Sketchbook : Bdcoll. A trip from medicore to slightly less medicore.

Bdcoll

So i've created this little sketchbook to chart my progress from where I am now, to hopefully getting a job in the industry. Unfortunately right now that seems to be in the very far future, but no pain, no gain.

This is the long list of things I hope to progress along and learn in the coming weeks and months.

To Learn:

Texturing
Lighting
UDK
ZBrush Sculpting
Normal Mapping
Specular Mapping
High Poly Modelling
Low Poly Modelling.
Modelling from blueprints ( countless tries, never managed to model a simple car or airplane -_-)

Please feel free to critique anything you see, as harshly as you deem fit. The only way people learn is if they are told the problems

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So to kick it off I decided to start with a nice simple model and create an Aegis Defence Line from the Warhammer 40k universe. This time round I was really focusing on getting some good textures into it and it seems to have worked well.


http://imgur.com/a/Y4hzl

Currently sits at around 45,000 verts, which should hopefully drop to below 300 once the normals are done.

Now to try and figure out how to get the normal maps working with those damn rivets -_-

Bdcoll

Well first up is my now complete Aegis Defence Line. Really quite happy with how this turned out, although its a shame I couldn't get a specular map working with it :S

g

To ensure I actually keep working and not just get distracted by other things I decided to finish at least one model every day. Today was the sterotypical explosive barrel, but i'm really not happy how it turned out, and then to top it off I saved over the texture by accident.

Frawmus

In my opinion, You could reduce the texture quality of the barrel since it is just solid colors. Remove the lettering and increase the size of the fire so the players will still think "Explosive" but there is no reason for them to be able to read it, and I doubt many would stand still long enough to do so

Bdcoll

Well in fairness I'm probably going to redo the entire thing again in the future. The metal looks too much like concrete, and the decal itself is rather small, and lets ignore the horrors I had with unwrapping it.

Today I decided to model a lightsaber. Everyone does one, but I hadn't yet so why not. Tried doing it with just inbuilt Max materials as I hadn't really got my head around how they work yet. In addition I discovered the effects panel, and how it works, which is always nice



As usual criticism is more than welcome, and if anyone has any ideas what to model next that would be great

Deathstick

Maybe a laser pistol (got starwars on my mind now.. ) or another slightly more complicated object could be the next best step up for you.

Right now you have some box modeling and cylindrical modeling going on which is a good start, and something like a pistol would help you on starting to bring those different forms together to create some more complex shapes.

Bdcoll

Well decided I might as well use today and figure specular maps out, and thats just what I did. Sure the object is nice and simple, but I was never going for complicated :P



Maybe one day I will complete the entire scene.

Well as deathstick suggested I'm going to try and get something more complicated than simple boxes and cylinders going tommorow, and hopefully get a nice 40k plasma pistol made.

Bdcoll

So I promised a completed model everyday, but I didn't quite manage it this time round but oh well.

This is my current progress on making a Plasma Pistol from the Warhammer 40k universe. Most of it went well other than those damn vents on the front where I had to resort to a dreaded Boolean to get cut into shape.



Now to spend tomorrow unwrapping and texturing this thing . Hopefully I can get a portfolio worthy piece from it

Bdcoll

Well I was planning to make this a really realistic piece, however after applying just simple colours to it I really like the cartoonish look it took on.

Going to keep it like this for now, and then in the future I may go back and improve on it and make it look realistic









Might go ahead and make a chainsword next, just to accompany it, especially If I'm aiming to sculpt a space marine at some point. Going to actually try and texture that realistically though, just to have two items from the same universe, just with vastly contrasting textures.

Bdcoll

Well I present perhaps the worst texturing plasma pistol ever created. Maybe this entire texturing business isn't for me -_-