Scherer - ZBrush 4 sculpting for games: beginners guide ; sculpt machines, environments, and creatures for your game development projects

Manuel Scherer is a German game developer who has worked in the games industry and in the fields of visual computing. He is currently teaching real-time visualizations at the Offenbach Academy of Art and Design.

Apart from his beloved work, he writes as a freelance journalist about the games industry from major events such as the Game Developers Conference Europe.

First, I would like to thank my parents, especially my father who continuously supported me on the long way of creating such a book. Furthermore, I would like to thank my love for her unmatched amount of support and motivation.

Also the team at Packt did an amazing job on setting everything up, thank you. My special thanks go to my friend and author Felix Kerger who inspired me to write this book. Last but not the least, let me thank Prof. Rolf Schubert and Michael Margraf, Alban Voss, and Fabian Schempp for their infinite amount of constructive feedback and their everlasting good mood.

Ryan Bailey is a Senior-Level CG Artist working in the Animation and Video Game industry for over six years. Having a talent for art at a young age and parents that supported this, helped to nurture and grow his skills and talents as an illustrator and sculptor. Realizing that the only way to progress as an artist he moved onto the 3D Animation and Visual Effects Program at Vancouver Film School after four years of Fine Arts schooling.

Ryan's work experience includes Lead ZBrush Artist at Electronic Arts Canada, Senior Character Artist at Rainmaker Entertainment Inc., ZBrush Instructor at the Art Institute of Vancouver, and currently, he is working at Tecmo-Koei Canada as a CG Artist for their upcoming title WarriorsLegends of Troy. Even with his busy workload and family life, Ryan still finds time to do freelance work on the side.

Glauco Longhi is a sculptor, both traditional and digital, working for the cinema and television industry, also doing some toys and collectible works.

His passion for sculpture started in 2006, when he was working with After Effects for Motion Graphics for TV advertisement. At the studio, he met a guy who worked with something called 3Dmax, and then he fell in love with this brand new world.

After some basic courses, he chose the modeling area. And then, realized that only 3D wouldn't be enough for creating some nice characters, so he started sculpting in clay. After some months, his life was changed.

In the meantime, he worked for several 3D companies and studios, mainly focused on modeling and sculpting, but he decided to get some time and dedicate it to his own life, starting the freelancer living.

Now, sculpting maquettes, garage kits, prosthetic appliances, busts, halloween masks, props, and animatronics, his life is starting to make sense.

"Since I was 10 years old, my relation with arts was zero. I only wanted to be a pro skateboarder, and that was all I cared about. But I was very interested in how everything worksthe mechanisms, the fx, the magic, and illusion. Now, working with prosthetic fx, animatronics and so on, it's like I'm putting everything that I always loved together. Everything is starting to make sensethat's awesome! I love this."

Glauco Longhi is always doing workshops around Brazil. He likes to teach and talk about sculpture and character design, creatures, monsters, and also studying hard. Almost every day, free time is spent, sculpting, drawing, or reading some new stuff.

"My relation with skateboarding can be easily seen through my art and my passion, my study routine. When I was trying to do right some trick, I never stopped until I could do that on the right and style way. Since I was a child, my brain chose this path to see things, and that's what I do with my art. I'm obsessed with human anatomy, so I'm always trying to see things better, but with time, I can see that this is an infinite journeyThat's good, so I'll be searching for learning forever, and this will keep me on the right path, hope so."

Vivek Ram began his career 10 years ago as a freelancer dabbling in all the various segments of 3D animation. He has worked with Rhythm and Hues as a Senior Digital Artist for a few years before moving on to the Dreamworks Dedicated Unit as a Modeling Lead, where he wore multiple hats and moved between many departments during his tenure. He currently works as an independent animation consultant, again playing the role of VFX Supervisor, Designer, or Art Director on both feature and game projects for a variety of studios and production houses. For more information and to view his gallery of work, please visit www.markeviv.com.

Luke M. Steichen is a character artist working in the video game industry in Seattle, Washington. He spent four years in the United States Army, which gave him the opportunity to pursue his dream of making video games by letting him attend the Art Institute of Seattle to earn his Bachelors of Fine Arts in Game Art and Design. Through hard work, dedication (and many all-nighters) he landed an internship as a character artist which marked the beginning of a successful career in the games industry.

Luke is currently working at Sucker Punch Productions as a character rigger and assistant technical director on inFamous 2. Previously, Luke worked at WB Games in Kirkland, Washington as an Associate World Artist for "Lord of the Rings: War in the North" and F.E.A.R. 3. Before that he worked as a Contract Character artist at Surreal Software on "This Is Vegas" and "Lord of the Rings: War in the North."