From Physical Clay to Digital Twin

Artists know that the look of real clay is difficult to replicate, but what if there was a way to accurately capture the different textures of hand-sculpted clay and bring it right into digital workflows? Maxon worked closely with renowned Monster Clay^® creators, The Monster Makers, and specialists in sophisticated image technology, CGS ORIS, to make it happen.

The Monster Makers have been creating industry-leading 3D special effects materials for almost 40 years, and their products have been used in popular projects including the film “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

CGS ORIS combine over 30 years of expertise in color management workflow solutions with sophisticated 3D scanning technologies to help clients with a wide variety of imaging projects.

With excitement, intrigue, and super high tech tools, they came together with Maxon to create a whole new set of clay materials for digital sculpting artists.

The process

The collaboration began when ZBrush Product Manager Paul Gaboury spoke with The Monster Makers Owner, Arnold Goldman, about the idea of transforming Monster Clay^®, a premium modeling clay, into a digital material that would maintain all of the details of the real clay.

“ We wanted to have a really good representation of Monster Clay^®, and not just a ‘kind of’ a representation, but as close a representation we could get to the real thing. ”
– Arnold Goldman, The Monster Makers

The enthusiasm was high, but there was an additional challenge they had to overcome - achieving their goal would require a highly specialized image capture, something that can often fall flat with traditional photography. This led Gaboury to speak with the CGS ORIS team during SIGGRAPH about the unique collaborative initiative. With everyone excited about the collaboration, the wheels were finally in motion to bridge physical and digital worlds for sculptors.

Goldman and his team made their way to CGS ORIS facilities in Minneapolis and worked on a selection of trays filled with their clays, hand sculpting surface textures to ensure the project could come to life with as much detail possible. Once these trays were filled, CGS ORIS powered up their METIS scanning technology, specialized in flat surfaces and light uniformity, to capture high-quality 3D scans.

“One of the remarkable features of the METIS system is its array of 8 lights, which creates a dome effect,” explains Rob Lawrence from CGS ORIS, “This allows the system to capture a full set of material textures including 3D displacement, normals, and with the available light table, transparency and translucency.”

The scanned samples were ready to be transformed into digital materials, and that’s when the Maxon Capsules team began taking the raw scans, processing them, and converting them into Redshift materials. It was through continuous collaboration and communication that the digital version of Monster Clay^® was able to achieve the level of realism to look and feel just like real clay.

Realistic materials and tools for artists

Artists can now use new, accurate Monster Clay^® materials in Cinema 4D and Redshift, as well as six different Monster Clay^® materials in ZBrush.

“We’re very excited to bring a digital twin of Monster Clay^® to Maxon artists,” explains Donovan Keith, Maxon group product manager, “We're making this material available to ZBrush sculptors, and motion designers using Cinema 4D and Redshift who want to bring the rich depth of scanned real-world materials – actually sculpted by their creators - to digital works.”

No matter the project, artists can achieve unparalleled realism, Keith explains, “With the new materials, artists can take even quick turnaround projects and give them a rich history.”

Whether working with Monster Clay or the new digital twin, artists can feel empowered throughout the creative process knowing they are using high-quality, authentic materials to tell the important stories that continue to inspire others for years to come.