Digital Mayhem 3D Landscape Techniques: Where Inspiration, Techniques and Digital Art Meet

If you use VUE and do not mind an average of 2-3 hours per render than this book may be for you. The majority (75-80%) of the images were manufactured using VUE 10-11, with the classic noisy rocks, unrealistically sharp, and overly saturated look. Some of the renders are more successful than others, with good composition and artistry, others not so much. It seems that VUE renders all look the same. Unfortunately the info you would need to become a successful VUE artist is not really available in the short descriptions accompanying the images. Some of the artists showcased in this book used the usual production softwares including Maya, 3Ds, Softimage, Mudbox, and Zbrush and rely less on procedurally manufactured landscape, giving these images a more pleasant, sometime stylized look which was a welcome rest for my eyes (obvious bias here).

To date the CG community has really failed to provide to the wannabe cg artists for both feature and game production, a good reference for designing realistic or stylized natural organic 3D environments. Personally I would recommend the polycount forum for game and the Gnomon workshop DVDs for invaluable info in addition to the free and Famous VERTEX pdf available here: […]

Hoping one day someone compile and good reference book for both game and feature artists.

Digital Mayhem 3D Landscape Techniques is a book for digital artists interested in creating 3d landscapes and environment. It’s a mixed bag as far as I’m concerned.

The book’s divided into three sections.

The first section talks about the previz considerations, basically stuff like composition, camera lens, lighting, art direction etc.

The second section forms the bulk of the book. There are 13 chapters each dedicated to a specific type of environment, e.g. mountains, seascapes, industrial, etc. The chapters would showcase several artworks from artists with included quotes and information like what software was used, rendering time, etc. The chapters then end with a step-by-step tutorial that looks at the process of creating a particular environment.

Just in case you’re interested to find out the 3D software used in the tutorials for the chapters, they are:

Mountains – Vue 10 Infinite
Seascapes – 3ds Max, Zbrush
Rivers and Lakes – Vue 10.5 Infinite
Water features – Vue 11 Complete, Daz Studio 4.5
Desert Scenes – Maya
Woodlands – Vue 11 Infinite
Architecture Visualisation – 3ds Max
Characters in landscape – 3ds Max
Urban Landscapes – Maya
Weather and seasons – 3ds Max
Post-industrial – Lightwave3D
Sci-fi – 3ds Max, Vue
Fantasy – Studio Max, Lightwave, Zbrush
As for the quality of work showcased, there are some good works that look really natural as well as those that feel very CG. The tutorials are quite insightful though with helpful tips, but that would apply more if you’re also using the same software.

The last section is on post production. You’ll learn stuff like adding things in post, using filters and other effects. The more essential information are already handled in the tutorials.

Books that feature too many software always run the risk of alienating those using other softwares, and I think that’s the case here. I use Maya and don’t particularly care about the tutorials using Vue, and as you can see from the list above there are only two tutorials for Maya.

(See more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Mi aspettavo di più. La maggior parte delle immagini pubblicate non è spiegata a dovere. C’è del buon materiale, ma se siete già iniziati nel landscape design, nell’uso di Vue o nel digital painting lasciate stare. Non vi perdete nulla.