The Steely Stare

Been very busy working overtime at work, and then working when I get home. One of my items was "launched" into the Steam Store. It's got over 500 positive votes and a lot of great comments, so I'm pretty happy about that! Bay Raitt even commented with some ideas, which I thought was awesome! :)

link to the item in the Steam Workshop

My partner did the concept and texture painting and I did the model, UVs, and "tech work" of getting it in game and getting the glow working.

Just Another Little Update

Contuining work on my TF2 models. Not too much new content because I've been wrestling with Source trying to get the weapons in game and scaled properly. Made a hat and misc item (both incomplete)

A few updates on the wrangler replacement:

Builder's Blueprints

My blueprints got into Team Fortress 2! Builder's Blueprints - "Never bring a knife to a blueprint fight." They're up it the MannCo Store for $7.49 and people seem to like them so far.

Not too much else going on right now, just continuing work on all my personal projects.

More Engineer Stuff!

I've been busy working on my latest project, modeling a new pack for Team Fortress 2. I am working with a great concept/texture artist, so this time around I will only be doing the models and setting up all the maps. 

The sentry is just the top part on the red line - the bottom part is all done by Valve. I deleted the "rocket box" on top of the sentry and replaced it with the model I created. Link to the original concept.

Still a work in progress here, but here's the Energizer. A lot of changes will be made before this is done, but I'm putting it up here anyway!

And the roughest of the bunch right now... a wrangler replacement

The UDK scene has been put on hold for a little while, I was having a lot of trouble with lighting. I think the next step for me is going to be to get the trees and textures finalized, and then talk to a UDK savant named Andre Parker about the problems I'm having.

Also, my Engineer Blueprints might be getting into the game! A schema update was released that included the item "Engineer Blueprint".... nobody knows what they are, so I can't wait for the update to hit!

Working Lady

Well, I've been extremely busy since my last post. It's been about a month - I graduated, and a week later I had 2 job offers. I'm currently working at 38 Studios as a contract QA Tester, which is an absolutely amazing experience. Obviously I would prefer to be doing art, but working in the industry and meeting so many amazing people is awesome. Can't complain about the work either, it's really fun!

As for my art... I'm still working on it outside of company time. I found out that there's weekly figure drawing across the street. I went for the first time in months, and it didn't go horribly. This was a longer pose, I think I'm starting to get anatomy down, but my line weights/shading really throw everything off.

Portrait that looks nothing like the model (and also very manly)

Now that things are calming down a bit, I've started working on setting up a scene in UDK. It's got a lot of materials editing and special lighting, so it's proving to be a challenge. Also, a lot of water, but I'm just going to have to fudge that a bit.  I also started using SpeedTree, since that's what I'll be creating the trees in the scene with... It was a lot harder than I expected. There is basically 0 documentation. Here's my first test tree as proof. It's far from beautiful, but it's got everything I could ever want on a tree; roots, branches, knots, and leaves. Oh, and growth..magnet.. things.

I Graduated!

Well, I finally graduated. The project I've been working on can be found here: http://alfredasmith.com/crow.php

It didn't reach the level of polish we were hoping for, but it was a huge challenge to complete and we're all very proud of the result.

Looking forward to finding a job and (hopefully) having some time after work to spend more time art-ing. I really want to start making progress on my lighthouse again.

Source Is Hard

But I managed to get my schematics in game! I learned some Blender AND got the item prototype successfully in game, attached to the right bone, with team colors! Looks like I actually need to tweak the colors, the ao map darked them up quite a bit. 

Go me! Also, Source is one of the most confusing engines I've ever used. Here's the preliminary test in the model viewer (a huge milestone for me):

Some MQP Assets

The majority of time on my MQP has been spent working in the engine, helping my teammates troubleshoot, and making sure everything works. I have been able to create a few assets though.

A shot of the current (still in progress) environment:

A couple Zbrush rocks:

In game and lookin' good.

And base for a reservoir that eventually got scrapped.

I've started applying for (mostly) QA and a few art jobs. Still working on personal projects... I wish school had allowed me a modicum of spare time with which to work on portfolio pieces, as my current porfolio doesn't reflect my skill level at all.

TF2 Engineer Misc Item

I've been so busy with my MQP Project that I haven't had time to work on personal projects lately. Today I sat down and made a TF2 Engineer Miscellaneous item; a couple rolled up schematics in his pocket. The big problem is using Source. It's pretty confusing and most of the plugins are out of date, but I think I'm figuring it out. I'll probably finish them up and submit them to Valve fairly soon.

Lighthouse Day 1

In an attempt to make things that are actually relevant to my portfolio, I contacted Tuomas Korpi, an amazing illustrator about using some of his work. He was happy to let me model it, so here's day 1 of progress on the first of three scenes I'll be creating, "Lighthouse no. 13."  The rock base is really rough. I'm not happy with decimation master; might just retop it manually for the low-poly version.

Lighting Scenes

I've been working on setting up the general environments for my current project. I made the skyboxes, got general lighting set up, and I've been playing around with some Unity stuff (like fog). Can't wait to build the terrain and actual environment pieces and get them in!

Pièce de résistance

I'm pretty sure I can just retire right now, nothing I do will ever be better than this.

Crow Goes Hunting

My MQP project has finally begun! After this, I'm done with school.  I'll  be updating this blog regularly with my progress.

Also, I was joking around with my boyfriend about a silly tattoo design he wants (an elk with a fireball) and I created this masterpiece.

Combustible Lemon Launcher

[5/5] UV mapped, finished some details, and started throwing on some textures. Trying to remain consistent with the TF2 texture style but it's a bit bland right now. I need to add some edge highlights and wear & tear.

Also, some low-poly lemons. ಠ_ಠ 

[5/4] Instead of sleeping, I blocked out a lemon launcher.

I was creating this as a community request, I figured I would toss my hat in the ring. It got pretty popular and shot to the top, so someone made this comic about it.

Chapel Update

Well, the term is officially over. I wasn't able to get the chapel to the level of finish I wanted, but here's the current WIP build. I've learned so much, so I'm really glad that I had the opportunity to do this this term.

Here's a choppy flythrough of the level as it is right now.

Also a small Virtual Joust update, here's a render of the horse's untextured armor and trapping. Textures are in the works right now. 

I was also going through some of my old stuff and found a silly Octopus Knight from Clarkson.

Some props

Some weapons and powerup models for a game I've been working on. The globe is animated.

Chapel is in Unreal!

I've been working incredibly hard on this project, running into a ton of problems, and having a generally good learning experience. My level is officially in Unreal!! The lighting and textures are mostly placeholders for now, (obviously the squiggly window holes are 100% done) but there's a lot of great stuff happening.

I was going to include some hilariously bad playblasts of some rather special animations I did for a class, but I decided it would be best for future hiring purposes if they never saw the light of day.

Some unused assets

Some unused assets from my MQP Project. I may not be able to make the game so I figured I'd post them here.

On an entirely unrelated note, I got to wear a suit of armor today. It was custom-made and fitted for the curator of the Higgins armory (to my left) so I look like a mini-knight.

A lot of work going on

Right now I'm working on two major things, my IMGD 4500 project (a game) and an ISP. 

For 4500 we're just supposed to be working on the character right now, here's a WIP shot. My partner built the base mesh. This is a ninja without his face mask (forgot to turn it back on before I took a screencap). 

I'm also modeling/texturing/lighting a scene from a piece of Diablo III concept art and bringing it into Unreal. Even with such a relatively simple model, I've met so many challenges along the way. I'm currently trying to cobble together a roof, the back room, and  an "entrance" (what the player will see when they turn around).

Original concept: 

    

My very rough WIP model:

Just some simple models

Huuuuge update

I've been incredibly busy; I'm graduating after 15 more weeks of school! Anyway, here's just a general update...

Virtual Joust.. I completely re-modeled the arena to be more historically accurate, UV mapped it, and I've just started going in with textures. I also updated the horse, and I'm currently working on some armor/trappings for him.

Arena Texture Pass 1 (ignore the temp. ground)

Base Horse, will be refined after armor is built.

I've also been building a whole level in Unity for another class which I'll post next week. I'm not too happy with how it's turning out, but I'm learning a lot. 

Now for a deluge of figure/gesture drawing...