Thursday 7 May 2015

Stargate:No Limits - Khopesh Sword

Below are screenshots detailing my workflow for the final result of the Khopesh weapon asset.

Original model before changes were made.

Building the new mesh since the old mesh had some errors with the poly flow. Starting fresh would also allow me to add additional details to the blade.

Modelling the details of grooves and in dents.

Quick render of the result of the added details.

Comparison between the old and high model. 

I changed the poly flow around the major detail to make it more clean and smooth.


Modelling other parts to a high poly form.


The finished result of the high poly mesh of Khopesh. Will now start to model and finalise a low poly mesh.

Model the low poly mesh and aligned it to start baking.

Errors that appeared in Normal map bake.

Comparison between 2 normal maps. I have played around with cage in 3ds Max to try and capture the best result. with some trial and error I managed to get the best possible result I could get. 



 AO testing in xNormal and 3ds Max.

AO bake in 3ds Max

xNormal Bake for AO

Second try at AO bake in xNormal.

I struggled abit here, i wanted the AO to take on some of the details from the normal map in 3ds max instead of converting the Normal to AO. However I had to result in the AO bake from xNormal since it was the closet result I wanted to achieve


Experimenting with leather grip.

Stock pictures.




My first attempt at making a leather grip for a sword. I found this to be too dark so I decided to make it lighter; Also this texture was not tillable.


My second attempt at creating a leather grip. The texture now is light and tillable and you can see more of the leather texture coming through compared to the old attempt.



Final Render in 3DO


Wednesday 22 April 2015

Stargate: No Limits - Healing Device

This is my procedure on the finished Healing Device asset for the game.

Reference picture given by the client to use.

My first attempt at doing a base mesh of the asset. 


Break down on separate meshes used for the overall model.

I was unhappy with the turn out of the my first attempt. The reason for this is because the shape around where the strap keeps the device in place was not similar to the reference picture. there were no curvature around the areas thus polygon flow went backwards.


Second attempt at creating the asset.


Building the strap for new model

Positioning the back gem to line up with the centre of the main area of the device.


Joining the strap to the main device mesh.




Back view of the Healing Device.

With my second attempt at creating the Healing Device i was unhappy with the same area of the device. This time i created the right shape for the curvature area of where the strap joins the main Healing Device however it is not proportioned correctly. 


Below is my third attempt at doing the HD. Learning from my previous mistakes I have managed to work around the poly flow and how the strap and main device will attach. These are my WIP.

Copy of 2 circular shapes to make 1 whole mesh. I attached this together to make one solid flow mesh.

Adjustment for the curvature and overall shape for the device.

Render on how it looks thus far.

I ran into a small problem where I couldnt wrap my head around where I will fill the centre hole. there was a mistake of the flow and I occidentally deleted an important poly loop in the circular mesh.

This is Fourth and final attempt where I used my third version as guidelines to make this. I used my third variation because I managed to get the shape that I wanted however due to the slight problem in the centre I was not able to finish it. Below is my finished and finalised model for the Healing Device with equal Poly flow.

Finished main part of the Healing Device

Connected and aligning the strap.

Finished model. (Back View)

All angels of the finished model.

Render for side comparison of Low and High poly of the Healing Device.


Below are some of my textures for the model.

UV Unwrap 1024x1024

Normal Map
I ran into an issue with xNormal where it couldnt quite capture the smooth details very well and had errors. In order to get this Normal map i had to do it through 3ds Max and then use nDo to make further details. The option of using ZBrush was going to make it more complicated in terms of Low Poly mesh and bakes. nDo was a quick work around with the same results.


AO experimentation.

Original AO from 3ds Max

AO with Normal Map in 3ds Max.

AO conversion from Normal Map

For my AO, I decided to go with both normal and AO details. it help give a better overall details to model. 

Colour ID and Diffuse for dDo

Render in 3DO.

This asset was a little trickier than Bantos Rod and more time consuming, I learnt alot on poly flow and how to approach more complex shapes. It also helped increase my knowledge of Quixel Suite compared to my attempt with Bantos Rod and hope it helps create better textures for future assets for Stargate: No Limits.

Tuesday 31 March 2015

Stargate: No Limits - Bantos Rod

Below are the procedures of creating the final model for the Bantos Rod weapons.

Reference Picture for Bantos Rod

UV Layout (1024x1024)

Selecting and mapping the individual colour details used for reference later for high-poly model.

Texture test on model.

High-poly of weapon

Normal map extraction from Zbrush. (1024)

Had to match the Dark Brown colour to fit the new in dents of the weapon which were created on the High-poly weapon.

Using Quixel Suite to make the diffuse, normal, specular and AO maps.

Combination of Doffuse and AO maps. 

Final Render in 3DO.

Good learning curve to learn ZBrush and Quixel suite and the workflow that is followed, had some some trouble rendering the finished model in 3ds Max as the normal map didn't show quite clearly.