Latest Game Models

[Newbwc3]

Alright so I learned alot since I started 3d for warcraft3 up here long ago and I'm loving it. Here's my newest work. I'm still not pro, but I have been making some money from freelance!

Industrial Weedwacker: my best work in my opinion, but I hope to go alot more complex with a mech or war vehicle one day. designs my own.

Imperial Towers: done for a mod Command and conquer: valkyrian wars on moddb.com
concept is not my own.

Gallian APC WIP: done for the same mod, concept not my own.

Electric Razor: razor rendered in udk. I made a mistake with the seam, but i learned from it

My website has a new design as well! www.danielmanion.net if you ever happen to know anyone thats hiring a game artist send them my way.

and just for lols heres one of the first models I ever made: Doom Beast

 

[Varine]

There are a lot of teams on gamedev.net I think, usually they have commission based openings. AED was until we got sued, so now we don't really even have a project for the time being. Otherwise I would offer to let you work with me and my now apparently defunct team.

Are you making your own textures or fitting some other sources together for the materials?

 

[Newbwc3]

I didnt use any photosource textures in these, the biggest cheat I do is using custom grunge brushes. But these days they say to use photos, brushes whatever you can to make it look real, for the 'high quality' style of next gen. So on my next portfolio project I'm going to try photo manipulated textures, I want to beable to do both though. I like handpainted work.

 

[Varine]

It all depends on the art style. One of the games we did concepts for was all hand drawn and painted (it was based on Van Gogh paintings to some extent). But typically you'll use source images. It mostly just makes it easier and faster though.

Have you done any work with displacement maps or retopologizing?

 

[FireCat]

How long does it take to make a 3D model? I'm Just Curious lol

 

[Varine]

Depends on what it is. A simple building can take a few hours to make the base. Then probably another few days for adding the details to it, it all depends on a lot of factors. Like the type of material it's made of (brick, siding, whatever; any lamps, the number of windows, etc). A good current gen character will take upwards of three or four weeks from scratch. Materials, displacement renders, retopology, rigging, animation, etc, all add significantly to it as well. In a AAA studio, I THINK it's like one to three weeks on average. But a lot of times they work with similar bases like I do, so that really decreases time because you can just load it into Zbrush or whatever and add on the details. From my base I can make a non-critical NPC in maybe a few days of dedication.

But again, when I export that out of Zbrush, it's like millions of polygons. So that has to be retopologized, which there are automated programs that make it faster but they fuck up the flow a lot of the times, but that will still take a couple of days. Then rigging takes me forever because I suck at it (like it takes me at least a week), and animation doesn't take that long unless you're keying it by hand, instead of using mocap or something. I have a little motion capture system, takes a couple hours to clean up the data, then it's just applying that to the skeleton. Then materials are a totally different thing altogether, and that varies from a few days if you have all the source images ready and it's just making it all look right, to a few months if you're doing it all by hand.

I have a few hundred scripts and plugins that make it go faster for me, but most people don't have the things I bought, and I've never released any of my scripts publicly.

 

[thewrongvine]

Nice work.
What do you use/have used/can use? UDK doesn't have actual modelling features does it?

 

[Varine]

No, it's just a game engine. For sculpting usually you use Zbrush or Mudbox. For modelling there are a lot of programs. Usually I use 3DS Max or Softimage, but Maya and Blender are pretty popular too.

The engine just lets you control them. It has some minor animation systems, like blending, but those are all based on animation sets applied to the model. Then you can apply shaders things, and program the animation sequences to play on call.

 

[rover2341]

Quite impressed I taught my self how to do very basic models for a project I am working on.
But It took me over a week to make a basic cart. (3ds-max)

After seeing what you can do in a week. Dang man I wish i had that much Skill.

 

[Varine]

You get better as you learn how to use the software. Like I've been modelling for about six years using 3DS Max and sometimes Softimage. I know the software pretty well, and most people that are quick at modelling have a lot of extra plugins and scripts that cut out a lot of the more repetitive tasks.

 

[C-Death]

Those are really cool!
I also have a question for modelers. I have 3ds max, and I was wondering if anyone
could suggest a good tutorial site? I've learned quite a bit just tinkering, but I feel that some guidance would help much.

 

[Varine]

3DBuzz has some decent free ones to start you off, and you can pay like 30 dollars a month for the others that go into more depth. But tutorials really won't help you with most of it; I mean it really comes down to whether or not you can use the software. You might learn how to do some things in a project oriented way, but it's still a tutorial and most likely unrelated to whatever you want to make. They kind of work I guess, some people it really helps, but they were never helpful to me. So your best bet for really learning it, without going to a school like Gnomon or something, is go through the documentation provided with it and maybe signing up on CGSociety or something for specific issues you come across.

What version are you using also?

 

[C-Death]

I have the 2012 student version. And thank you, I'll check out 3dBuzz

 

[Fatmankev]

Those models all look pretty phat; well done, man. I like that weed whacker a lot.

I've never messed with 3-d modeling except in autocad, which is a whole different thing altogether, but these are all really cool, boss.

Varine, trying to share some of your models? It's cool to see how talented all you mother fuckers are.

 

[Varine]

I have the 2012 student version. And thank you, I'll check out 3dBuzz

CGSociety is also very useful, like I said. They have a very large community there, and a lot of them really know what they're doing. Sometimes it's hard to understand what they're saying.

Since you have 2012, 3DBuzz will most likely be outdated to some extent, as the tools have changed since they were made (I think it was with 2008 but I don't remember), and the GUI has been modified a little bit (like I have been using 2008 and 2010 [because a lot of plugins I use don't work on new editions. I'm actually still have 2005 and use it quite a bit because it had a lot of tools for it that I don't have for later versions still, as the developers for the addons no longer are in business I don't think], but 2012 has a lot of nice features, just the new interface throws me off).

And there are a lot of videos and channels on YouTube, too, that go over a lot of the tools and how to use them. Like I said, I would avoid those kind of step by step tutorial things, but finding some kind of example video that demonstrates the uses of some tools might be helpful. I personally can't help much as far as tutoring goes, because I learned mostly by myself, and don't actually know what most of the tools actually are really. It's more like, I know if I use this one it does this thing that I think will make it achieve what I want it to.

@Fatmankev I can sometime, I guess. I haven't really been modelling recently as I'm no longer working on my game for some time, but I'm starting a new one soon I think. I'll make a thread for it sometime.

 

[Newbwc3]

For learning this stuff I'd suggest 3dsmax to start with, dont even worry about sculpting till your pretty good at it.

I'd work on some models that just use diffuse maps first, before trying to tackle normal maps, just to learn your modeling/uving/ texturing without being overwhelmed

www.game-artist.net is a great forum to start with tutorials and the people are really helpful and friendly there. In my opinion tutorials are extreamly helpful at getting you up to speed with the pros.. just by watching them work you learn so much.