Week 4|Assistant TD, Production Coordinator, Modelling Artist and Texturing Artist

Assistant technical director (TD)

Alias: Junior pipeline TD

Entry level in Technical department

Entry requirements: strong coding and 3D software skills, degrees in computer science or an apprenticeship in related fields

Assistant TDs deal with all the problems that the team members are facing when using the softwares. For this purpose, they need to understand the principles of VFX softwares as well as the needs and limitations of different artistic tasks. They solve minor bugs by programming to help pipeline TDs focus on larger issues.

Assistant TDs always work with other TDs such as pipeline TDs to collect the information from departments, keeping the whole project on schedule. They are also responsible for simple work of supplementary property such as data tracking and sorting, converting files.

Production Coordinator

Alias: Production assistant, VFX coordinator, Bookings assistant

Production management department

Entry requirements: experience in VFX industry or background in film production, strong organizational skills, business background

Production coordinators work for production manager to manage the whole VFX studio operate under control. They are responsible for daily schedule as well as information and material exchange across different departments. They need to arrange regular meetings to ensure that the production progress from different teams is up-to-date.

The main duty of production coordinators is to keep everything along the VFX workflow on time and on budget, in this case, they need to completely understand the operation of the VFX pipeline and have strong organising, communicating and reporting skills.

Modelling Artist

Alias: CG modeller, Character artist, Modeller, 3D artist

Entry level in Computer-generated (CG) department

Entry requirements: a strong portfolio that illustrates your abilities, proficient in using 3D modelling and sculpting software (Blender, 3ds Max, Maya, Mudbox, ZBrush, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Quixel, RenderMan), degrees in graphic design or approved qualification from VFX-specific courses

Modelling Artists create 3D characters and objects in the computer graphics software such as Maya, Blender, Zbrush, Mudbox, 3ds Maxs. They have deep understandings to art anatomy for organics and mechanical structure for hard surfaces. They need to turn 2D elements into 3D, given the reference such as concept design and photographs, which means it is crucial to have a good sense of measurement in 3D space with x-y-z coordinates, as well as sufficient experience.

The first step of their work is to sculpt on a ‘mesh’ of the object, which outlines its rough shape. Secondly, they need to create the details on the mesh to make their 3D work resemble the reference as closely as possible. Their tools vary, ranging from digital pens to cursor mice. Currently, there is an important process known as ‘retopology’ in modelling, which means recreating the surface of the final sculpture in order to reduce the unnecessary faces as many as possible, otherwise it will cause a waste of video card memory. High-polygon or low-ploygon are created for different uses, such as video games or mobile games.

AI generates textured 3D face from 2D image

These days, mature technology allows AI to generate 3D modellings from input 2D images. Scanning technology is widely used currently to create high-polygon objects, people use them to retopologize and make any changes if necessary.

In general, a good modelling artist is also a texturing artist. Many studios do not separate these two jobs. However, there might be specific assignments to these two roles regarding to a large-scale production.

Here is a speed modelling and sculpting tutorial video in Maya and Mudbox, rendered in Arnold:

Texturing Artist

Alias: Texture painter, Texturing artist, 3D modelling and texturing artist

Entry level in Computer-generated (CG) department

Entry requirements: a strong portfolio that illustrates your abilities, proficient in using 3D modelling and sculpting software (Blender, 3ds Max, Maya, Mudbox, ZBrush, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Quixel, RenderMan), degrees in graphic design or approved qualification from VFX-specific courses

Texture artists create the skin for the models that has been finished during modelling process. The properties of the surfaces(skins) depend on multiple factors such as color, diffusion, reflection, alpha path, which can be controlled by adjusting the parameters in computer graphic softwares. It is important that each texture artist is fairly understand the principle of the certain materials, including both realistic ones and imaginary ones. They may work on photography or painted images to create the textured surfaces. They can also create detailed surface using mapping, especially for low-poly models. When the textured surface is finished, they can ‘bake’ it and use the baked one directly for the next time.

There are different types of mappings, such as normal mapping, bump mapping, displacement mapping. Normal mapping is a three-colour arrangement, it is derived from bump mapping. Bump maps are one of the oldest form of image map types. Bump and displacement maps both use black and white imagery to create relief data for a model.

Displacement and bump maps are both height maps.

Displacement maps can create edge details wheras bump maps cannot, hence displacement maps need higher-resolution meshes to work with for longer time to get more a more stunning result.

Normal maps do not contain any height information. Instead, they contain angle information, hence they are widely used in games.

Many texture artists are also modelling artists, they are both called 3D modelling and texturing artists, their tasks might be a little different in certain cases such as a broad-scale project.

Here is a video about a texture artist working in a VFX studio: