Running up that building!

 Hi my little Void!!

Today (well better said tonight) I start a new proyect for my new portfolio. In the next days I'll open my Artstation and Sketchfab to be more interactive. I asked to my wife for inspiration and whe tell me "why not a building to start? You love architecture so... And I decided that is a good idea. In addition I've restart one old proyect: my Russian Kamov attack helicopter.

So let's go!!



In these days I has been realized that my relationship with 3D Max has been deteriorated due to my progress with Zbrush; Zbrush is more friendly and stable and more focused to the artist (is not as technical as MAX... is more "just take your pencil and sculpt, not worried about topology or UVs)

Anyway, return to the subject,  I wanted refresh my 3D MAX skills (modelling, unwrapping and Texturing) so decided that my building set will be made on 3D MAX. Yesterday finished the modelling phase (or...well... you know... this never ends just give up) and this is the firs result:

It's at a very early stage but start to take shape. Now the unwrap phase. 

What do you think?

Take care Void

Arghhh tooo much!!!

I finished another art test. In this time for Splash Damage. In this case was a retrofitting building ( I love it !!!). The concept artist is property of Splash Damage. I don't know was the intention of this test so I try to do something great with minimum geometry and maps (it's something common for all videogames) and here it is:

The illumination was made with a standard lights with three point illumination technique and default Scanline. I did this to avoid cheats, because it's really easy archive a great result with V-ray for example, but it's quite complicate replicate this in a game engine. So this is the more accurate way to see how will be inside a standard game engine (as Unreal, cryengine or Unity).

However, the shaders in game engine let you tweak more parameters than a standard 3D max shaders so it's probably that the final result will be much better.
Stats: two difusee maps 1024x1024 with AO baked and one 1024x1024 normal map with specular baked in blue chanel. Geometry: 7540 tris

I put a lot of thing from films and games as a tribute. How many can you recognise?

Carpe Omnia !!

Hi there!!:

A couple of weeks ago I had a test for Gameloft in Barcelona. Regrettably not worked but here's the vehicle test. The concept art is property of Gameloft.

The maximum tris amount was 10K. This have 7,5K and three 512x512 maps: one for diffuse, one for normal and the last for the specular. I thought include the specular map (8 bit grey map) into blue channel normal map but they want all these maps.

Updated 13/06/2012: I'm a little bit delayed with this because I've started a new Scifi proyect and now I've two open fronts !!  

 Original Post:

Long time since I made a vehicle, so I start a new project. At the beginning I chose a tank, but is too classic, so I thought why not use my knowledge about aircraft and made some different? I remember a really original helicopters manufactured called "Kamov". It's a Russian company that made helicopters without tail rotor and use a double coaxial main rotor It's really great. So I chose the Kamov KA-50 a tactical attack helicopter. Today I finished the main rotor head and blades

And  the main structure of the helicopter.

Next step add detail to main structure!! In the next days I'll update this. Stay tuned!!

See you!!

Two days ago, I wanted to start a elf cottage, I don't know why (ok... maybe see The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring did something about it...).

 I used the Alan Lee drawings as a base (specially for the arches). I just want modelate it for perhaps to integrate it into future projects.

This was one of my first jobs. It was for a playable demo for a indie game. It was really hard 'cause I made all, I mean: level design, environment, props, collisions,... And it was really huge. Almost 4 minutes without enemies nor props to interact. 

Their want something similar to Fable 3 but more "diablizzard".

The first design was really monochromatic and boring so I tried to convince them to put some of colour and different structures. It's really easy boring the player. I added the crystals, a river, two different hanging bridges,...

Good for me!! Three times more work but no delivery date change!! 

Anyway... I enjoyed a lot his work. I learnt a lot of things about optimize geometry, maps and UDK. and it was my first entire level !!

You have a video in game of his level on vimeo: http://vimeo.com/36291735

I hope that you like it

See ya

Hi There !!

I'm sorry for this break. I was in Spain with my family and looking for another room (London is really expensive!).
The intention of this challenge was achieve the maximum detail with minimum polygons and maps. I wanted to make a brick wall. Obviously, I never use this in a real video game (maybe in a mobile platform) but it was an excellent exercise to me.
First I sculpted the bricks alone in Zbrush. It's no necessary make a pixel-size detail because when you baked the normal map may be appear some artifacts. So it's better make two normal map one with the bricks and other with the detail extract from the diffuse and overlay them.

I prefer use decimation master and export a medium poly mesh into 3DS Max and make little changes (rotations, scales...) to make a non repetitive pattern. However It must be tilelable so be carefully with the borders. To be sure I prefer use one of the bricks and halve. I put a basic diffuse map that later I will use as a base.

Ok..so..now I baked the diffuse, normal map, Ambient occlusion (with Vray light material and Vray dirt, but you can do with Mental Ray) and a color variation (different levels of grey for each brick) into a single plane. Normally I like to make a gradient ramp just place a UVWmap modifier over the wall to make an effect dark below and bright over (normally below there's more humidity so it become darker).  Mixing the layer in Photoshop we have a good diffuse

Ok but this is not a ruin..it's just a brick wall. So it need moss and specular power and a little bit of debris.

Ok much better. Now apply the color variation map and increase the contrast to improve the volume:

Mmmm yeah...ok. Now from this diffuse can make a great detail normal map just desaturate it and increase the contrast with levels filter and a specular map with hi pass filter and levels (and maybe another couple of filters). So we have 3 maps (in UDK we can reduce to two using the blue channel to put the specular, or making a specular map using the diffuse map):

and this is the final result:

In just one plane (2 tris). 

Normally is better take a lowpoly plane but with some volume, ledges and other interest stuff. But it's a interesting exercise. I hope that you enjoy with this!!

See you !!

Hi there!!

Today I was thinking about one of my characters. I always love the Steampunk and Cyberpunk themes, maybe because I'm a 80's generation (the best haha).
Well one day I was looking for some inspiration and found an amazing Steampunk golem design by Emerson Tung. I love the work of this man. I recommend see his work because It's amazing. 

It's not finish yet. For the head I wanted make a tribute to Warhammer 40K so I made an Space Marine helmet ha! ;) 
 
Although it's harder, I love make asymmetric characters for two reasons. First it's a challenge 'cause you can't use symmetric tools so I think it's more artisan. The second reason it's I think that have a better appearance... I don't know....maybe it's a optical effect but I always try to make a  asymmetrical characters.

This another character. It's a really lowpoly base mesh, but as you can see she's asymmetrical too. This one soon be leaving to Zbrush. I promise show you when I finished.

See you !!