very cool. im digging the mashup of old and new. the pickup truck just screams 50s but this last one you posted looks like its from the 90s. i envy your speed.
ps, did you happen to sign any gears 2 posters at comicon 2008? i got a poster signed by a bunch of people from epic, just curious if yours was on there too. theyre pretty illegible. heh
o wow. HI poly cars are a real challenge, I guess tho that since you weren't creating this off a real life car made the process go by a lot quicker since you had a lot more freedom to be creative here. Thats awesome by the way....keep em coming man, my kevin johnstone folder is slowly growing!
Well that was just an quick example.This is how i try to do meshes like you but i can say im lightyears behind.
*Make a basemesh in Max 2k9
*Export it to Mudbox
*Detail the mesh,Usually ends up in a couple of million polys
*Export a highres and a mediumres model back to Max
*Import both meshes,hide the highpoly and run prooptimizer on the mediumres model
*Now when the mediumres is pretty much a lowpoly model i use the highpolymesh as a projection mesh to extract all maps i need,AO map,normalmap,hightmap and diffuse.
Im pretty much stuck at the optimizer stage
Also can i ask if you can post some wires of your fantastic work?I really want to see wires of the lowpoly meshes
Im curious on the texture end of things what the teams approach is. Was having a discussion with a friend yesterday about it and neither of us could really say for sure. Most the env stuff is so noisy, you could get away with polypainting colors, with a little photo sourcing to boot. That was my guess atleast. Can you reveal any of that pipeline?
Arsh: awesome, if I can just hobble the competition like this I'm set!
5-8 days seems fast to me too, but I was doing double the normal hours by the time I moved on to the cars, I'd certainly want double the time I quoted if I were doing them outside of crunch!
I tend to budget my time by what I feel is important in terms of reuseability,
I think I fall into the pattern in general of making something simple and portable quite quickly ( Like the HI/LOW/Process of brick walls in a couple days), then following through with something a bit fancier and decorative that can be laid on top of the plain pieces in a variety of ways, usually takes 4 or 5 days.
Stim: I can't really speak for the texture side of the pipeline too well, I just handle the lego production side of things. Maybe Maury or Jordan can field a question like that as they do texturing and modelling.
Zero: I'm not sure, I remember I signed an awful lot of posters, I remember talk about some of them being for ComicCon... maybe?
i'm not sure if i'm 100% right on this... but:
say if your doing something basic e.g a plank of wood.... if you were planning to have it just in 3ds max, you would add edgeloops just around the edges for support... but if its zbrush,, you want to insert heaps of edges until you kind of have a tesselating square pattern across the entire surface before you smooth it??....
Artsy: That Gridlock shot is old, I replaced the van and the pickup and one of those cars. See Mikey Spano had made a bunch of the old vehicles ( with a tougher deadline than myself I might add!!), but in Gears2 they decided they wanted the doors, hood, wheels to come off and needed windscreens be breakable so it made more sense to redo them than try to frankenstein those pieces from the originals which were not designed for that.
i am such a fan of Gears, got both games and played it a lot! Just a pity its so frikken short. They should look at what made metal gear solid 4 such a great success. (hunch hunch)
Sad thing is tho, you have such great models, and its kind of a pity even with all the hard work in those amazing models, the game engine kills the effort that was put into making those stunning artworks. Just imagine, if that game reflected all those detail as you presented on this website like that, the game would probably be the best looking game ever. I know its all about poly count, but then...they should look at this, maybe one day we can see our models in full glory as it should be. Insane detail, love it!!! Kick their butt in Gears 3 and tell them they should make even a more awesome game.
i am such a fan of Gears, got both games and played it a lot! Just a pity its so frikken short. They should look at what made metal gear solid 4 such a great success. (hunch hunch)
Sad thing is tho, you have such great models, and its kind of a pity even with all the hard work in those amazing models, the game engine kills the effort that was put into making those stunning artworks. Just imagine, if that game reflected all those detail as you presented on this website like that, the game would probably be the best looking game ever. I know its all about poly count, but then...they should look at this, maybe one day we can see our models in full glory as it should be. Insane detail, love it!!! Kick their butt in Gears 3 and tell them they should make even a more awesome game.
MGS4 wasn't a success. Well I'm just going to say that Gears 2 was a good length. And MGS4 wasn't that good.
Also... these are high poly models... no game engine is going to take them.
Imagine if you looked at those assets in the game... i know it is a stretch ... but a lot of that high poly data is there.
i know i know... lol....maybe i was just pushing for a more epic game lol.
I go back a lot in my games...stop and pause and look at how detail of certain elements were made and get new ideas of my own how to solve my problems. He he we all love to dream
lol i totally agree with arshvelon :P your stuff is so good it makes me think whats the point :P but then i think, hey, maybe one day i can be that good
holy detail! love the amount of work and effort that went into make each of these pieces so indredible, both individually and collectively. superb work, and thanks for sharing!
Kevin, you're a master of the craft, I have to wonder, do you still get giddy and excited about video games, about going to work at Epic the types of things that made you thrive to get were you are or do you ever feel like "been there, done that"?
Also, how drastically has decimation master improved your workflows? (if at all)
I love all the details that you guys sculpt/model there at Epic...it honestly makes me excited (sorry...I cant contain my inner geek.) Out of curiosity, and I'm sure this has been asked somewhere in this thread, but how much time do you get to model something like the truck a couple of pages back? It feels like the engine components would take a few days alone.
The other night I was playing the first resident evil on PS3 and realized that when it first came out and I played it on a JAP import PS1, I bunked off the work experience part of the college course I was doing to play it. I only took the course to get the government grant so I could get a PC in time for Qtest1 so I could learn to make games anyway.
It's great to be sitting where I am now and looking back at that.
I've also been playing the new Wipeout HD Fury add on and loving how thats been updated and again, remember the other versions, the first time I played the demo on PS1 and was amazed at how different and cool it was compared to other games back then.
I'm really not jaded like I ought to be, I still love playing games. I'm jaded in terms of the press and the shows and the media/developer/publisher commentary that goes on, I mean I've heard it all before and didn't really care too much about the buzzwords to start with!
I'm just as excited at work too, every game we make here looks better than the last and is more fun, its great seeing the tech improvements, fun to move on to new themes and new games and inspiring to see others around me pushing onward.
Really, it's not the case that you have to become a jaded old hack and turn your dream job into just another job after x amount of years. Things have only improved for me because I am growing more comfortable with myself and more sure of how things will go in the future.
Oh and times for things are listed through out the thread.
Man thats awesome to hear... I've always been afraid that it'd happen to me like that
Its hard to play a game anymore without tearing it apart artistically and technically in my head. Its kind of a reoccurring thing for me, I learned guitar, then I couldn't just listen to and enjoy music the same, learning game art, now every little flaw is noticeable and every masterpiece is amazing inspiring and discouraging all at the same time lo
If you have the time, give fat princess a spin, its a blast if you get on page with it.
The other night I was playing the first resident evil on PS3 and realized that when it first came out and I played it on a JAP import PS1, I bunked off the work experience part of the college course I was doing to play it. I only took the course to get the government grant so I could get a PC in time for Qtest1 so I could learn to make games anyway.
It's great to be sitting where I am now and looking back at that.
What a success story! That makes me appreciate your work even more man, knowing that you must have had your own struggle to get started. I'm looking forward to the next project you can pimp.
Oh and times for things are listed through out the thread.
Woops...my bad! I thought I read everything in your posts but missed that one tid-bit of info.
But again, amazing work. Everything Epic does is insanely inspiring...it's great to hear that you still enjoy doing what you do. It makes people who arent in the industry yet feel that much more encouraged and motivated. Thanks for sharing man
Cool stuff, do you ever worry about stuff becoming too busy/noisy? I guess that is pretty much the gears style, but the lack of eye rest was something that jumped out at me.
abusively detailed....although, you have an awesome eye for distribution and that makes the unsubtle a pleasure to watch, amazing work mr Johnstone!!!!
Predator - Aye, it worried me all through Gears2 development, but that was the art direction and the concepts pushed this. We ( env artists ) had to rely on the LD's controlling the noise more with how they broke things up with rocks and shadows, but the aim was to get that OTT crypt level of detail I think.
I've pulled back as much as the concepts allowed on Gears3 so we'll see how that goes down, but at the end of the day , its Gears of War you know?
Do you never think 'Damn, these huge swords in Darksiders are pretty dumb?' or 'gee, should the characters heads be so squished ?' heh
Its the style right? Some of us dig that, some of us don't but thats the art direction right ?
Replies
ps, did you happen to sign any gears 2 posters at comicon 2008? i got a poster signed by a bunch of people from epic, just curious if yours was on there too. theyre pretty illegible. heh
edit: oh you said that before :P sorry
@Thewiruz
Instead of polycruncher try using this, it's great (and for now, it's free):
http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/
you mind disclosing the amount of time you spent on those cars? pretty high quality stuff, wondering on how you guys budget your time.
Arsh: awesome, if I can just hobble the competition like this I'm set!
5-8 days seems fast to me too, but I was doing double the normal hours by the time I moved on to the cars, I'd certainly want double the time I quoted if I were doing them outside of crunch!
I tend to budget my time by what I feel is important in terms of reuseability,
I think I fall into the pattern in general of making something simple and portable quite quickly ( Like the HI/LOW/Process of brick walls in a couple days), then following through with something a bit fancier and decorative that can be laid on top of the plain pieces in a variety of ways, usually takes 4 or 5 days.
Stim: I can't really speak for the texture side of the pipeline too well, I just handle the lego production side of things. Maybe Maury or Jordan can field a question like that as they do texturing and modelling.
Zero: I'm not sure, I remember I signed an awful lot of posters, I remember talk about some of them being for ComicCon... maybe?
Thanks for posting this stuff! It's super inspirational. It's pretty much single- handedly inspired me to start learning zBrush (it's the future!)
Keep it up!
say if your doing something basic e.g a plank of wood.... if you were planning to have it just in 3ds max, you would add edgeloops just around the edges for support... but if its zbrush,, you want to insert heaps of edges until you kind of have a tesselating square pattern across the entire surface before you smooth it??....
I was wondering about the brick walls for example, after you bake the details down to a plane which you then deform it.
When you shell the plane, are both sides of the wall using the same uvspace, and you then unwrap the sides and bake the highpoly to them?
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14232680/gears-of-war-2/images/gears-of-war-2-20081014111502177.html'>
EDIT:
And I think that's the van.
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14232680/gears-of-war-2/images/gears-of-war-2-20080625074342517.html'>
The final game product looks a lot different from KJ's beauty shots. Plus I'm sure they have many different texture variants.
Great, now I can't stop looking at GOW2 screenshots. There's just too much good stuff.
how much time did u get per asset?
btw i really dig ur last few renders, would you mind sharing ur render/material setup u used for the vehicles?
Sad thing is tho, you have such great models, and its kind of a pity even with all the hard work in those amazing models, the game engine kills the effort that was put into making those stunning artworks. Just imagine, if that game reflected all those detail as you presented on this website like that, the game would probably be the best looking game ever. I know its all about poly count, but then...they should look at this, maybe one day we can see our models in full glory as it should be. Insane detail, love it!!! Kick their butt in Gears 3 and tell them they should make even a more awesome game.
MGS4 wasn't a success. Well I'm just going to say that Gears 2 was a good length. And MGS4 wasn't that good.
Also... these are high poly models... no game engine is going to take them.
Imagine if you looked at those assets in the game... i know it is a stretch
I go back a lot in my games...stop and pause and look at how detail of certain elements were made and get new ideas of my own how to solve my problems. He he we all love to dream
Also, how drastically has decimation master improved your workflows? (if at all)
The other night I was playing the first resident evil on PS3 and realized that when it first came out and I played it on a JAP import PS1, I bunked off the work experience part of the college course I was doing to play it. I only took the course to get the government grant so I could get a PC in time for Qtest1 so I could learn to make games anyway.
It's great to be sitting where I am now and looking back at that.
I've also been playing the new Wipeout HD Fury add on and loving how thats been updated and again, remember the other versions, the first time I played the demo on PS1 and was amazed at how different and cool it was compared to other games back then.
I'm really not jaded like I ought to be, I still love playing games. I'm jaded in terms of the press and the shows and the media/developer/publisher commentary that goes on, I mean I've heard it all before and didn't really care too much about the buzzwords to start with!
I'm just as excited at work too, every game we make here looks better than the last and is more fun, its great seeing the tech improvements, fun to move on to new themes and new games and inspiring to see others around me pushing onward.
Really, it's not the case that you have to become a jaded old hack and turn your dream job into just another job after x amount of years. Things have only improved for me because I am growing more comfortable with myself and more sure of how things will go in the future.
Oh and times for things are listed through out the thread.
Its hard to play a game anymore without tearing it apart artistically and technically in my head. Its kind of a reoccurring thing for me, I learned guitar, then I couldn't just listen to and enjoy music the same, learning game art, now every little flaw is noticeable and every masterpiece is amazing inspiring and discouraging all at the same time lo
If you have the time, give fat princess a spin, its a blast if you get on page with it.
What a success story! That makes me appreciate your work even more man, knowing that you must have had your own struggle to get started. I'm looking forward to the next project you can pimp.
Woops...my bad! I thought I read everything in your posts but missed that one tid-bit of info.
But again, amazing work. Everything Epic does is insanely inspiring...it's great to hear that you still enjoy doing what you do. It makes people who arent in the industry yet feel that much more encouraged and motivated. Thanks for sharing man
your our inspiration for our hard surface modeling stuff!!! awesome man just purely awesome
thanks for sharing !!!
Predator - Aye, it worried me all through Gears2 development, but that was the art direction and the concepts pushed this. We ( env artists ) had to rely on the LD's controlling the noise more with how they broke things up with rocks and shadows, but the aim was to get that OTT crypt level of detail I think.
I've pulled back as much as the concepts allowed on Gears3 so we'll see how that goes down, but at the end of the day , its Gears of War you know?
Do you never think 'Damn, these huge swords in Darksiders are pretty dumb?' or 'gee, should the characters heads be so squished ?' heh
Its the style right? Some of us dig that, some of us don't but thats the art direction right ?