3D Art Week 7 - Nerf Gun Week 4

It's here...the last week of the Nerf gun project.  I finally caught up, finalizing the sculpt, fixing all the little issues I'd been having, doing the first bake, and texturing and displaying the final product.  I'd definitely do a few things differently if I started this project again, but I'm happy with the overall result.  I will still work on lighting and rendering some detail shots once I have lighting I'm satisfied with - currently, the in-engine renders flatten out the texture and the shadows are way too sharp/jagged.

Common Art - VR Sprint 4

This sprint, I mainly focused on the model for the player's left hand, since it's the only asset in the game we had not created at this point.  I started out making a new model that was just based on the VR mannequin hand, then tried just replacing the palm section, then realized I could just edit the mannequin model since it is pretty similar to Samus's.  I made UVs and a basic texture based on Samus's Gravity Suit, which is the version of her we are portraying.  It was hard to find good references, since there are several designs of Samus, and even more concept art, so I was working off blurry screenshots from the game for this particular design...

3D Art Week 6 - Nerf Gun Week 3

Another week, another gun update!  Finally finished the first version of the sculpt in ZBrush, with Booleans and polish.  I had to do some more modeling, since the front of the gun was not finished up until this point.  The game-res is also complete at this point.  I will be adding more small details to the sculpt later, but some may be taken care of with the texturing.  The first bake didn't quite work, since there are issues I didn't notice about the main gun casing.

Common Art - VR Sprint 3

Since the focus for this sprint was VFX and sound, I made a 2D first pass of VFX sprites to replace the proxy VFX in the VR experience.  I also added some more detail to one of the walls and am working on updating the player's hand model.

3D Art Week 5 - Nerf Gun Week 2

 I didn't have the time I really wanted to put into the gun this week, but I added some more details and made an up-res version that's ready to be put into ZBrush for the final sculpt.

3D Art Week 4 - Nerf Gun Week 1

I made a very basic box model/proxy for this gun, and then immediately started making a game-res mesh, which is really not the right workflow, but I couldn't stop myself...I still need to work on a couple of details, including booleans in ZBrush, but I'm nearly finished with having a game-res for the entire gun, even if the order I worked in isn't exactly correct!  I will definitely have the full sculpt done next week.  I'm very invested in this project, and hope it will become a good portfolio piece!

The tri count is not counting boolean meshes

Common Art - VR Sprint 2

This week, I updated the models for the floor, the wall with the grates in it, the destructible blocks the player will shoot, and the water pipes.  I also took every asset and did basic UV mapping so the lighting and rendering would look better in the scene, and to prepare for basic textures.  I will keep working on the wall next week to add more details and make it look more like it belongs in Metroid.

Artist Inspirations

Boris Groh: contrast in color palette, glowing eyes, good use of silhouette,  horror elements

https://www.artstation.com/borisgroh

Sergey Vasnev: color palette, composition, subject matter, atmosphere and tone

https://www.artstation.com/sergey_vasnev

Tommy Lee Edwards: sharp contrast, bright colors, visual appeal, lighting

https://www.artstation.com/tle

Maksym Grodiyenko: unique shapes/designs, glowing effect, color choices

https://www.artstation.com/gordi

Romain Durand: hand-painted visual style, stylized textures

https://www.artstation.com/romaindurand

Duy Hoang: rendered outlines, simple texture style, clean look

https://www.artstation.com/hqduy

Gleb Levonto: clean style and visual appeal, screentone-like flat colors

https://www.artstation.com/levonto

Isaac Oster: interesting design, bright colors, nice textures

https://www.artstation.com/isaacoster

Raphael Jean: 2D meets 3D style, distinct/sharp edges and highlights, worn appearance

https://www.artstation.com/raphjean84

Paolo Crimaldi: shape language, silhouette of item, design

https://www.artstation.com/macridil

To research: Sketchfab toon shader, ways to do toon shader in Marmoset, DOTA shader