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.
