21 Insider Tips to Enhance Your Career in 3D

8/8/2019 21 Insider Tips to Enhance Your Career in 3D

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21 insider tips to enhance your career in 3D

What distinguishes a merely excellent 3D artist from a

studioµs key team member? To answer the question, we

asked leading games, VFX and architectural facilities tonominate their most valuable players ± then pressed the

nominees for their tips for standing out from your peers

within the industry

Industrial Light & Magic

www.ilm.com

The Expert: David Meny

Position: Digital Production Supervisor

TIP #1 - FIGHT FOR MORE RESOURCES

Give your staff as many resources as you can. That means an ample productionschedule, artwork and a creative vision they can follow, but also as much machine time

as possible. The more iterations an artist can do on a job, the better the work will be. Inour facility at ILM, we doubled our proc pool in order to do Pirates of the Caribbean 3,

Transformers, Evan Almighty and the new Harry Potter movie, all of which had more

or less parallel schedules. Even with those extra resources, it was pretty challenging ±

but without them, it would have been a nightmare.

TIP #2 - EMBRACE MAJOR CHANGES

Donµt be afraid to make fundamental changes to your way of working. At ILM, we had

a watershed year [in 2005] with War of the Worlds and The Island, when we went from

NURBS to subdivision surfaces like the rest of the industry. It was a big transition,

because it wasnµt just our software that had changed: it was the modelling

fundamentals. As a result, we also had re-learn our approaches to rendering, look

development and texturing. But it wasnµt as difficult as I feared it would be because theunderlying concepts are the same: itµs just a different approach.

TIP #3 - KEEP AN EYE ON COMPETITORS When youµre at the cutting edge of visual effects, you can never feel comfortable. Keep

learning new skill sets. Keep an eye on the different software that is being developed.

And continue watching the work that other facilities are doing. Even the biggest studios

have to keep up with the industry.



Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

eu.playstation.com

The Expert: Lee CarusPosition: CG Supervisor

TIP #4 - PLAY TO TEAM MEMBERS' STRENGTHSWhen I rejoined Sony, I was handed a group of very talented individuals, but they

werenµt really a team. My first task was to get them all pulling in the same direction, so

I set them off on a project that required no CG but which made sure that they all worked

together. By deconstructing the team, I discovered what people really wanted to do and

what their latent skills were. For example, I found I had an extremely talented conceptartist who had been labouring over polygon modelling, which he really didnµt enjoy.

Sometimes itµs not about art: itµs about making sure youµre getting the best out of the people you have.

TIP #5 - WHEN IN TROUBLE, BRING IN NEW BLOODMany moons ago, I was brought in to troubleshoot a PlayStation game called Colony

Wars. It had been burning money for over a year and really wasnµt going anywhere. The

fi rst task was to re-establish some form of art direction, but since we didnµt have time

to do a full-on creative bible, we had to go for a high-turnaround plan/do/review process

± not ideal by any means. Nevertheless, within a couple of months of myself, a new

producer and star graphics coder coming on board, marketing started to take notice.

From the ashes of a project leaking money, we turned Colony Wars into a million-seller.

TIP #6 - WORSHIP THE GLITCH... One night when I was working late on the cinematic for the original Wipeout, the fax

machine bleeped into life. [Legendary design agency] The Designers Republic had been brought in to work on the styling for the packshot, but it was the header on their

coversheet that really interested me. I quickly scanned it in and mapped it onto the sideof the Wipeout ship ± it had a grainy quality that was exactly what I was looking for!

The studio heads and marketing took a look the next day and from this point TDRµsinvolvement snowballed. This generated a huge amount of positive PR for us and Iµd

like to think helped Wipeout to become established as one of the first µcoolµ games out

there.

Blur Studio

www.blur.com



The Expert: Dave Wilson

Position: Senior CG Supervisor

TIP #7 - BUILD A BALANCED TEAM

While tasks like lighting, art direction and solving technical challenges are prettystraightforward ± and obviously necessary if youµre the CG Supervisor ± itµs the lessobvious skill sets that often reap the greatest rewards. One of the most important pieces

of advice that I can offer is to give artists enough freedom to bring their own ideas and

creativity to the table while keeping the project consistent. Nobody wants to be just a

pair of hands. Someone much smarter than me told me once that great supervisors

surround themselves with artists better than themselves. I try to do that as much as

possible. They inspire me to lead them to the best of my ability.

TIP #8 - REMEMBER TO DELEGATE

As much as I love to lead by example and put in the extra effort to make each projectthe best that it can be, Iµve realised that balance is key. Itµs very important to delegate

responsibility, not only because it helps the team to feel like theyµre invested in each project, but because it helps me focus my strengths where they can make the most

signifi cant impact. Maintaining an enjoyable working process for each project is vital.

Itµs all about longevity: keeping teams happy, healthy and with you for the long haul.

TIP #9 - USE PRE±VIZ AS A MOTIVATIONAL TOOLLately, I have been trying to put as much effort as I can into the pre-viz work at Blur.

Iµve found that starting out on a project with great storyboards, concept art and an

awesome animatic really sets the pace for the project. This pre-planning and

anticipation helps alleviate any hiccups that might crop up throughout production. But

almost as importantly, Iµve found that having a really kick-ass, adrenaline-pumping

animatic not only gets our clients excited about their project, but gets the team geared

up too.

Smoothe

www.smoothe.co.uk

The Expert: Robin Lawrie

Position: Head of Animation

TIP #10 - MISUSE TOOLS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

I get a real kick from using tools in ways they were not initially intended. One recentexample was a project that required extensive use of moving objects and light sources.

Obviously, in cases like this, Global illumination is problematic: you either face hugerender times or noisy sequences. But one characteristic of the noise in GI is that it is



essentially random, whereas the changes in lighting in a scene occur over many frames,

as a light or object moves in space. By using the wonderful, scriptable V-Ray, we wereable to calculate the lighting for each frame at average quality levels, before blending

the solutions with those of the frames on either side. The end result was much reducedGI noise, and consequently lower frame times.

Aardman Animations

www.aardman.com

The Expert: Bram TtwheamPosition: Senior Compositor, Commercials CG Dept.

TIP #11 - FORGET ABOUT PHOTOREALISMWhile much film and advertising work is grounded in reality, nine times out of ten,

photorealism is a creatively redundant pursuit. In my experience, the most rewarding

work has very little to do with the real world. If youµre lucky enough to find yourself working with a talented director or designer, do your best to accommodate their vision,

no matter what it entails. Donµt be afraid to throw any sympathetic technique availableto you at a project, no matter how intangible it may seem. If youµre lucky, you may just

stumble across something fresh and exciting. Of course, you may just stumble« but

hey, itµs always worth the risk!

TIP #12 - FINE±TUNE IN THE COMPOSITE

You can do far more work in the composite then you may at first suspect, and itµs a brilliant way to work. You can spend a long time fiddling around with shaders in 3D to

achieve something that is actually quite straightforward in the comp. If youµre doing

effects, or even using particles, you may well get superior results this way, as it issimply more intuitive.

Ghost

www.ghost.dk

The Expert: Martin Gårdeler

Position: VFX Supervisor and Studio Co-Founder

TIP #13 - USE REAL ELEMENTS WHERE YOU CAN



The human eye is very sensitive to µfakeµ things. However, if you put one small µrealµ

thing in your shot, like a filmed texture, your eyes accept the rest of the image moreeasily. For example, for a recent Tuborg beer commercial, we had to simulate beer

pouring into invisible containers. But we only had two weeks of production time, andfluid simulation is notoriously difficult to get right. I used a relatively simple RealFlow

simulation for the pouring motion, defining the bottle. Then I decided that the only way

to make the shot look right was to get something real in there ± like filling up a mid-sizeaquarium with beer and filming it! And thatµs pretty much what we did. The live-action

plates were mapped onto the simulated fl uid, and the whole shot was comped together

with CG bottles revealing their real counterparts.

Double Negative

www.dneg.com

The Expert: Martin Parsons

Position: Head of Creature Development

TIP #14 - LOOK FOR REUSABLE SOLUTIONSIt pays to think long-term when tackling short-term issues. When solving a problem in

the present, think how your solution could help you in the future. On my first project atDouble Negative, Batman Begins, I set up Batmanµs rig in such a way that it forms the

basis for all the rigs we use today. This means no time is wasted, no thought processesare repeated; all intellectual activity is spent on improving, rather than re-doing.

TIP #15 - DRAW ON NON±CG SOURCESDeadlines permitting, avoid working excessive hours. This helps to keep the mind fresh,

leaving fertile ground for new ideas. I find that time walking around art galleries,cooking or just gazing out the window can help to yield solutions to knotty problems.

Not all problems have technical solutions; much can be done by craft and artistry.Velázquez and Rodinµs later styles show us that what is important is what the viewer

sees, not the meticulous representation of detail. Understand what it is you are trying toconvey.

Animal Logic

www.animallogic.com

The Expert: Emmanuel BlassetPosition: 3D Lead



TIP #16 - USE DETAILS TO SELL A SHOT

In Happy Feet, there was something about transitioning between above and below thewaterline that never felt quite right, especially in the leopard seal sequence: the shot

where Mumble gets thrown off a little berg by a giant beast and falls into the sea. We

were in need of a high-tech solution: a clean Pyrex dish filled with water rested againsta black shirt while we blew air through a straw from one side and took photos from theother with a digital camera. It was only used for five frames ± blink and youµll miss it ±

but it made the transition work.

A52

www.a52.com

The Expert: Andy Hall

Position: VFX Supervisor and Head of 3D

TIP #17 - TAKE AN INTEREST IN NON±CG CREATIVESA lot of CG professionals only take an interest in their own little part of a job, but itµs

vital to know the industry from an agency point of view as well as a production or post- production standpoint. Look out for which director did which job, which DP shot which

spot, and which agency they worked with. This gives you an appreciation for the bigger picture and makes you much more aware of opportunities, industry trends and work to

aspire to.

TIP #18 - OBSERVE HOW PEOPLE COMMUNICATE

If you get to go on set, study how the director transmits his or her vision and why theychoose to shoot things in certain way. When youµre working with a supervisor, consider

whether their interactions with the client and the team best serves the job. Being a greatartist is as much about observing other people as it is about technical skills: if you can

gain an insight into how a director or agency works, it will make your interaction on a job much more rewarding ± and, as a result, successful.

Blitz Games

www.blitzgames.com

The Expert: Steve ThomsonPosition: Art Direction Manager



TIP #19 - GET INVOLVED IN TRAINING COLLEAGUES

Because the industry is now moving so quickly, the process of creating new assets takesa lot of research. I joined our technology team over a year ago to help shape our next-

gen tools. But on top of helping to craft the tools, artists need to be involved in making

sure the other staff know how to get the most out of them. Weµve been activelysupporting the Blitz Academy, our internal peer-to-peer training solution. Helping totrain other staff means developing your skills in a new direction, and can be a big

challenge ± but ultimately, itµs a necessary and very rewarding one.

DreamWorks

www.dreamworksanimation.com

The Expert: Matt Baer

Position: Head of Effects

TIP #20 - BREAK LARGE TASKS INTO MODULES For the sequence in Madagascar in which Marty the zebra surfs on dolphins, I and three

other effects artists assigned to the shot broke down the elements we had to create in amodular way. This enabled us to combine them into a single comp in which they would

all appear to interact properly, even though many elements were dependent on others.We built it in such a way that it allowed for both a combined comp and temp comps that

only contained the elements we wanted comments on. This allowed for immediatefeedback on each artistµs contribution as well as the overall shot.

TIP #21 - REMEMBER: CODERS ARE YOUR FRIENDSDonµt be afraid of talking to programmers. I owe much of what I know today about CG

to my co-workers at Wavefront: if I ever had a question about the renderer, I could walk down the hall and get a half-hour explanation of how and why it worked in a certain

way. Wavefront was a very collaborative company and I really appreciated those whowould share time in this way.

Are you an industry-insider? Share your tips in the comments below, or join our other

members in the 3D World forum.

This article first appeared in Issue 92 of 3D World magazine.

For more expert knowledge read 3D World magazine each month. Youµll find our latest

subscription offers and back issues available to order atwww.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk .

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21 Insider Tips to Enhance Your Career in 3D