Urban Landscape - Traditional Art Practice Week 25

This week was the last week for this semester. Knowing this I went all out and spent a lot of time on the drawings this week. I first started with some sketches of individual objects as well interiors and exteriors. These were all really enjoyable to do. For my final piece I decided to go for the main view of the Guildhall.

This is the design that I went for. It is the most difficult one which is why I went for it. There is a variety of values and materials.

The final piece turned out like this. Overall I think that while some of the proportions are wrong and some of the perspective is skewed, the value work makes up for it. I like the way this turned out at the end.

 

Landscape Drawing - Traditional Art Practice Week 24

This week we did some drawing on location. I decided to draw this building because it has large forms which create interesting contrast. There is also a variety of different materials to draw which is always a nice thing.

For my finished piece I used a simple lineart and weight paint technique paired with cross hatching. Overall, this scene was very fun to paint and I enjoyed it far more than the portraits. I guess I am back in my comfort zone. The darker doors and windows as well as the tree poking out on the side all create a nice contrast with the bright brick. Now that I look at it I can once again see that the bricks probably weren't as bright as I made them here.

 

UE4 Fire Effect- 3D Game Production Week 26

 This was the final week of my project. I did my final checks and exported my maps from Substance into Unreal. I got everything working and there and edited the materials a bit. I put the asset into a lightbox and created a fire effect before finishing the project.

After importing everything and fixing some errors, I set the default level to load my level, organised and renamed my assets and placed everything in an orderly fashion. I checked to see if the materials were working the way I indended them to work and saw nothing wrong.

I separated my texture maps and made materials with them.

I plugged the maps into their individual channels like this and saw no problems.

I assembled a stack of firewood out my assets and put them into the scene. Having the objects be individual assets really helped a lot and gave me a great deal of freedom.

For the particle effect, I decided to just paint one texture and used it for the fire, the smoke and the embers all at one. I made sure to paint something that would work with all of those things at the same time.

For my particle effect, I created multiple fire effects of different speeds and positions in order to add more variety. I added luminosity to the effect as well.

My finished fire ended up being a little underwhelming, but for now this would have to do as other things had precedent. I was satisfied with the overall look.

I placed some of my extra assets into the scene such as the pots and pans. I put them into positions that they are supposed to be. For the lighting setup, I used a combination of spot lights and point lights to get the feeling that I wanted.

Oveall, this project was by far the most fun and challenging one I have done so far. It challenged me in every step, and I got to use many different pieces of software to achieve a very natural look to my asset.

Observing Objects from Life - 3D Game Production Blog Task #5

 Observing Objects from Life

I went out and took photos of a couple of interesting looking objects that I thought showed a lot of wear and tear. I took pictures of these boats as they had some very interesting things going on.

With this first one, there are a lot of things going on. The chipped paint at the top stands out. The blue paint contrasts nicely with the white coat underneath. The paint has been chipped away in flakes. There is also more wear closer to where the operator would be sitting, particularly the edges, that were likely used for holding on. 

There is a similar wear with the rest of the boat, with the white paint being further chipped and discolored. The top facing parts have been worn out considerably more, presumably from things like ropes, nets, or shoes. There is also moss around the boat, which has formed from a prolonged period if immobility. The same effect can be observed on the fenders and the rope. 

This is another boat, with some different material effects. The metal areas have lost a significant amount of their original paint, and the paint flakes are even more apparent now. There is close to no paint on the top, which is likely just from exposure to precipitation. There are spots of rust all over, most notably being around the little incisions at the side. There are rust marks in the shape of water slowly running down. There is also an interesting contrast created by some of the newer metallic parts, which are clean and shiny. 

The metal on the sides has been worn out quite badly and look very old. Constant stepping and scraping of other objects has taken it's toll. The rust is clearly visible behind layers of paint.

The green paint is mostly intact but has a number of cracks. These most likely started out as smaller scrapes from impacts, and once opened to the elements expanded rapidly. The paint has the same running down shaped rust.

Rennaisance Portrait - Traditional Art Practice Week 23

 This week I worked on another portrait. This one was from a live model, and having done live model portraits before I was a little more in my comfort zone. I had gotten a very simple profile angle and was able to focus most of my time on rendering values instead. I believe this shading is one of the better ones I've done so far.

 I touched up the model in photoshop a little bit. This brought out the values like I wanted to and in the end I was satisfied with the result. I must say that I don't particularly like doing portraits but this one was very enjoyable to do and I hope to more drawings from models in the future.

Three Point Perspective Scene Part 3 - Digital Art Practice Week 26

 This week I finished my perspective scene. I first started with deciding my light sources. Since this is a bunker, I initially wanted to go for some red lights, but then I decided that that was a bad idea. I decided to utilize the fact that this location is on the darker size. I used the light sources to point the player in the direction they would need to go. As you can see below, I decided on four distinctive points of interest in my scene to light up.

The main door could either be an exit or a passage to a new area, although since this is a hub area I am leaning towards it being an exit. The second light source would be a bunch of handmade lights put up to create a working area which could be a crafting station or a trader. The third light could light up either some collectable item on the shelf or the ventilation shaft. Maybe a secret passage? The last lights would just show a resting area. I further decorated the rest area with some nice posters and other personal items.

I cleaned up the edges on everything and made the shadows more uniform. I added some very basic highlights to where it made sense. With this, my perspective scene was complete.

For this project I didn't exactly struggle with anything as I usually work exactly on this kind of stuff, but I would like to point out some parts that could have been better. I could have created an elevated platform or an alcove in the walls which would break up the monotony. (although I covered all the walls up with objects anyways). I could have also gone with a brighter light, like a flood light in one of my thumnails. This would however diminish the way I used lighting to provide points of interest. Overall however this turned out to be to my liking and I am happy with the final product. 

Colored Portrait - Traditional Art Practice Week 22

 This week I worked on a colored portrait. I first started by making some separate sketches from sketching websites and coloring those a little bit. 

For my final piece I started by sketching and adding line weights as usual. I also gave the darker parts a little pass as well as the background. These would help create a sense of texture later. I added color after wards. I made sure to use a variety of bright tones when doing the skin. I left a lot of white in order to show the reflectivity. 

Human Head Construction - Traditional Art Practice Week 21

 This week I did a portrait with head construction in mind. This week's turned out a little better than last week I believe. 

For the portrait I used a different shading technique that involved more blocking in than just hatchning. 

I touched up the portrait in photoshop a little to bring out the shadows and the darkness of the hair. I am satisfied with the result but I could have added a darker background to improve it. The darks are again not dark enough and the facial proportions are pretty wrong.

Three Point Perspective Scene Part 2 - Digital Art Practice Week 25

 This week I worked mostly on my three point scene and also assembled my materials. I started first by making my sketch bigger and checking the perspective setup. Everything was in order, and after resizing and rotating I was ready for the lineart.

I went though 3 stages of lineart, same as my character in order to get all the details that I wanted. This took a long time as I had to account for the perspective lines at the same time. 

After completing my lineart stage, I blocked everything in and started with the flat colors. I decided to use the workflow from the past project since it provided a clear path of where to go step by step. I blocked in the elements individually and masked everything.

I started adding some texture to the materials without modifying the value too much as I would make shadows on a separate layer later anyways. This structured workflow allow me to quickly get through the process.

This week also marked the end of my material studies as I assembled what I had created in a psd file. I touched up some of the materials at the end. I would like to say that doing these studies was probably my favorite part of this module this year. These improved basically every part of my artwork, and I started creating better personal work as well thanks to these. I plan on making these studies a part of my regular art routine.

Painting - 3D Game Production Week 25

 This week I worked with Substance Painter to create my materials. I mostly just followed a combination of tutorials but was able to achieve the results that I wanted. The pre loaded assets were really helpful in understanding how materials were made.  I used some of the techniques I saw in those for my own materials as well, such as the sharpness filter for wood fibers.

I used a metallic edge generator and some mask editors do push the edges on the bricks. I finally started to understand the basic logic of how Substance worked. Layers here work like layers of paint work in real life. Unlike photoshop, fill layers here are actual coats of paint so it's very easy to grasp. 

The huge amount of layers that started to pile up really confused me and I struggled to understand what was going on. Naming each layer depending on its function helped.

I added further detail to my bricks with the mask editor by showing the sculpt details in the middle and not just in the edges. I changed the edge color to a slightly yellower and brighter tone.

I separated my planks by using the polygon fill tool and the uv island option. This allowed me to quickly select the individual planks as they were just rectangles. This was another benefit of having done retopology with flying geometry instead of step build. 

I added a dirt layer and multiple noise layers in order to get the wood feeling in. I experimented first with a bright wood, but then decided to go for a darker, dirtier kind of wood.

With my main materials done, I went in and did some additional detailing using the paint layers. This allowed me to add some more realistic detail variation.

I also went through all the steps with the extra assets. The metal parts were all masked under one layer and edited as so. I gave the metal a darker tone as well, as these would have been used for a very long time and for extended duration. I used the polygon fill option extensively here as well.