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.

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.

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!

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!

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:

 

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.

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.

 

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!

"Snowman Creator" - Gallery

"Snowman Creator" Gallery

This December, I decided that I wanted to make a Christmas/holiday game, and the result was "Snowman Creator". It's a seasonal dress up game that allows you to create a unique snowman, enter a personal message then screenshot it to create a digital Christmas/holiday card that you can share with anyone.

I created the game by myself using Construct 2, and Photoshop to create the graphics. It took about 3 weeks of steady(ish) work to make it.

Here is a screenshot of how the game looks to play...

...but the real fun is in the "Take Picture" feature, which hides the menus and takes a screenshot of your custom snowman that you can save and share with family or friends as a digital holiday card.

I uploaded the game to the Scirra Arcade on December 18th - one week before Christmas - and throughout that week the game was played over 200 times.

So to celebrate Christmas and the game's success, here is a gallery of snowman pictures that myself and various players created!

created by me

created by me

created by me

created by me

created by Sheila Clarke

created by Phil Bahan

created by Nome Clarke

created by my nieces Seren and Izzy

created by Chris Clarke

created by Chris Whiteside

created by NovelSpinGames on Reddit

So there we have it! I'm very happy with how this game has turned out and the response it received and I'm excited for whatever my next 2D game project will be!

Click here to play Snowman Creator

PUCK! - New Browser Game Project

I'm finally making a new blog post after a long hiatus! This week, I began making a new browser game on my new, gamedev-focused laptop. I call it "Puck!" and it's inspired by the classic video game, Pong.

This project started out as a learning exercise; I planned to simply remake Pong in the hopes of learning more about it's design process, however I quickly decided to take it further and make my own game using the same basic gameplay.

Here's a few screenshots of the game as it is now. It is still unfinished, it's about 60% done at this stage. I plan to make all-original music for the game aswell.