The Southern Graphics Home Page

AUTHOR INFORMATION


I started dabbling with computer art in about `93 with an Amiga 1200. I can still remember thinking how great it was having a palette of 256 colours in Deluxe Paint. I cut my first 3D teeth on the Amiga as well using `Imagine`. My first PC was a 4meg 386 and I started using PC Paintbrush. I always thought that software was odd as they gave away a tin of pencils with the disks? Contradiction in terms really! I have always illustrated for pleasure and started college doing commercial graphics but became disillusioned with the whole scene very quickly and decided to take another career route. The first bite at serious software can with my DX2 66 and Paintshop Pro. That coupled with a colour dot-matrix printer seemed like a revolution compared with the Amiga. I produced a CD cover for an ISP with Paintshop pro and thought I had hit the big-time. Looking at it now I could do it in ten minutes.
Back then I taught myself how to hand code html and as things have developed it has proved a very useful skill. Every week I throw together demo pages for people and upload pages of on-going projects. I have used Photoshop since version 4 and still use the old 3DS4 (dos). I often do a run of work with Bryce and every now and then I have a dabble with Poser 3. Last year I was given a demo of Pixologics ZBrush and for some reason I took to it immediately. I think the combination or 2D and 3D fits my quick-fire style and lets me see results with hours not days. At first I struggled to grasp the concept of modelling an object, placing it in a document window but then not being able to adjust it's position again. It was radically different than the software that I had been used to. I started to post my feeble attempts on a ZBrush forum and was well received from day one. Unlike other forums I was encouraged to post my work whatever the standard. So I did.
Within weeks Pixologic contacted me and asked me to join their beta testers and gave me the next version of the software and said go for it.... so I did! I had to keep posting and asking questions, how do layers work in ZBrush? How do I light a model correctly? One guy who really helped me went by the pseudonym of `Pixolator`. He set the benchmark for me back then and I was determined to learn some of his techniques. I contacted him privately and asked how he got glossy lips on his images, how did he make the eyes so well. He helped me by email and by posting tutorials on the forums. Earlier this year Pixologic started the `Zbrush Central` forum run exclusively by Pixologic staff and their software creator Ofer Alon who it turned out, was Pixolator! Helped by the master all along! I have now produced 150+ images in Zbrush and I am fairly competent at producing quality images that use some of the amazing features found in the program. I would say one of the most powerful features of the program (and believe me there are many) is modelling. You can take a default sphere and within minutes mould it into what ever you can imagine. The modelling is done in an `edit` mode that keeps the sphere live and shows your modifications in real-time. You can `pull` a nose out of a head and then indent the nostril holes. Follow this by subtly raising the edges around the holes and you have a perfect nose. It is hard to describe how responsive the software is but I would say it is the easiest modelling tool I have ever used. Add to this that the latest versions export and import DXF (3DS) and OBJ (Lightwave) formats and you have one powerful piece of kit. It is the kind of application that is very hard to label. OTHER APP is where you normally find it in On-line graphic sites. I noticed recently that `Renderosity` (www.renderosity.com) gave ZBrush it's own gallery area alongside the likes of Bryce, 3DS, Lightwave etc. I have found a spirit of helpfulness and camaraderie attached to this software that is unusual in the graphic forums I have visited in the past. New users aren't afraid to post work as the criticism is always supportive, helpful or informative (telling where to find a tutorial to help with a problem). I still feel that there is a lot for me to learn about Zbrush but it is always fun and fast.