Renders with Backdrop

Here are two of the renders from the previous post with a backdrop added to give it more visual appeal.

Halfway Point Progress

For this progress update I tried to take the most interesting views of the hero pieces along with the street assets for this assignment.  I wanted to have all of the assets modeled out by this time and there are a few things that still haven't been modeled out.  I still need to model out the steps up to the elevated track platform, bus stop, elevator entrance to red line, trash can, and if time is available a couple of train cars.  As for my schedule on this assignment I am a little behind schedule but that is because I am pretty sure that I tried to do too much in too little a time and my schedule has been adjusted to make sure that I finish the assignment and make it industry quality.  I also know how long it takes me to model out a building using modular pieces and I have a low poly build of the chicago theatre that I will update into a high poly in a later date.  Still plenty of work to do to make it look like the vision of a post-apocalyptic and riddled with plant overgrowth Chicago, but the base has been built and now it is time to destroy it.

Building Base Textured

Here is the base of the building using the modular pieces in the previous post.  The building will be bigger with more detail on the textures, with more variety so repetitive textures aren't seen, on the building.  Again, overgrowth will be added.  Next step is creating the buildings standing next to the Marshall Fields building and creating the assets lining the street.

Visual Standards

Here are some renders of the modular pieces textured and lit in the style that I want for this project.  A normal map still needs to be created for the pieces along with planes with ivy (overgrowth) and alpha maps  on them to create the idea that no one has taken care of the buildings for a long time.

TexturedBase

Here is a render of the textured base of the Marshall Fields Building.  The pillars need to be retextured to not look similar.  Normals may need a little retouching.  Glass will be retextured to have a sheen on it and better refraction. 

Here is the hero piece for the Marshall Fields building in Chicago.  The building is complete with all the modular pieces being UV'd.  Need to texture the building next to give it that apocalyptic feeling.  Once that feeling is accomplished I am going to start to build the rest of the hero pieces for the street.  Next up is the Chicago Theatre Building.

hour long modeling session

This is an image of a the amount of work that I was able to get done in an hour long modelling session during a class at IADT Chicago.  The objective of the session was to see how much of a quality model you could create within the allotted time.  My goal was to get all of the modular pieces done by the end of the session and then continue building the model up.  I wasn't able to get the all of the modular pieces modeled in time, but accomplished it in the last half hour of the class.  The reference image is the Marshall Fields Building on State street in Chicago and it is the beginning of my final project for my senior class project.  The project is going to be a post-apocalyptic version of State street in Chicago from Randloph to Lake Street.  This is the first of many post that will show my pipeline to the finished product.

Time Management During Projects

When it comes to my process when starting a new 3D environment project there are certain steps that I take almost all of the time.  Obviously, the first step for me is to decide what type of project I would like to work on at that particular moment.  I get inspired from walking down the streets of Chicago, playing video games and even something that I dreamt the night before.  When I first begin the project, I normally set up a greybox of all the items that I am going to model.  I then go take pictures of my own to get the style of the buildings or terrain that I am modeling and use these for reference.  It is a rare occasion when I just start modelling from memory because these models almost always end up not resembling the object I intended to model.  The next step that I have been trying to do lately is make a list of things that I need to build for the scene in order for the scene to be complete.  I find these tedious to do because I know what I want to put in the scene so why do I have to write them down.  I have found out that these lists simply make you more organized and give you deadlines to accomplish certain tasks.  After I have the task sheet done I start cranking out the environment until it is complete.  I have a teacher who doesn't accept work that isn't 100% complete, so even if my personal work isn't 100% complete I feel that it deserves a zero even though I am not being graded on it.  I am supposed to write about my quirks when I am modeling.  I don't really have any except that I need to have music playing and I need to be away from home.  The reason that I need to be away from home is I have to many distractions there to take my attention away from the goal.  Also, I don't have two monitors at home, yet, and I find modeling without a dual monitor set up to be very infuriating. 

Professional Environment Artist's Portfolio Reviews

Jay Kyburz: www.jaykyburz.com     

            Jay Kyburz is a professional environmental/level artist who has worked on four major titled games in the game industry.  These four games include: Bioshock, Swat 4: The Stetchkob Syndicate, Tribes: Vengeance and Freedom Force.  His portfolio website is pretty bland with a plain white background and a large image from the Arcadia section in Bioshock.  He has four separate links to the major game titles that he has worked on and these links will take you to the environments that he has created.  The portfolio website gets the point across and doesn’t explain the process of how he created the environments but is focused more on showing off what he has created.  He brings the visuals of his art to the forefront of his website and keeps the descriptions to a minimum.  I will say that I am a bigger fan of his art than of the style of his website.   Bioshock be worked more on the environmental designs but on the others he was either lead designer or level designer.  I enjoy his art in bioshock because of the stylistic choices that were made to create this art deco dystopian nightmarish place.

Jason Lavoie:  http://www.jasonlavoie.net/

            Jason Lavoie is a professional environment artist who is currently working for Digital Extremes.  He has worked on two shipped titles in his professional career.  These games are The Darkness II and Hyperspace Madness.  His portfolio website is putting his art at the forefront of importance.  He has the major titles that he has worked on in three major images.  Clicking on these images will take to the specific pieces that he worked on in the project.  These images can also be clicked on and the high res version of the image can be seen with all of the detail of the piece showing.  The pieces that he worked on in Hyperspace Madness were more on the prop side than the modeling side.  If you click on the The Darkness links you can get more of a feel to what type of art he can create.  I enjoy his art because it is very clean work.  The buildings that were created for the game are great looking and if I could create pieces to similar quality I don’t think I would have much trouble locating a position.  The Estacado Mansion Cellar images I particularly like because this is similar to the style of pieces that I like to create in my spare time.  I think if I emulate pieces of this quality it will only help me in the long run.

Paul Jones:  http://pauldavidjones.weebly.com/

            Paul Jones is a professional environment artist who is currently working for TT-Fusion in Wilmslow, Manchester, U.K. on a recently announced WiiU LEGO City project.  He has worked on numerous jobs in the past and most recently worked the game of the year Batman:  Arkham City.  He has also worked on other games such as Unreal Tournament III, Unreal Championship II and Battlestar Galatica most recently.  His personal portfolio website is very simple in nature but is very easy to navigate and use.  He has all the projects that he has worked on on the left side of the screen and upon clicking on these links you will be brought to the images of what he worked on with a sliding bar to navigate up and down.  If you were to click on these images you would be able to see the higher resolution images for each image.  I really enjoy his work because of the amount of detail that he uses when creating his environments.  He is capable of doing very different styles and not just using the dark environments of Batman and Unreal that are showcased in his previous jobs.  I also enjoy the amount of different types of work he has done.  He showcases his concept art work, final environments, props, weapons and characters that he has worked on.  I would really like to get to the level of talent that Paul Jones has in created environments to better my career.