When we were getting set to announce the official partnership between VFS and Pixologic, makers of the industry-leading ZBrush, one of the first names that came to mind was ‘Intervain’.

‘Intervain’ is Magdalena Dadela, a 2005 graduate of our 3D Animation & Visual Effects program and an active and well-respected member of a number of online communities, notably Pixologic’s own ZBrushCentral.

She’s a talented 3D modeler who works at Ubisoft Digital Arts in Montreal, what the venerable game developer calls a digital cinema creation studio. Her work was last seen in Assassin’s Creed: Lineage, the well-received 36-minute film Ubisoft created in the run-up to the splashy debut of their game Assassin’s Creed II.

In light of the partnership, it seemed like the perfect time to catch up with her and find out a bit more about her background, her VFS experience, and her life as an artist.

First of all, let’s talk about your experience heading into VFS in 2005. Did you have an art background already before you started the program here?

Magdalena: I had no experience before I went to VFS. I’d only opened 3ds Max twice and made some primitive spheres and that’s about it. I did know Photoshop very well, because I’d learned it on my own to do some website design. I wasn’t educated as an artist, either – my degree is in English Literature.

What prompted me to study at VFS was a Pixar movie, Finding Nemo. When I first saw those turtles I had an epiphany – I simply had to do this for a living. After that, things just snowballed and through a very lucky set of coincidences, a year later I landed in Vancouver.

A model based on James Tissot's The Fireplace, created by Magdalena Dadela using ZBrush

Did you expect to be focusing on modeling when you started the program?

Magdalena: No. In fact, I was convinced I would be an animator before I got there.

For the first three terms, modeling had no appeal to me. I found it boring, and, well, I wasn’t awfully great at it. Having a friend in the class who already did a lot of modeling before coming to VFS was also rather discouraging at first. Animation was worse, though. I really didn’t enjoy it. So after about three months, I decided to change my initial intentions and go for visual effects instead and I was convinced that’d be my final decision for quite a while.

Then in the last few weeks of Term 3, just as we were about to choose our stream, I had a bit of a breakthrough moment in my modeling class. I started to enjoy it and got better at it. So in the end – the last week possible – I chose modeling. The fact that there was a very good modeling teacher had a lot to do with it as well.

I always advise those who ask me about VFS not to even think of choosing a stream before they’ve tried a bit of everything first, because they might be surprised.

An environment in Assassin's Creed: Lineage

Your most visible recent work was on Assassin’s Creed: Lineage, which took a lot of people by surprise. There was a lot of anticipation about the game, but Lineage came out of left field for many, and it was very impressive. What can you tell us about the project and your work on it?

Magdalena: The project was great fun and it was a bit of a challenge. We didn’t have that much time to work on it and there were three long episodes to be done – from the ground up. There was a lot of work for the modelers, which is always enjoyable.

For me, it was also a challenge because I’ve never worked on sets before. I am primarily a character modeler and though I have done some statues and sculptures on Lineage – like a church altar or a square fountain – the sets were my main focus here. We had to rebuild all of the original game assets completely because they had no details at all other than in the textures and would not hold up on a big screen. Apart from modeling all the buildings and interiors – there were five of us working on this – I also worked on texturing some of them.

You mentioned on your blog that you can be seen in a Lineage behind-the-scenes video working on a door, something you call “an adventure”. How does something so simple become so challenging?

Magdalena: The door scene was a challenge because it involved an extreme close-up. We were working in HD, which means very high resolution textures and a lot of detail which would be seen close up on a big screen. Because there was a sudden change in the camera move, there had to be a lot of adjustments done to the textures and modeling in a small amount of time – so from a simple job, it got a bit more complicated overnight…

It’s mostly a time thing – as is always the case in this industry – which means longer hours and some stress but still a lot of fun.

How were you first exposed to ZBrush?

Magdalena: ZBrush 2.5 was only just becoming the dominant package in the modeling arsenal when I was at school. I tried to learn it back then, and even used it sparingly on one of my demo reel models. Back then, it was rather difficult to get hold of an artist at school who had a lot of knowledge in this area and could teach me quickly, so I struggled with getting to understand the UI.

I learned most of ZBrush when I left school and started working in the industry. Today it’s definitely my main tool.

VFS and Pixologic recently entered into an official partnership, which solidifies ZBrush’s growing place within the curriculum in the ZBrush into the 3D Animation & Visual Effects. In your view, what will this mean for VFS students?

Magdalena: Yes, I’ve read about the partnership, and I think it’s a great opportunity for VFS students. ZBrush is definitely the most important tool for a character artist, but one can also do so much with it in environment modeling. It makes one’s work so much faster. I love the freedom it gives. One is not restricted by the mesh anymore. It’s easy to figure out the proportions, design, and even the posture and pose of a character within a day and then just retopologize the model and create a fine animatable mesh afterwards. It’s also simply a lot of fun.

I think every student should really take it upon themselves to learn at least one sculpting package thoroughly. Today ZBrush is definitely the way to go – the amount of tools it has under the hood is wonderful and the Pixologic team’s really innovative, so I’m sure we can expect even cooler stuff in the future.

Anatomy Study by Magdalena Dadela, created with ZBrush 3

Apart from Lineage, where else has your work been seen lately? Any chance you could give us a hint about what you’re working on now?

Magdalena: Well, Lineage has been our main focus lately. Because Ubisoft Digital Arts studio is a fairly new venture of Ubisoft’s, we’ve done a lot of in-house R&D work which I can’t share with you. We’re gearing up towards a new project now, and before that happens, I’ll be doing some work on one of Ubisoft’s new PS3 projects in the next few weeks, as well. In the past I’ve worked on Assassin’s Creed cinematics, Tom Clancy’s End War cinematic, Far Cry 2, and a few other things.

Last question. You have a few years in this industry under your belt now, and have now doubt learned some lessons on the way. If you had to give one piece of advice to a current student who’s specializing in modeling, what would it be?

Magdalena: For character modelers, I’d say concentrate on your anatomy. I know it’s cool to do monsters and stuff, but it’s better to be able to show that you know how to make a convincing human – especially if you’re aiming to work in computer games. If you know the basic rules, then you can break them to create deformed creatures. It doesn’t work the other way around.

Thanks for your time, Magdalena! Readers would do well to check out her site to see some of the incredible models she’s created. To find out more about VFS’s partnership with Pixologic and what it means for our students, visit vfs.com/pixologic.