If all of Hyrule are like you...

....then maybe you'll do all right


Hey! It's a new semester and now I get to work on 3D portfolio pieces. Woo! 
(Well, next to Capstone Game and a Cinematic piece. But details!). 

I have to work on two different pieces and I have 6 weeks to sculpt, model, texture and "bring to life" what is chosen for those pieces. 

This time around, I'm moving away from the animal aspect, as much as I love to sculpt and model critters, to expand my character repertoire. 

This time, I shall work on one of my favorite characters of the Zelda Universes. And no, it isn't Link nor Epona. Rather, I'm planning on bringing the character Midna to life. More specifically her True Form. 

She has such an awesome design, and one of the biggest things I get to practice with would be the fact that she's human. I don't often work on creating humans. But, it would be good to practice, and I can't pass up the opportunity to work on a Zelda Character. Could have done Ganondorph, but doing a female would probably be a good idea.

Anyway, this is what I'm shooting for for this project. Optimized final look would be from Hyrule Warriors (top photo), as this is their current format for "high definition" LoZ game.

Attention Monsters!

He has finally ARRIVED!


The time has come for me to pay up and show off the final piece. The master piece. The coup de gras. You get the idea.

In case it was forgotten, I worked on a deer-like creature for my assignment named Aiju from the game called Gyromancer. It was developed by both Square Enix and PopCap Games in 2009. Never played it myself, though I really enjoyed the artwork so I chose this guy because he just called out to me.

There was a lot of things learned from this experience, one is that doing planes for hair is REALLY difficult and I would need to find another process to do them than what I did for this guy. Maybe I can get a Tech Artist to make me a short cut. lulz

First up, final render in Game Engine. He came out pretty nicely, spent hours getting those planes to look good, and now they are pretty nice. Still not sure how to properly get that realistic look Square does with Final Fantasy, but I think this is a good step towards the right direction.

He made it into engine, and he looks fabulous~

3 quarters view, just to see that awesome tail of his

What's interesting is that the render in Maya is much darker than the final render in Unreal. It's the usual in that case, but I always find it funny.

Front and Side views of the final render from maya.

Maya Render, and his mane looks much more fiery in comparison to Unreal

And in case you were curious, here's his mesh. Final poly count was a good 20,246 polys. Just 246 over what I wanted to cap myself at. Nothing too worry about. Probably could have thought of something a bit more creative for the plane placement of the head, but I'll think on how to do that another time.

His mesh is pretty clean, if you ignore the mess that is the planes

Unfortunately, due to time, Aiju couldn't be posed. But he looks fabulous anyway, right? 

Yeehaw!

Run like the wind, bulls-eye!

It's that time again~! Time for another update!

Remember this guy? 

He is my project for a good month or so, and my job is to make 3D work, from sculpt to game res mesh to engine. Now, this past two weeks was spent both trying to figure out the shapes being used for this guy and getting a nice and clean sculpt out of him. 

First step, what are his actual shapes?

That was pretty straight forward, and made it pretty easy to go onto the next step. That was the both model his basic shape, and then get him into ZBrush. Or at least, that's what made it really easy for me to do. 

Proxy Maya Model:

 

Zbrush Sculpt:

  

And finally, a fancy turntable just to show off all of the angles. 83

Month Long Project a-go-go!

So much art, so wow~

Alrighty, let's have another update! Yay!

For my specialization class, we are going to start working on Portfolio pieces. We get to choose what we want to work on, and as someone who LOVES working on monsters and animals, guess what I chose? 

Aiju from Square Enix's Gyromancer Game

I'm going to work on this guy here, making him in a 3D model in Autodesk Maya, then moving him into ZBrush. This will be a fun project and a relaxation from working on the same creatures for a while now. Would love to mess with that fur when the time comes. xD

Aiju shape language study

My sketch, side pose for game res modeling. And sculpting rederence.

A Million Ways

To Paint in Substance Painter

 

So much texture. So wow.

Substance Designer A-go-go!

Hey guys, time for more updates. -throws confetti- 

This week is all about Substance Designer. Never used it before, but it was surprising a blast to use. Pretty straight forward and quick to use once you know the interface. Pretty similar to how you work with textures in the Unreal Engine. 

Side notes, happy accidents are fun. 

 

I played with so much and it looks like a mess here on the map. Not too bad, actually.
I wanted something simple to play with, and have that itty bitty bit of illusion that this here armor would look the way it should.

Note, These are two separate models together. The main torso piece, and the shoulder armor and light is another modeled piece. Safely combined together using Designer in such an easy way. Would like to try and see if I can use Designer with the Capstone Game. May make it a lot easier to work with. Very fast to render out high res sculpts and it's really accurate.

 

 

The Power!