Interview l Scott Robertson

Artist Scott Robertson Website www.drawthrough.com Blog www.drawthrough.blogspot.com Company www.designstudiopress.com Location USA Expertise Concept design Software modo, Photoshop, SketchUp, Alchemy Client list BMW subsidiary DesignworksUSA, Bell Sports, Giro, Raleigh, Mattel, Spin Master Toys, Patagonia, Minority Report feature film, Nike, RockShox, OVO, Rockstar Games, Sony Online Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Buena Vista Games, THQ and Fiat to name just a few

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Interview

Born into the art scene in California, Scott Robertson was destined to become an incredible designer. Lynette Clee discovers how 3D software has helped step his vehicle concepts up a gear

This monster may not have high-tech hubless wheels, but it more than makes up for it with a significant barrierbashing bumper design of its own Scott Robertson, Annis Naeem

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Interview l Scott Robertson

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These wheels are of the new B-class hubless style, recently declassified by the military and now finding the way to many of the privateer racing teams around the world Scott Robertson

Interview

Life in publish ing

build a body Scott explains, Most artists can their work, of k boo a ther toge of work and put but ted, prin it ing gett ey mon e spend som ks boo of ttes what happens after those pale and ily fam r you land in your garage and y? This is friends have each bought a cop g a small bein of t par d har the where I feel most. We publishing company hits me the in that far so l wel have actually done very e have non and ted prin s title now we have 35 btful that dou is it ide flips the On ey. lost mon elling any of our books will be major-s very is ter mat successes as our subject e had a hav ers buy re ksto specific and boo ks fit on boo our re whe ing sify clas e hard tim alvisu of their shelves. We publish a lot tie-in. ie mov a out development books with ! ents stud of k wor the ure Some even feat not art of re they els, nov hic grap not Theyre digital art so books and they feature mostly interested that seem none of the art buyers received a ays alw e hav we r, either. Howeve quality of the ut abo k bac feed itive lot of pos them. find books from our fans once they

C B
A The scale of the vehicle is accentuated by having to walk between the front and rear wheels to get in Scott Robertson, Annis Naeem B Having made a usable 3D model of the Power Slide in modo, why not duplicate it and go racing? Scott Robertson, Daniel Gardner C After moving the sketch into Photoshop, wheel arches were dropped over the tops of the tyres Scott Robertson

esigner of over 20 years, president of Desi gn Studio Press and director of Entertainmen t Design at the Art Center College of Desi gn in Pasadena, California, Scott Robertson has a fascinating career story which starts with the influence of his late father. As a painter and student of the Art Center in the early Sixties, Scot ts father clearly encouraged his son in the right direction. Through his knowledge of design and drawing he was able to offer Scott the huge boost he needed, as well as an insight into the jobs that exist for creative people with the right design and visua l communication skills. Though his fathe rs path was one in illustration, Scotts passion for trans portation design steered him in another direction at the Art Center in 1987, but the reality of designing production cars didnt quite provide the challenge hed hoped for in the end, as Scott expla ins, After graduation I found that the idea of desig ning production cars seemed to be a bit too slow for me. So I sought out the design of consume r products that needed a lot of the styling influences I enjoyed developing for cars during school. Ope ning a design consultancy with Neville Page the day after graduation, Scotts 20-plus year caree r took off, with clients going on to include Fiat, Rockstar Games and Sony Online Entertainment, as well as contributions to feature films such as Steven Spielberg s Minority Report. This showcase takes a look at some of Scotts latest personal work while giving an insig ht into his impressive creative workflow. Inspired pub lish ing Speciality publisher Design Studio Press was born in 2001 as a direct response to Scotts fathe rs death. It was at his funeral when I saw how man y of his fellow artist friends showed up that I took stock of

A lack of fundamental design knowledge, I believe, is the core weakness of most 3D work online
my own professional relationships since graduating from Art Center, Scott says. I found that I had become so busy with work that I had really lost touch with the great friends I had during scho ol. I wanted to try and rekindle the fun of doing personal work that I used to experience with my friends durin g design school. And thats how Design Studio Press first title Concept Design came to be. Concept Design 2 followed in 2006 after a number of othe r successful releases, along with self-authored titles Lift Off and Start Your Engines in the same year featu ring professional and personal sketches, conc ept designs and colour renderings of everything from airships to hovercrafts, and futuristic and retrospec tive car designs. DRIVE is Scotts latest personal project featuring a new array of fast cars, off-r oaders, motorcycles and monster vehicles from a whole range of genres. And hes not stopping there. Regarding my next personal books I have three projects in the works, Scott reveals. One is a collection of spaceship sketches and rend erings done with Annis Naeem and Danny Gard ner who helped me wrap up the content for DRIV E. Another is a collaboration with John Park, Daniel Park and Ben Mauro, which will feature sketches and renderings of a wide variety of robots. The book I woul d most like to focus on, though, is my long-put-off and overdue educational book sharing the drawing, rendering and design techniques which I have taught over the last 16 years.

After a few hours of modelling and rendering in modo, Annis Naeem painted over this openwheel sci-fi racer, nudging it visually even further beyond our own time and space Scott Robertson, Annis Naeem

The challe nge of inve ntion Keeping vehicle designs continuously fresh and stimulating isnt always easy. One way I try to keep my design fresh is to look at work onlin e so as not to create something Ive seen before, Scott says. By knowing what has been done befo re I can

DRIVE
Daniel Simon, vehicle designer for TRON: Legacy and author of Cosmic Motors tells 3D Artist why Scott Robertsons DRIVE is well worth the investment

Where to buy: www.designstudiopress.com

I want to be like Scott Robertson, Daniel says. Hes always trying something fresh and being so successful at it. His previous book Alien Race taught us how to use a MacBook camera to create myriad new shapes and characters in minutes. Now, Scott shows us with DRIVE how versatile the fuel-injected side of his brain is. DRIVE s broad vehicle fleet includes trashy salvage racecars, sleek futuristic moon rovers, experimentally shaped beauty-coupes and much more. To step up his game, Scott entered the ever-growing 3D community within only two years and fearlessly rocks modo. The results of this playful software usage are amazing. And, like with many of his books, Scott offers centre stage to young Art Center College of Design students to showcase their talents in DRIVE its Annis Naeem and Daniel Gardner and you can clearly recognise them all on the very cool book cover. So, all of us gearheads have a bad day without ideas once in a while, and thats the day you wish you had a copy of DRIVE to spark a thought. Scott, thank you for this book! See more of Daniels work at www.cosmic-motors.com.
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Strengthen your designs
Having been watching others share their work online Scott has picked up on a trend that suggests foundational understanding of design will often let good concepts down
Scott says, The software will never save a bad idea. Another very noticeable thing in viewing a lot of the 2D work people post online is that there is a very strong lack of drawing ability being presented. On the 3D side I see a lot of beautiful models and nice renderings, but I rarely see stunning designs or compelling scenarios being shown. A lack of fundamental design knowledge, I believe, is the core weakness of most 3D work online.

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Interview
D A hint of the vehicles massive scale can be derived from the size of the windows Scott Robertson, Annis Naeem E These sketches explore the design of an off-road, open-wheel vehicle, adding to the aerospace aesthetic with sci-fi tyres, exploration-style lights and an exposed engine Scott Robertson F After rendering the ExoPod, Annis dropped it into his sci-fi landscape to give us a sense of the vehicle in its otherworldly environment Scott Robertson, Annis Naeem

Poly modelling is so rubbery compared to NURBS modelling, which is much more akin to the way I was formally trained

[avoid] repeating our past while I try to invent my next creation. Always carrying a cam era whenever he visits an industrial, military, aerospac e or aircraft museum to shoot reference for future projects helps with creative inspiration too. And collaborations with other artists keep him energised working with Annis Naee m and Daniel Gardner on DRIVE, their fabulous work attitude and ethic were both motivating and inspiring. Annis and Danny are two of my former stud ents from Art Center and I find it fun to collaborate on projects with my students if they are doing an internship for me, Scott adds. I really like sharing my techniques with them and seeing the great work they create with the knowledge. With DRIVE, the approach was to conc ept vehicles for the videogame space. Of course, designing for the game space is a lot of fun first

Master your foundation skills so yo u will have the communication tools you need to convey your designs to others
off, which is the goal, Scott continue s. The real challenge is in the range of styles you need to be able to achieve much like designing for any entertainment experience, the content/ design is driven by the narrative. Since you, as the concept designer, do not control this narrative and everything you design should help to enrich the experience, you need to have great rang e if you want to work on more than only one part of a game. When you design vehicles for a real-world brand you must pay attention to the heritage and all of your efforts go to the refineme nt of the brand aesthetic into the future. In desig ning content for a game, often you are chall enged to create rivalling aesthetics so players can associate with different-looking factions. It is this exercise of designing the opposites that I find both challenging and rewarding to pursue.

Value and colour are strong visual communicators in the design process. Scott always thinks of colour second after value, preferring to see the form of a design first. Our brains perceive this through value chan ge and not colour change, so I tend to set up all my lighting this way first, Scott tells us. After that I pick my colours based on the character or style of the vehicle I am trying to create. In the case of the first chapter of DRIVE Aerospace the vehic le colours help to give you the feeling of the classic NASA rockets and spacecraft. White, black and gold metallised glass and a couple of blue or red accents help me to achieve the desir ed aesthetic for that chapter. The Military vehicles stay matte finish for the most part and are low in saturation compared to, say, the Pro Sports vehic les which are much brighter and louder, saying, Look at me, Im red, I must be fast! Although the vehicles designed in DRIVE have not yet been taken in game, Scott hopes a few interested parti es in the movie business might trickle dow n into games one day.

All of the weathering of the vehicles is done after rendering in modo none of it is done with texture maps or in the program itself
After scratching away the paint, the Levels adjustment mask is duplicated and switched to a Color adjustment layer, which gives colour control over the surface revealed under the paint

Dirty Work

Another technique used is to add a Levels adjustment layer between the two colour layers and, by setting the levels to lighten the values of the base rendering, scratches can be added through the paint to the bare metal

The dirt is added in Photoshop through compositing a dirt rendering of the vehicle on top of the clean colour one, and erasing it to reveal the colours of the base rendering below

The graphics and details are added on the very top layer many of which are then erased away as well

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A path of least res istance vated by a When it comes to design, Scott is moti es. creat he h desire to expand the ways in whic says. t Scot ion, creat of Necessity is the mother to ine pipel my of n tatio adap an , Or, in this case a from ing Com rs. othe with icate commun ground, the traditional drawing and rendering back overcome to was ine pipel addition of modo into his drawings hic grap ortho ing creat of the tiring process and front hing matc in s ering rend r colou and final ering rend later , rear three-quarter views by hand cts where them in Photoshop. Following several proje of ber num large very a g icatin he was commun this , ellers mod of p grou a to ns desig vehicle t to speed up integration of modo now enables Scot ortions in prop le vehic his workflow by blocking out establish ly quick to s bnail thum loose 3D after a few ess in proc this ed start first I tion. direc n his desig to the due o mod to SketchUp, but quickly gravitated the of side ering rend the wonderful ease of use of now way this rking Wo . adds t program, Scot el in place of enables me to provide a rough 3D mod rtant things impo my orthos ensuring that the most are e stanc and the proportions, silhouette still not a Im ible. poss as ly clear as d communicate up for this make can I eller. mod nt patie or very clean skills ering rend by falling back on my traditional to is it easy how love inside Photoshop. I really modo. of out base ering rend ng looki establish a niceskip and p I add things like the cut lines in Photosho them on the model. ts The biggest influence of modo on Scot with on ntati rime expe his been workflow has me to create replicators. These items have helped
Danny Gardner did a great paintover on top of a 3D model rendering to create the Black Widow in all of its salvaged glory Scott Robertson, Daniel Gardner

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Interview

ish a I really love how easy it is to establ o mod nice-looking rendering base out of
I would not very complex surfaces and environments tI doub usly serio I otherwise have created, and me taken have d woul it time the would have invested with play to easy so is it , Also its. adm t Scot to draw, ls to big shapes and the arrangement of whee re moving befo ns ortio investigate very different prop this start les vehic es etim Som on to the surfacing. I have after r pape and pen to move I then way and program. made some nice discoveries in the 3D t about two Scot took it t, A self-taught modo artis are to get softw the with play ff months of on-and-o a model up set ly quick could he e wher to the point which he 301, and get a usable render from version hing watc of top on started out on. And thats g friends tutorials, reading the manual and askin has become ram prog the Now . tions ques plenty of up, Scott set to r faster and the renders much easie much me taken has it adds. On the modelling side focus to time free gh enou find to longer as I have yet rush just I so able, avail tools elling mod the on all of rubbery through and wing it. Poly modelling is so much more is h whic , elling compared to NURBS mod build to ed train ally form was akin to the way I , foam, etc. traditional media models in clay, wood een e Mixing it up, Scott will fluidly mov betw just to try I ia. med al traditional 2D and 3D digit ts. men com t Scot e, tanc resis least pick the path of the on ils deta ting swea of ad inste nce, For insta Photoshop model or doing cut lines, I will jump into ct Alchemy and do those. The open drawing proje tunnels for ting crea to e cam it when l usefu was also in rn one project: I might create a nice patte h in brus m custo a as it Alchemy and then capture to map a Alph long a t pain d woul I Photoshop where rial mate the on mask il stenc a as o use in mod have an shader of a cylinder, and I would then el tunn 3D ing instantly complex, sci-fi-look der. cylin bent a only elled mod structure having is one rule there , tively intui s work t Scot ugh Altho have that he always tries to follow: If I could another r faste or r created the same result bette remember and try ld shou I way way then that is the s take It ins. expla t Scot e, futur the to do it in Oh say, and discipline to look back on a days work r pape of piece and pen my, why didnt I just use a I s? hour ten for r pute com my at instead of sitting on the Or, r! bette h muc so job the done would have l for ten flipside, Why did I just paint this whee it in modo in ered rend hours? I could have built and one! just not four all have three and would in the ested inter mely extre and d ahea ing Look , tools tion use of 3D programs as rapid-visualisa es ibiliti poss the ring Scott hopes to keep explo red books. within the pages of his future self-autho impact of the sees he how up sum to d When aske es repli t 3D software on concept design, Scot Six the like just ger simply, Faster, better, stron ! Million Dollar Man
This beast was born through the introduction of a huge turbine engine running the length of the car the driver was forced off to one side to make room for the engine! Scott Robertson, Daniel Gardner

out from the crowd Tips for Stand with design skills youll be of. Scott shares a few budding proud words of advice for artists budding concept designers
Get to a good school or at least pick up some good books, magazines and DVDs on the subject, Scott counsels. Learn from the past. Master your foundation skills so you will have the communication tools you need to convey your designs to others; practise designing content for stories not just drawing, modelling and rendering things you personally like. The job, at the end of the day, is to be able to provide endless design options for all of the things environments, characters, vehicles and props that are needed to support and enhance a narrative.

Here is a nice example of modos new tools being put to good use; lots of 3D model parts were kit-bashed into this beast Scott Robertson, Daniel Gardner

Kit-bashing was used extensiv ely in the Salvage chapter of DRI VE. Scott explains, The premise for this chapter was that the vehicles were created by a bunch of gea rheads who had access to a hug e junk yard of old engines and othe r vehicle parts. After establishin g this scenario for the chapter I was faced with how could we quickly achieve this aesthetic in our rend erings? The basic idea is that by using existing parts digital or traditional you can very quic kly build something you would nev er have the resources to do from scratch. The resource I was sho rt on was time. I did some digg ing on the internet and found a few site s that sell various 3D digital par ts royalty free. I started a lot of the vehicles in the Salvage chapter this way by buy ing odd parts then digitally modifying and recombi ning bits and pieces. Wed do the sam e process with 2D photography Id go and shoot various mechanical parts in places like aircraft museums. Using our painting skil ls in Photoshop we were able to create high-detail renderings wel l beyond what we could have accomplished had we modelle d ever y single part from scratch.

Taking the traditional technique of kit-bashing, performed by media modellers for a long time now, Scotts designs apply the digital equiva lent

KIT-BASHING

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