modeling of a Mansion

Just got back from a job in California and I am very eager to be moving right back into my portfolio work. At this point I felt my demo reel was really lacking something architectural and so I searched out for a project to fill that void. What I am working on is actually a replica of the famous mansion from the first Resident Evil game. I was able to get top view blueprint maps of the structure online and also took screen captures of live footage from the game so I could have real references in terms of scaling, windows, doors, etc.

Some of this I'm going to have to improvise so I plan on doing some architectural research as to when I start adding detail to all the components. Unfortunately no clear images existed of the exterior of the mansion. Either way it's been fun and has really got me into the mindset of working from a module stand point and kind of having to place everything together as if it was a puzzle. So far everything is mapped out and I am now going to start adding the assets and detail into the project.

Two Sculptures I've been working on

For the most part, these sculptures I have been working on are now finalized. These images are both render shots inside of Maya using the low poly wireframes in combination with texture, normal, and specular maps. For the most part I'm pleased with how well the normal maps sat on the mesh.

When I retopologized I made sure to preserve the silhouette as best as I could so that the client will have the freedom to have some closer camera shots if they chose to within the final project.

Next part of the project is to setup bipedal rigs and get these statues in walk cycles!!

Another WIP sculpture

This is just another WIP of a sculpture that I am doing for a client. This was interesting because this was the first time I made a character out of simply just sculpting from one mesh the whole way. Usually I have the main body of a character laid out and have all articles and accessories attached as subtools.

Here, since the purpose was not so much to create a real life looking character, but something that was a little static, I chose to carve it all out of clay. Only had to use dynamesh and quad remesh a few times early on just to get the shape and then from there I'm just sculpting away.

concept art asset

This is just something I completed as a freelancer for a video game company working on a kickstarter for their RTS game. The overall poly count for the asset is around 6K tris.

update on WIP characters!

Just putting up some updates on some work in progress characters that I'm currently making. The zombie type character has pretty much be done in terms of sculpting for a while. I just wanted to put some accessories on him (helmet, utility belt, etc.)

The other picture is of a uniform for a swordsman medieval type character. First time working with a character that has so many clothing articles. I started out by having a mockup sculpt of a human and have been extracting and layering clothing parts over the body to give it a realistic feel as to what the character is wearing. 

another update on demon/zombie creature.

Just an update after some work on the creature. This was the first time I had made cloth in zbrush. I used the method of retopologizing on top of the base mesh and then creating a difference mesh to add some thickness to the pants. Another option was to use the extract ability which would have done a similar job.

Also added in sewn limbs/staples to help emphasize that this creature has had severe damage done to him. Tried to make the mesh between the staples puffy, as to give the impression that the skin is being squished together from the staples.

updated concept sculpt of demon/zombie

This is just an update as to the general idea I'm trying to take the character.

creating demonized/zombie characters

Ok so something has come up that unfortunately is going to put my night elf town on the back burner for a little bit. I was recommended by a friend to join a small team to help make some characters for a horror themed project. Have to  design three characters to be done over the next several months.

Recently started the first character. This is nothing more than a quick mock up/silhouette of the character to begin with. I made a base mesh and kept the poly count low in Maya that way I can get the maximum number of subdivision levels in zbrush. As of now with this character, I can bring this subtool to about 19 million polys, so I pretty much hit my goal. Anything over 20 mil and my computer usually crashes.

Creating Night Elf Shrine

Worked on some more assets to put into my Darkshore scene. Used some new tools as well. To build the roof of this shrine I used the revolve tool. Such a wonderful tool, really saves a lot of time. After I had the roof made, I used duplicated the faces and used them as separate tiles. For the arches I built the four pillars and cut holes in the top in the shame of hexagons. Then used the bridge ability with a curve between two pillars. Pretty satisfied with the end result.

Had some difficulty with the general shape of this roof in the beginning. Ultimately, I ended up building it out of curves and then using the loft tool. Another great tool for modelers! I started by building curves that thinking of the structure from an othographic/horizontal standpoint. Then I used the CV's on those curves to attach them to other curves that I had made that intersected the first curves I made. In the end it created this curved roof structure that almost looks like a plus sign from a top view perspective.

Found a very nice tutorial on youtube to build some realistic looking rope. Although the end result was heavy in polygons, each of the four stacks is roughly 5,000 quads, I was pleased wit the result. I'll prob end up making some kind of low poly version later one, when the camera is far away from this asset, but ultimately I will keep the high poly in when the camera is right in front of it. The workflow method involved taking spherical polygons (4 of them) and attaching them in a 2 x 2 formation that formed a square with the circles all flush up against the each other's sides. I had then made the pillars a live surface and built curves around the pillars and tried to make it look realistic in how it was wrapped. Lastly I extruded the spherical polygons along the curves I had made. The new helix polygon feature was an option, but I found it too neat for what I wanted.

 These are two screenshots showing some perspective views of the entire scene thus far. Thought I'd get a couple wireframe shots in their to give an idea about the construction from a technical standpoint. Overall the scene is coming along as expected.