VD: Please introduce yourself and give a brief background on how you got involved in the arch viz industry. My name is Kostas Anninos and I graduated from the Public Designers Institute in Athens, Greece ten years ago as a CG designer. Simultaneously I watched 3dstudio Viz r3 seminars and got formal training in an Autodesk authorized center. I got started in...

VD:  Please introduce yourself and give a brief background on how you got involved in the arch viz industry.My name's Viktor Fretyán and I come from Budapest, Hungary.  I started showing interest in 3d many years ago in elementary school.  I saw a demo version of 3d studio max 2 at a friend's place and I was really amazed although as far as I remember it we only put boxes and...

In this tutorial I will try to best explain how I went about creating my image created for the Wish You Were Here competition. Software used to create this image was 3ds Max, Mental Ray, Photoshop, Zbrush and After Effects.Organization & LayoutThe very first step to get a feeling for the model provided was to place cameras in the scene to check out the angles of the model and potential...

MAKE US WISH WE WERE THEREVizdepot Competition, Winners AnnouncementDecember 15th, 2009The intent was to create a signature vacation place in the sun and surf. Dream up what it means to be sun drenched and make us wish we were there. With over 100 participants worldwide, the competition did not disappoint. We are exceptionally...

Summer is unfortunately drawing to a close.  If you didn't get  that trip to the islands you wanted, well here's your opportunity to realize than dark bronze tan in CG!   In order to drench you in sun and surf, the Vizdepot is providing your own vacation spot.  Welcome to the 2009 Challenge from the Vizdepot.   Thousands flock to the islands each year to relax...

Book Review:Mastering mental rayRendering Techniques for 3D & CAD ProfessionalsJennifer O’ConnorSybex Publishing, ISBN 978-0-470-56385-4 There is a new book out on mental ray by Jennifer O’Connor, president and founder of Chicago’s (AAUGA) Autodesk Animations Users Group Association. The new title is called Mastering mental ray. This full...

Happy Digital is a company that has been around for about ten or so years creating very specific plug-ins and 3D products for a variety of industries but the downfall had been that they only supported the Lightwave 3D package until now. The release of Autograss has opened Happy Digital’s horizons to 3dsMax users as well as V-Ray users, and boy have they done a fantastic job. Now, let’s...

There's still time to enter our "Render Us Speechless" contest with $5000in prize money. Deadline extended to October 30 and image size requirements reduced to 2400 px horizontal OR vertical.If you haven't already submitted your most photorealistic renderings, there's still time to do so! And we've recognized that our previous file specs were just too darn big, so we've reduced them to...