Sketchbook rules: Anyone is welcome to post any comments, critiques or thoughts. I'll welcome any and all feedback. I'm just trying to learn and improve. Often I'll ramble a bit on stuff to give it some background.

On with the art.

Anyways, I bought the eat3d tutorial posted around here not too long ago. It was well worth the money for the information. But I followed the tutorial and learned quite a bit.

If I did this over I'd change the unwrap a little bit. I cut the seam too close to the outer edges of the cut out faces, I'd bring those in a bit.

And I'm still very unclear on how to make a proper spec. I think I got a lot of things right this time around, but the final spec result isn't quite what I was looking for. I'd probably also change a bit of the concrete base references I was using.

Here we go anyways.





And something I'm doing for fun. Gonna up some polys on this and take it into mudbox for a little dressing up before I unwrap and texture.

How much is this eat3d tutorial and where do ya buy it? That japanese archway thing looks promising.

The Eat3d tutorial is $50 for the downloadable version. Great result on that btw, Saidin. Good stuff [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

More concrete stuffs. I'm just trying to further work with mudbox and max and general high poly workflow. I made this in about half the time that I did the pillar. So while I don't think its terribly original (borrowed the idea from Geezus) I think I achieved a little faster and better result.
C&C always welcome.


edit: The black background was kinda throwing off the shadows so I just did another quick render with a grey background.

Nice bro, looks Beast-a-saurus Rex. I'd say make the parts where it is chipped away lighter than the reg texture. Also, some more variation in color, maybe a sticker or something? See some wires?

I guess I'll just use this as a WiP type thread to track some of the progress on my work. I can't really tell if I'm even following the rules of the sketchbook with this.

Anyways, I'm working on a new environment based on the Shambles in York, England. It's an old medieval street converted to a market. I haven't decided whether I'm going to modernize this or keep it purely medival (for deco things like electrics as opposed to hay carts).

I did the first building as a test to see how modular I could make everything, the screenshot after is me laying out the building pieces for modular construction. The point being that each of these pieces can be put together in various combinations to break up the system.

I'm also going to create standard timber planks for timbering up the frames. Half the buildings in the shambles are brick, but the other half are half-timber. From there I'll probably do 3-4 window types that can be scaled to fit the various size windows and then things like signposts, brick trim, awnings, lamps and flower pots will be made.

Definitely looking for C&C as this progresses. I might move this to the pimp forum when I get a little further along for that purpose.

Well, I'm resurrecting this sketchbook thing. Which is funny, cause what I was working on 6 months ago is nothing to what I'm doing now. After doing the Mod-Facade challenge I scrapped the medieval street. Which I might one day come back to now that I know how to make things more modular, and more importantly work with the textures.


I don't have much for the Pimping section, but I felt compelled to post some things I've been messing with.

First up is my current portfolio piece inspired by a concept art on the Dead Space website.


It's based on this:


I'm not too sure what I'm going to do to add some smaller details on the wall sections. I can't tell if it needs any. So if any eyes want to comment please feel free!

Also, some other things I've been working on.

A Chaos Axe from a concept by Mythic (WAR).


A dwarven cannon from the WAR site. I just got frustrated with the dragon head part. I'm not the greatest with organic mudbox sculpting yet. And I didn't like the look of it at all.



Some mudbox testing. I posted the bridge in the speed model thread a couple weeks back.




So Yeah. Thats that. I hope I'm learning something haha.

Updating my current work. Just filling in the high poly stuff, its not divided much yet. Just checking sizes and blocking in stuff.

I think I'm going to call the 2 different wall sections done. That leaves the inside corner piece, outside corner piece, tiled flooring and an overhead section to complete before I can add the details. (edit the blue mesh ceiling is temp)

Some of the details I have planned are pipes, overhead lights, wall lights, the tram direction sign, other wall-signage.

I think I'm going to go in a direction like Shep did with his bath house and try to go with "passes". The high poly to low poly. Then a lighting pass, some specular pass, colour pass, damage pass, then finally add the props.

Have to put some details on the corner section. But I'm moving to the low polys for now. I can easily make those small changes once I have everything set up and in the engine.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do about the floor. The concept is essentially a 1 way tiling texture with a different texture going off in the hallways. Because of time budgets I might just stick with a simple 'metal tiles' tileable. And use some decals to add in the "tram this way" type flooring. I'll hop into the game and see what they did for some of these areas. Get some more inspiration.

This is just the final pieces I have and I'm going to start the lows/normal baking.
There's 10 modular sections here. 2 wall sections, the vent detail is seperate so I guess it's modular. 2 Roofing sections, 2 pillar sections, upper trim detail and an inside and outside corner.


I think once I get these baked down and stuck into UE3 I'll take this to the P&P section for some feedback.

This is cool stuff Saidin. Liking your work.
How are you finding UE3 to work with?

Really impressive work. Looking forward to updates.

Thanks for the kind words Pixel, I really like working in UE3 but I seem to always be battling scale and units and grid and such when exporting things. Every time I think I grasp modularity I get thrown a simple twist that my seemingly logical brain can't wrap around.

Some things I can't figure out are what to do about seams between wall panels. If I want a nice tileable flat wall section I always have to have some divider to keep the seam hidden. And that throws my whole grid off.

I sprained my wrist pretty badly in December and it really killed my motivation to work on this thing. I baked down some components and tried to get them in the engine, but I didn't like the scale and things weren't lining up around corners and such.



So now that it's at least comfortable using the computer again I'm getting back into some sub-d stuff. Working off a Gears of War fountain concept I saw online. I don't have the game (for my pc) so I can't compare my model to theirs in the engine. PLUS my mudbox trial expired and zbrush confuses me. So I will model this high poly and either leave it there, or just put in weather/wear and stone work in the diffuse and filter the normal.

Some updates to the fountain. (just to mention again its based on a GoW concept I found on the net)

Also used this time to test a lighting and material setup. Thanks to X-Convict for posting his info. I think it's a great way to present a HP model.

Gonna call this done for now. I could tweak shit for hours but since I really don't plan on doing a low poly, and my mudbox trial is finished I can't scratch it up right now. And adding any repetitive high frequency detail just seems redundant at this point. I've learned what I can from this. On to the next.
It's not very complicated, didn't take me too long a couple hours in the evening for 2-3 days. I'm definitely feeling better/faster at high poly modeling.

If anyone's curious it's based on this concept from GoW/epic.

Just a quick doodle on the next HP piece I'm doing. Started from my own sketch (no scanner though). Trying to lay out some shapes/ideas. Trying to get maybe that organic mechanical feel. I'm heading to a hockey game tonight (woot) so I figured I'd just post this anyways.

It's a wall-light deco piece. I realize it's not a very large object or anything. Just a prop, but I'm definitely looking for some crits on basic forms/shapes. Nothing is smoothed yet.

Worked a bit more on this little doodle. There's still a lot of pinching going on as some major areas still need to be quadified and hardened. I think I'm getting happier with the overall shape. I think I'm going to attempt to cut some divets for bolts etc directly into the mesh. I want to give it a nice shape instead of just floating a little over the top. The extra detail keeps me learning about sub-d stuff too. Making the curved light area was a little mini challenge.

Also every time I post a high poly render I work on a little simple lighting. It took me less than 5 minutes to drop down the lights for this one. I'm just working on a nice way to present a high res model.

I know it's not very interesting and no one really checks this much but here is my progress so far. I've been learning even more about sub-d modeling so I'm happy. I eliminated almost all of the pinching errors I was getting and got all the edges I wanted to get hardened.

Now to add some extra detail ala UT3. I might try to sketch out some concepts over top of this rather than blindly adding greeble. Because I want to push myself in all levels.

Just some more small detail work on this high poly. Progressed on some more high poly shapes. Big move happening around here so I haven't had much time to work on this. It definitely shouldn't be taking me this many days, but the hours worked on this high still is probably under 5-6.

More progress that no one checks.

Some low poly work. It seems really high but this main body only wieghs in at around 850 tri's. My goal is to get this all under 1000 tri's which seems very doable while still maintaining a nice shilouette. Still have to do some high frequency details like some wires and stuff that are in between the 3 main pieces.

Also, for kicks I'm trying some more advanced high poly. After being heavily inspired by Kevin's words for Metalman in his thread I'm taking on the Engine KJ told him to model.




Some Edge Flow, trying to keep things smooth where they are smooth on the actual object since the main body is cast iron and won't have seams except for where the bolts hold it together. Some of the smaller shapes I'm leaving till later to instance around where they are duplicated.

people are checking they just probably dont say anything cause its progressing nicely and you look like you know where your heading with this

Hehe thanks Ged. I didn't post that line because I'm pissed. I also know I'm not doing anything revolutionary in my sketchbook but its nice to know someone looks in from time to time. The fact that I don't seem to be doing anything wrong at this moment is at least good for my learning!

Here's some small progress on one of the other main shapes. Next up the circles on either side of the engine and then all the bolts probably before I tackle the headers.


And some detail.

A bit of an update, some details coming in now. Next up probably some more of the circular casing and then some researching on some of the parts in this engine and trying to determine the guts and the workings of some of these pistons so I know whats going on. I realized I was just modeling the shapes based on what I was seeing and not really taking into account any purpose.

Small update for today, worked on some of the piston detail. Trying to get things accurate and keeping in scale is tough. Also this engine doesn't make any sense as far as whats inside haha. I mean I know the headers and I see the springs for the pistons, and I see where the crankwheels and shafts are but how everything rotates inside is beyond me. I wish I had a backside picture, I think I'll have to ad-lib some details on the rear side of this.



Also my entry for the storage container mini challenge. I'm having terrible baking issues, I just don't know how to get rid of all the wobblies that show up on the normal when I try to bake this down. It's highly unmotivating. I really like how the HP turned out, but its just frustrating always having such a terrible bake.

You've got a great attention to detail in these and its progressing whats pretty nicely. Look forward to seeing more updates

Thanks for the encouragement. I promised myself I wouldn't update this until it was finished but I've been incredibly sick the last few days and this is as far as I've gotten. Just the oil cainisters is the last major part. Then some hose connectors and some extra nuts and bolts left to do. Once I feel better I'll whip them off and call this detail study done.


Here's the reference too (it's also in metalman's 'personal work' thread): Ref