Mark Bannerman’s Studio Artist 3D Tips

Mark Bannerman is a long time Studio Artist user who was kind enough to offer some insight into his use of Studio Artist for adding an enhanced organic quality to 3D rendered artwork. Mark has worked as an image maker since 1988 and spent thirteen years in London (Uk) working commercially for high profile clients from the world of TV , publishing, the music industry, design and advertising, included BBC TV, Madonna and British Airways. I’ve attached his Studio Artist 3D tips and general comments below.

Marks 3D Tips, or Perfection Stinks

I am currently using Studio Artist in assisting the generation of texture maps for 3D renders. It's a great tool to put humanity and soul back into texturing work as well as adding controlled subtle post processing to renders.

Most articles written on the topic of texturing in 3D art dedicate their emphasis on the user achieving photorealistic textures, often underlining the need to create quality bump maps and displacement maps to help achieve a more realistic finish to your render.

It's also true that by ignoring all the above it is possible to create fantastic 3D art that can reflect the advantages of painting techniques to give your work some humanity.

Post Processing Simple 3D Renders

Studio Artist gives you the ability to take a simple 3D render and create fantastic illustrations or animations from basic 3D renders with little or no initial texture work required. The photo at the top of this blog entry shows off an example of using Studio Artist to post process a simple 3D render and create a much more interesting image derived from the 3D render that has a rich organic feel while still maintaining the 3D feel of the original render.

This allows the user to concentrate on the basic color and tonal harmonies within the work to create the initial emotive resonance; with the knowledge that once it has been post processed and over-painted in Studio Artist the effect required will be enhanced and given a graphic energy that does not require a level of initial detailing that often detracts from the dynamism of the image itself.

The simple point that most 3D texturing tutorials miss is, what you leave out is as important as what you put in when creating an overall ambience to your work. I have found Studio Artist to be an excellent tool in adding a little bit of grit back into a render.

Enhancing 3D Texture Maps with Studio Artist

The two examples of finished 3D renders shown on the blog image gallery page use no bump mapping or displacement mapping whatsoever but instead concentrate on the creation of more painterly texture maps to create an effect that I find complimentary to my personal style and approach.

Both examples use photographic textures as tiling texture maps - imported and then re-worked in Studio Artist to achieve a more painterly feel. Often a light and subtle application in Studio Artist is enough to give your photographic textures a far more pleasing overall effect. It is important to realize you are not creating a mini masterpiece but rather a tile that looks great when covering perhaps a large area.

The image with the girl on the moped also uses a very small amount of post processing in Studio Artist whilst the circus image relies simply on the textures and the backdrop in the render to create the effect I require. You'll also notice that once the background created in Studio Artist is added to the render it lifts the ambience of the piece. The Circus Textures image in the image gallery page shows off some specific details of how the circus image 3D example was made.

Texture Map Painting Tip

Note: When using Studio Artist to paint over texture maps that wrap - it is important to make sure you modify your paint preset by going into the paint synthesizer controls and checking ‘wrap path at edges’ check box in the Path End control panel - this then will draw strokes that come off the canvas to the opposing side.

Mark’s Comments on Studio Artist

Mark is now spending his time concentrating on content for illustrated and animated children's stories using digital painting and 3D. He had this to say about Studio Artist:

I've used Studio Artist since version 1 and related to it straight away. Many of it's processing analogies were instantly familiar to me as I've also always had an interest in electronic music and synthesizers.

What I love about Studio Artist is using it to destroy images and adding some humanity - when I created traditional painted media I would often attack a piece during it's creation with a scalpel, a toothbrush and a bottle of bleach. The surrealist referred to this method of working as " Technical Fervor ". Happily with Studio Artist I no longer have to climb into a bath, wild eyed and clutching a piece of art-board in my trembling hands :-)

When free and working away in a fervor or "in the zone" ( as athletes would have it) Studio Artist allows you to record your working process as a history so you can remember how you achieved certain results as well as step backwards. However remembering to switch history on is quite another matter :-). For that you need a beautiful assistant, which Synthetik unfortunately do not provide. (Editors note: you can turn on the Main Preference checkbox option called ‘History Record Default’ if you would like Studio Artist to turn on history recording as a default when you start up the program).

All the presets and brushes I use, I write myself to suite my style and method of working - the collection that comes with Studio Artist is incredible and vast, but I usually clear these out to save myself from being frozen by too much choice; or re-arrange them into collections that make a creative sense to me.

The real power of Studio Artists comes into it's own when using layers and blending modes to build up an image. I am currently using Studio Artist in assisting the generation of texture maps for 3D renders. It's a great tool to put humanity and soul back into texturing work as well as adding controlled subtle post processing to renders.

Over the years I have tried to switch on traditional hand painting users to the power of Studio Artist and have often come up against a form of snobbery as if using Studio Artist is 'push button art', 'cheating' or somehow tainted because it allows for automated painting techniques. It is important to realize that Studio artist handles painting by hand superbly well and this is still vital if the user wishes to achieve their own personal artistic voice, ambitions and visions in tandem with the depth of permutations and possibilities that Studio Artist allows.

Thanks again to Mark for sharing some tips on his personal artistic approaches to using Studio Artist to enhance 3D imagery. You can learn more about Mark’s work as well as view the awesome gallery pages on his web site at www.markbannerman.com.