LogInAnton Kazakov told us how the concept art of this sporting small caliber rifle with subtle hints of futurism was created. It was modeled in 3DCoat, and KeyShot was used for texturing, animation, and rendering. He shared the key tricks to create stronger and more convincing work.
Introduction
Hello everyone! My name is Anton, and I have been working as a Concept Designer for over ten years! Since my last interview with 80 Level, I’ve mostly been working a lot! Now, I’ve had a little break, during which I’ve been spending more time with my family, and (surprise!) I’m still working, but now on my own projects and ideas.
About The Sports Energy Small Caliber Rifle Project
The idea for the design of a sports rifle came to me a long time ago, since the first trailer of the game Marathon from Bungie. I’ve always been attracted to the design of sporting weapons, and after the trailer, I promised myself that as soon as I had a break in work, I would create something interesting for myself on this topic.
For references, I used pictures of real sports weapons for biathlon and shooting, as well as a number of references from product design of futuristic gadgets and various items. This greatly helps me in finding solutions for transitions, connections, lines, decorative elements, and other details.
Usually, in my pipeline, the reference gathering and sketching stages are the most important. I try to dedicate more time to developing the idea and solving fundamental design issues — this allows me not to think about the design during the 3D modeling stage and focus on speed and quality. Of course, there’s no way to avoid changes — some elements that look good in 2D turn out to be less elegant in 3D. I have to spend extra time on fixes and finding solutions, but as a rule, after such tweaks, the design becomes better (or not).
As you can see, in the process, I moved away from the sci-fi setting (initially, I planned to make the rifle closer to the Marathon aesthetic) towards the vibe of classic sports rifles with subtle hints of futurism. I do regret it a little. On the other hand, there is no artist who is fully satisfied with their work, so I look at the result philosophically.
Here are a few words about functionality. The sports rifle, made with composite materials, is designed for long-range shooting. It features a classic reloading mechanism and is equipped with a bullet programming unit, a charging and firmware updating port, a battery block, electronic rollers for adjusting the sight and stock position, and a main controller that regulates the power and range of the shot. Depending on the cartridge, the rifle can be used both for sporting events and hunting. The stock module can be fully replaced. The rifle barrel can be changed depending on the task. To enable this, a latch is located at the front of the rifle above the handguard.
Modeling
I’ve had a long-standing friendly relationship with 3DCoat. I believe this software has great potential, but the developers seem to focus more on UV unwrapping and texturing, whereas, as a Concept Artist, I’d like to see more love for the sculpt room. My main tools haven’t changed over the years of working in 3DCoat — they are the most basic ones: cut, pose, extrude... nothing special. However, the revelation that truly improved the modeling process was the Live Boolean option. It allows for the integration of non-destructive modeling elements into the pipeline and the creation of razor-sharp edges (which is a shock for voxel manipulations!).
Texturing
After finishing the modeling, I put all the pieces of the puzzle together in KeyShot for texturing, animation, and rendering. KeyShot became the program that brought all the prepared resources into a single scene. Working with a complex composition, scene, lighting, etc., isn’t the easiest task for KeyShot (those who have used it will understand me), but giving credit to this program, I can’t ignore its incredible performance (the model of just the rifle had 120 million triangles) and rendering quality — the materials look real, which gives a huge boost to the presentation quality of your work.
During the sketching and idea-searching phase, I created two color versions of the weapon: one is a field, more utilitarian version, and the other is a refined, sports version. Therefore, by the time I started working in KeyShot, I already had a clear idea of the main colors and materials I would use. I also had a ready pack of graphic elements that I used for detailing the rifles and other scene elements.
The simplest, though by no means the quickest part, was transferring the idea from the sketch to the 3D model. KeyShot’s materials work like a layered cake: you choose a base material, then add layers, complicating it by adding decals (from scratches to stickers). By combining material properties, nodes, and decals, you can create quite advanced and complex materials.
For surfaces (walls, floors, the mat for placing the weapon), I used textures downloaded from Megascans. After a brief selection, I chose a few options that I used in the scenes.
Lighting & Rendering
When selecting lighting in a scene, I always start with the main light source with a color temperature of about 4500–4700 Kelvin (neutral white). This allows me to achieve the natural color of materials. I soften the light to avoid harsh, artificial shadows. The angle and height of the light are chosen so that it forms volume (through shadows and reflections), highlighting details and emphasizing the surface’s plasticity. It’s important not to make the main light too bright — otherwise, you might “kill” the texture and overexpose the object.
Then, I add additional light sources for backlighting, from the side or from below. These sources can have varying brightness and color, depending on the scene’s scenario. Lastly, I add accent lights that illuminate specific areas of the object, highlighting the properties of the materials and decals (e.g., roughness, normal map, hologram effect, etc.).
Animation
In KeyShot, there are two types of animation — object animation (for any object/group of objects in the scene) and camera animation. By combining both, you can achieve quite complex, sophisticated animations.
For example, for the video with a camera fly-through and reloading, I separately animated the parts of the reloading mechanism (object animation) + the camera fly-through with angle changes (camera animation). All the project animations are displayed on a single timeline, allowing for adjusting timings and speed, and getting a consistent result.
The animation preview in low quality helped a lot — it allows you to see errors without waiting for the high-resolution render. Some videos I used in the presentation could take up to 8 hours to render! Also, a very useful KeyShot feature is the ability to queue render setups and start the rendering process at night, so the work continues even while you sleep.
Editing
The final stage was editing with sound and special effects. This was my first experience, and after some research, I chose CapCut — it seemed very simple and intuitive. With a user-friendly interface and a rich library of sounds and effects, everything went quickly and fun, and you can evaluate the result yourself!
Summary & Tips For Saving Time
The whole project took me about four weeks, from opening Pinterest to hitting the “publish” button on ArtStation. The main difficulty I would highlight was working with graphic design and decals in KeyShot — their implementation and preparation take time and require attention to detail. The second difficulty was grouping the final materials and working on the presentation concept. When you have thirty rendered images and animations, you need a lot of willpower to sort through the mess, conceptualize, structure, edit the video, and remove unnecessary parts. This was probably the biggest challenge of the project.
The easiest and most fun part for me was the editing. I really enjoyed seeing the idea come to life, how the separate video pieces came together into one story, and how the final presentation gained character and structure.
What do I do to save time? Essentially, my entire pipeline is about saving time. At work, you need to do a lot, but there is usually little time, and the quality requirements continue to rise even in pre-production. That’s probably why my software setup looks like this: Photoshop — for quickly going through ideas and sketching; 3DCoat — for fast and acceptable quality 3D modeling; KeyShot — for fast material visualization; Unreal Engine — for working with the environment, lighting, and atmosphere of the scene... and so on. It’s not perfect, but it helps me solve many tasks.
I believe that the most important stage in design, regardless of complexity, is pre-production. The time you spend gathering references and developing ideas directly translates into the quality of your final result. The more questions you ask yourself at the beginning — when the fundamental design decisions are being made — the stronger and more convincing your final work will be. Always keep ergonomics in mind (this is especially important when it comes to weapon design), study how mechanisms work, and aim to find a balance between stylization and realism. You don’t have to go too deep — designing mechanical and utilitarian objects does require broad knowledge, but the key is to strike the right balance and maintain a sufficient level of believability in your design.
Try, experiment, start over... It’s better to make ten mistakes early on than to realize a major one halfway through. Every project I finish continues to prove this simple truth. Good luck!