Author: Guoxin Lin

Environment artists create the computer-generated places in which actors move. They make galaxies, lunar landscapes and desecrated cities – any environment that it’s too difficult to film in real life.

They create the 3D environments using modelling and sculpting software. They often work from a brief delivered to them in the form of 2D, or, sometimes, 3D digital art, produced by a concept artist Or they might work from reference materials, such as photographs or line drawing sketches, which can be scanned into 3D software.

They first create a ‘wireframe’, commonly referred to as a ‘mesh’, of the environment. This looks like a series of overlapping lines (or interconnected polygon shapes) in the shape of the intended 3D environment. Usually, the more detailed the environment is (the more polygons it is made up of), the more photorealistic it looks.

From the mesh, they are able to further sculpt the environment to more closely resemble what’s intended. They use digital tools, such as sculpting brushes, and a physical graphics pen and tablet in order to do this.

Environment artists work at an early stage of the CGI and 3D part of their VFX pipeline. The 3D environments that they produce can then move on to be given texture and be lit.

Environment artists work for VFX companies or studios or as freelancers. Smaller VFX companies or studios may not distinguish between environment, modelling, and texturing artist roles, and instead advertise for one modelling artist position, involving all roles.

Skills required to become a 3D environment artist：

An environment artist must have a keen eye for landscape, cityscapes, town planning, and geography as these skills will be used to create virtual worlds within a film or game.

Game artists must also have the technical skills to understand whether a game engine can support low-resolution images in distant backgrounds and the limits of high-resolution images in the foreground. 

While some junior positions are available in the industry, most environment artists have at least several years of 3D modeling, sculpture, and design. A good way to break into this field is to study 3D modelling and build up a portfolio of original 3D environment assets and set dressing pieces.

3D environment artists may need knowledge of a combination of the following software:

• Maya
• ZBrush
• 3dsMax
• Blender
• Substance Painter
• World Machine / Gaea
• Unreal Engine (and other real-time engines such as Unity)

Share one of my favourite material artists:Jan Urschel (Creative Director at Hendrix Design Studio Pte Ltd)

Texture artists make surfaces look realistic on computer-generated (CG) 3D models.

They rough objects up or they make them shine – scales on a crocodile’s skin, reflections on car doors, skid marks on roads, creases in trousers.

They start with a 3D model created by modeling artist that is usually a plain grey shape. The texture artists paint the details onto the surface of the models until they look like a photograph.

Texture artists sometimes create textures from scratch, so they have a good understanding of different kinds of real-world materials. Sometimes they work from a library of stock textures. Or they might use photographs – often photographs from the live-action footage of the film they are making – in order to digitally project them onto a 3D model as a basis for the texture.

Once a texture artist is happy with the textured surface that they have created, they can ‘bake’ (copy using a VFX program’s ‘baking tool’) the texture from one surface so that it can be used elsewhere as well.

Texture artists work for VFX companies or studios or as freelancers. Smaller VFX companies may not distinguish between texturing and modelling artist roles, and instead advertise for one position to do both roles.

These are some of the tools used by professionals:

• Graphics software (Adobe After Effects, Dreamweaver, Illustrator,Photoshop)
• 3D modelling, sculpting and painting software (Blender, 3ds Max, Maya, Mudbox, ZBrush, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Quixel)

Making textures is a great way of expressing yourself artistically in my opinion, not only does it allow you to show the texture of the object better to make it more realistic or to show the effect you want, but it also allows you to use your drawing skills and for those who like to draw, it is an enjoyable job to put your own drawings on the object to give it a more beautiful effect.

Share one of my favourite material artists:

Daniel Thiger

Freelance artist with 20 years of experience in the game industry at Dice, Bungie and as a freelancer. Daniel specializes in material, texture, and asset creation. He is passionate about anything procedural, and spends most of his spare time experimenting in Substance Designer.

The role that interests me in the visual effects industry is compositor.

Compositors create the final image of a frame, shot or VFX sequence. They take all the different digital materials used (assets), such as computer-generated (CG) images, live action footage and matte paintings, and combine them to appear as one cohesive image and shot.

Series compositing is combining different elements that were filmed separately or created separately and combining them into one scene and making it look as if it was filmed in one location at the same time.

So let’s say you are the compositor who works on the project, before you receive any files they are send it to a different department where they are cleaned and prepared for you to be composited later. if there’s a green screen that needs to be removed in the scene, the shot first is being sent to the King Department who removes the green screen prepares the image for you.

And then they sign it out to you to be composited,sometimes there are scenes without the green screen and maybe the  object needs to be cut out from the background separated in this case, there’s a rotoscoping department they cut the object frame by frame from the background and send it to you afterwards for you to integrate it later, sometimes there are objects in the scene that should not be there like tracking points or maybe the boom microphone, it sticks out in the shot but needs to be removed that is done in a retouching Department what they do they just paint out the objects that should not be there and then they create the clean shot for you without these objects. all these three are called prep paint that stands for preparation and painting basically cleaning out the shots so we overview the part of preparing the footage for the compositor.

Compositors must be highly competent in Nuke.

VFX compositors may be required to use some or a combination of the following software:

• Nuke
• Adobe Photoshop, After Effects
• Shake
• Maya
• Combustion
• Inferno
• Flame
• RenderMan

Compositors work as the last part of a VFX ‘pipeline’ (the name given to the VFX production process). They can be employed by VFX studios or work as freelancers.

Compositing is a challenging job. Firstly,A solid understanding of composition, color theory, and image properties. Secondly,Strong understanding on the visual effects pipeline and extensive Nuke knowledge and experience.Also need Photographic skills – understanding depth of field, shutter speed, lighting, aperture, composition, and framing an understanding of stereo (3D) and anamorphic compositing in Nuke.

For digital artists, compositing is equally important.Combining different elements is an interesting job. Some objects that exist and do not exist in reality, and some irregular figures model through sculpture, are placed in the same picture to present a surreal style.