Portfolio: New Items Added

[canim8]

Hi!

Been some time since I posted. These are all items I've added to my portfolio within the last couple weeks. Some I've been working on for quite some time after work each afternoon *monster*

Canim8s


http://home.nc.rr.com/claysanimation/TANK.jpg

http://home.nc.rr.com/claysanimation/SOLDIER.jpg

http://home.nc.rr.com/claysanimation/MONSTER.jpg

http://home.nc.rr.com/claysanimation/M16.jpg

http://home.nc.rr.com/claysanimation/APACHE.jpg

[poopinmymouth]

when displaying game art, its normally a good idea to display the textures at 100% illumination. this shows off what you have created, and not what the program shades. if you really want to show of the shading, include that as a separate image. the monster is definately my favorate of them all. keep pushing on your textures, they feel a little photosourced.

[canim8]

Thanks for the post.

Yeah..the texture work is rough. It's my first time ever attempting to texture and it's all self taught. I'm submitting these images to a local studio. An artist there told me to concentrate on my modeling and make sure that I understand just how to place the textures as someone else would be generating the textures. My job would be to map and place the textures once they are created.

Everything except the monster was created within the last couple weeks so I was basically attempting to model to a given poly limit in a relatively short period of time.

After texturing the models though, I realized that I actually enjoyed working on the textures as much as modeling so I'll probably continue to refine my texturing work. Problem is, I have no idea where to even start with texturing unless I'm doing it photo based.

Thanks for the suggestions.

canim8s

p.s. I've been wondering this for a long time and never asked...where did you get the name "poopinmymouth"?

[Sonnenkind]

I see real good attempts here, but as poop said it's rendered poorly, which is a shame.
If you are working with 3dsmax, try to set your environment to a basic white color, then see the advanced lightning options and select the raytracer. the other options can be left as are.
These options can both be found in the "rendering" Menu.
Now insert a large plane into your scene, make it so your model "stands" on it. now create a skylight from your lights creation menu and place it anywhere in the scene.
If you have any other light sources, then go to the Tools menu and select "light lister" and deactivate all other lights but the skylight.

Now try to render your scene. Don't get shocked, it will take a much longer time than a normal render, but it'll pay off.


If you know all this, please excuse my blabbering.


As for textures (using mostly Photoshop):
Try to start out by setting up seperate layers for each part of the Model you have set up on your unwrap. Then fill them with the basic colors you want them to be.
Now mark the places where Detail is going to be added, for example screws on a metal plate in a slightly different color.

Now, if the texture is to be even (e.g. stainless metal), then try to polygon select areas that are facing the same direction and gradient-fill them with the respective metal tones. Do that until you have your metal colors set up and the blur the edges just a little bit so it doesn't look as chunky. You can then go into Detail.

With organic and dirty textures, You will need a little more manual work. Fill in the basic shades and hues as before, Now apply a basic distortion from your Filter menu. Afterwards put a blur filter over the distortion. The texture should be looking a little more interesting now, not as plain anymore.
Now you will need to fill in some detail using the burn and dodge tools. when done with the lighting of the Larger areas start creating smaller details.

As with any piece of art, try to vary colors and contrasts. This os doubly important with textures, as textures for lo to mid poly modelling will simulate a lot of the lighting detail that the modeller can'T go into, because of poly restriction.


I hope I was able to give you some useful hints, if you have further questions, just ask.
If you feel I'm treating you like a total newb, then tell me, I'm just trying to help.


Also, I believe I'm seeing some polys on that tank other than tris. I'd recommend applying a mesh select modifier, just for counting the polys, because 'editable Poly' modelling is really comfy, but it suckz when counting polys, since it doesn't triangulate. This can be a bad surprise when handing work in...

Sonnenkind out (whew)

[canim8]

:D Hey thanks for the tips... I appreciate any help I can get.

I'm pretty comfortable modeling just about anything but it's definitely the texturing, lighting and rendering areas that I haven't concentrated on and appreciate any advice links and whatnot you can provide.

I was just told by a friend in the industry to concentrate on modeling since the place I'm applying has different dept's that specialize in modeling, texturing etc.

I will try to follow your suggestions in the future and will definitely post my progress here since I've received such good advice.

Thanks again for your help.

canim8s

:chug:

[creatix]

Here is my input.

Lighting can help the piece but I would not worry so much about that just yet.

Don't get me wrong, it is important but relative to texturing and modeling I think it falls into 3rd place.

What I think would help you in the long run tremendously is to practice your painting skill in Photoshop. I assume you have a wacom tablet, if not try and look into getting one. Rather than using metal or stone images all the time try and learn how you would actually "paint" metal or stone. Just grab any object you have at home like a metal soda can and look at it and try and paint it each day. Save the file and each day keep repainting the same thing until you can paint the metal can. Once you learn to paint better you can rely much less on the photosourced textures. This is what I see is the largest problem overall in your work.

The models are great and if you decide to focus solely on that and worry about the texturing people to texture your models perhaps then you can start to show more of your concept to model work.

Just leave the models untextured and work from a sketch to 3d model - if thats the route you are going for.

As for lighting, check out my good friend Austin's site.

www.yourface.us -- recent graduate along with myself and he using 3ds Max default lighting. Has not messed with it at all and his work is still really good. His painting skills are really strong as well.

For what you want, the only reference that I can think of is some guy named Erik Larson. I found a demo reel link of his from www.bobotheseal.com -- somewhere on there. The guy just focuses on modeling and has other people do the unwrap and texturing. Perhaps if you can find it that can help you as well.

have fun, keep working hard!