Featured Artist - Luca Rodolfi [rodluc2001] Getting to know Luca Rodolfi [rodluc2001] Interview by Peggy Walters [Peggy_Walters] Peggy: Could you tell us a bit about yourself? What type of work do you do? Are you married? Luca: My name is Luca Rodolfi, and I am a 34-year-old Italian living near Milan. I m married, and we have a little baby. My job is in consulting, especially in business intelligence. I also have a degree in Natural Sciences (I studied insects!). I have two hobbies: computer graphics and musical composition. And considering I m always using a computer for work, you can see that im always at the computer: for my job and my hobby! My first experience creating art with a PC was during the period when the Commodore Amiga was popular. I remember the Sculpt 3D application, and later Imagine, and all the hours necessary to render an iron ball reflecting a poor horizon. In 1993, I bought my first PC (486 33 MHz and 8 Mb RAM) and used 3D Studio. All of my real experiences with graphics were born when I discovered Vue dEsprit and the Renderosity community. I also discovered how much 3d models could cost. Once, navigating in Turbo Squid, I saw a castle that cost $120. In that moment I understood my mission: make 3d models free! :) I wasn t anticipating the success I had, so I had to buy a domain (http://www.rodluc.com/) and obtain professional hosting for my files. Downloads of my models add up to more than 100 gigabytes per month. Then I added a PayPal account in order to use possible donations to cover my hosting costs. Peggy: What graphic applications do you use? Luca: I normally use three software programs: 3D Studio Max for modeling, Vue Professional for rendering, and Photo Paint 11 for details. I rarely use Poser 5. Peggy: What inspires you to create your castles? Luca: In particular, images and photos are what first inspire me. Then, I continue without using any images while adding details to the pictures. I think to myself, What else could I add?” until I finally finish the model. Peggy: Any tips you could offer on how you begin your castle models? Luca: Here are some simple rules: Don t rush to conclude a model. Pay attention to proportions; render a lot to see if it is well done (walls, doors, windows, etc). Pay attention to textures; it should be realistic and convincing. Each material is composed of many layers. I normally use primitives, such as cubes and cylinders, and functions, such as lathe and extrude. Mostly, I use Boolean functions, in particular subtraction. Software References: Vue dEsprit and Vue Professional Curious Labs Poser 3DS Max Photo Paint Printer-friendly format