The 3D Art Direct Podcast: 3D Digital Art | Artist Interviews | Digital Art Conferences | Sci-fi and Fantasy Genres

Welcome to Session 44 of 3D Art Direct's podcast, where Paul Bussey interviews Oshyan Greene, the business manager of Planetside Software, which produces Terragen 4 for rendering and animating realistic natural environments. Terragen 4 is used in film, TV, commercials, as well as educational disciplines, to name but a few. We're primarily talking to Oshyan about the recent release of Terragen 4.1, as well as SIGGRAPH held recently in Los Angeles. Digital Art Live's mission is getting behind the scenes with top digital artists and leaders by featuring them in in-depth interviews, through our magazine, podcast, and live event webinars, allowing you to connect with them and other artists and discover what inspired them, the steps they've taken in conceptualizing their work, and the techniques that they've used in building their creations. You can stay informed of our live webinars and podcasts by subscribing to our free monthly magazine at digitalartlive.com. While there, take the time to browse our growing library of new events and live webinars, as well as past recordings and magazine issues. Our site is constantly being updated, featuring topics such as modeling, sculpting, rigging, lighting, and digital composition for software such as DAZ Studio, ZBrush, Poser, Terragen, and Vue, to list but a few. So let's get to the interview.

Kim Schneider, better known as Arki is a 3D modeller and texture creator that has just completed a definitive series of tutorials in association with Digital Art Live called Creating Complex Clothing and available on DAZ3D's website that takes the student from concept to finished, saleable product which covers modelling, UV mapping, rigging and texturing. Find out more about our podcast, webinars and magazine at www.digitalartlive.com Kim has worked as a professional illustrator for RPG games, and her started her 3D digital art journey in 2000 with Poser and then Poser Pro and started selling her content in 2006. Since then, she's been hard at work creating content for DAZ Studio. Her choice of modelling software is Hexagon, UV mapping using UV Layout Pro and UV Mapper Pro, among others such as GIMP, Photoshop, Terragen, Blacksmith3D and more in her workflow. (clicking on image will open an new window and take you to DAZ3D site) During the interview, Kim talks about Her inspiration for her modelling concepts. How to sell your models for profit and her recommended "path to success." She talks a little about her pen and paper (role-playing) game that she's in the process of creating. Practical knowledge of how things work in order to be able to model them, realistically. and her fascination with dragons, for just a few topics. Snippet from the transcript DAL: ... How critical is it to understand how something works in order to be able to model it properly? For example, you and I talked a bit before about modeling a weapon, and you said that you have no interest in it because you have no working knowledge of it. So how critical do you think it is to understand how something works to be able to model it properly? Kim: Well, if I think of a current project I'm working on, it's a dragon skeleton and I had to do huge amount of research about animal and human skeletons before I could do that. So you have to learn how to model a joint, what kind of joint is used in an elbow or a knee or a wrist. So those are three types of joints already. Or the shoulder, that's another joint there. So if you don't understand this and don't know how the shape defines functionality, you are probably not going to have a very good time or a fun time modeling that thing. So at least it's true for me, first I have to know what I'm doing, first I have to understand what I'm doing before I can put it into 3D, or model it in clay for that matter, which is very similar in the process. DAL: Do you model in clay much to get inspiration or to flesh out ideas, I guess? Kim: I used to. It's very messy. Takes up a lot of space and you have to fire the clay. So I don't do it anymore, but I hope when I get into zeeBrush or zedBrush a little bit more, I will be able to do some more sculpting without the mess and the firing. I said "ZedBrush." DAL: You said "ZedBrush," yes, that's good, ZedBrush. In Canada, we don't say "Zee," we say "Zed." So ZedBrush. Kim: The eternal struggle. DAL: And ZedZed Top. Kim: Yeah. That's a bit clunky. DAL: Yeah, doesn't quite roll off the tongue. So, that's an interesting question. You know what? I had never thought of the human skeleton in that way, that there are, you know, a fixed number of joints that move in a fixed direction, and depending on any fantastical creature that you're gonna build, you have to understand how all of the different joints come together. And I'm assuming, just extrapolating on that, then now you have to understand the different kinds of muscles and the connection points to the bones in order to flesh out, if you will, the figure as well, right? Kim: Yes, exactly, because what I'm doing right now with the dragon skeleton is... the starting point was a sketch of one of my dragon species for my game, and I used the silhouette to model the skeleton inside. And what I was doing that I already noticed I think the proportions are off, it's not going to work the way I thought it would. So maybe when I have a lot of time, I'm going to add muscle and maybe internal organs and then model the outside skin and then see how that looks. It's going to be close to my initial design, but then slightly different. So I will sort of reverse engineer my own species, so it's going to be interesting...

You can learn more about Digital Art Live and sign up to our free PDF arts magazine here Patrick Gyger is the curator of the major exhibition Into the Unknown: A Journey Through Science Fiction coming to the Barbican — Europe's largest multi-cultural arts and conference venue located in London, UK — exploring one of pop culture's most celebrated worlds. Featuring works that have yet to be shown in the UK, this unprecedented show encompasses music, film and art to present a new, global perspective on Science Fiction. The exhibition is on from June 3, 2017 through September 1, 2017. More information and tickets are available on Barbican's site or by clicking here. Digital Art Live will have a Barbican Event Meetup on July 2, 2017 and further information can be found here on our site. During the interview, Patrick covers such topics as Organization of the event into four main themes: Extraordinary Voyages; Space Odysseys; Brave new Worlds, and; Final Frontiers and how each explore classic narratives of the genre in new ways. Relevance and appeal of Science Fiction Owners of the works in the exhibition Within the podcast we asked Patrick these questions: During the 1990s you've had a focus on medieval studies, looking at crime and justice. Are there any parallels in this interest and your more current interests in curating works of science fiction? You've also published a book on the history of the flying car. What inspired you to take a close look at this niche of science fiction? Into the Unknown is an exhibition that is on quite an extraordinary scale for the genre of science fiction.  What enthused you to create something on this scale, or did it just naturally snowball? How important is the goal of having a global view of science fiction in this exhibition? And the exhibition is going on tour isn't it? Included are some pieces from the private sci-fi collection of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Tell us a little about Paul and his collection and the story of being able to collaborate with him. You are pleased to include some artwork from the notable artist Patrick Tatopoulos. Does Patrick have a particular focus with his work? The exhibition is divided into four chapters. Tell us what these chapters are and what would you wish people to value and come away with from each of these chapters. The press release talks about being able to explore these four chapters of the genre in new ways. I'm curious about what these "new ways" are — or do you want to leave that a surprise?! Does the Extraordinary Voyages chapter look at the roots of science fiction, where it all started? Tell us about a few items of what to look forward to in the largest section of the show Space Odysseys props and models from various TV shows and movies. What pieces from this section were you particularly proud to curate? The Brave New Worlds exhibition section, explores all kinds of different societies imagined by sci-fi writers. Is there a balance of utopian and dystopian societies represented here? What's your favourite society that has been dreamed up? Tell us about a few of the more notable exhibits for the Final Frontiers part of the show — "inner realms from human perception." Are there elements of the exhibition which celebrate artwork created digitally? Stills, animation or special effects? Science fiction is important since it allows us to explore our own humanity. It allows us to do that exploration more thoroughly than other genres and can take us to the normal limits and perhaps beyond of different circumstances. Do you have a few favourite stories that look at this exploration and are they represented in the exhibition? Who would you like to thank, the team in putting together this exhibition? Where's the best place to go on the web to find out more on Into the Unknown? Resources Barbican — Into the Unknown: A Journey through Science Fiction https://digitalartlive.com/digital-art-live-magazine/

Paolo Ciccone is the author of Reality, a plugin for Poser and DAZ Studio that introduced Physically Based Rendering (PBR) around 2010, when PBR was not that familiar for Poser and DAZ Studio artists. PBR provides more photorealistic or natural looking renders than previous render techniques. The Reality plugin continues to takes advantage of the LuxRender rendering engine. In this interview session we learn:- 1. How can the reality plugin help with gaining realism with skin materials in a render? 2. There are a number of SSS parameters, such as surface thickness, abortion scale and scattering scale. What settings tend to work best for which circumstances? 3. There's a thread on Runtime DNA that talks about how you spent weeks of development testing thousands of combinations, was that with getting the automatic SSS function correct? 4. Is it possible to make the skin “glow” using Reality? I know there is a “light emission” modifier that might be used since this can be tweaked in any material. 5. You could use a procedural texture to get some interesting patterns on the skin using Reality, without having to use Photoshop. Firstly what's a procedural texture and how might you apply that in Reality? 6. Since we last spoke in January, you've released Reality 4.3. What are the main changes to see in 4.3? 7. You had a surprise phone call this year from a manager at Apple computers. Tell us about that story. 8. You've introduced a new Reality Facebook Group. Tell us about this and some of the good things that have come out of this for Reality users. 9. What's next for Reality? See digitalartlive.com for more podcasts, magazines and webinars on digital art

3D Art Direct Podcast Inteview with Chuck Carter Creative Director, Founder of Eagre Games Once upon a time Carter helped create Myst and 26 other video games including the Command and Conquer and Red Alert franchises, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, Nox, Pacman World Rally, Kyrandia and many others  – Carter worked on TV shows like Babylon5 (as a digital Matte Painter) as well as having contributed work on Star Trek the Experience and Disney's Mission to Mars motion rides.  His illustration and animation work has been seen on the BBC, National Geographic, US Dept. of Defense, Homeland Security, Scientific American, NASA, Caltech and JPL as well dozens of additional publications and organizations. The new game of Zed has these elements:- Exploration, depth, no time limits, curiosity, imagination, meditative, The background for the game Players must explore a bizarre world and solve strange puzzles as they help “an aging and dying dreamer leave behind a lasting legacy for his granddaughter.” “The dreamer is confused by your presence. He can help or hinder your progress by putting challenging obstacles in your path—he needs your help but at times doesn't understand why you are there,” the Kickstarter pitch states. “As you learn his story, the truth about his past and his final masterpiece is revealed in the dreams you explore; a personal creation of one man's disintegrating mind. Help the dreamer fulfill his final task and unleash Zed to the world.” Mission Statement for Eagre games “developing non-violent, beautifully immersive, story-driven games”.

This is a special session of the podcast where we go in depth in learning about behind the scenes of Renderosity, one of the most well known digital artist communities and digital products stores on the web. I speak with Tommy Lemon, vice president of Renderosity and also Tim Haskasma manager of business development and marketing. In this session we learn - The original vision for Renderosity back when it started in 1999 - The deep history of Renderosity. - The challenge of selling digital content in the stone age of the internet. - All about the mission statement for Renderosity. - Initiatives that highlight community members, artists, vendors.  - Dig into some of the demographics of the Renderosity community - Who are some of the longest serving staff members and what they've brought to Renderosity. - The Renderosity community on Facebook?  - How regular feedback from the community helps improve the services and website.  - What tools are offered to vendors at Renderosity  - Video tutorials are an important part of the Renderosity marketplace. Just remember you can sign up for our free digital artists magazine at digitalartlive.com, where you can also discover live webinar events and our store containing recordings of those events. You'll find tutorials on Poser, DAZ Studio, Vue, Terragen, Hexagon and ZBrush.

in this session, we're focussing on a subject to do with the exploration and colonisation of Mars, which is part of our overall theme for our forthcoming Digital Art Live magazine, where we will feature artwork on the colonisation of space. We will have at least three artists with some stunning sci-fi artwork and in-depth interviews with the artists on their work and you can get this magazine for free, which will include the PDF at digitalartlive.com and click on the “Get Started Now” button on the home page. You can also check out our live webinar events we host for training on software such as Poser, DAZ Studio, ZBrush, Vue and more. So I was very privileged to talk to Nicol Willett the education director of the mars society and to see her enthusiasm for teaching about the opportunities for us on Mars. In this session we learn:-  - What is the Mars society and why it was formed - How concept illustrations have helped in some of the Mars society projects - What are the two most significant barriers in getting humans to Mars. - Is it easier to colonise the moon rather than Mars? - The new "160 mission" organised by the Mars Society. - Nicole's view on the top two achievements of the society since it's been formed. - How you can help the Mars Society.      

I am very pleased to introduce Oshyan Greene, the business manager of Planetside Software, which produces the well regarded Terragen 3, a great solution for rendering and animating realistic natural environments. In this session we're going to talk about the anticipated Terragen 4 In this session we discover:-   - Terragen's capabilities. What can you control as you create your realistic environment? Can you create an entire planet? - Importing real world terrain datasets. Some of the more notable projects that Terragen has been using this capability. - A little about Matt Fairclough who is the lead developer for Terragen. - Terragen 4 -  the new Ray Traced preview.  - Hints on some new terrain editing tools.  - Additional photo realism for cloud scenes.  - T4 will include lens flare effects. What type of lens flare effects will we see? - About the simulation of an Ozone layer in T4. - The fractal procedural erosion shader by BlinkFrog for T3 (in beta) and it's free. - Virtual Reality and Terragen “We're excited about VR and want to see more spherical renders from the community. Send us your renders using the Spherical Camera!” (to Planetside.co.uk)  

Podcast Introduction This is session 36 of the 3D Art Direct podcast speaking to Paolo Ciccone, author of the Reality plugin for DAZ Studio and Poser, one of the most advanced Physics Based Rendering systems in the market, producing photorealistic results. Podcast Prologue Welcome to this session. I'm really pleased to talk to Paolo, who we've interviewed several times in the past and he's always a joy to speak to. He's done a lot of good work with his Reality plugin to make a real gem of a tool to help you the artist generate realism in your renders. We've had Paolo as a keynote speaker at our last Poser Expo live webinar conference and we'll no doubt see him again in some more of our events this year. Check out digitalartlive.com. It's now early January 2016 and we've got two events coming up this month including a Poser clinic where you can submit a problem or challenge and we'll try to resolve for you with Charles Taylor, probably the foremost expert on Poser and that's on Saturday January 23rd at 20:00 GMT. And we have Chris Hecker a respected sci-fi artist taking us through the making of one of his best illustrations created with Vue and Photoshop – that's on Saturday January 23rd also  at 8:00 pm. Join us if you can and you can get in touch on the contact page at digitalartlive.com.   Introduction Paolo Ciccone is the author of Reality, a plugin for Poser and DAZ Studio that introduced Physically Based Rendering (PBR) around 2010, when PBR was not that familiar for Poser and DAZ Studio artists. PBR provides more photorealistic or natural looking renders than previous render techniques. Reality takes advantage of the LuxRender rendering engine. So Reality gives a rendering solution that extends DAZ Studio and Poser and is described as providing the most advanced Physics-Based Rendering system in the market.

Welcome to Charles Taylor, product manager for Poser from Smith Micro since April of 2015. Charles has been deeply involved with Poser since 1999 and has assisted with the development team since Poser 6.  The new Poser 11 has recently been released and Charles takes us through the additions and improvements in this version. In this session we learn:- - How long Poser 11 has been in development. - Whether backwards compatibility was the most key consideration for Poser 11. - The changes in the user interface. - Adaptions to improve workflow in Poser - The new PBR (Physically Based Rendering) option (SuperFly). - Rendered Caustics - Area lights in SuperFly - The new content shipped with Poser 11. - The new comic book preview - Improvements to animation - About adaptive Rigging

My guest today is Chris Hecker. An excellent sci-fi digital artist using Vue, 3DS Max and Photoshop. There's a recurring theme through part of his portfolio of depicting futuristic large scale cities. And this is a natural response perhaps from growing up in the environment of the industrial landscape of East Germany as well being awed by the production paintings of the sci-fi movies that we all love. In this session we learn:- Which artists and movies inspired Chris the most as he started as a digital artist. How learning about concept art and matte paintings helped Chris gain some breakthroughs in his artwork. How recording workflow speeds up your improvement rate as an artist Creating cityscape scenes with Cinema 4D, Vue and Photoshop. Use of World Machine and Xenodream About being part of the Luminarium group of artists on Deviant Art The making of "Come a Little Closer", "Sky High" (shown above) and "Leaving the Fields of Steel". Resources Chris Hecker's (Tigaer) Deviant Art The Luminarium Deviant Art group E-on's Vue software World Machine 3DS Max  

Regina LaGrone also known as Lady Littlefox is an experienced 3D content developer for Poser and Daz Studio. Her strengths are in character and costume designs including contemporary, fantasy and  cartoon styles. She is skilled in all stages of content development and has modelled in Modo, Lightwave, XSI and ZBrush. She is at present a freelance developer and beta tester for Smith Micro software and has successfully run her own business of Lady LittleFox Studios for at least 16 years. In this Session - The origins of Littlefox Designs, how it started some of the earliest design highlights. - Beta testing for over 8 years at Smith Micro for Poser and Anime Studio. Have you been able to initiate some good changes or fixes during this time? - One of your earlier experiences in work was being a 3D Avatar specialist – what did this involve? - The foundations of STAR. - Key design objectives for the STAR anime figure. - How flexible and smooth motion is a significant aspect of STAR and how this is accomplished. - The advantages of facial rigging built into STAR. - Future content from Littlefox Studios

This is session 32 of the 3D Art Direct podcast talking with Stefan Kraus on WorldCreator, a professional terrain generator including sophisticated erosion and sediment algorithms. I would like to introduce Stefan Kraus, owner of Bite the Bytes started in 2007, a company based in Fulda, Germany that offers three tools for digital artists – “Terrain SDK”, “Shader Tool” and “World Creator” – formerly known as GeoControl and it is “World Creator” that we are going to focus on with this interview with Stefan. In this session we learn:- - How long has WorldCreator been around – when was it first created and by whom?  What inspired the original author to bring this software to life? - Some terrain generators can have appear to have a steep looking learning curve with a node based user interface to cope with. Is WorldCreator different and easier to use in this respect?  - WorldCreator uses Isolines to build landscapes. What is an Isoline and what advantages do they have in controlling the form of the landscape? -  “controlled rivers” and the tools to create various water bodies.   - WorldCreator has the ability to have landscapes eroded or even have “reverse erosion” - The simulation of sediments in WorldCreator is unique to terrain generators. - New developments for WorldCreator in the pipeline for this year.

This is session 31 of the 3D Art Direct podcast with Paolo Ciccone on the new Reality 4 software giving  photo realistic rendering in Poser or DAZ Studio. In this session we learn from Paolo:- The history of the LuxRender engine, which Reality 4 uses. What‘s all the fuss about physically based rendering (PBR)  and what are the advantages to the artist? Is PBR still advancing and what might we see next with this? What are some of the changes that have made Reality 4 easier to use for the artist?  All about the presets library and some of the goodies inside it. What lies ahead for Pret-a-3D in 2015?

  I am very pleased to introduce Oshyan Greene, the business manager of Planetside Software, which produces the highly regarded Terragen, a powerful solution for rendering and animating realistic natural environments. In this session we're going to discuss the features of a new update for Terragen 3. In this session we learn:- - Highlights for Planetside and Terragen 3 during 2014  - All about new glass shader.  - Stereo camera handling and support of the Oculus Rift.  (The Rift is an upcoming virtual reality head-mounted display, being developed by Oculus VR) - A fisheye lens can now be applied in Terragen 3.2, we discuss uses for the fisheye in Terragen. - More control over cloud shapes can be applied in 3.2 with the “Taper top and base” parameter. - Notable media productions created by Terragen 3    - Plans for Terragen and Planetside in 2015 3DArtLive.com - Live 3D Digital Art Tutorials 3DArtDirect.com- Free 3D Digital Arts sci-fi/fantasy magazine

Welcome to session 29 where we talk to Eric VanDycke (also known as Traveler) who is a partner and the Web Site manager at Runtime DNA RuntimeDNA is a large and thriving digital community chiefly for Poser. It provides a wide selection of digital content and provides a great learning environment for its members with a very active forum who are from all over the world. A large user art gallery also reflects the vibrant community.  The store boasts over 5000 products with more than 100 content creators. His 3D roots stretch all the way back to Bryce and the early days of Poser. Eric has been involved with numerous releases of Poser and other software packages used by the community.  So we'll be interviewing Eric in-depth in this episode and he's also very much involved with the Poser Expo 3 conference.  Poser Expo 3 is a live on-line conference for users of Poser and Poser Pro. It's one of 3D Art Live's biggest events of the year boasting eight 1.5 hour sessions with leading figures and content creators from the Poser industry. This webinar based conference is on the weekend of the 18th and 19th of October.   Poser Expo 3 is about connecting and interacting live with professional artists and content creators. You can use instant chat, ask audio questions and see techniques and problems get solved step by step by presenters who will be sharing their desktops live as they share their experience. You can also interact with the other attendees  in the room as well.

Today we are speaking for the second time with long time associate and supporter of Ralph McQuarrie and his work, John Scoleri. Find out in Session 25 of the podcast how John became involved in meeting and helping to promote Ralph's work. Ralph McQuarrie was the concept artist for a number of strong iconic movies aside from Star Wars, including - Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, raiders of the lost ark, E.T., Jurassic Park, the 1978 Battlestar Galactica series and Star Trek's “Planet of the Titans” film which was cancelled at the script stage.  I mention these examples since not everyone is aware of the impact that Ralph had outside of the Star Wars arena and a new book that John Scoleri and Stan Stice hopes to publish called “The Art of Ralph McQuarrie : Archives Art book showcases the best work of Ralph's career throughout. John has created a Kickstarter campaign for this unique book, so take a look at the video on Kickstarter.com that will give a preview of the artwork that is likely to be included in the book. Searching for Ralph McQuarrie will get you to that particular campaign.  

In this session Christie Knox interviews Dax Pandhi. a 3D environment specialist and co-founder of QuadSpinner. Dax has contributed to a variety of top titles for film and games, and is co-recipient of the 2014 IAWTV award for best visual effects, Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome.  He is also a respected teacher and author. His students number in thousands and include top studio and indie Visual Effects talent. With 18 years in the CGI industry, Dax's innovations stem from his understanding of nature and his ability to translate those nuances to the digital platform.  In this session we discover:- - Dax's background and how he become involved in computer programming as well as 3D Digital Art. - Artists who inspired Dax. - What drew him to natural landscape creation and Eon's Vue software.  - How QuadSpinner started and how it has evolved. - About the Material Development Kit. - Helios and how it take clouds and atmospheres into an entirely new place! - World Machine and and QuadSpinner's Geoglyph toolkit for this software. - Dax is working on Helios 1.5; but what else does he have planned? - Dax's "Realism in Vue" book and his next book project. - Dax's credits to the QuadSpinner team. http://www.quadspinner.com/ If you'd like to subscribe to the free 3D Art Direct magazine and get alerted for new podcast sessions from us, then sign up at www.3DArtDirect.com

We are privileged to interview Paul Hellard, former editor of CG Society and Ballistic Media, who shares with us his stories on his career in working across the media in filming, sound recording, editing, writing and publishing. Toni Bratincevic, senior Environment Modeler at Blizzard Entertainment is quoted as saying:- "I have known Paul for more than 5 years and I must say that he was one of the pivotal persons during my career helping me in so many ways to advance forward and land a job in the CG industry. As an editor of CGSociety, he did an amazing job writing very informative and interesting articles and reports on new software, interesting projects and great reports from Siggraph. The series of Expose books wouldn't be the same without Paul, his ability to keep good connections with artists and inspiring us to send our artwork to be published in these books really helped to push digital arts as a viable and recognized art form." You can find out more about Paul and his work here:- https://paulhellard.contently.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/hellardmedia In this interview with Paul we learn:- - His experiences as a camera assistant for the Kirk Douglas film “'The Man from Snowy River”  - Going freelance as a cameraman and sound recordist  - Working as a script editor and then picture desk co-ordinator .  - Being the assistant editor of “Design Graphics” placing Paul in “tech heaven” where he wrote and edited feature articles, technology updates, hardware and software reviews. - How Ballistic Media was founded and Paul's involvement in launching EXPOSÉ - The design objectives of the EXPOSÉ series of Digital Art Annuals. - The experience at CG Society posting feature articles, the news and managing the social media posts.  - Paul's global view on the "game changers" of digital art over the years.  - Those main individuals who influenced Paul as he worked in the various media industries.

This is session 25 of the 3D Art Direct Podcast talking about the life of Ralph McQuarrie, conceptual artist for Star Wars with John Scoleri. John Scoleri has supported and promoted the artwork of Ralph McQuarrie, the concept artist for Star Wars through many years and more recently with the publication of the book “The Art of Ralph McQuarrie” of which he was co-author and publisher.    He's also exhibited Ralph's work at a series of major events around the world called Star Wars Celebrations, clocking up lots of air miles in the process.   You can find out more about John's mission in promoting and publishing Ralph's work at the Ralph McQuarrie facebook page here:- https://www.facebook.com/RalphMcQuarrie In this session we discover:- - The impact of Star Wars on John Scoleri when he first saw it in 1977. - How John first met and assisted Ralph at a convention and helped promote his work ever since. - The story of when George Lucas first hires Ralph McQuarrie and how essential Ralph was to visualising and designing the movie with George.  - Some of Ralph's early briefs or instructions for his concepts.  - What type of paints Ralph used for his work and the advantage of them. - All about the very first production painting for Star Wars of C-3PO and R2-D2. - The “Laser Duel” painting and this even influenced set design. - One of Ralph's favourite paintings and why. - Details on “The Pirate Ship in Docking Bay 94”  - Why a  Storm Trooper and Han Solo are holding lightsabers in once concept illustration. - Details about the concept illustrations on the battle at the Death Star. - Whether Ralph had a preference for character artwork, landscapes or technology. - John's story of producing "The Art of Ralph McQuarrie" book with Ralph and Lucasfilm. - The next book promotion for Ralph's work.  

Greg Teegarden is a computer graphics supervisor at Digital Domain, a visual effects and digital production company based in Venice, Los Angeles, California.   He has been in the industry for over 20 years and has worked on productions including SeaQuest 2032, The Fifth Element, Tron : Legacy, X Men: First Class, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and more recently the Oblivion movie starring Tom Cruise.   He has been nominated six times at the Visual Effects Society for his work. We are pleased to interview Greg in this session and learn:- - How Greg's father, James Teegarden, who was an art director and set designer for Back to the Future II, Artificial Intelligence and E.T. influenced Greg.  - How Greg got started professionally in visual effects. - The experience of working as an animator on Seaquest 2032. - The influence of Industrial Light and Magic. - Some of Greg's earliest visual effects tools including Lightwave. - Greg's experience on the sci-fi movie Oblivion, which starred Tom Cruise.  - Using Terragen to create a procedural generated Earth for the opening scene in Oblivion with the Universal Studios logo. - Some of Greg's highlights at Digital Domain. - The benefits gained from managing production pipelines at Digital Domain. - Some of Greg's work on Tron : Legacy as the lighting supervisor.  - Advice from Greg for those who are looking to get into the visual effects industry. Resources and companies mentioned in this podcast Digital Domain : James Cameron's visual effects company - http://digitaldomain.com/reels Terragen (version 3) : Planetside Software - http://planetside.co.uk/  LightWave by Newtek - https://www.lightwave3d.com/ Houdini by Side Effects Software - http://www.sidefx.com/

Kim attended the University of Applied Sciences in Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media Design and Illustration. Over the years Kim has done work in the role-playing game industry applying her illustration skills for RPG games such as Engel for Feder & Schwert,  Redaktion Phantastik, and the Pegasus Spiele game—Call of Cthulhu. Her journey into 3D Digital Art began in 2000 with Poser and started vending Poser content in 2006.  She delves into other packages occasionally including Carrara, Bryce, Terragen and used Hexagon for modelling. She also uses GIMP, Photoshop elements and UV Mapper Pro in her workflow. Kim Schneider can be found at Runtime DNA under the name Arki.— www.runtimedna.com/Arki/ In the session we discover:- - How Kim started her passion for artwork with a single illustration of a dragon. - Her first impressions of Poser and how she overcame early barriers with 3D digital art using this application. - Her experiences of creative artwork in the role playing game industry. - How she became a vendor at Runtime DNA. - Her forthcoming live webinars at 3DArtLive.com in how to create successful Poser content projects as a vendor. Sign up to get notification of our free podcasts and monthly 3D digital sci-fi and fantasy arts magazine at www.3DArtDirect.com

We welcome our interview with Larry Nemecek who is an author, editor, archivist and producer and wears these hats much of the time as a renowned Star Trek authority. He has helped provide valuable insights into the production side of the franchise, and this includes him making a great effort at recording many many interviews with the staff behind the scenes as well as the actors and actresses from the Star Trek universe. In this session of the podcast we are interviewing Larry in particular with his newest publication “Star Trek Stellar Cartography: The Starfleet Reference Library”.  The Starfleet Stellar Cartography maps/book set (poster map set and guide book) is a team effort captained by Larry with artists Geoffrey Mandel, Ian Fullwood and Ali Ries (Reece) for an officially licensed updated set of stellar cartography maps and guide book published  by 47North and Becker & Mayer. This is out now and you can order the book at Amazon (UK website) here:- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Trek-Stellar-Cartography-Starfleet/dp/1477805974 In this session we learn:- -How Larry's love of history has helped him map the Star Trek galaxy. -What Larry believes will impact the reader the most when they open up the map set and guide.  -How some awkward canon elements were properly fitted in, including squeezing in the Delphic Expanse. -About the maps from different races of Star Trek. -What did each of the artists Larr worked with bring to the table for this project.  -How the Dominion War (Deep Space Nine) was placed onto the maps in a way that makes sense.

In this session we interview  Paolo Ciccone with his new book "The Complete Guide to DAZ Studio 4". You can find out more about the book here:- http://3dartdirect.com/GuideToDazStudio4 And the book is also available on Amazon here:- http://3dartdirect.com/DAZStudio4Amazon Suprisingly, despite the wide reach and community of the DAZ Studio software (it's a free application), there are not many publications to choose from when it comes to learning the software. Of course, there are the DAZ 3D forums where you can get answers to specific queries, but a complete map and guide to using the sofware in the form of a book will be greatly useful. The book is aimed at those starting out with DAZ Studio up to the level of mostly intermediate users, but more advanced level users will find gems in here also. The author, Paolo Ciccone is a software engineer and photographer who now lives in Santa Cruz, California.  He is an experienced software developer with 20 years of experience. His field of expertise is developing applications  for both Mac OS and Windows  that assist computer graphics artists achieve photorealistic results. He founded Prêt-à-3D (www.preta3d.com) in 2010 , a company dedicated to bringing high-end computer graphics tools to the masses.  His Reality software for Poser and DAZ Studio has been used for video game illustration and for the preproduction of Hollywood large budget movies such as Jurassic Park IV and Hunger Games: Catching Fire.  In this session we ask Paolo about:- - His first contact with DAZ Studio the strengths he noted from it during his early use of the software. - Whether he immediately saw a gap in the market for the book? Or did it take some time for you to identify some needs of the DAZ Studio community that could be fulfilled? - We talk about the by-line of the book “Community Experience Distilled”.  - The book cover artwork. - Paolo is an educator and writer in the 3D Arts world, but this Was Paolo's first book project. What were some of his early barriers he had to overcome in starting up and getting a writing regime going? - Who the the book is aimed for? - The mind-set barrier of being able to pose figures naturally when first starting and how this book overcomes that barrier. - How the book covers creating new characters with morphs - the ability to start adapting existing characters to create new ones. - The practical content of the book - customising DAZ studio, finding and installing new content and navigating the studio environment. - The aspects of lighting covered in two major chapters : lighting a scene and achieving photo realism with the Reality Plugin. - How the new Dawn figure is covered in the book- what readers can learn about using this figure. - Paolo's favourite topic or chapter.

Welcome to session 20 and I hope you are having creative success at the moment, whichever 3D application you are using.  We'd love to see your artwork, especially if its in the sci-fi or fantasy genres, which you can share on the facebook.com/3dartdirect page. Dawn is the newest in a line of significant figures developed by Chris Creek, who created the original Poser figures, Dork and Posette, and the original Michael and Victoria figures. Dawn is for both Poser and DAZ Studio users in mind, with two versions available, one with native Poser files compatible with Poser 9 and above, and another with native DAZ Studio files compatible with DAZ Studio 4.5 and above. I've really pleased to interview not only Chris Creek, but Eric Merritt , Steve Kondris and Paul Lesard from HiveWire 3D, who are freshening up the market with this new significant figure. I'm also pleased to announce a new live and on-line conference for the Poser community: Poser Expo 2 : Creative Professionals Live. Chris Creek and his crew from HiveWire 3D will be the keynote speakers at the beginning of the conference, and then we'll go into nine more webinar sessions of Poser training content on the weekend of the 18th-20th of October, with some of the brightest and creative minds in the community presenting. At the moment there is a reduced price for the event tickets that will get you into ALL the webinars. Up until around the end of September, you can take advantage of a 23% discount on the ticket price. http://3dartlive.com/poserexpo2ticket

We're pleased to interview Oshayn Greene, business manager at Planetside Software on the new release of Terragen 3 Professional. For those of you who don't know much about Terragen, I can tell you that If you like the idea of applying 3D graphics to create photo-realistic natural environments, then Terragen is definitely for you. Another upside of this software is if you go to planetside.co.uk and go to the products section, there is a free pre-release edition of Terragen 3. In this session we tallk with Oshyan on:- - The build-up for the release of Terragen 3 and som of the early feedback of T3 as features of it became public.  - How Terragen 3 started. Was it based on the platform of Terragen 2, or is it a completely new product written from the ground up? - The story of how T3 was utilised for the sc-fi film Oblivion. - The T3 Global Illumination Surface Details option.  - Fast and noise free depth of field in T3.  - The new spherical camera option. - When T3 becomes available and what will the variants of the software be? 3D Art Live is planning to create a new TERRALIVE webinar based conference for the Terragen community, this time with a focus on the new Terragen 3. If you would like to sign up to let us know what you would like to see featured or emphasised at the conference, you can have your say at http://3dartlive.com/terralive/ Paul Bussey Podcast host and editor of 3D Art Direct magazine www.3DArtDirect.com

In this session, we get behind the scenes of D&D Creations and learn how this powerful partnership of Drea Horvath and Michel Rondberg was created. Many people in the Vue community will have heard of least one of these names, so you can discover more about this partnership in this session, what they did in their early years to get to the level of success they have acheived now. Even they are suprised how fast they have got involved in commercial and non-commercial productions of bigger studios in a relatively short time. It's been only since the start of the year since they officially launched their services, but during their first few months they has already worked on a cinematic trailer, a historical animation, and building scenes for a big commercial 3D projection mapping project. If you have considered animation in Vue or are trying to improve or optimise your animation work in Vue, Make a note of this live webinar event in your diaries which will be on the 3rd and 4th of August; the first weekend in August. It's entitled "Animating Nature" and the URL to book a webinar seat is www.3dartlive.com/vueanimation, so we hope to see you there or take advantage of the recording.  Michel and Drea's services for Vue are found at http://www.ddcreations.eu

In this session we learn how a hobby for computer games and graphics led to a notable visual effects business headed by Tobias Richter based in Cologn, Germany called "The Light Works". His company is now used by main industry clients such as Atari, CBS Digital and Lucas Arts as well as indie film producers for quality visual effects. Discover in this episode:- - Tobias has an amazing working environment, filled with sci-fi physical models that act as a great reference to creating virtual ones. - How physical model building is a useful discipline for virtual modeling.  - How The Light Works company started. - The secrets of how high quality visual effects are created on a relatively small budget. - Tobias's main tools and workflow. - The Light Works involvement in Star Trek Phase II. - Tobias and Fedcon - a major annual Star Trek convention in Germany. - Tobias's visit to George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch. - The more recent projects of "Nobility" and the "5th Passenger" Check out a reel of completed projects at thelightworks.com and look out for stuff in production at their facebook page. If you've enjoyed this session, let us know some of your feedback at iTunes. Don't forget to check for our latest live 3D digtal art conferences and webinars over at 3DArtlive.com I started off asking Tobias about his working environment at the Light Works Studio.

Sergio Martinez from Xurge3D creates custom outfits for Poser. As a content creator for Poser, Sergio has invested many years in this application, starting out with Poser 4 back in 1999. His specialisation is in fantasy and sci-fi outfits which fits right in with 3D Art Direct's coverage of the sci-fi and fantasy genres in the 3D Digital Arts world. Ever wondered how to create Poser accessories and clothing? Sergio will reveal step by step how he creates his custom clothing with his three part live webinar conference on Saturday 8th and 9th June 2013. Go to www.3DArtLive.com/contentcreation to register. In this episode we learn: - What got Sergio hooked into Poser clothing content creation.  - What were some of the most difficult challenges you had to overcome when bringing his content to market. - Find out which Poser character continues to attract the most sales for Xurge3D. - What is “conforming clothing.” for Poser.  – What's the difference between “dynamic clothing” and “conforming clothing.” - What's been the most satisfying product for Sergio to create and why? Remember you can sign up to our free 3D Digital Arts magazine at www.3DArtDirect.com - Where have some of Sergio's influences come for clothing design.

Welcome to session 15 of the 3D Art Direct podcast. In this session we continue to follow the progress of the sci-fi series project CAS Nobility which is actively pitching for crowd sourced funding on the Kickstarter.com website. Go to Kickstarter.com and just search for nobility and take a look at the videos describing the project, which feature E.J. Del La Pena, the creator of the Nobility project and also the director Neil Johnson. They are offering all kinds of goodies to those who donate to the project. I'd like to welcome E.J. and Neil to this session. E.J. De la Pena is an Actor/Film Maker with more than 20-years experience in the entertainment industry. He's been a child actor who has earned dozens of credits – including projects like Jingle All The Way and Boy Meets World. He is now the president and founder of the film production company Cowboy Errant! Neil Brook Johnson (July 26, 1967) is a British film and music video producer, director, and editor best known for his long association with heavy metal band Manowar, and for directing and writing Science Fiction Films. Neil is regarded as a pioneer in digital film-making. He has to his credit over 20 years experience in the industry including 6 feature films and 500 music videos. Highlights of Neil's career:- - The youngest paid director in Australia - Demons In My Head (1997) is reputed to be the world's first digital film - His second film, To Become One (2000) was produced for exactly $2,196 [5] as proof that you do not need money to make a successful film - In 2008, he made Humanity's End, a film about the last man in the universe being hunted down to extinction by a race of beings known as the Nephilim. In fact, all his films take place in the same universe and all contain Nephilim as characters dominating mankind Achievements:- - 20 years experience - 6 feature films - 500 music videos - 5000 productions - Specialising in music/sci-fi/drama In this podcast we learn:- - The latest news on the creation of the Nobility series - What attracted Neil to working on Nobility - Neil's commitment and work ethic as a director - The George Lucas connection!

Welcome to session 14. This digital arts interview is a little different, since I'm interviewing the husband and wife team that run the GeekAtPlay studio website which is totally focussed on education for 3D digital artists. What delighted me most about Vladmir and Amy Chopin's efforts for teaching 3D Digital Art applications is the sheer amount of content they provide. Today is May 2nd 2013, and I'm looking at their YouTube channel – GeekAtplay  studio and I can see 7 new videos uploaded one day ago. Now admittedly, this is probably to do with the fact that Vue 11.5 has been released and Vladmir is showing what's new for this version, so this is probably a few more than he would normally upload, but during our interview  he mentioned he had created around  1500 training videos.  In fact GeekAtPLay specialise in Vue, so if you want to start digital art with creating 3D environments with a great sense of realism, you could download a trial or free version of Vue from e-onsoftware.com and start looking at Vladmir's training videos on YouTube. Now Amy Chopin is equally busy, she's the author of 3D Art Essentials, which is a great start for 3D digital artist in getting to know the basics on the history, the terms of 3D art. But it covers modelling, posing, texturing, creating scenery, animation and rendering. Vladmir is originally from Moscow, Russia and now lives with Amy in Utah, in the United States. I started asking Vladmir about his early experiences with film and classic animation whilst in his teens. Find out more about our free 3D Digital Arts magazine, Podcasts and Digital Arts Conferences at www.3DArtDirect.com

This session is a little different from what 3D Art Direct podcast normally presents, since this time we are exploring the making of a science fiction series –which will be a drama/comedy produced with the aid of crowdfunding. The series is called C.A.S. Nobility – that has the tagline of “These are not the heroes you're looking for.”. Nobility is the name of the starship in this series with a curious crew of characters on board. The project is notable because of it's story, and because of the amount of passion and power behind the project which is generated in gigawats by E.J. De la Pena, the producer AND because he has managed to cast the actress Claudia Christian (from Babylon V) . This project was brought to my attention through Danny Gordon, who is the new conference and community manager for 3D Art Direct. He is one of the 3D artists on the project and invited me to follow the production of this series. I've always had a great interest in the production and what goes on behind the scenes of sci-fi television series and films. I mentioned that this series was going to be funded by crowdfunding. What is crowdfunding? It's a financing method that involves funding a project with relatively modest contributions from a large group of individuals, rather than seeking bigger sums of money from a small number of investors.  In this case E.J. De la Pena (E.J. for short), the head of production for this series is using Kickstarter.com for the crowdfunding campaign. Now if you've never been to Kickstarter.com, it's definitely worth a visit, firstly to check out E.J.'s campaign for Nobility and to contribute to his project. Secondly to see some of the other projects going on. Forinstance a few months ago, we noticed that a new version of the classic 3D vector game Elite was going to be remade through Kickstarter.com, so there are some projects definitely related to 3D graphics that are being funded through this clever means. So I'd urge you to look at E.J.'s project at nobilitytheseries.com, view the fun campaign video he has created for Nobility. In this first interview with E.J., we find out how the whole project started, how Claudia Christian came onboard. We learn how the story and characters were crafted, we talk about the Nobility ship design and discover some of E.J's production team.

This session's podcast has a wonderful interview with Paolo Ciccone, author of the reality software for Poser and Daz studio which helps these applications take advantage of the incredible LuxRender engine, allowing photo realism for Poser renders. Version 3 of this popular software is about to be released as I record this session on the 7th April 3013. Paolo originates from the city of Trieste in Italy and originally worked as a software engineer for Borland before entering into the digital arts world with Reality. He has over 30 years' experience as a software developer. Paulo also presented at the Poser Expo : Runtime Live conference, held between the 22nd and 24th of March 2013, which was the first ever conference Poser users, presented through our 3D Art Live webinar service in partnership with Runtime DNA. I give a special thanks to all the presenters that did an  incredible service to the Poser communities in the professionalism of their content. Many attendees found the content of the eleven webinars rich and rewarding, especially as they go over the recordings of the conference. Now if you couldn't make the conference, we covered such topics as:- The materials room, two rigging masterclasses, behind the scenes of reality 3, dynamic clothing, realityPaint, the GoZ plugin & preparing models in zBrush for Poser, composition and story telling with Poser, lighting, rendering, a UV mapping masterclass as well as history of Poser the software and it's communities through the years. These were all recorded and you can gain copies of these as individual sessions. But it works out at the best value if you purchase the entire set of recordings and as listeners to the 3D Art Direct podcast, you can use this code “reception10” to get $10 off the price. Just visit www.3DArtLive.com/recordings

This session we have a fantastic interview with Clint Hawkins, who is the CEO of YUR Digital, a content marketplace website that also offers a forum and art gallery for digital artists. YUR hosts regular competitions and there is one running now at YURDigital.com with the theme “twisted” with first prize of “Filter Forge Professional 3”. As we go into March, we have the world's first Poser on-line conference. If you catch this podcast before March 2nd 2013, you can sign up for a free introductory webinar at www.3dArtLive.com. We will have a number of highly skilled presenters offering nine different tips for Poser and Poser Pro users. The introductory webinar includes details of the main Poser conference which will be on the 22nd-24th of March with at least 10 webinars on topics such as Morphing, Rigging, Reality3, Z Brush, UV Mapping, lighting and mastering the materials room. Who will be presenting? Included is Traveler from Runtime DNA, Les Garner from Sixus 1, Nightsong, Arki, Lady Littlefox, Phil C, Sergio from Xurge 3D, Chuck Taylor (Nerd 3D) and Ray Phelps.   You can get tickets while they are still available at the www.3DArtLive.com website in the “Event Registration” area. So if you are a Poser  or Poser Pro user, don't miss out on this unique opportunity to connect with other users and meet some leading artists and content creators for Poser.   So I'd like to get into the main feature with my interview with Clint. If you've enjoyed this podcast and found it a valuable or enjoyable interview, please leave a review in iTunes to help other digital artists find this podcast and let me know some of your suggestions of who you would like to be interviewed in a future session.

This month's interview is with Syyd Raven who in her own right is an award winning 3D artist but has built the massive Poser centred community at Runtime DNA this community which started in 2001, with Colm Jackson and Eric Van Dycke. RuntimeDNA is a large digital community in the 3D Poser industry. It provides a wide selection of digital content and provides a great learning environment for its members with a very active forum who are from all over the world. A large user art gallery also reflects the vibrant community.  The store boasts over 2500 products with more than 100 content creators. In this interview we learn from Syyd:- - How Syyd started in digital art. - What has improved in the current Poser 9 and Poser Pro 2012 versions for texture artists. - What were some of the early challenges when Syyd co-created Runtime DNA. - The strengths of the international staff at Runtime.  - All about the Runtime DNA community and how it was formed. - The story of how her top two products were brought to market. In association with Runtime DNA, we are creating a live conference for the Poser community, called "Poser Expo: Runtime Live". This will be a set of webinars held over the weekend of 22nd to the 24th of March. Sign up to our mailing list at 3D Art Live to learn more about this conference:- http://3dartlive.com/

Welcome to session 9 and I am super stoked to introduce an interview with Oshyan (Ocean) Greene, the business manager of Planetside Software, which creates the highly regarded Terragen software. We cover how Terragen started, how Oshyan got involved in working for Planetside after being involved as a community member and supporting the software. For those of you who don't know much about Terragen, I can tell you that If you like the idea of applying 3D graphics to create photo-realistic natural environments, then Terragen is definitely for you. Another upside of this software is if you go to planetside.co.uk and go to the products section, there is a free edition of Terragen2 as well as the original Terragen Classic. Both create natural realism for environments, but TG2 being the latest version, has the greater power and sophistication and it now sports the ability to create animations, where you can fly a virtual camera through your landscape and create a movie. This month of December 2012, the 3D Art Direct podcast and the magazine is promoting Terragen and it's community. So if you are a Terragen user and a community member at one of the forums and are listening to us for the first time, welcome to the podcast and I hope you enjoy the treats that we have in store for you. The biggest treat I have for the Terragen community is that we are creating a live conference, called TERRALIVE for the Terragen 2 and Terragen Classic users on the 19th to the 20th of January 2013. You'll have the opportunity to to connect with other Terragen users and expert artists in a live setting through the use of webinar software, so you won't even have to arrange travel or accommodation to be at the conference.  The advantage of this event, is that you can get to directly meet artists that you've previously only seen in a forum.  You'll hear their voice and see their own computer desktops as they go through various techniques, tips and tricks to help you get the best out of the Terragen software. You can ask them, either through audio or by instant messaging points you don't understand and get to learn much faster than ever before.  There will be five sessions, each led by a different expert artist. We are pleased to include Martin Huisman AKA Tangeled Universe from New World Digital Arts (http://www.nwdanet.com/) which is a great resource for Terragen 2.  IF you are going to take just one action from this podcast, I'd like you to note down this web address www.3DArtLive.com/TERRALIVE.  Here you can sign up for the introductory session of the conference  being held on the  earlier  date of Saturday the 5th of January at 08:00PM GMT. This webinar will give more details about the main conference event, but you'll also meet Danny Gordon, moderator for a number of Terragen forums as well as Martin (Tangled Universe) and we'll give some of their top tips for Terragen 2 and Classic. Of course, you'll also meet other members of the Terragen community . Enjoy our interview with Ocean and listen out for the discount package on Terragen 2 that Ocean mentions at the end.

My interview this session is with Shaun Williams, who is the king of mass space  model production, creating numerous models for the various games software he has  worked on through the 20 years of his career. In assoication with this I have been reading today that there has been a  noteworthy article from the U.K.'s independent newspaper announcing that the  Museum of Modern Art in New York has publically supported computer games as a form  of art. This of course includes 3D games. There has been a lively debate over the  last decade of whether games can be described as art. With this announcement from  this prestigous New York art museum, then it looks official, that games can be  described as art. Visitors to the Museum of Modern Art will soon see Pac-Man displayed alongside  Andy Warhol and Picasso. Initially there are 14 video games, including the iconic Pac-Man, Eve on-line and  Myst (Chuck Carter issue 12). to start off this new category in its collection.  One expert who advised the curators, said gaming could increasingly become “one of  the most important” art forms. The museum sought out scholars, historians, critics and legal experts from the  computer game world to draw up a list that includes The Sims, a series which by  last year had sold over 150 million copies. Art connoisseurs may raise an eyebrow  as gamers will actually be able to play the titles in the gallery. So perhaps in years to come, some of the work that my interviewee Shaun or you the  listener is creating may end up in an Art Museum, with pride of place. Enjoy the interview with Shaun

Welcome to session 7 And a warm welcome to those who have just found the podcast via iTunes or elsewhere. After listening to this episode, I'd invite you to leave a brief review on iTunes and we'd welcome any feedback to improve the content or your experience of these sessions. This session is called "Sci-Fi Spacecraft Design: Is It Really Rocket Science?" I'm discussing this question with two special guests: Rob Caswell who we've previously interviewed as a DAZ Studio artist in Session 3 and secondly Tom Peters who likewise publishes artwork on DeviantArt.  They've both worked as illustrators for games and Rob and Tom have had an on-going discussion on sci-fi spacecraft design for some time.  The crux of the topic is whether more science should be involved in sci-fi ship design, or should we just go with cool looking ships that would end up burning up in the nearest atmosphere. After listening to the discussion, I'd love to know your thoughts on sci-fi spacecraft design - are you more pro-science or pro-cool looking design in not worrying about the science or somewhere in between.  You can do this by replying to the session 7 show notes at 3DArtDirect.com or visit us on Facebook at facebook.com/3DArtDirect.

Welcome to session 6. And a warm welcome to those who have just found the podcast via iTunes or elsewhere. After listening to this episode, I'd invite you to leave a brief review on iTunes and we'd welcome any feedback to improve the content or your experience of these sessions. In this session I interview a British artist called Deedee Davies  who creates some outstanding artwork with Carrara Pro, Vue, Poser Pro and Photoshop. We cover items such as how to create artwork with impact, selecting a good colour pallet with complimentary colours for an image, wrestling with Poser expressions, creating artwork for book covers and to top it all we talk about a vampire personality test; what type of vampire are you? If you own Poser and are struggling with any aspect of this software by Smith-Micro, I'd like to invite you to a live webinar Poser workshop that will be held on Thursday September 27th at 20:00 EST (Eastern Standard Time). This is an open event for any aspect of Poser that you want to learn in more detail, which Les Garner from Sixus1Media will provide tuition for. Due to the nature of this event, it will have limited spaces available. For those attending, you will get a piece of free Poser content created by Les from his store, which you'll get a download link for during the webinar session. To register go to 3DArtLive.com and you'll see an Event Registration link at the top of the home page, or you'll see the event calendar in the side bar.  For experienced digital artists that would like to partner with 3D Art Live and present webinars though our channel, please get in touch with me via the contact page at 3DArtLive.com. I hope you enjoy the interview with Deedee and take a look at her portfolio at www.3dfantasyart.co.uk/

Les Garner, 12 years in the digital arts industry explains how he has  kept going during the ups and downs of his business Sixus1 Media. We talk about ZBrush, which is one Les's core modelling applications in his workflow. We cover what ZBrush is and what makes it different from other modelling software. We go over ZBrush's features of pixols and polypaint and it's advantage of producing models with a relativly low poly count but with high texture details - perfect for gaming models. Listen to how ZBrush has made a fundamental difference to Sixus1Media's rate of production for models. Discover Sixus1Media's top two recommended features of ZBrush and how they have been used in recent work. Les also reveals the top selling custom made and production proven brushes for ZBrush. There's also a few key tips for those just starting out with ZBrush. Finally there is a LIVE WEBINAR where you can get direct access to Les Garner for an introduction to ZBrush. This introduction will help you overcome the unique interface that many struggle with when they first learn ZBrush and give an overview of the most important basic concepts of this superb modelling application. There is a LIMITED number of places for the very first webinar. Get more information at www.3DArtLive.com where you can book your seat.

Suzi Amberson is from sunny Phoenix, Arizona. She worked in the Insurance industry for 24 years before discovering a passion for digital art. Once Suzi realized she was not following her intended path she took a huge leap of faith and left the Insurance business to pursue her enthusiasm for creating 3D art. Suzi is a self-taught artist. She started out with Poser 6 in 2007. Her CG toolbox has expanded over the past few years and now includes Poser Pro 2012, Photoshop CS5 Extended, a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet, Marvelous Designer 2, Hexagon and Bryce as her tools of choice. She entered her first official art contest in 2009 over on the Daz3D website. The challenge was to create an image in the spirit of the infamous fantasy artist, Frank Frazetta. The final judging was conducted by Frank Frazetta Jr. One of her entries took third place and fuelled her desire to pursue 3D art as she sought to add interest and depth to her spectacular body of work. The URL for Suzi's gallery is http://kachinadoll.deviantart.com/ In the interview we cover:- - How to generate new ideas for your artwork by creating an Influence Map - The story of Suzi quitting her job to pursue a career in digital artwork.  - Marvelous Designer 2 - What is steampunk and what attracts Suzi to this art genre. - Suzi walks us through her favourite steam punk pieces. - Making the most of DeviantArt.    - Tips on getting lighting correct for a scene. 

Welcome to the 3D Art Direct Podcast Session 3 I'd like to introduce Rob Caswell, a DAZ 3D Studio artist who grew up during the space race and spent his time watching the Apollo moonshots as well as bat girl on TV, and then managed to avoid these distractions just enough to gain a degree in astronomy. He has a popular space on DeviantArt, with the moniker as “Arcas-Art”, that includes a well written blog and gallery of renders created with DAZ 3D Studio and post processing with Photoshop. Rob has a good grounding in multiple visual art zones, including science fiction & fantasy illustration for paper and pen RPGs, computer game art and comic book lettering. Rob has a good selection of general Science Fiction and Star Trek Art in his portfolio, including mock up book covers. There's also some art based on a running theme of "Spy Girls".  He's currently living in Western Massachusetts, operating a digital print business. In the interview we cover:- - All about Star Trek mock-up Book Covers  - The Spy Girls series with Rob's character “Cassie Blaine”.  - A drawback of 3D Digital Art is that it is easy to have a lack of focus. You can “doodle” for a long time. - Likening 3D digital art to “virtual photography”, taking elements that already exist and use these in a unique way from the artist's own skills and imagination - Figure work, the more you tweak, the better your chances of imbuing a sense of life and personality. You can sign up for our free monthly digital arts magazine at www.3dartdirect.com

Welcome to the 3D Art Direct Podcast Session 2 Session 2 includes Nine Essential Composition Tips for Digital Artists, a special offer of a 70% reduction on Poser version 8, an editorial on collaborative art and the promotion of those artists covered in our free monthly magazine of issue 17, including Bjorn Malmberg (Poser, Hexagaon and Vue), Ryan Malone (Poser and Vue), Lewis Moorcroft (Mojoworld) and Glenn Clovis (Photoshop). Sign up to get our free monthly on-line magazine at www.3dartdirect.com.

Welcome to the 3D Art Direct Podcast Session 1 In this session we introduce 3D Art Direct's mission statement to help and inspire 3D digital artists. There's a brief introduction about me, Paul Bussey, the editor of 3D Art Direct magazine, and I promote four artists published in issue 16 of our magazine, Tarik Keskin, Neil Thacker, DeeDee Davies and Les Garner from Sixus1 Media. There's a tribute to Ralph McQuarrie who inspired many a digital artist and we paint a potted history of his involvement with George Lucas and Star Wars in his influence on the eventual box office success of this movie and its sequels.