Introducing Felipe Ribeiro, a remarkable Brazilian artist who has been causing an uproar in the 3D art scene. His outstanding artwork "Unknown World" has recently brought him acclaim as he placed second in the FGT3D New Adventure Challenge. Best wishes! It was an honor for Fox Renderfarm, the leading render farm and cloud rendering service provider in the business, to organize this competition and interact with Felipe Ribeiro.
Come along for the ride as we explore this gifted artist's world in further detail and learn what makes him unique in this interview.
Fox Renderfarm: Hi Felipe Ribeiro! Thank you so much for accepting our interview! Could you please introduce yourself to our readers?
© Felipe Ribeiro
Felipe Ribeiro: Hi everyone! My name is Luis Felipe, I’m 18 years old and I’m from Brazil.
Fox Renderfarm: Congratulations on winning second place in the ‘FGT3D New Adventure Challenge’, student category! How do you feel about it?
Felipe Ribeiro: Thank you so much! It’s just amazing. When I woke up and saw a notification of the email congratulating me on winning the challenge I was like: "What??" because I wasn’t expecting this. I screamed a lot haha, I ran to tell my mother and my friends who accompanied me throughout the creation process.
Fox Renderfarm: Could you give us a quick rundown of the project you presented during the FGT3D New Adventure Challenge?
Unknown World © Felipe Ribeiro
Felipe Ribeiro: This project is about a child embarking on an adventure using her imagination, discovering a fantastic unknown world. Fantasy worlds may not be real, but you can reach them through your imagination.
Fox Renderfarm: How did you conceive the concept that eventually became the winning submission?
Felipe Ribeiro: The thing is that this is actually only one frame of a video that I’ve created with my niece. The video, which has not yet been released, is a fake commercial for Faber-Castell called "Unleash your creativity" and it’s about a child having an adventure through her imagination and experiencing fantastic things. When we grow up, we usually forget the magic and fantasy and start to worry about many adult things, causing our creativity to be repressed. We should just unleash our creativity, and live life with more magic and less stress.
Fox Renderfarm: How did you go about creating the textures and atmosphere for the scene, and what was your creative process like?
Felipe Ribeiro: I was aiming to create some floating islands which I think are pretty beautiful and I went straight to Avatar looking for references. As you may imagine, my main reference was Avatar. This specific image led me to create my scene with lots of clouds and haze because I like volumetric scenes:
Avatar Hallelujah Mountains © Lightstorm Entertainment
The islands were created procedurally using SideFX Houdini and everything was rendered using Redshift. Some Rebelway tutorials on YouTube and my friends from HOUDINI BR community helped me with this. After that, I composited everything inside After Effects.
CG Breakdown © Felipe Ribeiro
CG Breakdown © Felipe Ribeiro
CG Breakdown © Felipe Ribeiro
CG Breakdown © Felipe Ribeiro
CG Breakdown © Felipe Ribeiro
Concept art by my niece © Felipe Ribeiro
Alternative landscape I was working on © Felipe Ribeiro
Fox Renderfarm: Achieving vibrant and lifelike colors in a landscape is a notable aspect of your rendering. Can you delve into the techniques you employed to enhance color saturation and realism, especially considering the fantastical nature of the scene?
Felipe Ribeiro: I love colorful renders and intense lighting. I think here one of the main things was the lighting. I definitely love the sunset, the golden hour. The golden hour and plants make the perfect combination because, at this time of the day, the leaves of plants and trees shine. Also, the color grading and finally adding the sun flare in comp was like the icing on the cake, creating an intense, cinematic, and colorful sunset scene.
Fox Renderfarm: Lighting is often crucial in conveying mood and depth. How did you approach the lighting design to create a sense of realism and wonder in the floating island landscape, and were there specific challenges in illuminating both the figure and the surrounding environment?
Felipe Ribeiro: As I said, I love sunset and golden hour. Every day I have to stop what I’m doing and run outside to watch the sunset and take some photos. When creating this scene I knew this should be at sunset because I don’t think that any other time of day would produce a better result. It was a little bit difficult to insert my niece into the scene because I filmed her in the midday sun, but after the comp and adjusting the color, I think it ended up working out.
Fox Renderfarm: Could you share the duration it took to bring this piece from concept to its final rendered form and highlight which aspect of the process consumed the most time? What contributed to this time investment?
Felipe Ribeiro: I think it took 3 days to develop these islands and landscapes, to populate the scene with trees (around 2,000,000) and lots of plants, and 2 hours to render. Probably the most time-consuming was the islands and landscapes. Took time to set it up and I tried lots of versions until I felt comfortable with the version that made it to the final version.
Fox Renderfarm: The overall effect of the image is described as one of beauty and wonder. Were there specific artistic influences or inspirations that guided your creative choices in achieving this desired emotional impact, and how did you want the viewer to experience the sense of beauty and wonder in your creation?
Felipe Ribeiro: Avatar. I think we all remember Avatar when it comes to floating islands. I wanted the viewer to feel tiny in front of a huge fantastic world, to feel like they were discovering something completely new and ready to embark on an adventure, just like the character.
Fox Renderfarm: Can you share a bit about your favorite projects or pieces you've worked on, and what made them particularly enjoyable or fulfilling for you?
Felipe Ribeiro: I have three that are very important for me.
1. Doctor Who Epidemic Title Sequence
A fan title sequence of my favorite series that remained on paper for a long time, but I finally finished it in 2023. I really like the visuals of it and it became one of my favorite projects.
Doctor Who Epidemic | Title Sequence © Felipe Ribeiro
2. G-SHOCK Exploration
I make some VFX, but what I most like to do is motion design. 3D motion is one of my biggest passions. I made this project to explore my animation skills and develop my lighting and texture skills.
This motion design project was done in Cinema 4D + Redshift and rendered with Fox Renderfarm.
© Felipe Ribeiro
3. Unleash Your Creativity
I love commercials. Definitely love it. Those are well-produced commercials, with good cinematography and good CGI. My favorites are ‘Cristiano Ronaldo x Binance: The NFT Collection’ and ‘Pepsi® #TomaEssa’ both produced by SAUVAGE.TV, and Victoria "Nuestra Tierra". I wanted to produce my commercial combining both good cinematography and good CGI.
This commercial, by the way, was already finished, but I believe this narrative has so much potential that I decided not to post it. Instead, I'm re-recording it and working on new improved visuals. In a few weeks, I’ll unleash it haha.
Here you have some frames of what I’ve already shot for the new version of "Unleash Your Creativity". This fake commercial is divided into two parts. The first is recorded with my niece in a set that I built and the second part is when she turns her drawings into reality using the imagination, one of them being a fantastic unknown world.
© Felipe Ribeiro
Fox Renderfarm: Are there specific cultural or natural elements that consistently inspire your work? How do these influences manifest in your creations?
Felipe Ribeiro: I love being Brazilian, I love Brazil and even though I don't add any Brazilian reference in my work, I always like to point out that I'm from Brazil to everyone so that they can know we can also produce good things. I think Brazil's visibility in the 3D, VFX, and motion design industry is growing every day and I want to be part of this movement. That’s one of the things that inspires me to keep creating.
Fox Renderfarm: Have you had any experience with Fox Renderfarm's cloud rendering services in the past? If you have, what is your opinion of our cloud rendering offerings?
Felipe Ribeiro: I haven’t. Therefore, after receiving the credits from the prize I used it a lot to render some projects, which helped me because it would take days to render on my machine, but this time was reduced to minutes and I was able to finish my project in less time. It's always a pain to have to wait a long time for rendering and Fox Rendefarm helped me with this.
Fox Renderfarm: If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be and why? What kind of project would you envision working on together?
Felipe Ribeiro: I can’t tell an artist, but I’m a fan of Tendril. I would love to collaborate with them on a 3D motion project. Or produce a commercial with SAUVAGE.TV.
Fox Renderfarm: Finally, what advice would you give to aspiring 3D artists? Are there any key lessons or insights that you have learned along your journey?
Felipe Ribeiro: Always be looking to improve. Don't worry if people criticize what you do. If this is what you love, just go for it. And if you think your renders are bad, don't worry, just keep creating and trying to improve. I used to hate everything I made and thought I would never improve and now I'm giving an interview to Fox Renderfarm about my art. It’s just wonderful.
Thanks again to Felipe Ribeiro for accepting our interview! Wishing new heights in your professional career!!
Felipe Ribeiro’s social media:
- Behance: www.behance.net/onvfx
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/on_vfx
- YouTube: www.youtube.com/onvfx
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/on_vfx
