[CJbear42]

EDIT: Final design

Ahoy,

Changed the design of my first 3D sketch, it was a bit bulky so I wasn't too happy with it
I've give the overall head shape a more streamlined look because of the history of the race




I've kept most of features though, and I wanted the back of the head to be a bit more extreme
and I tried not to give it an overall look based on skills, so I don't want it to look stealthy, or warrior like
or anything that predetermines their characteristics...just neutral all rounders...like humans

.................................................. .................................................. .......................................

*FORGET THIS*

Hey folks,

Just started work on a new race for Mass Effect this afternoon
Its just the head for now, but i'm going to start work on the body as soon as I can



In my next post ill make up a name for the race, and add a little codex style back story too

the base model was done in Max 2011 and the sculpting was done in Mudbox 2013...let me know what you think

Thanks People!

ps

a lot of great work on here, good job everyone

[CJbear42]

Here's my Codex entry for these guys, wanted to give them a bit of a back story, and to link them into the mass effect universe via
the trivia when you scan Anjea in the Omega nebula

Anphurat - 72,000 BCE

A bipedal species native to Borotas (renamed Intai'sei by human colonists). Their ancestors evolved to endure vast desserts, arid winds
and high temperatures. Becoming a space-faring race 74,000 years before Borotas was colonised by humans, they witnesses a natural
disaster which caused an almost global extinction event, this forced any remaining inhabitants to either leave their home world, or for those
who couldn't afford it, seek refuge underground.

The Anphurat flourished throughout the Argos Rho Cluster for centuries before discovering a mass relay in the nearby system, Hydra.

With the galaxy now open, the colonists were "encouraged" by the Anphurat Union, to begin a more conservative approach to colonising the
systems they encountered. Determined not to interfere with developing worlds, the Anphurat Union constructed orbital stations around the
majority of the gas giants they discovered.

Decades of pressure from the Anphurat Union; forbidding interference with the cultural development of worlds, became the subject of much
debate, eventually causing rogue Provinces to colonize already inhabited worlds. With a surge of beneficial data and advances in biological
and genetic science coming from these violations, the growth of these rogue provinces forced the Anphurat Union to concede political defeat.

Hostilities began when new advances in technology caused several provinces in the Ninmah Cluster to attempt domination through force.
However, this was not an isolated incident, causing a small scale civil war between all the provinces throughout Anphurat space.
After several months of short skirmishes and the occasional demonstration of advanced fire-power, a series of biological attacks from two
merging provinces in the Kepler Verge would give them control as the governing body.

The newly formed Anphurat Ascendency continued to dominate, with the remaining provinces still intact, accepting new superior leadership.
This caused individual communities to split from the Ascendency and take refuge anywhere they could, most often in abandoned orbital stations
and small, subterranean colonies. To conceal themselves from the Ascendency, many Anphurat guided their orbital stations into their respective
gas giant's atmosphere.

The largest colony was aboard the 'Aorato Station', which was orbiting Anjea to survey the aftermath of a devastating war between the thoi'han
and the inusannon on Eingana. This would prove Beneficial, as they would remain undetected while the Ascendency erupted in another biological war,
this time on a much larger scale. Unaware of the impending intervention of the Reapers, the Ascendency was easily destroyed, offering little to
no effective resistance.

Improving the external technology of the Aorato Station while inside the atmosphere of Anjea proved costly, causing a significant number of Anphurat
to be killed during these operations. Memorial caskets were released onto the perpetual winds of Anjea, to commemorate their sacrifice.

[Spoon]

I like the new direction you are taking. Really fits the mass effect universe now Great job!

[CJbear42]

I've been working on this on and off between work, and finally got some time to finish things before the deadline

Here's the head in Mudbox, with some ambient occlusion and the textures, didn't take as long as I thought it would.




As for the body, because of the history of the race, I decided he should wear some generic workman's clothes.
My logic behind this, is that because they're living in a space station in the super winds of a gas giant, I thought
constant repairs and general maintenance would be high on their priority list, hence he has an orange and
black jumpsuit on....plus four arms!!

I also had some crap time constraints cause of work, I would have done something a lot more elaborate otherwise,
my first thought was some civilian clothing, maybe he was a radio enthusiast that detected ships surveying Anjea...
but a tinkerer fixing light bulbs in the hallways seemed to work just as well

[CJbear42]

When I started my low poly model of the head, I just modelled the basic shape using only quads, and imported
it into Mudbox, then when I'd finished the high poly detail, I reverted to the original detail level and exported that
as the final low poly mesh.

With the body I did the same thing, but I added some new segments in the legs and where I attached the
additional objects, just to make it conform more to the high poly shape and the normal maps.




I painted all the textures in Mudbox, but I have problems when I try to render out Ambient Occlusion maps, something to do
with my graphics card...but I edited them in Photoshop to get rid of the weird artifacts that pop up.

[CJbear42]

I know I posted all this stuff at the same time, but....I've FINISHED!!

So I whacked my alien in UDK just to get a feel for how it'd look in-game. I'm not too great at getting the lighting
to look good, so I just put four lights in, one behind with high brightness, one in front with low brightness and two
on either side with red and blue hues.






I'm getting high contrast when I save my screenshots, but for some reason I think it suits it.

Any feedback would be great folks, thanks