So I've finally started to bake down my normal maps. I was having some issues but a friend of mine helped me figure out a stupid little mistake of mine. Here is a render of a floor title:


That is the render of a plane with my floor title, it went from being over 10,000 triangles to just 2. I love normal maps! I baked out an occlusion map and a normal map, here is the composite image of both maps:

So there is one week left before I have to submit my sci fi environment and I don't think that I'm going to be able to complete what I had intended in the beginning. I have a lot of detail in the hallway, so I've been working on making that look as good as possible adding props and other details to make it look lived in without having to go into the other area of my environment.

I also decided to seal in my hallway, making adding a big door on either end of the hallway. Here is a render of my new door:

I will think of more items to place around the scene and I'll post updates when I have something to show.

Also, I have to start baking out the normals soon along with some light maps. I'm planning on taking this into unreal for my presentation, so maybe some real basic texture work might be in order. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

So I wanted to create another pillar that I could place randomly around my scene, but that it wouldn't have to be up against a wall. Here is a render of everything:


My logic behind making this new pillar is that it wouldn't have to be up against the wall, so I can have it in places that makes the scene look a not as clean and not mirrored. I still have to figure out where I will place them so that they aren't in the way of someone walking around. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

So I've finished putting together the whole section of the hallway for my micro environment, here is the render:

So I've just finished making the door for my Sci Fi micro environment, here is a quick render of the door:


This door is designed so that instead of opening vertically, it opens horizontally and then the bottom part slides down, and the top part goes up. I was trying to find a way to make the door interesting when I get to animating it and texturing it since I didn't want it to be a regular door.

With the completion of the door, the hallway leading to the bridge of the ship is now done. I still have to make a new floor tile, but for now its done. I will now move to adding all the detail to the bridge.

I finally feel like I'm making progress on my environment, at first it didn't feel like I was doing anything no matter how much time I had just spend on the model. I will also start to maybe use some AO passes on the models so that I don't have to look at them in the same boring grey color. I also have to bake it down, but I will do that at the end.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

So for the last week I've been thinking of more objects to build for my thesis game. Someone in the team gave me the idea to make a kite, so here is what i came up with:


The model was about 400 and I use one texture map. Now I have to create a few more texture that can be applied to the kite model. My team also wants me to create some new particle effects for some collision when the player is falling, so my weekend will be very busy. :(

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

So I finally finished a whole section of the corridor for my sci fi environment, here is a render:


I basically took all the pieces that I've done so far, and put them all together and this is what I came up with. I'm very pleased with the look and I can't wait to see what everything will look like in the end.

Now that I'm done with the wall, I need to create a cool looking door and I will be completely done with the hallway leading to the bridge of the space ship.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

So I've been working on a floor title for my space ship micro environment, and this is what I've come up with:


This title is now ready to be baked down, but I think I will put off doing that for a little while.

Next I will work on creating some roof tiles. Thanks for reading!

So for a while I've occasionally been part of podcast being done by a few of the people here in the cohort, specifically my friend Karratti and Spencer. There's been other people that have also been there, but there are too many to list. The podcast is called: "Confessions of a GameDev" and you can listen to all their episodes if you follow that link.

The reason why I'm making this post about the podcast is that the episode we made last week (but is available today) talks about stuff that is very close to me. Its usually a bunch of students and other game devs that have a discussion about current events, but for this episode they invited a PhD student/teacher named Cindy Huynh to the podcast to discuss equality in media, specifically how we portray people in games.

A lot of what we discussed took me back to my freshman year in college since I had to take a few Ethnic Studies classes as part of my scholarship. I hope that if anyone actually reads my blog, you will give this episode a listen since I think that we touch on a lot of points that most of the time get overlooked in media or games.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

So ever since I finished working on the geisha painting, I've been wanting to go back to doing more painting. I've been looking for a something to paint, and I decided to paint a black and white picture from one of my favorite manga series called Gantz. I found the picture that I wanted, and made a trace of it a while back, but never actually got around to painting anything on it. Here is what I have so far:

I did some of the shadows and put down some base layers for the colors, but I don't think I like the color that I picked for her bikini, so I may have to look for something else that works better.

Anyways, hopefully I'll be able to work more on this piece since it gives me a chance to develop my 2D art skills. Thanks for reading!

So like I said on my last post, I will focus on the hallway leading into the main room first, and this is what I have so far:


This is another type of pillar that I finished today, this is what will provide support for the the hallway. I added a monitor where I have some random stuff about the ship displayed once I get to texturing the model.


I don't really know what to call this next piece, but its going to go up against a wall between each pillar that I posted above.

Next, I will finish working on the wall where the pipes are in, with more detail. I know that the post I did about the pipes wasn't that good, but it kind of motivated me work on my project and make it look really good. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

So I've kept working on my environment for my hard surface modeling class, and I finished one of the pieces tonight. I created a pillar that will support a walkway above it. Here are the renders of the finished model:

Front

Back

I tried to put as much detail as possible without making overbearing. When I think of the future, I think clean and complex, but not something that would take a genius to figure how to operate something. While I know that this is just a pillar, I wanted to make the pillars part of the ship, not things that are just there to hold something else up.

Next I will work on the walls that are in the hallway before entering the room, and I'll post an update when I have some progress to show. Thanks for reading!

So a little while ago, I posted an entry about my concept for my hard surface modeling final project. I have to admit that I've fallen behind a bit in that class with GDC and all. I've been working on it a bit over the last month, but it was mostly to block-out the idea that I had in my mind.

Today I spend most of the day working on my scene, and this is what I have so far. Its nothing impressive  but I decided that I should post at least some progress:


I don't know how much detail I posted about my idea, but I want to create a sci-fi interior of a spaceship. The render above if from some pipes that will be in the hallway. Also, this is suppose to be a hi-poly model, and as far as I know we have no tri-count limit. But I am trying to keep to a minimum my polys where-ever I can.

I keep jumping from place to place in my environment, so I think I need to come-up with an order of how I'm going to work on this or else I'll never finish. I've got some of the ships bridge (is that the right word?) blocked-in and need to add detail and smooth the edges. I will continue to work on this and try to post more updates as the week moves along. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

So this week was GDC and I'm happy that I got a chance to go and talk to a lot of industry professionals. Lucky for me this wasn't my first time at GDC, and I learned a thing or two from last year.

To start, last year I didn't have a tablet or a way other than my laptop to show my portfolio. But the wifi at GDC get overloaded within hours and its almost impossible to get a signal and speed. Last year my uncles gave me an iPad for my birthday, so I got my portfolio images saved on my iPad and was able to show my work this time around.

Next, my business cards were in better shape. Last year I made some at the last minute and they didn't turn out that great. I feel that the design that I worked on this year are more presentable and professional.

Also, thanks to the help of my friend Ash, she helped me put together a better resume that says "hey, I'm an artist!" and not just one that I put together in Word using a template. I really like the way it turned out, and it just goes to show that I'm getting better as time goes by.

The one thing that was a let down was that the career pavilion was tiny this time around, last time it was at least half the size of the expo. This time it was so small, that they put the expo and the career pavilion in the same place.

The big companies still made an appearance, but Blizzard was noticeably missing as well as other big studios. Riot Games was there, and I tried to talk from Riot as I could. Specifically, I got to talk to the Lead Environment Artist at Riot, and got him to look at my portfolio. The critique that he gave me was brutal, but that's a goot thing! Only when people tell you where you are lacking, do you truly become aware and work towards improving yourself.

I talked to other big studios, but none were as memorable as the ones that I had with Riot. I hope to go again next year and be able to impress him with my work and have him tell me what I should work on next.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

So today I was tasked with creating a better looking water droplet than what we have in the game at the moment. Here is a quick render:


I'm not sure, but I think that the water droplets that we have in the game at the moment are just spheres with some texture attached. I tried to make the droplet interesting and tried to use a darker shade of blue that what we have in the game.

Also, I created that texture following a water texture tutorial I found online and I think it turned out good.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!