Marleen's MA Game Art Thread
polycounter lvl 8
So I'd want to keep up a thread with all the work I am doing during my MA Game Art at Hertfordshire. I have seen some incredible progress on the last years' threads so I hope I can keep up something similar to motivate me.
The first weeks I will be posting mostly art from a course called "Practice 1 Media". Basically 7 one week projects of which two are fleshed out in 3 weeks at the end of the semester. All these weeks have different themes.
First one: Red chases Blue
I tried learning some Marvelous Designer. Up untill now I mostly made stylistic characters and I lacked the knowledge to make realistic characters. I mostly "faked" those stylistic characters as well. I did not know much about anatomy and I did not use much reference. This all frustrated me because I felt like I was cheating. I really want to use Marvelous to make some realistic clothes again!
Second one: Places of the Mind. Giving a try at realistic zBrushing. It's all very rushed as I wanted to focus more on character design, which didn't really work out in the end.
The first weeks I will be posting mostly art from a course called "Practice 1 Media". Basically 7 one week projects of which two are fleshed out in 3 weeks at the end of the semester. All these weeks have different themes.
First one: Red chases Blue
I tried learning some Marvelous Designer. Up untill now I mostly made stylistic characters and I lacked the knowledge to make realistic characters. I mostly "faked" those stylistic characters as well. I did not know much about anatomy and I did not use much reference. This all frustrated me because I felt like I was cheating. I really want to use Marvelous to make some realistic clothes again!
Second one: Places of the Mind. Giving a try at realistic zBrushing. It's all very rushed as I wanted to focus more on character design, which didn't really work out in the end.
Replies
Before I chose a character I wanted to play the game first. One of the first things I noticed were the awful word-jokes in every single name. As a child I did not understand these because my English wasn’t that good yet, but right now I still love the game. The jokes only make it better.
I'm lucky there is still an original concept art picture to find on the internet:
This is the work I did today:
I started blocking out the shapes and looking which subtools I would need. I will take most back to Maya. The legs and arms still need a lot of work. On one side I am worried that her face is not going to be recognized, but I don't want to use the style the concept art is drawn in. Not sure yet if I am going to use another face, I like this more adult look...
Just remember you have to cite all of the alphas you use that you didn't make and didn't come with the software
Today I mainly worked on creating a own custom zBrush UI. Pretty happy with how it is now, but I really need to move the left bar to the right, easier to access with the tablet pen
Why do you need so much junk on your UI - cintiq ?
I thought that putting everything in my UI would speed up my process, but it was overcrowded yeh. I removed some junk and moved the bars to the right positions.
You have less things to distract you on the screen / don't have to move so much to get what you want as if you assign it to a hot key will always appear where your pointer is / good organization with this approach /
For now this project "Memories and Nostalgia" is finished. I am happy with some parts, but some parts really need a rework. Shoes are still in blockout but I am happy with the whole first pass overall. The brief for next week is "Light and Shadow". I want to focus on making a scene where I can render my characters in Unreal with different lighting set-ups and different backgrounds. I need to find some good tutorials because lighting is a big weakness for me, but I look forward on working on it!
This video shows what I have been working on for the last week. The assignment was basically to use lighting in Unreal. I have used Unreal before at my internship, but I never used blueprints or created a lighting set-up so this was all new for me. The goal for me was to create a scene where I would be able to show off some of my works in different lighting set-ups and different views. I struggled a lot but I was determined to get the whole thing to work. It might be easy to create in the end, but for someone with not a lot of knowledge of blueprints/coding it took me a while to understand. I like doing it though
Tips on creating a good lighting set-up in Unreal are very welcome. As I am still very new to this I would really appreciate some
(for this scene I used models that I already made before)
Continuing on what I am doing right now;
The Queen Voluptua lowpoly. For the 3D printing brief I have chosen her. I don't know yet which materials we are allowed to use, but if we can use the white powder printer I definately want to use that one to add another model to my collection
And the brief I have chosen to progress further; the traditional Dutch girl. I mainly want to focus on making a realistic character. I already love the clothing a lot, so I decided I wanted to focus on (facial) anatomy. I know there definately is something wrong with her, around the eyes? Or the jaw? But I have been staring at it for too long and can't spot the mistakes anymore at the moment... Would someone be able to help me? Tips on how to achieve a realistic sculpt are also very appreciated. Btw, I used Doutzen Kroes as reference and the hair is just temporary...
Critiques are still very welcome as I will come back to this project in a few weeks.
Another issue is in your materials themselves, particularly the black parts. There are very few materials that are so dark that they absorb all light. And due to the varying angles across the waves of the fabric, you would probably see a lot more of the fresnel type cloth reflections (caused by micro anisotropy).
All that said, i know how much time you had to work on it and how much other stuff goes on at the same time (multiple essays etc.) so it's a decent result =]
The second brief that I will explore is the Tribal Guy one. I got really stuck into progressing this further during the brief because I couldn't make a character design. But the moment I touched it again it seemed to flow easier than it did before. Currently I have made everything up until the first texture pass. I still need to make the tribal minions and pose him after that.
vs. 2017
And my year recap of 2017! I like to do this every year to see my progress. While last year I wasn't able to even fill the 9 spots, this year I had made too many projects. Left top is the oldest to bottom right is the newest. I am happy with the progress I made this year, but there is still so much to learn. The master at Hertfordshire has already payed off a lot, I'm curious to see what my next projects will be. Let's see what next year will bring!
So the last three days I have been working on the Search For a Star contest. The deadline is in two weeks and I hope to finish it in time...
Textures of the clothing are a combination of Substance Painter and Photoshop. Skin textures were done in 3D coat with the photo's that were in the 3d.sk christmas packages and a combination of Photoshop.
model
So I've been helping out a bit with making a character for the Hertfordshire third year final project "The Resistance". You should absolutely check it out if you haven't done that yet, these students are making something absolutely amazing! https://forums.unrealengine.com/community/work-in-progress/1364232-the-resistance/page4
It's good to finally make another model that is actually going into a game, instead of making something just for practice or my portfolio
So this week we started on a live-project brief from Rewind. It's very open. We received some concept art of a dystopian world which showed mostly snow, (after)warzone, mechs and some empty buildings in what seems around Poland. The brief was to either make a garage for the mechs or make the pilot. We have four weeks for it.
Today I've been working on some concept art for the character that I want to make. It's been a very long time since I have tried to make some futuristic stuff, but I'm ready to give it a try again ^^
So for this character I was thinking that he is humanoid, but heavily modified. Hands and legs are replaced with robotic parts and seeing his "one eye" you discover that this guy isn't actually human, or that he might once have been. I really would like to add some animation to the eye of the model to make it possible to give him expressions with just that eye. Humans use their eyes a lot to express their feelings, so I might have some fun with that. His torso will be the only part to contain the "flesh" body, so that is the only part that need to be packed warmly. The rest is robotic anyway, so doesn't really need to stay that warm.
Some parts in the concept aren't really right, but it is more of a guideline when I start in 3D. Still; Critiques are very much appreciated
If his torso is where the remains of his fleshy body reside, then having his old organs visible through an outer shell (General Grievous style) could provide a interesting part of the design.
I've made a really simple blockout and started on polishing the face a little bit more to test out how to do hardsurface. And it is HARD! Way harder than organic stuff
Today I finished detailing the mask. Moving on to the Marvelous part tomorrow. Hoping to finish the complete highpoly by next week...
The last days I've been working on the upper body. The head is a low decimated version for now, because else the polycount gets too high and I still need to make the thumb. The coming days I will be working on redesigning the legs. Currently I'm having a lot of fun with this project, it's different compared to what I've made before and adding those mechanical parts in is really enjoyable, even if it's just a little.
Some progress from the last couple of days
I had done quite a lot these last couple of days. The final lowpoly is 63k triangles, with 3 4k materials. Today I decided that I wanted to create the environment, so I spend my day on that. The deadline is Tuesday (for me at least) and I wanted to at least show a little environment so the cyborg wouldn't be boring to look at. He's going to be presented in the ViveVR, so a little something around it would be nice. The environment is not really that well made (quite some problems with baking in Unreal that I still need to fix), but it was better than nothing. Tomorrow I hope to finish the final version of the cyborg's textures, as there are still quite some things left to be fixed. I also want to add some decals etc. And finally adding some animations as well
The environment is drawing alot of attention though, if your cyborg is supposed to be the center of attention you could do some changes to your scene. For example making the orange of your env. textures less saturated, and or light the env. less than your robot.
Just some thoughts, keep your good work up!
So last couple of weeks I posted mainly finished stuff. A couple of days ago I finished my last model for The Resistance. You can find the characters that I have created for that on my Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/mGyde . From today on I will continue on the start of the research and design for my final MA project, so you can expect more WIP stuff!
Finally starting a new large project to do next to my final major project for the weekends! Sadie the Goat/ Sadie Farell, a pirate known for her headbutting. I will combine her story into a goat/demon-captain. I had a lot more to show but then I took a blue to the screen when I tried to save
Some more progress on the pirate ladies face. ready to blockout the body and look a bit deeper into the concept.
And here's the start for my final major project! The deadline is the 15th of August. I will redesign the character Vivienne from Dragon Age: Inquisition to a style referenced from Dishonored 2. My goal isn't to completely copy the Dishonored style, I will use it for a reference. Everything is going to be presented in a throne room environment similar to both Dishonored and DA:I. She is going to be fully animated with some blendshape animations as well on her face.
For the last two days I worked on the face and anatomy. I've come to the conclusion that the anatomy in Dishonored for women is actually pretty weird. The arms all seem to be very short compared to the body, but because many of the trousers are pulled up so high it doesn't seem to be that way. As for the long neck; Viviennes original concept has a really long neck, I wanted to bring that back with a bit more elegance than the original 3D model in DA:I. Also many of the women in Dishonored are very flat and thin. I added a bit more fat on the hips and bust area. Although she is going to be fully covered up with clothes, feedback would still be greatly appreciated
Some more progress, slowpoly working up to down
Need to finish the left-hand armour part and then I'm done with the first pass on the upper body. Critique on the designs are very much appreciated
Actually, I'm also interested in your re-design of the facial features. I have no idea what kind of character Vivienne is (and that's why I'm asking), but the original head looks a lot rounder and softer than your interpretation. Also if I consider the original modeling being 'dishonored-fied' I'd imagine it taking more advantage of angular structures over harsher wrinkling. Was there a certain aspect of the character you wanted to explore? Not to put you on the spot or anything.. just curious.
The last week I worked on finishing the highpoly and creating the lowpoly, around 50k triangles. The coming days I will spend on fixing some parts like the back of the boots that don't really fit the rest of the character, the connection between the padding and the hood and UVing her.
I also am looking for a rigger+/animator. First I would like to have a simple standing posed idle animation, but however the time permits I would love to have an animator go all out on her and create something cool
First day of texturing... Right now I'm thinking of keeping it pretty monochrome. Trying to improve readability. Not happy with it yet, there are quite some things that need to change.
So I managed to finish the clothing texturing yesterday night. After looking at it this morning I think that the bottom leather part of the coat definitely needs thickness to it. I also might add a few folds/ stitches because it feels so empty... Next up I will probably add some more polygons to the folds of the trousers and sleeve. After fixing that moving on to the skin. Would love some feedback on the texturing. (The pose is done in a couple of minutes using Mixamo, just to test out the design)
So it has been quite a while since I last showed something of my project. I went of playing with the environment but I wasn't really satisfied with the textures so I decided to come back to it again. I hope it reads better now. I went a little over the top on purpose with the make-up, but I would love to know what you guys think!. I really didn't like the version on the left so I did a rework (the right side) with all the feedback that I got. All the jewellery on the right side is still WIP. Most of the rework is in the textures. I added for example normals in the coat, and repainted some (normal) information on the face, like the eyebags and the eyebrows. I added some geometry on the coat, belt and horns.
So these changes might see small, but I fixed the last problems with the model before moving on to rigging the model! Fixed the scarf and ear textures/normal. Textures are finished now (I guess??). I started with creating blendshapes for the first time. Having a lot of fun with them! I have two sets: one for the eyes and one for full facial expressions/mouth. Since I'm just posing the characters with an idle animation I don't have to do a full range of blendshapes, even though I would love to explore it.
This year was incredible for me as I have learned so much. After I finished my BA I ad a couple of characters in my portfolio, but they were not good enough to land me a job as a character artist. I knew that if I wanted to enter the industry as a character artist I would need this year to work so hard. In the end I managed to earn a job as a Graduate Character Artist at Frontier in Cambridge. My year at Hertfordshire not only improved my portfolio a lot, but also critical thinking and more managing/researching skills have made me better than I was before. All in all the MA Games Art and Design was definitely worth it for me!
More detailed pictures on my Artstation: All Final Pictures
I made the character, full animations and rigging/skinning. Part of the models are mine, although some models are also from Turbosquid and have been retextured. I did put together the environment/lighting/cinematic as well.
btw; if you want to ask me any questions about the MA (or anything else) don't hesitate to ask them, I'd gladly answer them
I will probably continue any personal projects now in my personal thread which has been inactive for the past year when I was using this one