To keep myself accountable, I've decided to finally commit to a regular blog. So for a first post, I'll include something that is in progress.
I've been working on my 3D modelling skills, and an old classmate from Uni posted these really nice designs of her DND characters inventory on Instagram (you can find her art here - @eyaninn, her work is lovely!). They seemed just the right amount of complex and not-too-complex, so I pulled open PureRef and started there.
It brought a lot of challenges that I hadn't expected - the hole in the middle of the arrowhead was a pain, and the ties were fiddly. I learnt a few neat tricks on this one - I modelled some extra geo for the straps that I didn't include in the model, and just used for the normal maps when baking. This helped keep the polycount down for the same level of detail.
The UV map. I tried to straighten simple UVs out where I could to make life a bit easier later on.
The extra detail achieved with the normal maps and "fake" geo. I'd love to get this looking cleaner. For the sake of matching the concept more closely, I'll be moving away from too much detail and keeping things flatter.
So that's it for now. Next post will include a finalised version of this arrow, and I'll make a nice little turntable with it lit and rendered in UE (and post the actual wireframe!).
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