Castle Storm - Character Art Dump (Diffuse only, Hand Painted)
greentooth
Hey guys!
Thought I'd share some of the characters from game Chastle Storm that I also worked during last few years. Basically this project was the 1st where I needed to create hand painted, cartoony textures starting with zero xp in it.
So there is a diversity in quality (it was ~2 years of improvement).
These are just a few of the characters I was working on. I hope I'll find some time to share some more.
I really hope you will like it! I know it's not so special
but I do hope it will be some goodies, inspiration and reference for newbies trying to learn hand painting method
My work on the project was modelling all the characters and few props/textures, texturing them, and partially rigging (bone placement and skin weights, so all rigging works except the helpers and Ik system)
Cheers,
Csaba
Thought I'd share some of the characters from game Chastle Storm that I also worked during last few years. Basically this project was the 1st where I needed to create hand painted, cartoony textures starting with zero xp in it.
So there is a diversity in quality (it was ~2 years of improvement).
These are just a few of the characters I was working on. I hope I'll find some time to share some more.
I really hope you will like it! I know it's not so special
but I do hope it will be some goodies, inspiration and reference for newbies trying to learn hand painting method My work on the project was modelling all the characters and few props/textures, texturing them, and partially rigging (bone placement and skin weights, so all rigging works except the helpers and Ik system)
Cheers,
Csaba
Replies
a conparison of my fur "painting" by hand few years back, and now with the same texture size.
thanks to practice
*I hope you can tell which one is the new
oh, and the armor part is very WIP on this shot, only mind the fur pls
I love bag head, best model ever.
Really cool work i'd be proud.
D4V1DC - thank you! yes
TheQiwiMan - i'm glad you do
Melonman- thx! i will try to post some more soon!
Ruz - thx!
unit187 - haha
darkmag07 - thx! well about that i've always planned to do a tutorial, when i do so, i'll post it here as well to let you guys know about it!
katana - thank you! will try to put up some more
Torch - yes that was mine.
basically that was also the method how i painted theese characters in the end. with Photoshop and 3ds max Viewport Canvas.
well this project's goal in the beginning was to create a game that's easily portable and has no complex shaders, no high poly models, just diffuse only to reduce developing time and to ease changes in design, ideas later on already finished props. so we choose diffuse only method without high polygon modelling for this project.
in the begining however i baked ao and complete map with 4 spotlights around the model to help me out. (i used the AO as multiply and the Complete map as overlay layer in texture to help me reading the forms and then i painted underneath those layers) later i could drop this baking state and just paint everything straight as i got more skilled at hand painting textures thx to the tonns of characters i must do and home practicing
i plan to add some gifs/pics as tricks and tips how i did these, just give me some time pls
thank you all for coming here and commenting!
Really love that night with the paper bag helm, haha so cool.
Autocon - yes silhouette was important for the units to be recognizable from a distance, thank you
romy - i'm glad it was worth the money for you!
and here's a brakedown on how i used to create these textures in the beginning when i didn't have the skill to paint everything by hand. i guess it helps to bake a complete map (placing 4 lights above the model from 4 directions and put a middle-grey color onto your model than bake a complete map of it), an ao and a cavity so you have a good base to start with when texturing, but only for newbies. when you learn how to paint everything by hand, it will look more moody
That's a nice workflow - similar to baking a skylight in I'm guessing? If that's the case, for any Maya users you can use the Turtle render plugin for this, does a really good job of creating a solid complete map in a short time.
basically:
1. paint the different color of each different materials and then make them pretty dark
2. paint the basic light sources with a brighter color on a new layer
no detail yet, just defining main forms
3. paint them some more and some more (you can do it onto different layers or whatever but always leave the 1st layer where you have the materials in flat colors, so you can use it as mask selections for further corrections if needed)
Yup, thats a good way to work! Thanks for the texture breakdown, looks ace.
I've found a fast way to generate selections quickly is to just place your bake mesh in the high and low poly slots in Xnormal and bake a base texture, the selections are generated quickly and you can just assign base colors to them instead of having to draw and paint the selections in PS
Torch yes basically i was trying to imitate some kind of GI, or skylight if you prefer. Though I am not too familiar with Maya
In Castle Storm we left out high poly modelling, but every time I create next gen stuff, I also use this masking method. And I also use my high poly for it, insted of painting by hand
see you at work, and you shall recieve a pat on the back!
- BoBo
vavavoom - thanks
Cordero - haha mate
BoBo - thank you a lot! big fan of your art!
so here are a couple weapons i did, nothing special, and some wires
Gannon - thank you! if you have missed it i have a video about the process i recently use for texturing (at the company i work, but not for my home projects)
it's up on youtube, search for Leila Gun Texture Paiting
katana - actually that's something i was not responsible for
Castlestorm (Beta) is playable on Android (3.1+) Devices now.
It's free to play so if you are interested, feel free to try!
https://www.facebook.com/CastleStormFreeToSiege?fref=ts
Sorry didn't read through all the posts yet, maybe you already mentioned it, but how long was the project? Rough estimate of team size/budget?
the game was made by a fairly small team. it took about 2-3 years to develop from scratch. and for 2 years it was developed by a team consisted of only 8-10 member, later a few more joined. so it's still not a big team i could say. and most of them (including me) have other projects to work on simultaneously.
this is the most i can share
Zoltus - thanks man!
thepapercut - thanks! i dunno what are you curious about specifically?
slosh - thanks!
Stinkfoot - thnaks! and i'm also glad if i could be of help!
I guess starting off. Do you build a base mesh and build up, or sculpt a high poly and break it down?
So basically i model the character and accessories (often i also unwrap some parts while modelling) finish up the uvw, and texture it. Then i do the rigging.
The most important thing is just to pay attention to moving parts when texturing. You cannot always paint shadow where it looks good