Long Story, Work in Progress: Gothic Revival Cathedral (Part I)

I will talk more about the new cathedral I am doing next week, I am just going to leave it at the fact I went from a true Gothic to a Gothic revival cathedral.  So far I have the lower two/thirds done of the front towers.  Now for why I have been silent all October.  Shortly after my last post, during that first week in October, my parents got me a new graphics card.  It is a real nice one with twice the memory of the previous and all kinds of other really nice bonuses.  However, when I went to install it, my computer started giving me problems.  I only got it to turn on twice before I could not even get to the BIOS.  It took me a little over two weeks to get the parts to repair my computer.  I still do not have everything the way I had it, but it is slowly getting back to normal.  So far the computer has been running for about two weeks and I have not had any problems.  While I know it is unlikely in the next two months, I would like to eventually return to the two posts per week style had had going so long ago.  I really feel that forced me to produce more.  Plus if I missed a few in a row it would not be a month between posts.  Well, I think I am done venting, until next time,
~gunnah

Work-in-Progress: Pipe Set (Part I)

While fooling around with an idea for a scene, I started making a bunch of pipes.  At first it was just to fill up space on an empty wall, but soon I found a need to add more and more detail to these pipes.  After fooling with that for a while, I soon decided that it would be interesting to get actual measurements for the pipes, adding a bit more realism to the scene.  In the course of my journey looking for various pipe radii, I happened upon set of pipe models for sale.  While they did not interest me, I got to thinking that a reusable set of pipes could be very handy.  Once created the set could have several different skins making them useful for a variety of tasks.  A super clean set could be used in the cargo hold level, a slightly worn set could be used in the suburbia level, a rusty set for more of an abandoned industrial or military complex level.

So what is needed to make a pipe set?  I am starting with several straight pieces, an elbow, a t-intersection, a pipe cap, a few varieties of valves, a few varieties of meters, as well as some level specific large sized models like pumps, generators, fuel containers and the like.  Left is the set I have currently finished - a straight 10 and 20 cm and a 5 cm elbow - and an asphalt material on which I am working.  These are my high polygon models, not textured.  These have a 5 cm outer radius (just under 2 inches for those unfamiliar with metric) and are in metric because of the ease of scaling up and down.

These three cylinders obviously did not take a month to do.  In my silence I have been learning thing like architectural visualization and concept art creation methods.  I do not have much to show for these topics, but I will hopefully have a few images by year end.  If I could get some money, I have been looking at hardware and software I would like to get.  Most of that, at least for the time being, is a pipe dream, but it gives me something to eventually shoot for.  And finally, I got around to looking at Art School.  I only looked at one, and it is unlikely I could afford it any time soon, plus as of the moment I do not have a portfolio, but I do think it would be fun.  Not that I am sure it is necessary or the one I looked at is where I would go, but I did get an idea of pricing and entrance requirements.

Hopefully it does not take me as long to get back here for my next post and I have something even better to show off.  Until then,
~gunnah

Oops, missed a little while; Work-in-Progress: Swamp Monster (Part I)

I guess I should start off with I am not dead, just got a little busy over the last few weekends.  I accomplished only a few things on existing projects, so I am not going to mention them.  However, I have been keeping up with tutorials and posts about my particular modeling software and I have a few new outlooks.  The first is that I want to try a sculpting project.  While sculpting has very little benefit for my game itself, outside any statue models perhaps; I am hoping learning sculpting produces an interesting organic model for my portfolio.  Despite the interest in trying sculpting, my impulse alone would not have driven me to start yet another project.  But a few choice words in a modeling article would, and that is exactly what I found.  The modeling software I use is free and attracts many people trying to learn 3D modeling.  Since people with a formal education in a related field usually have access to expensive software, not mentioning companies who hire those artists, very few tend to migrate to the free program.  This has resulted in a general gap between the general body of work made in the expensive programs and those made in the free programs.  With the build-up out of the way, I can get to the pearl of wisdom: Separate from the crowd.  Sounds simple enough, but quite a few people look only to other users of their software, ignoring the more general and higher quality 3D scene at large.  This is what drove me to starting this new project.  Plus the fact there is a contest for it.  (I know I have a poor track record with contests, but with the length of this one, I am hoping for a little better showing.)

The contest is to make a swamp creature that would scare you to death.  The contest is very open, it just has to be a creature that looks like it would hunt in a swamp and be able to hunt human hunters.  I bean by thinking of ideas for what kinds of creatures live in a swamp and outside the crocodile could not come up with any very large creatures - most others were just vicious little ones.  Then came the tough question, how to improve on a beast that pre-dates the dinosaurs?  My answer: give it wings and longer legs.  The legs are a by-product of needing something to manipulate a catch.  Left is the very early base mesh I am using to block in my ideas.  My key aspects are a crocodile-like head, bat-like wings and raptor-like claws (raptor referring to the group of birds not the dinosaur) .

With the silhouette to my liking and all the main aspects in, I decided to retopologize the mesh adding in what I am calling the mid-level details.  Left is how far I have come, obviously needing quite a bit of work still with this step.  My goal is to add all the teeth, spines, eyes, ears and bony bumps into the mesh before starting the sculpting process.  Mostly because I think these aspects need a little more precision and would look a little odd if left to a novice sculptor.  Note that I started retopologizing the arms because I felt the muscles needed were inadequately represented in he base mesh.  The arms are by no means close to finished, but give a much better image of how I want the final image to look.

Left is the two above images overlaid to give a better idea of what I am trying to make.  Again, living in a swamp, I am trying to make it look semi-aquatic.  The only main detail missing is webbing in the talons.  Once I have finished the retopologizing which may take some time while /I figure out details I want to add, I will move on to the sculpting portion.  My first pass will be muscle tone in the jaw, wings and legs.  My second pass will be small details like scales.  Finally I am going to make an asymmetric sculpt pass to add scaring, damage to the wings, breaks in spikes or teeth.  While I am not sure I will be able to get ll I want to finished by the deadline, I hope to get most of it and use the finished image as a starting point for a portfolio.

Playing Around

I have not really done much over the last two weeks, at least as far as this project or 3D modeling is concerned.  I have tossed about several ideas for new scenes - unfortunately they just seem to keep coming to me - though I managed to limit myself to only one new one.  I have not finished the blocking out yet, otherwise I would have probably shown it.  That is not to say I have not been giving time into the other projects, just not enough to make anything worth showing.

Do not get me wrong, blaming life and work could just as easily been my response today and been completely true, but I decided to focus on the positive.  So, until next time,
~gunnah

Unplanned Break

Okay, so I must apologize for missing the past few posts.  However, all you missed in those would have been excuses.  Things along the line of work is hectic, need to study, need to read would have filed those posts.  Similar to what Life is doing to this post.  However, I do have a bit to show, so with further ado, what I have been toying around with.

I know this is nowhere near done.  In fact, it is nowhere near where I would even want to present it.  However, it has been quite a bit of time since I posted any modeling images, and so I wanted to show a bit of work.  Granted it is completely unrelated to the project at hand, but I thought it was cool looking.  Besides its interesting look, there are several aspects which make this piece interesting to me.  First is the mixture of organic and hard surface modeling, a blend I would like to incorporate into my game models.  The main body is organic in nature while other aspects like the pulley and arm are closer to hard surface modeling.  Also, since the body has several cut-outs inside the shape, I felt those would make an interesting look while providing a decent deal of complexity.  Obviously this model is nowhere near complete, missing many of the attachments in addition to the lower arm.

I am not even going to guess what the next week will bring, so until next time,
~gunnah

Oops

I accidentally missed a couple of posts there.  Not that I had anything to really share, but I do try not to miss them now that I am only doing one a week.  I have hit a bit of a road block with my contest entry, so bad I do not know if it is going to be a salvageable project with what I have coming up.  Outside of the little 3D modeling work I have been doing, life has been very hectic of late.  Between work going nuts, a visit from a relative who has been on another continent most of the last 18 months, and my exam coming up, I have made almost no progress in anything.  The good news is most of that should be wrapping up in the next week, not that I want to see my relative go back but the other two points.  So what does this mean for the immediate future: not much will get done this week.  Hopefully work will be sorted out Monday or Tuesday. My relative departs Thursday morning.  My test is Saturday morning.  With overtime likely this weekend and almost guaranteed the following, April is pretty much a wash for anything productive.  I hope I am wrong, at least enough to get a few work-in-progress images to show, even if they are unrelated to the game.  Well, I think that is enough talk of nothing, until next post,

~gunnah

Busy Week

I will keep this short since I do not really have much to talk about in terms of progress on my floor piece.  I was going to try to hurry to get the last few pieces created, but I did not want to rush the shapes.  I figured it was better to take a bit longer if it meant having a better selection.  What is the point of rushing through a piece only to have it be the first one tossed out because it had the least thought?  Of course the next contest begins this week.  Hopefully I can get something together for this contest, even if it slows this project up a little.

Well, no point droning on about how much nothing has been getting done and what great plans I can write.  Until next week,
~gunnah

Life

This week's post about sums up why I got almost nothing done this week.  Next week is likely to be similar. A lot of overtime in combination with car troubles meant what little free time I had was slept away.  I have been doing little bits on the game in terms of thinking about various aspects, but nothing concrete yet.  As mentioned in the two previous posts, my concern is getting a floor piece made, and then building the other pieces to make up the map.  Once that is done, I will have something to show.  Good news is there should only be one more week of heavy overtime.  Bad news is a new contest begins the week after next and I would really like to enter one of these.  I will admit my last entry fell apart due to inexperience modeling organic shapes, though I may finish it eventually anyway since I thought it was a cool scene.

That is it for this week, hopefully next week brings something new.  Until then,
~gunnah

Not much done

As I believe I had previously mentioned two weeks ago, I spent that week reading up for my upcoming exam.  I even spent most of the weekend also to study.  Then last week, I worked more overtime then I ever had.  I was lucky to get sleep let alone study.  That means that most of the modeling was put on the back burner for this weekend.

I was going to try to get one or two original tanks blocked out.  However, every time I began to get somewhere, I really did not like where it was going.  So then I was going to write the background story, explain the technology and such.  However, I also did not like how that was turning out.So by the end of the night, I was just fooling around trying to make a material library, when I made a camo pattern.  These are likely to be the matte base in the game, and I made one for each team (yellow, green, red, grey).  The desert and jungle camo are staples while the red desert and arctic camo I though cam out nice.  This means, I think, that the blue team I had initially said when laying out team will be replaced by desert camo (yellow).

Hopefully, I will have something more substantial in the coming week.  Until next time,
~gunnah

Friday Posts Delayed

I am not sure if I mentioned it in passing, but I was studying fore and passed a test back in November.  That was the easy one since it was the one for my major.  Unfortunately, I need to take another test which is more of an overview including a subject I have not taken in a decade and a subject I have never taken.  This means I will be devoting quite a bit of time until the test in early March to studying those holes in my knowledge.  But with all of this time newly devoted to studying and still needing to work, I am going to have nearly no time left to do any modeling work during the week.  Because of this, I am going to stop posting Friday nights/Saturday mornings.  It is not like I have been making Friday posts regularly for some time and the ones I do are mostly excuses about overtime or something came up, et c.  I am hoping to get some modeling done over the coming weekends while taking a break from studying, but as fate would dictate, most of my overtime is now over the weekends.  I am going to continue chugging along slowly but surely and hope that things come together real soon.

Hopefully with a focused post one night a week, I can get this project back on tracks.  I am going to add a list of projects for the game as well as side projects I am doing to the page eventually, just to keep track of what I am doing for everyone else.  Until next post,

~gunnah

Getting Better, More Slowly than Surely

The last week has been rough.  I have been pretty sick, so bad in fact I had to take off one day from work.  I am starting to recover, but I have been spending most of my free time sleeping.  This has meant I have not gotten a lot done on the game models.  I am hoping to finish a few tutorials, just to bump up my art display, while working on the game models.  I am hoping to alternate post eventually with one being a completed tutorial and the next being something related to the game.  It will probably take me until the beginning of next month to get on that schedule, culminating with the finished Abandoned Building Scene.  I tried to work on it with a new technique, but it kept crashing before I could make any progress.  Hopefully I can figure out how to fix that without too much extra work so I can get it back on track.

Until next post, hopefully I will be feeling better,
~gunnah

Happy 2013

I was hoping to have a lot done for this post, but not much happened.  I have been feeling a little off for a few days, and now I think it is in full blown cold mode.  Hopefully, I will be able to work through this, but I am not sure how much extra I am going to get done on these projects.  Most of my time has been devoted to seeing how real world examples handle details, so playing video games, and learning more about post=processing of images, also known as watching tutorials.  I was going to do a few, but with whatever I have, I just cannot get everything straight in my head.  This is also why I have not worked on that one nearly finished project.  I do not want to put a bunch of work into it, then look at it later and decide I do not like the direction I took it.

Hopefully this bug clears up and I can get back to normal, with perhaps a surprise or two in the future.  Until next time,
~gunnah

Hard Lesson in Animation

So I nearly finished up my first animation and decided that it was time to render it.  I had rendered bits and pieces as I went and did not really notice anything since they were single frames.  When you switch from frame to complete animation, you gain an appreciation for just how fast the brain works.  In order to fool the brain, the computer needs to display 24 frames each seconds.My animation is just under 10 seconds, so its length is just over 200 frames.  My first couple of tries went quick since I toned down the render requirements, but I would continually get errors with the particle system render, which made them fairly useless as something to display.  However, knowing the settings were high during the creation and animation layout stages and those images came out nice looking, I was left with only one choice.  Unfortunately, each frame on those setting takes between 12 and 15 minutes to render - as opposed ot the first time which was under one minute and the second which was three to four.

So, I have been rendering this animation since Saturday and it will take a decent bit of Monday to finish it.  Because of this long length of time, I have been afraid to work on the other project, which has a tendency to cause the modeling program to crash.  While I could restart the render from the last finished frame, as I am rendering each frame as an image, I would hate to loose anything I changed after saving last.  I have been fooling around with other items, but I am not sure if I will post any of those, especially since nothing is anywhere near any stage of completion.  Until next time,
~gunnah

Slowly Progressing through the Holidays

So I have been making progress, but it has been extremely slow.  So slow that I really do not have any images to post.  As I have said, currently I am trying to knock off two projects before the new year, or shortly into it, then return the the modeling for the game.  The one project which I am not really disclosing much on until its release is moving along at a decent pace, but nothing Earth shattering.  Since I am trying to keep it a surprise, I am going to leave it at that, it probably needs about four or five hours, before I am happy with it, then it will need to render and hopefully it will be done.

The other big project is the abandoned building I started back in October and which has not had much new on it since mid-November.  I have fixed some of the aspects I did not like so far.  I have a little to add still in terms of what has already been modeled.  After that, I need to get the flood lights up and textured to finish off that part of the project.  At that point I will do a final, before post-processing render.  Then I will move on to post-processing, which will take a little time I am sure, but I hope when compared with the before image, the difference is noticeable.  Estimating what that is going to entail, and assuming a minimum number of crashes and data loss, that is probably about ten hours - mostly because I need to learn about post-processing while I am doing it on this project.

Not really sure how much I am going to get done since I am trying to enjoy some of the gifts I have received over the holidays, but I really do want to finish these projects and get back to the game.  Once back on my project, I will probably start blocking out a level or two, just to get a feel for how large I want the map to be and how much I need to make.  From there I will make a list and start doing one piece at a time, slowly building the level in something playable.  Once the level is done, I will worry about the tanks, weapons, turrets, satellites, and other non-static objects.  Well, hopefully I have something next time, until then,
~gunnah

The Holiday Season

So it is that time of year when everything is down to the wire and nothing gets done, so why should I have expected any of these projects to be any different?  I did work on modeling, but it was mostly just fooling around learning little things.  I worked on making an arch and then modeled a leg, but nothing really with which to do anything constructive.  Hopefully, with my altered shift for the week, I can get to something a little more productive.  I would really like to get those two projects I have been working on finished for the end of the year so I can start the year off fresh.

I think I will keep my ramblings short this time.  So until next time,
~gunnah

Temptation of the Holidays

So I did not get anywhere near as much done as I was hoping.  I am going to blame the lack of progress and missing Fridays post on working overtime, being semi-true.  I have found myself fairly run down and just needed a rest from everything, so over the last week, what little time I was not at work, I was asleep.  Hopefully the coming weeks will be more forgiving and I can begin making progress again.  I really need to finish this couple of side-tracks and get back to the main reason for all of this.

With that little bit out of the way, I can move on to the title.  Over the previous week I found two holiday themed contests, though I have a problem with both.  The one ending first, I simply do not have enough time to complete.  I have a great idea, but working full time and missing the first half of the competition, I feel I could never finish the project in time - just look at the numerous work in progress pages never finished..  The second competition I feel I could have done, but I lack the great idea.  Originally, I was going to but everything else off until I finished these, meaning I would not get back to where I was until the second post of the new year.  However, I think I am going to skip these for the time being and see if anything is run during the spring.

Hopefully, I will have something to show for next post.  At the moment I do not have an extra work slated for the next week, but that can change real quick.  Until next time,
~gunnah

Should Learn to Hold My Tongue

So after a promising Monday, I ended up working overtime most of last week.  That is why there was no post Friday, there was nothing new to post.  I am hoping this week will work out a little differently, but who knows what is in the cards.

As for what I actually did, it was not much.  I started the new weapon tutorial for Torque, but got almost nowhere with it because of the overtime situation.  I still need to wrap up the image I have been working on for a month and a half, which feels so close but so far.  That being said, I did start watching a few new tutorials.  I plan on working both tutorials into a small ten second animation which is going to start the game.  I have most of the animation laid out, but I will go over details when the animation is further underway.

That is it for now, hope everyone has a good week and I can get something done.  Until then,

~gunnah

Rough Week

During the previous week I got nothing done just like I was guessing I would.  My day was pretty much get home, go to sleep, get ready for work, leave, and then work all day.  Saturday I had a test in the morning, so any free time I had during the previous week was cramming just that little extra bit.

Now onto what I actually did relating to the project: Not much.  I know my scene is almost finished and I probably should have just worked on that, but I kind of wanted a bit of a break.  Also, I am now up in the air about what kind of floodlight I am adding to the scene as I got a different idea for what I think it should look like.  Once the lights are in the actual modeling and texturing end should be finished, save for any details which I do not like after looking at the scene as a whole - like the post texturing.  Then it is just a matter of post-processing to give it the right feel and I should finally have something done, albeit not actually part of the project proper.

Now, enough about what I did not do.  I have begun looking again at engines.  Do not get me wrong, so far UDK is looking the most likely, but I want to get a feel for some other environments before settling on any one engine.  I was actually hoping to have a review of the engine ready for this post, but it is taking me a while to get it set up.  Right now I am looking at the Torque 3D engine, which is nice because it is an open source engine.  It looks similar to UDK, but does not have the fee UDK does which is a plus for someone who is completely broke.

Working a bit of overtime this week and then there is the holiday at the end of the week, so I may or may not post on Friday.  Until next time,
~gunnah

Another Disappearing Act

So the last week managed to disappear before I knew I was in it practically.  Long days at work coupled with a few stresses at home left very little time for anything.  And the worse part is I am not done yet.  I need to study for a test in a little under a week, which I do not think I need a ton of review, but do want to anyway.  Also, there is a hurricane pointed in my direction which may strike havoc into any progress I may have made not going to work this week.  Hopefully it blows through, but I do not think this one will be that nice.

I did make a little progress, but I do not feel it is enough to show off, so I am holding it until I get more done.  Until next time,
~gunnah

A lot of Overtime; Work in Progress: Abandoned Building Scene (Part I)

I missed my post Friday because of a large amount of overtime I have been working.  On top of my normal hour commute each way and eight hours, I picked up overtime each day last week.  This means tat I was too tired to do much of anything last weekend.  In fact, I did not touch my computer for three days last week.  So I did not rush to put up  a post when I awoke Saturday because I really had nothing over the previous week.

Over the weekend, I started work on an interesting scene I stumbled across in my internet browsing.  It still has a lot to be desired, but I think it is coming along nicely.  It needs a decent amount of modeling to be done on the building to the left side.  I would like to made some objects to scatter around the floor, as well as some detail items which are not yet in - mostly barrels and palettes, I think, though I want an ivy growing over the back wall and barbed wire going around the top of the fence.  The lighting still has a bit to be desired, though I can work on that a bit more once everything is in place.  My only other complaint is I do not really like the camera angle, though I have been finding a hard time getting a better one.

Not sure how the next week is going to work, I may be getting more overtime and I have a lot going on personally.  Hopefully I can find time to do this though,
~gunnah