work work work

Lotsa lotsa work! The new direction speckt is taking is gonna be  AWESOME! I'm so psyched! We're gonna have more assets to make, and we're gonna be able to populate this game with lots of interesting things! For right now though, I've been working on the Kroaton (the nature golem). Just today I modeled a low res for both the left forearm and the golem's head. See, each part of the golem's body is going to be it's own static mesh, with it's own texture map. Because the golem is frozen in time, all we have to do is pose each piece and then cover any seams with static's such as vines, rock, moss, etc. Anyway, I got the low res models donw, and then I took 'em both into zbrush! Woah! lot's of work for one day!  Tommorow I gotta do the whole right arm >_>. Should be fun though, it's the first path up the Kroaton, so I gotta make it "Kickass." Here's a few images of the golem stuff I worked on today. L8t's! 

So, it's been awhile...

I know, I haven't updated in awhile. I apologize. Ya'll were probably thinkin' "Classic Harry... not updatin' n' stuff..." But indeed I have been very, very busy getting everything in order for POC, or Proof of concept. A very important milestone, that unfortunately, did not do very well... and that's being nice. From a code standpoint, well... some things are being cut so that we actually have a "Game." Us artists, apparently we didn't do so badly, but we don't have a grade yet, because our art wasn't able to be reflected in the build due to code issues. However, because of the pulls from the gameplay, our environment is going to be changing drstically. No longer will the creatures of the level move around their environment. Instead they will be frozen in time, in some battle pose or what have you. This will allow us to place many more static meshes around the environment and really turn this into a lush, beautiful game. The game is going to have a much sullen feel, with the environments being more ruined and old, and our robot, the wee Nanobot is going to be... shall we say, "Steampunk'd."

Hiccup!

Hiccups indeed! Everyone hates hiccups, and right now, we got 'em bad. Our team has run into quite the headache with our animation exporter. We've tried so many things. We've re-rigged the nanobot, using a method that was so meticulous that it's virtually unthinkable for something to go wrong with it. We eventually tried out another mesh, a simple cylinder that could bend and wobble around. This test worked fine, and we realized that the exporter was only reading one joint chain. So, from the robot's hip, the exporter read to his shoulders, and then just picked an arm, and never came back for the other arm, or legs! So currently, this is our hurdle. Hopefully it will be a past memory by the end of the day. We shall see!

So, after much deliberation and some solid critiques from me peers, I have made some changes to the wee Robot. His Specular map, which identifies how light reacts to the surface of the robot, has been modified to reduce light reflectivity on areas where the robot is worn down. In addition, his color map has been dirtied up a bit to make the little guy more interesting. Here he is, in all his glory. I hope you guys like him as much as I do!

Quite a little Road Bump!

So, Wednesday, I head into class feeling great. I had just rendered my Ambient Occlusion and Normals for the nanobot. I was about to get to texturing. Such Progress! However, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction! And such progress wrought upon me problems that would hold me back a whole day. Fortunately for myself, I was two days ahead of schedule ^_^. So, the problems with the model ended up being mostly range-of-motion issues. Anyways, I fixed those, which led to some interesting changes in the model. (for the better I think) So, I ended wednesday right where I had began it. For the good news! I am done on time, with the model and it's textures, and I am proud to post this splash image of the robot! Hope you enjoy it, I know I do!

Step one=a month ahead of schedule

Today was a fine day in the world of game art! I finished the final Speckt character model today! Not only did I finish modeling it, but it's been UV'ed, and I've begun Zbrushing the high res for my normal maps and ambient occlusion! Below I have some pictures of the model, and my UV collage w/ a 512 checker texture.

So it begins...

It has been a long time since blogs first appeared on the interwebs. And for the whole of that time, I have been able to keep myself from making one. Yet now, I find myself typing away at my computer, making my first post ever. Why now you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Up until now, I had no reason to keep a blog. However, now I find myself amongst a group of extremely talented people, and we are working together in the final months of our schooling, to create a video game of
EPIC PROPORTIONS!!!
I feel like the work I will be doing between now and our sweet release of graduation is worthy enough to be put down, for the whole of the internet to read if they so please. So I hope that in the blog posts to come you find content worthy of your interests.