Black_Stormy's Sketchbook

[Black_Stormy]

I'm sure I started one of these already... Oh well.

I have only completed a few large models, and I am only satisfied with one, my trailer. The rest of the stuff is small props and other crap that never really makes it anywhere. I put them up on turbosquid but I usually don't think they're worth anything so they're there for free most of the time.

I use blender, GIMP and a little photoshop. I'm no good at making my own textures and I need to learn to draw. I'll say if any of these textures are hand drawn.

Ammo pickups for Left4Dead (source):




Random Left4Dead props:











Stuff for my website (milkshakezombie.com, humour me):




My only completed major projects, textures all handpainted.

If you got a close up of the Osprey it looks far worse than it does in this image:



My trailer (the only WIP I thought worthy of these forums and the only model I am satisfied with):



Well, what a trip down memory lane. I'll update as I go.

[Black_Stormy]

I've been working on this one recently, it's based on an FJ79 landcruiser, this shot is in HLMV, note the semi transparent glass, aw yeahhhh. Well, I thought it was p sweet.



It's for a mod I'm slowly working on. I'm going to make a bunch of props to put in the tray depending on what I need for the mod. I guess I'll post up the finished model when it's done.

[joukejan]

Hee Black Stormy, apologies for the fact me or any one else didn't replied on your first post. You got nice looking models going on, but the first thing that I noticed were the textures.
Your texture work seems good but could do with some sharpening. They all look pretty smooth. Also your models could use some normal maps and spec (if you didn't already use those but you didn't ass it looks in your renders)

What kind of mod are you working on?

[Black_Stormy]

Thanks man, yeah my textures are consistently my weakest point, and because of that I really don't enjoy texturing, and because of that I avoid it and never get any better, it's a vicious cycle. I'm actually looking at getting some proper software and doing some serious study for it, up to this point all I have been doing is dropping photos into gimp and then trying to balance out the colours. I want to be able to hand paint textures only using photos as a reference, which means starting over again with much more simple models.

I think they all look smooth because I have been using really low res textures where I didn't need to limit them at all. I have been looking at professional game textures and they are heaps bigger than mine, heh. The ute uses two 1024* images for the body and details, and two 512*s for the tyre and glass textures.

My unwrapping is also in dire need of training, I use blender and it tends to unwrap everything way out of proportion. When re-working it I only really try to use up all the space, rather than keep it all to scale. I've got a lot of things to think about!

I'm working on two mods at the moment. The first is a mod with a few dudes that is pretty much a generic fantasy RPG mod on the source engine, which should allow me to practice a lot of texturing and such since I am mostly making clutter props for it. The second one is one I am doing by myself in between, which I hope will be an enjoyable play, I don't really want to let on too much about it though, for posterity.

Thanks for the reply dude!

[joukejan]

Sounds good, and yeah indeed that mod would give you the opportunity to practice your texturing. There are some good texturing articles on these forums, go check it out. Really good stuff. Also try disliking things slow you down. At first texturing might look like a pain in the ass but it will definately be a enjoyable fase of making 3D game art. Just keep trying and practicing the texturing and a good book I can advice to obtain is 3D Game Textures by Luke Ahearn. He diggs into the texturing fase of 4 environments and shows some neat trick to make textures.

But yeah the most important thing is focus on what you want and practice practice practice.