Meet the experimental story of Alex, a 3D artist and motion designer. Discover how small and simple things found around him transformed into 'TREASURE'.

Interview with Alex Diaconu | TREASURE | 3D Artist & Motion Designer

Could you briefly introduce yourself to us?

Hey everyone! My name is Alex, I'm 31 and I'm a 3D artist and motion designer based in Spain. I've been moving polygons for more than 10 years, It's always been just for fun and I like to keep it that way as much as possible so you could definitely call it my passion. I'm currently spending my time between trying new workflows, personal projects, and freelancing.

Let's talk about your recent project, “Treasure”. Can you tell us where you got the inspiration for the concept or what was the visual style you were aiming for?

I'd love to sit here and talk about having a vision from the very beginning, but this project came to be entirely by mistake and step by step. Some concepts will come to you instantly, some others will develop as you're having fun.

I'm very passionate about experimenting, most of my work comes from experimental processes, which is a trait that comes with being self-taught. The result of said experimentation, and how much fun I'm having doing it, often guides the project at every turn.

This started by deciding to model a couple of things I could see around my desk every day with no goal other than having a good time modeling. The same goes for texturing and lighting, I like doing it so it was simply my pass time.

As I had enough of them a concept was becoming clear, these are the bits I have around me, I was looking at a collection of things I have, simple things but unequivocally mine, my treasure.

How did you use Marvelous Designer in the artwork?

I'm by no means an experienced user, so I did what I do best, experiment.

I imported a low poly version of my pile of things as an avatar and generated various "bags" consisting of basic shape and seams.

From there it was just a matter of playing around and generating various iterations until I got folds I like. There lies the fun of simulations.

The second part consisted of setting up another set of simple shapes and seams, and using the pressure feature to basically achieve a "vacuum sealing" rig I could throw any avatar in and simulate.

Why did you decide to use Marvelous Designer? How did it help you serve art direction?

A work colleague first introduced me to Marvelous. Shout out Fenton if you're reding this!

He is way more interested in character art than I am, nonetheless, I never say no to experimenting with new software and I could immediately see the potential uses and advantages it could have over other solutions.

For me, it's all about results, and natural-looking results are absolutely lovely. Every crease and fold looks so good from the start. I could not imagine having to sculpt this kind of detail, nor getting anything remotely similar from my usual 3D software.

Cloth simulations in most 3D software is still really limited, sluggish, and hardware intensive. Other really powerful tools do not offer an intuitive enough UX to facilitate learning.

I feel like a tool like Marvelous Designer holds the sweet spot, where the GPU simulation is really fast, and is meant for fashion designers it has really intuitive UX to the point where learning how everything works takes little to no time.

Can you give us a quick overview of the different tools used in your pipeline?

Too many to count. Much like my Marvelous Designer use, I like to use dedicated software based on it respective strength.

I use Moi for hard surface modeling, which was the case in this project, ZBrush for sculpting, Decimation Master in ZBrush is really powerful when I need to keep the poly count in check, so it's usually used on high poly Marvelous exports, Octane for physically accurate materials and lighting, World Creator for landscapes, and the list goes on depending on my needs.

Like I said, I think using specialized software for what they're best at is the way to go.

Do you have any other projects that you have worked on using Marvelous Designer that you can share with us?

Of course! I used it for as little as some stickers on my self-portrait, and as much as the centerpiece of my latest project. See below!

How can you describe your overall experience of the use of the Marvelous Designer?

Overall I'm really pleased, as I mentioned before I found it really user friendly, snappy and fast. I haven't encountered any bugs or crashes even when I push it quite far.

Lastly, thank you for your interest in my work and a message to anyone reading this: Play around and always have fun!

by ALEX DIACONU
Behance