Team Twist - The Hub

Together with a team we have decided to create some kind of a hub, in which player will be able to rest, restore his health and buy new items. We needed a city layout so I've decided to paint a simple isometric village view.

We decided that we will have two main buildings. One is a tavern, in which, as said before, player will be able to regenerate his health. The other building is a Blacksmith station, where player will be able to sell items and fix equipment.
I've also included three exits that will lead to the locations in which player will level up and fight.

Team Twist - Creature Design

Recently I was asked to produce two creatures that could be used in our first level. We decided to go with the sewers, so we needed some dudes that would fit the setting. We've decided that we want to use Greek mythology creatures, but completely redesign them into our own.
Here I've produced two creatures with couple of variations.

There isn't much to talk about this creature other than we wanted it to be quite big.

In Greek mythology Charybdis is described as a whirlpool that sucks up all the ships that come by. At first I drew a big mouth  sticking out of water, but then me and my team decided to redesign the creature, so I drew two different variations and then a couple more on the chosen design. We also decided that player will not see any of the body, simply because it will save us both time and processing power.

Year 3 - The Begining!

Year 3 has started and I must admit, it was a rough start. I had a choice between joining a team or doing an individual project. And while I really wanted to do a thing of my own, I honestly had no idea of what I'd like to do. I've decided to join a team instead. They were working on an isometric RPG game set in Victorian London. This really appealed to me, though I'd prefer a fantasy setting. ;)
I took a role of a Lead Concept Artist, in which I do the majority of artworks.
Here I'm sharing with you first painting that I've produced for this project. The purpose of this was to explore both the architecture as well as the mood. I wanted to portray a dark and gritty London streets that could influence my team, and maybe push us further in the future.

World Building - Low poly weapon Final render.

After countless hours of texturing and modeling I have finally finished my flame thrower. I am really happy with the outcome. I achieved everything I wanted, although I wish I had more time to tweak my design. I must admit that I really enjoyed working on this project, even though it wasn't my comfort zone. I really wanted to try myself in 3D environment. The topology of the model works well and has a nice flow to it. I am also pleased with the silhouette of the weapon. Even without the textures weapon is readable.

Above is the picture of the mesh of the flame thrower. The whole model is low in polygons and could definitely be used in older as well as in newer games. The whole purpose of going this low with polygons is that I can produce majority of details using hand painted textures. The exact same technique is used by people over at Blizzard or Carbine Studios. 

https://skfb.ly/DQvX

Here's the finished weapon. I've used 3D-Coat for the texturing work and photoshop for the presentation purpose. As you can see I've added quite a lot of details that would otherwise require a high number of polygons. Cuts in the cloth and metal were hand painted which saved quite a lot of memory.

 In this shot you can see more clearly how I produced artificial light using highlights on the material as well as the cuts and other details.

Here I have painted quite a lot of lights on the back of the model. I think it definitely made the weapon more alive and believable. As far as the glow goes I have used exactly the same technique as in previous shot. I've added a slight wash over the blue area with a soft brush set to soft light, which gave an illusion of glow.

Overall I am quite happy with the outcome. I only wish I had more time to add some particles around the gun barrel or cables in the middle area, but even though I did not make these I still think my weapon looks appealing and I feel that I did really well with the task.

World Building - Low poly Weapon.

Now that other two task are finished I can proceed to the last one, which I think could be the most fun. Lately I have been doing quite a lot of work on my 3D skills and I am much more satisfied with them than ever. I feel much more confident walking into this project than before and I that I can accomplish a high standard outcome from this assessment.
I've decided to produce a low poly weapon which could be used in games such as Wildstar or World of Warcraft. I really enjoy hand painted textures so the fact that I can combine both concept art with the 3D work really appealed to me.
The other game that I though about while producing my intent was Brink. I loved the game back when it was released mainly for the customization options for both the character and the weapons. I really enjoyed the style and I think I want to achieve something similar with my weapon.

At the start of the project I was thinking about making some sort of fantasy weapon like an axe or a sword, but then I realized that I want to exit my comfort zone and do something else. I've decided to produce a flame thrower, that would have an appearance of a riffle. The weapon would be light and portable and would look as if it was used quite a lot.
Below I have attached some sketches that I did as a starter for the project, that I liked but decided to abandon because of me wanting to try something different. 

As I've mentioned previously I quite liked these even though I decided not to use them as my 3D model. Each of these weapons have some sort of story behind it. I wanted to make them feel unique and different from each other. 

Here I have started producing various sketches for my futuristic weapon that I've decide to do. Using the mood board seen above I constructed four of these sketches, but because I could not decide which I liked the most I've decided to pull bits from each design and construct something unique. 

As of now I am ready to build my 3D model. I have a clear image in my head and I think I can achieve quite a pleasing results based on the sketches I produced. 

Games Mechanic - Extra stuff.

Here's some work that I've produced towards the end of the project. The crowd was an idea of our team leader Stefan. The idea was to produce a flat characters that would be used as an audience on our maps. Similar technique could have been seen in the older releases of Fifa or any racing games.
I did not really like the idea as the characters would be placed quite close to the character and it would simply look unattractive for the player.

Here are the three Orcish dudes that I've painted. I have not payed much attention to the detail because of the fact that these will be only 512 x 512 in pixel resolution and will only move up and down.

And here's the tutorial book that I've produced. We wanted to achieve quite simplistic look that would be easy to read and would give a player quick info on how to move in our game. The background was made from the tiling texture that I've painted before and I think it worked quite well with the style we have in our game.

Games Mechanic - The Slick Rick and his Crew.

This is probably the last texturing that I'll be doing for this project. With the deadline approaching we still have quite some stuff to finish but I believe that we will make it on time. I really enjoyed working on these, mainly because of the fact that I am a huge fan of Dungeons&Dragons. 

As I've mentioned in my previous blog entries I've started using 3D- coat. I really can't believe that I never knew about this software. I have luckily discovered Kelvin Tan who is a 3D artist at Blizzard Entertainment. I was really shocked when I saw his work process using 3D-coat. Anyway, these two were a very fun project and I only wish that I did more organic stuff throughout the assessment.