Saloon Progress!

The saloon is done, modeling wise. At this point, I'm just set dressing and texturing. Here's where I am so far:

Textures will be up later this week. Gotta focus of rendering out my other pieces!

 - Jason B. Russell

Saloon Bar in Progress

Here's some progress on the saloon bar I'm doing for my Team Game Production (and maybe Portfolio) class.

More to come soon.
 - Jason B. Russell

3D Modeling Studio: Art Test 2

Here's my final project for 3D Modeling Studio.

More to come over the break.

 - Jason B. Russell

Izmojuki Model: Beauty Shot and Map Breakdown

Without further ado, I present the first fully finished piece for my portfolio...

 

 

I think I did pretty good with this! I got it down from about 1.1 million tris to a little over 9k, so there's an accomplishment. I used diffuse, normal, specular, and emissive maps, shown below:

 

 

 

 

 

All credit for the model reference goes to Izmojuki Machineries. http://izmojuki.com/

 

All the renders were done in Marmoset Toolbag and composited into Photoshop.

 

Normals and ambient occlusion were baked in xNormal.

Survey Machine: Re-Lit

Here's my new lighting for the Survey Machine. I didn't really like the first draft because it was very dark in some places.

I think this looks much better than the first time. And I think I'll start doing all my posts with an all-gray background now; I like the style!

 - Jason B. Russell

Art Test: Survey Machine Finished

After a few days of delay, here is my finished surveying machine.

For some reason, Photoshop changed my pixel aspect ratio, and squished my render a bit. So included is the original render below:

I think this could be a potential portfolio piece!
 - Jason B. Russell

Art Test: Survey Machine - Lighting

Here's the lighting setup for my survey machine.

 - Jason B. Russell

Izmojuki Model: 3-Point Lighting

Credit for concept goes to Izmojuki Machineries.
http://www.izmojuki.com/

 

 

 - Jason B. Russell

Izmojuki Model: Hi-Poly

After long last, the hi-poly model is complete!

For reference, here's the original picture:

Credit for concept goes to Izmojuki Machineries.
http://www.izmojuki.com/

 - Jason B. Russell

Art Test: Survey Machine Proxy

Here's a proxy model of my midterm project for my 3D Modeling Studio.

 - Jason B. Russell

3D Modeling Studio: Izmojuki Model

For the past week or so, I've been working on my rendition of one of Izmojuki's models. Here is the proxy model.

Stay tuned for more.

 - Jason B. Russell

Abandoned Subway Station: UV Update

Just checking in and dropping off some progress (something I should really do more often than not). Here's a couple screenshots of my second attempt at a subway station, fully UV'd and ready to be textured today and tomorrow!

Expect more in the future!

 - Jason B. Russell

Portfolio Foundations: Hut

It's been too long since I've posted on my blog, but I've been doing a lot of work in the meantime. So let me start posting some up!

 This is a (remastered) hut from a level I started on a few months ago. Compared to the original, it looks a million times better. I'm starting to get better at texturing, I think. 

More to come!

 - Jason B. Russell

Fun with Alphas!

Well, I finished off this quarter with 2 A's and a B! Excellent work indeed. My modeling and texturing skills have definitely improved tenfold in the past few months, something I'm very proud of, but I'm not going to go dull over this break. So every day, I'm planning on modeling and texturing an asset or two a day, and at the end of a week, I'll place them all within a level in Unity.

So let us begin! This is my first successful implementation of an alpha map, and I believe this came out quite nicely.

Comments, critiques, all the jazz! Happy holidays!

 - Jason B. Russell

Silhouette Work: Humanoid Robot

Just a little concept work I'm working on for a level I'm gonna be designing over the winter break. Since today's lesson in Advanced 3D Animation is going to correspond directly with what I want to do, I plan on drawing one of these in a turnaround, modeling/texturing, and rigging it to play in my level in Unity. 

I haven't done any silhouette work in a couple quarters, so forgive a few of them. I think 2, 6, 9, and 10 came out pretty well so I'll play with those a bit.

Stay tuned!

 - Jason B. Russell

Creative Development: Organic Modeling II (with Rigging!)

Since I finally have a workstation in my room (computer desk, TV, mini-fridge, the works!), I don't think I'll be leaving my house for a while. As a matter of fact, I was once again inspired to to more organic modeling!

After being chewed out by classmates from trying out a different way of face modeling, I just went on back to the good ol' edge-by-edge method. And since I understand more about edge flow than I did a year ago, this was a MUCH easier process. About 2-3 hours on-and-off.

In my opinion, this one looks better than the first one, especially in the nose and ear. Definitely a lot of geometry in the mouth area, but I'm working on my poly count in the next attempt. EVERYTHING is a quad, which I'm definitely proud of! 

Also, using my knowledge of rigging to complete a face rig from scratch! The bones controls are all set up and once I finish painting weights and actually texture this head, I'll demonstrate the rig to show that it's working. 

Until then, happy Saturday!

 - Jason B. Russell

Creative Development: Organic Modeling

Out of a pure will made of motivation, and determination, I have decided to go against my own grain and get better at something that I hate to do: Organic Modeling. 

Note: This is not a class assignment or anything, just personal practice.

I believe that the only reason I hate organic modeling is because it intimidates me. Everything must be so precise in order to achieve a pleasing result. The human face... everyone looks at hundreds a day, so one polygon in the wrong place can set the whole thing off! That always scared me. But today I decided to jump in head-first (no pun intended) and just go at it. Since taking Character Modeling and Rigging almost a year ago, I've gotten loads better with Maya, so this only took a few hours, on-and-off. I'm trying to get to the point where it only takes me around 30 minutes, and it looks great topology-wise. This one is decent in my opinion; I understand that I went wrong in a lot of places when it came to edge flow, but it was my first time modeling a head in almost a year, so I did what I could.

As you can see, it's pretty low-poly (ignore the "poly count" on the left, it's counting subdivisions), and the top of the head is very lopsided, but practice makes perfect! I'll try another from scratch tomorrow.

 - Jason B. Russell

Level Design I: Update

It's been a while since I've posted any progress on my level, but best believe that progress is being made. Screenshots follow.

 

 Right now, I'm just unwrapping UVs and preparing textures. By Wednesday, hopefully, I'll have everything in Unity ready to be tested!

 - Jason B. Russell
 

Advanced 3D Animation: Finished Rig

At long last (after about 3 hours of skin weights painting), the rig is 100% complete! The actual controls haven't changed from the last post, but the skin weights have been tweaked so that the character can actually be animated!

A close-up of the face rig (eyes, eyelids, brow, mouth, and jaw).

A quick pose just for fun!

Most likely between now and Thursday, I'll end up tweaking some stuff (I can tell now that the legs are a bit weird), but your comments are appreciated!

 - Jason B. Russell

Advanced 3D Animation: Rig in Progress

Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! 

Below is a screenshot of my finished rig for Advanced 3D animation. The model was provided for us (I believe from Team Fortress 2), but the bones and controls themselves were done from scratch by yours truly. I'm highly pleased with how this is turning out, and I might actually make rigging one of my focuses for my demo reel.

Orthographic and perspective views in Maya.

After I get some good skin weights painted on this fella, I'll render out some poses and zoom in on some of the finer details of the rig.

 - Jason B. Russell