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.

Nikodemus DayJob Outfit

Well, I think I've pretty much finished the Day Job outfit! I'm sitting at approximately 12k tris at the moment.

The Prodigy Concept

Here's something I've been working on over the last week in my spare time.

The design is for a game project that I'm planning. A quick backstory on her character: Her name is Iris, sometimes called "The Prodigy." She's a young scientist experimenting with some new implant technologies that give the user telekinetic(ish) powers. She lives on a colony on the frontier of Human space, and is her own guinea-pig for the majority of her experiments... hence the blue arms.

As far as design style goes, I was trying to depart from the boxy, drab look of all too many sci-fis and develop something less expected; more organic and colorful.

Expect to see more concepts in the future....

Snapshot of my Life

Well this is the best my desktop has looked in a really long time, so I thought I'd show it off to everybody. :) If you look closely you can get some sneak-peaks at some secretish stuff that will be revealed in futre blog updates.

Niko - Rough Day Job Suit

Here I'm blocking in the clothes for the day job... it's frustrating me right now so I think I'm going to move onto accessories for a while.

Niko Medium Rez Sculpt

Final Design

Resume and Business Card

I've thinking about my business card design and resume for quite some time now, but I've finally made the time to sit down and get 'em done. Hard copies should be available very soon.

Here's the newest on my resume and business card:

(Click to enlarge)

(Front of the card is on top, and the back is on the bottom)

Final Nikodemus Base

Okay, so I've given him some hair, teeth, a tongue, and fixed his hands.

Niko Base Mesh Update

I took him into zbrush and moved his limbs around so it felt a little more natural, and did some really basic sculpting. (I didn't up the sub-Ds at all) I also spent quite a bit of time in the head/face and managed to eliminate the nasty mess of loops in the nose area.

Nikodemus Base Mesh

Well, I'm not done with the base mesh yet, but here's my start. I'm still refining the facial features, since they're pretty blocky right now.

Construction

Frag Fest, Spring 2010

FragFest, (A 24 hour competition in the Digital Animation & Game Design program) had the theme "Goblinoid," and categories for level design and 3D modeling.  I was on a team with Wesley Mayle and Luke Garnsey to create a level and I also submitted the 3D assets that I created as an individual 3D modeling entry.

This year went a lot better than last semester.  I was just "in the headspace" more, or something.  Everything seemed to go pretty smoothly (more or less.)  I had a blast working with Wesley and Luke, and it was really sweet to get to see my work running real time in the Unity engine. (We were allowed to use either Unity or Unreal III.)

Our level design team (click here to see our team's progress blog) didn't get placed in the top 3, however, I came in 1st place in the 3D modeling category with the assets I created for our map.

So, here's what I spent most of my time working on: