User Interface Post-Postmortem

It's that time of year, classes are ending and I get to make a massive art dump of everything that I've been working on.  So, last night I finished up my last assignment for my User Interface Design class and figured I would post some of the stuff I've done over the semester.

This interface was created for a game being created by Joshua Morgan called Negative 9.Eight.  The game is a third person, action adventure/puzzle type game where the main character has some unique controls over gravity.  The level design was done by Cory Heald and set up within the Unity game engine.  I didn't design any icons because the game designer hasn't developed the items yet.  The red swirls would grow/animate every time you go to a new page and the camera would slowly move/rotate though the level while on the main menus.

In another one of my projects I redesigned the interface for xNormal. (Anyone who has used this app before knows the horror that is the interface...)  One of the big things I focused on was coming up with a better way to consolidate the information on the high detail and low detail mesh pages. Click to make big.

Another project I worked on was a prototype sequel to the 1982 Moon Patrol game.  It was a pretty straightforward project, but I had fun with it.  3D models were provided by Cory Heald.

This is my first UI project of the semester, even though it isn't really an interface.  The idea was to whet the student's graphic design appetites.  Warbot illustration and logo were provided by Cory Heald.

Female Musculature

Things have been crazy for the last couple weeks and are probably going to be getting even more insane.  Anyhow, here's an anatomy study I've been working on for a school project.

Iris Sculpt + Retopo

I wish I had more time to spend on the Iris character, however classes, work, and now Thanksgiving are getting in the way of me doing the stuff I really want to do.  Ah well, that's life isn't it?

I've pretty much finished sculpting the civillian variation of Iris. However, due to time constraints I doubt that I'll be able to finish the other outfit before the end of the semester, which is unfortunate.
I'm continuing to learn a lot about the whole "game character pipeline." Something I think I need to work out in my technique is at what point I take a hard body object into ZBrush.  For example, I brought her shoes in way too early on this sculpt and ended up wasting a lot of time when I could have simply modled them in Modo from the get go then added stitching after the fact.  Same thing goes for the belt. Now I know.

Current challenges: I'm also trying to find a good technique for creating a bandage like wrapping... what I've tried to date has felt flat and "muddy." (I'm not getting the definition I want.)  I'm also not sure how I want to go about creating the belt loops.  I spent quite some time trying to get a mesh extract to work inside of ZBrush, but the results felt sloppy.  I'll probably take a stab at it in Modo.

Having taken her as far as I could in ZBrush, I pulled her into Modo to retopo and start fixing the things that are giving me trouble in ZBrush. Aside from working out a few kinks in the shoulder topo, the base mesh is pretty much done at this point.  I also started blocking in the hair planes... I'm not sure how they'll turn out since I've set up hair planes before.  

Iris Head and Arm Details

I got a little distracted over Halloween (Killing zombies on Minecraft and Left 4 Dead 2), but I'm back now with an update.  I've started adding in the little "facial accessories" like the earrings, nose-ring, ear piece, and then the arm implant.  Also, I think I settled on a hairstyle.  Let me know what you guys think!

I also threw a Fullmetal Alchemist themed desktop together, 'cause I was getting bored with my old one.  (If anyone wants the files, give me a shout and I'll upload them.) Check it out:

Massive Iris Update

After a little feedback from some guys on Polycount and talking to Rob I reworked most of the face again; specifically the eye sockets and mouth.

I'm still not set on a hairstyle yet, but I was playing around with ZSketch for the first time to experiment with some possible hair silhouettes.  Opinions or ideas?

And finally...  I've been working on her anatomy details and underclothes.  I'm pretty much done with the "naked" version.  (This is the mesh over which the player would be able to swap out clothes and armor.)  It's pretty exciting to move on past a bust (it seems like that's all I've been doing recently... I don't know why.) and start seeing the whole character come together.  I must say that I'm pretty stoked to  keep working on her.  Stay tuned for more updates!

Oh, and I almost forgot.... here are my timelapses:

Iris Face

I've been working on her head... I'm thinking I'm nearly done with the facial features. The ears (obviously) still need to be worked out. I'll probably finesse the jawline and neck a little bit in the morning when everything looks fresh.

Tomorrow I'm going to tackle  the rest of the body and try to get that nailed out... hopefully further than that even.  I'm trying not to get too bogged down in crazy details since this is for a game character and you can only see so much detail. However in the end, I still want to come out with a nice sculpt.

I'm still not exactly sure what I want to do for her hairstyle... any suggestions?

Iris Basic Form Timelapse

Iris Concepts

Hey all!  Unfortunately I don't have any final renders of Arthur yet (I haven't had time to finish the texturing.)  However, I do have some concepts for a new character that I'm working on, which I'm pretty excited about.  There are quite a few variations and they aren't polished by any means, only color and silhouette.  But they're enough for me to work from and have the potential to be developed into prettier drawings. Anyhow, these sketches will give you a better understanding of my character design pipeline.  I'm revisiting the illustration that I did a while back. For a final product I'm going for two variations (one in civilian clothes and one in "tech gear") that could later be expanded upon.  Here's a quick bio...

Her name is Iris Glade (also known as "The Prodigy"), a human colonist to the frontiers of space aboard the ship, "Nod."  She specializes in technology and research and has used her own arm as to experiment with biological implants.

I'm going use the variation in the middle (with the lab coat.)

I'll be using the one on the left.

Life Drawing Gestures

I've been taking a life drawing class this semester, and since it is getting to be midterms I figured I'd post some of my better gestures 'n stuff.  So, here 'yall go...

Arthur Update

Here's a quick update on what I've done in the last couple days on Arthur:

Arthur Hand Sculpt

Here's an update on my model of Arthur (Inception).  I have sooo much I need to get done on him this weekend... we'll see how it goes.  Check back for more updates.

Hand Reference

So, I need to sculpt a hand, and I wasn't happy with the reference photos I found on google, so I photographed my hand and made my own.  Feel free to use.

Battle Scars

So, I mentioned that I've been working at YETi all summer on a Unity game project called Battle Scars. The game is a sci-fi tower defense combined with a rail shooter... which should be really cool to see when coders get a full fledged demo working. Unfortunately for the game, our programmers have been uber busy with other projects and haven't been able to put much time into Battle Scars.

Anyhow, enough jabbering. Here are the units that I created over the summer:

Kodiak Platform
This huge vehicle was created at 1434 tris. The design is one of my original concepts. Textures originally created at 2048, but would be crushed to probably 512 for the final game. We'd like to animate the turret since it will be so big, but depending on how many extra draw calls we end up with, we may not be able to. :(

Kodiak Heavy Truck
Created with 886 tris and 2048 textures. The design is one of my original concepts. These bad boys will have a couple different types of weapons available to be mounted on back, but all will have grenade launchers (the cylindrical things on the side.)

F.L.A.K. Command Truck
Created with 923 tris and 2048 textures. The concept was inspired by an old WW2 truck, though ours is considerably larger than the original would have been.
The base model was created by Wesley Mayle (another intern at YETi). I tweaked the model, added the details/accessories, and painted the textures.

F.L.A.K. Knat
Created in 806 tris an with 2048 textures. As far as gameplay goes, the Knat is pretty much cannon fodder for the player to destroy. There will be about a billion of them and they'll be about 3 pixels each...

Rebooting

Summer is a wrap and school is starting up again!  It's hard to believe that it's tat time of year again. I must say, I'm pretty excited for my classes this semester, I think it will be a good one.  Things have been changing a lot for me.  I've given up working at Grey Matter Group, so that I can put all my energy into school and working at YETi.  It will be great to have the extra time to put toward my projects.

Also, since the project I've been working on with YETi has gone on hold for now since everyone is going back to school, I'm now able to post pics of what I've been working on!  Check back soon for that update...

For now, however, here's a quick practice bust I did last week in ZBrush 4 to get myself "warmed up."

FSU Visual Effects Documentary

Well I've been super busy over the last couple months... so no, I'm not dead.  I've been working as an intern at a company called YETi CGI to create a game built on the Unity engine.  It has been a blast and I've learned a ton.  Unfortunately I can't post renders of my work until the demo releases at the end of the summer,  so things will probably remain sparse until then.
However, I am currently working on some character designs, so if all goes well I'll have something to post for that soon.

Alright, down to the real subject.  I wanted to post the documentary I helped create at Ferris last semester, since I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.  Here 'yall go!

Niko Rig Test

Here's a quick capture of how my rig was working as of a couple days ago.  Envelopes need a bit of tweaking in the chest/shoulers.  Also the fingers aren't parented correctly or something, and I need to fix that.

Nikodemus Warrior

Well, modeling the warrior outfit ended up taking longer than I thought it would.  Oh well... I'm pretty happy with how he's looking so far.

I did end up leaving off the armor plate that I had sketched in the crotch area because it would end up clipping horribly through the faulds whenever he took a step.  I also removed the kneepads and elbow pads because I like the way fabric bulging out at the joints better.

However, I added straps for the Pauldrons and the Faulds since I figured they'd need to attach somehow.  I also enlarged his hands a bit per Cory's suggestion.

At the moment he's a couple hundred tris short of 15,000.