Gears of War 3 - Textures
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Wanted to post up some texture work from the Gears of War games! Haven't posted much of anything in so long... feels good to post again!!
Was responsible for weapons, few creatures, some vehicles, some characters in Gears 3, and UI for all 3 games. Art Direction from Chris Perna, concepts by James Hawkins, and all of the models made by the crazy talented modelers here: Kevin Lanning, Pete Hayes, Chris Wells, Mike Kime, Mark Morgan. Character shader was created by Jordan Walker, which had an enormous impact on the quality of flesh rendering. Few pieces were touched by a few people in the texture stage, noted where that happened below.
Gears 3 Character & Creature work:
Sam Byrne, mesh by Chris Wells. Her face, hair, and tatoo were done by Chris W, she went through a lot of revisions before we found what we wanted.
This is Bernie, she was super fun. Chris Wells and I both worked on her face.
Clayton was a big collaboration, his body was done by Kevin Lanning (fun fact, his body is a reskin of Cole), helmet by Kime, and Jay Hawkins did the memorial tattoo. I was responsible for all the details, graffiti, other tattoos, and technically implementing it. His body required a 2nd uv set since the upper body and arms are mirrored on the main mesh. Allowed for much higher resolution for the sayings and tattoos!
Clay's helm, mesh by Kime.
Generic redshirt cog soldier helmet for Gears 3, model by Kime.
Superstar Cole! Chris Wells made some edits to him, he originally had gold jewelry all over, but we changed it to platinum.
Upresed Locust grunt for Gears 3. Doesn't appear in single player, only in MP and in Horde.
Siege Beast, single player locust torture-catapult.
Tempest, final boss, Myrah's mount, dragonbeetle! This thing was so much fucking fun. The majority of it was hand painted, and the metals are driven by a gold shader in game. The wings were my favorite part
Entire critter has 3 materials. Chris Wells posted the model up on Zbrush Central: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc-thread-gallery.php?t=162703
Was responsible for weapons, few creatures, some vehicles, some characters in Gears 3, and UI for all 3 games. Art Direction from Chris Perna, concepts by James Hawkins, and all of the models made by the crazy talented modelers here: Kevin Lanning, Pete Hayes, Chris Wells, Mike Kime, Mark Morgan. Character shader was created by Jordan Walker, which had an enormous impact on the quality of flesh rendering. Few pieces were touched by a few people in the texture stage, noted where that happened below.
Gears 3 Character & Creature work:
Sam Byrne, mesh by Chris Wells. Her face, hair, and tatoo were done by Chris W, she went through a lot of revisions before we found what we wanted.
This is Bernie, she was super fun. Chris Wells and I both worked on her face.
Clayton was a big collaboration, his body was done by Kevin Lanning (fun fact, his body is a reskin of Cole), helmet by Kime, and Jay Hawkins did the memorial tattoo. I was responsible for all the details, graffiti, other tattoos, and technically implementing it. His body required a 2nd uv set since the upper body and arms are mirrored on the main mesh. Allowed for much higher resolution for the sayings and tattoos!
Clay's helm, mesh by Kime.
Generic redshirt cog soldier helmet for Gears 3, model by Kime.
Superstar Cole! Chris Wells made some edits to him, he originally had gold jewelry all over, but we changed it to platinum.
Upresed Locust grunt for Gears 3. Doesn't appear in single player, only in MP and in Horde.
Siege Beast, single player locust torture-catapult.
Tempest, final boss, Myrah's mount, dragonbeetle! This thing was so much fucking fun. The majority of it was hand painted, and the metals are driven by a gold shader in game. The wings were my favorite part
Entire critter has 3 materials. Chris Wells posted the model up on Zbrush Central: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc-thread-gallery.php?t=162703
Replies
centaur tank from Gears 2. The shader supported snow & mud buildup on the wheels that never made it in.
Truck you ride in during a mission in Gears 3, and in a few cinematics around Anvil's Gate.
Submarine, used to travel to
Sub pods the player rides in, as well as the 1st person view of the sub pod. Had a lot of fun in here, put a few LOST references in there
Weapons:
Sawed off! Love it, hate it.... had a lot of fun putting way too much detail on it. Took a day to texture, was fun giving it a bunch of life, even if you'd never see it in game
the One Shot, another new gun to Gears 3. High powered insta-gib sniper rifle.
The Vulcan, the co-op mini gun of death and destruction!
Digger Launcher, another new gun in Gears 3. It fires a little chompy man of teeth, and it eats people.
All of the grenades in Gears of War: Frags, Smoke, Ink, Incendiary.
Gorgon, a gun we added in Gears of War 2. In Gears 3 it was changed to a fully auto pistol.
Boomshot, and Boltok!
Snub Pistol, Hammer of Dawn, and the Lancer. Chris Perna did the original skin for the Lancer, and I did some polish on it after it was re-uved, as well as beating the shit out of it for Gears 3.
I'm really impressed by the sheer detail in it all. Even in multiplayer, when i go into ghost cam and zoom in, the texture res never seems too blurry, it's crazy.
Never would have guessed Carmine is a reskin of cole in this one. pretty cool though, you definitely did a lot to differentiate them.
Gorgeous texture work, especially on the Tempest Mount Boss wings like you said! MOOSE PIMPAGE! FINALLY!
Seriously killer work here, and I'm glad the advances to the enging really let the textures shine this time around. I think the overall art and clarity to the visuals is probably the most impressive part of the whole game.
If the Sawed-off took a day to texture, how long would something like the One-shot or Gorgon take? Is it relative to the size of the model at all or just a case of "when it's done"?
Also just generally curious about weather the model has base texture work on it before it comes to you and you're refining or if you do the whole thing from scratch? Just curious about how much freedom you have in the process I guess.
p.s. This is the first time in any game using unreal that I've been impressed with the character shaders so please by Jordan a beer for me and some day some how I'll get ya back
Any chance we can see more wires n texture flats?
Would love to see a breakdown of PSDs.
I think this is the most awesome belong all the other GOW3 threads. Because this one show all the talents combined. You guys rock. Thanks for sharing.
amazing stuff, congrats!
i was waiting for that
can u post some of the high poly of those? (the one that havnt been posted like weapons and vehicles)
i particularly like the puke on the old chick's boots
the mud on the gangsta's pants is also very well done, just the right amount of bump
is it just me or does it look like a zipper keeps the two throwing arms together on Siege Beast? : P
All this Epic epicness deserves a frontpage plug!
I would pay big to attend / watch a workshop from you on some of your workflow and tricks for texturing, I bet you've got some wicked tricks!
Nick
ae, megalmn, cholden, alberto , shadowforce, Dave Silver, pity, jramauri, Jessica, clockchrome, luke, scb, oniram, ayalan3d, electro: thank you guys!! Means a lot!
Shiniku: thanks!! That is high praise, means a lot to hear that! Don't forget Space Marine, Dark Souls, Deus Ex, Rage, Batman, Crysis, and probably Uncharted 3, Saints Row 3, Battlefield... list goes on and on and on and on!
JDingles: :poly106:
RazorBladder: thanks!! haha yeah it has been a while! Will try not to take 8 years between pimps from now on, need to start posting more!
Zipfinator: http://bit.ly/riC0Wr
Scudz: Thanks!! I think what happened with the sawed off is that I had a great day that day. Was in a crazy good groove hitting all the right parts at the right time, and to top it off the unwrap for it was perfect (thanks Pete!). Had a very clear vision & idea of what to do, the process went very smoothly on it. I usually spend more time on things, just was on a roll that day. The One Shot was a lot longer, and spent more time on the Vulcan to add some animating shader stuff for the gun engine belt and bullet belt. Size of the weapon does play a huge role too, as the Gorgon was a very quick skin. I also had a very specific workflow down for the Locust weapons. A mesh like the Submarine takes a lot longer. Sometimes the modelers will beat the hell out of the mesh or put crazy detail on it, and other times large surfaces will be left blank and I will add extra normals with crazybump. and yes, Jordan is amazing
jacque: thanks!! Chris Wells (wallabyjoe) posted some wires in his character thread, don't want to steal his thunder! Don't think I'll be able to show any flats or psd breakdowns. I will say that I started using a lot more layers than I should have been. I'm pretty anal about organizing layers (most of the time), start with an AO base, break parts and pieces out into layer groups w/ masks to define an area, lots of local painting, and do ao coloring around the mesh on specific parts. I use a lot of clipping layers, masks, adjustment layers. Keep my Diffuse, Spec, Normal, Masks, and Emissives all in one PSD (or psb). It is crucial that any detail you add to your diffuse go into your spec, and sometimes your normal - keeping all that stuff together in one place makes it easier to maintain.
daphz: thanks dude! fucking love your work!
beancube: dunno, Chris W, Mike K, and Kevin J's are pretty awesome
Rollin: hiyyaaaaaa!
Nerf Bat: :poly106:
shawnell3d: Moose gives shawnell3d [crusty mop]
ES_139: my brain is mush too! you guys melt my head.
tenchi: thanks!! I'm grateful of such an amazing community of people, not many forums quite like polycount.
jeffro: yah!! thanks man! I want to keep posting, have some personal art goals i want to achieve with modeling, so may be posting more!
Snef: woo!
lonewolf: Pete Hayes (yemyam) did most of the highs for the guns, will see if he'll post em.
coots, toxic: thanks! texture sizes vary. Characters were 2048 mostly (1024 in game), weapons were 1024-512, vehicles 2048-1024. There is a bit of mirroring going on, but it was used when needed and in inconspicuous locations when possible. Carmine for example needed to have an asymmetrical body texture to make sure all the writing was ok, and arm different tattoos. The base mesh had mirrored arms & chest/back. Created another set of UVs for him to unmirror the chest, back, and arms for this reason. On the tempest, his body is mostly mirrored, legs share uvs, etc. The Sub was split into multiple parts, but also mirrored.
metalliandy: thanks man! love eat3d
shotty: thanks duder! That puke was for you.
r13: coo
Twoflower: thanks! hahaha, yeah it kinda does
kot: wut
d1ver:
HP: whoa, thanks man!! your crisis stuff is bonkers awesome, you saying that means a lot to me. I've got a few tricks up me pant leg, would love to share knowledge with the community.
Nick: thanks!! i'm getting misty myself reading everyone's comments! :poly142: A lot of old tutorial sites seem to be gone, or im not looking in the right spots anymore
Ditto on the request of texture flats if at all possible!
Now, time to save all those goodies to my ref folder.
Love you characters, especially how they are looking in game. amazing.