These are beautiful! Thanks for showing the wires. I was just playing Halo 4 tonight for the first time. I really am blown away by the entire game. The art is just beautiful. I'm at the point where I'm really not into playing the games so much as I am at looking at the art that is on screen. I wish there was a mode that I could just look around at the environment, characters and animations.
I just wanted to take the time and tell you and the rest of your team congratulations, I think you all have truly made something inspirational.
If you don't mind me asking, what is the light baking process on the game, I'm really in love with the lighting and the colors!
Thanks for your answer, I really love your work! Another question I got is, why do you use a bump map for the scratches and not a normal map, I thought normalmaps are more reastically looking than bump maps and if you didn't sculpt any of the detail, did you create it in Photoshop?
Normal maps are for video games or realtime rendering, they require more memory (color RGB image vs black and white) but less processing because the gpu does not need to calculate the surface normals, it just have to read them from the texture. With a bump map or black and white image, the render or gpu has to figure out what the surface normal is while it is rendering, it can't just look at the texture. 50% gray on a bump map does not mean anything to the surface normal, or how the render is going to display the lighting on any given part of the texture, it actually has to look at the image at a larger scale and figure out how the bump map slopes, and where the normals are pointing.
I understand your point. Personally I find ambiguity compelling. If everything is explained to me it will not necessarily increase my interest in something, and in most instances reduces it. Like you said, some people look at these things and can make up their own stories behind them - I prefer that. When I started these doors I really did not have a set brief in mind. It was mostly an exercise in form determining function. If these doors feel heavy then they can be pressure doors, or maybe they seal an ammunition compartment, or maybe they are water tight doors. It could be any of those, and I personally do not think picking a specific function, as a personal art project, would make the pieces stronger. Ultimately it is up to the person viewing my work to make the decision if ambiguity makes the work stronger or weaker.
You are right, ambiguity can be compelling. Imagination is important and I can appreciate that if you come at the exercise from the other direction you can still produce good art!
Obviously the end result can be anything you want, indeed you don't even know what it is when you start... and in doing it you might come up with something amazing, rather than limiting yourself with a brief in the beginning.
It's certainly an exercise I haven't practised for a long time actually, usually always fitting work to a need and then completing it.
Thanks for inspiring me to look at things the other way around again
PS, I had come up with lots of ideas for what they were for, I was just curious what yours were after you'd finished them
After watching Akira the other night I was thinking about your doors and how a few would have worked better for the Akira storage facility!
Bumping this because of the latest badassery in the Waywo thread -
How do you come up with all these cool mechanical parts and how do you decide to fit them all together? Are there any examples of pieces you like more than others or areas on them you feel could be improved? What are they and why?
What kind of things are you searching for on the googles for reference, etc. What kinds of machine parts do you find most inspiring in your design process?
Sorry for the wall of questions, your stuff just boggles my mind . I can never find so many cool shapes for reference and I don't know enough about engineering to create some believable parts like the ones you're making.
When designing such things I always pull reference from the real world. In the case of that particular door I used automotive components for a lot of the pipe work - such as tranmissions. The goal was both to achieve pleasing forms as well as finding challenging shapes to model ( wires ). Really anything can be used for reference as long as you find creative ways to derive the forms from the original source material. There really isn't any engineering involved on my part - it's basically implied functionalism.
So I guess there really aren't any secrets - just use real world reference. Avoid cliches and keep things aesthetically functional.
Wow, man. These are really cool. I love the lighting and color choices, especially on the bottom 2. Are these still high poly? If so, are using procedural stuff with AO (outside of the decals)?
I'm simply awestruck by these! Truely some of the most inspirational Tech eye-candy I've seen in a while. Thank you for sharing your tips on worflow and wire screenshots.
I think my avatar aptly describes what happens to me every time I look at these hi-poly doors.
Yea I actually have some updates - I posted a few of these in WAYWO thread but I might as well post them here. All are still in various states of work in progres - still working on some modeling, materials, and lighting tweaks - but there it is.
Replies
I just wanted to take the time and tell you and the rest of your team congratulations, I think you all have truly made something inspirational.
If you don't mind me asking, what is the light baking process on the game, I'm really in love with the lighting and the colors!
Peace-NickZ.
Normal maps are for video games or realtime rendering, they require more memory (color RGB image vs black and white) but less processing because the gpu does not need to calculate the surface normals, it just have to read them from the texture. With a bump map or black and white image, the render or gpu has to figure out what the surface normal is while it is rendering, it can't just look at the texture. 50% gray on a bump map does not mean anything to the surface normal, or how the render is going to display the lighting on any given part of the texture, it actually has to look at the image at a larger scale and figure out how the bump map slopes, and where the normals are pointing.
You are right, ambiguity can be compelling. Imagination is important and I can appreciate that if you come at the exercise from the other direction you can still produce good art!
Obviously the end result can be anything you want, indeed you don't even know what it is when you start... and in doing it you might come up with something amazing, rather than limiting yourself with a brief in the beginning.
It's certainly an exercise I haven't practised for a long time actually, usually always fitting work to a need and then completing it.
Thanks for inspiring me to look at things the other way around again
PS, I had come up with lots of ideas for what they were for, I was just curious what yours were after you'd finished them
After watching Akira the other night I was thinking about your doors and how a few would have worked better for the Akira storage facility!
Dave
How do you come up with all these cool mechanical parts and how do you decide to fit them all together? Are there any examples of pieces you like more than others or areas on them you feel could be improved? What are they and why?
What kind of things are you searching for on the googles for reference, etc. What kinds of machine parts do you find most inspiring in your design process?
Sorry for the wall of questions, your stuff just boggles my mind
Thanks in advance!
tldr; REVEAL YOUR SECRETS! :O Thx!
When designing such things I always pull reference from the real world. In the case of that particular door I used automotive components for a lot of the pipe work - such as tranmissions. The goal was both to achieve pleasing forms as well as finding challenging shapes to model ( wires ). Really anything can be used for reference as long as you find creative ways to derive the forms from the original source material. There really isn't any engineering involved on my part - it's basically implied functionalism.
So I guess there really aren't any secrets - just use real world reference. Avoid cliches and keep things aesthetically functional.
Man I LOVE THAT SHAPE at the bottom of the top image. WIth the two cone shaped cylinders!
Again, you a boss paul, very inspirational.
I think my avatar aptly describes what happens to me every time I look at these hi-poly doors.
Halo 4, FF:Spirits Within, Dead Space 1/2/3, some of Mass Effect, and a few others im forgetting all seem to have an angular style that i just love.
Loving it, love the lighting / tones in these the most!