Learning Materials and Rendering with Xavier Coelho-Kostolny

Xavier Coelho-Kostolny, a true guru of modern character art, is launching his own mentorship program to help young artists master texturing and rendering techniques. He will provide an in-depth look at 3D production methods, including artist-friendly breakdowns of some of the more confusing and unintuitive aspects of modern materials.

The idea behind running this new, more tightly focused program is that modern materials seem to be difficult for many artists to wrap their heads around, and I think I can use my experience and knowledge to help them. 

Goal

I believe this program could benefit most anyone who’s having a hard time with modern materials and rendering, but it’s going to be focused on bringing people with very little or no production experience up to speed. 

While I’ll be getting into some complex topics and taking an in-depth look at some technical details of the texturing process, the point is to provide a solid knowledge base for people who are starting from zero. By providing as much detail as possible, I believe I’ll be able to answer a lot of questions before they even come up.

I’m going to be focusing specifically on materials for characters, how textures and shaders work, and how each of the different textures you use can affect how a character looks in a final, finished product — be it for a game or a personal portfolio. Additionally, I’ll be providing information and examples of common rendering techniques, and showing how shaders and textures interact with lights and post processing.

The overarching goal is to take a large chunk of what artists know about textures and shaders from on-the-job experience, and communicate that knowledge to artists who’ve never worked in a production environment.

Plans

I absolutely plan on continuing to educate other artists in the future. I believe that teaching others is an excellent way to reinforce and expand the knowledge I have, and it will also make my life easier down the road when I inevitably work with people who’ve benefited from some of the knowledge I’ve been able to impart.

The plan at the moment is to focus on this program first and foremost, and make further plans after seeing how this program goes. I learn new things about teaching every time I take the time to do it, and I’m sure this program and its focus will help solidify plans for the future. Something I’d definitely like to do down the road, though, is run more programs focused on other areas of character production, such as sculpting or creating low-poly models.

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Xavier Coelho-Kostolny, 3D Character Artist – Insomniac Games

Interview conducted by Artyom Sergeev

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