Cardboard box, particle effects and other stuff!

Hey Guys,

It's been a while since I've posted anything up here but I've got a few things to update the blog with now!

I've just spent the past 3 - 4 hours making a cardboard box for my honors level and am pretty pleased with how its turned out:

I'm really pleased with it mainly because I can feel my texturing ability getting better. Admitily it's only a cardboard box - but I'm very pleased with the outcome of the handpainted texture. In game it does look very realistic; and the box itself can be turned around to give the sensation of variety as minor details and wearing is different on all four sides.

In itself my honors project is going reasonably well. I'm currently working on it and filling part of it up to submit to blitz in January, and hope that by the mid/end of January I'll have the street section completely finished. I realize though that If I'm not as far along as I'd like to be in January (around the 16th when we have our first pin up) I'll have to have a think about the project as a whole and cut down some parts of it. Luckly because of the level design I could do this fairly easily, however I really dont want to have to cut anything from the level!

I've currently also been getting a lot more interested in learning about shaders and particles. Fortunatly UDK has the node system that is easy to use; however I'm finding it hard figuring out what some of the different variables and functions do!

The other day I made this custom fire particle effect in UDK. It took me quite a while to make, but was a good project because I learn't a lot about the particle system in the process. Overall it was pretty fun to do, and although I didn't initally like the effect I had generated; when I added it to the scene and showed it to the people in my class I think its better now. Of course its not perfect and I wouldn't say its anywhere near a professional standard - but for an hours work and my first particle effect I think it's pretty good.

So that rounds up this post. Theres a lot of work for me to do over the christmas holidays, with Honors project and others from university, but hopefully by the time january comes around I'll have some really good work to show for it!

Weekend Project - Builders Lamp

Over the weekend I wanted to practice some more High poly to Low poly modeling and thought a builders lamp would be quite an interesting thing to model.

I used the following reference image for the model:

And here's the final piece:

I'm happy with how it's turned out, and it's been great practice for making high poly meshes - even though this one isn't really the complex! The mesh really benefits from having the high poly bake though, as it smooths the bars even more, the lamp and has added some amazing details to the bolts.

Although I've done this purely as a personal project, I may be able to fit it into my Honors project for university.

The Diffuse texture is 1024. Normal and Specular being 512 and an Emissive at 256. I handpainted the diffuse texture as I don't really like just plastering photos on everything.

Past Work

I'm going to start the blog by posting up some of my favorite work I've done over the past year of university.

The Temple Of Anubis

This was a level I did for a university project the second half of year 2 and the second environment I have made. I modeled it in Maya and textured it with Photoshop. I hand painted all the textures in the level to give it a nice stylized look and am quite pleased with the results.

 

This word puzzle was inspired by the trap in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indiana had to spell out the name of God. Throughout the level I keep reminding the player that they are in the temple of Anubis, so when the player comes to this puzzle near the end they have to spell out Anubis. If they stand on a wrong letter it will break away beneath them, unless they spell Anubis wrong, in which case they are killed by Anubis.

 

I created this cave halfway through the level to break up the corridors and add some variation. Players have to use a crystal to activate a set of waterfalls which in turn rotate the bridge in place. The cave also has a great crack in the roof, allowing the player to see outside, reminding them that they have fallen into the temple and are trying to escape. I was very pleased with how the cave turned out.

You can also see the Youtube video I did of the level being played here:

The Matrix Subway

This was a personal project I did over the summer holiday away from university (2011). I wanted to improve my texturing, whilst keeping textures to a low size - hence nothing in the scene in larger than 512. I modeled the scene on the subway from The Matrix. I enjoyed doing this and learn't quite a bit in the process.

You can also see the 2 videos I made of the scene here. I improved the lighting on the scene after finishing it the first time and posting it on Polycount. I think one main mistake I made was to tint the textures with a hint of green light - whereas if I did it now I would leave it up to the lighting in the scene to take care of that.

This is my first pass at lighting on the scene, of interest in this video though is showing the wireframe of the scene at the end of the video:

Here is the video of the scene with the final lighting in it:

My Art Blog

Hi and welcome to my art blog.

I'm David, a student currently on my final year of Games Design at the University of Central Lancashire. After leaving university I'd like to work in the games industry as an environment artist. In this blog i will be posting some work I'm currently doing and other interesting things.

I've decided to make this blog after my  friend Max Davenport suggested that it would be a good idea. He's a really good concept artist and you should check out his art blog here: http://maxdavenportart.blogspot.com/