Interview With Shabeer MV, a Versatile 3D Professional, Who Won the 1st Award in The Evermotion Challenge 2021

Fox Renderfarm, the best render farm in the CG industry, is committed to making contributions to the CG industry by sponsoring international CG challenges. Evermotion Challenge 2021 came to an end. As one of the sponsors, we are so glad to have the honor and opportunity to have an interview with Shabeer MV, the 1st award in the competition.

Here comes our interview with Shabeer, in which we could find out how he created the amazing work with 3ds Max, Corona renderer and Photoshop.

The Balance of Work & Life © Shabeer MV

• Shabeer MV
• Doha, India
• Lead artist in Quantum Global Solutions

Fox Renderfarm: Congratulations on winning the 1st award in the Evermotion Challenge 2021, how do you feel about that?

Shabeer: Thanks, It was great to get 1st award on a platform like Evermotion. Lots of excellent talents there.

Fox Renderfarm: How long did you finish the work, The Balance of Work & Life?

Shabeer: I got into the competition late, it took me 2 weeks to complete the work

Fox Renderfarm: What software and plugins did you use?

Shabeer: I used 3ds max and Corona renderer. Most of the color corrections were done with Corana’s frame buffer. God rays were added in Photoshop.

Fox Renderfarm: What’s the inspiration behind your artwork?

Shabeer: Inspiration came from a few photos from google who were struggling with their work & family.

Fox Renderfarm: How did you make the excellent modeling and the strong composition? Any references?

Shabeer: Since I had only 2 weeks, I had to use a lot of premade assets. There was less modeling in this project, most of the time I was texturing and dressing the scene.

First block- out and scene reference.

Lighting and composition were mainly inspired by the photo below

Gif – WIP

Fox Renderfarm: The lighting made this eastern narrow street vibe very realistic. The fabrics that block the sunlight look very interesting as the whole environment does its job. How did you make the lighting?

Shabeer: Main lighting was nothing special and done with a single HDRI map and a sun node aligned to it. The fabric has slight translucency which allows them to pass through some of the light.

Scene with HDRI & Sun

Adding the Volume Fog, contrast & bloom brought the scene to life.

With Fog, Bloom & Contrast

Fox Renderfarm: Did you meet any difficulties when creating this work? And how did you solve them?

Shabeer: Since the character was a photo mapped to 3d object, light matching it was a challenge in this work. It took a while to get it match the scene.

Fox Renderfarm: Any artists or artworks inspired you most?

Shabeer: As an environment/props artist myself, I am inspired by works of Andrew Averkin, Toni Bratincevic, Marek Denko and some Chinese concept artists whom I follow on Artstation. Photography is also a main source of inspiration since they are very useful references for lighting and mood setting.

The One © Andrew Averkin

Colony X Wide Cameras © Toni Bratincevic

Wasteland Fortunes © Marek Denko

Fox Renderfarm: Could you briefly tell us your educational and work experience along your CG journey?

Shabeer: I completed my 3d/Animation course in 2008. I worked as a graphics designer & arch. Visualizer after graduation. Currently I am working as lead artist in QGS for the last 10 years. At work we mainly do technical/engineering art for construction projects.

Fox Renderfarm: Do you have any recommendable learning methods to improve professional skills?

Shabeer: People always think better tools improve their work/skills. What I have learned is that it is your eye that needs to be improved over time. Your eye will help in better modeling, lighting, texturing and animation. Take a break, use cold eyes often to see possible mistakes.

With experience, you’ll start to see a lot of things you haven’t seen before. If you look back to your work from 2 or 3 years from now, and if you don’t feel it looks crap, then your eyes haven’t improved.

Train your eyes, it will push your skills to meet its demand.