Random Update Time!

Yeah Yeah Yeah! Go Go Go!

     Update time. So we think we finished the character textures for our senior project (MURDERBALL). They definitely took way to long but by the end the last two went pretty fast and the last one even faster! I think that one is probably my favorite and is what I'm posting up. As a team I think we learned a good deal about how important a solid pipeline is to game production. Ours was not as solid as we would've liked in hindsight but what're you gonna do with a team this small? Not fun to have people sitting on their thumbs waiting for textures y'kno? Anyway... Here's a picture of the sneaker class.

     Then on the side I found this sketch from another class where I was tasked with designing classes for a Dungeons&Dragons style CTF game. I really loved this rejected female rogue I sketched out. So I plunged ahead without creating any orthographic drawings for her and modeled her torso, arms and legs. I also started working out a face. I found it easier to model blindly with only a basic idea towards topology with the idea of correcting it afterwards.

      I think I'm coming into my own as far as character modeling goes. I still have a long way to go of course but seeing my progression compared to past models I've done is encouraging. I really want to rough out a few low and mid-poly detailed characters before moving onto some serious Zsculpting for my final portfolio. Also thoughts of my overdue website have begun to crop up in my head again...ahh! only a little over 6 months until my projected graduation if all goes smooth (and it damn well better!)
     So this is what I've been up to lately. Eventually I'll have to get a shot of the MURDER-BALL characters in game. My friend John Miller did an amazing job with the shader-networks in UDK with lights and a subsurface scattering shader. Really awesome work.

Long time no see...

It's difficult and scary to believe that it has been 6 months since my last update. Time is passing quickly and 2 quarters have gone by in terms of student time. I hope that this update will inspire me to be more progress-conscious.
      This first image is of an in progress Zsculpt of a male human torso. I suppose it's to demonstrate a basic knowledge of human anatomy and proportion.The image is actually a Maya screenshot of 3 versions of the base I started with with escalating polycounts displaying the same Normalmap of the in progress sculpt. I did this to more or less see the difference in quality between different polycount levels using the same "high"-detailed Normalmap. The images on the left, to me, are reminiscent of the PS1 and PS2 era game art. The last image on the right is more on the upper limits of today's game art (albeit probably too many polys for being just a torso).

This piece here (of the bird-man) is a shot of one of my first character attempts using Zbrush. I wanted to do a re-imagining of Griff from the London Clan of gargoyles from Disney's "Gargoyles". Having not looked at this in over 3 months I have to admit it is a bit embarassing. Perhaps a diffuse texture would help to convey the character instead of solely normals. The proportions on the torso are really out of whack on account of trying to bulk him up to convey the extra muscle needed to move his powerful wings. Of course a realistic rendering of a winged humanoid is ridiculous because wings are essentially a second set of arms on the back which would require a giant trapezius and a second set of pectorals located somewhere beneath the armpit or something else to that effect to get them flapping or hold them steady in windy flight. The overall character design is lacking in interest and does not do the original character justice in my opinion. This was done as a final for Advanced Game Modeling and Texture, a class taken from one Andrew Klein in the Spring of 2010. I hope to revisit this piece later or scrap it all together and try again at another point in time for a portfolio piece.

      I'll end this with another entry from over the summer. I did some character orthographics from my senior project class. Had to redesign the characters a few times and this does not barely reflect the style or appearance of the characters as they've turned out now. I'm currently dragging my ass working on the diffuse and spec maps for the four characters of our death-sport game.

So then this is me signing off for now. Let's hope for a more productive and determined me until the next post.

Zbrush Midterm!!!

So I finished my midterm for Advanced Game Modeling. It's a sculpt/model of my girlfriend Nicole's head, textured in Zbrush and rendered with Maya. Not perfect but its looking pretty good and Im pretty proud of it.

Special thanks to Jon Miller and Robert Hashman for help with tweaking the lighting and render settings.

Here's the real Deal

Heres the renders...

Hey world.

Haven't updated in a while. Its a crazy quarter right now between senior project planning and prototyping.
Been doing a lot of sketching and painting and am really looking forward to some modeling in the future. Also Im learning some Zbrush stuff. Im in the middle of rendering and playing with a model I did of my girlfriend, Nicole, in Maya with bump and color maps I created in Zbrush. The final is going to be an epic creature that has not been decided yet.

Anyway let's see how much stuff I can dump here...

Hey everyone who doesn't read this! So it's been a while since my last update. I decided to post some shots from some sketching and painting I'm doing for Senior Project at the AI. The game idea is basically football with guns...I guess. Anyway its got TF2 type classes and so that's my job to design. There's a fast guy, tank, sneak guy and a double jumper. These silhouettes are from the human team. The other team is robots!!! Also I started doing a painting for the human tank so we can get an idea of color and stuff. I'm not sure if it matters though since I think I'll end up doing most of the character textures since Im apparently the most artsy...? Anyway it's going to be a lot of fun and here's a little preview.

Speed test fail?

You decide. Let me tell you now, you decide yes.

Found lamp in google images and modeled in an hour. Had to start over 20 minutes in because normals being reversed and old extrudes overlapping eachother and all kinds of retartded doo-doo. It was very fail, so instead of doing proper splits and bevels I just edge looped everything hella fast and used a smooth preview to see where edgey loops needed adding. Kept everything quad-tastic, also the wireframe isn't fun to look at, I think. Supposed to be stone, looks more like plastic because of lack of hard edges, tighter bevels, that kind of thing...

Here is me using Mental Ray to make a bathroom. It looks like it did when I moved in! Before the piles of clothes and empty laundry detergent boxes and filth piled up. Yay for memory lane.

Game Modeling and Procrastination

Modeling fun times!
Here's a pretty hi-poly knuckleknife I modeled for a game modeling and animation class with inspiration/reference.
This is just an object/weapon to be imported into UDK at some point. Game modeling is so much easier when someone gives you a set budget, I feel. I figured since its gonna be right in the players face it might as well be high-poly right? whatever. I gotta do a second weapon/object. Thinking of a flashlight or gun or something. Suggestions?

Here is a globe I did for a level Im planning on making for a class. It's pretty high detail I guess. I decided to give the globe it's own map since I think thats where all the detail is. The stand texture could probably fare to be sized down to a 256.
Mapping a globe is HARD. Especially since I couldnt find an old style interuppted map which represents a flattened sphere. I had to just work around and kind of age and texturize a regular map and work my UVs around that. Theres some obvious pinching if you're looking top-down on the globe which could easily be painted out if I had CS4, but since I dont it would be much more painstaking and I have a whole level left to do so we'll see how that goes.

I'm BACK! Did this little number over break for an afterschool academic chess program down south. It was their end of the year thank you to the people that support and make possible the program.

My first real commissioned piece!

This was kinda fun. The perspective on the knight's head is off but we didn't notice until to far into the project and they needed it in a rush. I like it as a simple toony piece. No real light source or dramatic perspective but for what it is I think its cute and fun.

enjoy!