Digital Art Live talks with Joe Pingleton about the early days of 3D, the technical aspects of the various hair options in 3D, his love of DAZ Carrara, and how to add character to animals. DAL: Hi Joe, welcome to Digital Art Live magazine’s in-depth interview. You have such a large gallery, with such a fine range of work, that it was really difficult to focus it down only onto this issue’s “Lighting for Character” theme — but you have a series of excellent portraits which really fit that billing. JP: Thank you for your kind words and the honour of being included with so many great artists who have been featured here. DAL: How did you first ‘get into’ being creative, and expressing yourself visually? Did anyone help you along the way, with that? Or was it a struggle? JP: I had wanted to be a cartoonist since I was very young and I always had pencil and paper in my hand. My mother’s hobby was oil and watercolor painting, so she encouraged my interests in all types of art. My father ran his own direct mail advertising business and encouraged me to look into commercial art as a career. There have been so many people who helped me along the way — from my teacher, my co-workers, to clients — that it’s hard to name them all. I’ve been very lucky. DAL: That sounds like a great set of backers. How did you then first get into 3D art? Was it the usual route, encountering a copy of Bryce in the6 1990s? Picture: “Solar Flare”. JOE PINGLETON USA DAZ STUDIO | DAZ CARRARA | ADOBE PHOTOSHOP | WEB 7 JP: It was Poser, actually. I stumbled into 3D art I found that I had a knack for digital photo- with Poser version 1 in 1995. editing and this allowed me to get a job with a service bureau which supported many large DAL: Wow, version 1. That was raw stuff. advertising companies. The day-to-day JP: At first it was just for reference to hand production of digital artwork taught me more drawing human figures. I soon discovered that than I ever learned in school. I worked in all it produced results I could never achieve by aspects of digital graphic design from print to hand. Then, yes, I found Bryce 2.0 in 1996 and presentation to ultimately Web development. it rocked my world. The unique interface That was when I found 3D. It was the huge redefined how I looked at user interfaces. Then trend at the time. Poser, Bryce and Ray Dream the amazing landscapes it created made me fall Designer allowed us to do things that we could in love with how nature actually creates things. only dream of producing before. I also DAL: Yes, those Kai Krause interfaces still have discovered Macromedia Director at this time. a great deal of appeal. I can’t remember if he DAL: Yes, I remember that. It was a nice also worked on the early Poser or not, but multimedia authoring tool, in which you could there’s an obvious crossover from his Bryce UI. make point-and-click adventure games and also JP: The other milestone was the discovery of those early retail touchscreen kiosk players. It Ray Dream Designer (later to become Infini-D was extremely powerful but kind of swept away and finally DAZ Carrara). This introduced me to by the Flash craze. And now there are better creative power of 3D. All three programs were options for making point-and-click games. And at a price point which allowed hobbyists to dip the latest Keyshot has just added tools that look their toes in 3D without having to buy the very perfect for making self-running kiosk and tablet expensive options at the time. It really touchscreen packages. It all comes around revolutionized the industry by bringing 3D to the again, if you wait long enough. /Laughter/. masses. JP: Director led to me finally being able to create DAL: Yes, the big beasts of 3D were — and still and distribute animation. As you say, Flash are in many cases — thousands of dollars. And followed soon after and the creative floodgates often had hardware locks, where you had to burst open. The combination of 3D and have a special big of hardware or it wouldn’t animation skills got me noticed enough to start a run. Were there any initial barriers as you business with some friends. When we did the started out with the learning curve in digital art? 2000 North American Auto Show website and How did you overcome these difficulties? And kiosks for Ford Motor Company, using a Poser what were some of the “breakthrough” images figure as the main theme, things really started that started to get you a lot more attention? to take off professionally. So much so that 3D started to take a back seat to the technical site JP: When I went to college for a Graphic Design of Web design and development. This led me to course, desktop publishing was just beginning. freelancing fill-time. Most commercial art was still created using exacto-knives and Rubylith. The instructors were DAL: Yes, the whole Web development thing of learning the software right along with the the 1990s was a crazy five-year ride, once the students. It was a great time to start because first decent Web browsers emerged in late 1995, we all learned together and the excitement for along with the new multimedia Windows. And the possibilities where infectious. This then it spat us all out in the great crash, around kickstarted a lifelong love of learning new things the year 2000, I seem to remember. When did and sharing knowledge with friends. you discover DAZ Studio? 8 Picture: “Sabertooth Mountain”. 9 JP: Years later while working with one of my e- JP: Not all these experiments worked out as learning clients, they needed some 3D work great works of art, but I was able to find done. That is when I discovered DAZ Studio and something about each one that propelled me to their then brand new Genesis figures. The learn more and get better. Eventually others quality of the figures had improved so much that started liking the results and I started to get it rekindled my passion for 3D. I also learned noticed. that DAZ had acquired Carrara and that they worked seamlessly together. That is when I DAL: How did you find ‘the ride’ through DAZ decided to try to create a 3D image-a-day for Studio’s development, over the last few years? just fun. The idea was to create an image with JP: ‘The ride’ has had its high and lows. no real idea on what it would be when I started Thankfully more highs than lows. At first I used it. I put a personal restriction on it so that it Carrara more than DAZ Studio, since I was shouldn’t take more than about an hour or two. familiar with it. Carrara has everything. Its It also was to have nothing to do with my animation tools are so simple and powerful. It business. The creative freedom this brought modelling is very versatile allowing for the changed my life. creation of landscapes, mechanical and organic DAL: That’s a brilliant idea. Kind of like the objects. Basically anything you can dream of. speedpainting that 2D artists do. 10 Interesting. I’ve always assumed Hexagon is a DAL: Is the DAZ software in a good place now? good tool for straightforward DAZ and Poser What would you like to see in a future version? modelling, although it’s a little old now. I’d forgotten Carrara’s modelling capabilities. JP: I would love to see some of the elements from Carrara make their way over to DAZ DAL: There’s more, too. That doesn't even touch Studio. This may be wishing for too much since on the dynamic hair and physics and my DAZ Studio is free and Carrara isn’t. The thing I favourite feature the Surface Replicator [for would most like to see is an improvement in the replicate and scatter, e.g. rapidly throwing out a dynamic cloth system. Something like what forest across a landscape]. DAZ Studio focuses Poser has for cloth is really needed. A physics more on using pre-made assets. But with plug- system would also be a very useful feature for ins it can reach beyond these limitations. When animators. they dropped native lip-sync from DAZ Studio I was ready to give up on it. Then the Reality LUX- DAL: What new developments would you like to based rendering plug-in showed up and I fell in see in terms of the store content that’s available love again. The results where amazing. Then now, on DAZ, Renderosity, Hivewire and iRay stepped onto the stage and I found myself suchlike? What would you like to see content using Carrara less and less. makers making, that they’re not at present? Pictures: “System 46” and “Observatory”. 11 JP: The large range of content is the major JP: My new favorite is “LAMH 2 Iray Catalyzer”. selling point for me in using DAZ. There are so Look at My Hair was always great, but to get it many great content creators that allow non- to work with iRay was a too complicated. LAMH modellers like me to create what we do. I am 2 Iray Catalyzer changes all that.