retrospective - Steffen Neox Unger - imageheavy
veteran polycounter
As i did this in some german forums i thought i could do this here to, a thread of me looking back on my past work, starting with my early freelancerworks from 2007 till now, what i'm allowed to show of course ^^
Thought it would be better in pimping and previews then in sketchbooks, even though having a personal showroom instead of just a sketchbook might be an option, not my decision, so it's here
ok lets start
Last year i started working on "The Settlers" for keengames and bluebyte, a frankfurt located games company. my first really heavy classical texturing based freelance job.
The task was was mainly to pimp alreasy given characters to fit into the portait section of the game (for userinterface, storytelling andsequences) so i got the lowpoly chars with approx. 800 tris 256 or 512 maps and push their heads to something like 1-1.5k with a 512
this also was my first apperance as a "professional" coneptartist, professional in terms of getting paid for it, not beein good or something... still a lot to learn
later we changed some of the colors and as i didn't really work with the ingame proportions we changend them too, but to get a glimpse of the upcoming new characters it was enough
and here their 3d alteregos, with approx 800 tris and a 512 map
and good old amma
this one has changed quite a bit, with some help of michael the character lead at bluebyte
quite a shitload of stuff to learn on classical texturing back then and stil...
Thought it would be better in pimping and previews then in sketchbooks, even though having a personal showroom instead of just a sketchbook might be an option, not my decision, so it's here
ok lets start
Last year i started working on "The Settlers" for keengames and bluebyte, a frankfurt located games company. my first really heavy classical texturing based freelance job.
The task was was mainly to pimp alreasy given characters to fit into the portait section of the game (for userinterface, storytelling andsequences) so i got the lowpoly chars with approx. 800 tris 256 or 512 maps and push their heads to something like 1-1.5k with a 512
this also was my first apperance as a "professional" coneptartist, professional in terms of getting paid for it, not beein good or something... still a lot to learn
later we changed some of the colors and as i didn't really work with the ingame proportions we changend them too, but to get a glimpse of the upcoming new characters it was enough
and here their 3d alteregos, with approx 800 tris and a 512 map
and good old amma
this one has changed quite a bit, with some help of michael the character lead at bluebyte
quite a shitload of stuff to learn on classical texturing back then and stil...
Replies
task was to create the dogs and cats and pimp all given characters which where initially taken out of a rocketbox characterpackage, i have to admit that i'm glad i don't have to do this again, offered exozet my own character system, as the rocketbox chars where a total mess, strange uv's wasted space, and really messy triangulation here and there
some shots for marketing, i call it "attack of the kitschcannon"
looking back, i don't like this one, messy here and there and only a early step on my later devoloped texturing workflow for these kinds of cheap production
and the other two
i have to admit that i like the new workflow, as it's fast and easy, these where a little messy, later characters made with that workflow are a bit cleaner...
a pitch for a beverage company, guess i posted this one a while ago, didn't make it bu i kinda like him
a nose of a bear, yay
made for a local gas provider
this also wasn't taken in the end, don't know why but the final campaign looked cheap and i guess we wanted to make it a little tooo detailed
would guive screenshots but as it's PS2 i don't have the ability to grab my own and the ones on the net are not with my characters...
:edit from 2016: I don't even project this was xD
-snap-
later last year
ad for AMD and ATI, done together with Adina Krause
and what began 2007 was finished earlier this year, as a sideeffect of my earlier work on settlers, i got the task to create all characters for the addon/missionpack, as i didn't find the time to do all on my own, i concentrated on all the modelling and unwrapping and later et me help by Adina, again... i think it's 50/50 on the character textures and 900% work on the portrait textures by me
-snap-
later this year
this has started in 2007 also, was published in may this year, another lowbudget title with the great name soccerchamp
head by me, bodysculpt and lowpoly by me, diffuse by Adina
all done by me
http://polyphobia.de/html/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/soccerchamp/16_soccerstar_kids.jpg
well heads
the basemesh is heavily inspired by arshs work, no it's not his, i remade a new one but i loved how he did the hands, and the dynamic f the initial pose, eventhough my stance is different, i bow to arshlevon for his great work
aging and haircutchanges on one of the player characters (the asian and black dudes are the other character the player could chose from)
http://polyphobia.de/html/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/soccerchamp/17_soccerplayer_trikots.jpg
some jerseys (right word?), there have been waaaaay more, like 80 or so, but most of them where done by Adina, again... ^^
starting with this i devoled the earlier mentioned character system...
http://polyphobia.de/html/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/several2007/22_generic_bodymesh.jpg
generic bodies, step one, a muscular man and a normal woman, would love to change a lot of stuff, but as it's mainly for lowbudget productions with the same style, i'll keep those and do more variations instead.... sometimes you just have to end things...
http://polyphobia.de/html/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/several2007/26_bikinis.jpg
some bikinis done with retopo in zbrush
a few parts of the character system for the girls, there is the same for teen boys (not bikinis for sure :P), children, old men and women and the muscledude from before... inculding some heads, exchangeable haircuts and colors, dozens of pieces of clothing and accessoires
some stuff for a webgame, don't know if it ever got online
and the arttest posted early in "what are you working on"
ok thats it for now, hope you enjoyed
ok i'll change the big images....
ok better now
The webgame stuff is sooooooooo cute
I love your style!
The style of the settlers chars is especially great! The Cartoon Chars are just cool, love the bird!
that animal sim looks ridiculous
- BoBo
Great stuff indeed.
You have an absolutely great / clean style Neox, really refreshing to see what you bring to the table.
Keep up the great work buddy
You are a very versatile artist!
@Miles: that's why i initally started with bakes and photosource, even for the totally handpainted apearing dudes, getting such a job without the real experience was quite hard in first place, but you learn while you are doing it, with the time i could drop the photosources and bakes for the totally handpainted characters, you just get to know what works and what not, still a lot of space to improve, comparing it to bobo, pior, b1ll and all the other awesome textureartists, there is really ALOT of stuff to learn
@bobo: can't say how honored i feel, you've always been a source of inspiriration, studying your work always pushes me here and there
@y00tz: not doing tooo much on sacred, 6 assets in such a game? whats that? ^^
@benclark: yep amma (the foxy lady
@xaltar: mission accomplished, all for the ladies
@gavimage: why? ;_;
thanks again
i can arrange that
@neo_god: i always try to keep the quality on a base level, even on the tight budgets i think it's worth, even if the clients won't see it, can't do shit, well ok, some games are really bad, but i'm getting money for it, so i have to deliver something i can live with.
while i like working on pitches as it's always something new, i don't like that most never see the daylight
i made the characters, the environment tiling system, the background tiles, a mousepointer, some shaders and textures
Is this one of the pitches that got cancelled then or is it likely to see the light of day?