAM; I must thank my friend Loocas Duber who borrowed me his computer
for that when he was at Siggraph. So it’s time to put all passes together.

3ds max
Post Production
I want to try Eyeon Fusion for postproduction. I briefly wachted tutorial and try it. I’ll explain it shortly. If you want to
learn Fusion better, you should download learning videos from eyeon’s website. I imported all passes to Fusion and also
imported sky image. I applied Color Correct node on every footage and adjusted all parameters. Then I used Merge
nodes to merge all image togehter. I also add Glow node to Keylight footage and finaly Hotspot node to simulate de-
cent volumetric light. Above all nodes I applied final Color Correct and adjusted final look of image. You can see whole
tree of nodes in picture below.

3ds max
Conclusion
So, I explained whole creation of Italian Creek. I know

there are lot of things to tweak and make them better
but I need to create this image in approximately 10
days. Finaly I made it on evening and weekend in nine
days. I want to thank my friends for valuable advices
and support. I hope that you enjoyed my Making of
and it was useful for you. If you want feel free to con-
tact me on icemanj@maxarea.com.
Honza “IcemanJ” Jinda

icemanjcg.blogspot.com
icemanj@maxarea.com

winners
In Sep07, your mission was to create a 3D image on “Addiction” theme and sponsored by N-Sided.
First Prize
Quidam + Low Poly Access Plugin
worth USD 678
Trond Elling Haveland, Norway

postmaster@trondart.com
Second Prize
Alex Cervantes, Mexico
sportguy182@gmail.com
Quidam worth USD 270

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maya
Wrapping & Animating

Grass around objects
Cheese Platter
Making of
by Hau Ming ( Jamie) Li, USA

tvholicjames@gmail.com

maya
Introduction
Hi, my name is Hau Ming ( Jamie) Li and this will be my first

tutorial so I will try to explain how I did this Cheese Platter
the best that I can.
I created this Cheese Platter using Autodesk Maya 8.5 and

Adobe Photoshop. It is actually a photo concept derived par-
tially from the image on right.
Originally, I was told to create this based on the original refer-

ence, but I feel the point of Shading and Lighting is to show
off your texturing skills and give it better lighting if possible.
As you can see, the lights are overblown in the original pic-
ture. So I added more stuff like blue cheese, cheese cubes, brie
cheese, almonds and crackers to make it busier and at the same
time, make it look like a painting.
References
It is always good to have more than one reference to look at when modeling and texturing. Try to find ones that you can
purchase and have it in front of your face when modeling and texturing. This is because the pictures you grab online
can have bad lighting, be pixilated, or not contain enough details.

maya
Here are some of the references I used.
Modeling
For the strawberries, I

modeled one in NURBS
and converted it to Poly-
gons. I checked the nor-
mals and then reversed
the normals (very impor-
tant, but I will explain
later), then UV mapped
it.

maya
For the strawberry leaves, I used Polygon planes and
the append tool. I shaped it with a lattice, and then
UV mapped it.
For the bowl, I used a NURBS CV curve, revolved it,

and then used the rebuild command on the surface.
For the crackers, I modeled it in Polygons and extruded. I modeled only one side, not two because you are not going
to see it.
For the cheese cubes, I basically modeled one good one in Polygon with rounded edges, and UV mapped it. Then I
duplicated and shaped them
with a lattice individually to
make them look less uniform
and less perfect. Then when
I placed them, I rotate each
cube so the camera can see
one side of the textures. This
will save you time instead of
modeling, uv mapping and
texturing them individually.

maya
For the blue cheese, I used a Polygon cube, shaped it, and then extracted the Polygons to separate the skin and the
cheese. I duplicated the skin to make the wrapper. I deleted the Polygons at the back of the cheese skin because you are
not going to see it. I used a lattice to bend and shape the wrapper.
For the almonds, I used a NURBS sphere,

converted it to polygons, reversed nor-
mals, and UV mapped it.
For the Brie cheese, I used NURBS CV

curves, which I lofted, and then shaped
them by pulling the vertices. I converted
the surfaces to Polygons and UV mapped
them.

maya
Subsurface Scattering
For an organic character, the conversion scale

will generally remain small. However, the
fruits and cheese have translucencies which
are a lot higher. Therefore, there will be more
noise to balance out, which means higher val-
ues for the scale conversion.
However, there is more than one way to balance the noise without having such insane numbers for the scale conver-
sion. You can play with the numbers of the samples of the lightmap in addition to the minimal numbers of the scale
conversion.
The reason why I said it is important to check your

normals earlier, was because NURBS have a ten-
dency to have normals facing inwards. If the nor-
mals are facing in, light cannot scatter throughout
the object and you would not be able to see the real
details of the texture maps. Notice in the left pic-
ture below, the cheese cube looks dry and you can
barely see the textures, even with a specular map,
versus the picture on the right, in which the cheese
cube looks more detailed, wet and translucent.
For all the cheeses and strawberries, I used the Ma-

ya’s Skin Shader instead of the simple fast shader
because of the control for the specularity and re-
flectivity attributes.
Overall is a tint.
Diffuse and Epidermal attributes multiply each

other.
Subdermal and Back Scatter attributes are where

you control how translucent you want your object
to be. I found it is mostly the Subdermal weight
that you have to play with to get an object more
translucent.
Primary specularity is where I put the specular map I created using different size brushes, and then tinted it very light
blue in the color gain of the strawberry primary specularity.
Secondary specularity is where I put a black and white noise map to break the highlight of the strawberries.

maya
Since people kept asking me about the strawberries, I’ll tell you how I
did it in Photoshop. For the Color Map of the strawberries, I cropped
a good looking seed, individually place them on the UV layout for the
imperfections, then I duplicated the jpeg seeds several times and merged
visible. I did that so the seeds won’t have that pixilated look from the
jpegs that I got on the internet. Next I used the brightness and contrast
from Photoshop and beveled them so the seeds can have that curvy
popped out look without using geometries. For the base color, I sampled
the redness of one of the photos, added noise and gaussium blur. Next, I
painted the rawness of the strawberry’s white and green color, blurred and
blended in Photoshop. For the Bump Map, I duplicated the seed layer,
inverted it to have the bump up look, then I duplicated again and turned
them into black and gaussium blurred it and put that layer under the
white bump up layer.
This will give the look of the dentedness with the seeds popped
out. For the Primary Specular Map, I used different size brushes
and randomly paint it onto the UV layout. As for the Secondary
Specular Map, I used a noise filter, played around with the level,
brightness and contrast, duplicated the layers several times, merged
the layers. This is important, because Maya can’t seem to be able
to show the white specs of the noise in the attribute editor when I
plugged it into the Secondary Specular Color. So what I did was to
bring more of the whiteness out in the noise map so I can see it in
the attribute editor. Here are the maps of the strawberries and the
Skin Shader attribute:

maya
For the strawberry leaves, I used an Anisotropic Material and manipulated the sliders of translucency attributes.
Color Map Specular Map Bump Map
For the crackers and almonds, I used a Phong.
Color Map Bump Map Specular Map
Color Map Specular Map Bump Map

maya
For all the cheeses, I used a skin shader.
Diffuse, Epidermal, Sub-

dermal and Back Scatter
Bump Map Primary Specular Map Secondary Specular Map
Color Map
Secondary Specu-
Epidermal and Back Bump Map lar Map
Diffuse and Subdermal Scatter Color Map Primary Specular Map
Blue Cheese Interior
Diffuse, Epidermal, Subder- Primary Specular Color Bump Map

mal and Back Scatter Color
For the Blue Cheese Skin, I used a Lambert, and played around with the translucent values. Same thing for the brie
cheeses.

For the wrapper, I used a two-sided shader and plugged in the front and back color map.
For the tray, I used a metal texture from www.cgtextures.com and plugged it into the diffuse and reflectivity attribute
of the MIA material.

maya
Lighting
HDRI, 1 Area Light, emit photons with a yellow and orange color for the
photon color and light color. If you want to show emotions and make it
appetizing, don’t use white light. Render with Global Illumination, Caus-
tics and Raytracing on.
The more translucent an object is, the more you will lose the shadows to
show depth. But don’t let that frustrate you; as this is where post produc-
tion work with an occlusion pass comes in.
Post Production
Do NOT use the default Occlusion presets. The shadows

are way too dark, and it looks horrible. You want to be able
to control how dark the shadows are.
Use the MIB-Occlusion node in Maya 8.5 and change the

black color to dark gray, and play with the sliders. I used 2
MIB-Occlusion nodes for the scene.
Now render the color and occlusion separately and bring

them into Photoshop. Duplicate the color file and put the
occlusion pass in the center. Use Multiply or Overlay for
the Occlusion. Play around with the opacity. For the
Color on top, use a little Gaussian Blur and screen the top
color file.
A little warning about using the skin shader and

rendering with Mental Ray: If your scene has 90%
skin shaders like mine, it gets pretty expensive to
render even with a core 2 duo processor. This pres-
ent scene takes a bit over an hour to render a frame
with the school’s computer and their computers
are way better than mine. Good luck!
Hau Ming ( Jamie) Li

www.haumingli.com

gallery
Luna
Jang Seong-Hwan, Korea
flcl38@naver.com
Lightwave, Max

Pandu
Mayuresh .J Salunke, India
mjsalunke@gmail.com
Maya, Photoshop

Liquid Dress
Anselm v. Seherr - ThoB, Germany
mail@3delicious.de
3dsmax, FumeFX, Glu3d

Fat Boy
Giuseppe Calcagno, Italy
pinkio75@virgilio.it
Lightwave 8.5, Photoshop

Pascal
Cristian Mihaescu, Romania
cristian.mihaescu@gmail.com
Blender

Cheese Platter
Hau Ming ( Jamie) Li, USA
Maya and Photoshop

The Rain
Ongie Ongushi, BKK
ongushi@hotmail.com
3dsmax, Photoshop Octo
Andre Holzmeister, Brazil
andrevh@gmail.com
3ds Max, Photoshop

Watches
Janne Hellmann, Germany
info@b-w-design.de
Cinema 4D, Final Render

The Market District
Ognian Bonev, Bulgaria
ogyb99@yahoo.com
3ds Max, Photoshop

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CGArena

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 6 OCT - NOV 2007

Get Attention in the Computer Graphics Community

Magazine Edited: Ashish Rastogi

Page 2 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Luxology® LLC, an indepen- Microsoft announced that

Buzzword of the Month

Page 3 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Q. First can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I thought it would be great to start a website in which the

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Q. What do you enjoy most with what you do at 3D Buzz?

Q. Where did you get your background in teaching from?

Page 7 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Q. Are all of your videos for pur-

We still have hundreds of hours

Q. What projects do you have

We’ve just launched the registra-

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Q. Today many different companies jump into the

In short, do your homework. Contact the people who

Page 9 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Image By: Massimo Righi

How the Challenge will be Run

1. Enter the Challenge by registering yourself on CGArena forum.

Terms and Conditions

Final Image Size

Page 14 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Page 15 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Page 16 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Page 17 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Sweepinmg the Light

Step 1: Make a new composition at 768 x 576 with the dura-

Page 18 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Page 19 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Page 20 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Making of Italian Creek

Page 22 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

I didn’t use any special tech-

Page 23 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Page 24 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Page 25 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Lighting and Rendering

Page 26 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Page 27 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

So, I explained whole creation of Italian Creek. I know

Honza “IcemanJ” Jinda

Page 28 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Trond Elling Haveland, Norway

Quidam worth USD 270

Wrapping & Animating

by Hau Ming ( Jamie) Li, USA

Page 33 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

Hi, my name is Hau Ming ( Jamie) Li and this will be my first

I created this Cheese Platter using Autodesk Maya 8.5 and

Originally, I was told to create this based on the original refer-

Page 34 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

For the strawberries, I

Page 35 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

For the bowl, I used a NURBS CV curve, revolved it,

Page 36 Issue 6 Oct - Nov 2007

For the almonds, I used a NURBS sphere,