WARCRAFT IV - 3D FANART
Hi Everyone !
Last year we did the Polycount Challenge "The Escape" with two colleagues
(This one ! http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=117818 ), it was really fun to work together on personnal stuff
and we've just decided to do it again, for our portfolio !
This time we will be only 2: Maurin & myself, but Tom will feedback us as well I'm pretty sure of that
We're gonna make a Blizzard fanart: A fake Warcraft IV Scene
So here's the main goals:
- Each of us will make a Faction
(Maurin will make the Pandarens, as if it was a new playable faction in Warcraft 4, and I will make the Humans, to test how we could adapt existing and well known faction in a "next gen" style)
- We will create enough assets to make a little diorama scene, but also some fake "in-game screens"
- We're more Environment Artists (or even Texturing Artists) than Character Artist, but we'll try to add 1 of each faction (as a Bonus !)
- We will obviously try to keep real technical constraints for the game, like the possibility to change faction colors,
a good polycount and textures ratio, good shapes size for the RTS style, etc.
Please, Give us LOTS of feedback, we want to polish that one as far as we can
Thx !
So let's start!
Our main References are Hearthstone (the Board) and World of Warcraft of course, Warcraft 2 for the good old ref, a bit less the 3rd, in which the art direction is quite different.
Maurin's research for the Pandaren Farm and Watch Tower:
My research for the Human Farm and Guard Tower:
Screnshot of both for the "in game size" and the coherence:
Bonus: my WIP for the Human Gallion, just to show the process:
We'll try to make some quick setches of what we have in mind for the Diorama too !
Last year we did the Polycount Challenge "The Escape" with two colleagues
(This one ! http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=117818 ), it was really fun to work together on personnal stuff
and we've just decided to do it again, for our portfolio !
This time we will be only 2: Maurin & myself, but Tom will feedback us as well I'm pretty sure of that
We're gonna make a Blizzard fanart: A fake Warcraft IV Scene
So here's the main goals:
- Each of us will make a Faction
(Maurin will make the Pandarens, as if it was a new playable faction in Warcraft 4, and I will make the Humans, to test how we could adapt existing and well known faction in a "next gen" style)
- We will create enough assets to make a little diorama scene, but also some fake "in-game screens"
- We're more Environment Artists (or even Texturing Artists) than Character Artist, but we'll try to add 1 of each faction (as a Bonus
!)- We will obviously try to keep real technical constraints for the game, like the possibility to change faction colors,
a good polycount and textures ratio, good shapes size for the RTS style, etc.
Please, Give us LOTS of feedback, we want to polish that one as far as we can
Thx !
So let's start!
Our main References are Hearthstone (the Board) and World of Warcraft of course, Warcraft 2 for the good old ref, a bit less the 3rd, in which the art direction is quite different.
Maurin's research for the Pandaren Farm and Watch Tower:
My research for the Human Farm and Guard Tower:
Screnshot of both for the "in game size" and the coherence:
Bonus: my WIP for the Human Gallion, just to show the process:
We'll try to make some quick setches of what we have in mind for the Diorama too !
Replies
It will be fun to do (I can't wait to start sculpting)
stay tuned, more concepts coming soon !
Seriusly though. Lools awesome. Great idea, subbed.
Can't wait to see what you are gonna do
InstantSub
Who said WC4 wasn't coming
Can't wait to see more!!
T.
Good luck! Looking forward to see what you come up with.
I am using sc2 engine and here is what I got so far. The character is not done by me and its just as a placeholder here. I did the terrain textures and trees.
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/attachments/modifications-development-presentation-664/139165d1410179792-wc4-level-art-forest.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/7zhavu2oe5erkc9/wc4wip2.jpg?dl=0
No we won't render it into the SC2 engine, probably only Marmoset Render (super easy to use for a portfolio), but keeping a cartoony / in-game style render
We'll try to post next concepts soon !
anyway, I really like your work and this project is AMAZING !!! Continue like that !!!
Yes I was, which prom' ?
Thx for your feedback !
We've been busy a lot but we can finally post some WIP
Pandaren side, Maurin finished Pandaren environment concepts:
Human side, I finished the Alliance Gallion:
Some things will still probably change, like the flames pattern, etc. but it's mostly done
Quick test of Faction Color changing for my buildings:
I also made a quick concept of what could be the Final Diorama:
It's just a sketch and it will evolves probably a lot, but it is a good base for a discussion about that, and how we will arrange our assets !
Maurin already started the 3D, and a Peon Concept
I will join him soon on the 3D and we'll post some WIP as soon as possible !
Thx for following us, as usual: Comments and feedback are very welcome
I realize the last pic is a rougher concept and not as refined as the others but the same thing applies to all of them but maybe to a lesser degree.
Here's a quick paint over on the trees to show what i mean
Looking forward to seeing where this goes.
I received some private messages about how we worked for the previous challenge or for my old Diorama, so I told I would show more steps here...
But it's a reaaaally classical pipeline
There's how I plan to work:
- Basic shapes in 3D Max (I always used Maya, it's just to break the habits ahah)
- Give a +/- uniform topology to all objetcs, with square faces, to ease the sculpt
- Keep separated objects, to create subtools in Zbrush
- Sculpt in Zbrush (Just low frequencies, with exagereted details > RTS Game)
- Retopology (3D Coat or maybe learn to use Topogun)
- Paint in 3D Coat
We discussed with Maurin, there were 2 possibilities for the texturing:
- Optimize it the most (like each wood planks are on one texture, etc.)
Classical and smaller textures, but maybe need to create lighmaps for each buildings, with it's occlusion and self illuminated parts, etc.
or
- Separate all the UV, and paint it as an unique full asset. Bigger texture, but no specific lightmap and probably artisticaly much more interesting (variation between materials, no tilling, same pattern, etc.)
We've chosen the second solution for these reasons:
- Blizzard games are not reputated to be "light" on HD space
- It's for a portfolio, it will be quite optimizated already and don't want to give ourselves too much constraints
We'll see later for the render, the specific maps and the lighting
And this is a WIP of the base meshes I will use to sculpt the Human Farm
As for the pipeline : I'd personally go with the first one. a.k.a create a few BIG textures (next-gen *yo*) with a bunch of interesting hand-painted materials variations (note the "s" at the end. If you are working with 2 to 4k maps, you can totally afford to have more than ONE SINGLE plank of wood) and unwrap all your elements on it afterwards + lightmap on UV 2.
I understand why you guys would want to go "all unique" from an artistic point of view, but except if you are working with an engine specifically aimed towards this kind of process (like IDtech 5), it doesn't really make a lot of sense from a game development/efficiency point of view.
Otherwise this is progressing quite nicely. Me likey.
@Renaud: Yeah we considered it a lot with Maurin and yes, as we're going to work that as if it was for a game, let's try to have the better production pipeline for it, you're right.
So in that case, it will be something like that;
- An atlas for one race's buildings
- Smaller different Textures for each Units (and their variations)
- Atlas for one type of environment
- Tileable ground textures which will blend with a specific shader.
For the buildings, the "UV2 Map" will be the lightmap but we'll check if it could be maybe more, like little color variations or gradient, some unique details, etc. (have to check the blend mode, the ratio of that map, etc.)
Thx for the advice !
@Xaragoth: Yep we considered it as a Blizzard Next Gen RTS ref (obviously ahah), but we will keep a more... bulky/cartoony/colorful World of Warcraft touch, or especially Hearthstone Boards Corners, like these, which are more in the... "old Warcraft 2 spirit" I think:
Xaragoth Yes indeed heroes of the storm is a good ref too (I love vegetations) we just had to make a choice between all the good refs
of course orcs was tempting (with warlords of draenor comming soon) but we can't do everything ^^ the work made by blizzard on pandarens was just stunning so I decide to focus them
2 littles more screenshots here: a sketch of a peon and, same as ulrick, my base mesh for the farm (as say above our pipeline is gonna change a little )
I've decided the test the full production Pipeline (except maybe the final lighting / style of render)
We decided to follow Renaud's advice:
- Global Low Poly in Max (see some posts ago)
- At the end: Subtools in ZBrush, sculpt some of them, to have enough variation to kitbash them into the final Low Poly
And so:
- Sculpt in Zbrush
- Retopo, UVs and Painting in 3DCoat
- Render in Marmoset (basic render, still not tweaked)
The Low Poly has 68 Triangles, just to be able to bend the wood a bit.
It's still a WIP, some things or style will change or will be polished.
There's still too much high frequencies even if we can zoom a lot in Starcraft 2 / Warcraft 3
I'll see that for the next steps
And finally: The Blizzcon was cool, Overwatch is really beautiful, and seeing all that Blizzard stuff boost our motivation for this fanart
Awesome work! can't wait to see the progress!
I have one question, you will use Marmoset as render engine , but when you say "Tileable ground textures which will blend with a specific shader" how is that going to be possible in marmoset? Will you guys write a shader?