Sketchbook: Nagoshi

[Nagoshi]

Hello everyone! I'm a college student studying Game Art and Design, and after spending about a year and a half learning the basics of the field I was hoping to expand to forums such as these for more helpful guidance. I'd like to use this sketchbook as a chance to post projects and learn from any feedback. I still consider myself a full novice, and constructive criticism of any level is very much appreciated!

Right now I'm working on finals for school, and I'd like to share this character model. Typically there is quite a gap between my skills in organic modeling versus just about anything else, so I'm much more comfortable with strip modeling vehicles. Only one way to get better!





Here's the rough sketch I made as reference.



I'm stuck on if the over-sized glasses add to her cuteness the way I intended, or if they just make her look too old. She has a 3,000 triangle limit, and I'll have to do a little cutting to keep her there with the glasses (3,230 tris with the glasses, 2,992 without). Here she is without them as comparison.



This week I'll be using this as a base mesh to sculpt a high poly in ZBrush, which will then be projected back to the low poly. That usually involves a few hiccups that result in a learning experience in itself. ^_^

[Nagoshi]

I made a few changes to the little girl model, and have a few left to do before I start sculpting, but I also wanted to go back and gather some of my older projects, just to get some sort of timeline of progress going. I'll have more recent things to submit here in a few weeks as well, once this batch of classes ends.

A couple traditional drawings, which were part of the portfolio I submitted to The Art Institute of Pittsburgh when I applied for the Game Art and Design program.





A creature design that I made about a year ago, where we had to mash together three different species. I'm still fond of this little guy and would like to model him at some point.





A render from a short "rollercoaster/racetrack" animation...this is where I began to learn more about texturing.



I want to document this because it is the first car I've ever modeled, and cars are now becoming my favorite thing to work on. They also weren't something I ever intended to enjoy modeling, it was a complete but pleasant surprise!



This is where I began to play with particle effects in 3ds Max.



Second vehicle, done purely for fun. The Gallardo is one of my favorite cars that I'll never own outside of a video game.





Car number three, the McLaren F1.



I also have some new renders of the little girl as she is now. I need to work on another project today so she's getting put on the back burner for now. Having problems getting a good shape for her head/chin. Decided to keep the glasses, though they were tweaked a bit, and I need to reduce the tri count once I'm done tinkering (3,166 tris now, needs to be 3,000 or less).

[Nagoshi]

The little one now has a normal map, and a basic diffuse.

[jasikajasz]

Your sketches are a really a nice and I really a like your sketch,you draw a best sketch,I like your work.

[Nagoshi]

Been keeping plenty busy with projects, so here are some renders to add to the sketchbook!







This is the first pass on modeling our family Durango (which served as great real-life reference until it was traded in o.o). Shown here it's a hefty 11,393 polys (22,306 tris) and built to be subdivided. Done within two weeks. I'm going to be continuing work on this, adding more detail and an interior, then getting a lower resolution version working in the Unreal 3 Engine. First time scripting, so I'm looking forward to that!



This character was done to go along with the Durango and an environment, which was then all animated together in a short video that I'll link to below. He's 1,704 polys (3,228 tris), and was also done within two weeks.





This was the environment to go along with the Durango and the photographer. I wanted to create a pre-lit studio environment, perhaps to reuse when rendering future vehicle models. It also got two weeks of love. Below the render is my initial concept-scribble.

YouTube - Vehicle Photo Studio

Here's a link to the final video that used all the above models.

I also got to work on two different teams, one for a mock-promotional trailer project, and the other for a level created in UT3. I doubled as producer/scheduling-lady and asset modeler for both teams, so here are some thumbnails of a few props:





That's all for now. I'll try to update as I work on projects more often to avoid these massive updates after three month disappearances. ^_^' I'm learning ActionScript and Unreal Script at the moment, as well as taking some extra life drawing sessions.

[Nagoshi]

Updates on the Durango project! Having talked to my instructor about my intention, I'll not be getting to the interior within this quarter, and I won't start fixing the model for another few weeks. He suggested that I get the script working on what I have, then add the pretty later. So this week was a lot of playing and research! I imported the skeletal mesh into UT3, got a rig to work, and imported an idle animation. I'm working on the physics now, but I need to do some reading on that as it seems to only affect one tire at the moment. Lots of firsts this week, so very exciting for me! Here's a screenshot of the model sitting in the emptiness of Unreal, completely undrivable for now but we'll be fixing that over the next couple months.



I've also been going to those life drawing workshops, so I'll share some of those. I've been drawing on newsprint leftover from when I had the actual life drawing classes a good while ago, and this morning I chose to draw with col-erase pencils, so the photos are a bit faint despite my efforts to clean them up. Next week I may just bring a small sketchbook so I can scan easily. Though I sort of like the first few done with china marker...no erasing means I can see where I found mistakes and tried to correct them on the go; sorta neat in a self-reflection sort of way.







This morning's model asked us if we'd like any certain focus in his poses, and I requested some to help me figure out how the shoulders/clavicles work a bit better. He even graced me with the best seat in the house, so I got foreshortening practice too!

[Razgriz]

Not bad stuff you have here man. I would just recommend that if you're planning on building a game-art portfolio, get started practicing displaying everything possible in real-time environments. You'll notice that most professionals display their game models in an engine like UDK, viewport shader like 3Point or Xoliul, or a model viewer like Marmoset. It's important to realize that Materials and Lighting react vastly differently in-game than in a max render. Your durango and lambo aren't bad models, but your presentation suits neither the model nor the render. Show off a viewport wireframe instead.

Your organic/character work is your weakest area. The proportions aren't completely awful, but I would concentrate on two things - study anatomy and human form, with plenty of figure studies and drawings, and update your technique. If you're making game-models that are going to use normal maps, then do it the correct way and use a sculpting program to detail and create the character, then build a low poly around it, and bake everything onto a normal map. And no more ugly max scanline renders!

Keep up the good work!

[Nagoshi]

Ahhh, thanks for the advice on presentation, that actually makes so much sense that I'm a bit embarrassed I didn't realize it on my own. I've used the Xoliul shader recently, so I'll shift over to showing those, or show models in UT3/UDK when that's more appropriate. I'll look into the others that you mentioned too.

Organic work certainly does give me more trouble; I need to force myself to shave some time off schoolwork in order to study human anatomy more, in addition to continuing to attend those life drawing workshops. I'll keep chugging away!

Thanks for the feedback!

[Nagoshi]

Here are a few more sketches from the last life drawing session - that's all for the live models this quarter but I intend to keep going once workshops start up again.

[Nagoshi]

Here's the new Durango! I remodeled the exterior and have it working in the Unreal 3 engine. I'm still planning to model the interior, but that has to be put on the back burner for now to make room for other projects (the next three months have me learning Maya, programming a Flash game in ActionScript 3, character animation, and a start to a website).




I have both a "clean" and a "muddy" set of textures. The muddy one is for use in Unreal. These are screenshots in 3ds Max using Xoliulshader.


Plain wireframe view. My goal was to be under 10,000 tris, and she came out at a total of 9,796. The previous version from a few months ago was at 22,306 tris; yay improvement!



The same model with the muddy texture set as shown in Unreal Engine 3. The lights are fully functional in-game, and here the suspension is shown extended to accommodate movement when driving.

Here's a short test run of the Durango in the engine (apologies for the skipping, that's just the recording lagging a bit). The car has several damage points, and pieces bounce about and jiggle when broken. She's based off of the Scorpion, but is slower and much less agile. At some point in the demo you can see she likes to slip 'n slide when driven too hard.

YouTube - Durango UT3 Demo