NEWS CENTER

On 31 July - 1 Aug, Fox Renderfarm was exhibiting at SIGGRAPH 2019. During the exhibition, we had an interview with two passionate volunteers of SIGGRAPH 2019, Ellie Metzelaar and David Eagan. As the representatives of CG enthusiasts, they shared the experience of their CG works and the evaluation of Fox Renderfarm.

Fox Renderfarm: Have you ever heard of Fox Renderfarm?

Ellie: Yes, I have, actually. I was working with a team on a short film, and we were rendering on the personal computers, and we realized that we wouldn't finish the rendering with our own computers on time. So we actually, one of the people in my team, he used Fox Renderfarm, and we actually used it to finish the project on time for the deadline. So, thank you!

David: Fox Renderfarm provided students at SIGGRAPH with free rendering time and service, so with a few projects that I wanna use to render on their service.

Fox Renderfarm: Will you recommend Fox Renderfarm to your friends?

Ellie: Yes, if you don’t have a very expensive computer, or your expensive computers aren’t gonna finish things on time. I will definitely recommend. It’s crucial to get your renders done on time.

David: We don’t all have supercomputers or renderfarms at disposal.

Here’s the interview between Fox Renderfarm and two volunteers.

Check here and know more about them.

Ellie’s demo reel: http://elliemetz.com/ David’s demo reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQY4hv8ttSo

A group of international CG artists, who are also the fans of Dragon Ball, one of the most successful manga and anime series of all time, decided to make a project about the anime on their free time.

The nonprofit project, Dragon Ball Z Legacy, supported by , is going to be a 3D animation video clip featuring some of the best manga and animated moments. They said, if this project earns money, all the money will be donated to an international association for children with cancer.

Fox Renderfarm has been committed to supporting public welfare project, such as the Dragon Ball Z Legacy. While supporting more CG artists, we hope to make more contributions to society.

The characters of Dragon Ball Z Legacy

You can check the and know more about the characters.

It is our honor to have an interview with the team leader, Olivier Schmitt. Moreover, Olivier shares us with the making of the project and production experience.

Here's the interview between Fox RenderFarm and Olivier Schmitt.

Fox Renderfarm: Could you please introduce yourself?

Olivier Schmitt: Hello, I'm Olivier Schmitt, I'm French, I'm a CG artist for 12 years, I've studied 3D animation in Paris for 4 years, at Lisaa and Les Gobelins. I work in China in Beijing for 3 years, as a CG artist supervisor.

Fox Renderfarm: When did you begin to like Dragon Ball? And which is your favorite character?

Olivier Schmitt: I started to watch Dragon ball in 1989 when I was 8 years old. I don’t have a favorite character, each one is special and has its own specificity, for example, I like Goku when he arrived late and came to save his friends, I like Krillin when he fight with Cell for saving a mother with her daughter, or when he uses the Kienzan. Vegeta he sacrificed his life to try to kill Buu, etc..

Fox RenderFarm: Does Dragon Ball have any impact on your life and career?

Olivier Schmitt: Yes, Dragon Ball influenced me a lot. When I was a young student I drew Dragon Ball many times, step by step I tried to improve my level and push me always to be better. And I think that helped me to take the decision to start art school and do 3D animation and be here now.

Fox RenderFarm: What’s your original intention of creating the team project?

Olivier Schmitt: The original intention of me and my team, is to create a very beautiful 3D animation of Dragon Ball Z. To take big pleasure to create this Fan video, and give pleasure to the peoples who will watch it.

Fox RenderFarm: What is the story of the team project? And what do you want to express through the work? 30 Dragon Ball characters are selected, any reasons why you choose them in your work?

Olivier Schmitt: The story is to recreate between on 3 and 4 minutes a video clip with many of the best moments of the Dbz action. The thing we want to express is to have chills to do this job and give chills to the audience who will watch the video. The 30 characters selected, are all characters who have influenced the most the story of Dragon Ball Z.

The concept of Dragon Ball Z Legacy

Fox RenderFarm: As for the character modeling design, will you innovate or restore the original version?

Olivier Schmitt: For the characters, we keep the original design version with some small changes.

The character designs of Dragon Ball Z Legacy

Fox RenderFarm: Any software and plugins you use for the project?

Olivier Schmitt: For do this project we use much software: the base is Maya, and we use, Zbrush, Wrap 3, Photoshop, Substance designer, Mari, V-ray for the renders, Houdini, Nuke, Premiere, After effect.

Fox RenderFarm: Artists who are also Dragon Ball fans, how did you call them together? How many team members now? Could you introduce a bit about your team members?

Olivier Schmitt: Yes, all the artists who work on this project are all Fan of DBZ, I think we need it because it’s a big work and long project, needs to be a passion. There are around 60 artists, some of whom work to ILM or MPC, and some other big studios.

*Here’s a credit work of the peoples work on the project:

Gonza Estay: Polunga, Fat Buu

David Ruiz: Gohan ss2, Perfect Cell, Goku

Lim Philippe: goten

Jose Roa: Majin buu

Emilio Jose Dominguez Calvo: C18

Sarah Clippe Petruzzi: Trunks

Luís Figueiredo: concept character

Narupiti Harunsong: concept city war

Romain Caudron: Nappa

Melvin Okoronkwo: Krillin

Jose Carrasco: Freezer V3

André de Souza: Kid buu

Gael Roulin: concept character

Anthony Amorose: concept character

Frankino Lupo: TD hair

Laurent Merceau: Rigging

Olivier Schmitt : Director*

Fox RenderFarm: Your team members come from all over the world, so how do you communicate during the creation? Any difficulties? How to solve it?

Olivier Schmitt: I created a secret Facebook group and I included step by step all the artists who want to join the project. This is more easy to show where I wish the project takes direction and can communicate all together. And if I need to say some specific things to an artist I communicate with Facebook messenger, or by email. In fact the master word is "patience". Because all of us we do this project on us spend time, during the day we all have our jobs which take a long time of our day, and when we back home sometimes we are tired of being front a computer again. And I really understand about this, so we work all on our own speed, and can take time. But for now, we not really meet difficulty, because we are professional and we know in advance what kind of problems we will meet and we try to fix them before is coming.

Fox RenderFarm: Have you received any favorable comments or suggestions after posting your works on the Internet?

Olivier Schmitt: Yes, I posted some images of the characters on Facebook and generally more than 3/4 of peoples like what we did, and we already got an interview on a French website of 3D animation and we received a favorable reception, and even after that we had some artists join the project after reading the article.

Fox RenderFarm: When is the work expected to be completed? Do you plan to create a longer video or film in the future?

Olivier Schmitt: I hope we finish this video in around 18 months, but is not guaranteed, it will depend on each artist the time he will devote to this project. Yes, I love very much Dragon ball, and my big dream is to create 4 movies for the cinema on 3D animation. When the project is done I hope to have the opportunity the show the video to Toei animation and we can talk about this project and have the license to create it.

Fox RenderFarm: Any interesting stories happened during your project making?

Olivier Schmitt: In fact for this project I communicate a lot with all the artists, some of them every day, but I never meet them in real, some I don’t know how they look like, maybe I can cross them on the street, and don’t know them, whom I talk with every day. And this project allowed me to get in touch with many talented artists and I'm very proud of this.

Fox RenderFarm: Have you heard of Fox Renderfarm before? Where and how? Have you used our service before? How do you like it?

Olivier Schmitt: I heard Fox RenderFarm from Linkedin, and I get touch with Anthony who works on your company. It’s the first time I work with a I created by myself in the company. And the first time I use Fox Renderfarm, I find it’s so easy to use, have a tutorial which explains very clearly step by step how to use it, so is very easy.

Fox RenderFarm: Any other things you want to share with the audience from the CG industry or CG enthusiasts?

Olivier Schmitt: Yes, as I said we do this project for us because we love Dragon Ball, and we want to share with peoples this project, we really want people to take big pleasure to watch it. And we all agree that if this project brings any money, all of this money will be given to an international association for kids who have cancer. We wish that all the children of the world could have the chance like us when we were young to get up in the morning in a good mood because you knew that you would see one or two episodes of Dragon Ball on television. For my part, during the summer holidays with my cousins we woke up every morning before 9 a.m. to watch Dragon Ball, and it was magical :). And finally, I wish to say if any artist loves dragon ball like us and wish to participate in this project he is welcome to contact me. They can contact me on the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/dbzLegacyTeam

What's more, Olivier Schmitt also share the steps for how they made Goku for the project of Dragon Ball Z Legacy. Here we can see how Goku cone into being. 1. Firstly, Luis Figueiredo make a concept, and he designed an amazing Goku:

2. When the concept was done, David Ruiz make a sculpture on Zbrush of Goku and he gave this very fast and good:

3. After from this sculpt who was on very high polygon around 6 million polygons we applied on him a base mesh of around 5000 polygons for be on low poly and include rigging, for put the low resolution to the high we used Wrap3:

4. And to create the textures we use Substance painter:

5. And we can extract this differents map:

6. This different maps we apply them on the ALshader on Maya on the Hypershade:

7. For finally have this result on low poly:

8. And from here we can apply the Rigging, we use Advanced skeleton as a base Rigging we optimize for this project:

9. For the cloth we use almost the same way, we go to substance painter to do the texture and extract these maps:

10. And have this result:

11. Finally, we have the Goku with the cloth:

We all expect that Dragon Ball Legacy will be an amazing 3D animation video, especially for the Dragon Ball fans.

On July 3, 2019, the CG Boost Cute Warrior Challenge, which sponsored by Fox Renderfarm, announced the final list of winners. There were 128 accepted submissions and so many cute, funny and also weird characters for the Cute Warrior Challenge. Congratulations to 11 entries with the most votes by the jury. Fox Renderfarm also had an interview with the Champion, Kenji Aito, a funny and creative CG artist.

First place: Teddy The Halberdier Bear by Kenji Aito

What the jury says:

Chris Plush: Extremely well executed idea in all aspects. Great armor and weapon design, and awesome attention to detail especially on the fur being worn down in some areas.

Aidy Burrows: Nice clear and readable character! Liking the semi-realistic super clean rendering style too. Nice design on the armor – holes for the ears for example and subtle but effective details! 

Gregory Smith: This is a great entry; it hits the topic perfectly, and the technical execution is excellent. The presentation is clear and readable, whilst the attention to detail gives it that extra visual interest.

Ebrahim Umar-Khitab: The accuracy of that grim expression has done me in! Great work.

Lukas Walzer: This piece stands out as being technically incredibly well done. Modeling, fur, texturing and posing are top-notch!

Marius Iatan: his little guy checks all the boxes, down to the pin that holds the bandage. Has the right attitude, too. Very nice character!

Julien Kaspar: There clearly has been a lot of focus on polishing the character itself. This is the one I found myself looking at the most, looking at the details as well as the broader decisions of for the character model. Also, really great grooming and materials throughout!

Zacharias Reinhardt: This plushy character has probably the best technical execution I saw in this challenge. From the great looking metal, the perfect looking fur with the worn out spots, down to all the fine details, everything very well executed. A good dynamic pose and a proper lighting shows the character in fully glory. The only thing I wished here, would have been to see this little guy in an environment with a bit more storytelling context.

Here’s the interview between Fox Renderfarm and Kenji Aito.

Fox Renderfarm: Hi Kenji Aito, would you please give a brief introduction about yourself?

Kenji Aito: Hi, I'm Kenji from Japan (but I'm from France originally). I started to study CG seriously one year ago during my spare time with Blender, that I fell in love with. I still have much to learn and I think it is necessary to keep learning forever in CG (because software evolution is FAST! and so much more accessible than 10 years ago!) Now I wish I can work in the CG industry and well. I'm potentially open to opportunities! Meanwhile, I will keep improving both the technical and artistic sides of CG!

Fox Renderfarm: What inspired you to come out the idea of making the work "Teddy The Halberdier Bear"?

Kenji Aito: Well.. all right... First I was re-watching from scratch Game of Thrones... preparing myself for the LAST season. So, I could see all those nice armors, helmets.. pike axes.. halberd... Then the CGBoost challenge "cute warrior" came up and I was not even sure I will try something (I also join the challenge just before this one but ended up 4th). I gave some consideration to it and... I just thought "Halberdier bear"; sounds funny... and that was it! I was on! Honestly, I was not even sure I will have time to finish my artwork!

Fox Renderfarm: How long did it take you to finish the work? And which part took the most time? Why?

Kenji Aito: Approximately half a day to a day... but it's hard to keep count. Since I have a job I can only work on CG at night, and as I said, I was watching Game of Thrones too! So I think I worked 1.5 hours per day on average, for a bunch of days. The part that took the most time is certainly the fur... I was really not sure what kind of fur will look cool. And since I wanted to be sure, I was doing test renders often... Also, I did not optimize the particles systems at first, so my GPU was too short on memory, and I was rendering on the CPU. So the whole tweaking process took time. As the armor it was fast: for example, the weapon was modeled in 15 min, and shading took something like 20 min.

Fox Renderfarm: What software, renderers, plugins did you use in this work?

Kenji Aito: Blender 3D as my main 3D package! The character was modeling with Blender sculpting mode.. retopology with Instant Meshes! Cycles as render. Everything was made without plugins in Blender actually. But for the armor shaders, I used Substance Painter.

Work-In-Progress

Fox Renderfarm: The jury praises your "awesome attention to detail" in this work, how did you deal with the details?

Kenji Aito: With love! Always... I think I'm addicted to details. Maybe it's a good thing, but it could be a bad thing too... because when I focus too many details I might forget the "big picture", such as storytelling, the overall balance of shapes and color, proportions... Though, I always try to start with simple shapes down to smaller ones... My workflow is very iterative, and feels like going through the history of CGs: decades ago everything was made a few polys but people were already trying to make attractive shapes, profiles, and silhouettes. Then, as software and hardware got better, the same base ideas with more details came to life. The only issue is that it's time-consuming, so you'd better find a "smart/lazy" workflow to quickly add all those yummy details. But also, one must be careful not to saturate with extra small details, otherwise, the audience will be lost. And that, I have to work on it... I guess.

Fox Renderfarm: What has satisfied you most about this work?

Kenji Aito: Well, it was my first 3D character! so I was happy with the result. I don't think I have many skills for characters design... because I should learn to sketch/draw properly for that, study anatomy and all that... But anyway, I think I was happy with the workflow because even though it was my first character, I did not have to check online what to do... It was only me, my Blender and my Pureref (to organize my references)

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

Kenji Aito: Honestly, not really. And I was happy about that. Everything went smooth and only the tweaking of the fur was time-consuming. I should have probably tweaked all that in a separated scene with less fur and smaller geometry.

Fox Renderfarm: Did you use Fox Renderfarm service previously? If yes, would you share your ideas about us?

Kenji Aito: No! not yet. But I was thinking about turntables renders in the near future. For my next personal project, I want to make very photorealistic stuff... and a turntable with Cycles would be great. I know, everyone will say " why not EEVEE?!" but well, I want to try your services and I do love raytracing!!

Fox Renderfarm: How long have you been in the CG industry? Do you have any recommendable learning methods to improve professional skills？

Kenji Aito: Well, I'm not a professional but I wish to become one! and make my living with it! Learning methods: well, Blender is awesome and the community is top notch. so many resources are free and of quality... I was really surprised. There are some people making real art with Blender and I think it's great to learn from them. Also, it's always good to look at more classic art: I am very interested into painting theory.. lightning... and all those things that bring life to a piece of paper (or screen!). So I recommend to everyone not to just focus on the theory of 3D, but also go out and learn about art in general: "how to make a good composition" "the art of color matching" and so on... It takes time but I think it's worth it. If I can become a CG professional I will definitely find the time to study all that and I hope I can show it makes a real difference.

Fox Renderfarm: Anything else you would like to share with CG enthusiasts?

Kenji Aito: Contact me if you want to work with me :) My motivation is burning! Now that I start to have some tools at my disposal and know how to use them... I have so many ideas I don't know where to start!!!

You can visit Kenji Aito’s Artstation here. (https://www.artstation.com/kenji-art )

To see more entries of Cute Warrior Challenge, please check here. (https://cgboost.com/cute-warrior-challenge-winners/?tdsourcetag=s_pcqq_aiomsg)