Got this low poly done and been working on some texture.
Though i've figured out i should move on. Get a life.
I could go with building something else now.
Therefor i will be leaving you without textures for now! maybe i will wrap these up over the next few months, but it is time to do something else first.
However, i did make some screenshots and threw together an explaination of unwrapping,
Don't expect much of it and don't pay attention to spelling. Will need to clean it up a bit. http://www.artbyrens.com/uvworkflow.php
Rens I am angry that you're not being offered jobs, angry I tell you!
Your stuff is great, only thing your folio is missing is more 3D stuff designed entirely by you
Honestly 343 should hire you, yesterday. Remake Halo 1 in UDK and coincide it's release with the new Halo
But more on topic: Loving the bake on the shotgun, max or xnormal?
Fuck, If I had the money I would hire you tomorrow! Anyway keep doing what you are doing and you will surely attract some attention. May I ask why you are remaking everything thats Halo related? Favourite game or you thought you could make a better job? Just curious to know what drives a man.
Oniram, glad it can help some
The grip does look a bit out of style and soft, maybe some normalmapped details/patterns on it will help it out.
Skamberin, It is oke man :P
I never expected them to hire me just because i am doing some halo pieces.
That would be a silly thing to do.
I don't blame them either, cause at the end of the day they need to pick what is best for the company, and an overseas kid with no exp is not it.
I suppose a job now would be nice
I'm done messing around and want to roll with the big boys now.
I enjoy working on things by myself but it just feels empty. Would be nice to be somewhere new, meet new people and work on things together.
As for the normalmap, i tested both out. I baked everything in an "exploded" way, so it could be done all at once. Max gave me a clean result, while with xnormal i had a lot of weird deformed shades in my normals. Almost making it look like my red channel was inverted. I also tried baking a few single pieces in xnormal, but that gave me the same results. Still not sure why it does this and why it sometimes works better or worse. Main reason i like it is that it handles large zbrush files vs having to import it into chunks in max.
Coldhands,
Thanks a lot man,
I did a bunch of halo things cause i love the stories/universe, making motivation a no brainer aswell.
It was a way of just doing more and enjoying what i could do with it, not so much "give me a job cause look at me".
It would come natural though that 343 would be a favorite studio to work at.
But there is more out there then that.
As skamberin mentioned, i have little things in my portfolio that are totaly my own mix of things, so now would be a good time to move on from practicing skills to applying them. Won't say that i will never come back to this, though it needs a long break.
Thanks for the compliments guys, means a lot and kept me happy during long dark cave days. Been a good ride for now.
I still think you can do anything and work anywhere--you've worked damn hard enough for that.
But, if working at a studio in Europe for a while is the next step, get some real life experience under your belt, and from there find your way over to North America, even 343, then so be it.
It's all possible, it's just about finding the realistic way to do it.
Even so, pretty dumb that 343 hasn't hired you yet. :P
your UV mapping tips are quality, really easy to follow. Is only this year i began "resetting xform", glad you do confirm some stuff. Also i do like the black pixel of death naming.
Is the Festival of Games in Utrecht at end of April... careers days also.. might be of interest to you? Go if you can?!
@ Mezz... oh shit i totally crossed my wires and totally made a fool of myself, am getting used to it now. Where is the tutorial for not making a fool ever.
Opened the file for my AR again and thought it was only fair to post the rifle attempt,
It was fun when i started this, cause the design seems to have some nice shapes to it, but i .. fuckedup on the lowpoly and texture. It is actualy too lowpoly and should use alot more detail, specialy aiming for a piece for these days/portfolio.
I also included a fpview cause i know that will be asked for, but yeah,
it comes down to delete, sleep, start with something else and dont suck as much.
Moosey, who knows! working with artem on a project would be killer.
seth, thanks man, and np, i might do an update on that sometime, make it a bit cleaner and add some tricks.
artem, highfive!
I will be trying your rendermaterial and see if i can get a result that comes close to what you create. I will be stealing that smoothinggroup bevel trick aswell :P
ged, hehehe, yeah felt like i normalmapped too little, and for some reason i had that counter still in, is a bit odd since a display should be flat.. oops.
It does add definition, but yeah, the counter should not be in the texture, should be seperate so it can be animated.
raul, thanks! then im sure you will like the next one
lazerus, hahaha
I am really curious to that remake, should be good fun.
I have not applied to Bungie in a while, i have been trying my luck at 343 industries. maybe with enough work and a visa my luck will change at some point.
Cheez, good to hear from you man!
You should get that halo art dump of yours up sometime, keeping us from all the bad ass stuff you have been working on.
pedro, *\o/*
8, *\o/* *\o/*
grim, thanks, it can be done alot better and the settings are wrong :P
-caugh- shader spot on the nose of the rifle too, oops.
Ok so for now i just got what ive been working on yesterday,
I got tired of having to go into menus and grabbing what i need.
Instead you can create your own menus and toolbars in max, and drag in any option you want.
For work i added groups/export options since i use that alot, or if you animate you can add those. Try making your own panels to speed up the process.
I really like to use the reset x form from this menu cause it will auto collapse.
Also you can set everything to your rightmouse menu and keyboard.
I will look more into customizations and see if i can upload something useful that does not replace all your settings, just adds a new bar to it.
I will atleast upload my keyboard settings soon so you can have a go at it.
(basicly replaces uselesskeys with editable poly tools/modifiers i need)
well eventhough some are nice, it beats the point of keeping it basic and keeping modifiers near hand. It is not only about the tricks and smart scripts, but also about most used options that normaly take time to grab if not set to a hotkey.
Having to search between colorful icons to find what i was looking for is just what i try to avoid.
Nice work Rens. Your points about the rifle are good and all, but it's still nice Definitely a tad low poly for first person these days, but 3rd person it looks great.
Learn and apply to your next piece Which I look forward to seeing.
Oh shit, you guys remember this thread!?
Man those were the days of delivering new pieces.
I have not shown anything new in a long time, not because i slowed down but I have been reading tons of tech about games instead. Leaning into another direction for a while.
I miss building things and because of that I took a spin in my career and am looking at freelancing for a while now.
With time on my hands I finaly managed to finish this piece, so happy its done because even now the last few days I have been pushing it and my head is spinning.
I will be posting a follow up with some breakdowns, what kind of work went into this and how I set things up, for now im going to walk around a bit and relax... pfff
It has been two years since I started this project. It may sound like a long time, but I just worked a few hours here and there before I put this sculpt aside for weeks or months at a time.
This project would be a learning experience and im glad I managed to never rush it.
I reworked the armor parts for instance over and over till it all worked out.
It might not give the fast reward of having something to show.
But at the end of it you understand why you went for this one shape rather than another and that lesson is most valuable.
At some point thought I had to say enough and it needed to be wrapped up.
So you imagine after all this time I am happy to show you the result.
The character is based on various designs of Halo's elite but holds most true to its earlier appearance. I build upon it and took it into a different direction, hope I did it justice.
Yeah it does look cool but I'm finding it hard to read some of the shapes. I can't tell what's meant to be flesh and what's the suit. Is the whole thing a suit, or is there meant to be flesh? His bum could use a bit more definition lol, feels weird looking at a Covenant behind..
I haven't played Halo in a long time though, so I might be completely wrong on that.
The render looks really cool, and I love the attitude of the piece, but I have to agree on the surface confusion and the lack of mid frequency form. At first glance it didn't really catch me, I had to really look at it to appreciate the effort you put in - I don't think it would take too much to really push this and have an outstanding piece.
It also appears stylized, meant to look like it's sculpted out of stone or something - I'm assuming that's intentional.
Now, you can go on pointing out things that's obviously a personal piece which has matured over time. Rens, great job, and congrats on finishing the piece(s).
Your style is in there, it's personal, rough and it's your own. I get a very cool 3D printed feel over it, ready to be painted on with some sexy acrylics.
So for what it's worth, you don't always have to "hit next level" or raise the bar. Something should just be left as for what they are, a piece of your artistic journey.
neox dont get upset now, i was agreeing with you as it is a valid point.
pogo, shiniku, yeah it would have benefited from a better surface definition, i tried a lot of variations like the honeycomb, bubbles, fabric types ect but they did not have the wanted affect on it. I tried to enhance the look with midrange shapes but found that it became too busy for my liking. I mostly stuck with line work.
The shot on the back side shows it best i think. there are a lot of lines that i found difficult to pull off on a 360 turnable pose. I in this case made use of curved / circular shapes. It does not justify mistakes or anything, please tear it apart so i can focus on things the next time. As for now it is what it is.
Sam, thanks!
It actually will be on its way to ownage to be printed. It will be my first printed piece so im quite excited to see what it becomes!
Nah you always have to raise the bar otherwise you did it wrong haha, but in this case its hard to tell from the end result, but its been a journey for sure, specialy if you see it now compared to where it started (no you wont get to see that).
Replies
Really great comments
Got this low poly done and been working on some texture.
Though i've figured out i should move on. Get a life.
I could go with building something else now.
Therefor i will be leaving you without textures for now! maybe i will wrap these up over the next few months, but it is time to do something else first.
However, i did make some screenshots and threw together an explaination of unwrapping,
Don't expect much of it and don't pay attention to spelling. Will need to clean it up a bit.
http://www.artbyrens.com/uvworkflow.php
Some normalmapping
time to start building something else
normals look good too. only thing that seems kind of weird is the grip. even tho its rarely seen.. it looks a bit too soft.
Your stuff is great, only thing your folio is missing is more 3D stuff designed entirely by you
Honestly 343 should hire you, yesterday. Remake Halo 1 in UDK and coincide it's release with the new Halo
But more on topic: Loving the bake on the shotgun, max or xnormal?
The grip does look a bit out of style and soft, maybe some normalmapped details/patterns on it will help it out.
Skamberin, It is oke man :P
I never expected them to hire me just because i am doing some halo pieces.
That would be a silly thing to do.
I don't blame them either, cause at the end of the day they need to pick what is best for the company, and an overseas kid with no exp is not it.
I suppose a job now would be nice
I'm done messing around and want to roll with the big boys now.
I enjoy working on things by myself but it just feels empty. Would be nice to be somewhere new, meet new people and work on things together.
As for the normalmap, i tested both out. I baked everything in an "exploded" way, so it could be done all at once. Max gave me a clean result, while with xnormal i had a lot of weird deformed shades in my normals. Almost making it look like my red channel was inverted. I also tried baking a few single pieces in xnormal, but that gave me the same results. Still not sure why it does this and why it sometimes works better or worse. Main reason i like it is that it handles large zbrush files vs having to import it into chunks in max.
Coldhands,
Thanks a lot man,
I did a bunch of halo things cause i love the stories/universe, making motivation a no brainer aswell.
It was a way of just doing more and enjoying what i could do with it, not so much "give me a job cause look at me".
It would come natural though that 343 would be a favorite studio to work at.
But there is more out there then that.
As skamberin mentioned, i have little things in my portfolio that are totaly my own mix of things, so now would be a good time to move on from practicing skills to applying them. Won't say that i will never come back to this, though it needs a long break.
Thanks for the compliments guys, means a lot and kept me happy during long dark cave days. Been a good ride for now.
But, if working at a studio in Europe for a while is the next step, get some real life experience under your belt, and from there find your way over to North America, even 343, then so be it.
It's all possible, it's just about finding the realistic way to do it.
Even so, pretty dumb that 343 hasn't hired you yet. :P
your UV mapping tips are quality, really easy to follow. Is only this year i began "resetting xform", glad you do confirm some stuff. Also i do like the black pixel of death naming.
Is the Festival of Games in Utrecht at end of April... careers days also.. might be of interest to you? Go if you can?!
@ Mezz... oh shit i totally crossed my wires and totally made a fool of myself, am getting used to it now. Where is the tutorial for not making a fool ever.
It was fun when i started this, cause the design seems to have some nice shapes to it, but i .. fuckedup on the lowpoly and texture. It is actualy too lowpoly and should use alot more detail, specialy aiming for a piece for these days/portfolio.
I also included a fpview cause i know that will be asked for, but yeah,
it comes down to delete, sleep, start with something else and dont suck as much.
Brilliant work, have you tried bungie about a job? I mean your masterchief is much better than the 'new' Combat evoled remake.
seth, thanks man, and np, i might do an update on that sometime, make it a bit cleaner and add some tricks.
artem, highfive!
I will be trying your rendermaterial and see if i can get a result that comes close to what you create. I will be stealing that smoothinggroup bevel trick aswell :P
ged, hehehe, yeah felt like i normalmapped too little, and for some reason i had that counter still in, is a bit odd since a display should be flat.. oops.
It does add definition, but yeah, the counter should not be in the texture, should be seperate so it can be animated.
raul, thanks! then im sure you will like the next one
lazerus, hahaha
I am really curious to that remake, should be good fun.
I have not applied to Bungie in a while, i have been trying my luck at 343 industries. maybe with enough work and a visa my luck will change at some point.
Cheez, good to hear from you man!
You should get that halo art dump of yours up sometime, keeping us from all the bad ass stuff you have been working on.
pedro, *\o/*
8, *\o/* *\o/*
grim, thanks, it can be done alot better and the settings are wrong :P
-caugh- shader spot on the nose of the rifle too, oops.
Ok so for now i just got what ive been working on yesterday,
I got tired of having to go into menus and grabbing what i need.
Instead you can create your own menus and toolbars in max, and drag in any option you want.
For work i added groups/export options since i use that alot, or if you animate you can add those. Try making your own panels to speed up the process.
I really like to use the reset x form from this menu cause it will auto collapse.
Also you can set everything to your rightmouse menu and keyboard.
I will look more into customizations and see if i can upload something useful that does not replace all your settings, just adds a new bar to it.
I will atleast upload my keyboard settings soon so you can have a go at it.
(basicly replaces uselesskeys with editable poly tools/modifiers i need)
you guys tried http://www.matthewlichy.com/Scripts.html
some great scripts to help speed things up
well eventhough some are nice, it beats the point of keeping it basic and keeping modifiers near hand. It is not only about the tricks and smart scripts, but also about most used options that normaly take time to grab if not set to a hotkey.
Having to search between colorful icons to find what i was looking for is just what i try to avoid.
thanks for the recommendation though
Learn and apply to your next piece
Man those were the days of delivering new pieces.
I have not shown anything new in a long time, not because i slowed down but I have been reading tons of tech about games instead. Leaning into another direction for a while.
I miss building things and because of that I took a spin in my career and am looking at freelancing for a while now.
With time on my hands I finaly managed to finish this piece, so happy its done because even now the last few days I have been pushing it and my head is spinning.
I will be posting a follow up with some breakdowns, what kind of work went into this and how I set things up, for now im going to walk around a bit and relax... pfff
It has been two years since I started this project. It may sound like a long time, but I just worked a few hours here and there before I put this sculpt aside for weeks or months at a time.
This project would be a learning experience and im glad I managed to never rush it.
I reworked the armor parts for instance over and over till it all worked out.
It might not give the fast reward of having something to show.
But at the end of it you understand why you went for this one shape rather than another and that lesson is most valuable.
At some point thought I had to say enough and it needed to be wrapped up.
So you imagine after all this time I am happy to show you the result.
The character is based on various designs of Halo's elite but holds most true to its earlier appearance. I build upon it and took it into a different direction, hope I did it justice.
http://artbyrens.com/elitebyrensback.jpg 2400px
http://artbyrens.com/elitebyrensback1920.jpg cropped
http://artbyrens.com/elitebyrensback1920resized.jpg scaled
http://artbyrens.com/elitebyrensfront.jpg 2400 px
http://artbyrens.com/elitebyrensfront1920.jpg cropped
http://artbyrens.com/elitebyrensfront1920resized.jpg scaled
Also to make the thread complete, I never posted this one
I haven't played Halo in a long time though, so I might be completely wrong on that.
The weapon is cool, the hallway is cool, that elite dude is unfinished.
it's some base shapes (not bad baseshapes) smoothed up, added some fine lines and surface detail, it totally lacks the mid frequency shapes.
It also appears stylized, meant to look like it's sculpted out of stone or something - I'm assuming that's intentional.
Now, you can go on pointing out things that's obviously a personal piece which has matured over time. Rens, great job, and congrats on finishing the piece(s).
Your style is in there, it's personal, rough and it's your own. I get a very cool 3D printed feel over it, ready to be painted on with some sexy acrylics.
So for what it's worth, you don't always have to "hit next level" or raise the bar. Something should just be left as for what they are, a piece of your artistic journey.
pogo, shiniku, yeah it would have benefited from a better surface definition, i tried a lot of variations like the honeycomb, bubbles, fabric types ect but they did not have the wanted affect on it. I tried to enhance the look with midrange shapes but found that it became too busy for my liking. I mostly stuck with line work.
The shot on the back side shows it best i think. there are a lot of lines that i found difficult to pull off on a 360 turnable pose. I in this case made use of curved / circular shapes. It does not justify mistakes or anything, please tear it apart so i can focus on things the next time. As for now it is what it is.
Sam, thanks!
It actually will be on its way to ownage to be printed. It will be my first printed piece so im quite excited to see what it becomes!
Nah you always have to raise the bar otherwise you did it wrong haha, but in this case its hard to tell from the end result, but its been a journey for sure, specialy if you see it now compared to where it started (no you wont get to see that).