Thesis and other stuff part 6/7.5??

major update incoming! been slowing down a bit cause of all the work, maybe 2 3D classes and 2 art history wasn't the best idea to take at the same time as my senior thesis but I'm still making progress... The weeks have been jumbled up and stuff too since I forget to post sometimes, last week was like 5 and 6 and this week is like 7 and a half but w/e.  For my lighting/rendering/shading class I'm almost done with the bug and after all the work I can pour more energy into my UDK class.  

It still needs a bunch of textures including transparency, normal, specular, gloss, sub surface scattering, and a few more that I might have forgotten but so far the displacement and cavity are working pretty well along with the diffuse I made with polypaint in zbrush.  

 Lots of texturing left to do

For my thesis I've been working on my Tiger's organic parts; the plan is to create the organic and then mechanical versions and then mash them together.  When I was doing the head it turned out to look like a dog so after a bunch of tweaks, staring at references and stuff I think it's looking pretty good.  

Vick's dog version 

fixed head

Part of the design is to make it look like its on steroids since its suppose to look like it was experimented on and formed into a weapon, after some critiques I think I'll make the head smaller to make the muscles look even bigger like how the pro bodybuilders look but I'll do that after I start having fun with the mechanical design sculpting since I'm starting to get tired of looking at this thing, I must have spent at least 20 hours on this alone this weekend just nudging the sculpt, which I find might be a weakness of mine. I can get some base sculpt forms down pretty fast and even some of the details but then when I start trying to perfect it I just waste so much time poking at it.  

I have to mention how game changing the new zremesher tool in zbrush is as well combined with the ability to project detail back into it; I used it for my bug and now I used it for my tiger, I still have to look closely and find out if its animate-able topology but for now I can sculpt the higher surface detail into it without "working against the grain" and at a lower polycount.

Zremesher 

My one friend is a photo tech major and one of the best photographers I know so I got him to take some nice orthographic pictures of my head for me to use for when I do the self portrait head sculpt for my other model.  I was planning on using the photos for creating a model automatically in a program called 123D catch but then soon found out I did not take enough and apparently you need a detailed environment for the algorithms to work but since I don't need them to be high def either I could just use my phone.  My school recently got some new programs form the Foundry including Mari which I believe can use RAW images for texture painting so I think that's what I'll use the images for, it seems like a worthy program to learn so I'll do that over the break.  I'm still deciding though if I want to even try 123D catch still since I do enjoy sculpting in Zbrush and it might just be quicker than taking the pictures, learning the program, and then fixing up the model but that'll be for next week to decide.  

images for ref and texturing 

For my UDK class I've been redoing the character design that I did last spring and so far so good (still have to texture, rig, and add a few of the missing parts). Personally as you might know, environments and texturing aren't my thing (modeling/sculpting characters which are) which is why I was spending so much time with the 3rd person character but I gotta do what I have to for the class so bring it into the game will be something I will have to postpone for a bit.  

Real Time Character Design

Low Poly with DX11 Shader

I still have a lot of texturing to do as well as grinding through all the level assets which I plan to finish by the end of this weekend along with my tiger mech.  But its looking pretty good so far I think, I did my best to work hard and efficient making modular pieces and reusing some of the things I already have like I plan on using a different version of the character for some statues and I also included a reformed armor set I made over the summer for work.  For the things I still need to do, I still need to make trees, the flying landscape, some trees, water, touches to compliment the moon for lighting, waterfall, mountains, a bridge... yea a lot of things, its gonna be a long weekend, I just hope the quality won't deteriorate because of the long list.  

My flying Gothic Cathedral in UDK WIP