Emmanuel Campin started his artistic career in 1986 working with 2D stills. In 1990 he found the transition to working in 3D to be a natural step as technology began making it accessible to him. He was fascinated by the first computer graphics (CG) images with ray-traced chrome and mirror balls on checker boards. They were what global illumination (GI) renders are today. After a 2 years Arts Diploma at the PARIS VIII University in 1992, Emmanuel spent a few months at the ESDI (Ecole Superieure du Design Industriel) in automotive and industrial design.

During 1995, Emmanuel completed a 3D short film called Incantation. This personal production paved the way for him join Jean-Christophe Bernard's team at Sparx. He joined them in 1996 working free-lance on modeling, animation and lighting.

In 1998, after moving to Duboi he chose to specialize in shading and lighting. Today, Emmanuel is a free-lance CG artist whose assignments are primarily as the lead artist in this same speciality. Occasionally, his assignments put him in the technical director's seat and he's recently recently worked for Duran in the role of TD on director Enki Bilal's new film The Woman Trap.

Q. How did you get involved in the 3D computer graphics industry?
A. After a few years in 2D with an Atari 520 ST and Degas Elite, I created my first computer generated image in 1990 with freeware called GFA Ray-Trace.

In 1991, I had then the chance to work on Sculpt 3D (from Byte by Byte), which was at that time an excellent modeler /ray-tracer. I was able to learn the basis of 3D imagery, but it really took on another dimension when I realized a 10 minutes short film in 1995 called Incantation. Jean-Christophe Bernard from Sparx enjoyed this short and asked me to join his team the next year.

In early 1998 a good friend of mine, Nicolas Rey -- who worked with me at Duboi, the special effects house-- knew PowerAnimator very well and helped me to "get my hands dirty" with Maya.

Q. How do you use Maya software?
A. I rapidly found that Maya's power is in its flexibility and in its powerful shading networks presented in a Graphical User Interface (GUI). As I began to work with MEL (Maya Embedded Language), I created procedural shading networks to automatize, optimize and make my workflow easier.

MEL is so powerful yet so easy to use! started with my knowledge of MEL at a sub-zero level and soon found that MEL programming is one of the most powerful features of Maya. Writing some MEL scripts has been truly a turning point in my young life. Even though I don't know C or C++ languages, MEL is simple and flexible enough to allow me to write custom integrated shaders and routines to make the artist's work easier and faster.

I'd say that I have become more technical than artistic, but my goal is to get the best aesthetic result achieved through the technical foundations.

Q. What projects have you worked on?
A. Feature films:
2001-2002: Pre-production of The Woman Trap a film by Enki Bilal where I conducted skin shading and illumination research for over 6 months in cooperation with Alias's Jos Stam who developed the Maya's skin shader.

2001: Prince of Pacific from director Michel Corneau, where I worked as lead CG (Computer Graphics) lighter and shader maker at Mikros Images.

2001: Les Rivieres Pourpres from the famous director Matthieu Kassovitz at Mikros Images where I was in charge of the all software shading and lighting shots.

2000: The Woman Trap the pilot from director Enki Bilal Mainly, where I worked on 3D lighting and integration.

2000: Vidocq, the 30-second pilot from special effects supervisor/director Pitof. I was lead CG artist for lighting and shading. We almost rebuilt an entire 1830's street in Paris digitally.

1999: Joan of Arc from well-known director Luc Besson.

1998: Asterix from French director Claude Zidi. I was lead CG artist for the shading and lighting. It was my first project with Maya.

Some of the coolest commercials I've worked on:
2000: Boulitos France3's TV Christmas broadcast
2000: Boursin
2000: HSBC Bank
1999: Ptit DOP for L'Oreal

Q. What makes this industry so exciting to you?
A. Working with very talented technical or artistic people from a wide variety of disciplines, not just in the filed of CG. Sharing experiences and learning a lot from the others has been, and is still, of great benefit to me.

What is also very exciting is that CG is definitely not static. You just have to look at the constant evolution of the hardware and software and the sophisticated effects the CG industry can now provide. All of this comes through the tremendous research that has been done on physical phenomenon -- photo-mapping, muscle deformations, fluids, as few examples. This is really interesting because it's becoming accessible to the 'non-scientific community' and then simulated or even magnified by artists.

Q. Where do you see the industry going in the next five years?
A. Referring to Moore's Law*, I would say even if 3D packages will become more and more complex, CG will rely more and more on hardware solutions for rendering, as technology provides faster and faster computations, reducing production costs at the same time.

I wouldn't be surprised if, in 5 years, we see the first 3D (at least short) film entirely done in hardware with an very acceptable level of quality. the same goes for the gaming industry, being able to see real-time high quality renderings so good that they will kick you right out of your comfortable chair!

*Moore's Law states that the amount of information storable on a given amount of silicon has roughly doubled every year since the technology was invented.This relation, noted by semiconductor engineer Gordon Moore in 1964, held until the late 1970s, at which point the doubling period slowed to 18 months.

Q. What words of wisdom do you have for anyone interested in entering the world of 3D computer graphics?
A. A good sense of humor helps, so does a good knowledge of your tools and — most of all — being an attentive observer of the real world.