The first thing to consider, even before discussing design issues, is the meaning of the word “Fantasy”. If we can understand the notion of Fantasy, coming up with the design of fantasy worlds becomes a more natural process.

The second thing to consider is the specific attributes of a 3d computer graphics environment. While fantasy … Read more...

Look at the following image, created for the whimsical interface of a game.

Observe carefully this image, which seems to contain a lot of detail. However, upon closer inspection, notice that almost all of the objects in this picture are either planar or cylindrical in nature. What makes the image look intricate is the overlap and texture work.

Of course, there will be times when the project demands specifically the creation of organic-shaped objects. However, the artist should strive to make things easier, not more complicated, whenever possible.

Notice how many of the textures in this picture were painted SPECIFICALLY for each … Read more...

However, once you create custom textures made especially for it, then you can really determine a lot about the owner, context and location. (Perhaps this chair is owned by a cartoon character, in a whimsical type of setting! The story is probably fun and cheerful!)

Textures indicate materials and add interest

Textures are also responsible for letting the viewer recognize the type of material that a specific object is made of. Besides identifying materials, textures also add detail and interest to otherwise plain models.

Textures disguise imperfections and finish off models

And finally, textures can greatly hide the imperfections of a poor model and can also help … Read more...

Question and answer regarding the nature of lighting in texture art:

>>Student question:  I guess I’ve always had the impression you need to consider the interplay of light with your texture during the process of creating the texture.  For example, if I’m developing a texture in PhotoShop, and cast the shadow incorrectly, then I would think the texture would be bad if I later cast the light from a different direction?

Answer: Yes, absolutely, in that case you do need to take lighting into consideration. But that is only important if you are making textures that have “dimensional quality”, that is, that have a lot of depth to them. In fact, “dimensionality” is one important decision one needs to take into account when creating textures. If your textures are rather flat, then the lighting is independent of texture creation. Of course you would want to imagine in your … Read more...

This image was created in 1998 (that’s a long time ago!) as part of a tutorial article for Serious 3D magazine. The software 3D Studio Max 2.5 and Cebas Optic Suite (for the flares) were used.

Every single object you see in this image was created using the ‘box method’, which consists of the following: create a box with 3 to 5 segments and modify its vertices and faces until it resembles roughly the format you want. Then apply the command MeshSmooth, which makes it look nice and smooth, with a very organic look. All the textures were hand painted especially for each model.

The branches can be created by extruding the faces out individually, and then rotating and scaling them.

The inspiration for the image was a flower bouquet. I tried to organize the various different elements in a way similar to a traditional bouquet of flowers, but … Read more...

One of the most interesting careers in this industry is that of a texture artist. Painting textures for games is no small thing , you must have good sense of design and be able to transmit dimensionality that is not available due to restricted modeling.Typically, in realtime projects, due to memory and engine speed, the 3D models are kept … Read more...

Before even attempting to start creating a fantasy world, it’s more than important to choose a concept, or an idea of the world to be created. Fantasy Designers and Computer graphics people tend to be under a lot of pressure, with tight dead-lines, thinking that perhaps the conceptual part is not really so important. Without a concept, the design will not be formulated in the most creative way.

While some artists are very comfortable with the notion of verbalizing a concept, others might need some help. A concept can be as short or as lengthy as you like: it could be a simple one-paragraph verbal description of the … Read more...

• Scale
• Proportion
• Position
• Color
• Texture
• Light
• Camera and point of view (perspective)
• Shape and form
• Animation, timing and rhythm
• Physics and the laws of nature
• Organic Attributes
• Mechanical Attributes (hardware)

The way the artist works with each one of the qualities applied to the scene is what gives the sense of fantasy or normality. A few guaranteed ways to achieve a surreal look is to manipulate qualities of the scene in the following ways:

Exaggeration

A simple and effective way to achieve a fantasy look is to exaggerate elements in the scene. Almost anything can be exaggerated, from the size of objects to the saturation of colors. Scale … Read more...

Textures add intricacy that modeling alone cannot achieve

Consider this model of the interior of a room, which contains a very modest 300 polygons. Without any textures, it is plain and rather pathetic.

However, add a few chosen textures and the modeling acquires another level of intricacy that would practically impossible to create with modeling alone.

Adding textures to it creates such level of detail that would be very impossible with such low amount of geometry or very taxing on the system. Every 3D artist aims to optimize their models, so that they will be faster and easier to manipulate, and therefore more efficient. The image above contains only 7 textures, and no further modeling was done. Here are … Read more...

This is a mini clay sculpture I created a while back. Today it is mounted on a different backing, but I like the simplicity/complexity of the design isolated shown here.

What is interesting about this piece, to me, is the layering aspect of it. If you pay close attention, all the elements are quite simple if analyzed individually. However, as a collective unit, they appear to be far more intricate than they really are.

Also interesting to me is the color palette. There are only 4 main colors in this entire piece, which makes it look very unified: Purple, Teal (Turquoise), Blue and Dark Gold.

This piece is entitled “Rain Cloud”. Please do not distribute or post without written permission.

… Read more...