3d art

Artist
Showcase
Axe Battler
ZBrush, Maya, modo, XSI,
Photoshop, Mudbox (2008)
Tarik the Axe Battler created for
the SEGA videogame, Golden
Axe: Beast Rider released on the
Sony PlayStation 3 and
Microsoft Xbox 360. The
character was modelled in
Maya, hi-res sculpt created in
ZBrush, Normal maps created
in Mudbox, Ambient Occlusion
in XSI, textures edited in
Photoshop and modo used for
UV unwrapping, texture cleanup
and rendering. The character
is roughly 15,000 polygons with
three 2,048 x 2,048 map sets.
03 Render Normal maps in modo
All lo-res geo has a TextureRender material applied with Smoothing Angle set to 180 as well
as a 4,096 x 4,096 blank texture with Effect set to Normal. The hi-res geo also has its own
shader set to 180 to get an even surface. Duplicate Normal maps are rendered out at
different distances to help patch out errors caused by surfaces crashing into themselves C.
c
d
Ultimo Bust
modo, Photoshop (2010)
A close-up of a major boss in the Iron Man 2 videogame. In game, the
character is about 600 feet tall and is comparable to a full and
animated level; basically Iron Man is about the same size as two of
the eyes. This surface of the model is supposed to look massive, with
many small structures, weapons and details.
War Boar
ZBrush GoZ, modo (2010)
A ‘Boar’ 101st Airborne
Soldier, created using ZBrush
GoZ and modo 401. Since
GoZ really speeds up my
workflow, I decided to create
only a test bust before I
proceeded with a full
character model. The base
model and details with UVs
were created in modo, and
then exported to ZBrush for
detailing. I then used GoZ to
transfer mesh edits and
updates between modo and
ZBrush for the hi-res model.
90
04 Projecting
photos in modo
To help the skin look more
convincing I use modo’s
Paint set to Image Ink to
apply parts of highresolution
stock photos of
models to create a colour
skin texture. This will be
used to add minor skin
details and help add subtle
skin colour variation to the
final Diffuse, Subsurface
and Specular maps D.
05 Map assembly and clean-up
All the rendered set maps for AO, Normal, ZBrush Cavity and Photo Color are assembled in
Photoshop, and then the combined images for Color and Ambient Occlusion are reimported
back into modo for UV seam and rendering error clean-up. Any rendering errors in
Normal maps are patched with new rendered maps, as clean-up on a 3D surface is not
possible with Normal maps E.
e
D Check that Symmetry is set to X when projecting
images onto the geometry
E Use modo’s Paint with Clone Stamp or a brush
set to Procedural to clean up
C I make sure that
there are no
overlapping UVs
as they may cause
Normal map
rendering errors