Winter Submission: Triple A Asset Production - Hi-Res Model

For our Games Art unit, we were asked to design a Triple A Asset prop of our choice. I had the initial idea of a gun as my object and set out to create a model from a film or game. After discovering that someone had modelled the two weapons I had in mind (one of them being from the sci-fi film District 9) I remembered back to a homework assignment from my first year at Uni; to create our own original gun design.

Above is the two-handed rifle I designed called FLARER based on a flower named the Hymenocallis. One of my main influences was a gun that opened up in the game Lost Planet 2. Here is a link to the post with more details on the structure.

http://jasonbartlett.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/visual-design-futuristic-weapon_20.html

Once I had decided I was going to make the gun, the first thing I did was set up a new project. I created a reference image of the gun from the side view in proportion and scale compared to that of the average human hight.

Next, I began blocking out the form with a very useful tool called Quad Draw. This enables you to click out where you want your vertices and then by holding shift and left clicking over the centre of the four sides you can create a quad plane. 

The Quad Draw feature was very helpful in building the basics quickly and effectively in the side view. I then just had to select all the faces and then extrude to bring out the body as I went.

By highlighting two edge loops that are not connected and selecting the bridge tool, you can create a curved path and are given settings like how many divisions you would like to add. I really think this is a fantastic instrument and its process is so quick as opposed to manually bridging two sides.

Above is the first handle grip I constructed. This was more like a temporary build before creating a smoothed shape later on. 

A third of the gun (at the rear) is tilted diagonally which was one of the harder components to figure out. Once I had done all the major pieces, I then rotated the axis of the grouped items and also moved the reference image to match it horizontally.

For several parts like the back handle, I mirrored the geometry over on the opposite axis which was very helpful for time management.

At the base of the main body of the gun, there are several small external wires wrapping around to the side.

I made these wires using the curves tool in the surfaces tab. With this, all I had to do was click out the path of the line and then hit enter to actually make it an object in scene.

Furthermore, all I had to do was align a shape at one end of the curve, select both the curve and the shapes face (in parallel with the line) then simply extrude. This then snaps the extruding face to the opposite end of the curve line. Finally, I increased the offset to make the form closer to the custom curve with something like over thirty divisions.

To make the wires not look like they were just floating on the edge, I added a socket bar at the top and tidy clips down to the base.

Another great feature in Maya is the multi-cut tool. This enabled me to cut a straight line where I would not have been able to do so at an awkward angle in the centre of the gun.  

The front top handle grip is attached to the loading column on the gun. When the user pulls backwards, the three arc 'petals' open forming the firing mode like a blooming flower opening up.

I used the Booleans Union tool to merge the spoke with the outer wall as seen above.

To allow the circular loading column to pivot I made a cylinder and extruding making a stop on the end for both sides; adding a sense of realism to the design.

All I had to do when I had finished the left side loading column and beam, was duplicate and align on the other side of the inner gun. 

I really find the isolated selection view very useful when needing to work on a single component like above with the arc 'petals'. I also bevelled the end thin cube stand after connecting it to the shaft of the petals. 

Around half way through, when I started on the front of the gun with the opening cylinder barrel, I realised how time consuming the next few processes were going to be. I actually attempted to write down a sort of work process to get through it efficiently. However, I spent too much time thinking the stages through and decided to just jump in on the modelling.

The central reason to why I took so long on this part was because I had to work using mathematical methods looking in all perspective views with the three hundred and sixty degree cylinder shape of the petals while making the gun feasible in 3D.

Above is the final smoothed handle grip with before on the right and after, with the trigger and base, on the left. I found the soft selection hot key ('B' on a keyboard) effective for tweaking certain areas while keeping the whole form in flow.

In the image here, I was at the last point of the major edits. Using the world and object move setting, I was able to eventually pivot and position the arc petals in place.

I kept the left side petal from the first to the final object part. It may not look like much has changed in the three pieces over time but I can pick out several sections that took me quite some time flipping between rotations in the x, y and z.

Above is an x-ray view of the front of the gun looking into the barrel to the back. I have included this because it depicts the interior panels and sector where I spent alot of time for the petals to open and display the arc front.

While making the three petals, I was double checking the opening mechanism and found a few flaws in my original sketches. In order to open out, like a flower blooming, I had to reconfigure the pivot points and how it translates on a diagonal axis; which was very difficult.  

Above is my gun in the smoothing stage. I did not know what was the perfect high poly count for this as it was my first time and also my first time designing one of my own creations in 3D.

Here I have made a simple mental ray scene and rendered out from the perspective camera view. Something I did not notice when I was using the wireframe shaded view, was that some pieces were not as smooth or curved as I had thought.

Unfortunately, I could try and add edge loops into the parts with too little vertices but the result would take either too long or would distort the final object build.

The image previous and the one above, is a before and after shot of the gun arcing into firing mode. If I had more time on the project, I would have liked to have animated the opening petals and components to show the model in all its splendour.

Here is another angle of the gun, this time from the back almost in a first-person hand held composition. I really enjoyed editing the angles of light and shadow placement which I would love to experiment on in the future.

One of the next major stages was creasing all of the components I wished to divide and put detail on, later in the software ZBrush. Above is an early test of the UV Editor and a planar map just to see the UV faces etc.

In order to highlight key sections I wished to add surface detail too in ZBrush, I had to unwrap certain high poly model parts in Maya. Here is one of the smaller petal point parts that nicely came together after an automatic unwrap and repositioning in the layout.

Another exhausting process was checking all the edges and vertices, that seemed off in the smooth edge preview, for extra hidden non-sown points. I fixed these by merging the vertices or edges with the move and sew tool; of which I made a custom tool shelve icon for easy access.

The crease tool was also soon added to my custom tool shelve while excruciatingly going to each edge loop I wanted to keep hard edged after smoothing out the object. 

So far I think this unit has been an amazing challenge to see if I can get a creation from my head, down on paper in 2D and then recreate it in 3D a year later! On the other hand, it was interesting to notice components from sketch not work in 3D and then have to model problem solve these into shapes like the moving parts in 3D; all aiding the realism of the gun.

Maya Modelling Assignment - Knife

Towards our final game asset model, we worked on a model of a knife as practice towards our object of choice. In each session at Uni, I screen captured the process from Maya into ZBrush.

Above is the template image we all were given to work from and is to scale in pixels.

To start off block building the knife form, we used the quad draw tool. This was a very quick an easy method of creating quads, firstly around the handle.

Above I extruded the buttons and moved the vertices on the edges to match the reference image below.

While adding in edge loops, I made sure to use the center alignment function in the selection panel to the left.

As I extruded up on the handle, I deselected the circular end parts which would later become the screw holes.

Here I have moved half way down the blade using quad draw while tying to keep the edge flow along with the blade face.

Although the model was being designed as a high poly, I shaped a lot of the construction in a low form and then built upon it.

During the building of the knife, I switched from working in Maya 2015 to Maya 2016. The change over was not that different with things like the interface, although the icon shortcut images have been updated. On the other hand, the 3D scene view background colour change is easier to look at; as compared to the harsh gradient in the previous version. 

For the center metal blade part, I duplicated the top handle, re-formed the depth of the piece and then sewed the vertices with the blade base. Although this took quite a bit of time checking all of the joining pieces, I was quite pleased with the result as seen below.

With the quad-drew blade, I mirrored the left top side and made sure the tool joined the vertices.

Above and below, is the before and after I re-positioned after the mirroring. I was extremely happy with the front view perspective as seen here in x-ray view; highlighted along the cutting edge.

While working I made sure to keep saving, deleting history and to check four different views in the scene for an accurate and clean model.

After finishing the bulk of the handle, blade and screws, I added in some text for both sides of the flat face of the blade for added detail.

The next step was to UV Unwrap the model. Above I began while following the tutorial. However, half way through I ran into some problems with the separation of UV's and had to ask for help from our session teacher.

Overhead is the final layout for the handle top which I unwrapped and re-positioned with help from our sessions teacher, using new features for Maya 2016.

Here is the final handle side smoothed/divided in Maya. This process adds polygons and smooths edges that may be too hard edged.

Once placing my tool object (an .obj file) into ZBrush, I auto-grouped the UV continuity. This meant that if I was to highlight a selected viewed item, it would highlight the UV face geometry.

After dividing the mesh five times in the geometry tab to the right (to smooth out again) and isolating the panel without the screw sockets, I began adding surface detail; using the Surface NoiseMaker feature as seen above.

After applying it to the mesh, I clicked on show UV poly groups to view the topology which I thought came out rather well.

Here I have a before and after of the handle panel isolated with the surface noise added. Over the previous sessions, I just started to get used to using the controls which aren't that entirely different. On the other hand, from using Maya short cuts frequently to just ZBrush's, was really challenging for me.

As the weeks went by, more deadlines and content for our second (Games Production) Unit was needed. As I was the concept artist for our group's game, I had to create a lot of material in a short space of time in high detail (for other members to work from). On return to this assignment, it felt like I had fallen behind quite a bit and decided to catch up with my own game asset model; required for the (Games Art Unit) Winter Submission.

Above are two renders I made, one made in mental ray and the other in TURTLE. These are plugin rendering applications that generate high quality images in Maya. I was pleased with how these came out in the end but also disappointed that I did not get to generate normal maps in xNormal and texture using the software Quixel. 

Winter Submission: Milestone 4 - 2D Intro Cut Scene, Box Art & Storyboard

One of the major components we had to have in our games Vertical Slice, was a 2D intro cut scene using 2D assets in-engine. As the concept artist for our game, I took the lead role in this task and planned to create stills that we could then animate.  

Above is the first still for our intro cut scene. The text instantly informs the players the setting and year. All of these shots have been digitally painted in Photoshop; most of them taking from around three to six hours each.

The image above is an ariel shot overlooking the city of Naples during the Second World War. I really enjoyed forming the angles and composition for the stills and also trying to closely match the sketches from my initial storyboard.

I used several reference images to create the best pre-visualisation before digitally painting over them using several brushes to suit the right textures and lighting. The Consolidated B-24 Liberator aircraft in our story, is transporting the protagonist William to an airfield near Naples, Italy.

This interior shot was a tough challenge with all the sharp angles leading to the centre.

Above is another still I made, this time of the cockpit of the B-24 Liberator looking out of the left window. I wanted to get a variation of both interior and exterior shots in the cut scene to get a sense of perspective of the aeroplane in the sky.

Here is an extended shot I made that is held for about eight seconds before changing. I made sure to add detail but not spend too much time on things like the rivets which is actually just the same rivet, duplicated several times and then copy and pasted vertically and horizontally.

I thoroughly enjoyed and looked forward to making the action stills which start at this shot above of the Liberator getting hit by a sudden shock wave.

One of the trickier shots to paint was this one of a massive smoke plume. I had to use several photographs to understand the rolls of smoke, as this is something I have never done before. To make a dramatic impact of the eruption column, I placed the Liberator over the harsh shadow from the plume; isolating the size comparison.

I found the still above challenging, although I knew what I was doing. Several layers had to be blended in the options panel and I had to filter through them quite frequently to match up with other contrasts in the image. Most of the flames were from my own photographs I took and then simply painted over the top and adjusted with light levels etc.

As the project drew closer to the last deadlines, I realised I was not going to finish all of the stills in time. Above is the last shot which took some time to plan. I had to sum up three components of the intro story into just one image; Mount Vesuvius erupting, William getting captured (by Nazi Germans) and his body language conveying his emotions, all at the same time!

After the previous still, an impactful title of our games name (as well as William's status report) appears reading 'Missing In Action'. Our vertical slice is at the beginning of the story and follows straight after the intro. I would have liked to have edited sound to our cut scene but as all the deadlines came closer I had to prioritize essential jobs. However, I was able to find a fantastic royalty free horror score pack that we then used as our main theme and another track for our main menu scene.

This is our games box art for PC release (as if it was an actual studio product). I absolutely enjoyed every bit of making this, as I have created several DVD covers for college and personal projects before; and love presenting the content in this form. I made sure to include fine details from the age rating, right down to the small print for an authentic outcome!

One of the more important things I made halfway through our project, was a gameplay storyboard. I neatened my original rough Biro version into a digital one above which is almost like a step by step of the stages of gameplay. Furthermore, I included small tone values to push the viewer's eyes to what the scene looks like, rather than just black outlines. Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed this unit. Although there were many stressful times and lots of organizing, leading up to the final hand in, I found that creating art material as visual problem solving for our team exhilarating.