The new flesh

Realsoft 3D 4.5 is a fully featured 3D application that contains a wide range of modelling, animation and rendering options. It is excellent for all kinds of illustration work, so, to introduce some of its main features – and in keeping with the anatomical theme of the issue – this tutorial will explain how to create the striking, semi-abstract image of a raised hand and arm above.

In the first section, you’ll model a hand shape out of coiled wire by drawing and posing NURBS curves in 3D space. After deforming the hand with a mapping technique, the final NURBS surface of the wires will be created by sweeping circles along the curves, and the blood-like fluid between them will be built up by metaball modelling. Subsequently, the fluid will be converted to an SDS object for further modelling and fine-tuning. During the final section, we’ll add different materials and lights to get a nice look in the finished render.

Because of the flexible nature of Realsoft 3D, there are many ways to achieve any given effect. This tutorial will give you an idea of how to tackle different tasks, but it should also act as inspiration for delving deeper into the software. In particular, the application offers a number of other ways to simulate fluids.

The workflow of Realsoft 3D is somewhat different to other 3D packages, so before you begin, take a look at the tutorials provided in the user manual. In particular, the Getting Started tutorials will be helpful if you’re completely new to 3D. If you get stuck at any point during this walkthrough, project files corresponding to intermediate steps are provided for you to load in and refer to.

One of the strengths of Realsoft is its shading language, called VSL, which can be used to create a variety of materials. Although there isn’t space to cover this in detail in the tutorial, it would be beneficial to take a closer look for yourself. Check the Advanced box in the Property window of each material in the project files to see how they were created and how to go about modifying them.

NOTE: This tutorial refers to a full copy of Realsoft 3D 4.5 that was included with this issue of 3D World and that we are unable to make available for download. However you can download a 60-day trial version of Realsoft 3D 5.1 from the Realsoft site.

Click here to download the support files (~16MB)