“In reality, nothing is perfect and our brains know that!” – David Letondor
David Letondor
David describes himself as a self-taught 3D artist.
Having learned Maya on his own (by reading the documentation, no less…) he eventually landed a job in an architectural visualization company.
He then went to work for a company in Geneva making 3D models of watches by high-end Swiss manufacturers such as Vacheron Constantin. I happened upon one of his watch models online and was immediately taken with their intricate details and complexity.
I wanted to pick his brain on how he goes about creating such complex works and asked him a few questions.
Bogdan: What made you choose 3D modeling as a career, was there a defining moment when you realized that’s what you wanted to do?
David: At the very beginning, I was very interested in all the different aspects of CGI. I started to learn by myself when I was studying mechanical engineering. It was not easy at that time not only because of my very poor English but also because there were few tutorials and YouTube was not there to help. I remember spending so much time trying to learn everything inside Maya, reading all the documentation in order to learn something new.
I was attracted by everything! …so I learned everything! …and this conduced me to be a 3D Generalist.
Later when I got my first job I was quite quick at modeling but a bit slow for the other tasks, especially for rendering because you need to be really methodical and organized. In addition, when your work for someone other than yourself, you cannot take your time to make things, and if we add on top the pressure of the incoming deadline of the project, you start to get a lot of weight on you.
So I realized I should probably stick with something where I am comfortable and which I enjoy the most. Modeling is really fun when you know your tools and it becomes easier each year because of the industry which is moving fast with new automatic tools.
Harry Winston – Opus 13
Did you try your hand at (digital) drawing or painting? Do you think it’s a prerequisite for 3D work?
Just like many artists, I studied human anatomy, perspective, and color theory by sketching with my pen on paper.
I really think knowing digital or non-digital painting or drawing can be a bonus for any artist because you can easily and visually expose your ideas to the director or clients or even for yourself. It can be about the design, environment, textures, mood or lighting etc…
Of course, these are skills that take time and practice and if you want to be an animator or modeler you don’t need to get to a high level.
Personally, I have a very basic level and sometimes my paintings still look like they’re made by kids but that’s enough to get the rough idea and show the direction to the client.
Cadillac Eldorado
What kind of workflow did you have when working on very complex models such as watches?
First, the client sends his CAD model. From that point, the different pieces of geometry are remodeled for several reasons. For example, it allows you to deform and animate the mechanism, your scene is less heavy in terms of poly count, you can instance many pieces, it simplifies UV mapping in some cases and you can also choose the smoothing iteration for rendering when you have big close-ups.
Also, the main issue with CAD models is their perfection. In reality, nothing is perfect and our brains know that! By remodeling, you can add some slight deformations and damage the geometry a bit. It doesn’t have to be strong, just enough to fit the reality. This also allows you to cheat a little and change the way the reflections will appear, to enhance the important parts of the watch.
Concerning the leather bracelet, the manufacturer sent a sample of the bracelet, and from that I could take photos and extract a displacement map I projected inside Zbrush, then I started to sculpt and add micro details on top. The final displacement is finally sent to 3dsMax and sometimes combined with a normal map to improve tiny details.
Once the modeling is done, the watch is rigged, textured, animated and rendered.
Vacheron Constantin – Copernicus Celestial
There must be hundreds of parts for each watch, how much time does it take to create a watch?
Yes, some watches can have 800 parts but in general 600 is a mid number. It is hard to tell you a time, every project is different and also every client (manufacturer) is different.
For modeling, a good kitbash can save your life when you have parts that come back regularly. However, there is a large number of pieces you need to make. The rest of the work really depends on the length of the movie. Sometimes we even started the project with temporary CAD files. That ment the real watch was not built, the shapes not finished and the manufacturer was still working on it. In this particular case, there was a lot of back and forth.
In certain watches, some parts are sculpted with ZBrush and take way more time to do rather than classical mechanical pieces but they are the most fun to do.
Vacheron Constantin – Grande Sonnerie
For such exclusive timepieces, were there any special requests from the client regarding the project?
Every client has a special request. They want a particular type of reflection on the watch, they want a particular material or a particular sharpness on the model. They want a particular camera movement or camera position. Everything is codified.
On the Malte Tourbillon from Vacheron Constantin, the manufacturer wanted a micro sculpting on top of the skeleton of the watch. We didn’t have the time to model the entire piece (it was CAD data), and it was difficult to sculpt all the details in ZBrush because of the subdivision error from the weird CAD topology. So we created a pattern and duplicated it on a texture displacement map we have projected on top of the CAD, but it didn’t work as expected, again because of the triangulated topology. So I remodeled only the top part and tried to blend it in a smart way with the CAD and it worked well.
If you look closely at the details, you can realize the insane amount of skill and patience the master watchmakers need for sculpting these pieces onto the real watch. I have always been impressed by those masters. This is why handmade Swiss watches are so unique and beautiful.
Before creating watch models, you worked in architectural, as well as car modeling, which one of them did you find more challenging?
In Arch Viz it can be hard to translate a simple 2D plan in 3D, but once you understand that, a building or a house is not so complicated because you don’t really care about the topology.
With the watch industry, you really do care about the topology. Your modeling needs to be really clean but fortunately, in some cases, you can have the chance to be a bit dirty on some pieces because they are so small that they will probably not be noticed in the animation.
Car modeling is, in my opinion, the most challenging. Nowadays car designers are really inventive and produce nicer and more complicated shapes. Your topology needs to be perfect in order to produce nice reflections along the car. Any pinching will be noticed, that’s why the key is to be organized and have a clear view of the topology in your mind before starting modeling in order to prevent any trouble. For me, the most complicated parts are headlights and taillights, however, when you create a car for games you’re able to fake it with maps if your poly count needs to be low.
You told me that after 10 years of work with Maya and 3dsMax you decided to switch to Blender. Why make the switch?
A friend started to work with Blender and showed me a lot of videos. I’ve been impressed by the interactive Boolean. I know Maya has done many improvements on the subject but I found this feature really powerful inside a free software. He also showed me how to create crazy custom pie menus and the possibility to change every hotkey in order to improve his workflow.
So I started to try it myself, it was really hard at the beginning because of the different logic of the software for someone coming from an Autodesk background. I remember it was the same with ZBrush and you just need to practice to forget this annoying point.
I like the community, I like the ton of free add-ons, and I like to see how fast the developers are working on each new version. I think, nowadays Blender became really professional and powerful, it is not perfect, and some things are missing but without a doubt, it can compete with other software… so please, take the chance and try it!
Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR
Coming from a more let’s say “classic” (3dMax, Maya) environment, how do you find Blender as a production tool?
To make it simple, in terms of modeling, everything I can do in 3dsMax can be done with Blender. My switch is recent so I cannot speak about rigging, texture or shading but about modeling, and once you know the rules you can apply them to any software.
Booleans are so useful. The viewport is also very stable. When I was working with 3dsMax in the watch industry, I started to keep a Blender window on my second screen and send a bit of modeling to it from time to time. It was not easy at the beginning but with time and practice I really sped up my daily job.
Overall Blender is really cool but for some things. It is still not user-friendly, for example, if you want to make a circular array of an object, it takes too many steps while you can do it with one click button in 3dsMax. Some minor things like this are really frustrating at the beginning but luckily sometimes you can find free add-ons to speed up things.
Any advice for artists out there who what to take on some complex projects?
Stay open to the industry, expand your knowledge and workflow as far as you can. Be creative, organized, methodical, and don’t be afraid of challenging projects because this is what will push your skills.
Have fun!
Check out David’s work at davidletondor.com and on Artstation
