Art Contest - VG Remix - Mirror's Edge

A few months back, over the summer, I participated in an art contest sponsored by Polycount, my cg forum of choice, and Sketchfab.  From their website, "Sketchfab is a web service to publish, share and embed interactive 3D models online in real-time without plugin."  The contest was called VG Remix and the theme was to recreate or remix a favorite video game, build it very low poly, use small resolution textures and place it into Sketchfab in order to show off the capabilities of the website.  Since the website allows you to move around in 3D space to view a model just like you would in a 3D application, the scene is built or designed like a three-dimensional diorama.  I didn't place in the contest, but I enjoyed participating in it and I was flattered to be linked to in a PC Gamer article about the contest.  Next time I will try and spend less time modeling and laying out assets and more time on texturing.

If you click the cube icon in the first image above you can see Sketchfab in action and view my entry in the competition.  I definitely recommend viewing it in Full Screen.  If you would like to see some of the creation process in action you can view it on my Twitch stream here or on my Polycount thread for the competition.

Last but not least, my entry is based off of the game Mirror's Edge by Dice and published by EA.  I am a big fan of the art style and direction in the game.  The lighting, colors and textures are all really well done.  Dice has some world class artists and I am looking forward to checking out the sequel.

Game I Worked On - DreamSpanner

Dreamspanner is a game I worked on in college at Full Sail University as part of my Final Project.  I was Art Lead for our team and worked on the level design, the level layout and environment props and textures along with helping out wherever else that I could.  I thought that, overall, it might not be good enough for my portfolio anymore, but I am still very proud of the game, the work I did on it and what we were able to accomplish.  So, I thought I would post it here instead.  Plus, it is still totally playable.  You can see a video on it and download it here.  Below is a description about the game.

Dreamspanner features a young female artist in an oil-painted dream world of her own making.  She must navigate her world by drawing platforms and cubes to manipulate objects such as crashing boulders, treacherous scales, and endless pits of paint-dissolving turpentine.  The game also features turpentine-born enemies for her to combat with her two shapes, as well as a boss that will push the limits of her dream and any players' ability to solve puzzles while under attack.

Game I Worked On - Just Tactics

I created environment concept art, models and textures as well as assisted with character textures and effects for the game.  You can try out the game for free at www.justtactics.com.

Letting Go of an Old Project

I revisited my old Brooklyn Banks scene after about a year; I wanted to add the edge detection shader that I've been playing around with, and loving, to see how it would affect the scene and I wanted to add environment fog to the scene, which I believe is new to UDK (within the year) to improve the atmospheric perspective.  I was thinking about going back and improving models, textures, normal maps, etc. since I feel like I've learned so much since I started this, but I think it is beyond fixing.  It was my first real game environment and I think that there is just too much to fix to make any significant improvements.  It kills me inside, but I know I have to do it and move on, make better projects and continue learning.  I did like how the environment fog and shader came out though and so I thought I would post a couple screen shots.

Rage Shading, New Concrete and a Paint Over

Back when I was working on Dreamspanner with Team RageWin we had an edge detection shader written by Neal Ahmed that we affectionately called the 'Rage Shader'.  I put a similar edge detection shader on my bike scene to give it more of a Borderlands, toonish feel, thanks to this baller right here.  I feel like it really helped the scene out a lot and gave it more of a stylized look to it, which I love.  I also added a new pedastal/concrete section to the map because the old one just wasn't working enough for me.  The new one is cut more and sharper and hopefully gives more of a feel of being ripped from the ground.  The last image is a paintover for how I thought I might take the scene, but I think I'm going to stick to my original concept for the time being to have a finishing point for the scene.  I'll be able to replace it in my portfolio and demo reel then and continue on with the grand scheme of it which will likely take me a while to finish.

Eat 3D Forum Spotlight

A couple weeks back I started posting my works in progress for this on Eat 3D and I was lucky enough to be put on their forum spotlight which I thought was really cool.  I've been posting more updates there than on my blog so if you would like to check it out here's the link.  It shows what I was going for in terms of the textures and the model.

Akira Bike Update - WIP

I'm in the process of updating/improving my rendition of Kaneda's bike from Akira.  I've worked on pushing the texture detail, bringing it into UDK, and changing the environment/pedastal around from what it was previously.  The pedastal I had before with my Maya render was a bit rushed and neither the textures or models were really ideal so I've been re-working it to make it a bit more presentable.  It's still a work in progress, but just wanted to post an update.  Maybe later I'll post some of the concept ideas I drew up for it.