Have you imagined that in the future, humans will travel to other planets in spaceships to collect new energy?
David Aguero, the 2nd place winner of the Hum3D Space Rover 3D Competition, created such an amazing future scene in his award-winning work The harvest, which was made with LightWave 3D, Substance Painter and Affinity Photo.
The harvest © David Aguero
As he introduced, “The new season is here and the harvest begins, soldiers, not farmers, extract the Enerplant, a powerful and green energy that floods the spacecraft engines, making possible star travel. It only grows in the exoplanet B7, in a region claimed by the human alliance, is a deadly business, but very profitable, some say, the new gold fever…”
It’s pleased that your TPN-Accredited cloud render farm, Fox Renderfarm, has the chance to have an interview with David Aguero, a 3D generalist and Art Director form Argentina. He talked about how he created the cool space rover and the beautiful alien forest.
- David Aguero
- Freelance 3D Generalist & Concept Design
- From: Argentina
- ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/david_aguero
Fox Renderfarm: Hi, David! Could you give us a brief introduction about yourself?
David: Well, I'm 38 years old, living in Argentina, generally working as Freelance, now an Art Director for a local VFX company. Fantasy and science fiction are my favourite subjects.
Fox Renderfarm: Congratulations on winning 2nd place in the Space Rover Challenge, how do you feel about that?
David: Thanks! As an artist, winning an art challenge is a big opportunity, not only to win something but to get your work boosted to more people’s eyes, that is great.
Fox Renderfarm: What inspired you to come out with the idea of making the work ‘The Harvest’?
David: From some time I wanted to design a rover involving a "dome-like" windshield, I also love the AT-ST ( chicken leg transport from Star Wars).
AT-ST from Star Wars
Fox Renderfarm: How long did you take to finish the work?
David: I started May 22nd, and ended one day before the deadline (5 of June), so I spent 15 days ( on free time and weekends).
Fox Renderfarm: Could you tell us how you designed the space rover?
David: I tend to do some concepts in 3D, I use basic shapes to quickly find an interesting design, like sketching in paper then I start to add detail and think about the functionality in the process. You can't see in my entry, what my rover can do. If you look closely you have wheels for long distance travel, legs for complicated terrain and the main pod can detach for diving. :)
Fox Renderfarm: The amazing work has great composition and details such as the robots and colorful trees, could you tell us how you make the amazing environment?
David: I start the terrain base in world creator, then in LightWave 3D, I used a powerful instance system to populate small rocks and vegetation, the giant trees were easy to make, they are basic shapes with some 3D scan barks, I use the instance system to make the ivy, and then I use a unified material for the plant with lots of color variation, very fun to set up with the real-time renderer that LightWave has.
Fox Renderfarm: Did you meet any difficulties when creating this work? And how did you solve it?
David: The most challenging, was to make the UVs for the rover, too many parts, its takes a lot of time to do it properly, but to save time I didn't do all the UVs, I mirrored half of the rover since it wasn't to be displayed from other angles!
Detail renders of the space rover
Fox Renderfarm: Could you briefly tell us your educational and work experience along your CG journey?
David: When I was little I was fascinated with the old stop motion movies ( Ray Harryhausen), then in the 1993 Jurassic Park came out and blow my mind, ( I was 15 years old ) since then, I slowly learn what 3D was, started with the 3D studio for DOS, the use TrueSpace, 3ds Max, Maya and finally LightWave as my main 3D program now. Almost self taught, I went to a college to refine my 3D skills but at the time it was very basic, I have a degree in Multimedia designer, I learned more on the internet though.
The Last Shuttle © David Aguero
Fox Renderfarm: Do you have any recommendable learning methods to improve professional skills?
David: Yes! Before going to an expensive college or institute you can start by looking at online tutorials from the best artist out there, I learned a lot looking through the process of other artists, then, if you are serious about it, an institute can open jobs opportunities, contacts and give you some discipline for work.
Healing © David Aguero
Fox Renderfarm: Anything else you would like to share with CG enthusiasts?
David: Follow big artists, buy tutorials, interact in social networks, don't be lazy, share your work, accept critics, help others! And join challenges! They are great exercises to develop deadline skills! And more.
