Questions &
Answers
Hey guys, thanks so much everybody who responded to the
website update and a “10 days of Mech” Session. I’ll be slowly updating the
other sections of www.bulgarov.com, so
keep an eye for upcoming updates!
Now regarding the
“Black Phoenix Project” I received several emails asking about similar things,
so I just decided to answer all of them here :)
What is “Black
Phoenix Project”?
It’s a working title/name of a series of designs that showcases
the product line of a fictional military corporation called “Black Phoenix”. As
I mentioned on my website it’s a collaboration with Maria Skotnikova, who ‘s
responsible for creating high-res hdr-environment maps I use for lighting. The
plan is to make eventually an art-book that would be an album filled with such
designs.
Right now it’s still early and I only work on it when have
free time.
What is “10 days of
Mech” ?
A while ago I saw Simon Lee’s 20 days of Monsters –a
sculpting session where Simon created each day a new sculpture for 20 days and then
after seeing his presentation with my own eyes I was really impressed and
inspired by his speed and sense for character design. I felt like that was an
incredible exercise, something like a boot-camp for an artist J, so since then I
always wanted to try something similar but with hard-surface designs done in 3d.
So I did a 10 days of Mech session as a proof-of-concept for the workflow I
want to use for creating the whole art-book. I also prepared myself for this
session with some R&D where practiced a work-flow that is different from a
traditional production modeling work-flow.
What software did you
use?
Softimage XSI, ZBrush, Keyshot, Photoshop
So what went in-to
preparation R&D stage?
Before the “10 days of Mechs” session I did about 3 weeks total of preproduction
where I invested my time in collecting/studying references, setting clear
expectations for the style, developing and testing the non-subd modeling workflow in xsi, building the library of 3d kitbash-details(surface
details, guts, etc), drawing a library of graphics/decals and assembling a
library of physically-based Keyshot materials. The goal was to get everything I
needed for the design exercise ahead of time, so I could be more creative and
productive and less tech-oriented during the 10 days session.
How much the style of
modeling for these concepts was different from the traditional subdivision
modeling for production?
The style of modeling was quite different from production
modeling. After being a production modeler for almost 10 years I had to
re-educate myself in certain aspects of modeling in order to get more
illustration-oriented. The goal was not to practice in modeling but to practice
in concept art utilizing 3d as just a tool for outputting images rather than creating
a nice looking wireframe that fits production needs. The goal was to use 3d the
way that would speed up the process of creating concept art rather than slowing
it down. So I tried to minimize using such techniques as subdivision modeling since
the clean-up of subd topology and edge-loop refinement takes time. Then I also
used all kinds of “dirty modeling”
tricks like Booleans, cutting shapes with knife-tool and stuff like this to
quickly get the shape I wanted without getting stuck in tweaking individual
vertices. I also used ZBrush here and
there but I overall tried to keep my mesh light for a faster render so I used
mostly poly-modeling by hand.
Did you use a 3d kit-bash
library for repetitive pieces and details?
Yes, specifically for this project I have built my own
library of surface details and gut parts, that are generic enough so I could re-use
them in different designs. Just like with real-world manufacturing, especially
with military vehicles you can see the
same type of surface detailing like hooks, tech attachment types and all kinds
of hardware on different tanks, helicopters, etc. So I did the same with
the “Black Phoenix Corporation” where
the same style and scale and level of detail was applied to the details so I
could quickly combine them in-to new more complex designs.
How much hand
poly-modeling vs zbrush?
I’d say 75% was hand-modeling. I used ZBrush mostly for the
base shape or to create a form that was trickier to build with polys but was
very easy with DynaMesh. I’m looking forward to try making some designs using
100% dynamesh and IMM brushes of ZBrush that are available in newer version of
ZBrush
Can we see a
wireframe screenshot?
Sure! Here is a screenshot of a scoutdog mesh:
How many working hours a day did you do during the 10
days of mech?
Those were some long-hours days. Some of them were as long
as 16 hours of work with only two quick meal breaks. But since the goal was to
stay within a one calendar day per design I would follow a long working day
with a not so long day( like 12 hours of work) to catch up on sleep and gym :)
What did you use to
render?
I used Luxion’s Keyshot.
What about UVs?
Keyshot provides an automatic UV’s solution for the
box/cylindric/spherical shapes which worked most of the time. When I had
artifacts I would just fix them in final render in Photoshop .
How much Photoshop
work was done on top of the Keyshot render when finishing the design?
The finishing in Photoshop included mostly just applying
decals and graphics and a subtle dirt/scratch pass. Also, as I mentioned above
I used photoshop for quick post-fixes. But overall I didn’t do that much as
there wasn’t much time left for post-work.
Ideally I would like to spend another 3-4 hours just to beat the
textures up a little more and also refine the integration of the model with
environment. That part definitely could use more work!
Did you use a
photo-bash approach to add photographic details of real-world tech on top of
the rendered models in the post?
No I didn’t. I usually use this approach when it’s a purely 2d
piece or if a 3d base is very simple and doesn’t have much detail. But in case
of this exercise the need to use photo-details was eliminated by the fact that
I had a full-res model done in 3d and it didn’t require additional details.
When is the book
coming out?
I don’t know. Maria continues to find and shoot interesting
locations with cool environment and lighting that we can use later for the
book. But on my side things move much slower at the moment because I’m very
busy with the film work right now. I hope to get more free time in about 4-5
months from here and start adding 2-3 days in my weekly schedule back to “Black
Phoenix”.
Thanks!
-Vitaly
