Interview With Leroy Xie, the Author of an Amazing Showreel

Hi everyone! Today we have a very special guest for the interview! Leroy Xie — 3d desgner of graphics and animation from China. My eyes could not pass by his masterpieces, it is totally awesome!

B4W: Greetings, Leroy and nice to meet you in our blog! Please, tell us about you and your works!

LX: My name is Leroy Xie, I live in China, and works for the 3d animation through the blender, the blend4web is amazing.

B4W: Your design is very beautiful and naturalistic, and its functionality goes far beyond the usual webgl viewers like marmoset and sketchfab. Is it created without any code? How it is possible?

LX: Yeah, I am sure there is no any code in it, because I don't understand programming, but I believe the code will make it more interesting. The lamp is a test of how good the glass material looks on the realtime webgl. It is made of fake effects, but the result is nice! Interactivity is made by the logic nodes in blend4web, it's easy for the artists, thank you so much.

B4W: What did your start from in 3D? Have you any experience in 3D Max or C4D (marmoset/sketchfab/threejs)?

LX: At first i started from 3DS Max, just because it's very popular, then worked in C4D. Now I use Blender, and some times learn Houdini.

I started using the chinese fork of Blender called 3D Mofun, and I could not visit google or youtube that time. Lack of learning resources and abnormal operation make me give up. After two years, an accidental chance made me start learning Blender again. The matter is Blender is very light, free and powerful, I am sure if you care on it, you will fall in love with Blender. It will become an essential software for your 3d work.

B4W: How do you think, could the way to base webgl engine in blender be difficult for artists who works in Max, Maya or Cinema 4D to involve? What difficulties in working with the engine you see in general?

LX: I think the big problem is in the feeling of strange, that can scare you, you stay before unknown, you  have no idea where to start from, the basic operation, the lost habit in others software. 

B4W: What we need to do to make our product more enjoyable for you and  for any 3d artist?

LX: Visual settings is much more important for artists than the code, what you see is what you get, even not do change, just export! So the viewport in Blender must look as same as the webgl render - that is the most important.

By the way, the logic nodes are cool, it allows the artist to make his arts interactive, i love it!

B4W: The term of “Eevee Porn” is familiar for you, we suppose. (for those who don't know, Eevee is the upcomming revolutionary PBR viewport, working in Blender as default. It has next-gen visual features like volumetric lighting, subsurface scattering and sexy postprocessing effects. And it’s ABSOLUTELY FREE!) What kind of reaction there would be from you if we blab that we’re about to support PBR pipeline and work with Eevee natively? (Oops, I guess we really did...)

LX: WOW, I am sure it's awesome, although I think this is inevitable result for Blender , it is very convenient when all engines use the same nodes with the same settings, Cycles = Eevee = B4W = Upbge, and so on. It's the easiest and general way for any artist.

B4W: Have you any plans for organizing you own 3d studio? Do you have a picture of digital wegl studio arrangement? If you don“t, but want it to do, you probably need any advice or other help, what exactly? If you do, what advice could you share to young startuppers?

LX: So far, I haven't plans for the 3d studio, I want but I think my abilities are not enough for now. You know in China, lots of piracy, lots of artist can't make big money with their work.

B4W: Do you follow the trends of web design/marketing/cg in China? What is the most relevant now, what is promising and what is not?

LX: Hehe, there are huge speculations in real estate for a couple years ago, even now, so lots of designers fall in the architectural renderings with the vray render in 3DS Max. Recent years the gamedev became hot, so designers fall in gamedesign, and the word of "PBR" is very hot too, althrough lots people are not clear on PBR.

B4W: What digital art and design resources chinese artists read? What resources do you like?

LX: Maybe ZCOOL is the most read for the Chinese artists, for personally, I'm not concerned about it.

B4W: Your have awesome 3d portfolio, have you got any cool feedback from your friends, customers or partners?

LX: Yes, they think it's amazing, interactive and realtime, even not need to install big software.

B4W: Do you need more video tutorials in your native language? Maybe you want to share your knowledge and make your own tuts? How we can help you with it? I can imagine how many cool professionals you could unite around you! And how many cool projects would you be able to create, declaring yourself to the whole world!

LX: Yeah, I hаve made some blender tutorials in Chinese, and I plan to make more tutorials for the new blender 2.8. you know, lots of information build around 3DS Max or the Maya, promotion of Blender is not easy!

B4W: Thank you for your job Leroy and let the more new beautiful projects of yours give a joy to us!

LX: Thank you! It is a pleasure!