This June, Hum3D announced the winners of the Flying Cars 3D Competition 2022. Fox Renderfarm, as a world-leading render farm and cloud rendering services provider, also a long-term partner of Hum3D, sponsored this competition and witnessed the birth of many excellent and beautiful artworks. This time, we had the honor and opportunity to interview Shangyu Wang. His work “Green screen” won the second place in this competition.
He has been studying CG art since his freshman year. Although it has only been 3 years, he has already collected over 10 international and Chinese CG competition awards, including 2nd place in Hum3D Flying Cars 3D Competition 2022, 3rd place in Hum3D Car Render Challenge 2021, 1st place both in V-Ray Station Challenge 2020 & 2021, Gold prize of ANI Category in GGAC Competition 2021, 2nd place in The Art of 3D Insects Challenge 2020 held by ArtStation & Adobe and so on.
Let's find out how Shangyu made the amazing artwork through the exclusive interview with Fox Renderfarm.
Fox Renderfarm: Hi Shangyu, thanks for accepting our interview, could you please introduce yourself?
Shangyu: Hi everyone, my name is Shangyu Wang. I am a college student and about to start my senior year in September. I am very passionate about CG creation. It is a pleasure to talk with you.
Green screen © Shangyu Wang
Fox Renderfarm: Congratulations on winning Second Place and Fox Renderfarm Team Choice in Hum3D Flying Cars 3D Competition 2022, how do you feel about it?
Shangyu: Of course, I was so surprised and happy when I knew it. In fact, I just entered this competition intending to try it out at that time, and I didn’t think that I could win Second Place. I also participated in the Hum3D Car Render Challenge 2021 last year with my work “Under the sea”, and won Third Place. This year, I won Second Place in this competition, which is progress for me, so I'm still very happy.
Under the sea © Shangyu Wang
Fox Renderfarm: How long did you finish the work “Green screen”? Could you describe your workflow/pipeline for us?
Shangyu: I worked on it for about a month or so.
My main workflow was: I used Maya and ZBrush for modeling and Substance Painter for mapping. After that, the maps were imported back to Maya. And I rendered with V-Ray for Maya. Finally, the post-production was finished in Nuke.
© Shangyu Wang
© Shangyu Wang
© Shangyu Wang
Fox Renderfarm: The jury praised your work as very interesting and creative with a lot of details. So what inspired you to come out with the idea of making the work?
Shangyu: In fact, the theme of my work is not “green screen” at the very beginning, I created an image of a car flying in the sky. However, I was not very satisfied with the initial work, so then I spent a week thinking about how to make changes. Considering that the topic of the competition was flying car, I made a bold breakthrough and switched my work to the theme of green screen, because I believed that the green screen represented infinite possibilities.
The initial work of flying car © Shangyu Wang
Fox Renderfarm: The lighting and texturing in this one are what drive this high-quality render. How did you make the lighting and texturing, which make the render photorealistic?
Shangyu: I didn't really put much effort into the lighting, because I only set one light in the whole scene. Instead, I spent more time on materials and textures. I would look for some references, and think about how to coordinate the scene and make the material look realistic.
© Shangyu Wang
© Shangyu Wang
Fox Renderfarm: Did you meet any difficulties when creating this work? And how did you solve them?
Shangyu: The main difficulty is the idea. The production process of this work is actually similar to my previous works, so I hope to make some changes to the idea.
Detail of “Green screen” © Shangyu Wang
Detail of “Green screen” © Shangyu Wang
Fox Renderfarm: You participated in a Real-time Rendering 3D Animation Challenge hosted by Rayvision earlier this year. Your excellent work "Wind Tunnel Test" won 1st Prize in Student Category. What is your inspiration for this work?
Shangyu: I prefer something mechanical, and it so happened that I was studying the making of mechanical animation at that time, so I considered combining the rotating platform with the machinery, and then came up with such a scene.
Wind Tunnel Test © Shangyu Wang
Fox Renderfarm: We learn that you used Houdini to create this work, so why did you choose it? How is your study progress so far?
Shangyu: In fact, it was a coincidence that I happened to be learning the disintegration effect of Houdini at that time, and then I wanted to combine it into my work, so I made an animation of a spaceship crashing.
For me, I will learn the skills that I need at the moment. I think learning CG is a matter of interest. If you are passionate about CG, you would be willing to spend a lot of time learning. Then it is necessary to insist on doing some exercises every day so that you will not easily forget what you have learned.
Still image of “Wind Tunnel Test” © Shangyu Wang
Fox Renderfarm: Did you meet any difficulties in using Omniverse in this competition? And what do you think of Omniverse?
Shangyu: When I was using it, Omniverse didn't support some features yet. I set two lights in this work. And I wanted to compose the two lights, so I rendered it twice, setting one light at one time. But other renderers I've used in the past have an option - Light mix - that can be checked. Omniverse has not yet added this feature. However, I think OV's rendering quality (is better) and rendering speed is relatively faster.
Fox Renderfarm: How did you encounter CG?
Shangyu: It's kind of an interesting coincidence. I didn't know the CG industry at all before college. When I moved into the dormitory, a senior knocked on the door and asked if we were interested in joining the school's CG association, where there would have some modeling courses of 3ds Max and Maya. Then I went to study, and I continued to learn myself at home. I found that the CG industry is so fun, so I have been learning it until now.
Shangyu’s works when he first started learning CG © Shangyu Wang
Shangyu’s works when he first started learning CG © Shangyu Wang
Fox Renderfarm: Could you share with us a few interesting or memorable works that you have made?
Shangyu: Among all my works so far, I think the longest production time and most impressive one is the short film "Space Elevator" for participating in GGAC last year.
Still image of “Space Elevator” © Shangyu Wang
Still image of “Space Elevator” © Shangyu Wang
It took me about three months to make this short film, and for the first time, I tried the whole process of making the film: from modeling, mapping, rendering, to post-production coloring, voice acting and so on. At present, I still have a lot to learn, and making this short film is a challenge for me.
Details of “Space Elevator” © Shangyu Wang
Details of “Space Elevator” © Shangyu Wang
Fox Renderfarm: What drill routine do you use to sharpen your skills?
Shangyu: I have a lot of learning resources, but I think it is more important to cultivate a personal aesthetic sense. For example, you can practice the composition of pictures through photography, and enjoy more works of other masters to improve your aesthetic sense. In addition, I usually do some drawing and sketching practice.
Sketch practice © Shangyu Wang
Fox Renderfarm: Are there any artworks or artists that inspire you the most?
Shangyu: I joined a CG chat room where I can comunicate with many artists. I had the pleasure of making friend with a Senior Lookdev Artist named Alex (Zinan) Liu, whose direction is similar to the direction I am interested in, and he is also good at materials. He gave me a lot of advice in some of my past works and helped me a lot in my CG learning process.
Alex (Zinan) Liu’s ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/alexliuzinan
Fox Renderfarm: Is there anything you want to share with the CG enthusiasts?
Shangyu: I think to learn CG, persistence is the most important, without fits and starts. The more you practice, the more significant your progress will be.
That's all our interview with Shangyu, and we really appreciate Shangyu for being willing to do this interview with us.
Fox Renderfarm also interviewed the first place winner of the competition：Interview with Ruming Cao, 1st Place of Hum3D Flying Cars 3D Competition
Fox Renderfarm, as a powerful render farm and cloud rendering service provider, has always been very dedicated to supporting artists to use their imagination to create great work, which is also one of our mission!
