3D Anime Character 2

Here is an update on the anime guy.

He is all uv mapped, I started the hair, and I put some unfinished placeholder textures on him. I am gonna need to make a more detailed version later.

I also made a toon shader network to get a feeling of what he will look like completed!

He isn't done yet, but he is going pretty well. and is getting closer to what I want him to be. I need a lot more work on the hair, and the hair texture. I need a smoother transition between opaque and transparent, and I need some detail on it. But the whole thing needs more detail.

So the next step is definitely more detail on the textures... Until then!

3D Anime Character

I have been wondering for a while how cartooney games like Eternal Sonata and Kingdom Hearts make their simple styles work so well.

I decided to experiment with that and try to make a model that looks comparable. This is what I have so far.

I started by painting this simple model sheet. I wanted to keep details to a minimum, but still give the character some... well character...

I then went on to modelling.

Next I'm working on UV mapping, texturing and hair..

I figure that the texturing will need to be smooth gradients and flat colors with some texture. I highly doubt that  normal maps will be necessary. Specular maps might be interesting. I should experiment with different shading networks to get a cartoon look, I think that will be important.

Till next time!  

I'm working on this sword model and thought I would throw it up here for people to see!

Here is the game-res version.

I took the game-res and then detailed it out in zbrush.

I want to texture it next and bring it into unreal or something. I am going to make some normal maps from the zbrush model..

Orc Warrior Model

Hey, it has been a little while since my last post. But I thought it might be a good time to do some updating here!

I have this model of an orc creature that I did in Zbrush, and I have been trying to figure out what to do with it. I decided that I would have a little fun with it, and play around with a few different options, and experiment a little.

I decided that the first thing I would try is a paintover! I took the untextured render and I have redesigned him by painting new features, a new color scheme, and an overall different look.

I'm gonna try out some other stuff, and post it later maybe.. I think I like the paintover versions design better. Maybe if I bring this to game res I will retexture it like this..

Photo Study

Lots of stuff has been going on lately, but I'm back to the blog..

Anyway, I just finished this photo study.

It took a while to finish, but the work was well worth it. I really learned a lot about color, rendering, light, and focus.

Credit for the photo reference goes to Roman Serebranyy at summer-light.de, he is an excellent photographer.

Here is a sheet of work in progress pics.

As usual, click for a closer look!

Thanks for looking, more stuff later..

Ninja Gladiator Painting

Hey, here is the other painting I mentioned in my last post.

I have been wanting to do a fighter character in the fantasy genre for a while now. I just was busy with some other things.

Here is a small wip sheet.

Click to get a closer look!

I'm still working on that UDK level, but I don't really have enough to show at the moment to justify another post. 

Maybe tomorrow I will...

Unreal UDK Level 03

I haven't posted anything about my Unreal level for a few days, so I thought it was about time to put something new up!

First, here is what my concept of the roof is. I looked through a bunch of photos of old temples and structures, and I came up with this. 

I did it as a paintover to save time, and to see what it would more accurately look like in the level.

After I had an idea of what I was shooting for, I started putting stuff together, and making meshes. The new meshes here are really so simple it is not worth showing them in detail. I just wanted to get something in there and start building. I might replace them with something fancier in the future.

Here is what it looked like after I started blocking in details.

After I got the basic shape down, I started adding meshes, and retweaking shapes to fit my needs. After a bit of that I got this.

I painted a new texture for the ground from scratch. It is entirely hand painted, except for the normal map which was generated from the painting.

Here it is in the engine.

Here is a quick progress of the texture...

Click for a closer look!

Next on the agenda, building the pools, and the altar...

Well folks, that is all for now... Hopefully I'll finish soon, so I can put this project to rest..

Ghost Princess Painting

I really liked the ghost princess on my princess concept sheet so I figured that I would try to take it a bit further and see where it got to.

Here is what it got to when I finished.

I'm pretty happy with the results, and I learned a lot in the process.

So, here is what I went through to finish it.

Click for a closer look!

Well that is all for now, but I do have another painting  in progress, and I am still chipping away at that UDK project. More stuff later!

Unreal UDK Level 02

I realized after my last post, that the image of the pillar was screwed up. This was because I originally built the mesh with holes in the top and bottom and used a brush to create its shadow. Also, I forgot to turn on cast shadows inside the mesh properties.. silly me...

After the post, I went back and capped the ends, this makes it so that UDK will calculate lighting for it, and therefore make it look better and save me a lot of time.

After all of that, this is what it now looks like.

There is still some strange stuff going on on the darkside. I think that has to do with unused topology. Maybe I should clean that up.

Well, After I more or less finished the wall and the first pillar I made a simple column and a border. These are both super simple meshes. I like to keep things as simple as possible when more detail is not necessary.

Here are the textures for both these objects. The pillars base texture was all painted. The border was a mix of filters and painting just like the stones. I forgot to mention in my last post that the normal maps i am using are just generated from the texture. I didn't feel it was necessary to bring these models into zbrush for this project. They look good enough without it.

Here is what they look like in the engine when I imported them. As you might be able to see, I also capped these ones off too.

After those were finished, I started imagining what the layout of the level might be like. I thought of some bigger ideas, but I decided to keep it simple because I wanted to keep this a small project.

Here is the basic map I came up with. It isn't pretty, it is just utilitarian.

Here is where I have gotten to so far. I have the base wall and interior of the temple built. And I have the outer perimeter wall built. I still need to build a roof for the temple and build the courtyard garden outside the temple. Also the altar isn't finished. Despite all the missing stuff, I think it is coming along nicely.

That is all for now, I should have some more stuff to show about this soonish..

unreal UDK level

I started planning and building a small UDK level yesterday.

I began by doing some sketches of the sort of feel that I wanted..

I liked these concepts. I liked the idea of lots of rough hewn stone bricks..

From there I started working on some static meshes in maya.

I made a small piece first, then I used that piece to make both a wall and a pillar.

I mapped the small piece to work with a single repeating texture. I made textures in photoshop.
These textures were made with a combination of filters and painting, not photos were used.

I started by using a combination of filters to make a realistic stone texture. The process was, clouds, add noise on one layer, then on an alpha channel use difference clouds and noise. Then on the first layer, use lighting effects with the alpha made earlier as the texture channel.
If done correctly you should get something close to the stone texture of the bricks on this texture. I tweaked it a lot to get the effect I wanted.

Here are my diffuse, specular, and normal maps.

I then took all of the assets, (textures and meshes) into UDK to compile them together and take them for a testdrive. Here is what they look like so far.

The pillar

The wall, and border

(I built the border after, I will show stuff about that in the next post.)

Well that is all for now. I should have floor plans and have the level started by tomorrow. I also should have more assets finished.

Until then, stay tuned!

More Environments

Here are the environments I did today and yesterday.

Snow and Jungle..

After I did the snow scene, I watched some tutorials on youtube. I think that they really helped me understand depth much better. Here is one of the ones that I watched

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNNSq6wo6kc&NR=1&feature=fvwp

I made a progress animation for the snow scene. 

Click on it to view the animation.