Kickstarter update

Our Kickstarter has been going on for a few days and it's been doing well. There have bee a bunch of updates about various subjects in game development which I think might itnerest a lot of people.

Head over to our kickstarter page and read on!

Ursa Cub update

Here's an update to the Dota2 courier I've been working on. This is the high-res model which will be sculpted on to add more detail and then baked into the normal map. I also created on of the three Fat Birds that will be holding him in the air for the flying version.

See more on my Polycount thread

Dota2 Weapon Model

My friend asked me to produce the texture for his first Dota2 item. Naturally I accepted. 

I decided I would use the Blender painting tools exclusively as I wanted to try out a new workflow.

With a Wacom tablet, Blender's texture painting tools are simple and surprisingly fun to use. The following pictures are work in progress.

Tesla S update

Another quick update. The back is proving a little tough. I am trying to match reference photos as closely as possible. Still not quite there.

Tesla S model update

Further refined the shape and started defining panels.

Tesla S modelling

As another practise session. I'm currently modelling a Tesla Model S. The advantage of doing a scene like that is I can practise both realistic modelling from reference and realistic rendering in Cycles.

Unearthly challenge Day 3&4

Update: I refined the connection between engine and hull sections as well as added various other details.

5 simple steps to making a clean cut in Blender

In this post I will outline the method I use to making smooth cuts (or spaces) in my meshes. It's pretty basic and I'm sure you'll find examples of this elsewhere.

While I admit its not completely perfect because of the introduction of ngons and triangles, the result seems to be quite good and the amount of polygons required is quite low which is great.

The following images show what I'm talking about. The second image uses the same method to achieve the opposite shape.

The following steps assume you have a mesh with a Subsurf modifier.

Step 1 Position where you want the cut/space in your mesh to be.
I usually use the Edge loop tool (ctrl+R) to set where I want the loops to define where the sides the thole will be. It helps reduce unwanted distortions. If your mesh happens to have edge loops already there, use those.

Step 2 Make some lines 
Draw an edge using the Knife tool (K) around the area that you want to become a hole. Ensure that when you change direction you leave a triangle between the edges as shown in the picture. Make sure the edge you are drawing is close to the existing edges you defined earlier.

Step 2 Make some space
Delete the polygons where you want the space to be. Notice how the mesh is being smoothed. This will be fixed later.

Step 3 Extrude
Select the edges around the polygons you just deleted and extrude downwards (or whatever direction you want). Again, notice how the mesh is smoothed. The next step will resolve that.

Step 4 Add lines
Creating these lines will make the corners sharp. Use the Knife tool and cut from the outer edge of the mesh up to the corresponding vertex of the triangle mentioned in step 3 making sure to cut as close to the corner as possible.

Step 5 Add sharpening line
The purpose of this line is to make the edge sharper as well as producing smoother geometry where the triangles are.

Done. I hope someone found this useful.

Lester Animation Project

I'm currently playing around with my rat character with the goal of making a short animation with it.

This is just a WIP shot from the viewport. I will post something more interesting soon. I am experimenting with different looks for the final look of the animation. To do this I will be doing some renders of various poses of the character along with props.

Soon I will also post some (bad) story board of various shot ideas along with some plot stuff.

Anyhow. More to come.

The Time Device

Today I did some texturing of a game prop. I made the high poly model and from that produced a low poly model. A normal map was then made from the high poly model.

I will detail how I did the normal mapping in another post, but I've found Blender to require a little bit of hacking to get going, but once you get the idea its pretty simple and relatively fast.

Anyway here's some screenshots.

Unwrapping woes

Quick tip for people who happen to hit the same problems I did with UV unwrapping.
This is what I used to do:

When you have a cylindrical object with a continuous perfectly vertical side, select the top and bottom edge loops of the perfectly vertical side (this is important) and make a seam. Make sure you make your seams are on polygons that are facing the same way. e.g. If you have a bevelled edge, select the edge loop at the end of the bevel when the next polygon is exactly (or as close as it gets to) vertical.

Next make a vertical seam, but only between those two seams you created earlier and not between other seams where the geometry is not perfectly vertical or you will end up with bent strips of UVs (see above). This ensures the middle strip is  opened and flattened out evenly and remains straight while the top and bottom parts are flattened into circles/rings (see below).

I found this produced a much cleaner looking UV map with little extra clean up work.

One disadvantage I can see is that you end up with thin rings of UVs which may end up wasting texture space. However this can be easily countered by nesting other parts within the rings.

Sorry if this seems trivial. I'm sure most of you already know this but while modelling a prop it suddenly hit me and I realised I maybe someone else might have been in the same situation. I hope someone found it helpful.

Anyway, 'till next time.