Isaac P. Games Art Yr2 + 3

 This was a very tedious process, the end result wasn't too bad but I forgot to keep deformation in mind, so when I do my character model I'll definitely be more mindful of how I redo the mesh. Something weird keeps happening whenever I import models from Maya into Zbrush, where random holes appear all over the model. I think it might be something to do with how I construct the model in the first place, but most of the time, I mirror everything in maya, but in Zbrush the holes are not symmetrical, so maybe it's not how I make them. This always gets fixed when I dynamesh them at a high enough resolution, but then the model is no longer low-poly, which in this case kinda defeats the purpose of redoing the topology in the first place. I guess I'll stick to baking details in in maya or in substance.  

 Here's the video process of sculpting my owl character, after this I need to retopologise it (and actually name it...)   In hindsight, I probably should've made the tail stick out horizontally so it doesn't fuse with the lower back, but I'm too far in at this point to fix the base mesh and then redo the whole thing. I think when I do the retopology I'll ignore the tail, and then take the tail from the original base mesh and put that onto the new mesh. I might even be able to get away with cleaning up the base mesh and just using that instead of the quad draw tool. 

 Here is a video of me making the whole rig, with a short clip at the end with the skinned arm from class as I lost the footage of actually skinning it:       And here are my notes, more on skinning is in there - I didn't take many notes as the NOW has written guides up there, but I still wanted to take a few notes so that I understood it better:      

   These were also on the pdf I put together for the mantic meeting, but I have made some minor changes since then, and wanted a dedicated post for them:   I'm really happy with how these two turned out, initially I wasn't very interested in this project, but making one guy a lizzard and the other guy based on a design I made as a kid proved to be very effective at making me really invested in this. Coming up with their backstories was also fun, and helped with coming up with ideas for the key art too.    

   Here are the final illustrations for the character half of this project:    Painting the head in the toolkit 2 practice session was a lot easier than full scale paintings with backgrounds and eveything - when it was just the bust I could zone in and really illustrate all the details, but when it's the whole character, two of them, there's a lot more to cover, and I was on a time limit, so I wasn't able to do the same amount of detail. I could've done it in small sections and given it a similar treatment to the practice painting, but I don't really have the patience for that. I might look into custom brushes in th future to add more detail quickly.  Doing the lighting was fun though, if a bit mind bending at times. It's a bit of a double edged sword because I can hide certain areas in darkness, but I also have to get the light part right as well. Usually when shading I stick with a single vague light source generally coming from the front, above, and off centr...

  As well as doing all the thumbnails and key art, I wanted to make a mock concept trailer to really sell the game that probably won't actually get made:       It's kinda rough because the editing software I use doesn't have tweening/ keyframe animation, plus this is extra stuff so this is the most I was willing to do - enjoy xD  Also, here's the process of making the character model that was probably in the trailer for about 2 seconds:   I wasn't doing the 3D route so I didn't need to make the model properly, I just needed it to look close enough to use in the trailer.

 (covert to and embed word doc later) Environment notes   FPS game – environment probably needs different levels/elevation, places for cover, and specifically for my game stuff to scavenge (think lethal company/ deep rock x overwatch) This was my initial environment mood board that I made to help  with the character key art, so I could give it backgrounds based on pre-existing Deadzone environments. You can find it on this post here: https://isaacsuniwork.blogspot.com/2025/03/deadzone-key-art-wip.html   Here's my second mood board, this one is more visual research on how I should structure the environment to suit an FPS game, and some ideas for set pieces. My current idea is for the map to be nearby my mercenary's ship's landing on a Nameless planet. The Nameless are kind of outside of the warpath universe's society and Gunnar needs a place to hide/ lay low, plus the Nameless areas look really cool. It'll still be a Deadzone, so I'm thinking it'll have...

 - try different camera angles of the same thing - maybe also create simple 3D block-outs of the characters to pose and angle (maybe try that for the mantic guys) - also do values/ lighting passes with values - compositions should work zoomed out too brief movie/ show scene analysis: - Lighting is kinda dull, its daytime but not sunny. it's coming in over the wall in the bg from the top left - camera is sort of head on, and tilted sideways to make it more interesting, both characters are facing forwards, sword's facing away. both characters are in the centre, focus is on them (sword + building edges = leading lines?).   - anything like hair or fabric is flairing out creating a sense of movement - characters in the bg but not the focus of this specific screenshot,  - The key art doesn't have to be anything crazy btw it doesn't need to be an action shot  do all this every time you do compositions  References:   Ashaari, A., 2023. New The Witcher Season 3...

   Here's the video of me modelling my owl character from the 2nd formative assessment - about 3 hours of footage sped up into 20 minutes:      After this I'm going to take him into zbrush, dynamesh, and add some finishing touches. I'm thinking about making some alphas to add a bit of scale and feather texture too. All the extra feathers I'm planning to do by making an IMM brush and adding them that way.   Reference/s:    ShelOrangeHusky, 2017. The last thing a piece of bread sees [online]. Imgur. Available at: https://imgur.com/gallery/last-thing-piece-of-bread-sees-DVH5C [Accessed 14 March 2025].