Steppenwolf

Hey guys, here's a 1 minute flythrough PhilK put together!
 
next up, the release of the level, will try and do it before xmas!
 

Neat little trick .
 
I'm working on a soviet KM-1 ejection seat. It will be part of a small scene to be rendered in cry engine, once their pbr update is out. Scene will be a cockpit of a jet with crazy little details everywhere .
Thats the current state of the high poly for the seat (in Marmoset Toolbag 2):
 



 
edit: hipster instragram version lol:
 

Quixel has a ndo2/ddo tutorial on their youtube channel where i learned about this trick. I don't get that i never heard of this before on polycount or whereever because it's an official option inside xnormal. Maybe i just read the wrong threads or didn't pay attention because there was no visual explanation.
 

 
edit:
 
on another note. this is an example that i grabbed from fuzyheads bake. See how the normal warps on the left side? This is a case for which i would usualy combine the two different bakes in PS to fix it. From my understanding a better cage could avoid this but it's just something that i struggle with in some ocassions. Like sometimes i can't have the cage tighter because of some other details in the hipoly or whatever :/
 

For me xnormal is way quicker. Even huge maps only take a couple seconds while in max it can take forever. But might just be my hardware or my settings.

Quixel has a ndo2/ddo tutorial on their youtube channel where i learned about this trick. I don't get that i never heard of this before on polycount or whereever because it's an official option inside xnormal. Maybe i just read the wrong threads or didn't pay attention because there was no visual explanation.
 

 
edit:
 
on another note. this is an example that i grabbed from fuzyheads bake. See how the normal warps on the left side? This is a case for which i would usualy combine the two different bakes in PS to fix it. From my understanding a better cage could avoid this but it's just something that i struggle with in some ocassions. Like sometimes i can't have the cage tighter because of some other details in the hipoly or whatever :/
 

Quixel has a ndo2/ddo tutorial on their youtube channel where i learned about this trick. I don't get that i never heard of this before on polycount or whereever because it's an official option inside xnormal. Maybe i just read the wrong threads or didn't pay attention because there was no visual explanation.
 

 
edit:
 
on another note. this is an example that i grabbed from fuzyheads bake. See how the normal warps on the left side? This is a case for which i would usualy combine the two different bakes in PS to fix it. From my understanding a better cage could avoid this but it's just something that i struggle with in some ocassions. Like sometimes i can't have the cage tighter because of some other details in the hipoly or whatever :/
 

indian warrior
 

Quixel has a ndo2/ddo tutorial on their youtube channel where i learned about this trick. I don't get that i never heard of this before on polycount or whereever because it's an official option inside xnormal. Maybe i just read the wrong threads or didn't pay attention because there was no visual explanation.
 

 
edit:
 
on another note. this is an example that i grabbed from fuzyheads bake. See how the normal warps on the left side? This is a case for which i would usualy combine the two different bakes in PS to fix it. From my understanding a better cage could avoid this but it's just something that i struggle with in some ocassions. Like sometimes i can't have the cage tighter because of some other details in the hipoly or whatever :/
 

Spitpaint is so cool. Think i discovered the group through you. Get some cool and fresh stuff to look at everytime i open facebook now ever since i joined.

It's really awesome group. The pros are very helpful when you ask questions. Me being a noob more or less (didn't paint or draw for years) i've learned some cool tricks already and improved a bit. Wish i had more time for it tho. I paint something everyday for the last two months or so but don't always make it a spitpaint. Some things are better learned outside of 30 minute restriction. I should make my own 2D thread eventualy.

Spitpaint is so cool. Think i discovered the group through you. Get some cool and fresh stuff to look at everytime i open facebook now ever since i joined.

THREAD RESURRECT!!
 
I got back into painting recently after a long hiatus, there's a facebook group called daily spitpaint where you get a  topic every day and have to paint it in 30 minutes, which can be really challenging .
 
Here's a bunch that I did, all of them 30 minutes or less:
 

After starting to work on my "halloween scene" i just grew up of shit in zbrush, and sculpting for now. There was a time i wanted to work with some hardsurface, and i realised i've never created a gun. So i've started to model a USP tactical ver. one of my fav guns. This is my first gun ever and i must say first hardsurface (that complex) model ever. I know i have some wires done wrong , and i need to tweak some geo. this is still a heavy WIP i need to creat aiming system, and i want to add a silencer, and/or laser aiming system, there is no mag atm so i need to model that also. The carvings are temporary. Does anybody know is there a place i can find fonts that are used on guns? it's fucking annoying to model all the letters lol. Anyways i had a blast and still have doing this and i'm really thinking to move only to guns and weapons lol, this is fun, so what you guys think at this point ? this is straight up maya renderer.


sorry for so many edits but i had some internet issues ;/

You still need to know the basic theory to use the tools. What good is carapace tool when you don't know what a vanishing point is?
 
As for Feng Zhu he's uber pro so it's easy for him to just do it on the fly but he also said in one of his videos that it's not super important for concept art that perspective is 100% correct.
 
If you do realistic paintings for art gallery it's much more important tho. I have a 168 pages book about perspective for painters and it's mostly fart dry text with some technical drawings.

last saturnday i finished this pencil exercise and today i brought the sheet to work to scan it.
 
The composition was made from two different photos, one from a place in Turkey and the other from Chilean andes
In photoshop i lowered the background tones to enhance the foreground silhouette

 

Congrats Valentin! Your work on Insurgency was outstanding. Arkane can be happy to have you on their team.

1) decals or overlays are used a lot but nowadays thers also other options to individualize repeating textures via shaders or blending masks. Something like this:
 

 
2) rule of thumb is to have even pixel density across the model unless you have parts that will be more often in the face of the player (for instance rear sights on a weapon model). you don't need to organize your uv islands by size. just organize them so that you don't waste space and they are easy to texture (straighten edges horizontally and vertically for example)
 
3) start simple. make some boxes, barrels or chairs for starters. then work your way up to more complex stuff. then learn subdivision modeling for highpolies and normal baking, then sculpting. Same applies here start with simple props before you try cars or elaborate environments. Check the polycount Technical Talk subforum for valuable tips and tricks.
Get a wacom tablet for texturing and sculpting.
In general while you learn try to focus on one thing at a time otherwise it becomes overwhelming and you will waste a lot of time trying to fix things that you don't have the knowledge how to fix properly.

Currently working on a highpoly model for my bachelor thesis. Exterior is finished, interior still wip.
Any criticism and comments are welcome

 

Guess we're calling it done now. I'll try and put together that breakdown asap and I'll then need to clean the package and release it for anyone who wants to fly around the scene.   Thanks Mapcore, Polycount, Jordan Walker for releasing his scene and allowing me to properly learn UDK, Quixel team for making nDo2 and dDo tools, and everyone who helped us with feedback! You helped it get much better!  And of course, PhilipK for kicking so much ass, it was an honor to do scene with him, this guy breathes talent!    
UC_HP_PhilK_shot1 by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_shot2 by HelderP, on Flickr     UC_HP_PhilK_shot3 by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_shot4 by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_shot5 by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_shot6 by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_shot7 by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_extra_background by HelderP, on Flickr   UC_HP_PhilK_extra_materials by HelderP, on Flickr

With focus on mp maps you are limiting yourself to a very small niche. Most level design jobs nowadays are about grey boxing and scripting single player levels. Not sure going to school for this has much benefits as you get all the experience for that by doing it and ther's great ressources available to learn it the autodidactic way from making hl2 maps to mods for skyrim etc. At least not worth to get 40k in debts over it imo.
 
Be aware that the creative aspect of it is very limited nowadays aswell since most studios will use environment and lighting artists to make the maps beautiful.
So i think to study would make more sense if you aim to work on the art/design side of things. And in that case i would go as far to say that a conventional art/design education would be more benefitial then one specificaly aimed at games. I notice this time and time again that what's holding me back is a lack of art fundamentals not the use of specific software and tools.
So looking back i could bite myself in the ass that i didn't get a proper art education. I don't think "oh damn i wish i gone to a game school when i was younger". Someone made an interesting point about that on polycount recently when he complianed that his fellow character artist at the studio where he works don't know the basics of human anatomy.

Some healthy material studies at some unhealthy hours. lol   I wanna try and push for the moisture and dense look without it being too much, right now it is too much but man it's really hard to control without it looking weird, I want PBR!   I did a pass on all textures, brought them up to a 186 ~ 200 mean, chromes are around 140 ~ 150 mean, i would go bellow that but without a cubemap it starts to soak the lighting with how black it is so you have to make compromises.   I'm also currently doing a pass on all specs and gloss maps, added a lot of contrasty and detail to the gloss, and a bit more noise to the spec. I also added the AO to the spec and remove the AO from the difuse, in fact i removed most noise and detail from the difuse maps, i want the slight noise to come from the gloss. (Good example is that floor tile on the bottom left with chrome, rubber and plastic material.)   feel free to tear me a new one

With focus on mp maps you are limiting yourself to a very small niche. Most level design jobs nowadays are about grey boxing and scripting single player levels. Not sure going to school for this has much benefits as you get all the experience for that by doing it and ther's great ressources available to learn it the autodidactic way from making hl2 maps to mods for skyrim etc. At least not worth to get 40k in debts over it imo.
 
Be aware that the creative aspect of it is very limited nowadays aswell since most studios will use environment and lighting artists to make the maps beautiful.
So i think to study would make more sense if you aim to work on the art/design side of things. And in that case i would go as far to say that a conventional art/design education would be more benefitial then one specificaly aimed at games. I notice this time and time again that what's holding me back is a lack of art fundamentals not the use of specific software and tools.
So looking back i could bite myself in the ass that i didn't get a proper art education. I don't think "oh damn i wish i gone to a game school when i was younger". Someone made an interesting point about that on polycount recently when he complianed that his fellow character artist at the studio where he works don't know the basics of human anatomy.

I have selected generic units and system unit scale is set to 1,0 inches. My models are in perfect sync with hammer.
Of course also check in your qc files that $scale is set to 1.0

yap, we decided to go back to the drawing board a little bit when it comes to lighting and presentation.
All textures are also being retouched, I will be removing much of the noise, and I will be reducing the AO in the diffuse and spec maps to around 10% of what I had. I'll also be doing better use of gloss maps and get a more metallic vibe out of the mats. (Call it next-gen if you will) trying to mimic as much of that famous PBR look as I possibly can out of UE3. 
 
Also, I think many of you will be happy to hear that we both have decided to release the UDK level and package once we're done with it. I have learnt a great deal by just opening other levels, studying them and essentially reverse engineer them. I have learnt more by just studding the materials from Jordan Walkers bathhouse scene than I did from any other tutorial for example, so if there's at least one dude out there that can learn anything from what we did, than we're happy!