Week 12 - 2D3D: Environment Art

Something I am REALLY excited for!! I believe I have decided I want to be an environment artist!! Loving environments are new for me, but the more I look at them, the more I want to learn how to make environments and plants look beautiful and fitting for what they need to look like!

For our next assignment in 2D3D, our group signed up to do a few assets for an island inhabited by Starfish men (or drunk Patricks).

Since I want to do environment art, I signed up for what I thought would be great core basics for any beginning environment artist: grass, ferns and a banana tree! :)

I can't wait to play with planes for foliage and learning transparency for leaves and grass.

We had to create proxy art, so here is a screenshot of my proxy art for the grass, fern and banana tree.

Common Art: UE4 Blueprints

Along with all the other things I am doing, I am learning a bunch of UE4 things! I REALLY want to get better as using Blueprints and Materials in UE4. :) It is such a unique and interesting tool that artists can use and have access to!

Tutorials here I come!

For now, here was my first time playing with blueprints - figuring out how to make things move upon entering an area as well as on a key press.

**Disclaimer: Starfish model and materials were created by the teacher.

Week 11: 2D3D: Final Fish Pirate

Last week we finished up the fish pirate! Yay! This was such a massive project, and definitely helped me understand what is involved for more major character models. I had never done anything like this before.

After I finished sculpting the pirate and baked the maps onto my low-res model, I pulled up Mudbox and Photoshop to start painting. Most of my time was spent in Photoshop, but I liked having the model update in Mudbox so I could tell how the model was looking. This is my final color map.

I applied this map to the final model in UE4 and the final result of the pirate is below.

Learn & Grow
1. While I am getting more used to the flow, this project took so long that I felt a little disconnected week after week since I was in one program for such a long time! I think I have the flow down, but I continue to learn more tips and tricks to make it easier. In the beginning, I was confused on having a high and low-res model, but that's become clear now.
2. My sculpt lines still aren't deep enough! I really need to not be afraid and really make some things shine.
3. I do like coloring! The coloring of the model was pretty fun for me. I enjoyed the mixed process of Mudbox and Photoshop. The next thing I need to learn is Substance Painter apparently!
4. Practice, practice, practice! Like all things, this work will only get better from here on out! :)

Producer: Game Design Document

Along with doing my art classes, I've also been sitting in on the Producer classes, wanting to learn more management and how to think more creatively. I really enjoy these classes, and I have been learning a lot from them.

Our capstone game pitches will be this week, and I have decided to pitch a game.

To prepare for this, I created something called a Game Design Document, or a GDD. It outlines many core features of your game and how they will work within your game. I spent an entire week working on it and designing it.

It was an enriching experience as I had to come up with idea, and plan what will make it unique or different.

I'll admit there are a few things I need to add or tweak, but I believe as a game, it has strong base functionality. (But then again.. of course I would. I thought up the idea?)

The document ended up being nine pages long, 10 if you include the cover page.

So between working on this GDD and working on my fish pirate, I've been very very busy.

2D3D: Week9-11 Pirate Fish Process

I haven't been posting lately because I've been so busy! Allow me to catch up to what I've been up to for the past few weeks.

We began working on the Pirate Fish model and it took about 1 week to model it following the best practices and tutorials. My pirate ended up more plump than the rest of the students I feel, but I am okay with my fish not being as well-built.

From here, we set aside another week to UV the whole model. I separated all of the UVs because Unreal Engine does not support overlying UVs.

After the UVing was done, the final step was to separate the whole model into poly sets. Poly sets make sculpting in Zbrush easy since it imports the model as layers.

It took another week to sculpt the pirate fish. It was made clear to us that we needed to follow the concept art as closely as possible, since that what concept art is created for.

I learned that my sculpt still does not contain the appropriate amount of small, medium and large details so that is something I will need to continue to keep in mind. I made a note of this on my previous sculpts, but I am still not brave enough apparently! My sculpt lines need to be DEEPER and THICKER. It does looks so much better when the details pop, and I still sculpt too soft for the details to really be seen. So, another mental note here.

This week, we will be baking the normal maps and begin painting the model. I did finish baking the normal maps and putting them on my model, so I will place my current progress here. Baking the normal maps was a very time-consuming process. Since the model was broken apart in ZBrush, you need to export each individual poly set (or subtool layer in Zbrush), and bake each piece separately. In Maya, the model should have been combined when you bring it into Zbrush. Since it is one piece, you need to break apart your model back into individual poly set groups and bake each group separately. However many poly sets you have, is how many Normal maps you have. After you've baked each set out, you need to take that bundle of Normal maps and put them all into one normal map using Photoshop. THEN you need to recombine your entire model again and apply that final normal map.

*Takes a deep breath* Whew! It certainly is a lot! And you have to keep in mind to make your AO maps along with them, so you're really baking twice for 1 poly set.

My normal maps bakes out decently. I had to fix a few of the edges on the head and around the belt. I was disappointed that the smaller, finer details are quick to get lost on a low-res bake.

So these are my normal maps....

And this is my Final Normal map applied to my low-res (or Game-res) model.

Next we are painting! So I have to take this combined model again, and send it into Mudbox to paint according to the concept art. We are doing that this week, so I should be able to post the results after this week is over! :)