Saturday, 26 July 2014

FMP - Natural Homes Zbrush Final Sculpt


Here is my final sculpture of the Wizard House walls.






I'm happy with the result, a lot of personal symbolism, care and attention gone into all of it. I learn't number of stuff through the progression of this building. I satisfied my 'Natural Homes' need. 
Now on to what is next!


Friday, 25 July 2014

FMP - Natural Homes Zbrush Sculpting #2

Added a lot more detail to the front of the building now and I'm happy to how it is looking.

I had gave a lot more depth to the music notes to make them appeared that they are sculpted in more and I have written some symbolic rune lettering, that makes up a word. :)


Added a lot more detail to the front of the building now and I'm happy to how it is looking.

I had gave a lot more depth to the music notes to make them appeared that they are sculpted in more and I have written some symbolic rune lettering, that makes up a word. :)


Started to add quite abit of detail to the hand. By using my own hand as reference. Adding a few creases and lines for subtle detail but perhaps the fingers could be a little longer in length.

I masked out parts of the hand and then sculpted in the details patterns and the rest of the hand I added some noise and texture to it, to give it a material property, which made a nice section off, from the symbols, as you can see. I decided to sculpt a key on the left hand-side, to empower more of the symbolism.


Back of the house, with cleaner development. I was experimenting with some patterns and shapes which I quite liked, so I went round them with Dam Standard just like the musical notes, to make them more like they are calved in and pop out more. Improved the moons for sculpting and added rocks around  the board of the house, to break up the walls and I thought it be a nice touch!.


Here is where I added a few symbolism. It might look as some icons to some, but they are in line with the Pleidian constellation, also I will eventually colour them and they are placed in order of the chakra system from red  to white . 


The fun part, starting to put the little details in, to give it that realism and great effect! I also added to compliment the 'key & hand and eye' an hour glass, but more so in a represented as a glyph and with text saying Time & Space.


As I have masked off all the areas apart from the light shade wall. This is where I adding in some detail and also natural  weathering damage, to give it that believe ability.


Alot more serious detail, adding in the grooves and around the sculpted areas. Since the sculpted areas represent the 'suns' flare/ flame and so I wanted to give it, it's owns unique pattern and design.


Much more added symbols and patterns to the back of the house, like with arcane spells and other symbols.

Thursday, 24 July 2014

FMP - Natural Homes Zbrush Sculpting #1

I was very much inspired by this home. I found the shape that was simplistically enough and yet it held a lot of great interest, like the amount of assets around, hanging on the walls.


So feel much more confident in knowing what I want to manifest and the scribble practice before hand, may not look much but they were good working out for myself.


Here is where I shaped the building different, bulging out areas, give it more of a human-organic, imperfection.


I've masked out the circle bulging which I will sculpt in later and started to create some shapes and patterns, using the Dam-Standard brush.


Completely alot more of the front of the house, it's alot more symmetry at the moment but I will make it asymmetrical once adding in the details. However I started to flesh out some symbols like the sun and some music notes.


I started to sculpt the back of the house, sculpting in the dual twin moons and also yin and yang on either side.


Here is what is one of my most favorite part of the building. It occurred to me a hand symbol with the 'all seeing eye' but in a positive expression, would be pretty awesome and has numerous of symbolic meanings and expressing I can attach to.

Just laying out the constellations cluster, unsure what to put there at the moment. I'm thinking of having something similar to the 'logs' above maybe?


Sunday, 20 July 2014

FMP - Natural Homes Wizard House

Due to my hand in was over, I had to resubmit my project, so with little time I had I did my best to improve and neaten my level from the previous one and went about creating a proper house as the main focal point of the Forest Level.


Well I decided to revisits one of my main mood-board, just to get back into the feel of it all and the direction I wanted to take it.


 I decided to chop down and have the main references that were the most inspiring.

Due to the walls was being made of cobbed material, which I am basing it from. It allowed me complete sculpted freedom, to enjoy and create random and conscious shapes and symbols.

I'm fascinated in alot of things and I enjoy un-covering symbolism in alot of signs, words, pictures, symbols etc. Thus I decided to create my own symbolic building because the Natural Homes are symbolic to the creators whom made them. So subconsciously based around my self, from my own interests and passions for this I wanted to implement these things into my Nature Homes building.


These are symbolism and meaning based around, Magical symbols, pagan, elemental and star constellations. Some are 'official' and others were created by the community, just to give me ideas on making my own from them.

Extra symbolic symbols such as  Magical Glyph, Tree of Life and geometric, patterns, which would aid the Wizard Theme.


I wanted an Yin and Yang theme, duality, shadow & light, male & female and other deeper meaning of Sun and Moon symbolism. Which also will fit with the rest of the theme and to have one as an entrance and a exit sculptor of my building.


This was looking at space and time, psychedelic, extraterrestrial and constellations symbols.


I had problems with typology when importing the base mesh into Zbrush, when I was increasing the typology it was really screwing up, I went back in to max and made sure there were correct cuts, but didn't work. So I decided to still import that and then used a cylinder underneath, when I trace out the windows and doors, so I know where they were placed at. Job done!


I was stuck and just practicing, to get a feel for it all and getting used to Zbrush again with it's tools and brushes and coming up with shape and design.


This was going to be the back of the house, just roughly deciding how I would like how it to look. With the two moons sculpted at the head of the backdoor.


Just the side of the house, was just messing with some spirals and noticing how flat it all looks, it was good I notice this because I eventually mis-shape the house to be more organic!


Just a quick front of the house, playing with some symbols and sculpted sun sign at the head of the front door.

Wednesday, 30 April 2014

Friday, 25 April 2014

FMP - UDK - W.I.P Fly-through and updates.



I decided to create a practice fly through of my level to just showcase what I have done so far.


Just a screen shot from the  view as seen from the players perspective, showing the scale of elements in the players view point and the variation of terrain that may present passage or obstacle for movement.



Several screen shots of my level at the players perspective from different angles, I enjoy capturing the players height with the grass and what the player could visibly see between the spaces naturally made by the grass-blades.



Initial screen shots showing the simplicity behind the idea of a Wizards house. It is envisaged that the external aspect of the wizard house will remain true to the natural form of a mushroom, but that the interior would be evidence of the magic held by the Wizard who lives there. This would make the interior a mansion in size.


Wednesday, 23 April 2014

FMP - UDK - Level Build Up!

I have started to build my level now, from the previous practice, from which I was gaining an understanding of how to build and develop a level in game engine
.

I have expanded my level size resolution for extra density and then scaled that down to a smaller map for when I will sculpt on the terrain it will have a better density to get much more real depth and detail.


I was closely following my painted concept and on track to keep it as close as possible to it and at this point I made the area where rain accumulates which formed a large shaped puddle around the island where the tree stump sits.


I was still testing my old modelled grass, to see how they visually clumped together from above and when action in game. Due to them being modelled and costing quite an amount of countable tri's, I was worried about the performance significantly dropping to the point that the overall framework would not be as smooth and slow.


Here is where I have started to sculpt in my ground and the player route. The textures you see on the ground are the final terrain textures, unlike the previous practice textures that were used. I have still got a lot of painting and blending to do on the level to put the right ground textures accordingly


I have shaped more of the terrain around the puddle, giving some height to the edge and thinking about how the ground would look near the water; which would  be earth and muddy with this  transcending into the grass the further away from the water the bank goes.


This is where I started to place my alpha grass of the players route, starting with smaller grass enabling the player to have a greater view of his surroundings. I did this by using one of the UDK editing tools; I painted on the meshes on the ground allowing variation of size, scale and combining several other differences of grass bunches I had made to be achieved.


Continuing placing my grass around the level and other foliage I made, as you can see in the background. I wanted them to be much denser so, it would give a closed off feel to the player and the overall surroundings.


The skybox implemented, the clouds came out great and I was editing / tweaking in the options it's colour, rotation and cloud speed.


More spammed grass around other locations of the landscape.


Just combining and placing about more of the larger foliage like nettles, dock leaves, ferns and more.


Ground texturing in this area were looking more complete and so I decided to add more models to my level such as leaves, dandelion flowers and mushrooms.


Here is where I was placing my fungi on my tree stump to act as a platform stairs for the player to jump across and up, upon to the top of the stump.

I was adding some small filler assets such as the branch sticks and I was sizing down my rocks to be used as small stones.

As the player would gaze up into the sky it would be covered with a leafy canopy.


A birds eye view of the level the scene below shows the main playing area with the wizards house slightly offset. It is clear to see the pathways the player could take to get to the destination. I still have to finish rest of the outer boarder of the level, adding larger foliage, grass, rocks and finish sculpting the terrain and vertex painting.