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!

As I'm sitting writing this blog entry, it has been about 15 minutes since I submitted my application to the Riot Games summer internship as an art intern. I have to say this is one of the most nerve-wracking moments in my life. Now that I've submitted my application, I feel better and leave everything in the hands of destiny.

So I've been working on a new business card design the last few days, and this is what I've come up with:


I've decided that the dragon tribal that I made for my shield model is going to part of my "brand". The reason why I say this, is that a while ago one of my friends here at the U was talking to us about how we need to brand ourselves and own it. Since I really like dragons and its also part of my email, I decided to make it part of who I am.

I think that I may still need to do some adjustments, but for now this is what I have. Thanks for reading!

For my hard surface modeling class, we had to come up with an idea for a final project where we would have to create a hard surface model. We have to create a high poly model of what ever we decide to make, so I've decided to create a high poly environment of a spaceship, similar to the ones found in Mass Effect or Star Ocean. Here is my concept sketches based on some reference images that I found and liked the shapes that they had.

So I have a lot to catch up on for my blog, but I decided that I should start to blog when I get the chance and stop putting it off until I'm caught up with everything that needs to be up here.

Anyways, for the game, we needed a simple sprite sheet of a ring filling up and since it wasn't going to take very long I decided to do it today. I did the circle using Photoshop and then saved out the separate images and used this program I found called Sprite Sheet Packer to make one map out of my image sequence.

I'm happy with how easy that program was to use, since I spent all morning long trying to use Pixen on a mac and it was driving me nuts.

Here is the simple sprite sheet that I made:


That's all for now, thanks for readying!

So here is the final render of my shield:


Here is the final render for my shield. I ended up using a total of 3 1024x1024 maps for this model (diffuse, specular, normal). I'm happy with the results and I think that I've come a long way since I first started to make 3d models a few years ago.

I showed this image to one of my art teachers and he recommends that I go back and do another pass on the normal map. Since I took the tribals and took the image into Crazy Bump and the light is not reflecting well off the model. He said that I should probably model the tribals in Maya in high poly and bake the normals.

I also got some feedback saying that the gold trim should be ticker and to show that the shield has curvature  since it may not be apparent that this is a shield if there is no side view.

I don't know when I'll be able to get back to work on the model, but I will strive to make it better. Thanks for reading!

So I've been working on low poly bird that we can put on the sky in our thesis game. Up until now, the player had only clouds as a point of reference that they are falling through the sky. So I've been trying to come up with things that we can put in the sky to give a better point of reference for the player. Here is a screen shot of the model and simple texture in Maya:


The main point was to get the basic shape, since the player will be falling by really quick. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

I think over all it looks really good, and it certainly turned out better than I thought it would when I first started to work on this project. I've been putting it all together, but I've been trying to find a better way to render my models than just using the production setting on mental ray. I will make sure to post a render of my model in the next few days, thanks for reading!

So I picked up Metal Gear during the week, and I've spent a big part of the weekend playing through the new Metal Gear game, and I have to say that I'm really impressed with the game. Its a huge difference from other Metal Gear games where you have to sneak around and be stealthy in your kills.

I was always a fan of Raiden, and it was a shame that he didn't get more screen time in MGS 3. But to make him the center piece of a game was the best thing that anyone could've done for Raiden. When I first saw the demo for this game a few years ago, it was really cool how they could split a water melon into precises pieces, which even now it still baffles me how they do that. Then there were no news from the project until I finally found out that it had been canceled, which was a real shame since it had so much potential.

A while later, I heard that Platinum Games had taken over the project, and it was amazing since I loved what Platinum Games did with Bayonetta and Anarchy Reigns. And they didn't disappoint, PG has a way of making their games with an over-the-top style that makes them kind of ridiculous, but not in a bad way. They make things really epic and they took that and applied it to Metal Gear Rising!

The beat'em-up style for this game works really well, and the core mechanic of slowing down time never gets old. It can be a little challenging at times to slice the enemy in the right place, but its a matter skill and practice.

I think that I'm probably a quarter of the way done with the game, but I don't know how many bosses or areas are in the game so there is no way of telling. All I know is that I've made it to Mexico and the cinematic for this area was really funny (see below for video). Hopefully I'll be able to finish the game soon, and keep writing more about the game. Thanks for reading!

Here is the finished specular map for my shield:


I've reworked this specular map a few times by now, I belief this is the 5th version, but I think it will look ok on the final render. At first I started to work on it in Mudbox, but after a while I realized that it would be faster to do it in Photoshop.

I'm so happy that its all finally coming together, I just couldn't help but feel like I would never finish this project when I first started a month ago. I was afraid that this would become one of those project that I started but never finished. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

So I'm almost done with the diffuse texture, but I got thinking that I should also start messing with normals for  my shield. Here is my normal map that I will be using:


Its very simple, but I wanted to make the tribals pop. Basically what I did is that I took the layer from my photoshop file where my tribals were, and exported them out into a separate file. Then took that into Crazy Bump, and messed with the setting a bit until I got something I liked. The one thing I don't like is that there seems to be some dips at the edge of the tribals and I don't know why that is.

I also tried to make a high poly version of the shield, but for some reason my normals won't export correctly. I'll have to ask my art professor how to do it correctly. For now that is all until I can finish the diffuse and work on the specular map, thanks for reading!

Here is what I've got so far on my diffuse texture for my shield:


I added some color variation on the silver "wing" part of the shield, as well as some scrapes on the main shield. Overall, its coming along nicely and I can't wait for this thing to be finished. I'm hoping to be able to finish it by the 24th since the art challenge was to do it in a month or less, and I want to see how much I've improved over my time in the EAE MGS program. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

So I finally figured out what I'm going to put in the center of the shield, I've decided to go with a dragon crest in the middle. I found a few reference images for a dragon head tribal and I decided to make one of my own with a few of the tribals that I used for the shield. Here is what it looks like so far in Photoshop:


I will clean it up a bit before putting it into the texture, but I really like the way it turned out even for a first pass at the dragon tribal. That's all for now, thanks for reading!