Russian
Name: Mark Lester Ocampo
Age: 29
Job: Designer / 3D Visualizer
Country: Bahrain
Facebook
Behance
3DA: Why have you decided to work in 3d-field and when have you started?
MLO: It all started when I was still working as a Graphic Artist in 2005, I wanted to have another medium for my creativity besides photography and painting so I decided to go back to school (at the same time working) and learn AutoCAD & 3ds Max, I’ve always wanted to visualize my ideas through 3D and for the next 3 years I’m fixated with it and occasionally reading books and tutorials about it. In 2008, with my previous background in interior design, I decided to apply abroad and got hired here in Bahrain. Since then, I continue to experiment and still discovering new techniques to improve and be on-par with other well-known artists.
3DA: Describe to our readers your usual workflow
MLO: I use SketchUp mainly for base modeling, then export it to 3ds Max for texturing / lighting and Vray for rendering, finally I use Photoshop for post-production. I also use CLO’s Marvelous Designer for cloth simulations, Forest Pack Pro for the vegetation and some MAX Scripts like floor generator, SnowFlow & Book Scatter.
3DA: What was most difficult for you when you just started working in 3D? And what is now?
MLO: I think the most difficult for me was and is satisfying my boss; he’s very keen in observing my works and to produce realistic images as much as possible under his direction. Thanks to him, I adapted his philosophy of “quality first” and achieved realism in my renders.
3DA: Looking back on your education process what you would have changed now? And what you consider right and would do exactly the same?
MLO: I don’t think that I would change anything; I’m on the right path. I graduated in Computer Science on an accelerated level (I’m a logical guy really) then started getting curious about what is my artistic side so I focused in Multimedia Arts, photography and traditional painting and on my way I got my calling in architecture, So I do get to use both sides of my brain ;-)
To sum it all up, with my technical knowledge in computers, photography, art and architecture, I do believe it contributes to all my final outputs.
3DA: Which was the biggest problem that you faced working on a project and how have you solved it?
MLO: The biggest problem that I always encounter is the time frame, most people do not understand why rendering is so time-consuming, even my boss cannot fully understand why with such a powerful computer I have is still not enough to not leave my computer running till next morning so it’s up to us to make them understand the time spent for a render to complete. right now, we’re considering to shift to online rendering services for larger projects.
3DA: What forecast you can make about the future of 3d-world in general?
MLO: Technology obviously will get more advanced and everything associated with it especially 3D. I see more and more people are getting interested in it. When I studied 3dsMax 8 years ago, there is only one known special school that offers such training in my home country (Philippines), even universities do not have the facility to offer it at that time. But now, it’s part of some specific courses in colleges / universities everywhere.
In a few years’ time, I’m sure companies will need to start adapting the trend as what our company is doing right now. for example; When making a brochure for our advertisement, our company decided to switch from traditional photography to 3D a year ago to reduce the cost of hiring a photographer, renting locations & expensive furnitures, plus not to mention that we had to fix an entire kitchen which is really time consuming. In the end, we don’t see much difference between the traditional and 3D output (actually our 3D is much better sometimes). 3D is more flexible for us since we can add more views or change colors whenever we like and our clients never realized if it’s even real or not.
