[VertexBee]

Thank you guys, thank you very much !

[VertexBee]

Haven't been posting in a while, I was really busy the last few months.
Anyway,Here is an old work I did for the talented guys at Rmory Studios.

They were really kind to provide a solid blueprint for this combat suit which really helped me
to jump right into modeling and finish the piece faster.
Also I need to mention that the gun was also provided by them.I was commissioned to do only the combat suit.






Something that may be of interest is the workflow I used - I made the basemesh in 3dsmax using a more streamlined
SubD modeling technique. I've took advantage of two not so known features - the edge creasing and vertex
weights. Once the basemesh was done I detailed and posed it in zbrush.

In a nutshell:
Create a low-polygon model and set all the edges that you need to be sharp and crisp to be at 1.0 crease value.
To be in greater control of the surface you can also assign weights to the vertices.
After you are done add a turbo smooth modifier. It will preserve the creased edges and the weights and in the same
time smooth the rest of the surfaces. When you have a decent amount of mesh density trow in one more turbo
smooth in the stack to omit the cg looking perfect edges and round them too.

I'll promise to post a super mini tutorial on this next week or sooner, so stay tuned !

Martin

[VertexBee]

Last week I've mentioned about this special SubD modeling technique and promised to write a brief tutorial, so here it is.

In a nutshell:

Create a low-polygon model and set all the edges that you need to be sharp and crisp to be at 1.0 crease value.To be in greater control of the surface you can also assign weights to the vertices.After you are done add a turbo smooth modifier. It will preserve the creased edges and the weights and in the sametime smooth the rest of the surfaces. When you have a decent amount of mesh density trow in one more turbosmooth in the stack to omit the cg looking perfect edges and round them too.

Here is a simple example of this (click the image to see high-res ):



The cube in the middle has several edges set to use crease value of 1.0. You can see that after adding a turbosmooth modifier on top , the creasing keeps the edges super sharp and the turbo smooth takes care the rest of thesurface. The third cube has not only edge creases but has also weights applied to some of the vertices - this gives you additional level of control.

For the zbrush users out there, the concept of edge creasing in 3dsmax is the same as the creasing that you can find in the tool>geometry>crease rollout.

Pros:

The pros of this technique is that you don't have to add additional loops (extra chamfering the corners) to control the surface. It is super fast ! You can block in a model within minutes and continue the polishing work in zbrush for instance.

In a mather of fact you can be lazy and keep all kinds of n-sided polyies with this technique. Here on the image below you can see what I mean. If you add creasing to the loops they will hold up the surface and the n-gon will not show artefacts.

The vertex weighting is a great way for varying the edges, making them transition from soft to hard.

One more thing - the cage model can quickly be turned into a low-poly model ! On the other hand if you did the regular sub d modeling technique where you put a lot of extra loops and chamfers to control the surface, to create a low-poly you need to do some clean up work. With this technique you do not need to do the cleaning step.

Here is another a bit more complex example. This model on the image is part of this character



Bonus tips:

Instead of the second turbo smooth modifier that is used to round up the sharp edges, you can add the old school mesh smooth modifier which does the same thing ,but gives you even more control. You can use it to add a second level of vertex weights !

You can mix the techniques ! You can start with the crease/vertex technique and whenever you want continue with the regular practices of sub-D modeling, adding chamfers and support loops here and there.

This technique is especially good for building proxy models for retopology use. I've written a more comprehensive

tutorial about a modeling technique that uses the retopology tools in max. You can check it out here

[VertexBee]

Here is a speed painting I did for fun recently.
It all started by trying out a custom brush which resulted in the small sci-fi submarine
which then led to the obvious conclusion that a sci-fi submarine could not look thrilling
if not chased by a giant cute plesiosaurus.

[VertexBee]

Hey everybody, see what I got in the mail today – quite heavy,surprisingly well printed and absolutely
amazing box full with … well with amazing artworks! ( sorry if I disappointed someone who expect amazing
boxes to be full with something else, I like mine to be packed with art ).

Congrats to all the artist whose artworks fills its pages and kudos to 3d total for publishing this large
body of works with wonderful variety – five books featuring pieces in different categories from characters
to sci-fi and scenery. Must have I would say!

One sci-fi character I did a while ago made it to the final selection.Yeah, very happy!

Cheers!
Martin

[VertexBee]

Hey guys, the character in the slide below was used as an example in a short lecture I did a while ago.


I'm blogging about it here: http://bit.ly/11zEc0t (there is video , but unfortunately the lecture is presented in Bulgarian).



This character is in prototype stage, I'll post the finished one hopefully soon. It will be one of the main character classes in a game I'm working on.

Comments and critiques appreciated


Cheers !
Martin

[VertexBee]

Did this helmet design as a practice before a week. I was testing a new technique combining rough zbrush sculpt with bunch of overlaid photos on top and overpainting the whole thing.

I've posted a simple gif animation explaining the process on my blog, here.



Cheers!
Martin

[JacobJanerka]

Solid work man.

Also saw your entry for the infinite sandness comp over on game-artists. Blast you for winning! ahaha congrats from a while back.

[VertexBee]

Thanks man !

Hahaha, the double happy competition was quite a lot of fun ! Thanks
Probably you know, but they are running another competition right now, unfortunately it will close tomorrow.

[VertexBee]

Doing some practicing.
Hope I’ll have more free time to finish this guy, gave him proper texture and render.If you have any ideas about how to treat the coloring and patterns, I would love hear them in the comments!



Cheers!
Martin

[VertexBee]

Already published it in my cghub gallery, but I wanted to post it here as well.

You’ve might remember few different shots of him from my character design lecture (a link to the video can be found on my blog here http://bit.ly/11zEc0t) I posted a while ago. The employer was kind enough to let me use the character as an example for the lecture slides.



Would love to hear your crits and comments ! Do you think something on him is missing out, a prop maybe that I could add to the design ?

Cheers!
Martin

[Alex_A]

wow your so good at 3d and 2d! super jealous

[VertexBee]

@Alex_A, thank you very much ! I'm not that proficient as you think, there is sooo much to learn more, so much...but that is the cool part Anyway, I'm flattered you find my work enjoyable Thanks!