Industry Exercises
Inspiration
My models are usually heavily inspired by whatever games I'm currently playing, or whichever film I've seen. However, I always have a few timeless favourites, especially when it comes to art style, Borderlands 2 embodies this. I love the comic book style tied with the 3D in the game, it's beautiful, very low cost on game performance and simply iconic. Other games try the style, or short films do and people say: 'wow, that looks like Borderlands'. I think it's a great style that should be used more!
Team Fortress 2 also has an amazing style, I've heard it described somewhere as being 'like an insanely violent Pixar movie', and that almost sums it up, the blocky, smooth style just works, and is once again iconic.
Inspiration Concept work
Disney's Atlantis
Mike Mignola, the artist best known for Hellboy worked on all the concepts for Atlantis, inspiring the overall character design of the film, his blocky characters seem so similar to the Team Fortress 2 ones in their chunkiness.
It also makes Atlantis one of my favourite Disney films, it has such a unique style and manages to feel like a Disney film, even though it seems a lot more grown up than many that came before it.
It also makes Atlantis one of my favourite Disney films, it has such a unique style and manages to feel like a Disney film, even though it seems a lot more grown up than many that came before it.
Art Style and Direction
World of Warcraft
Uses a cartoon style and always has done in their games since Warcraft: Orcs vs Humans. Not only does this let them easily run their game engines but also allows for a more stylistic approach to character and environment design.
I enjoy using this style as it lets my work become more artistic and there is much less copy-pasting of textures to create photorealism.
I enjoy using this style as it lets my work become more artistic and there is much less copy-pasting of textures to create photorealism.
The World of Warcraft cinematic below is a huge inspiration for what kind of characters can be created in CG. This really inspired me to start rigging. I want to be able to create characters that can move like these ones.
Not only that, but I think that this cinematic is one of the most polished pieces of animated CG work that I've ever seen.
Not only that, but I think that this cinematic is one of the most polished pieces of animated CG work that I've ever seen.
The in game character models (below, far left (human female)) have lasted 10 years now and are only just being updated. One of the key philosophies during the remodel and re-texture of the characters is that they retain all the defining features of the original models. So the cartoon style is obviously a very effective one in the eyes of Blizzards art department.
The Borderlands style is one that I definitely want to try and have a go at. The comic book feel of it ties into Mike Mignola's concept art for Atlantis and I just love the idea of making 3D into more of an art style, instead of a science.
This sketched line quality makes the whole model seem more, tactile. Like it's 3D but could also be a drawing you can touch.
This sketched line quality makes the whole model seem more, tactile. Like it's 3D but could also be a drawing you can touch.
Character Ideas and concepts
For my design process I wanted to create a world, I wanted my model and work from Industry Exercises to tie into my Digital Environment Project.
I had a long running idea for this term to create a Steampunk style Airship for my Digital Environment project to center around. This led to me thinking up a crew for the Airship and therefore that is what my Industry Exercises character concepts are based on.
All the concepts above lead onto the crewman piece of work .
Zbrush, sketching
This is the first model I made in Zbrush, not my best work. Looking back at it, it's proportions are awful, especially the arms and shoulders. Still, it's a first attempt, and more of a sketch than anything.
Character design
I started creating a burly character as a sketch really. I created him entirely in Zbrush, starting out with Zspheres to create his basic shape upon which I built up his form.
He is little more than a sketch, as retopologising him would have taken a long long time. Instead I decided to start again and create the main character using Maya as my start point, to allow me to achieve the best possible topology for a low poly model.
Crewman
A exercise Turntable
I created all the textures for the crewman in Mudbox on 4k maps, which I then reduced in size down to about 1024x1024.
The normal map was generated in Zbrush for the lowest subdivision level of the model.
The normal map was generated in Zbrush for the lowest subdivision level of the model.
This model was for the A exercise part of the module
Captain Model
I was pleased with the Crewman model, but it has no holes for the eyes and mouth (thus the goggles). While it would be good to rig as a background character, I wanted to create something better that I could practice every aspect of rigging on. Therefore I modeled this up while trying to keep a captain from from my concept sketches in my head.
I followed my workflow of creating all the base topology in Maya, in order to keep it as clean as possible, negating the need for retopology to happen. After modeling the base mesh I took unwrapped the UVs and took it into Zbrush where I sculpted all the detail, I made a conscious effort to model parts of it asymmetrically in order to make it look a cut above most of my work where I lazily work with symmetry on the whole time.
Mudbox
Specular Map Diffuse Map
UV maps
I opted to paint in Mudbox again as I feel the interface and setup is simply more suited to me than zbrush. The different Brush tools and ease at which you can send layers into other programs such as Photoshop make it an invaluable texturing software.
Rigging
Posed Renders
Rigging Showreel
This just shows off a quick run down of the rig I made for the Captain's model, hopefully I can incorporate it into my Digital Environment project, maybe including him animated aboard the Airship.
He's also got a piece of Shoulder armour in this scene which is dynamically rigged to his arm. I turned the armour into solid nCloth and then simply constrained it to his arm. It worked rather well.
The dynamic armour was inspired by Blizzard's cinematics, created by their amazing cinematic team, below is a little view of the models they used for World of Warcraft's opening cinematic, created 10 years ago now.
He's also got a piece of Shoulder armour in this scene which is dynamically rigged to his arm. I turned the armour into solid nCloth and then simply constrained it to his arm. It worked rather well.
The dynamic armour was inspired by Blizzard's cinematics, created by their amazing cinematic team, below is a little view of the models they used for World of Warcraft's opening cinematic, created 10 years ago now.
Quick modeling for topology practice
I find retopologising to be an incredibly slow and fairly pointless technique. For this reason I spent quite a bit of the term getting my head around how to create as close to perfect facial and body topology as I could. The next model I made was mainly just an exercise in creating topology in Maya and then improving upon it in Zbrush while trying to hold onto the base topology.
I also used it as an opportunity to study the female form in more depth, as most of my models have been of men or manly creatures.
I also used it as an opportunity to study the female form in more depth, as most of my models have been of men or manly creatures.
The Armour here is also dynamically rigged to her body. I haven't rigged her yet but hopefully all the armour will look fairly smooth when it is all rigged.
I was really pleased with how the facial topology turned out here. The loops for the mouth eyes and nose all intersect in a really good way, this will make the mesh move seamlessly once I start to rig it and get it moving around.
Showreel production
For the Showreel I created the separate rigging one that I stuck in the blog earlier and then I created a primary Modeling and Texturing reel, so in total I covered three specializations from the brief. This is because I felt that modeling and texturing fall under a similar tree for me, I hate doing one without doing the other.
Rigging almost ties into this too, I love being able to see my creations in motion, as I have a set idea in my head before I start modeling of how they'll move and animate.
Therefore these three specializations all tie together in my personal workflow.
Rigging almost ties into this too, I love being able to see my creations in motion, as I have a set idea in my head before I start modeling of how they'll move and animate.
Therefore these three specializations all tie together in my personal workflow.
For the modeling reel, I decided to include my Captain of course, who I modeled to improve on my assignment A for the project. The female warrior was also included.
Then I decided to include my Airship from the Digital Environment project which I have worked painstakingly on for most of the term.
As an extra I decided to include my rigged robot that I created last year, as it's one of the most polished looking models that I've made, plus I have a full walk cycle turntable of it along with a posed turntable. The turnaround for the Droid is below.
Modeling and texturing reel
This is the finished reel, submitted for B exercise, includes lists of what I did on each model, UV maps for most along with Poly count and turntables of each model, also with Ambient Occlusion and Wireframe passes
Below is the extra rigging reel.