Could you introduce yourself ?
My name is Dawid Michalczyk, I'm 26 years old. I started making computer graphics in 1993 on Amiga computers. Back then it was all about pixelling, using programs like Deluxe Paint or Personal Paint. Later I become interested in 3D, bough a PowerMac with a copy of Bryce and started experimenting a lot. These days I mostly use Max and Photoshop.

What are your sources of inspiration ?
Almost everything. I really like when I'm being inspired by my outside world. For example while working on "Future Bandits" my main source of inspiration was the huge construction site just outside my work. I also get inspired by looking at other artists works, by movies, music, and especially nature and cities.

What's your favorite genre, theme ?
Generally speaking my favorite genre is Science Fiction. I especially like to visualize the not so distant future, like 100 years from now. I like to concentrate on the industrial, old, worn, dirty and rusty aspects of it. Which I usually present by futuristic and industrial architecture. Besides hard SF, I love making space landscapes, often with a touch of abstraction.

What are your strong points ?
I think that my main strong point is the ability to create a certain realism and natural atmosphere in my images. This is mainly achieved through a mixture of modeling, lighting, texturing and imagination. Drawing textures, especially the dirty looking once, is something which I'm quite good at.

Tell us a little about "Suburbs 2100".
Well, this image was done for a contest. Originally, I wanted to do a view over a futuristic city, with lots of details and wessels flying around.However, I quickly realized that the view I imagined, would take a lot more time than I had, so I made some quick changes in order to adapt to the time limit. Although some drastic 
changes were made, I still kept the idea of having a nice depth of field and the originally imagined atmosphere. Still, even after I adapted to the new idea I run out of time, so the image is a bit unfinished. I planned on having a huge distant city visible behind the "train bridge", in order to enhance the gigantic proportions cities of the future may have. I also intended to improve many textures. I should have started working earlier on this image..

How long did it take you ?
I did Suburbs 2100 over a period of 3 weeks, working 8-14 hours almost every day. 

How many faces ?
There is a bit over 1 500 000 faces in the scene.

How do you keep your scene editable with so much details ?
Well, the key thing here, is to give your textures, objects and groups proper names, and use the Select by Name, Hide, Hide by Category, Freeze and Display Properties options.I often model complex or heavy things separately from each other and merge everything at the end.I also have a 2GB partition used for swapping only.It is first in the final stage of the image, that things start to go really slow in terms of wireframe updating and HD swapping.

How did you model the car ?
The car consists of several parts. All parts have lots of polygons and have been shaped using Edit Mesh, Mesh Smooth, Smooth and Free Form Deformation Modifier. The shape of each part have been drawn by using the line tool, followed by extrusion. When using this method, it is important to give it enough segments when extruding, so the object will have enough faces to ensure round edges. 

How did you model the robot in the air ?
Many objects I model have the following history stack: I draw the shape using the line tool, the shape is being extruded and Edit Mesh is applyed. Edit Mesh is excellent for shaping your models to give them the required form. I may also add Mesh Smooth to smooth out any hard edges. As for the round "roof" part in the robot (which is an air gas station by the way), I created it out of a sphere, by deleting some faces and twisting the shape a bit. 

How did you model the characters ? Are they very detailed ?
The characters are very simple in construction, and are not very detailed at all. I started out creating the main body by using the "out of a box" method.Which is a good technique for making low-polygon characters.You start out by creating a box with certain amount of length, width and height segments in it.Then using Edit Mesh's face select, you select the faces from which legs, arms and neck will be extruded. Each selection is being extruded a few times, until a humanoid shape is visible. Now by switching to vertex mode, the shaping of the body begins. To save time, it is a good idea to model half of the body only, and make a mirrored copy for the other half later. At this point the character will look a lot more humanoid, but still very blocky. Mesh Smooth is good for smoothing out surfaces, and should be used here.
In my case I ended up splitting the character in pieces like, legs, torso, head, forearms and upperarms. I applied noise to legs, upper arms and torso to give the illusion of clothing. Which only worked on a distance.I also added some extra military/police equipment to their clothing. 

What's your favorite tool(s) to model (hi-)tech objects ?
Without any doubt, Edit Mesh. This tool combined with Smooth and Mesh Smooth can do wonders. 

What do you think of the MAX modeling features ?
I think they are excellent. However, my experience with other 3D packages is somewhat limited.

How many textures did you use in this scene ?
A bit over 80.

Do you draw some textures yourself ? What is the "from scratch"/"from real" textures ratio ?
Whenever possible, I always try to draw all textures myself from scratch. I prefer doing this because it gives me much bigger satisfaction when I know that I have done everything myself (instead of using scanned textures or models). I also really enjoy drawing dirty/rusty/old looking textures. Whenever I get tired of modeling, I simply switch to Photoshop and start drawing. Somehow, drawing textures is more relaxing for me then modeling. Perhaps because I model a lot more then I draw. 

In case of Suburbs 2100 I have drawn about 95% of all textures. The remaining 5% were some textures which I simply didn't bother to draw, because of the simplicity of these textures.

Could you give us some tips on how to create realistic metal textures ? 
First of all, you'll need to know how real metal textures looks in the real world. Take a walk outside and start observing. If you live in a very new or clean neighborhood, go to the old ,or preferably industrial, part of your town. Find what you are looking for and study it. You should especially take note of the colors of the surface you find. Is the rust very dark red or very dark orange, or perhaps both? What time of the day is it, and how is the sun light affecting the surface you are looking at? Why are some parts of the surface more rusty/shiny/dirty/darker then others? How is the bump map of the texture and why is it the way it is? How are the subtle differences between colors of the texture and what colors are they? Just what exactly is the shape of the rusty part and why? (etc.)

Try finding some interesting elements(EL box, a dirty wall, rusty pipes, etc ) on your way to and from work/school. Everytime you pass by that object, try noticing a new detail in it.When you get home, try drawing the texture of that object. You'll probably get stuck in the beginning, but don't worry, this means that you'll know exactly what to look for next time you walk by that object again.

Of course, the above mentioned method applies to everything, not only to textures but to objects, shadows, light, architecture, animals, plants, motion, etc. It's all about observing and studying the environment we are living in. It's that "simple". 
Once you start noticing all these things, drawing textures will become much easier and a pure joy to do. As for the drawing technique here is how I do it. Usually, I'll start with a very dull gray color for the main background. Depending on the texture I'll start drawing some slightly darker "dirty patterns" around the texture. These spots vary greatly in size and subtle color diffrences. Once you have a dirty wall, you can try to add more "life" to it by adding some larger darker spots around. Always use slightly different colors. The rust is done in pretty much the same way, except for that you'll have to find a certain place for it in your texture. Try using some very dark red and mix it with dark orange. Generally speaking, use small brushes like 3-5 pixels and don't be afraid of using lots of layers.Experiment with the drawing tools, until you'll find your own way of doing things. 

What kind of lighting did you use in this image ?
There is one main light source, which consists of around 15 directional lights, mostly shadowmapped. The remaining 7 lights are mostly omni lights placed at different places to eliminate unwanted shadows or to lighten up certain areas.

What are the different environmental effects here ?
The only environmental effect here is fog, which is clearly visible when you look at the image.

Did you use the default scanline renderer ?
Yes.

How did you make the background ?
The background was drawn in Photoshop.
 

What's your favorite image between these two ? Why ?
It's a hard choice, but I think that my favorite is "Suburbs 2100". First of all, the presents of humans and many flying vehicles makes the image much more alive than "Future Bandits". Secondly, the perspective is much wider with more depth in it. Finally, the texturing is better in Suburbs 2100. On the other hand, a full screen "Future Bandits" looks SO awesome in a dark room with lights turned off :)

Are these images left untouched, or do you process/enhance them after rendering ?
Whenever I know that a certain image (scene) will not be animated, I almost always do touch ups after the rendering is done. Sometimes it's much easier or faster to achieve a certain effect in 2D then in 3D.

Do you make the whole scenes in 3d or do you composite them ?
Everything is done in 3D, with the exception of sky backgrounds.

What are the most important points in a scene to make it look good ?
I think that the most important aspects of making a good scene is the creativity and imagination of the person who is working on it. This combined with a bit of talent, dedication and technical "know how" can make wonders. Besides this point everything is important. Good lighting should have good shadows. Right textures should be on the right objects. Areas which require details should be detailed in a proper way. Colors must have the right tones. Contrasts are important. Also, good perspective should have good depth. The atmosphere of the scene is important.

Do you still use Bryce now that you have 3D Studio MAX ?
I use Bryce ocassionally.Actually I'm planning on using Bryce to make a realistic background for one of my future images. I also started using Photoshop for landscapes.

What are the strong points of 3D Studio MAX ?
Generally speaking, Max is very intuitive. The interface is very well set up, and easy to navigate through. The ability of editing your stack is very useful. Also the material editor is a very powerful tool. The plugins architecture is great... I'm probably missing tons of things here.. Max is great overall.

How important are sketches, drawings, ... to your artworks ?
Sometimes I do pencil sketches on paper, but for 3D I mostly use Photoshop for sketching. Ocassioanlly I will render a 20% done scene, load into Photoshop and do some sketches on top of it. Later I'll try to achieve what I have drawn by modeling. Whenever I go for a 100% 2D image, I might start by doing a good pencil sketch first, scan into the computer and color it later.

Do you have everything clear in your mind, lights, textures, color, etc when you start an image or it develops as you move on ?
When I start working on an image I always have at least a general idea of how that image is going to be. However, the final image is almost always quite different from my original vision. This is because I visualize a lot while working and get better ideas that way.

What are you tired of seeing in other people's animations/stills ?
The most ugly and boring images are probably the Star Wars and Star Trek imitations. There are thousands of them on the internet. People download some spaceship objects, put a camera and some galaxy as background. Produce 10 images during one evening and put it on the net.
Another boring aspect of 3d images today is the "one object only" images. For example, there are many images showing off a human head only. This is a good way of showing off your head modeling/texturing skills, but nothing else. For me, such images are boring to look at. It's not something I would hang on my wall or use it as a desktop background.

What will be your future plans ?
I want to start working on detailed characters. I have very little experience in this area and will probably need to learn many new modeling tools and techniques, which is very fine.
Also some general study of human anatomy will probably be required too. Furthermore, I intend to do more Photoshop work. I already started doing this by drawing landscapes which are 100% 2D, even though they look as if they were made in 3D.

Thanks.