Oil Lamp - Game Asset

Started modelling assets for a game and needed to create a Oil lamp for our boy character to hold.  So far I have quickly modeled out a high poly lamp using splines with Lathe modifier, and some box modelling techniques.

I then quickly added some materials from the raytrace and mental ray materials in 3ds max for a quick test render

So I have spent the evening experimenting with particles and have managed to make a flame with smoke and sparks but 3ds max animation keeps freezing and the render don't seem great so I will wait until It's imported into Unity to see what its like before tweaking more.

I then added a Omni light and experimented with animating a flicker.

The render seemed a little bright and that is because I set the multiply to a crazy amount.  The next render is the same Omni with the same setting but I reanabled the sun light I created for previous renders which I hoped would drown out the glare some.

I decided the flicker was just too bright so I added 2 omni lights.  1 to keep a decent light distance so the player can see and one for the flicker at a much reduced brightness

A larger render with a longer animation

Next I have started to model the LP version of the lamp by copying the HP version and taking off Turbo smooth, deleting lots of unnecessary loops etc

So final LP Lamp is 344 polys.  time to unwrap.

Will Bake Hp to LP tonight and hopefully get some good results

Low Poly Character

So today's task was to start modelling a Low poly character in a cartoon style that I could eventually rig and test out in Unity which is the engine were going to be using for our side scrolling game.

My Method was to start with a box for the body 2x2x2 segments and to use extrude to for the body and arms.  I then used extrude and bevel to creates the legs and shoes.

To model the head I again started with a box and put Turbosmooth on with 1 iteration.  This method is far better than using a sphere as spheres cause nasty triangles where as rounding out a box gives the head a much nicer set of quads.

Continued...

So I have completed the Model for now.  I may have to add some loops later for animation purposes but as we haven't yet decided on what were animating I have kept it as simple as I could and only detailed what would give the character a good silhouette and keeping in mind this is a side scrolling game some details would not be required.

I have managed to keep the character at 772 polys 1,544 Tris.

The hair is also apart of the model with like a Johnny Bravo style keeping it simple but I really liked the look during the design.

Next..

So next I am going to unwrap the model and texture it.  Hopefully I have learned from previous builds and get the UVW's right this time, fingers crossed.

Update..

So I have spent some time with the UV's trying to get them as best as I could using many different methods with the unwrap editor as I could to get them accurate.  This included Pelt Mapping with relax and peel mode mainly.

I did both a wire frame and solid version of the unwrap in a PNG format with alpha selected so I could easily overlay them in Photoshop.

I then started to add colour using Solid colour masks to help with any future alterations in which I can easily and quickly change the shade or colour of each part by changing the colour mask and not having to repaint the whole thing.

I have spotted a few errors in the characters hand which need to be fixed, again the problem is at UV level but after spending along time trying to sort the uv's on the hand previously I am ignoreing this for now.

Update..

So now I have painted some detail to the hair to make it less flat looking.

Next I have started adding some texture detail to the clothing

Next I have improved the shirt as the texture was going the wrong direction and added a logo.  Also added some front pockets to the jeans

Next I have decided to take a break from the diffuse for now and I have started building the HighPoly version.  This is so I can create a nice Normal map and complete map to add some extra detail to the Lowpoly.

Above shows how I started modelling the trousers and below I continue to add detail by completing the Shirt and some hair.

So now I am happy with my HighPoly I decide to revisit my UV's and fix all the issues/difficulties I found whilst making the diffuse earlier.  The new UVW unwrap below will enable me to get a much better diffuse once I bake the Highpoly onto the Lowpoly.

Happy with my Uv's I have now started putting a base colour on my high poly ready to start baking onto my Low poly using a projection modifier.  This will include Normal map and complete map.

Base Colour on Highpoly

Next I have started to bake a complete map and a normals map and the first set of results are pretty good.  Will need to clean up a few area but I think it will turn out good.

So yea he looks like a vampire and the shadows are a little harsh but that should be an easy fix.

Hi Poly To Low Poly Workflow

  During my research in making a character I came across a lot of people asking whether they should model low poly first the make high poly or vise versa.  

After completing my low poly first and then using that to create a high poly I did run into some problems as above, mainly the fact my high poly was a good size smaller.  This meant that when projecting my maps from the high poly to the low poly the cage had to be placed quite a distance away which meant the bake came with plenty of errors.

Taking my High poly boy I decided to work backwards and see what the results would look like.

The character is 100-200 higher in poly count than the original low poly but as you can see his silhouette is far closer to the high poly which means he should take the bake much better,

To show this I put the original low poly (left) high poly (Middle) and new low poly (Right) together

Low Poly Game Assets (Tree Model)

So I am starting to build some assets for a game and trying to get them done fast to use as place markers.

The game will be based on an island so the first asset I decided to create was a palm tree using some references from google images

Happy with my references I took into 3ds max and modeled the trunk using a cylinder with 12 sides.  Unwrapping this immediately and sending the uv's to Photoshop I quickly made the texture.

Once this was done I created two more textures, one being the coconuts and the other being the leaf.

These were taken into 3ds max and added to a plane to keep the poly count low but giving the tree the look of a slightly high poly

A quick render shows the effect this has with opacity layer really giving it the effect of a higher poly model.  

What next...

So next I am going to create a few different instances of the leaves so they are not identical as in the real world and maybe create some other types of palm tree.

Also I am not 100% happy with the coconuts right now

Update..

So just spent a little bit of time sourcing out more Coconuts and editing them and also edited the leaf to make a brown version

Next I took these into 3ds max and make a few variations of Palm trees.