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Illustrator Tutorial creating a 3D Hammer

2008-06-30T15:28:00.000-07:00

In this tutorial I will show you how to create a 3D hammer using Illustrator.

Let us get started!!

Download Source File

Step 1: Create a new document in Illustrator.

Step2: In the tools panel select Rounded Rectangle Tool.

Step 3: Now draw a rounded rectangle on the screen.

Step 4: Select Fill color as white and remove the Stroke color. You can remove the Stroke color by selecting Default Transparency on the Appearance Panel. Now change the Stroke weight to zero.

Step 5: Now left click the rounded rectangle. Click Effects on menu bar and select 3D and select Extrude & Bevel.

Step 6: Select Preview option.

Now change values in the text box,

Rotate on X-axis: 58

Rotate on Y-axis: -76

Rotate on Z-axis: 43

Set Extrude Depth as 346 pt

In Bevel select Complex 2

Select Height as 12 pt

Step 7: Now the rounded rectangle will appear like this,

Step 8: Similarly draw two circles, one circle slightly bigger than the other.

Select the bigger give it dark shade color and remove the stroke color.

Left click on the bigger circle, select Effects -> 3D -> Extrude & Bevel.

Set X-axis rotation: -171

Set Y-axis rotation: -68

Set Z-axis rotation: 1

Extrude Depth: 58 pt

Bevel: None

Step 9: Now select the smaller circle, give it a light color shade and remove the Stroke color.

Left click on the smaller circle, select Effects -> 3D -> Extrude & Bevel.

Set X-axis rotation: -171

Set Y-axis rotation: -68

Set Z-axis rotation: 1

Extrude Depth: 462 pt

Bevel: None

Now the two circles will look like this,

Step 10: Finally align all the pieces to make 3D hammer.

N-Sided® version QUIDAM 2.1, the character creation software

2008-04-07T19:26:00.000-07:00

Already greeted for its speed, its very intuitive interface and its productivity, QUIDAM is unique in merging various anatomical elements into one seamless model. A single Base (Model Pack) of QUIDAM can generate billions of different characters!
Moreover, QUIDAM offers artists a full set of advanced tools for sculpting creations to the last detail and a complete 3D Paint palette to add colors, textures, bump and transparency on the models.
QUIDAM is the only software that exports multiresolution 3D characters, entirely textured and ready to be animated into any 3D animation software.

QUIDAM 2.1 corrects some flaws and brings a lot of optimizations and above all enriches QUIDAM 2.0 with a bunch of new features that will delight all users.
An overview of the main new features:

Sculpture
- An Eraser allows you to progressively remove all the retouches and deformations that you have done on the model
- New options are available to absorb the deformations and avoid too big stretching or mesh collisions
- You can now generate meshes at the subdivision level in order to refine a model for subtle retouches
- A system lets you adjust smooth angle and edges sharpness
- A new option invert normals from a selection of faces when needed

Textures and 3DPaint
- Advanced options to support sensitive tablets directly into the 3DPaint Module
- A very handy and precious widget to directly manipulate background images to trace over
- The possibility to Cut and Paste Materials

Import-Export
- You can now select the objects to be exported from a list
- Automatic Group detection when importing Custom Props. It allows you to import full textured characters or objects made of different groups and textures
-QUIDAM now supports 3D mice devices from 3DConnexion

Misc.
- Objects can be now rotated within precise angle values
- A better compatibility with Vista
- A new and optimized triangulation system to better display and export non-convex polygons
- Etc.

detailed and textured in Photoshop and Zbrush, rendered in Scanline

2008-03-05T10:56:00.000-08:00

Here is a beautiful model by an artist known as grassetti, as when i first saw this 3D work, the rendering, color usage, detail work is just phenomenal. Grassetti is a fan of Warhammer Art so that was his inspiration for this work. Hats off to him for a great 3D Studio Max rendering project.

Ford Focus WRC concept 3ds max, mental ray, Photoshop

2008-02-13T19:14:00.000-08:00

There isn't much i can say about this artist but the simple 3 letter "WOW"
I had to post some of his digital 3D artwork just for the fact that his work not only renders beauty and clarity, but also his vision and ideas are astounding.
His name is Neville Dsouza. For this piece below, which was composed in i believe 2006, a beautiful design of the Ford Focus WRC. He designed this 3D model in 3Ds Max, Metal Ray and finished up the touch up with Photoshop. Here is what he had to say about this work.

">> The How ...
< Modeling >
It took at least 8 - 14 months to finish this model, mainly due to my laziness... plus, at one point i completely stopped everything, so after a gap of 4 months, i continued with the modeling process again...
I used subdivision polymodeling ... no nurbs at all! ...
lots of edge extrusions, chamfering, outlining, insets, subdividing etc ...
It was tough, but worth the effort! i was really scared when it came to detaching the different parts of the car, i had to maintain the design 'flow' , i didn't want any blocky sections.
As you can see at the bottom of the pic, the polygon count is a freaked out 2236691 !
My graphic card took a good beating when it came to 505 objects, which is mainly because of the tyres; the nuts, bolts, caliper, disk brakes ( too bad they are not seen much )
The main shell cover of the car has a meshsmooth iteration of 3 !
There were a lot of problems during the modeling process, once the objects started to increase, so did the polygon count, then memory, then viewport display was slowing down, which of course my graphic card wouldnt be able to handle it all, so there was one life saving option... select the group of components that had a higher polygon count and check mark the
[ display as box ] option in the properties dialog...
I also started to 'categorize' the objects using layers ... this helped a great deal while modeling, i can hide completed components whenever i wanted to thereby saving a lot of memory while working on the new sections of the car.... very cool indeed! its just like using layers in photoshop and illustrator ...
< Materials >
The materials used here comprise of standard max shaders and mental ray.
for the outer shell of the model, rubber parts, tyres etc. standard shaders were used, but, for the glass objects like headlights, bulb, rearlights etc. mental ray glass physics phen was used.
As for the texturing, which is obviously the trickiest, painstaking task of all... i used good ol' texporter! very helpful plugin for max!
Now to mask all the decals ( sponsors, numbers, paint strips etc. ) i had to use the blend material. The map channel option was used extensively as well!
Below is a link giving a full description of how to use the blend material and channels to the maximum level!
A plus, even the modeling process is shown here... a Nissan R390 GT ...
http://www.enriconencini.com/tutorials.htm
very informative, but take time to understand it carefully, its worth it!
Another addition to the group is the ' composite map ' ... this too is equally important ...
> i'll update this post soon once i find the link...
< lighting >
The lighting setup used in this project is slightly different :
> Skylight : this light provided the overall Gi
> Free Area light : i specifically used 2 of these lights for ' speculars ' on the model with the diffuse option turned off, this helps when you only want to show that gloss or shine and you don't want the colours to be affected, in other words, washed out!
You will have to play around with the multiplier to check up on the gloss intensity, so... test renderings galore!
I even excluded the ground plane from illumination and shadow casting, plus i turned off cast shadows for headlights, bulbs and rearlights in the properties dialog.
> Lightplanes : these planes were used for the additional illumination and most importantly, reflections.
For this the glow lume shader fit the bill!
< Rendering >
All of you know, i'm a crazy person when it comes to mental ray! love the renderer to the core! maxwell comes a close second!, then V - ray ...
actually, this is just my personal opinion, in the end it all depends on how well you manipulate the renderer to the fullest.
As for the rendering of all the scenes, it was a major disaster! it took at least a week to finish it off!
Since my graphic card konked out... i had to bring my work to the institute and render the images...not to mention regular power cuts from 3:00pm - 6:00pm. But, somehow i managed ... correct me if i'm wrong, but, i think its best to collapse the entire modifier stack to improve rendering speed...
At 800 x 480 for each of the views, it took 4 - 6 hrs ... even more, depending on the camera angle and the materials used.
Also, without the settings for BSP, Map manager and memory limit , max would shut down immediately after hitting the render button! thanks to the high polygon count!
These options were very new to me in the initial stage, so i had to look it up in the reference file to see how i can render scenes with high polygon count.
>> The end ...
Even after experimenting with the settings, still the rendering would take very long. Which left me no other alternative but to render the entire scene in 'regions'
Yup! region rendering it is!
dividing the scene into 2 parts or 2 regions ... i finally got the rendering started!
Thats that!
The rest was the assembly of all the images and few corrections in photoshop..."

Skull Violin Player in 3D Max, Photoshop

2008-01-09T01:47:00.000-08:00

Florian Delarque is a French artist who has beautiful skills of rendering 3D work and Photoshop skills. I thought i would post one of his old work in 2004 called the Skull The Violin Player. Here is what he had to say about this work of art.
"With Skull,I wanted to create a sweet character .
Sküll plays violin and he loves it...and he loves to share his passion for music with other .I used 3DSmax and the scanline renderer to create it and Photosho for the textures."

I love the expression on Skull's face, sort of a wicked character with a soft and friendly smile.

3D Model of Audi Q7, 3DS max 8

2007-12-14T16:49:00.000-08:00

I happen to stumple upon a wicked cool 3D model of an Audi Q7 done up in 3DS Max 8 and thought i would share it with everyone. The colors are so vivid and reflectors of headlights modeled with many fine details. Amount of polygons is specified at MeshSmooth iterations 2. Enjoy this work of art. PS: I found this image on exchange3d website.

Instant Thumbnail Size Control - Photoshop Tip

2007-12-14T16:19:00.000-08:00

Want to change the size of your thumbnail preview in your Layers, Channels, or Paths palettes in Photoshop? Hold the Control key (PC: Right-click) and click in an open area of the palette (such as the space under your Background layer or beneath the bottom channel in the Channels palette), and a pop-up menu of thumbnail sizes will appear. For instance, in the Layers palette you can choose from No, Small, Medium, or Large Thumbnails instantly changing your thumbnail view.

3D Plant Animation Substantia

2007-12-10T15:54:00.000-08:00

Mayec Rancel & José Angel Soto are Two young animators with a beautiful story to tell, they were fitted into a project together outside of this school at the end of the September 2005. This project became ‘Substantia.’ I thought i would post their animation piece for all future animators to view this beautiful masterpiece that involves fluids, fire, freezing and melting ice, energy fields and a growing plant.

The Great Flight, penguin rocket 3D MAX

2007-11-30T02:46:00.000-08:00

Penguin model from 3dm3.com using 3D Max Zbrush and Photoshop. I love the textures on the rocket, so thick rich and cartoonie...is that a word cartoonie?

Interview with Jacobo Rojo, Making of Audi R8 in Desert

2007-11-30T02:38:00.000-08:00

3DM3 introduce to you interview with Jacobo Rojo - "Making of Audi R8 in Desert" author and Arte-3D Modelling Studio founder and owner.

Hi Jacobo, talk first a little bit about yourself and how you got started in 3D?
I’m 37 years old and I live in Mexico city. Well my profession is Graphic Design, from the very beginning of my studies I begin learning 3d Studio version 2 in MS-DOS from my own because 3D has always interested me a lot and I used it very often in my work, I worked 9 years as a Graphic Designer and a couple of years ago I decided to start my own business Arte-3D Modeling Studio.

Why you select cars as the main subject of your creativity?
I got inspired after watching all the 3D cars from other authors and because they where a real challenge to me at that time.

What applications do you use?
At the very beginning I started using Rhino but I ended up with 3ds Max because the meshes were much lighter and easy to render than converted models from a nurbs software.
Your cars look very realistic! What of render you used to reach similar realism?
I use Mental Ray and Vray, both engines are very powerful. Lately I’m working more with Vray, I find it a little faster and lighting results are beautiful.

You have your own “Arte-3D Modeling studio”. Tell us about its history and what the current main work and tasks of your studio?
I started with it a couple of years ago and it’s been a good time and fun running my own business.

How many people’s except you works on “Arte-3D Modeling Studio” ?
It’s just me and when it’s required I hire extra freelance 3d

Tell us about your favorite car that you ever make in 3D and your favorite car in real life.
I like all the cars that I model in 3D because each one is a different challenge and on every model you get better and better but specially I like the Porsche Carrera GT and The Audi R8. In real life my all time favorite cars are Porsche’s and I have to join the Audi R8 cause I really like its design.

What are your next models and projects for nearest future?
Well it’s hard to manage your own business, in one part I have to make models for my site and in the other side I have to attend my clients so free time is very rare.

What a computer (hardware) you have?
A Dell Workstation - Dual Xeon, 4 GB Ram, GForce X800 GTX, and two big HD.

How do you spend your free time?
With family mainly and when I have time I play the drums.

Car models are always one of most popular category in galleries, model shops and challenges. So few words of advice for beginners which want to learn to create so perfect cars as yours?
Well thanks for the comment. I would tell them to study, practice a lot and have a good observing in real life objects. That’s the key for making good 3D scenes and of course try to take your own creativity beyond your limits, showing your own work to others for serious critics is really helpful too.

Thanks for interesting dialogue.
All images copyrigths belong to Jacobo Rojo and Arte-3D Modelling Studio

Freedom of Teach - Maya Training

2007-11-29T03:47:00.001-08:00

Product Overview:
This Superior Instructional DVD, teaches you a step by step system for building all the major muscle groups of the body, from basic blocking to the finished model with all the muscles.

An excellent 3D modeling tutorial for Intermediate to Advanced 3D Modelers. Ideal for:

- VFX Professionals
- Video Game Professionals
- Students
- Aspiring 3D modelers
- Reference for artists

Organic Modeling I: Human Anatomy Male, is the first Computer 3D modeling instructional DVD that will take you from start to finish of the complete superficial layer of human anatomy in a single mesh, muscle by muscle, from basic blocking to the finished muscle definition with an efficient use of resolution. No step is skipped or incomplete.

Other Benefits:
- Taught by VFX Modeler & instructor Tareq Mirza, who has worked on many major movies including The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Star Wars Episode 2, and Pirates of the Carribean.
- Shows Polygon/SubD modeling techniques of professionals & utilizes the "box technique".
- Created in Maya 6.0, but techniques used can be applied in most polygon/subD modeling packages, including: Modo, Lightwave, Silo, XSi and many others.
- Refines the model like sculpting in clay by selectively adding detail.
- Start to finish of a complete human model in Maya, but anatomy and construction principles and techniques applicable to all major Polygon/subD software packages.
- Double the content of other instructional DVDs, with 4 hours of content.
- This DVD will play on all computer systems but if it is to be viewed on a TV screen an NTSC compatible DVD player will be required.

Email cdsupport@3dtotal.com with any questions or phone the 3DTotal UK Studio on 01905 29764 -
outside UK dial 44 1905 29764

ELEMENTAL 3, Ballistic Publishing and Autodesk, Inc

2007-11-28T02:53:00.000-08:00

Ballistic Publishing and Autodesk, Inc. are proud to announce ELEMENTAL 3, the third book celebrating the creative talents of digital artists using Autodesk’s content creation solutions.

ELEMENTAL 3 Entry Deadline: March 24th 2008, Midnight GMT

Call for Entries - Ballistic Publishing is now calling all artists to submit digital images for consideration to be included in ELEMENTAL 3. Images should be predominantly created using Autodesk products. We are interested in digitally-created fine art for commercial use, or personal satisfaction, in the following categories: Architectural Public Interior, Architectural Residential Interior, Architectural Exterior, Architectural Reconstruction, Character in Repose, Character in Action, Creature in Repose, Gaming/Broadcast Design, Environment, Product Design, Abstract & Design, and Transport.

There is no cost or limit to enter work for inclusion in ELEMENTAL 3. In the legacy of all Ballistic Publishing showcase publications, all artists with work published in ELEMENTAL 3 will receive a complimentary copy of the book and will enjoy worldwide exposure in the premier collection of Autodesk-created artwork to ever be published.

ENTER NOW

Autodesk Maya 2008 Review

2007-11-15T00:04:00.000-08:00

Since the acquisition of Alias by Autodesk in 2006, the 3D industry has been anxiously anticipating a dramatic overhaul of the Maya software. The subsequent versions, Maya 8 and 8.5, showed adequate improvement and a few significant new features, such as 64 bit support and python integration, however they did not live up to most users raised expectations. Thanks to CGChannel and Autodesk, I received a copy of the recently announced Maya 2008. Although it's not the grand transformation that we've all been hoping for, it once again introduces more powerful, streamlined features that most users will benefit from.

So whats new?
Maya 2008 brings a great number of new features and improvements over the current tools for both the complete and unlimited editions. In my opinion, the two biggest areas of improvement are polygon/subdivision modeling and character rigging. The rendering pipeline also received notable upgrades in this version. Overall I saw improved stability, but to my disappointment, it seems as though the animation toolset received little attention since the previous version of Maya.
The Maya Mesh Smooth workflow has been dramatically streamlined: users can now preview a smoothed mesh while editing the mesh cage. Variable creasing is now supported on vertices as well as edges, providing greater control over the resulting surface shape.

First Impressions:
The first thing you might notice is ViewCube, the new navigation helper in the top right corner of the perspective viewport. Besides the design change, there are more preset angles available. Once set, you now have the option to rotate the camera, all without leaving the perspective viewport. Otherwise, the overall layout and interface have not noticeably changed.

Improvements in Modeling:
Probably the most impressive addition to Maya 2008 is the Smooth Mesh Preview. With this feature, polygon objects become an amalgamation of Maya's polygon smooth proxy mode and a subdivision surface. When the polygon object is selected, you can now quickly raise or lower the resolution to one, two, or three levels of smoothness by simply pressing the 1 , 2 or 3 keys on the keyboard. For those that require higher levels of detail, additional subdivisions are available by using the Page Up or Page Down hot keys. Furthermore, you can model both the base cage or the result object, no matter the resolution, without adding a single deformer. In summary, it pretty much eliminates the necessity of the "smooth" deformer. This feature alone is a tremendous time saver, either for personal use or if your studio's pipeline utilizes Maya as its modeling package.

The second greatest advancement that works harmoniously with the new Smooth Mesh Preview option is the Crease Tool. Stored under Polygon (mesh) tools, this handy feature allows you to crease edges or vertices in real-time, without modifying the topology. Better yet, it couldn't be easier to use. Simply select one or more vertices and/or edges in the cage of your model and middle mouse dial the crease as much as you want.

Another related feature is the Reduce option. It keeps the topology in quads rather then converting it into triangles, as it did in previous versions. I was impressed by the clean, accurate results. This is very useful for creating lower resolution representations of your model. I predict it will be especially helpful for riggers or those that are concerned with a limited polygon count. This feature also allows you to cache the result and playback reduced geometry at high speeds, without deleting history.

Other notable improvements related to modeling include: the Slide Edge Tool, which lets you easily select and slide edges on polygonal surfaces, pickwalking for edgeloops and components, and an improved Polygon Bevel Tool, which now carefully handles UV assignments. There are also several new hot keys for the Artisan painting tool. If you hold the Ctrl key while painting, it will alternate the tool's action from Add to Remove. Likewise, holding the Shift key while painting will change the action to Smooth. These may be minor additions, but they improve a users productivity and speed, and we all know that in this industry, time is money.

The one modeling feature I was hoping would debut in Maya 2008 is a true sculpting toolset. I can only hope for better next time based on Autodesk's recent acquisition of Mudbox.

Improvements in Modeling:
Probably the most impressive addition to Maya 2008 is the Smooth Mesh Preview. With this feature, polygon objects become an amalgamation of Maya's polygon smooth proxy mode and a subdivision surface. When the polygon object is selected, you can now quickly raise or lower the resolution to one, two, or three levels of smoothness by simply pressing the 1 , 2 or 3 keys on the keyboard. For those that require higher levels of detail, additional subdivisions are available by using the Page Up or Page Down hot keys. Furthermore, you can model both the base cage or the result object, no matter the resolution, without adding a single deformer. In summary, it pretty much eliminates the necessity of the "smooth" deformer. This feature alone is a tremendous time saver, either for personal use or if your studio's pipeline utilizes Maya as its modeling package.

The second greatest advancement that works harmoniously with the new Smooth Mesh Preview option is the Crease Tool. Stored under Polygon (mesh) tools, this handy feature allows you to crease edges or vertices in real-time, without modifying the topology. Better yet, it couldn't be easier to use. Simply select one or more vertices and/or edges in the cage of your model and middle mouse dial the crease as much as you want.

Another related feature is the Reduce option. It keeps the topology in quads rather then converting it into triangles, as it did in previous versions. I was impressed by the clean, accurate results. This is very useful for creating lower resolution representations of your model. I predict it will be especially helpful for riggers or those that are concerned with a limited polygon count. This feature also allows you to cache the result and playback reduced geometry at high speeds, without deleting history.

Other notable improvements related to modeling include: the Slide Edge Tool, which lets you easily select and slide edges on polygonal surfaces, pickwalking for edgeloops and components, and an improved Polygon Bevel Tool, which now carefully handles UV assignments. There are also several new hot keys for the Artisan painting tool. If you hold the Ctrl key while painting, it will alternate the tool's action from Add to Remove. Likewise, holding the Shift key while painting will change the action to Smooth. These may be minor additions, but they improve a users productivity and speed, and we all know that in this industry, time is money.

The one modeling feature I was hoping would debut in Maya 2008 is a true sculpting toolset. I can only hope for better next time based on Autodesk's recent acquisition of Mudbox.

Improvements in Cloth:
Overall, NCloth did not receive many changes. The major additions are the NConstraint Membership Tool and improvements to Wind Effect. In general, the wind dynamic behaves much more naturally. I also noticed a new feature that creates a fake wind-blocking effect.

Improvements in Rendering:
The rendering toolset received several updates as well. You can now preview and render normal maps in object space. Rendering hardware particles in mental ray is also now available, even with motion blur. Maya 2008 also lets you convert your textures to openEXR. In doing this, mental ray only loads a portion of the textures necessary for the render, allowing you to render texture-heavy scenes much faster.

Another new feature converts Maya hair into native mental ray hair by default. There are many new mental ray shaders available, including the new material_x shader which lets you simulate architectural materials. In addition, native mental ray light linking is supported so you no longer have to worry about individual light linking per shader. IPR rendering also received great improvements, especially in the speed of its render time.

Improvements in API:
The most noticeable change is the upgrade of Python Interpreter to version 2.5. I was glad to find new documentation about PyQT and specifically getting QT to run in Maya, which was included in the Maya 2008 devkit. For those who are unfamiliar, QT is a cross-platform interface framework used for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) which most studios use extensively.

I also discovered new classes added to OpenMayaAPI, such as hardware shading and proxy constraint API, as well as support for the threading of non-Maya API code and an octree-based closest-point-to-mesh algorithm.

Final Thoughts:
Maya 2008 is a solid release with many streamlined improvements in the modeling, rigging and rendering toolsets. This is especially great if you are using Maya in a small company to handle the majority of your pipeline. Many of the added features should have been present in earlier versions, so with this release I believe it would be fair to say that Maya is playing catch-up to its biggest competitors, rather then setting industry standards as it once did. Hopefully the next version will pay greater attention to the animation tools, as I believe it's the most prominent reason that Maya is losing its users to XSI. With the growing competition nipping at its heels, Autodesk needs to rise to the challenge and deliver a truly revolutionized product in 2009.

How to draw Wolverine Video

2007-11-13T20:56:00.000-08:00

Learn some steps to draw Wolverine by Augusto. Very talented artist who uses photoshop to draw characters. Enjoy his youtube video on how to draw wolverine.

HD Flash Video for the web Flash Player 9

2007-11-11T22:10:00.000-08:00

At a recent Adobe MAX conference, I was quietly sitting in a comfy chair absorbing the information overload, when an attendee from my session earlier that day plunked herself down beside me and shared her own Flash video story. Her clients, seeing all of those gorgeous sites out there that use Flash video, wanted to jump on the bandwagon, too. They said what I have heard all too often: “I have the stuff on DVD.”
This meant she’d need to obtain the source files from the studio or shop that created the videos, convert the videos to the FLV format used by Flash, and post them to the client’s site. Inevitably, a couple of days later, the client phones, complaining that:

* The videos have been resized down to 320 by 240 from their original size of 848 by 480.
* The video they gave you was sharp and the one they are looking at is fuzzy.
* The full screen version of the video looks horrible and pixelated.

Having experienced this, she was wondering if it was worth all the aggravation, and said, “What am I doing wrong?”

My answer was, “Nothing.” Those issues won’t go away, because moving from High Definition (HD) to FLV means a loss of quality. It is similar to moving a Photoshop high-resolution TIFF image to the JPG format—the loss in quality can’t be avoided.

This is a conversation that I have all too frequently, as web developers cope with an increasing demand from their clients to incorporate video into their sites.

Wouldn’t it be great if that conversation was a thing of the past? Don’t you wish you could take source video and simply heave it onto a website and have it play at full size, at full sharpness, and not have to worry about bandwidth, resolution, and file size? The news is that your wish may have been granted.

Adobe released a beta of the Flash Player this past August and, in the process, may have kicked off yet another web video revolution by making the whole process of putting high definition video on the web incredibly easy. How? By allowing us to use .mov files—which anyone on a Mac or Windows can create using Quicktime Pro, or anyone with an HD camera and video editing software can make with ease.

It’s all still in beta, and, yes, you should still learn how to put video on the web effectively using Flash, Flix, or Sorenson Squeeze, but right down the road are some incredible changes that will make the process of putting video on the web not only easier, but result in much higher quality than we could have expected even six months ago.

SEO Friendly Shopping Cart

2007-11-10T02:53:00.001-08:00

Lest we cause any confusion, I am using the term "shopping cart" to refer to any of the software that is used for cataloging, organizing, or otherwise displaying products on an ecommerce site, in addition to the pages involved in the checkout process.

1. URL structure. The structure of your URLs is critical. The URL should appear to search engines to be a static page, or in other words, the search engine shouldn't be able to tell that the page is pulling information from a database as opposed to just having been built completely from scratch in raw HTML. Ideally you'll want the ability to specify the exact text of the URL so that you can include your keywords in it in the way that will produce the best results.

Bad URL - www.yourcompany.com/products/product.php?lkghl5323FDgdfd

Slightly Better URL - www.yourcompany.com/products/product000224123.html

Best URL - www.yourcompany.com/computers/software/anti-virus/mcafee-antivirus80.html

The first URL tells us nothing by itself, and guess what? That means the search engine can't tell anything from the URL either. The second URL is slightly better in that it at least looks like a static page, but the difference between these two URLs is very slight compared to the third URL.

Without knowing anything else about this website, what can we tell just from the URL? We can tell that this website sells computer stuff, including anti-virus software, and we also know they specifically sell McAfee's anti virus software and we can tell what version they sell. This means that if someone searches on Google for "computers", "software", "anti virus software", or "mcafee anti virus software" this page has a chance of coming up in the rankings even if nothing else were done to make the page or site SEO friendly. All things being equal, a shopping cart with this kind of URL structure is going to rank higher than one that doesn't.

2. Title tag control. If you're not clear on what title tags are read our post on title tag basics. Title tags are a huge part of what search engines use to rank a website, and having control over them is imperative. Make sure your shopping cart software allows you to type in exactly what text you want to be contained in the title tag of each and every page.

You'll also want to make sure the title tag is not connected to any other information, such as the page name. Sometimes software will allow you to type in text for a title tag but that text also shows up visibly on the page or in the navigation. You don't want that. You want complete control over the title tag without it affecting anything else whatsoever.

3. Meta tags. Meta tags won't have a huge effect on SEO, per se, but they can have a large effect on getting people to click on your link in search engine results, since the text contained in the meta description tag shows up in search engines. You'll want complete control over the meta description tag so that you can create text that will interest search engine users and cause them to click through.

4. Clean HtML. This should be a given, but you need a shopping cart that produces clean HTML that is mostly tableless and uses up to date HTML/CSS.

Making of Autobot with 3D Studio Max 9, 3D Tutorial

2007-11-08T13:05:00.000-08:00

Making an AutoBot with 3D studio Max 9

by Tamas Tothfalussy

In this article I would like to show you what kind of methods I’ve used to create my picture ’Autobot’. I always liked transformers, and the movie gave me a huge inspiration to build one. The car form of it is one of my recent car models, a 1975 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. I used 3D Studio Max 9 and Vray for modeling and rendering, the postworks were done with Photoshop.

Modeling:

Becouse I wanted it to be able to move and transform, I had to create bones for it too. Actually, I started with the bones - I made a biped first and transformed it’s parts to have a robot shape skeleton.

The modeling process looked like this: I modeled the robot’s body parts after each other from the head to to feet, and when one part was finished, I looked for a section of the car’s body that would look good there, cut it out and placed it on the robot like an armor, and linked them to the biped body part.

I always had to pay attention not to choose a section that is too far from robot part on the car in order to be able to create the transforming animation in the future. Not every armor parts are from the car body, but I tried to use as much as I can – you can see them darker on the pictures. For the whole robot (and the car too) I used poly-modeling and turbosmooth.

Materials:

The car paint is a 4 layer VrayBlend material. The base layer has a low glossiness reflection and the red colour of the car with a fresnel type falloff texture, the second layer has black diffuse and a 1.0 glossiness fresnel white reflection. The third layer is the little dirt and dust on the paint, which means it is a simple black diffuse material with a dirt mask bitmap. The fourth layer is the damaged paint, so it has lightgrey diffuse and a low glossiness reflection, and a bitmap mask. This mask was used also at the VrayDisplacement map, to bevel the damaged part a bit. There aren’t unique maps for every red painted part on the bot, I made 6-7 different versions and some have been used multiple times.

For the robot body I made 5 metal materials. These are chrome, dirty chrome, a slightly blue steel, copper and a shiny black metal. The chrome is really simple, black diffuse, white reflection, and about 0.85 glossiness value. The dirty chrome is the same, but just like the car paint, I added an extra black diffuse layer with a dirt mask using VrayBlend. The blue steel is the main material of the robot’s body. I used a dark grey with just a little blue (RGB 60-60-70) for the diffuse, and a noise map with black and a lighter version of the diffuse color for the reflections. Glossiness is 0,8. The copper material has brown diffuse (80-50-35) and reflect (130-90-75) 0,75 glossiness and a dirt map applied just like the car paint. The shiny black is black diffuse, dark grey reflection and 0,8 glossiness.

Lighting:

For the lighting I used a Vray Dome light using a VrayHDRI texture. I wanted a little lighter area behind the robot, so I put there a Spotlight lighting the background.

Rendering:

I used Adaptive QMC Image Sampler and Catmull-Rom AA filter. GI was also used, Irradiance Map (Medium preset) for primary and Quasi-Monte Carlo for secondary bounces.

Postworks:

After some brightness, contrast and color correction I used the Burn and Dodge tool to improve some details. Finally came the title and author’s name and the picture was finished.

Pixar Blu-ray technology

2007-11-07T14:08:00.000-08:00

The high-def Blu-ray camp gets a big boost today (Nov. 6, 2007) with the release of Pixar's RATATOUILLE, CARS and THE PIXAR SHORT FILMS COLLECTION VOL. 1 (from Walt Disney Studios Home Ent., $34.99).

And no one is prouder than John Lasseter, chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. "Blu-ray is really exciting because I feel for the first time that you can truly see a Pixar film because there are so many details that get lost on the DVD," he told AWN. "Also because of the amazing amount of data available on the Blu-ray, it makes it so you can do special features that you can't do in any other technology. We have the 'Cine-Explore,' which is like having a commentary with visuals. So it's like watching the movie, hearing the commentary and seeing a documentary at the same time. It's for real cinephiles, and, for me, as a filmmaker, it's great because this becomes the ultimate document on the making of the film. It's so important to put these ideas down when they're fresh in your head.

"And also the Blu-ray technology gives you the opportunity to have fun. The number of characters in the backgrounds of CARS was so gigantic. And we [enjoyed] developing them all but you just drive by in the movie. But the Blu-ray technology gave us the opportunity to explore those characters a little more. So that was the evolution of the CAR FINDER game, which is like a moving scavenger hunt, where you're looking for these cars as the movie's playing. Even as you find them and select them, you can learn about their names, their backstories and more details about them.

"And then there are the shorts with the COLLECTION. I was really excited to finally have the ultimate collection in Pixar shorts, which we've wanted to do for a while, and a lot of people have been asking for this. And there's a great little documentary on the early days of the shorts and commentaries on each one, and it's just great to have them all together [in Blu-ray]."

In addition to such RATATOUILLE DVD bonus features as deleted scenes with intros by Brad Bird, the Fine Food and Film featurette and two shorts -- LIFTED and YOUR FRIEND THE RAT -- there are the following Blu-ray exclusive bonus features:

* GUSTEAU'S GOURMET Game: In this inventive new Java-based game, the orders are stacking up in Chez Gusteau's kitchen. You must help Linguini by moving quickly from station to station in the kitchen to prepare the right meal. If the guests are happy, there just might be time for a delicious bowl of ratatouille.

* Cine-Explore: An innovative, in-movie Java feature allows viewers to customize their own behind-the-scenes experience, which includes animation briefings, documentary shorts, deleted shots: R.I.P, deleted scenes.

Speaking of YOUR FRIEND THE RAT, Jim Capobianco, a story supervisor on RATATOUILLE, discussed the all-new DVD-exclusive short that he directed, in which Remy and his brother Emile lead us on a historical overview of the rat. "It's an 'educational film', the longest short in Pixar history at 11 minutes and the first 2D animation we've done for a short," he explained. "We went back to the roots of animation."

The idea was to compile all of the rat research into an informative and entertaining short. Influences include UPA, ROCKY & BULLWINKLE and Ward Kimble. The crew included eight 2D animators from the CG animation group and they used After Effects and Photoshop for Ink & Paint, including a new software program that allowed them to scan in real brush strokes to paint in Photoshop, which you can see on the Blu-ray disc. In addition, there was stop motion animation for an Alberta map shot, and special textures, dust and erasures for a chalkboard shot.

Meanwhile, Sharon Calahan, DP, lighting, on RATATOUILLE, has been responsible for color timing in both film and digital formats. She said that Blu-ray provides twice the brightness level than DVD and offers "a lusher look." There are naturally different color temperatures for home theater and she likes to switch the contrast and massage the color space. In addition to the extra brightness, Blu-ray offers neon reds.

CARS Blu-ray Disc features all-new bonus materials created in high-definition exclusively for this release using the latest BD-Java enhanced technology. When users arrive at the title menu they have the option of touring "Radiator Springs" or "Emeryville." Radiator Springs allows users to go deeper into the world of CARS through the interactive "Car Finder Game," while Emeryville gives users the opportunity to pull back the curtains at Pixar for an exhaustive look at their unique creative process in "Cine-Explore."

The PIXAR SHORT FILMS COLLECTION offers the following:

* THE ADVENTURES OF ANDRE & WALLY B. -- From the legendary Lucas Films, a delightful look at the lightning-fast in-flight antics of a mischievous bumble bee (Wally B.) and his even faster-moving target (Andre).

* LUXO JR. -- A baby lamp finds a ball to play with and it's all fun and games until the ball bursts. Just when the elder Luxo thinks his kid will settle down for a bit, Luxo Jr. finds another ball -- 10 times larger.

* TIN TOY -- Babies are hardly monster-like, unless you're a toy. After escaping a drooling baby, Tinny realizes that he wants to be played with after all. But in the amount of time it takes him to discover this, the baby's attention moves on to other things only an infant could find interesting. (1988 Academy Award Winner for Best Animated Short Film.)

* RED'S DREAM -- Life as the sole sale item in the clearance corner of Eben's Bikes can get lonely. So Red, a unicycle, dreams up a clown owner and his own juggling act that steals the show. But all too soon, the applause turns into the sound of rainfall, as reality rushes back. Red must resign himself to sitting in the corner and await his fate.

* KNICK KNACK -- Life on a shelf as a snowman trapped in a snow-globe blizzard can become wearing, especially when you're surrounded by knickknacks from sunnier locales. When the jaded snowman finally breaks free of his glass home, his vacation plans are cut short. (Music by Bobby McFerrin.)

* GERI'S GAME -- An aging codger named Geri plays a daylong game of chess in the park against himself. Somehow, he begins losing to his livelier opponent. But just when the game's nearly over, Geri manages to turn the tables. (1997 Academy Award Winner for Best Animated Short Film.)

* FOR THE BIRDS -- One by one, a flock of small birds perches on a telephone wire. Sitting close together has problems enough, and then comes along a large dopey bird who tries to join them. The birds of a feather can't help but make fun of him -- and the clique mentality proves embarrassing in the end. (2001 Academy Award Winner for Best Animated Short Film.)

* MIKE'S NEW CAR -- When Mike shows off his new car to his MONSTERS, INC. co-star Sulley, everything that can go wrong does, and they are left with only their own two feet for transportation. (2002 Academy Award Nominee for Best Animated Short Film.)

* BOUNDIN' -- On a high mountain plain lives a lamb with a wool coat of such remarkable sheen that he breaks into high-steppin' dance. But there comes a day when he loses his lustrous coat and, along with it, his pride. It takes a wise jackalope -- a horn-adorned rabbit -- to teach the moping lamb that woolly or not, it's what's inside that'll help him rebound from life's troubles. (2003 Academy Award Nominee for Best Animated Short Film.)

* JACK-JACK ATTACK -- When babysitter Kari McKean tries to entertain Jack-Jack Parr (of THE INCREDIBLES) with some "brainy baby" music, she triggers an unusual reaction.

* MATER AND THE GHOSTLIGHT -- CARS favorite Mater is "haunted" by a mysterious blue light that teaches him not to play pranks on the other cars in Radiator Springs.

* ONE MAN BAND -- ONE MAN BAND tells the humorously captivating tale of a peasant girl who, with one coin to make a wish at a piazza fountain, encounters two competing street musicians who'd prefer the coin find its way into their tip jars. As the rivalry crescendos, the two overly eager performers vie to win the little girl's attention. (2005 Academy Award Nominee for Best Animated Short Film.)

* LIFTED -- A young alien student bungles his first lesson in elementary abduction as an increasingly weary instructor looks on. (2006 Academy Award Nominee for Best Animated Short Film.)

Character Head Construction by Larry’s Toon Institute

2007-11-06T02:51:00.000-08:00

Watch the master of cartoon construct a simple classic cartoon head as he teaches you step by step how to draw from scratch. Larry the master of cartoon drawing.

Marvel's Net Income Triples Over Q3 2006

2007-11-05T13:13:00.000-08:00

Marvel Ent. today reported operating results for the third quarter and nine months ended Sept. 30, 2007. Marvel also raised its 2007 financial guidance for net sales, net income and diluted EPS and initiated financial guidance for 2008.

For Q3 2007, Marvel reported that net income rose to $36.3 million, or $0.45 per diluted share, compared to net income of $13.2 million, or $0.16 per diluted share, in Q3 2006. The year-over-year increases in net income and EPS are largely attributable to the strength of the company's worldwide licensing operations. The Q3 performance also benefited from continued growth in the publishing segment. Net income for the first nine months of 2007 was $112.2 million, or $1.34 per diluted share, compared to net income of $47.0 million, or $0.53 per diluted share, for the same period in 2006.

Marvel's chairman Morton Handel commented, "Marvel achieved strong operating results across all its businesses for the third quarter and nine months ending Sept. 30, 2007. Licensing segment results benefited from strong contributions related to SPIDER-MAN 3 consumer merchandise licensing. The publishing segment continues to benefit from strong sales of event-driven imprints such as WORLD WAR HULK and STEPHEN KING'S DARK TOWER series. Finally, our toy license agreement with Hasbro yielded an improved operating income contribution in the 2007 periods, largely due to fees from SPIDER-MAN 3-based products.

"We are excited by the progress on our IRON MAN and INCREDIBLE HULK feature films for next year and the growing retail and consumer product support for these properties. We are also focused on tapping the potential of Marvel properties online, and are poised to unveil the first stage of that evolution by the end of 2007."

cause/affect Graphic Design Competition

2007-11-02T18:14:00.000-07:00

Win/Mac: Final Call for Entries: cause/affect Graphic Design Competition

The biennial competition celebrates the work of designers and organizations generating a positive impact.

Questions are increasingly being asked about the impact of our work, no matter what the domain, on the lives of others and on the planet itself. This has been part of a long-running discussion within the design community, which has the ability to reach large numbers of people and trigger changes in thinking. Accordingly, design competitions have begun to arise that make a point of rewarding work that is "positive" in nature, although of course this distinction is open to interpretation. For example, in a totalitarian state, is it a positive act to design posters advocating the violent overthrow of the powers that be?

The competition, which is an initiative of the San Francisco chapter of the AIGA, describes the nature of eligible entries thusly: "All design work entered in the competition must promote or support social good and actively engage in enriching our lives. For example, it can raise awareness about a cause or condition. It can celebrate an arts institution or event. All we ask is that it doesn’t contribute directly to the profit of a commercial organization."

The deadline for entries is November 9, 2007, with more information and entry forms available on the AIGA SF site.

Sony Ponders Equity Partnership for Imageworks & Animation Units

2007-11-01T13:39:00.000-07:00

Sony Pictures Ent. confirmed that it is pondering an equity partnership for Sony Pictures Imageworks & Sony Pictures Animation, as reported in THE NEW YORK TIMES.

The studio is considering selling up to half of Sony Animation, according to THE TIMES, and has hired the investment bank Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin to assess the value of the two divisions, which is estimated at around $500 million.

However, Sony does not intend to break up the two units because of the uniquely unified structure of its production environment, in which the Imageworks talent and pipeline encompass all three CG spectrums: live-action vfx (SPIDER-MAN 3), animation (SURF'S UP) and the performance capture hybrid (BEOWULF).

The company issued the following statement:

"As we have in other areas of our business, we are open to exploring equity partnerships, and it's no surprise that there is market interest in our visual effects and animation businesses. Having worked on everything from SPIDER-MAN and SUPERMAN to POLAR EXPRESS and BEOWULF, Imageworks is one of the most respected visual effects studios in the industry. Sony Pictures Animation has produced two critically acclaimed films [OPEN SEASON and SURF'S UP], and we continue to maintain a strong commitment to making animated movies going forward."

Wacom Cintiq 12WX

2007-10-31T23:55:00.000-07:00

Wacom launches the Cintiq 12WX next month, a widescreen portable Cintiq, smaller and cheaper than its older brother - less than half the price.
Expect the Wacom Cintiq 12WX to be on the wishlist of most artists and designers this year. The 12-inch, 16:10 tablet has an LCD monitor underneath a pressure-sensitive layer that lets you actually draw right on the screen. And lest you think the 12WX is just a scaled down version of the larger 21UX, it also includes tilt and rotation sensitivity on input devices (not the screen), the better to emulate real-life pencils and brushes.

No batteries required—it's all powered over USB. A convertor unit bridges the USB with a DVI or VGA connection.

What's going to set this apart is the price—I think. There isn't a price listed yet on Wacom Europe's page, but if I had to take a wild stab at it, I'd say "less than one thousand dollars." The 12WX seems like Wacom's first step towards bringing the Cintiq line towards broad consumer adoption. More details should be forthcoming before its release next month.

Amazing Creations Contest

2007-10-31T17:09:00.000-07:00

Artists through the ages have been dreamers and creators of fantastic images but have always been constrained by the medium they work in. Liquid sculptures, fractal growths and knotted freeways, are all examples of amazing things that only exist in virtual reality.

This competition celebrates the very essence of the creativity that defines digital art – the ability to create artistically and technically excellent images of things that are impossible in the real world. Digital artists don’t have any barriers to realizing their wildest ideas. They can build whole virtual worlds and render them in a way that makes them almost tangible and embodied with life.
What we want.
Artists are challenged to create images of the most Amazing Creations. We want to see images that capture the essence of something that could only exist in a virtual world. This embodies the most powerful attraction of digital art – its ability to create truly amazing things that can not exist in the real world.

Specifically we want to see exciting new images, that are clearly a product of the digital world. However, we don't just want technically excellent renders that are lacking in artistic beauty. The whole point is to create images that are clearly creations of the digital world but retain the artistic beauty and composition of a traditional painting.

What we don't want.
Fantasy creatures, games characters etc. We feel these are too common in both digital and traditional fantasy art.

Deliverables - Submitting your entry
One image per entry must be uploaded prior to Jan 7th 2008.
Images must be 2560 x 1600 JPEG images – at least 90% JPEG quality.

Entrants must be members of CGTalk or CGSociety. The entry process will walk you through a free signup if you are not already registered.

We strongly encourage entrants to participate in the competition forum as they will benefit from feedback from the community.
Prizes:
Over $21,000 (USD) of prizes in total.
1st Prize: 2 x NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500 cards and 1 week ‘all inclusive' holiday valued at $10,000 (USD).
2nd Prize: NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500 and a $500 (USD) American Express Gift Card.
3rd Prize: NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500 and a $500 (USD) American Express Gift Card.
Visit www.nvidia.com to learn how to enter.

3DS Max 2008 Review, 3D Studio Max 9

2007-10-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 is the latest release of the popular 3d program used in all areas of the entertainment industry. 3ds Max, technically now version 10, adds a lot of speed improvements and useful features, providing more flexibility and performance. With today’s productions demanding shorter schedules but still quality work, this version addresses workflow issues and slow interaction with complex scenes to help meet these goals. It’s out of the box feature set makes it a very versatile application for any production needs. 3ds Max 2008 is available for 32bit and 64bit systems, now also supporting Windows Vista and DirectX 10.