Tomb Raider Underworld Wii - my work from this title
polycounter lvl 18
Hey guys,
Sorry, this work is a bit old.. but the title just hit the shelves a couple weeks ago. Anyhow, kicking myself to comp all the chars I did, so was just going to post them in here as they get composed.
The studio I was at worked in parallel with Crystal Dynamics- they created the next gen versions of the game, and we created the Wii and PS2 versions of the game.
All character on our side were created from scratch- from the bottom up- as was most of the rest of the game.. so definitely not a port.
The comps I'll post in here are Wii versions at game resolution.
I'll just update the thread as they get made...
Lara
*pistols made by Crystal Dynamics
Amanda
Winston
... Lara's butler...*yawn*
I dug how the face turned out at the time... bout it for this character
Pre-production Viking Thrall
Rob Galanakis' favorite character!!
This version never made it into the game. There were original throughts of having these things covered in green glowy slime. They were completely re-envisioned later on...
Mexican Poacher
The gun was created by Aaron at www.bigfuzzygoat.com
Sorry, this work is a bit old.. but the title just hit the shelves a couple weeks ago. Anyhow, kicking myself to comp all the chars I did, so was just going to post them in here as they get composed.
The studio I was at worked in parallel with Crystal Dynamics- they created the next gen versions of the game, and we created the Wii and PS2 versions of the game.
All character on our side were created from scratch- from the bottom up- as was most of the rest of the game.. so definitely not a port.
The comps I'll post in here are Wii versions at game resolution.
I'll just update the thread as they get made...
Lara
*pistols made by Crystal Dynamics
Amanda
Winston
... Lara's butler...*yawn*
I dug how the face turned out at the time... bout it for this character
Pre-production Viking Thrall
Rob Galanakis' favorite character!!
This version never made it into the game. There were original throughts of having these things covered in green glowy slime. They were completely re-envisioned later on...
Mexican Poacher
The gun was created by Aaron at www.bigfuzzygoat.com
Replies
not sure if it's just my monitor here but she looks pretty sunburned...
First I've heard of it... but I may have pushed the saturation too much in the final comp. Anyone else seeing this?
She looks a little warm in skin tone, but nothing wrong about it. I would expect that from a woman who spends her time outdoors.
Waiting to see more.
ben
I just took the Hue/sat layer off the skin... so it's back to how the textures are at default... whaddya think?
Gettin to work on the next char comp...
Only diffuse? ...or another shader on it?
(maybe the hair create a strange effect on the back side and kill my eyes and brain)
It feels as if something is missing though,is it just diffuse,no normals and such?It would look so much better with some nice speculars on the guns and skin but i guess the wii has its limits.
Could you post an in-game pic?
And why are those pistols so... Flat...? I dunno, everything seems like you added a gausen blur in...?
The pistols are not his work. Read.
I also love the boots, great stuff all around, really nice work!
I have no idea how the game works with lightning, but I'd love to see the shading on the skin pushed a bit further.
seems likely they're reflection mapped ingame
lovely work! im also liking the webbing like material
bounchfx - I actually call those items 'marketing assets.' Believe it or not, Wii Lara has marketing assets about 10% larger than 360 Lara :P
rooster, vitor, odium - Those pistols are temporary. If I can find them, I'm going to implement the real ones. But yeah, there's not much dimensionality to those pistols for a couple reasons: first being there are no lights in the scene, and second being they had a pretty sweet env map going on in game, which is not present in my max viewport grab as seen above. As stated bfore though, none of the pistols are my work. My screengrab ther doesn't really do them justice - they actually looked real cool in engine.
Renaud - I could potentially get in 'trouble' for showing flats and/or wires. From a legal point of view, that could be chalked up as 'disclosing industry secrets.'
keen - I'm with you on the second image.. I just took the saturation out from the first image. Was making an attempt to boost up the image, but I think I went too far. No lighting because I like showing off texture work.. although I am thinking about going back in and playing with some lighting solutions to see what I can come up with...
mziskandar - The character is ok.. it is older work. The game turned out great, I thought. On both sides, 360 side and Wii side, there were tremendous hurdles to overcome. Was quite an endeavor for both teams... very ambitious. Have to respect any company that puts their neck out on an aready well known IP in hopes of doing something new and different.
Leviathan - That's just a typical Lara Croft style. Perfect skin.. very baby doll face.. long legs.. big marketing assets. Also keep in mind how active she is.. swinging, hanging, climbing, etc.... having lots of detail and muscular lines baked in to the texture may look good when she's in a static pose... but when she's in game moving around and these textures are getting pulled along with the joints, it begins to look messy.
On the Wii:
Her shirt made by Big Fuzzy Goat at http://www.bigfuzzygoat.com/
Josh - Thanks man, yeah it's just overzealous OCD of the pencil tool. I'll try and slap up a better image of that area later on. Probably be
btw, I didn't know you were in Austin now. Very cool - I moved the family over here as well (from Oregon). Seeming to like it so far...
sama, multivac - These shots are just diffuse. In game she has some env mapping on the parts, eyes, and hair. The Wii has limits just like any other system does... and don't forget, Lara is a global asset. What I mean by this is, she's loaded into memory... so walking the fine line between keeping her looking good, and keeping her as cheap as possible is a tough one, and of course you have to make sacrifices along the way. Nature of the beast.
Vig - thanks man - I love getting into areas and noodling in as much detail as I can.. kind of a fun challenge at times..
I think I got everyone - thanks again.. I'll get more pics up soon of some baddies
So why is it held back so damn much...?
Yeah that's what I though. Was also worried that it'd be a bit over-saturated, but it looks great in-game, so
By the way, that skin painting tutorial of yours has helped a shitload of people (me included) graduate from my uni =]
I updated the top post with an image of the next character I did for this game. This is Amanda, and she's an evil bitch. I believe they added tattoos to her after I left.
*see top*
Added Winston (Lara's butler) to the top post...
The engine that ships with the Wii kits (NDev tools) actually has a real time example of a coin with normal mapping on it... but yeah, I just think it would end up being too expensive. I'm not the most tech savvy guy out there, but I think it's some faked form of pixel shading... not sure..
Anyhow, added another up top. I don't have the files for this guy so I couldn't pose him.
Rob Galanakis' favorite character!!
This version never made it into the game. There were original throughts of having these things covered in green glowy slime. They were completely re-envisioned later on...
Reference folder material for sure,
-H
Last character is up in the top post. Mexican Poacher, with a gun created by Aaron at www.bigfuzzygoat.com.
Hope you guys enjoy.. always feels good finishing up archiving work.
Alright, screw it.. here are some wires (big files):
oh an nice texture work
I'll see if I can do a quick demo on the wrinkles...
Crystal Dynamics fired 30 people, according to the news. I don't, and have never worked there. I work at EA Bioware in Austin, TX.
http://www.swtor.com is the game I'm working on at the moment.
If you don't mind me asking, what sort of timeframe did you have for these sort of characters? As you say they were all made from scratch instead of ported, so I imagine your time constraints must have been quite tight.