How I Spent My Weekend (image heavy)

WarrenM

So I decided to do something unstructured this weekend. Just pick something and doodle on it. So it all started with this image that I came across while searching the intertubes:



Love the stylized skulls! Very good "Day of the Dead" vibe there. I got to thinking that it might be neat to do a tiling texture of skulls in that style that might go into some sort of dungeon spelunking game. So I blocked out a tiling wall chunk in Max:



So far so good! Into ZBrush we go...



After applying some TrimDynamic and Orb's Crack brush I had something resemlbing a reasonable sculpt:



Back into Max for initial bakes. I've copied the pieces necessary from side to side and top to bottom to get the tiling to work right:



Looks good so far:



I pulled those into UDK to get an idea of what it looked like and if I was wasting my time or not:



OK, it looks fine chunked onto some BSP slabs so we're good to go.

After working it over in Photoshop for awhile, I arrived at these textures:



Aaaand finally in UDK with lighting rebuilt and everything done:

WarrenM

So, just let me say ... All in all, I'm really grateful for the things I've learned on Polycount and other places around the internet. When I work on stuff now, I can pull little pieces of workflow from various spots in my brain and generally make it happen.

I've lost track of the number of times I needed to do something and had a thought like, "Oh wait, there was that one tutorial that mentioned there was an option for that. Hang on...", and I can move ahead on what I'm doing rather than getting stuck and frustrated.

For example, I've learned a ton about Photoshop from CtrlPaint (www.ctrlpaint.com) just watching his weekly videos on drawing. I have a much better grasp on colors and masking and brushes thanks to him.

And the amount I've learned from this site is almost immeasurable.

So, thanks everyone! This site is inspiring and educational and ... it just rocks.

Snader

Looking at the first images... meh. Looking at the latter ones: oh wow this works really well.

Computron

Cool post, I wish more people would post their experiments.

BARDLER

Computron wrote: »

Cool post, I wish more people would post their experiments.

I am experimenting with normal map baking... its not going well lol

WarrenM

It'll come, Bardler. It's confusing at first but there comes a point when the light bulb turns on and you're good to go!

DJ_Aaron

haha neat

AlexLeighton

Pretty cool stuff, I think it works especially well on the floor.

Computron

HAHA, putting 'Image Heavy' in the name of a thread on an art forum...

good times....

fullofclovers

These almost look like hieroglyphics of Space Invaders. Lol. Good stuff!

Toxic929

This is an awesome example of experimenting! and a impressive tileable texture creation.

Macattackk

Wow cool! reminds me of rayman a little. When I see it as walls it makes me think its an artsy paintball arena of some kind.

Donavonyoung

Very neat pattern, its like nuevo nerd.

hobodactyl

Cool, it's fun to see a little experiment like this

KarlWrang

Nice experiment and use of tiling technique!
Also fun to see something that doesn't strike you as "conventional" game art for a change

Rai

Is there a small tut on tiling a sculpt like that?

Tigerfeet

Oh that looks really neat, turned out well! Thank you very much for sharing. I love to see when people riff on other art.

WarrenM

Rai wrote: »

Is there a small tut on tiling a sculpt like that?

It's actually pretty easy in a case like this. Everything was blocked in on a 1024x1024 plane. There were only 2 pieces that overlapped the edges, so when I was done sculpting and came back into Max, it was just a matter of duplicating those 2 pieces and moving them 1024 units to the other side of the plane.



Then, when you bake onto your plane (the white mesh above), everything effectively tiles in the AO and Normal without a problem.

Rai

Thanks.

jimmypopali

You could make a retro fortress with these designs

karthikdevil

Loving the style

Skummel

Haha thats pretty awesome, I could see a whole game coming from that style. Very nice!

Jigsaw

Loving it. Certainly wouldn't mind seeing this expanded upon

KartoonHead

You should lay it out for a bake with more than just extra overlapping pieces to avoid AO seams. At least the entire outline of the plane which you're baking to should be surrounded. Here's why,

Hope that helps.

WarrenM

You're absolutely right, KartoonHead, thanks! I should have mirrored more pieces than I did. If I get to bake it again, I can easily fix that...

I also missed a few opportunities like tilting some of the blocks so they are a little skewed or offset a little in the normal map.

Live and learn!