A few days ago, we just had the luck to interview with Florian Renner, the 3rd winner of Hum3d Survial Car Challenge which is sponsored by Fox Renderfarm, we are always appreciated to have such precious opportunities to talk with those professionals. And today, we just finished the interview with Federico Ciuffolini, the 1st winner of this competition. Here are the details as below:
Fox Renderfarm: Hi Federico, would you please give a brief introduction about yourself?
Federico Ciuffolini: Sure! I am 30 years old, Italian, and I've been interested in CG for almost 15 years.
Fox Renderfarm: That's really a quite long time! So are you currently working as a CG artist?
Federico Ciuffolini: Yes! I am a 3D artist and programmer. I have been doing photo realistic rendering for several years, and right now I’m working on interactive apps, augmented and virtual reality.
Fox Renderfarm: Sounds great. How did you made the decision to step into the CG industry?
Federico Ciuffolini: I started experimenting with simple 3D softwares when I was 16 years old. I was fascinated by the first 3D cartoons, like that famous Simpsons episode where Homer travels to the 3D universe.
From that point, the passion just grew and grew. When I was 18 I decided to study Computer Science as a backup plan, but I knew what I really wanted to do. A lot of practice with 3ds Max and a bit of luck made the dream possible.
Fox Renderfarm: The current prize definitely demostrates your hardwork! Did you still remember your first CG work, how does it look like?
Federico Ciuffolini: Yes I do! They were made with Corel Dream 3D, a really simple software from the early 2000s, and I still have them here on my hard disk. Let's say that I was kinda surprised when I opened them, they are simple but not as ugly as I thought!
Fox Renderfarm: It sounds pretty awesome. How did you know the Hum3d Survival Car competition?
Federico Ciuffolini: I already knew the Hum3D website. I think I saw a post about the competition on some Facebook Group.
Fox Renderfarm: OK. What inspire you to come out the idea of making the work "The Free Autonomous Republic of Dieselville"?
Federico Ciuffolini: I've always been interested in the post apocalyptic trend, and I have started dozens of 3D works in that style, but I completed none of them. I took the occasion to actually close this chapter with myself :)
I knew that I wanted to do something different, out of the ordinary post apocalyptic style. It took me some days of brainstorming and a couple of beers with some friends, then the idea come naturally and I started working.
Fox Renderfarm: Haha, what you did finally is get rewarded! What software, renderers, plugins you used in this work?
Federico Ciuffolini: 3ds Max, Corona Renderer and Substance Designer. I think that Corona did a great job on this work, it accomplished everything flawlessly.
Fox Renderfarm: Did you met any difficulties when creating this work? If yes, how did you solved it?
Federico Ciuffolini: I knew that the scene was going to be pretty big, so I decided to use as much parametric maps as possible. All of the grime, dirt and rust were done with CoronaAO + CoronaTriplanars. I had to tweak a lot of maps and parameters, but in the long run this technique proved to be fast and effective. I saved a lot of time since I could reuse a lot of procedural maps and I had to unwrap only a small number of meshes. I did a lot of cloth simulations, too. For the smaller objects I used MassFX, which proved to be quick and stable, and for more complex objects I used the Cloth modifier. These simulations took me more time than I thought, but I think they came out quite good.
Fox Renderfarm: Did you used Fox Renderfarm's cloud rendering service previously? If yes, would you share your ideas about us?
Federico Ciuffolini: I will be honest here, I actually never used a render farm service. I think this will be a nice opportunity to finally do it!
Fox Renderfarm: Would you please share your ideas for winning the 1st prize in the Hum3d Survival Car competition?
Federico Ciuffolini: I am not sure I understand this question, sorry. Do you mean what I felt? Or the ideas at the base of the project? ---
Fox Renderfarm: Anything else you would like to add or say?
Federico Ciuffolini: This contest has been a terrific experience to me! It had been so long since the last competition, and only now I understand how much I missed it. Thinking, planning and completing a personal work with a strict deadline is so tiring, but so satisfying!
