Rendered

I wrapped up this project pretty quickly and the grass looks pretty rough and could use more love. But I'm calling this done for now.

A little more...

Blocked in the ground texture today, trying to figure out how I would do a low poly chain. :|

Well....

Finally took some time out this weekend to put my textures together for the model. Not sure why it took me so long to do this but here it is. There still needs to be some tweaking of the colors and some minor details that need to be added. Almost done!

Grass!

After having a rough time painting grass, a friend mentioned that it might have been cool if the grass was stylized just like the concept. I decided to stop trying to paint the grass realistically and had better results.

More Textures!

So I decided to put the Thomas Kinkade project on hold for a bit while I hone my painting skills. I decided to tackle smaller props before doing a whole environment scene. Here is my work in progress so far for textures. Grass still is one of the most challenging things for me to paint, so I'll update the grass when I am satisfied with it.

The concept is by Anne-Jean.

Thomas Kinkade

It's been awhile since I've posted so I decided to get back into the groove of things. Here is a slate roof texture that I have been working on for a while. Edges still need defining, but I found that I've been spending too much time on it and need to start on other textures. I wanted to recreate a scene inspired by a Thomas Kinkade painting, but with a stylized twist to it.

Mushies

It's been awhile since my last update, but I just wanted to throw this scene onto here. It was inspired by some Trine and Alice and Wonderland mushrooms. I could have played with the lighting a little more, but this will have to do for now.

Noob challenge

A friend of mine showed me the monthly noob challenge on polycount and I thought it'd be a great thing to do. It would give me practice on making props and also help me gather my courage to finally post on public forums. Click here for the challenge. I decided to just do the prop instead of the scene since it looks to be more stylized and I get a chance to practice more painting! I will also attempt to use 3dcoat to paint for the first time! Here is the image of the prop:

Final-ish render for the fort

This is the final image I presented at GDC this year. I received some pretty good critiques. Perhaps I shall learn lightmapping and take it into UDK now.

Exercises

A friend showed me a painterly exercise on conceptcookie and I thought I'd try it out. Here's the link to the exercise.

This is my result so far:

I've noticed that my stylistic abilities are lacking. It's a bit hard to let go and think outside of what you normally see everyday. I also have problems with saturation and blending hues. My painting gets pretty muddy and streaky. I also get careless and not zoom in. What I learned is that when painting, it is important to zoom in with a small brush and have more TLC for whatever it is you are painting.

Tiling textures

a w.i.p...

Grass and Dirt take 2

So I reworked my grass and dirt textures after studying Kuko's textures and I have to say I actually am satisfied with the grass :D

Here it is tiling in maya:

I think I may need to rework the dirt a bit more later, but I am done with the terrain for now. Moving on to finishing the foliage. I want to try to have this all in UDK by this Saturday.

Palm trees

So I fixed up the bark textures and painted some leaves today. I still need to paint some ground foliage, but I'll get there.

Here is what the tree looks like placed into the scene.

Now that I look at it, the tree seems a bit overwhelming. Going to ask for opinions.

Treess?!

So I've fixed the tangency of my model so far. The textures still need refining but I figure I should finish modeling and texturing all the trees and foliage before I go back to refine them.

My first attempt at a palm tree was a bit humorous, it looked like a pineapple tree. Needless to say, it wasn't working out well for my environment. This was when I forgot how important references were.

After looking up some references on "jungle and tropical trees" this is what I have came up with so far: a gray type bark texture for the palm trees and a darker wood bark for the smaller leafier trees. I realized I should prehaps invest in a botany book or something so I can actually look up the names of these trees for better references.

It seems that blogspot has super washed out my texture for some reason, but in photoshop the textures are a lot darker o_o. The brown bark texture is tiling pretty nicely in maya, but the gray bark has some obvious tiling issues. Still need to tweak them.

Making things better

So after some critiques, I've manage to change some of the models to emphasize more on the silhouette. I think it reads a lot better and is closer to the concept.

Edit: minor changes in textures. Going to need to fix the roof tangency next.

Fort in marmoset

So I threw in the model with textures and am currently messing around with the light settings.

Fort Final....sort of...

So I added some foliage and went back to refine some of my textures. This is my final image of the fort in Maya:

I was also working on some tileable grass and dirt textures. I dread painting it because it seems unnatural and premade:

Someone mentioned that my grass looked too much like an "American dream lawn" and did not look wild enough to be found at a pirate fort. So I attempted to repaint another grass texture:

I found this grass texture to be a bit more fitting. I blurred it because I wanted it to be subtle and have a softer feel like the grass textures in WoW. It's still a bit far from what I wanted it to be, but now I know that grass is one of my weakest areas.

This is my first attempt at tileable dirt. I realized that it looks more like a rocky ground texture rather than dirt so I tried to soften it a bit more.

I will need to repaint the grass and dirt textures before I can finally render it into Unity. 

Ropes o_o

Just wanted to do a quick update. I finished up the door details and added in some rope. I can't believe it's taking me 3 months to finish this x_x. I have to work faster. My goal is to be done with this is by Wednesday and have it presentation ready by the end of this week.

 

Edit: I've notice areas that have some tangency occurring. I may have to adjust the model or just zoom out a bit for my beauty shots later.

Pirate fort getting pirate-y

I am trying to finish blocking out my textures soon. Today I've been working on the metal pieces of the door. It is still a work in progress and I hope to finish it soon. I will try to make a tileable rope texture next then move onto painting the foliage for the scene.

Textures in progress:

Updated fort so far:

Fort Progress

So in the past few weeks, I've been working on this project on and off. My monitor has been off in color and I have been struggling to get the color and saturation the way I want it. After a few failed attempts, I decided to switch monitors with my neighbor instead. The color seems a bit truer and here are a few of my textures so far (textures are still a WIP and needs refinement):

Here are my door and frame textures:

Lower log part of the fort, cannon, and bolts. The extra space is reserved for the objects that go on top of the roof.:

Roof texture:

 The wood plank walls of the fort:

The upper wood planks of the fort:

This is my overall model so far in maya:

I have yet to do the details. These textures still have a long way to go before I can start the details of the gate and the foliage. Oh and I have been awfully spoiled by the cintiqs at my school. I've been trying to relearn how to use the tablet again. Progress is slow. x_x

Painted roof tiles

I spent about 2 days painting this roof tile for the pirate fort. It is a bit dark, I may highlight it later to make it pop a bit more.

This is what it looks like so far on the model itself. I am going to add more polys to have the roof silhouette look more unique as well. But for now, I will work on painting other textures.

Pirate Fort?!

A new project to work on. I am working from a concept from Artyom Vlaskin. The concept art can be found here. But I also have the concept below:

This is what I have modeled so far in maya:

I still need to work on the silhouette a bit and add some minor details. I will try to hand paint the textures for the fort in the next few upcoming days.