Undertakers work

With my Senior year over, I took a little bit of time to render out some images of what I worked on for our Senior Game Project. We spent the year developing our student game Undertakers, a 4 player third person shooter set in the old west.

As part of the character team, I had my hand involved in creating each of the four characters, some to a higher extent than the others. Here are some Renders. Stay tune for a link to turntable videos sometime tonight.

This is Callie Mae. A tomboyish cowgirl. My part on this character was texturing and sculpting some of the accessories including the spurs, the belt and rope, suspenders, as well as texturing and sculpting the hair. Unfortunately, due to low poly count, the normal map translated pretty bad into the base mesh. With no time to retopologize, we had to live with it and move on. 

Meet Doc Rye, your friendly drunk army medic. For this character, I worked on texturing and sculpting the army cap, the belt and buckle as well as the pants and boots.

The dangerous Lou Ann. My part for this character was a bit bigger. It began by first creating the base mesh for most of this character with the exception of the hat and the belt (along with all its straps). After that, I brought in the hat and face another team member had completed and i proceeded to UV map her. Finally, the model was split and I had my hand at texturing and sculpting the corset, shirt, hands, boots and straps, as well as the spurs.

Finally, we have Wayne Cooper, the neighborhood killer banker. For this character, I had the task to create the whole basemesh from start to finish and unwrapping it before handing it off to be sculpted and textured.

Western Saloon

Western Saloon model. An attempt to do modular pieces. Based greatly on piece by Justin Superty.

Sculpt WIP of hand mesh

Started on the sculpt of my hand mesh today:

Already learning a lot about the shapes in the hand and I am trying to go from big shapes and keep refining as I work down into the details.

Hand Base WIP

Now that the semester is finished, I have decided to go back and work on a few aspects of the character model that I was not particular happy with. These models will not be incorporated into the last character, but I am doing these sorts of "studies" as a way to practice and improve for my next characters and projects.

So the first one that I have started to work on has been a hand model:

The poly count is a bit high as I am trying to get it set up to take into mudbox/zbrush to sculpt and then come back and reduce the count a bit more. I am also trying something new by positioning the wrist/fingers into a more relaxed position to make the model and the deformation a bit easier.

Aztec Warrior Final Renders and Thoughts

Here are the final renders of my Aztec Warrior Character. 

I've learnt quiet a lot creating this character. I am at odds about it, as on one hand I am happy with what I was able to accomplish, but overall I wish I had been able to improve the character a lot more.

Compared to my past characters however, I think this is miles ahead and on that sense I am very happy, as it is a noticeable improvement on every aspect (even design wise).

One of the biggest parts that I was happy with was the fact that I hand painted all the textures on this character. Most difficult/time intensive was the skin texture, and while all the textures still need more work in the details area, I was very happy with them as it was the first time I had ever attempted to hand paint any textures.

Another point that I think I improved on was the sculpt/anatomy of the model. Overall, I was able to get most of the muscles in the sculpt compared to my past characters.

Overall I think the character has a consistent level of detail and thus it helps it feel like a finished product, however there are areas where I definitely could improve on:

• Push textures even further. I can do this by increasing the amount of detail on the diffuse textures (such as more blemishes, more color changes, wrinkles, hair, etc on the body) and pushing my spec map further to help me give it more information/detail.
• Work on my anatomy even more: While chest/arms/legs are decent, the abs area is still causing me a little trouble. The obliques need to be a bit more defined and the abs need to be a little more asymmetrical (not so perfect) as well as flow better. Could work on my back and hands a bit more as well. Part of the issue with the butt area was caused by seams/normal map extraction issues, however the shape of it could still use a bit more work.
• I was not very happy with the rig at all. It was done very last minute, however I began to have some issue with the deformation, specially around the hands and feet.
• Part of the above issue is thanks to my base geometry. The feet in particular were perhaps not the best built, and so that caused issues when trying to deform. The hands were the other issue and I am unsure if it was a simple issue with the rig or if it also part of the base mesh/construction of them.
• Finally, the face could also use some work to make it look more "natural".

Regardless of these issue, I am happy with the product. I have since acquired better books for anatomical reference, and will work on improving that aspect. Two areas of particular interest will be the face and hands, as those will be important for next year's senior project (a 3rd person shooter) as well as the animation so my base mesh/rig has to be able to deform correctly.

Any advice tips or anything else is greatly appreciated, I know I have a long way to go but at the very least I am closer than I was last year!

Final turntable of an Aztec Warrior:

Final Renders upcoming

More Preview

A couple of more Preview renders...I think all that I have left to do (or will be able to do considering I must turn it in tomorrow) is fix up a few of the textures including some normal maps and some spec maps. Just a couple of more Preview renders, this time a more dynamic pose.