Throne Room update #3

The following images may not look like much of an improvement but a lot of work went into creating all the basic lightmaps for the geo. The things that are new are the throne itself; I added a nice flowy looking cloak and a basic seat. The seat will be worked on after I get all the anatomy worked out for the female sculpt. This isn't even the updated one, I'm in the middle of working on it right now. The other things I updated were the columns. They are now more or less finished. I would like to add some finer details on the capitols and pedestals but seeing as how you'll only be looking at it from further away I might wait on that.

I haven't even touched the lighting this week which is something that needs to be done as well. I'll keep at it...

Throne Room Update #2

Okay so I have most everything into UE4 and my lights are (sort of) setup. I'm still working out some issues with the lighting and camera but but I have most everything in place at the moment. Next I want to start working on the throne itself. I need to get a really nice sculpt of the chair and the obsidian lady person since it is the focal point of this environment.

Below are some of the speedsculpts I've been doing for the past month. Every day I try and spend anywhere from 30 mins to an hour to sculpt as much as I can of some random image I find on pinterest/google/whatever. When the time runs out I'm done and that's what you see. Some of it I'm proud of but others...well, not so much. I have many more but these are just the ones I opened up randomly from January. I plan to continue doing this everyday. This process will help me improve my sculpting ability, especially when it comes to anatomy. 

A new version of ZBrush was released a few days ago but I haven't really delved too deep into the new features. I have to spend some time learning it, it has some really big game changers when it comes to polygonal modeling.

Throne room update

I've done quite a few renders in Maya to get a feel for my lighting but I’m not quite getting what I want just yet. I need to bring this thing into UE4 to start nailing it down. I do have most of the main shapes/scale down that I was going for. It’s changed a bit from last week. These renders you see are my 4^th or 5^th try at a blockout.  I’m satisfied with what I have I just need to put in some more detail. Right now I do have a few columns modeled out that are near final (minus any texture work) but that’s about it.

For the contest we need a total of three beauty shots of our scene. In order to make mine look as good as possible I really need to keep the composition in mind. I’m nowhere near a great artist (or even a good one) but so far I think the angles I picked will provide the best looking compositions. This week I plan on setting this all up in UE4 and really nailing down my lighting. If I get to a place where I’m satisfied, I will start increasing the details on the walls and floor.

Obsidian Throne Room

So I haven't posted for a month mainly because I had nothing to show. Getting caught up from vacation has been a slow process it seems. The past few days I've been working on my TrackingPoint gun and attempting to get some decent normal and ambient occlusion maps baked out. I still have some work to do but I feel like I've gotten to a point where I can start texturing. At least I would if I didn't have some other pressing project I just started working on. I'll get to that in a sec but here are a few screen grabs from Marmoset of my gun. I did throw some base materials on it but I haven't started getting into much detail yet. I may work on it here and there but for now I will put this project on hold.

So that's that. The next few shots are of a new project that I technically started a few days ago but haven't made anything until today. This will be an environment of a throne room for the challenge hosted by polycount. It's pretty much free reign so long as I make a throne room (no poly limits or texture restrictions) so long as I finish it by March 31st.

Not sure I'll be able to do that but I'll give it my all to complete it in time. My main goal is to simply make a portfolio piece that I will be proud of. Winning or even making top 10 is not necessarily my driving factor here (though it would be nice).

This is my Obsidian Throne. Keep in mind all of this is just blockmesh righ now, not details have been sculpted. I'm still playing with shapes and light right now. I want to get some nice compositional shots before I add any details. I want to keep with a Greek architectural theme with contrasting materials (black obsidian and white marble). I'm going for a clean look with large strong shapes. We'll see if I can pull it off....

More hard surface goodness!

I apologize for not posting last week. I have been busy working on my next project through. Before I show you that I made a few screenshots today of my steam punk rifle with some nicer lighting:

I'm still not 100% happy on how these turned out but I feel like I am getting some nicer results. Doing set dressing for renders isn't really my strong point at the moment.

As for my next project I am doing another gun. I don't know why I did this to be honest but I watched a YouTube video on some guy doing an awesome looking rifle and I just had to make my own. It was supposed to be just some practice one day but I can't stop working on it; too much fun.

It's called a TrackingPoint XS1 Precision-guided 338 LM. This things looks amazing and I thought it might be fun to make my own. Right now as you can probably see I'm not done with the high poly just yet but I'm getting there. I was hoping to get this section done before a family vacation but alas I don't think it will happen. I will continue this project in a couple weeks...

Steampunk Rifle Textures

So I've finally have some halfway decent textures applied to my rifle that I posted last week. Not much to say about it really at this point. This isn't quite finished yet; I've only just thrown some simple materials on it today. I haven't added any grunge or dirt and the emissive green texture isn't sitting well with me. I want to spend a few more days getting the materials and textures right before I call this finished. I'll post final renders next week.

Steampunk Rifle update

I've made some progress with my steampunk rifle, some good progress. I feel like I could have shaved off a day or two but school work gets in the way sometimes. I have the high poly completely finished and right now I'm working on the retopo. It's shouldn't take more than a day to finish that and the UVs. If I'm lucky I'll get the bakes done tomorrow too, we'll see how productive I can be...

This is the only project I'm working on at the moment but by this time next week it should be completely finished. I may take a break from creating assets and start learning some new programs. I mentioned last week I was playing around with Word Machine and I intend to dive further into it once I have this finished. It's nice creating assets that actually look halfway decent and I think these last three pieces could be portfolio worthy with some touch-ups. I know that the more I create, the better I get so in time I will definitely come back to the helmet and totem pole to give them the attention they need for showing off.

Here are a few snapshots of my rifle I took inside of Maya: