3D World gathers masters of CG environment work to discuss what they do and how they do it

Rodeo FX was the main VFX vendor for HBO’s Lovecraft Country, covering 17 months of production and 1,218 shots

Building environments has become a cornerstone of 3D art. From home interiors and city skylines to dense forests, mountain ranges and alien worlds, the technology now available allows for limitless creation and photorealism on an epic scale. But in such a diverse and unrestrained discipline, are there any artistic principles? What do environment artists have in common? How do they work? And, perhaps most importantly, how can you create your own jaw-dropping 3D environments? 3D World has gathered a diverse selection of environment artists, with decades of collective experience across the CG industry, to answer all these questions and more.

RECREATING THE WORLD

Veteran VFX matte painter and CEO of MattePaint.com, Conrad Allan, was drawn to environment work when he discovered Vue (a world generation tool by E-on software) whilst studying game animation in his native Australia. After sinking countless hours into the software, Allan connected with Dax Pandhi, CG veteran and QuadSpinner co-founder, who was a master of Vue at the time. “He was a major factor in springboarding my understanding,” Allan tells 3D World. “I’m a firm believer in finding a mentor. It’s like having a one-on-one teacher on a semi-regular basis. That said, most of how I got started was just due to the fact that I’d play around with sliders for hours, continuously hitting the render button to see the different results.”

Allan has always been fascinated by the visual aspects of the world around him. “When I was a kid I’d stare out the window looking at clouds,” he recalls. “I love the formations and colours. When I discovered I could actually create environments, that fascination was the driving force pushing me to recreate reality in 3D.

Right: An example of the unique CG environments that Rodeo FX created for Amazon’s Tales From The Loop

Above: Rodeo FX worked on the opening sequence for Tim Burton’s Dumbo, incorporating digital matte paintings, CG environments and adapted liveaction plates

The kicker comes when you show someone some of your work and they think it’s just a photo.”

Photorealism is a key aspect of great environment work for Allan. “I guess that’s a little restricted because it excludes stylised work, so composition and interest would be second to that,” he acknowledges. “When I talk about photorealism with the artists I mentor, I explain to them that it’s contextual,” Allan continues. “For instance, when working on The Lego Movie 2, we had to create photorealistic matte paintings and environments, but that didn’t mean the same thing as photorealism working on Game Of Thrones.”