Featured CG Artists - Nicholas Ainley

CG Artists is Nicholas Ainley, who needs no introduction and his awesome expressive illustrations says much more than i can barely explain. Nik Ainley after teaching himself Photoshop in his spare time while gaining a degree in physics at Imperial College London, has moved into full time web design and illustration. He was listed as one of the 'Top 10 up-and-coming creative talents of 2006' by Computer Arts magazine, and his work has appeared at the 2006 OFFF exhibition in Barcelona. Though Photoshop is his primary tool for creating illustration, Nik has also utilized other applications including Illustrator, 3D Studio max, Cinema 4D, Bryce, Poser and Xara 3D.....well their is always more to say... , but you go n check out his Amazing Artwork.-->> Nik Ainley website - Shinybinary <<--

Enzo 3D Paint Plugin For PhotoShop

Enzo is a unique 3d model texture paint system that is fully integrated inside Photoshop. Enzo is not a standalone application, but a set of sophisticated Photoshop plugins that work together to turn Photoshop into a robust 3d paint package. You can use Enzo to paint directly on the 3d models in Photoshop. Enzo can import 3d models in Maya, XSI, LWO, 3ds, obj, Rhino and AutoDesk FBX formats.Enzo: 3d paint for photoshop - Download Trial

Zbrush hair-master Plugin 2.0.0

FILE SIZE: 10152 KB
HOMEPAGE: http://brainscannar.spymac.com/
LICENSE TYPE: FreewareZBrush Versions: 2.x

DETAILS:
this come with a video tutorialthis is very easy to use and quite effective

download now!!

Skinny Version 3.8 - Pipeline Skinning Tool

With Skinny you can make Sets for all the body parts and area you want the paint individual.That way you wouldn't affect other areas by mistake. As you know Maya have "normalize weight" feature that change skin value special while using the brush Smooth.
More Features -Smaller and faster Paint weight UI then Maya's -Rotating Joints while skinning. Excellent feature for seen the skin in action without leaving the skinning process. -List Joints by: Aphabetical, By Hold , Graph order. -Hold Joints & influence by: Selected or All -"Remove Influence", just select the joint and remove. -"Zero Weight", show joints with zero weight. -"Create Fullset", create set from SkinCluster members. - "MeshSmooth" to see the model hi-rez while skinning. - "Skinny Active" to active skinning mode and quick exit this mode. -"Save/Load Sets" to file
download now!!

PELTING TOOLS 1.5.4 Beta

we have featured PELTING Tools; a useful Maya plugins scripts before, but recently someone asked me about UV Pelting in Maya, so we decided to feature this very handy script for Maya once again. UV Pelting is the process of quickly unwrapping geometry and generate texture coordinates for a 3d surface. UV Pelting significantly reduces the time required to compute texture UV's because; instead of stitching various patches together to create maps, the modelers can easily select the "pelting" edge path and generate the connected map automatically. PELTING Tools is developed by sunit parekh, who also explained how-to work with pelting tools quite nicely on his website. The Pelting Tools version 1.5.4 for Maya 6.x-8.x is available for download and it is compatible with Linux, windows as well as Mac.Pelting Tools Features:- Linux, Mac, Windows Compatible
- Mesh and Component Part based pelting
- Multiple pelt groups in one scene
- Direct connection to original, uncut mesh
- Two different pelting frame algorithms
- Per vertex spring controls
- Multiple model views
- checker, baked normal
- Edge coloring on cut and border edges
- Orient set orientation and mid-line axis
- Loop functions from OMTOOLBOX integrated
- Quick to simulate with Hi-Res 3D Models
- User created script macros
- UV Tweak Mode for pelted and non-pelted
- Frame Attractors
- Flexi FramesSome video's exploring the various features and basic pelting workflow in Maya 6.x - 8.x is also available on sunit parekh's website. For more information about Pelting Tools and its download, please visit www.sunitparekh.com/pelting/

Advanced Skeleton 2.0 For Maya

Another very handy tool for character Rigging, developed by Animation Studios Australia, and its now made totally free. AdvancedSkeleton Pro is a collection of Autodesk's Maya tools for doing character setup. Creating a Skeleton Setup for characters that works well, is a cumbersome job that includes: animation constraints, expressions and driven keys as well as fitting of the skeleton joints to the character. AdvancedSkeleton was designed to do most of this, so you can get your character setup done much faster. AdvancedSkeleton creates a complex motion system called AdvancedSkeleton from a simple joint chain called FitSkeleton. You can download the latest free version of AdvancedSkeleton from Highend3d.com.Download Adv. Skeleton

Dosch Design has Released New 3d models and Textures Products

Just got a mail from Sebastian Dosch informing us about the launch of three new 3d products and two new product lines by Dosch Design. I didn’t want to put the press release as usual instead decided to write couple of lines about their 3d products. I am pretty much sure that most of you have heard about Dosch Design and their 3d products, but for those who haven’t heard about them, Dosch Design is "The Best" company which offers ready to use computer graphics 3d products. I have been working on/off in this industry for past six years and very much impressed by their consistency of providing fabulous 3d products with Great deal of attention to product detail and quality. Though I have known and heard about Dosch design previously in/from forums, web news, message boards etc. I formally come in contact with the company while I was looking for the sponsors for the 'Galaxy explorer' - contest, and the 3d products they are offering really caught my eye while surfing on their website, specially the "Detailing" and different Variety they offers in their 3d product lines. I have yet to see any other company which is offering so many varieties and offers as-high standard quality in their 3d products. Dosch Design Really has established it self as Benchmark among the 3d design-related products providing Companies…..Anyways I come back to the news; - following are the new 3d products and products-lines introduced by Dosch design:Three New 3d ProductsDosch 3D: Buildings V2 (3d models)Dosch 3D: Fun Crafts ( 3d models)Dosch Viz-Images: Foreground Plants & Trees (Textures/Image)Two New 3d Product-LinesDOSCH CAD – 3D models for all popular CAD-ApplicationsDOSCH DVD Ambience - background animations

LightWave3D to zbrush and back Guide!!

LightWave3D to zbrush and back Guide by Carlo Macchiavello..CGI- Carlo Macchiavello publish this guide to help all lightwaveuser to work better and fine with zbrush 2.0. The Guide describe two diffrent workflows; 1)Modeling in Lightwave3D, detailing and sculpting in Zbrush, animation and rendering in Lightwave3D. 2) Modeling in Zbrush, animation and rendering in Lightwave3D. Download this guide to improve your workflow in Lightwave and Zbrush......Download Link!!

Tutorial : Detective in Zbrush!

Snehal Gopal have created this character of Detective in Zbrush, for getting familiarized with Zbrush and explore its various aspects. Now, In this brief tutorial Gopal explains how he modeled, textured and rendered the character using Zbrush. You may download (.pdf) or read Tutorial -"Making of Suraagh Rusaan - The Detective", which is featured on CgArena and 3dm3.com.Related links:Detective in Zbrush-CgArena ( Html)Detective in Zbrush- 3DM3.com ( HTML+ .PDF)

Zbrush Tutorial - Detailing Body Work

Computerarts has posted very comprehensive Zbrush tutorial about modeling the human body. The tutorial explains how to recreate the fine details of the torso and arms of a male figure. The rough 3d model, posed as a low-resolution mesh has modeled in Maya, and then detailed work was carried out in ZBrush. The tutorial has been broken down into several sections, each covering a single part of the body. The base mesh is also available for download along with the tutorial in .PDF format (21mb)..................download tutorial!

3D Modeling Tutorial - Body Beautiful

Computer arts, has published new tutorial by CG artist Alessandro Baldasseroni , who explains how to make an anatomically correct Human 3d model . Alessandro ; The cover star of 3D World 75 is actually an unclothed version of a character I had already created for a series of images on my website. The model was crafted in 3ds Max using subdivision surfaces, with Photoshop used for texturing, ZBrush for all the fine anatomical-details, and Brazil r/s for rendering. However, the original model lacked detail, mainly because the figure was originally created with clothes. For the purposes of the cover, it was necessary to show this very fine anatomical detail, so I generated normal maps in ZBrush to achieve the desired level of realism. The tutorial is in .PDF format and support files are also available for download......Give it a shot !!

Advanced illumination in 3ds max

Even if very often I like to write about Vray or Maxwell don’t forget that 3ds max has a feature called “Advanced Illumination“.
The net is quite plenty of V-ray tutorials, so I like to mark this interesting tutorial, wrote by the Cg Artist Mario Malagrino, about Advanced illumination in 3d studio max.
The subject is the usual and famous teapot, perfect as an object test… and the technic simulates the illumination techniques of a photo studio.
As I often write the classical method is of the best way to get beautiful lighning in your renders.
3ds: Advanced Illumination
If you are interested in photo studio loghtning have a look at Digital studio with V-ray

Tutorials: Maya: Dome Based Lighting

3DKingdom has published new tutorial about Dome Based Lighting in Maya 8.0. Basically its a pretty old method of achieving photorealism and a slightly altered process of Dome based lighting can be used for faking Global illumination (without Radiosity / third party render), but in this case mental ray is used to achieve better results. Besides Maya, This process of dome based lighting can be used in most of 3d packages such as 3ds Max, Lightwave 3d etc. The main motive behind is to replicate the indirect light coming from sky, environments etc... Oops, just got carried away, I should shut my mouth here or better write some tutorials myself....Anyways, Snippet; "3DK member Aziz Khan (better known as aziz3d) submitted his latest tutorial which is about Dome Based Lighting in Maya 8.0. This is very simple and time-effective method of rendering your 3d models so they feel almost like real”. So have a look.........Dome Tutorial!!

Maya 3d Modelling workflow - CAR P1

This is the first part of 3dworlds Maya Tutorials about; how to create a Highly detailed 3D model of a CAR? Snip: 3D computer games have traditionally been hampered by limitations in hardware, but things are changing. In the first of two tutorials from 3D World, we discover how to create a highly detailed 3D model fit for the next-gen road. The first part will focus on car 3d modelling, using a combination of ‘traditional’ polygonal box modeling and subdivision surfaces. The Author assumes that you are already familiar with Maya’s modelling workflow, so if you’re new to the software, we advise you to check out Autodesk’s supporting material first. Next month, 3dworld explore the process of laying out UVs, setting up materials, and arranging the meshes hierarchy ready for export in 2nd part. Car 3d modelling in Maya - Tutorial Link

Maya and Mudbox Workflow Tutorials

Maya Mudbox workflow Part 1The first tutorial covers the flowing:
Model preparation in Maya
Introduction to Mudbox
Mudbox sculpting techniques Downloal Video Tutorial 1 - Click here


Maya Mudbox workflow Part 2The 2nd part of tutorial covers the flowing:
Creating displacement maps
Converting to map files
Mental Ray Render settings
SSS shader Downloal Video Tutorial 2 - Click here