Particle Systems (VFX)

Since time has started to trickle in, and personal projects are finally getting some love, I'm going to start posting reels of my VFX as I make them. Granted, most of these will be in preliminary stages, but the concept will do doubt be set in stone. Expect some particle effects soon!

Car Process

Here's the complete process of the designing of my car over this semester, with a 50k polycount limit:

First: Grey Block Out Phase

Second: Preliminary UV Phase

Third: Texturing and Optimization Phase

Fourth: Importing, Rigging and Material Editing Phase

Character Process

The character as of right now isn't complete, as I'm given one more day to do extra adjustments, however I'd love to be able to present some process work!

First: Grey Block Out

Second: High Poly Rendition via Zbrush

Third: High Poly to Low Poly Adjustments

Fourth: Baked Normals, Textures, and Specular Power

Future adjustments will be made soon. Next step is to take this character, place him in Mixamo, and work from there on animations.

Programming Ideas!

Since we've been learning how to use MEL and Python, it's time to put those skills to use! Time to make a tool to help the modeling pipeline and hopefully come in handy for future projects! Here's a few ideas I had in mind:

-Find Flipped Faces and Paint Them Red Tool

-Check For N-gons and Paint Them Red Tool

-Delete History and Freeze Transforms Tool

-Send Mesh to 0 Axis Tool

-Remove All Colors/Textures From Mesh Tool

-Reimport All Textures Tool

-Import An OBJ or FBX and Merge It Tool

-Make A "Holy Crap" Mesh Tool

-Select All Objects and Combine Tool

-Freeze Transforms, Smooth Edges, and Export Mesh Tool

Just a few things to keep in mind while I work. I'm thinking of combining the first and second tools, or something along the lines of those.

Understanding A Racing Game Intro

The level is practically complete, and the cars are about set (Soon you'll be seeing those in the portfolio header)! So what does that leave? A good intro for the game itself to say something about the game play. But first thing's first - good reference to better understand what we're trying to achieve.

Dirt 3

After some searching and correction of limitations on what all we can accomplish, I chose to reference the Dirt 3 intro. We cannot use pre-rendered scenes and only game play in our trailer, so I believe this is a good reference to look into. The trailer itself shows different environments as the car in game drives through them. It also displays cool stunts and action camera shots alongside the car, around turns, and other interesting points of view to keep the player interested in the action of the race. The use of logo at the end was a nice touch for a smoother transition into the title sequence, and from there the player can then interact with the menu after observing the cinematic.

What I'd like to replicate would be the camera angles, race location shifts, and the multiple cars doing different things such as turning, jumping, and interacting with players' obstacles, all the while ending in a smooth transition to the intro scene.

Building An HUD

For our racing game, we'll need an HUD to display time, laps, and the speed of the car. Had to do a little digging to find the speedometer for the Lotus Evora series of cars:

I was also able to find an interior design shot:

Due to restrictions, we have to make major adjustments however. I have to make an HUD that best fits my level for the car that's to drive in it. I've collected some ref for the HUD I have in mind:

Here's some preliminary stuff: