Life is AWSM!

Wow look at the time! Has it really been 5 months since my last post? Unforgivable. Must remedy that.

After a short contract artist job at SCEA I'm back on the streets, hungry for work. In the mean time, I've been frequenting a lot more 3D forums lately. My favorite by far is Polycount.com. One of my favorite parts of their forum is their "Game Art Workshops," where artists all work on the same project, and collaborate on techniques and theories. It's been a great way to learn, but also get some great portfolio work out of it.

This past project involved modeling the stock piece of an Arctic Warfare Sniper Magnum rifle, or AWSM. (or AWP, for those who play Half-Life Counterstrike)

The Beast

I began by downloading a huge collection of reference images to give me an idea of the dimensions and volumes throughout the rifle. I then took a pure side view, projected it onto a background plane, and began blocking it out using a single polygon.

One polygon is where it starts

I tried to pay special attention to the flow of the mesh, as when you are working with high-polygon objects, the cleaner your base is, the better the results will be later.

Note the flow of the center lines down the mesh.

The stock was deceptively complicated, particularly around the handle area, where there are lots of sharp angles that meet at curves. The best thing about working in 3DS Max (my 3D program of choice for modeling these days) is that the "turbosmooth" modifier works with the stack itself. You can easily switch back and forth so see exactly how your low poly mesh is influencing the high poly final.

High Poly with bolt and barrel blocked-in.

Another angle.

Not simply content with modeling the stock of the rifle, I decided to go whole-hog and model the rest! It took several hours spread in and around my freelance work, but I wrapped it up! I'm currently in the process of creating a low-poly version to map the high-poly to, and then provide a final texture. In the mean time, let us both bask in the loveliness that is high-poly.

Hard to believe it all started with a single polygon. There's a metaphor for life somewhere in there I think. I'll have more updates in the coming days, so stay tuned!

-Jason

Low-Polygon Character Modeling...

Hello again!
Thought I'd shoot a quick update to the intertrons to show what I've been up to lately. In addition to looking for full-time employment, I'm finding myself juggling several projects at once! This time it was a month-long contest held on the polycount.com forums.

The contest called for a low-polygon character (or series of characters) that numbered 700 triangles or fewer designed for a mobile device, such as a Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. The theme was an action movie side-scrolling brawler, such as Final Fight or Streets of Rage.

"Final Fight:" The perennial "Beat dudes up until they disappear" game.

One of my favorite action movies of all time is "The Seven Samurai" directed by Akira Kurosawa. It's one of those kinds of movies in which every time you watch it, you notice something new. I also thought that the idea of a side-scrolling brawler set in feudal Japan sounded pretty awesome as well. I decided to model the leader of the Seven, Kanbei.

Best. Sideburns. Ever.

Modeling a low-poly character is really tough! You really have to make every vertex and line count. Texture space is also super-important. The contest only allowed a single 512x512 map for the entire character.

Click the Image for a larger view

For every additional character after the first one, the limits were even tougher. You couldn't use more than 500 triangles, and the texture sizes were reduced even further! Nonetheless, I decided to include a bandit character for Kanbei to fight against.

Click Image above for a larger view

In addition to modeling and texturing both characters, I also created a custom rig that is shared by both of them. It makes use of IK and some basic controls for moving and controlling several groups of bones at once.

Click the above image for a closer look

So there we go. That's what I've been up to lately. Check back later this week when I'll give you a dose of High-Detail stuff that will blow your mind! Until next time!