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Modeling For Film & TV: Hard-Surface Vehicles

Workflow Tips & Tricks using Maya, Redshift & Photoshop with Josh Docherty

Description

If you want to push your models to the industry gold standard, this workshop will show you how professional modelers working in film and TV create world-class production-quality vehicles.


When modeling assets in the visual effects industry, artists are often supplied with scans or photogrammetry of the subject to retopologize and match the references. However, there are frequently times when this isn’t the case, and in those instances, it’s essential to know what to do and how to tackle these scenarios working from limited references only — which is expected of every modeler working on complex shows and often under very quick turnarounds.


In this 3-hour workshop, Josh Docherty takes you through the process of modeling a high-resolution vehicle without a scan, relying on the use of camera lineups and using his tips, tricks, and industry knowledge to create the same high-quality, pipeline-ready asset in a limited amount of time.


This tutorial teaches how to create a clean, robust model for downstream use by other departments, including Texturing/Lookdev, Rigging, Animation, FX, and Lighting. Different departments often have many requirements and needs that modelers are responsible for ensuring are considered and fulfilled to the best of their abilities. This helps the entire pipeline perform efficiently for all things model-related.


Josh demonstrates many of the best practices and actions artists can take to ensure assets function at their best, using native Maya tools to achieve the same results at home — all while adhering to the same rules as the largest pipelines in the industry. This workshop is best suited for junior-level modelers and above.


The references used for this workshop are from Bring a Trailer, and the HDRI featured is from PolyHaven. Josh uses PureRef, Maya, Arnold, Redshift (optional), Lightroom & Photoshop as his tools of choice, though the techniques demonstrated can be applied to other software.


Duration: 2h 52m

Format: HD 1920x1080

Josh Docherty

Freelance Senior Asset Artist (Modeling & Texturing)

Josh Docherty is a Senior Asset Artist (Modeling & Texturing) and Pre-visualization artist with over eight years of industry experience. He has contributed to more than 30 films and TV shows, as well as over 20 commercials. Josh currently works at Industrial Light & Magic and WetaFX.


His past collaborations include Blink Industries, The Mill, and cinematics for the games industry at Gunzilla. Josh’s work spans the full modeling pipeline, covering hard-surface, environment, creature, and character creation, along with texturing, lighting, and rendering.

  • I had the pleasure of working alongside Josh at WetaFX, and his wealth of experience spans film, TV and commercial projects, consistently delivering work of the highest caliber across the entire gamut of asset creation. Deeply passionate about his craft, Josh has a keen eye for detail and the versatility to tackle any modeling assignment. After watching his tutorial, I'm confident you'll gain a great understanding of what it takes to excel at hard surface modeling in a production environment.

    - Nick Hodgson
    Senior Modeler at WetaFX

  • Josh is the type of artist where you can throw him any asset, and you know he is going to deliver something which is not only true to the reference, but also built with an integrity which supports the rest of production.

    - Tom Newbury
    Freelance Character Supervisor at ALTERED FX

  • I’ve had the pleasure of working directly with Josh on assets at Industrial Light & Magic for around six years, and he’s truly a joy to work with. I always look forward to texturing his models because his work exemplifies ‘film quality’; with just as much attention to detail in the topology, grouping and UVs. Simply put, Josh makes my job as a texture artist much easier.

    - Zak Boxall
    Freelance Texture & Lookdev Artist

  • I had the pleasure of working with Josh during his time at ILM Sydney, and was always grateful to have him crewed on my shows. Josh is one of those artists who always wants his work to be the best it can be, with a great understanding of modeling techniques that allow him to work efficiently, with clean and polished execution. Josh’s passion for hard-surface vehicles was put to great use on many of our shows at ILM.

    - Paul Braddock
    Model Supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic