Recent Progress

I don't want to let this blog fall by the way side but progress has been a little slow. At least progress that one can show. I've been learning a lot about workflow and speed. I made this medieval jousting helm a few days ago to see how fast I can run through the asset making process. I have varying colors that I felt looked pretty good. Not sure which one I would like to use but I do like the green and black ones. I focused on trying to get the right iron feel to it. I used Substance Painter to texture this again. I'm enjoying it the more I use it. I will end up having to purchase Substance Designer in the future if I want to be able to create my own materials and effects however. For now I'm content with the built in presets since I'm still getting a handle on it.

I'm taking the time to fully understand each section (modeling, sculpting, retopo/UV, baking, texturing, and rendering). I'm still not too comfortable with the rendering aspects and final presentation of game assets just yet but I guess I'm okay with that as long as I keep learning something from each project. That's why I'm not pumping out assets every other day like I will be once I get a job.

I also started working on a steampunk rifle from this concept:

I'm still working on the blockout/proportions right now so I don't have much to show for it. Maybe in a few days... 

Another thing I've been digging into is a procedural height map generator for making terrain. WorldMachine allows to you create great looking landscapes that you can customize to your liking and then bring them into a game engine to texture and show off. It's a little complicated but essentially you input a bunch of settings for your terrain and it then generates a height map (a greyscale bitmap that uses the shades of grey to differentiate elevation). It saves a lot of time from trying to sculpt it all by hand and can give some really nice results. Again, I don't have anything to show for it but it's what I'm learning at the moment.