[What are you working on :]

Having some character animation fun. Here's a work in progress idle animation for a female character I've been working on. 
Her eyes blink, added very subtle finger motion and 'looking around' movement. 
Next up is to add more variation (for example: more head/shoulder turns, maybe checking her shoes for dirt/mud/poop, stretching her back, cracking her knuckles, ...).
And I'm also going to add hair physics.
 

 

 

[What are you working on :]

SWAT character model I created a few weeks ago for another team. Model is rigged completely, and is also setup for facial animation using morphs. 
Model is made in a 'modular' fashion, which means that some parts (clothing, items) can be removed to create variations.

Used a bunch of different programs: Zbrush, Marvelous Designer, 3D Coat, Substance designer/painter and blender. 

Really enjoyed creating this character.

[What are you working on :]

Low poly rowboat made in Blender, and textured in 3DCoat. Model is only 1.7K tris polygons. ?

[What are you working on :]

Newest WIP 3d model, made in Blender, and textured in 3DCoat ?. Next is to add a water tap. 

[Metal / Roughness together or separate?]

17 minutes ago, Josh said:

I was considering using it as our official format,

Not (yet) every 3Dmodeling/painting program can export to GLTF, Josh. How are we going to import our .obj/.fbx models then ??

[Metal / Roughness together or separate?]

1 hour ago, Argent Arts said:

Interesting, because glTF, for example, uses RGB differently:

• Red: Ambient Occlusion
• Green: Roughness
• Blue: Metallic

I know glTF is not the industry standard, but it is catching on. I believe Unreal will be adding glTF import (if they haven't already). 

Yeah, it was just an example. I guess it's all a matter of what possibilities you have in your 3D modeling/painting program, and the engine you're using ?.

1 hour ago, knocks said:

Many applications also natively support the substance sbsar format to allow editing of material properties.

Yeah, that'd be sweet to have! 

[Metal / Roughness together or separate?]

Most (if not all) modeling/paint programs (3DCoat, Substance Painter/Designer, 3dsmax, Maya, Modo) allow the exporting of both options, either as single or as combined textures (using the alpha channel). I use both, but for speed I tend to use combined texture maps, as it requires less drawcalls and memory usage.

Sometimes I'd even use the RGB channels to store individual maps into one (for example R for roughness, G for metalness, and B for height or ambient occlusion). But it all depends on the possibilities of the engine you're using. 

Exporting from Substance Painter and/or Substance Designer is rather easy...you can use predefined export templates, and then customize them to your liking. Plenty of tutorials on that as well.

Same for 3DCoat, there's a ton of export templates for various programs/engines. And there's also the possibility to add your own custom export settings.
 

[What are you working on :]

Here's my latest work of art. ?

A demonhead. It's the start of a demonic creature. All done in 3DCoat so far.

[What are you working on :]

It's been a while since my last post here, lol. Have been way too busy lately. Anyhow...here's my latest work of art...it's the Christ The Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. All done in 3DCoat. 

[How many polygons to use, guidelines?]

On 7-10-2017 at 10:45 PM, Core said:

12 325 polygons. 7329 vertices. Is it too much for a prop?

Yes, it is. Especially for a hard surface model like a couch. You could easily drop the polycount down to about 2 à 3 K (tris), and still obtain smooth edges. 

You could for instance first create the low poly mesh, define the outer shape and chamfer or bevel the edges you want to look smooth, then make a high poly out of the low poly (subdivision), and sculpt in more details (wrinkles, creases, etc...), and finally bake the high poly mesh onto the low poly, which will then create your normal maps that will make your low poly mesh look high poly .

For a character model that is seen close up (main character for example), 12K (tris) isn't too much these days. But, if you can go lower, so much the better.

[What are you working on :]

Here's my latest work of art in zbrush...a bandana! 
Low poly model is only 766 quads. 

[What are you working on :]

Clothing creation in zbrush is fun fun fun! Here's a couple of cloth pieces i've been working on...t-shirt, pants, boots, skimask, and lastly a WIP vest .

Next part of the process is sculpting in the folds, add pockets/buttons/zippers (or any other kind of detail), make the final uv map, and then bake the textures that will be used for texturing. Fun stuff if you ask me !

 

[Spline tool: paths, roads and more]

On 25-8-2017 at 4:32 PM, martyj said:

You could also make animated characters easily using Daz3D. It's free too.

You need a special license (I think it's $500 for Indie or so), to use Daz3D content (meshes and textures) in commercial products though. 

[Getting the right people...]

Perhaps, but most of us indie companies don't have the financial resources to pay monthly wages to their members. I've yet to encounter a member that wants nothing at all. And, I honestly don't mind paying him for his work...it's just that big companies can afford that kinda money upfront, but we as small indie companies can not, or not always at least. 

Also, each member will get payed (royalty based) according to the amount of work they've done. 

11 minutes ago, jen said:

You pretty much sold a portion of your business

Not really, I just gave him the chance (just like all members in my team) to earn something after the game is published and sells (the more the better for all of us). I also think it keeps people more motivated to work as hard as they can, because after all...the better their work, the more chance the project has of becoming a succes. At least, that's my opinion .

 

[Getting the right people...]

Hey all,

Most of us (especially those that have worked in a team, or are working in a team) will probably know that finding decent and talented members is far from easy, right?

Usually, the talented either already work in a team, or have a job in the game industry (which takes too much of their time to help you), or they want to get payed upfront for helping you, etc, etc...

Sometimes you search for months unsuccesfully, pulling your hair out of frustration, lol...and then you give up the search, because of it, right?

And then, sometimes...you get lucky .

Like for example...a couple of days ago, someone contacted me...said he's a voice actor...who did voice acting for Marvel and Activision...and he wants to help me with my game project!

My first reaction was...oooooooh my...! Marvel and Activision...wait...aren't those two well known professional (game) studios, lol ?? I couldn't believe what I read, you know ?
I wasn't really searching for a voice actor at that time, but when he contacted me, I jumped right on it. I listened to his demo reels...excellent stuff! Oh...and what's even better...he will help royalty based...!

We talked to each other and according to what he said, he has done various voices for a couple of Call Of Duty games! Impressive, eh?

Did any of you guys experience similar things yet?

Cheers!  

[What are you working on :]

Trying out NVIDEA's HairWorks on a cube (made in blender and then added the hair, also in blender). Result is really impressive. Hair uses strands instead of the usual 3D plane models. 
The hair (strands) can be combed, cut, and shaped in any way you like in blender, and then you can change the look of the hair in NVIDEA's viewer using many different options and get exactly the look you want for your hair. You can also add/change the hair material in blender if you wish .

The hair behaves realistically to wind, collision, head/body movement, etc...

In The Witcher 3, they used the same kinda hair. 

Here's an image of the hair on the cube model, and I added a wind effect to see how the hair reacts.

[What are you working on :]

Thanks, knocks! The cool thing is, now that I've created this bullethole, I can create an alpha of this model (which I already did ), or also a zbrush brush, and reuse this on any other model (for example, demolish a wall with bulletholes ).

The alpha or brush can then also be rotated, scaled, scaled in depth, etc...to make a variety of 'different' bulletholes, and speed up the workflow of course.

Or, I can modify the original bullethole model here and there, and grab an alpha of the new bulletimpact model, and create a whole library of different bulletholes.

Zbrush is not an easy program to get into, but once you get used to it, it's soo complete, and a lot of fun to work with. 

[What are you working on :]

Been having soo much fun in zbrush lately, lol! Worked on some bullet hole impact effects, and this is the result so far in zbrush:

Next up is to grab the depth, normal, ambient occlusion and any other required information, and then texture the whole thing in 3DCoat, or perhaps use substance designer/painter. 
Once that's done, all maps will be used to create bullet hole decals . 
Cheers!

[Judas Priest 'Painkiller' cover by me.]

Quote

Took my son to see Iron Maiden last year.

Got to teach 'em young, eh ?

On 2017-5-28 at 0:42 PM, Thirsty Panther said:

Also how cool is it  to fly your own 747 to the gigs?

Yeah, how many bands can do that, lol?

Also, the tickets were rather cheap (prices varied between €55 and €75) compared to tickets for Metallica (€100), and I'm pretty sure that the concerts that Iron Maiden give, are more spectacular and visually appealing than a concert from Metallica. Not that I dislike Metallica, but €100 for a concert is getting a bit much (especially if you get less spectacle than other bands that are cheaper to see).

Soon, we're also going to see Megadeth, Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson. \m/

[Judas Priest 'Painkiller' cover by me.]

Thanks! Hahhahaaaa, now THAT would be so coool...not ! I wish I could, but nah...hahahahaaa...some female vocalists can't sing as high as Rob can, so I bet I can't either ! I will try though, and see what the end result is before uploading .

Btw, I read they are working on a new album. Really waiting for that. I also hope to see them live some day. Saw Iron Maiden a few weeks ago...was absolutely awesome! The way these veterans work and entertain the crowd...simply amazing! Bruce ran and jumped all over the stage, lol! Glad I saw them.

 

[Judas Priest 'Painkiller' cover by me.]

Hello all!

Any metalheads around?

I'm working on a cover of Judas Priest's song 'Painkiller' of their album with the same name. Recorded entirely in FL Studio 12, and my Ibanez guitar. 

It's still WIP, so don't expect the complete song yet. I recorded this part a week ago, and made significant progress since, but I wanted to give you guys an idea of what's coming .

Anyway, without further ado, here is my (unfinished) version of Judas Priest's song 'Painkiller'. Let me know what you think. Thanks, and enjoy!

 

 

 

Painkiller.mp3

[What are you working on :]

On 2017-5-8 at 5:09 PM, Josh said:

Wow, that's really good.

Thanks, Josh! 

With the upcoming new features for LE 5 in mind, I had some fun in Substance Designer, and came up with this granite rock like substance. Many variations can be generated from this one substance to produce a multitude of high quality textures. 

LE 5 is still a long way to go, but what the heck...creating textures is fun, they are always useful, and we better prepare ourselves beforehand, right ?

[What are you working on :]

Started working on a few new props for my Desert pack! Been a long while since I updated it, lol.

Here's a render in 3DCoat of a new asset for the pack, a desert cliffrock. Going to make a variety of such cliffrocks for desertlike environments. By combining/rotating/scaling these rocks, you can then create a wide range of custom and larger cliffrock formations.

 

[A long Journey]

Looking nice! Looks like those latest images use one of my free skyboxes? Glad to see them used!

[What are you working on :]

Sci-door made in zbrush and textured in 3DCoat for my game CrystalsOfTheia . Also made emissive map for the yellow parts at the top of the doorframe, and also for the blue digital screens.