Interview with Professional 3D Artist Josh Pierce

One 3D artist I have been a huge fan of is Josh Pierce. He’s an incredible designer with a very cool vibe. He’s part artist and part spiritual guru or philosophical guide. His art really draws from this ethos.

I interviewed him to learn more about his process, favorite plugins, the way he uses VDBs in his work and his thoughts on AI. Let’s learn more about my friend Josh Pierce!

(Check out our Cloud VDBs seen in this render here)

Tell us about yourself! What do you do?

Hi! I’m a full time artist and motion graphics designer. I started my work in motion design and animation going to school at RIT in 2001, and learning C4D and After Effects in my early 20s.

Over the years I’ve worked in web and motion design with lots of focus on sports, especially NFL and other major sports in the US. In 2017 I started creating personal work as a form of meditation, and eventually that work took on the flavor of my spiritual practice becoming very serene and calming, evoking in people a sense of awe and wonder.

This naturally led me to see this as something of a calling, to communicate these states of peace to others in a way that could be a service to all of humanity.

How long have you been creating 3D art?

In terms of 3D I started on C4D in 2002 in college, and I immediately fell in love with the ability to see things in so many perspectives. I’ve always had a mind that visually worked in three dimensions, and from a young age loved working with my hands, building and sculpting little projects.

After I learned Cinema, I got more into Octane Render in 2015 when I started using it for work, then I discovered World Machine and World Creator which I’ve been using since then to create landscapes.

Josh Pierce The Pixel Lab VDB Volume 3D VFX Asset

What is your background? How did you learn motion design/3D art?

I’ve kind of always done a sort of meditative art. When I was younger I loved to do pen and ink drawings that were extremely intricate and detailed. I would spend endless mindless hours on the patterns and linework and I found it to be very calming and stress reducing during my teenage years.

After going to school to study art, I went deep on learning graphic design, typography and animation getting employed in those fields doing web design, programming in Flash, and doing everything from 3D animation to VFX work.

Later I went to grad school at SCAD to study Broadcast Design and Animation. Then I moved out to LA and have since had a great Freelance career working in motion graphics for TV and Entertainment.

What type of work do you like to create?

I have a love of nature, and so that’s definitely reflected in my work. I especially love forests and sunsets so that shows up a lot! I grew up playing in the woods and being outside so I always had an affinity for plants and trees and rocks.

I also think water is so calming and centering the way it is always in motion and yet so still. Another aspect of the work I make that I really enjoy is the way a glowing object illuminates an otherwise dark scene. I really love to create these meditative light sculptures in nature, to draw myself and the audience into a state of stillness.

What software and plugins do you use most?

I work in C4D and Octane render. I’ve been using C4D for soooo long that it’s basically second nature to me. Octane has been a game changer in terms of not only speed but incredible fidelity. It can render beautiful VDBs with amazing speed and depth. The displacers shaders are extremely fast and create instant detail and incredible richness. The scatter object is super fast, allowing me to create hundreds of thousands of plant clones without taxing the system at all.

I also work in After Effects, I use a lot of Video Copilot stuff and I also love using Topaz for doing finishing touches.

What is your process for using VDBs in your designs?

I love to place clouds in my scene as a contemplative object, highlighted by some kind of neon light structure. I generally will just load them in and start scaling and rotating them until I get a profile shape that I like; or not and just load another one.

I have a handful that I come back to over and over because I really like the shapes they create. I also use them to create banks of fog and rolling patches of clouds over large landscapes. I’ll clone them out and animate them into other shapes like circles and spirals too. They’re versatile and beautiful!

Is there anything you don't like about VDBs?

Certain things yes. They can be system heavy for one. I’ve had a hard time using them with render farms. Probably just my mistakes though. Also there’s an ongoing issue in Octane with overlapping that creates artifacts. I would love for them to be faster, cleaner and easier to work with. But overall I’m happy with what they can do and I think they add a lot to my process!

What is your favorite thing about VDBs?

It’s absolutely without a doubt the richness of the volume. There’s a subtle illumination that you can only get with these sort of layered translucent objects. The glow that they emanate evokes a sense of awe.

When we look up at the sky and see these beautiful cloud formations it’s just so captivating and a universal human experience. Everyone all over the world sees the beauty in clouds and in the sky. Clouds are also fleeting, impermanent and ever-changing. There’s the texture and how we connect to that visual effect.

(Learn more about VDBs in this article)

Any tips for people who haven't used VDBs yet?

Best tip is to be patient and keep trying different looks. I’ll load a VDB that has a preview image sometimes and think “Huh? This looks nothing like the preview!” but then as I play with it, rotating and adjusting the density settings it starts creating different looks and I get some amazing and satisfying results.

Also, getting the knack for the density settings takes a long time. Balancing between ‘Step length’ and ‘Density’ takes some trial and error. In Cinema 4D you need to use absolute scale not relative scale, like you would with an instance object.

What are your thoughts about the future of our industry?

I think the future is bright even if the tools are changing and evolving. As entertainment consumers become more discerning there’s an ever increasing need to create better experiences that aren’t always bigger, louder and brighter.

Artists will always have a role in that communication. I try to always remember that art is about communication and whether it’s words or images you’re telling a story that others will want to hear. Artists will be more focused on quality than quantity, if that makes sense.

What are your thoughts on AI? Is it going to take all of our jobs?

Hahaha. Maybe? I think that again art is communication, and just like we can train a computer to mimic human speech, we can train it to mimic human art. I think as of now, people aren’t fooled so easily.

There’s something intangible, beyond the words, beyond the pixels that is communicated from one human being to another that’s on a level that we can’t exactly quantify and measure. So there will be a lot of labor eliminated and the spirit will always come from a human.

Have you used AI in your work yet?

Yes, I think there are some cool applications. I’ve been creating background skies of sunset images to use as backplates. I think it’s fun to create textures too.

I’ve used it to swap out for a more detailed human figure in some scenes. I’ve also used it to create reference images to inspire me to create certain things.

What makes you most excited about the future of our industry?

I think the world in general is getting more interactive. 200 years ago it was all printed word. In the last 100 it’s become visual, and animated. Now in the last 25 years, media has become interactive.

Especially with immersive VR we will become more and more in touch with the media we consume. Designing art for those types of applications has enormously interesting potential.

Any tips for people who want to begin in this industry?

Do it because you love it, and always have fun. Don’t get too attached to what you make and don’t take anything personally. Some people just won’t like it. Also learn to take critique. You will never grow if you can’t accept constructive criticism.

Give everyone the benefit of the doubt and ask yourself really if those thoughts could make the work better. Lots of people have good ideas and even non artists can just be an extra set of eyes, when I think how can this be better. Listening and keeping an open mind. Staying humble!