The art of ENVIRONMENTS

3D World gathers masters of CG environment work to discuss what they do and how they do it

Building environments has become a cornerstone of 3D art. From home interiors and city skylines to dense forests, mountain ranges, and alien worlds, the technology now available allows for limitless creation and photorealism on an epic scale. But in such a diverse and unrestrained discipline, are there any artistic principles? What do environment artists have in common? How do they work? And, perhaps most importantly, how can you create your own jaw-dropping 3D environments? 3D World has gathered a diverse selection of environment artists, with decades of collective experience across the CG industry, to answer all these questions and more.

RECREATING THE WORLD

Veteran VFX matte painter and CEO of MattePaint.com, Conrad Allan, was drawn to environment work when he discovered Vue (a world generation tool by E-on software) whilst studying game animation in his native Australia.

After sinking countless hours into the software, Allan connected with Dax Pandhi, CG veteran and QuadSpinner co-founder, who was a master of Vue at the time. “He was a major factor in springboarding my understanding,” Allan tells 3D World. “I’m a firm believer in finding a mentor. It’s like having a one-on-one teacher on a semi-regular basis. That said, most of how I got started was just due to the fact that I’d play around with sliders for hours, continuously hitting the render button to see the different results.”