digital portrait

McCullochs idea's open questions about Modernist/Marxist descriptions of skilled work. The traditional concentration of technology around capital machinery is being redefined by computers and technologies like additive layer manufacturing. The influence of these technologies can be interpreted create a tendency towards localisation and democratisation.
This is debatable, the idea suggests that digital tools are 'all mind' with no substance to experience. But sitting at a computer modelling is also a bodily experience that we learn from. During this project, for instance, the practitioner has experienced an extension to his knowledge of the human face's surface topology that has come directly from the use of digital tools. This is a subject that would bear more study.
Eaton say, in the surface shading process, we are mimicking material properties referenced from the real world and projecting it onto the model surface. Some of the references are mathematical and the shader generates properties procedurally. Other references are visual. His description of building up these layers of texture into a shading network, is treated as a natural extension of modelling, which he describes as manipulating light and shade on a surface to produce a reading of form in the viewers eye. His attitude seems to reconcile the artificial nature of working on a mathematically rendered representation displayed on a computer screen.

He also says "Virtually anything that can be mapped in 3D can be rendered as a digital sculpture" e.g. data can be acquired from the interior of objects and human bodies and this offers the potential for representations of interior as well as surface.
These technologies were in turn driven by the needs of international trade and shipping, which was itself driven by international proto capitalistic economic institutional behaviour. (Eco 2002)
Another method is available using the tool called Zspheres. Zspheres essentially uses joints and bones as geometry generators. This method has the benefit of generating geometry with a topology which matches the layout of the joints, which means the edge loops fall in good position for any subsequent animation.

This method can also be used to create output for real time rendering game engines

Freud is not the only one to point out the long term trend of scientifically induced diminishment of our individual status in the universe. Many theoretical positions suggest that, under the influence of digital media, the ego is not even at home and probably lives a life of perceptual vagrancy while the PC has its feet under the table.

Turkle's Evocative Object (After Bollas1989) is a short-hand for the complex of meanings and relationships around certain meaningful objects. The evocative nature of certain objects seems to reside in the interplay between the object being familiar, but of unknown capacity. Not knowing what an object is capable of, allows potentials to be projected into it. These meanings are not merely projections onto a neutral object. The evocativeness arises out of a combination of intimacy with the object and an unresolved or interrupted attribution of meaning. Engaging with an evocative object means that thoughts and associations are evoked in the mind and meanings are located in the object. These are not necessarily reproduced on each encounter and are uniquely personal.
An example is a well used clay modelling tool. The tool can evoke in it's owner a feeling of potential making, the learning process, years of practice, the actual work process, the places it was taken, It's recognition by other in the same trade, prolonged contact with the hand, etc... It elicits a kind of familiar relationship as the tool is handled. The object has a set of partial histories, and potentials, that exist in the relationships of the user, intent in making the tool and the meaning to others. "These objects can be given the status of witness to a person's development" (Turkle 2008), and hence are precious.


This is reminiscent of the concept of "memes" (Dawkins, R 1976) as relatively coherent discrete elements of knowledge that can be transmitted analogously to genes, in that they can be combined and recombined at a genetypical molecular level and their actions produce emergent phenotypical forms at the scale of an organism. In the case of memes though, the phenotypical forms are thoughts and beliefs. The 'organism' is the mind. Memes are said to follow evolution principles within the 'ecosystem' of the cultural environment.



87

UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD
School of Art Design and Architecture
Daniel Hughes-McGrail
Thesis in submission for MA 3D DIGITAL DESIGN
Supervised by Dr Ertu Unver, Senior Lecturer in 3D Design and Architecture
A 3D Digital Portrait


Acknowledgements:
I am grateful to the following people who have contributed significantly to the process and completion of this Masters Project and Thesis.
Ryan Blackburn, Heather Connaughton, Lee Danskin, Edward Dawson-Jones, Derek Hales, Anna Harvey, Kate Hughes, Edwina McGrail, Mark O'Brien, Anneka Pettican, Dr David Swann, David Tancock, Elizabeth Real, Bernard Walker.
and of course Sir Patrick Stewart. OBE.



Contents
1 Abstract 9
2 Introduction 10
3 Methodology 12
3.1 The Research Aim 12
3.2 Objectives 12
4 Contextual Review 14
4.1 Literature review 14
4.2 Survey of 3D Digital Art 15
4.2.1 Naturalism 15
4.2.2 Sculptural 16
4.2.3 Fantasy and Sci-Fi 16
4.2.4 Exaggeration, Grotesque and Polymorphism 18
4.2.5 Caricature 19
4.2.6 3D Digital Portraiture 22
4.2.7 Uncanny Valley 20
5 The Digital Portrait Experimental Study 24
5.1 Fine Art Skills and the Digital Sculpting Process 24
5.1.1 Observation 24
5.1.2 Criticality and creative thinking skills. 25
5.1.3 Visualisation 26
5.1.4 Theoretical Grounding 26
5.2 Technical Context 27
5.3 3D Digital Practitioners Perspectives 27
5.4 The 3D Digital Toolkit 29
5.4.1 ZBrush 4 (and 4 R2) 31
5.4.2 Maya 32
5.4.3 Specialist Tools 33
5.5 The Digital Portrait 33
5.5.1 Project overview 33
5.5.2 Historical portraiture 33
5.5.3 Contemporary Artist's Perspectives 37
5.5.4 Digitised Selves? 39
5.5.5 Gathering Reference 39
5.5.6 Digitisation, Data Capture and Image Based Mesh Generation 40
5.5.7 Influence of Digital Research Methods 41
5.5.8 Characterisation Concepts 41
5.5.9 3D Character Modelling Process 45
5.5.10 Costume Design 49
5.5.11 The Portrait Bust Output 52
5.5.12 Output to 3D Printer 54
5.5.13 Building the Town 56
5.5.14 Building the Scene Contents 57
5.5.15 Lighting 60
5.5.16 Transferring the Character to Maya 61
5.5.17 Special Shaders 63
5.5.18 Rigging and Posing the Character 65
5.5.19 Final Scene Assembly and Shader Wrangling. 66
5.5.20 Final Render 68
6 Findings 69
6.1 Critical Responses to 3D Digital Media 69
6.1.1 Artistic Value 69
6.1.2 Re-valuations 69
6.1.3 Displacement and Paranoia 70
6.1.4 Cultural Transition, Evocative Objects and Uncanniness 70
6.2 Digital Craftsmanship 72
6.2.1 Problems with Authority 72
6.2.2 Re-Centring in Practice 73
6.2.3 New kinds of Same old Embodiment 73
6.3 Making Digital Meaning 73
6.3.1 Network Metaphors 73
6.3.2 Constructive Realism 74
6.4 Making Digital Sculptures 74
6.4.1 Observations and Reflections on the 3D Digital Process 74
6.5 Extensions to the Sculpting Process. 75
6.5.1 What is Special about Digital Tools 75
6.5.2 Speed 77
6.5.3 Enhancements to Knowledge 77
6.5.4 Formal and Aesthetic Extensions 78
6.6 Limitations of 3D Digital Methods 79
6.6.1 Risk 80
6.6.2 Lack of tactile Engagement 80
6.6.3 Lighting 80
6.6.4 Traditional Elements that do not Transpose into 3D Digital 81
6.7 Learning Curves 81
6.8 Good Practice 82
6.8.1 Good Digital Sculpture Practice 83
7 Conclusion 85
8 References 87
8.1 Texts 87
8.2 Websites 88
9 Bibliography 90
9.1 Books 90
9.2 Journal articles 91
9.3 Papers 92
9.4 Lectures 94
9.5 Websites 94
9.6 Artist's websites 95
9.7 Textures and Model Resources 95
9.8 Web Image Sources 95
10 Appendix 97
10.1 Contents of attached DVD 97
10.2 Proposed Interview agenda 97
10.3 Analysis of interviews 98
10.3.1 Interview with Lee Danskin, Director of Training Development at Escape Studios 98




Figure 1. Jin Hee Lee, Oldman, 2011 15
Figure 2. Bruno Jimenez, Johnny Cash, 2011 15
Figure 3 Scott Eaton, Hephaestus, 2010 16
Figure 4. Mariano Steiner, Show Time, 2010 16
Figure 5. Alessandro Baldasseroni, Dawn, 2011 17
Figure 6. Brett Sinclair, Aspen, 2008 17
Figure 7. Alexey Kashpersky, Atlantis Herald, 2010, 17
Figure 8. Filip Novy, Just This Last Job, 2011 18
Figure 9. Fabian Loing, Witch, 2009 18
Figure 10. Fabian Loing, Gabbaron, 2009 19
Figure 11. Matt Kean, Creature, 2011 19
Figure 12. Matt Kean, Butterfly Clay, 2011 19
Figure 13. Fabio Paiva, Caricature, 2011 20
Figure 14. Greg Patchinsky, Tired Bunny, 2008 20
Figure 15. Rudi Massar, Nightwatchman by 2011 20
Figure 16. Jonas Zbynek Kysela, Portrait, 2011 23
Figure 17. Max Edwin Wahyudi, Heath Ledger's Joker, 2011 23
Figure 18. Max Edwin Wahyudi, Tribute to Ingrid Bergman, 2009 23
Figure 19. Mohsen Fallah, Male Portrait, 2010 21
Figure 20. Uncanny Valley 21
Figure 21. Raphael Boyon, Jester, 2011 22
Figure 22. Rebeca Puebla, Broken Marionette, 2011 22
Figure 23. Arda Koyuncu, Grandma, 2011 22
Figure 24. Lacoan by Scott Eaton, 2009 29
Figure 25 Medieval portrait of St Blaise, approx. 1250AD, anon. 36
Figure 26 Holbein, George Gisze, Merchant in London 1532 oil on wood 37
Figure 27 The Ambassadors, Hans Holbein 37
Figure 28. Skull, Robert Lazzarini, 2006 38
Figure 29. Robert Lazzarin, Tools, 2006 38
Figure 30. Marilene Oliver, Famliy Portrait, 2002 39
Figure 31. Marilene Oliver, Famliy Portrait- Dad, 2002 39
Figure 32. Images of Patrick Stewart 40
Figure 33 Patrick Stewart as Macbeth, BCC, 2009 40
Figure 34 PhotoFly Project generated mesh and colour maps. 40
Figure 35. Statue of Francis Bacon, Magdalen College, Cambridge University. 42
Figure 36. Albrecht Durer, Melancholia, 1514, Engraving. 42
Figure 37. Sketch for observatory scene 43
Figure 38. Pose and prop sketches 43
Figure 39. Detail Sketches 43
Figure 40. Doublet,1560, Victoria and Albert Museum 44
Figure 41. Astrolabe 44
Figure 42. Elizabethan World Map 44
Figure 43. Early Rennaisance Globe, Oxford Museum of Science 44
Figure 44. Geometer's square 45
Figure 45. Celestial Dials 45
Figure 46. Italian polygonal dial 45
Figure 47. Surveyor's Tool 45
Figure 48. Erasmus Dial 45
Figure 49. Michaelangelo's Tools 45
Figure 50. Atrolabe 45
Figure 51. Drawing tools 45
Figure 52. Cartographer sighting tool. 45
Figure 53. Period Rug from Afghani Region 45
Figure 54. Elizabethan Bench 45
Figure 55. Elizabethan Bookcase 45
Figure 56 Building a base mesh in Maya 46
Figure 57 Base mesh in ZBrush 46
Figure 58. 2nd level of sudivision, working on primary and secondary structures. 47
Figure 59. Working on th base mesh from photo reference 47
Figure 60. Working with reference as a backdrop. 47
Figure 61. Basic likeness achieved at subdivision level 3 48
Figure 62. Adding tertiary forms and subdivision level 4 48
Figure 63. Adding surface detail and more detail 48
Figure 64. Tertiary forms complete 48
Figure 65. Close to completion with projected texture and superficial deteil 49
Figure 66. Designing and making cloths with CLO3D 50
Figure 67. setting the cloth simulation properties 50
Figure 68. Re-topologising breeches 50
Figure 69. Retopologized breeches with fine details re-projected 50
Figure 70. Character and costume complete in Zbrush 51
Figure 71. Character completed in Zbrush 52
Figure 72. Cutting a low poly base mesh 52
Figure 73. re-projecting detail from high level mesh. Two colours are seperate meshes 53
Figure 74. Final reprojection level 53
Figure 75 The final bust model in Zbrush 53
Figure 76. The bust model in Zbrush 2 53
Figure 77. The bust model in Zbrush 54
Figure 78. The bust model in Zbrush, close up 54
Figure 79. The bust model in Solidworks for mesh testing 54
Figure 80, The bust model divided up in Geomagic 55
Figure 81. Patrick Stewart checking his likeness with the 3D print test 55
Figure 82. Subejct, Digital Sculture, and Sculptor 55
Figure 83. Medieval Town 57
Figure 84. Medieval village model 57
Figure 85. Town square 57
Figure 86. Town lighting test 57
Figure 87. Building the Observatory architecture 58
Figure 88. Elizabethan leaded windows 58
Figure 89. Dome beam construction 58
Figure 90. Ironwork for windows 58
Figure 91. Making the rug,bench and instruments 59
Figure 92. More instruments 59
Figure 93. Chair, built in Maya and texture with ZBrush 59
Figure 94. Fur Shader generation in Maya 59
Figure 95. Scene models 60
Figure 96. Scene model 2 60
Figure 97. Scene models 3 60
Figure 98. Scene models 4 60
Figure 99. Scene models 5 60
Figure 100. Lighting test, not enough photons. 61
Figure 101. Early morning lighting test 61
Figure 102. Placing more props. 61
Figure 103. More instruments modeled 61
Figure 104. Texture tests with good lighting 61
Figure 105. UV grouping preparation for use in Maya 62
Figure 106. ZBrush to Maya export test 62
Figure 107. Creating a lace ruff texture 62
Figure 108. Displacement map test 62
Figure 109. Character introduced to lighting test 63
Figure 110. Good lighting resolved 63
Figure 111. SSS FastSkin shader with default settings 64
Figure 112. SSS FastSkin shader set without colour maps 64
Figure 113. SSS FastSkin shader with colour maps looking too waxy 64
Figure 114. Issues with skin shaders reflectance 64
Figure 115. SSS FastSkin shader starting to work 65
Figure 116. SSS Fast Skin shader with good reflectance 65
Figure 117. Skin shader in hdri lighting conditions 65
Figure 118. First test with fur shader for hair and beard 65
Figure 119. Pose test 66
Figure 120. Figure roughly posed 66
Figure 121. Full scene assembled 67
Figure 122. 1st full scene shader analysis test render 67
Figure 123. 2nd Shader analysis test render, many problems with specularity, lighting, aliasing, reflectivity 67
Figure 124. 3rd Shader analysis test render, specularity problems glass is killing diffuse colour from books, etc 67
Figure 125. 4th Shader test render, displacement detail missing, mis-applied bump on the walls, eyes, etc 67
Figure 126. 5th Shader test 68
Figure 127. 6th Shader test 68
Figure 128. Final Observatory Scene 68
Figure 129. Magdalena Dadela, Mephistopheles, 2009, 76
Figure 130. Gurning pat 77
Figure 131. Comedia mask 77
Figure 132. Pile of pats 77
Figure 133 Nick Ervink, AGRIEBORZ, 2010 3D Print 78
Figure 134 Majid Esmaeili, Dragon, 2011 78
Figure 135. Heather Gorham, The Gentle Cibotium Barometz, 2010, 3D Print 78
Figure 136. Katsu Yoaoki, Predictive Dream, 2011 Porcelain 79
Figure 137. Bug Jars, Shane Pennington, 2010, 3D prints and mixed media 79
Figure 138. Stefano Dubay, bone assemblage, 2011 79



Abstract
This is a study of the translation of traditional figurative sculpture skills into the 3D digital medium. The project investigates the affective feedback of 3D digital methods on the process of making a meaningful artwork.
Established 3D character design workflows associated of 3D digital modelling and animation software tools were used to make an ambitious digital portrait of Sir Patrick Stewart. The portrait was created in such a way as to demonstrate how multiple outputs can be achieved from a core creative workflow. The outputs in this case are an additive layer 3D print of a bust and renders of the 3D character.
The subject is multidisciplinary and the project engages with a complex context that includes enquiries into the history of naturalistic portraiture, the state of 3D digital figurative art, the current technical ground, contemporary artistic concerns, and general critical cultural concerns.
There are numerous findings on the nature of digital tools and analyses of their inter-related impacts on the artistic sculptural creative process, including discussions of the effects of the medium on the construction of meaning. The special qualities of digital working are identified. Good practices are noted and the limitations 3D digital tools are also discussed.
The practice of portrait sculpture is found to be radically transformed and extended by the use of 3D digital tools. 3DD technology makes many processes and skills redundant, but their effective use also relies on traditional manual and intellectual skills associated with a traditional artistic training.
The project suggests an extension of portraiture into the 3D digital medium that can include real time simulation and artificial intelligence.


Introduction
In the last decade improvements in 3D digital modelling software, along with the increased computational power generally available, has made digital methods of producing fine art sculpture more viable.
This is a study of the impact of 3D digital tools on traditional artistic practice. In particular, the translation of a traditional figurative sculpture practice into the 3D digital medium. The areas of interest are the effects of this translation on the design and making processes, as well as the transformative influence upon the meaning of the artwork exerted by 3D digital media and methods.
The practice in question is my own and it is one that includes amongst other things 17 years of traditional figurative sculpture experience. The thesis traces part of the migration of this practice model from being a studio based - sole artist, using methods like drawing, clay modelling, mould making, casting, etc - into a practice that includes web-based research and 3D digital tools in the process of design and production.
The research seeks to explicate some of the nature of sculptural work in relation to digital tools and hopefully will produce knowledge that is of interest to those learning or teaching 3D Digital methods to creative practitioners.
The study is based on the making of a digital portrait, an experimental artwork that sets out to understand how the multiple aspects of 3D digital tools operate in a practical creative context. It also frames an analysis of the inter-relationships between the tools, work processes, and outputs.
A full figure portrait was chosen to provide a high level of technical challenge and to push the capabilities of the tools. It required the modelling of the figure, clothing, architecture and props, giving the opportunity examine several modelling/simulation techniques.
Patrick Stewart OBE, Actor, Director and Chancellor of the University, kindly agreed to take part in to project as the subject of the portrait.
Digital methods of sculptural production are different from preceding technical innovations. In that objects only exist as a representations or simulations for the vast majority of design and making process. In addition, the output phase is separate and achieved by machines, meaning the product is disconnected from the manual processes. This research examines some of these differences and their implications
3D digital tools are powerful and varied, but they are not transparent. It is impossible to ignore their effects on the way the work is made and how the final output is read. This project will explore some of the ways that 3D digital methods feed back into the significances of both the making process and the products.
The tools used for this project were developed primarily to meet the needs of the film visual effects (VFX), animation and computer games industries. Although they are highly versatile and adaptable tools, their main focus is upon the generation of animatable characters. This means that their methods are biased toward the production of models that are suitable for animation and rendering. They amplify editability and consequently offer the potential for re-using of the models created with them. These factors were interpreted for this project as the potential for multiple outputs that all derive from one central creative workflow. One digital product, or asset can be reused for many purposes, for example:
3D printed sculptural object
2D photo-real renders
Real-Time interactive scene with a user controlled camera
3D animation
Reflecting this, this digital portrait project sets out a workflow and technical limitations that accommodate multiple forms of product. The duration of the project allowed for a 3D print and photo-real renders, but the digital files were prepared to be used in 3D animation and real-time simulation (via a game engine).
The meaning of many digital artworks is often compromised in terms of quality and contextual richness. Some of the reasons for this are discussed in later sections.
The construction of the digital portrait's meaningful content reflects the influence of digital research. Working on networked computers gives easy access to a very wide cultural context as well as access to highly specific knowledge. This suggests ways of constructing and reading the meaning that draw on highly specific knowledge, as well as more diffuse, associative information. Many of the design decisions taken during this project reflect an oscillation of attention between the specific and diffuse semantic relationships that are caused by the use of digital research tools. These factors were allowed to inform the content of the project. This means that the meaningful content is located, not in an articulated position, but rather in the paths taken in the research and in the process of making the work.


Methodology
Making a 3D digital portrait necessarily crosses disciplines between fine art, digital media, computing and engineering. It is an inherently multi-disciplinary enterprise and hence it is complex. To deal with the complexity, a multi-threaded approach was taken to the research.
The Research Aim
The overall aim is to develop an understanding of the issues that are relevant to the cross-disciplinary process of making meaningful digital sculpture, and to build more specific understandings of the relationships between traditional fine art practice and 3D digital processes.
Objectives
Within the overall task, the principal objectives are to;
Use the process the making of a 3D Digital portrait as a case study in which to identify relevant theoretical and contextual issues
Assess and discuss the practice of digital sculpting and high level 3D Digital modelling
To articulate some impacts of the technology in the field of digital sculpture and to define the limitations and extensions engendered by digital techniques
Provide an analysis of the state of the art of 3D Digital modelling of realistic characters
Identify good practice methods and models that can be used to enhance the practice of artists and designers using digital methods
Define aspects of knowledge that can assist in the teaching of creative workers in 3D Digital modelling field
The main primary research activity is self-observation during the process of designing and making the Digital Portrait.
The problem with researching well practiced artistic activity is that it is inarticulate. It is carried out through the use of tacit, embodied skills (McCullough,1996). This tacit behaviour is analogous to Heidegger's concept of "Ready to hand", this means that when the work is being carried out successful, it remains unconscious. So, successful manual artistic processes are automatic and are obscured from the interpretive analysis of the hermeneutic cycle. Theorising is only triggered by the failure of the tools or skill. These factors bias self-reflection towards an analysis of failure.
Digital technologies allow us to record ourselves working [and] this is a way of making tacit processes explicit. (Harrod 2007) Phenomenology also offers the method of "bracketing", which is interpreted here as temporarily suspending the attribution of meaning by assigning it the category of 'experience'. (Clarke 2010, Husserl 1906) Bracketing can be used to enable self observation and as a way of extracting some of the tacit knowledge contained within the silent working processes.
In this project the self reflection was achieved practically by logging the experiences in an online journal (see www.digital-sculpture.co.uk) and retrospectively analysing the log. The analysis was enhanced with the perspective gained from viewing time-lapse recordings of the digital sculpting process. It was quite effective for revealing patterns of work behaviour.
Interviews with Lee Danskin and Derek Hales contribute to the primary research for this thesis. (See appendix) Both men have long involvements in teaching and assisting people in the process of coming to terms with the tools used for 3D Digital modelling, VFX and computer animation. Danskin's view is informed by the experience of training for the pragmatic needs of industry and Hales' approach is from a position of wider artistic and speculative philosophical enquiry.
In an attempt to clarify the ways that artists work with, and in response to, digital tools in the making of sculptural objects and 3D Digital artwork, a large variety of information sources were accessed for this research, including books, interviews, journals articles, conference papers, exhibitions, websites, online documents and videos. This survey helps to articulate some of the cultural and technical background issues, while encompassing cultural reactions and adaptations to digital 3D technologies.
The review also looks at examples of contemporary fine art sculptors working in the fine art tradition who respond to 3D digital technologies. This points towards cultural frameworks that are triggered by 3D digital technology. An effort is made to represent the state of 3D digital art, to find out what kind of work is being produced by current practitioners in the field and also to discover the significant characteristics of this work?
The subjects covered in this project are areas of lively development that contain high degrees of change and complexity. The production of a single clear line of argument did not seem a viable objective in this context. Hence the thesis is intended as a discursive survey of the points of engagement between practice, and the digital sculpture technology as informed by relevant historical, technical and cultural contexts.




Contextual Review
Literature review
3D digital media is a young and rapidly evolving field, both culturally and technically. Some of the tools have development histories of little more than a decade. Consequently, there is very little concerted written work that focuses on the translation of fine art sculpture skills to into 3D Digital methods. Figurative sculpture and portraiture are highly dependent upon manual craft and design skills, so parallels can be drawn from the related fields of craft and architecture where there is a more mature debate about the migration from manual to digital practices, and more developed discussions of the hybridisation of manual and digital techniques.
A key thinker on the subject of traditional skills adapting to the digital, is Malcolm McCulloch. In Abstracting Craft the Practiced Digital Hand (2002) He identifies computerised art and design work as a form of highly skilled manual craftsmanship.
He dissolves the Modernistic habit of setting technology in opposition to creative talent, Saying that those 'alienating' analyses are collapsed by digital technologies and that digital tools allow the "reuniting of skill and intellect" (McCulloch, 2002). His overriding attitude is that mastery of the digital tools resolves most of the complaints about perceived attacks on traditional authorial making methods and craft values.
There is plentiful discussion of the perceptual, social and psychological impacts of digital media. Many writers constellate around themes of alienation, articulated as a de-centring of the body and the removal of experience from the physical self. Body here is used in the sense of a neurological being that embodies experience. Disembodiment caused by digital media is large in the minds of many theorists (Harrod 2010; Manovich, L; Turkle, S; Pallasma, J, 2009)
There is a locus of theoretical engagement i with the use of digital tools and influence of digital media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Digital Design Lab, many of the cited writers have associations with this institution.
It is often said of computers that they are "just a tool". This is too simplistic, software packages contain a vast multiplicity of tools. (Harrod, 2003) They are more like workshops. It is normal to use more than one software package, so a practitioner has access to several virtual workshops. E.g. During this project the computer, and 3D printing machines have directly replaced the physical workspaces, tools and methods associated with making a portrait sculpture.
Digital methods of working inherently collapse disciplinary boundaries between different art and design practices (Marshall 2010). The computer gives ready access to the software equivalents of workspaces from other disciplines like video editing suites, painting studios, fashion studios, darkrooms, music studios, engineering workshops, and draughting rooms. This gives practitioners access to languages, methods and tools that where traditionally outside of the experience offered by disciplined work.
Justin Marshall in his 2010 PhD thesis explored the adaptation of traditional skill based practices to 3D digital techniques. He predicted that 3D Digital techniques will become ubiquitous, and will engender an "opening up of the practices", to make hybrid forms that "appropriate" the technologies into their own creative agendas.
The research group Autonomatic, based in Falmouth College, UK. Is a good source of work and experimentation at the interface between manual craft and computerised manufacturing tools. Ertu Unver (University of Huddersfield, UK) and Lionel Theodore (De Montford University, UK) are also contributing much in this area of 3D Design.
Sherry Turkle writes extensively about psycho-social aspects of our interactions with digital media and networks. She has done experimental and observational work in the area of creative use of digital media. She has a psychoanalytical approach, which has revealed several interesting themes, some of which are discussed later in the findings section.
Survey of 3D Digital Art
"Where there is nothing, everything is possible" Rem Koolhaas
This section contains a limited survey of artwork being produced with digital 3D sculpting tools. The survey reveals a burgeoning of figurative art in association with digital sculpture tools.
It is impossible within the scope of this Masters thesis to fully discuss the complex of characteristics and influencing factors that at play, but here is a brief account of the greatest effectors currently driving the style and content of digital 3D artwork.
Currently and in recent history the main consumers of 3D digital artwork are in the film and video game industries, where commercial trends seem to favour styles that contain fantasy and futurism.
The nature of the tools affects the artistic output in this field. In particular, the ease of formal manipulation with the software means it is highly conducive to making large changes and dramatic shifts in form at the same time as providing the facility to create very fine and elaborate detail. Additionally, there are some visual artefacts that result from the internal processes of the software, e.g. geometry smoothing and subdivision modelling
The ability to move cameras and alter the focal lengths freely, means that multiple views can be tested easily, so it often the case that the most dramatic angles are chosen to highlight particular aspects of the model.
Figure 1. Jin Hee Lee, Oldman, 2011Most practitioners are freelance contract workers and hence many artworks are intended as demonstrations of skill. So they are concentrated on displaying the artisanal skill of an artist and competence with particular software capabilities.
Figure 1. Jin Hee Lee, Oldman, 2011
There are some strong trends and sub genres in the content and style. The following samples of artwork are arranged in categories that describe some of the broad tendencies in approach to artistic representation with 3D software tools.
Naturalism
Figure 2. Bruno Jimenez, Johnny Cash, 2011Reading the forums at Z-Brush Central and CGSociety reveals that many digital artist's main concerns constellate around issues of believability. Either naturalistic realism or emotional believability. This could be an indication of anxiety about the authenticity and truthfulness of simulation of their artwork. Less developed artists appear to take the approach that creating an exact simulation of their subject will overcome this anxiety about authenticity/credibility. More experienced artists view accurate simulation as assisting in believability but not providing it. Their main concern is to exact emotional responses from the viewer. Figures 1 and 2 are examples of naturalistic characterisations.
Figure 2. Bruno Jimenez, Johnny Cash, 2011

Sculptural
Some artist's take the approach of simply using the digital sculpture to execute forms that are follow a traditional figurative sculpture creative agenda. Figures 3 and 4 show some good examples of sculpture executed this way. As good as they are at simulating traditional clay and stone based methods of sculpture, this approach could be interpreted as a missed opportunity to explore the full potential of the new tools.

Figure 3 Scott Eaton, Hephaestus, 2010

Figure 4. Mariano Steiner, Show Time, 2010
Fantasy and Sci-Fi
This category accounts for the vast majority of artistic output using 3D digital tools. A common criticism of 3D Digital art is that much of the content consists of puerile representations of adolescent fantasies. Even a casual survey confirms that this is a serious and widespread problem. In particular, depictions of women often fall into the categories of semi-pornographic or frankly ridiculous.
Artwork like this seems to exist in a contextual vacuum, where the only critical engagement is with the functional technique of using the tool. This vaccuousness can be partly explained by the fact that until recently the sheer technical difficulty and length of time needed in learning the software tools has interfered negatively with critical engagement. The labour intensiveness of achieving visual results has left little time for critical attention. (See figs. 5,6 and 7)
This category of work largely consists of gimmicky artworks that are executed as demonstrations of technique and the software's simulative abilities. The content, in lieu of cultural context or conceptual curiosity, falls back on masturbatory fantasy. This kind of work is a great case for promoting the education of cultural and art historical contexts.

Figure 5. Alessandro Baldasseroni, Dawn, 2011

Figure 6. Brett Sinclair, Aspen, 2008

Figure 7. Alexey Kashpersky, Atlantis Herald, 2010,


However, some examples of the fantasy genre are to be admired if only for the shear skill of execution. See fig. 8

Figure 8. Filip Novy, Just This Last Job, 2011
Exaggeration, Grotesque and Polymorphism
The main commercial activity in the 3d digital sculpture arena is character design. There are a huge quantity of artists making characters with exaggerated anatomy and polymorphic assemblages of physiognomy from animals, insects and even machines. The main reason for this is the demand from the video game industry, which creates a market for creatures, monster's and bizarrely proportioned characters. (See figures 9,10, 11 and 12)
However, It is not only market driven, another influence are the tools themselves. It is exceptionally easy to play with proportions of a previously made character and graft on parts from other models. This is a good way to create something visually exciting with little effort and it is also a huge amount fun.
Looking at some of the content it is obvious that there is yet another influence at play- a fascination with the Uncanny that is perhaps driven by the nature of the media itself.
There is an almost medieval quality to a lot of this artwork. Many examples bring to mind the inventive, apocalyptic and demonic paintings of late medieval artists such as Bosch, Grunewald and Bruegel.

Figure 9. Fabian Loing, Witch, 2009


Figure 10. Fabian Loing, Gabbaron, 2009

Figure 11. Matt Kean, Creature, 2011

Figure 12. Matt Kean, Butterfly Clay, 2011
Caricature
Digital sculpture tools are particularly effective for creating the distortions for caricature. Because of the facility, it is a very popular use of the tools. Figures 13, 14 and 15 are interesting examples

Figure 13. Fabio Paiva, Caricature, 2011

Figure 14. Greg Patchinsky, Tired Bunny, 2008

Figure 15. Rudi Massar, Nightwatchman by 2011
Uncanny Valley
Perceptually we are particularly sensitive to irregularities in facial expressions and the subtle, miniscule changes around the eyes. It is how we read a person's mood or purpose. When making a portrait the tiniest shifts in the flesh around the eyes can make the difference between familiarity and difference.
When a simulation of a person is close to naturalism the mind is unsettled by small errors that create a conflict between something that is acceptable a real and but which is simultaneously unreal.
Often uncanniness in 3D digital art is unintentional and is all the more disturbing for this. Figure 19 is an example of the effect of not addressing the form correctly and figure 20 shows the effect of wrong facial proportions.

Figure 16. Mohsen Fallah, Male Portrait, 2010

Figure 17. Uncanny Valley
But there are examples of work that consciously plays with the tendency toward uncanniness that is built into to 3D digital medium. They draw on it's capacity to fascinate us. These artist have the ability to harness uncanniness and put it to creative purposes. A little bit of uncanniness can go a long way. (see figs.21,22 and 23)

Figure 18. Raphael Boyon, Jester, 2011

Figure 19. Rebeca Puebla, Broken Marionette, 2011


Figure 20. Arda Koyuncu, Grandma, 2011
3D Digital Portraiture
The following images (figs. 16,17 and 18) represent the state of the art in realism in 3D Digital portraiture.

Figure 21. Jonas Zbynek Kysela, Portrait, 2011

Figure 22. Max Edwin Wahyudi, Heath Ledger's Joker, 2011


Figure 23. Max Edwin Wahyudi, Tribute to Ingrid Bergman, 2009
These examples show digital output that is designed solely at the final high resolution render. The underlying methodologies produce 3D models that cannot be animated. The next technological step is to create reproducible methods for producing this level of visual quality in a form that can be used for animation. Also these examples only show the head or a character with a simple backdrop. The contents are very simple reproduction and while impressive technically they are fairly limited in terms of the artist creating the setting an meaningful context.
The portrait undertaken as the experiment for this thesis is a full body animatable figure, inhabiting a scene that can potentially be freely navigated. It is a far more complex undertaking than the examples above, and one which stretches the capacities of the software and the available computers.
The methodology intends that the content and execution of the Digital Portrait be influenced by the methods and the medium. From the above survey it seems that much extant work is still involved in overcoming technical problems at the cost of the content. Where they are successful, artists seem to gravitate toward surrealistic, medieval, and extreme characterisations that engage with the innate uncanny qualities of simulated figures.
It is evident from this survey that there is a lack of art historical context in most of the output in this feild. Consequently, the experimental portrait undertaken here attempts to address this lack by placing the digital portrait in a greater portraiture tradition.


The Digital Portrait Experimental Study

Fine Art Skills and the Digital Sculpting Process
The most important ability of an artist is to observe.
David Jones. Art Director, Realtime Worlds

The demands of producing 3D digital artwork, have created a focus on traditional manual and intellectual skills of figurative art in the commercial sphere. The job title 3D Digital Artist defines a role that crosses disciplines in the Illustration, VFX, computer animation, video game, and simulation industries. Employers and commissioners commonly call for fine art skills (Even a brief survey of job descriptions in the field demonstrates this). Knowledge of operating the 3D digital software alone is not sufficient to produce good quality, believable and meaningful artwork.
The qualities represented by the phrase "fine art skills" can be analysed as the craft and intellectual skills associated with a fine art education. These are:
Observation
Criticality- Self-reflection, the ability to independently and iteratively evaluate the quality of the artwork and understand it's meaningful context.
A theoretical grounding in visual perception, perspective, colour theory, compositional, proportion, physics, anatomy etc...
Sketching and visualisation
Mental prototyping
Knowledge of visual art history
Research and Referencing
The received wisdom in industry is that people with these skills have an advantage in learning to operate the software (Danksin, L, 2011). How these skills actually function within 3D modelling workflows is an area that needs more research.
Observation
The ability to observe is the primary skill that enables an artist to accumulate reliable knowledge and assume it into their mind as true experiences of phenomena.
The adult mind has an amazing ability to construct a version of the world from a combination of sensory cues, learned objects and assumptions. The brain habitually constructs a 'good enough' spatial model from just a few cues and it can achieve a fair version of reality from very little sensory input, especially when in familiar situations.
The mind's reconstructive habit is moderated by being very sensitive to anomalous and/or novel information. New experiences switch the mind into a fascinated mode of attention. This is part of a learning process and is a feature of human attention that can be exploited by artists to direct attention. Although it is artistically useful in this way, it also creates a problem, anomalies in an artwork can attract attention in unintended ways.
Much 3D digital artwork is involved in creating believable simulations. To make naturalistic simulations it is necessary to provide many visual cues to convince the eye, but also to avoid anomalous cues that pull attention away from the central subject. The more familiar a subject is, (e.g. a famous persons face) the greater the level of information that is needed to achieve a believable simulation. Observation is the technique that enables an artist to accumulate the kind of objective knowledge that contributes to believability. The practice of visual observation also enables the development of an ability to understand how illusion is created in the mind of another person.
Observational drawing is a traditional way of developing the ability to isolate sensory input from preconceptions. It is not a natural ability for most people, but it can be learned through a combination of perceptual theory and repetitive manual practices. An artist can learn to selectively suspend their minds interpretive capacities, and to voluntarily engage in fascinated modes of attention- to treat the familiar as novel. These techniques allow a sensory detailed experience of an object to be incorporated into the mind and improve the accuracy of conceptions of objects.
The ability to gather, interpret and use external visual reference material is important in 3D digital art making, but observation of the real world incorporated into an internal mental model is far more valuable. It is this internal model that provides knowledge of materials, spatiality and lighting, which are the most relevant knowledges for creating believable 3D digital artwork. (Danskin, 2011)
The practice of observation continuously builds a store of embodied knowledge of how and why things work the way they do. This embodied virtual inner world becomes available to the 3d digital artist when they attempt to create believable simulated objects in digital worlds. This embodied knowledge also allows the artist to infer material attributes and qualities for unfamiliar or invented objects, from familiar ones. The greater the experience of real world materials and processes an artist has, the higher the quality of these inferences can be.
These ideas are recognised by many practitioners and educators in digital animation. It is an established educational practice to enforce the disciplined use of manual art skills upon students who instinctively want to use computers immediately, because of the perceived power of the digital tools. (Hales, 2011)
Underlying this practice there is an idea that existentially gained, embodied knowledge can be projected into digital tools, but that the mind does not necessarily take in new knowledge from digitally simulated practices. (Pallasmaa, 2009) Similar to a diode effect, embodied knowledge is easily projected into the virtual space of the screen, but does not necessarily feed back into the artist's world knowledge.
Criticality and creative thinking skills.
The combination of observational skills with critical thinking assists artists in the appropriation of 3d software techniques.
A standard artistic training includes regular and systematic peer reviews called critiques. Over time the habits of critique are internalised and brought to bear in the design process. The purpose of criticism is to train an artist's attention to be able to mentally, step back from the detail of the work, to see the whole. So as to be able to apply objectivity and self reflection to the work.
In the professional 3D digital world, online forums act as sites for critique. Practitioners place images of their work in these qualified public spaces and directly ask for criticism. The content of critiques tends to shift according to level of the artist's mastery, from particular, technical issues for beginners- towards the more holistic issues of intent, context, and emotional efficacy of the artwork for experts. Practitioners generally seek out criticism in the form of dissent, debate, disagreement, divergent perspective and general criticism (Maier and Branzei, 2010). The goal is to destabilise mental constructs relating to their own artwork. To 'free up' personal attachments and also to allow better analytical access to the way a viewer may experience the artwork.
This model of inviting conflicting opinions about an artwork is necessary in most art forms. The more time intensive and technically difficult a project is, the easier it is to lose sight of the overall creative intent and context of the work. The main problem is becoming emotionally attached to the work already done. This is called becoming 'precious' in the trade. The intensive nature of 3D digital work processes make it an artform that is highly susceptible to these kinds of attachment and with 3D digital work there is an additional danger of becoming distracted into technical, problem solving modes of attention.
These factors are widely recognised as destructive to communicating artistic intent and artists depend upon alternative perspectives in order to compensate for these habits.
Visualisation
Projecting a visual idea into other people's minds is the fundamental task of artwork. Mental Prototyping and Sketching are specialised subcategories of visualising.
A mental prototype is not a complete object in the mind of an artist that is simply drawn into a sketch. A sketch and mental object exist in a dynamic feedback loop. The prototypical object in mind is a cluster of associated ideas, shapes, phrases, etc. The sketching process is a way of defining and ordering loosely associated characteristics and influences into a coherent object that can be transmitted to others.
Sketching is the best method of visual communication in collaborative environments. In addition to generating coherent visual objects, sketching can utilise symbolic representation to communicate additional qualities, information and meaning. Traditionally, 2D drawing was almost exclusively used, mainly because of the speed of execution. Sculptural sketching has been used, but only in very specialist scenarios, as it's labour intensiveness makes iterative changes impractical. However digital sculpture tools now offer potential for 3D sketching. (This is explored in the findings section of this document.)
Theoretical Grounding
All 3D software assumes some naturalised knowledge of Renaissance perspective
(Hales, 2011)
3D digital software packages can sometimes seem like a repository for scientific descriptions of the world. Theories of visual perception, perspective, colour theory, proportion, physics, anatomy, optics, positivism, and more are built into the programs. Most of these theories are also part of a traditional artistic education and it is obvious how this helps when approaching 3D digital tools. An artistic training makes it a small leap to accept the assumptions and abstractions that are common to 3D digital tools.
The figurative sculpture tradition in particular is additionally interested in the relationships between the human body and the world. It is a discipline that draws upon extensive experience of handling materials and tools and depends on embodied skill built through years of iterative practice. The ways of seeing engendered by traditional figurative sculpture are factors that are helpful to an artist coming to terms with creating figures in simulated space. A fact that has been welcomed with enthusiasm by many figurative artists including myself. (Eaton, 2009, Kingslien 2008, Spencer 2009, Danskin 2011)
Technical Context
3D digital technology is developing at an extremely rapid pace. The technical ground shifts on a monthly basis. Even during this short project, technical considerations have been altered by software developments. e.g. The problem of unwrapping UV maps has changed from a painstaking and hugely labour intensive task, to one that is easily achieved in minutes.
Many commentators on the technical context of 3D digital making, are practitioners who are not only engaged in working with the tools, but often have a role in software development. Technical online forums are highly developed in this field and are the site of detailed discussion and debate about current issues. ZBrush forums and CGSociety forums are the richest sources of practical technical knowledge for the software used in this project. In particular ZBrush and Maya.
The reality of using 3D software is that they are in continuous development and are substantially prototypical. The development cycle involves, releasing a version, receiving feedback, complaints, feature requests and bug reports from users and then responding to this with another update, which in turn triggers another cycle of user feedback. These cycles occur with a turnover of 3-6 months.
Some practitioners whose work is considered seminal by 3D digital art communities are; Scott Eaton, Cesar Dacol, Ian Joyner, Jim McPherson, Zack Petroc, Alex Alvarez, Ryan Kingslien, Svengali, Fabian Loing, Magdalena Dadela and Steve Jubinville. There are many more. Many of these artists/technicians also have been involved with beta testing ZBrush and have associations with CGI training institutions. Almost all of them work to some degree within the film and and computer game industries. All of them have a traditional figurative art training in their backgrounds.
During the making of the digital portrait, many references were made to their artwork and their commentaries on technical issues.
Overall, the experience of the author of the technical context is that over time. Problematic technical issues become easier to resolve
3D Digital Practitioners Perspectives
This section looks at the approaches of key practitioners in figurative digital sculpture, and discusses the issues raised by their respective theoretical stances.
Scott Spencer acted as a consultant in the development of the ZBrush interface. His background includes training in Renaissance sculpture at the School of Florence.
His book, ZBrush Character Creation (2009) contains a detailed description of a typical standard 3D digital workflow for a high level character design using ZBrush and Maya. It is clear that he has developed his approach and thinking from the practical perspective of an artist who is overcoming the technical problems of the tools to achieve a clear creative goal.
In his first chapter Sculpting, from traditional to digital. He makes the case that digital sculpture should be approached with the same artistic concerns as traditional sculpture, saying that traditional rules apply equally to digital sculpture. The rules he cites are familiar to anyone with a traditional sculpture training. They are, Gesture rhythm, form, proportion and anatomy. Spencer asserts the usefulness of these concepts in approaching any kind 3D sculptural endeavour, regardless of the medium.
Spencer's attitude to digital sculpting is aggressively 'Art first'. In his view the technique of the 3D Digital tools should be bent to the artists will. His arguments seem to dismiss the idea of innate qualities in the medium. For him, The artist's intent transcends the medium for. An obvious problem with this approach is that the traditional sculptural compositional rules he refers to were developed to deal with static materials. So they may not be completely appropriate for the 3D digital medium.
Other practitioners have a more integrative attitude. Scott Eaton's education includes time at MIT Digital Design Lab, where he learned programming, followed by a period of sculpture training at the Florence Academy of Art. His approach is to focus on anatomy as a way of understanding the mechanics of physiology, and to allow the mechanics of the body to describe form. His other technical interests are around how light defines a surface. These ideas seem more in sympathy with the nature of digital tools.
He acknowledges the influence of the industrial process that the tools are intended for. Stating "Everything in computer graphics is a pipeline", by which he means an order of inter-dependent steps in the process of producing work that are informed by the technical necessities. The greatest advantage of this is access to "the low resolution to high resolution workflow, [which] makes it is possible to make sculptural adjustments, independently, at various levels of detail." (Eaton, S, 2009) Unlike clay, changes made at a lower level of detail are projected through to the finer levels of detail. This means figures can be posed and reposed indefinitely without altering the finished surface.
Eaton doesn't distinguish between modelling and creating the surface shader. Seeing both as aspects of creating light and shade on a surface. He sees the reading of form as a purely visual process and is quite comfortable with the idea that sculpture works by illusion, whether in clay or in digital form. He treats surface shading of digital models as a natural extension of modelling.
In assessing digital sculpture tools he says, "good tools provide immediate feedback, bad ones need meticulous attention". He predicts that as software design improves, more people with non-technical, more familiar manual skills will be able to use the technology. He privileges ideas of 'craft' and 'mastery', asserting "the only way to create good art with spontaneity is to master the tool set". Similarly to other skilled crafts and art forms, he suggests, "mastery can easily take 10 years of practice."

Figure 24. Lacoan by Scott Eaton, 2009

Teacher Dan Collins (1997) promotes an idea of digital sculpture as a technological extension of traditional practice. He says "Virtually anything that can be mapped in 3D can be rendered as a digital sculpture" e.g. data can be acquired from the interior of objects and human bodies and this offers the potential for representations of interior as well as surface.
Importantly he says 3D digital methods build on traditional observation, metricisation, and the "aesthetic pleasure drawing and painting".
The 3D Digital Toolkit
The recent rapid development of digital tools has provided greatly refined tools that enable artists to produce better quality digital artwork and more believable simulations. These developments are reducing the intrusion of the computer interface is continually lifting technical limitations on the creative process and decision making. This is a trend that will obviously continue and the enhanced efficacy of these tools opens new and exciting opportunities for creative work.
Software packages have inscribed knowledges in the form of assumptions, methods, practices and even philosophical stances that are built in. This is reflected in the ways an artist can work with them. Lee Danskin (2011) has seen very strong preferences for packages amongst users. e.g. Maya versus 3D Studio Max.
3D Studio Max's workflow is fundamentally hierarchal. Its organisation also reflects a consumerist ideology in that the user is cast as a selector of modifications that are performed on an object. "it's more about pushing buttons and clicking menu options"(Danskin 2011) Maya's philosophy is based on a network paradigm. It is nodal rather than hierarchal, and is customisable and extendable.
They have their respective pros and cons. The editorial, hierarchal approach of 3D Studio Max is very good for breaking tasks down into discrete processes, and it can be operated with a lower skill threshold. This makes 3D Studio Max well suited to managing large projects with many sub tasks and division of labour, but it's methods can frustrate creative engagement. Maya is indefinitely customisable, if the button isn't there you can make one. It is very fast to use, but requires more specialist knowledge and a greater investment in setting up projects. On balance Maya's interface is more sympathetic to artistic modes of engagement and smaller groups working together. Although it must be noted the final output quality of all the major 3D packages is almost identical.
Many writers are critical of the idea of inscribed forms and systems built in the software suggesting that they inevitably limit authorial creation (Harrod, Manovich, Hales). They are suspicious of the fact that 3D software is developed for commercial interests. Designer Johnathan Hardstaff (2009) says "There is fundamental disjunction between digital media and contemporary art" and he feels that, to keep authorial control of artwork that is produced with 3D tools, "people must question the motives and agendas of the people who provide the software".
The idea that collectivised knowledge is bad or suspicious, is indicative of a narcissistic psychological objection rather than a practical one. In practice, it is tremendously helpful to have software that contains traditional assumptions and shared values. It is actually helpful to the authorial process. Having inscribed and established working norms assists people with skill sets that were formed in different disciplines to access the tools, and they enable collaborations and the schooling of knowledge. e.g. The online forums and user groups speak of a shared experience, of coming to know the tools and medium and contributors commonly call for standardisation.
On a critical note, to the uninitiated, the single interfaces offered by the major packages give the illusion of a coherent working system. Currently, within individual packages there are many different sub-systems and types of process. Some of these integrate well with the whole, but others do not, and some are entirely incompatible with each other. There is enormous room for improvement in terms of integration of sub-systems within software packages.
One very positive consequence of the inscribed agendas of the tools chosen for this project is that they are fundamentally animation tool and the time based element brings the potential for narrative to the fore as a creative consideration.
The film, video game, and engineering industries generated have driven the development of these tools. Those chosen for this project were designed for producing digital assets in industrial workflows. e.g. The core purpose of ZBrush is modelling and painting meshes and delivering them in standard formats that can be used with animation packages and game engines. As suggested by Scott Eaton, the efficiencies and built in workflows can be used for creative advantage.
The main practical activities of this project are high level 3D digital modelling and rendering. There are a good variety of software tools that could be used for this. For general 3D modelling, animation and simulation, there are tools like Maya, 3D Studio Max, Softimage (www.autodesk.com), Modo (www.luxology.com), Lightwave (www.newtek.com), Houdini (www.sidefx.com), Blender (www.blender.org) and more. These are described as "behemoth" packages by Lee Danskin (who had a role in the early development of Maya modelling tools). They are large assemblies of programs and plug-ins that are assembled under one interface and the aim to provide as many of the tools you may need for a 3D digital modelling and animation project.
All of these packages contain tools sufficient to undertake the digital sculpture project, but they do not offer the best available solutions for all the tasks. More specialised software has been developed that are designed for fine modelling tasks and specific kinds of simulation.
For digital sculpting and 3d painting the software options are ZBrush (www.pixologic.com), Mudbox (www.autodesk.com), 3D coat (www.3dcoat.com), Sculptris, (www.pixologic.com) and Silo (www.nevercentre.com). Again they all have the capacity to achieve very high resolution models.
ZBrush and Maya were chosen as the primary tools for the project. ZBrush is the most advanced of the alternatives in terms of feature development, and has the most active user support and knowledge base. Maya was chosen because of previous experience with the interface, but also for the built in Renderer- Mental Ray, and for the quality of technical forums created by the software user base.
CLO3D (www.clo3d.com) was chosen for it's specialised capacities for constructing costume garments and running cloth draping simulations. 3D Studio Max was used for the specific modelling tasks where it has more effective tools than Maya. Solidworks (www.solidworks.com) is particularly well designed for making mechanically related parts and is used to model some components.
CLO 3D and Solidworks both produce meshes that are not optimally constructed for use with animation software. 3D Coat was used to re-topologise these meshes in a way that optimises them for use with other software.
ZBrush 4 (and 4 R2)
Zbrush and it's equivalents, represent a breakthrough in polygonal modeling of complex forms. Zbrush has become an industry standard digital sculpting and 3D painting tool. It began life 10 years ago as a 3D painting tool. Through its use and abuse by digital artists in the film industry, it has developed into a sculpting tool that is widely used for modelling digital characters, concept design, video game assets, jewellery, costume design, product visualisation, shoe design, prototyping and more. It is even seen as a medium in it's own right by some artists.
Pixologic, who develop it, answered McCulloch's call for better tools that are sympathetic to the focused attention of highly skilled work. They took the approach of involving traditionally trained sculptors in the design of the interface and the testing of the tools within the software. Recognizing the needs of highly skilled workers, they have attempted to create systems that cause minimal interference with the artistic attention, from the background functioning of the software. Part of Pixologic's design strategy with ZBrush has been to observe manual artistic skills being used with particular attention to the character design workflow in particular. This means there is a built-in workflow that aids character modeling tasks.
The interface is designed to create a working environment that is sympathetic to the quality of attention that is needed for the highly concentrated work of making detailed and complex models. This quality of attention can be categorized as "Ready to hand"
ZBrush avoids context shifts unless they are strictly necessary in order to prevent distraction from the model. The downside of this approach is a lot of functionality is implicit and hidden away, making it difficult to approach and intimidating for beginners. Significant training and practice is needed to understand it and to use it well. (Many people resort to the competing Mudbox for this reason.) The positive aspects of this approach are that the application of skills learned in a traditional sculpture environment can be applied relatively naturally, as the software designers have translated many assumptions from traditional practices into the digital environment.
The interface is dependent on the use of graphics tablets, which is a feature that makes it conducive to the use of painterly and drawing skills. The software attempts to provide a process that is simulative of clay and wax modeling. The digital clay methods of modeling are exceptionally versatile, and are quite successfully analogies to real world practices in some areas. However, they are not direct analogies of sculpting, they behave more like a fusion of painting, drawing and sculpting. It is a very pleasing fusion for someone with these skills.
The approach to modelling and painting places primacy on the artistic concerns of the process. Scott Spencer (2009) says "the strength of the software is that it is possible to sculpt with no regard for topology". The software offers ways of retopologising the mesh to solve problems in geometry that would cause difficulties later on in the workflow. In practice this process is quite laborious and distracts from the creative thought process. So it may not be the best available methodology. e.g. I observed a student who was new to digital modelling, and who had a strong fine art skill base. From a starting position naivety, she disregarded the topology and very quickly came up against the limits of the geometry by stretching the mesh too far apart to offer any useful definition.
Mesh characteristics are a creative limitation to sculptural intent. The method of modelling is based on the manipulation of discrete subdivided meshes. You cannot genuinely spontaneously create a 3D form without thought for the underlying geometry. The only digital modelling method that allows freely additive and subtractive sculpting is voxel modelling with packages like 3D Coat. There are many ways of adding more geometry in ZBrush, but these all involve breaking out of one modelling context and entering another, which interrupts the thought process. This limitation means that the best way to use the tool is to have a clear idea of the intended forms at the beginning of the process, so an appropriate base mesh can be created. The best way to achieve this is to thoroughly conceptualise the form by sketching, and plan the topology you will use before starting to sculpt in detail.
The software's underlying method of forming and deforming the mesh works like a live displacement map. Displacements are applied to the vertices of the mesh by applying a stroke with the cursor, called a brush in this context. The background process works by using an image, called an alpha map, whose colour values are used to calculate the distance the vertices are translated. Mid grey is treated as no movement, brighter is outwards from the surface darker is inwards. In addition the intensity of alpha values are also controlled by pen pressure.
This method makes possible very sensitive modeling. Even more control is given by the fact that depth thresholds can be set at will. Other controls can alter the tangents of translation and/or can offset their effects, randomize, rotate: Or any combination of these. Any alpha map can be used as a brush stroke, as a stamp or as a mask. These effectors can be combined and tweaked to achieve any localized surface modeling operation imaginable.
Maya
Maya 2010 is an enormous software package with list of capabilities that is too great to cover in this thesis. The functions that were used in this project were:
Advanced Polygon modelling
Scene Layout
Shader network building
Special shader systems for fur and sub-surface scatter.
Mental Rays Daylight and Portal lighting systems
Mental Ray renderer with HDRI, final gather and Global Illumination
Soft skin inverse kinematic rigging for posing
Specialist Tools
CLO 3D is a piece of software specifically designed for visualising cloths. As a specialist tool it has a limited number of functions that work very well. It was relatively quick to learn and outputs clean geometry that works well in the other programs. CityEngine is another specialist tool that exists solely to solve the particular problem of generating environmental urban models.
The software 3D-Coat is an exceptionally useful package. Although it was only used for re-toplogising in this project, it is a very capable sculpting package with voxel modeling, and very sophisticated surface shading tools. It is the only software that offers truly free 3D formal sketching without the limitations associated with working on a mesh.
The Digital Portrait
Having selected the tools the next phase involves setting out the creative project into phases of research, design and production.
Project overview
An objective of this project was to observe and allow the affects of the digital medium on the processes of making and on the meaning of the portrait. One of the most obvious influences is the potential for multiple types of output derived from one core creative process. To take advantage of this potential it was necessary to design a workflow that would not preclude the different outputs.
The decision to use the models for multiple outputs created some additional technical criteria. So the workflow was designed with this in mind. The modelled likeness of Patrick Stewart, the 3D set containing a scene with architecture, props and lighting should be made in a way that is appropriate for subsequent use with 3D printers, 3D renderers, animation rigging and potential game engine transfer. Although the scope of this project was too small to accommodate the production of an interactive digital portrait hosted in real time simulation space, the technical criteria selected for the modelling will allow the eventual transfer into the real-time simulation space in a future project
So two forms of output are realised within this project; A 3D print of portrait bust, and naturalistic 'photo-real' renders of portrait constructed in 3D digital space.
The project workflow was set out as a way of managing the complexity of a project. As mentioned above, there is an implicit order of tasks encouraged by the software which is helpful to follow in terms of efficiency.
The workflow started with background research. In keeping with the research objectives, seeking an understanding of the historical, cultural context helped with understanding the impacts of technology on the artform and the technical and cultural adaptations that artists make in response technically driven paradigm changes. This research became the basis for the content of the Digital Portrait.
Historical portraiture
There are examples of painted portable figurative sculptures from Germany dating from 36,000 years ago. Sculpture is a human habit that survived many radical cultural and technological transformations throughout history. The practice of sculpting figures is so ubiquitous throughout the world that it appears to be satisfying an innate human drive to symbolise aspects of ourselves. (Picasso 1920, Herzog 2009) Sculpture also encodes the preoccupations and techniques of the societies that make them, and can be read, to speak about the culture of the people who made them. (Read 1964, Levey 1968)
The degree of naturalism in sculpture has altered, throughout history, to reflect contemporary cultural ideals. Naturalistic portraiture waxes and wanes in correlation with Humanistic philosophies. Greek Classical culture and Roman culture developed Humanism and naturalistic portraiture. Naturalism then disappears from Europe throughout the whole medieval period, right until Elizabethan/Renaissance times. (aka. Early Modern) This period saw a burgeoning of naturalistic art and portraiture, along with a resurgence of Humanistic ideas across Europe. (Kemp, Martin, 1977)
Elizabethan England saw many technological and cultural shifts that fundamentally altered the way we relate to the world the world, and how we see society and ourselves. The origins of portraiture, as we know it today, are held in these shifts.
The changes are reflected in attitudes, expectations and attributions of value to art.
A work of art arises from the imagination of an artist is taken to mean that the work is a reflection of the person's individuality, an authentic product of the artist's inner being. [As such it is original] since each person is unique. [...] External constraints on the imagination of the artist […] are inhibiting and that they should be free to express their vision or emotions. Imaginative works are genuine products of the artist's imagination.
Bailin, S. 2006
Although this seems natural to our contemporary perspectives, this has not always been the case. The idea of an individualised imagination was new to the period. A Medieval mind would not have understood it.
In the Medieval worldview an artist was simply a highly skilled craftsman, identified wholly with their position in society and their religion. The content of Medieval art was almost uniformly religious, symbolic and iconic. (Bailin 2006) Notions of originality, invention and artistic genius were not relevant. Although skilfulness was.
The cultural shifts in this period were affected by economic and social changes. The liberalising effect of increased wealth and the associated social mobility, provided strong demand for skilled artworkers in certain locations throughout Europe. This lead to a situation where collegiate clusters of highly skilled people were interacting and learning from one another. (Kemp, M. 1977)
These factors combined to create an interest in naturalistic art that mimics nature, and this in turn, drove innovation in the methods and techniques of depicting nature. e.g. Oil paints, underpainting, the objective study of anatomy, optics, linear perspective, mathematics, and the study of geometry.
These ideas and visual techniques impacted on the worldview of artists and their audiences. The use of linear perspective enforces a single point of view on the viewer. It is the artist's chosen point of view. This allowed a conceptual shift in from iconic, encapsulated formulaic meanings, to a projected set of historical meanings. This also shifted creative authority into the artist's mind. The levels of skill needed to produce these new kinds of artwork meant that the level of education artists needed was very much greater. They became professionalised and moved in erudite and powerful circles. Their creative expectations grew and their intellectual engagement became more rarefied. Alongside this, there was also a philosophical drift away from religious authority towards Humanism.
Portraiture in this period begins to represent the idea of an individual personality, self-consciously located in the world and addressing posterity. Personality is placed in history and asserts the persona's historical reality. This idea in many ways reflects the distinction between the Modern mind and a Medieval soul.
Technology changes our psychic environment in ways that fundamentally alter the structure of our sense of self in relation to the world. In Elizabethan times the universe was being empirically metricised, scientific thinking was gaining in authority. This gave people new metaphors for thinking about the world and caused an evolution in the paradigm structures that underlie our sense of being.
A good example of this is contained in the proliferation of cartography at that time, created a sense of a knowable world in the imagination. The spread of the use of lenses in surveying equipment, navigational instruments, telescopes and magnifiers also contributed to new metaphors for understanding the self as an existential being, having a point of view, a single point perspective, or a viewpoint from a coordinate location.
"[Ptolemaic geometry and map projection affects] fifteenth-century perception through an increasing imposition and interjection of the grid onto representations of the world[...]Linear perspective systematically organizes space visually. It freezes time, [...], and redefines it away from a present-centred moment to a movement from past to present to future. Perspective encourages the visualization, and then construction, of relational mental mapping,"
Hillis 1994
A medieval mind's place in the world was defined by religious categories and Biblical truth (Eco, 1980), a soul's place in creation was created by, and for a divine purpose. Death was understood as a mere transition to immortality. In a Modern worldview a person was placed in geographic, and historical relation to the world; Along with a sense of self that came and went; lived and died.
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves?"
Nietzche, 1882. The Gay Science
In this schema, the wishful idea of everlasting life fails and individual mortality b. Posterity becomes an important psychic defence against the fear of death. Securing a place in history became a way of trancending the finality of death. Art became instrumental in addressing posterity.
Elizabethan portraits were constructions intended to speak to posterity and purposefully place a person in a continuous narrative history. They are attempts to map a person's being onto history. The portrait paintings of Holbein and Durer show how painfully conscious the painters were of this (and by inference, their clients).
This Humanistic, historically located sense of self is implicated in the evolution of the mental frameworks that lead to Empiricism and scientific methods. The mind's eye is enables to project into geometric virtual space and time, liberating the imagination from literal religious realities.
Medieval portraits were not naturalistic. It was not important that the image looked like the subject. the main concerns were to express the position, function, role and the status of the soul. (see. Fig. 25) On the other hand, in Early Modern portraits like Holbein's, George Gisze, Merchant in London, 1532 (fig. 26), people are placed in perspectival space, which is believable as a real space. The likeness of the man is part of the artwork's purpose and the scene is filled with items that signal the man's actions, rather than his status, in the world.

Figure 25 Medieval portrait of St Blaise, approx. 1250AD, anon.


Figure 26 Holbein, George Gisze, Merchant in London 1532 oil on wood

Figure 27 The Ambassadors, Hans Holbein
The Elizabethans turned their world on it's head and killed their God with their metricisation of the world and Empiricism. Today we are well accustomed to a metricised, Empirical world and are now digitising it at a tremendous rate. We can only speculate about what adaptations we will make in reaction to this technology and it's effects on our imaginations.
Hans Holbein the Younger's painting, The Ambassadors, is particularly illustrative of all these ideas. It is used as a key reference in the digital portrait. An aim of the digital portrait is an attempt to discover how 3D digital methods of making and representing effect the way we think of a portrait. An exploration of the ideas represented in these portraits may give clues to the digital revolutions effect on our contemporary selves. (See fig. 27)
Contemporary Artist's Perspectives
Artist's working in the Contemporary Art frame have very different agendas. It is interesting to see the cultural ideas they engage with in response to 3D digital tools.
Robert Lazzarini uses 3D modelling software to distort the geometry of objects. (figs. 28 and 29) They bring to mind Holbein's distorted skull in the 'Ambassadors' Painting see fig. 27). But whereas Holbien's anamorphic images are based on optical projection along perspectival lines, Lazzarini's sculptures are sheared and skewed in 3D space. This means that there isn't a single point projection to be found when viewing them. The artist is throwing into question our entrenched assumptions about how we read form and space. These assumptions are very strongly embedded in our perceptual habits. So strongly that some people have reported strong feelings of vertigo in reaction to these objects (Hansen, 2004). He is also interested in the disjuncture between material and vision, e.g. the skull is made of ground up bone fused with resin.(See fig. 28)

Figure 28. Skull, Robert Lazzarini, 2006

Figure 29. Robert Lazzarin, Tools, 2006
Contemporary sculptor Marilene Oliver uses digital medical imaging in her work.
The virtual world created by the computer is one that provides no place for the physical body.[...] My work [is] seeking to explore and create ways of intimately representing the physical body... My relationship with the body is nostalgic and romantic, based on an anxiety that the body is becoming redundant.
(Oliver, 2007)
She believes that the internet, digitisation and computer imaging-
alienate us from the bodies that we have. They promote a decentralisation of the self - they allow us to project ourselves into different spaces and offer us new views of our bodies that belittle being contained in a physical body.
(Oliver, 2007)
In Family Portrait, 2002 (see figs. 30 and 31) she uses MRI scans of her intimate family and herself. Printing image slices of their bodies interiors onto acrylic panels. The digital files are abstract Cartesian maps that are stacked up to remake the bodies. The sculpture translates screen-based medical imagery into a human sized object that allows the viewer to identify spatially with the body that is represented.
The sculpture re-assembles a person's occupation of space, but we can look inside them as if their bodies are information/space. The identities of the subjects are made generic and trivial by the power of the digital imaging tools. They strip away identity and make human relationship seem thin and vulnerable. Personality is reduced to data by the imaging techniques and the artists work is a touchingly frail contradiction to this reduction.

Figure 30. Marilene Oliver, Famliy Portrait, 2002

Figure 31. Marilene Oliver, Famliy Portrait- Dad, 2002
These are portraits, but they give no cues toward the specific human subjects. The abstract quality of attention held in the slices gives a macabre sensation, and this is in tension with the sense of sympathy evoked by the scale and the knowledge of the inferred relationships contained in the title.
Both of these artists point towards the disruptive displacing effects of digital technology on our perceptual being and our selves position in the world.
Digitised Selves?
If traditional portraiture was an attempt to map ourselves onto history, does it survive the influence of the digitisation of the world? Informed as it is by the metaphors and paradigms of networks, massive data sets, telepresence and ubiquitous screens? What changes in our sense of self will it cause? Perhaps the idea of an authentic historical self is under threat of redundancy, like the medieval soul was (Eco 2002).
Computer games and Digital VFX in film are teaching us to identify with generic fantasies in simulated space. Sherry Turkle (2009) observes that we are beginning to value ourselves more in terms of our connectedness. Her research shows that it is becoming normal for people to consider themselves as having multiple identities- Profiles that they present to the world. These often fantasised and stylised. Some may be truthful versions of themselves. Some are pure invention.
Perhaps informational connectedness and fantasy provides more succour in the face of mortality than posterity ever could with it's dependence on veracity. This is an area for further research, but this experiment is touched by these issues. The idea of portraying a true identity in a digital portrait is undermined by the medium.
Gathering Reference
One aspect of portraiture that does survive intact is the visual recognition of a likeness. Creating the likeness in a portrait starts with gathering visual reference material.
Different visual research methods produce qualitatively different knowledge. The best reference is observing the person themselves. Second, is observational drawing as it gives a good understanding of form that is incorporated as a combination of visual memory and a kinaesthetic memory. (McDonald, 2010)
Photographic reference gives an instantaneous record from a point of view, at a specific focal length lens. Good interpretation of photographs depends on having previous knowledge facial anatomy. Photography gives good knowledge of the silhouette, but often leads to incorrect depth analysis, usually it is too shallow. The artist corrects the flattening effect by inferring depth from their knowledge of anatomy.
This digital portrait project was unfortunately limited to the use of photographic reference. Live sittings were not possible. The University of Huddersfield's marketing department provided some reasonable photographs to work with and more images were taken from the public domain.

Figure 32. Images of Patrick Stewart

Figure 33 Patrick Stewart as Macbeth, BCC, 2009
Digitisation, Data Capture and Image Based Mesh Generation
With digital tools comes the possibility of digital data capture. Reference can be generated through digital photography, laser scanning, motion capture, and image based model generation. e.g. During this project Autodesk announced an online service run called the PhotoFly project. A series of photographs of an object can be uploaded to their servers, which return a reasonably accurate 3D mesh, along with colour information applied to its surface. This process could be used to create a reference mesh for a 3D portrait.

Figure 34 PhotoFly Project generated mesh and colour maps.
In many ways these meshes are similar to a photograph in that the trustworthiness of it's record is directly related to it's fidelity. Over time this kind of reference will become more accurate. The effects of this technology is another area for more research.
Influence of Digital Research Methods
The use of the internet accelerated the information gathering process and this meant that attention could also be given to biographical detail.
Much of Sir Patrick Stewart's public persona as received through digital media is a fusion of mimetic allusions, fragments of narrative and images. Fortuitously for this project, his recent work is in Shakespearean productions (BBC, 2010), fuse traditional stage methods with film techniques. These Elizabethan plays still resonate with our sensibilities today for reasons that are suggested in the section on the history of portraiture. He is also Chancellor of a University, A world famous actor, Film director, family man, charitable giver, and more. His acting roles representing cultural, historical, and fantasy figures are imprinted on the public mind.
There is a wealth of information on the internet about him, both visual and textual. Some of it is factual and some of it is the pure fantasy of his fans. There is also his work itelf, He is often confused with the characters he has played. The actor's roles seem to have equal authenticity to the man himself in the world of the internet.
Characterisation Concepts
The experience of receiving a persona through digital media showed that it is inherently fantasised and fictionalised by affect the medium. Any idea of a historically true identity seems inherently partial and arbitrary. As a consequence, the portrayal undertaken for this project is a fiction, constructed around the concepts around historical being the were raised in the research.
The digital portrait is staged in an Elizabethan period scene. This is intended to draw parallels between the beginning and the end of the historical Modern period. The proposal is that they are periods of transition between one world view and another; And that the transition is an adaptation to technologically driven changes to our existential experience (Turkle 2010). This is intended as an index toward the meaning of portraiture itself, as well as to the origins of the existential assumptions built into 3D digital interfaces.
The digital portrait casts Patrick Stewart as a character based on Francis Bacon (1561-1626), whose ideas and historical context are key to the origins of the intellectual structures that the technologies being used within this project depend on.
Francis Bacon (see fig. 36) was a politician and natural philosopher in the Elizabethan period. He formulated Empiricism, the intellectual basis for the scientific method that has transformed our world. Bacon believed natural philosophy should be applied technologically to solve practical problems. He believed in an idea of human freedom and proposed that machines would liberate people from labour, so their time could be used for the edification of the mind.
Bacon coined the phrase "Knowledge is power" and articulated the idea that scientific knowledge gives dominance over nature. He formulated the Modern, optimistic, progressive view of the world that assumes technology would provide continuous improvement in all aspects of life. These ideas have driven our society to the ubiquitously technologised state we have now. It may not have provided the wholly liberating effect Bacon was hoping for, but it has met at least some of his hopes.

Figure 35. Statue of Francis Bacon, Magdalen College, Cambridge University.
The character will depict the state of melancholia (see fig. 37) induced by the certain knowledge implied by his empirical thought processes. Durer's depiction of melancholia implies a realisation that frustrates transcendental beliefs and brings magical thinking to ground. He shows a connection between metricising instruments and this realisation.

Figure 36. Albrecht Durer, Melancholia, 1514, Engraving.
The scene will contribute to the characterisation. The setting is an observatory in a tower above a medieval town. The character is surrounded with scientific and surveying instruments, and books. Figures 38 and 39 show some of the design sketches made in the conceptualisation of the scene.

Figure 37. Sketch for observatory scene

Figure 38. Pose and prop sketches

Figure 39. Detail Sketches
The naturalistic style of the portrait means that it is important to establish the scene as believable. Additional research was undertaken to find historically accurate reference for the architecture, furniture, clothing and instruments. Figures 41-56 show examples of the references used. The majority of the instrument were found through the Oxford Museum of Science and clothing was sourced at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Figure 40. Doublet,1560, Victoria and Albert Museum


Figure 41. Astrolabe
Figure 42. Elizabethan World Map
Figure 43. Early Rennaisance Globe, Oxford Museum of Science

Figure 44. Geometer's square
Figure 45. Celestial Dials
Figure 46. Italian polygonal dial

Figure 47. Surveyor's Tool
Figure 48. Erasmus Dial
Figure 49. Michaelangelo's Tools

Figure 50. Atrolabe
Figure 51. Drawing tools
Figure 52. Cartographer sighting tool.

Figure 53. Period Rug from Afghani Region
Figure 54. Elizabethan Bench
Figure 55. Elizabethan Bookcase
3D Character Modelling Process
The modelling for the figure of Patrick Stewart was primarily undertaken with ZBrush. The ZBrush modelling process starts with a low resolution base mesh. (see figs. 57 and 58) This can be a simple model imported from another polygon modeling package like Maya or 3D Studio Max.

Figure 56 Building a base mesh in Maya

Figure 57 Base mesh in ZBrush
The model mesh is referred to as a tool. Composite models are achieved by creating sub-tools, these are separate meshes that exist in a grouped hierarchy. ZBrush has an extract function that generates a new closed piece of geometry from a masked part of an original mesh. This is very useful for modeling items that are closely fitted to the original mesh.
3D digital workflows encourage a cumulative process that is very useful, but this enforces limitations on the approach you can take. It is important to achieve as much formal accuracy as possible at the lowest levels of detail before subdividing the mesh for greater detail. The reasons for doing this are related to how the model will be rendered later on in other software.
An advantage of this in industrial usage is that it opens up several ways of saving time and labour in the subsequent animation processes. It is possible to reuse generic base meshes, which means it is possible to use the same starting mesh for multiple characters. It is possible to create an animation rig for the first mesh that can be applied to the subsequent meshes with little modification, because the meshes all have the same number of vertexes stored in the same numerical order.
Modelling is achieved with brush strokes across the models surface. The strokes are applied to on an image map, called a displacement map, in a background process. When the model is rendered, the renderer, takes the base model (the lowest level of subdivision), and divides it multiple times. The modelling you have done is then reapplied to these new meshes from the displacement map. The renderer uses the map to calculate how far to move the points on the divided mesh. (This is a similar process to tesselation in hardware rendering.)
There are tolerance limits to how far points can be pushed with a displacement map before fidelity is lost. The best way to protect the sculpted quality is to have the base mesh and each subsequent subdivided mesh as close to the final modelled surface as possible.
It is advisable to approach the formal structure of a digital sculpture in a hierarchal way (Spencer 2009). The overall form can be analysed into primary, secondary, tertiary forms, and then surface detail.
Primary forms are the large overall shapes like the skull, neck, shoulder, etc.
Secondary forms are smaller but still have their own identity like noses, lips, ears, chin, finger, etc.
Tertiary forms are dependent on secondary forms, e.g. nostrils, ridges in the ears, eyelids and major folds in the skin.
Details are lines, pores, minor folds, etc.
In terms of modelling the likeness the most critical stage was dealing with the secondary forms. When making a portrait, the likeness of a person is held in geometric relationships between the primary and secondary forms. The human eye looks for the proportions of the boniest parts of the face to establish recognition, (as they move the least,) and to the fleshy parts to establish mood. Figures 59, 60 and 61 show the progress of modelling in the early stages

Figure 58. 2nd level of sudivision, working on primary and secondary structures.

Figure 59. Working on th base mesh from photo reference

Figure 60. Working with reference as a backdrop.
At the low levels of subdivision the brush tools used were almost exclusively the move, clay, and smooth brushes. By default, the brushes exert a volumetric field of influence on the points of the mesh. In certain areas like the eyelids and lips this often causes unwanted influences. Masking areas off to protect them is a good way of dealing with this problem. Turning on the topographic auto-masking also helps controlling in areas like the lips and eyelids. Applying a mild elastic modifier on the stroke helps to protect the topology from too much distortion and unwanted folding.
The structural likeness is achieved in the base mesh and the first couple of subdivision level. Each subdivision quadruples the quantity of detail. Figures 62 and 63 show further progress at the intermediate level of detail, where more expressive secondary details like folds are introduced.

Figure 61. Basic likeness achieved at subdivision level 3

Figure 62. Adding tertiary forms and subdivision level 4
When the model is subdivided 6 or 7 times there is enough detail to apply surface detail lik every fine wrinkles and skin pores. (see figs. 64, 65 and 66) The software gives the ability to project images onto the model. This is helpful for setting out reference on the surface itself for facial lines. This process also allows you to push the colour from the image onto the surface, which means you can literally paint on colour reference as a starting point for the colour map. (fig. 66)

Figure 63. Adding surface detail and more detail

Figure 64. Tertiary forms complete


Figure 65. Close to completion with projected texture and superficial deteil
There is a more detailed discussion and reflection of the sculpting process in the findings section of this document.
Costume Design
Costume transmits a lot of social meaning. It identifies the status and role of the character and implies a narrative. The costume's purpose in this portrait is to trigger associations that will be accepted by the audience as historical and cultural locators for the character.
The expertise of costume designer Liz Real, and former fashion designer Edwina McGrail was sought and they gave guidance on costume research and help with understanding the structural aspect of garment making. Garments are subtle and complex constructions, made up of flat panels of material, wrapped around the complex 3D forms of the body. They also occupy volumes in structural ways and have properties of thickness, shear, bending resistance, elasticity, and density. All of which have a bearing on the way the fabric behaves.
The garments for the character were designed in accordance with historical costume patterns from the period
The software CLO3D was used to draw patterns, stitch panels and drape the garments onto the Patrick Stewart mesh. Draping with CLO3D is a real time cloth simulation, which calculates the competing forces that act on the cloth, like gravity and the resistance of the body. Physical attribute such as thickness, shear, elasticity, bending resistance, buckling, internal damping, and density can all be adjusted to create the behaviours of different types of fabric. (See figs. 67 and 68)
My observational skill and knowledge of the principals of physics derived from my former practice helped to identify which attribute adjustments would achieve the desired simulated result.

Figure 66. Designing and making cloths with CLO3D

Figure 67. setting the cloth simulation properties
When the garment adjusted, sized and draped the simulation can be frozen and the mesh exported as an .obj format file. This model is a high density triangulated mesh, which can be used for rendering with no problems, but would cause problems for subsequent animations. The mesh had to be retopologised. Software 3D Coat was use for this. This process entails creating a new base mesh consisting of quadrangular polygons, by drawing over the triangulated mesh. It is also opportune to optimise the layout of the new mesh during this process, following the form and adding detail where it is needed.
Each garment was re-topologised individually and then imported to ZBrush for further modelling work. ZBrush has the capacity to project detail from one mesh to another. This means that quite a coarse base mesh can be made in the re-topologising process and finer detail can be projected back onto it when it is subdivided. (See figs. 68 and 69)

Figure 68. Re-topologising breeches

Figure 69. Retopologized breeches with fine details re-projected
The ability to make the reference meshes for the clothes in CLO3D was enormously helpful in developing the character. Working with tools that are aimed at fashion and costume designers gave an insight into the practices of those disciplines. In addition it gave an understanding of the structure and volumes in the clothes. The live simulation reacts immediately to adjustments made to the cutting patterns and this feedback helped to create deeper understanding of how the fabric reacts to gravity and the shapes of the body and encouraged experimentation, thus improving my visual repertoire. The finished costumes are seen in figures 71 and 72.

Figure 70. Character and costume complete in Zbrush


Figure 71. Character completed in Zbrush
The Portrait Bust Output
After completing the character model in ZBrush, the next task was to extract a version of it to be used for the creating of a 3D printout. From experience I knew that a direct print of the likeness made in ZBrush would not work well visually as an object without the colour and surface shading. The eyes in the ZBrush character were accurately shaped, but for the 3D print-out they were remodelled to create an illusion of an eye that would work for a static material. The beard volume was also modelled in a way that is consistent with clay sculpture techniques
It was a very quick part of the process. A version of the original base mesh was edited into the shape of a bust, it was the subdivided and the surface detail from the completed character was re-projected onto it. Figures 73 to 79 show progress from extracting a mesh, through to re-projecting detail from the original mesh.

Figure 72. Cutting a low poly base mesh



Figure 73. re-projecting detail from high level mesh. Two colours are seperate meshes

Figure 74. Final reprojection level

Figure 75 The final bust model in Zbrush

Figure 76. The bust model in Zbrush 2


Figure 77. The bust model in Zbrush

Figure 78. The bust model in Zbrush, close up
Output to 3D Printer
A small scale version was printed to test the meshes integrity in the printing process. The scale of the model is arbitrary in digital space, but the printers have real world limitations, The zCorp 650 printer has a print bed with a volume that is much smaller than the intended, life size bust . The portrait needed to be divided up into five parts (figs 80 and 81) that would fit the machine to be printed and then re-assembled later.

Figure 79. The bust model in Solidworks for mesh testing


Figure 80, The bust model divided up in Geomagic

Figure 81. Patrick Stewart checking his likeness with the 3D print test

Figure 82. Subejct, Digital Sculture, and Sculptor
At the time of testing, Sir Patrick Stewart visited the 3D print room at Univ. of Huddersfield. It was gratifying to receive positive feedback on the likeness from the man himself. He said the likeness was "scarily good" noting that he is unusually familiar with his own appearance due to his work as an actor.(see figs 82 and 83) Though he was critical of the volume of the eyebrows and the honesty about the aging process of skin.
The 3D printing process is expensive, and funds are being sought to cover the cost of printing the full scale portrait bust.
The impact of 3D digital tools on creating the bust, is significant. The print is an instance of a model that one it has been made, can be adjusted and reposed in seconds. Another print could be made with a different expression, with very little effort. This reality carries the potential for mass customisation. The model could be placed in a system where it is animated between multiple facial expressions then, at a click, an instance can be printed (Unver 2010).
Building the Town
With the digital character made, the portrait bust test printed and the files prepared for full size 3D print, the next task was to build the observatory scene.
The approach to constructing the observatory scene was to build a world model. Including a sky dome, landscape, town and the architecture of the tower. This would allow for free choice of camera angles for the 2D photo-real outputs. and for subsequent navigability in simulation space.
The software CityEngine was used to generate the town surrounding the Observatory. It is a procedural model generator. Procedural means that the terrain and building's geometry and distribution are generated mathematically. CityEngine has parameters for, terrain height social status and wealth as well as geographical parameters. You can control the distribution of buildings by painting reference maps that tell the software where the wealth is concentrated in the town. Height is controlled by the same method. It is programmable and customisable.
The town model was generated from the medieval town sample, and is used as the backdrop that will be seen through the widows of the observatory. The quality is good enough for a backdrop, in close up it would be too simple to achieve believability. (see figs. 84 to 87)

Figure 83. Medieval Town

Figure 84. Medieval village model

Figure 85. Town square

Figure 86. Town lighting test
Building the Scene Contents
The next task was to build the observatory itself and the contents. I wanted the scene to be rich and varied, which meant making a large number of models. I used software as I deemed most appropriate for the type of task that was dictated by the form.
For the observatory architecture I drew on my knowledge of construction techniques and designed a dome roofed with a concentric hammer beam construction. This style of construction was combined with memories of medieval buildings and reference for authentic leaded window designs. (see figures 87 to 90)

Figure 87. Building the Observatory architecture


Figure 88. Elizabethan leaded windows

Figure 89. Dome beam construction

Figure 90. Ironwork for windows
The scene design has strong influences from Holbein's The Ambassadors painting (see fig 27) and some of the modelled elements are intentionally direct references.
Each model was made individually, the geometry was constructed and shader networks applied individually. The list of prop items includes, Leaded windows, window latches, window honges, a bench, two chairs, a fur cape draped on a chair, a globe, two afghan rugs, a variety of surveying instruments, some scales, some weights, a telescope, an astrolabe, compass, calipers, a bible, a silver crucifix, candelabra, a skull, a quill, curtains, bookcase, cupboard fireplace, and a staircase. See the figures 91 through to 99 for the extent of modelling undertaken.
Ideally I would have included more object to achieve a sense of a man comprehensively saturated with the influences of incipient scientific thinking. Care was taken to create geometry and topology that is sympathetic to being used in animation and game engines. In an attempt to accelerate progress I tried downloading premade models from internet sites, however I found the methods of modelling used on these meant they could not be used without being completely rebuilt. It was actually faster to make them from scratch.

Figure 91. Making the rug,bench and instruments

Figure 92. More instruments

Figure 93. Chair, built in Maya and texture with ZBrush

Figure 94. Fur Shader generation in Maya

Figure 95. Scene models

Figure 96. Scene model 2

Figure 97. Scene models 3

Figure 98. Scene models 4

Figure 99. Scene models 5
Lighting
A great deal of time and attention was spent on setting up the lighting for the Rendering engine. Mental Ray has a simulated sun and sky dome light called mrSun, which can produce very good ray-traced lighting. The observatory scene was to be naturally lit at dawn, So this sunlight system was ideal. The mrSun System is sensitive to the angle relative to the horizon and shifts teh lights colour to emulate physical reality. It is not perfect, it falls down in situations where small apertures let light into an enclosed space. (like the observatory) This is because the light emits a finite amount of photons which dissipate throughout the scene and there aren't enough to pass through the apertures. A way around this problem, is to place an area light in front of the aperture which acts as a light amplifier. It can be set to detect the photons from the mrSun system, along with the colour they have gained from the environment, and they are then multiplied and projected through the aperture. So there are enough photons to fill the interior space.
It is a processor intensive solution but it gives natural looking results that are unachievable without a very sophisticated lighting rig. Figures 100, 101, 103 and 104 show some of the tests.


Figure 100. Lighting test, not enough photons.

Figure 101. Early morning lighting test

Figure 102. Placing more props.

Figure 103. More instruments modeled

Figure 104. Texture tests with good lighting
Transferring the Character to Maya
The designers of ZBrush created a plug-in, GoZ, that assists with the transfer of models into other packages. This is quite stable for transfer to Maya and 3D Studio Max. The model must be prepared first. UV grouping must be allocated, (see fig 105) texture maps and displacement maps are then generated in forms that are compatible for the target software. When this is done a button click sends the model and maps to Maya and constructs basic shader networks. This provides a good starting point for shader development. The shader networks do not bring in any of the sophisticated shading from ZBrush, these have to be recreated. Only the diffuse colour and displacement are intact from the transfer.(see fig 106)
As mentioned before the mesh taken from ZBrush is the lowest resolution mesh, a the sculpted detail is reapplied by the renderer using the displacement map. (See figs 107 and 108)

Figure 105. UV grouping preparation for use in Maya

Figure 106. ZBrush to Maya export test

Figure 107. Creating a lace ruff texture

Figure 108. Displacement map test

Figure 109. Character introduced to lighting test


Figure 110. Good lighting resolved
Special Shaders
The skin shader is a critical component of a creating the illusion of human skin. Human skin has very complex optical qualities. Apart from the physical surface detail, It is translucent and partially reflective, Light penetrates the skin and picks up colour from the tissues and blood that lie under that surface. The degree to which this happens varies across anatomy with elements like ears being quite translucent and areas with bone near the surface being more opaque. Understanding the simulation of skin would be a worthwhile project in itself.
The Mental Ray renderer simulates this with a sub surface scattering shader. It is a multi layered shader (SSS FastSkin) that draws on several sub-shaders with individual colour maps to contribute approximations of the colour and light scattering qualities of skin.
Unfortunately, the shader's settings are based on an arbitrary scale so the only way to achieve good results is by trial and error, which is very time consuming and could easily be improved by using a real world scale like millimetres. The default starting settings are generally very large compared to the final settings.
The Shader is very sensitive to lighting conditions so the head was placed in a model that would allow quick changes of lighting conditions to check the effect of lighting on the shader settings. The figures 111 through to 117 show some of the iterative tests from the process of setting up the shader.




Figure 111. SSS FastSkin shader with default settings

Figure 112. SSS FastSkin shader set without colour maps

Figure 113. SSS FastSkin shader with colour maps looking too waxy

Figure 114. Issues with skin shaders reflectance

Figure 115. SSS FastSkin shader starting to work

Figure 116. SSS Fast Skin shader with good reflectance


Figure 117. Skin shader in hdri lighting conditions
Another shader that contributes much to naturalism is the fur shader. This is often used to create a fine fuzz effect and hair effects for eye brows and facial hair. Again this is a complex shader with 42 controllable variables. Multiple maps are painted to control these variables..
Rather than overload the geometry with many complex shaders, copy of the geometry can be made and parented to the original. It is a good idea to turn off the effect of diffuse and specular colours for the copy, as it may interfere with the opacity of the original at render time.
The shader networks at this stage were becoming very complex, and Mental Ray became unstable with the hair shaders attached, so for the sake of completing the project the hair shader was postponed to be applied after the MA for the production of portfolio render

Figure 118. First test with fur shader for hair and beard
Rigging and Posing the Character
The character was rigged for posing using Maya's soft skinning tools. The position body and the clothes are controlled by an internal skeleton. It is an imperfect and inaccurate method of controlling the volumes of the character. A rig that produces natural movement is a very complex undertaking and would constitute a major project in itself. The purpose here was to use a simple rig to roughly pose the character and then adjust for the inaccuracies afterwards. (See figs. 119 and 120)
This animation rig can be potentially used for simple animation of the figure as it is. For example it would be straightforward process to drive the rig with Inverse Kinematics for key frame animation or the drive it with motion capture data. The rig as it stands could be further developed to produce very naturalistic motion.

Figure 119. Pose test

Figure 120. Figure roughly posed
Final Scene Assembly and Shader Wrangling.
Up until the final stage the components of the scene were kept as a series of individual files, because the computer work faster with smaller sets. Bringing the whole scene together stretched the capacity of the universities computers and luckily two workstations were acquired near the end of the project, that had enough memory and a fast enough graphics card to contain the whole scene and run at a reasonable speed. (See fig.121)
Despite earlier attempts to resolve the shaders for each model, when they were assembled into the complex scene, many of them behaved differently, due the limitations the Maya to Mental Ray translation. Mental Ray is not very stable when confronted with several types of shader and image file-types. Rather bizarrely it does not read the default output image format of ZBrush or Photoshop nor does it translate them.
The only way to deal with this was to create full test renders and diagnose the output of each shader. Attempt adjustments of the shader settings and run another render, it is a wasteful and time consuming trial and error process. I investigate alternative software renderers only to discover that they are have similar problems. The software developers need to be encourage to write better software. It is likely that hardware renderers will make them obsolete if they don't improve.
Diagnosis is made particularly difficult by the fact that Mental Ray randomly drops certain shading nodes that worked perfectly well in a previous render with no apparent cause. The context of this is that each test render take between 30 and 50 hours. It is very frustrating work. However when the lighting works and the shader are good, the results are very exciting. The figures 122 to 127 are the test renders that show the problems and potential output quality available when they are solved.

Figure 121. Full scene assembled

Figure 122. 1st full scene shader analysis test render

Figure 123. 2nd Shader analysis test render, many problems with specularity, lighting, aliasing, reflectivity

Figure 124. 3rd Shader analysis test render, specularity problems glass is killing diffuse colour from books, etc

Figure 125. 4th Shader test render, displacement detail missing, mis-applied bump on the walls, eyes, etc


Figure 126. 5th Shader test

Figure 127. 6th Shader test
The iterative test can only improve the output so far and there are diminishing returns in relation to the amount of time spent on improvement. The final render will be touched up with Photoshop.
Final Render
Please See the Final Render images on the attached DVD
Please See the Final Render images on the attached DVD

Figure 128. Final Observatory Scene


Findings
Critical Responses to 3D Digital Media
Artistic Value
Fine art practices, in recent history, tend to treat the manual craft aspect of the discipline as in the service of ideas. Conceptual engagement is massively prioritised, and the traditional skilful underpinnings of are denied significance. The value of artistic labour is considered to be very low. Intellectual ownership, on the other hand is very highly valued, often regardless of the merit of the content.
3D digital artwork is by nature, very labour intensive and dependent on the craft skills of traditional fine art. There is a strong demand for figurative artwork from industry, so these skills are in short supply and hence have become more highly valued. This has contributed to an upsurge of practitioners investing in the acquisition of the traditional figurative skills to make 3D digital artwork.
Since the Renaissance, artistic value in sculpture is associated with the authorship of the artist. In Modernism the artist was placed as the sole authority and artistic value depends upon the notion of absolute authenticity of a unique originating self. Many Post Modern positions on artistic value, demote authorship radically and make the readers experience equivalent in value.(Hansen, M; Foster, H; Baudrillard, J)
Digital tools undermine the idea of exclusive authorship. A fact that causes a lot of anxiety in theorists, artists and viewers. Some 3D digital practitioners solve this by attributing artistic value onto the manner in which the work undertaken. e.g. A painterly approach to making a portrait in can be taken towards the use of Photoshop, or a sculptorly approach to modelling in ZBrush. (Danksin 2011, Eaton, 2010) This approach is common amongst the 3D digital art community. It privileges traditional artisanal methods, while giving artistic intention an abstract quality that is separate from and transcends the tools. In this view the tools are merely tools. Artistic activity is valued in contrast to the technical processes like simulation, data capture or 3D printing. This doesn't seem a very satisfactory approach as it ignores certain realities.
Re-valuations
One of the aims of this project was to look at the impact of 3D Digital media on the making of meaningful artworks. There are many aspects to digital media that affect the way we can attribute meaning and value, both to the process and the final product.
The use of computers is widely held to alter or undermine the artistic value of the work made with them. During the digital portrait project, the work process attracted comments like "it is like cheating", "it isn't like real sculpture" and "it can't be as satisfying to make it that way".
It is easy to see how the digital medium creates feelings of alienation. Digital artworks are made through interacting with the results of algorithmic processing. There is no material carrying a sensuous trace of the maker to relate to. A digital model's reality is a cloud of mathematical co-ordinate points, it's 'substance', is a list of numbers held as a spreadsheet, a grid of cells mapped onto computer memory and interpreted by a machine into a rendered image written to a screen. It is highly abstracted from concrete reality and is in many ways alien and untrustworthy. If the power is turned off it all disappears.
Why artwork made with computers troubles us so much is a question that has a bearing on how 3D digital outputs are received and evaluated by the audience. It is beyond the scope of this thesis to cover this completely, but here follows some of the important concepts that have relevance to my subject.
Displacement and Paranoia
It is troubling to confront the obsolescence long practiced skills. In a very direct way this technology is a threat to some traditional livelihoods. It is entirely possible to produce a very high fidelity 3D likeness of a person using only machines. This means naturalistic portrait sculpture skills lose some of their value. There is a natural fear of redundancy and a loss of meaning that is triggered by digital tools, not only at a practical level but also at an existential and psychic one.
We are accustomed to valuing ourselves as special creatures with unique, imaginative, autonomous minds. The idea that computers are interpreting our work, or even thinking about it, is threatening the territory we think of as exclusively human, and undermining of our dearly held sense of autonomy.
This is not the first sense of displacement our cultural development has dealt us.
"The first [blow] was when [Copernicus] learnt that our earth was not the centre of the universe but only a tiny fragment of a cosmic system of scarcely imaginable vastness[...]. The second blow fell when [Darwin's] biological research destroyed man's privileged place in creation and proved his descent from the animal kingdom and his ineradicable animal nature [...] But human megalomania will have suffered its third and most wounding blow from the psychological research of the present time which seeks to prove to the ego that it is not even master in its own house"
(Freud 1929)
And now digital tools and networks might be dealing yet another blow. (Turkle. 2010)
The digital revolution has disrupted the roles and definition of artists. There is a tension between traditionally accepted definitions of an artist and the technology. An additional shift in roles is caused by the fact that most 3D digital production is necessarily collaborative. The sheer number of different kinds of task and types of knowledge needed for a 3D digital project are more than is practical for one person to cover. Consequently the world of 3D digital production does not have much use for the idea of a genius artist and notions of sole authorship. (Danksin 2011) Optimistically, this could be interpreted as a re-valuing of craftsmanship, which suffered under the transcendental values of Modernism and Post Modernism.
Cultural Transition, Evocative Objects and Uncanniness
Digital technology and methods are often treated with suspicion and even hostility. The reasons for this are complex. Digital media seem to invade or are felt to replace our sense of what is real, at the same time as dispersing our sense of truth and objectivity, away from our individual selves. (Turkle 2008)
When we experience 3D simulation we accept it, temporarily, as true in order to hold it in mind. As we do when we suspend disbelief while watching films. But this brings a psychological evocation of the properties that a true object would evoke. In the case of film, we long ago adapted to accept this easily, partly because photography is accepted as trustworthy record of a true reality. (Hansen, Mark 2008) 3D digital simulations are not accepted as true records. So the psychic objects called into mind have no real-world grounding objects to refer to. This it is unsettling, undermining the trustworthiness of reality and falls into the "Uncanny" category.
We are in a transitional cultural phase of adapting to the effects of digital media on our sense of being The effects are decentring and our adaptations to it could be seen as part of the process of regaining our centrality, through a learning process that builds mastery of the technology. Such a sophisticated technology is however difficult and slow to master.
Sherry Turkle (2010) offers some concepts that help to describe our relationship with the computer, which is simultaneously a tool, a familiar object, a medium and a means of connecting with other people. She says that computers are Evocative Objects. Evocativeness is described as being a projection of meaning. The Evocative Object exists within the processes of emotions and thoughts that are attached to an actual object, but not in the object itself.
The qualities of Evocative Objects are "concreteness, intimacy, fluency in definition, emotional direction, a charge that engages libido, and uncanniness." (Turkle, 2008) e.g. There is knowledge of the history of an object, but it is partial and cannot be fully known. The capacity for unknown but assumed meanings gives Evocative Object an autonomy, The object is assumed to capable of doing something.
In traditional artistic making processes, an artwork is heavily injected with the qualities of evocative objects both by the artist and by the final possessor. Digital work exists is a simulative space and it is questionable whether a simulated object can carry evocations of thought and reflection in the same way as a concrete object.
Perhaps as part of our adaptation to digital media we are learning to accept these partial digital objects more readily. In Cinema, digital VFX is training us to accept reality in different ways. The ease of image manipulation with 3D digital and digital VFX is redefining Realism. It has moved away from an idea of accurate photographic capture, towards an idea of constructing reality. The existential link between the thing portrayed and the projected image is broken. There is not necessarily an object being referred to in the real world. But because of the depth of illusion "The viewer is able to connect and accept the image as if it were a true photographic image of the portrayed realism" (Girault, 2010) This is a trend that may allow interesting creative freedoms where we are not so bound to historical truth to define reality, but can construct plausible believable realities to carry deep significance. Not in the unreal sense of fantasy or delusion but something closer to real. This offers powerful new modes of expression for film and 3D animation.
At least where illusion is successful.
There is a well known aesthetic problem with 3D digital representations called the Uncanny Valley, The danger with making photo-real simulations of people that approach photorealism, is that is they aren't quite right they produce a very negative reaction in people. The Uncanny, as outlined by Freud, is the eery quality of the inanimate things that closely resemble familiar life, but not quite. They remind us of dead things- or in the case of 3D digital human depictions, dead people.
When looking at a 3D human, we make the mental effort to believe in it's reality. Similar to the suspension of disbelief we perform when we watch films. However there are autonomic perceptual processes that continue to assess it unconsciously and these seem operate on a level that is cued into primitive fears. Even small visual problems can trigger strong visceral feelings of discomfort.
The other side to this phenomenon is that Uncanny artworks are highly evocative in Turkle's sense of the word, and as seen in the examples, figs.21,22 and 23, this can be harnessed for creative purposes.
Digital Craftsmanship
There are significant differences in the nature of digital design tools compared to traditional tools. Most importantly, the whole experience of the work object, is of a simulation. It is screen based and hence totally located in perspectival geometric space. The tool is simultaneously a medium. A medium that is inherently time based, with working methods that are proscribed by software interface design and generic Human Interface Devices (HIDs), in this case mouse and graphics tablet. These methods of control are generic and extremely versatile like no other kind of tool that has existed in traditional practices.
Problems with Authority
Lev Manovich says that the inherent nature of programs means that users are not having an authorial "writerly experience", but instead, a "readerly experience", which is characterised by the behaviour's of selection and editorial control. Similar to Sadie Plant's hysterical comment, "All notions of artistic genius, originality and creativity become matters of software engineering". This is a reaction may have had more validity a few years ago when software was poorly designed and extremely opaque to use. However more recent 3D Digital tools allow more transparent ways of working. (Unver, 2011)
Tanya Harrod (2010) denies Manovich's threat from "The digital" to traditional design authorship values. Continuous editability is a unique characteristic of 3D digital working, in all previous methods of artistic production, edits were irrevocable. With digital methods, as Harrod says "There is no identifiable original and no final outcome". The object is a perpetual prototype until the practitioner chooses to create an instance for output. One effect of this is that much more time can be given to the authorial process of conceptualisation as less is needed for manual prototyping processes.
Harrod's thinking points towards practices with a greater engagement in ideas as a solution to the de-centring effects of digital media, but still, like Manovich she attributes digital tools as having an almost magical ability to destroy authenticity and she places that authenticity as something that resides in bodily engagement with making and is a value transferred by human touch.
Re-Centring in Practice
Anxious theoretical engagements with 3D digital tools are not universal. Justin Marshall has an alternative, optimistic view that sees opportunities for artist and designers to "develop new production paradigms, design vocabularies and methodologies."
Theorist Mark Hansen is less sure that the digital medium displaces the body and places us back at the centre of things, if a little passively.
"The reality encoded in a digital database can just as easily be rendered as a sound file, a static image, a video clip, or an immersive, interactive world, not to mention any number of forms that do not correlate so neatly with our sensory capacities. [...] as media lose their material specificity, the body takes on a more prominent function as a selective processor of information." (Hansen, Mark, 2004. p 22.)
This is a step up from Manovich's readerly experience to an editorial one.
Many of the anxieties around authorship seem to emanate from a perspective that is steeped in textual analysis, but which are naive to skilled manual use of digital tools. In skilled practice the experience of work oscillates between being something 'read', something edited and something drawn onto. So in the case of skilled work with digital tools, Hansen's idea can be extended- the body is not just selecting editorially from multiple streams of information, but is constructing that filtered information into meaningful relationships through a cyclical process of drawing and editorial control.
New Kinds of Same Old Embodiment
The relationship between traditional meditative use of manual artistic skill and digital methods needn't be seen as diametric. Thorough masterly knowledge 3D digital tools can be incorporated through practice, and used, in the sense of a Heideggarian technology, as an extension of the body. From a practical artistic perspective, software can be treated as a digital workshop. Along with the analogies of having specialist tools within easy reach and tested methodologies built-in to the use of the work space.
During this project, graphics tablets gave me sufficient control to translate my observational drawing skills and artistic intent into digital form with considerable fluency. I have no doubts about the authorial nature of the work produce with the tools. Those who feel that working with computers interferes with their creative agency, have not developed their skill sufficiently.
Silversmith Drummond Masterton as an example of someone who has resolved the authenticity issue. He starts by drawing, onto paper, contour maps of places he loves from memory. Then he translates those lines into cutting paths for a CNC machine. These are used to cuts molds and he then casts silver into them. He further machines the casts. Tanya Harrod asserts that the technology is "put in the service of craft", serving the makers intent. However she feels the need to allocate privileged creative authenticity to the original drawing in this case- The only part he has physically touched, and not in the digital process or the final product.

Making Digital Meaning
Network Metaphors
Web research produces a mixture of text and images interlinked with related subjects. This gives a bundle of images and fragments of biographical knowledge that create a constellation of image/text elements about the subject. These are nodally linked and produce a sense of meaningfully interconnected strands that can only be experienced partially in any given moment. There is a sense that the strands of meaning trail from, branch into and resonate with other spheres of knowledge.
The nature of web research and the content of research affected the construction of meanings in the Digital Portrait. The ubiquity and ease of reproduction of representations in digital media have the effect of devaluing representation, but this also allows for a shift of values towards a kind of meta-representation that looks at construction of meanings and places referents in the service of the construction.
In this project the sculptural 3D printed output is relegated in it's status to an instance of a greater and more interesting process. Any number of instances can be produced, not in the sense of mass production, but mass variety. When produced in this way, The traditional object's status depends entirely on what people project into it. The evocative aura is an act within the mind of the viewer. The screen based medium resists this- It was interesting to observe people's reactions at the point at which an instance of the Patrick Stewart character was prepared for 3D printing. When the images on screen started to look like a traditional sculpture, people reacted strongly, as if reassured that they knew how to perceive it. They could see how it could become an object and this gave relief and pleasure to those observing the working process.
Constructive Realism
Traditional portraiture would seek to define a 'true' representation of identity and has many norms and formal ways of doing this. The validity of this approach to portraiture does not translate to 3D digital media. In the information saturated world of the internet, the only truths we can have are personal editorial constructions. The experience of identity we can have now is multiple, noisy, diffuse and prone to interjection and interpretation from the medium that hosts the experience. The 'truth' of a digital portrait cannot really be experienced as a discrete object. However this means it has an open ended quality and can be valued more as semi narrative process that can be engaged with than as an artefact.
The design of the digital portrait was also necessarily the design of a character. (Something that Patrick Stewart,as an actor would be familiar with, as an expert in constructing characters.) The identity projected onto Patrick Stewart in this portrait is a constructed representation. the idea of portraiture is given as much attention as the man it portrays. It is not a historical fixing of an identity, but more a constellation of threads of knowledge and enquiry into what a character means.
Authorial attention is liberated by the medium and digital working methods, from creating the objects to inscribing the threads of significance in the overall work
Making Digital Sculptures
'The quality of the outcome will come to depend less on the technology than on those of us who master it.' (McCullough1998)
Working with Zbrush on a sculptural project threw up many problems. Some of these are related to the disparity in expectations of the digital medium in relation to experience of material. Others are caused by the inherent qualities in the digital tool.
Observations and Reflections on the 3D Digital Process
Some of the digital sculpting sessions were recorded and the videos were very interesting to watch. The playback is at high speed so you see an accelerated process, which makes explicit, patterns of behavior that were previously unconscious. One of the most interesting modeling sessions was at the 3rd level of subdivision. (see www.digital-sculpture.co.uk) The sculpture was at the stage of adjusting the primary forms and proportions. So it was still quite loose and undefined, but with a few gestures towards the secondary forms where there was enough mesh resolution. The likeness to the subject is achieved at this level of detail, because the visual cues that make us recognise a face are in the relationships between primary forms and the larger secondary forms.
The sculpting decisions were unusually tentative. Uncertainty was being introduced from a few sources. One cause was the variable quality visual reference material. The photographs differed in terms of lighting, focal length, subject's body weight, age and facial expression. This made it difficult to make precise formal decisions. This is a problem that would affect any medium. However the was additional uncertainty that were related to the quality of the 3D simulation.
All the videos show a very large amount of tumbling and rotating the figure. This is the result of the effort to gain an understanding of the form as it is represented on screen. The analogue of this in traditional sculpture is simply looking around the form. This is a significant disadvantage of working on flat screens. The action of the ZBrush brushes mainly act on the surface that is facing you, so it is often difficult to judge the precise effect of the strokes. To overcome this, it is necessary move the model back and forth until a good memory is formed of the model, and to keep moving it to check the depth of the strokes.
However, the shortcomings are heavily outweighed be the benefits which are outlined in detail in the next section.
Extensions to the Sculpting Process.
What is Special about Digital Tools
The main advantage of digital sculpting is the low to high resolution workflow, which makes it is possible to make adjustments independently at various levels of subdivision. Large changes can be made at a lower level of detail and these are projected through to the finer levels of detail, meaning the whole figure can be posed and reposed indefinitely, and by extension, animated.
The software also gives more specific processes that add to variety of modelling and painting actions, over and above existing traditional methods. Here are the main ones that were directly encountered in this project. This is not a comprehensive list and there will continue to be more added as the software develops and computing capacity grows.
The ability to add volume with brush strokes in a large variety of highly controllable ways. This particular methodology allows near infinite versatility of stroke influence, and an extremely high level of detail. Toggling modifications to smooth or reverse, by simply holding down a key, adds another layer of versatility.
The lights and surface shaders can be changed at will allowing the ability to visualise colour and material changes very easily. You can switch from chalk, to metal, to clay, to wax and back again. This gives diverse ways of understand the surfaces reaction to light.
The ability to grab and move areas of the surface with the brush tip allows very fast roughing out and readjustments and makes it possible to pose and repose a figure very quickly without losing surface detail.
Some aspects of the software offer completely novel ways of approaching form. e.g. The ability to mask off areas of the surface, and the invert that mask area at the touch of a button. These masks can be applied by brush stroke, by projected maps, or by a variety of calculative processes e.g. Ambient occlusion, colour range, colour intensity, and cavity mapping. Masking allows interesting ways of stencilling into or out of the surface and even the projection of form from profiles. The facility to generate form and surface texture with procedural mathematics and apply multiple iterations same action enable forms to made generatively.
Another new approach is applying formal detail based on images of that detail, with brush strokes. photographic colour information can also be projected directly onto the surface. As is the ability to cut and paste forms, and by extension, create libraries of re-usable base forms to use as building blocks.
Discrete layer editing makes it is possible to make radical edits to the form affecting losing the earlier work. e.g. To change the a facial expression. This would be done by creating a layer and altering the model. Software allows the layers to be switched off and on. It is possible to 'mix' layers. Multiple poses can be set up on layers and mixed between to create interpolated posed. This used in conjunction with 3D printing any expression or pose can be instanced to an .stl file and printed out as a sculpture. Furthermore the different expressions can be used as blend shapes for animation. (see fig 129.)
All of these along with ability to make iterative backup copies of work files and the undoable nature of many actions, encourages experimentation and playfulness. (See figs 130, 131 and 132)

Figure 129. Magdalena Dadela, Mephistopheles, 2009,

Figure 130. Gurning pat


Figure 131. Comedia mask

Figure 132. Pile of pats
Speed
All of these actions contribute to an acceleration in the making process. So much so that allows genuine possibility of Sketching in 3D. This is evident in a new subgenre of digital 3D output called Speed Sculpts. These are very rapidly executed digital sculptures in anything from 5-45 minutes and the offer the potential to be used as a replacement for 2D sketching. This may be especially valuable in collaborative environments. A sketch model can be copied, multiplied and developed by several people. 3D sketching at speed can bring in some visual qualities and gestural techniques from 2D drawing and painterly disciplines in ways that were prohibited in clay and wax by the resistance of the material.
Speed sculpting is not limited to creating figurative character work, it can also be used to produce concept sketches for mechanical objects and devices. 3D sketching has the great advantage over 2d sketching of being able to describe the concept from all angles in one sketch. Additionally, a concept made in 3D will inherently work as an object, whereas 2D sketches can create unresolvable forms that that require redesign later in the development process. A further benefit is that the sketch itself can be used directly as a base model to develop a concept to completion. Thus collapsing two formerly distinct processes into one continuous one.
Enhancements to Knowledge
The screen based nature of the medium is a barrier to the embodiment of knowledge, but there are some enhancements, or refinements to the practitioner's knowledge that are made available by working with simulations. For example, the ability to zoom in and out and rotate the model freely means the surface can be examined topographically at many levels of detail, which gives an enhanced understanding of the surface.
Formal and Aesthetic Extensions

Figure 133 Nick Ervink, AGRIEBORZ, 2010 3D Print
The combination of 3D digital modelling and 3D printing offer the possibility of exploring new types of form. Some forms are the result of the removal of practical limitations like physical access to internal forms by additive layer manufacture methods, and some are encouraged by the metaphors of natural growth that are contained in additive processes. Nick Ervinck combines a fascination with internal bodily spaces with growth forms in his sculptures that take advantage of the ability of 3D printing to builds very fine structural forms. This sculpture Agrieborz (fig 133) could not be made in any other way.
The speed and ease with which 3D digital tools can achieve iterative processes opens the potential for elaborately detailed artwork,(figs 134-138) which in the past would have been prohibitively time consuming to achieve. There is a trend in digital sculpture towards massive detail. In terms of scale and/ or quantity.


Figure 134 Majid Esmaeili, Dragon, 2011

Figure 135. Heather Gorham, The Gentle Cibotium Barometz, 2010, 3D Print


Figure 136. Katsu Yoaoki, Predictive Dream, 2011 Porcelain

Figure 137. Bug Jars, Shane Pennington, 2010, 3D prints and mixed media

Figure 138. Stefano Dubay, bone assemblage, 2011
Limitations of 3D Digital Methods
"All 3D software is fantastic, until you use it" (Unver, E. 2011)
Many of technical limitations of digital tools are a legacy of software methods used in the past to accommodate the lack of computational power. Many of these will be solved over time. As a perfect example of the speed of development in 3D, the problem of topological limitation mentioned above has been solved during the 6 month period of this project.The latest release of ZBrush has a new mesh type- DynaMesh, which normalises the mesh topology as it is worked on in relation to volume and curvature. This produces models that definitely need retopologising later on for animation, or very fine work, but it's advantages are worth the cost of a retopology workflow that is imposed by it. The Dynamesh feature gives the ability to cut and paste pieces of model like hands, noses, etc... and attach at will them in Boolean operations. Formerly, Boolean operations created geometric topology that was seriously problematic for subsequent modelling and animation. This is now solved by simply re-sampling the mesh. It is not as complete a solution as voxel modelling, as it is a post-process, i.e. the modelling action is made and then the volume is re-sampled. Certain modelling tasks are still laborious with DynaMesh, like long convoluted shapes like tendrils and dendritic forms. Whereas these can be achieved with brush strokes in 3D Coat.
These technical limits are surmountable but some limits are inherent in the medium and are more intractable.
Risk
The use of computerised tools is inherently risky. When machines and programs fail, they tend to crash catastrophically. No software packages are entirely stable. All have bugs and all crash quite regularly. A small error in a file can lead to a complete loss of work and this can happen without warning. The way of mitigating this risk is to make regular iterative saves of your work.
This might sound like a simple solution but it is not always straightforward. Software is capable of saving files that it cannot subsequently open. Additionally, the whole saving process can take a several minutes with a large and complex file, which means, either your attention is taken away from the task, or you continue working and take the risk.
Breaking away from the task is not inevitably a bad thing, it becomes so when you have to do it too often and for too long. Distraction is the enemy of consistent work. Sculpting on-screen is highly dependent on building a working model of the forms in your short term memory. When you make adjustments to the 3d object, they are in relation to a mental model you have constructed from rotating the mesh on screen. This is highly vulnerable to distraction. When an interruption takes your attention away you have to start at the beginning and create a new mental model.
The fragility of the mental model is very pronounced in comparison to the experience when working with clay. The digital interface significantly contributes to the fragility.
Lack of tactile Engagement
When sitting at the computer, it is common for people to try to crane their head around the object. This is an ingrained habit from the way we construct a 3D model in mind, we do this bodily and unconsciously. We instinctively attempt to engage with more than one set of senses.
Working on screen causes a difficulty in creating an object in mind, solely from visual cues. With manual practices like clay sculpture and drawing there is a kinaesthetic memory being produced in conjunction with the visual, and the two together create a more persistant mental model. This is a factor that slows down the process of modelling, and it may not be solvable. By nature 3D digital models are simulative and cannot be touched. In theory, haptic feedback interface methods could help in this respect, but in reality it is an impractical solution and does not bring enough improvement.
Lighting
The difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that the visual cues are far from accurate. The degree of uncertainty about the digital surface is also a result of the way light is rendered in ZBrush. There are no true shadows. The eye naturally infers depth and curvature from light and shadow on the surface, but ZBrush's simulation of shadow is not accurate. It is not a ray traced shadow that is produced from the actual geometric relationship between light, surface and camera. It is a surface shader that alters the colour according to the relation of the camera to the surface normal. This is a necessary compromise in order for the software to update the views quickly enough to be experienced as interactive. But it does cause visual uncertainty when attempting highly accurate work.
A lot of digital sculpture work is lacking in depth of form and this false lighting issue is almost certainly a contributing cause. However, this is an issue that may be solved by real-time ray tracing in the near future.
Traditional Elements that do not Transpose into 3D Digital
Happily the dirty and unheated aspects of a sculpture studio environment is gone. However there are some aspects of the studio that are sorely missed. Particularly it's role as a meditative thinking space. Computers are generic and hold no concrete trace of your actions and experiences. The experience of working with them is primarily mental and mnemonic.
In traditional sculpture, tentative information contained within a tool mark or finger stroke can infer contour, allude to surface or even speed. These effects are achievable with Digital Sculpting tools, they are currently prohibitively difficult to achieve with graphics tablet pen strokes.
3D simulation is necessarily geometrically precise so communicating complexity and subtlety through visual abstraction is problematic. Simplified forms can be made very easily, but they read as undeveloped in 3D digital medium. A roughly made clay sculpture can convey degrees of certainty and uncertainty in ways that engage the imagination and invite the viewer to project their own experience into it. But a simulation is read as an inherently finished thing, and although these kind of tentative gestures can simulated with 3D digital tools, they are merely simulated qualities and the uncertain quality is perceived as incompleteness.
A traditional sculpture's occupation of space places it as the centre of attention. In the making process the whole attention is on the object. When complete, it directs the viewers attention to relevant visual features and excludes extraneous detail. In the digital simulation space the interface often switches context through the process of working, and is in competition for attention with the object. This diminishes the importance of the object.
People's reactions to the digital portrait at various stages are revealing. There was a conspicuous increase in the level of engagement when the digital sculpture was prepared for printing, and it began to look like a sculptural object.
Learning Curves
In a field that has a technological turnover as quick as 3D digital media it is necessary to learn and relearn new techniques and new software systems regularly. This means that learning processes need to be built into the projects. In addition the tools are very numerous, very task specific and sometimes very complicated. As an illustration, during this project I undertook 82 online video tutorial sessions in order to gain the skills and theoretical knowledge needed to carry out the work. This is a factor that slows the artistic progress as the attention is oscillating between technical, problem solving and creative action, They are not very compatible.
There is difficulty experienced in approaching new software. This is due to "interface inertia" (Danskin 2011). It is necessary to re-habituate to the new interfaces particular methods of control in order to accept it's new customs. This makes for an uncomfortable period of acclimatisation(2-3 Months according to Danskin). This factor is why many practitioners choose one or two packages as favoured tools and stick with them.
The acclimatisation process does become shorter with each additional new software package and generally, there is a trend for interfaces and methods to become standardised. Some though, like ZBrush develop their own idiosyncratic systems of control.
Justin Marshall (2009) identified a phased categorisation of the progress of artists in coming to terms with new digital working systems. The entry level phase involves simply working out how to operate the equipment and navigate the interface. Work is mostly derivative or demonstrative of the capacity of tool functions.
The next phase is adoption, which is characterised by using tools to emulate tasks and behaviours from a former practice. "Although the methods of working have changed, the outputs remain as an extension of the practitioner's [former] discourse." (Marshall 2008)
Adaptation is the next phase. The learner becomes competent in the techniques and knows the workspace/interface, work can be achieved fluently and in line with the intended industrial application. Bringing to mind David Pye's (1995) "Certainty" category of workmanship
Appropriation is the next phase and it includes a degree of fluency where many technical processes are achieved unconsciously. A thorough understanding of the principles underlying the technology, liberates the practitioner's attention to be applied to making critical evaluation of the quality of work. Awareness of the nature of the tools allows projects that extend ambition. Allowing "Innovative applications and discontinuities with previous practice emerge" (Marshall, 2008)
This is followed by virtuosity. A full mastery of the toolset, with full range of technique is embodied and can be executed automatically. The full context of the practice is understood. The digital toolset becomes a ground on which to undertake meaningful experimental artwork.
These categories do not have hard boundaries. The practitioner will be at different stages with different aspects of the toolset.
Conspicuously, a lot of anxiety and confusion is triggered by the introduction of the new working methods and new visual paradigms. However, much of it seems to be indicative of insecurities caused by an incomplete learning process. During this project of translating a traditional practice into a digital it became obvious that a methodological approach to continuous learning is a necessity for working with these tools.
Many of the commentators call for the computer interfaces to be made "transparent", by which they mean neutral and non-affecting of the process of making. This not very relevant for skillful applications. Any new tool, digital or otherwise, is uncomfortable to use until it is mastered. The wish for interfaces that simulate the "real world" is merely a wish the familiar. The real issue is the degree of mastery.
Good Practice
A practitioner can't master of the digital 3D toolset over night. This section is intended to identify elements of practice that assist in gaining mastery.
A good 3D digital practice is one that allows the practitioner to see through the tools and the medium to their artwork and to work fluently. (McCulloch 2002) Additionally it is one that enables the model to be held in mind in the most complete way - Ready to Hand. Holding in mind, allows the artistic object to mentally manipulated and examined in it's full projected functional context as well as it's cultural and emotional context. These then inform the design to provide impact and relevance to the final output. These are the things that are communicated by the final form to the audience and these factors are the ones that originate and justify the works existence. A good practice will remove barriers to this kind of attention and find ways to assist it.
Working well with computers and 3D software requires a combination of practical skill and research knowledge. As well as methods to overcome the limitations of the medium. Good practice will include both and know which is appropriate in any given situation. Working well also means having knowledge of the whole process, and how the distinct production methods interact with each other. These are modelling, animation, 3D printing and rendering. This is not easy and takes time and theoretical investigation to achieve.
Skill can only be gained through iterative practice. This project has shown that a highly developed skill from another kind of practice significantly accelerates the process of becoming skilful in another. The 'learning of skills' itself is an intellectual skill, that needs to be part of a digital artists repertoire.
There is general tendency for software development to solve problematic tasks with automated processes, especially iterative tasks. This makes some hard learned skills redundant but also enables the Artist/Designer to spend more attention on the design and development tasks. This suggests that it is more strategically useful to concentrate on the fundamental theoretical underpinnings of the art form and principles of the software methods. Over time and with mastery, the value of an artists engagement will become more and more located in the intellectual enterprise. Artistic discretion cannot be programmed.
Good Digital Sculpture Practice
"No two people will be skilled alike and no machine will be skilled at all" (McCulloch 1998)
The following is a list approaches to working with digital sculpture tools that have been identified as good practice during this project. Some are almost identical to in traditional sculpture practices. Some are the combined results of the research and experience of this digital project.
Preparation:
Design a workflow that is appropriate for the specific intended outputs
Evaluate the technical requirements and identify skill and knowledge shortfalls before the project begins

Research:
Software is developing all the time and will continue to do so for some time. It is important to iteratively research the capacities of the software available to you and identify what aspects of it you need to learn.
Gather reference- The more reference you have and the better the quality of that reference. The better the understanding you can build and hence the better the result will be
Observe subjects closely
Seek critical feedback at regular intervals, from a variety of objective sources
Identify exemplary practitioners and look closely at their work.

Figurative modelling:
Work on large forms first at the lowest possible level of detail, achieve as much of the intended form as possible before dividing to a higher level of detail
Use the largest brush size that you can, this helps to mitigate our natural tendency to get bogged down in detail before the bigger formal issues are solved.
Keep altering the lighting conditions in the scene. The human eye is very good at assuming form from insufficient cues. A small amount of shadow can suggest much more or less depth than there really is. Altering the lights reveals these perceptual errors
Be aware of degrees of shift between forms.
Work on the whole model, resist focussing in and finishing one part before the rest. This helps to create a coherent sculpture where the forms relate to each other fluently.
Regularly switch between levels of detail. This is the analogue of stepping away in traditional sculpture methods. Again it refreshes the perception of the whole intent of the artwork and resists the tendency to become absorbed in detail.
Keep moving the model and viewing from different angles. This is particularly important for on screen modelling where you are only presented with a flat image
Keep referring to the reference material throughout the modelling process and have it on display and to hand as you are working- There is a tendency to commit to modelled parts of the figure even if they are wrong. Having reference on hand helps keep this habit in check.

In general all of these elements of practice can be improved by the practice of observational drawing. It is difficult, but it is the most effective way of developing the ability to produce good figurative art even with 3D digital tools.

Conclusion
The 3D digital field is still on a steep trajectory of technical development, which makes it extremely exciting and full of potential. The regular introduction of new tools, makes it hard to master the skills needed to produce meaningful artwork, but I believe this will become more steady over the next 5 years
The translation of a traditional figurative sculptural practice into a 3D digital process was fundamentally successful in many ways. On a practical level the many manual artistic skills transferred quite directly. Particularly the observational and drawing skills. What was more interesting was the degree to which the intellectual skills associated with artistic training are inscribed into the 3D digital toolset. The collective intellectual engagements of artists, animators, photographers, architects, engineers and scientists have been compressed into the software packages. Traditional sculpture is an art-form that necessarily calls on these disciples and the knowledge of assumptions and language gained from cross disciplinary engagement helps in unpacking this complicated software.
The transition was aided by a tendency for specialist software to be designed to emulate and extend on specialist traditional workshop practices. ZBrush and CLO3D are prime examples. This tendency in software design will continue, and offers the exciting prospect of any curious practitioner having access to the distilled practices of other art-forms and craft disciplines in virtual workspaces. In addition there is online access the knowledge base required to use them. It is potentially a very powerful democratising influence.
The process of working with digital tools enforces a 'Rennaisance Man' role onto the practitioner. e.g. You need to understand the physics of light to be able to control the renderer; you need to understand geometry in order model well and to understand anatomy to pose a figure properly; But most importantly the ability to observe phenomena, and critically evaluate you own work is essential.
Despite the ease of the translation of the skills, the feedback from the medium itself transforms the meaning of the working process and the products made with it. The 3D digital workflow reduced the concrete sculptural output of the project to a mere instance of the preparation of the models for an animatable character. Irrecoverably devaluing the traditional labour of sculpting in clay or wax. But, at the same time liberating the creative process and formal decision making from the limitations of laborious and technical traditional processes.
3D Digital tools are far from perfect, many of them being prototypical. Most of the technical problems that relate crafting the digital object are being solved by the increases in computational capacity and improvements in software design. However large labour savings could be achieved for creative workers by improving the integration and coherency of subsystems in the software packages. Additionally I would call for interface standardisation to enhance collaborative potential.
The Achilles Heel of 3D digital working is the screen based interface. The problems with it are unlikely to ever be completely overcome. However, in 2-3 years 3D graphical interfaces will allow very convincing simulations of real world phenomena, continuously, and in real time. This will overcome many of the much discussed, alienating affective tendencies that have been implicit in earlier technological phases, where heavy abstractions were made necessary by the deficits in processing power.
The pleasure of these tools will also increase with the quality of simulation. While simultaneously easing the difficulty in learning how to use them. So It is to be expected that more and more people will take up the use of these tools. Software will replace more traditional practical tools with simulated versions and offer new kinds of tool that take advantage of the relative arbitrariness of digital space. Digital tools will continue encourage a playful and experimental approach to making sculptural form.
Portraiture and sculpture in general is irrecoverably altered, the ease with which the objects can be instanced changes the value of artistic labour. The digital medium changes the very thing portraits seek to represent, a historical self. In the near future the process of producing a 3D likeness will become much like a photographic process. This makes some modelling skills significantly redundant. But at the same time this will liberate the artistic and observational attention to be applied to more subtle creative issues of character and presence. What remains frimly intact though is the need for observational and drawing ability As well as the need for a capacity to devote meditative attention for extended periods.
With regard to the influence of the digital medium on the future of portraiture; The creative challenge shifts into the potential forms of artwork that are enabled by the new tools. The question now is, what is interesting to achieve in 3D digital media? Holbein made the most of optics and paint technologies to create virtual worlds and characters that are inscribed into history. The nature of the 3D digital and their facility for animation drives portraiture toward characterisation in time based and interactive uses of the medium. The experience of making the digital portrait suggests a direction of further development in creating highly believable characters that reside in simulative 3D space.
3D digital media also offers sophisticated interactive modes of engagement with an artwork. Real Time Renderers, game engines and simulation rendering are 2-3 years away from offering genuinely naturalistic interactive worlds on ordinary computers, when these offer believable visual quality the medium will allow much greater creative scope into areas of constructive realism.
Complete realism is technologically possible, so is naturalistic animation, and potentially so is the use of artificial intelligence to drive that naturalistic animation. It seems logical that a digital portrait can be developed where the character is given intelligent agency or even personality within virtual space and the viewer the freedom to move amongst the portrait's environment.
Artificial Intelligence driven digital portraits, which also hold the potential to be used as digital doubles or digital actors in film and games- this is currently achievable but is not being done systematically as reliable techniques have not been developed. A project could be designed to produce a viable, repeatable process for generating Intelligent Portraits.
This territory is always going to be hovering at the edges of the uncanny, Some artist's have shown ways to use the medium to embrace this quality. As in the case of the development film as a medium the audience will over time adapt in it's acceptance of what is familiar in response to 3D Digital artistic output.


References
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Websites
Dubay, Stefano, 3d Artist http://4thvanishingpoint.com/gallery.php
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Eaton, Scott, 3d Artist http://www.scott-eaton.com/
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Lazzarni, Robert http://www.robertlazzarini.com/
Manovich, Lev http://manovich.net/ Blog
Museum of the History of Science, Oxford EPACT collection http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/EPACT/introduction.php Online archive of Elizabethan and Renaissance scientific instruments.
Oliver, Marilene, Website http://www.marileneoliver.com/portfolio/portfolio2010/2010Orixa001.html Website of Artist who uses MRI scans to make sculpture consisting of slices.
Jimenez, Bruno, 3d Artist. http://www.brunopia.com/ 3D character designer website
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Baldasseroni, Allessandro, 3d Artist http://www.eklettica.com/ 3D character designer
Wahyudi, Max, 3d Artist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFo_27csHTg
Jubinville, Steve, 3d Artist http://sjdigitalsculptor.com/1.arts/RW.html


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Shaw, M., 2010. The Computer-Aided Design and Manufacture of Specific Objects. Leonardo, 43(2), pp.113-120. Available at: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/leon.2010.43.2.113.
Todd, S. & Latham, W., 1989. Computer Sculpture. IBM Systems Journal, 28(4), pp.682-688. Available at: http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/284/ibmsj2804M.pdf.
Turkle, S., Objects, E. & Press, M.I.T., 2008. Zeroing in on Evocative Objects. Technology, pp.443-457.
Vincs, Kim and McCormick, John. 2010, Touching Space: Using Motion Capture and Stereo: Projection to Create a "Virtual Haptics" of Dance, SIGGRAPH paper, Deakin University
Lectures
Eaton Scott and Johnny Hardstaff, September 2006 nTate Modern Lecture, Supernatural Presents ... Digital Art, The Tate Modern
Clarke, Robert, 2010, Research in context lecture series, Univ. of Huddersfield
McDonald, Juliet, 2011, Drawing as Research workshop, Univ. Of Huddersfield
Websites
Brass Art http://www.brassart.org.uk/flash.php Artist's collective including Anneke Pettican, They make art that draws on themes triggered by the inherent properties of digital media, they seem to have an inherent attraction to the idea of truth to material applied to digital processes.
Brown, Keith, Web gallery http://www.sculpture.org.uk/KeithBrown/
Csuri, Charles http://www.siggraph.org/artdesign/profile/csuri/artworks/plot/plot15.html Examples of pioneering digital artist's work
Debevec, Paul http://ict.debevec.org/~debevec/, 3D Digital researcher, Facial performance data capture, HDRI, facial cartography and more...
Dubay, Stefano, 3d Artist http://4thvanishingpoint.com/gallery.php
Dadela, Magdalena, 3d Artist http://mdadela.com/
Eaton, Scott, 3d Artist http://www.scott-eaton.com/
Ervinck, Nick, 3d Artist http://www.nickervinck.com/selectedworks/exhibitionviews
Gernand, Bruce. Web gallery http://www.sculpture.org.uk/image/527416514014/
Getty Museum http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/power_piety/blaise.html description of exhibiton of medieval portaiture
Goosem, David, 3d Artist http://davegoosem.net/blog/maya/modelling-a-character-in-maya/ Blog of a 3d artist coming to terms with the software skills. He follows the task- research- tutorial- execute process.
Latham, William http://doc.gold.ac.uk/~mas01whl/popup2go/popup.php?url=http://doc.gold.ac.uk/~mas01whl/movs/formevolution_hi.mov digital sculpture video
Lazzarni, Robert http://www.robertlazzarini.com/
Manovich, Lev http://manovich.net/ Blog
Museum of the History of Science, Oxford EPACT collection http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/EPACT/introduction.php Online archive of Elizabethan and Renaissance scientific instruments.
Oliver, Marilene, Website http://www.marileneoliver.com/portfolio/portfolio2010/2010Orixa001.html Website of Artist who uses MRI scans to make sculpture consisting of slices.
Rabbit Holes http://vimeo.com/1767780 animated holograms – rabbit holes
Wacom, Company Website http://www.wacom.eu/int/products/casestudies/casestudy.asp?lang=en&pdx=18 Manufacturers case studies of graphics tablet usage.
Turkle, Sherry, interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyHZYqgRY4k&feature=related
http://forum.cgpersia.com/f19/3d-coat-3-5-here-20805/index3.html Discussion of dealing with the problem of holes in digital sculpture packages
Artist's websites
Baldasseroni, Allessandro, 3d Artist http://www.eklettica.com/ 3D character designer
Boskma, Jelmer, 3d Artist http://www.jelmerboskma.com/portfolio.html website
Giacobelli, Pasquale, 3d Artist. http://karma3d.cgsociety.org/gallery/ 3D character designer
Jimenez, Bruno, 3d Artist. http://www.brunopia.com/ 3D character designer website
Jubinville, Steve, 3d Artist http://sjdigitalsculptor.com/1.arts/RW.html
Kean, Matthew, 3d Artist http://www.matthewkean.com/#!bio
Lashko, Alex, 3d Artist http://www.lashkoalex.com/pages/portfolio.html
Massar, Rudy, 3d Artist http://rudymassar.cghub.com/images/ 3D character designer
Moratilla, David, 3d Artist http://www.davidmoratilla.com/CloseUpPortaits.html
Nettfab Limited Company website http://www.netfabb.com/structure.php
Pennington Shane http://www.shanepennington.com/ conceptual scupltor
Pralier, Rodrigue , 3d Artist http://www.rodriguepralier.com/ Website
So, Uri, Post on ZCentral forum http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?113952-U-Ri photoreal 3D portrait
Wahyudi, Max, 3d Artist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFo_27csHTg
Yeo, Viki, 3d Artist http://vikiyeo.cgsociety.org/gallery/924348/ 3D character designer
http://features.cgsociety.org/newgallerycrits/g81/340081/340081_1239853436_large.jpg
Textures and Model Resources
http://www.cgtextures.com/
http://www.michalkotek.com/
http://mayang.com/textures/
http://www.textureportal.com/
http://www.environment-textures.com/
http://www.3dtexture.net/
Arroway textures http://www.arroway-textures.com/products/wood-1
Turbosquid http://www.turbosquid.com/
Web Image Sources
Costa, Krishnamurti, Post on CGSociety forum. http://features.cgsociety.org/newgallerycrits/g16/22416/22416_1192804696_large.jpg 3D character designer
Fokin, Eugene, Post on CGSociety forum http://features.cgsociety.org/newgallerycrits/g78/190878/190878_1263800529_large.jpg 3D character designer
http://www.cgchannel.com/2010/05/scott-spencer/
image http://karma3D.cgsociety.org/gallery/286345/ 3D character designer
image http://Antropus.cgsociety.org/gallery/565639/ 3D character designer
image http://eof.cgsociety.org/gallery/519189/ 3D character designer
image http://AlexanderT.cgsociety.org/gallery/743150/ 3D character designer
image http://maxedwin.cgsociety.org/gallery/624956/
Image of Rodin Sculpture http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=rodin+baptisty&hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&biw=1239&bih=634&tbs=isz:l&tbm=isch&tbnid=eMKrtGIPHqeu3M:&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cambrai_221109_Rodin_St_Jean-Baptiste_1.jpg&docid=wrqZXCh3FNdmRM&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Cambrai_221109_Rodin_St_Jean-Baptiste_1.jpg&w=1200&h=1800&ei=2ouuTpSaGpHY8gO-_Ym2Cw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=286&vpy=162&dur=12522&hovh=275&hovw=183&tx=128&ty=104&sig=101044591688691115146&page=2&tbnh=123&tbnw=84&start=26&ndsp=27&ved=1t:429,r:20,s:26
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mori_Uncanny_Valley.svg

Appendix
Contents of attached DVD
Examples of final quality Renders
Copy of the Weblog
Copies of key project files.
Copies of papers collected in the research process.
Proposed Interview agenda
The interviewees are teachers at escape studios, a training academy for the CGI, FFX, visualisation and animation. They all have long and active practical backgrounds in their fields
The interviewees are teachers at Escape Studios, a training academy for the CGI, FFX, visualisation and animation. They all have long and active practical backgrounds in their fields
My particular interest is in high level 3D modelling and digital sculpture .
I want to gather information about their perspectives on digital sculpture in general, and their ideas about the teaching the subject.
I want to find out about their attitudes and values about the digital medium itself and their specific experience of the learning process with attention to digital modelling and character design.
My background research suggests that there is a focus on bringing traditional fine art skills to bear in in the process of using digital tools.
I do not want to be too specific with the questions as I want to allow room for discursive responses that relate to their actual experiences. So I plan to divide the interview into three segments. Past, present and future and keep to some themes but not strictly.
Past
What is your background?
How did you find your way into 3d Modelling/digital sculpture?
What is you role?
Present
What fuels your interest now?
What are the main issues of teaching digital methods?
What do you see as being the limitations or problems of working the digital tools?
What are the benefits?
Are there any general themes that are common to teaching digital methods?
What do you think is important to be taught about digital tools?
Future
How do you think the practice develop?
What do you think needs to be addressed and researched in the field?
What is the effect of digital Ownership on ideas?
My Project
What advice or recommendations would you have for someone who is making a digital portrait?
Comments about the artform Art form /digital media/ How important are artistic skills in 3D digital work.
Software preferences
Additional Questions if time allows
Analysis of interviews
The interviews are available for download from www.digital-sculpture.co.uk. Contact Daniel Hughes-McGrail in advance for a password to enable the download.
Interview with Lee Danskin, Director of Training Development at Escape Studios
Escape studios is a training academy for the digital arts that are directed at the film, animation and game industries. It is widely considered as a post graduate stepping stone to a job in the industry and is highly focussed on training that prepares students for the real workflows they will find in industry. The space inside escape studios is very computer screen focussed, but the arrangement of space is open, and people can see one another and communicate. There is a lot of conversation and people move about, looking at each other's work.
Lee Danskin's background was in architecture. He entered the 3D digital world early, working for Alias on, amongst other things, the development of polygonal modelling tools for Alias Maya 1.0. He commented that architecture is a common background for people who entered the field early, because architectures habit of privileging artistic appreciation and combining it with technical knowledge prepared them well for the disciplines of 3D visualisation.
From the perspective of someone who has extensive experience of training people for 3D modelling, CGI and animation, he believes that undergraduate students who want to enter the field should be taught traditional artistic fundamentals. For example, a hands on knowledge of materials, spatiality and lighting is considered primary knowledge. Knowledge of this kind underpins the ability to create believable digital work. It gives a store of embodied knowledge of "how and why things work the way they do". He believes that knowledge gained this way builds an internal world that becomes available to the 3d digital artist when attempting to create believable digital objects and worlds. This is considered as superior to merely trying to copy visual reference, which is prone to the errors and distortions associated with seeing things from one viewpoint.
However knowledge of the context production pipelines is also critical. Otherwise the production of individual artists may not be integrated into properly.
He describes two clear categories in approach and engagement between artists and technicians/programmers. It is necessary to teach artists enough understanding of the technical priorities in order to produce useful artwork in the context of the whole technical process. He comments that training coders to understand artist priorities is just as difficult. The method he suggests is to represent the analysis of artistic issues as a sequence of technical operations so that it can be thought about in a way that is sympathetic to their style of thinking. E.g. the artwork was made by this technique and that process was used to achieve it. Conversely he suggests that artistically minded people need to be presented with meaning in order to process the problem. E.g. The bit map must be 16 bit because it means the displacement has enough detail later on.
Artistic ability is highly valued in industry for many reasons. These skills are identified as
Observation- the ability to observe and record the real world in order to gather new empirical knowledge to translate the knowledge of it into a simulation of it.
Criticality, independently evaluate the quality of the artwork and understand it's context
Visual communication via drawing. To transmit visual ideas in collaborative working situations. Developing ideas and design is ubiquitous "everything starts with a sketch" Drawing is the best way to communicate early stage ideas before committing to a lot of work.
Throughout the industry a high importance is aslo given to traditional artistic skills as a grounding in how to acquire physical material knowledge in order to have a visceral bodily understanding of phenomena.
A large part of escape training is to develop the "artistic eye" in individuals, by which he means critical eye, and the ability to criticise and evaluate their own work. Phrases like 'eye for detail, lighting proportion' are used. He uses the metaphor of needing to switch hats between technical and artistic modes. He describes an occasional special person who is able to easily combine the two types thinking. The description is very similar to the idea of a renaissance man, where a polymathic approach is desirable.
In contradiction to my assumption that technically minded people have greater difficulty in approaching new software and methods compared to artistic people, he strongly asserted that the difficulty experienced in approaching a new software like e.g . ZBrush is due to a phenomena he calls "interface inertia", and that this applies universally. People need to unlearn their habituation to a particular interface in order to accept the new customs of the new interface. He described an uncomfortable period of acclimatisation, "The two to three month hump", after which users feel fluent and comfortable in the use of the new software.
The ability to gather and use visual reference is considered important but "real world" experience is valued more highly. Physical knowledge derived from real world experience and applied in the digital is a one way process. The knowledge of the artist feeds the creation of digital work, but the digital tools are not considered to feed the artist's creative knowledge.
When addressing the specific field of digital sculpture it is clear that it must be seen in the context of the subsequent dependent processes. From the very first stages the approach to making the digital object must encompass the requirements of the technical constraints inherent in the intended output, typically, animation, texturing and rendering processes
Talking about the issues of my portrait project. In the CGI world believability is the goal and ultimate test of the artwork. The approach for producing photoreal render output should be tailored differently to an output that uses a game engine. However if I am to use a Game engine, then there is a sacrifice. Game engines prioritise real-time frame rates and due to computational limitations this means they have great restrictions on quality. Renders prioritise image quality and sacrifice speed. Quality is used as shorthand for naturalism and believability. Danskin predicted that within 5 years the computational limitations on real-time renders will be gone. Currently, on a decent workstation, Vray RT can render ray-traced images at about 6 frames per second, when this reaches 24 fps it will be real-time.
There are problems and dangers with CG photoreal representations of people. There are many digital portraits that approach photorealism. "Uncanny Vally!" the closer they get to simulating a photographic reality the more uncanny they appear. The Uncanny, as outlined by Freud, is the spooky quality of the inanimate things that closely resemble life but not quite that reminds us of death. Like waxworks portraits.