Brendan McCaffrey

Stunning racing bicycle model
brought to life using HDR Light Studio

We interviewed Brendan to find out more about him, his work and his experience using HDR Light Studio 1.5 for this latest project.

Brendan how did you get into 3D CGI?

I studied industrial design in university in the 90's and started rendering with marker, pastels and colour pencils. We had some ACAD courses but 3D was almost non-existent back then. I did a work placement in an arch viz company and was introduced to 3D studio (R2). Once I returned to university I started doing all my project rendering work in 3D and was probably one of the first to do so in my school. Once I graduated I worked in arch viz for a few more years and then moved to Singapore where I worked in a product design firm doing product rendering and digital content for mobile devices. On returning to Europe I set up as a freelance illustrator.

What type of 3D work do you?

I do a variety of work these days including pack art for toys and video games as well as illustrations for advertising. I have a bias towards hard surface work featuring products, vehicles and furniture but I also do some character and organic work.

What’s your main 3D app and why?

I've been a long time Alias/Maya user but in recent years I have been using Max more and more. I'm not too hung up on which one is the best and see them both as tools to get the job done. I started using Max when working on site with a client and was lucky enough to have some very experienced people there to learn from. I use Max for most of my work now but Maya is great when I need to work with Nurbs models.

What’s your main renderer and why?

I'm currently using Vray and find it generally quicker and simpler to setup and use than Mental Ray. The quality of the output is about the same but the there seems to be less headaches with Vray, at least in my experience and for my hardware. Things I especially like about Vray are proxies, linear workflow implementation, sampling methods and the overall speed. I do miss the custom shaders from MR though.

How did HDR Light Studio fit into your workflow?

My workflow for studio style rendering is pretty much derived from how a photographer would work. So I would use similar lighting concepts using soft boxes, flashes, reflection planes lit by spot lights etc. I also use a physical camera to closely mimic a studio camera using f stops, shutter speed and film speed to control the exposure and DOF of the image. HDR light studio allows me to apply this same process in a very intuitive way to produce the same setup in a fraction of the time. The main difference is the my rendering now uses IBL instead of actual lights but the decision making and creative process is still the same.

What are the main benefits of using HDR Light Studio?

Controlling the lighting levels and positioning the lights is easy and incremental testing is fast. Illumination is smoother and faster than using large area lights which helps a lot when rendering at super large resolutions. You can create a lighting scheme from scratch that precisely meets your project requirements. Added to that the fact that you can add image based real lights for more realistic reflections makes this a powerful tool for studio lighting.

Would you recommend HDR Light Studio to other 3D artists?

Absolutely! For anyone doing product visualization or studio style rendering this software is a great tool to have at your disposal.

You can see more of Brendans awesome work on his web site at: www.bmcaff.com