UV's done!

I finished all the UV's for the new sword pack today!

I had been exporting to OBJ file format from Lightwave, importing that into ZBrush, and then creating the displacement maps and UV's, porting back to Lightwave to complete the textures and then back to ZBrush to hand paint any needy areas. And... Back to Lightwave to apply the bump and specular maps. GAH!

The problem was that Lightwave does not port to ZBrush well. I was losing or getting jumbled polygons, even on simple primitives, and then I would have to go in and manually fix that before I could continue. The one click optimized UV map maker plug in for ZBrush is WAY COOL, BUT.... doesn't always put the seems in good places, even when you try and make it place them where you want them.

This whole process was taking too long, and I was spending a lot of time recreating textures or repositioning models to try and get them to UV map properly. SO.... I got frustrated, threw them all into UU3d, and did a simple 2 sided UV map for them. (OK, maybe I did a bit more than that, but in the end, that's what it will look like). The UV's for swords 4+ will not be optimized, and there is going to be some pixel stretching along the hilt top and bottoms, but I don't think anyone is really going to notice. (Those with textel ratio fetishes probably just shouldn't buy the pack)!

In short, I can now concentrate on just creating color maps and MAY still have this thing done by Christmas! (Or close)!

Who Needs Food?

I splurged and bought some much needed quality photo reference this month.

Still struggling to get the weapons pack skinned. I keep getting hung up on odd little technical hiccups that if I had more experience with Lightwave , probably would not be a problem. The latest of which being my textures are coming out slightly smaller than the model when I go to bake them. I'm working to figure this one out now.

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Here is a pic I cobbled together that show the basic progression of wire frame to complete model for folks who are not very familiar with the process.

This is a Machete from the new sword pack that I am working on for my online store.

As always, you can click the image to zoom for a better view.

Good Stuff In Progress

Again, haven't posted in a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been very busy! Got some great new art in the works including 2 new character models that I plan on adding motion capture to, and I am well into a new sword pack that I hope to have available by the end of the month.

Shown here are the models in progress with JUST the color maps. They have yet to get bump mapped, normal mapped, specular maps, or normal maps. So they are still pretty raw. Next I will be taking them into ZBrush to fix the color mismatches created by the seams and subtle variations in the reference photography. There will be a lot more work required on the female character, but the reference work was free and not the best.

Neither character has eyes yet. I think I may model in the brows separately. The hands and feet have yet to be detailed.

The male shot is from the modeler with no special rendering, the female shot is done with some lights and shadows, but still pretty basic. the black areas on the female model are areas where for whatever reason, the UV map did not get color. I'll fix that in ZBrush.

SWORDS! I have been meaning to make more weapons packs for some time. As you can see here, I have 7 of the 10 planned swords modeled. I still have them in Quads, but they are all very clean and I am estimating between 140 and 300 polys once triangulated for final game use. These will be released with bumps, normals, mount and effect nodes.



Thanks for the read!

Game Character In Progress

I have been fairly quiet for a while now. That is because I was working on something and then for one reason or another I ended up jumping tracks about 3-4 times. The fantasy Labyrinth Level Kit and Sci-Fi Level Kit are still in the works, just back burnered for a bit.

The main reason is that a certain game developer messaged me asking costs on a custom game character. This usually runs $300 to $1500. (all though I have occasionally made exceptions, it's always been with regret). The problem is that this game developer is 13 years old and can't afford that. So, I agreed to step up production on my game characters for my online game art store at www.indiegraphics.net as I have been meaning to get them done for some time. The model will be substantially cheaper there. I'm leaning towards the $30 to $50 range.

Here's a WIP. The textures are still place-holder quality. (click image to enlarge)...

Haven't decided if I am going to fix the feet yet, I'll have to see what they look like textured, they may not need it. The smoothing group seams will also not be as apparent in the final model. I haven't color matched the individual smoothing groups yet, or fixed mirroring issues with the textures.

The model is currently in the 2500 poly range. It has eyes capable of blinking and moving, a speaking-capable mouth with a rough textured interior that should suffice as long as there are no close ups of prolonged screaming.

I am finally getting the cameras to tie into my optical motion capture software. I'll be testing that out with this model, and if all goes well, it will come with a good sized mo-capped animation library.

Once the base model is complete, I will create add-on/genre packs specifically for the model with additional clothing, hair styles, armor, and weapons, maybe some props and/or equipment. I am planning to make those available for $7 to $10 each.

An early TEXTURED shot of the sci-fi Level kit, a base hall component. (slick Image to zoom). I have yet to add normal maps and lighting to the object.

Sci-Fi Level Kit

Devoting several hours a day to the Sci-Fi Level Construction Set. It's coming along nicely!

This is a shot of a generic un-textured bay that could be used as a cargo bay, warehouse section or even a landing bay or small ship hanger bay.

I even created a skybox for it (seen in the distance) should the developer choose to leave the doors open. There will be 1 box for planet side and another for space.

The cargo containers will be included but separate from the main model so that devs can place them as they would like.

Skunk Works

Some WIP shots of the Sci-Fi Level Construction Kit that I am working on. Currently it is un-textured, these are just shots of the bare meshes cobbled together to give some sense of what a partial level might look like.

I am still waiting on a replacement for the graphics card that fried last month. I am currently making do with a much older card and I am not sure I want to tackle materials and textures for this project using it. Hopefully, I will be able to replace it soon.

Always Something...

My video card burnt out. Might be a few weeks before I can afford a new one.

Porting Problems

I'm running into some 'porting issues with Lightwave. I typically use 3-4 different programs to create a final game-ready 3d object. Somethings I still don't know how to do in Lightwave, or it's just a pain to do them in Lightwave, so I export the object and do what needs to be done in another 3d application. I still like to do my UV mapping in UU3d for example.

The problem with exporters and importers is that they tend to lose things that aren't basic to the file format that you are porting too. They also can wreak havoc with your groups and naming schemes.

I had a number of Labyrinth Kit objects nearly finished up, ported them back into Lightwave and although all the properties look correct, they are not rendering correctly.

I also downloaded some new decimation and UV mapping plugins for ZBrush that look pretty awesome, haven't been able to get either of those to work yet.

So it looks like I will be hammering away at some technical issues before progressing on new artwork.

Store Is Live!

Transition to the new site is now complete, and the new online 3d game content store is again active. Check it out at www.indiegraphics.net

The NEW-NEW-Dagger pack is available in the Generic section. I think I will focus on the Labyrinth Kit remake for my next store item.

New Site Sneak Peak

I'm in the process of setting up a new site and online store for my game graphics. Possibly a few friends will be joining me on the site and offering their art content as well. I don't have all the pages built yet, but here is a sneak peak of the main page. I'll post a link once everything is completed and the store is online again.

EDIT: The site is now live at www.indiegraphics.net HOWEVER; I have not set up the online store yet. I either need to get the fellow who coded our old online store to tell me how to move it, or go with Rampant Coyote's suggestion to use an online commerce service such as Plimus.

New Site

I have just set up a new hosting account for Indie Graphics. Waiting for the domain to be set up and the security certificate to be installed. That could take a day or two. Then I can rebuild the site and set up a new online store. Hopefully, my art will be available again by the end of the week!

Art With Character

This is a WIP shot of a new character I am developing for Tarly's online RPG. The game is to be developed using the new T3d game engine and a working title is currently up in the air. The arrangement I have with Tarly allows me to also sell any art I create for his game, so once finished and animated, this model may end up appearing in a store at some point. I will probably release a generic OBJ and Collada Version, and make one up for RC as well. The model will include a couple of outfits/armor, different face skins, a melee weapon or two. I also want to create a Sci-Fi version of the model.

I am still under agreement with Turbo Squid not to sell online until the end of the month. Once March 31st rolls around, I will begin offering my 3d content for sale again. I'll make some posts once it is available.

Turbo Fail

Turbos Squid has turned out to be a complete and utter failure. Not a single sale in the past month. I did better in my first month of Golem Graphics. I'll most likely switch to a new sales site this week some time.

I have been doing some world building (pictured here) using Unity 3d. I'm a bit torn over it. there are some things I like, but the extreme tileing really bothers me. It might not be so obvious from a players perspective with world fog, plants, rocks, buildings, etc. I'm on the fence about weather to continue with it as is, or restart from scratch.

My efforts to eliminate the visual patterns resulted in detailess blah. I think the world scale might be fairly large which is requiring dozens of texture tiles in a realatively small space that results in some pretty strong patterns. 3d scale is a very difficult thing to judge with no reference. It tends to be what you make it.

Click the image to zoom. Please keep in mind that it is a work i nprogress, there is not sky box or lighting that would make the scene seem more realistic.

The NEW, NEW Dagger Pack >_>

After giving it some consideration, getting a 25% royalty/commission/whatever off of a sale once Turbo Squid and Corbett take their cut really wasn't working for me. (SORRY CORBETT)! ^ ^

So, I recreated a dagger pack that is 100% done by me. Finished texturing it today. I need to write up some docs and port it to about 6 different formats in an effort to make it as generic as possible. Then I can put it up for sale.

(click the image to zoom).

New Challenges

I usually don't like to post about things unless they are up and coming or finished/near finished. Lately I have been working on a number of more in-depth projects and nothing seems to be getting completed.

Lucus was not only unable to finish our ipod game Starcade over his winter break, but decided on a different art direction which means I will end up re-creating a good portion of the game art from scratch.

I scrapped the current version of the Labyrinth Level construction Kit. As-Is Realm Crafter and TGE versions went out to a few developers so the effort is not totally wasted. I will be redesigning that from the ground up and I am going to try and construct it using Lightwave 3d this time.

I will be redesigning the way our Golem Graphics game content packs are made so that each pack contains all the formats for different game engines instead of trying to sell them separately.

I was experimenting this week and finally got one of my buildings to port from Deled Pro nicely to Collada, (had to reassign 150 smoothing groups to do it, but it worked)! although I have not had the opportunity to test it in a game engine yet. Once I can add normal maps and test it, then I will include that format it in our packs and make it available to developers using engines such as unity and ShiVa.

My latest task has been learning to do 3d terrain blocks in Lightwave. (pictured above). The reason for this is that I have seen some screenshots of Lightwave terrain that looks very nice (better than that which can be produced with game engine terrain editors). The thought is that I should be able to hammer out a few really sweet looking terrain zones and offer them to developers as content packs. This should be a big time saver to developers who can then just drop a pre-made terrain into their zone and get straight to creating their town or mission/quest area rather than having to spend time on trying to make the ground look good first.

On my first attempt (pictured) The geometry portion went really well, but the procedural textures failed. I ported the geometry from another application and I believe it failed because the port created multiple layers which probably interfered with the procedural layers I tried to add. I'll be experimenting more with that today.

The above pic weighs in at around 25k polys. The high poly version used for the texture, lighting and shadows is closer to half a mil. The trick is to texture the 500k poly version and then drop that onto the 25k poly version for use in game.

Once again, Golem Graphics will be discontinued in May. The products currently for sale at www.golemgraphics.net will be moved to www.alluvionstudios.com . I already have our dagger pack available there. Golem Graphics will be re-branded as Indie Graphics.

I am deciding whether I want to mirror content on Turbo Squid with a 60% mark up to cover their outrageous commissions.

That's news!

Farwell to Golem Graphics

My Golem Graphics business partner Corbett, is moving to China in May of 2010. This will prevent us from maintaining our companies registration in Canada (since a physical address is required). So it looks like we may be closing up shop.

I will be re-pricing all content produced by Golem Graphics to $9.95 until we figure out where to move/host it.

Thanks to all our Golem Graphics customers! We appreciate your support!

Best of luck in China Corbett! I hope everything works out for you!

(Note that Indiegraphics will still continue to opperate).

New Store Content

Here is a screen shot of our latest online store content. A low poly Dagger Pack intended for use with 3d games. I hope to have a version for the Realm Crafter Standard game engine and possibly a generic/Collada version in the store on Wednesday. I still need to create collision meshes, LoDs, and docs for the TGE version, so it may be the weekend before the TGE version shows up.

8]

Note: The graphics has been updated to show the proper texture for Dagger #4. Click on the image to zoom!