Zbrush Head Practice WIP

I took a sphere and started making a head out of it. No reference pictures for the model, but I did look at various images online for the texturing. I just started coming up with a native tribesman, and then it started looking like Michael Jordan so I ran with it a bit. I'm still working on the texturing and planning on baking the high res mesh on a lower res, optimized mesh, just for some Zbrush practice. Right now I'm about 50% done with the texturing.

Burger Shop WIP

Here's the progress I've been doing on a new burger shop. This is a render with the diffuse texture only. I will be finishing the specular and normal maps soon. Will update when it's done!

Zbrush Practice

I have been wanting to do more zbrush lately, instead of just using it for tileable texture normal creation (like I have been). Here is a jukebox that I've been working on for a few days. Somehow my mesh doesn't like when I import and export back and forth between zbrush and 3dsmax, and my model would explode when subdividing. I found a pretty good cure by exporting and reimporting level 1 and level 2 of the object, but the uvs get screwed up and I was counting on texturing in zbrush. It seems that I have reached a road block and have moved on to my next personal project. If I ever find the solution I will revisit this model and finish the texturing.

Community Updates

Here are some links to forums where I've been posting my work:

http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=722180

http://jonathanarmstrong.cgsociety.org/gallery/

More work to come soon!

Newest Read Books :)

I always like learning and I'm really taking some time out to improve myself, my art, and the way I live. Here are the books that I've been reading:



The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch




Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials) by Robert B. Cialdini





Letters of the Dragon by Bruce Lee and John Little




Game Art: Creation, Direction, and Careers (Game Development) by Riccard Lind




100 Ways to Motivate Others: How Great Leaders Can Produce Insane Results Without Driving People Crazy by Steve Chandler




Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

It's Monk Mode time!

Monk Mode was a term used by Jim Collins to describe a period where he would shut himself off from the world to get a major project finished. I've started an outdoor city environment, and I'm treating it as my job at the moment. I would like to get this piece in my portfolio to make it better and to test my current abilities. Here's the link on Polycount: http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=69122. I'll be updating frequently.

WOOT

Overrun - WIP Update

It's been a while since my last overrun update and after GDC, getting an internship at Vigil Games, and moving, I haven't had the most time to work on the mod. I've had time to sit down again and am dedicated to keep production going on this project despite the fact that I won't have as much time anymore to work on it. Anyway, here's what I've been looking into and am trying to make happen (I'm getting more familiar with Uscript, and so it's easier to ACTUALLY do the things I've had in mind and implement them):

Completed tasks:
-Fixed 3rd person cam: generated through Uscript now, and doesn't clip through walls or have to be set up in Kismet for each individual level
-Changed player's and NPC's lighting environments: they now are reactive to light and become dark in shadow (very cool affect :))
-Also, did the same treatment to all of the pickups -- since they aren't full bright, the player will have to do a little searching for them, and they won't break the immersion (as evident in the earlier Resident Evil games).
-Made the interface simpler, took out the scoreboard, changed the interface color
-Changed the weapon range and strength of both guns in the mod -- one is now more of a shotgun, the other: more of a rapid-fire low-damage weapon
-Disabled respawning on pickups -- so player couldn't cheat and keep going over ammo pickups (also, would break immersion in the more realistic setting)

What's in the works:
-Have level auto-load at beginning (it still requires player input each time, and lets them fly around in "spectator" mode...unnecessary for our game)
-Replace streaming triggers with dynamic streaming volumes -- so the content can be loaded while the player is playing, rather than having to wait it all out at once
-Adding on the previous: could create a simple loading UI scene so that player knows at least that the game hasn't crashed ;)
-Splash screen/UI background for level select screen (different from the main game selection logo)...will have to wait until the game is polished to get some good screens for a collage

Pipe dreams?:
-Have guns keep same amount of ammo that player died with at respawn
-Get custom animations for character and enemies so that they don't look awkard when running and can have a melee attack; also, body language adds so much extra information to the atmosphere that dialogue alone can't cover
-More dialogue??-- would have to get same voice actors again
-Create a custom front-end and loading screen?

As anyone could decipher from this information -- the mod is still in need of a serious amount of work. I am almost done with the major design edits, and would like to now focus on finishing up my level.