Finishing the Triple A Asset

I've gotten my dumbbell into Unreal and built a little environment to help with lighting and to generally not have a single object on a slab of concrete-ish game floor.

I enjoyed positioning the dumbbell in Unreal and seeing how the light would interact.

I put another dumbbell into the scene as they are commonly bought and used in pairs.

Showing the lighting.

Weights, a bench and those rubbery inflated ball things. 

As well as screenshots showing the object in engine I bought the object into Quixel and textured it showing the topography of the model. 

UV layout.

Dumbbell model in Quixel showing topography. 

Overall the project went reasonably okay given my history of modelling projects going quickly awry. One of the problems I encountered later on with the model was getting the normal maps cover the model properly (which can bee seen in the screenshots) as well as some of the parts being slightly too small making the detail more pixelated then what I would have liked. 

Triple A Quixel and Unreal

Today I applied suitable textures to my model in Quixel Suite and begun setting up everything in Unreal for the final hand in tomorrow. It's not quite done yet as there're a few things that still need a bit of work but I should be able to happily meet the deadline.

Quixel model.

Small environment with pull-up bar and power rack. 

Dumbbell in engine.

Another shot of the dumbbell.

I still need to make a proper environment for the dumbbell and sort out a few of it's texturing issues but all in all it's going well. Should be dandy by tomorrow.

Triple A Mapping

After putting the low-poly and high-poly models into XNormal to get the texture maps I brought them into Photoshop to correct some errors and distortion in the mapping which would cause the materiel on the object to lie slightly off. After doing that I combined the maps for the separate pieces of the dumbbell.

Normal Map

Ambient Occlusion Map

Colour Map

Hopefully with these maps I should now people able to put the materials onto my object in Quixel and be well on my way to being finished. 

Dumbbell

For my triple A asset project I have made a low poly version of my dumbbell and unwrapped the UVs so hopefully soon I can bung on all the different maps and details and have the project done.

Low-poly Dumbbell; actually quite similar to the high poly bar a few deleted edge loops.

Edge -loops.

Different parts of the dumbbell mapped out. 

It'd be nice to get as much done during the early part of the crunch as opposed to the final two days of nervous agony. A bit like last year but worse. 

Derek the Installation Monitor

I Robin's class today we were working with Insert Multi Mesh tools. These tools allow us to essentially virtually kit-bash models together from pre-existing parts either on ZBrush, made in Maya, or found on the internet. The model I decided to make became Derek the Installation Monitor.
An old oil rig monitor, Derek patrols the are looking for things that can be seen as dangerous to the now halted drilling operations and promptly ignoring them as he wishes not to waste too much ammo lest it be needed later on.

Derek to the left. 

Derek to the right.

Derek's face. 

I enjoy this way or modelling in ZBrush exclusively for hard surface work. One thing I need to work on is getting better with the rotation and moving tools and finding the best mirroring axis for symmetry. 

AAA Dumbbell Progress

With my Triple-A asset project I bought all of my different Maya parts into ZBrush and really just added detail and put them all together, making the plates subtools of the bar.

Front view of dumbbell. There are a few scratches and knicks in the plates but most of the detail on them will come from textures. 

3/4 view of the dumbbell showing the spinlock and the plates. 

One thing I realised was that I had to do each of the plates separately as there is no way to duplicate and move about individual tools in ZBrush. It really seems like something that could be added. I'm happy with the progress of it so far and now I just need to get on with other things like the low-poly unwrapping and what-not. 

ZBrush Alien

In todays Zbrush lesson we were working with DynaMesh and Insert Mesh. These tools make it a lot easier to model things, especially non-humanoid things.

What I created using these tools was the head of an alien.

Profile picture of a specimen of the Blorthog species.

Snaggle-not-actually-teeth-tooth

Rear view showing the back of the head and eye globes.

The design was to have antennae coming from the back of his head but I struggle to make them look right and eventually gave up. 

Dumbbell asset progress

I've managed to make a fair amount of progress on my triple-A asset for submission in September. The modelling in Maya has been completed and now has to be worked up in ZBrush to get things like the knurling and small details in the metal of the dumbbell bars.

Original joined dumbbell before being smoothed and re-mirrored in order to fix the mistakes in the mirroring.

Corrected, smooth, high-poly dumbbell.

High-poly as in takes 4 minutes to load into Maya 2016 high poly.

Edgeloops.

UV which at one point became the sticking point of an other-wise smooth project.

This is all the Maya work which has been done for the dumbbell, all the work left is now ZBrush. 

Bar in ZBrush.

Knurling to be applied to the handle. 

I'm finding I'm having problems with the UV and applying the knurling onto the bar in ZBrush. Other than that the project seems to be going quite well. 

Rigging

In Ewan's class today we worked on rigging a character.

Rigged cyclopes. 

Rigging was actually a lot simpler than I thought it would be which is quite nice to know, especially if I want to start making my own characters and seeing if I can get them to run around in Unity. 

Dumbbell Winter Model

For my winter asset project I decided to model a spinlock dumbbell. I was originally going to a do a barbell, which is the same but longer, but found the dumbbell bar had more a interesting design.

I'm happy with the progress I'm making so I should be able to put this into ZBrush soon. This seems to be one of the first Maya projects that actually seems to be going right, let's hope it stays that way. 

Drek Mogar

In today's Zbrush session we went over the things we have already done just to help those who couldn't get access earlier on when there were licensing problems. When using the head base I chose to model some fantasy orc thing which I decided to name Drek Mogar because it suited him.

Spiny face and the orc-y staple of scars

It was nice to go back and be refreshed on using Zbrush as I find I am starting to get used to its interface.

Geoff the Wandering Capsule

In Ewan's session today we had a character move about an environment by pointing and clicking for help make our game.

Geoff the Capsule in his natural environment

We originally had a pre-made character model follow the mouse clicks until we put in a sphere to mark the area selected for movement and then replace the pre-made model with a capsule. Although I don't need to do much coding it's nice to know how the movement works as a whole just in case. 

Z-Brush Subtools

Today in Robin's class we learnt about subtools in ZBrush and using mesh extract in order to add detail to our models. It's definately a helpful too when it comes to quickly adding things like clothing or armor to a model without having to try and sculpt it on.

Getting to know mesh extracting. Thickness is a pain

Man with bodysuit and mask

Batman with floppy gloves

This tool definately helps with adding more detail to models but I seem to have trouble keeping my sub tool layer box neat and functional. Hopefully it shall come to me as I get more at home with Zbrush and it's wonky rotation camera. 

That's Not a Spoon...

As part of our Games Art unit we were assigned to model a combat knife in order to help get to grips with many aspects of Maya such as the quad draw tool as well as to give us some practice before we start on our main Maya project for this term.

This is the .jpg file we were given to work from for modelling the knife.. The modelling style for this project is very different to what I am used to. For most of our projects beforehand we have simply box modeled and extruded and shaped vertices. For this one however  it immediately began with using the quad draw tool in order to get the basic shape as opposed to adding some edge loops to a box. 

A view of the modeled knife and it's components. Note I forgot to reverse the blade . 

Another view of the knife with the reversed blade and edge loops. 

This way about modelling definitely seems to get results much quicker than box modeling but I still seem to encounter many of the problems I encounter with most of my models which are strange edge loops and wonky geometry. Hopefully I shall be able to fix these soon and be able to make nice neat models. Gerber is a silly name...

Johnny Tin-Can

Over the summer we were given the assignment of designing a cyborg sci-fi character for a video game. The character I came up with is Johnny Tin-Can, a cyborg Goblin scrapper. Most of my Earlier designs were drawn in Mischief and Photoshop was used for the main painting and model planes.

AAAAAUUUUUGHHHHH-I'm kidding I'm fine

I am Locutus of Borg

Laser eyes and robot ear

Asymmetrical ears and a hammer-jaw 

After doing some rough head sketches to get a feel for the character I decided to come up with some designs for hair as Goblins are a rather eccentric people. 

Mohawk, Fringe, Messy and Quiff. 

I came up with body designs for Johnny after deciding on the type of face I wanted to use. I went with Goggles and hair as well as with a robotic ear.

The different concepts of  Johnny. I was exploring different pieces of clothing and accessories but keeping with his general points such as his bikini top, spiked hair and shorts  

Early picture of Johnny's mechanical parts and his hand

A more detailed picture of Johnny's right arm 

Johnny's right had and claw attachment

Johnny's handgun. 

Pen sketch of Johnny to get a better idea him as a whole

Sketches for working out things like face-shape, proportions and belt buckles

Mudburd

After all of the concept work I went into Photoshop to paint up a render of Johnny.

Painted Tin-Can in his bikinied glory. I decided to change his belt from just a simple buckle to something that can actually function and help him with his work. His belt contains a particle shield generator and a short-range teleporter. 

WHen the painting was finished I started on the views I needed in order to do the 3D modelling.
                                             

Three and a half feet of power

Rear view

Left side tricep action

cool side with all the bits

Model Front

Model Back

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Model with planes