The goal for this sprint on the Gods of War project was to have game-res topology with a preliminary bake. I achieved this for the drum, though not for the drum stick, which has been scaled back in complexity to accommodate most of my effort being put into the drum.
This week, my goal was initially to focus solely on handpainting the metal of the revolver, but my goals have since shifted. I finally bit the bullet and purchased a 3D modelling and texturing course from VSquad, one of the art outsourcing studios that works with Airship Syndicate on Wayfinder, and I have to say it was definitely worth the investment—but it also meant my scheduling goals shifted around a little bit and I had to restart my procedural textures. The good news is that this affected both my metal and wood, so I can work on them concurrently, and I think I can still be on track to finish the handpainting by next Tuesday. I also took plenty of notes, so between this and my earlier research I have almost 20 pages of documentation for the research project.
This week was primarily focused on research, but I did get a chance to revisit the sculpt based on the critique I received previously.
Research document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18GiG1RO8Q-FTXPxS9JDsJVV7bGPQ-YfbghqtZkNRoek/edit?tab=t.0
I continued work on the drum sculpt; I tried to get everything done with the high poly, but working with the wood proved more difficult than I anticipated.
For this second round of portfolio projects, I'm revisiting the project I began over winter break: the Colt 1851 Navy Revolver in the style of Wayfinder. I want to take my time and focus on learning the handpainted texture work used in that game, but I also want to refine the sculpt on the metal and adjust the filigree; I got some really good critique on my sculpt and UVs from Jade Law, CEO of War Dog Studios, at GDC, and I want to incorporate that into this model as well.
Reference:
Research:
In addition to some tutorials and courses I've found on handpainting textures, I've also reached out to Riley Ribato, a former FIEA student and current Senior Environment Artist at Red Storm. One of my goals is to learn RizomUV; I've had issues with being able to efficiently pack a UV map, and I've heard this software is a good one to learn.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2jNjovf4--59gDLUyxRHAC33ogf5LJ7q
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLff8S6TAmcOTg_G9z4zMa8bsHhCLgqr9i
Schedule:
Blockout:
Unreal:
I finished up the fountain as much as I could this week. It's still not where I want it to be; my stretch goal is to include some of the light effects in the original concept, and the water shader needs some fine-tuning—but I'm happy to have at least accomplished this much on such an ambitious project.
I'm on the Gods of War project, an asset showcase of three Japanese gods preparing for battle at a shrine, and I'm going to be modeling a set of war drums used by Dan Giust's raijin character. For this deliverable I'm showing the complete blockout and beginning of the sculpt.
This is the final version of the chu-daiko drums made for Gods of War, the summer project for common art.
