Sketchbook: Fabi_G
high dynamic range
Hi! I want to use this thread to document my side-projects and to keep motivated. I am happy about feedback how to improve things 
Boar-Creature
Created this model for weeklyCGChallenge #131, the theme was "Forest Creature".
My goal was to get a bit more into sculpting. Also creating something that looks furry seemed like a good challenge.
Given the short time-frame I rushed things a bit, this is quite noticeable with the textures and the polygon count.
model (sketchfab)
model
screenshot (sketchfab)
sketches
highpoly sculpt
Boar-Creature
Created this model for weeklyCGChallenge #131, the theme was "Forest Creature".
My goal was to get a bit more into sculpting. Also creating something that looks furry seemed like a good challenge.
Given the short time-frame I rushed things a bit, this is quite noticeable with the textures and the polygon count.
model (sketchfab)
model
screenshot (sketchfab)
sketches
highpoly sculpt
Replies
- Have to examine how to create hair in a less painful way
Regarding hair, I will look into hair-particles. Also, I will try to achieve more likeliness.
Once I am through with all the characters, I want to go back and apply what I have learned to all of them.
I will pause this project some to work on a scene for the latest weekly CG challenge with the Theme "AI".
I'm imaging a soft child robot in a raincoat reading some binary-graffiti in a dark alley. Sketch:
First, I made a block-out of the scene in blender. This was fairly quick. Then uploaded it to sketchfab, to get an idea of the end-result.
Block-out:
After that, things didn't go too smooth.
I spent some good amount of time on the UVs. Often, I'm uncertain about when to stack UVs but therefore having overlaps when baking (like AO). For now, I didn't stack UVs and it feels like I am wasting some space
For the texturing, I finally tried Quixel - ndo and ddo. I don't feel efficient in the tool yet, lots of googling for answers. Rocky road.
Even when working with the scanned materials as base, I'm struggling to get the PBR-values right.
shot from sketchfab-viewer:
So far, I like the block-out more. Maybe because it's more clear? In future projects, I shall think more about the style beforehand. Hopefully I'll be more confident when making decisions then.
I plan to finish the scene in the coming days and see it as a learning experience
Continued with the western-heads. This time I extracted blueprints first, to use in the views. I think this had positive effect on the head-profile.
Extracted some blueprints first. The concept is from Vlad Ghenelis' Wild West Challenge.
Blueprint
model
Learned a lot in the process, but there is room for improvements
I started working on some hard surface props (ships / boats).
Just today I learned how to achieve face weighted normals in blender, hurray
I will try to do some quick, casual models for "sculptjanuary" and use this to do some experiments 🤞
Old trunk - used curve deformers for mushrooms, data transfer to non destructive transfer vertex color
Bubble Gum - compound primitives and voxel remesher
03-Horns
- created pattern using curves with re-mesh and decimate modifier
- used instanced collections for horns
Touched up a 3d sketch of brain knight. Uses baked maps for the head, else tiling textures/trim.
Maybe in the future I will transfer the sketch into a rigged game ready character :)
A 3d sketch based on Blaizers' artwork in 2D concept bank
Lion Fountain based on nice concept in 2D concept bank by Meagen Ruttan
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/lion-fountain-5104b16136ab47ac841b8477f9df4779#UNIQSKFBVANILLA
Small statue based on an old sketch
(#UNIQSKFBVANILLA)
Another 3d sketch based on a cool concept from 2d ConceptBank thread by Aidar98
Made some progress with a bridge environment
edit: added image
Small project for Bi-Monthly Environment Challenge
Currently expanding some old game we made. Some rough tile-sets mock-ups
The players are in the same place at different times. Have to suppress the urge to redo all the graphics, so many shortcomings and "what was I thinking" moments 🤪
Also sort of finished a plant container for bi monthly environment challenge
It was cool to come up with a python script which then actually worked 🙏
Continued a bit with the never ending bridge environment 🤪
Decided to introduce landscape into the experiment. Since I find the landscape tools in Unreal a bit tedious, I currently have the landscape set up in blender for sculpting. It's then rendered to textures (height, masks) which are updated in unreal. Steep borders of cliffs are masked out in landscape material and are filled by cliff meshes. General idea is to build cliffs from large meshes using tiling maps combined with smaller cliff modules for details.
current scene
landscape in blender
On the character side, I continue to learn MD. Big fan of the MGS5 uniforms.
Some spooky house
A robot
Big boy in progress
https://sketchfab.com/models/61ac2de5081a42f8bac09ab25d8b4f05/#UNIQSKFBVANILLA
Want to do something for the artstation challenge, but first I have to fix a bluescreen issue 🤪
Turned out a ram module was bad and I had to send it in. Note to self, do memtest early on :) On the other hand, it was about time to do a fresh windows install and backup data.
Also received the covid at last. Not the worst case, but still some shit days.
I didn't find any concepts from the artstation challenge yet that had me super hyped. I'm currently doing some illustrations for a friend. Struggling with 2d and especially color, but due to the deadline I don't have time to overthink too much.
These are cool, alongside subject matter also liking the neutral de-saturated tonal values and light & dark shadow contrasts.
By the way just curious as to what program, if digital you're painting with?
Edit;
Likewise, even though not covid I'm still getting over the flu (it's winter/spring here in Australia) so this time around really got hit hard for nearly a month, most of it bedridden which is ironic I'm vax'd up too the eyeballs for corona but not influenza....meh! probably sods law.
Anyhow hope you're doing well.
Cheers.
Hey :) Thanks for stopping by and for the encouraging words, much appreciated!
So far, I have stuck with the old Photoshop CS2 for personal projects. I try to switch to Affinity Photo now and then, but deeply ingrained habits made me return to PS. This project originally started in 3d, black and white, rendered in UE5, I only started overpainting in PS when adding colors. A bit overkill in hindsight, but fun (plus hopefully some learnings for future projects). Some earlier steps:
Luckily I'm fully functional again 🍻
All the best to you too, defeating that flue and defying winter 💪☕️
Built a small scene with this asset made for the bi monthly environment challenge.
an earlier version:
A short flythrough sequence (bit potato quality, got to work on that) on artstation project.
some fun with enemy mockups for a friends prototype
Overpaint for a scene, some kind of tomb or temple.
Base render from blender
Rock
Minotaur Statue
Another rock
Playing with with the models in Unreal
A scavenger creature from the gothic games series
looking at it now, I think the design needs improvement, the legs and feet for example.
Edit: some overpaint of possible changes
Small project for bi-monthly environment challenge. Wanted to try out ways to animate it. For the looping fabric I tried a bone chain at first, then alembic mesh animation, finally settled with animating UV offset in Toolbag.
small experiment 🏹
some more experiments