Thursday 28 July 2016

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Part 8

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Part 8

I've been making some good progress on my speakeasy environment project lately, steadily creating more and more models and doing at least an hours work each day. Over the past few days I've created some wooden beams, a stool model and a new floor for the room which includes a basic placeholder wood texture. I'm pretty happy with how its going.

This week I am planning to start developing the textures of the existing models and also to continue creating new models.

Here's how the scene is looking now.




Wednesday 20 July 2016

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Part 7

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Part 7

This week, I've been working hard on my latest 3D models for my speakeasy scene which includes the tables and booths pictured in my blog post last week

Having suffered from a rather inconvenient lack of motivation and free time in recent weeks and months, my work on this scene has been very "stop-and-start", but I've knuckled down recently and have been doing at least 1 hour of 3D work every day for about the last 10 days, on top of my full time QA job. This has been tiring but feels very rewarding and my scene is starting to progress more and more.

My latest work includes the creation of a few furniture items for my scene which I have fully modelled in Maya, UV mapped, generated normal maps for and applied basic block-colour textures to. I have also imported them into the scene to see how it looks, and also to spur me on to keep up my momentum on this project - I find it motivates me to see my new 3D models in-situe by helping me envision the final product.

Next, I need to finish off a few architectural pieces such as the floor which is currently just a plane with a diffuse map. Once the architecture is done I can really begin to fill the scene with props. Here's some pictures of the current scene in UE4.






Thursday 14 July 2016

I'm in the credits of LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens! + some Speakeasy 3D Models

I'm very happy to announce that I am now an officially credited QA Tester! My name appears in the credits of LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens on all platforms. The game was released on June 28th and is the first game I worked on at Tt Fusion. I also got a free t-shirt and copy of the game which is awesome! Here's a screen grab of my name in the credits:


Meanwhile, in my (limited) free time I've also been trying to keep my 3D work going; here's a few models that I've made recently for my Speakeasy scene.





The scene is going okay but it's slow going as I work full-time so its difficult to find the time, but I hope to get the scene finished in the next couple of months. Mostly the aim is to keep myself familiar with the workflow and the use of Maya and UE4, which will come in handy soon considering my next piece of news...

...I have been accepted onto the MA Games Design course at UCLan and will be starting in September! This is a very exciting opportunity for me and I'm looking forward to going back to UCLan.

Friday 20 May 2016

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Part 7

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Part 7

It's been a while since I've touched my 1920's speakeasy project because I've been pretty busy with my new job, but I've finally picked it back up this week! I've started on creating another essential prop for the theme, a stereotypical gangster trilby.

I've created the model, UV mapped it and started on the texture. I have done about 5 hours work in total. It's not much, but it does feel good to be back working on this project!



Over the next few days I will aim to finish this model up and get started on some other assets for the scene.

Meanwhile, my QA job at Traveller's Tales continues to be a very valuable experience and I'm learning more with every week that goes by. I have accepted an offer to have my contract extended until the end of August, turning what would have been a 6 week job into almost 5 months!
 

Saturday 30 April 2016

I have a job in the games industry! - QA Testing at Tt Fusion

I am excited to announce that this month, I started my first ever job in the games industry!

I am working at Tt Fusion in Wilmslow as a QA tester until the end of May. My first day was on Monday 18th April and was a day that was 22 years in the making - I've dreamed of working in games for as long as I can remember so getting my first job in the industry was amazing and my first day was a huge deal for me.

I've now been there for two weeks and its great, I've already learned so much. I've been giving it 110% and I have been soaking up as much knowledge as possible - it's proving to be a very valuable experience for me. I feel very lucky to be employed by such a successful and inventive games company and I am determined to make the most of the experience! I'm only just making this blog post now because I've been very busy and have totally immersed myself in my new job and have also moved to Wilmslow for the duration of my employment.

QA testing has always been something that I have been interested in doing and I think that I have taken well to it. The nature of the work allows me to put my Games Design degree, game design knowledge and love of gaming to good use while also learning a great deal about QA, development and design, and of course, interacting with like-minded games industry professionals and gaining a valuable insight into how things work in a games studio.



Tuesday 15 March 2016

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Part 6

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Part 6

Another speakeasy update coming your way! Today I finished the Tommy Gun 3D model and its now fully PBR textured with diffuse, normal, roughness and metallic maps. I'm quite happy with how its turned out and I'm calling it finished for now, but I might tweak a few things further down the line.

Some info on the tommy gun: I originally planned on modelling it with the typical drum magazine as seen in many classic gangster films, but I wasn't happy with it so I decided to make a box magazine and was instantly happier with it so I stook with it. It's based on a 1928 Navy model which DID have the box magazines and top-mounted bolt and ejector port so it's still fairly accurate and viable for it to exist within the scene. I included some writing on the side that is based on real features of the 1928 model Thompson. I also made it so the serial number had been scratched off - implying this particular weapon was stolen from its original owner.

This was one of the most important models of the scene so it feels good to have it done. It is the 3rd gun I have fully modelled and textured. Here's some pictures:











My next step is to continue with the architectural pieces.... like I was doing before I got carried away with doing the tommy gun!

Saturday 12 March 2016

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Part 5

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Part 5

Part 5 of my project and I've decided to take a break from architectural modelling in order to get a head start on one of the most essential props of the scene: a Thompson submachine gun a.k.a the Tommy Gun.

I've been working on it for about 10 hours over two days and I'm very happy with how its going. I've finished the model and UV mapped it. The poly count is just under 4000, which is a little high, but I don't want to restrict myself with strict polycounts on this project.  

Here's some pics of the model!







Thursday 10 March 2016

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Part 4

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Part 4

I've made some more progress on my speakeasy environment. It's slow but steady at the moment; I've just been modelling architectural pieces and making a few prototype textures. I've recently finished up a door (that I've also textured), and the arches.

Here's a few pictures of how the scene is looking:





 

Monday 7 March 2016

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Dev Diary Part 3

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Dev Diary Part 3

Day Three of my latest environment art project and things are continuing to go well. Having blocked-out and planned the scene on day 1 and day 2, today I started the real work of making the architecture of the room itself - specifically, the walls.

I spent about 8 hours modelling a big, chunky, modular brick wall and baking a normal map in Maya, and I also started to texture the wall too. By the end of the day I've finished the model and got a (placeholder) diffuse, normal, specular and roughness map applied to the model in UE4. It's not finished yet but its a good start!

Here's some pictures:




Next step: finish off the wall and start work on the arches, floor and other architecture.

Sunday 6 March 2016

1920s Speakeasy Environment - Dev Diary Part 2

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Dev Diary Part 2

It's day two of my new 3D environment project and I've started 3D modelling the basic architecture of the scene in Maya. I made a basic blockout and imported it into UE4 so I could explore it in 3D and make sure I was happy with the scale and layout of the scene before moving on.
Here's some pictures of the work I've done today:




I'm happy with the layout and scale of the scene. My next step is to keep working on the architectural assets that make up the room.

 

Saturday 5 March 2016

1920s Speakeasy Environment - Dev Diary Part 1

1920's Speakeasy Environment - Development Diary Part 1
  
I've started working on a new 3D scene this week. I'm going to make a 1920's prohibition bar/speakeasy/jazz club scene, inspired by 1920's nightlife and mafia culture. So far, I've drawn up some very rough concepts and layouts for the scene and created a 3D blockout using Google Sketchup.

The environment will consist of a small basement room with chunky bare-brick walls and arches, a bar and a stage. It will have dim, atmospheric lighting and will be filled with detail items like barrels, bottles, tommy guns and jazz instruments to give it an authentic 1920's speakeasy feel.

Over the course of this project, I will be using the following software:
  • Google Sketchup to create a 3D plan of the scene.
  • Autodesk Maya to model all of the assets.
  • Autodesk Mudbox for sculpting/advanced normal map creation.
  • Adobe Photoshop to texture the assets.
  • Unreal Engine 4 to build and render the scene.
The scene will be fully PBR-textured and I will be working with generous polycount limits.









My next step is to start modelling the basic shape and architecture of the room in Maya.

Sunday 28 February 2016

PBR Baseball Bat Model Finished

Last week I made a blog post about a baseball bat 3D model that I'd started working on. The model is now finished and I've created a few presentation shots to show it off. This has been a fairly simple project just to get myself back into practice and I now feel more motivated to do some more 3D work soon, which is good!

Here's the finished model:




Staye tuned for more 3D projects coming soon!