Welcome to Session 44 of 3D Art Direct's podcast, where Paul Bussey interviews Oshyan Greene, the business manager of Planetside Software, which produces Terragen 4 for rendering and animating realistic natural environments. Terragen 4 is used in film, TV, commercials, as well as educational disciplines, to name but a few.

We're primarily talking to Oshyan about the recent release of Terragen 4.1, as well as SIGGRAPH held recently in Los Angeles.

Digital Art Live's mission is getting behind the scenes with top digital artists and leaders by featuring them in in-depth interviews, through our magazine, podcast, and live event webinars, allowing you to connect with them and other artists and discover what inspired them, the steps they've taken in conceptualizing their work, and the techniques that they've used in building their creations. You can stay informed of our live webinars and podcasts by subscribing to our free monthly magazine at digitalartlive.com. While there, take the time to browse our growing library of new events and live webinars, as well as past recordings and magazine issues. Our site is constantly being updated, featuring topics such as modeling, sculpting, rigging, lighting, and digital composition for software such as DAZ Studio, ZBrush, Poser, Terragen, and Vue, to list but a few. So let's get to the interview.

Kim Schneider, better known as Arki is a 3D modeller and texture creator that has just completed a definitive series of tutorials in association with Digital Art Live called Creating Complex Clothing and available on DAZ3D's website that takes the student from concept to finished, saleable product which covers modelling, UV mapping, rigging and texturing.

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Kim has worked as a professional illustrator for RPG games, and her started her 3D digital art journey in 2000 with Poser and then Poser Pro and started selling her content in 2006. Since then, she's been hard at work creating content for DAZ Studio. Her choice of modelling software is Hexagon, UV mapping using UV Layout Pro and UV Mapper Pro, among others such as GIMP, Photoshop, Terragen, Blacksmith3D and more in her workflow.

During the interview, Kim talks about

• Her inspiration for her modelling concepts.
• How to sell your models for profit and her recommended "path to success."
• She talks a little about her pen and paper (role-playing) game that she's in the process of creating.
• Practical knowledge of how things work in order to be able to model them, realistically.
• and her fascination with dragons,

for just a few topics.

Snippet from the transcript

DAL: ... How critical is it to understand how something works in order to be able to model it properly? For example, you and I talked a bit before about modeling a weapon, and you said that you have no interest in it because you have no working knowledge of it. So how critical do you think it is to understand how something works to be able to model it properly?

Kim: Well, if I think of a current project I'm working on, it's a dragon skeleton and I had to do huge amount of research about animal and human skeletons before I could do that. So you have to learn how to model a joint, what kind of joint is used in an elbow or a knee or a wrist. So those are three types of joints already. Or the shoulder, that's another joint there.

So if you don't understand this and don't know how the shape defines functionality, you are probably not going to have a very good time or a fun time modeling that thing. So at least it's true for me, first I have to know what I'm doing, first I have to understand what I'm doing before I can put it into 3D, or model it in clay for that matter, which is very similar in the process.

DAL: Do you model in clay much to get inspiration or to flesh out ideas, I guess?

Kim: I used to. It's very messy. Takes up a lot of space and you have to fire the clay. So I don't do it anymore, but I hope when I get into zeeBrush or zedBrush a little bit more, I will be able to do some more sculpting without the mess and the firing. I said "ZedBrush."

DAL: You said "ZedBrush," yes, that's good, ZedBrush. In Canada, we don't say "Zee," we say "Zed." So ZedBrush.

Kim: The eternal struggle.

DAL: And ZedZed Top.

Kim: Yeah. That's a bit clunky.

DAL: Yeah, doesn't quite roll off the tongue. So, that's an interesting question. You know what? I had never thought of the human skeleton in that way, that there are, you know, a fixed number of joints that move in a fixed direction, and depending on any fantastical creature that you're gonna build, you have to understand how all of the different joints come together. And I'm assuming, just extrapolating on that, then now you have to understand the different kinds of muscles and the connection points to the bones in order to flesh out, if you will, the figure as well, right?

Kim: Yes, exactly, because what I'm doing right now with the dragon skeleton is... the starting point was a sketch of one of my dragon species for my game, and I used the silhouette to model the skeleton inside. And what I was doing that I already noticed I think the proportions are off, it's not going to work the way I thought it would. So maybe when I have a lot of time, I'm going to add muscle and maybe internal organs and then model the outside skin and then see how that looks. It's going to be close to my initial design, but then slightly different. So I will sort of reverse engineer my own species, so it's going to be interesting...

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Patrick Gyger is the curator of the major exhibition Into the Unknown: A Journey Through Science Fiction coming to the Barbican — Europe's largest multi-cultural arts and conference venue located in London, UK — exploring one of pop culture's most celebrated worlds. Featuring works that have yet to be shown in the UK, this unprecedented show encompasses music, film and art to present a new, global perspective on Science Fiction.

The exhibition is on from June 3, 2017 through September 1, 2017. More information and tickets are available on Barbican's site or by clicking here.

Digital Art Live will have a Barbican Event Meetup on July 2, 2017 and further information can be found here on our site.

During the interview, Patrick covers such topics as

• Organization of the event into four main themes: Extraordinary Voyages; Space Odysseys; Brave new Worlds, and; Final Frontiers and how each explore classic narratives of the genre in new ways.
• Relevance and appeal of Science Fiction
• Owners of the works in the exhibition

Within the podcast we asked Patrick these questions:

1. During the 1990s you've had a focus on medieval studies, looking at crime and justice. Are there any parallels in this interest and your more current interests in curating works of science fiction?
2. You've also published a book on the history of the flying car. What inspired you to take a close look at this niche of science fiction?
3. Into the Unknown is an exhibition that is on quite an extraordinary scale for the genre of science fiction.  What enthused you to create something on this scale, or did it just naturally snowball?
4. How important is the goal of having a global view of science fiction in this exhibition? And the exhibition is going on tour isn't it?
5. Included are some pieces from the private sci-fi collection of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Tell us a little about Paul and his collection and the story of being able to collaborate with him.
6. You are pleased to include some artwork from the notable artist Patrick Tatopoulos. Does Patrick have a particular focus with his work?
7. The exhibition is divided into four chapters. Tell us what these chapters are and what would you wish people to value and come away with from each of these chapters.
8. The press release talks about being able to explore these four chapters of the genre in new ways. I'm curious about what these "new ways" are — or do you want to leave that a surprise?!
9. Does the Extraordinary Voyages chapter look at the roots of science fiction, where it all started?
10. Tell us about a few items of what to look forward to in the largest section of the show Space Odysseys props and models from various TV shows and movies. What pieces from this section were you particularly proud to curate?
11. The Brave New Worlds exhibition section, explores all kinds of different societies imagined by sci-fi writers. Is there a balance of utopian and dystopian societies represented here? What's your favourite society that has been dreamed up?
12. Tell us about a few of the more notable exhibits for the Final Frontiers part of the show — "inner realms from human perception."
13. Are there elements of the exhibition which celebrate artwork created digitally? Stills, animation or special effects?
14. Science fiction is important since it allows us to explore our own humanity. It allows us to do that exploration more thoroughly than other genres and can take us to the normal limits and perhaps beyond of different circumstances. Do you have a few favourite stories that look at this exploration and are they represented in the exhibition?
15. Who would you like to thank, the team in putting together this exhibition?
16. Where's the best place to go on the web to find out more on Into the Unknown?

Resources

Barbican — Into the Unknown: A Journey through Science Fiction

https://digitalartlive.com/digital-art-live-magazine/