Presentation update

Update, what is update? So I've not updated in a while and I kinda feel guilty, I like to keep an eye on my own progress with updates but I have been lacking in both doing the work and doing the blogs. But anywho I'm updating now and I'll get a lot done next week with half term and not being in the country wasn't great but I'll deal with it.

I started work on the Zbrush sculpt and refined the shape a bit better than the max scene. Still a bit to do on it but its getting there. For all my animals I am normal mapping the eyes and such. Big focus on the silhouette  everything else can be textured on. This is an awesome sculpt because I wont need to plaster it in fur, hopefully i can make it really glossy and awesome. 

More stuff modelled unwrapped, at the minute I think I have 60 + assets...and yeah before you say it. I know I'm going to texture them, that will be next week, to capture up on my texturing that I love so much.

I tried out a few designs for a large tank for the shark but I'm not really liking it. I dunno I feel its a little...shit so I think I want to hang it on the walkway which will be more interesting. If this is the case then I will make the shark more limb, hung from a chain...some shark bling.

I'll go into this with the glass jars below but with UDK it hate transparancy and so I need to export all things that are transparent as a different asset. It means I have to then build it all in UDK which is a pain but I get better results and ultimately less hassle. So this is structure of the inside, so you can see the factory part from the showroom floor, creating a nice juxtaposition.

Modular pieces for the walkway, took a bit of tweaking and reimporting but I was able to adjust it into place.

Finally started to texture the pipes, so as I stated that will be next week, catching up on all that.

Okay so you see with the glass jars, the way they have to be made is really weird, for such a small area of my inside it still is 22 assets because the water needs a separate shader, the glass needs a shader and the animals have to fit inside all these jars. So I've started texturing the animals as well, I need to make a choice of keeping them only in the jars or if I'm going to reuse them somewhere else. This will affect the specular and texture size for these small assets.

Still lots to do but it's coming along nicely, gotta pick up the pace, focus on an area and finish it :)

Taxidermy or Taxi-no-worky?

Slow week due to being a moron but here's an update on what I've been doing. Updated the texture on the buffalo, looks better now and less dark which is always a good thing. Need to fix those seems though. Been doing a few tests with the sheep chair, the annoying thing is my Zbrush sculpt is now too stylized, so I'm going to do a detail normal map and maybe try and use that as my base and use my sculpt to overlay slighty to see if that works better.

Been Zbrushing my little deer, I love deer they are just too cute. And again being super emotive with my sculpts this one looks sad. I will make you feel for these poor animals.

This bluryness of mess is an update on the modular parts, new parts have been added as I make the scene in UDK. I find it's easier for me to trial and error things and learn from my mistakes. 

Started work on the inside as well, I think I'm going to work on the taxidermy showroom and outside building and make them polished and if I have time do the factory part. I really want to so I'm going have to beast myself. But I think its good to try and finish off these areas to a good standard and work my way down the level.

And finally contemplating night time because I'm a sucker for cool lighting :D

So yeah it doesn't seem too bad when I put it all in a blog post but I know myself I have been lazy this week, so I'm getting back on the bandwagon of work this week ready for presentation on friday :D

Deer Sir/Madam

Okay so I finished the low poly for the deer, well at least the port to Zbrush one. The high poly for the horns are done now, I'll work on a low poly tomorrow maybe. Didn't get anything else done as I was having too much fun modelling the deer. Totally didn't spend 10 minutes making the other one on the left because I was bored. 

Weapons Artist?

 What I'm modelling a high poly gun? But why you say?

To make this bad boy of course, I love Peter Gronquist's work, It's so cool. So obviously high polying stuff takes a while so that's what I have been doing today. Used an actual gun reference because the image I have for the deer isn't enough resolution. So sweet I'll keep ya updated.

One thing though I have to change is this pattern. Okay so I love starting things, love modelling and sculpting and doing new stuff every day. I hate finishing things and so I hop around a lot, so I will have to focus myself or I'll just end up with lots of awesome cool stuff but none of it finished. So I will make it my task to actually finish some of the stuff I have been working on. Also I find it a good balance to switch between animals and buildings that way I can do something fun while doing something more tedious and time consuming. But yeah I just wanted to put that out there, that I understand what I'm doing and I have to change. This FMP could turn out amazing and soo cool, but it could be a disaster all depending on if I can manage all this stuff.

Sweet, hopefully I will have finished this high poly tomorrow and maybe did some more UDK stuff and maybe finish the buffalo head or the sheep chair that are waiting in the background as I fairy around.

It's all about Modulation Modulation Modulation

So what have I been up to the last few days? Boring stuff...yup sorting through the modulated assets, unwrapping them, applying the correct smoothing groups, making some basic tileable diffuses. It's all essential but boring so it takes longer than other more interesting things.

I've got the low poly and unwrapped sheep done, most of my yesterday was rendering out the normal maps to find out they were crap and having to do them again. Still have to do another one tomorrow because I re-unwrapped it today as the texel density was off.

I also started my lamb crow in Zbrush, it's sooo cute and kindof like a Persian cat. Need to get some fluff on it and it might start looking like a lamb. Obviously i need to sculpt the crow and the feet and such but its a good start.

I did a few test textures for the buffalo, just testing how he'll turn out. I might make him brown though, don't think I like him this black. Not that I'm a buffalo racist or anything :O. Certainly something I'm enjoying is the animal sculpts, I want to be a character & creature artist later in my career when I'm more competent in making them. So it is something I will keep practicing and it's an interesting learning process because we don't do animals on the course.

Also got my boring stuff into UDK and started to build the building, again this is all going to be vertex painted to add variation and rust, dirt, increase normal map detail in areas...all to break up the repetition of the tileables.

Armadillo Lamp & Sheep Wool

Okay so hard to see but did test bake for the buffalo heads, will be easier to see when it's textured...hopefully. I think I need to make the normal makes deeper but yosh...

 Modelled me some weird fox...I know the pose is weird but that's how its standing in a photo I have. Does seems to want to fall backwards so I will change it so it's a little more balanced looking. I also make a armadillo lamp....I love my FMP :D

Tried multiple ways of doing wool in Zbrush, I made a few of my own aplha's but it wasn't great. Tried to sculpt it but it became too blobby. I found a alpha on Pixologics website and it seemed to work better. But I dunno if I like it. Too many hours on trying to make it look cool, but it works alright right now...and now I'm blabbing.

I also tried to sculpt my brick today...might try it again or maybe do it in NDo if I can get it working again. Took me a while to understand the image projection in Zbrush. I kinda understand it but It would seem to work better just for polypainting.

Anywho that is my update for today. Need to actually finish some stuff which would be nice. If I focus on teh boring stuff tomorrow i.e. the modulated building parts, then I can start the UDK file which would be cool. 

Buffalo Wings

So I need to get into that habbit I did for rooftop and blog everyday. Great evidence of what I'm working on and how fast or slow I am moving.

Okay so I did more blocking out today, it's all very boring stuff trying to work out stuffs. So getting there and understanding my texture sheets a bit. As you can see I added a floor and other things, I am going to block off the player because I have bucket loads to do as it is.

I also did test scales today to see how the level was coming on, I always find this useful as you can play the level and ammend things. And yeh in doing this I had the building way too big, Also come corridors where too small and walkway was too high. Basic things I can change now because of these tests I do :D

I also got bored of buildings and did the cutest buffalo in the world. I forgot to symmetry him in max but it's all the same for Zbrush. I'll take him into max, retopo and bake my normals from there. I just think it's a better method than Zbrush normal map function.

Also for the lol's I gave him furryness....yep that is all.

I should also state that I was working on my Zbrush for the sheep chair, found out the sheep head was too small, tried to fix it in zbrush without destroying the facial detail I had. Tried and failed at dynameshing and transposing it bigger and so gave up and I'll just make them bigger in max and do the Zbrush again. It's all a learning curve so I don't mind.

I plan to do this weekend is try out some Zbrush tileables to add height variation on the bricks and also do other tileables such as metal, grating, concrete...etc. Also hopefully get the buffalo head finished and make a start on Zbrushing the window brick detailsa