Fabian Rojas

Tell us a little about yourself, what is your background?
Fabian: I received my BS in Graphic Design ten years ago. Since I was a child, I was interested in all kinds of animation.  In my early stages as a designer, I worked for different offices as a Publishing Designer making brochures, magazines and pamphlets, after the first two years I took a postgraduate course in Compugraphics (Computerized Graphic Design). From then on, I was more interested in exploring new tools for design. I had my first contact with 3D software and started to work in Multimedia and Web environments. Initially, I tried to incorporate 3D through render images; however this increased the weight of the program; in order to optimize the web pages I needed to manually sketch some sequence of images which used to take too much time. After working for about 4 years for different offices specialized in Web and multimedia, I became familiar with new tools like Swift 3D making my work so much easier.  I also obtained some important experience that allowed me to become an independent consultant for several companies in addition to my personal project www.euritmia.com.mx, where I specialized in design of Web design, 2D and 3D animation, 3D vectorial animation and design of characters.

Where do you get your inspiration from?
Fabian: My inspiration comes practically from everything I see, read or listen; in my daily life I always try to discover new things. This has driven me into trying to include some innovation in each project. I read magazines of graphic design, urban culture, and music. I believe that the Internet is also a very good source of inspiration. Every day I visit some blogs of graphic design, industrial design, illustration, etc. Cinema is also a good source of inspiration for the graphic designers and I try twice a week to watch films.

What elements of the site are made with Swift 3D?
Fabian: The entire web page, with the exception of texts and final structure, is made with Swift 3D.  At start-up, while defining the project with the client, a fully three-dimensional environment was required. After several sketches, the main menu and screen bottoms were made with Swift 3D, as well as some other elements as buttons and loaders.

What features of Swift 3D did you use to create these design elements?
Fabian: Cubes in different sizes and positions were used as design elements. Object animation was through paths.  For the final touch, I worked with cameras in different angles and lights to project shadows, reflections and to brighten up the objects.

What other software did you use for the site, and how did you integrate Swift 3D with these other tools?
Fabian: For the final page structure I have used Flash, imported all the elements designed with Swift in order to optimize them and reduce the final weight of the project. After having all the elements I added programming. I also used Photoshop to add a motion blur to some screens, I made some vectorial and raster renders in Swift, and finally, I integrated all the elements in Flash.

What types of projects do you plan on using Swift 3D for in the future?
Fabian: I am currently using Swift 3D to do some three-dimensional graphics, for corporate presentations. I am doing a site for an Architectural company that requires elements of Swift 3D, I have thought also to redesign my personal site using Swift 3D as the main tool.

Do you have any Swift 3D tips or advice for our readers?
Fabian: I would only like to recommend them to review the tutorials of the page. They have been really helpful to me. I recommend the people who are not acquainted with Swift 3D yet, to explore all its tools in order to learn how to operate it, as this program facilitates many things.