Mausoleum continued

I have now finished unwrapping the model and have got most of the texture completed. I just need to create normals maps and overall make the texture look dirtier and more weathered.

Here is the final model in Maya with textures:

And here is shot in unreal engine 4 with some night lighting:

Art test Mausoleum

Some good news arrived. I just got given an art test by a game company. (Not going to say who just case they don't want people to know what their test is before applying.) They have given me a week to create a Victorian era Mausoleum. I am pretty much free to do whatever I want with the design, the only limits I have are 10,000 polys, a 2048x2048 Diffuse texture ( along with 1024x1024 supporting maps) and for the model to be smaller than 6 metres length, width and height in real life scale (Roughly).

To start I collected some resource images.

and there were many more. The main things that seem to be characteristic of Victorian Mausoleums are archways, crosses and a sloped roofs. I will integrate these three things into my design. 

I will start by created a base mesh in Maya. 

This is not completely finished, the front is a bit bare at the moment but I am happy with the overall design. I tried to keep it fairly simple as id rather do a really good job of a simple design than do a bad job of an elaborate awkward model. 

After finishing this the next stage is to import it into ZBrush to really bring it to life.

Tileable bricks

To Brush up on my sculpting a bit I decided to create some bricks. I started off with a base mesh created in Maya. I wanted to make sure that the bricks had some variation to them so that it looked more realistic. I will do this even more in ZBrush by adding cracks and broken pieces.

I made sure that this model tiled correctly. I then exported it into ZBrush.

I did not want to go over the top with the sculpting detail so I kept it fairly simple. Here are a few bricks that I have sculpted to get an idea of what the whole model will look like.

Now I just need to add this detail onto every brick and eventually add some noisy surface detail to the whole model.

Here is a shot of the final sculpt:

Now I just need to bake it onto a flat plane.

Here is the Normal map that has been baked:

This is now ready to be put onto a flat plane turning 2.5 million tris into 2 tris with the same level of detail.

The next stage will be to create a Diffuse, Ambient occlusion, Height and Roughness maps.
The first thing I will do is to create the Ambient Occlusion and Height by importing my Normal map into the program Knald.

Here are the Maps that were created:

Ambient Occlusion:

And the Height:

Now to create a Diffuse and Roughness.

Here is the Diffuse I created:

And this is the Roughness:

And here is the final render:

To view in 3D: https://sketchfab.com/models/445f20a81a4647c6a5889e7d3603de2d

Creating Soundwaves

For our game, the main mechanic is that every step you take and any noise you make releases a soundwave. I decided the best way of creating it would be to use the material editor in Unreal 4.
After doing some research and watching a few tutorials I made this material:

There are a few different nodes that easily allow you to change the way the sound waves work such as the width of each wave, the amount of waves and the speed of them. Here is a shot of it in game reacting to the characters movement.

It's pretty hard to show it properly on the blog but this view is looking down at the characters feet from first person. As you walk the rings radiate outwards and fade out. Depending on whether you are walking or running the waves will radiate further before fading out. This can be reused on objects that we are able to pick up and throw.

the next step for this material will be to try and give it a watery/wavy look rather than just bold blue rings.

Substance Painter/Designer

I recently decided to start using Substance Painter and Designer to try and learn how to create procedural textures and materials, as this is becoming the industry standard, especially for AAA studios.

Using Substance designer I managed to create a procedural brick texture. Once it's made you can easily adjust the setting of it such as: The normal controlling the brick height, The level of surface detail, how many bricks are in each tile and the colour of the bricks. This means that it is really easy to reuse this for other projects as I can really change the look of it and have different variations within a minute or so. Here is the final texture in Unreal 4:

And here are the separate maps:

Diffuse:

Roughness:

Normal:

Height:

Ambient Occlusion:

I'm quite happy with how it looks. To improve it I would add more variation into it such as cracks, chipped corners and have some bricks looks more elevated than others.


And here is the Substance Designer graph:

Learning ZBrush (Continued)

Back in August/September I applied to Travellers tales. I got asked to do an art test for them which involved a rock wall, a pillar a tree and some grass. I was fairly unhappy with the results, which was the main reason I began to learn zbrush, to really push my art to the next level. The lead artist who reviewed my test gave some great feedback which I have now taken on board with everything I now create.

Here is the rock wall I created for the art test:

Although it's not terrible, looking back at it I can completely understand why I didn't get the job. It would maybe fit in a mobile game but in a large AAA game, it would look really bad.


Now, after having practised with ZBrush for 2 months I wanted to go back and recreate the wall with Travellers tales advice in mind. Here is the result:

The difference is night and day. There's so much definition on the rocks, it actually has shape and the texture it miles better. This is the best example to show my progress over the last few months and I am extremely pleased with it. I am excited to see my progress in the future and I will share as much of it as I can on this blog.

If you want to view the wall in 3D: https://sketchfab.com/models/f2c240e982ff4f26b1f8d37ff09afa5d

Learning ZBrush

I recently applied for quite a few jobs within the Games Industry. In order to better my chances I had to really update my portfolio.

So one of the main things I did was to learn how to use ZBrush. Here is some of my progress using ZBrush over the last 2 months:

This is the first finished model I ever made in ZBrush. It is supposed to be a pavement curb. At the time I was quite happy with the result and was excited to really start learning the program.

To view in 3D: https://sketchfab.com/models/97bc41714e8742dbaad239e34ea024a6


A few days later I created the actual slabs for the pavement:

I feel as though this is a definite improvement. The texture has more detail in it and the surface has more shape, whereas the curb was pretty much flat on the top.

To view in 3D: https://sketchfab.com/models/5b86bbeda5d3492ebbed6a73f49aa935


Around a week After that I created A boulder:

I was very happy with the results of this one. The texture has much more detail than my older models and there are very few seams.
To improve I would go for a much more interesting shape, right now it's just round which is not what most rocks look like.

To view in 3D: https://sketchfab.com/models/7ab928b92aac4e9bbb5ee652be56c122



After a few weeks of practising for my next model I really wanted to challenge myself. I decided to try and sculpt a log with bark on it. Here is the result:

I am extremely pleased with the final result. The difference a few weeks of practice can make is massive.
Again, I feel as though I could improve the shape, have some branches/leaves. But overall I am happy with the model.

To view in 3D: https://sketchfab.com/models/40e4f5ac160b4d77b6066e5e65dcb147



For the next model I again, tried to make a dying tree. My main goal was to improve on the last model and to have more definition, branches and a more interesting shape:

I think I definitely achieved that. I went for more of a fantasy style tree, with the roots twisting around the bark.
To improve I would add more branches onto the top section as it is just kind of flat at the moment. And maybe bake an ambient occlusion map to really bring out the cracks in the bark.


Next I wanted to go back to rocks. For our game project we require some desert rocks, so I wanted to get some practise in.

Compared to the old rocks I made, this is a gigantic improvement. There is much more definition in the surface, the overall shape is interesting and the texture is much nicer. I think I may actually use it in the game we are creating.