Biiiiiiiiicycle! Biiiiiiiicycle!

It's me again. I hope everyone's holiday season was good and spiffy. Mine was as much fun as it was productive. Low poly modeling for the "bike" part of the motorcycle project is for all intents and purposes done, aside from minor changes due to feedback I may get. With all the necessary faces deleted, the model comes out to about 10,000 polys. It may seem a little heavy for some games, but I'm treating it like it's gonna see a lot of screen time in an engine that can handle the weight of the model well (in this case, Unreal). As I predicted, it was ten times harder to do than the sidecar. Trying to get an understanding of how a motorcycle functions is no easy task. On top of that, I have to simplify it so that it meets my poly budget and also looks like it can function properly. All in all, I think an average Joe such as myself will buy it, but it won't stand up to the scrutiny of a motorcycle expert. But, this is usually true with a lot of things in games, so it doesn't concern me much. I think I stuck close enough to the concept while also giving it my own personal touch. But, that's for you folks to decide. Take a look see:



So once I'm satisfied with the low poly, it's on to planning for the high poly. This project is gonna push my Zbrush skills to the limit, so I honestly can't say how long it'll take. Should be interesting though. Next posting should consist of zbrush progress pics. See you then....

EDIT:

So , In my haste to get the post up, I completely forgot to show off Joe's concept of the bike. Shame on me, because it's pretty damn good. I had to take a picture of it as opposed to scanning it, so apologies for the crappy quality. Definitely doesn't do it justice enough. Well done!

The anchors have been lifted, and the bike is a coming.

Hello all me friends on the interwebs! It's been a while, hasn't it?

The bike project is under way. Over the past month, I focused more on getting some work done for the RPG project, which is coming along nicely. But, it was always hard to find time for the motorcycle project, which I would like to get done ASAP, so that I can finally have a full portfolio to show to employers if need be. So, I 'm putting my contributions to the project on hold in order to get the bike cranked out. I'm hoping that it'll be done sometime in January, but it's as you all know by now, very hard to tell. Especially this early in the game. Other than that there's not really too much going on.
As you can see, my roommate Joe D'amico has done a bang up job on the concept. The idea in itself is simple. It's a motorcycle with a sidecar. The setting for it is post apocalyptic, so it's put together with found scraps. The idea itself is admittedly not THAT original, but we're hoping that the execution of it is something unique.

We still haven't worked out tiny details yet, but it's coming as soon as everything is modeled out. He's working on the concept for the motorcycle as we speak. It may seem like a kind of backwards way of working, but the sidecar kind of acts like a warm up for the actual bike. The bike has ALOT of detail. It's gonna be pretty hard to determine what's normal mapped and what's modeled, but that's just the fun of it. :) So for now, we're just working on the foundations of the model.

The final product will be a few shots of the bike inside an old, dusty garage. The other objects within it won't be nearly as focused as the bike, which will be an advantage as I want the bike to stand out alot. It's the centerpiece, I guess you could say. I'll also have the normal goodness of wireframe shots, texture images, and lighting only shots.

This project is meant to show off all my skills in general, but mostly that I know what I'm doing in zbrush, as well as photoshop. With that in mind, I plan on doing ALL the normal map detail in zbrush and all the texture work will be hand painted. Expect to see some renders from inside of zbrush as well as in game shots with it as a normal mapped model, naturally. The wire shots I have below are from inside the maya viewport and the lit shots are from inside the UDK editor.

Enjoy!

And also, here's how the UV's are set up. Nicely packed if I do say so myself.

So the next few posts will be his drawings of the motorcycle, as well as modeling progress. But before I go, I'm going to do a shameless plug for Joe's new independent video production company, Smoking Water Productions. He's got a tasty video up for my other friend Jake's techno band, The Chaotic Good. Awesome stuffs. Do yourself a service and check the links y'all.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/SmokingWater

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=517684230432&oid=101298146609826&comments

Pripyat and Desert Straggler, versions 5.billion.

So, I just finished em'. FOR THE LAST TIME. I swear. Pinky swear, honest.

As I said in an earlier post, Due to an overwhelming consensus that I should rework all my demo reel projects, I have done just that. The laser Rifle got trashed all together as I mentioned earlier. So here's some screenies:


Pripyat

1) Remodeled the following objects to increase visual quality(mostly adding on polys since they were WAY too simple): Gurney, radiator, sink.

2) Started the lighting over completely from scratch. Lighting has more mood to it now, with stronger shadows.

3) Normal maps show up better. Not sure if it's a result of a better lighting setup, or that this version of the engine displays normal information better. I suspect a bit of both.

I can't get over how much better the lighting looks in this. I'm not even so sure that I did a lot differently from the previous lighting setup. I think I just have a better handle on all the different lightmass settings than I did 6 months ago. Learning gooooo!


Desert Straggler

1) Made the shadows cooler, to better reflect how outdoor shadows look.

2) Added a VERY low ambient light to give the overall level more brightness.

3) Made a lot of changes in color choice. Trees and sand are less saturated, rocks now match up more with mountains and cliff side, grass now matches surrounding terrain and doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.

4) Retextured the terrain and optimized terrain layer setup. Ground now has gravel and grass layers to give more surface variation.

A huge world of difference. Everything seems to work better, mainly just due to altering colors and adding more detail to the ground. Not really much else to say. The results sort of speak for themselves.

Whew, it feels good to have all of that out of the way.

Now, all I have to do is recapture the video footage of both projects and put them back into premiere to edit in. Should only take one day, which is tomorrow. I'm also trying to find a better way to post my demo reel to the web, as youtube's uncanny ability to degrade my video quality isn't quite cutting it right about now.

After that's squared away, I'll dig into the RPG project a bit more. There won't be any pics posted from that until the game demo is actually out, so don't expect to see anything from that anytime soon. I'll still be working on that side project with Joe in the meantime, which he is about 1/4 of the way done with, in sketching. Once we have a better idea of the details and the drawings are done, I'll make a nice big post about it.

Where do I begin?

Well, I guess I can start off with the bad news. Some professional game devs have collectively decided to crush my soul. It's a good kind of soul crushing though, because they critiqued my demo reel and in a nutshell, I'm not good enough to start applying to places yet. They REALLY hated the laser rifle, so that got trashed all together. In a couple of months, hopefully I'll be ready.

More bad news: The tf2 props have been scrapped. I loved working on them, and would love nothing more than to finish them, but it has become a low priority for me. (See below as to why)
It's what I would like to do rather than what I should be doing.

Good news: I've begun working on my first group project! Me and some other Chicago chaps are making an action rpg demo, kinda like Mass Effect as far as style goes. They're two years into it so far, so it's cool to be sort of diving into it head first, right into the fray. I've got a couple models done so far, and we meet up every other week, so good times are ahead.

More good news: In response to those critiques I mentioned before, I'm doing a new solo project that is basically making a ridiculously detailed high resolution mesh in zbrush and showing it off. I need to have a piece that shows off my high poly modeling skills, and I guess you could say that the style of TF2 weapons doesn't allow for such detail. My roommate Joe and I have come up with a concept, and he's currently sketching it out. Details to follow.

TF2 Props Modeling shizzle bang dizzle

As I get more and more settled into Chi-town, I also have some fruits of my modeling labours. Yes, just because I'm still getting situated doesn't mean I can't find some time to work as well. The initial low poly modeling is complete, and now I take them into zbrush and add detail, as per usual. Here they be laddies/lassies:


So, the replacement for the revolver is The Ceasefire. It's description reads as:

"Our first item is a old west style revolver that stops even the most war-hardened veterans dead in their tracks. Said to have been used by General Custer in his Last Stand at Little Big Horn, this weapon will make its victim unable to move for a short amount of time, depending on where you hit the target. Head and torso shots will give you more time, as limb shots will yield significantly LESS time. This makes it the ideal weapon of choice for making a smooth getaway. The downside is that a specific target can only be affected once until they die and respawn, and your shots will do less damage than your trusty revolver. And, oh yea, no crits allowed."

+ On hit: Freezes target for a short time, based on where the target is hit. Target is affected once in one life.

- 25% Damage to target

- No critical hits

I'm trying to stay as close to Custer's real revolver on this, but it has a lot of engraved detail on it, much like the Ambassador. I'll take the detail down a bit, and vary the design so that they don't get confused for each other. This will be by far the hardest to detail in Zbrush. It will definitely push me to my limits.


This one is the replacement for the sapper. Description:

"Enter the Instigator. This gem of an item takes the idea of your regular sapper and makes it a bit more distanced. That's right, you'll no longer have to get up close and personal with this baby, because it disables an engineer's equipment remotely. It's no matter if you're around a corner, or whether or not you're looking right at the blasted things, as long as you're within 40 feet of your targets, it'll sap any and all buildings that an engie has within that radius. However, take caution when using this device, because it takes a bit more time to fully destroy buildings. Also, it will emit an electrical current that will instantly blow your cover."

+ Remotely saps all enemy buildings within a 40 feet radius

-40% sap rate

- emits an electrical current that nullifies the user's disguise.

This guy is a mixture of a bunch of stuff I got when I googled "1940's technology". It's what you call "logical nonsense", where something looks like it makes sense and can be used for some task, but you don't know the actual tech behind it. As long as it's believable to an extent. The plane that rests over the top part is duct tape that the engineer has used to hold the bottom part of it together. Nothing works quite like duct tape. Zbrushing should be relatively easy on this one.


The Despiriter has a wonderous description:

"We've been told that this is probably NOT what King Ramses II called his favorite dagger, but it sounds really friggin cool, so why not? Backstabbing an enemy with this little number will release the tormented spirit of good ol' Ramses himself upon all who witness your crime, sending them into a helpless, frightened state that can only be cured by a hot cup of cocoa and a good crying session. The effect will wear off after about five seconds, which is more than enough time for you to finish off those who have their back turned to you and escape. WARNING: This weapon only works once during a lifetime, and every life you take after using it will take some of your life as well."

+ On hit: Puts all enemies that witness the backstab into a fear state for 5 seconds. Can only be used once in a life.

-30 health drained on wearer for every backstab after first initial stab.

It basically HAD to have it be curved. It just cries out sinister when you see it. It's a blend of a couple different references, but manages to read as Egyptian pretty well. The hilt will be engraved gold, and the round part at the top of the hilt will be the face of Ramses, carved into it.

I'm by no means a designer, so the pros and cons of these weapons may be a bit unbalanced. The description was done mainly just for fun though, the real importance to this is how they look. I'll make another post when the zbrushing is complete on all three.

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