Development Diary - Dilza
Hello everyone,
I've been lurking on the forums for quite a while and thought I'd bite the bullet and work on improving myself from feedback by fellow artists.
ABOUT ME
My name is Dillon (Dilza), I live in Newcastle Australia and I am a fresh face in the whole 3D scene.
I studied 3D Games Art and learn the very basics in Cinema4D, which I continue to use today.
I have noticed a lot (or majority) of you guys/girls use Maya and zBrush, which I am not sure if they are better as I have not tried them.
Any pros/cons on the software would be great!
WHY I'M HERE
I'm working on a solo (so far at least) video game project.
The game is planned to be reminiscent of Animal Crossing, with RPG elements thrown in as well.
I have started some basic modelling of trees, rocks and other environment objects and all only have basic colours thrown on as textures.
I am looking for pointers on how to increase my quality of work as well as learn the ins and outs from you spectacular people.
If you wish to add me on Skype for whatever reason, I'm always online. My username is 'dillonbird93'
I've been lurking on the forums for quite a while and thought I'd bite the bullet and work on improving myself from feedback by fellow artists.
ABOUT ME
My name is Dillon (Dilza), I live in Newcastle Australia and I am a fresh face in the whole 3D scene.
I studied 3D Games Art and learn the very basics in Cinema4D, which I continue to use today.
I have noticed a lot (or majority) of you guys/girls use Maya and zBrush, which I am not sure if they are better as I have not tried them.
Any pros/cons on the software would be great!
WHY I'M HERE
I'm working on a solo (so far at least) video game project.
The game is planned to be reminiscent of Animal Crossing, with RPG elements thrown in as well.
I have started some basic modelling of trees, rocks and other environment objects and all only have basic colours thrown on as textures.
I am looking for pointers on how to increase my quality of work as well as learn the ins and outs from you spectacular people.
If you wish to add me on Skype for whatever reason, I'm always online. My username is 'dillonbird93'
Replies
I really like the way they turned out, quite simple but you still know what they are.
Plain grey texture.
[SKETCHFAB]909cb5058fb74238a6ed5ef1fcc22516[/SKETCHFAB]
Tree (Type 1)
Extremely simple (too simple for my likings) Sapling as when tree is planted (it will display as this until watered an X amount of time passed(
Plain brown and three green textures.
Tree (Type 2)
An improvement on the first tree.
Plain brown and green textures.
This is my first attempt at hand-painting a texture of any kind.
Created in Photoshop
I will have to fix the texture size as it repeats near the base
Concerning the software you use, and please anyone correct me if you feel I'm wrong here, but I think it mostly comes down to what you know/what the studio you work for uses. I've not used much Cinema 4D but most of the people I know who use it work in advertising and digital media rather than games but I don't think that would stop you from using it quite adequately in that regard. You might find some difficulty with support for various engines compared with the more common platforms like Maya and 3Dsmax.
In terms of why people use Maya and Max; they are well known and well served (when Autodesk can be arsed amirite?!) all in one packages, they will have solid powerful tools for everything you will want to do, animation, modelling, rendering and so on.
Because they are so well established there is a lot of support for them: Tons of plugins and exporters, many many tutorials and as you say everyone here seems to use them and will surely be on hand to supply lots of help if and when you need it. They also have really great cheap "lite" versions that you can grab if you're not in a position to shell out for the full thing. E.G Maya LT http://store.steampowered.com/news/13103/
There are many alternatives out there too, I think Softimage XSI is still very popular, as you say Cinema4D, I dunno how people here feel about Blender but I've used it before and considering it's free I've always been very impressed by it's capabilities.
If you don't want an all in one package and want something focussed more towards modelling you could look at Modo http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/modo/ or Silo https://www.nevercenter.com/silo/ I know a few people who use these and like their no nonsense approach to modelling.
Finally, concerning Zbrush (or Mudbox) These are very different programs to your all rounders like Maya and Max. They are high resolution sculpting tools, they work like digital clay which you mould and carve into with the end result being extremely high polycounts and insane detail. Their usage isn't to produce final game ready models, instead they are for producing things like normal and occlusion maps to add extra detail to lower polygon models which can be used in engines and they are often used in concept work to quickly create 3D forms that can be built upon and altered without worrying about mesh flow and optimisation.
Programs like Zbrush are well worth learning, and frankly a must if you want to work in the modern games industry, they are also a hell of a lot of fun even if they are a bit tricky to get the hang of at first. I also find them very useful for doing anatomy studies and the like because of the immediacy of their workflow.
If you don't have the money for Zbrush or Mudbox, you could give Sculptris a try, http://pixologic.com/sculptris/ I've played around with it a bit and it's pretty solid, especially for a free program.
Anyway hope that helps and good luck with it all!
[SKETCHFAB]123da2f8f600432bb97642d04f127951[/SKETCHFAB]
A shanty fence, which will be used allow a pond where a fishing hole is present.
[SKETCHFAB]daab65f450b24e398cab2f82cc33a5a4[/SKETCHFAB]
I'm not sure how to keep the textures as they were in the model when exporting them..
Thank you very much!
The information you provided gave me some insight into the different uses of programs and where it suits best
I downloaded Sculptris to give it a go, hopefully something productive can come from that, haha!