Interview with Alter Image
September 21, 2006

Founded in 1997 in Chicago, Illinois, Alter Image specializes in combining 3D computer generated imagery and photography to "push reality to its limits". With clients ranging from Disney, to Chrysler, to Absolut, Alter Image views itself as a partner with it clients in bringing a particular vision to life. NewTek recently sat down with Eric Tobiason, CGI Manager of Alter Image, to find out how this studio endeavors to turn the real into the surreal.

Can you tell us a little about yourself and your history with 3D?
My history with 3D began at ETAG (Educational Technologies Assistance Group), which was part of the Office of Instructional Resources at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I was eighteen years old and in my second year of college; I worked for ETAG as a student hourly. I had several jobs... I designed the flow and interface of multimedia programs, created the artwork and animations to go with them, and directed videos and created traditional animation... you know, drawing every frame by hand. My previous job had been in the animation department at Encyclopedia Britannica, which hired me when I was not-quite fourteen years old to ink and paint animation cels, a job which I see as my "wax-on, wax-off" training period in artistic patience. It was at ETAG that I was first introduced to 3D through a now-obsolete program called Infini-D. The program was already there when I arrived; I don't know who bought it, but nobody there was using it. Discovering it buried there on what became my computer was something like finding hidden treasure. I was fascinated by what it promised, and taught myself the program by reading the manual and using it for my work. It was an interesting time; the University had just released the first web browser, and everyone was talking about how a little program called Director would, one day, be able to publish content on this thing called the World Wide Web.

As I became more proficient in 3D, I became dissatisfied with Infini-D and began to fill its gaps with other inexpensive commercial programs, until I was using several packages in tandem to create my images: Infini-D, Poser, Bryce, Carrara, Amorphium. I relied heavily on Photoshop to blend everything together, but I quickly became dissatisfied with this process as well, and went looking for something more powerful and integrated.

How were you first introduced to LightWave 3D?
The funny thing is, I was first introduced to LightWave not long after I was first introduced to Infini-D. There was an Amiga in the video department at ETAG, because they used the Video Toaster. LightWave was installed on that Amiga as well, although, just like Infini-D, no one was using it when I arrived. I don't remember what version it was, but this was without a doubt when LightWave was only available on the Amiga system. A coworker introduced me to LightWave when she saw how much I was doing with Infini-D. She had nearly completed a tutorial of two spaceships flying around a planet before she decided that 3D wasn't for her, and she showed me the program and rendered one frame of her animation for me. It took ages, but it looked great. Even so, I didn't have full access to the Amiga, didn't understand enough about 3D in general or Infini-D and LightWave specifically to realize why LightWave was more powerful, and was too young to really care, so I didn't go out of my way to learn how to use it.

It wasn't until five years ago that I got acquainted with Lightwave in any meaningful sense. I was using 3D minimally in my capacity as an art director at a promotional advertising agency, and getting very dissatisfied with my process as I mentioned in the last question, when I convinced them to purchase LightWave for the Mac. That was version 6.5, and I taught myself how to use it with the help of some of the amazing printed material that is available for LightWave as well as the online community.

What feature of LightWave do you like the most?
Mac compatibility! That may sound funny, but it's true... the Macintosh platform dominates the print and advertising industry, and simply having LightWave available for the Mac, as early as it was available, put it into my hands.

Are there any plug-ins you use on a regular basis?
My favorite plug-ins are Worley's FPrime, G2, and Sasquatch, Rounder, FI's Wrinkle, Vector Copy, Normal Displacement, Pawel Olas' Grass Generator, Tree Designer, Leaf Generator and Random Cloner... and Bridge Tool, though it's been folded in to the program, so does that one count? There are several that I want to get acquainted with the recently-released Mac versions of, like HD Instance.

The "plug-in" that I rely on the most, though, is the rest of the studio. I work as a part of a team, and the images I create wouldn't be the same without photographers shooting hi-resolution texture maps and/or the photographic components of the image, digital artists color correcting and converting my images for print and compositing the CG with the photography, or the critiques of old salty dogs like Jeff Legare. It isn't really about the 3D here. It's about the final image.

How did you first become involved with Alter Image?
I first became familiar with the studio by directing photo shoots here in my capacity as an art director at my former job. At the time I was just learning LightWave, and using it at the agency to create some content (even, at times, retouching my 3D into Alter Image's photography on my own). From the beginning I was very interested in making photoreal images; mainly product packaging. I called it "virtual photography" and I thought it could be a big thing at the ad agency where I worked, allowing us to keep more of our budgets instead of spending it on outside photography. I put together a presentation, but no one there was very interested. Their business was design, not production, and anyway, getting out of the office in order to go to a photo shoot was a main highlight that would be sorely missed if we started creating product shots out of thin air.

Alter Image was a strong photography and retouching studio, and had been for several years at the time. I saw immediately how my work could do very well in that environment. The company is owned by three people: Jeff Legare, a digital artist, and two sales/businessmen, Bill Prena and Jim Armetta. My agency was a client of Jim's, and whenever he came on a sales call, I made it a point to showcase my latest 3D accomplishment to him. He always showed a friendly interest, but I wasn't sure that he understood that I was looking for a job. Eager for a change, and eager to do 3D, I ended up quitting my job at the agency to become a freelance 3D artist.

I freelanced for several months, and one of my clients was Alter Image. I slowly learned that they were interested in starting up a 3D department, but hadn't approached me sooner because I was an employee of one of their clients—a potentially messy situation that I cleared up when I decided to leave that job on my own. I ended up joining full time about six months after I began freelancing.

What is your primary role at Alter Image, and what does it entail?
My initial mandate was to create a portfolio that could be used to sell 3D in to their client base, but this never happened. Their business was always about creating one seamless but impossible image from components, and it was immediately apparent how 3D could fit into that flow, so I began client work immediately and it has always kept me very busy. Because of this my primary role changed about six months in, instead of doing the prep work to create a CGI department I was the manager of a CGI department that sort of created itself. At the time the department consisted solely of me, though now we have one more CGI artist, also a LightWave generalist (and we could use more).

Once I became manager, my job wasn't just to create images but to be aware of how I created them, what could be done to speed up workflow, and to document and implement my discoveries. This was the process that I used to design our initial workflow and I've tuned it over time to help make sure that jobs proceed smoothly and efficiently, and to make sure that the client gets what they want as quickly as possible. I keep my mind on the future of the department and the company as well, and I meet with the owners regularly to discuss where the department is headed as well as implementing changes within my department to keep us on course.

What are some of the obstacles that you've had to overcome?
The main problem that we've encountered in expanding was not how to add 3D to the workflow, as I said it practically added itself, but how to describe what we do. "We create images based on our client's concepts by meshing photography, CGI and 2D illustration through digital compositing." That's true, but it's a mouthful. Photographers don't say "We capture light through a lens and a box, focusing it onto a surface that reacts to the light in order to make an image." A photographer is a photographer, and they take pictures. But what are we? If you have trouble talking about what you do, if the language doesn't exist, then you can't sell it properly. And we are doing something very different and unique, I believe. The term that I've coined to help us succinctly describe what we do is "creative realization". The client has a concept in his or her head, and we realize it, we transform it into a real image. It'll do for now, until someone thinks of something better.

Come on, is Alter Image really so unique?
I really believe we are. There are a lot of photography studios, there are a lot of retouching studios, and there are a lot of 3D illustrators, and many agencies are comfortable going to separate places to get their images made. But that method is inefficient, and the final image isn't likely to be as good. Everybody here at Alter Image understands quite a bit about everybody else's work, and each of us tailors how we work to make the whole process run more smoothly. Our photographers aren't just photographers, the digital artists aren't just digital artists, and the 3D people aren't just 3D people; everybody has a little bit of everything else, and this is what allows us to do what we do. You can't get that when you split up the work into separate parts and have people in different places do the work piecemeal. Everything we do is in real, printable color as well, and we can even keyline our client's layouts and interface directly with their printers, saving art buyers and directors a lot of hassle.

Does compositing have any particular challenges or advantages compared to more traditional 3D work?
Compositing for print has the same challenges as compositing for animation minus the dimension of time. You still have to worry about creating proper shadows and reflections, matching angle and lighting (sometimes we match the lighting from our original photography or a stock image, other times the photographers match our lighting... it depends on the job). Because we're dealing with a single image, as opposed to 24 or 30 per second, we do have the luxury of going in and making extensive retouching moves after the render, moves that wouldn't be practical for animation. But, because our single image is going to be printed at 300 dots per inch and sit in front of the viewer indefinitely, rather than fly by at 1/24th or 1/30th of a second at a much smaller resolution, we have to deal with large texture map files and model fine and subtle details that aren't usually necessary for animation, and certainly aren't practical for games.

How does LightWave 3D help you meet these challenges?
The LightWave rendering engine combined with FPrime and Monte Carlo radiosity creates beautiful, photoreal images at extremely high resolutions relatively quickly. Modeler is fast and robust, handling our modeling demands like a trooper, and Layout handles our high-resolution texture maps very well.

Have there been any projects have been particular favorites or particularly challenging?
The most challenging work I've done is for Disney, even though it wasn't intended to be photoreal. Digital Domain did television spots for Disney's 50th anniversary where the characters were all done in CG and composited into the real world. We were tapped to do the print through the Leo Burnett agency. The timeline was extremely tight—and it became apparent that many of the animation models would not do for the print campaign, so I had to rebuild them. Digital Domain created great models and great television spots, but Disney wanted the print to preserve more of the 2D qualities of the characters for each particular pose they were in. The animation models were built to look pretty good at all angles, but not perfect from any particular angle (what else could they do?), and because of software issues the models that I received from DD were extremely dense and not easily editable. So I had to build models that looked exactly right from a certain angle: one arm longer than the other, ears always facing forward, noses of various sizes, snouts squashed or stretched, and always with a certain, distinct flow of action in the character's body. We just finished our third job for them, and although the timeline is always tight and there is a lot of review we're getting the hang of the process and it's running more smoothly. The most frustrating thing about creating art for Disney, however, is that they don't allow you to show the work in your portfolio.

How did LightWave 3D help you accomplish these projects?
Well, the same strengths that I mentioned above that help with any job helped here. LightWave has a powerful, fast and customizable modeler, which allowed me to quickly create the figures and then sculpt them into the pose that I needed. I paid close attention to the tools that I was using the most and then created hotkeys for them. Every saved minute counts when you've been up for 48 hours.

Have the changes made in LightWave [8] and LightWave v9 had an impact on the way you work?
LightWave [8] was a great help, the new selection options (I put Select Loop to a hotkey) and subpatch interpolation for texture maps were very, very much appreciated, especially for the Disney work. And more closely integrating FPrime, which allowed it to use G2, was a great boon as well. Those stick out the most in my mind. As for LightWave v9, I'm extremely eager to dig into the improvements—particularly edge selection and weighting. By the time this profile is up, we'll be using v9, but I've been too busy to upgrade until now.

Do you have any advice for someone new to the 3D industry?
Consider print. At first blush it may not seem as sexy as movies or games, but at a small studio like Alter Image you have quite a bit of artistic ownership during the creation process, because we employ generalists who can take a project from start to finish. If that kind of full involvement appeals to you, give us a try, especially if you are looking at the images posted here and think you could do the same or better. Keep in mind that although we are not always asked to produce photoreal work it is the most difficult so that is what we want to see in a portfolio, we assume that if you can do photoreal you can do more CG-looking work naturally. Another thing to keep in mind if you want to apply for a job here is that we are located in Chicago. Where you are isn't important, as long as you can come here!

There aren't many studios like ours, but I predict that in five years that will no longer be true, so if you're just starting out and you're not sure where you will work... I'd say just hone your skills and there will be more opportunities in this area down the road. Just keep in mind that 3D for print is a different animal than for movies or games; the resolution is much higher, so the models and textures have to be quite detailed. If a final render's longest dimension is 3000 pixels or less, I consider it quite small.

My other piece of advice would be to persevere. I had been trying for years to get a good job doing 3D, and I wasn't getting it simply because I wasn't good enough. Nothing is permanent—I kept at it, and every year I was better, and now I've found what I was looking for. You can do the same thing. All the research says that drive is more important than talent; if you persevere you will improve.

Is there a "LightWave tip or trick" you've discovered that you feel others might find helpful?
Whatever program I use, I try to train myself to use the hotkeys. I have a conscious method of achieving this... if I can't remember the hotkey, I go to the panel where the button or command exists. The hotkey is printed right there. Then, I don't click the button! I use the hotkey command. It's a little time wasted in the short term, but by forcing myself to use the key command and not click the button even though I've gone through the trouble of calling it up helps me learn the key command, and eventually I don't call up the button because I remember the hotkey. Customize your interface. It will greatly speed up your workflow.

I have a couple of small modeling tricks. Everyone knows about the four quad box, which is naturally surrounded by eight points, which you can use to make a circle. I've found that if the four quads form a square, scaling the four corners in by 71% will make a nice circle out of the eight points. Otherwise, I just delete the four quads, make an eight-sided disk, and snap the points to it rather than fiddling with the points by hand.

Once I had to fill a beaker with marbles. I used LightWave's hard-body dynamics to do it for me!

What's next for Alter Image?
CGI was a natural extension for a photography and retouching studio. Now that we have CGI for print, a natural extension of that is to do more animation.

As far as our current area of expertise is concerned, we have to change the way agencies think of images, show them how they can get better images with less hassle by coming to our group rather than dealing with photography, CG, retouching and color correction separately. To reflect the new nature of the company since the CGI department was added, and to help change the way existing and new clients view us, we're changing our name slightly: beginning in February 2007 we will be known simply as Alter, because we don't just alter images, we change the way images are made, the way clients think about making images.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Eric!
Thank you! It's great to be a part of this wonderful community! No one is truly "self-taught," I owe a lot to all of you out there.

Alter Image is hiring. To apply for a position, or for more information about the company in general, visit their website: www.AIChicago.com