Smartnet IBC LTD is a company with a portfolio filled with web sites specialized at helping communities of graphic artists, sculptors and painters from all over the world. The main idea of the project is to focus on the needs of artists for photographical references for creating and texturing 3D characters for motion pictures and video games. The company was founded in 2004 by Peter Levius, a holder of the original idea, with the help of Richard Polak who contributed with ideas and took care of managing the project.
Video Smartnet
Web sites
www.3d.sk
The first web site of the company was www.3d.sk, which became a paid version and a successor to an older site www.fineart.sk, with higher quality and broader content. The site contains mostly basics of man and woman anatomy, free samples and links to other sites dealing with creating graphic art and tutorials. As of April 2010, the site contained more than 150,000 photographical human references, 65 3D models, 900 short films with various kinds of motion for creating animation, 750 head textures for creating 3D characters, 28,000 photos of clothing, armor, weaponry and historical costumes. Apart from human references, the site also contains photographical material on animals, and especially beetles, spiders and other small insect. Human, various animal, and saurian skulls can also be found at the site.
One of the first biggest customers for the site was Sony Computer Entertainment, with which Smartnet has had a long lasting cooperation. Amongst other customers are Konami, Ubisoft (Assassin Creed), Midway, Sega, Capcom, Electronic Arts, Namco, BioWare, Rockstar Games and others.
While the majority of the single customers are regular graphic artists, animators and students, personages of the present day 3D scene, such as Paul Fedor, Steven Stahlberg or Mark Snoswell, also both use and contribute to the site.
www.human-anatomy-for-artist.com
In 2005, a new web site was created - www.human-anatomy-for-artist.com - which focuses more on man and woman anatomy and has become a basic source of photographical material for video game developers, graphic artists, animators, sculptors and various other artists. As of April 2010, the site contained more than 118,000 photos of human models ranging from 18 to 75 in age, various ethnicity, body and hair types. Premium members have access to a special software that allows them to walk around any model in 3D space as if the model was in their own studio. These models are shot from 16 different angles and 3 different vertical positions.
www.environment-textures.com
In the same year, a web site www.environment-textures.com dealing with interior and exterior texturing was created. Textures are divided into categories such as doors, walls, fur, grass, etc. Besides regular textures, the site contains 3D textured models ready to be used, panorama and HDRI images.
www.free3dtutorials.com
Another web site www.free3dtutorials.com focuses on collecting various tutorials from authors such as Mario Russo, Felix Joleanes, Rodny Mella, Massimo Righi, Serkan Celik and others. These tutorials are targeted at both beginners and advanced artists.
The company has also created and maintains a web site www.photo-reference-for-comic-artists.com with focus on creating comics art, magazine covers and such.
Maps Smartnet
Notes
Source of article : Wikipedia