An Interview with Zoltan Korcsok

3dtotal: Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you came to be involved with 3D?

Zoltan: Well, first I graduated from art college, then I graduated from the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design as a Designer in Visual Communication Arts.

Besides the ‘conventional’ types of applied graphics (e.g. illustration, typography) I do other kinds of art, like etching and oil painting. I got involved in 3D in the nineties when I started to work in the games industry. Since then I’ve worked for many games developers as a concept artist, 3d graphic artist or mattepainter.

3dtotal: Can you tell us about the games you have worked on, and in what capacity, and the nature of your mattepainting?

Zoltan: The first game I worked on was an FPS, titled ‘Seed’, for which I created level textures. I drew characters and backgrounds for online games with marketing purposes, for Jack Daniel’s or Tchibo.

As a freelancer I did mattepaintings for cut-scenes, e.g. for ‘Armies of Exigo’, for which I painted realistic landscapes fitting the levels, but I also drew backgrounds for the Mr Bean cartoon. Recently I worked on ‘Warhammer: Mark of Chaos’ as a 3D artist. Currently I’m creating content for nextgen games.

3dtotal: I can see from your gallery of images that you are a keen user of Modo as well as ZBrush. As someone who uses both, how do you think the two compare?

Zoltan: Around 2000 I got a trial version of ZBrush from a demo CD and I found it an efficient tool for creating illustrations. I bought it and my wife and I (who is also a designer) have been using it ever since. I first found out about Modo in 2005, and found it to be a very good tool for subdivision modelling.

ZBrush is a 2.5D software package, but it’s not only usable in a workflow with other software, it can be used to create 3D stills or paintings with 3D elements. Despite the vast amount of polygons it can handle, it runs quite well on a machine with a weaker VGA.

Modo is a complex 3D program that only lacks several additional animation tools. From modelling / sculpting through texture painting to rendering; everything can be done in Modo, and only post processing might require you to use other software (I used it in game development for creating models and textures).

But to be able to use it’s capabilities of Advanced OpenGL display (needed for sculpting), a better OpenGL VGA is needed. From the aspect of sculpting, in ZBrush you can sculpt a high res model, then generate a Displacement Map for the low res model. In Modo, however, you can paint the Displacement map itself onto the model, and use a Vector Displacement Map, which has the great advantage over Displacement Maps in that you are able to create geometry overlapping itself.

3dtotal: Both have been championed by numerous artists and seem to have set a precedent in terms of what can now be achieved within the realm of organic modelling. Where do you see the further development within the software?

Zoltan: I think software will become even more complex, because the increasing performance of newer hardware makes it possible for them to have every solution needed for a given task. The tools of Modo and ZBrush are also made more useable by the special plug-ins and scripts that have been created by the community.

3dtotal: Your portfolio shows a distinct leaning towards organic modelling and, in particular, characters. What attracts you to this genre more than any other?

Zoltan: I like to model living things and characters more. In the case of a character, you have to form a personality, not just shapes and textures. This makes it interesting for me.

3dtotal: Your Hellfire Widow seems to be one of your most complete pieces to date. What proved to be the most challenging aspect in creating the image?

Zoltan: The Hellfire Widow was made for a contest organised by Luxology and Subdivisionmodeling.com. I looked up lots of different descriptions so that I was able to model the spider in an anatomically accurate way. The real challenge for me was to set up the camera and the render settings. It took quite a lot of time, since I wanted to create a photographic-like composition.

3dtotal: Although every aspect is crucial, do you think render settings and lighting has a bigger impact on realism than, say, the model and textures? And where do you think most images are let- down when trying to achieve this goal?

Zoltan: The quality of modelling, materials, lighting and composition are all equally important. If any of these is produced with less care, the final image will be weaker. It’s interesting, that usually the most simple and well-thought-out solutions give the best result.

3dtotal: Another of your fully textured pieces are the sardines in a tin. Tell us a bit about the idea behind this rather amusing image?

Zoltan: My wife and I send self-designed holiday cards to our families and business contacts every year. This image was made for a holiday card like this. The idea was to make a reference to the Christmas holidays in an unexpected situation.

3dtotal: There are more and more people now getting into the realms of 3D and Zbrush. What advice would you give to beginners wishing to become successful modellers?

Zoltan: The software is only a tool. Other knowledge and talent is also needed for one to be a good modeller. I’d recommend to beginners to learn to draw along with learning to use software. Or if they have the opportunity, attending a design school might prove quite helpful to them.

3dtotal: Many artists seem to emphasize the importance of drawing but some modellers do very little and still manage to produce good work. So why do you advocate drawing as a useful practice in answer to some of those artists who may have a different opinion?

Zoltan: Drawing from reality helps in the development of sense of proportion and space, and it makes you more open for seeing hidden connections. Experience gained by drawing studies can be quite useful when planning a given work.

Re-printed with permission of 3dTotal.com

An Interview with Zoltan Korcsok

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