…Modeling. The way I know that I love the career I’ve committed myself to, is that I’m fine blowing off a date to practice and improve my skills. Seriously. Plus, when you get right down to it, GDC is right around the corner. The only way were going to scale this mountain to completion is by sacrificing wants in favor of needs. I can’t wait till it’s done though. Rolling into GDC, or Beer Wednesday, or any industry related event and being able to hand out a completed produce is really is the next level in my mind.
I worked on the Trellis stands that line the track tonight. The sheer scale and height of the object make working on it a bit awkward. I experimented with the sub-object orbit mode to streamline the process.
Here’s a few progress shots. (The trellis Frame is untextured. You’re just looking at the Normal Map and AO.)
Trellis Frame
Detail Shot of Base
Reference Image
December 21st, 2009
Bradd
Weekends are never a good time for me to get work done, with family obligations, Church, and females begging for my attention. I’m beginning to think the three other members of this project who are all in the midst of long term relationships might be on to something, from a time-saving point of view…
Anyways, I’m about to take this model and a few others which are in the early stages of detailing into Unreal. I think the Spec Map on this particular piece is fighting with the Normal map and becoming nosier than I’d like. I’ll see what softening it up a bit does…
December 19th, 2009
Bradd
…and I’ve been baking some maps from high-poly models.
I’ve got two weeks off work, and I decided to first celebrate with friends, and then come home and spend the wee hours of the morning doing some test renders of my latest model. The purpose of this particular model was to help me establish a good work-flow. Specifically, how to properly incorporate Low-poly modeling in 3DS Max, High-poly modeling in Mudbox, map making in 3ds Max and Photoshop, and finally importing into the Unreal Development Kit. I’m looking for what areas I end up spending more time than anticipated on, so that I can plan for it in the future, and perhaps alter my flow to be more effective.
This prop is eventually going to be scattered all over the level, but it may be hard to tell just what it is… It’s a concrete footing for the huge trellis’ lining the entire level. It’s a bit like an iceberg, and will be buried anywhere from 25% to 90% in the ground. The idea is by modeling a lot of extra ‘give’ into this piece, it will be much easier to fit the tiling trellis pieces together.
This is a straight Hi-Poly to Low-poly transfer, and a such there are glaring errors in the texture maps. Rather than spend lots of time and computer power re-rendering these, I’m going to quickly clean them up in Photoshop later. Right now the Tri-count is 1900. I’ve got a 500 tri LOD already modeled, and I’ll do a quick comparison in the near future.
What is Project Death Race?
PDR is a small game development project using the newly released Unreal Development Kit. The purpose of this project is to showcase our skills at the 2010 Game Developers Conference.
With the release of the Unreal Development Kit, the opportunity to use the same AAA engine that powers BioShock, Gears of War, Mass Effect, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and many other fantastic games was just too enticing to pass up.
UDK allows us to package our work and distribute it freely on the internet. Giving people the opportunity to download a stand alone installer, without needing to have another game installed.
We get to make a real game, not just a mod.
- DM
