ChamferZone 3D Tutorials

Hey ArtStation! I’m Tim, Senior 3D Artist and creator of the ChamferZone tutorials, designed to teach you how to get industry ready in 3D modeling, unwrapping, baking, texturing and making renders to let your portfolio shine.

I started my 3D Artist career at Crytek, moved to Canada after Crysis 2 shipped and worked at Ubisoft Toronto for five years. Since October 2016, I am proudly working as Weapons Artist at Digital Extremes. Being a 3D Artist is not only what I do for a living, but also my passion outside of work hours. In my spare time, I create comprehensive game art tutorials where I explain my everyday workflow. Some are paid tutorials, others are free to watch on YouTube.

The purpose of this article is to talk a bit about the philosophy behind these tutorials.
Check out the core pillars of my latest 15 hour strong course: the Ultimate Mech Tutorial!


What is the ChamferZone

The idea to make tutorials was born in 2015, during the work on the recently announced Starlink from Ubisoft. Working on a brand new IP from the start usually also means that your portfolio won’t be updated in awhile. Creating tutorials enabled me to contribute to my portfolio with fresh content while also teaching people new to the world of 3D modeling and texturing.

Each tutorial features an object that we create from start to finish. It is my belief that by creating something from scratch, students get the full picture. The golden rule for all tutorials is: No fast forwarding or skipping anything.

Every step is explained and commented on. I also avoid using too many third party plugins. Keeping it “vanilla” ensures that everyone can follow with the default software and no showstoppers on the way.

The tutorials concentrate on 3Ds Max and Substance Painter. It’s the software that each of the companies I worked for are using, hence why I focus on these. You’ll get to see and follow every single step involved in creating AAA game art. You’ll learn how to make a scene setup, low and high poly modeling, unwrapping, exporting the files out for Substance Painter where then we bake and texture.

The free to watch Ultimate Grenade tutorial marked the first tutorial and the feedback was overwhelming. 300K views on YouTube to date and plenty of other places where it’s being shared or watched are strong motivation to carry on with more tutorials. My favorite section on the ChamferZone homepage is the results page where you can see the successes of people from all over the world with the tutorials.

Aside from the tutorials you can also purchase (3D) weapons under the ChamferZone label which are being used by games such as ‘Player Unknowns Battlegrounds’ and many others. ChamferZone started as a small YouTube experiment and grew into a registered company that is being operated by my amazing wife. She does all the web development and I work as the content creator.

3D Modeling and texturing for video games

3D modeling and texturing is a very satisfying job but can also be a complex subject.

Like in every craft, one little screw up throughout the process can compromise the end result greatly. That’s why it’s important to adapt a streamlined workflow that guarantees the best outcome.

There are a lot of ways to achieve that and different artists will have different approaches and methods to get there. In my comprehensive video tutorials I’ll show you how I approach my everyday work with the tools and methods that enable me to be fast and efficient. Profit from my over 10 years of industry experience as I show you every step in creating top quality 3D Game Art!

Make sure to connect with me here on ArtStation as well as on Facebook!

Happy modeling and see you in the tutorials.


  • Share this article

About the author