Hi guys! I am starting this thread to update my WIP and rant about the progress of working on this project of mine:
The Journey - Rebooting my abandoned project for Artist Station The Journey Contest

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If you are interested or have any questions/comments, just post it

! you are more than welcomed !
Here are recap of what I have so far in the past :
[ see posts below ! ]
Replies
Mood boards
A kind of "get ready" moment for a hero character who 's about to deploy/ take first step into a unknown world . Surround is a fleet/team of supporter/ other teams. I got a better back story for this in my head but I will tell more about it in next updates
disclamer : Just in case, All artworks below are for references only, they are no way my works or wip whatsoever lol.
Character pose/compositing/mood references: Hero character is the main object at foreground, may be he/she is standing in a dock area of a space ship or shuttle . background is vast surround world( the unknown ) and other teams.
Character design references :
Kind of "space walker " but not so much of heavy coverage style. I want the human inside the suit are more vulnerable/ exposed to danger. which bring out the feeling of danger, uncertainty and anxious.
references for the vast unknown world awaiting to be explored. I really like the spiral composition in the first 3 references, make it feel like the scene has a center point, some sort of entrance/ gate . The other 3 references is for POV & feel.
That's it , first update !
Next one will be some sketches and concepts !
Rough Sketch & early composition
I might make change to the camera angle, compositing and some designs elements later on in 3D stages.
If anyone have any suggestions or comments , please share
Kamikaze Mech Suit Color Options
I dont design the suit to have much weapons attached to it as these suit are more for scouting than engaging/ invasive tasks. So I design the suit to have functions that is more toward the "survival" and long-distance traveling/exploring purposes instead.
I come up with 4 color variations so far
I like the number 1 Asuka color , it really pop out but seem like it 's too sporty, number 2 is over done by many artists already but still cool, number 3 is some what war-like machine but I think it 's badass. I most likely will go for number 4 - The Martian color style as it have more feeling of explorer / scientist to it, just not sure if it gonna stand out from the background.
Anyways
Update 002 Mech Explorer suit concept
So to sum up I need :
- Main pilot concept
- the hangar.
- the carrier ships ( those far away aircrafts flying in background )
- and the coordination girl
deleted due to duplicate post
Update 006 - Kamikaze Mech Suit Base Sculpt
finish working on her lowpoly mesh and UV !
The wireframe is made by hand in Maya alone , not Zmesher haha
some more refined sculpt of the girl
Anyways, I uploaded these onto my Artstation page so may be they will have a better resolution overthere. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/G9dRd
Thank you !
@rage288: thank you
Btw, here is some more WIP ,
the texture is still WIP tho but I am pretty much finished with the face / eyes area so I cant wait to bring her into UE4 to do some eye shader development in advance to test if the texture is good enough for UE4 rendering .
oh and I got a movie rendered out XD !
@DGB @Shyralon : Thanks !
Btw here 's latest update :
that 's it for today !, working back & forth between GMH2 inside Maya and UE4 to get the best result for the hair
@Jands: Thank you !
@DGB: Thanks man
Thanks
As for flickering shadow , seem like latest update of UE4 fixed that
anyways , not much update so far as my Lunar New Year Eve is comming and I am working hard to get the hair part done before posting any updates. But in the mean time I got time to put together a small breakdown article to sum up the process of developing this character 's shader inside UE4 - featured on 80.lv Here if anyone interested in a more in-depth reading of the project
<span class=""><b><a href="https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4zqkl" title="Link: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4zqkl">DETAIL BREAK DOWN ARTICLE</a><br><br></b></span>
@Justin_J: thank you !
anyways, here is my latest update :
hair model and shader,the hair was modeled using my hair script GMH2.6 and rendered realtime in UE4 using UE Hair shader ( I add a little part of my own customization for wind animation too I will upload the graphs later if anyone interested
anyways, here 's this round update ! :
well, first off, the thumbnail is just butt as this entire piece is about it as the main subject... lol
, for the sake of science of course!
anyways, it's to show the skinning time ! learn alot about humanIK roll bone system & skinning setup for mid poly character
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I used a combination of ngSkinTool and several smooth skin tool plugin along with my own home-made script to aid the skinning process, which I end up quite enjoying doing actually.
The animation was done entirely using just bone and skinning so I was able to export it into UE4 and render the sequence out of it.
Well that's a lot of bones. Great work.