Eye Candy

I am finally happy with Togo's eyes. After a lot of research and some trial and error I think I've arrived with a result that looks good. I had this moment when I thought, "If I do any more tweaking I'll lose his character." I ended up re-modeling the eye completely. Cornea, iris, pupils, whites...all over again to really get the correct shape. Then I also modeled tear ducts, which I completely over looked. It made a huge improvement.

I'll never forget to do that again!

But after this, the character really came to life. It ended up being more of a modeling issue then a texture issue. I kept changing the textures but realized after a while that I was not getting the right highlights in the right areas.

The whites of the eye ended up as a SSS material. The iris was a little tricky. For that I used a falloff map (with texture bitmaps) and found that if I added a slight self illumination gradually increasing is it gets further away from the camera...it made for a good effect. It makes Togo look real.

I also created a rig for the eyes so I could move them around and make the pupils dilate as well. I find that this helps because a character never keeps their eyes stationary anyway. You can see the light play on different surfaces of the eye.

So for now, I'm happy with it. I'm going back for one more "grit" pass on the his body texture map. He's still a little too clean and not aged enough. After this I have a couple props to make for him. Hopefully I'll be animating and rendering him for the new demo reel next week.

"Some Where, Beyond The Sea..."

...I present to you, my new Art Deco Jelly Logo.

Eyes Are The Window....

We've all heard that before, and continue to hear that throughout our lives, applied to many different things. Poetry, photographs, watching other humans to see if they are lying, or to see the truth in their words.

I have to to realize just how important this sentence is to an artist. There is something there, behind eyes, that tells us a soul is within. A light. A glow. A burning desire to live. Our bodies are really just shells, and our eyes are no different. Yet the thing that fills them is so intangible. It is hard to grasp exactly what makes us look human.

In 3D space, I can not simply click a button that says, "Add Soul" ,although imagine how wonderful that would be! Instead I have to study and analyze everything in the eyes. The pupils, cornea, iris, the small beads of liquid tears hiding within the eye's duct. The way in which light plays off of each anatomical surface. Reflecting and refracting. But yet sometimes after all those things are done, we still miss the point. We can not quite grab that element that breathes life into the puppet.

I am in that stage right now. Togo as a character is very complex. And his eyes will tell many things about him. All the struggles and pain, his own selfishness to be accepted, yet his monstrous nature that he is unable to contain. The task ahead of me is large. How do I show all of these things? An eye is an eye. We have all seen them illustrated in anatomy books. By themselves they are mostly all similar. Yet when that eye is in a persons head, it completely changes.

Togo is also not completely human. He is slightly frog like. And so that complicates this further. Changing the eye to become more frog-like makes him more into a monster, when the point is only to make him vaguely frog like.

So I will continue to experiment and analyze, over and over. Trying to find that which makes us look alive.

Togo Progress

Very busy lately, but I managed to put some more time into Togo. Currently I'm in the additive process with this character. Now that I have a good base texture, I'm working out the SSS shader, hair and cloth. I'll eventually return to the skin texture and add more dirt to this. The chest area, specifically the nipples, need some more work.

You can see that I've added a beard to the character. This was always something that I toyed with. I was inspired by pictures of Charles Manson. After all, Togo eventually becomes a serial killer.

This also serves to bring more attention to face and mouth.

I'll hit the eyes next. I'll have to spend a good deal of time getting that right. Currently most of this is temp, and I'm sure it will all change during this last 10% of the project. I'm looking forward to playing around with this until it looks right.

Togo: Texture Progress

I've been jumping back and forth between Mad Mario and this character Togo ( you can view the WIP thread here: http://www.3dnation.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=933&st=0&sk=t&sd=a)

I've been wanting to finish this character lately because he's completely different from Mario. Highly detailed, larger texture size. Plus I've been working on him for almost a year now. I'm trying to kick myself in the butt to finish a bunch of Zbrush work to submit to the Pixologic Turntable contest.



I've literally textured this character 6 times now. Each time it gets a little closer to what I envision. Right now this is the base human flesh layer of skin. From here I will make it 10% froggy. Since he's a mutant mix between human and frog, and all frogs are poisonous, I thought it would be interesting if this hurt him. Constantly in pain from a poison in his own skin. Like he can never adapt to it. And it slowly drives him crazy.

Texture wise I want the viewer to feel that pain with being disgusted. Your first feeling should be, "Ouch, he must be in excruciating pain!"

I'm not in that phase yet with this image, but hopefully you'll see some progression this week.

Sneak Preview- "Mad Mario" Character Renders

New renders of Mario for my "Mad Mario" project. This will be a short animation or 3D comic that will explore what makes a character a dark hero. I'm trying to keep a consistent illustrated look to the visual design. I am looking at Norman Rockwell paintings for form, lighting, and texturing reference.

This is a 9,000 tri polygonal model created in 3DS Max 2010. I will most likely take this into Zbrush for proportional changes and sculpting subtle details for a high resolution normal map.

More word on the project later.

At Toys R Us-Times Square, New York City

I took this picture at the Toys R Us in Times Square a couple weeks ago.

Sometimes you work on something so much that you forget what it is you're making. Deadlines, extra work hours, and lack of weekends is all that you think about. "Circus Star" was like that. I was new at the studio, and I started working on this during the last third of development. There was a huge amount of props to be created, but yet, everything was finished.

I'm proud of this game. It's the first game I've worked on to be published, and I've grown a fond attachment to it's quirkiness. But what seeing this at Time Square reminded me of, is that anyone in the United States can buy and experience something that I've worked on. So often I forget about that. It's amazing to me. If you wanted to, you could go to a Gamestop, and buy a game I've worked on. I'm proud of that.

When the work keeps coming and I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, I stop and think about all those families that bought this game. That is what makes working on games entirely worth it. That, and the fact that it's sitting on the self next to a copy of "Ghostbusters!"