|
|
Life is about learning, from
your own
experiences and from helpful people along the way. Everything from a 3d
tip to larger topics such as composition and color theory, this is my
area to give back to the graphics community, a community that has given
me so much over the years.
While
several
lessons deal directly with 3ds Max, I've tried to keep discussions as
software
unspecific as possible, so you won't have to be a Max user to get
something from these lessons.
If you
have any comments or find some
mistakes, feel free to go to my contact page and email me.
Would
you like to be notified the next time I modify the lessons on this
page?
Join the Soulburn Education
Mailing List!
Click
here to Subscribe
to the list. Click here to Unsubscribe.
Send
the resulting email (no subject or body necessary) and you'll be added.
|
Sept 1st 2008
Added a new lesson
called Towels,
Carpet Or Grass Material Using Displacement.
Aug 16th 2008
Added a new lesson
called Ambient Occlusion Rust.
Aug 15th 2008
First off, a huge thanks
to everyone who came to my Shading & Texturing class at Siggraph. I
really appreciate the support, and hopefully the information I
presented will be useful to you. I certainly learned a few new tricks.
Also, I have a chapter in the new book Digital Art Masters Volume 3
discussing how I went about creating my "Mouths To
Feed III" image. To purchase the book (and get a preview) go here.
June 28th 2008
Added some new info to Reducing Memory Usage To
Render A Memory Hungry Scene.
May 6th 2008
Added a new lesson
called Worn Edges Using A Distorted
Vertex Map.
Mar
22nd 2008
I will be doing a 90min
presentation at this year's Los Angeles Siggraph 2008 as part of the
Autodesk MasterClasses on Wed, August 13th. The course is called "Shading & Texturing Sets, Props
and Vehicles". In the class, I will be showing off a pipeline for
efficiently adding shading and textures to anything non organic,
whether it be for a set, a vehicle, props or a giant evil fighting
robot. I'll go over some basics, and then delve into a number of more
advanced tricks that I use shade fast, including a number of tools I've
written. The course stresses that these techniques can be used no
matter what software or renderer you choose to use, so example files
will be done in Brazil, scanline and mentalray for 3dsmax, but even
maya users can walk away from this course with some useful theory. The
course is for intermediate users, so there's material in here that
should be useful to people just starting out, people with a decent
working knowledge of max, and super users who want some advanced tips
and tricks to help speed up their workflow. Go here for information on getting tickets and for
more information on the course. And feel free to email me if you have
any specific questions about the topics I'll be covering. Thanks.
Mar 13th 2008
Added a new lesson on
creating a Dust
Material. Added some
mental ray info on the Brushed
Metal Material lesson. Added
more info to my Rounding The Edges,
Chamfers And Fillets lesson about EdgeChEx. Added some info in the
Additive
Mode In Photoshop lesson about the Fill property of
a layer.
Jan 27th 2008
Added more info to my Rounding The Edges,
Chamfers And Fillets lesson.
Jan 21st 2008
Added a lot more info to
my Reducing Memory Usage To
Render A Memory Hungry Scene Lesson. Added a few extra methods for Rounding The Edges,
Chamfers And Fillets.
Nov 13th 2007
Complete redid my Anisotropic Highlights
tutorial with tons of new information, including updated Brazil info,
and a section on Maya's Anisotropic shader.
Oct 17th 2007
Added a recommendation
in the Converting A Mudbox Model To 3DSMax lesson to use turbosmooth. Added a few
more tips to Reducing Memory Usage To
Render A Memory Hungry Scene. Added a new lesson, Texturing For Extreme
Zooms. Added a
new lesson on making a Gold Material as a companion to my Chrome
Material lesson.
Aug 13th 2007
Added a tiny bit of
extra info to Metals and
Reflections. Added a new lesson called Overbright Cards in
Reflections. Renamed my High Pass Filter To Make Tileable Textures
lesson to Removing
Brightness Variation To
Make Tileable Textures, and added a new technique to the lesson.
Added a better displacement
example to Converting A Mudbox
Model To 3DSMax, and added a few more useful tips
May
16th 2007
The latest mudbox has a
slighty different Baking interface, so I updated the figure in my Converting
A Mudbox Model To 3DSMax Lesson.
|
|
- Art Theory
- Modeling
- UV Mapping (Pattern
Placement)
- Shader Theory
- Shader Techniques
- Materials
- Textures
- Effects
- Lighting
- Optics
- Brazil
- Technical
|
 |
I contributed one chapter to "Digital Art
Masters Vol 3"
- (Pages 218-221) Mouths To Feed III
In this article I
discuss how I went about creating the image, including reference
material, early modeling WIPs and various modeling / photoshop tips and
tricks. Check it out
at Amazon.com |
 |
I contributed 3
chapters to "3DStudio Max 3
Magic". The
chapters are...
- (4) Mixing Maps To Create Complex Materials
- (6) Lighting Effects: Rim Lighting and Diffuse
Glows
- (9) Shaders And Highlights
Other authors in the book include Brandon Davis, Eni
Oken, etc. Check it
out at Amazon.com |
 |
For
"Inside 3dsmax4" I did one
chapter...
- (22) Scripting In A Production Environment
This tutorial discusses how to create complex
scripts, as well as tips
for approaching writing a script, how to organize your ideas, etc. The
rest of the book deals with how to light, model, etc from real
production
professionals in the film and game industry.
Other authors in the book include Kim Lee,
Brandon Davis, Ian
Christie,
etc. Check it out at Amazon.com
|
|