New things in the mix

So, guess what? I am now a Chicago resident. YES. Where do I begin? Let's see....

1) The website is under a bit of a delay. My website maker lady had an unfortunate incident with her computer which makes it unclear as of now whether or not she lost all of her files. So I'm waiting to see how that goes. No idea on when the site will be up. I'm not worried though. It's not a matter of if, but rather a matter of when.

2) I've been playing the resume game, getting ready to apply to some companies. It seems that everyone wants something different in a resume, so that makes it tough. Just some tweaks here and there and they'll be done. Cover letters are another story entirely. Ugh.

3) I've started on another project. I've decided to visit some familiar territory this time. I'm doing some TF2 weapons! If you remember back to a year ago, I tried to work with the source engine and ended up scrapping that ctf map I worked so hard on. Compiling custom content for Valve's games is a nightmare, which is precisely why I gave up. But, long story short, I won't have to worry about that this time. You see, Polycount, the forum I frequent, held a contest with Valve recently that I really wanted to participate in, but couldn't because I was so determined to get the desert environment done. So now I'm going to do it on my own. Sort of my own little private contest. You make three new weapons for a class, and then send them in to Valve. Obviously, I can't get any sort of prize now, but I can send it in to them and have it put in the game. That's right. If you send them your own models and textures, they will compile them for you, and put them in your backpack so you can use them in-game. This kills so many birds with one stone that it's not even funny. Not even. I love TF2, it'll do a good job of replacing the laser rifle, which I am less and less happy with every time I look at it (though it's still not bad, really), and this will also show that I can do stylized prop work and not just stuff based on realism.

I've already got the concepts done, and I just started on modeling today. I'll post some pics when the models are ready, which will hopefully be soon.

2010 Demo Reel

That's right. After a year long journey with many bumps along the way, at long last my demo reel is DONE. It's hard to believe that it's been almost a year since I set out to get this done. Unbelievable. I must say that there's no way I could have done this without the support of my friends and family. In times where I got so frustrated that quitting seemed like the only option, they helped motivate me to pick myself back up, and I am extremely blessed for that. So, here it is.
All I have to do before Chicago now is put up the website, so look out for that sometime this month.

Cheers to progress!

EDIT: It appears that blogger hates my video and cuts off a part of it when I try embedding it, so here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfThYDJJ3Cg

Make sure you watch it in 480P. Otherwise, it looks like crap. Hehe :P

The Desert Sessions, PT. 9

It's done! That's right, after 6 months of solid labor, Desert Straggler is complete! I've got tons of pics to show, and I must say that this is by far the best thing I've done so far. Considering that I just started learning the Unreal engine about a year ago, I'm happy with how much I've learned since then. There's still some ways to go, but I'm anxious to see what future projects will bring. A list of things new in this final version:

1) Shack is done. No more boring-looking flat, purple and gray boxes.

2) Plane is done.

3) Tire prop is complete.

4) Ambient occlusion effect is working nicely for the outside, while the interior has very little, which looks best.

5) Water bottle shader is complete.

Enough talk. Onto the pics now:

So the biggest part of the update, the shack. It's actually made up of several props. I tried to keep the colors under wraps, with mostly reds, and greens without making it look too uniform. After all, it is made of what this guy can actually find and stick together. If you looks closely at some of the pics, you can tell that everything is held together by nails. Makes enough sense to appease the general player. I drew influence from a bunch of pictures of makeshift shacks and tents and pieced together parts from each one to form the final shack you see. As I said, my concept artist crapped out on me, so the concept is entirely my own. I didn't think I had it in me, but I'm rather proud of myself on that one. It was tricky figuring out how the shack's tarp would be held up, but reference of tents being held up by long sticks with rope sold me on how to achieve believable results. I'm also happy with how the floor blanket turned out. The dirt around the edges and over it really makes it look worn and dirty. As for the overall wall structure, it's made up of three components: wood, corrugated steel, and cloth. Not too many different things to confuse the player, but enough variety to be visually pleasing.

The plane was a lot of work. It was really tricky to get the proportions right, as I'm sure there are plenty of airplane experts out there that need to be convinced. I chose blue as a way of making it pop out of the environment, as the red-orange sand and green flora match each other. In contrast, blue stands out more. The color map is entirely hand painted, and is perhaps one of the best I've painted to date. I didn't want it to look too destroyed, as you have to believe that the guy stranded here could actually survive it, even though his friend had no such luck. Good reference was perhaps the hardest to find for the plane, especially in a wrecked state, and I drew influence from multiple pics. I like the result.

Oh yeah, and here's the maps for it:

Diffuse

Specular

Normal

The rest of the pics are things you have already seen, but enjoy nonetheless:

Fun facts about Desert Straggler, which has:

87 diffuse maps
43 normal maps
26 specular maps
(That's 156 maps in total, if you like math)

114 props
87 materials

Alright then! What's the plan now? I'm going to finish the demo reel, of course. I need to optimize the level more, so the engine keeps a decent framerate, set up camera work, capture the video, make the wireframe shots, and edit it all together. From there, I give all of that stuff to my new website maker lady, Whitney Martin, whom I'm sure will do a fantastic job. When the demo reel is done, I'll make another post. Same thing with the website. So close to having this portfolio thing done.........