Production Pipeline: Tiki-Totem Update

I have been making a lot of progress on the Tiki-totem. With the original totem concept art, the team at Darkwind was having some uncertainty with the color they received from the artist. The totem was very dark and would prove very hard to see in a small, game environment. It was put upon me to recolor the totem to what a felt fit the game, and also would be easily visible and recognizable. I planned to combine the newer concept art with some of the earlier designs from the game, while keeping it clean and understandable.

My re-imagined version of the Tiki-Totem Concept art.

With the coloring aspect of the Totem, I ended up lightening a lot of areas while adding the stone texture from other parts of the Blocks game. Adding accents to the face and using colors from the Tiki-man helped greatly.

From here I proceeded to sculpt the model in mudbox. I kept the model in separate chunks and simply repeated them 4 times around. The normals were not as intense as the tiki-man's making the coloring very important. Again using the normals as a template, I colored the textures in photoshop.

The Tiki-Totem Textured and normaled.

The model came out well and the Darkwind team seems pleased. It will be shorter than the Tiki-Man in game, and will likely light up when the Block is delivered to the island. I'll be using the higher resolution texture and normal map when I get a chance create a glamor shot of the Tiki-man and his totem together on an island.

Production Pipeline: Tiki-Totem

The Tiki-Totem has already been modeled. I will be bringing it into mudbox the same way I did the Tiki-man textures. I was originally hesitant to do this method and instead find a simpler method. However, I do plan to render these for my own reel at a high quality. If I plan to do this, I would much rather use the actual normal map over the color map I made for in game use. 

On a side note, I am excited to say that was able to see the tiki-man actually moving in the blocks mobile game. He starts the level with a big stretch and dances upon completion.

The Tiki-Totem

It has been a while since my last post. I have been extremely busy with work and simply haven't had a chance to post on here. Since last time, I have been working a lot for these two projects and a very fun camera tracking project for my Tangible media class that I may also end up posting on here.

As for my work with Darkwind, I have the next model that they will be needing, a Totem pole that will be on the island with the Tiki-man. I have the initial concept that they have decided on, and will be receiving a color rendition soon.

 

As with the Tiki-man this model will be extremely low poly. I may follow the same technique I used with the Tiki-man, but I predict something like this being far easier to model with few polygons in comparison.

Tiki-Man Color Texture

 

Above is a screen shot of the Tiki-man with his color texture applied. Using the normals' red and green channels, I generated a gray-scale texture for the Tiki-man. This gray-scale texture became a template for coloring him. The gray-scale texture was also used to create the illusion of depth within the diffuse texture. Using photoshop, I was able to use the template I had created to paint in the colors where they were needed. I attempted to remain as close to the original concept art as possible.

Production Pipeline: Tiki-Man Normaled

It has been a long week of texturing, sculpting, and normal mapping. I have completed the Tiki-man normals. The normal maps transferred better than I had even hoped. Also, I finished the staff that he will be holding. I have sent the files to Darkwind Media where they will rig and animate the model. The original plan of having them rig him and then me animate has changed. Because they need more assets for the game in a relatively tight time span, I will instead be finishing the colored Tiki-man textures and completing a number of other models for the game. Here is an image of the model with normals applied next to the exact same normal with a flat shaded wireframe.

On the left you can see the model with normal map and transparency map applied, the right side image is the actual geometry of the model. Normal maps are a fantastic way to add detail and and give depth to a much simpler model. From here I need to take the normal map and generate an actual colored texture for him.

Above you can see the combined normals which will give you a good sense of the UV layout on the model. The model was kept to a single UV map to optimize the process required to load the model and textures in a real time game engine.

Until next time,
-Doody

Production Pipeline: Texturing Workflow

Last week I was able to unwrap the Tiki-man model's UVs. Once the UVs were laid out to the best of my ability, I decided that I would generate normal maps using Autodesk's Mudbox. In Mudbox I created an extremely high poly version of the model and was able to sculpt in the details that I want seen on the simple version.

High-poly model within Mudbox.

One I had finished the detailed version of the mask, I attempted to export the normal map from the high poly model for the low poly version. Time and time again, Mudbox is unable to correctly export a good quality and clean normal map for me. As I often am forced to do, I had to bring the high poly mesh into Maya and pray that the program doesn't crash. With the model in Maya, I used Maya's texturing tools to calculate a normal map. And here is the result.

The Low-poly model with the normal map applied

I was able to generate a relatively clean normal map within Maya. The normal map needs some cleaning in Photoshop but this process should save me a great deal of time when texturing. With normals, I am able to get the detail I would like to see in a high poly model using only 160 or so polygons. This normal texture will also serve as a map for when I create the diffuse texture for the model. Although the Engine the game will be played in is unable to support normal maps, I will attempt to bake the shadows of the normal map to give a greater depth to the simple model. With the mask done, I will be using the same kind of technique for the remainder of the body.

Production Pipeline: Tiki-Man Model

I have just about finished the Tiki-man model. He is currently 760 polygons and can be cut down some more if needed. I plan to unwrap his UVs and begin texturing as soon as I can.

Production Pipeline: Progress

I have been gradually working on the Tiki-man model for the Blocks mobile game. One of the major struggles I have faced when working on the model is keeping to the extremely low poly-count. Because the game is being made for cell phones and other mobile devices in the unity engine, the character model must use as little polygons as possible. Working on the face, a major part of the model I initially was going to indent the mouth and eyes where they need to be. By removing the mouth and eyes and instead planning to use textures to color them and create the illusion of depth, I was able to significantly reduce the poly-count.

New reduced model compared to original plan.

This is the first time I have had to model with such strict poly limits. Hopefully I am able to keep the remainder of the Tiki-mans body simple enough to work for the game but still look good. I think using the textures for mouth and eyes will help optimize the model and also look better removing jagged edges.

Tiki-man

Drawing By Daniel Farruggia

Production Pipeline: Reference Images

Drawing By Daniel Farruggia

Here are the Orthographic images of the "Tiki-man" provided by Darkwind Media. I will need to fix these images slightly to make sure that all parts of his body are properly proportioned. I hope to start modeling him soon.

Project Pipeline

For this project, I have offered to create assets for a game called Blocks: The Devilish Delivery Game. The Game is currently available on XBox Live under the Independent Game section and the development team now intends to port the game to mobile devices. The game will retain its 3D graphics and style and gameplay but in a simplified form with a lower poly-count. The studio, Darkwind Media, plans to implement a simple character to add more appeal to the already addictive game.

I was approached by Darkwind to create this character for them along with many other small assets to add to the aesthetics of the world they are creating. The character known as the "Tiki-man" has already been designed and placed into orthographic images for me to work from in Maya. I will be constructing a low-poly and high-poly version of the assets for both in game and rendering purposes. A full list of assets and images will be posted here soon.

The character will be simple, but will need to be rigged and weighted for animation. The current plan is to have him dance around when the player delivers the block to the island. I hope to create a small animation of this dance for this class. Additionally, I will be rendering a turntable with wireframe for most of the assets I create.

Until Next time,

-Doody