Game assets and portfolio talk
Portfolio building
Since we are nearing the end of this year, it was really time to start thinking about portfolios and job hunting. I wanted to make sure that my portfolio would be diverse, I opted to add in stuff that would be versatile whilst applying to different studios. I would of course keep working on this task after assessment too, but it was a good idea to start whilst still a student.
I started off one sunny day at the start of semester three after playing some sims 4 and wondering how easy it would be to make a game asset and bring it in to sims. Internet is filled with custom content for the game, so I knew it was possible, just not how.
This was a quick, one day warm up project for everything to come later on semester and it was quite fun too. I sculpted the cute cow in ZBrush, retopoed and unwrapped in Maya and textured in Substance Painter. I had to use ambient occlusion to create fake shadows, as the game’s lighting is not actually affecting the objects in the world. It took me a little fiddling with the Sims importer, but eventually my cute cow was sitting inside the came. And my game didn’t crash so I’d say it was a success. From this quick project I was ready to actually start filling up the portfolio.
Game assets
Applying to game studios means it would be important to have examples of low poly props and objects. I found this concept of a rustic set by Jourdan Tuffan and figured it would be perfect for my use. The big challenge would be truly staying low in polygon count, as I usually work in high detail.
I aimed to use one day per item, so that I would not get stuck on small details but keep thinking of the big picture. The assets wouldn’t of course be bad or half-assed, but the idea was, just like with the cow, that they would be easy to run in game engines.
I added the concept image to the front view of the viewport and used it to model each one of the items. I started to add way too many polygons at first but then remembered what I was supposed to do and kept the low poly mindset to the end. The only time I had to launch ZBrush was for the candle as I’m not too familiar with Blender’s sculpting capabilities. The candle was obviously way too dense when I returned to Blender so I retopoed it with RetopoFlow and then used shrinkwrap to keep the details.
Any other notable step was creating the fabrics, and those were done with cloth simulation.
Since the models were very bulky and simple, the magic had to happen in texturing. Each one of the models were hand painted in Substance Painter, where I added lots of detail of rust, worn wood and even fabric sign. The fish was the most fun to make and notably the biggest difference to the model. I was extremely happy with the final set!
I rendered the set in the poses just like the concept art and in the end the presentation was very pleasing to the eye. I was very happy to add these to my portfolio.
Retexturing
I needed more characters in my portfolio, so to save time I decided to do the unthinkable and use an old model of mine. The sculpt itself was very good, just the textures very outdated, so I figured as time has passed and skills gained, I would be able to refresh the model to be fitting for my portfolio.
This particular model was used in our 4th year film, Knitman. She is a superhero, so I needed to stay within that lore as her outfit was a supersuit.
Since this model had already been rigged, I had the UV’s ready for texturing. I posed the model in Maya and exported the OBJ to Substance Painter where I did some changes to her colour scheme. Instead of the yellow suit I went with a dark purple, which I think complimented her a bit better.
To take the renders a little further, I also decided to add some realism with hair particles. I redid her cartoony eyebrows and eyelashes and then used hair nodes for her hairstyle. She is supposed to have textured hair, so I made sure to recreate the look as accurately as I was able with my skills.
I added an energy ball hovering above her hand and hit render. The renders turned out very beautiful and the red background was a superb addition in the end. I was happy to include her in my portfolio too.
Murder Mushrooms
The final models for my portfolio for now were a pair of cute mushrooms. As I had found this newly evolved love towards texturing I seemed to keep finding reasons to keep doing it. I wanted to move on from the modelling stage quickly so I picked the simplest, most easiest designs to model. It was in fact very quick work, I was done in just an hour or so with the both of them and moved to Blender for retopoing.
In Blender I did a quick retopo and unwrapped the both of them and then started texturing in Substance Painter. It was so much fun once again, painting in these two stumpy characters. I even went as far as added some fake ambient occlusion, as I had learned from the sims cow.
The textures were very simple, especially on the one with no arms. The second one had also the knive but that too was super easy to make as I had made similar items just earlier in the form of game assets.
After I had textured them both I created a very simple scene in Blender with the nature asset pack I had done years ago and added some interest in lighting by adding fake shadows on top of the two characters. The png leave effect in the third picture is such a neat trick I learned from the very first Blender tutorials I studied from years ago.
After some tweaks in the render and camera settings I hit render and was done. The render turned out to be so cute and I was also happy how different it again looked compared to the wireframe. I like the effect of rich detail and then to realise it was actually just the textures!
I will keep updating my portfolio to prepare myself on the mammoth task of job applying, but with these several models I’m already half-way there!