The Making of 'Totem'
3D World cover, with Alex Alvarez
Introduction
Description
In this title, Alex Alvarez shares his workflow and techniques for creating ‘Totem’, a commissioned 3D illustration for the cover of 3D World magazine. Over five hours of lecture, Alex delves into all aspects of how the image was created. Beginning with the initial design brief of a ‘stone head in a jungle’, Alex began with a series of sketches for approval. The 3D development began with the head in ZBrush, moving to terrain layout and camera setup in Maya. The terrain was then sculpted in ZBrush to finalize the foundation upon which all of the plants and trees would be placed. Scene lighting was then blocked out using Mental Ray’s physical sun/sky system, while designing the areas of illumination and shadow using a library of trees created with Onyx. Plants and trees were created using SpeedTree, including custom assets such as hanging vines and ground ivy. The moss that grows upon the stone head, as well as the tree branches, was creating interactively in Maya with custom PaintFX brushes. Further areas of discussion include texturing, shaders, the SP Paint script, nDo, Quixel Megascan, ZDepth, Volume Fog and final compositing in Photoshop. As an intermediate to advanced level lecture, artists who have seen Alex’s lecture series on natural environments will greatly benefit from this detailed overview of his creative and technical process.
Duration: 6h 30m
Format: HD 1280x720
Alex Alvarez
Founder / Director The Gnomon Workshop and Gnomon School of Visual Effects
Alex Alvarez is the founder and president of Gnomon, which includes the acclaimed Gnomon School in Hollywood, California, as well as The Gnomon Workshop, which provides professional online training for artists. He has been described by Fast Company Magazine as a visionary who has helped change the face of computer graphics education, having dedicated the past twenty years to educating students and professional artists around the world. Alex has been published in industry magazines, websites, and books and has lectured at many international conferences. While his career these days is focused on education, he has worked as a creature development artist on such projects as James Cameron’s Avatar, JJ Abram’s Star Trek, Super 8, Ridley Scott's Prometheus. He is an alumni of the University of Pennsylvania and the Art Center College of Design.
