Completed…Next

The purpose for this project was understand modular design. While it benefits many factors when building a much larger level from reused assets. This was more a personal experience for me than portfolio work, as development requires speed and efficiency. In addition, from the work from the finished product, its looks very accurate towards the intended concept art.

ZBrush polypaint

 

When it came to the organic stuff, my preference is to use ZBrush as I find the diffuse map to blend easier with little sharp cut-offs although it does depend how well the UV stands out.

 

Top Down Wireframe

 

Finished posing Shots

While I think this might be my last time doing environment modeling for the time being as I want to focus on character development. While the creature character project is to start in August. I have smaller piece I want to work on before I start the next undertaking.

I want to practice & polishing my ZBrush sculpting skills from a low poly asset that I will produce myself and sculpt away (Creature/mutation). The work is all about using different sculpting techniques. At least this time round I will be happy to max out the memory on my desktop.

From tomorrow until the end of the week, the head & shoulders should be ready then concept work can start for the next project.

 

 

 

 

 

Progress

Ready for texturing for the next coming week.

Retop Finally Done

I hate this process, but it feels good when finishing an important part for a decent range of maps. Everything but the tree needs unwrapping for the normals then finally the texturing may start. I am not that busy this week so everything should be finished at the end of the week.

 

Progress/Changes

I was right the first time; the geometry had to be lower. The wall asset was under subdivision 9 hence why I could not export it out (.OBJ). From this screenshot, reducing it down to subdivision 8 was just as smooth as 9. The total “activepoints” is the current pixol density. So much a difference with the “totalpoints”

Only a few more areas like the corner slabs and stairs are set exclusively in the main chamber. (Retopped and normal mapped by the end of today including the tree above the main chamber)

The vines will not have normal mapping but a diffuse map and possibly a dirt map for those extra details. At least this time the vines are copied under “instances”, so only 1 map is needed for all vines not multiple unlike what I should have done with my dissertation (20+maps).

The past 2 months have been quite hectic for me with trips, work and graduation (Yey!). Most of my future endeavours will not be happening over the next couple of weeks. Already over my current amended deadline, I am going to have to change it again until the end of month for further polish before adapting to this character project afterwards.

Update

The retop assets have come together slowly one by one and though they are in the rough stages for the map clean ups. Once the texturing comes forward, it will certainly make the normal’s pop out otherwise I will be paint a better texture and use that as a normal map.

The corner slab normal looks from a distance but up close, it gets somewhat grainy despite baking upon a 2048*2048 map.

The texture will be hand-painted though will not go into engine, as another project is start next week.

With assistance from the AO and height map will help me paint in areas in more depth for the normal is to stand out more.

The trees are still in its pre-mature stages and much of seams are clearly visible but fixable. Altering the UV map and cage during projection will help the normal’s be less distorted otherwise Photoshop will come to rescue.

The retopology has been quicker this time round as adding more edge loops to increase the silhouette to match the high poly as much as possible. The results have not been the same if I had used the retopology tools in Max or use a separate program package. My technique is using “polydraw” to build the asset again fresh but each poly resting just above the high poly in order to gather more of the information before baking. Retopology is to be finished within the next few days then the texture to start for the rest of the week.