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I started using Cinema 4D a few months after getting my VR headset a year ago. Up until then I'd been using Marmoset Toolbag for setting up my VR scenes, lighting them, adding atmosphere and so on. Pretty quickly I felt like I reached the limit of what Marmoset could do, as great a program as it is. I needed a program to handle animation, scene setup, advanced lighting, atmospherics and particles. The best VR headsets for 2018 My eyes quickly fell on Cinema 4D, a tool that I saw people praise for its ease of use and versatility. I'd been toying around with Octane standalone, and wanted to see how Octane and Cinema 4D would work with my VR sculpts. For those of you who don't know Octane already, it's a very fast renderer that gives you almost instant feedback on the changes you make to your scene. It's GPU-based and works with NVIDIA GPUs only. I have a NVIDIA 1080 Ti card that performs very well with Octane. In this Cinema 4D tutorial I'll take one of my VR sculpts and combine it with a VR 'drawing' from Quill, in Cinema 4D. I'll take you through how to set up a material that uses the colour information from your VR scene, and talk a bit about the various techniques I use to improve the VR output. None of the VR programs do rendering at the moment, so you'll have to look to external programs for that. The first part of the tutorial will very briefly describe the process of exporting and importing your models. The main focus of the tutorial will be on the work in Cinema 4D and OctaneRender. 01. Export and prepare the first model Keep your model as low-res as possible for easier UV'ing First I import the character I'll be using in my scene. I made a knight in Oculus Medium and exported the model at full resolution as a FBX file to retain layers. I import that FBX to ZBrush. In ZBrush, I make a low-res version of the model using a combination of Decimation Master and ZRemesher. I try to go as low-res as possible, for an easier time UV'ing. I then add UVs using UV Master. Remember to break your model up into polygroups in order to give UV Master an easier time. Once everything is UV'ed, I export a low-res version of the model, and a high-res for the texture-baking process. 02. Textures or Vertex paint? I could bypass the process in Step 1 by painting the model in Medium and then use the vertex colour information in Cinema 4D along with the high-res version of the mesh. I decided to do a proper texture pass though, for the higher fidelity it gives and for the added performance you get from using a low-poly mesh with normal maps. I use the Vertex Color workflow for the backdrop for the knight, and I'll go over that later in the tutorial. 03. Move to Substance Painter I import the low-res knight model to Substance Painter, bake maps using the high-res mesh and paint the model. The important thing here when exporting to Cinema 4D and OctaneRender is to select the PBR metallic export settings. That will export a Base Color map, Roughness Map, Metallic map and a Normal map. 04. Set up knight in C4D Import your model and activate the Live View I'll set up the knight in Cinema 4D first, save him and then set up the environment. I do the character and backdrop as separate pieces first, to get better overall performance while testing out material properties. In the File menu I choose Merge and import the low-poly FBX file. The layers of the FBX file appear in the Object Manager window in the upper-right corner of C4D. I rename layers if needed, select them all, right-click and group to keep things manageable. I open the Octane Live Viewer window through the Octane > Live Viewer Window menu item at the top of the C4D window. In the Live Viewer window, I click the small Octane logo in the top-left corner to activate the live view. 05. Let there be light! Add a light source to get a better view of your materials To better see the materials, I have to add a light source to the scene. There's several types to choose from in the Live Viewer window under Objects > Lights. I choose a daylight. This adds a Octane Daylight object in our Object Manager. I select this, and reposition the sun using the rotate tool in the main viewport. I also add a plane object from the command groups in the upper portion of C4D. I reposition the plane to match the feet of the knight. 06. Set up materials Once you've set up one material, the rest will be easy I'll go over setting up only one of the materials, since each will be the same process. I start with the shield and shoulder pads material. To set up a material from Substance Painter in OctaneRender, the easiest way is to open LiveDB under Materials in the Live Viewer. In here you'll find a large collection of preset materials and template materials like the ones for Substance Painter. The Substance template is under Materials > Misc > Substance PBR. There are a few materials that are named the same; pick the one that has some texture on it. Choosing this will give us a template with materials in the right slots, which means we can just replace those with our own. Easy! I right-click and select Download, and the material appears in the Materials tab under the main viewport. This actually consists of three materials: a Mix material, a Dielectric part and a Metallic part. 07. Use the node editor I double-click the Mix material, then click the Node Editor button. I open the folder I saved my textures in, and locate the ones for the shoulder pads and shield. Since I have five material sets, I use the search bar in the Explorer window to speed things up. Then it's just a matter of dragging the Base Color, Roughness, Metallic and Normal maps from the Explorer folder, directly into the Node Editor. 08. Replace materials This might look complicated, but you'll get the hang of it, probably I click the Base Color map I just imported, and copy its path from the Properties panel to the right in the Node Editor. Then I select the Albedo maps in the original Substance material, and paste the new path there. I do the same for the Roughness, Metallic and Normal maps. Once that's done, I can drag the Mix material from the Material Manager to the shoulder pads. I can drag it either to the object in the main viewport, or to the object in the Object Manager. The node layout is actually a lot less complicated than it looks. It's just a matter of replacing some file paths basically. I hope the process gets even simpler in future versions of Octane. 09. Inspect the result After setting up all of the materials and applying them to their objects, it's time to inspect the model. I use the Live Viewer for this and play around with the lights to see what the materials look like under different lighting conditions. Once I'm happy with the result, I save the scene. 10. Add rocks Get your rocks on I make some rocks in Oculus Medium, and take them through ZBrush for low-res/high-res and then through Substance Painter for textures. The workflow is exactly the same as that of the knight. 11. Save and import the backdrop With Quill you can make a backdrop like this in a couple of hours or so I make a new scene for the backdrop. I've exported the Quill file as an FBX file, which retains the layers and colours. Here's what the background looks like in Quill with flat, unlit colours. Quill is an amazing tool once you get comfortable with it. It's a very quick way to work, and this backdrop took roughly two hours to do and maybe an extra hour for the fairy character. Everything was made from scratch here. If you use the program a lot for nature scenes for example, you can make a library of plants and elements you could then reuse to make even quicker scenes. I recommend you check out Goro Fujita's Quill videos for more in-depth info on how Quill works. I choose Merge again from the File menu, and import my scene. 12. Organise Quill scene Nothing to see here, move along As you can see in the scene hierarchy, all layers from Quill are retained, and each layer has a symbol next to it with nine small dots. This is a Vertex Color Tag and indicates that the object contains vertex colour data. In the scene I've made I have a lot of layers, and I'd have to do a unique material for each to use the respective object's vertex information. Since most of the layers will have the same material properties, I merge them by selecting all leaves and grass in the hierarchy, right-clicking and selecting Connect Objects + Delete. This will also merge the vertex paint data, and I'll only have to make one material for each group. I then merge all three stems, all layers of the fairy (except the wings which will have a unique material) and so on. By doing this I end up with much fewer vertex colour materials than I'd have if I made one for each Quill layer. Now it's time to open the Live Viewer window and start it by pressing the Octane logo. Without lights or materials the scene doesn't look like much. 13. Position lighting Use the Live Viewer to work out the best lighting setup I add a daylight through the Objects > Lights menu in the Live Viewer. I reposition the light using the rotate tool. The Live Viewer gives me instant feedback on what my edits look like. I'm aiming for a sunrise mood in my scene, so I position the sun low on the horizon to the right, just beneath the branches of the tree with the skull. Once I'm satisfied with the position, it's time to add vertex colour to the elements of the scene. 14. Make a vertex colour material You can quickly add new materials in the Live Viewer In the Octane Live Viewer window, I select Materials > Diffuse Material. This will add a new material to the Material tab under the main viewport. I double-click this material and open the Node Editor. In here, there's a 'material box' that represents the new material. In the search bar above the node window, I type 'vertex' to filter out material types I don't need. I then drag out the Vertex Map box into the node window. I drag a node connection between the yellow dot in the corner of the vertex map and the empty circle next to diffuse. To get the vertex colours from the object to show up in the material, drag the Vertex Tag next to the object in the Object Manager, over to the Vertex Map slot in the material editor. I rename the material in the Material Manager to 'foliage', and drag the material onto the corresponding object in the scene hierarchy. In the Live Viewer window, I now see my scene come to life material by material. I repeat the vertex colour material process for each element. 15. Create an emissive material Don't be afraid of the spooky glowing skull For the magic glow coming from the skull in the tree, I want an emissive material to emit a red magic effect. So in the Live Viewer window, I choose Materials > Diffuse Material. I then open the new material from the Materials tab and click the Emissive category. Here I select Blackbody Emission which will make the material emit light. I then open the Texture tab, and set Power to around 2 and Temperature in the warm side of the spectrum, which is to the left on the Temp slider. While doing this I constantly check in the Live Viewer window in order to see if the result is as I expect. 16. Add distant mountains Add mountains as basic geometry rather than drawing them in Quill I felt like the scene needed some more depth, so I decided to add some mountains in the far distance. Instead of drawing those in Quill, I just add some quick geometry using the basic object function that you'll find in the top part of the C4D interface. I choose the Landscape function, which gives me a basic mountain that I can tweak and move into place using the position and scale tool. I duplicate this basic mountain multiple times, until I get the landscape I'm looking for. In the Object Properties for the landscape element, you can change the seed number for each mountain to make them unique. If you want the Live Viewer to use a fixed camera angle, to make sure your composition looks good while moving elements around, go to the Live Viewer, and under Options, uncheck Check Camera. 17. Include clouds The VDB Clouds Pack is a great way to add clouds To add some mood and depth to my scene, I decide to add some clouds. They will also help me separate the planes of the background elements. For this, I use the Objects > Octane VDB volume. VDB volumes are a way of storing volumetric data such as clouds or fire. I use a set of cloud VDBs called VDB Clouds Pack. The Octane VDB object appears in the Object Manager. In its properties, I choose a suiting VDB cloud in the file path. In this scene, the VDB volume is very small, so I have to scale it quite a lot for it to be seen. I make several copies and scale them between 300 and 1,000x in the object coord. settings. In the Medium settings in the object properties, I play around with the density of the VDB volume until I get a result I like – in this case, around 20. 18. Add the character Merge the knight with your scene; all the materials will be carried over Now that I'm happy with the overall look and mood of the scene, I import my knight model by choosing File > Merge and selecting the C4D scene I saved earlier. All the materials we set up for the knight will be imported along with him. The pivot point of the character is offset a bit, but that's easy to change in C4D. I press the Enable Axis button in the left toolbar and drag the pivot point to the middle of the knight. I use the transform tools to move him into place. I place him by the edge of the small forest, and I have him looking directly at the ominous burning skull. At the moment, the knight is totally unaware of the fairy who's looking at him from her hiding place behind a big rock. 19. Set up a camera To begin playing with camera settings and post-processing, I have to make a dedicated Octane camera for my scene. To do this, I click the Objects > Octane Camera menu item. This adds a camera to our Object Manager. Notice the little open white square with a cross in the middle next to the camera name? To activate the Octane camera, you need to press this symbol. Otherwise you won't see the changes you make in the camera settings. If you press the camera name, you'll see the standard C4D camera options. The only ones here that I use are the focal length, sensor width and focus object settings. The rest of the changes I'll be doing are under the Octane Camera Tag. Before going into detail about that process, I feel like the scene could use a bit more light. 20. Add more lights Don't forget the fairy lights I'd like to have a rim light around the knight to make him stand out more from the background. In the Live Viewer I click Objects > Lights > Octane Area Light and position the light behind the knight. I tweak the size of the light-emitting plane by pulling on the small orange dots at the top/bottom/sides. I make sure the light source is large enough for the light to 'wrap around' the character. I tweak the power of the light and the temperature until I get a result I like. I also add a light that shines on the road, one that adds more red light around the skull, and a blue light that illuminates the fairy's wings and surroundings. To hide the light emitter planes in the render, I go to Visibility under the Octane Light Tag and deselect Camera Visibility. 21. Post-process You can do all of your post-processing in Octane Camera Tag Post-processing can be performed in either the Octane Camera Tag, or in OctaneRender settings. I always do it in the Camera Tag since it's easier to access. If you had multiple cameras and were switching between those, it would perhaps make sense to do it through OctaneRender settings. I click the Octane Camera Tag next to my camera, and tweak the settings under Camera Imager and Post Processing. In Camera Imager I add a vignette effect, and in Post Processing I add bloom and glare to get a lens flare effect. 22. Render and final tweaks Go to Render > Edit Render Settings in the C4D top menu. In here I switch from Standard renderer to Octane Renderer. In the Output submenu, I choose the final render size. In the Octane Live Viewer window I switch from Chn: DL (direct lighting) to Chn: PT (path tracing), which takes longer to render but gives a better result. I hit Render > Render To Picture Viewer in the C4D top menu. Lastly, I take the final render through Photoshop and tweak curves, add a stronger blue glow to the fairy and tweak the overall appearance of the image. This article was originally published in issue 237 of 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Subscribe to 3D World here. Related articles: How to bring a 2D character to life in VR 5 tips to improve your VR creations Convert a photo into a VR set View the full article

Like most recent years, this one's been a busy one when it comes to web design. Each month we've seen new tools and apps emerge and change the industry landscape. To help us all take stock, the team at Market Inspector have picked the brains of 40 experts and rounded up their findings in a handy infographic. Between them, the experts came up with 15 key trends that have shaped 2018 so far. Ranked in order of importance, this list covers chatbots, VR integration, video content and more. Which ones will continue into 2019? Only time will tell. Check out the infographic below. Click the infographic to read advice from the experts Do you agree with the experts? Or have they missed a crucial web design trend? If you're after extra information on each of these trends, the experts have shared more detailed insights over on the Market Inspector site. Breaking down each topic one by one, the minds behind the infographic give a reasoned look at why each trend was included. Bold colours and gradients appear to be the standout trend to take note of, while custom images and mobile designs continue to be important factors to consider. Virtual Reality is low on the list, but it's still worth taking note of. A lot can change in 12 months so who knows, perhaps it will be on the up in 2019. Related articles: The best online web design courses 15 great web design podcasts An essential guide to web design etiquette View the full article

Humans are visual creatures, and that's why strong visuals are important for helping the viewers of your website or readers of your blog stay engaged. If you don't have the time or know-how to create your own visual content, why not use ones that are ready made? The DesignShock Banner Template Bundle offers over 3,000 banners, giving you the ability to bring your website up a notch, without having to figure out how to use Photoshop. Each banner can be tailored to fit your needs, as the images, buttons, and text can all be edited. If you do know how to use Photoshop, you can tinker with the banner to further edit and customise the visuals. Try out the DesignShock Banner Template Bundle for just $14. Related articles: The best online web design courses 15 great web design podcasts An essential guide to web design etiquette View the full article

This article was originally published in 2017. Who doesn't want to go freelance? You get to set your own schedule, enjoy working from home in the comfort of your pyjamas, and possibly make more money than you would in conventional employment. What's more, you'll be able to complete those personal projects you've been putting off, right? Yeah, about that... Turns out the freelance life isn't the fast track to personal creative satisfaction that you might think it is. In this brilliant comic from Norwegian illustrator Cathrine Luzette, the circle of productivity despair many freelancers encounter is beautifully brought to life. 14 imaginative web comics to inspire you One minute freelancers are punching the air because they've finished their commission, the next they're in a panic as they try to score their next gig. It's a struggle we're sure lots of freelancers can relate to, but it's not often we see it illustrated so wonderfully as in Luzette's comic. Check it out below. Related articles: The freelance survival guide 20 tools that make freelancing easier 6 ways to collect payments as a freelancer View the full article

Five out of six name brand routers, such as Linksys, NETGEAR and D-Link, contain known open-source vulnerabilities. View the full article

Ever read a passage of text only to realise that you didn't take it in? It's a problem that affects a lot of readers, especially students cramming in exam season. To give text more traction and make it easier to remember, Melbourne-based researchers at RMIT University have created a fun font that makes reading harder. The appropriately named Sans Forgetica does this by taking advantage of "desirable difficulty". This line of thought argues that a small obstruction aids the learning process by forcing a person to create a memory trace. To make reading legible but also difficult, the Sans Forgetica typeface has been riddled with gaps and given a seven degree back slant. The result is a jarring font that requires an extra bit of effort on the reader's part. It only takes a fraction of a second longer to read, but Sans Forgetica already appears to be making a difference. Sans Forgetica co-creator Stephen Banham advises you read the typeface in small bursts As part of a study by the university, students noticed a small increase in memory retention when reading text in Sans Forgetica compared to Arial. The 400 participants were found to remember 57 per cent of Sans Fogetica text, and only 50 per cent when reading Arial. Despite the promising statistics, Sans Forgetica has limitations. Typography lecturer and Sans Forgetica co-creator Stephen Banham told The Guardian that the typeface is best suited to short passages. "You wouldn’t want novels printed in it, it would probably induce a headache." Sans Forgetica took six months to develop and went through three different iterations. With a promising study behind it, it's hoped that the typeface could also be used to aid proofreading. You can download this free font here. Related articles: Take a look at the world's most rubbish font Famous logos redesigned as fonts How to use web fonts View the full article

You're reading Meet Vivaldi 2.0: Faster, Safer and Personal, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Vivaldi, created by Opera Software’s co-founder and former CEO Jon von Tetzchner, an Icelandic programmer and businessman, is the browser you are looking for: A fast, fun and strong contender to both long-established big names Firefox and Chrome. For sure, … View the full article

Around a year ago, news of Harvey Weinstein's history of misconduct broke. It sparked a new movement across social media, with women across the world expressing solidarity with the victims of sexual harassment and assault by tagging their stories #MeToo. Since then, the movement has snowballed. Award-winning data visualisation designer Valentina D'Efilippo decided to chart its development in an interactive infographic, entitled MeToomentum. "The genesis of this project was a rather simple question," she explains. "Can social media become a vehicle to foster social change, and help reshape traditional views?" The design includes information about the themes, geographical footprint and key moments. Users can click on different elements to read individual tweets and explore conversations surrounding them, or explore the timeline of events to see how the phenomenon developed. Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image It's a fascinating piece of data visualisation, not only in terms of content, but also in capturing how social media can define a phenomenon (D'Efilippo labels it 'the anatomy of a hashtag'). It focuses on the first six months of the movement, and analyses around 200,000 tweets from that time, gathered using the Twitter API. "When it came to outlining the visual structure, we were seeking a metaphor to reinforce some of the movements key characteristics – its complexity, its ability to spread and take hold, and its representation of both strength and fragility," she comments. They settled on a dandelion. "Often considered a weed – and certainly a pest to anyone pursuing the perfect green patch – the dandelion is renowned for its ability to spread and grow anywhere," she adds. "But from another angle, the dandelion is a beautiful and complex flower. One which has been used in popular culture to symbolise endurance, growth, and the possibility of change." Read more about how D'Efilippo created the MeToomentum infographic in this Medium post. Read more: Incredible tools for creating infographics Infographic: 14 design terms you might be getting wrong How to create amazing infographics View the full article

Full-frame cameras have a lot to offer the creative photographer, and they come in a wide range of shapes and sizes. To help you figure out which is the right model for you, we've rounded up our pick of the best full-frame cameras in a range of different categories. If you're not sure it's a full-frame camera you want, we also have a guide to the best camera for creatives. So what exactly is a full-frame camera, and why would you want one? Full-frame cameras can deliver a tighter depth of field than models with a crop sensor, which can be a major bonus in portraiture and still life photography. The fact that the image sensor has a physically larger surface area can be a key advantage in other ways as well. Manufacturers can cram extra megapixels onto the sensor, increasing the potential for capturing ultra-fine detail and texture. Alternatively, they can stick to a more modest megapixel count and increase the size of the actual photosites, which equate to pixels in the resulting image. Bigger photosites enable the camera to capture more light, which can result in less image noise when shooting at high ISO (sensitivity) settings. Many photographers still prefer conventional DLSRs, with their reflex mirrors and optical viewfinders. However, there's a growing range of mirrorless 'compact system cameras' on the market, with Sony offering a number of full-frame bodies and companion lenses in its lineup. Let's check out the best full-frame cameras on the market to suit your budget and specific requirements. With the notable exceptions of the 5DS and 5DS R, Canon's highly regarded EOS 5D series of cameras have never set the world alight in terms of megapixel count. True to form, the latest Mk IV weighs in with a 30.4MP image sensor, which turns out to be a very good compromise. It enables the camera to capture fine detail extremely well, while also maintaining very clean image quality at high ISO settings, along with a fairly fast 7fps maximum drive rate. The autofocus systems are excellent, with a 61-point phase-detection module for shooting stills through the viewfinder, and Dual Pixel AF for live view and movie capture, the latter of which is available at 4K UHD. Sony's latest flagship mirrorless camera packs a full-frame sensor and dual memory card slots into a typically small and lightweight package. The sensor itself might look unimpressive, with a 24.2 megapixel count, but it's a stacked CMOS device with onboard processing and memory. Advantages include low-noise image quality at very high ISO settings, and blistering continuous drive speeds of up to 20fps, complete with autofocus tracking. An electronic shutter is also on hand, to enable shutter speeds of up to 1/32000th of a second, so you can freeze even the fastest action. The electronic viewfinder is absolutely outstanding and the rear touchscreen is nice and clear, although it only has a tilt facility and lacks full articulation. For outright resolving power, the 45.4MP Nikon D850 clearly wins out against the 30.4MP Canon 5D Mk IV. And despite having 50 per cent more megapixels, it matches the Canon for maximum drive rate, at 7fps. The rear screen is also ultra-high-res, and very easy on the eye. As a pro-grade Nikon, it has a substantially different control layout to consumer-grade cameras like the D750. It's more like a scaled-down Nikon D5, without the built-in vertical grip. As such, it's reasonably small and lightweight for a pro-grade DSLR. The only real downside is that, for shooting under low lighting conditions at high ISO settings, image noise can be rather noticeable, especially compared with the likes of the Canon 5D Mk IV and the super-smooth Nikon D750. This is our pick for the best full-frame budget camera on the market. It took six years for the Mark II edition of Canon's 'enthusiast' level full-frame DSLR to topple the original 6D from its throne. It's been well worth the wait, as the main autofocus system gets a mighty upgrade from 11 AF points with only a single cross-type point, to 45 AF points, all of which are cross-type for greater accuracy. The sensor-based autofocus system for live view and movie capture gets an even bigger upgrade, with a dual pixel AF sensor that makes focusing massively faster. The maximum drive rate is 2fps faster at 6.5fps, and the new model features 5-axis stabilisation for movie capture. However, this isn't available for shooting stills, and movies themselves are limited to 1080p rather than 4K. Even so, the excellent fully articulated touchscreen will benefit those shooting movies as well as live view stills. What you see is what you get with this camera. The immensely detailed and super-sharp electronic viewfinder has crystal clarity, reflected in the ultra-high definition stills that are captured by the 42.4MP image sensor. 4K UHD movie capture is just as much of a treat, as the A9 delivers wonderfully sharp and detailed results, helped along by its 5-axis image stabiliser. Overall 4K movie quality beats that of any regular DSLR currently on the market, and you can boost resolution to 5K in 'Super 35mm' mode. Advanced functions to suit serious videographers include a clean HDMI output, zebra display, time code and slow/quick motion, to name but a few. Costing two-thirds of the price of the A7R III and little more than half the price of the A9, the A7 III is the most 'sensible' option for those hunting for the best full-frame camera for travel. There's no shortage of advanced features, including a back-illuminated image sensor that enables very clean high-ISO images (more so than in the A7R III), a fabulously fast and reliable hybrid autofocus system, speedy 10fps continuous stills shooting, and 4K video capture. With its small, lightweight build, it's eminently suitable for travel photography and, while the A9 and A7R III are also very travel-friendly, the A7 III edges ahead in terms of battery life, with up to 610 or 710 shots per charge, using the viewfinder or rear screen respectively. If you're going to be hitting the beach or engaging in adventurous activities on your travels, it's also nice not to be packing quite such an expensive camera. If you're after the best full-frame camera for sports or wildlife photography, look no further than the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II. Many pros love this DSLR simply for its handling characteristics. With a built-in vertical grip that fully duplicates all the important shooting controls, it feels equally natural to use in portrait or landscape orientation. The camera really comes into its own for action sports and wildlife photography where, for a DSLR at least, it delivers a super-fast continuous drive rate of 14fps, and as much as 16fps in live view mode. The 61-point autofocus system makes a spectacularly good job of keeping tabs on fast or erratically moving objects, with plentiful tracking options to choose from. The shooting speed is helped by the modest megapixel count of 20.2MP, but this also ensures relatively noise-free image quality when you need to shoot at very high ISO speeds, for example when freezing the wildlife action at twilight, or for indoor sports. Inspired by classic yesteryear Nikon 35mm stills cameras, the Df will appeal to photographers of a certain age or inclination. It has a plethora of hands-on, dedicated dials up on top, for adjusting shooting parameters like ISO, shutter speed and exposure compensation, as well as the usual shooting buttons and dials on the front and back. Based on the same image sensor and processor as the flagship D4 (which has now been superseded by the D5), the Df is also starting to look a bit retro in terms of its 16.2 megapixel count. An upside is that high-ISO images are fairly noise-free. A major downside for many modern photographers is that Nikon has taken the 'retro' theme to the extreme by stripping out any video capture facility from the camera. With a similar price tag to the Canon 6D Mark II, the older Nikon D750 almost matches it for megapixel count, with a 24.3MP sensor. The D750 is equally able to capture fine detail and texture but draws slightly ahead in minimising image noise at very high ISO settings. It's far better than the Nikon D850 in this respect, making the D750 a better proposition for shooting indoors or under very low lighting without resorting to flash. This can be a particular plus point for wedding photographers and others needing to shoot indoor events. Another upside for capturing important, unrepeatable events is that, unlike the Canon 6D Mark II, the D750 has dual memory card slots, so you can create instant backups of every shot you take, on separate cards. With a keen eye for detail, the K-1 Mark II has a 36MP image sensor with no anti-alias filter, and can deploy its 5-axis sensor-shift image stabiliser in a variety of ways. For starters, it can reduce camera-shake in handheld shooting with up to 5-stop efficiency. There are also tripod and handheld modes for shifting pixels between successive shots, to enhance the capture of ultra-fine detail. For shooting the night sky, there's a more intriguing 'Astrotracer' mode. This employs the camera's internal GPS module and electronic compass for astrophotography. The latitudinal position on the globe, plus its direction and horizontal/vertical tilt are all measured automatically. Calculations are performed and the image stabiliser shifts the sensor throughout the exposure. This effectively tracks the movement of the moon, stars and other celestial bodies, so that they don't blur or appear to streak through the night sky. View the full article

The common concerns of photographers have been addressed by Adobe today with the launch of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 2019. Packed with new editing functions, guided tutorials and a refreshed layout, the updates to the affordable photo editor are perfectly pitched at its user-base of beginner and hobbyist photographers. Powered by Adobe Sensei, which earlier this year gave Photoshop CC users the ability to detect objects in a click, the Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements updates focus on streamlining the apps' usability and making enhancements easier to discover and use. The first change users will notice is the Elements Home Screen, which has been specially designed to surface information on what's new since the last version. It also highlights content tailored towards each user's level of expertise, making it easier for people to expand their skill set. Photo collages and video slideshows can be created automatically from the Home Screen with the help of Adobe Sensei. These updates to Adobe Photoshop Elements 2019 – surely designed with the Instagram generation in mind – allow photographers to customise their collages in just a few clicks. HEIF support has also been added. Tools and advice are conveniently presented on the Adobe Photoshop Elements 2019 homescreen Other features enable users to turn photos into text art, sketches, and even memes. And with the use of 53 step-by-step photo editing guides, common edits, such as boosting a certain colour or changing the background, are now accessible to all. Meanwhile, over on Premiere Elements 2019, the redesigned Quick Edit mode provides a user-friendly and, as its name suggests, quick, way to find and trim a user's best footage. New overlay effects top off the release, including a glass effect and a bold Luma fade transition, and there's also VFR, HEIF and HEVC support. While some of the advice and edits in this launch might appear basic to advanced Photoshop users, it's always good to see a release that makes it easy for beginners to get started. And with a more intuitive display guiding you through the tools, this comparatively affordable release is sure to be a welcome upgrade for existing users, and a tempting offer to those new to the world of Photoshop. Related articles: Review: Photoshop Elements 15 The 5 best laptops for photo editing in 2018 The best computers for video editing in 2018 View the full article

When concepting creatures in ZBrush, presenting your idea as a greyscale, unposed piece of 3D art can make it hard for an audience to realise your vision. 5 tips for sculpting in double-quick time Equally when using Photoshop CC, it might take you some time to achieve a three-dimensional feel to your design. So in this workshop, I'll walk through how to combine both tools to turn a loose concept into a fully realised idea, playing to both programs' strengths. Watch the video and follow my process below. A basic understanding of ZBrush is necessary, but only the basics because we won't need to use any advanced techniques or workarounds. Essentially, I'll be using ZBrush to block out a design with ZSpheres, shape it and render some coloured and lit images, and then composite those together in Photoshop. I'll then use a range of surface samples to bring that design to life, adding skin surface, lighting effects, and a textured environment. It's a great quick way to present a concept for an idea, without having to take it through a complete 3D pipeline. 01. Start ZSpheres block-out Quickly sketch out your character using ZSpheres I like to use ZSpheres to rough out the entirety of my character as a first block. It gives me a better sense of the whole shape, and forces me to focus on areas of the sculpt other than the head, which is the clear temptation. In this case, my idea is to create a kind of magical forest hare. 02. Make rough concept Use the Clay buildup brush to rough out your concept in more detail Mostly I'm just using the Clay buildup brush to roughly shape the concept. The aim is not to be bogged down with making it look good – it doesn't. I just want to brainstorm an idea. I want to make the ears look like leaves, and I'm trying out an idea where his skin would imitate bark, and possibly have mushrooms growing on it. My inspiration for this are the faerie-like creatures from Guillermo del Toro's films, such as Pan's Labyrinth. 03. Paintover in Photoshop Take your rough model into Photoshop to define it further After about 30 minutes or so I take a screen grab of my loose idea and bring it into Photoshop. Here I can eliminate the weakest areas, and sketch up areas that I want to change or develop further. I'm going to eliminate the mushroom idea, and focus on the four leaf-like ears as the defining characteristic of this creature. 04. Use ZSpheres for new build Now start a new build and block it out with ZSPheres, using your paintover as a guide I'm starting from ZSpheres again to block out the main build. This time I'll load in the paintover as an image plane and use it to line my concept up. It's worth taking your time to get the base shape right with the ZSpheres, because it'll save you from having to retopologise or dynamesh the mesh multiple times later. 05. Create a basic sculpt of the creature Start working your build into a more detailed sculpt Using my paintover as a guide, I can quickly block in the larger forms of my creature. I'm primarily using Clay buildup, Move and Dam standard brushes for this. I also use the Mask function by holding down Ctrl to isolate specific areas such as the nails. To create the eyeball, I use the Insert Sphere tool and then separate it to a separate sub-tool. 06. Polypaint the forest creature Use ZBrush's Spotty and Veiny alpha maps to give your character's skin a mottled look To create a basic skin tone for my creature I set the material to SkinShade 4, and flood the colour with a bright orange. I then place an inverse mask on the cavity to darken up the recesses, and use a combination of ZBrush's default Spotty and Veiny alpha maps to create a distinctive mottled pattern to the skin using red, yellow and brown tones. 07. Light the scene and vary the background Try out a variety of backgrounds to see what works best I want to ensure I get the lighting direction correct when I comp this into my background, so I bring in a number of different background options as image planes, to see what works. My lighting setup is basic: I have my main light and a rim. I'll create everything else in Photoshop. 08. Pose the figure to convey an emotion Experiment with your creature's pose to try and convey its personality Once I'm happy with the lighting and general concept, I quickly alter the pose to be less symmetrical. I do this using Masks and the Transpose tool, to mask out the limbs, head and torso, then rotate it into a more interesting position. I'm trying to create the impression that this creature is coming out of hiding, and is a little timid or curious. The pose is a great way to convey this to the viewer. 09. Render the woodland beast Export the shadow, ambient occlusion, depth, sub surface and a mask as separate passes I'm rendering in Preview Quality mode, which is the default setting. First I render out my basic shaded/lit image, by pressing the BPR button and exporting the document. Then, using only the main light, I reposition it to render out light information as separate passes from the left, right, top and bottom. Finally, from the Render menu and BPR RenderPass options, I export out the shadow, ambient occlusion, depth, sub surface and a mask as separate passes – all in PDF format. 10. Assemble the renders in Photoshop Take your passes to Photoshop and stack them as separate layers To assemble all your passes, simply stack them as layers in one document in Photoshop. I then convert all my lighting passes to Screen mode and adjust the Opacity to decide how much directional light I want on my creature. This creates a 'cheated' global illumination look. I also add in my shadow pass on a Multiply layer and use the mask I've create on the group folder of all my passes. This means I can work on my creature and background separately. 11. Add texture to skin surface Try an assortment of images to create a good skin texture I've assembled a bunch of images to try on his skin surface to add a little noise. The first one I want to apply is an actual leaf texture, so he has the sense of being crafted from nature. I'm also applying some elephant skin along his arms, and some heavy leaf detail to the ears. 12. Alter the background to suit the character If your background isn't working, bring in a new one I don't like my current background image. I want the environment to appear wilder and more magical. The colours are great though, so I blend in other autumn woodland scenes to fill in the blank spaces between the trees, then add some foreground elements. 13. Add filters/vignettes Gradients and vignettes will help tone your image and add focus Gradients and vignettes can frame your work nicely, I use these as Overlay layers to focus the lighting on the character in the middle of the image. I'm going to use a vignette with oranges and circles to give a subtle magical tone to the background, and also a vertical gradient to darken the edges of my images. This helps to place the focus to the character in the middle. 14. Final environment touches A few final touches and you're good to go In order to sit my character comfortably in the environment, I duplicate the group, merge it and then blur the image. I then apply this as a layer mask and try to match the focus of the background image. I'm also painting in straw and moss at his feet to blend with the foreground image, and faking a little shadow underneath him. Now my creature concept is ready for his close-up! This article was originally published in issue 162 of ImagineFX, the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists. Buy issue 162 here or subscribe to ImagineFX here. Related articles: Sculpt realistic anatomy in ZBrush How to sculpt a 3D-printed goblin The 38 best Photoshop plugins View the full article

Behind every app you use is an elegant UX design. Though an app may seem simple, there are teams of experienced product designers that prototype, test, and execute in order to make it usable. The UI & UX Design Bootcamp covers a range of topics that most UX and UI designers will face in the real world. You’ll learn how to build a UX strategy, create a project from start to finish, and how to interview users to analyse results. Additionally, you’ll learn how to rapidly prototype a stock market app and gain useful programming skills along the way. For just $39, 96 per cent less than the list price, you’ll learn these useful skills and more, and be well on your well to becoming a professional UX designer. Related articles: Add UI animations to your site Create slick UI animations The pro's guide to UI design View the full article

“I don’t know if IDEO could have saved the American auto industry, but we would have started with foam core and a hot glue gun.” This is one Tim Brown’s more flippant quotes, but it does give you a quick snapshot of what design thinking – one of the pervasive buzzwords in the creative industries – is all about. You can just picture IDEO’s CEO and his team sketching, sticking things together, and crafting dozens of different cars, roads, robots and factories with the aim of getting Detroit back on track. It could even work, who knows? Tim Brown's book explores the concept of design thinking The line comes from Brown’s book, Change by Design, which explains the concept of design thinking in somewhat more sober detail as well: “Design thinking is a human-centred approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” Imagine using your design skills to improve the provision of healthcare, revolutionise agriculture or change how schools teach IDEO, with Tim Brown at the helm, has helped make design thinking one of the most relevant and compelling concepts, not just in the creative industries, but across the economy. It’s an exciting idea that is being embraced in just about every sector, and gives creatives every reason to be optimistic. Sure, the skills you’ve learned as a designer can be used to create a new logo, brochure, website or ad campaign. But just imagine using them to improve the provision of healthcare, revolutionise agriculture or change how schools teach. IDEO has worked in all of these areas, and one of Tim Brown’s projects is a guide to designing for the circular economy. It’s worth checking out. Iterate wildly Coming from a product design background, IDEO began laying the groundwork over 25 years ago. Today the company runs shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of other big creative outfits that all embrace similar ideas. During his time as CEO at Wolff Olins, Ije Nwokorie (who is now senior director at Apple) helped make design thinking part of the branding agency’s core practice. For him, it consists of three elements: exploration, hypothesis and creation. Ije Nwokorie helped put design thinking at the core of Wolff Olins’ practice “It has to have exploration, so you’re going to have to go out and understand people who are not you. It has all the techniques of ethnography, of people-watching and so forth,” he explains. “The second thing is that it believes the past is only useful for stimulus and inspiration, but the answer is going to be something we’ve never seen before. Therefore it has to be hypothesis-led and iterative in nature. You don’t say one plus one equals two, you say: Here are 18 ways we can solve this problem, let’s put them out there, let’s test, let’s iterate and let’s make them better and let’s find one solution.” The past is only useful for stimulus and inspiration, but the answer is going to be something we’ve never seen before Ije Nwokorie He continues: “And then the final thing is that design thinking says those things have to be designed. The design bit of it means that we need to use the fundamental tools of design to solve those problems. What are the tools of design? They are form and shape and movement and time – and that we have to craft something that is different from anything that has ever existed before.” Branding a language An example he cites from Wolff OIin's repertoire is branding dotdot, Zigbee’s open source language that Internet of Things devices use to communicate with one another. The branding is actually derived from the code and is very simple. It’s made up of these three keystrokes :|| and can represent a fridge that orders your milk or a dryer that knows how wet the laundry is because the washing machine has told it. And while the whizzy bits in your kitchen talk to each other, the branding tells consumers that compatible appliances can have a conversation. Which in itself begins a conversation… Wolff Olins created the branding for dotdot, an open source language for the Internet of Things How is communicating this notion an example of design thinking? Nwokorie explains: “If you take the problem as, ‘How do I communicate the Internet of Things?’ you would come up with a different solution than ‘How do I solve the problem that people don’t quite understand that these things work together?’ The visual language comes from a piece of code. It’s two dots and two slashes, but that’s also the branding. It communicates and it’s iconic and it stands out, but its fundamental purpose is to solve the problem of ‘How can we help people think about and build things that work together?’” Perhaps one of the reasons design thinking is so prominent today is that communication, the sharing of information online and social media have become such powerful forces in today’s society. Designing something that can be understood intuitively, easily and naturally is one of the greatest goals of design thinking – the design itself communicates its purpose. More than a feeling Next to that comes the experience of using or consuming what has been designed. Lippincott is a design consultancy that does a lot of branding, believing that design thinking extends from how a business is run through to how its customers experience it. Legal, compliance, HR, marketing, manufacturing – anything a client does can be improved with design thinking. But whatever the touchpoint, emotion is a key ingredient. Lippincott’s Lee Coomber argues that design thinking will enable design to become more influential “Design thinking should be a 360-degree activity, incorporating all aspects of the business or brand but keeping the customer at the heart of the process. The task is to create something that has great utility, yet is beautiful at the same time. These two elements married together create an emotional bond with the customer,” explains Lee Coomber, creative director at Lippincott. Design is to business what evolution is to nature; it enables brands to change and survive Lee Coomber After all, it’s because of aesthetics and not just practicalities that designers will be involved. He continues: “Design is to business what evolution is to nature; it enables brands to change and survive. At a time when so much of our lives is going to change as a result of advances in technology, designers need to make the world not only work better, but be beautiful as well. "Design thinking can allow design to be more influential, less visual and more a means of opening up opportunities for businesses by building holistic experiences and emotional bonds.” Design for all It’s not just the big players like IDEO, Wolff Olins or Lippincott that are inspired by design thinking. Many design studios and boutique agencies are fully on board. APFEL (A Practice for Everyday Life) is based in London and has a core tenet of design thinking built into its name. “For us, ‘design thinking’ is really just a catchy term for the range of methods and approaches that we put into practice within our everyday lives – for navigating the world around us, learning and developing, and experimenting. We approach design projects and problem-solving in a way that feels instinctive, starting with research and investigation, conversation with the people involved, testing ideas, considering different contexts, and responding to feedback,” says co-founder Kirsty Carter. The studio worked with Mae Architects on MyHouse, an affordable housing project that enabled buyers to design their new home using a set of predefined components: slot this kitchen onto that dining room… oh, and let’s have a downstairs loo. APFEL needed a design that didn’t rely on photographs of finished houses “Mae’s work on the project is an example of design thinking in practice: it identified an important area of need, and considered the challenges faced both by potential buyers and by construction companies,” says Emma Thomas, APFEL's other co-founder. “Using this information and research, it collaborated directly with a fabricator to come up with a model that would offer the flexibility that makes self-build housing so attractive, whilst removing the need for buyers to manage the design and building process themselves. “Our role was to help Mae create a public face for the project, to make it accessible and appealing to their target audience. We needed to convey the possibilities that MyHouse offered, in the absence of any images of the finished houses, which were still in development at the time.” Counterculture and free tacos Over in Toronto, the advertising agency OneMethod employed design thinking so effectively at a self-promotional pop-up event that it ended up founding a restaurant. If you went to the event and bought a piece of art by one of OneMethod’s creatives, you received three free tacos. The experience was so authentic, visitors demanded the company set up a permanent taco restaurant and now OneMethod runs two La Carnita locations. Plus, it still does ad campaigns for clients. For another Toronto studio, Blok, design thinking is about expanding the parameters of a problem and finding the less obvious solutions to explore. “It is honing our intuition and our nonlinear thinking in order to explore openly, flowing between the simple and the complex in order to rethink the parameters themselves. It is not simply about what we do but how we think and what is necessary to make it happen. Every project we work on begins and ends with this process. It is our means to mining depth and finding the authenticity from within,” says founder Vanessa Eckstein. It’s an approach the studio used when asked to design an issue of Wayward Arts magazine devoted to the topic of ‘counterculture’. The creative wall – analogous to Tim Brown’s foam core – was a key part of the toolkit as the magazine was developed. Blok’s design for a magazine devoted to ‘counterculture’ “Counterculture is so much part of our DNA that we spent six months researching expansively and putting what we found up on our creative wall – where everything flows and lives – moving images and words, poems and historical timelines up and down, looking for those un-obvious but provocative connections to reveal themselves,” says Eckstein. Consulting the cultural anthropologist Dr Bob Deutsch, Blok brainstormed around the idea of what culture and what the opposition, duality, tension and contradiction of a counterculture really mean, then explored imagery and ideas in juxtaposition with one another. The outcome was a magazine surprisingly close to how the studio might express its own identity. Butcombe Brewery A final example to check out comes from Halo’s rebrand of Butcombe Brewery in Bristol. As well as giving the brewery and its six main products a new identity, Halo suggested the company create a special range for the craft beer market, came up with the ‘78’ branding and worked with the brewery on 12 concept ales celebrating 1978 – the year Butcombe was founded. While rebranding Butcombe Brewery, Halo suggested this special craft beer range Butcombe is now producing a new beer each month because Halo showed them how to reach a new market, proving that design thinking can be an irresistible force in marketing. No limits? Design thinking is such a powerful concept that it is replacing other methods of running companies. As design thinking becomes the buzzword of the 21st century, management consultants and management thinking are seen as a relic of the last century. Huge corporations like IBM, Procter & Gamble, Marriott Hotels and Fidelity are integrating design thinking with their internal processes. However, when anything becomes part of a process, initiative can be stifled. Alongside design thinking we also have to make sure we’re talking about wild imagination, radical ambition, and sometimes magic Ije Nwokorie No matter how hard you sit down and try to be a design thinker in the boardroom, having fun, playing, splashing paint, going crazy and just plain winging it are aspects of creativity that you can’t build into a formalised process. When design thinking becomes a process, we end up iterating on and optimising existing designs rather than coming up with radical new ones. “Think of design as an entirely rational discipline, and that it can’t afford to be otherwise, and we’ll end up merely optimising everything as opposed to having an optimistic and imaginative view of the future,” says Nwokorie. “Alongside design thinking we also have to make sure we’re talking about wild imagination, radical ambition, and sometimes magic. Those things don’t quite live comfortably in the way design thinking is defined in many organisations.” Related articles: Creative card game will improve your design thinking 10 ways to transform your creative thinking How to design a book: the creative's guide View the full article

You're reading Big Changes in Sketch 52: New UI, Data and Dark Mode, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Refreshing news for designers – Sketch 52 is released and many bugs are fixed! Simultaneously, there over 50 enhancements, while 4 improvements are definitely in the focus of the audience since the app was updated and launched. Let´s see what … View the full article

This issue, along with our usual reviews, inspiration and regular Q and A sections, we review Blackmagic Design's eGPU, teach you how to create monstrous machinery with Cinema 4D, and look at Gravity Sketch and GSG Light Kit Pro. Buy 3D World 240 today We take a look inside the issue to find out what else is in store... Feature: Be a better pro! Get expert insight into being a better pro artist We talk to a group of seasoned pro artists to get their thoughts and tips on what has made them successful. Spoiler: It's not all about staying creative but about dealing with clients, time management, and so much more. Feature: VFX of The Meg Plumb the depths of this aquatic VFX masterpiece In this feature we talk to the team behind the visual effects of The Meg, looking at their approach to not just the implementation but the design decisions behind creating such an epic monster. Training: Create a stunning sci-fi scene Use 3ds Max to create realistic otherworldly scenes In this in-depth step by step tutorial, Oscar Juarez shows you how to use 3ds Max and Photoshop CC to create sweeping sci-fi vistas. Learn how to model, texture and light a scene, as well as use existing assets to populate your scene and tweak your renders in Photoshop. Training: Make monstrous machines with Cinema 4D Make large scale industrial models with CAD data Creating industrial machines that are so detailed and of such a large size can appear daunting, but in this tutorial you'll learn the secrets to success, from using CAD data inside Cinema 4D to rendering using Octane. Training: Use Marmoset in VR In this tutorial our expert VR artist, Martin Nebelong, shows you how to take Marmoset into a VR project, expanding your toolset Training: Create a destroyed pier Master hollywood-style destruction VFX This tutorial will guide you, step-by-step, in the making of realistic destruction simulation, using 3ds Max, V-Ray and Rayfire. Buy 3D World 240 or subscribe to 3D World. Read more: How to model concept art in C4D Top 40 free textures to download today 6 expert tips for better renders View the full article

For the 19th year, Interbrand has rated the world's top 100 brands in terms of their brand value, and it isn't all that hard to guess who's come out on top, nor that it's not all about a brand's logo design. Last year's Best Global Brand was Apple, valued at $184,154 million, with Google and Microsoft taking places two and three, valued at $141, 703 million and $79,999 million, respectively. And this year, it's pretty much business as usual. Although there are a few surprises within the list, and some interesting insight that can be gleaned from the results. The world's top three brands Continuing its reign as the world's number one brand, Apple is number one yet again, and is this year valued at $214,480 million, a tidy increase of 16 per cent on last year. And while Google takes the number two spot, growing 10 per cent on last year, it's Amazon that takes the prize for top growing brand. With a whopping 56 per cent increase on its brand value, Amazon has made it to number three in the charts (at $100,764 million), knocking Microsoft down to fourth place ($92,715 million) – even though it increased 16 per cent. This year's winners and losers Considering that Facebook owns WhatsApp and Instagram, its brand value drop may surprise some Notable entries to the list include Spotify, which joins this list at a modest 92nd place (and a not-so-modest $5,176 million value), and Japan's Subaru, which snuck in at number 100 (valued at $4,214 million). Some brands that dropped off the list last year have also made a reappearance –Chanel made a stark comeback at (number 23), Hennessy at 98, and Nintendo at 99. However, the year hasn't been so good for brands such as Tesla, Smirnoff and Thomson Reuters, who all dropped off the list. And while Facebook is still clinging to the top ten, at number 9 (last year it was number 8), its brand value is declining by 6 per cent. Six per cent may not seem like much, but we're talking about huge amounts of money here, and when you considering that last year it had grown by 48 per cent, things aren't looking rosy for the social media giant. We like luxury, and subscriptions Just five sectors made up over half of this year's best global brands: automotive (16), technology (13), financial services (12), luxury (9) and FMCG (9), but the sector that's growing the most is luxury, which has increased 42 per cent, knocking last year's retail category down to second place (36 per cent). This is good news if you're working in any of the above categories, but don't panic if your brands are more of the everyday use variety. The entry of brands such as Spotify and Netflix (another new entry in at 66, which has grown 45% on last year), as well as King Amazon, suggests that personalised services that play a big role in our lives are on the up. See below for the full list of brands. Click the top-right corner to enlarge the image What does it all mean? At a time when trust in brands is at an all-time low, and where their every move is analysed on social media, this report suggests that it's the brands that are unafraid to make bold iconic moves that come out on top. That's moves like messing with a much-loved product's features (see Apple's iPhone X), disrupting new markets (hi, Amazon), or being quick to create new versions of other companies' success stories (Google Play, anyone?). According to Interbrand's report, this year's theme is Activating Brave – meaning that brands are "harnessing the ability to take bold short-term action that responds to the needs of the marketplace while pursuing a clear and aligned long-term vision." “A decade after the global financial crisis, the brands that are growing fastest are those that intuitively understand their customers and make brave iconic moves that delight and deliver in new ways,” said Charles Trevail, global chief executive officer of Interbrand. And Activating Brave certainly pays off, as this year's brands have a combined value of more than two trillion dollars, which is 7.7 per cent higher than last year. For more information, and to see the full report, visit Interbrand's website. Read more: 10 iconic logos hilariously drawn from memory 20 iconic brands, and why they work The secrets to building a world-class brand View the full article

Systems Center Updates Publisher (SCUP) has been around with limited success since 2011, but is getting the spotlight thanks to integration in the latest releases of System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). It allows you to push patches right from within SCCM, but with many limitations: It requires a SCUP catalog. Adobe has one and so do some hardware vendors, but Microsoft is not in the business of providing any third-party patch content and has no intentions of doing so. There is no criticality or other data on which to prioritize your patching efforts Patches cannot be customized (suppressing reboots, disabling automatic updates, etc.) It does not distinguish between feature and security updates More importantly, it does not provide insight into anything not listed in the catalog If you have a catalog of 50 applications that match your needs and manage to get them all patched, you are left with a very false sense of security because you do not know about anything else. On the contrary, Software Vulnerability Manager offers the ability to detect over 20,000 applications and and helps you measure your device’s vulnerability status against them all. Free SCUP catalogs will not get you more than a handful of patches that overlap with your organization’s software portfolio. If you pay for a third-party SCUP catalog, you can get more but it will never be more than a small fraction of the applications that affect your environment. Software Vulnerability Manager for example, provides dozens of out-of-the-box, tested and easily configurable patches but does not expose them via SCUP due to the many limitations listed above. It can be compelling to think you might just get out of having to create your own patches if only you had a big catalog. If you are willing to live with the inability to customize such patches, you can indeed get to a place where you may create less packages. But there simply isn’t such a thing as a patch catalog that will provide enough coverage to get you out of creating patches of your own. Flexera offers the industry leading AdminStudio solution to help you create custom patches quickly, easily and with the least amount of risk. The key issue with the catalog approach is that the catalog is all you know about– you only get awareness of your patch status against what is in the catalog. Without a comprehensive solution like Software Vulnerability Manager, getting insight into what applications need to be patched can be an insurmountable challenge. Having access to a database several times larger than the largest catalog with details about the vulnerabilities in question (like attack vector or criticality rating) so you can prioritize effectively (and even automate remediation) can help you to address what is most important quickly and dramatically reduce the risk of unpatched software in your organization. Source View the full article

Microsoft has revealed a new supercharged Surface Pro 6 and Surface Laptop 2 as the battle to create the best devices continues. The company also unveiled a much-needed upgrade to its Surface Studio 2 desktop and new Surface headphones at its recent big product launch in New York. The best Microsoft Surface deals in 2018 The best laptops for graphic design in 2018 News of the Surface Book Pro 6, especially, will be welcomed by creatives on the hunt for a powerful and flexible alternative to the MacBook Pro. As our Microsoft Surface Book 2 review revealed, these devices have been designed as a do-anything machines with both ultimate versatility and swashbuckling power. Beautiful inside and out The new Surface Pro 6 comes complete with Intel's 8th-generation Core processors Harnessing a new kind of power, the Surface Pro 6 and Surface Laptop 2 now come complete with Intel's 8th-generation Core processors to match competitors such as Apple’s MacBook Pros, meaning a 67 and 85 per cent increase in speed respectively. Battery life is also on the up, with the Surface Laptop 2 now boasting 14.5 hours and the Surface Pro 6 maintaining a solid 13.5 hours on a single charge. Microsoft has focussed its efforts very much under the hood with the Surface Pro 6. Maintaining its part-tablet, part-laptop functionality, the new model, available in black and platinum, looks largely the same to the naked eye. The Surface Pro starts at £749, which makes it a great option to those creatives who need to compromise slightly on budget but not power. The Surface Laptop 2, however, has undergone a noticeable makeover, sporting a new touchscreen and thinner than ever LCD display. This is also the quietest model, with the keyboard covered in Microsoft's signature Alcantara fabric, and there's new new colour options too for the Surface Laptop 2, now available in black, burgundy, platinum and blue. Pricing for the Surface Laptop 2 starts at £949, with both models available to preorder now. The new thinner than ever Surface Laptop 2 is a thing of beauty Surface Studio 2 Microsoft has updated its all-in-one PC with a large 28in articulating screen Also among Microsoft's announcements was the exciting news of its Surface Studio 2, the first major update to its desktop PC, which we first saw back in 2016. Features of the Surface Studio 2 include 50 percent more graphics performance, a 28-inch display which is reportedly 38 percent brighter and has 22 percent more contrast than the original model. Microsoft have seemingly gone all out with this device, including a brand new Surface Pen with tilt function and Surface Dial controller with haptic feedback. The Surface Studio 2 is available for pre-order now, expected to ship 15 November, and priced at $3,499. Easy listening The Surface Headphones are expected to be released in time for Christmas Computers weren't the only hardware on the menu at Microsoft's product launch, with the unveiling of its Surface Headphones. Complete with noise cancellation, automatic pause and play and Microsoft's digital assistant Cortana, these wireless headphones not only offer excellent sound quality, they can also read you emails, or kick off your conference call. The Surface Headphones are expected to be released later this year, firstly in the US at $350, before heading across the pond to the UK in time for Christmas. To add to this extensive list of updates Microsoft also announced that the Windows 10 October update will arriving for users later this month. View the full article

If you want to build your own games and make a career out of it, this training is for you. The School of Game Design: Lifetime Membership will teach you all about game development and design through 120 hours of training videos. Set your own pace, and follow along with expert instructors who have over 16 years of industry in the field. From access to royalty-free game art, to Unity3D training, to animation techniques, this course has it all. Develop your coding and digital artistry abilities with this comprehensive, easy-to-follow course. The School of Game Design: Lifetime Membership is yours for only $59. Related articles: 5 casual games for designers The best mouse of 2018: 6 top computer mice for designers 11 best video game character designs View the full article

Attractive to both white-hats and cybercriminals, AI's role in security has yet to find an equilibrium between the two sides. View the full article

Businesses are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence, but all too often these platforms don't feature security-by-design. View the full article

Have you ever looked at a bird and thought about how fascinating they are? These amazing creature can look significantly different from each other based on their diet, habits, environment and abilities, such as flying, swimming or running. Each and every type of bird has their own physical composition that's truly unique, which, as an artist, makes for an exciting challenge. Our feathery friends are quite complex when it comes to the skeletal and muscular structure, as well as the formation of the wings and feathers. So to create an accurate representation of a bird, you'll need to pay attention to detail. The best tablets with a stylus for drawing This how to draw a bird tutorial is a step-by-step guide on drawing a side view of a bird, using an American Robin as an example. The lesson begins by explaining the six major body parts to watch for when drawing a bird, before carving out its mass and structure. Finally the guide will cover the fine details, such as the facial features, feet, and most importantly, the feathers. There are also tips on how to draw a bird with its wings open. And when you've finished, we've got a brilliant selection of other how to draw tutorials to get stuck in to. Note: having a photo by your side for reference to observe a bird's subtle angles and details that can be easily missed is highly recommended. How to draw a bird: a step-by-step guide 01. Understand the skeletal structure This simple drawing of the bird skeleton shows the similarities to the human skeleton It's often thought that a bird's knees bends backwards, but in fact, what we consider as a bird's legs, are actually the joints of the heel and toes. When a bird uses its legs, it's designed to move mainly at its knees. Birds' hips don't rotate like ours do, so their knees act as a hip joint. 02. Observe the major body parts The proportion of each basic shape can determine what type of bird it is All birds have the same basic skeletal structure but with different variations in size and shape depending upon the species. One way of simplifying the skeletal structures is to divide it into six parts; the head, beak, neck, torso, legs and wings. Just by changing the proportion of each part, you can draw any type of bird. 03. Sketch in the torso and head shape Draw in simple shapes first, before adding any limbs Draw a big round oval for the torso, and a circle that's half the size for the head. Divide them into quarters so that later on it will be easy to locate landmarks on the body. 04. Attach the neck, beak and tail The simple lines determine the length of the beak and tail Draw in a curved neck from the head, attached close to the top of the oval. Form a balloon-like shape to the head and torso to find the overall shape of the beak and tail. 05. Draw in the arms and legs The simple lines will help to find the mass of the wings and leg Take the centre of the torso to draw the legs. The toes have one long middle toe, two shorter ones on each side and one in the back. The length of the legs should be roughly the same. The shoulders will start from the top of the torso, and the arms will bend like a 'Z'. 06. Mass out the body structure The mass of the bird's head and torso looks like an hourglass Connect the head to the body. As the neck approaches the back and chest, the form of the body gets rounder past half way. 07. Form the shape around the beak and tail The beak and tail are important characteristics of a bird The beak is rounded at the top and slightly curved at the bottom, reaching back to the eye. Draw in a long rectangular shape for the tail. 08. Draw the legs and wing Draw simple shapes in this stage for the complex legs and wings Draw the overlaps of the flank and leg over the body to add some perspective. The legs and toes form like thin twigs. The toes curve upwards with a bulb at the tip. 09. Carve out the details of the head and beak There are small indents where the beak connects to the head Follow the underdrawing to draw the head. Indicate the nose just where the beak and head meets. The lower part of the beak also has an indent similar to the shape of the nose indent. 10. Draw small feathers on the torso Small feathers tend to be more visible on the under tail covert Follow the rest of the under drawing to draw the body. Draw some feathers in areas that stick out of the torso. 11. Add details to the feet, eye and tail Watch out for the small details in the eye and feet Draw in beady eyes with a dark pupil and small white highlight. The joints are relatively boney in the toes, so draw them more rigid. Following the form of the toes, draw some lines wrapping around. At the top of the bulb, etch in some thin sharp claws. 12. Indicate the layers of the wing The wing comes in three sections, with three layers The wing comes in three major sections. The scapulars, secondaries, and the primaries. If you look at the feather direction, they are anchored from the structure on the wings. When you break it down further, each section has three layers of wings. When the wing is in a resting position, the feathers will fold and overlap – like a fan tucks itself away neatly. 13. Draw in the feathers Drawing overlapping areas with darker outlines helps add perspective Make sure you follow your photo reference to avoid stiff and repetitive feathers. To avoid the feathers looking too complicated and messy, draw a thinner, lighter line to suggest the overlaps. The finished bird How to draw a bird with open wings 14. Find the skeletal form and under drawing of the open wing Draw the basic shapes before adding in the feather details To create a sketch of a bird with its wings open, draw the skeletal structure of the wing and the feather directions. On this under surface of the wing, there are only two sections and two visible layers of the feathers overlapping. The wing lining, which consists of smaller feathers, covers the longer feathers. 15. Draw in the feather details Look at reference to add a more interesting variety of feather lines The layering of the feathers should start from the top, with the last feather at the bottom of the stack. Lastly, add the back wing to finish the drawing. Your bird is now ready to take flight Read more: How to draw a wolf How to draw a rose How to draw a horse View the full article

You might know how to draw people, but creating a digital portrait that's indistinguishable from a photograph – like the one above – is another matter altogether. It's difficult to get right, but it can be an incredibly rewarding exercise in 3D art. Portraits are like a window into the subject's life; you really have to know someone to be able to represent them well, as it is not only facial features you are representing, but also their personality. It is also said that behind every portrait is a self-portrait, as it is also the story of the artist; throughout all my portraits hopefully you will also learn a little about myself. Why 2D artists need to learn 3D My work is inspired by the great masters, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Vermeer – these paintings were done hundreds of years ago, but we still connect to them as if these people were still alive today. The fact that we are in the digital age we now get to use new tools in creating these portraits, which has never been done before – we are creating a new form of portraiture. Download the files for this tutorial. 01. Add personality The better you know your model, the more of their personality you can capture The reason every portrait I do is a family member or friend is because I know them, and by knowing them I can add their personality. Digital humans need a personality to make them believable; characters in a T-pose might look real, but we won't connect with them. When we see people, we try to read them, we want to know who they are, and we should do the same with digital characters – make them as real as possible, not only on the surface but also under the skin. 02. Use breakdowns A good breakdown lets people appreciate the work that's gone into a digital portrait Breakdowns are a really good way to help promote digital characters. They reveal behind the curtain and show exactly what you are looking at. By demonstrating that we use tools like a paintbrush or a chisel, it shows that the work is not just a click of a button. Digital humans are new and people want to see the magic behind them. A breakdown clears any confusion that it could be a photograph, and hopefully people will spend a little longer appreciating the hard work that went into it. 03. Look to the masters for inspiration Vermeer created a story by simply adding a pearl earring: is this maid being dressed up in Vermeer's wife's jewellery? It is always important to have inspiration. My inspiration comes from the masters. For example, Rembrandt's style creates a mood that you can feel; his subjects are relatable and every one of his portraits feels alive. Another inspiration is Vermeer, and a perfect example is his Girl with a Pearl Earring painting. This woman has a pearl earring even though she looks like a maid; she obviously could not afford this yet she is wearing it, so it makes you question whether Vermeer had a love interest in her, posing her with his wife's jewellery. This creates a back story that we want to know more about; adding a story to our digital humans will make them more believable. 04. Make it personal A painting in the background, a scarf around the neck, or a hand on the chin are all references to artworks in history Personal work should be personal. If you are going to go home to work and you're creating something someone else wants to see, that is just work, as you are making some else's dream come true. It is not sustainable if you want to continue doing work outside the hours of 9am-6pm. If you want your digital humans to connect to the audience, loving what you do will show in the work, so make it personal – the more you care about it, the more it will stand out. By doing so you will create something original. 05. Avoid the uncanny valley Staying out of the uncanny valley requires work and a bit of imagination The uncanny valley is still a huge valley we have yet to cross. There are an infinite number of variables that make us human, yet when we try to create them we pick and choose the top few that we know about. I have seen cartoon characters feel very real despite the fact that they don't look real at all – these artists are phenomenal at expressing the emotional side of us. Create an emotion you want to express. With Cassidy, I tried to imagine what she was thinking and have that thought as the base for the portrait, and everything stems from this one thought. 06. Focus on anatomy Learn your anatomy. Even though we look different, every person has the same anatomy, the same bones, the same muscles, the same building blocks. In photos, it is sometimes hard to determine the shape and forms, so using your knowledge of anatomy will help fill in these areas. The first thing I look at in a digital character are the ears – something easily skipped, but once you notice flaws like this it is hard to believe that these are real people, and they become almost like a mannequin. 07. Do a photoshoot I always do a photoshoot of my subjects, roughly between 100-200 photographs. First I will take photos from every angle, and these photos are used to model and texture. Second I pose and light the subject to create a mood, and I try multiple ways to best represent who the subject is. When creating a portrait, it is important to refer to these photographs; it is easy to get caught up in making our work stylised, but to create a likeness you need to be true to the subject, and that means you cannot flatter them and try to make them better. 08. Model your subject Mudbox is a great tool for portraits; using the sculpt layers you can create multiple versions to compare to get the best likeness I pose a pre-rigged base mesh in Maya then take this geometry to Mudbox for sculpting. I don't use scans, but my modelling process is much like how a scan is made. Since I took photos from every angle I will align these photos in Mudbox. I will match the model to the front angle, then the profile, then the three-quarter view, and so on. I will have at least 8-10 photos I use to sculpt from. Once the likeness is there I will start to focus on the expression and body. 09. Keep textures simple Try to keep your texturing as simple as you can I do all the texturing in Mudbox; I use each angle of the photos to project onto the model. There is a lot of cleanup, repainting and colour correction which Mudbox is great for. I have started to use XYZ texture maps to help bring out the details in the pores. I use the VRayFastSSS2 shader for the skin. I will push the diffuse map as far as I can before I worry too much about the spec, bump and the SSS maps. I believe in simplicity when it comes to texturing, as the simpler it is, the easier it is to make changes during the lookdev stages. 10. Spend time on the eyes Eyes are the heart of the portrait. Everyone understands what an eye looks like, and we are experienced in understanding the subtleties of them The eyes are the heart of the piece, as the eyes are usually the first thing we look at when we interact with others. The slightest change will completely change the expression. Every human knows what an eye looks like; from birth we understand the subtlety of an expression, and even someone who has no experience in art will notice any flaws. It is the reason why the uncanny valley is so hard to overcome – one mistake and it will fall into the uncanny valley. I spend a long time just working on the eyes and go through many variations before I can get them looking decent. 11. Don't overdo the details Get your detailing right but don't draw attention away from the portrait's main focus Your eye loves detail; a lot of it we read subconsciously, and a lack of detail will stand out. But if you overdo it you might take attention away from what is important. Detailing is used to create realism and support the overall image, but it is not meant to be shown off. In my portraiture work my main focus are the eyes and face; everything revolves around this and supports it, if it doesn't then I will get rid of it. 12. Use X-Gen for the hair X-Gen is perfect for creating all kinds of hair Cassidy's hair was the biggest challenge I had in this portrait, as it covers most of the canvas. It was my first time using X-Gen but I am happy with the results. X-Gen enables you to create hair that is random from strand to strand and is great in creating those flyaways. It is great at creating that peach fuzz too – it's subtle, but adds that realism. I added a V-Ray hair shader to the hair with colour variation to each strand. By making hair random it loses the clean look that sometimes digital work can have. 13. Create a mood with lighting I kept my lighting as simple as possible which complemented the composition; for Cassidy I wanted to keep the viewer's focus on her face with little distraction elsewhere The lighting is key to the mood of the work, as it drives and magnifies the emotion you are trying to portray. Caravaggio is an example of how a hard light can change an image; his work has strong high-contrast lighting making his work dynamic and aggressive. Alternatively Rembrandt usually uses soft lighting, which gives his work a welcoming warmth to it. In Cassidy's portrait I wanted to show youth, so I used a warm, soft light to show her as a person of compassion. The piece is actually inspired by the soft lighting of the Mona Lisa. 14. Think about your composition This composition is based on ovals and the rule of thirds To reinforce the soft lighting I made sure not to have any hard lines in the composition. The composition is created from ovals and the rule of thirds. The background divided into two, the light allowing her head to pop out, and the dark to allow her jumper to stand out. Being able to read the silhouette creates less distraction from her face and her gaze, which is the main focus point. Composition and lighting is what really defines a portrait – these are great tools to use to help create a connection with the subject. This article was originally published in issue 236 of 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Buy issue 236 here or subscribe to 3D World here. Related articles: How to create a realistic digital portrait 15 fantasy portrait tips How to perfect hair in your portraits View the full article

What do you do if you want to really draw attention to a campaign? If you're United Way – a Canadian network of non-profits that work locally to raise funds and improve lives in their communities – you rope in Pantone to use a bit of colour theory and create a new hue that can't be ignored. 12 colours and the emotions they evoke For its new campaign, Show Your Local Love, United Way wanted to make local issues – such as poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, mental health and social isolation – unignorable. So it partnered up with the Pantone Color Institute to develop a unique Pantone shade aimed at highlighting these issues in a way that's hard to overlook. The result is Unignorable, a colour that's guaranteed to grab your attention. It's described by Laurie Pressman, VP at the Pantone Color Institue, as an instantly captivating, brightly coloured hue that radiates pure heat and energy. "The Unignorable colour boldly calls out for attention while remaining friendly, approachable and optimistic," she says. United Way has a long-standing association with good design. Its logo, depicting a helping hand cradling mankind and surrounded by a rainbow symbolising hope, was created in 1972 by Saul Bass. And to help get the message of its new campaign across, United Way has brought in another design icon, Malika Favre, to create a series of eye-catching images that use Unignorable to illustrate the issues the organisation is attempting to tackle. "The idea behind the campaign was to grab people’s attention with a unique and bold colour," says Favre, "combined with a hidden narrative that highlights everyday issues. Our colour is here to make them look and our story to make them think." Malika Favre's minimal illustrations use Unignorable to grab people's attention United Way is also working with Canadian brand Peace Collective to create a series of Unignorable items that you can buy through its store, starting with a signature T-shirt and with more pieces to follow. To find out more about United Way, Show Your Local Love and of course the new Pantone Unignorable colour, head this way. Related articles: If celebrities were Pantone colours The essential guide to colour correction The best colour tools for web designers View the full article

Adobe MAX 2018 is nearly here. At this annual gathering of over 12,000 graphic, web and multi-disciplinary designers, art directors, film, video and motion graphics pros and photographers, inspiration is very much the name of the game. Leading creative conference Adobe MAX offers over 300 sessions, labs and creativity workshops taught by industry leaders to help ignite your imagination and grow your career. This is a place where you can learn about industry trends, see new products and technology in action and kickstart your creativity all under one roof. When and where is Adobe Max 2018? This year's Adobe MAX is being held at the Los Angeles Convention Centre from the 15-17 October. If you can make it, we'll see you in (hopefully) sunny LA. But if you're not able to get to the Southern California city, never fear, you can still join in the action via Adobe's live stream. And action aplenty is pretty much guaranteed. Adobe always pulls out all the stops for its annual conference, and Adobe MAX 2018 is no exception. Among the keynote speakers you'll find legendary producer and director Ron Howard, DJ and musician Questlove, comic book artist Nicola Scott, YouTuber Lilly Singh, and photographer Albert Watson. Adobe MAX attendees will also be invited to witness all the latest and greatest updates to Adobe's Creative Cloud suite, as well as learn some techniques to create amazing content. The learning sessions range from lectures to hands-on demonstrations in everything from photography and videography to prototyping and character design – there really is something for everyone! What we already know about Adobe Max 2018 Last year's Sneaks session revealed a number of new innovations, and this year is sure to be no different For the past few weeks, Adobe has teased with a number of sneak previews of the updates made to some of its most popular creative apps. These included details of a supercharged Content-Aware Fill tool in Photoshop and an exciting new toolbar feature in Illustrator. These are no doubt the tip of the iceberg, with Adobe sure to wow audiences at Adobe MAX 2018 with even more handy new features and updates to help creatives realise their full artistic potential. While we currently don't know what these might be, we're super-excited to be reporting live from the event, so stay tuned for all the top Adobe MAX news. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for the latest updates, and keep checking this page for all the latest news. Read more: 7 insane tech sneaks from Adobe MAX Adobe XD and Adobe Dimension launched at Adobe MAX How to use Adobe Capture CC View the full article