Current Progress

Still chomping away at this bit in class, and it's looking better and better! Added in more natural features like trees, rocks and tall grass, the latter probably unseen in these screenshots, as the environment isn't well populated with them yet. But hopefully with time it will, and it will look far more natural than it is now. As well I've added more assets, namely the large glowing dial to give the area a more mystical temple ruin look to it.

I addition, I'm planning to add a couple towns/villages to the world in separate Unity scenes. the concept art is for the second one, its entrance will be toward the end of the graveyard/temple area. The other one will have a more classic medieval town feeling, while this will be more earthy, the village being merely wooden houses built into the sides of a deep ravine.

Graveyard Update!

I've been really busy over the past month or so since I've last posted. Been working hard at my modeling unwrappping and texturing methods over the time. Over time, the project has become partly a collaborative effort, thrust forward by my teacher. The spur of the moment idea was great though! It's opened up the world to include something strange and out of the ordinary for it! The temple structure you see was modeled by my classmate and good friend Richard Perez. If you wish to see his work, visit his blog at richardvp.

2954 Concorde

I had finished modeling it on Thursday, and in a fit of boredom, I took an unextred render, put it in Photoshop to try and get an idea of how I would like the car painted. The painterly look I put on it looked too good to just have for a simple composite. I saved an image with the background set transparent and dropped it into Illustrator, with the outcome being this neat little vintage-styled print ad.

Project: Concorde

Concept



Modeling: Day one


Modeling: Day two


Further details on the work soon.

In Unity!

FINALLY getting things into Unity! Finished up the textures I needed, made some on the fly, and threw it all in!

Spooky Graveyards n' Stuff!

Working on the more prominent assets of the level. Hopefully I can get an alpha done in the next 2 weeks.

Update!

Been working my ass off. There's more than this, will post on Monday when I get to the studio for more images.

3D'd Texture Test!

Sometimes textures look great, looking flat and perpendicular to your face. However, in the 3D realm of games and animation, it could look way different when tiled, lit lowly, and viewed from a different angle other than head-on in Photoshop's window. So far, I'm very pleased with what I have done. I've grown much in putting more and more dimension into my handpainted textures, adding more darks and lights to make it feel like there really is depth to it, starting from the brick walls back in May, to the summertime stone floor tile, to the wood that I've started and finished yesterday. And I hope to grow so much more with this. My next challenge: metal! Hope it turns out well when I get to it!

OMG UPDATE!

Been working pretty hard these past few weeks getting the spaceship completed. I still have an array of textures to make, apply them, and put it all into the engine. As well, I had to step up my job hunt, which paid off, as I will now be working come May. Anyway, here are the screenshots straight from the Unity engine:

Another WIP

Because I can't have enough work on my hands, right? I'm already working on the spaceship, the Imagine Cup game, the Zombie Cab, and a texture package. And now this flying jet car thing. Personally, I like the results so far, a lot of it is looking very smooth, and hopefully, it'll keep up like that all the way through.

BUY MY MODELS!!!!

In an effort to work myself harder on improving my work (and earn some much-needed money), I've decided to put my better models up for sale over at turbosquid.com!

BUY MY STUFF!!!
http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Artists/AmarantusDesign

WIP Updates

Because some of the rendering I showed in a previous post weren't really up to date, I've decided to post the most up-to-date shots of my work.

The atomic generator's tesla coils have their texture complete and applied, now, as well as the support beams that will be used throughout the ship. I'm very satisfied with how the brushed metal came out on the orb at the end of the coil. Looks absolutely brilliant!

As stated before, the computer and mainframe has been completed for quite some time. The large levers and analog gauges are textured and applied, completing the control console. The mainframe is pure image mapping. Tape spools and all slapped onto a cube, but still cleanly done nonetheless.

Current WIP: Zombie Cab

Between working on my class assignment, The first Imagine Cup Project and gearing up for what will hopefully be my second IC assignment (I couldn't find a way to log on to the US site, so I might be SOL--I'll find out in a few hours), I feel like I'm going to experience a severe case of burnout, if I don't have something to keep my mind busy. So, I decided to take on another little side project: building the Zombie Apocalypse Marathon Checker cab.

The progress is going well, and I'm currently working the hood. Hopefully when it's done, it'll look a lot like this:

Long Lost Rendering!

I was digging about the depths of my hard drive, and I came across this,one of my first complete 3D models ever made. Man, do I sure miss watching The Venture Bros. It's all King of the Hill and Family Guy, now. And it makes me a saaaaaaaaad 3D artist. :(

Some Space-y Stuffs.

So I've been pretty busy with this semester long assignment for my gaming environment design class. I've finally got something into the game engine (we're using Unity) and the little bit that I have somewhat polished was shown to an advisory board meeting of some professionals from Blizzard (art lead for Diablo III), Farsight(environment artist), and Sony Santa Monica(Environment art lead for God of War III), which I was really excited about. I was paired with a character designer who had made an excellent robot character, (seeing as my spaceship was the closest match) so many changes were made to my environment. Originally, I wanted to make everything in Russian, to give a sense of unfamiliarity, and to stir up some old Cold War/Space Race vibes, as well as everything being designed with a retro-futuristic/atompunk flair. So we have this vintage/modern clash going on here, which I think is pretty cool, and will make it much more interesting.



This is the current state of the generator room, sans walls to get a proper rendering. One of the biggest motifs I wanted to flaunt was the use of the Tesla coil. These things scream "mad science" and is a staple in a retro sci-fi theme. Case-in-point: Fallout 3 and Wolfenstein!





Granted, the coil wasn't too big of an implement in my original ray gun model:



The model has been abandoned anyway, as it was originally going to be used as an FPS implement.

Another big thing were the computers.



The computers are made in the old-fashioned UNIVAC style room fillers. Granted, this is a rather old rendering. The rest of the components are fully textured, as well as a mainframe model, which compliments this very nicely.

Imagine Cup

Awhile back in my C++ programming class, we were sucked into entering the Microsoft Imagine Cup (official site here), competing in embedded systems. However, I'm not exactly a coding logic-oriented person, and found little interest in competing in it. I found that there were other fields other than embedded systems, such as, well, game design. I talked to my professor about it and how I was majoring in game art & design. She practically flipped and told me about another team she was mentoring in Huntington Beach, that was in need of an artist (their original guy apparently flaked out or something, I'm not too sure on the details) and I agreed to join. The theme for the year's national competition was something along the lines of educational gaming. The team's subject was a rather grim one: infant mortality. So I was charged with making a simple house interior, with a crib, some toys, and a fridge. Just some of the more important things to focus on, as well as the GUI:

The texturing and GUI was developed with Photoshop and Illustrator, and modeled & rendered with Blender. Many of the other teams were quite impressed with the work, and I was asked to do a splash page by another team, whose project was oceanic pollution:


Despite our hard efforts, however, our team did not make it to round 3. Hopefully, we will get back together for 2011, as we do have much of the artwork and source code completed.

Finished! (almost)

The modeling for the main structure is pretty much done, save for some adjustments, and now I'm going to have to go through the painful process of unwrapping and creating the textures, and moving toward programming the models into the unity game engine.

Progress

Here's the first screencap of my current project in Anim 130. I've finally got used to working with Autodesk Maya and making great progress as you can see. Most of the modelling is done, at least for the outside of the building.

Speed Modeling: Range Rover Classic

CLICK TO ENLARGE

The castled bonnet was a bit tricky to make, and the mesh isn't all that symmetrical. But the vehicle's basic shape was made rather quickly, being intended to be a low poly model. Unfortunately the lighting flattened the shape of the grille bars, which is in fact a modeled mesh rather than a normal map.

Shaping the rear tailgate presented it's own unique problems, but the flaws were easily covered once the taillamps were placed in. Note the Blender monkey placed as a badge in lieu of the traditional Land Rover logo.

All in all, not too bad for a two hour sit down. This was more an exercise in getting in line on working with vertices and faces, as a means of cutting back on polygons for smoother gaming. Though the roof may be a little too high, the exaggeration of it's shape with the lack of fine details, gives it an almost cartoony look while still making it recognizable as a Range Rover.

EDIT: Now that I look at it again, it looks like something you'd find in Katamari Damacy. Which I have to admit, plays off it's low graphic quality as good stylization.

Monday Vignette: The Nerve Centre

CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE
If there's one thing I love, it's Sci-Fi stuff. Especially things like space battles. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. Watching C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. Okay, enough Blade Runner references, you get my point, almost every epic sci-fi movie/game has an awesome space battle scene. Or even cooler, a shipwreck drifting about. While this little scene isn't exactly wrecked, something definitely has happened to jostle monitors, knock off communication lines, bring up alerts, and pull down the lighting fixtures. The scene was heavily inspired by the GFS Valhalla level from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, though not as heavily wrecked as the Galactic Federation's battleship. And definitely not swarming with those nasty Metroids.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption © Retrostudios & Nintendo
Bad cellphone shot © me

I especially like the outcome of the scrambled screens. Photoshop's wave filter, set to square, and repeat. Adjust settings or hit randomize until satisfied. Add some noise and horizontal grain filters, play with layer modes and opacity... voila!

Ahhhhh... reminds me when the logic board took a crap on my Mac... bad times, bad times...