High Detail Crab

For this Art Test, we were assigned the task of making a crab with provided reference. Here is one of reference images we were given to give you an idea of the target piece:

I really enjoyed this task as I was able to produce it in a similar way to what I model most high detailed things now, in the terms of how I extract my textures.

Here is my outcome rendered in Mudbox:

I fell I was close to the correct anatomy, however if I was to do this task again, I would definitely do a lot more research and drawings of crabs to get a better understanding.

I have recorded my progress of this and it is as follows:

1. I poly modelled the body as I found it very difficult to box model it without unnecessary geometry.

2. I then created the legs separately so that I could duplicate and tweak them to save time.

3. After joining the legs to the main body, I then added extra edge loops with the geometry allowance I had remaining, and added extra details such as the eyes.

4. Once I was happy with my low-poly, I took it into road kill and unwrapped half of my model. I then took it back into 3DS Max and applied a symmetry modifier to save having to unwrap all those legs! However, after doing so it laid all the UV's on top of each other which I didn't want as I know this causes issues when baking maps from high to low poly.

5. So I took it back into road kill, and stitched the symmetry line together, Road Kill then spaced out all the unique UV islands for me.

6. I then took the model into Maya to arrange the UV islands more efficiently, and enlarged them too.

7. Once I was happy it was time to sculpt. I used Mudbox as I still have no idea what I am doing in zBrush - that's a summer project.

 8. Once I had a high and low poly, it was time to bake my maps. This was all done in xNormal apart from my edge highlight which was done in Mudbox via the Extract maps function.

9. Using the reference images provided, I was then able to project the textures onto my model.

10. Voilla

These are all the maps that went into my model:

Combined Color Map 

Cavity Map

AO Map

Edge Highlight Map

Diffuse Map 

Specular Map

Normal Map

Treasure Chest

Unfortunately I could not finish this chest in the time provided. After modelling the chest, when unwrapping I encountered several 'Fatal Errors' I lost the will to live.

I was very happy with my model however, and may come back to it over summer:

Low Poly Revolver Art Test

For this task, we were presented with a piece of concept art in a quirky cartoon style. It was to be used in a low poly environment in a top down view, hence why I have included a top-down render to show it's form.

The main difficulty with this model, a long with the low tri limit, was the small texture maps! When trying to work with the normal maps, everything just looked too pixelated and clunky.

I started with a  high poly build as I didn't want to be held back on the form. I then took this into Maya and using the new Quad Draw option I created a low poly mesh:

If I was to do the task again, I think I would make an even HIGHER poly mesh to draw more details from rather than trying to paint some of the normals using nDo.

Dragon

With the task of creating a dragon piece, I decided to go down the route of 3D modelling, and then took it a step further with a sculpt of the head.

I really like the design of my dragon, It would be great to have it fully optimised and textured for in game. I think the rig that I created for posing purposes isn't too far of an actual animation rig either (with some skinning adjustments and extra bones it should be good for in game).

Unfortunately the amount of detail I ended up putting in on the head meant that I had ran out of time to sculpt the rest of the body. None the less I learnt a lot of sculpting techniques - especially using Alpha Maps for the smaller scales!

Here is my Dragon Sculpt:

Here is my Posed Dragon:

Here is the pose I modelled my dragon in with wire frame:

Here is the rig I made to pose the dragon:

Rubbish Stuff

Ok, Cheesy title. This was an art test we were assigned for 1 week. We were given some reference images and had to create a realistic, yet low poly, pile of rubbish.

I am relatively happy with how my finished asset looked. I loved my small details like the wet cardboard, the cardboard tape, and the trickery with the cola bottle. To make the cola bottle look see through, I gave it a brown tint so that it looked like you can see the cardboard through it.

The restrictions we had were as follows:

• Under 500 Tris
• Only AO and Diffuse maps at 1024x1024
• Use real photo references to create the model and textures.

Having restrictions was actually very useful. It gave me a goal to work towards, and restrictions for not going over the top.

Flood Rush

Well what amazing news I have for this post!

Over the past month, a few of my classmates and myself got together to create a game for charity. We had the idea that if a certain popular trending game can make thousands in a few days, what can a game make for charity?

We started with a 38 hour game jam, with the intentions of releasing after that. However it turned out a lot better than we all expected and so we decided to polish it up and make sure we release it as bug free as possible!

Today we released it on Android which is the first of the three platforms we are aiming for. iOS and Windows Phone 8 will be coming soon.

So what're you waiting for? Go download it and know you've done your good thing for the day:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blackFeatherGames.floodRush

Be sure to check out our website as well: www.floodrush.co.uk

... and our social networking site!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/flood_rush @flood_rush

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/floodrush

Remember it's all for Charity! 

Thanks for reading.

Colour Studies

I decided to spend some time today on colour studies. I feel that I need to practice composition, textures, and getting the correct relationships between colours as I currently struggle with this.

To help prevent myself getting bogged down with details, I restricted myself to 45mins each and also did not use the colour picker.

This was my first attempt that I was really happy with. I feel that I've learnt a lot about painting mountains, and using faded colours on distance.

My second attempt didn't go as well, I particularly liked my water in this one; learning about the colour relationship that water has with the surroundings was fun.

I really struggled with getting the right colour dirt however. I kept going too saturated, or too grey, and couldn't get across that 'dry' look.

A tree with character

UPDATE:

Finally managed to finish my tree concept. I had several attempts at putting it into a scene but I decided that the angle and style of which I painted the tree, served better on its own as a standalone model concept.

This week we had to produce a tree which had character, and not a tree that IS a character. Avoiding faces, and human forms I attempted to create an interesting tree.

I began with some quick sketches to see what interested me:

After deciding on a composition I liked I put together a mood board:

I was able to produce the following image within roughly an hour:

Although I achieved some things with the above image, I wasn't happy that the tree had enough character, so back to the mood board I put together more "Big" trees:

I gave it a go painting a tree like the concept piece in my mood board, though still struggling to get form I went back to the sketchbook to practice drawing trees:

The following images are taken from my sketchbook where I did some studies on tree forms, values, and how they grow (apologies for the mobile phone photos):

At time of writing I am halfway through producing a final tree. So far I am really happy with the form. It's definitely more interesting, and it also seems to be holding some perspective which helps show size: