Our latest release covers the rest of the character rigging series in Maya, end-to-end.

Continuing on our Maya Rigging course, instructor Justin Harrison breaks down the rest of the rigging process of a bipedal, humanoid creature from absolute start-to-finish. With what is among the more difficult and challenging tasks in the gaming and film industry, Justin will continue to guide you step by step through the entire process. In Part 2, Justin covers creating IK handles, Constraints, Reverse Foot setup, painting skin weights, creating set driven keys, as well as cleaning up your rig. Also included in Part 2 is a bonus chapter showing how to setup dynamic – animation driven joints on something like hair or cloth.

Included with this video are the remaining source files covering every before-and-after step along the way of the rigging process. If you have ever struggled with rigging before, or just want to learn the basics of making your characters come to life, this video has everything you need!

Justin Harrison is a Character Animator with more than 5 years experience in the game industry. Currently he is working for the Activision-owned, High Moon Studios, and has had the pleasure of contributing to such titles as The Bourne Conspiracy, Ghostbusters: The Game, as well as Transformers: War for Cybertron to name a few. Justin holds a BFA in Digital Art and Animation from the College for Creative Studies, and has a generalist skill set that ranges from artistic modeling and asset creation, to motion capture and keyframe animation, to technical rigging and character setup.

Website: www.jharrisonart.com

Our latest release takes you through the entire process of creating realistic foliage, from the ground up!

We are very excited to announce our latest video: Creating Foliage for UDK! Learn to create amazing game-ready foliage with instructor Damian Lazarski. This is a phenominal video dedicated to everything you need to know about creating foliage. We’ll show you how to make realistic looking grass, branches, and a full blown tree from the ground up in 3ds Max 2012. Once we have created our foliage, we’ll take it into UDK and setup a master foliage shader with parameters that can be tweaked so you can easily get the look you want. We’ll also show you how to make your leaves and grass slighting sway in the wind!

Included in this video are all the source files including Damian’s UDK level that will help you further understand how he created his scene. If you have ever been intimidated by creating foliage or just want to further your knowledge – this video is for you! We hope you enjoy!

Damian Lazarski specializes in creating game environments. Passionate about games and creating highly detailed 3D assets, he is constantly striving to better himself as an artist and come up with new ways to improve the efficiency of his workflow.

See more of Damian’s work at his website: http://www.damianlazarski.com/

]]> http://www.3dmotive.com/new-release-creating-foliage-for-udk/feed/ 3 http://www.3dmotive.com/3dmotives-winter-sale-is-here-20-off-new-subscriptions/ http://www.3dmotive.com/3dmotives-winter-sale-is-here-20-off-new-subscriptions/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:08:02 +0000 Don Ott (3dm) http://www.3dmotive.com/?p=2897

Signup between now and January 2nd and get 20% off any new subscription plan.

It’s been a great year here at 3dmotive, and we’d like to welcome everyone into our family with an exclusive coupon code granting 20% off any new subscription plan. Be sure to check out our newly designed Training Page to get a look at our library. Feel free to visit the forums and make yourself comfortable. When you are ready to signup, just enter the following coupon code for 20% off any of our subscription plans!

3DMHOLIDAY2011

Already got a subscription, but ready to upgrade? We’ve got you covered. Email us and we will get you squared away! Upgrade to a 6-month or a year subscription and save some serious green. Our Merry-Happy–Wintery gift to you!

Happy Holidays everyone! Have a great winter, and let’s make 2012 even better!

Teddy and his team send word that nDo2 is officially ready to be consumed.

It’s been re-built from the ground up and is now real-time as it’s fully integrated into Photoshop. Some of the sweet new features:

• Create normals & 3D from simple hand-painted cavity maps, with results straight out of your imagination — all thanks to witchcraft.
• Combine any PS tools to create normals — selections, vectors, your own custom brushes — you name it.
• Generate unrivaled AO, 16-bit displacement, diffuse, specular and cavity from any normals. Tweakable in real-time, in Photoshop, no rebaking required.
• Achieve clear cut separation of extreme detail and volume from photos with customizable material presets. You wont believe it’s not sculpted!

Check out the Quixel site for more info and pricing.

Our newest release covers the entire character rigging process in Maya, end-to-end.

In this colossal video series, instructor Justin Harrison breaks down the entire rigging process of a bipedal, humanoid creature from absolute start-to-finish. With what is among the more difficult and challenging tasks in the gaming and film industry, Justin guides you step by step through the entire process. Part 1 will showcase a course overview as we cover the bare-bone basics of all aspects of the series, will dive straight into showing you how to set up the base skeleton, Forward and Inverse Kinematics, and creating control handles for your rig. Part 2 (arriving very soon!) covers creating IK handles, Constraints, Reverse Foot setup, painting skin weights, creating set driven keys, as well as cleaning up your rig. Also coming in Part 2 is a bonus chapter showing how to setup dynamic – animation driven joints on something like hair or cloth.

Included with this video are the source files covering every before-and-after step along the way of the rigging process. If you have struggled with rigging before, or just want to learn the basics of making your characters come to life, this video has you covered!

Justin Harrison is a Character Animator with more than 5 years experience in the game industry. Currently he is working for the Activision-owned, High Moon Studios, and has had the pleasure of contributing to such titles as The Bourne Conspiracy, Ghostbusters: The Game, as well as Transformers: War for Cybertron to name a few. Justin holds a BFA in Digital Art and Animation from the College for Creative Studies, and has a generalist skill set that ranges from artistic modeling and asset creation, to motion capture and keyframe animation, to technical rigging and character setup.

Website: www.jharrisonart.com

Our newest release takes a thorough look at the baking process of Normal and AO maps

In this video, instructor Alec Moody will show you all the necessary tips and tricks when baking Normal maps and Ambient Occlusion maps in 3ds Max. Including plenty of do’s-and-dont’s, as well as an in-depth look at all the tips you need to know to get the best outcome when baking your maps. Get ready to learn all of the ins and outs of how to properly bake a high resolution model down to a game-ready low resolution model and have perfect results!

Alec Moody is a freelance artist living in the North Carolina Research Triangle area. The majority of his professional experience has been working on PC racing simulators and multi-platform First-person shooters. Alec holds a B.F.A. in photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design and is motivated by his interests in light, surface, and mechanical construction.

Top talent at Epic give us the goods with a massive art explosion.

Over the last few days, some of the amazing folks who recently worked on Gears of War 3 have been sharing some breathtaking work from their latest release. All of our good friends over at polycount.com have been exposed to some of the top art our industry has to share. I won’t bore you with too many words, let’s get to the mind-melting eye candy!

No stranger to giving back to the community, Senior Environment artist Kevin Johnstone gave us an inside look at how he gets things done when cranking out some astounding environment work and high poly sculpting. Kevin also took the time to share with us a little about his workflow when creating and designing some of these amazing pieces. Any aspiring 3d artist should take notes!

James Hawkins also blew us away with his fascinating concept work, showing us some of the breakdowns and inner workings of how these amazing worlds and ideas came to life – one brush stroke at a time. From weapons to trucks to giant, scary, scary looking bad-guys, James has it all. You won’t want to miss the COG Raven’s Nest breakdown, as it literally reads like a technical blueprint from top to bottom. It is every 3d artist’s dream to have concept this precise and refined!

Last, but definitely not least, we got an inside look at Mike Kime’s outstanding character work. This is just a small taste of some of the fantastic creatures that await you in GoW3. The detail and precision he executed with these beasts are the things of absolute beauty. Beauty – with sharp, fanged teeth that will give you nightmares.

Our latest release takes an in-depth look at hand painted texturing

In this video instructor Tyson Murphy will show you the creation process for low poly weapons with a strong emphasis on hand painted texture maps. He’ll begin by modeling a sword in Maya 2011. Then he will show the unwrapping process and then take you step by step through the texturing workflow of hand painted, stylized textures for both a sword and a shield in Photoshop. This video will serve as a complete overview of a hand painted workflow and will introduce artists familiar with Photoshop into the world of hand painted texturing.

Tyson is a character artist working in the game industry.  Tyson graduated in animation from Brigham Young University in Utah. During school, He completed a summer internship with Disney Interactive (Avalanche Studios) where he worked on Toy Story 3.  With a strong foundation of illustration and animation, Tyson brings a truly unique perspective and understanding to 3D game art creation.

Website: http://gardenturtle.blogspot.com/

Looking for an instant dose of color options? This app is for you.

If you are like me, picking the right complimentary and accent colors isn’t an exact science in your brain. I get confused when someone says “tertiary”, and I couldn’t tell you the hexadecimal color of red if you put a gun to my head. Luckily for those of us less in tune with the going-ons of the rainbow, this simple, sleek, and handy app takes all the guesswork out for us!

Color Scheme Designer is a definite “must have” utility to add to your toolbox. Created by Petr Stanicek, this very handy web-app will quickly and easily gives you a whole slew of color values to help you pick the right choices. Whether you are texturing an asset and running out of ideas, designing your website, or coming up with a flashy logo on your character’s jacket, this sleek and simple app is for you.

Just take the color wheel for a spin, adjust your sliders, or play with the brightness and saturation levels and a whole world of color pallet and options come to life – be it complimentary, accented, or more. Color Scheme Designer is your color wheel on steroids!