Interview with Massimo Righi
Hello Massimo how are you and howz your animals in the computer, could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background in CG?
 Hello, first of all I want to thank you for the opportunity. I’m born in Italy in 1972 and actually living in Forlì, a quiet and pretty small town in the North of the coutry. I am a self-taught CG Artist and I work as freelancer with my soul mate and now also co-worker Silvia Puliè (just celebrated 15 years together, well, not bad though;))...I always loved visual arts from photography to traditional drawing and airbrushing. Silvia has an art degree. I started doing 3D as a hobby in 1999 and till 2005 it has been a growing passion that made me decide to sell my bookstore and give it a try as a professional... and here I am...
So, you are a freelancer, please tell us what difficulties a freelancer have to face in getting the work?
Well, at the beginning is never easy...What I think make the difference is the passion for this kind of work. At first I started building my portfolio so that people started to know me, than I began answer to works offers from guru.com to craiglist and made some great experiences. Now, two years later, I no longer need to look for work, I can consider myself lucky because is the people that used to contact me.
After watching your portfolio we came to know that you are an animal lover but there is any another special reason for creating those? Italy is known for the design but we have not seen any architectural or abstract designing in your portfolio, any plan?
Yes, I love them, is it so evident? :-) Till the animals and nature keep inspiring me, I will model them.
Yes, Italy is known for the design , but I think is all about choices...For example, I never liked too much modeling cars but I ended up making some work as third party for Volkswagen. This work is umpredictable, I learned to keep my mind open to everything as long as are interesting projects. Who knows the future, maybe I will model buildings one day...
What is the main reason of choosing Maya in your arsenal? Will you like to see any change in the future versions of Maya like more modeling options, better renderer or anything?
My first 3D software was Rhino3D. It helped me a lot understanding all the Nurbs modeling (I still think it’s the best Nurbs modeling software), than I started learning polygonal modeling and when I tried out Maya PLE it was love at first sight. To be honest after Maya I stopped looking for other 3D tools.
I think at Autodesk and before at Alias have great developers, well, I believe in their work and I’ m sure the future releases will be more and more improved.
Please tell us in detail about your latest work “Trapped” and “Lunchtime”, what problems you encountered in creation and how you achieve such realism?
I made both of the images after my recent trip in the south-east of Asia. What I would like to do is to pick of the animals the characteristics that more catch my attention.
For “Trapped” I just finished a brief “Making of”. You can view it here on cgarena.
About “Lunchtime” well, I’ ve always been fascinated by giraffes. I had in mind some unusul camera angle and funny expression. After many angle view tests I went for this one.
I used Maya 8.0 for modeling, and MentalRay for rendering.The fur is polygonal (no Maya fur) I used HRDI/FG and Dof. The background is a photo taken in Borneo and it’s been rendered within Maya. There is not postwork, I only enhanced the contrast and the color gamma with Photoshop, used also to paint the textures.
About realism, I always try to keep things simple, I use few lights, and add more of them only if really need. The texture work is also very important. I needed some quality reference material for achieve decent result. I used some photos taken at the zoos and spent many hours on that using a wacom tablet. I mainly use custom patterns and brushes as painting tools.
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