What's been and what's going to happen for 2016
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Find out a little about me and my stuff - updates will be sporadic.
Monthly Update Time!
Warning this post is long, with many images. Enjoy the shineys.
What I've done:
Ok. So what have I done this past month (or so)? I've had a few really productive days where I've finished up all zombie-like (it's the best feeling in the world for me). I've signed up with a TEFL course and am getting my Teach English as a Foreign Language qualification - which as far as I know is nearly lifetime qualification, so all in all a good investment. I had that job interview like I previously talked about and sadly didn't get the job :( but I'm still looking for more jobs and have steadily been applying to as many temp and part time jobs I can find. I've been working on my unpaid internship with Invisibit Studios. I've also somehow created skeleton of a company Bumbabee! Games with my husband and am making a game in his spare time (cause I seem to have a bunch of 'spare' time) - I even got to design most of it. AND I've managed to complete the following things:
Donate here:
Donations:
I've organised donations for myself. I finally have a way for people to pay me for stuff they like! So there's two options: Gumroad donations and Paypal donations. Every penny helps!
Scrolls:
Here's the scrolls showsheet. It comes with 3 scroll bases and 3 scroll ends to give multiple options of scroll types. I've placed it up on Gumroad. Take a look here, only $8 USD for the entire pack.
Potions:
The potions you've seen before but here's the showsheet and WIP shots anyway. Take a look here, $8 USD for the entire pack.
More Potions:
These potions you haven't seen before. They were lots of fun to create. It's difficult to make a skull without a nose - but I think I pulled it off. You can purchase them here for now. I will be placing them up in the Unity Store along with the other packs as soon as this major pack is completed.
and a Closed Magic Book:
Originally I was going to make an open magic book and a closed magic book but the pack because quite large and I needed to collapse it down a bit. So here's the finished closed book. The writing is translateable but you don't need to actually know whar's in there. You can purchase them here. Happy shopping!
AND a scale:
I have realised all too late that I require a scale. Not an eyeballed scale - which is what I already have. A scale for Unity that is ideally something represented in Unity i.e 1m = 1 unit in game. So I've taken all of the current assets and I've re-scaled them to translate better into Unity. This is going on my checklist.
So yea, I think I've been rather productive this month. I've managed to get back into working and I'm loving it.
What I'm going to do this month:
uhhhhm.....
1. Make Models
2. ???
3. PROFIT!
This month I'm going to be:
Finishing work on Dungeon Magic Pack:
I'll be completing the Candles (Single) the Candles Chandelier and Candelabra, and the Skull (magical things always require skulls)
Sketching out creatures and objects from other Packs
I've been thinking about how the other creatures and characters look in my artistic vision. I have a few sketches already but when the other guys in my D&D group take charge (they have very strong character personalities and good ideas) I generally take a backseat and start sketching while I'm listening to the story - don't worry I'm absolutely listening and I definitely speak up when they do something my character wouldn't appreciate.
Making a Macro for folder creation with standardised naming conventions
I'm going to look up ways of making Macros in Windows - I used to have a program but I might look into macro recorders and see if they're a thing that Windows does. That would make my folder structure faster and definitely all the same. I'm also going to make sure my Asana page (which the company updated and I'm going to have a look at the new features) is up to date. I am working off schedule and it's becoming a small problem.
Finishing work on Human Character for Character Base Pack:
I'll be getting myself together and complete working on my human character model and 3D sculpt. Assuming I keep my motivation and my standardisation day (or days) don't take too long I will have at least started work on my Halfling character before Halloween.
Reviewing my work
There have been many things that I just didn't foresee being an issue with my process. Now I have to review them and find a better way. I'll be setting aside a day or two to really get this down so I don't have to do it again. Or if I do have to (to futureproof myself) I'm make sure it's much easier next time.
I'll be reviewing my meshes to make sure they are to scale (the characters are exempt from this due to the character rig I'll be making. They will all the same sizes and this will only happen when all characters are completed.) I will also be checking my colour palettes are solid and not to distracting. While I'm reviewing my art work I'll probably have to make a wiki to keep colours, techniques and ideas consistent. At the very least I'll be writing it down in my book.
Making another recap
I really feel that making recaps are important, and even though I don't work with anyone (at the moment) I should still write down in a slightly SCRUM style format. This should give me direction, motivation and a sort of checklist on what I need to do.
What I'm having issues with:
Motivation:
I'll definitely say I'm having issues with motivation to complete the character pack. I've got due dates for all of that pack and I'm procrastinating with working on other packs. I have a good reason for doing those packs but if I keep going the way I'm going, I won't be finished in time for my holidays. I am giving myself a working schedule and it's important to me that I maintain it. Starting work at 9:30 and finishing at 5:30 is important to continue. There are days that just don't turn out like that, but I do try to make the most of those days by updating social media, hanging out with contacts and friends or even just making sure I have food in the fridge/freezer for dinner and lunch.
Standardisation and Future Proofing:
I have to sit down and figure out a check list. Something I actually check every time I make something, not something I make and then discard =,= (I'm looking at you Past Kylie.) I have the skeleton of a system down. But I really need to take the time to make sure I create folders correctly, fill them with the appropriate files and make sure I back them up online. My main downfall is remembering to rename objects within the program i'm working on. Instead of Cylinder 01 and Cylinder 02 I should have Scroll_Base_1 and Scroll_Ends_A that sort of thing.
Ok, that's it. Time to rest up and then work as hard as I can tomorrow.
Kylie
Long, Long a go - like a week and a half or so...
Hey guys,
Sorry about not updating as recently as I had been. A lot of things have happened in the past week and a bit, it's actually really amazing that it's only been that long.
So to recap what I've done:
Last week I completed these two assets - It took me much less time thanks to the Orc and I'm happy I spent that month or so testing and sculpting. It gave be a good base to work off.
These characters are not scaled comparatively. They are just one size fits all at the moment. I wanted to leave the size scale up to the buyer - which can be adjusted in game. - I will be considering height changes with the physical prints though.
And tonight, I completed this Fire Pillar. I'm thinking of having it in different colours but at the moment, blue bricks were the only things that would make seeing the characters easier to spot.
I also went to a digital design show, I got news from my sister, I got news from myself, I got news about my Aunts and Uncles, I hung out with my Cousin and her family, I downloaded and tested a program called MeshMixer for 3D printing, I managed to go see Jurrasic World and I played at least 1 game (8+hrs) of D&D 5th ed. I'm tired and I think I'm going to go to bed now.
These assets are going to be available on Gumroad in a matter of days. Base meshes and textures only. All added features will be updated accordingly.
Good night, and sleep tight all.
Kylie Out.
Tiefling Textures and Dwarfish Diffusing
Hey guys,
I've got the main body left to detail and that's about it (YAY!). Then on to detailing the Dwarf more.
Next week I'll be taking a step back and thinking about my process further, relecting on the process I've used and pulling together research on processes other people have used. I'm not entirely happy with the current outcome and I want to do it right.
I'll be practicing more with Normal maps and get a solid process down so I'll be doing some tileable textures during the week - at least one.
Livestreaming the Tiefling sculpt
Hey guys,
I'm streaming my work on my Tiefling https://www.picarto.tv/live/channel.php?watch=Shadowtajun
Here's yesterday's progress :)
Live Streams are back
Hey guys,
I'll be streaming until I can stream no-more. Which will probably be until lunch time - so a few hours from now. Feel free to join me.
I'll be working on these two guys.
A long journey though Normal Map Jungle
After a long, long journey of trying to get the body of all the characters 'working' I can finally say that I'm through to the other side. Pretend that this is a sort of Post Mortem of a project just finished. Please note that this will be a long post. And I will sum up my feelings using gifs of American TV Hosts/Comedians and The Muppets. You have been warned.
Now that I'm looking for jobs in the UK I didn't want to mention the difficulty I was facing with my normal maps before today. However I feel like I've learnt from the whole experience and I should talk through what happened, what I did, what I didn't do and how much I cried or possibly didn't cry (>.>).
I never wanted to admit it before, but this is the first time I've followed this process. Generally I'm very diffuse map driven. I will model a character that I have model sheets for (either drawn by me, or someone else) and then unwrap, texture by hand the details, shading and colours; rig, apply weights and then animate. Voilà! A complete model with absolutely no normal maps.
This is the model sheet of the mesh I'll be talking about.
This time around I used unfamiliar programs as well. As you'll know by reading through my blog, I've used Zbrush only a few times before and I've never used Blender or Xnormal before this project. I might be comfortable with Zbrush (I feel my knowledge is beyond beginners) but as for blender, while fairly simple to pick up and work with so far - I've not completed the rigging or animation; I am willing to say that I am still very much a beginner. There are very primitive processes in Blender that would have taken me minutes to work out in 3dsmax compared to hours in Blender (unwrapping is a big example of that). I feel like there isn't much to learning Xnormal, I understand what I'm doing to get what I need but I don't understand how. It was a fast but tough learning curve and I'm still very much a beginner (but a competent beginner).
As for this journey, the process I followed this time around was to create normal maps, which I've never tried before. The only reason I'm creating these normal maps is so that the buyer of my characters has everything they need, I don't want them missing out on anything. Also with normal maps, it's easy enough to make AO maps, Specular maps (although not entirely reliable) and displacement maps.
It started when I first created my character's body in zbrush - some of these images you've seen before.
"The character had little folds in his legs and arms, a cross in his bellybutton, swirls on every elbow, knee and knuckle. I thought he looked quite good"
This took a while but after I figured out what hands and the legs should actually look like, I was good to go (I'm not focusing on the orc features - they took longer to zbrush but were finished sooner with my normal maps). The character had little folds in his legs and arms, a cross in his bellybutton, swirls on every elbow, knee and knuckle. I thought he looked quite good. I decimated him and placed him into Blender to work on retopology.
I researched low topology specs for games in iOS, and Android. I wanted to make sure these characters were low enough to have many of them on an Over The Top Tower Defense game like OTTTD or a small RPG like the old final fantasy games. Mostly, I wanted to make them into little sprites for Roll 20 (which is what I was going to use them for). I wanted to make sure that the topology was clean, crisp and essential.
So I found a few Polycount forum posts:
- Low Poly Hardware Specs
- Triangle counts for assets from various videogames
- Polycounts in next gen games thread! (Not very useful to me for this project)
and beyond3D forum post which has the same name RSART's 'yes but how many polygons' and 'how many polygons in a piece of string' articles.
Here's what really caught my eye:
“Hawken said:
iPhone 3G:
suggested polygon count for performance (total visible): 7000
texture memory: 24MB
max texture size: 1024px x 1024px
screen colour depth: 16-bit (65,536 colours)
alpha blending: free! (use PNG)
suggested texture size: under 512 x 512
—
Nintendo DS:
suggested polygon count for performance (total visible): 2000
texture memory (per screen): 512kb
max texture size: 1024px x 1024px
screen colour depth: 18-bit (260,000 colours)
alpha blending: 5-bit (32 colours)
suggested texture size: under 128 x 128
——
Add3r said:
Windows Phone (Information gathered via Tech demos/Bench Marks):
- Tris on Screen (comfortably): 30k, these were static meshes, using 256*256 textures
- Max Texture Size: 2056, might be higher, I know this number is shared with the xbox 360, as they share many caps when it comes to game development. Obviously the phones cant handle the same loads (this should obviously be common knowledge... I hope)
- Can support up to 72 bones per character
- No Normal map support, just diffuse (not sure about specular, didn’t make it into our benches)”
Now I had a starting point. I knew that iPhone 3G was quite old (3 and a bit generations) so I could have a little leeway with these specs and tailor them more towards the window phone specs. I was happy with this information and got to work.
And I worked faster than I thought I would. Blender has a very interesting snap to feature and it made everything fairly simple.
I worked on the topology polycount (triangles) to make sure if I had to add extra loops in for deformation I could do so with ease and without disrupting the polycount too much. I ended up with 688 tris for the main body and 894 tris for the Orc Features a total of 1582 tris for a main character. For me, this was in the right ballpark (throughout this process I've had BitGem as someone I really want to aim to be like - and his/her main characters have a polycount of 2000+).
Orc Total
I was quite happy with my work. This reminds me, I still need to watch Muppets Most Wanted...
I then Unwrapped the model, the unwrapping feature in blender is primitive and I would like some more options like 3dsmax has but I was able to make it work, even though I was extremely frustrated with this part of the process. I learnt the hard way that saving, and saving the images you're painting are two different shortcuts. Cue the Normal maps part of this journey.
I started with exporting out the high poly version of my character from Zbrush as an obj. I then exported the lowpoly version from Blender, as an obj. After this I opened Xnormal, imported the highpoly mesh and imported lowpoly mesh. I pressed "Generate Maps" and such a mess came out - there were holes in my map and I didn't understand.
"Nothing was working."
I tried with a cage and without a cage. I was told that the 'ray distance calculator' would help a bit with my map generating. Nothing was working. Then I noticed that with all the noise showing up on the maps, I should definitely separate the orc features from the main body. There was less of an issue, but I still had holes in the normal maps and I couldn't understand why there were large streaks of colour that seemed out of place.
So I took a break, I worked on a normal map alternative because I couldn't figure out any way to fix these normals. This alternative I was hoping to place in a program like CrazyBump or Ndo and get the normal map from the 'height map' I had created. I took reference from the normal maps I had generated and hoped that this normal map was what I wanted.
"If you've ever been told to test before you finish, you should do that... Seriously..."
If you've ever been told to test before you finish, you should do that... Seriously... Of course, I was in my own little struggling world but as I finished texturing in the under garments for my orc and started on the little swirls of his knuckles, I decided I should test if this theoretical height map to normal map idea would actually work. To my delight, It sort of did. But not the way I wanted it to. I made a flat normal map from this height map, which would be useful for a ground texture but not any other kind for mesh. *sigh*
So I stopped. I did a little more research and worked on the orc features. Turns out, when I had created the retopology for my character (body and features) I had moved the decimated obj (semi highpoly) down to touch the floor when in Blender *face palm*.
This meant that my normal maps weren't getting projected correctly because the two objects were in totally the wrong position *double face palm*. But I knew the problem now and I can work on that.
This demonstrates the normal map issue
Ughh I felt so stupid when I found that out. I mean seriously "why didn't I see it when I viewed the normal maps as a diffuse"
So I went back into Blender. I had an idea "I wonder if I can get normal maps from Blender" - turns out you can. So I did a bit of research and grabbed the normal maps from the decimated model that was already in Blender. Which worked quite well. I just had fiddly bits to fix. The fingers had seams showing, there were a few seams on the head showing up and some very strong red and green elements around the hands and feet. But this was all in a diffuse view.
I started by trying to play with the head, just smooth those seams a little - it worked a charm then I went down to the finger. This would be harder, so I got colour samples and tried to smooth out the colours by painting a combination of red and green. on the diffuse it seemed to work. but unfortunately as a normal map it wasn't really getting me anywhere. I also realised that I didn't want my fingernails to have as much detail as they did, it wasn't necessary. So tried to blur the finger nails details - this wasn't too bad. but then I noticed that the finger nails weren't in the exact position I wanted them. This would be an issue. At this point I did a test of this texture in the texture slot it was designed for - the normals texture slot.
The normal maps didn't match the diffuse map *triple facepalm*. So back to the drawing board. Should I draw the normal maps and use my diffuse "height" map as a base? Should I go back to the drawing board? Should I check if these seams are fixable?
I had seen a video a while back on hand drawing normal maps and off the top of my head it was just making sure my RGB channels had colours of 128, 128, 255 respectively so neutral grey (X), neutral grey (Y) and then white (Z). So I started playing with the maps. I knew that blue would be the easiest, it's just what is indented so I use the 'working' blender normal maps and tried to adjust their channels. It took some time but I figured out that how to make some of the lines straight and clean on the model. Things were looking up.
The shirt looked much better from behind do I thought that I would place the normal maps into unity with the export for my character.
"I felt happy [...] I had learnt a process by trying, failing, trying, failing, trying and then finally succeeding."
I should have done that long ago. Turns out that my Normals looked inside out *double sigh*. But only in certain directions. I went back do Blender and found that it wasn't just in Unity. There were major seam issues happening under the character too. As much as this would likely never be viewed by anyone, I needed to fix this seam. Research turned up some interesting information about normal maps, sometimes the Y axis needs to be flipped - some programs require that to happen. So I flipped the Y normal in the map and saved it out again.
At first glance it made one hell of a difference. The normals looked great. But then I focused in on some problems areas and the issue was still there as a whole.
Sadly, even with the Y axis flipped the seams were still visible. Just not as much.
The thing is, I knew not to have overlapping faces on normal maps. I knew it and I did it anyway...
While I was doing research I came across a post saying that you should never have overlaying unwraps. *quadruple face palm*. I had done that to make sure I could have more detail on my height map. No wonder things were going wrong. I had to fix this.
I re-unwrapped the whole model and made sure that there were no overlapping faces. I checked that the mesh's face normals were the correct way around and I made sure that there was enough space between the islands.
Once this was done, made sure that when I exported the character base, I exported it as the same height as original mesh was. I checked that I hadn't made a mistake like the previous times, and then did the normal maps via Xnormal.
It worked! or at least initially it worked. On closer inspection the under side of the head, and the shoulders were still mangled. I checked the high poly mesh and found the reason. These two areas were intersecting *headdesk*
Urgh! How had I not seen that before!
I was disappointed that I hadn't figured it out sooner. By this time I knew what had to be done and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Surprisingly accurate feeling at the time. I may have curled up into a ball at that point and then had a break for my birthday.
Back to the drawing board. Well the scuplting table at least.
On the plus side, it only took me a day to import my character, divide it, sculpt the details I really wanted (no swirls, no finger nail details) export it, import it into Xnormal, get a normal map, and test everything in Unity. One day of work... It took me weeks to get to this point.
I was done and I felt happy. Not really because I had finished the problematic part, but more that I had learnt a process by trying, failing, trying, failing, trying and then finally succeeding.
I had redone several weeks of work in a day. I was happy.
I have a few niggling things to play with in the orc features and most things really just show up in the ambient occlusion, which I'll leave out of the diffuse map and keep it as a separate option. Enjoy the rest of the images. These are the screenshots of the orc in Unity and Blender. The red arrows are showing where there are small seam issues.
Sadly, I will have to postpone the selling of the Orc character for the moment. I wish to at least rig the character before I export him and sell him as a complete item. This will take some time.
However, with the orc model complete, I've got a Dwarf and a Tiefling to work on next.
So here I am, exiting stage left until tomorrow. When I will be working on the sculpting of both characters. Enjoy my streams and I hope to see you there.
Kylie Out.
Diffuse maps and timetable adjustments
Hey guys, It's been a slow kind of day but I've eaten lunch, done a tiny shop and am now back to more texturing the tones for my Orc. The face is almost done (YAY!). Just the hair and one eyebrow left with the features. Then I have to go back to playing with the normal maps for the main body.
It's coming together nicely - but texturing had taken a huge chunk out of my timetable. I'll be adjusting my next time table before I start on the next character.
Animations will have to wait for another week. I'm going to go ahead with my previously made starting dates. The next character starts next week.
Finished Sculpt and retopology.
As of last night, the Zbrush part of my character is complete! I am a happy girl.
And so the hard and grueling task of retopology in a program I’ve not used before begins. I can feel I’m getting the hang of it, I just need patience.
I’ve run into the problem of the head. I’m thinking I’ll make the orc features separate so that I have a base body to work from. That should make my life a bit faster or easier. Hopefully both.
I'm working on the mid level of detail. Something that says Main Character in a small game. The 'Background Character' LOD will need to be broken up further. At the moment it's at 548 Triangles. I'll definitely keep it under 1000 tris for the base model - there isn't much more detail to grab from him. I can't wait to bring the polygon count down further, I'm looking forward to the challenge.
LiveStream 7 and Other News
Hey guys, sorry for being incognito the past week. I've been at the library which does not have internet fast enough to stream. I did a day of recording but found that difficult and then yesterday I stayed home to stream my work on this guy.
He's 90% done. I just need to place some underwear on him. I'm happy to say that I'm at a part of the process I need to heavily research so there won't be anymore steaming events for the rest of the week.
The videos I worked on at the start of this week need to be 'edited' and then placed up on Youtube. I'll be getting to that by the end of the week :) I'll post a link up when it's complete and setup.
Please subscribe to my channel though to get updates on when I do more live streams. [Link]
Livestream 6
Hey guys,
Looks like I can't livestream today. The library internet won't let me. So I'm going to be recording my work and then post it up on Youtube later.
Livestream 5
Just waiting for the videos to all render out. Here's a screenshot of today's work.
Last stream of the week, it turns out I forgot about sculpting objects in Zbrush so that's what I'm doing today.
Also I'm behind on placing yesterday's video up, that'll accompany today's video at the end of the day.
Live Stream 4 and Gumroad
Hey guys,
I just need to wash up after breakfast and then I can start my stream so about 30mins. I’m learning blender as I go with this program so it might be a bit painful. However, if you would like to give me a few tips and hints please, please do.
Also, I've started placing items up on Gumroad. I've placed the Human Model sheet up on Gumroad. If you would like to pay for the model sheet please do, but you can have it for free. The button below will send you to the website.
Live Stream 3
Edit: Live stream was good. I think I'll be putting the comments section on the laptop with me, doing it via the tablet is taking too long. I'll give it another go for the week but if it irritates me much more, I'm going to just place the comments section up on the laptop screen.
Here's today's work.
I accidentally started working on the other packs I've been thinking of. (I made a Drow from the Elf - oops)
It's raining and windy here in Hove.
A late start today. Starting at half past the hour (I’m getting inspiration at the moment). Come look and listen. I’m still doing model sheets but it’s the last one for the pack.
Yesterday's Tiefling is complete:
Live Stream 2
Edit: The stream was great, I got another few things done. I'm over a day ahead of myself which is great. It'll add time for the modelling buffer I need.
Here's a what I completed today:
Going live in half an hour. Working on some more modelsheets. I'm half a day ahead which is great. Come and chat, listen to music and give me tips or hints if you'd like. I'm all for the knowledge.
Yesterday's stream's finished work:
Live Streaming 1
Edit: Stream went well.
Here's the finished Orc modelsheet. I'm looking forward to modelling him.
Just a quick post to say I'm starting my Live stream in 15 minutes. (And I plan to do so for 5 days a week unless otherwise stated)
I'm trying a laptop/tablet setup so if I don't answer in chat - it's not you, it's me.
Moved in and "working"
We've moved into the newest place and we're staying in Hove for the next 6 months at least. Which is great news because we have a HQ and we have proof we're UK residents. So for the past two days I've been at the library in Brighton, working on my characters and getting used to the whole area.
So here's an update:
The characters are coming along
And here's the run cycle for Wilson:
The Axe Swing is being worked on at home as a hobby. It's coming along fairly well. Sadly though, I found out that in game, the axe swings take different times so I'm going to have to adjust and work around that issue.
Overall it's going well. I've found that I will need to learn Blender if I'm to sell these characters. So I've got to learn that program. You may not hear from me for a while.
Taj out.
Job Hunting
After several months of searching for jobs and moving about I've come to the conclusion that I should get as much art done as possible. The animations I'm working on won't go towards money directly. It will help on my portfolio and it's something I am enjoying.
The thought of Gumroad, Unity Store and Unreal Store came to my mind recently. And I feel a little pocket money is something I should look at doing. And if I can sell a pack on this website I'll be posting it up here too.
So here's some WIP designs for my characters
these are my preliminary character sketches. I've been using many good designs as a base tom come up with my own. I'm keeping in mind that I want them low-poly, stylised, used for tablet games like RTS or Tower Defence games. It also occured to me that something like a story game like D&D would work well too.
Animations: Don't Starve Wilson. Update1
Here's an update on the run cycle for Wilson.
The work in progress of the run animation. I’ve got a lot of detailing to do but it’s come along nicely at the moment.
And I must say, it’s really nice to play with more animations and the legs and arms are working well so far.
Animations: Don't Starve Wilson
Doing some animations for my Don't Starve characters. I've had a lot of trouble with the rig (I had to make it based on a spline rather than bones) but I've finally got it working. Here's my first frame of the run cycle. But now, I take a break. It's been a long, long day.