zbrush scarey head for asset (game)

this is a human head i made in zbrush, i plan to alter the eyes and add a tongue later so that it can be used as a assets within the game i'm making.

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this 4th image is rendered within 3ds max to give the model more life, one thing i really need to improve on is the way i make ears, in the future i think ill start off with a small base coming off of the head and then add geometry to that rather than adding it straight onto the head. 

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title: the scary face

60 polygon shield

taking inspiration from our low poly modeling from reference lesson, i decided to make a extremely  low poly shield (around 60 polys) except this time transferring some of the skills i learned in maya over to max, one of these skills is bump mapping where you take a black and white image and place it in the bump section of the material, this forms bumps on the texture depending on how deep the shade is.
in the future i plan to age this shield using blurred dirt textures and moss, the reason ive chose these two is because they are widely found on old rusted objects.

architectural design bathroom 2000 and 5000 poly

i made a bathroom in 3ds max as realistically as i could using architectural such as modeling from reference within one of the size windows, even though this is realistic style i am going to keep it as lowpoly as possible.

my goal is to keep the poly count below 10 000 polys for the whole scene, this is more than five times lower than most architectural design models which are between 60 000 to 100 000 polys.

breaking down of my scene:

originally i was only going to make a sink to test out the effects of mental ray lighting within 3ds max, however after looking at my model i decided that it looked out of place just sitting on the wall by its self  so i added the mirror to fill the space more, but once i added the mirror i released that the reflection showed more of the empty environment.

after coming to the conclusion that no matter what angle i rendered my image the open space would still be obvious, so i decided once again to add more simple object to the scene to give a greater scene of realism while at the same time keeping the poly count low. (for example the radiator is made up from two half cylinders and some 8 sized cylinders) 

models i plan to make over the coming weeks

here is a list of models i plan to try and make over the coming weeks

3dmax:

• guitar 
• shield 
• long sword 
• bow and arrows
• small pistol 
• musket 

zbrush/ max cross over:

• gas mask 

making a fountain pen in max (practice to keep effectiveness in modelling up)

this is a fountain pen i modeled using a basic reference to get the shape and then from there started adding my own touches, the red glossy pattern on both the pen and the cap started off as a green Chinese dragon that i found online, i started by changing the dragons color from green to a blood red and then chopping and changing parts for ones i preferred more. (this gave the the base for the pattern)  after making the dragon more to my liking i then took a dirt texture and multiplied it over the top to give the dragon a faded look, then i combined the two textures and dropped there fill to show the black back ground behind more (making pattern semi transparent)

the second change i made to my design was the head of the pen, originally i was going to keep it plain chrome but after much thought i decided to add a engraving from an old wall tile i found + a bump map to add character and depth.

the lighting for this model is vray but with this object instead of keeping the light standard i changed the shadow setting so that the shadows have a softer fall off and have a greater amount of detail, if you are going to do this make sure its for one of your final renders as it increases rendering time exponentially.

first z brush work at home (orc)

this is a orc head i made at home using zbrush 3.1 trail as i haven't got zbrush at home, this is my first attempt of making a head fully from scratch although before i have played around with zbrush using the default head as a base.

 this is the model rendered in 3ds max

Easter eggs and secrets

secrets and Easter eggs are very common in video games and have been around almost as long as computer gaming its self, because of this fact i like to put small surprises into the details of my work. for the low poly unit i made a Victorian living room styled environment within which is a book case, in this book case there are many books however they are all under the same title " the royal book of screw you jordan" after jordan may a mate of mine from school who said id never be king.

low poly unit feed back

feed back from:


tony: (ex tutor)
tony my ex 3D tutor said that my environment looked good and my progression in 3D modelling was moving along at a fast pace however the lighting could be improved to make the models look more realistic( i plan to edit the lighting to make my environment  appear as if its lit by the fireplace and candles.
Olivia and Bethany: ( illustrators ) 
the two illustrators i met in the library said the following statements about my models, my enviroment had a Victorian house feel however it looks more plastic than realistic(i can fix this by altering the lighting later on)
my key looked very realistic and at first tricked them into thinking it was real, my ball looks realistic but the grass doesn't and it was this that gave it away and finally my pokemon looked real however 
peers:
my peers said that my work was of a good standard however a few things they picked up on were the fact the carpet is slightly pixelated and the photo frame in the background is to light for the environment its in (i will change both of these things when i start adding more models to the scene as im using this environment to show development)
lecturer :
the lecturer thought that my model looks high poly even if there not.

my work evaluation (lowpoly)

the brief for this unit was to show that we are able to model lowpoly objects to be used in a gaming environment, we also had to show that we are capable of writing a blog to document lessons and how we made are models. 

this is the finished environment piece i have been working on for the low polygon unit, my environmental is based on a Victorian living/dinning room with a haunted like feel, to achieve this feel i have used dim lighting which gives the shadows a ghostly like presence.

the models i have made are all to scale to make sure they look as realistic as possible  i found this out while watching a 3ds max architectural design modeling tutorial in which the tutor kept bringing up the fact that objects that are not in scale with there environment will look out of place, however there are some instances where having a object standing out from the environment is good such as if you want the player to take interest in the model.

i am happy with the result of my first two and a half months of modelling however i feel that i have a long way to go before i reach profession standard in the art of environment modeling, in fact the reason i chose to make a environment in the first place was to improve one of my weaker fields which is scaling. 

this is a model i found on turbo squid of a kitchen 

this is a model of a kitchen i found on the internet, as you can clearly see it is of high quality and looks very realistic however this is not a low polygon model it is a medium poly count model, the reason i have chosen this model over a lowpoly to compare my work to is because i want to compare my work to a model that has a advantage in polygons.

comparison:
the first models im going to compare between these two environments are the chairs, i think its clear that the professionals chairs are a little bit more detailed this is mainly to do with the higher poly count as the texture it self isnt that high resolution, one aspect i could take from this model is the way the light hits the surface of the wood, in the professional model the light is more spread out and blurs at eat end while on the other hand mine has only a slight glossy reflection. i could improve the way the light hits my models by looking up tutorials online about how to configure certain materials such as wood and darker metals such as iron.
the second models i will be comparing are the tables, as it stands the tables them self are not that different due to the face they both are chamfered and have a half reflective surface. i believe that even though the table is extremely low on polys it still shows a strong definition between the top of the table and its sides, as you can see from my image the top of the table is completely reflective like a polished surface while the sides only have a slight gloss showing they are made of a different wood.
the last thing i will be comparing is the lighting, i have gone for a dark creepy style of lighting, unlike the professionals model which is more fully lit.
personally i believe that my lighting doesn't give off the right feel, the reason for this is i want the light to be admitted from flames that will be placed in the fire place and on the top of the candle sticks, on the other hand the medium poly kitchen has almost flawless lighting with the exception the light bulbs are not glowing even though they are the light source.
changes i would make:
the first thing i would change about my model is the carpet, the carpet is a little pixilated due to the uv map being too small, this can be fixed by simply increasing the size of the map and using a more detailed/ high resolution texture.
the second object that needs altering is the painting, the problem with this object is it stands out to much in the environment because of its lighter color of texture, this is easy to fix with a simple texture change and a little chamfering around the edge of the frame.

texture mapping and bumpmaps

diffuse maps:
uv template























textured uv template

the images shown above are the uv template and my textured uv template, the uv template is a map of what your object looks like flattened out and are the guild lines used to texture a object, to texture my objects like my table for example i first had to divide my object into different sections in the uv editor.
this table was quite easy to break up due to its low poly design, i decided after looking at my reference image that the top and the bottom of the table were one section, the extruded middle was a section and the chamfered edge between them was a section.
too save space ive used two completely different techniques,these techniques are the flatten mapping by face and the layering.
flatten mapping by selected faces:
first select the polygon faces you want to unwrap in the uv editor and then click mapping-flatten mapping, this will find the best way of flattening out the faces you have selected, if this doesnt work you may also try the plan mapping as it may give a better result.
layering:
layering is when you take outlines of uv that you want to have the same texture and put them ontop of each other, this technique utilizes the space more effectively and there for you can have a smaller map.
the parts on the table i layered were the top/bottom and the sides, the reason for this i the bottom is hardly going to be seen by the player but there is no harm in giving it the same detail as the top if it uses no extra space on the map.
bump maps:

this is a bump map, a black and white scale image which gives depth to a texture.

how a bumpmap works:

a bump map works in grey scale this means that it takes the different shades and works out the depth of the texture, the darker the color the deeper the imprint however this can be reversed in max by turning the bump value to a negative number.
i used a bump map to do seventy percent of the detail on my fireplace, the reason for this to add the same amount of detail using polygons would push the poly count up into the hundreds of thousands.
glass:

to glass you need to have both a reflection and refraction map added to your texture, first turn the diffuse to black and the specular color to white, turn the glossiness to 80 and specular level to 150, go down to maps and add in both in reflection and refraction a raytrace map, turn the refraction to 80 and the reflection to 10 finally make sure double sided is checked.

glass is a very effective way of making a environment look real however be care of how high your render setting are as glass will increase the time it takes drastically due to the light being bounced around inside the object.

 metals

i have made this metal in the following way, turn diffuse to a dark grey, turn glossiness to around 40 and the same for specular level, add a raytrace reflect map and turn it down to around 80 (the higher the number the more polished the metal)
there are other ways to make metal including, specular maps and multilayers however i chose this way because of its quick render times.

glossy / stone materials
just some textures made using the techniques described above.

makeing hall and living room day 6

this is day three of making my models, today i will be making a chair to go with my Victorian styled table.

 to make the chair first find a good reference image or concept art piece to work from, then starting with the seat part of the chair draw out a box about one and a half feet wide then scale it down on its Y axis, add connects around the outside edge, where they over lap in the corners squares will be formed.

 select two of the top corner squares and extrude them up as high as the back of the chair in the reference image, add two or three connects going up the back of the chair so that you can arc the back slightly.

using the move tool move the top and middle connects on the back of the chair until they form a slight curve then use the rotate tool to rotate the edge lines until the curve is more fluid.

select all four corner squares on the bottom and extrude them down about two and a half to three feet these will be the chairs leg.

finally make two more connects down at the bottom of the back of the chair and then selecting the two squares on the inside extrude them towards each other, when they are about one third each of the way across delete the top faces and bridge them together. (do the same to the top of the chair)

select the top center face of the bottom bar on the back of the chair and extrude it up towards its corresponding part on the bottom of the top bar, delete the faces and weld each vert to its opposite  number.

now the basics of the chair are made you can add as many details as you like, in my case i added a rounded crest to the top, extruded a cushion out of the center and chamfered the legs and sides of the back.

makeing hall and living room day 5

this is day 5 of making models for my environment, the models i will be making today are the picture frame, candle holder and adding to my fireplace.

(uses a reference image) to make the picture frame first make a rectangle and scale it to the desired size, convert to editable poly and select the front face, inset the face to about the same width of the first indent in the reference, extrude inwards slightly and repeat the first and second steps until your frame matches your reference. this technique is the simplest however if you want to use less polys you can also just do the steps once and then use a texture and bump map to fill in the rest of the detail.

to make the candle holder we will be using the same technique used to make the table leg, first draw out a cylinder and give it many divisions in the height but only a few in the sides to reduce the amount of polygons used, convert to editable poly and select the vertx mode, begin to scale each line of verts in all axes until your cylinder looks more like your reference (to make sphere like shapes make using five lines scale the top and bottom in and scale the mild line out a little) use smoothing groups to pronounce the different shapes within the model.

final render of candle holder 

i have added some more detail to my fire place to do this i simply added some more connects vertically and horizontally and then extruded them out (chamfered the edges to give them a rounder look) the hardest part was making the pillars at the front the reason for this is i had to extrude them and the ring around them then re-position the ring so that it was straight.

makeing hall and living room day 4

this is day 4 of my modeling living space and hallway 

to make the skirting boards i first selected the line tool and in a side view began to draw out the basic shape of the skirting board (i used a reference to get the shape i wanted however modified it slightly to give it a older look) after i was happy with the shape i converted it to editable poly.

 select the polygon and extrude it out so that it has some form then using the board selection tool cap the end.
to make the frame around the door first align two skirting boards ninety degrees to each other with the tops facing in, then create a box and rotate it forty fives degrees as a reference then with both skirting boards attached move the vertexes on the ninety degree angle so that they line up with the forty five degree angle of the boxes edge, this will form a seem between the two skirting boards now all you have to do is weld the verts on one skirting board to the corresponding verts on the other.

to make the cupboard i first made a rectangle that was seven feet in height and then converted it to editable poly, i selected the top face and extruded up but only about one third of a foot, once extruded i scaled the top face so that it was slightly wider than the rest of the model, to make the inner curve select  the top line of edges and the second line then click chamfer, turn the amount of divisions up until you are happy with the result, finally click the top face and extrude once more.

to make the inside of the cupboard and the draw you use the same technique  first make two connects going down the model and four going across, scale them until they resemble the sizes of a cupboards inside and draw, select the larger one for the inside and extrude inwards then select the smaller one and extrude outwards to make the draw.
the doors are extremely low poly due to there simple design, take a rectangle and inset the front then extrude in, to make the light hit the doors with a slight glossiness chamfer the edges but only a few units.
(sorry for the lack of pics this was the day i was very sick)

makeing hall and living room day 3

this is day three of my living room and hallway environment 

to make the old styled table legs i started with a cylinder and added a few connects to add segments and add vertexs, starting from the top i began to pull the verts out in all axes to change the wideness at certain points, by changing the width at certain points the leg begins to take shape giving of the impression of circles and rings that aren't really there.

after getting the general shape if the chair leg i went into polygon mode and started dividing the object into different smoothing groups, the way i divided the model was simple every part where the model became bottle necked i added a new smoothing group, this gave the object the appearance of being made up from many different shapes.

the image above shows the finished table leg all smoothed and rendered in its correct place.

to make the table first make a rectangle and convert to editable poly, select the four corners in edge more and click chamfer, chamfer the edges about one fifth of the table then make sure to click the tick or ull have to select the edges again.

next add four connects down the height and scale in the top and bottom slightly to five a chamfered  feel to the top and bottom of the table even though it hasnt been, finally select the center row of polygon then scale them up so that they make up eighty percent of the side, extrude them in slightly to add detail.

add smoothing groups to the different segments of the table, the different segments can be clearly seen everywhere there is a solid line.

i decided to make the wine glass using both maya and max, the reason for this is i feel the extruding controls are less stiff in maya and more suited to curved objects like a wine glass, however on the other and i will also be using max's smoothing groups to make this object look real but at the same time low poly. 

i started by importing a background plan into maya, to do this go into view / image plane and then select the image you want to use as reference, after i had the image in place i draw out a sphere and chopped it in half, from this half sphere i took the top row of verts and moved them to the top of the glass in my reference image.

i began to move the rest of the verts so that they fitted the rest of the glass, select the bottom circle of faces where all the verts meet and extrude down, add a few connects so that you can scale out and mold the bottom of the glass.

to export the object first select it and it and go to export, select OBJ and click export, once in max you will have to reset the objects normals or you wont be able to apply smoothing groups.

concept sketches for my environment

the following images are concept drawings of the environment i plan to make over the duration of this project, the following three images depict a top view, a perspective view and a close up of one the of cupboards included in my scene.  

the image above is a top view of the environment scene ill be modeling, as you can see the environment is quiet large and contains many models however i plan to use this face to show development later on, the way this will achieve this is simple i will make small parts of this environment over the course of the three years slowly adding new techniques i have learned along the way.

the full scene will include a living/ dinning area, a kitchen and a creepy hallway leading into the living space. for the lighting i plan to use an environmental hdri image and vray lights however this may change  due to my lack of knowledge in using vray to light scenes, my second choice of lighting is mental ray. 

the right side of this image shows the inside of the creepy corridor, at the end of the corridor you can just see the inside of the living space which has a greater concentration of light (this will a tunnel like effect making the person standing in the corridor want to head towards the light.
on the left side of this image is a perspective view of the inside of the living space/ dinning area, this area includes many models including a full set of table and chairs, plates, glasses, a fireplace and candles.

this final image shows a old Victorian cupboard, i have drawn this image close up to give my self a idea of all the shapes it is made up from.