Texture upgrades!

I got the chance to revisit a couple models from my past and apply some improved textures to them. Neat to see how I have grown even in this amount of time. First up we have the ol handgun model which you may recognize from a previous update awhile back:

You can see the old model was a bit messy and the dirt patterns were pretty bad! It looks like a gun but close inspection reveals the flaws in the textures. Also, a specular map makes or breaks metal type objects imo. I did fix some flaws and improve the texture but what really improves it is the specular map bringing out all the dings and scratches in the metal that I tried to artificially add in the diffuse before.

Next up we have my player arms model being improved. There is a ton of detail in skin and the hand in particular. I still struggled a bit with adding it all but I am fairly happy with the result. I took some elements from my old maps and added some parts of real life pictures I took myself to make certain details really pop. Integrating it all in and making it blend well was the real trick:

Finally I am working on a new game with the knowledge I learned in that udemy course I took. Breaking it down into pieces and trying to make it work. The general idea is an RTS type game with units and gold to spend with map objectives to claim. Lots of placeholder stuff atm but a good start with purchasing units, placing them in a specific area only and also selecting them:

That is all for this update. See you next time!

More buildings! Getting faster.

These last couple weeks I have been working on remapping/texturing a couple buildings. The first I actually created from scratch and it came out pretty good!

I did simplify it from the reference I had and removed some details to make it less churchy... Here was the reference:

Pretty close right? I may or may not add more details later but for now a pretty good building for our scene.

Next I reworked another model that just looked very drab and did not work well with normal maps or other maps for that matter. Just a too much on one map situation. Here is a picture of the rework:

It is interesting untangling someone's UV work. I am pretty sure most uv maps should be user friendly for others. I have learned how to lay out some really easy to use maps with Quixel's pipeline. So both myself and the program know where to place stuff a lot better!

Finally I am still working on that wolf model... we settled on a shape/model but are working with a new fur shader in unity so progress is slow while we see how that works exactly. Hopefully it will look awesome if not it is back to the ol drawing board.

All told a busy couple weeks. I also managed to finish the programming unity course I was working on and started work on a game but not much to say other than it is a kind of RTS type game. See you again in a couple weeks!

Oops late again! The journey continues!

So I hit a couple snags with the wolf model which upset me a bit more than it should have but I had the world of programming to fall back on in the meantime!

I had a model like this:

Was looking really cool but in the end the look was decided to be a bit too fantasyish for our game. Which meant this model just gets tossed onto a shelf to gather dust. I gave it another go but ultimately my heart was not in it and I failed at creating a decent wolf for what we wanted. There could be many factors to attribute this failure to including no concept art and the team for letting it get to this stage before deciding it wouldn't work (I did send progress files as I went to try and prevent this outcome). Maybe I can come back to it after a break and try a new strategy (look at some unity asset store wolves perhaps) but for now someone else on the team is giving it a go.

I am continuing with the programming course and also doing some smaller models on the side. This was a good lesson, and I probably got too attached to my creation. When working with a group it is important to be flexible when you can and realize a lot of things may have to be redone quite often. Still I think the group should work to make sure as little has to be redone as possible as well.

Learned a lot about trying to refine work with this go around and look forward to continuing the indie game dev journey.

Work still a bit slow

Contact with teams has resumed yay! Still watching a lot of tutorial videos on programming in unity but took a break from that to work on a wolf model which looks worlds better than my last attempt even with the basic start I have:

The shape is there but I need to add a lot of little details like spikes of fur among other things. I am actually looking at some wolf toys and other similar models online hah. I don't want to use fur planes if possible... those are a pain to work with and get to look right. I see why a lot of the earlier wolves just let texture do most of the work. It saves polys and hassle, but it the smooth look is a bit bland when you can work in a bit more detail especially with current computers and a smaller scale game.

Hopefully better updates next time but these last couple weeks have mainly been self training and just a smidge of modelling the last couple days. Will write again in a couple weeks!

Holidays killed my teams!

Well not really, but radio silence seems to be the norm in terms of projects atm. However, I have been using the free time to improve coding/unity skills. The end goal of course being able to create some small projects or prototype some level/design concepts on my own. Small steps, but with the help of Udemy, youtube, and google I hope to get there! Here is a small update of what I have been doing with a Udemy course:

You may or may not recognize some of the assets are from a site called Glitch the Game. There are a lot of pre-made assets from a game that failed a few years back but went public domain. A good place for resources or simply understanding things that go into such a game. This pic is just a small level setup/game asset animation scene.

As for the course it is still focusing on 2D games mainly but I have learned a lot about menu systems and general C# programming tricks. Definitely recommend it if it is still on sale: Learn to Code by Making Games - The Complete Unity Developer.

See you next update and thanks for reading!

Work updates

While I was caught up on things it seems a model got lost and was never sent to us awhile back so I had to start it over from scratch. Still it was a pretty cool concept I was working off of. Here is the pre-texture version:

And some initial textures, I think I need to scale them up to make the details pop a bit more though:

Still, looks pretty good from far away! Quixel makes testing textures a lot quicker as well. As the year draws to a close I am happy to have come far as a 3D artist, but still realize I have a lot to learn as well. The other cool thing is I am starting to learn some programming concepts and even make some quick games. However, I am still a little impatient to get a nice project out there that more than 20 or so people see and download. Just got to keep learning new things and ranking up the projects as I do so, and hopefully my teams do the same!

Near years end!

I can definitely say I grew a lot in my skills this year. I can even say my workflow for 3D modelling changed entirely and probably for the better. For these last couple weeks I finished up quite a few things from the usual props to larger projects like a memorial and re texturing a cabin.

Here we have the memorial setup... You should recognize the statue which sits in the center, was finished a while back. This is just what I imagine it might look like, but I also have a clean platform for any changes we might wish to do.

For the other project I rigged up some arms in blender:

Might need a bit of refining when it comes to weights but for the most part looks like it will work.

I also revisited an old model to apply textures with Quixel and up the detail some:

Looks a lot cleaner than before and less fuzzy. Overall I am pretty happy with how it turned out. The textures are better organized too so if we do decide to change stuff it will be a lot easier.

A decent amount of work done the last couple weeks! Looks like I even caught up on all the work and am mostly on standby until someone needs some more models. In the meantime I plan to keep following a udemy programming course and see if I can't get a little closer to getting a nice 3D prototype of a game I have on my mind. It will be inspired by some other games I have played but just some general setups. The story and design would be unique. To truly finish it will take a bit of luck and hopefully finding others to help move things along but I think a good starting point might help with that too. Or it could just be another crazy dream but meh those are the best anyways.