This week was not as challenging as the first one. There was mostly UV unwrapping to do with minimal modeling. I enjoyed this listening to music mostly. The big takeaway here was to use automap. 

UV lessons

For Curved shells - the steps are to select all curved edges. Cut. Then move and sew each piece onto a straight shell.
Unitize - First select all the edges of a tube shape. DESELECT all the edges you want to act as seems. Then move and sew. 

Select Continous Edge  - This is amazing

Prop UV - Part 4

Prop UV - Pillar -Modeled, sculpted, Normal, UV

Prop UV - Part 6 - UV

Proper planning is key I learned. You really need to nail the silhouette during block out, add holding edges in Game Res, and then go nuts it High Res. It might make more sense to decimate down to get the Game Res. I'm Tired.

WIP* Modeling a Pillar in Maya and Zbrush. So far have the undamaged version mainly done minus the smoothing errors on the top part of the cylinders.

Pillar

3 Mode Preview

WIP* Maya Model

Prop 2 for AGC

Mouse Model WIP* Night 2

WF and 3 preview

Mid Res and UV

Bottom

ACG - Course: Mouse WIP*

Logitech M310. I do not have this mouse personally, however, I do have 2 Mice similar to model off of. Yesterday I did the Breakdown sheet. and Today I did a mix between lockout and mid-Res. I understand that I am mixing together the high poly bake, so there will be some back in forth. Instead of doing Low, Mid, High, I am doing a sort of hybrid to lay the groundwork, then deleting and optimizing later. 

Not Merged yet just for scale 3 mode with WF

Breakdown Sheet (Needs Improvement to show model vs normal map)
  

Tomorrow I need to get all the silhouette forms done and start UV' ing.  After that add bevels and detail for High Res bake, and down rez-ing the In-Game Engine model.  

Today, I started my second course of the year after a month break to work on my skills, and develop a Unity game. I have been exploring Substance Painter, Unity, and re-learning Zbrush, to get back into the Game Art Pipeline. Some things that I learned recently are:

Trim Sheets -  used to source one texturing for multiple game assets for modularity. 

Mitmapping - Use for Level of Detail (A new term for me)

Understanding the purpose of a Hero asset vs. a Prop. (One is purpose-built, the other is modular) Making things in 3D similar to how they are manufactured in there real world.  (Not making the mistake of merging verts for separate parts, but rather mesh combine. Some recent challenges were getting Dynamesh Swiss cheese and using inflate and pinch brushes to fix holes and add thickness to a one-sided,hollow model. 

I am using an XP-Pen really small tablet monitor. The screen space is so tiny and without a stand, it's not practical to use, so I draw on it and have it control my larger monitor. I do miss my wireless Wacom Pro Small with multi-button right-click, and backlit keys. I improvised some stickers to better find the buttons. The tools are not as important as the work that is done. But sometimes the name brand is the way to go. Anyways I am ready to go again, and learn some 3D!

Made in Maya and Unity for a fun project. Low poly models. 

Kyle Horne - Behold Games

Bottle Opener - Renderman

Legoman ColorMap

Well, the Bottle Opener turned out to be the most challenging item to bottle. It took me probably 15 hours to model. I realized that UV and Smart Duplicating in quarters was the fastest way to do things as long as the merge threshold wasn't too high. Purchasing the item made it a lot easier. I think also segmenting in pieces with the basic shapes is probably the best approach and snap verts before merging them together. There was a lot of back and forth and fixing problem geometry. Sketching is a good practice to do beforehand.

Kyle Horne WIP*

Unfortunately, I do not have this product in hand so I am modeling based on incomplete 2D data. I did not plan for the gap in the middle where the sides rotate. I am very far behind on this, Was planning on finishing the model tonight but, I will be very busy tomorrow finishing up the form and hopefully done with the UV's