What's In the Box?

The next item for the internship, and thus with permission my blog, is this jewelry box. This item was modeled by one of the other artists, while the uv's and textures were my own creation with a touch of slight retopology.

The theme for this object is an heirloom type of jewelry box that was passed down a few generations, and that may have survived the elements for more than a few years before being recovered. I treated the lid as the focal point of this object, though I doubt in the actual video anyone will ever see it I'm still very proud of the way it turned out.

I used six different wood textures to get the look I wanted in the diffuse texture, while the metal is only two with a lot of help from 3 other textures in the specular channel. The design on the lid was partially designed with the character's name in mind as well as something simple and elegant. The text is Lucida Calligraphy font faded out with grunge brushes to look like faded paint. The same fade was used on the wavy lines on the sides of the box with the faded red coloring to add a bit of breakup without being too distracting from the lid.

Possibly more to come, stay tuned!


[Edited 10sep2014 to show the textures and wireframe]

HFIL - Texture Time 2

This month went by quickly with the flurry of work at different security sites and game art taking up my free time. Career status is still on hold, but I managed to get a couple of [negative]replies .. so at least someone out there is seeing my applications. As of today, I have 296 applications out since graduation last year. On a side note I saved up and spent my entire 2 weeks' pay check on Photoshop CS6 pro-license so I'm having fun trying to learn the new stuff in it.[and I can finally try to sell some stuff on turbosquid] Enough of all that, on to the work!

To start where I left off last month, here's the light post:

Then I made a repeating concrete texture for the fountain, using the colors I had used while making the base pillar for the lamp post. In hindsight it might have been better to just use this material for the base pole as well, but I guess that's what happens when you can't just sit down and focus on your environments as a whole. :)

The water texture was something I wasn't sure how to tackle, but since the ESF crew seemed determined to make it look as real as possible with hand painted textures I knew this had to be my goal. I ended up finding an old tutorial from another blogspot user: James. Though because of the age of the tutorial I've noticed some of the images/info seems to be missing. Below this image I'll outline the steps used just in case his tutorial dies.

Step 1: Create a blank canvas, I used 512x512px
Step 2: Choose your highlight and shadow colors as your 2 colors for your brush pallet.
Step 3: goto: filter - render - clouds
Step 4: goto: filter - distort - ripple [setting: 999, large]
Step 5: goto: filter - distort - ripple [setting: 999, medium]
Step 6: paint out your alpha channel as necessary for realism.
Some tips that helped me was to use as big a cloud as possible when using the cloud filter, and for the bloody water I used a dark red and a white/almost red color.

The metal was pretty simple, I wanted it to be black paint with a lot of simple scratches that would be highly repeatable. So I went with a smaller texture and went through lightly applying some of my grunge brushes. I think it turned out pretty decent.

I needed a repeatable wood texture for the benches and the park sign, so I used a technique I picked up while at full sail. I used the fibers filter [filter - render - fibers. settings: 16, 4], and some bevel/emboss while tracing the fibers at a low opacity and a dark brush. Going back to add some cracks in the wood and then playing with the highlights go a long way.

Then I took that texture and added some basic text for the park signage, I ended up liking the way the "bulkyRefuse Type" turned out, though I tried to add some small cracks and a slight bevel/emboss to the letters.

Here's how they turned out in the scene in maya, later on I worked on making normal and specular maps using photoshop and crazybump, and then moving all my files over to 3ds max so that I could work alongside the methods of the ESF crew.

Lastly I came up with a theme for the sky dome, but after I finished it and showed it off to the ESF crew they promptly informed me of the dynamic sky technology they have for their game engine .. and that my texture wasn't necessary. So .. oh well .. here it is anyways :p

I was able to play with the slate material editor in max as well as trying to figure out how max handles two materials on the same mesh. Not a big fan of the extra steps, but in the end I was able to get the same results maya gave me. I'm really glad this is all coming together as I have a few "weekend" personal projects just begging for me to get to them. Speaking of work though .. I need to head to my "day job".
Stay tuned!