Hello, I'm a long time spectator but this is my first time posting on thepolycount forums in several years. I've been in games since 03. I was apart of the recent Pandemic closure and wanted to post some of the high poly work/personal work I've done over the last 3 or 4 years. Some of the personal art was inspired by Kevin Johnstone awesome work. I wanted to practice High density modeling and greebled surfaces in hopes of improving my skills.

Any and All critiques are welcome. I'm always taking notes.

AWESOME WORK man... very nice sculpts. any insight into your workflow?

really love that render setup any tips you can give on how to achieve that?

great models aswell

amazing sculpts, you need to do a few videos showing how you get such great results.

great work man, really like the statue and its colum

Really awesome, I love your rocks/bricks/stone work. Is that peeling paint modeled!? if so how?

Thanks for sharing with us

saw this already on zbrushcentral. very impressive stuff

Wow, beautiful stuff. Great work and very nicely presented, too. Hope to see more soon!

Brilliant sculpts here! awesome bro!

Awesome stuff, nice job

Awesome stuff man, those first rock sculpts are terrific. Did you start from just a plane or was some of it blocked out first?

Sweet stuff, especially the rocks

I will try to shamelessly steal some of your techniques if you don't mind :p
I hope that you will find something soon; your models are simply amazing. Closure of Pandemic was really shocking.

Welcome back to Polycount, Bobby aka Tubboy ;)

Your work has definitely improved since you last posted here. Nice HPs.

Here's another few. I was cut off by the 16 limit before.

Originally Posted by AstroZombie

Welcome back to Polycount, Bobby aka Tubboy ;)

Your work has definitely improved since you last posted here. Nice HPs.

Yes, i need to work on my hand painted Texture skills though ;) as you and I both know.


Thank you all. I'll try and post a few more shortly.

Originally Posted by Ben Apuna

Really awesome, I love your rocks/bricks/stone work. Is that peeling paint modeled!? if so how?

Thanks for sharing with us

Yes it's modeled. The Pealing paint came from an online reference at CGtextures. I collaged together a few pealing patterns in photoshop, then projected the pattern to a single grid plane in XSI then manually cut and deleted away the Patterns. From then on all that's needed is the subtle peal back details which was done by selecting the vert points at the peal
junctures and rolling back the verts with soft/proportional settings on. After this, take it into zbrush and give it any desired wear and tear.

Sadly a process like this can prove costly in terms of time. As a result, I've found that if you take the same collage pattern and filter through crazybump, output a normal map, (and by retaining your original collage patterns in photoshop layers) you can just manually paint in the peal with
normal map colors. It's faster than modeling everything. I'll post some A-Z process diagrams later.

Originally Posted by Jonas Ronnegard

really love that render setup any tips you can give on how to achieve that?

great models aswell

Render set up was achieved in Softimage XSI. Generic settings i guess. Though I am still new to XSI's render techniques. It sums up to Mental Ray with FG and GI on (though GI was probably unnecessary). Just a few lights placed in the scenes around each model. The idea was one primary direct light with a few omni (point) lights as subtle fills. The primary light casts the shadows and photons. 2m Rays i think. I tryed to follow XSI's Help menu and this link - http://www.edharriss.com/tutorial_GI/xsi_global.htm

Originally Posted by Ark

Awesome stuff man, those first rock sculpts are terrific. Did you start from just a plane or was some of it

blocked out first?

The Rock walls were extracted from internet images and by using Crazybump I outputted a displacement map into zbrush and used Deformations-offset on a teccilated Zplane3d. Going this route generally allowed the ability to extract all necessary texture info from the high rez and composite in photoshop for your final Diff, spec, and Normal map. This was also good in that you didn't have to deal with licensing complications from an Internet source. In the end, all that was used was the essence of the photo, not the photo its self.

The Stacked Stone walls and Brick walls were modeled in XSI from online reference images then sculpted in zbrush using scaled alpha's for final details. The grout for each was a separate plane brought in as a subtool.

The Arch was modeled in XSI and sculpted in zbrush. Each component was sculpted separately in the subtool stack but they

originated from XSI.

All high poly meshes were poly Decimated in Zbrush and brought back into XSI for Texture Baking and rendering.

Originally Posted by teaandcigarettes

Sweet stuff, especially the rocks

I will try to shamelessly steal some of your techniques if you don't mind :p
I hope that you will find something soon; your models are simply amazing. Closure of Pandemic was really shocking.

Go for it man. That's one of my reason for posting. Hopfully you guys can build upon it and make the idea better or maybe even change the idea all together and suggest better ideas. I'm always taking notes.

I've learned alot from this forum and those like it. Most of the reason the quality is better is becuase i've been spending the last few years just digging into other peoples pimp posts, reading and studying and applying those techniques to my own work flows. I'm happy to say alot of it paid off. Thank you.


The closure was a shock indeed. I heard the news while on vacation in Hawaii with family. Pandemic was a fun place to work. At least for me. I enjoyed the people, the interactions, the environment and Culture. Especially the beer Fridays :P. The news was devastating at first. Like the feeling of falling and not having anything to grab on to. But, you have to remind yourself that situations like this are usually temporary and the next opportunity can only serve to strengthen you. The perks being that you meet new people, new talent and new interactions.

increadable work man, i look forward to seeing more of your work!

Impressive work man.

I wasn't able to upload more images for some reason so here is my portfolio site. There is abit more content there.

Enjoy.
http://bobbyrice.blogspot.com/

Really impressive stuff man, love those arches and thanks for the breakdown explinations. Also good to see XSI being put to good use, xsi users are a minority here.

Awesome portfolio aswell, why arn't you working at Epic.

Originally Posted by Ark

Really impressive stuff man, love those arches and thanks for the breakdown explinations. Also good to see XSI being put to good use, xsi users are a minority here.

Awesome portfolio aswell, why arn't you working at Epic.

XSI users ftw!

My inspiration folder just got a chubby!

Great stuff and thanks for posting with your experiences, nice to see an artist that doesn't just post and ditch the thread, or not respond at all.

Wow amazing!

How did you make he brick walls?Is it just a zbrush plane which is extruded or did you have
singel base bricks that you layed out first?Would love to hear about the process
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_albufHASkZ...ure_Bricks.jpg

Thanks for sharing your techniques as well as your art. Best of luck finding a new job if you haven't found one already, though with work like this you don't really need luck.

Originally Posted by Thewiruz

Wow amazing!

How did you make he brick walls?Is it just a zbrush plane which is extruded or did you have
singel base bricks that you layed out first?Would love to hear about the process
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_albufHASkZ...ure_Bricks.jpg

The Bricks were modeled and assembled in XSI then sculpted in zbrush for final shaping and detailing. I've treid extruding in zbrush from an alpha or using the Model Tile function in zbrush and just painting in the bricks. Both work farily well in terms of speed. However, It was Extremely helpful to following Kevin Johnstons method - http://boards.polycount.net/showthre...hnstone&page=3

Modeling the bricks and separating the elements seemed easier to manage.

Stunning work, but irony is that the ones that are more heavily influenced by my own ( the fantasy staircase pillar) are the weakest in the set. I think if you let the lines flow straight down from the globe structure that is 3/4 of the way up, rather than muddy the brick work with too many additional tentacle styled forms, it would read a lot more clearly and allow people to appreciate the strength of the full design.

The same is true on the top of the stair case, often its the case with pieces like this that you need to trust in simplicity and not fall victim to 'the fear' that the plain elements need more work. I fall into this mistake often and need to remind myself also to trust in the simplicity of the singular forms strength when I'm not feeling it. In hindsight I've found that pieces I made in more of a rush where I didn't have the time to over think them, the pieces were more popular and perhaps that is the issue as you said these were pieces you made for yourself and I would imagine your own deadlines are easier to manage than your professional ones?

Either way, its what I call a 'good problem' because it can be fixed by being easier on yourself.

The tiling rock pieces are exceptionally strong, your work on LOTR has really served you well in terms of teaching you how to handle rock forms, all the concrete and rock stuff is very well balanced. Even the crates have interest and invention which is the sign of a true professional, ie you did not simply concede they were a throwaway asset and knock them out without thought toward creativity as you rushed toward the hero pieces.

I looked through your website link also, likewise stunning work. All I would recommend is that you continue to restrain yourself in terms of balancing your level of detail. I don't think you are pushing too much detail, I think you are not balancing it enough with plainer forms inbetween the intense areas on occasion is all. And as I said, I fall into the same polygon addiciton issues